So handsome

First day at church. Doesn't he look so handsome?

If the shoe fits...

And it finally does!! Yay!!

Four weeks

Well, today my baby boy is four weeks old. I can't believe how fast time flies!

Anders and I went on two play dates this week. One with the neighborhood moms and their kids and another with Kenisa (my sister in law) and some of her friends. It was really fun to sit and chat with other moms. Anders is such a good baby. He just hangs out and is happy or sleeps the whole time. We are truly blessed. Whether he's a good baby or not doesn't matter... we are TRULY BLESSED!

So we've had a fun filled week and now we're just resting and recovering. As I said before it takes a lot of time and effort to do anything now and we get tired pretty easily!

So now I want to share a few things with you all. Some of these are very personal, but this post is really for me to be able to look back on. Feel free to just look at the cute pictures and not read through if you don't want to hear all of this mushy stuff!

Things that I've learned in the past month:

Newborn pictures professionally done are sooooo worth it!! Any price!!

Changing diapers on a newborn is harder then you would think. (Atleast for the first couple of days.)

New babies go to the bathroom a lot more often then I thought.

Bathing a baby is a lot scarier than you would think it would be, but again, it's something that you get used to (I'm just getting there).

Okay if I'm going to be honest here... in the first few days, everything you do with your first newborn is scary!

Going outside is scary! I never realized how many bees and wasps are out and about until this year.

There's nothing better than the sound of my baby cooing.

There's nothing better than a smile on my baby's face.

I never thought that anyone in this world would enjoy me singing, but Anders does.

I give more kisses to him in a day then I probably have to anyone in my whole life!

My wants and needs are gone and the only want and need that I have now is to know that my baby is happy.

My capacity to love not only for my son, but for my husband, mother, father, and all of my family has grown exponentially and I know it will continue to do so.

Sometimes I feel like a cow (if you know what I mean). But that's okay because it makes my baby a happy camper!

I love living for somebody else!

I was a deep sleeper before. And when I was woken up while sleeping, I was grouchy! That all changed after I had him. I no longer have any qualms about waking up in the middle of the night. A lot of times it's even my favorite part of the day.

Every day is a once in a lifetime day with him. And I'm learning to live that way.

I'm still a worrier. But I'm starting to learn the difference of what is or is not worth worrying about.

I now know that there is no limit to how many times you can be overwhelmed with emotion in a day.

There is a higher power and I need Him in my life.

I've learned more about my body then I thought was possible.

I didn't know that somebody's bowel movements would ever matter so much to me.

It's funny how proud I am of the "little things" in his life. He's given Cam and I some pretty big ego's. We speak pretty highly now of our delayed but incredible baby making skills!

I now know why some people have 15 kids or more!

I was worried about how I would do as a mom. I know that I'm not perfect but I feel a lot better about it all so far.

Every day I look forward to different things. Like when I'll hear his first giggle, or see him take his first steps. And then I back track and wish I hadn't thought that because I don't want him to grow up so fast. It's flying by!

My dogs are awesome! They love him just as much as we do!

Every day I think he looks more and more like his daddy!

I'm so excited to teach him things. Everything really. Like walking, talking, riding a bike, our values, etc.

I've never been so interested in somebody's belly button.

A sad look on his face can break my heart.

I had no idea that he would look so much like his ultrasound pictures.

Cheesy things no longer bug me.

I didn't know that I could ever be so happy!

Melting mommy's heart

Yeah... these picture were taken at 3:30am. And so worth it!!!!

Getting back to normal

Well I'm trying to get back to normal life again (not that I want to). It's been so amazing so far. I can't believe that I lived the first 27 years of my life without him. It seems like he's been here all along. First of all I want to say thank you to everyone for the phone calls, texts, well wishes, flowers, dinners, gifts and everything else. We are more than spoiled and appreciate every bit of it! How lucky are we to have spent this first week and a half doing nothing but being in awe of the life that has been placed into our hands?! No joke, both Cam and I would be content to do nothing but stare at him every day for the rest of our lives. That's about the extent of what we've been doing for the past week and a half. Okay I'm going to start now to randomly post some pictures throughout this post because I have so many that I want to show off!

I must say that the time that I spent in the hospital was not a pleasant one. It was very overwhelming. And while I wanted to do nothing but get out of there, I was required to watch a bunch of videos, take a class, and fill out lots of paperwork before they would let me go home. I had no idea how much was involved. I personally, thought that you went to the hospital, had the baby, people came to visit and once things were fine and settled down, you could go home. I didn't know that there was so much "training" involved. Although, I must say that I'm glad to have had the information that they give you because it is a scary thing and there is so much to know.

