Baby Button

When I was pregnant with Graham, the kids thought the way to talk to the baby was through my belly button. They called it my baby button and it was their best form of communication to the womb. Now that he's out, they are fascinated with his own little 'baby button' which is probably the biggest one I've seen. If you can believe it, it was almost twice this size before it started going down to average/larger than average size. Now it just looks like we left a cheerio on his tummy. Maybe it's just me, but I was not used to having such an outtie of a kid. This little baby has quite the button.

Week 3

Well, Graham is officially 3 weeks old. The time seriously flies (or gets smooched into one big haze) when you have a newborn. He is growing bigger than ever, loves to scratch his face with his super long nails, and is a champ of an eater. What more can we say than we love our little Graham Cracker!

Before and After

Isn't it crazy the difference a week makes in your life?

*The first picture was actually taken moments before we went to the hospital to have Graham. The second one was taken a week after he was born, but I'm still falling behind on my posts so I'm sharing it a little late.

Thanksgiving Visitors

We had such a great Thanksgiving break and had much to be grateful for. First off, Graham was already almost 3 weeks during Thanksgiving as opposed to being born on that day (His due date was the 25th of Nov.) so we were grateful for the time spent with him thus far. Also, some of our favorite people came to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. Casey and Ty and Kohen came to play for the weekend. We had so much fun! Some highlights of the weekend were eating yummy food (prepared by Kyle and Ty), watching Kyle catch a turtle and the kids feed the ducks right from their hands at the duck pond, eating at the Yumberi frozen yogurt shop, watching Brighton school Uncle Ty at Just Dance on the Wii, and sitting around and talking for hours. We love it when they come to visit and we are so grateful they made the extra long trip! Thanks so much guys for a great weekend!

Week 2

This is Graham at 2 weeks. It might not look like a lot has changed, but it has. He's starting to wake up more, he wants to be held all the time, and his dimple will pop out and make you melt just when you thought you couldn't handle his crying anymore. It's always so amazing to me how your world is so new a different with a new baby around, but you can't remember what the world was like before he was in it. Life is funny like that.

Rolling Like a Ball Baby

Have you ever heard of the pilates move called 'Rolling Like a Ball'? Well, the instructor in me decided to show Graham what that's all about. I love when babies are super bendy and sleepy all at the same time. It'll only be days before he's more alert and awake and will not have it when I'm moving him in every direction so I guess I better take advantage of the time.

Week 1

So I 've seen all over the blog world the fun idea to take a picture every week of the first year that my little babe is in this world. Well this is week 1 and hopefully every Monday (This week I'm late) will be weekly updates on the growth of little dude. Hope you enjoy the changes and documentation as I think I will!

The Arrival

So I figured I better get on here and record what happened the day we became parents of 3 before it becomes a hazy mess in my head and I think I can go through having a baby again sometime soon. Kyle and I have been praying that the baby would come anytime after the 10th of November since that was the day of his last final, but with our bad luck, Graham entered the world on the day Kyle took his first exam, thus making the rest of the week a chaotic one. On Monday (about an hour after Kyle took his test) I had a doctor's appointment. My doc was just going to check to see how dilated I was. If I was past a 4, then he was going to send me over to the hospital because he did not want my water breaking somewhere else and me having the baby in my bathtub or something (as that almost happened with Porter). So when he checked me, he noticed some fluid trickling out. Well, to make a long story even longer, I was dilated to a 5 and I was leaking amniotic fluid, which meant my water hadn't officially broken but it must have gotten snagged and there was a little hole in it. There was no way I could walk around with something like that. It was go time. Luckily we have great friends and family close by and they were ready for the calls to take our kids. Kyle was done with school for the day as well, which was such a blessing because I was a basket case of worry all morning when he was taking his test, for fear that my water would break and he'd miss the birth. Anyway, he was there, and we were ready. We went over to the hospital and at about 7:00 the doctor broke the rest of my water, and at about 8:30, Graham Edward Comin was in our arms. It was definitely a different experience compared to my other 2 births but I guess that's what each child brings to the table...different experiences and different personalities. The contractions were a beast and I don't remember pushing to be that ridiculously intense with my other births, but the finished product is always worth it in the end. We love our little Graham cracker and are so excited he finally joined our family.

He already smiles and has the cutest little dimple. One

of these days I'm actually going to get a shot of it. You can see a little bit of a smirk in this one:

Love the tiny, scaly feet.

