December 2016

I am so thankful for little Apollo, in case you didn’t know. He’s the best and these past weeks with him have been the best. 

We’re getting ready to leave home for January, and here’s some photos from the last day. 

I totally play dress up with him sometimes. How could you not? These overalls don’t fit him yet, but so cute! I love how he’s looking up at me in the picture. 

We went out on the town, aka we left the house, and visited my Mom at work and went to my sister’s house. 

Apollo was so cute and smiley while visiting grammy!

And at my sister’s house, we had a great time hanging out with everyone and playing with the girls. 

Natalie and Katy sure love their baby nephew. We played uno attack and Katy pretty much held sleepy Apollo the whole time. 

Going on a trip means we have to leave the animals, which is sad. :( Chris and Apollo and I want to do lots of wanderings, but it’s always sad to leave home and the animals. Fortunately we have a good friend staying at our house for us and we are so grateful for that!!!

And a little extra something to brighten your day… haha Apollo is so precious. And this picture of him sort of reminded my mom and I of this princess bride (and clueless) movie star. Funny. 

Wednesday. 

I don’t feel I did much today but cuddle cuddle cuddle. Here’s pictures for proof. :) I LOVE SNUGGLING MY PRECIOUS BOY. 

At about 4:30, Apollo and I were finally ready to leave the house and go visit my peeps and go to the store. He was fed and had a clean diaper and I had a clean diaper too. Jk, no diapers for me. Although I totally have much less bladder control than I did pre baby. 

I had some clothes on and I finally decided what I wanted Apollo to wear haha. So I go to put him in his car seat, and CAT PEE.

Super bummer. We didn’t get to leave the house, and the cat(s) is upset with us or maybe has a bladder problem/infection or something. AND I had to take the car seat apart and clean it while my baby boy cried. 

His car seat smells strongly like laundry detergent and not like cat pee. And we need to give the animals more love. Little boy sure is loved though!

Oh how I love the Christmas season! It’s especially better having Apollo around, because he’s so adorable and makes everything mo’ betta. For Christmas Eve we went to three parties, clad in our Christmas sweaters of course. First we spent a few hours at my mom’s house with my family and a couple friends. My family loves having Apollo around and we love being around all of them too. Then we went to a couple houses of our friends and family like friends from church. We played games, ate yummy food, and lastly watched It’s a Wonderful Life.

Chris did some good Santa Claus work on Christmas Eve and we woke up to full stockings and extra presents under the tree! Christmas morning was a little atypical with getting ready for church instead of busting out to the tree and making present piles, but it’s a magical time no matter what.

It was wonderful singing Christmas hymns at church and hearing talks about the Savior. When we came home, we spent a while with Apollo helping him become calm and content again, after an upset stomach or something, and then we watched the Nativity video. I love the church’s Bible videos.

Also, LOVE our stockings from my mother in law’s causing. Love them. And I love my olive wood nativity from the Holy Land. And our cute little peg people family too! Thanks Kirsten!

After opening each other’s great presents, we took the best family nap yet. It was so good that I had to pretend I was napping a take a picture. :) Seriously good nap though. Unfortunately when Apollo and I finally got up it was like 5 pm and dark though and sort of felt like Christmas was over.

Here I am sporting a few of my favorite gifts! My sweet mama bear shirt (which I am wearing for the 3rd day in a row, but I have washed it), my new leggings, my unikitty socks, and my Brazil necklace with a heart on it that Chris had some portuguese engraved on! We gave and received some excellent gifts this year.

Here’s our pebble people (and pets) from my sister Holly. We love it! Chris and Chelsea and Apollo and Edelweiss and Bel and Piper. So funny.

And here’s some Christmas aftermath. We did get the house mostly cleaned up yesterday whilest listening to the Moana soundtrack. The tree and lights and few decorations are still mostly out, but all the wrapping paper and presents are put away. 

And Chris got me an instant camera! Fujifilm instax mini 8 or something, and I LOVE IT. And here’s a picture with our best Christmas gift this year, precious little Apollo. I LOVE THIS BOY SO MUCH. I CAN’T KISS HIM ENOUGH. He’s the best. So cute. I’ll go on more about him later. :)

My sister’s two girls are a big and important part of my life. They turned me into an aunt and made all my aunt dreams come true! And they still do. And they really love their baby cousin. 

I was hanging out at their house today and they asked if we could go on an “adventure walk”, which is something we’ve always done together. So we did! Ask and ye shall receive, plus I don’t like to say no to the girls very often. 

We had a lovely time wandering around their snowy back woods. We played some forest games and the girls showed me their forts and where they have some buried treasure. 

I bundled Apollo up and he snoozed through it, so he enjoyed some rest and some fresh air. 

