I give thanks

For family and friend. Yesterday my mom, sister, grandmother, nephews, and a couple of Karen's coworkers came over to partake of food. We had Turkey, and ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potato balls, backed apples, baked pumpkins, green bean casserole, sweet yeast pan rolls, fruit salad, cranberry sauce, Cranberry apple stuffing, Pumpkin pie, pumpkin roll, cheddar apple pie, and chocolate thumb print cookies.

Here are a few pics.

late pics

These are the onsies I have made so far

The first on is for all of you dyslexic fans, I forgot that the iron on is transposed.

I think I got it right the second time...its a play on a Guinness add, because it is good for you :)

The third is a lego T inspired by the T i bought myself when we were at legoland in Germany.

The last is the newly designed dragon in the Medieval lego series, I think I like the old dragon better.

adventures in onesie land

Karen and I have some interesting taste. We have some strong opinions about things, and luckily we agree on about 80% of those things (the other 10% of the time we agree to disagree). Well this has become an issue when it comes to clothing our child. We both are lovers of music, wittiness, movies, and science. Sometimes we like to geek out a little by listening to some lesser known bands while playing family friendly board games. And truth be told, I have some weird interests, such as in rocks, and Legos. Well, we (Karen and I) have decided that X makes the perfect billboard to express our views and opinions. Unfortunately, the populace, as a whole, does not have an overwhelming love for all things Lego, so finding onesies that reflects that love is hard to come by. Thus I have decided to create my own.
Yesterday I wen out and bought some iron-on paper, and sat down at my computer and started to create out little advertisements. Now X has two styling new lego themed onesies, and has at least one guster and one BNL design in the making. I will put pics up as things progress.

Let me clear my throat

Genetics can be a funny thing. I got my intonation and my laugh from my father, and my sardonic outlook and stubbornness from my mother, and Karen has the grace and patience of her mother. Well, the other day we witnessed an event that made us gasp and say "he gets that from his mother."
SO i love my wife, very much. She is smart and beautiful and has a great sense of hummer and a greater outlook on life. This is no big shock. But something that may be a shock, is the sounds that can come out of her. Now I am not being crude, or rude, I am talking about her cough. She has a very loud, thunderous, dish rattling cough. Even if it is just a little "ahem" to dislodge some misplace saliva. It is the type of sound that make you lounge forward to give her support as you mentally prepare to handle the alien that is about to lunge out of her chest. My wife has beauty and grace 99% of the time. the one percent that slips to the wayside is when she coughs, and X has inherited this trait.
This discovery happened just yesterday with both joy and horror. X has a tendency to eat very noisily, and after he eats he has this rattle that lingers for at least 20 minutes. Every time he eats, we encourage him to cough, clear that airway, get some of those fluids moved to the right place, and generally he just glares at us and wheezes. Well yesterday he got that look on his face, the one that indicates that he needs to pass some gas down below, and then it happened. He opened nice and hide to let out a yawn, and instead a toad got run over by a very noisy steam roller. The cats jumped, that dog barked, and I believe the white river may have reversed its direction of flow periodically. But miraculously the rattle stopped. At first we thought, that was very weird, i guess it was a combo burp cough sneeze thing, hopefully that will not happen again. Well our hopes were dashed when he did it again, and again.
So I say again, genetics can be a funny thing. I just hope he does not get my laugh.

Tap the 57

Wouldn't it be nice if baby's came emblazoned with a spot that said "tap here to vent gas?" all it really needs to be is a little birthmark that looks like the number 57, and i would be set.

mom has worked the last two nights so it has been just the boys at home, and last night was a great night. We watched some tv until about 10:30, then we got fed and changed and were in bed by 11:00. X slept very soundly until 3:00, then talked to himself until 4:00. at 4 we got up and checked the dipper, to find nothing, then we took a 15 minute late night snack and passed back out until 7:30. now mom is home and it is time to eat breakfast.

all in all, i would say it was a great night.

visiters from afar

We have had some visitors at our house over this past week, That is why I have been slow with the blogging. Over the last 5 days we have been to the mall, to church, walked around downtown, Karen and X went to "girls night," We have gone out for sushi and had a few meals brought to us. It has been a productive week. Here are some pics. Thanks to Tara for taking most of them.









































































































































A few of the dog

And a great pic of John and Tara

My lap is the best.

Then old baby boy felt cheated by the attention the new baby boy was getting, so they decided to snuggle with me together.

take a gander.

lion goes rargh

This is a pic post bath yesterday. Then he went pee on mom.

