Saturday, June 26, 2010

Update on Parker

Parker's favorite things:
1. Watching the World Cup with his Dad at 5 in the morning
2. Pooping in clean diapers, after we change him he likes to do his business
3. Sunbathing, but we only let him indulge in this for a few minutes at a time (it helps with his small case of jaundice)
4. Getting kisses from his Mom
5. Guy time, as Seth calls it
6. Eating, he is a very messy eater
7. Sleeping with his mouth open
8. Raising his hands and waving his arms around like he is conducting music
9. Kicking off his right sock, yeah only his right one
10. Making scrunchy faces








A Real Garden of Our Own

Just two days after Parker came home, we added another new addition to the family... our garden. Seth and I have a wonderful grandpa who is a Master Gardener and he helped us build, plant and start our little garden. We are so excited to finally have a backyard for gardening and we still have plenty of space to play soccer and frisbee with Parker (I have to remind Seth that Parker is still too young for that). This year we wanted to start small and simple, so we planted Swiss chard, carrots, zucchini, cabbage, pumpkins, tomatoes, a sunflower for me and TONS of radishes for Seth. We just hope that the we have inherited the green thumb from Papa.





Saturday, June 19, 2010

Labor and Delivery of Parker

Parker Keaton Grisham
The past couple days have been a whirlwind and it feels very surreal. It has yet to sink in that Seth and I are parents though I have noticed that our conversations these days are more about poopy diapers and taking naps. I decided that while Parker is sleeping (he is a very good sleeper) I should get this up on the blog. Here is the recap of my labor and delivery:
One day after Parker’s due date on June 15tth I started having contractions at 5am… except I had no idea that they were contractions, I thought that Parker was just inside pushing on me and it caused a lot of pressure (side note to everyone who has told me what a contraction feels like, you need to be more descriptive!) Then I noticed that these feelings of pressure were coming pretty consistently so I woke Seth up and he started his contraction timer app on his phone that he was so excited to use. It turned out that I was feeling lots of pressure every five minutes and the feeling lasted for 38 to 45 seconds. I called the hospital and said that I thought I was having contractions but I wasn’t sure, they told me that it didn’t sound like I was and that I needed to take a warm bath and stay at home. So I did that and nothing changed so I called the hospital again around 8am and they told me that I could come in and get checked. Seth and I thought that I was just having some pains and we would be sent home for sure; we almost didn’t even grab my hospital bag but we were not prepared at all for actually staying when we got there.
As we were filling out paperwork in the ER another expecting mother came in behind us just screaming and going nuts and since I was just walking around and not screaming and not going nuts I started to feel really embarrassed for even coming in at all as I clearly was not as much in labor as this girl. They wheeled me up to the labor and delivery to be checked anyways and Seth and I were quite surprised to find out I was dilated to a 4-5. The nurse told us that we were definitely having a baby today and we couldn’t believe it. As it turns out the other expecting mother who was going nuts was in the next room over and I was much farther along than she was; apparently I have a much higher pain tolerance than I thought.
By this time it was 9am and we called the family to tell them what was going on and that there would be a new family member by the end of the day. My mother quickly left her work and Ashley left the daycare to come be with us. At 10:30am I got my epidural; I figured I was going to get one anyway so there was no point in waiting until I couldn’t stand the contractions to get it. We waited for a few hours for me to dilate to a 10 and passed the time by taking a nap, watching the World Cup, reading magazines and making predictions about what time Parker would come. A week earlier Seth and I took a video on my cell phone of us making predictions on the day he would be born and I was a few days off but Seth was pretty spot on; he predicted June 15th at 3:07pm. At the hospital we decided we were going to play “Price is Right” rules and you can be as close to the actual time without going over. Around 3pm I started feeling like I could push and soon I had the doctor and nurses swarming around me. There is no sense of privacy when you’re in labor, I lost count of how many people saw my forbidden zone. It took me about ten minutes to figure out how to really get a good push and another twenty three to actually push him out, total pushing time 33minutes. And he was born at 3:37pm, Seth was close on his guess. I think I had a pretty good labor and delivery, even if it had been hours and hours of hard labor, seeing and holding Parker for the first time was worth anything. He weighed 7.9lbs, much bigger than anyone predicted, 21in for length, 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 arms and 2 legs. We couldn’t be happier parents.