As for me, I’ve gone on three walks today and my hemorrhoids could use a rest. :) I love our snowy weather and time with my people. 

I am so tired! I just have some extra sleep debt from the past couple nights, so I guess I’m blogging instead of sleeping right meow…..
Chris hasn’t been around the past few days at all. He’s been up in Anchorage, so the little cherub and I have been on our own. We’ve had a good time but it’s much easier and better and more fun with Dad around!
I did get a nap today, praise the Lord, but Apollo was pretty upset for a while for reasons I don’t really know, so it took a long time to get my nap. And he and I would fall asleep a few minutes and he’d start crying again. It was probably some gas and some over tiredness and some general upsetness at something. Babies have off days just like adults do I imagine. 

But sleeping with him was really nice and I do love to hold him and kiss his head. I just love him. 

We went on a good walk today and wrapped a few Christmas presents and I did my best to meet his needs. We ate a really healthy dinner, and a smoothie instead of ice cream, so I’d call that success. Okay I’m sleepy. Tata. 

Winter solstice marked three years of wedded greatness for Chris and me. He was up in Anchorage till about 5 pm, which isn’t what either of us wanted for our anniversary, but it turned out to be grand anyway! And he got us new tires for our car and the oil changed and that’s all good. 

For me, the day commenced with some cuddling with my perfect baby boy. 

And then came bath time for the cherub. He made a little poo in his towel, but nothing too serious. Goodness, he’s so cute. I just love love love him. 

Then we had some more cuddling and a little nappie. 

And once Chris got home, we celebrated with dinner and a movie! Our third family birthday with another family date night. 
We ate at Two Sisters. We’ve had lots of lunches there and eaten many a baked good, but this was the first time doing dinner there. We got some pretty little salads, crab fresh rolls, and a huge tasty bowl of macaroni and cheese. 
Here’s Chris keeping Apollo occupied so I could eat the delicious mac n cheese we ordered. I love how proud Chris is of our boy. 

And then us three went to el movies. We watched Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – YAY for the magical world. Apollo did great. I changed his diaper on a public changing table for the first time, which wasn’t that eventful, but it’s another first. I tried to keep his ears covered for most of it because there were lots of loud parts in the movie. 

Happy anniversary to my Christopher Boy. I’m really grateful I chose to marry him because the past three years have been full of grand adventures and lots of simple joys. And the best day of these past three years was when sweet Apollo was born. I’m glad I’ve got Chris to enjoy this journey with. 

We’ve only had little Apollo with us for one month, but I can’t and don’t want to imagine any life without him. I love my sweet boy and I love taking care of him. Being the mother to this child is the best. It’s just what I was made for. 

Apollo didn’t feel the best today so we had a pretty low key day of cuddling, rocking, shushing, resting and walking around the house. He just didn’t feel well and it was probably something I ate that didn’t settle with him. I wonder how long it takes for what I eat to turn into breast milk.

Apollo likes to cuddle, eat, sleep, look at lights, be in the bath/shower, listen to our voices, and hang out on his changing pad in front of the window. 

He’s really mellow and content. He’s brought so much peace to our home and even to the world. Everyone is excited to meet him and give him love, and he has received so much love already. What a sweet month it has been, the best one of our lives. 

My sweet Christopher blessed our sweet first born at church on Sunday. This is a moment that I’ve been pondering since before I was even pregnant with little Apollo.

First of all, it was a feat to make it to church on time. :) In this past month with our boy, the only other time that I had somewhere to be before noon, was to his one week check up at 9:30 am. So church at 10… not as easy as it once was. It’s just more to coordinate to make sure he and I are both ready, and that he’s all fed and content before we leave. And I have a hard time deciding what to wear because I have to wear clothes that I can nurse in, but I knew what Apollo was going to wear! Precious boy in his little suit. And we arrived at church about 9:53. Nice.

I love how he is looking at Chris and me in these pictures.

“Moooooooooooom?”

“Daaaaaaaaaad?”

His blessing was one of gratitude, for the wonderful spirit that he brought to the world, and especially the spirit he brings to our family. It is a spirit of contentment and a spirit of peace.

Apollo is blessed to be a steady force for good, that he will love his fellow man and be kind to others, that he will reach out to the down trodden and those who need help.

He is blessed to be a follower of Christ.

And to be a peacemaker in this world, in his family, friendships, and relationships.

Apollo is given a blessing to have a special connection to his Heavenly Father and a special knowledge of Jesus Christ that he will be eager to share with others in his younger years and adult life. He is blessed that he will spread the word by serving a mission and by starting and having an eternal family founded on temple marriage and sealing.

Apollo, your family loves you dearly, not only your blood family but you ward family. You have so many friends and special people you can reach out to to learn from.

