Christmas 2008

Our family had a great time during Anthony's first Christmas. For the first time, Z & I hosted our families at our house. We celebrated by dressing Anthony in holiday appropriate attire (that his dad pointed out made him look more like Liberace than an elf) during our fun and festive Christmas Eve dinner with my parents, my brother Derek and his fiance Paige, Zach's parents, his sister Amie and her boyfriend Adam.

On Christmas day, my sister Malarie and her fiance Terah arrived from Florida and we all enjoyed a Christmas dinner of tamales and enchiladas. Anthony enjoyed being held nonstop by Aunt Mal.

My mom stayed with us for about five days and Zach and I were busy trying to figure out a way to convince her to never leave. We were spoiled with meals made, the house being cleaned, laundry washed and folded, the living room curtains I bought six months ago were finally hung and she was constantly changing Anthony's diapers. She even brought me Oreos and milk in bed the other day, I am not kidding.

We all had a great holiday; Parker and Sydney were even visited by Santa Paws who brought them new stuffed animals.

Hopefully you had a great holiday as well, and may your New Year be filled with junk food that is lovingly brought to you while you lounge in your bed. There really is nothing better than that.

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Reason #10,457 to have kids...

...Getting to dress them up in holiday-centered attire before they are old enough to defend themselves.

Anthony in his Santa hat, Christmas onesie, shoes and blanket



A close-up of his adorable Santa shoes

Hopefully everyone had a very merry Christmas, we'll be posting a recap soon!


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Monday Lovely: Childhood Christmas Ornaments

Zach & I are loving having our little guy home for Christmas. Today, Zach's parents brought over one of Zach's favorite childhood Christmas ornaments his "hohsie."

He has taken up residence on our mantle and I hope he'll stay here for many years to come.


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Monday Lovely: Baby Cash's Birdie Mobile

Our friends Ryan & Emily are two of the hippest (and nicest) people we know. They are super cool, so talented and have unbelievable eyes for design (not to mention two of the cutest kids I've ever seen).

True to form, when Emily designed a mobile for little Cash's room, she created one that's incredibly beautiful.

Check it out.

I totally stole these pictures off Em's blog. I couldn't help it. I just had to share.

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Home sweet home

We were able to leave the hospital yesterday!

Dad and Anthony

The hospital made him a Christmas stocking

Our first morning at home

It's so good to be home.


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He's here!

Sunday night (Monday morning, technically) I woke up at 2 a.m. with a terrible backache that would come and go. Zach kindly pointed out that my backache was coming and going exactly every five minutes. Then every four. After a couple hours he convinced me that I was in labor. We called the hospital and they proved him right even though I'm not due until the 21st. I didn't want to show up at the hospital too soon out of fear of being sent home so I hung out at the house as long as possible. I took a bath, and then between contractions, rummaged through the boxes of still-unpacked baby clothes and blankets, frantically trying to find his newborn-size clothes and some sheets that we could wash so we could put them on his crib (I had big plans to wash everything and put it away after my Monday evening pedicure with my friend Joelle. Lesson here: DO NOT PROCRASTINATE.)

We arrived at the hospital at about 5:30. I was quickly put into a birthing room and examined, they told me I was already measuring a 6.5 (if you're not familiar with childbirth terminology, just know that this means things were quickly moving along). After getting an epidural about an hour later when I was at a 7.5, I was still in a lot of pain since for some reason it didn't work on me. The doctor removed it, put in another and I was then about a 9. Let's just say I was glad that I didn't doze off during the relaxation breathing techniques section of my birthing class. It really helped and I was able to get through the intense pain OK (more or less).

Everything had happened so quickly that by a little before 9 a.m. it was soon time for the baby to make his grand debut. And then things slowed down. After a little more than 3 hours of pushing he was here! And it was wonderful. And totally worth the pain. In fact, although it's only been a day since the event I don't even really remember that part of it. The combination of adrenalin and epidural is a beautiful thing.

Meet Anthony Jon:

Our 7 lbs., 5 oz. little conehead (being stuck for three hours will do that to you)

He already had quite a fan club waiting for him, both sets of grandparents and his Aunt Amie were able to greet him just a few minutes after his birth.

Proud grandmas

Aunt Amie and Uncle Derek

His dad is a shoe-in for Dad of the Year. Anthony is pretty much glued to Zach, who has been the #1 diaper changer/baby comforter/bath-giver. Z was the perfect birthing coach and cheerleader.

First bath. Notice the four smiling grandparents in the window.

Mom & Anthony

We enjoyed our first day as a family cuddled up in our hospital room with snow falling outside. It was perfect.


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Taking advantage of not having to suck in my stomach

As a baby gift, my incredibly creative and generous friend Janelle at Atelier Photographie offered to do a pregnancy photo shoot. Honestly, the last thing I thought I would want to do after gaining dozens of pounds over a short amount of time and retaining enough water to hydrate a small country is have my picture taken; but I thought about it and realized that having something to remember this exciting time sounded like a good idea. I'm so glad I did. Don't hate me for saying this, but I have really enjoyed being pregnant. I know that this annoys some people, but because I have totally lucked out so far (knock on wood) and haven't had any complications and relatively little morning sickness, I've felt pretty good. And because, for 28.5 years the thought of pregnancy COMPLETELY freaked me out, I think I had set my expectations pretty low. So I've been pleasantly surprised at how great I feel. I have really enjoyed carrying around this little guy.

Janelle came over about a week ago and took lots and lots of pictures. I was worried that her poor camera wouldn't hold up against the force that is my huge more-than-8-months-pregnant belly, but it seemed to do OK.

Janelle is so talented and I am forever grateful to her for suggesting that we do this. And maybe even more grateful that she made Z come up from working on the nursery to take some shots of him, too.

I like the look of our little three-person family so far.

You can see our complete album here.

[If you are in need of pictures of your kids (four-legged ones included--she shot our family pictures last year), yourself, your significant other or anything else worthy of being immortalized on film, I strongly recommend you drop her a note. Or, even if you're not in the market for some lovely photos (but seriously, who isn't?), at least visit the Web site for fun. The beautiful photos on it make me happy.]



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