Happy Holidays!!

Sorry I have completely slacked on keeping up with my blog over the holidays. I just wanted to take time to wish everyone Happy Holidays!! I promise I will be back soon to catch up.

To Do List

So much to do. I can't believe there's only 7 more days until Christmas. I am done with all of my shopping, but I'm not ready yet. The kids will be here in 2 more days, and I still need to finish wrapping presents and put the rest of the decorations up. Not to mention dishes to do, vacuuming, and laundry to fold!! I used to love to make myself a to do list, but with Nathan I don't have time to make a list let alone accomplish half of the stuff on it. Time has run out. I can't put it off anymore, so wish me luck.

Speaking of Nathan he is 2 months old today, and cuter than ever. I don't know where the time has gone. He has a checkup tomorrow so I will do an update after that. Here is a picture I took this morning.

Oh Christmas Tree

My mom came over yesterday to try and help me with my disaster of a Christmas Tree. She wasn't able to get the lights working either. So off we went to Target to buy the tree I had been eyeing for the last few weeks. I really love it it's so pretty. I got it all decorated and took a few pictures. *happy sigh* Thanks Mom!!

The Hat Part Deux

I guess I am just loving the hats lately. I bought this one a couple of weeks ago, and decided to try it on today. Then I couldn't resist a couple of pictures. How cute are these?

Santa Is My Homeboy

I just had to post a couple of pictures of Nathan in our favorite shirt. Check out his cute double chin.

The Hat

Here are a couple of pictures of Nathan in the hat from this post. It looks so cute on him. I was afraid it wouldn't fit his big head, but it's very stretchy. Oh, and notice how good he's getting at holding up his head.

Can I Pet Your Doggy?

As I have explained before we have a very antisocial dog. He only loves a handful of people, and the rest of the world is divided into people he tolerates, and people he hates. Most fall into the later category. Sometimes this can be annoying. Like when the guy comes to fix your broken window, and you have to lock your dog in the bedroom because he won't stop barking. Other times it's just plain embarrassing. I was out walking the dog about a week ago when a couple of kids stopped me and asked if they could pet my dog. Sure, I said. It didn't go well, when they got close to him he started barking and growling. I apologized and quickly walked away.



So yesterday when I was out walking Shadow there was a little girl on a bike ride with her dad. "Can I pet your doggy?" I paused for a second as a quickly tried to think of the best way to say no because he's actually a vicious attack dog disguised as a cute doggy. As I'm thinking she gets off her bike, and starts coming towards us. Shadow starts to growl. "I'm sorry, he doesn't like strangers." I feel so mean. Why can't I have a normal dog?

Nathan Meets Santa

I took Nathan to the mall to get a picture with Santa the other day. I figured it wouldn't be that busy in the middle of the day during the week. I was right, and it was a good thing because the people working there were s.l.o.w. I can't imagine being there on the weekend. As you can see from Nathan's expression he wasn't too impressed with Santa, but he looks cute anyway.

Charlie Brown Has Nothing On Me

My Christmas tree is seriously more pathetic than this. We bought our tree 3 years ago. It is one of those prelit trees. Every year we go through the same struggle trying to get all of the lights to work. I really don't understand why it is so complicated, but once again we have ended up with 2 extra plugs, and nowhere to plug them in. We both searched everywhere, and got so frustrated we ended up giving up. So now my sad looking tree sits with lights that don't work, perched crookedly in it's stand. Not to mention some of the branches have given out so they kind of droop.

I am now sad every time I walk by the living room, or come home from somewhere and have to see our sorry tree in the window. I want to go buy a new tree, but what I should do is take a lesson from Charlie Brown and fix it up. Like Linus says "maybe it just needs a little love". So I am hoping once I straighten it out, and find what I did with the decorations last year it will look beautiful. Then I will feel a little less bah humbug when I see it.

Happy Turkey Day!!

We had a great Thanksgiving. I was so proud of myself for getting to my mom's house in time for our meal (a little early even). Then I realized I forgot the diaper bag. I sent Dare to the store to buy some diapers, and then remembered I forgot the rolls I was supposed to bring so I called and asked him to pick those up too. Oh well!! Other than that everything was great. I enjoyed spending time with family. We watched part of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, watched the Seahawks lose, and ate way too much turkey and pie. I also spent some time looking through all of the Black Friday ads and briefly contemplated going shopping, but quickly came to my senses. Hope everyone had a great day!

