August's Birth

 

Better late than never, right? I finally sorted through these photos and chose my favorites (so hard to do!) I have a baby attached to me almost all day and all night, so I'll try to make this short and sweet.

I REALLY thought the baby was going to be born a few days after Christmas. I was hoping for a December baby, and I thought I got my wish on Thursday, December 29th when I was having contractions every three minutes after dinner that night. Steve and I packed our bags and drove to the hospital, only to be sent home by my doctor a couple hours later. I fully expected to be back at the hospital within the next day or so, but instead, I didn't feel those same consistent contractions for a full week. On Thursday, January 5th, I was five days past my due date and I went in to the doctor's office for another appointment. He judged me to be at 3 centimeters, and he told me that he would break my water at the hospital. I could either choose Friday morning, or Monday morning, so I went with Friday, obviously. :) 

I came home, relieved to finally know when the baby was coming! I asked Steve to take these photos of me with Ephraim. I wanted to capture his last moments as my youngest baby.

Steve went to lead youth group at 4 pm. Around dinnertime, I started feeling contractions, and they were pretty strong. When Steve got home at 7 pm, I knew that we needed to go to the hospital. They admitted me right away (it helped that I was coming in to get induced the next morning anyway). It turned out that the contractions were real--yay! I got an epidural around 11 pm, and the doctor broke my water soon after.

At 1 am, the doctor came back and asked me how I was feeling. (I was feeling really good with the epidural.) He figured that I would have delivered already. When he checked me, he said I was at 10 cm, and the baby's head was "right there". He called in the nurses, and he asked me to do a practice push. He quickly told me to stop pushing so he could get his gloves on! And at 1:08 am, and with really only one push or so, 

AUGUST DANIEL was born!

August nursed for a long time, and the nurses let me hold him for about two hours before they cleaned him and weighed him.

At 8 pounds, 6 ounces, August was our biggest baby. (Nolan was 8# 2 oz, and Ephraim was 7# 0 oz.)

It was hard to get any sleep because we were enjoying him so much!

The next morning, my mom brought the very-excited older brothers to meet August!

I'm so glad we captured these sweet moments!

Grandma Z meeting the baby.

 

And MorMor holding our little sweet pea.

I can't believe it's already been six weeks! I'm not sure where the time is going, but I know that August is just the most precious little guy, and we are basking in his newborn-ness as long as we can! :) We thank God for such a smooth birth experience and a healthy baby! We don't take that for granted, he is such a blessing!

August Daniel

Our sweet baby boy, August Daniel, was born early in the morning on January 6th! I have been wanting to get a post up with some of the hundreds of photos I've taken in the past month. This is going to have to be "part one" of two or three, because I haven't sifted through the ones from the hospital yet. Anyway, August was our biggest baby at a healthy 8 pounds, 6 ounces and 21 inches. He was also six days late (though Nolan still takes the prize for longest pregnancy). The delivery was very smooth - I can detail it more later. He is now three weeks and four days old, and we are SO in love with our little August!

This was the first photo I shared with friends and family. He does have some pretty juicy cheeks!

This is one of my favorite photos from when Nolan and Ephraim came to visit in the hospital. They were so excited to meet their brand new baby brother!

Back at home, wearing his winter white on a snowy day.

Proud daddy of three(!) boys! Sidenote, Steve is his parents' third out of four boys.

Snuggling up in his bed.

The nursing life . . . goodness, I missed it! Yes, it's sometimes hard to nurse on demand every two to three hours, but I love cuddling with my tiny little guy all day.

Our 42 week picture to finish off my pregnancy series :)

My friend Erin dropped off this delicious drink and chocolate bar one day. We are so grateful for my MOPS friends and all of the meals we've received the past couple of weeks!

Our friend Carol brought donuts one morning. Never underestimate the power of showing up!

Our very own little Olaf :)

I love, love, love this photo of the three boys!!

Every time we set him in the bassinet, he wakes up. We end up holding him all the time, which is okay with me, as he's only a newborn for such a short while.

Cute little lion socks. Too bad socks don't stay on newborns' silky feet.

