The New Year

The New Year so far, for us, has been filled with joy.  We started it off with a visit from Isaac's parents. Grandparents really are the best. I just loved seeing their faces light up in the airport when they realized Isaac brought the whole family to pick them up. They just loved meeting Curtis. They spent the whole week here. I always love when they come here or we go there because I love getting to know them better. And I love that they got to meet Curtis and get to know him some. We are so blessed to have both sets of Grandparents and blessed that they love our little man so much. They both spent hours rocking him and holding him, comforting him, allowing me to eat a meal with both hands, or cook with both hands; it was a nice little break. We always miss them when they leave. I'm looking forward to going out to see them next Winter.

Last week, we went to North Carolina for Curtis to get to meet some other important people that it was about time he needed to meet. We stopped in Raleigh so he could meet his Godparents, Ben and Jess. It was a wonderful way to break up the 5 hour drive with an infant. And Curtis did so well on the drive. I loved seeing Curtis with Jess, even though he tended to cry, but I do think he was fine the next morning while he slept, he seemed to like being held then :) 

Later that afternoon, I introduced Curtis to Grandma Creed. It was so great seeing her with him, he fussed the first day, but the next day, she was able to put him to sleep and he seemed to enjoy that.

He got to meet my brother and sister-in-law and my nieces later that night. They all just couldn't wait to get their hands on Curtis; so much so that Jonathan actually beat Melissa to it. And Taylor was so excited too, to be able to hold him. We took some family pictures, Curtis did ok for a few minutes but the last of the pictures, he definitely spent screaming, which I think makes for fun pictures, but they are real life.

Wed morning, Curtis got to meet his Aunt Brenna and Uncle Juan, and their daughter Lucy. It was so much fun spending time with them, eating breakfast, watching Monster's Inc, catching up on life and rejoicing with them as they expected their little baby girl, Prudence to come home the next day (which she did and is doing amazing so far :). 

I loved getting to introduce Curtis to most of the people that we love, and look forward to when he can meet the rest :)

Curtis playing in his little gym he got from Nana and Nonno

Trying tummy time, he's not a fan

This is what Peaches thinks of Curtis invading his space

I just love that sweet little face

Curtis and Nonno, he's almost as good as my Dad at putting Curtis to sleep

Isaac is resting after a long day of travelling

Our family Christmas pictures at Ya-ya's

Melissa was so excited to finally get to hold her sweet nephew

Reegan loved Ya-ya's Christmas tree

This little girl is a mess, and probably my future...

Reegan was a little jealous

Taylor loved Isaac reading to her

Ya-ya holding all 3 grandkids

Lucy meeting Curtis, her future brother-in-law

These may be some of my most favorite pictures ever!

She didn't want to ableskier, she just wanted the powdered sugar 

Brenna cooking our amazing brunch

She wanted to help so much, Curtis was not having it

Another one of my most favorite pictures

Curtis is loving his time with his future mother-in-law

Lucy was alittle jealous so she decided to play under her mom's dress

Grandma Creed with Curtis, this one is getting framed

Taylor loved holding her cousin, she was so good with him

Christmas at the Norman's

The past 2 weeks have been wonderful! Last week, my parents came to visit for Christmas. It was so great to see them. I love watching them with Curtis, especially my dad. He turns in to a big teddy bear with his grandkids. He could sit for hours in Grandma Sutphin's chair rocking Curtis if I let him. And mom loves spending time with Curtis, although he wasn't quite as happy about it as he was when she stayed with us when he was born. He's not quite as content as he was, doesn't go right back to sleep after he eats so he needs alittle entertaining and tended to cry a lot, but I think mom finally got to hold him without him crying.

