Safia Rose: 1 week old

It's been one short and fast week since Safia entered our lives. It feels a bit sappy to say, but we all learned so much together in this first week. Perhaps first, a flashback.

Prior to Safia's birth, we undertook a massive kitchen remodeling project.

We solicited the help of a co-worker's father, a master carpenter who had already done some

wonderful work in our house, to transform our dishwasher-less, storage-lacking kitchen into a practical, oodles-of-storage, dishwasher-inclusive, cook's dream. We were definitely tardy in

getting this project underway, but were still hoping to get it finished before Safia arrived...we didn't quite make it.

Enter the grandparents. Along with cleaning, feeding, giving us naptime, and loving on the baby, they painted, sorted, and organized our entire kitchen. Certainly not a restful vacation for them, but hugely helpful! While we're still not finished (just waiting on some countertops), here's how it looks now.

So in this first week we got to get to know our little sprout better. We got to hear her different squeaks, cheeps, grunts, whimpers, and cries. We marvel at her dimples, her velvety hair, her long, slender fingers, and her radiant eyes that we feel fortunate to glimpse when she lets us, during her scant moments of alertness. Here is a choice selection of photos from the past week.