Dear Santa...

I know it's not even Halloween yet but I would LOVE a nice camera. Someday I will break down and buy one of those ridiculously oversized, amazing cameras. In the mean time this is our attempt at getting a few new born shots of Crew with our little point and shoot camera.

My Sister Comes to Visit

I was so sad to see my mom leave but my sister came out two weeks later for a visit. She is mom to five adorable kids and knows EVERYTHING there is to know about being a great mom. I joke that she is my mom encyclopedia. She just makes everything look so easy. Camden thinks she is the coolest person on earth. In fact when we took her to the airport to go back to Texas Camden informed me that he would be leaving to get on the airplane with Arianne. I can't blame the kid, she is way more fun than me.
Camden's favorite thing to do is go to the park by our house and play either football, baseball or basketball. It was so cute to watch them play together.Arianne brought the boys these bath towels with their names embroidered on the back. They crack me up. Camden loves to just wear his around the house. Every time he puts it on he becomes what we call the "generous lion". He asks if we'd like a cupcake or lollipop and what color. I love this kids imagination but I have no idea where the connection between lions and giving out treats came from.

Little guy maybe not so little...

We had Crew's one month appointment today and were shocked by his jump in percentage. When we went to the pediatrician three weeks ago he was 28th percentile for weight, today he jumped to 78th. He was 50th for height and today jumped to 75th for height. Our doctor said she thought we may have missed his one month check and this was his two month check. Ha, so much for having a lighter baby that won't throw my back out when I carry him around. Here are a few pictures of our growing baby and family over the past few weeks.
Loved having my mom here after he was born to hang out and help. Justin didn't have any time off so it was so nice to have my mom to hang out with. I just love being around her. She is always happy and smiling. We laugh at all the same stupid things. I think she deserves a gold medal for all her help in getting Crew here! I was sad to see my mom leave but just two weeks later my sister came in town. We had such a blast. This trip was some of the best times I've ever had with my sister and will need it's own post... coming shortly.We got to go out to dinner with the Neumanns. Dinner at restaurants is a little different with two! One is feeding Crew while the other was up taking Camden to the bathroom several times.
These two are already best buds. Camden is so sweet to Crew. Any time he cries Camden runs to him and says, "Are you looking for the big brother Crew?". He pats his tummy and gives him kisses all the time but luckily isn't really into holding him yet.
Our first real family outing was to Cox Farms last weekend. I love this place. We took Camden when he was just a baby but obviously he enjoyed it a little more this go around.

Baby Crew is HERE

And a month old today! Can't believe I'm just getting around to posting about his birth. I knew life with a new born and two year old would be an adjustment but didn't realize that it would be noon some days before I got to brush my teeth. A girlfriend came over the other night around 8 and when I opened the door, she said "I love it, already getting ready for bed". I looked down and laughed, "No I just never got out of my pajamas!". That's just how life seems to be these days and I'm starting to realize that's ok. I am really just enjoying snuggling this little guy every chance I get because this time I know how fast it goes. I LOVE the newborn stage- so sweet and tiny.
Crew was born 1 day shy of 38 weeks on September 18th and 8:32am. He weighed 7 lbs 1 oz and 20 inches long. I went into the hospital around 11pm the night before dilated to a 5 and having contractions every 4-5 minutes apart for the past 4 hours. I was adamant that I have an epiderhal, a GOOD one, since the one with Camden only worked on my right half. The nurses were great and so was the anesthesiologist. I got the epiderhal right away and didn't feel very much pain at all through the whole night. Around 5am I started feeling A LOT of pain as if the epiderhal had completely worn off and I wasn't numb. The doctor came in and said they would get the anithesiologist back in right away but then she checked me and said it was too late because the baby was already coming. After a minor meltdown with a whole bunch of tears I realized that there wasn't anything I could about it and I might as well suck it up and get ready to meet our little guy. It was only about twenty minutes and Crew was on my tummy and showing us his lungs were just fine! He cried for 30 seconds and then he was back in our arms wide eyed looking around. Justin and I kept asking the nurses "So he's healthy?!". Because of our experience with Camden and because of all the pre-term labor problems that started two months earlier, we had prepared ourselves this time that Crew would probably go to the NICU. We just couldn't believe that we got to keep him with us and he didn't have any problems.

I love this picture because if you look very closely you can see he's a little teary eyed holding his new son. That's something I've only seen a few times in our four years of marriage.

I was so happy that both my parents were here from Texas for the birth.

We are also so lucky to have Justin's family live close to us so they could all be here. Well almost his whole family, we were missing aunt Whitney who is in Utah going to school.
I loved having him in the room with us. He never went to the nursery.

Camden was really cute with Crew. He wanted to hold and kiss him... for a minute. Then he was happy having us hold him while he ran around and wrestled his dad. He kept putting his hand on my stomach and asking "Where did your baby go?".

After 24 hours in the hospital we were ready to get out of there and bring Crew home. I hate hospitals. Justin's dad had this cute stork sign placed in front of our house for the first week announcing his birth.The first thing Camden wanted to do when we got Crew home was play football with him.

Crew had to go back into the hospital for two days because his jaundice levels got critically high. I don't know who wouldn't love a warm tanning bed but Crew just screamed 99% of the time. He hated not being swaddled. It was torture to just watch him and not be able to hold him. But pretty soon his levels were back down and we got to leave.

We've been loving every second... well maybe not the middle of the night seconds.