Warm and Cozy

The past couple days have been chilly to say the least so we have been bundling Nathan up. What a cutie! (10 days old)

Staying Busy

The past couple days have been filled with many different activities. We have gone to the pedi to get Nathan's first check up and he is doing great! He is weighing 7lbs 1oz (so he lost some weight but that is totally normal for little babies) and he is doing great so far! We have also gone to the park and played which mainly consisted of me nursing and Ben and daddy riding bikes, but nonetheless it still felt great to get out and get some fresh air. We played lots of puzzles and games and built our first fort- which Ben thought was pretty awesome! We also spent lots of time reading books and helping daddy with the furnace.

Ben and daddy worked on the furnace






Ben and mommy reading




Nathan: One week old

A Special Thank You

This post is to say a special THANK YOU to my cousin Kirsten for all she has done for me and my family the past week!

Kirsten is like a big sister to me and I am so blessed to have her in my life. She quickly dropped everything and drove down (6 hours) Wednesday when she heard the Nathan was on his way. She then stayed with us for the next 5 days and helped in more ways than I can list. She stayed with me one of the nights in the hospital, cooked, cleaned, took care of me, listened to me during my emotional times, calmed my fears, helped me adjust to being a new mommy again, and gave Ben tons of love! This was such an amazing act of love- leaving her own family and kids for 5 days to be with me and my family.

Kirsten, I can never thank you enough for all that you have done for my family! You are amazing and I love you so much!

Mommy and Nathan

I just can't get enough of the newborn stage! So I try to get in all the mommy time I can! :)

First Walk

After being in the hospital for a couple days and then being at home for a little bit it was time to get out and get some fresh air so we decided to go on a little walk around the block. Nathan loved it so much he fell asleep :)

Family Visits

The past couple days we have had lots of family come visit and we just love seeing everybody! Here are couple pics of a few of our visitors:

Great-Grandpa Al & Sara


Cousins Mark & Rachel


Uncle Daniel & Katie


Uncle Jim


Papa Dave

First Bath

So far Nathan likes having his hair washed but is not really a fan of getting a bath. Hopefully he learns to like them though because I love clean baby smell :)

Bath time!






All Clean












Looking little in daddy's hands


LOVE this fluffy hair

The Labor Story

If I had to pick a movie title to describe this labor and delivery I would probably pick: The Fast and the Furious!

Tuesday night I was admitted into labor and delivery (for the night) where they administered the cervidil to try and get my cervix to dilate to at least 2cm. My friend Kelly came out with me to hang out for awhile so that Bryan could be home with Ben for the night. We just hung out and had some great girl chit chat (thanks Kelly for keeping me company- you're awesome). Around 11pm, Kelly headed home and I dozed off to sleep. Around 1am, I woke up sick to my stomach so the nurse came in and helped me. I wasn't able to fall back asleep, until about 4:30am. At 5am, the nurse came in to check me and see if I was dilated to 2cm and to my excitement I was 3cm. So she told me to go back to sleep and the dr would be in around 7am to break my water and start the pitcoin to get me into labor. I tried and tried to fall asleep but just couldn't.

So around 6am, I decided to jump in the shower and get cleaned up before inducing labor. By the time I got out of the shower, I was finding it difficult to walk back to the bed because the contractions were so strong so I decided to call the nurse. Since I was 3cm, she called in the epidural for me and I called Bryan to tell him he might want to get out to the hospital sooner rather than later. (He was waiting for his mom to come get Ben so he could leave) Within about 10-15 minutes the nurse had started my IV and the anesthesiologist was there to give me my epidural (which for some reason only worked on my right side- not awesome!). At this time it was about 7:30am and I called Bryan and told him things were moving FAST and to get there. Luckily, he was there within about 30 minutes.

My parents and sister planned on being there around 10:30 (thinking things would move about the speed of Ben's birth). However seeing that things were moving faster, they decided to come out earlier and arrived at about 8:30. At just about the same time, the nurse came in to check me and to my surprise I was at 8cm. WOW! Soon after that, the OB walked in to check me and break my water, but the second he got ready to do it- my water broke on it's own. So he quickly set up for the birth and after about 12-15 pushes- Nathan arrived at 9:39am!

I must say that this birth was FAR quicker than I could have ever imagined! I did not end up needing the pitocin (to start my labor) or needing to have my water broken. With Ben I pushed for 2 1/2 hours so this was much faster than I had been prepared for. From start to finish my birth was 4 hours. Like I said, fast and furious!

Friday: Coming Home

Friday morning at 9am we were packed and ready to go . . . little did we know we would not be discharged until after naps, eating lunch, waiting, and then waiting some more :) Finally at about 1pm just when we were ready to go we had the bright idea to change his diaper not knowing that we were going to be "christening the wall and little crib". After lots of clean up and laughing- the diaper was changed and we were ready to go home.

Thursday: Day After Birth

Here are some great pics from day 2. Nathan had lost some weight (which is totally normal) and was now weighing in at 7lbs 2oz. He was starting to open his eyes more and really loves to be snuggled and kept warm.

Nathan James