Noah's 1st 4th :)

Nothing much, just a few pictures!  On the 3rd we spent the evening in our traditional way, at the park with a group of church friends to watch the La Mirada fireworks show.  Thankfully Noah was not the least bit disturbed by the noise or the pesky June bugs and he was totally mesmerized by the fireworks!  On the 4th we went over to the Javiers for a BBQ and ice cream but came home early since he had been out late the night before and Matt had to go back to work early the next morning.  Luckily we can see multiple professional (and illegal) firework shows from our front yard.  It's really quite the view!  Here we are at the Javier's in our matching Old Navy shirts - hopefully a new family tradition.

Where does time go?!

I'm always shocked when I realize how long it's been since I posted!  Noah turned 12 weeks old yesterday and will be officially 3 months old on Saturday!  He is such a smiley, happy loving baby!  My favorite thing he does is probably how he breaks out into a huge grin whenever his daddy gets home from work.  That or his HUGE smiles and cooing for about an hour every morning.  It's like he's just so thrilled to wake up next to Mommy (and on the weekend he gets Daddy too!).  Definitely helps this not-a-morning-person mom to be a little less frustrated when we wake up!

Let's see, since I last posted, Noah has a new baby cousin!  Amanda Dawn Winn was born 5/30/12 at 6:30am after a VERY short 4 1/2 hour labor.  We missed her arrival by about 15 min. but spend the whole day getting to know her.

On June 11 the Los Angeles Kings won the Stanley Cup for the first time in their 45 year history!!!  Our little Noah "Stanley" Hamel is a hockey fan in the making!  Daddy was very happy with their win!

Oh, and earlier that day Noah had his 2 month appointment.  He weighed in at 12.6lbs., 23 1/4in. long.  He's in the 50th percentile for height, weight and head circumference!  He got one oral antibiotic (on which he choked and scared the poor nurse) and one shot that he was quite the trooper for!  He cried while the needle was in but settled after as I nursed him.

Then we celebrated our first Father's Day!  On Saturday we celebrated with Grandpa A. with some yummy carne asada.  Then on Sunday we did a family photo shoot at our house with Grandpa H.  Noah also was sporting a fun "My Dad is Rad" onesie like his Mother's Day one.

Just this past week Noah trekked along with me as we helped run a 4 day music camp at church.  He did really well, nursing when I wasn't needed and sleeping a lot in the Moby.  It was a big plus that Grandma was there too so we could trade off helping with kids and holding Noah.  (pictures to be added later)

Then on Friday we coordinated our first wedding together!  Congrats to our dear friends Dan and Emily Kamwesa!!!

Finally, yesterday we hosted our Bradley class reunion!  It was so fun to get to meet all the babies that we had been seeing in their momma's bellies for the past 6ish months (our class ended in March).  It's such a neat group of people, all with similar birthing/parenting styles so it's really fun to be able to get together and share stories and what works.  (again, pictures to be added later).

And that brings us up to date.  Oh, and Noah is trying desperately to roll over, but his one arm keeps him from making it all the way over officially!  So we'll definitely post again once he's conquered that hill!

And so goes life...

Man, time sure flies for me now!  I can't believe it's almost been a month since I posted!  Life has found a pretty good routine, it's such a blessing to not have any outside responsibilities...I don't know how women return to work with a newborn!  I can focus 100% on being available for him.  I mean, even my household responsibilities or things I want to do for myself just fall by the way side if necessary; "oh, you're going to nurse and only sleep in my arms all day? ok, fine, I'll stay in my pjs and not to laundry!"  :)

2 weeks ago I got to finally celebrate my first Mother's Day!  It was super sweet as the past 2 years have been difficult...2 years ago it had only been about a month since I miscarried and last year the frustration and fear of trying for over a year and getting an not very convincing diagnosis of PCOS 2 months prior kinda put a damper on things.  Plus it was just a reminder that I was STILL not pregnant and didn't know when I would ever be.  Same feelings on my 25th birthday last week.  As "young" as I know that is, for some reason every birthday that rolled around I felt like I was getting older and older and "still didn't have a child".  I would calculate how old I would be if I had the 4-5 kids I'd like with the 3 years in between each like I'd prefer (obviously these are just my ideals at the moment).  Like I said, it just put a damper on things.  This year it was so special to be able to celebrate both those days with my lil man by my side!

So Noah will be 7 months weeks (oops, Mommy brain!) old tomorrow and is holding his head up really well now.  He's all smiles, especially in the morning and especially when Daddy's holding him and Mommy comes in for kisses.

Last weekend we spent up in Big Bear with my family - his first trip of, hopefully, many!  He did so great on both car rides, pretty much slept both times.  It helped that we timed our departures right away his typical "bed time".  

Ready for Big Bear!

My two boys enjoying vacation

Oh that's right, he's close to sleeping through the night a lot of nights too!  Last week he started with a 10-7:45 stretch, followed by a 8-5.  Since then, a typical night is falling asleep around 8:00, waking up around 10-11 for a last diaper change & nursing to sleep until anywhere from 3-6 when he gets a diaper change and again nurses to sleep.  That usually lasts until 7-9.  If I'm especially tired I'll stay in bed and try to get one more chunk of sleeping in til about 10 but sometimes I get up and start the day.  How fun to start the day to this face:

Mother's Day morning

Some more shots of the "Many Faces of Noah"

Catch up

Since I was putting off updating thinking I wanted to get Noah's birth story up first, I've missed blogging about a few milestones so I figured I'd do a quick recap.

