Morning, Sunshine

We have a new alarm clock in our household...

Welcoming Zachary Quinn

Yes, finally, he is here! It is so good to see his sweet face, squeeze his baby-fat arms and legs, and cuddle him. Zachary Quinn made his surprisingly early arrival on May 19th at 5:10am. He weighed in at 6 pounds, 6 ounces and 19 inches long.

I had just gone on maternity leave 2 weeks before my due date, thinking that I'd have a leisurely 2 weeks to take much needed naps and get things organized before our little one made his or her arrival. After a long post-dinner Tuesday evening walk (looking back now, probably too long for me at the time) and an episode of LOST, we headed to bed...and much to my surprise, my water broke. I was more stunned than anything, and when the reality set in, I wasn't sure if I was ready for this (after all, I expected the baby to be late!). We frantically finalized our hospital bag and made it to the hospital around 1am. Zachary must have been an impatient little guy because I was fully dilated by 3:30am, and he was born less than 2 hours later (after getting a last minute epidural which allowed me to rest for a bit before delivery).

Life has been sleepless and a bit crazy the last few weeks, but our little man is completely worth it. Here are some pictures from our hospital stay.

As I was putting this picture in the blog, I was wondering why I have such a smile on my face - I think I had just gotten my epidural and it was taking effect - HALLELUJAH!

He's here - and healthy...everything we were praying for! As you can see (and as we experience daily), he has very strong lungs.

Proud daddy!

Going home from the hospital - time for real life to begin.

On 9 months, flown by

Do you ever feel like an event is so far away, that you live almost as if it won’t happen? Strangely enough, I think I felt like that for the first half of this pregnancy. Nine months felt like it would last forever. Certainly, the thought of an ACTUAL baby at the end of it seemed like a lifetime away.

Well, here we are, swollen fingers and ankles (just me, not Andrew), 3 weeks til D-day, a nursery that is just aching for an occupant, and 2 parents-to-be wondering what life will be like on the other side of labor and delivery.

Like the bookworm, education-loving people that we are, we’ve immersed ourselves in parenting books….what parenting style is best? How structured should our baby’s schedule be? Demand feeding v. scheduled feedings……While I’m glad we’re doing all this theoretical information-gathering, I have a feeling it will all go out the window and we’ll just wonder “what in the world do we do with this little person?!”

For now, I’ll just take a deep breath, put my swollen ankles up, and show you what has transpired in our household recently:

BEFORE

AFTER

Babymoon in Oahu

Our last vacation before 2 become 3...where else to go but paradise? We seem to be drawn to Hawaii because it is such a relaxing getaway.

With some potential pregnancy complications the week before our trip (which were thankfully cleared by my OB) and a tsunami threat the day before we were scheduled to leave, we breathed a sigh of relief when it was confirmed that all was well, and boarded our plane. We were thankful that it was a low key, uneventful trip (i.e. no trips to the NICU).

We stayed at a resort in Ko Olina, just north of Pearl Harbor. The thing we loved about our hotel was the string of 4 lagoons, connected by a walking/jogging trail. Here's one of the lagoons in a view from our window. We got to do some snorkeling in the lagoons, and found a surprising variety of fish and sea life...including a small octopus! Andrew, in true Andrew style, did a mini aquathon - he ran the 3-mile length of the trail, and then swam across all 4 lagoons and back again. It was nice to just enjoy having a week to play.

Another favorite activity was climbing Diamond Head (don't worry, we took it slow for my sake and monitored my heartrate). We had some amazing views of the legendary Waikiki Beach and Honolulu downtown.


We also stayed on the north shore for a couple days and got further absorbed in LOST mania. The extensive grounds of our hotel are a frequent filming location for the show, so we went for a hike to see if we recognized any of the locations. Apparently this banyan tree is the site of the cast's annual photo. Luckily, we didn't run into the smoke monster or any of the Others.


Other highlights included a luau, more snorkeling at Hanama Bay, and far too many trips to Leonard' Bakery for their malasadas (portuguese donuts) either plain or filled with exotic things like lillikoi cream.

Nesting

Andrew came home one evening a couple weeks ago, just as I was completing a project in our ‘guest room soon-to-be nursery’. He said that I’m nesting.

And I guess I am….but who wouldn’t be when you’re anticipating meeting a little person in 3 short months with these sweet little feet?!


No doubt this little one will turn our lives (not to mention our sleep) upside down, but I can’t help already being head over heels.

So I just thought I’d share a few little (and I mean little) things in this little room that we’re preparing.

This was my project: contact-papering the dresser drawers. Not a very glamorous project, but I think the dresser is a bit more baby-ready now. You can also see 2 newborn onesies that I gave Andrew for his birthday back in October…wonder which one we’ll be using!


This is a sweet little toddler-sized rocking chair that I got from my Grandma Rita when she passed away.


And speaking of my Grandma Rita, a crafter/sewer/crocheter extraordinaire, she must have been anticipating more babies before she died, because there was this extra baby blanket that she made…I’m glad my little one will be able to use it sometime soon!

Come take a jog with me

We live in standard middle class suburbia, but the thing that gets an A+ in my book about our neighborhood is our running trails. I often jog on one particular dirt trail in our neighborhood and wish, as I'm running, that I could snap pictures of this diamond-in-the-rough spot. Obviously, run + photos = broken camera. So, this morning, it being a quiet holiday morning (in honor of our wonderful Vets), I decided to walk the trail and bring my camera. Hope you like it as much as I do (oh, and to get the full effect while you're looking at the pictures, intermittently imagine the smell of honeysuckle and newly laundered clothes in your favorite smelling laundry detergent).

Coming up for air

It feels like this past month I have been trapped in a dense fog and am just starting to emerge. October has been a pretty blah month - one marked by nothing more than being perpetually sick (except of course for my sweet husband's birthday - the one bright spot in the otherwise drab 31 days). After feeling sluggish and struggling with a terrible stomach flu, I'm finally starting to feel like myself again....and just in time for my favorite season: Fall.

My house, which seems to have exploded with blankets and cups and clutter while I was busy feeling under the weather, has finally emerged *relatively* clean and not too worse for the wear. I must say that the fall season is just added incentive to feel better. There's something about putting a fall wreath on the door, or baking a piping hot apple pie (with apples from our own backyard apple tree, no less!), which put an instant smile on my face. Now if it would only rain, I think I would be sublimely happy...