A morning for the boys

It has been a good week for us all, but this morning was the cherry on top (that is until tomorrow, 2 weeks old). Mom had to go to a meeting this morning from 7 to 9, so that means from about 6:00 until about 9:00 the house is full of boys (and Ashton). Try to make it as easy as possible a few extra events transpired this week, and this morning.
First and foremost, mom has mastered the breast pump. We have a few days of food in the freezer (he only eats about 2 oz per sitting). To back track one second, I am supper glad I dropped the big bucks and bought the top line, double barrel, fast sucker, in a nice briefcase style tote. We looked at some of the hand operated ones, and some of the foot peddle operated one (think old school sewing machine), and some of the "cheep" ones that pumped one breast at a time, or had one setting, no let down/warm up stage, etc. With the first use, I realized that this is one of the things that you certainly get what you pay for, and though it was a investment, it is going to be a good one. The instructions were the length of a small novel, and the machine itself as more nobs and dials then a conventional oven, but it works, and it works good.
Also to help with the am adventure, mom got up a little early, showered and got ready, woke X up and feed him, burped him, changed his dipper, put him back to sleep, and put him back in his crib. This was all in the hope to stave off the next hunger fit until she got home. Well I am sorry to report this was all done for not.
At about 6:30 X woke up with the biggest set of hiccups I have ever seen him with, and he gets the hiccups allot. After that we walked the dog, changed our very full fuzzy bun, picked out our play clothes for the day. We cuddled through a couple cry fits then at about 8:00 I pulled out his first bottle to thaw. This was both a happy and a somber moment.
Firstly , i must admit I am a little jealous of Mommy's roll in X's life. I am am sure it is a pain in the behind to get up every few hours to give Xavier the sustenance that keeps him alive, but this is a mommy thing that i do not get to partake in. That is until today, so that is the happy part. The sad part is that Mommy was not here to see his first bottle feeding. After a 20 minute hot water bath, the milk was thawed and the bottle was set. Thank goodness he took to it with no delay, well a little delay.
We have two types of bottles. The first one came with the medela pump, and they have newborn friendly nipples. I did not understand them, they are shaped oddly and have weird groves and I could not discern 1) how far in the nipple should go and 2) which side was up. Apparently neither could Xavier. With this nipple we had a problem with keeping the milk in the moth, I think half of it went down the front of him. Luckily we also have "Avent Naturally" bottles on hand. These are the bomb. they have simple. soft, straight nipples. No top, no bottom, simply insert and go. Also there were no progressive ridges. Simply insert until he latches and you are set. And we were set. He downed two ounces and passed out. Now he is sleeping on my lap while I type.
Mom is going to be so proud, both because X ate, and because i figured it out.

Picture of the day

Nothing much happened today, it was mostly a lazy day in and around the house. Maybe something fun will happen tomorrow.

Blue eyes, my babies got blue eyes

probably not for long. However they have cleared up considerably. Here are some pics from the last two days. All of the bright eyed boy.

On a side not. X slept 8 hours last night. from about 9pm-1am, got up to eat then slept from about 2am to about 6am. It was nice.

now for the pics.

lets go big blue

Bringing up baby the right way. We had to bundle up to go out to a shindig, so we decided to show some team spirit. UK won, I think it was the hat.

no pictures.

Yesterday was my first day back to work. I was there for a normal work day of 8-5, well 6 actually but i was up to my elbows in cinnamon cheesecake pumpkin pie mix. This was very sad. I did not want to go in, but i had too. Lucky for me, my beautifully wife and my baby boy came to visit me at lunch, so i did get a little baby fix. After work we went over to a friends house and hung out for about two hours before coming home and going to bed. So unfortunately, we did not get a picture of X yesterday. So to compensate, expect two pics of him later today.

Little Jack Horner had it right

Xavier has found a new treasure. His thumb.
this is both a blessing and a curse. First it is a blessing because X's is learning to self sooth. in other words when he cries, if we do not react right away and feed or pop in a passy, he finds his thumb and falls back to sleep. the down side is is do to the fact he likes to nurse with his hands by his face. When Karen outs baby to breast he does his rooting thing, and there is a 50% chance that he will find a nipple and a 50% chance he will find a thumb.

on another note, here is a fun sight that i found http://www.zelo.com/family/nursery/index.asp
check it out.

happy picture for today

We went on a small outing today. We got together with some of the wives from the IUEM department. Everyone loved X's hat. One of the wives went in to the hospital shortly after the get together to go through the induction process like Karen did a little over a week ago. So we wish the best of luck to Jen, Tomo, and the soon to be born Kaitlyn.



now for the pic.

Fun Pic for the day.

Since the stump is gone, we were able to take a real bath. a good feeding, a nice warm bath and a night time lotion rub down help to make a happy baby. Here is X is a blissful daze.

oh what a weekend

We had some more visitors. Steph got to see the new boy for the first time, and she brought her mother in law Snookie who declared "idn't it precious." I could not have said it better myself. Cousin Kate was there, along with cousins James, Alex and Kimberly, Karen's brother Chip, and his wife Kelly, along with Aunt Julie, and Tonya and Ally. Here are some action shots.

and one from yesterday.

Who has a fuzzy bun? X does.

So we were talked into using cloth diapers, and so far we love them. this is a shot of the lavender colored ones. they are called fuzzie bunz, and they are way cool.

thanks Maya.

her is a pic.

Awake, just not now

Xavier has reached the point where he is starting to be awake and interactive at more times then food time. He still sleeps allot, and eats allot, but he also looks at me with big sudo-blue eyes and says I am going to add so much excitement to your world. do you think you can handle it?

Here is the pic for today. and yes he is asleep.

Grandma is coming to town.

X got his first chance to meet a grandparent today when my mom came to visit. She keeps telling us that he looks allot like the baby pictures of my sister, and also shares a striking resemblance to one of her cousins. I have yet to decide which side of the family he resembles the most. In my opinions, most baby's kind of look the same until they hit a few months of age, then they start to look like assorted family members. I guess we will have to wait and see who he turns out looking like.



but for now, here are some family pics.















and here is one with the three of us.