Adventure with Santa

Today was our first lengthy trip out and about with Alex. We had to do some Christmas shopping and went to see Santa with his cousin, Drew. It is still amazing to me that we can be gone 7.5 hours and between all the Chicagoland traffic and holiday lines and feeding Alex every 2 hours, we were only able to go to Target, sit with Santa and go to dinner in that time...whew! A small price to pay for living in a city with so much to see and do.

The Santa visit really cracked me up. Drew is normally the happiest baby ever, but he wasn't so happy to meet Santa. He was all smiles for the entire hour we waited in line and as soon as he got on Santa's lap...meltdown! Alex was so squished in Santa's massive arm that I think he didn't have the opportunity to express any emotion. Here is the photo which commemorates Alex and Drew's first Santa visit which we will proudly display on the keychains we paid $30 bucks for...welcome to parenthood, not even Santa is free :)But it was worth the money and the wait for the laughs I got out of it!

I love my swing

and my mommy does too...

Alex

Finally a quiet moment to update the blog. Most of you already know, but Alexander James Lightcap was born on November 28 at 11:07pm. He weighed 7lbs. 3 oz and was 19 inches long. The doctor decided to induce me because of my high blood pressure. We went into the doctor for our regular weekly appointment and the doctor says, "so how do you feel about having the baby tonight. Are you ready?" It was either have the baby then or be monitored by the hospital and potentially be on a bunch of drugs so....Um....we said we were were ready as we would ever be, I suppose! So we left the appointment and 2 hours later went back to the hospital to have Alex. I went into natural labor that night and they induced me the next morning to speed things along. Here is the final belly shot right before we left for the hospital...we had to take the picture about 10 times because joe's hands were shaking so badly. As much as we had been preparing, you would have thought we would have been ready!



Labor was easier than I imagined. Don't get me wrong...it was exhausting and painful, but I just imagined it being a whole lot worse. Joe and I were commenting that we couldnt remember the last time we sat around during the day and relaxed and watched a bunch of tv. The early part of the day we watched a lot of price is right and oprah during labor but by the time Judge Judy came on there was no more tv watching for me! As much as I usually like Judy's attitude, it doesn't really sit well during very active labor!

Alex was born a few hours later. Here is a photo taken within an hour of his birth.


And a photo of us looking extremely tired!


Leaving the hospital



Family and freinds came to visit






So far Alex has been a very good baby. I'm not sure how we got so lucky. He cries when he is cold, hungry or during diaper changes but thats about it so he has been pretty easy to figure out so far. I keep knocking on wood. He is very interested in faces and mesmerized by his mobile and rubber ducky. We are so happy! This is my first week by myself with him and it has been pretty calm. My main focus has been feeding baby every 2-3 hours which gets exhausting. Joe will take the next two weeks off for the holidays and for us to spend some time together as a family.

first bath





first illini game



first day out of the house in his full length coat...poor baby! :)



And the room is done! Remember the before pictures.














Baby's awake...more later.