Things that make this baby happy...

Camden LOVES being outside and apparently sunglasses.

If Camden is ever fussy all we have to do is walk outside and he instantly stops crying and just looks around. A couple Sundays ago we left to go to a friend's house and when we walked outside Camden was squinting at the bright sun. I took my sunglasses off my head and put them over his eyes to see if he would open his eyes again. His reaction was hilarious. This wiggly little boy sat completely still and looked around wide eyed for several minutes.The other trick to get this guy to stop crying is to put him in the bath. I have read in several magazines and books on babies that bath time in the beginning can be rough because most babies hate them. Well definitely not Camden. He gets so excited and starts kicking his little legs and waving his arms. I love giving him baths because it also gives me an excuse to put him in this funny little bath robe. Haha

Camden's 1st Baseball Game

A couple weekends ago we headed up to Baltimore for Camden's first O's game! It was such a fun night. The weather was perfect, it was an exciting game, we had a fun group with Sean Cambria and two of their friends, and we had yummy cinnamon pretzels! What more can you ask for?!

Camden is so easy to take along everywhere we go. He was so good at the game. He just sat with us and looked around the whole time. Justin loved having his little buddy to watch the game.

My sister "The INCREDIBLE"!

This post is about how ridiculously talented my sister is and how much I love her. Arianne has always been the one that was great with babies, knew how to cook from the time she could see over the counter, and can sew and quilt better than Martha herself! In a nutshell, she is the polar opposite of me!! Since the day I found out I was pregnant I was the annoying little sister that would call her about every day with questions and sometimes just to complain. Since having Camden the amount of questions have just doubled. She is like my mom encyclopedia.
Lucky for me Arianne offered to make all of Camden's baby bedding! I looked at a million baby bedding websites and went into tons of stores to get ideas. I told her what I wanted and she spent tons of time looking for just the right fabric. Since she lives in Arizona we did a lot of picture texting back and forth. I knew that she was good but when I saw all the bedding she had made especially for Camden I could not believe how adorable it looked. It was so much cutter than any of the bedding I had seen on all the baby websites or in any of the stores. But the thing that really made it special was how much time she had spent making it especially for him.

This crib was actually mine when I was a baby. Justin and I re-stained it to make it brown.

Camden obviously loves it!Back in December my sister bought a plane ticket around Camden's due date to make sure she would be here. Unfortunately at the time she bought her ticket we didn't realize that Mother's Day happened to fall on the Sunday that she would be in DC. Even more important, we didn't realize that her son's first birthday was also during her planned trip here! After trying to change the ticket to no avail Arianne, came out to help anyway missing both Mother's Day and her kiddo's birthday!!! It was a huge sacrifice that she never once complained about.

She was like Supernanny coming in and helping Justin and me. It was so nice to have her there since we are rookies at this. Since Camden came three weeks early, we were able to take him out and do lots of stuff while she was here. We had so much fun just laughing and talking. I wish so bad that we lived closer.

First time holding her new little nephew.

THANK YOU SO MUCH ARIANNE! I love you more than you know and I am so thankful for everything you do for me.

Camden is four weeks old and I can't believe how fast it has gone!! We were so lucky that Justin got a whole month paternity leave from work and THANK HEAVEN because I do not know what I would have done without all his help. It's so fun to see Justin as a father. He is incredible with Camden. He is so patient and totally hands on with him. We have had so much fun going on little outings.

The last day before Justin went back to work we went to Annapolis for the day. As we were parking the car we heard fighter jets flying, what sounded like RIGHT over our heads. We didn't even realize that Friday was the Naval Academy's graduation and so today the Blue Angels were doing an air show right over the city and harbor as a present to the graduates. It was so incredible to watch and so loud! After we watched the show we ate lunch on a dock overlooking the water and ate ice cream cones as we walked around the town and the Naval Academy.

Mother's day... best day ever blog to come

Yes, we took Camden golfing at three weeks. Get them started young!

We went for lots of walks. The picture below we took a blanket and walked along the Potomac and then spent the afternoon under a tree.

World War II Memorial

Bucca Di Beppo (my FAVORITE restaraunt) with our friends.

Georgetown at two weeks. It was so funny how every person we walked past would stop and stare and then say "Oh tiny baby!" It was like we were celebrities.

Camden's First Photo Shoot

I am so lucky to have a best friend who also happens to be an INCREDIBLE photographer. Alia Cardwell did Camden's first photo shoot when he was two weeks old and got some great moments. Here are some of our favorites. Thanks Alia for these great pics!!!

I'm so glad Alia got one with a little smile!! So dang cute

I love this one. If he is ever fussing he instantly calms down the second Justin holds him to his chest like this. Loves his dad!

His little tongue is constantly hanging out

Camden is Home!

Monday morning when we showed up at the hospital to spend the day with Camden, the nurse watching over him asked us if we were ready to take him home. We were wondering what she was talking about because on Sunday they told us he would probably go home on Wednesday. The nurse said that Camden had been doing real well and that he was ready to go home, but they wanted to make sure we were emotionally ready for him to come home with us! We couldnt believe what we were hearing. Of course he had only been there since Wednesday, but to us it had seemed like weeks. Lindsey and I kept looking at each other with huge grins on our faces because we couldnt believe he was actually going to come home. They said he needed to have a few more tests done before he could leave, but that most likely in the evening he would go home.

So at 8pm on Monday April 27, Camden came home for the first time. It was such a great feeling just to take him outside, let alone into our house.

