Big Day

written last friday, april 29th

Yesterday turned out to be quite the eventful day. I had my 6 week post-pardom appointment first thing in the morning. It was mostly a good report. I never wrote about the whole labor or even after labor experience, but briefly...not that awesome. Mostly the after labor part. After pushing for nearly 4 hours when it was all said and done, ending it with a vacuumed out 9 pound baby, well, it can cause some after pain. I was told the thing that caused the most pain afterwards didn't heal the way we expected and I will have the same thing happen next labor. Sounds fun...that was hard to hear.

We decided to start trying a bottle here and there to get Cap used to drinking mamma's milk from a different nipple:) It was not easy! I was also amazed at the emotions that arose during the whole process. To my surprise I have not 'loved' the breast feeding process. I am getting a lot more used to it than I was the first several weeks, but I just haven't liked it like I thought I would. So I was shocked to find myself crying feeding Cap through a bottle. I will keep the reasons to myself for now.

We also put Cap in a different room than us for the first time last night. When I say room, I mean hallway:) He is so noisy and I am such a light sleeper that I find myself most nights awake listening to his loud sleepy self waiting for him to wake up and wanting to eat again. I have recently wondered if he is really waking up and if we even need to intervene??? He ended up waking up for his usual first feeding around the same time, but then he woke up 2 times after that. The thing is though, as soon as we picked him up he fell right back to sleep without eating which he has never done!!! It was weird. The last two days I haven't picked him up as soon as he wakes himself up and he has been soothing himself right back to sleep. I am hoping this will help us at night time. I am in need of more sleep!!!

So, all of that combined along with a dirty house and a dryer that won't work while we are doing cloth diapers added up to an emotional day. Cap is as cute as ever and growing everyday. He is laid back most of the time, but look out if he gets to overstimulated for too long. Oh and he loves to eat his fist. Like the whole thing. Not just a thumb or finger. His entire fist!

this would be the wild turkey we found at our house one morning

this would be el cap

Sunny Resurrection Day

There is nothing greater than spending the day in the sun celebrating the risen life of our Savior along with family. What a beautiful weekend to run around outside, fishing, flying kites, catching turtles, picnicking every meal, swinging in trees, napping in the sun, planting flowers, and sharing life with the ones you love. I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend as much as we enjoyed ours.

Cap taking morning nap on table outside while

we were eating breakfast

Miri gave dandelions to everyone

Cap chillin' with his Papa

right before the m&m's flew out of the blue egg

...classic shot...we have a lot of these:)

Graeme and Cap taking afternoon naps

our backyard where we spent most of our time

my two handsome guys

Cap in all his roll glory!

Bryce's sister Judi with her daughter Miri

Miri was loving the tree swing her Uncle Danger

set up. What a treat!

Miri and Graeme

Grammi and her 3 grandkids

While you sleep

Just a couple of great pictures of the Cap Guy.

I love watching Cap sleep. He can be pretty funny at times making silly faces, going from smiling to frowning and raising his tiny brow. He doesn't want his 'bullet' (we are trying this name out for his paci right now) when he is sleeping which is amazing cause he is sucking away on this video.

1 Month

El Cap,

1 month (plus a day), wow! Thanks for being part of our family. We are crazy about you and love watching you grow each day. It is a blessing to take care of you and learn about love through you. Here are a few things to remember:

-23 inches long, wish we could weigh you somehow, but we will the next time we hit the produce department

-you mostly wear 6 month carter size clothes

-you laugh and smile a ton

-you seem to be a morning person

-I think you fight sleep and naps sometimes because you don't want to miss out. I keep telling you we are not that exciting, but you must just want to be close:)

-you peed outside at 4 weeks

-pooped and peed in a potty at 4 weeks and 2 days

-you love music and you love to hear me whistle

-you still stare out windows and love to be outside

-you took your first road trip to see cousins at 3 weeks and 4 days

-you eat every 3 hours this week, last week every 2 hours

-you don't suck your lip in anymore, but you suck when you are sleeping

we introduced the pacifier to you in your 3rd week, I have a love/hate relationship with it at this point. you like it a lot sometimes and other times you don't. you don't like it at night when we put you to sleep or during the night, just daytime. your dad is working with names for it because paci or binki just won't due:)

-you have had tears on 2 or 3 occasions

-you have a beautiful smile and you use your whole face to do so

You are just a cool little guy. A laid back man who can just sit on the couch staring out the window and listen to folk music, but who also needs good ol' quality time and physical touch just like your mom and dad. During those times we cuddle, stare at each others faces, laugh, kiss, and keep skin to skin contact. You love to hear our voices and see our faces.