We made it home on Saturday and as I said, we've done pretty much nothing but stare at him in amazement since we brought him home. He's been such an easy baby so far. And although at first I indulged myself by letting him sleep in the bed with us, I've now got him sleeping through the night in his bassinet (well besides the couple of feedings he needs at night anyhow). The feedings are going wonderfully, he took to it like a champ! I'm really happy for that. At first it was a bit awkward and different to get used to but I now love the time that we share together while I'm feeding him.

When we left the hospital, Anders weighed 6 lbs 14 oz. His first doctors appointment was the following Wednesday and in those four days he put on 12 oz! So as of last Wednesday Anders weighed 7 lbs 10 oz. The feedings were kind of rough at that point. It seemed like all that he wanted to do was eat, or he would pretend that he wanted to eat but when it came down to it he didn't really want to. So after a few days of debating, we finally let him take to a binky. He loves it now but I worry about using it. I guess we'll have to keep seeing how it goes to find out if we made a mistake or not. So our little guy is doing great! We couldn't ask for anything to be better!

I've been feeling great too! Labor and delivery wasn't bad at all and I'm definately on the mend now! We've taken him out a couple of times and boy does he love car rides. The second he's in his car seat he crashes and doesn't wake up until we take him out.

Today was my first day without Cam here to help me and it seemed to go really well even though I was quite nervous about it. It's amazing how things change though. In case you've ever wondered, it takes approximately 2.5 times longer to do anything with a baby! And that's now that I'm feeling more confident about changing diapers, feedings, baths, etc. So if I need to be to any kind of appointment I have to plan on it taking about 2 + hours to get us ready to go. It's kind of fun to learn a new schedule! I wasn't one who broke out a lot in my routine, but I'm finding that it's really fun. Of course that's because of the fun reason I have for it to have happened!

So life has definately changed. But in such a dramatically good way! As I said before, I couldn't imagine life without him!

One of the best parts about being a mom though, is watching Cam being a dad. I couldn't have picked a better man to be the father of my children. Seeing how much he loves Anders absolutely sets that in stone for me. He is so amazing with the baby that I just can't believe. He takes such an interest in every little thing and it's so great that we can share this experience together. Yesterday was Cam's 31st birthday. I hope that it was special for him in the same way that Mothers Day was special for me. It was our first big events with the little one. Cam, I want you to know that I love you more than anything and there's nothing better in this world than the family that we have created together. Thank you for all that you do and all that you are. Know that Anders and I love you more than anything! Happy Birthday Daddy, we love you!

Anders Big Day

Just wanted to do a post about how our day went the day that Anders was born.
We woke up at 6am and called into the hospital and asked if they could start me. They told me to be there at 7:30am. We grabbed our last few things, got Cam a quick breakfast and headed out. At 7:30 we checked in to our room and we started filling out a bunch of paperwork and getting hooked up to machines. At 9am, they inserted my i.v. with pitocin and got that started. The contractions started immediately although they weren't painful for quite a while afterwards. At 9:30 my doctor came in and said that I was contracting so well that she was going to break my water, so she did. They would turn on the pitocin and I would start contracting great, so they would turn it off. As soon as they turned it off, my contractions would stop. So this went on for a few hours. At two I asked for my epidural and was dilated to a four. I continued to dilate regularly and at 4:30pm I was fully dilated and ready to go. They told me that they were going to give me a half an hour of resting descent and let the doctor go to a meeting and as soon as she got back I could start pushing. The doctor came in at 5:30 and by that time my contractions had stopped because they had turned the pitocin off again. So, they started the pitocin and an hour later at 6:32 Anders was born. When they told me that I was fully dilated, Cam started saying to me "I think you should push the button on your epidural." I told him that I would be fine but he kept telling me that I needed to do it, so finally I did. When it came time for me to push, the nurse told me to put my foot in the stirrup and I thought that I tried, unfortunately all that happened was my leg fell off of the bed. I had lost complete control! It was scary, but it all worked out. When the doctor pulled Anders out she said, "Dad grab the camera." She repeated that a couple of times before either of us comprehended what was even going on other than the crying of our brand new baby it was an amazing feeling and thought. So that's how we got the amazing picture from the post below. I will cherish that for the rest of my life. My pregnancy, labor, delivery and all were so amazing and easy and absolutely worth every minute. I couldn't be happier. Oh how I love that little boy!!! I couldn't imagine my life without him.

Introducing...

Well here he is. I'm going to post a bunch more later, but I'm currently being kept pretty busy :) Anders was born on Thursday, April 30 at 6:32 pm. He weighed 7 lbs 2 oz and is 20 inches long. He's perfect and we couldn't be any prouder or happier!