Labor and Delivery of Parker















Nana Shelby

Grandpa Marty

Auntie Ashley

Uncle Samuel and Papa Cesar

Harper and Parker are exactly 5months apart and both weight 7.9lbs at birth, we already nicknamed the two "The Harps and Parks"

Cousin Gage can't wait for Parker to come play with his toys

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Introducing Parker Keaton Grisham


The big day finally arrived! As a disclaimer, usually Carmen does all the blogging but due to the fact that she is tired from just having a baby, yet wanted pictures up on the blog I am filling in. I also did the previous blog too...not bad for a rookie! I'm sure Carmen will shortly post a real blog and with several more pictures as our sister-in-law took so many for us and is busy editing. (thanks Ashley!!) For now, you get a few shots.
Birth Highlights:
Name-Parker Keaton Grisham
Birth Facts-Time of birth 3:38 pm, 7lbs 9oz, 21 inches long
Pushing Time-33 mins
Mama and baby are both super healthy and doing fantastic! Thanks to all for the support and love! (if any are wondering, probably not, but the father is tired, but doing well too)








Parker has a question



The 3 amigos...plus 1 now

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The Walk of Walks...Cristina's Graduation

Saturday, June 12th 2010 in the Tacoma Dome our sister Cristina took one of the biggest steps thus far in her life, graduating from Federal Way High School. For those of you who did not attend, Cristina is on the far right, white gown and has a big "C" on the top of her cap. (she decorated the cap herself)


Beautiful flowers from Nana


Mama and Cristina


Nana and Papa getting their camera time with the graduate


Lucky for Cristina, and a lot of other people, Carmen didn't pop before Cristina's big day. Carmen's due date was on Monday June 14th and Cristina made her promise that the baby wouldn't come before so that she wouldn't steal her thunder on graduation day, because let's face it, a new baby trumps graduation!



CONGRATULATIONS CRISTINA, CLASS OF 2010!!!

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Apples Anyone?

Now that I have a real oven...
quick funny story: at our old place we just had a convection/toaster type oven that plugged in and when I made lasagna instead of baking it for 2 hours I accidentally left it on the toast setting, it was just a little crispier than normal...
Okay, but now that I have a real oven I plan to do a lot more baking and cooking. I was so excited to try out some cupcake ideas from the book "Hello, Cupcake." I looked everywhere but couldn't find the red cupcake wrappers so my apple cupcakes look a little off from the profile view but from the aerial view they look amazing (in my opinion). I already have some great ideas for the little guy's first birthday party... shoot, I have so many cool things I want to try we may just go Peruvian style and have a party for every month of his first year!

Not exactly the perfect pregnancy profile picture I was going for, Seth's soccer jersey and my saggy jeans make me look so much more disproportional


Apple anyone? I promise they are nutritious and delicious...

The Big Move... Finally

What a relief! We are finally moved in to our new place. We are officially unpacked (though not completely organized yet) and have been living here for almost a full week now. Earlier today we got the internet hooked up so now I no longer have to squint my eyes from checking my email on my phone. There are a few things left to do to make this place really a home for us but we have all our pictures on the walls, Seth has his TV and surround sound up and is currently working on installing me a garage door opener. I have the kitchen and the bedroom in order and am just itching to get working on the nursery but I also can't wait for the garage to be cleared so that I can organize all my storage paraphernalia. We meant to take pictures earlier in the cleaning/painting/moving in process but Seth and I are way to easily distracted and forgetful so instead the only pictures I took just make it look like we are very messy which in fact we are the complete opposite, me being OCD type organized. So there will be more pictures to follow.