What we have been up to

 

I just realized that it has been ages since we last wrote anything in here. I will try to remember all that we have been up to. I think that it may end up being a book :).

1-Everything has finally come full circle for us. Nathan attended his first book club! Had it not been for this book club Christopher and I would never have met and Nathan would not be here. Nathan did alright at the book club, but he was a little fussy. Rhonda, Denise, Keo, and Valesca were all there. Christopher couldn't make it and it was too bad because it would have been fun to have him there for Nathan's first book club. The books that we talked about were This is a Bust and The Omnivore's Dilemma. I am sure that there will be plenty more book clubs that we all go to (the picture for this blog is Nathan at the book club).

2-Nathan turned 3 months old! In just a couple of weeks he will be 4 months old. The time is going by so quickly. He is getting bigger and more fun every day. He has started putting his hands in his mouth constantly and has become a drool factory. We aren't sure if he is teething or if he just has an extreme fascination with his hands. He is also holding his head up really well these days. He was having problems with that, but we have been practicing a lot more and he seems to hate every second of being put on his stomach, but he needs to practice :). He has also been talking up a storm. At the Mommy & Me class he was cooing for about an hour straight. It is a lot of fun to hear him "talk." As you know, Nathan started laughing. For awhile it was only Christopher that could get a laugh out of Nathan, but I managed to one day! He still doesn't laugh all of the time, but we think that he is on the verge.

3-Nathan has taken his first two big trips. The first one was a trip up to Sacramento, CA to see my relatives. It was about a 400 mile drive and we all did pretty well. We had to stop a couple of times to feed Nathan and the stops only added about an hour to our drive. We were happy that Nathan did so well in the car. He slept most of the way which made it nice for us! Once we got to Sacramento all of my family said that Nathan looks like a mini Christopher. We have gotten that comment a lot. It is amazing how much they do look alike. Nathan's second big trip was camping in the Sequoias with Christopher's family. This trip was a lot tougher for us because we were camping with Lucy (our dog) and Bill (Christopher's dad). It is tough camping when you have three people to watch out for. Plus, I was terrified of the bears and mountain lions and couldn't sleep! I will tell more about this trip a little later.

4-VISITORS, VISITORS, AND MORE VISITORS!!!! We have had a lot of visitors lately. Christopher's dad has been staying with us for the past few weeks because his brother and sister-in-law are vacationing in Costa Rica. It has been nice having Bill around. He has been keeping me company and with him here we have been eating much better (he can't have lots of carbs or sugar). Then Karen, Bob, Danielle, Matt, Natalie, Charlie, Belinda, and Ben all came to stay with us (Christopher's sister's family and his cousin's family). They were vacationing for a week in California and they were starting their trip out with staying with us. It was a lot of fun having them all around. The house was super busy. On their first afternoon in town Christopher chartered a sailboat and took everyone out on the ocean for the day where they were joined by a pod of dolphins (check out the video)! The kids stayed overnight on the boat with Christopher and Sandra. The next day they had rented an RV and were going up to the Sequoias and we were going to do that first part of the trip with them. Sandra, Nathan, and I all rode in the RV which was a very pleasant ride. Christopher drove our car with his dad and Lucy. Like I mentioned above the camping trip for us was a little hectic. We think that it might have been a little easier if Lucy didn't come or if Nathan was a bit older. I don't think that we will be camping for awhile:) We then left camping with the family after a day to get back home because my friends from Australia were coming to our house to visit. Crystal, Sam, and Ziah were making a stop at our place for a couple of days before heading back to Australia. It was really nice having them here! Ziah is getting so big and it was fun to see how much she has changed. Hopefully, the next time we see them will be when we visit them in Australia.

I believe that the above is all that has happened since the last post, but I am tired and could have left out some stuff. Like always if you click on the slide show you will find all of our pictures of Nathan.

-Heather

Nathan Laughs!

We finally got our first few laughs out of him, and caught it on video too!

4th of July

Nathan celebrated his first 4th of July at Denise and Rambo's house. He mostly slept the whole day which was nice! It was a very hot day and luckily Denise had the air conditioner on so that the house felt really good. There was a ton of food and it all tasted very yummy! We didn't see any fireworks so I am not sure how Nathan will react to them.

Nathan also went into the pool for the first time on Saturday. We had bought this floaty thing and put him in it, but he is still too small and he needs to be able to hold his head up before we can use it. He didn't seem to mind the water too much, but we only kept him in it for about five minutes. The rest of the time he was asleep on our hammock that was set up in the shade. Christopher took a video of his first pool experience and hopefully we will be able to get that up sometime soon.

Again, more pictures have been added to our gallery and they are at the bottom of the gallery.

-Heather

Nathan is 2 months old!

