2 months!

Asher had his 2 month birthday on Sunday. He is getting so big and I love it! We had his 2 month appointment yesterday and it went great. He had to get 3 shots and he took it like a champ! He cried during the shots but calmed down once I picked him up and was asleep by the time we made it out to the car. I really can't believe how big he has gotten. He is even bigger than I expected, these are his 2 month stats:

Weight: 11 lbs, 10 oz- 49th percentile
Height: 23 1/2 inches- 75th percentile
Head: 15 inches- 21st percentile

How did we end up with such a big kid? I'll never know! He is sure filling out and is cuter than ever. It seems he is still dealing with some acid reflux and spits up all the time. Our dr recommended switching to soy formula so we will see if that helps. She said it would be best to avoid medicine if we can, it does not seem to be painful for him so medicine probably wouldn't do much anyway. He also has a minor case of something called torticollis. It basically is like he was born with a kink in his neck that he cannot get rid of. He tilts his head to the right and is more comfortable looking in that direction. He also always sleeps with his face to the right, no matter how we put him down he always ends up that way. We have some neck stretches we have to do with him everyday to try and correct it. Luckily, he does not have it severely so we should definitely be able to fix it with the stretches. We have a lot of motivation to do the stretches because if we don't he could end up needing physical therapy or even a helmet! I am determined not to let that happen! It should hopefully be fixed within about 2 months from the stretches.

My favorite thing about Asher getting older so far has been all the smiling! He started smiling at about 6 1/2 weeks and it is so fun! We cannot get enough of his cute smiles. He is especially smiley when he wakes up in the morning but he is smiling more and more everyday. He seems to think tongues are pretty funny so we are always making funny faces with our tongues sticking out. He coos all the time and I love the "conversations". He is starting like his swing more all the time and it is getting easier to put him in it when he is awake instead of only napping in it. He also loves his mobile over his crib. He is still sleeping in our room but sometimes I put him in his crib just so he can watch his mobile, he now smiles at it whenever I turn it on. He is spending more time awake everyday so we have a lot of time to play. He is sleeping longer at night as well, he can go for about 5 1/2 hours before waking up to eat. Unfortunately, that doesn't always mean much more sleep for me since I usually go to bed about 3 hours after him but we are starting to get on more of a schedule lately so that is helping.

As for me and Tim, we are just enjoying being parents and learning more about our little guy everyday. I have been lucky enough to be home with Asher everyday. I also love living by my sister, Ashley, because she makes sure I do not sit in my house all the time! Asher is sure going to love his cousins, he is lucky enough to spend a lot of time with them. They are so sweet to him!

Tim and I went on our first "date" over the weekend and had a good time. We finally saw Harry Potter, which I loved! Tim's parents were kind enough to babysit for us while we were at the movie. I had a little bit of a hard time leaving him for so long but he was in good hands!

Here are a few photos of our sweet Asher from the last few weeks

Smiling big for Daddy (my favorite picture ever!)

He likes to stick his tongue out

Hanging out with Mommy

He likes to watch the mobile on his swing

Sitting in his "Asher" chair...

... it didn't last very long

Napping, looks like it's time to move to the crib, he barely fits anymore!

Asher and I went to Silver Lake with Ashley, Hunter and Brinley. This is how much fun Asher had.

Just finished his bottle before bedtime, doesn't he look relaxed?

Birth Announcement

I FINALLY printed Asher's announcements. Better late than never.

One month!

Our sweet Asher turned one month old yesterday! He is growing so fast. We love to watch him grow and change everyday. It already makes me a little sad because I know that soon he will not be my little baby anymore. He is pretty alert and loves to stare right into our eyes. He is starting to stay awake for longer periods of time so I spend a lot of my day just talking and reading to him.