Here we are in the parking lot of our complex. Can you tell that we are first time parents? We took pictures of everything.
When we got home, Lindsey's mom had decorated our place with baby stuff. She has been staying with us for over a week now and has been so great and helping out in so many ways. Life has certainly been less stressful with her help.

My parents also came over, as did my brother and his wife. It was fun having family around Camden's first night home.

This is a picture of Camden fighting with Uncle Sean for the Neumann Cup trophy. The Neumann Cup is a family golf tournament, and apparently Camden is already staking his claim to it!
It's great having Camden home! We feel so blessed to be parents to one of Heavenly Father's children and we really appreciate everyone's support and prayers.

Our Baby Boy is Here!!!!!

My wife has been through a lot of pain this week. On Sunday I came home early from a meeting at church because Lindsey had texted me saying she was in a ton of pain. She had already passed a kidney stone 7 weeks earlier, so she was pretty sure that was happening again. So as soon as I got home we rushed off to the hospital because she was in a ton of pain. For those women who have passed a kidney stone and delivered a baby, I am told that passing a kidney stone is much worse. When we got to the hospital they loaded up Lindsey up on morphine to help with the pain. They even gave her a morphine pump so she could give herself more when needed. I was worried she was going to become addicted!

By early Monday morning she passed a kidney stone and we thought the worst had passed and we could go home soon. Little did we know that there were two more kidney stones in Lindsey that she passed in the next few hours. Below is the last one she passed. Word spread around the hospital about how big the last kidney stone was that Lindsey passed, so doctors started coming to our room to see it.

During a check of Lindsey while we were at the hospital, they told her she was 100% effaced, but not dilated. So at least we knew our baby wasn't coming then.

Finally by Monday evening they let Lindsey out of the hospital after they confirmed there were no more kidney stones. So after 26 hours of Lindsey sitting in a hospital and me watching my wife be in a ton of pain, we went home.

Monday night we relaxed and Lindsey caught up on some much needed sleep. Tuesday morning we went in for Lindsey's regularly scheduled checkup with her OB/GYN. At that appointment they told her she was 2cm dilated!! We couldnt believe it.

Right as we walked out of the doctor's office, Lindsey had her first contraction. She had a few more on our walk to the car and it seemed pretty evident that the baby was coming. But we thought we had at least another week to prepare, so we rushed home to get ready.

I went into nesting mode! I hear that usually that is what the expectant mother does, but somehow it happened to me. So I scrubbed the floors, cleaned the bathroom, finished a touch up paint job on the crib, etc. It was kind of funny to see myself getting in this mode. But I knew the baby was coming!

We had a few errands to run as well. Saturday night we had stopped by Best Buy to check out video cameras and had planned on coming back this week to purchase one. So on our way to the hospital we purchased one. By that point Lindsey's mom and flown in from Denver and my brother and his wife were nice enough to pick her up from the airport and meet up with us at Best Buy. After Best Buy Lindsey and her mom went to get a pedicure. Lindsey really wanted one before childbirth, so off they went. It was kind of funny to see Lindsey having contractions while she was getting her nails done! After the pedicure we went straight to the hospital.

We had put off going to the hospital until the last moment because we had spent so much time there. When we showed up to check-in, all the nurses knew us from our two previous visits to the hospital for kidney stones (at 30 weeks and 37 weeks). It was pretty funny to be so well known at the labor and delivery department without ever having a baby!

So many people had told Lindsey that labor wasn't that bad once the epidural kicks in. Well when we showed up at the hospital they were extremely busy and couldnt give Lindsey an epidural for two hours. So that meant more pain for Lindsey after dealing with kidney stones a little over 24 hours before.

Finally she got an epidural, but unfortunately it didnt completely help. She was still having a ton of back pain that the epidural wasnt helping. They tried to up the dosage, but it didn't work. So after hearing about how great epidurals are and how much they help, the one Lindsey got wasnt heping all that much.

At around 10:45am on Wednesday April 22, it was time to start pushing. The epidural wasnt completely working for her so she was still in a ton of pain during delivery. But at 11:22am, Camden Justin Neumann joined us!!!!!

Our son was here! He weighed in at 7.4lbs and 20 inches. I was in a daze because I couldnt believe I was a Dad!!! And I also couldnt believe how great Lindsey did in the delivery, even though she was in so much pain! But while I was looking at our new son, the nurse hit the "Code Blue" button because he was turning purple and not getting enough air. Next thing I knew there were literally 10 doctors and nurses rushing into our room to look at our son. Not exactly the sight you want to have when one of your kids is born. They tried to stimulate his breathing and that wasnt helping. He was breathing on his own, but he wasnt getting enough oxygen in his body. So they started giving him oxygen right away and his color got a little better.

But they had to rush him off to the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit(NICU) to get him more care. I kissed Lindsey and made sure she was ok, and then rushed off with our baby to the NICU. On the way down I kept thinking about how our baby needed emergency care and they didnt know exactly what was wrong. Not exactly what you want to happen with any baby. They got him to the NICU and hooked him up with tons of instruments. They had him on oxygen, an IV in his arm, a tube down his throat and another tube through is umbilical cord. A little intimidating to see, but I was glad he was getting care. After they had him all set up, I finally sat down and said a prayer asking Heavenly Father to watch over our son and make sure he would be ok. I had felt helpless all week when Lindsey had her kidney stones and then labor because I couldnt do anything for the pain, and now I felt helpless with our son.

Camden is now doing so much better. Last night we got to hold him for the first time and it was such an amazing feeling. I had been wanting to hold him so bad, but wasnt able to until then.

We feel so blessed to be parents and are so happy for all the exciting times that await us!