 

A lot has gone on since we last posted in this blog so I will try to update everything that has happened without writing a book :)

1-I turned 29! Hard to believe that this is the last year of my 20s. Christopher and I went out to a movie and dinner. It was the first time that both of us were away from Nathan at the same time for an extended period. Karen, Christopher's sister, was in town and she watched him for us. We didn't check up on him and we both enjoyed the movie (Iron Man) and the dinner. We were only out for about four hours and I had to get home because I missed Nathan and I had to pump some milk out of me because I felt like I was going to explode.

2-Nathan and I went to our Mommy and Me class on Thursday for the first time. There are nine other women and 10 babies in the class. We did introductions, sang songs to the babies, and then shared our frustrations and joys about being a new mom. During this time I realized that I have a GREAT husband who has helped me out a lot! I was afraid that Nathan would be really fussy for the class, but he did a great job because he mostly slept during the class. We will be going to these classes for the next nine weeks. I am hoping that I will be making some friends from this class that Nathan and I can hang out with.

3-NATHAN TURNED TWO MONTHS OLD! Hard to believe that he is now two months old. The time is really flying by. We went to the doctor for his two month appointment and here are his stats: Weight: 10 lbs 9 oz and height: 22.75". For his weight he is in the 25th percentile and for his height he is in the 50th percentile when compared to other babies at this age. His head measurement is also on the small side. Everything was looking great! We just need to work on his neck muscles some more so that he can hold up his head. The doctor said that he looked a little weak in that area. We have been doing tummy time and putting Nathan in a little chair to have him practice holding his head up. The doctor also confirmed that Nathan is a cute baby!

4-We have had a lot of visitors recently. Nathan's Aunt Karen stayed with us for about four days. She thinks that Nathan is really cute and gets his cute looks from her :) It was great having her around and we look forward to when we get to go camping with them in July. Mike and Ricki (Christopher's brother's brother and sister in-law) came and stayed with us for an evening. We enjoyed having them here and Ricki made some delicious brownies for us.

5-Nathan attended his first birthday party. Jacques Berube is turning one on July 4th and we went to his birthday party. Nathan slept for most of the party which was nice because we didn't have to try and calm a crying baby. There were also a lot of other young children and babies there so it was nice to get to talk to all of the parents about what they are going through with their kids.

That is about it for the update. We have added more pictures to our gallery (they are at the bottom...there are lots of pictures). Also, a few posts below Christopher talks about the weekly pictures. You can go to that link to get those pictures.

-Heather

Oh, I almost forgot. Christopher and I bought a new vacuum. It is the best vaccum ever! It picks up so much dirt and does a great job. We love it a lot and have vacuumed our whole house. The best part is that the sound of the vacuum puts Nathan right to sleep!

Father's Day

 

Christopher celebrated his first Father's Day! We didn't do much and Christopher ended up making us all breakfast and dinner for Father's day. What a great father he is! Nathan is smiling more and more each day. Christopher will tickle Nathan and that gets him to smile really big. Watching them during "tickle time" is a lot of fun. Nathan also seems to be the most content on his changing pad. Whenever we put him on the changing pad he calms down and starts to coo and smile. It is fun watching him and hopefully we will get a video up of this soon.

Nathan and I made a trip to my work place to visit all of my co-workers. Everyone couldn't believe that it has almost been two months since Nathan was born. It was weird being at work because there are so many new people that I didn't recognize. It was nice to see the people that I did know. They all said that Nathan was cute and I would agree with them!

Lastly, the temperature here in LA has been really HOT! Nathan and I are staying inside with the air conditioning on so that we stay nice and cool. We will start using our pool soon because the water feels really good in this heat. I think that Nathan is still a little young to go swimming, but maybe in a month or two we will get him in the pool if the weather stays this hot.

-Heather

Videos!

Anyone who knows me (this is Christopher typing by the way) knows that I am good at finding excuses to buy new electronic gadgets. The birth of our first son was no exception; I convinced Heather we had no choice but to purchase a new 3CCD HD camcorder that stored video on SD cards, for easy and convenient editing and storage. Further, we needed it before Nathan was here so we could record his birth in high def! (That's not THIS video though...)

I finally had a chance to play around with iMovie and get something uploaded to YouTube. Expect more videos soon (he's getting really fun to record now that he's smiling and dancing!) For now though, I present: Nathan's First (and second) Bath:

Once a week...

 
We decided to take a picture of Nathan once a week, in the same place, for the first few months at least (and hopefully the first year if we can stick to it!) I separated the weekly pictures out into a new gallery (click here) so we can see him growing bit by bit. Should be a lot of fun -- since we see this little guy every day, we mostly notice he's growing by how tired our arms are! The pictures will be a nice reference...

-Christopher