Sunday, January 29, 2012

#41 - Check

Number 41 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to have my sister, Lindsey Smith, take Carter’s newborn photos.  I’ve been blessed with a photographer for a sister.  She’ll be doing Carter’s pictures his whole life and it saves us money!!  Photogs are EXPENSIVE!! Anyway, if anyone is interested in my sister’s work or using her, go to her website at www.lindseyrsmith.com or find her business, Lindsey Smith Photography, on facebook. Lindsey took so many incredible pictures and I can’t put all 60 on my blog, so I’m just going to pick my favorites to put on here. To see them all, go to my facebook page.

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Absolutely LOVE all of these photos, but yes, I know I’m a little bit bias towards the subject of them Winking smile

#65 and #66 - Check

#65 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to re-vamp my blogs look since we’re a family of three now.  I’ve wanted to do this even before Carter was born because I haven’t changed my header in FOREVER.  It was well overdue.  Well, if you’re reading this, you see the new header and background.  I feel like it’s very “boy” since our newest addition is a boy! 

#66 was to enroll Carter in Mother’s Day Out at our church.  We did this last week actually.  Our infant class at church only allows up to 6 infants and it was first come first serve.  Our church members were given a couple of days head start over non-church members.  My mother-in-law was the first person at church the day the enrollment opened to turn in our application as well as the application for the twins and we got spots 1, 2 and 3.  So half of the infant class are in the Morris family.  I’m so glad Carter will be in class with two of his family members.  That makes me feel so much more comfortable leaving him with other kids.  He’ll go on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9am-1pm.  My sweet mother-in-law is our day care provider so we wanted to put him in MDO to give her a few hours twice a week to do things she wants to do so she doesn’t get burned out on taking care of him.  The program starts in September and runs through May, so Carter will be 9 months old when he starts going, a great age I think!!

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Carter - One Month

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Carter at Month 1
  • His next appointment at the pediatrician isn’t until February 14th, so I’m not 100% sure on weight or height, but if I had to guess on weight, I’d say he’s over 9 pounds now.  For height, I think he’s about 23 inches or more (his tummy time mat has a measurement stick on it).
  • He’s eating 7 times a day, most of which is breastfeeding from me.  Usually only one feeding is from a bottle and it’s a breastmilk  bottle that daddy feeds at the middle of the night feeding.  The only time we really feed him formula is if we’re out and about.
  • During the day, he eats about every 3 hours, sometimes shorter, sometimes slightly longer.  At night he may go as long as 5 hours between feedings.  Usually, mommy does the 11:30pm feeding and then daddy does the 3:30/4am feeding.  This will change when daddy starts going out of town for work though…momma will be doing all feedings (a little nervous about that).
  • Literally, today, on his 1 month birthday, he smiled at me on purpose.  Justin did some research and told me the other day that the way to get a baby to smile is to smile at them all the time until they begin to mimic your facial expressions.  So I’ve been smiling at him all week and today, he smiled back at me.  It was quick and I couldn’t get him to do it again and wasn’t able to get a picture.  Boo.
  • He sleeps in a little basinet in his pack n’ play.  He was originally sleeping in a small co-sleeper that attaches to our bed, but after realizing how noisy of a sleeper he is, we kicked him to the living room.  His nighttime sleep and all naps with exception to one are in the pack n’ play.  His late afternoon nap is done in his crib upstairs.  We just started putting him in the crib this week and he doesn’t love it yet.  We’re hoping he warms up to it soon.
  • At the beginning of month 1, Carter was sleeping around 10-12 hours a day.  At the close of month one, he’s averaging from 13-14 hours a day.  Much better!!
  • He loves to sleep in his woombie
  • We just started watching Baby Einstein videos during waketime and he seems to like it a lot
  • When he hears my voice, he gets very quiet.  I definitely think he knows who I am and if he hears my voice, but can’t see me, he’ll be quiet and start looking around the room for me.  At least it appears that’s what he’s doing.
  • I wouldn’t say he likes bathtime, but he doesn’t hate it.  He doesn’t cry during his baths at all, but he doesn’t have a joyful look on his face either.   I think he’s just confused.
  • He hasn’t realized yet that Gizmo exists.  She’s licked him in the face several times but she does it so quickly that she’s gone before he notices anything..
  • He falls asleep pretty easily in the car, but he does it much quicker in Justin’s Jeep than in my Acura.  I think it’s because the Jeep is so much louder and vibrates more.  My Acura is pretty quiet.
  • He’s still wearing newborn diapers
  • He’s still wearing newborn clothes.  We’ve even tried on 0-3 months clothes and they’re too big.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Remember that 101 List?

