Bringing "Home" Baby

Though we were in a little different situation this time, (seeing as our "home" was a two bedroom hotel suite) we followed our traditional picture taking of getting ready to head home from the hospital.

One with Mommy-

One with Daddy-

First time in the car seat shot-

And, the "going home outfit" shot-

With a family full of boys, I have to cutsie them up when I can! I have gotten them each a special outfit complete with matching hat and socks to accessorize.

I know they don't care, but it is still fun.

Isn't he handsome?

We picked up the boys from my sister's house, and headed home to our hotel. Mission accomplished! One new baby home with the fam. Check!

A Proper Introduction

Finally, I am coming out slowly of my "new baby fog"! Noah was fantastic earlier and did a quick post with some pictures of Baby Miles. I thought perhaps, though, that I should do one more post as well to give the little guy a full and proper introduction!

To spare you all of the details, let's just say he came a little earlier than we had anticipated! Noah had barely arrived the night before I started having contractions! Not too early, granted…but I did go into labor on my own this time; which had previously never happened. If it wasn't so darn painful, I would say that I am excited that I at least have that experience under my belt as well. I now know what it is like to watch the clock, write down contraction times, call the hospital several times, should I go in? (Yes.) Will they send me home? (Yes. and they tried to 3 times!) I was scheduled for a C-section, only problem was the whole ordeal was inconveniently centered around Memorial Day Weekend! The initial idea was to try to push me off until my scheduled date of the Tuesday after Memorial Day-

uh, no thank you. I was in some serious pain!

It took some convincing, but we (Noah) was finally able to convince the nurse to convince the doctor that he should just come in and do the surgery! Whew. I was starting to lose it. Once they made the call, it was a very long hour and a half before the doc/anasthesiologist arrived but then they worked their magic and I was done in like 20 minutes! Yay!! Baby Miles had arrived healthy and happy.

He was absolutely perfect and I was ready to snuggle him and take a nap!

10:18am

7 lbs 15 oz

20 inches

Look at our little REDHEAD!!

Sleepy Daddy and sleepy baby

Porter was excited to hold him, Ronan was more interested in the new toy that Baby Miles had "brought" for him. (Trying to make him like the baby as much as we could:)

Welcome Baby Miles Henri

We love you more than you can imagine already!

Looking forward to a lifetime of love for you!

Welcome Daddy!

Although we had had a great few weeks sinking back into American culture just me and the boys, we were all extremely excited to see Daddy! His flight was supposed to come in at like 10ish at night, so I decided it was do-able to let the boys stay up and we'd all go pick him up together because we all wanted to see him ASAP. Turns out, just our luck his flight ended up coming in several hours later, but at least he made it safely! Ronan couldn't hack it in the end, but Porter was a superstar and waited very patiently until Daddy arrived! They (Porter really, we just signed Ronan's name) wanted to make him a big poster, and I think he did a great job.

Incase you can't tell what it says- it reads "Welcum Dad wy mist yoo"

He did it all by himself, and then he thought Daddy would really appreciate some pictures of Dragons. Of course, who wouldn't love these dragons?!

There was another gal waiting there as well for the arrival of her Marine boyfriend. She was quite excited herself! She offered to take a photo of his arrival for us. It's not the greatest shot of my 9 month prego backside:) but it works! It was a terrific moment, and we were all beyond thrilled to be back together as a family!

Luckily Noah made it just in time as well....this was Friday night (Saturday morning really). Saturday night, after a fun day of shopping and a dinner with old friends my contractions started! It took another day+ before baby Miles decided to arrive, but I'd say it was pretty great timing! We've got precision!