The last picture (hopefully) for a while of the fat-faced Danie that always looks terrible before the baby. This was in between contractions. I won't let you see the one that Kyle snapped during a contraction. Not a pretty sight.

The new Big Brother. He's pretty happy.

The super proud big sister 2 times over. She just wanted to sit on the bed and hold the baby forever. Do you love the graham cracker packet she had to put in the picture? They get the biggest kick out of the fact that we can call him that.

I know this pic is kind of cheesy but our nurse was tickled that we named him Graham. She wouldn't stop giving me graham crackers because she thought it was so cute. I ate half of them before this picture so that tells you how many were given to us. I think we're stocked up for a week more.

Me and my kids. Yes I'm still swollen and not the cutest, but when I've got such cute little ones around me, who cares?

Super proud papa here. Something really cool that I forgot to mention was that since our doctor is in our ward and he knows Kyle is in medical school (well, CRNA school to be exact), he let Kyle deliver Graham. I think he thought Kyle would be doing OB rotations and stuff like that, but that's not the case. That's alright though because Kyle got to have an awesome experience and deliver the babe. Dr. Erickson gave him a little tutorial about 5 minutes before I pushed little Graham out and Kyle was able to do all the work and catch the little guy. I think it meant a lot to Kyle and I was happy he was able to do it.

And Then There Were 3

Introducing...

Graham Edward Comin

Born Nov. 7th, 2011 @ 8:30 pm

6 Lbs. 12 oz.

18 inches

*More info will be forthcoming*

The Vamp and the Witch

I'm a little behind on the blogging front but isn't that the way life is? Always catching up on life? Anyway, here is the last of our Halloween fun so enjoy it until next year. We found these wooden masks at Joann fabrics for seriously pennies and since my kids are craftaholics (I wonder where they get that from?), they just had to snag them. We sat down one night for family night and 2 hours later they came up with these little numbers. They were so proud of them, that they wanted to bring them to church the next Sunday. Although I vetoed that idea, I was able to get a few pics before church of their masterpieces. Here's to a crazy little vamp and a cute little witch wishing you a Happy Halloween and an even Happier Holiday season to come!

Photo Booth Fun

So a while ago our friends had a cute little birthday party for their 2-year-old. Brooke is the type of person that goes all out and has an amazing theme and makes everything look super cute and awesome (She did my baby shower and it was so nice and sophisticated. I loved it, unfortunately I didn't get any pics of it.). Well, it was her little boy's party and she didn't disappoint. The theme was a hot-air balloon/circus type of party and it was at the park. She had scrumptious food and little hot-air balloons floating around and even a photo booth. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of this event either, but luckily Brooke's husband just sent us the photos from their photo booth and I just had to share one because they were too fun. Thanks for the fun time guys!

Happy Halloween 2011

I didn't realize how crazy Halloween can be when your kids are in school. Brighton had a Halloween party which basically lasted the entire school day and parents and siblings were invited so I took Porter and helped out in the classroom. It was fun but a little chaotic so when we were supposed to go to Kyle's school @ 3:30 right after that, we were already dragging a little. Midwestern always has a big carnival and trick-or treating in all the buildings so we wanted to check it out and say hi to Kyle. It was packed and pretty fun (they even had a few bounce houses which are every kid's dream right?) and we initially enjoyed ourselves, but with every long day for nap-taking kids comes a ridiculous evening. Maybe it was the lack of naps, the surge of sugar in their systems or the fact that I'm down to zero percent energy at any given time, but we had quite a few meltdowns (basically coming from Porter) and we were not about to go door-to-door to make the neighborhood rounds after that, so although it was an eventful day, the 2 munchkins were able to be to bed by 7:00 and snoozing by 7:05. Halloween is always fun and crazy and I know I'll look back on these times with fondness, but let's just say that now that I'm sitting comfortably in my jammies having a peacefully quiet night, I'm a little grateful that Halloween is behind us.

P.S. And if you didn't get what our costumes were: Brighton was a cupcake, Porter was a cookie, Kyle was a baker, the baby belly was a bun, and I was the oven. Get it? I'm always all about the theme, especially while the kids are little and I can still sway their opinions about what they want to be. And homemade always comes from the heart so let's just say we were definitely a 'heartfelt' crew this year.