Back in May 2009, I made a 101 things to do in 1,001 days list.  I’ve been able to knock off a good many things on that list, however, it unfortunately is not complete.  Out of the 101 things on the list, I was able to complete 72 of them.  Not too bad considering that some of the items I put on my list required travel and a significant portion of money and time off work (I wasn’t thinking about that factor when I made the list).  Once I got pregnant, my 101 list got put on the backburner a bit and it became difficult to mark items off when we were preparing to have a baby. However, the things that I didn’t complete on the list are all still things I want to complete (with exception to a few which I removed), therefore I plan to roll them onto a new 101 list and add more realistic things as well.  My original 101 list doesn’t technically expire until February 15, 2012 but given that this date is only a mere 3 weeks away and I can barely leave the house with a one month old, I doubt I’ll be marking anything off that list in the next 21 days.  Therefore, I will go ahead and begin my new list.  This list will have all the items I didn’t complete from the old list (minus the ones I’m not interested in anymore) as well as new items, many of which may be baby related.  And this list expires on October 22, 2014.  Without further ado, here is my 101 List - Part Two (items marked with an * are rolled from the previous list):

  1. Win Bingo at work*
  2. Go to the Grand Canyon*
  3. Do a half-marathon*
  4. Go to Canada*
  5. Watch Fireproof with Justin*
  6. Go to Niagara Falls*
  7. Have 20 highpoints under my belt* (This used to be 30 on the old list, but that was a little too ambitious even without a small child, so I had to lower it to 20)
  8. Get my wedding dress stored and out of my closet*
  9. Go on an Alaskan Cruise*
  10. Climb Mt. Washington to the summit*
  11. See a big horn sheep up close*
  12. Go to one church service at “The Basement”*
  13. Go parasailing*
  14. Serve breakfast to the homeless with the SMUMC ladies*
  15. Go to San Francisco*
  16. Climb Mt. Marcy in New York*
  17. Take a roadtrip to the West*
  18. Run the Vulcan Run again*
  19. Buy a frame for my masters degree and display it in my office*
  20. Start Carter in the Mother’s Day Out program at St. Mark UMC
  21. Go ice skating just for fun*
  22. Give blood*
  23. Introduce mountain climbing to someone who’s never done it*
  24. Go to Rocky Mountain National Park again*
  25. Obtain a door wreath for every holiday*
  26. Take a couples trip to Six Flags*
  27. Watch Justin complete a Tough Mudder Race
  28. Run the Race for the Cure and NOT break any bones
  29. Complete P90X again
  30. Lose pregnancy weight
  31. Watch Carter laugh on purpose (right now he only does it in his sleep)
  32. Watch Carter crawl for the first time
  33. Watch Carter walk for the first time
  34. Teach Carter to say “momma”
  35. Watch all previous episodes of The Big Bang Theory and get caught up to now
  36. Get all thank you notes for Carter’s gifts written and sent out
  37. Move Carter to sleeping all daytime naps in his room upstairs
  38. Move Carter to sleeping nights in his room upstairs
  39. Celebrate 5 years of marriage with Justin
  40. Send out Carter’s birth announcements
  41. Have Lindsey take Carter’s newborn pictures
  42. Have Carter’s 6 month pictures taken
  43. Have Carter’s 1 year pictures taken
  44. Start Carter on solid foods
  45. Go on a hot air balloon ride
  46. Attempt to breastfeed for 6 full months
  47. Take Carter to the zoo
  48. Take Carter to an aquarium
  49. Take Carter to the McWane Center
  50. Get a new car
  51. Pay off Justin’s Jeep
  52. Sell our old house
  53. Go to Gatlinburg again
  54. Cook a meal that I haven’t cooked before
  55. Meet Harper Benjamin Lobdell in May 2012
