"Meeting the Grandparents" Adventures

Hubs was able to take some time off work after Baby Boy arrived and we were excited to spend a few weeks just hanging out and adjusting to being a family of three.  It was an awesome time but also very tiring (in case you didn't guess from the last post!) and we were very excited for the "Grandparent Reinforcements" to arrive!

My mom was the first grandparent on the scene and I don't think I have ever appreciated her more in my life!!  She cleaned our house, cooked us yummy food, and snuggled Baby Boy every morning so I could go back to sleep for a few hours.

Baby Boy seems to really like being outside so they had a lot of quality time out on the back porch playing and napping.

She also served to be an expert toe counter (he has 10 in case you were wondering).

We hadn't given Baby Boy a "real" bath yet so we tried one out when Grandma was there to help and despite his expression below it actually went remarkably well!

I'm sure this won't be the last slightly annoyed/"what in the world are my parent's doing to me" look on his face!:)

After she left we had to fend for ourselves for a few days and then Hubs' Mom came to the rescue! She also pulled out all sorts of amazing "Mom magic" in the cooking, cleaning, and helping with baby departments.  Hubs had just started a new job assignment and we were uncertain how much he would be around so having her around was a lifesaver for me!

As a librarian, she made sure to introduce Baby Boy to lots of books during her visit.

She also accompanied us on our first shopping trip and managed to put Baby Boy down for a (much needed) nap right in the middle of the store!!  I think they should have paid us some sort of royalties for in person advertising?

Same sink, same irritated expression, different Grandma helping with bath.

Hubs' Dad also was able to come for a few days and was an instant hit with Baby Boy.  Seriously. . he started busting out the baby smiles the instant they met.  It was crazy!

Baby Boy loved being "the center of attention" and Hubs and I are so thankful for all the help and for grandparents who are so excited about our little guy!  Only one Grandpa left to meet!

First weeks of Parenting Adventures

To be honest neither Hubs or I remember that much about Baby Boy's first few weeks.  Except that he ate ALL the time and NEVER slept.  Everyone told me that newborns slept a lot but our little guy wouldn't go down for more than about an hour at a time and 20 minutes was the more common time frame.  We were SO.TIRED.  

We have since have figured out how to help some things he was struggling with in addition to  discovering the miracle of swaddles and baby carriers to help him sleep.

 Turns out when you can't get the blanket to swaddle correctly, clothespins are an excellent resource.  Don't worry no baby fat was pinched in the making of this picture.

This is the face of exhaustion. . .also referred to as what it looks like when your baby is born the day after your grad school semester starts.  It's not pretty folks. . not pretty at all.

Luckily Hubs was around to help out.  A LOT.  As in do pretty much everything for several straight weeks.  He is pretty much amazing.

And Baby Boy is seriously crazy about him (that makes two of us! :)).

Baby Adventures!!

Hey YOU GUYS!  We had a baby! 

We think he is pretty great but then again we might be a little bias. We recently read in some baby books that the original definition of "baby moon" was the first few weeks at home with your new baby adjusting to life.  Well. . I'm certainty glad we learned about the other type of baby moon first and did that because this one wasn't nearly as relaxing.

He did a lot of this.

And not nearly as much of this as we were hoping for.

Its been quite the adjustment and while it is still hard to believe he is finally here, we can't really remember what life was like without him!

Military Ball Adventures third time around

I am pretty sure this is the third Military Ball I have posted about since we started this blog.  This was a little more low key than some of the others we have been to which was nice.   

Here is a picture of the two of us!

And here is a picture of the three of us!

And this is me calling it an early night in our hotel room because heels and this 36 week pregnant belly don't mix too well!

Baby moon Adventures

Apparently there is a thing called a "Baby moon" that some expectant parents do before their baby arrives.  It is supposed to be a chance to get away and relax one last time before the baby arrives.  Although the name is a little cheesy we are always up for a reason to travel so we jumped on board!  I was still feeling pretty good overall,  but Baby Hayes had proved not to be a very comfortable companion for my organs during car trips so we were focused on picking a destination with not to far of a car ride involved. 

 San Diego ended up being the perfect spot!  It is only about 3 hours away and there is SO much to do there.  However as it turns out we will have to go back again to do most of the things since our Baby moon mostly consisted of eating and relaxing!!!

We spent a few days in the downtown historical gas lamp district which was also right by the harbor.  We would have take more picture but it is hard to with only one hand because we were always eating with the other hand. ...