Yawning and swinging :)

This post-partum life has made me thirsty all the time! I can't get enough smoothies, hot chocolate, coffee and tea. This smoothie was the last of our strawberries from last summer. I bought a Magic Bullet and it's been so worth it!

Such a doll baby!

On Saturday, we celebrated Ephraim's third birthday with a trip to the donut shoppe. His face here was pure joy as we were singing to him. We will throw a party for him in a few days.

 I was happy to get in a photo with the birthday boy. Now that we have a newborn, all of a sudden, Ephraim is a giant and I can't believe he's already three!

August's first trip to church on Sunday. He slept, he ate, and then all the ladies flocked to him at the end of the service :)

And I'll wrap up with a couple of pictures of our new kitchen. Steve finished it just in the nick of time before the baby was born. There are a couple of small jobs left to do, but it's totally functional now. We absolutely LOVE it!

I'll hopefully post again soon with other photos from this past month!

xo

Christmas

It has been a busy couple of weeks at our house, and things are about to get busier with the baby coming soon! Steve graduated with his doctorate on the 17th, and we celebrated Christmas with both sides of our family a few days ago. It has been a wonderful December, and I can't believe that it's already time to start packing all of the decorations away and preparing for a brand new year.

This has been my favorite view every morning. Our big blue spruce is still alive and beautiful, so it won't be going anywhere soon :)

We hosted a little fika coffeetime and playdate a couple of weeks ago. I made this candy cane coffeecake with cherry cream cheese filling. It was delicious!

On graduation day, Steve had to be on campus at 8:30 am. We live about an hour away, and the weather was calling for a "wintry mix" of ice and snow and sleet all night. Steve and I made the last-minute decision to leave the night before and avoid the bad weather. We booked a hotel and got everything quickly packed into the car. The drive was perfect, and the four of us went out for pizza when we got there. It was a good thing we went early! When we woke up at the hotel, the town was covered in a thin layer of ice, and the winding roads would have been treacherous. Above is the view from our room - the building in the background is the hospital that Nolan was born, which he thought was pretty cool :)

My mom and Don also made the last-minute decision to drive down and stay at the hotel. Ephraim was happy to see them :)

Waiting for graduation to start. I love Ephraim's expression here :)

Getting hooded!

Officially Dr. Steve!

The boys were so proud of Daddy!

 Steve started his PhD program two weeks before Nolan was born, and he finished a little over five years later, two weeks before baby #3 was due!

After the graduation, we went out for a nice dinner with my mom and Don. Then we met up with my friend Briana and her kids, and we visited Santa at the town library. Nolan was a little starstruck! Later, he told me that he didn't think this particular Santa was the right one. I didn't think he looked very authentic either. Oh well!

Give me all the Cadbury Christmas candy!

The boys and I made our first gingerbread house. It turned out pretty cute! I had to put it up high to keep little hands from trying to eat the candy off of it ;)

We also made our annual Christmas mice with Hershey kisses and chocolate-covered maraschino cherries.  Mmm!

Sweet and simple Christmas mantel.

On Christmas Eve, we went to MorMor and Papa Don's house. Nolan received his first set of Legos, and he and Daddy immediately went to work building it.

 

The completed plane! The next day, he received the same Lego set from Grandma Z. Great minds think alike!

Ephraim intently coloring in his new Paw Patrol coloring book.

Our Christmas photo from this year :)

We finished our Christmas baking on Christmas Eve - a peppermint mocha bundt cake, toffee, and fudge! #chocolaholic

The boys spent Friday night through Monday night nearly inseparable from their girl cousins from Indiana. We all had the best time! Among the six kids, there were tons of new toys to open and play with!

Ephraim doing aerobics with K. He followed her every command!

Pool sharks :)

More Lego-building. One of the girls got a 700 piece set that took up many hours of their time and concentration.

 The six kids after church on Christmas Day. We miss the girls already!

Hope that your Christmas was magical and full of family time. May we continue to focus on our Messiah and all that He has done for us as we move into 2017 :)