  56. Attend one of my best friends, Ashley Matherson’s, wedding to the guy I hooked her up with
  57. Cut my hair off
  58. Replace the empty frames in Carter’s room with his newborn photos
  59. Throw Carter a very memorable 1st birthday party
  60. Throw Carter an even more memorable 2nd birthday party
  61. NOT have another kid…and actually stick to it this time (not that we’ll never have another, just that we don’t want to have one within 1,001 days from now)
  62. Complete Carter’s baby book, pictures and all
  63. Give up Mexican food for lent this year
  64. Get a rather well deserved post-baby massage
  65. Re-vamp my blog’s look since we’re a family of three now
  66. Enroll Carter in Mother’s Day Out at our church
  67. Go to a Zumba class at the Hoover YMCA
  68. Celebrate Justin’s 30th Birthday
  69. Buy Justin a gift he’s not expecting for his 30th birthday
  70. Celebrate my 30th Birthday
  71. Get a canvas of one of our wedding photos to hang in our house
  72. Get a full 8 hours of sleep again!!!
  73. Take Carter to meet my grandparents in Moundville, AL
  74. Take Carter to church with us
  75. Put Carter in the nursery at church when he’s a little older
  76. Get Carter’s immunizations…and hopefully NOT cry
  77. Break down and finally get an I-Phone
  78. Have Carter’s pictures made with Santa
  79. Go to an Alabama Football game
  80. Get an I-Pad
  81. Go on a date with my husband, like a NICE one
  82. Visit my friends Lillian and Craig in Nashville and meet their new baby girl Maggie
  83. While in Nashville doing number 73, go to a church service at my old church, Cross Point to hear Pete speak
  84. Go horseback riding at Oak Mountain
  85. Watch the world NOT end on 12/21/12
  86. Go to the circus
  87. Read 30 of the 66 books of the Bible
  88. Get Carter baptized
  89. Go to the gym 5 days in one week
  90. Take a day to clean my entire house top to bottom
  91. Introduce Carter to my best friend of over 17 years, Lauren Kelly (she lives in Seattle, WA)
  92. Introduce Carter to me and Justin’s really good friends, Bonnie and Andrew Hill (they live in Houston, TX)
  93. Write another letter to our sponsored child in Russia and send more pictures
  94. Go back to work from maternity leave and NOT cry all day
  95. Make a photobook for my mom of pictures of Carter for Mother’s Day
  96. Get our garage cleaned up and looking normal
  97. Go off-roading with Justin in his Jeep
  98. Go camping again
  99. Vote for President
  100. Go to a shooting range
  101. Get a safe to store our important documents in our house

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

First Nap In The Crib

Today, Carter took his very first nap in his crib.  We have a two story house and his nursery is upstairs, so he’s been sleeping downstairs since we brought him home.  We didn’t want him too far away from us in the beginning and not to mention, climbing up and downstairs for feedings in the middle of the night is NOT on my top 10 list of things I want to do.  So he started out in a bassinet in our room until we kicked him out because he was such a loud sleeper.  Now he sleeps in the living room in the pack n’ play.  There’s a small insert in our pack n’ play that is at a slight incline and has a vibrating device in it.  That’s where he’s been sleeping all of his naps and his nighttime sleep from Day 1.  Today, when I was at the gym, Justin put him down for his nap…in his crib!!!  We’ve been discussing introducing his room to him gradually since he’s so used to being downstairs, but I didn’t think we’d do it this soon.  Carter really doesn’t like sleeping on a flat surface like his crib or the bottom of the pack n’ play, he prefers to sleep at an incline.  Because of this, I thought introducing him to the crib would be a difficult adjustment, but apparently not.

