First Weeks

Mr. El Cap,

When they first put you on me, right after you were born, I first noticed how heavy and long you were! You seemed so big! No one said right away if you were a boy or girl so as they were wiping you off and sucking all sorts of things out of you, I began my search. It's a boy! I couldn't believe it.

You sucked your bottom lip a lot. You could hardly even see your bottom lip because it stayed inside your mouth so much at first. By the second week, you were letting us see it a little more each day. We are in week three and we pretty much always see it. I must say, you have the cutest lips.

You have this wrinkle on the top of your nose. It makes you look so serious. Everyone says you look like your dad because of it. Your dad and I laugh because I am probably more serious than him!

You love to stare at faces. You will just stare with hardly a blink for 10-15 minutes. It is like you are studying and getting to know what we look like because you already know how we sound. You always turn your head when you hear my voice or your dads. You have known us since the beginning.

You have been smiling since Day 2. Doctors say it is gas, we told you we don't believe them and keep smiling on!

You are such a grunter when you poop. It makes me laugh out loud at 2 in the morning when you pop off me to start your poop routine. I can't wait to EC with you.

You started to hold your head up at the end of week 2. Your dad and I are so proud and think you are the strongest little man.

You started to spit up every so often during week 2. You don't cry or seem too bothered by it. You have had some impressive spit ups too. None in my hair yet, but the day is coming. Sheets, clothes, and floors are much easier to wash. Thank you for that:)

We are enjoying you being part of our family. Excited for another day with you.

love,

mom

Here are some pics. I will write about his name next!

my mom and dad

trying to keep the sun off a bit

1 week old pic

that is some pose Cap!

the "Kid"

And God saw that it was good.

Every morning have been waking up with that on my heart. All is right and good. I have many things to share, but this for now and for at least 1 more week this will be all. I would like to introduce you to our son.

Cap Elias Ball

Born March 13, 2011 at 11:20am

9.0 pounds

He is the sweetest little boy who we are so blessed to bring home with us. Here are some pictures and I will post more later on. For now, we are enjoying getting to know each other, resting and healing, and enjoying family. much love

Eyes to See

I always just assumed that once a baby is out of the womb, he/she has everything we have to its fullest. They don't pop out able to run, crawl, or even use their hands as we use them. But the basic senses I figured just came out at 100%.

Several months ago, I found out some developmental stages of a newborns vision. For example, while your newborns eyes are fully capable of seeing just fine after birth, his brain isn't ready to process all that visual information so things stay pretty fuzzy for awhile. At first, they can't see clearly more than 8 -15 inches away, just far enough to make out the person holding them. He/she can detect light, shapes, and movement but anything beyond that is blurry.

Even though your baby can see color from birth he has difficulty distinguishing similar tones such as red and orange. This is one reason babies will prefer black-and-white or high contrast patterns.

I wanted to make some sort of easy black and white mobile for the Kid to gaze at for these first several months. I found some beautiful small Sycamore branches in the backyard to use for my pieces to come down from. We had leftover leather straps from when we made homemade sandals last spring. Then I bought some wire, construction paper, and glue to get this project started.

I decided to go with simple circles so I went around the house tracing anything round I could find. I think it turned out pretty good for never doing one before. It will be fun to change out after summer is over with something more colorful and may be even sewn. It was a windy day so it was hard to get pics, but we took some anyways. Hope you enjoy the mobile and 40 week pic!

Hello Due Date

Bryce and I were talking the other day about how we as a society are so scheduled. We are these people who live with every minute planned out near and far and have everything scheduled in advance: schooling, job plan, retirement, vacation, holidays, dinners, appointments, etc. We can pretty much spout out at any given time what the next 7 days look like or the next 7 months. We have also placed these demanding schedules and business on the younger generation. Ask an eight year old what they do on Thursday and your likely to get a very specific order of events starting from waking up to going to bed. We have left little time to be creative. Little time to be spontaneous. Little time to live by the moment. Little time to be led.

Waiting for the Kid to come has been oddly harder than I thought it would be. The not knowing the day or time this all could take place is so strange and foreign. You are stuck waiting for this huge thing to happen and for your lives to once again change, but you have no idea when this will take place. Could it be today? Will it begin while buying milk? May be labor will start in the middle of the night? We just don't know.

What has been in my mind the last few days is where Jesus talks about the day and hour being unknown in Matthew 24. He says, "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."

We will keep on being ready, excitingly ready for the day and hour to come. So I will continue to keep laundry done, house clean, hair washed, and refrigerator stocked in great anticipation of our new family member arriving. Today could be the day! Either way, the sun is shining, birds are singing, and it is Moe Monday. I see an awesome burrito in my near future!

I failed to mention that Bryce and I were taking

waltzing dance lessons with a bunch of friends here

in our community. It was actually a lot of fun!

These are from a month ago but never got downloaded.

We went canoeing went our lake was about half unthawed.

It was awesome!

We broke through some ice.

My mom sent me these next two the other day.

She found them on her computer hard drive. So funny!

I was probably 20 year old. I don't know how people were shocked when

I actually started doing real dreads in my hair years after this.