A New Baby

We were very thankful to God that Sophia arrived (23rd June) safely and without any complications. She is a gorgeous little baby and we all love her a lot. (Sometimes her brothers are a bit too enthusiastic in their affection).

Here are some photos of our little girl. (Now that we have her birth certificate we have to apply for Australian citizenship and then for a passport for her. We have taken a lot of photos to try to get a photo suitable - has anyone else tried to get a passport photo for a newborn? Head straight, no hands near the face, eyes open and mouth closed. We have taken lots of photos and none of them are exactly right!)

Sam and Tim were helping me try to take photos of Sophie one day - they had to have a photo taken as well of course.

Sophie is now one month old and although we are sad that she is growing up so quickly, we are also relieved that we have passed the one month mark. In Slovenia, most newborns and their mums don't venture out of the house much until after a month, and then only for short periods. They are worried about the newborn getting sick and also for the mother, that she needs to recover. One older lady told me off last Sunday for being at church already! We have had a few visits from our non-Christian friends here this week - they felt that they needed to wait a month before they visited - to give us some time. So we have tried to leave Sophie at home as much as possible in that first month. She has been on quite a few more excursions this week...

It has also been a challenge to dress Sophie appropriately. In Australia, they were always making sure that we didn't overdress the babies in summer. Here they are often concerned about the fact that the baby has exposed skin. Older ladies will come and feel her hands and feet to make sure they are not cold. The last few days have been over 30C, so I haven't had to worry too much about her hands and feet being cold!

You can pray for us as we continue to work out how to look after Sophia and respect the traditions and culture here.

Here are a couple of photos from outings over the last couple of weeks:

My parents were here for over a month and it was lovely to have them with us for Sophie's birth and to spend time with them. They enjoyed spending time with their grandchildren and the boys were certainly excited to have them stay with us too. They were a great help around our apartment as well. Thank God that they were able to come and spend some time with us.