Justin put him down in his crib for his afternoon  nap and he napped for over two hours!!  He did cry a little right when he was put down which is expected.  Who really wants to sleep in an unfamiliar place?!?!  But he stopped crying after a few minutes and fell asleep.  Of course, I had to take pictures to document his first time in his crib….

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And before we get attacked by all the mommas out there that read my blog, yes, we know there shouldn’t be stuffed animals in the crib.  Justin said he didn’t take them out because he knew that especially in the woombie, there was no way Carter would be able to get that far to the top of the crib.  But they will be taken out from now on, I promise.

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Look at his sweet sleeping face.  Love him!!

Our plan from here is to keep him napping in the crib for that afternoon nap and to gradually add an additional nap every few days to the crib instead of in the pack n’ play.  I still don’t want him sleeping upstairs at night though.  At least not until he drops the middle of the night feeding.  Right now he eats at about 10/11pm and then again at 3ish before his morning feeding at 7ish.  Once he drops that 3am feeding and can sleep from midnight to 6 or 7am, then I’ll start letting him sleep in his crib overnight.  Hopefully this gradual schedule will get him slowly adjusted to his room!

Monday, January 23, 2012

Sleep Issues Resolved

I haven’t mentioned this on the blog, mainly because I haven’t had time, but for the first few weeks of Carter’s life, he was having some SERIOUS sleep issues.  Our pediatrician said he was a hyper-alert baby, meaning that he just didn’t need as much sleep as other newborns typically get.  Most babies, you may have heard, will sleep anywhere from 15-20 hours a day, waking up only for diaper changes and feedings.  Our little bundle of joy was barely getting 10-12 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period.  This was incredibly difficult on mom and dad.  Carter definitely had his days and nights mixed up, a common thing in newborns.  A good chunk of his sleep was coming through long naps during the day and he wasn’t sleeping well at night.  On his first nights home, we were barely getting 2 hours of sleep at night. 

I couldn’t take it anymore and made  appointment with our pediatrician who gave us a different kind of formula to use for upset tummies (yes, I am still breastfeeding, but maybe 1 or 2 of Carter’s 8-12 feedings are formula supplement).  We had been using the formula the hospital used when he slept in the nursery, but apparently that was upsetting his stomach.  Once we started the new formula, we saw some improvement, though he was still having some sleep issues at night.  At that appointment, the pediatrician said that if it didn’t get better in so many days to call back and he’d put in an order for an acid blocker in case Carter had reflux.  Well we called back about 5 days later and got the prescription.  Once we gave it to Carter with his feedings, we saw a drastic difference.  The day we started the medicine, he got 16 hours of sleep.  SIXTEEN!!!  The next day it was 15 and has been falling in the 14-15 range since we started giving it to him.  I don’t know if this actually means he has reflux or not.  He shows no typical signs of reflux which is why the doc was hesitant to prescribe the medication.  I don’t think he thinks that was what was going on.  Justin and I don’t really think he has reflux either because he never spits up and he doesn’t always get fussy after he eats.  He does sometimes, but that’s usually when he just wants more food than what he was given. 