First Professional Haircut for Mr. R

Ronan HATES getting his hair cut. Always has. We think it has a lot to do with not wanting anyone to hold his head still- from trauma with so many doctors doing it when looking/cleaning out his ears. (More on that later) Anyway, he screams and screams the whole time, and we try everything we can think of to bribe him to be good. As you can tell from the following pictures, it is this behavior that leads me to let his hair grow and grow into a nice mop! Normally I cut it, and Porter actually prefers that I do it. We tried to get him to do it as well this time and he begged me to just do it at home. Ok?! I guess it is cheap anyway! For Ronan though, I was ready to try anything. Once we got back "home" we knew they had a great kid's haircutting place that we thought was worth a shot. They pull out all the stops for them, and we thought it just might do the trick. WRONG! You can't tell from the pictures, but he SCREAMED the second they started until they were done! Oh well, now we know to just make him scream at home I guess!

They let them pick which fun chair they want to sit in! He was loving the whole thing, before he realized what was going on...

He took a few brief pauses, but kept trying to rip the stylist's hand away (as you can see I'm trying to hold his hand down)

Luckily we made it through, and he did look pretty cute! So his first and (and maybe last) professional haircut goes down in the record books.

The Broken Arm Saga...Continued

Since arriving back in the States, one of the main things we had to take care of was finishing up treatment for Porter's broken arm. He conveniently broke it right before we left, so he had two follow up appointments in Turkey, and then they sent us here still with his long cast on. He had an appointment with the pediatrician, in which he promptly sent us then to the specialist. Since Porter's break was a full break of the radius, he felt more comfortable having them make the call of when the full arm cast should come off. All in all, they ended up keeping his full arm one on until about 5 weeks, and then he got to switch it out for a short one for another two. After that he then wore a soft cast splint for another 3! He was such a trooper though, and never complained about it! After one more set of follow-up X-rays recently, he is finally cleared for good...although still with a good warning to be much more careful:)

This set of pictures will pick up where the last ones left off, so we can document the full progression for posterity-

They weren't quite sure what they had done the first layer of cast out of in Turkey, because they had a really hard time getting it off! She said it took three times as long as normal for her to cut all the way through it! From the outside it looked like a normal cast, but I guess looks can be deceiving! Their conclusion was that they had used a combination of plaster and fiberglass of some sort. I guess they thought it was strange, but still did the trick. They were overall pleased with they way they had set his bone in Istanbul. Whew!

I figured a picture was better than keeping the actual stinky cast-

He was THRILLED to get to choose a color for his short cast. For his first cast, they didn't have any colors to choose from. We were happy he got to do it at least for the short one.

Loving the short cast!!

A couple of weeks later...

One happy boy to be getting the short one cut off too! He kept laughing, he thought the vibration really tickled.

Sweet Freedom!!

Sorry it is blurry, but it was the only action shot I got.

A nice shot of all the dead skin, etc. He also got a little bit of a sore around his wrist, but it healed really quickly.

And then, the splint- he could take this off for the bath and to go swimming though, so he was still thrilled. And now we have a splint in our first aid kit for any future little broken arms!

Ok kiddo, let's hope this is all the broken bones we deal with for a while now!

taking it private..finally

Hello all! I am currently behind (seeing as this darling new baby of ours is keeping me a tad distracted with all the constant cuddling he needs:) but before I get caught up I thought I would post a warning that after careful consideration, and quite frankly quite a long time coming I have decided to take our blog private. In the FSO blogosphere I know that are many opinions on the subject, and I actually agree with both sides of the argument. For my sake though I sat and considered who I was really writing the blog for. In our house I am using it as kind of our "family scrapbook", and I turn it into a blog book. That being considered, among other things I realized that there are numerous reasons for me to make the change- including security concerns and being able to post things that I feel I am leaving out. I do, however, know that numerous fabulous folks read my blog though-both people I know and those who don't. I am not one to discriminate, and I do want to reward people who are avid fans...I know, I know...there are SO many of you!) so if you are one who would like to still be included please leave a comment and I will send you an invite. In any case though, I would like you to consider this your fair warning! I will be switching over in two weeks from now...count that as July 13! At some point I might decide to go the "two different blogs" route, as many others of you out there...but for the time being, this is all I can manage!

Miles

For those of you that are avid followers of our blog, or who haven't seen any pictures of our latest addition, here you go. Welcome to the world!