Katie hearts Sparklers

And because I feel a little guilty that I don't post about Katie anymore. :) Last night while at the store, we picked some up because we thought she'd enjoy them. And enjoy them she did. She would have liked us to have lit all of them up. But it was late by the time we got to them. There's plenty of time before the 4th of July to enjoy sparklers.

Sam's Birth Announcement

So I think this is the final design I am going with. It's so much easier making one for someone else. :)

So he hated his bath

...that we gave him a couple nights ago. Well, until the end anyway. He didn't mind so much just being in the water, but the actual bathing and washing process just made him mad. :) I knew it would. Are there any newborns that enjoy their first baths?

Katie and Sam....

Trying to decide if they look like sister and brother. What do you think? The one of Katie, I think she's almost the exact same age as Sam.

He has a belly button!

And I am not positive, but I think it's an outie. :) It definitely sticks out. The cord fell off today when I was changing him. Now for his first real bath. :) Poor thing, you know he's going to hate it. So look forward to those pictures in the next few days. Kate wants to put on her newest "princess" dress and take pictures tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get some sleep tonight and we'll be able to do it. Sam likes to eat, all the time. We'll leave it at that.

I love fuzzy hair!

Katie didn't have any hair until she was almost a year old, and then it was just fuzz. So I am totaly loving Sam's newborn locks. LOL They stand straight up after a bath. Which is exactly what we did last night. We gave him his first sponge bath at home. He was most upset with us. But he did sleep really well afterwards. Of course that was only until 3:45 am after which he woke up every hour and a half to nurse.

Sam's First Trip to the Park

Last night we took Sam and Kate to the park, since Katie was getting a little bit of cabin fever. He slept the whole time, so Kate got to get some good playtime in with Daddy. :) I'm glad we were able to get out of the house too. It was a beautiful spring evening here last night. Just cool enough to be comfortable. You can see Miguel and Kate in the background playing with her new ball that she went to the store to get.

And then I wanted to add this one in, because it's a cute picture of Katie. And I am just glad that I can still capture smiles like this from her. Things have been good having "Sammy" around as her little brother. But we do have a lot of moments where she isn't so sure of herself and needs some serious hugs and kisses. She is an awesome big sister though and we are so proud of her. She helps us whenever she can and has been really sweet through out the whole process.

So, we've been home since yesterday.

We were released yesterday from the hospital. I'm doing really great. I'm not taking any more pain meds. And the recovery really has been easy this time around. Well, so far, knock on wood. I took Sam to the pediatrician this morning and his jaundice is worse, so back we go tomorrow for another check. His weight is a little on the iffy side since he lost 11 oz since Friday night. So we'll go for a weight check in the morning too. All fun stuff! :) I'm sure he'll be better tomorrow since my milk has pretty much come in this morning. As for other things, he is licker! When he's hungry, his little tongue gets going and he licks everything. Shirts, blankets, skin, whatever is within tongue's reach!. LOL And I wanted to post this last one because it's sweet and it was taken just before leaving the hospital yesterday. Miguel is in love with his little boy. :) I think at the moment we all are. Including Katie who is handling it all surprisingly well. No, things aren't perfect, but they are wonderful. And I have to say that life has been very good to us.

Welcome Samuel Jacob!

I am sure most everyone has heard by now that Sam made his entrance into the world yesterday. It was a nice relatively uneventful birth, although ever just as precious and special. He was born at 8:35pm on 5/16 weighing in at 7 lbs 12 oz and being 20 inches in length. He's laid back and happy and looks just like a newborn Miguel. He's been a little grumpy today, but what can one expect the day after your born? LOL There are more pictures on the Flickr site, and we'll be adding more all the time. Enjoy!

Katie's last day as an only child....

So I took Katie to Monkey Joe's this morning as a surprise to play. She thoroughly enjoyed the trip there. Then I took her to Michael's to get an activity set to draw and color with at the hospital tomorrow. I do plan on having her with me as much as possible. After that we went to get Chick-fil-a to eat since that is Katie's favorite food. She has had a good day so far. The rest of the day will be getting last minute things ready for tomorrow. Poor thing, has no idea what's about to happen here.

The next pics you see of Sam, he will be outside my belly

I just thought I'd post all of the ultrasound pics together one last time. The next pics you see, will be from the hospital! Can you tell I'm excited!? They go in order from right to left. I know it's backwards. :)

So want to hear big news?

I will be having Sam this Friday (the 16th) if not before!!! We scheduled an induction on Friday due to a few factors and now I am officially nervous! I can't believe the little pea I saw so long ago in October is a full grown baby and will here by the weekend! Life is amazing.