Either way, this medicine is helping him sleep much better.  In addition to the medicine, we think this bad boy has made a drastic difference as well:

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Everyone has heard that babies love to be swaddled really tight.  It reminds them of their time when they were smashed up in the womb (I’m glad one of us enjoyed that).  Well, my little one is a little Houdini and every time we try to  swaddle him, he gets out.  The swaddle blankets are just crap.  I’ve used all my swaddle blankets as actual blankets instead of swaddling with them.  The swaddle blankets that have velcro on them are better, but he can still get an arm out if he tries hard enough.  Seriously my kid is so strong.  Several people have commented on that including the nurse at the pediatricians office.  My sister actually suggested the above contraption and even bought us this one.  It’s called a Woombie.  It zips bottom to top and further snaps at the top over the zipper, making it essentially like a straitjacket and impossible to get out of.  It even looks like it’s choking him, but it’s not, I promise.  We put this on Carter and he’ll fight it to the death for about 5 minutes, but then he’s out.  We’ve also found that he can sleep in longer stretches when he’s in the woombie than when he isn’t swaddled at all.  It also helps with the startle reflex.  We had no idea what this was until we were told and Carter does this ALL.THE.TIME.  If a baby isn’t swaddled and his arms are free, he may be dreaming about something and scare himself to where his hands jump up and hit his face or his entire body will move very quickly and it will wake him up.  He literally will startle himself awake during naps and bedtime and then it would take forever to get him to go to sleep again.  The tightness of the woombie prevents the startle reflex from waking them up!!!  I would HIGHLY suggest this product if you are pregnant.

So the Morris household is doing much better now that we’re all getting more sleep.  There’s honestly nothing better than looking at Carter when he’s asleep in my arms and see him smiling.  He doesn’t have any control over his facial muscles yet, so he can’t smile when he’s awake.  But when he’s dreaming a good dream, his muscles make a smile and sometimes even a laugh.  Justin and I love seeing this.  It’s actually very amusing, particularly the laugh because it’s so loud and we would think it would wake him up, but it doesn’t.

A few more pictures I had for the past week:

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He likes sleeping on his daddy’s chest after a meal

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He loves to stare at his lion that hangs from his car seat

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This is how the startle reflex happens when they’re not swaddled.  See that hand by his face?   If he gets startled, both of his hands will jump into the air and wake him up.  It doesn’t always happen, but  it does more often than not.

Also, my sister did our newborn session a couple of weeks ago and she’s just now getting to do the editing for it and she sent me the following “sneak peak” picture:

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CANNOT WAIT to see the rest!!!  I’ll post them when I get them from her.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Carter’s First Weeks

I know it’s been a while since I’ve blogged actual words about how we’re all doing over here in the Morris household.  The only things I’ve been able to post about are videos and pictures.  Well, Justin and I are in bed, it’s 9:15pm and we’re actually waiting for Carter to wake up to get his feeding, so while I’m waiting, I figured I’d go ahead and post about a few things and put up a couple of pictures.

First off, the first several days home were VERY rough.  The day we got discharged from the hospital, we found out that Carter had a heightened level of jaundice.  Instead of keeping him in the hospital, they sent us home with a nurse from a company that provides in home photo therapy for jaundice for newborns.  The second we got home the nurse met us at the house.

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This is Carter on his way home.  Carter was born with VERY long nails and he managed to scratch up his face significantly before we ever even got discharged, as you can tell by this picture.

So when the nurse met us at home, she gave us a little contraption to put in Carter’s bed.  It was like a baby tanning bed.  The lights helped to knock out the jaundice so he had to lay in this “baby tanning bed” all day and night and the only time he could come out of it was during feedings, diaper changes, or baths.  This meant that anytime he was upset and crying, we couldn’t take him out to console him.  We were supposed to just leave him there.  Like I said, worst four days of my life.  This is what the “baby tanning bed” looked like:

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The little outfit he’s wearing is actually attached to the bed and he is in this contraption with a diaper on only so that the lights are hitting directly onto his skin.  This also meant that he woke up SWEATING during the night.  I really just wish they would have kept us at the hospital.  Even if I was discharged and he wasn’t….I’d rather him be comfortable than have to deal with that!  But after four days, his jaundice numbers went down and we were finally able to have the nurses get that ridiculous bed out of our home so our baby boy could sleep in his own bed.

