Luke is TWO!

Luke's birthday is TODAY. He is a smart, silly, hilarious, and busy little guy. We are so happy to have him in our family.
Last night, we had his party at my parents' house. My mom's side of the family and Hal's dad come to celebrate with us. We had a lasagna dinner and cake and ice cream. Luke got tons of presents. He was a little unsure about everyone singing to him, and when his super cool bulldozer (which was battery powered) took off across the table, making everyone yell, he didn't like that too much (he told my mom later to put it in the trash, lol). He spent a lot of time saying "smile" when I asked him to smile -- instead of actually smiling! What a silly.
This weekend has capped off a very busy week of moving and Hal's "vacation" we went to the zoo twice. We bought a family pass to the zoo for Luke's birthday present (we also got him the movie Cars). Today we went to the aquarium and did the penguin encounter. The penguin encounter was my grandmother's mother's day present -- so it was all the girls on my mom's side of the family, and Luke and Nathan. There are plenty of photos under the cut!




Luke loved that his cake had toy cars on it.


Cheesing. This is his response to "Can you give me a teeth smile?"


He loves his new slide!


And he is pumped about his soccer goal!




Feeding the giraffe at the zoo was a huge hit.


Nathan is a little stunned at the zoo. It was very warm the first time we went.


At the penguins! Luke had to go in that carrier for the penguin experience (it was the aquarium's carrier -- Nathan is in my ergo). He wasn't too thrilled, but he was very good!





Touching the penguin!

6 Weeks!

We have survived the six week black hole of doom and Nathan has rewarded us by smiling! Obviously he is no worse for wear from his hospital/cold ordeal and he is just growing like a weed.





And I love this picture because he has so much personality and because our family often says, "ACT SURPRISED!" and we make crazy faces like this:

The ER!

So it turns out that hospitals take slight fevers in infants VERY seriously.

Nathan woke up on Wednesday pretty snarfy, but was in good spirits. Wednesday night he went to bed and just wasn't sleeping well. When he got up at 2:45, I took his temperature. Only 100.8, but the doc told us to call if it was above 100.4. So we called.

Head to the ER they said.

So Nathan and I spent about 13 hours at the hospital yesterday. He had two breathing treatments, blood work, chest x-ray, an antibiotic shot, tylenol, Flonase, a urine catch (using a catheter), eye ointment, a nose swab test, an eye goop test, a failed IV (and then we didn't need an IV), and numerous temperature/heart rate/respiratory rate/oxygen rate checks.

I am exhausted.

Nathan has .... a cold.

Well, they are waiting for his cultures to come back. He was negative for RSV, which is what the respiratory therapist said he SOUNDED like he had from listening to him. The pediatrician thinks he just has a viral infection, but she wanted to give him the antibiotic just in case.

The eye ointment is the EXACT SAME THING that my dog got for after her surgery, lol.

I seriously thought that I would head in there and they would monitor him for a bit and give him some Tylenol. When I first got there, they were talking about spinal taps. It was scary. All that for .4 degrees!

They thankfully sent us home and we followed up in the office today for another antibiotic shot. Tomorrow I will call to get the results of his cultures.

The Baptism

Nathan got baptized this weekend. And he turned 1 month old! What a weekend!

My family watched The Godfather to prepare for the baptism. I am not even kidding. My brother Stephen (the younger of the two) was the Godfather and my husband asked our friend Anne to be the Godmother. Nathan didn't cry when he was baptized, and our priest said he never saw a baby not cry, lol.

The First Week of 2U2

Was crazy.

We got home on Sunday the 29th (Nathan was born on Friday). On Wednesday, I came down with such a horrible headache that I worried I had a spinal headache. I have never had a headache like that before. I still have no idea what the headache was. However, it felt much better the next day. I got my blood pressure checked at the doctor and everything looked good, too. I do have several pulled muscles in my neck (I have no idea how I did that) -- and I know that at least one of them is pressing against a nerve, so perhaps that caused the headache? No clue. I did get a prescription for Loratab. I've only taken one -- that first day. But when I went to pick it up, it cost me 47 cents! What the heck? No wonder people are addicted to pain killers! ;)

So the first week was rough -- my headache/neck problem, Luke came down with an ear infection and pink eye, and the first week with a newborn is always challenging in general. It was crazy, with three out of the four of us seeing the doctor! The second week was better. We spent this weekend home at my parents' house, which was very nice. My in town family all got to meet Nathan, which was fun!

But before that, Nathan was 1 week old! :) Here he is at one week:



And here are the boys' feet. Luke is so dainty, isn't he?

Nathan!

Nathan Matthew joined us on April 27 at 5:32 p.m. He came out with a blond mohawk!



8 lbs, 13 oz., 20.5 inches. He was 8 lbs., 7 oz. when he left the hospital and then 9 pounds even Tuesday at his first doctor's appointment. We also had a tongue tie clipped Tuesday. (Luke had one as well. With Luke's we didn't have to clip it until 4 months, but the combination of the tongue tie and the round the clock nursing left me with really really bad pain. The clipping has helped.)



Big brother is so excited about BABY. He wants to show us that Nathan has eyes. He wants to kiss him and hug him and give him heavy love by basically laying on top of him (we don't let him do this, of course).

Easter

We had a quiet but nice Easter by ourselves in Bloomington this year. I am "too pregnant" to travel the 3 hours home so we spent a day on our own. We tried to go to 10:30 a.m. mass, but it was so crowded we went to Bob Evan's instead. We did make it back to church for the 5:30 p.m. mass, and it was much less crowded.

Hal made a lamb and fruit stew for dinner that was really yummy (and reminiscent of Katniss' fav dish in The Hunger Games).

Luke got an Easter basket the week before from Gammy and Pa (my mom and dad), when Gammy came to visit for a couple of days (she helped me clean my house and get things ready for Nathan's impending arrival. Gammy and Pa's basket included several cute clothes (including the shirt he has on in the picture), a couple of books, an Elmo dish, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, and some eggs with chocolate goldfish in them. On Easter, he got a basket from us/the bunny. He got an Elmo cup and note pad, a Reese's egg and chocolate bunny, a couple of books and a slinky. The slinky was a hit! I love the Target dollar spot, where we got all of his stuff.