Apollo is blessed to grow strong and healthy and happy. <3

We love our boy, and I pray that he can always feel our love and God’s love and all the love around him.

In his few weeks of life, my Apollo boy has already been to our Mariner Theater three times! Thanks to this Christmas season and outings with my nieces.

The most recent event was Natalie’s Christmas concert. She’s in 4th grade and they played some songs on the recorder! It was so classic and great. Their music teacher does a great job making a program for a big load of kids, and they even had ukuleles in the performance too.

Little Katy wanted to hold Apollo as much as she could. It was pretty cute. 

Another outing was to the Nutcracker! I love watching the Nutcracker each year and Homer does a great job at putting the performance together.

Katy and Natalie love holding their baby cousin.

My sister got us free tickets because the night we went was like some performance for schools/families or something. I don’t know, but it was great and I saved $10. :)

How adorable is my boy? Goodness, I love him I love him. 

My fam all likes to hold him, but so do I. Sometimes I have a hard time sharing him, especially when he’s just so cuddly and molds to my chest. He’s the best.

Our first time to the Mariner Theater (which is just the auditorium at the high school) was for Katy’s Christmas program. Lots of cute kindergartens and first and second graders! Again, their music teacher does so great.

Apollo listening with his grammy. Oh he’s so cute.

And then Holly held him, but he was like 3 people away form me and I missed him! I just kept staring and wanting him back. :)

This boy fills my heart with love. Chris and I are so happy to have him and to share our life with him.

That’s me. I’m the milk machine around here. That means I’m the soul who feeds our sweet boy all the time, and it really feels like it is all the time. He’s a growing boy and needs to eat! And technically I could pump and we could have a supply of milk and Chris could feed him with a bottle sometimes, but I’m scared of the breast pump. :) And he’s only 3.5 weeks old and I don’t want him to use a bottle yet. I’m lucky I get to feed him.

Breastfeeding wasn’t super easy for the first few days. Like weeks 1-2 were harder with some raw/sore nipples, but we’ve gotten over that. And I know breastfeeding can be much more difficult for some new mothers, so I’m glad it’s been pretty good for us. And I’m grateful for the nipple shield that was helpful when breastfeeding hurt.

When he eats, I get to watch his cute little face and hear the funny noises he makes. Sometimes he acts so desperate and head bangs around looking for his source of power, aka breast milk. I just watch him and he’s so cute. And sometimes he smiles a little bit which always makes me smile and laugh. And when he has a burp or a toot he gets pretty figetty and sometimes cries till it comes out. Sometimes he gets his arms and hands in the way while feeding and sometimes he uses them to navigate around. And when he’s done eating he unlatches and his head gently falls back and his eyes are closed and sleepy. 

I’m really grateful I can breastfeed and help sustain my boy. So far I am not a big fan of any of my nursing bras and I have a hard time finding good shirts to wear that  I can easily nurse in, that I feel good in, and that would look okay with milk stains haha, but I’m figuring things out. But it’s a lovely bonding experience being the one to feed little Apollo. I love being his mother.

I remember my midwife telling us pregnant women to lower our expectations for ourselves after birth. Good advice. No expectations equals no disappointments! :)

Many days I’m pretty good about low expectations for what I accomplish each day and I just focus on taking care of the little boy. Other days I get a little discouraged when I don’t feel I do anything other than taking care of my sweet Apollo. He eats often and goes to the bathroom often and falls asleep often too. He’s such an angel. I just love him. 

My purpose right now is to take care of him so that’s what I’m doing. He’s just munching away as I write! 

During his naps sometimes I nap. Or sometimes I eat. Or I take care of myself and do things like showering and putting leggings on. Sometimes I clean up. 

We go out sometimes too. Or go on walks. We should go on more walks. It’s good for me and Apollo and Edel especially. 

Today I don’t feel very great about not getting much done. Full baskets of clean laundry, unmade bed with annoying sheets falling off, full dishwasher of clean dishes, full garbage can of dirty diapers… it all keeps staring at me and I just stare back haha. And then I stare at Apollo and get lost in that. I feel great about being Apollo’s mother. 

I bathed him today which he likes. And I like too because he likes it. And I fed him about 3000 times and I’ve changed a bunch of diapers. And during his naps I’m working on altering his precious suit that just came in the mail. 

He’s getting blessed on Sunday and I figured it’d be nice if he had something to wear other than the green monster suit. :) 

So I searched and searched on Amazon and I couldn’t find anything newborn size. The best I found was 0-6 months with reviews that’s said it fit small. It is definitely not small. 

Apollo is smiling more and it’s so cute. I love feeding him too. And we listen to lots of Christmas music. I love my boy and it’s been a heavenly 25 days with him.  

First time in an airplane, at three days old. Chris was excited to take his little buddy to the airport and show him the airplane he flies in. 