Then we headed off to the little coastal town of Encinitas for a few more days.  I'm not sure why it looks like we captured an accident in progress in this picture.

We were only a short walk to the beach which provided some great relaxation and scenery.

No. . that is not me.  Apparently they don't rent out pregnant lady sized wet suits.

We were also a pretty close walk away from the super cute, quirky downtown with lots of shops and restaurants to explore.  Did I mention we did a lot of eating?  This little Italian place was run by a super friendly Italian man and had delicious food!

One evening while waiting to catch the sunset on the beach we saw a couple and a photographer doing a maternity photo shoot.  It is pretty neat that I have my own personal photographer that just so happens to take all these trips with me and gave me my own spontaneous maternity photo shoot!

 I had to wrestle the camera away from him so that there was at least proof he was on this trip too. I think this is the only picture I took the whole time.

Baby moon complete and was a great relaxing success!  Guess we are one step closer to meeting Baby Hayes?!

Grand Canyon Adventures

On one of our recent four days Hubs and I were able to visit the Grand Canyon.  In one word.. . .AMAZING.  If you have been there you know exactly what I mean!  If you haven't, here are just a few of the bazillion pictures we took.  They don't do it justice but hopefully will at least give you an idea!

Hubs was itching to do one of the hikes all the way down into the canyon.  Unfortunately I'm moving a little slower than normal these days so we didn't attempt it.  Maybe next time! :)

Speaking of moving a little slower. . .Baby Hayes hit 31 weeks over that trip!  (For any of you who are like us and had no idea about this whole "week thing" that goes along with growing babies, 40ish weeks give or take a few is the projected end point!)

 Hubs always likes to see how close he can get to the edge of these sorts of things.

And I think he really had his eye on getting out on the edge of this thing somehow.

Or maybe going white water rafting down there.

The morning we left it actually snowed!  It made for some incredible cloud formations to match the incredible rock formations. And the precipitation even resulted in a rainbow!  Such a beautiful world God made and we are so thankful for the opportunity to explore parts of it!

Big Bear Adventures

Like I mentioned in my last post, Hubs' current work schedule is about two weeks of very crazy hours in which he may or may not come home followed by two weeks of more regular office type hours.  He doesn't get weekend off during the first two weeks of this schedule so the Army is kind enough to give a 4 day weekend at the end.  Even though we are situated kind of in the middle of nowhere we are within driving distance to A LOT of neat places and have been trying to use the 4 days to explore a bit!

We have spent several weekends in Las Vegas, several in Pasadena, and several in what has quickly become our favorite "escape the desert" destination:  Big Bear, CA.  It is a cute little mountain tourist town that boasts a ski resort in the winter and a lake resort in the summer.  It is only 2 hours away from where we live but once we drive up the mountain and start to see green trees instead of brown sand it feels like we are worlds away.

Hubs discovered a historical little bed and breakfast that is our new "go to place".  It is complete with beautiful antiques, a huge game room, fireplaces in every bedroom, huge bathtubs for soaking in their homemade milk bath, and gourmet breakfasts.  Are you sold yet?!?  

One of our recent visit there we invited some friends of ours (friends from college who also happen to be here at Fort Irwin) to go with us.  It worked out well because they are pregnant too and us pregnant girls hung out while the guys when skiing.

It was a great weekend filled with relaxing and reading (although unfortunately most of mine was reading for school instead of for fun). 

 Our stay actually got extended an extra night thanks to a combination of a big snow storm and a road closures because of a man hunt in the area.  I'm not joking. . there was a random ex LA cop who went a little crazy and started killing people who just so happened to pick Big Bear to hid out in that very weekend.  The search for him even resulted in the shut down some of the skiing areas.  If you happened to be watching CNN that day you might have seen Hubs scowling in the background of the news cameras as a result of missing out on some of the larger ski slopes.

We weren't too heart broken about spending another day though and thankfully the fugitive didn't disturb us (he was discovered hiding out in a cabin about half a week later and died in a shoot out with the cops).  And it was a great treat for us involuntary desert dwellers to get to wake up to a beautiful snow that lasted all day and ended up totaling about 18 inches!

We hope to make it back for lots more visit to Big Bear during our time in California.  We would love to get more snow days there as well. . . but I think we could do without the fugitive man hunt part on future trips.

Oh. . and Baby Hayes hit 27 weeks during that weekend!