Sam's first week of life...

Just some pix to get you caught up a little.

What AJ found after we put Josh to bed last night...he'd dumped all his stuffed animals in front of the gate at his door and was sitting in the middle of them. Very cute, but also naughty!
Daddy napping with Sam
Josh helping Daddy with his project...AJ's building me a stand for the washer/dryer...we have the frontloading kind and we didn't buy the stands to lift them up that they sell, so AJ's building them for me so I don't have to squat on the floor to unload them everytime...yay!


Mommy loving her Sam!!

Me and Sam
Cute Sam
Josh, being silly...he loves to clear all the blocks off this shelf and get on...he was lying on his nite-nite and his black doggy (you can see a paw or two under him). He was really hamming it up for the camera in these!!
Gorgeous boy!
I love this kid!
Sam sleeping on Josh's black doggy...I love how he's all curled up with his hands under his chin. And "Aunt" Betty, thank you so much for the beautiful afghan for Sam! He sleeps on it every night! He loves to be all snuggly just like his brother! We love the "Aunt Betty nite-nites"!!
Our neighbors Sheree and Rob came over with their daughter Sydney (Josh is in love with her!) to see the new baby. They just got back from a week trip to Disney World. Josh felt the need for some extra attention and grabbed Sheree and asked her to read to him. She's so sweet, she said of course and they sat and read like this for about 15-20 min.!! They had a lot of fun!
Sydney and Rob, getting experience for Sydney's little sister, arriving in June!
Josh wanted to help carry Sam's seat...well, really he wanted to do it himself, but he settled for helping. Notice the Easter Bunny on his shoulders...he carried it around like this all over the playground!
Josh swinging his bunny
Josh and his "loot".
Sam's loot...not that he really noticed. Oh, and just so you know, they did match when we got to the park, both wearing the big/little brother shirts, but Sam had a diaper that malfunctioned, and ended up with new clothes and Mommy having very wet jeans!! However, we love the pirate bear outfit, too! It has a little anchor on the seat of the pants, too!
Josh "posing" for his picture with the Easter bag from Grandmom and Grandad.
"Josh's airpane"...or so he called it!
Totally stylin' in his hat and big brother shirt!

Sam's check up

We had an appt. today to get Sam's billiruben and weight checked just to make sure weight was going up, and billiruben down. Check and check...his weight today was 7 lbs. 12 oz. (Fri. it was 7 lbs. 6 oz.), and billiruben was 7.6 (was 8.6). So that was all great. He got examined, and was pronounced to be fine, except the resident wanted an official heart rate reading taken, as Sam's heartrate was a little high. So a RN came in and took his official heartrate, and it was still high...(she also let Josh listen in the stethescope to his own and Sam's heart...Josh was so excited...he told "Nurse Sue" that he loved her when we left!!). So then the resident decided they needed to do another EKG just to check everything. Poor Sam! So they hooked him up, but had some trouble getting readings. At this point, we'd been there for over 2 hours and Josh was very tired and getting grumpy and bored...but all things considered, he was a trooper and did well! So did Sam...even though we ended up going through 2 outfits during our time there...
Anyway, they sent the EKG up to Cardio and took Sam's blood pressure, and then Cardio told the resident that the EKG looked fine, and that we could go...so anyway, that was fun. It's always a dramatic production to take Sam to the dr. for a check up...

Just wanted to let you know what was going on with us. Nothing else too exciting...Josh got to go back to Rolly Pollies today and was SOO excited! He had fun playing with Ms. Marka again! I ended up sitting in another room feeding Sam while AJ played with Josh during the class, but at the end we went in, and showed Sam off to all the ladies...they've been looking forward to meeting him almost as long as us!

Ummm...ok, I think that's it...he's a great baby, but last night was a little rough...mostly b/c of me, not him. My hormones are so crazy, and with Josh, at the very beginning while my milk was still getting regulated and all that, I had crazy hormone shifts that totally messed with my body temp. regulation in a really horrible way. I woke up last night several times shivering uncontrollably, and it hurt really really bad...I've been chilly off and on all day today, and in between times I'm generally warm, sometimes sweating...not fun!! Hope all this gets done with soon!

More Pics

Big brother and his little friend

Our New Family

Sam before he got unhooked from the matrix, poor guy.

Josh & I wiped out.

Josh didn't lose any time introducing Sam to Snoopy

Sam at the hospital right before we left.

Mama and her boys.

Granddad having fun.

One more Sam.

Sorry, no pics...

