Tooshies – I Heart Faces

The gals over at I Heart Faces heart tooshies this week.  I love Katie’s tooshy in this picture!  And how cute Jake is helping her up the stairs.  You’re welcome, Katie :)

Two yolk egg

Yesterday, while making dinner, I cracked open an egg with two yolks in it.  It was a lucky egg.  I just started cracking my second egg when Nate shouted, “Take a picture for the blog!”  So I did.

And  then Nate decided he wanted to make peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

And we had some fun tummy time with Peter.  Haven’t gotten his super strong showing of tummy time on camera quite yet.  Our little guy is getting so strong!

Sun Flare – I Heart Faces

I haven’t submitted anything to I Heart Faces for a while, so here’s my comeback.  This week features sun flare and this picture is of my old roommate, Kelli.  I got to take her bridal pictures last year and it was a lot of fun.  Some of my favorite pictures I’ve ever taken were from that shoot.  I love the smirk on her face in this picture.

Daddy’s Boy

Creativity and Frogs

My sister, Tessa, is quite the artist and I get to help her sometimes by taking pictures for her to draw. Her favorite medium is charcoal so I get to take some creative pictures and do crazy things with the contrast. Her newest project has to do with her love of socks and I think we were able to get a fun, unexpected angle.  It’s a pretty neat symbiotic relationship; I have an excuse to practice taking creative pictures and she gets to draw it.  I’ll have to post some of her art alongside the pictures I took.  It’s fun to see how different but how similar they turn out.

It also happened to be Tessa birthday celebration.  She’s going to be 18 on Wednesday…crazy!  We ventured over with Peter in tow and surprised her by putting him in the frog costume she bought for him.  Tessa likes frogs.  A lot.

Look at him lift up his head!  He didn’t want to cooperate much after this picture and I unfortunately snapped the camera right when everyone decided to put their hands in the shot.  He’s just too cute in the picture to not share it!

Halloween

We had a fun, laid back Halloween.  Nate and I didn’t dress up but Peter was a pumpkin, just like his mom and his dad were for their first Halloween.  Nate picked out the costume, he was very particular about which one we got.

He was pretty sleepy, the pumpkin sleeper was nice and warm.

But he woke up eventually and has started to give us smiles right after he wakes up (when he’s not hungry).

This is a happy face, I promise.  We get the one-eyed look a lot from him.

He looks kind of bald here, doesn’t he?  He’s not bald, he’s just blond!

Peter’s favorite position to take a nap is with his arms over his head.  I put him down and his arms immediately go up.  Surprisingly, he doesn’t mind sleeping “burritoed” up in his blanket at night but when he wakes up to eat I know he’s awake by his grunting trying to get his arms out.  It’s better than crying :)  He sleeps pretty well, at least I think so.  He usually is sleepy on and off after 8pm and will go down for good around midnight, then wake up between 3am and 4am to eat and then again at 8am when he wants to eat and be awake for a while.  Honestly, I’m going to bed and waking up around the same time more consistantly than when I was working with working a semi-swing shift and being on call.  Don’t get me wrong, I really like my job.  I’m just also really liking maternity leave, too :)

Nate and I also carved pumpkins, though they weren’t quite as extreme as last year.  We were going to have three, but I only had time to make one for Peter: a cute little monster.  Nate’s turned out really well.  The pictures he took were with the flash, I tried to make it a little darker because it looked like daylight (I’m surprised at how well the flash works…I guess I shouldn’t be, it wasn’t the cheapest thing I’ve ever bought).  I took the picture of Peter’s pumpkin just last night before we threw it away, so it’s a little wilted.

Hope everyone had a fun Halloween!

Lately

I was informed that I need to post more pictures of Peter, so here they are.  I took these when Peter was 4 days old.  Tessa is doing a project for her art class that involves drawing people’s hands and she wanted to draw Peter’s hands for her next piece.  So I broke out the handy macro lens.  I made a birth announcement (that I finally printed out) with the first picture.  I have it saved on my laptop so I will post it later.  I’ll probably email it out to the addresses I have and if you want a physical copy, just let me know.