Now that he is one month old I have decided to try and start a routine for him, especially for bedtime. I don't know that he will really understand it just yet but I don't want to get into any bad habits. Most nights he falls asleep in our arms and we hold him until he is into a deep enough sleep that he won't notice being moved to his bassinet. When he naps during the day I have usually let him stay in my arms because I just can't bare to move him. If I do move him it is usually into his swing rather than his bassinet. It is probably more for me then for him that I let him always sleep in my arms. I love my sleeping baby cuddles! So the past few days I have been trying to put him to bed sleepy but not asleep, he does not love it. He does not really love to be swaddled because he hates his arms down. I was swaddling him in a blanket until a couple of nights ago but the first thing he would do when I put him down "sleepy" or when he woke up was fight his blanket. He would wiggle and grunt until one arm was out the top, one through the middle and his feet totally out. We got a little pod blanket to zip him in instead which seems to work a little better because it has some stretch in it so he can wiggle a little more without waking himself up too much or pushing a blanket into his face. I still feel that teaching him to fall asleep in his bassinet may take some time and a lot work though. Good thing we love him so much!

His clogged tear ducts seem to be getting better already and I am so grateful for that. They still are moist a lot but they are not getting crusty like they were before. Poor Asher already got his first cold though :( I really don't understand how. He has never been out in public (other than the pediatrician) and we have everyone sanitize before they hold him. I'm not really sure how he got it but it sure was sad. It made for one day of literally holding him all day long. Thankfully he is doing much better now and is just a little stuffy in the mornings.

I love that we learn new things about him everyday and get to know his little personality. He loves to suck on his fingers when he can get them into his mouth and does a pretty good job at finding them, when he can't get them he's happy to accept his pacifier. If he does not get his hands in his mouth he at least always has one resting on his face. He does NOT like baths, except when we wash his hair. He calms right down for that part. He wiggles all the time, except when he is tired, then he loves to cuddle up to one of us to sleep. He makes the cutest little noises all the time. The hair on the back of his head is super long and he has some cute bedhead everytime he wakes up. Whenever he is upset we "shhh" in his ear and it always calms him right down. He sure loves his mom and dad. There are so many things that we are still learning about him and parenthood all the time. It really has been an amazing experience. We are so excited to see what else is in store with our little guy.

Just relaxing

In his little swaddlepod, he still manages to get his hand out the neck hole. Silly boy.

We love you Asher boy!

My boys

Tim and Asher are so sweet together. Tim has been such an amazing dad already. He helps so much with Asher and around the house. I definitely don't know how I would do all of this without him! He is so good at taking care of Asher when he gets home from work so I can have a little time for myself. He loves Asher so much, he is probably the cutest dad I have ever seen. Asher sure loves his daddy too. He loves to fall asleep on Tim. This is how they cuddle every night before bed.



Tim is already teaching Asher about soccer. They are watching the RSL game here. Don't judge my messy house please, I do have a newborn :)

I sure got lucky with my two cute boys! Luckily, I get some cuddles of my own too.

3 weeks

My baby turned 3 weeks old yesterday! I can't believe it! He is getting so big and has changed so much since he was born!

These are his stats from his 2 week appointment:
Weight: 8lbs 4oz- 32 percentile
Height: 21 1/4 inches- 67 percentile
Head: 14 inches- 17 percentile

This time has gone by so fast but I also can't remember what life was like before we had him. He is such a good little baby. He is so sweet and calm. He loves to cuddle with us and I think it is my new favorite thing to do :) He does seem to have a bit of acid reflux and it makes me sad for him but even when it is bothering him he still hardly cries, he is a tough little guy. He also has a clogged tear duct on each eye so his eyes are always wet and get pretty goopy when he sleeps. I am hoping that it clears up on its own soon. If it does not clear up by the time he is one then he would have to have surgery to fix it. Hopefully they clear up much sooner than that though, a year is a long time to have to have goopy eyes! Overall he is doing great and we can't get enough of him.
Tim and I are also doing pretty good. We are still adjusting to the whole parenting thing. Actually, it is probably more accurate to say we are adjusting to doing anything else at the same time! We are trying to figure out how to keep our house clean, make dinner, make it to the grocery store and still have time for eachother. It is starting to get easier though, I have finally figured out how to eat lunch and take a shower before Tim gets home from work! It is totally worth all the changes though. We love our Asher and can't imagine life without him! These are just a few pictures from the last few weeks...

Asher's first photo shoot

Of course I had to take some photos of my sweet boy. It was only the first photo shoot of many to come. He better get used to the camera :) These are just a few of my favorites, you can view them larger on my photo blog patchworkphoto.com. He is 9 days old here.

