I love unexpected finds, especially when they consist of my Mowgli bear

Sorting through our pictures and came across this gem of a photo. Love the temple, love that clear blue sky, but mostly love that fluffy haired sweet little boy hammin' it up for the camera.

birthday bash

We had fun last weekend celebrating Talis' birthday with lots of hugs, high-pitched "you're one years old!",  and of course a birthday party. We invited some friends and family over to our neighborhood pool and had a pretty laid back birthday pool party. Talis was a little too busy eating watermelon (or smooshing the few pieces he didn't in his fist) to play in the kiddie pool but he made sure to show off his swimming tricks to some of his fellow swim class classmates in the big kids pool. We had so much fun visiting with everyone who came and can't thank you enough for all the sweet presents you brought for Talis. Happy birthday Talis!

                                                  

a year ago today...the birth story a year later

Today is my sweet Mowgli bear's birthday. I can't believe it, I'm filled with so many emotions thinking about it. The past year has been filled with so many ups and downs, mostly ups, sweet-joyful-heart melting ups. I've learned so much about myself since becoming a mommy to my sweet T, lessons that can only be learned when you experience what it's like to love as a parent. So I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate the priviledge of entering parenthood a year ago other than sharing the precious details of  my sweet Talis' birth story and before my memory of them becomes fuzzy...





The week leading up to Talis birth consisted of DJ working out of town in Dunkin, Arizona and me staying over at my mom's house while he was away. Luckily I didn't go into labor then (which I was really nervous about happening) because Dunkin is a few hours away. Fortunately DJ came home from Dunkin with baby showing no signs of coming. So that Friday (July 8th) we went in for my routine doctors visit. With the baby measuring big the doctor wanted us to go ahead and plan on being induced the upcoming Tuesday (July 12th) if the baby had not come yet. We sat dumbstruck. I was hoping I'd have a late arrival baby (due date was July 18th) even though at this point my wardrobe consisted strictly of stretchy yoga pants and baggy pj tees and my feet resembled water balloons with pickles for toes. I was anxious about motherhood to say the least so I was telling myself I still had about two weeks left. We awkwardly agreed (and I say awkward because we were so surprised at the doctors request that we mumbled what I'm sure sounded like "oh um yah? um k aaaaa sure". The doctor checked me before we left and we were informed I was already dilated at a 3 almost 4 and was effaced some percentage that my mind can no longer recall. We had no idea what that meant so again we mumbled an acknowledgement and left. The entire elevator ride and walk to the car we both had permanent smiles on our faces. Tuesday was the day! or so we thought...

Later that night DJ got called into work and worked through the night. He didn't get home until around 11 the next morning and promptly passed out on the couch downstairs. I was upstairs folding laundry when I felt funny. I ran into the bathroom and jumped into the tub just in time for my water to break. I wasn't entirely sure what to do (since no one tells you that once your water breaks, it continues to leak up until baby time) so I stood in the shower for a little bit. I was not about to get water juice (what would you call it?) all over the carpet so I just started taking a shower while simultaneously yelling down at DJ that my water broke. He never heard me so I made what can only be called a makeshift adult diaper out of a towel and waddled downstairs to wake DJ up. He was a textbook freak out of a husband whose wife is going into labor while I tried to act cool and nonchalant about the whole thing. "Oh hey hun, whats that? your awake now? oh well just fyi my water broke. no biggie. no we don't need to go to the hospital. I'm gonna go do my hair." (my go-to stressful situation handling mechanism is to act cool, way too inappropriately cool). So why DJ showered and got dressed I did attempted to do my hair (I was a sweaty nervous mess at this point so any attempt I made to do my hair were pretty futile). After trying our best to explain to our dogs that when we come home we'll have an extra in tow (dead serious) we called our family and loaded up in the car for the hospital.

Once we got to the hospital they did our paperwork (very slowly in my opinion. What happened to parking in the emergency zone and running in doing loud labor breathing and yelling "she's having a baby! She's having a baby!" ? Father of  the Bride 2 is so off). They took us to the holding room and checked me (dilated to a 6) which I still don't exactly understand but am glad for none the less because it meant that I suddenly was important enough to proceed to the delivery room. As soon as I was in the delivery room they checked me again and was dilated to a 7. Baby would be here fast! And then I got an epidural...