I truly believe that the intenseness of Carter’s experience in his last day in the hospital (his newborn screening, multiple blood tests for jaundice AND his circumcision were all done on the day of discharge instead of being spread out like they should have been) on top of four days on this horrible light device affected his sleeping.  Carter hasn’t been the best sleeper the past two weeks, but it’s something we’re trying to work through now and we’re getting much better.  Previously, Carter would only sleep anywhere from 10-12 hours a day when he should be sleeping more like 15-18, like most newborns.  Justin and I even decided to feed him formula at his night feedings because he slept more hours off of formula than he would off of breastmilk. 

We had to call our pediatrician to make an appointment to talk to him about the lack of sleep Carter was having.  He gave us a different kind of formula to try which we are using now and it seems to be working incredibly!  I am still breastfeeding during the day though and pumping when Carter gets formula at night.  At 2 1/2 weeks, Carter feeds about 8-10 feedings a day, he has about 6-8 wet diapers and 4-6 poopy diapers a day, and we’re working our way up into the 13 and 14 hours of sleep a day range.  This week I started a strict feed, wake, sleep schedule that Babywise and my pediatrician suggested and so far it’s working out for us.  We’re having issues getting to sleep after waketime though.  I’ve gotten to where I put him down and he’ll cry but I just walk away and let him cry it out.  Usually after about 5-10 minutes, he’s fast asleep. 

As far as weight goes, I was so worried about whether or not he was getting enough milk from me when I was breastfeeding because unfortunately, you can’t measure how much he’s getting like you can when you feed formula.  So on Monday the 9th, Justin and I took him to the lactation department of Saint Vincent’s to have him weighed to see if he had gone back up to his birth weight.  Carter was born at 7lbs, 11oz.  When we were discharged, he went down to 7lbs, 4oz.  This is completely normal, however.  When the nurses came to our house daily to check his jaundice levels, they also weighed him.   He stayed at 7lbs, 4oz for the first 3 of those four days.  Finally on the 4th day, he was up to 7lbs, 4.5oz.  A very small increase, but an increase nonetheless.  When we went to lactation on the 9th, he weighed 8lbs, 1oz.  I was so excited!!!  Not only had he gone back up to his original birth weight, but he had surpassed it, which meant he was getting plenty of milk from momma!!  Wednesday the 11th was the day we went to the pediatrician and he also weighed him and at that appointment he weighed 8lbs, 6oz.  Holy cow!  He gained 5oz in just two days!!  We may have a little porker on our hands!

So basically, at 2 1/2 weeks, we’re doing much better than we were at 1 1/2 weeks.  He’s learned to fall asleep at the right times, even though every now and again he’ll give us a hard time and won’t go back down once we give him a night feeding.  On average, Justin and I get probably 5-6 hours of sleep broken up into three different increments.  This sounds bad, but it is much better than the 1 hour and 45 minutes of sleep we got the first week.  Also, Carter was originally sleeping in a co-sleeper that attaches to our bed, however, after a week of sleeping in the same room, mom and dad decided that little man needed to be kicked to the living room.  Our son makes SO MUCH NOISE when he sleeps.  He sleeps just fine, but during his sleep he grunts, snorts, snores and makes all kinds of noises.  This keeps me and Justin awake even though Carter is technically sleeping soundly.  So he now sleeps in a bassinet that goes in his pack n’ play in the living room.  We have a video monitor on him so we can hear and see him whenever we want. 

Another interesting tidbit, when Carter sleeps, if he is having a good dream, he will smile.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE seeing this smile.  On even rarer occasions, he will literally laugh out loud.  Seeing the corners of his mouth raise that much to see him laugh when he is completely unconscious makes my heart melt.  It makes me feel like he’s happy.  I haven’t been able to get a picture of this, but when we did his newborn photos with Lindsey in Tuscaloosa, she was able to get a GREAT picture of this laugh while he was sleeping during the shoot.  I can’t wait to see this picture when she’s done editing!!