This year, we were blessed with Isaac having both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off. It's always so wonderful to have him home, especially home for holidays. Christmas Eve, we were going to have manicotti for dinner, one of our traditions. This year, the shells were homemade and I think would have been so good. We invited our friends, the Sibeliu's over, but when the oven timer went off, we realized the oven was broken, so no manicotti, just salad, bread and dessert. It was fun, but I was sad about the manicotti. We got to go to our Christmas Eve service and was reminded about God's amazing generosity. I love going to the candle light service, it's one of my favorite Christmas traditions. 

Christmas Day was a lot of fun. Curtis let us sleep until 0730, we opened gifts from Isaac's family. Curtis got some fun gifts, a little baby gym that I know he's gonna have a lot of fun playing in. We had breakfast and watched our Christmas morning movie, this year it was Courageous. We facetimed with both of our families and had dinner and played Smallworld with our friends, the Moore's. I think it was the best Christmas ever! I loved getting to spend it with our little family and I know every year will get more and more fun as Curtis gets older and hopefully more kids are added :)

Today we had our 2 month appt. Everything went well, he's up to 9lbs, 14oz, which is awesome. Curtis hasn't needed a bottle in almost 3 weeks, which has taken off so much stress from Isaac and me. It's much easier to feed him when he's not screaming for an hour.

On Monday, Isaac's parent's are coming in to town, and we are super excited for them to meet Curtis! We can't wait to see them!

Mom finally got her picture in Grandma's chair

This may be the best picture we got, Dad is still trying to learn my lens

Can't believe how much I love this little boy! I am so blessed to be his mama

Christmas morning with my loves

Such a cute little outfit from Uncle Josh

Curtis' stocking stuffer, I hope we'll have a few warm days in the next few months for him to wear it

Curtis' dress blues, now he can look like his daddy :)

Isaac had to get one of me

Starting to nod off for a Christmas morning nap

Curtis' Christmas sleeper from Ya-ya

Happy Due Date, Baby Curtis

Thursday was Curtis' due date. He is finally full term. Isaac and I have had this discussion several times about how old Curtis is. While he is now 5 weeks old (or will be in 5 hours), I have referred to him in his gestational age up until 2 days ago. When he was 36 weeks, that's what I called it, while Isaac called him 1 week old. I did that because, as the weeks went by, he was still developing like he would still in the womb. His nervous system was still developing, so his breathing was still uneven, but has begun evening out as the weeks went on. And his eating is much better, still not perfect, but the closer he got to his due date, the better it got, and is still getting better every day, thankfully.

This week, we had his 1 month appt and Isaac went back to work, so I had my first 2 days with Curtis by myself. The appt went well, he's been gaining about an ounce a day, so he's up to 8lb 2oz which is awesome! So even though he still doesn't like to breast feed all the time, he is eating and gaining weight, so we're pretty excited about that. Our 2 days without Isaac were uneventful, thankfully, although we missed Isaac very much. He had duty yesterday, which means he was on the ship for 24hrs. It was the first night we spent away from each other in over weeks, so the first night I had with just Curtis and I in over 2 weeks, and even then, mom was here to help. The day was pretty good, I actually got out some and did the errands I needed without Curtis screaming too much, although he got hungry in the car so my friend, Karlie got to hear his wonderful scream, saying "Hello" to her :) The night was actually good too. We're working on weaning Curtis off the bottle so he can solely nurse, and I can stop pumping every 3 hours, so there was a lot of screaming, but most times, he only took an ounce from the bottle and then nursed from both sides, so that is such an improvement over just a few days ago, which makes me pretty excited!

Here's a few of Curtis' 1 month pictures:

This particular idea didn't work out very well, I had wanted to use Christmas ornaments from our tree and him be just in his diaper, but he did not like that at all, so we stopped.

After calming down some, I was able to get just a few pictures of him not screaming...

But most of these pictures looked like this, which I love, but he will probably hate me for these pictures some day.

These are probably my favorite. I've seen the idea on pinterest, and was pretty excited that Curtis came before Christmas so I could get some like this. Luckily, he slept through the entire photo session.