Hearing my mom talk prior about how she progressed so fast while delivering my brother that by the time she was ready to get an epidural it was too late I was determined not to make that mistake. So as soon as I heard I was dilated to a 7 I told the nurse I was ready for the epidural even though I wasn't feeling any contractions yet. As soon as I got the epidural things slowed way down. It seemed like nothing happened for hours, which not much did. Our family was so sweet to stay the whole time too. Everyone pretty much took turns hanging in the waiting room and hanging in the delivery room with us. We had everyone taking guesses on the gender and the time baby was going to make his or her entrance. They eventually started Pitocin on me and after a few hours on that I was deemed ready to push. A little after midnight I started pushing. At 1:58 am our sweet little baby was born. Our little baby was 8 pounds 14 ounces and 21 inches long. Tears and smiles filled the delivery room. We had a baby, a baby boy. Soon after he was born they rushed him over to the nursery to run some tests. I had spiked a fever during labor so they wanted to make sure everything was okay with the little one. He ended up needing to get an IV to get some precautionary medicine and they wanted to monitor him overnight in the nursery for the first night or so. We felt so much love from family and friends throughout our hospital stay. So many people came to see baby and to congratulate us. 

I remember the first night we got to keep him with us in our hospital room. Just us three in our dark quiet room, our own little world, our own little family. It felt right. It felt complete. And while I won't say I knew exactly (or at all) what I was doing it felt natural to me, loving this little baby of mine, caring for him. Between nursing him, pumping, changing his diapers, and trying to take care of myself I don't think I ever slept more than thirty minutes while we were in the hospital and I was okay with that. I felt like it was our own special time me and my baby. With DJ sleeping soundly beside me I would study Talis' face, hold his little hand with my finger, and whisper countless times to him how much I loved him.

I still study his face. His expressive eyebrows when he's mad or concerned and how his cheeks seem to become extra puffy when he's asleep. I still try and hold his hand. Sometimes he lets me when he walks by my side, most of the time his independent self shoos me away. But when he snuggles into me when I'm giving him a bottle he always searches for my finger, like it's his way of reassuring me he's still my little newborn back in our hospital room. And I still tell him countless times throughout the day that I love him. Because I do, and I never want him to forget it.



Happy first birthday Talis. Mama and daddy love you so much. We have experienced happiness and love to it's fullest when we met you. You will always be ours. Our boy, our heart, our own little piece of heaven. 

feeling lucky

wrote this post right before we left for the airport a few weeks ago and forgot to post it. Normally I would just not post it but it was too sweet not to, memories like this one need to be remembered...

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This morning has been a whirlwind of commotion and emotions (hey that rhymes). As we get ready to head up to Seattle today we've been busy packing, cleaning, packing, and some more cleaning. I have this really annoying OCD habit about having to have my house spotless clean before leaving on vacation or going out of town. If it's not, it completely throws off my vacation mojo and it's in the back of my mind the whole time. This morning as DJ headed off to work to try to chip away at the ever growing amount of work he needed to get done before we left I found myself trying to shower/pack/care for Talis/and clean house all at the same time. Needless to say I was failing miserably getting panicked and stressed which lead to a very undeserving phone call to said husband where I complained to him about how much I needed to get done (It's a wonder how this guy lives with me I tell ya). And just when I thought the world was ending (because that's how dramatic I was being) Talis started to calm down, I realized I was done with packing, and the house was almost clean. But the real icing on the cake was seeing DJ come home with a smile on his face as he quickly disappeared to the backyard to do yard work before we left. That guy sure does love me. And while I'm still getting used to the fact that having a family means more dirty floors and piles of laundry more often than not I'm pretty lucky to share those dirty floors and piles of laundry with these two guys (and thank you bunches for putting up with all my quirks and faults, I sure love you two for it).

the northwest episodes: photo diary

Since I could go on and on about all the fun we had in Washington I opted to just cut to the chase, it. was. a. blast. Here is a snippet of the rest of what we got to do. Until next time Washington, you are always so good to us!

the northwest episodes: eagle eyes in spotting eagles

While we were driving we kept entertained by playing the categories road trip game and talking excessively about how cute Talis is. when we were driving the stretch from Ruby Beach to the Sol Duc Falls (which we sadly ran out of time to end up seeing) we spotted some vultures up ahead eating something on the side of the road. When we got a little closer Dj realized there was also a bald eagle there and we all about freaked. Just then the eagle took off and started flying with our car! I tried to get the best picture I could on my phone . We may have turned the car around to take pictures of the eagle in a nearby tree and we may have waited for a significant time in hopes it would fly closer and we may have discovered that what the eagle was eating was a dead deer on the side of the road and I may have taken a picture of it....maybe....I'll go ahead and just blame it on not thinking straight due to how blown my mind was about seeing a real life eagle in the wild.

the northwest episodes: quinalt rainforest

We just got home from camping over the weekend with the Reynolds clan and we had a blast. Unfortunately the more fun a vacation the more tired at the end so I'll post about our weekend a little later when my energy level isn't running on low and I've rounded up some pictures of the fun we had (sadly we failed to take many pictures). So here is another post about our Washington trip for you while I go catch some much needed zzz's....

At the risk of sounding repetitive in describing the Quinalt Rainforest (gorgeous, breathtaking, beautiful) I'll just let the pictures do the talking...