Ok so that’s about what’s going on with us.  Here’s a few more pictures of Carter’s first two weeks.  I wish I had more, but I can’t even explain that my time is not my own.  I’m so busy watching Carter and playing slave to his feed, wake, sleep schedule, that I rarely have time to take pictures.  I have to get better at that!

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I actually didn’t take this picture.  I think that either my mother or my sister did when they came over one day. 

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This is one of Carter’s waketime activities.  He usually does this midmorning when mommy takes a shower and dries her hair and gets ready for the day, hence why it’s in the bathroom floor.

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As much as I wish I could say this was his first bath, it wasn’t.  It was more like his third.  I actually didn’t even give him his first bath.  Justin and his mom did.  I was napping when they did that and I wasn’t able to get a picture.

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Loving bathtime with daddy

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The question we probably get the most is how is the Giz taking it all.  Well, she’s taking it pretty well actually.  At first she was really confused as to what Carter was and how long he was planning on staying with us.  But I think she’s realized that he’s here for good.  She always comes running to him when she hears him cry and sometimes she’ll even cry when he cries.  She’s very protective. 

So that’s where we’re at right now.  Please pray for Carter to continue learning how to fall asleep on his own and how to stay asleep for mom and dad’s sanity.  Also, pray for our patience as well.  I know we’re not the only parents out there that struggle with the lack of sleep and late nights when a baby won’t go down to sleep, so we need patience on our side.

And here’s our family Christmas picture to end this post:

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Oh and a fun side note for me….I’ve lost 26 pounds in 2 1/2 weeks.  I feel so much better!!  Only 10 pounds of pregnancy weight left, but I really want to lose 14-16 more.  Once I hit three weeks post partum, which is next Wednesday, I plan to steadily increase my activity.  I will start off with just walking around the neighborhood or at the gym and then build up to elliptical and stair master use until I can finally start running and doing P90X routines at 6 weeks.  Hopefully the 14 will drop off before I know it!

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Carter’s Photo Birth Video

Like I mentioned before, my sister put together this incredible collection of Carter’s birth photos set to music.  Enjoy!!!

Video By: Lindsey Smith Photography

www.lindseyrsmith.com

Labor & Delivery Pictures

As promised, here are many of the labor and delivery pictures that my sister took.  She also did an incredible slideshow telling the story of the birth through these pictures and I’ll post that slideshow in another blogpost, but for now, here’s some of the labor and delivery pictures.

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This is a book my sister gave me.  Sweetest book ever and made everyone that read it cry!

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My two sisters (the one on the left is the one that took all these pictures)

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The headlines on his birthday

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Everyone in the family was guessing weight, height and time of birth.  Justin’s dad won the height, his mom won the weight and Justin won the time.  Clearly my side of the family sucks at estimating things!!

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It was time to start pushing so we were saying goodbye to the family one at a time.

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This is Justin’s dad, Gordon, and it was taken when he got the picture text to the right from Justin once Carter was born.

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This is Justin’s grandparents when they saw Carter’s picture

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He literally came out of the womb with those eyes WIDE open.  Our pediatrician has since referred to him as “hyper-alert” because he’s afraid to close his eyes since he may miss something.  Very nosey and always looking around at his surroundings. 

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First family photo

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Our pastor, Don Cross, gathered everyone around me and Carter and said a prayer for Carter and for our family.  It was so incredibly sweet.

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Love those sweet and precious little feet!!

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Lindsey actually didn’t take these next several pictures because she wasn’t in the room when Carter was born, it was just me and Justin.  Justin took a couple and then the nurse grabbed the camera and took some of us all.

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There you have it.  Those are some of the fabulous pictures my sister took.  If you’re looking to book someone to do a newborn shoot or a birth video of pictures, call her!!! 

www.lindseyrsmith.com

See my next post for the video she did of these pictures that was set to music.  So sweet!!

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