We took this picture on Sunday, almost two weeks old.  He’s already changed so much!  When we went home from the hospital Peter had dropped to 6 lbs 9 oz (which is normal) but by his two week check up he had surpassed his birth weight and was 7 lbs 12 oz.  He’s still swimming in anything but newborn sized clothes but his cheeks are getting chubby!  I can’t believe how fast these little guys change.  He was so relaxed right before we took this picture.  Nate put him on his arm, belly down, and he just lay there all limp, looking at us.

Photo shoot with Aunt Tessa

My sister, Tessa, needed to take some pictures for a school project and decided to take some of Peter.  Who wouldn’t want to take pictures of our little cutie?!  She got some great shots and of course I had fun editing them.

Peter

I think you are all going to have to get used to me posting excessive pictures of our little boy if you read our blog now.  I was picture person before, but I’m sure it’s only going to get worse : )  Well, here’s Peter’s story for all who have been asking.  For those who don’t care to read all about my experience with the human birthing process, there are pictures after all the words.

I went to my doctor’s appointment on Monday only to learn that I hadn’t made much progress from the week before.  I still hadn’t dilated any but I was a little bit more thinned out.  Little disappointing but we still had time.  About 4 am the next morning I woke up having contractions that were so uncomfortable and frequent I couldn’t lay in bed through them.  I was sure I they were just pre-labor pains because of what my doctor said at the appointment.  My pain tolerance is pretty low.  I know it, I admit it, I try really hard not to whine and just deal with it.  Working at the hospital I see women come in all the time thinking they’re in labor only to be sent home.  I really didn’t want to go in, have them tell me I was a wuss, and get sent home.

I hydrated myself, took a shower, and they still weren’t going away.  So I woke Nate up and we started to time the contractions.  They were 2-3 minutes apart.  I hadn’t packed a hospital bag yet because I didn’t want to have to look at it everyday and make myself more antsy for Peter to come.  I had planned to pack it that morning  before going to work.  Nate and I threw together a bag, I tried to eat something, and we headed off to the hospital.

The nurse checked me when we got there sometime after 8am and lo and behold I was dilated to a 4.  Holy cow, I couldn’t believe it and at the same time was happy that these were real contractions (that were strong enough to dilate me so quickly) and I wasn’t just being a wuss.  They admitted me and took me to the really nice room (big, beautiful view…they saved it for me when I called in earlier…I love working at the hospital).  The anesthesiologist was already there preparing for several inductions scheduled that day and gave me my epidural I think around 9:30 or 10.  The pain wasn’t as unbearable as I thought it would be but it was enough that I couldn’t relax myself so the drugs were nice; not going natural with this one.

At noon my nurse came to start some pitocin to get my contractions stronger and closer together.  She checked my progress first and said, “You’re not going to believe this.  You’re complete.”  Wow, that was unexpected to me and all the staff.  My doctor likes the “rest and descend” school of thought and after hearing stories from the nurses (and now my own story) I’m also a big fan.  Dr. Judd came in after lunch and I got all prepped.  They broke my water and he asked if he could use forceps to help things along a little.  All the nurses I spoke with when I was checking out all the docs said he was a “master” of forceps so I said he could.  He pulled a bit and I felt quite a bit of pressure.  I asked if I should push and he said not yet.  A few seconds later he said, “Hey, there’s a head!  Don’t push!”  Wow, that was another surprise.  A few seconds of suctioning later, Peter made his appearance at 1:31 pm.

I still can’t believe how fast it all went.  I was sure I’d be in labor for hours and hours because it was my first.  The doctor told me I was a baby delivering machine and I’ll need to watch out with my subsequent pregnancies.  I also can’t believe I didn’t push.  I feel like I cheated or something.  I’ll get over it.

And now, the real reason people keep checking the blog for updates, pictures of our little guy.  We think he is the cutest baby ever and are so in love with him.

First bath

The second night we were at the hospital there was a rainbow right in front of Timpanogos (told you we had a good view).

Daddy and Peter are buddies

Going home

Peter is here!

Peter Nathan Hall

October 13, 2009  13:31

7 lbs 4 oz, 20 inches