Katie lurves her "scoooooteerrrrr"

Katie always draws out the "o" and the "r" in the word scooter. She loves her little toddler scooter (razor). She rides it around everywhere. And very often it takes her to "school". When she goes to "school" I have to give her a kiss and a hug and off she goes to some other part of the house. Then she comes back 2 minutes later proclaiming how she is now home from "school". Cute huh?And this other one is taken with one Katie's other favorite toys she got for Christmas. Her digital camera. It's always interesting to see what Katie likes to take pictures of. I thought she did rather well with this one of her Grandpa. :) Seeing as she is only 2 1/2. I highly recommend them to anyone with little toddlers whose moms are obsessed with their own cameras.

I got to meet Dasha!

On other news, yesterday I got to meet a good friend of mine from online! Dasha and I share a common interest in photography. :) I wish I could have gotten a better picture of us. But I had a good time talking to her before she left for the last legs of her journey home. Dasha, I hope you made it home safely and can't wait until we meet again!

Where are you Sam!?!?

And by that I mean, when are coming out to meet us? And secondly where are you exactly in my belly? I look at my belly and I can't really believe that I am 38 weeks and 1 day pregnant. I see some women who are 6 months along and they are as big as I am. People very often find it hard to believe I am due in 2 weeks. I hope he's not too small in there, so if he needs more growing time, so be it. But I can't wait to meet you little guy!

My first shoot in a long time.....

My bestest girlfriend Robin, let me go over to her house and photograph her beautiful daughter yesterday. :) Plus, I got to visit with Robin and Katie got to play with Caleb. :) I think the one to the right is my absolute favorite photo from the shoot. I liked this one of Caleb too. I just love all of the white.One of the main objectives yesterday was to get a shot of Caleb giving Claire a kiss. It really is so sweet.You all know that Sam is in so much trouble when he gets here. Do you think mommy is going to be able to put the camera down for one minute? LOL And then this last one. Who doesn't love baby toes and feet? I was actually very proud of the way I got the toes in focus. It was exactly what I was going for. So thanks again to Robin for letting me photograph Claire and Caleb! They make such wonderful models. :)
And just as a side note, to all those waiting...Nope, not in labor yet. Sam seems to be quite content in hanging out. I'll be 38 weeks tomorrow. I have a feeling that labor is going to come as a huge surprise to me, and I'll be shocked that it's actually happening when it does.

Katie's Newest Haircut

So I had some bangs cut into Katie's hair to keep what was bothering her out of her eyes. It's cute. We'll see how we really like it over the next few days. Whether it makes life easier or not will be key. Hopefully, I'll get a better shot of it too. It' cuter than it looks in this picture I think. (I tried to blog this exact same entry through Flickr and it didn't seem to work. But if there are two duplicate entries, forgive me :) )

This is totally not photography related at all...

LOL But I had to mention it. It was interesting to find while I was reading CNN.com this morning, that they had an article about ratings being low on the major networks. In the article, it sites the writer's strike and nice weather as a reason for low ratings. Well, thank goodness. I do watch some tv, but for the most part, there just isn't time in the day. And not to mention I much prefer the internet to gather and read information. At least I am reading and it's fairly interactive. :)
And yes, with the beautiful weather most of the country has been having, shouldn't we all be outside? Enjoying the day instead of sitting on the couch staring at the boob tube? Maybe the writer's strike was just what we needed. That little bit of prompting to get up off of the couch and find other things to do.

Oh and one more thing.....

Katie can ride her trike pretty well now. We have some steering issues to work on. But once we get that down, without running into things, I think she'll be ready for her first real bike with training wheels. She's getting big so fast. I need at some point to get the camera with video out, but that requires fore thought. Which at the moment, I have none of.

What would you do while waiting for your baby to make an appearance?

I garden apparently. LOL After spending a good portion of the day pruning bushes and pulling weeds, I walked around the yard seeing what I could take pictures of. I found this little fellow in the cabana I have set up next to Katie's pool. He actually wasn't so little. He was a good 6-8 inches. Katie thought he was totally cool though. She likes little animals like that. Lizards, worms, ants, etc. Then I found this rose on the climbing rose bush out back. It's just so pretty. Can you tell I love taking pictures of flowers yet?> So then Katie insisted we get in the pool. And who could resist that on such a warm day. And although I think it barely hit 80, it was way warm in the sun. Well for us preggos anyway. Katie noticed our shadows in the pool and was having fun playing around with it. Splashing it and watching it move with her. Silly girl.

Beautiful Rose, Beautiful Katie

I took this of a rose in the yard yesterday, and I really love it. I love taking pictures of flowers. ALMOST as much as I love taking pictures of Katie. :) Of whom I have plenty of pictures of. But I thought I'd throw this one in because it's a sweet shot of her. It's almost a black and white conversion, but I wanted to add a little color to it. Excuse the bubble soap down her shirt. We were blowing bubbles by the river yesterday afternoon. Just wasting time and having fun.