Here are the goods! Wish you all could enjoy him in person like we get to!

1 less diaper

We are using a cloth diaper system with Cap and have been since he was 30 hours old. We love it! I am surprised how easy it is and how much money we save. He looks a lot cuter in his diaper covers than he did in those pampers.

We are also planning on EC'ing (elimination communication). Sounds hilarious I know. When we first heard about EC and started to read more about it, I thought it was so funny. BUT it just made since to me. It is basically learning your babies elimination cues and signs and using a toilet of some sort when you think it is time instead of going in a diaper. It takes a huge step out of potty training later on because you haven't trained them to use a diaper. Cap does not like to be wet or dirty and I am very thankful for that even though we are changing him all the time. Who out there would want to sit in your own urine or poo?? EC'ing isn't something new. Most grandparents have done this method and there are a lot of different countries doing the same thing.

All that to say that we have officially began to work on our EC'ing. Today, we went for a walk and Cap slept the whole time. When we got back he started to wake up and I had read most of the time babies won't go to the bathroom while they are sleeping but will immediately after waking up. So I took his diaper off as we all sat on the edge of the porch and waited. It worked!!

This is big for two reasons.

1. This is the beginning of his peeing outside. What guy wouldn't choose a tree over a toilet? Well, I don't know many anyways.

2. 1 less diaper! This may seem weird but I have had 2 dreams that he has used the toilet. May be it is just all the diapers I am around all the time, who knows??

Anyways, wanted to share the news because I couldn't be more proud of my son right now. It was awesome!! Sorry no pics...

Ball, Cap

Yep. That is how Cap's name will look on an alphabetical name chart one day. Ball Cap. We didn't know that before, but it is kind of funny. I put much thought into all the names we came up with to make sure to cross out any obvious and not so obvious options that could be made fun of later on in life. Not catching Ball Cap...well, not so bad.

Since in high school, I have secretly jotting names down in my journal as possible options for names for my future children. Seems silly I am sure, but I knew I wouldn't remember them. I will admit, my taste has changed a lot since I was 16! Thank goodness the Lord gave us our first child when I was 29.

I look at naming your child as a pretty big deal. In the Bible, names significant and were always given for its meaning.

Jacob: supplanter, follower

Matthew: gift of God

Josiah: supported by God

Mara: bitter, sad

So we wanted a name with great meaning and of course something we liked as well.

Cap: Comes from El Capitan, a 3,000 vertical rock in Yosemite National Park. This amazing piece of granite is extremely popular among rock climbers around the world. Generally called 'El Cap'. Bryce has climbed to the top on 2 different occasions. The day Bryce and I started dating we climbed just a couple of pitches on El Cap that morning. Yosemite is where we met and fell in love. The Sierra Mountains in general have a big piece of both of our hearts. How fitting we feel to name our son Cap. It is a name with adventure and we hope he has many with and without us!

Elias: This is a form of Elijah which we went back and forth on. We both love the meaning " The Lord is my shepherd". Our prayer before he even came to be with us in person is that he would have ears and a heart that hears and follows the Lord. We pray that he would follow Jesus' teaching at a young age and be a world changer (in whatever way that means).

There you have it. I already call him many names, but mostly Cap.

We visited cousins these past couple of days while Bryce went

out of town on a backpacking scouting trip.

I love gowns for night time. Makes it easy to change diapers

at 3am. Thank you Aunt Tammy!!

First road trip of many!

Sleeping in the sun with cousins Graeme and Miri

during PC tennis match. No worries, Cap was shaded just

not for the pic.

This was his going home from hospital outfit.

Already getting hard to snap the bottom.

He was sleeping in a laundry basket next to our bed.

Out grew it quickly.

Switched to co-sleeper thing on the ground.

Almost too big for it, so now we are on to our crib.

No problem switching to it.

This just makes me laugh!!