He's Here!!

Asher James McDonald
Born June 21, 2011, 5:57 am (right on his due date!)
7lbs 120z, 20 3/4 inches long


So our little man is finally here, and almost two weeks old now! Time has gone by so fast and it has been so wonderful! It all started last Monday. I was getting pretty frustrated that I had not gone into labor yet. The Thursday before I had a dr appointment and I was 4cm dialated and 80% effaced. When Monday rolled around I couldn't believe I was STILL pregnant. This whole pregnancy I was certain this little guy would come early. I had another dr appointment Monday hoping she would schedule an induction since he still hadn't come on his own. So she scheduled my induction for Wednesday morning, one day after my due date. She stripped my membranes (for the 3rd time), I was then dialated to a 5. Thinking that NOTHING would work to get this baby to come on his own I was not counting on meeting him until Wednesday. Since we now live in Bluffdale and my dr is at McKay Dee I had about an hour drive to my appointments so Ashley was kind enough to drive me there so I didn't have to drive myself, which turned out to be a very good thing. After the appointment we ran some errands and headed to my Mom's for a while. My back was hurting pretty bad but that was pretty common for most of my pregnancy so I didn't think much about it.

Ashley and I decided to head home and realized in the car that my back pain was probably contractions. We started timing them and they were about 10 minutes apart. Once we were almost home Tim called and had locked his keys in his car at the gas station. Ashley took me home to get the spare key and then back to Tim at the gas station. By this time, my contractions were about 5-7 minutes apart so we decided it was probably time to head to the hospital since we were about an hour away.
We arrived at the hospital at about 8:30pm and I was monitored until about 10:30 when they finally decided not to send us home and move us into a delivery room. Up until this point I still wasn't convinced I was truly in labor, I thought they would for sure send us home. The contractions were not nearly as bad as I thought they would be. I still requested to receive my epidural as soon as possible. At about midnight I got my epidural and then my dr broke my water. She was able to tell that the baby had already had his first bowel movement, which could cause some issues for him but she didn't think it was very much. After that we just had to wait. My mom and sister came to wait with us so they could be there for the birth. It all went pretty fast after that point. By 3am I was feeling a lot of pressure so my nurse checked and I was at a 10. I felt like I needed to push and didn't think I could keep him in there. My doctor had another patient at the same time who was just as far progressed as I was so she was having to "take turns" between the two of us. I had to wait until just after 5am for my doctor to come in so I could start pushing. Throughout the whole time we were waiting I was pretty tired and because of my epidural I was also a little loopy. I was not totally aware of what was going on the whole time. Once I started to push the doctor could tell there was more meconium than what she had originally thought. She let us know that when he came out he may not be moving much and that he would not be able to take a breath until they had cleaned out his mouth so that he would not swallow the meconium. While I was pushing he was not coming out at quickly as my doctor wanted and his heartbeat was starting to drop. She said we would need to use the vacuum and if that didn't work quickly then I would have to have a C-section, which I so did not want to do. At this point I was pretty scared but luckily the vacuum did it and at 5:57 our little man was here. He was covered in green meconium but we were very lucky that he did not swallow it and did not even need to be taken away from us. After he was born I started bawling because I could not believe he was actually here. The vacuum caused a pretty big bruise on his head but other than that he was perfect! We did not decide on his name until a few hours after he was born. We had a few names we were deciding between but Asher was the only one that seemed to fit!

Getting cleaned up

Daddy holding Asher for the first time

Relaxing with Mommy

Coming home!

These last 12 days have been so amazing. We love Asher so much and cannot imagine not having him now. It is like he just belongs with us. Tim is the best dad already, he cannot get enough of our little guy. He is probably the proudest dad I have ever seen! I am so grateful for my little family. Even though it has been tiring and a lot of learning so far I would not trade it for anything. I have wanted to be a mom for so long but it is so much better that I ever imagined. I love having the opportunity to take care of Asher, he is such a good baby! From the moment he was born he has been so calm and content. He has the sweetest spirit and already loves his mommy and daddy :) We couldn't ask for a more perfect baby.
I also have to say thanks to our wonderful families. We have had so much help and support already. We love you all!

One week old!