little pumpkinhead

My ever talented friend Kristie took some photos of Henry one week after he was born. Although Henry didn’t quite cooperate as well as we hoped, and in the process peed on me and pooped on daddy, Kristie captured some beautiful shots of the little guy despite his crankiness.

There are a selection of photos in his nursery and in our backyard posted on Kristie’s blog that you can check out right here.

ps. the title of this post is dedicated to molly, who affectionately refers to Henry as little pumpkinhead.

the first 3 weeks

Friday we marked Henry’s 3rd week with his first trip to grandma and grandpa’s house for dinner, which was also the first time mommy packed up the diaper bag and car to take baby on the road. Aside from forgetting my wedding ring, which I later found in my pocket from doing dishes, I managed to leave the house with everything we needed – yeah me! Seriously, with the amount of sleep I’ve NOT been getting, its amazing we made it out of the house at all.

Aside from the sleepless nights, life has been pretty amazing the past few weeks. For the first two weeks I don’t think I did much but stare at a sleeping baby all day and study each of his tiny little features, which is largely thanks to my wonderful mom, sister and mother-in-law for coming by to take care of the cleaning cooking. Since then we’ve started to settle into a bit of a routine and now that Henry is awake quite a bit longer we’ve started playing, reading, singing and dancing – and by we I mean me, Henry just watches.

We have also started to take other mini trips out of the house. We went for walks with Odie when the weather was nice and we visited our new buddy Cash over the weekend. We also made our first of many trips to Babies R Us, and yesterday we went out to lunch to see Uncle Charlie while he was in town from Colorado.

I can’t say that I’ve been the most productive person while at home, but being a mom is just so much more fun and meaningful than doing anything else. So, don’t be surprised if our birth announcements and christmas cards are one in the same this year :)

Also, health wise, Henry is doing wonderfully. He gained back the weight lost after birth within the first week and by his second doctor appointment he had gained nearly a pound since birth. His color and complexion are great, he is moving and growing right along schedule and he is feeding really well. We are so lucky to have such a healthy, happy little boy.

Here are some photos of the little cutie from the past couple weeks.

henry’s room

Believe it or not, Henry’s nursery has been done for a while and was all ready and waiting for him even though he showed up a couple weeks early. However, it wasn’t until the evening before he was born that we got around to taking some photos. So, I’m finally able to share with you some pictures of his new room.

Here is his dresser/changing table and rocker. On the wall are vinyl wall dots and the framed artwork is by Creative Thursday. The changing pad, boppy cover and curtains are all in Lotus Full Moon Polka Dot fabric by Amy Butler, sewn by yours truly.

The crib bedding is Mod Dot by Skip hop and the cute rocking horse was Tim’s as a child, hand crafted by his grandfather.

I love this cute little lamp. Above the chest is the latest in a line of number prints I’ve created. Also, you may remember that the chest, along with the dresser, used to be our bedroom furniture. We loved the way the white furniture worked with the turquoise walls and so we left it in tact for Henry and we moved into the former computer room. I’ll eventually share photos of that room redecoration once we get some loose ends tied up.

There are some more detail photos of Henry’s room, right here.

my new love

I am so happy to introduce our son, Henry Paul. I am completely amazed that Tim and I created this beautiful little person and that we’re parents now!

Henry was born Friday, October 24th at 4:55 a.m. which was 2 weeks ahead of his November 8th due date, and was 7lbs 8oz and 21 1/2″ long. His entrance into the world was quite an eventful one, as they always are, I’m sure. However, it was a bit of a whirlwind night that left us in the morning with a beautiful little boy thinking, what in the world just happened?

Here’s our birth story:

I woke up between 1:30 and 1:45 early Friday morning with cramps that I thought might be contractions. Having never given birth before, I went through all the measures to see if it was false labor or true labor – changed positions, walked around, drank water, etc. After all, it was still a little over two weeks before our due date. However the contractions didn’t go away and were about 3-5 minutes apart. Thinking that early labor can last a long time, I took a shower and planned to throw some last minute things into our bags. However, by the time I finished my shower the contractions were much stronger and coming closer together. I woke up Tim and told him I thought we should go to the hospital soon – the contractions were getting pretty painful and the sooner we got there, the sooner I could get some pain relief. We left for the hospital about 15 minutes later and arrived at 3:45 a.m.

We went to the admitting desk at the pregnancy assesment center and after a seemingly endless list of questions and paperwork, despite being preregistered, they checked to see how far along I was. My contractions were nearly on top of eachother by then and I must have asked about an epidural a dozen times. They told me I was completely effaced and 7 cm dilated, so it was time to head to labor and delivery. Things continued at the same rapid pace, and it wasn’t long before I was almost ready to push – and the doctor hadn’t even arrived yet! Again I mumbled about when that epidural might happen, and they just told me they were working on it – of course Tim told me later that they were shaking their heads “no” because there was not enough time. Thankfully I was oblivious to this fact and only realized it wasn’t going to happen when they told me I could start pushing – but by then I didn’t care. The doctor arrived and I started to push, which I’m told only lasted 6 minutes! Henry was born at 4:55 a.m. – only 3 hours after I woke up with the first contractions.

It was truly an amazing night and one that I’ll never forget. Henry is all that we could have hoped for and we’re so lucky to have a happy healthy little boy.

Stay tuned for many more updates about our new family and check out photos of his sweet little face right here.