4/11 - Noah's first pediatrician appointment.  He was back up to his birth weight (7lbs. 3oz) though we're not sure how much that means he gained between the previous Sunday (4/8) when we were discharged and this weigh-in since they only told us he "lost within the normal range", not an actual number.  I know "normal range" is up to 10% so I'm curious to know what his discharge weight was and plan on asking at his next appointment.  Other than that, there's nothing too significant to mention, other than I LOVE his pediatrician (came recommended by friends and I knew he was somewhat involved/supportive of WPCC).  My favorite part of the whole appointment was when we ask how he felt about a delayed vaccine schedule and he said that whoever created the CDC recommended schedule "was a moron".  That's my kind of doctor!

4/15 - Noah's first day at church!  Yep, only 8 days old and we took him to church.  I'm so not into that whole "keep your baby home for the first 3 weeks" thing.  It's not like I was passing him around (though I'm totally ok with most people holding him).  If you're sick, sure I won't let you hold him but otherwise I'm not going to be crazy protective over him like that.  Exposure to germs is what builds healthy immune systems.  He did really well, nursing during electives and during service (and filling his diaper during worship haha).

4/18 - Noah's circumcision.  We decided to wait til the 8th day, not for religious reasons but because in doing our medical research learned that God had good reasons for directing it to be done on the 8th day.  A baby's blood clotting ability is low in the first 2-5 days after birth and peaks on day 8, 100% higher than normal levels.  After day 8 it's at it's normal levels.  Well, day 8 was a Sunday and the soonest we could get an appointment that wasn't with the doctor that delivered him (who we really didn't like, more on that in his birth story) was 11 days after.  It wasn't as hard as I thought to have it done; granted they had me wait in the lobby so I'm sure if I was in the procedure room it would have been a lot harder.  It was harder before considering I couldn't feed him for a certain amount of time leading up to it and he was not happy about that.  He was pretty fussy the rest of the day but seemed after the first day.

4/23 - Noah has a belly button!  His umbilical cord stump fell off and he's now got the cutest belly button :)

Life as we know it...2 weeks, 3 days old

I kept meaning to post the labor/birth story before posting updates on Noah but it took me forever to jot it all down (and that's just rambling to make sure I can remember the order of events/emotions).  I still need to edit and trim it down a bit so I guess I will just post it when I finish. In the meantime, I'll continue updating on our life and the little man as it happens.  Here's Noah dressed and ready for church at 1 week old:

Noah turned 2 weeks old on Saturday.  It's that weird feeling of "has it really been 2 whole weeks?" and "has it only been 2 weeks?"  Just looking at him I don't think he's changed much, but then I look at one of his newborn pictures and can't believe the change!  He's really starting to fill out (YAY for chubby babies!!!!).  Yesterday alone I swear he put on a pound since he basically didn't sleep and nursed from 5am-5pm straight (can anyone say "mooo"?  I felt like a cow at times).  But then he slept really well last night so it made up for it.

Matt went back to work yesterday, which I think is definitely harder on him than it is on me.  It doesn't change my routine much since it's not like he was able to give me much of a break from nursing or anything.  Noah does tend to sleep a bit longer in someone's arms than the bouncer or rocker but it's not that drastic of a difference.  Matt, on the other hand, misses being able to see him.  I don't know what I'd do if I had to leave him for 10+ hours!  I find that while I sooooo appreciate people holding him and giving me a break to shower or nap or do housework, after about an hour or so I start to miss him, and that's with him right here with me, just in someone else's arms!!

Asleep in his bouncer 

*in Veggie Tales voice* I need to tell you somethin', I DO got a belly button (his stump fell off yesterday, 4/23)

Welcome baby Noah!!

Birth story coming soon!

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38 wks + 2 days

It's getting closer! Starting to have lots of braxton hicks now, pretty annoying but I figure the more work my body can get out of the way now the faster labor should go. Yesterday they were 4:30-5:00 min. apart but only lasting for 30-45 seconds so we were keeping track of them but after a while they started getting shorter and further apart and then I was able to sleep the entire night without any (and with barely having to get up to pee yay!). I've had them off and on today, but nothing regular enough to even bother timing. I figure even if the "timing" is right (drs says go to the hospital when contractions are happening at least every 5 minutes for at least 1 minute for an hour or more) I'm going to stay home until I have to really concentrate on getting through a contraction. The last thing I want to do is go in, be far enough to get admitted but still have a while to go.

At least the contractions have given us a sense of immanency; we finally put the car seat in the car and I'm almost done packing my hospital bag. My mom has been over the past two days helping me do as much reorganizing as I can do to find new places for baby supplies and help me think through where things should go practically. So as far as my "still to-do list" from last post, I've tackled quite a bit:

~Curtains for behind Matt's desk are done (technically, they could be a little bit shorter but they'll more than do for now)

~Will be done packing the hospital bag & diaper bag this weekend. Just need to do some shopping for items we don't have.

~Cleaned out the car today, installed the car seat and put the stroller in the trunk

~Buying the glider tomorrow

~Buying the changing pad tomorrow and then will tackle making the covers

~Decided I don't want to be treated with antibiotics depending on what the pediatricians protocol is for baby if I choose that. Need to call him tomorrow.

Oh, also I received some things I ordered from Target so I have our bed rail & all the disposable inserts & baby wipes for diapers now. I just need to buy a pack of newborn disposable diapers & a few more gPants.