This Is Going To Be Harder Than I Thought

I had a great day today. I managed to shower, walk the dog, and get to the post office all before 11am. Since everything was going so great I decided to push my luck and do my first real workout while Nathan was napping in his swing. I am a big fan of home workout dvds. I have collected several, and have actually done them religiously over the last few years. That is until I got pregnant. I had every intention of working out throughout my pregnancy, but it didn't happen. I just didn't have the energy for it. So I couldn't wait to get back in shape after being pregnant for 41 1/2 long weeks. I started walking about 4 days after Nathan was born and have worked up to 2 miles per day and that's with a 11+ pound baby strapped to my front. I thought I was doing really good, and since my 6 week checkup is tomorrow I figured I was safe to kick it up a notch. So I quickly surveyed my video collection. (Time is of the essence when Nathan is napping. He is not a good napper, but that is another post.) I grabbed what was my "easy" workout prepregnancy. It was for days I was feeling lazy. It's good because you can customize your workout. I picked cardio 12 minutes and upper body 11 minutes. I thought it would be quick and easy. OMG!! I was so wrong. The cardio seemed like the longest 12 minutes ever, and the upper body workout had my 3lb weights feeling like 20lb weights. I can't believe there was a time I was going to upgrade those to 5lbs!! I guess getting back in shape is going to take longer than I thought.

One Month Update

We went in for Nathans one month appointment today here are his stats.

Weight-11lbs 7oz
Length-22in
Head-16in

I can't believe it's been a month already. It goes by so fast. It already seems Nathans out of the newborn stage especially since he has started smiling. He is a good baby, although he does demand a lot of attention. I find it hard to get a lot done around the house his favorite place to nap is on me. As soon as I try to put him down somewhere he wakes up. He is starting to like his swing a little bit, and will occasionally nap in there. Hopefully he will start being a little better at napping during the day my house is feeling neglected. He is still doing great at night. Here are a few pictures from the last week.

All Smiles

Nathan is one month old today. I will post a one month update tomorrow after his doctors appointment so I can post his weight and height. For today I just wanted to share that he has officially started smiling. He has been working towards this for the last week, and today he was full of smiles for me.

Goal!!

So as promised here are the pictures from Gabby and Lindsey's soccer games. Soccer season is over now, and neither of their teams ever won a game. Maybe next year. Gabby played on both her and Lindsey's team for the second half of the season. She also went to both teams practices. Gabby takes everything she does very seriously and soccer was no exception. Unfortunately I don't have many pictures of Gabby's game because Kailyn manned the camera. Even though she took 95 pictures the camera was on manual settings and most of the pictures are out of focus. Lindsey is in the blue playing goalie, and Gabby is in the green shirt with the ponytail.

$185.00

That is what it cost to fix the living room window. Yeah, funny story. Every day Shadow, Nathan, and I take a long walk in the afternoon. Saturday Dare decided he would come with us. Just as he shut the front door he looked at me and asked if I had keys. No, I never bring my keys on my walk. I don't worry about locking my door when I go for a 30 minute walk around the block. I also have enough to bring already with the dog, the leash, a poop bag, the baby, his pacifier, and my cell phone. I'm not paranoid enough to lock the door, but I am paranoid enough to bring my phone usually, but not today since I'm not alone. So as I realize we are locked out I do a quick mental run through of all of the windows and doors in the house and I know none of them are unlocked. In fact a few weeks ago in a moment of late night paranoia I checked all of the windows to make sure they were locked, and since it's no longer summer I knew none of them had been opened since. So what do we do? Decide to go on our walk anyway maybe the fresh air will help us figure out a way to get in the house. We decide our only option is to go to our neighbors house and ask to use their phone to call a locksmith. This is not a great option. We don't know our neighbors, and have never really talked to them except for a quick hello or wave. And although I've never called a locksmith for anything I'm pretty sure it's about $75 even more on a Saturday evening. So I decide maybe we should try to see how strong the locks on the windows are. Of course we'll have to be careful our windows are the original single pane, aluminum frame ones that were installed when our house was built in the 70's. Almost immediately after putting this plan into place Dare's hand goes right through the glass. Crap!! There is a hole in the glass I reach through and unlock the window, but because of the broken glass we can't get it open. I'm not about to pay for a new window AND a locksmith. We do manage to get the window open, and I climbed inside. I then proceeded to tape up the window with cardboard and fix up Dare's hand which was cut, but not badly. That's the story of how we spent our Saturday night.