First Thanksgiving and first time meeting uncle Jake. 

First aurora show! At four days old we walked Apollo out in the driveway in the middle of the night to watch the northern lights. Quite magical. 

First (and maybe last) time in the little green monster suit. :)

First books received in the mail. They’re thoughtfully from our friend Danny! First time reading Love You Forever. 

First time blasting poop on to the wall. 

First time to the Nutcracker Faire! I love it. But he got hungry on the five minute cat ride home. And he got really upset and it made me sad. 

And his first time to the Nutcracker  

First time to the bagel shop. He liked it. Duh!

First Christmas concert. It was Paul Banks elementary’s and really cute. My niece, Katy, invited us. Auntie Holly and grandma both held Apollo through it and I missed him. 

And HIS FIRST BATH. He’s the cutest and sweetest. ADORABLE. 

Our hospital bills just came in the mail… and the grand total is $20k!! That’s the most expensive few days of my life! And the most worth it. My birthing experience didn’t go as I envisioned, but I love and appreciate the experience just the same. I loved our stay at the hospital and our midwife and nurses. They’re all angels. 

Hopefully our healthcare will cover most of our bills, because I definitely don’t have 20k in my cash stash. But it’ll all work out. And who cares how much it costs because look how precious this sweet baby is!

The advice I received most for having a newborn is to sleep when the baby sleeps. The dishes will wait. Vacuuming will wait.  But you need your rest. So sleep when the baby sleeps.

I’ve been doing a decent job at that. The first few days Chris had to make me sleep when the babe was snoozing, but now it seems to be better as long as I can sleep in with Apollo. Lately we’ve been getting up about 10 or so.

He’s sleeping for two hours at a time at night between feedings. I feel like all day and half the night all I do is breastfeed. He eats quite frequently! Not unlike myself though haha, always looking for a snackie.

Sleepy now.

Here’s a bunch of pictures Chris has captured of me sleeping with my Apollo boy from the beginning. 😍

And my favorite, a picture I found on Chris’s phone from last night. Oh sweet. We fell asleep for watching a movie and stayed like this for a couple hours. I love my cuddle boy.

My sweet Apollo was born two weeks ago. We’re so glad to have him with us and feel so blessed that he’s healthy and happy. I love our boy so much and it is humbling to be the mother of this precious babe. I want to give him my best and always remind him how wonderful he is. He’s snoozing on me right now and I’m kissing his fuzzy little head. How blessed. 

After a long day home with my sweetest Apollo boy, Chris knew I needed to leave the house for a bit. My mom and sister and nieces were going to the movie Trolls, so we joined them! Apollo was not feeling superb just before we left and crying more than usual, but once we got a good burp out he was nice and content again. He’s a great baby. 

And Trolls was a great movie! Really funny and happy and colorful and lots of good music. Apollo woke up once so I fed him a little snack and he fell back asleep for the rest of the movie. 

Then we went to Barb’s for his first time too since was still asleep and so good. It’s our great video rental place. But we didn’t see anything we wanted so we came home, and we watched the Happiest Baby on the Block.

The Happiest Baby On the Block teaches about the 4th trimester, the calming reflex, and the 5 s’s. Swaddle, side/stomach position, shh noises, swinging motion, and sucking. Good things to learn!

And here’s our calm, sleepy boy with a full belly. I love being his mama and it’s hard to believe that he was coming out of my belly two weeks ago. 

Apollo Ray, he’s just the most adorable and precious boy. I love our sweet baby and will maybe share too many pictures but that’s aokay. Look at him yawning… I just think it’s so darling. Every time he yawns or sneezes or smiles or frowns, it makes me heart melt more and more. 

Little boy is getting chubbier. He sure loves milk! He feeds a lot. Today I felt like that’s all we did – breastfeed. He just ate and fell asleep and ate and got his diaper changed and ate and I ate and he fell asleep and got his diaper changed… a cycle like that. :) I did manage to rehang the driftwood G back up the wall to complete the alphabet in the nursery though. I’ve been trying to do that for a couple days haha. My expectations are quite low for the things I get done each day so it’s all good. My job is taking care of the bambino right now and I’m happy and grateful to do that. 

Here he is eating. And falling asleep. 

And asleep and stretching! With my postpartum belly. Apollo is such a good stretcher and helps me stretch too. 
And our glorious nap today. I love cuddling with this baby boy. 

Sleep is nice. The past couple days I can sleep for two hour stretches between feeding him during the night. The first two days home were three and a half hour periods of sleep! He’s sleeping again right now, and he’s adorable. I need to sleep too. 

It’s nice to think that most people have a loving mother who think their son or daughter is the greatest in the world. So special how loved we all are. 

Cheers.