Baby's First Road Trip

We had been planning on making a trip to Spokane sometime in October to visit the kids and watch their soccer games. We were finally able to go last weekend. Driving 600 miles in a weekend with a newborn, and a dog may seem crazy, but overall it wasn't bad. I thought staying in a hotel room with 2 adults, 4 kids, a newborn, and a dog seemed even crazier, but that wasn't bad either. The kids really had fun at the hotel we went to the pool, watched tv, and enjoyed what was a pretty good free breakfast. Saturday we watched both Lindsey and Gabby's soccer games. Brandon didn't have a game. After the games we went to lunch, and then went to the movies. Later that night we ordered pizza, and celebrated Gabby's birthday which is coming up on the 10th. The kids really enjoyed getting to meet their baby brother. The girls all seemed especially taken with him considering none of them were exactly thrilled by the thought of another baby in the family. I think they will be a huge help when they are here in December. Here are some pictures of the kids with Nathan. I will put up some soccer photos in another post I just have way too many pictures!!

More Photos

There were way too many pictures from Nathan's first photo shoot for me to post them here. So if you want to see some more of them you can check them out here.

Visitors

Last weekend Nathan was lucky enough to have all of his Grandmas visiting at once. Dare's mom came from Nigeria for a week to visit, and my mom brought my grandma to see him for the first time. Here are some pictures.

Happy Halloween!!

I know I'm late posting this, but how cute is this costume?! I was actually able to get a few pictures before he peed all over it.

One Week Old

Nathan is one week old as of yesterday. The week went by so fast!! He is a really good baby, and we are still getting plenty of sleep. He sleeps about an 11 hour stretch at night only waking up twice to eat. The only thing that gets him really upset is having his diaper changed. We took him out on a couple of shopping trips, and he was really good then too. It's funny he still gets the hiccups a lot now just like when I was pregnant with him.

First Professional Photos

We had a photographer over on Sunday to take some pictures of us. You can see a couple of the photos on her blog. We really love how they turned out!!

A Few Pictures To Share

The First Part Of The Story

Monday night I start to notice I'm finally having regular contractions starting around 9pm. At midnight they are still going although they weren't really getting any stronger. After a couple more hours we decide to go ahead and call my midwife. Lorren is the one on call, and she tells us to come in. We get there and I spend a couple of hours in the tub eventually I realize this is not going like it should. I just don't feel like I'm getting any closer so I have my midwife check me. I'm only 1cm dilated so we decide to go home. I have never before had contractions that didn't do anything so I'm very frustrated at this point. We go home and go to bed I try to sleep even thought the contractions are still coming I get about two hours of sleep, but keep waking up every couple of minutes because of contractions. By about noon on Tuesday I realize the contractions are completely gone. So we sit around and wait for my regularly schedule midwife appointment later that night.



I go in for my appointment with Chris at 6:30. At this point I'm 7 days past my due date, and even more frustrated than I was before my round of contractions. We talk about the options she says she is willing to do what she can to try and help things along. She also says medical induction is an option and it is my call, she feels we should go home and get a good nights sleep and call her in the morning. I call her Wednesday morning and tell her I'm willing to try whatever she suggests, but give her a firm date of Friday for my induction I want it scheduled I'm not waiting through another weekend. We meet her at the birth center around 12:30 and she sweeps my membranes. This is a fairly common technique where they try and loosen the bag of waters from the cervix in an attempt to "get things started". She then give me some herbs with the instruction to take them every 15 minutes for one hour. We go and run some errands while watching the clock so I can take the herbs. Let me just say they are the worst tasting things I have EVER had. Dare says one of them smells like kerosene and dirty gym socks. I think it tastes worse. We meet Chris at the birth center again at 5 so she can sweep my membranes again. On the car ride home I start having contractions again. This time they are more painful, but short so we go home and watch a movie. After a couple of hours I decide to call Chris, and we head into the birth center again. I have never had long labors before so everyone including myself is a little on edge so she tells me to go ahead and come in. This time instead of wasting a whole bunch of time she checks me right away and says I'm 2+ centimeters, and the contractions aren't doing anything. She sends me home with the instructions to take a warm bath, and drink a glass of wine. Hopefully this will allow me to get some sleep. She said to call her around 8am. I go home take a bath and get a terrible night of sleep again waking up every few minutes with contractions. To be continued.........

He's Here!!

Nathan Omotoyinbo finally graced us with his presence at 4:58 am October the 17th. Weighing in at a hefty 9lbs 6oz and 20 1/2 inches long. We are home now and doing good. I will try and get a birth story posted over the weekend, but be warned it is very long!!