But I wanted to post an update on us, and I don't have time to get the pix uploaded at the moment...you'll just have to wait!

Anyway, Sam is now 3 days old, and is doing well. We went back to the dr. yesterday for a check and he'd lost some more weight since being discharged Thur. night, and was having some problems peeing/pooping up to the dr.'s standards, and was a little more jaundiced, but they said to just give him a little formula to supplement till my milk came in, and to make sure he ate every 2-3 hrs., and that if he looked more yellow to us, to take him to the ER to get his billiruben tested. The resident is a really nice guy, but I think maybe slightly paranoid about Sam! Anyway, we have milk, and he proved it by pooping all in his diaper, very messily, and then, right after we finally finished cleaning that up, peeing all over himself and me...through the diaper! We were at the park... I think he's good now...no more formula supplementing unless we want to! I had to wear peepee jeans to the airport, but was so happy for him to have normal diapers, that I didn't really care that much! How's that for being a Mommy!

Anyway, we had fun at the park, and Josh had a blast. He's doing fairly well, considering the schedule we've been on and all the changes. He does seem to like Sam at times, and asks to hold him occasionally, which is SO sweet! Although he gets a really weird look on his face when he does hold him, like he can't decide whether to be happy about it or not.

He's also decided somehow that he can pretty much go potty by himself now. He goes in, puts the stool by the potty, pulls down pants/underwear (occasionally still needs help with this part), sits down, goes, wipes, pulls up his pants, flushes, then moves the stool to the sink, turns the water on (he has to boost himself up on the edge of the counter to do this), gets just a tiny squirt of soap, washes his hands, turns off the water, and then dries his hands...he just can't get the towel hung back up, b/c it's too high up for him to reach it! The first day I was home from the hospital, I took him to go potty, and he did this procedure...I almost fell in the floor in shock! He really does seem to want to be a big boy mostly! He just wants to be a big boy with a Mommy who holds him all the time!

Anyway, Sam has another check on Monday afternoon, so hopefully he'll get the all clear from the dr. on his billiruben and weight gain, and we won't have to go back till the next week sometime for the 2 week check...seems like we kind of live at the dr. office right now, but we want a healthy Sam....

OK, that's it...oh, except that the grandparents are headed back to Houston right now...sad...but we had so much fun, and were so happy they could be here, both for them to see Sam when he was born, and for Josh's sake...he really loves all his family, and talks about everyone all the time, even the members he hasn't seen in a while!
Better go, AJ's been cleaning while holding Sam and supervising Josh's dinner while I post this, so I better go help out!!

Update on Sam

OK, I realized that I don't think AJ put anything in these posts about the tests on Sam...if he did and I'm wrong, bear with me, I'm really tired!!

They were thinking that Sam's right atrium of his heart was enlarged. It still is...they did an echo and said everything's functioning well, and stuff. Then they decided to do an ultrasound of his head, lungs, and liver to see if there was anything wrong there...didn' t find anything at all wrong! Yay!! I was so happy for this awesome news!!

Anyway, that's all we know for now, and even that much came second hand, so if we find out more, we'll let everyone know.

OK, I'm falling asleep and typing at the same timellliterally, so I'm gonna go for now. Love to everyone!

It's 4 am; we are all drifting in and out....why not post pics?

Josh had a great time at the hospital today. I feel really bad that Kathy's parents and Josh didn't get to meet Sam, but I am glad he's getting good rest so they can all come back tomorrow. As usual Josh is charming all the girls around here...just now he has competition from a certain little guy. This is him with our awesome nurse & med student.
Earlier this week Josh helped us out with some projects. We now have two sturdy saw horses and are prepped for finishing up a washer/dryer stand for later.
Josh got a to leaf blower (knew what it was instantly) from his grandparents. We had to go test it out. He loved it and we got the yard looking much better.

Now for more Sam.

Look at all the hair on that kid! I knew he had quite a bit, but I hadnt seen him with his little cap off yet. He's been in the room with us all night and is doing great! He took right to eating and is taking a little nap with mommy right now.

I kinda like him!

What a snuggler! He really is content and just happy to be held. Poor little guy has had a long day. He is peeking a little bit right now, just sucking on his binky and resting. We have another long day tomorrow of routine tests and his circumcision. Thankfully it looks like he'll be up for all of it...back to my folding chair for another nap. Thanks for all the prayers yall; God brought us an awesome kiddo!

Live from the Hospital

Another guest blogger, today. AJ here...finally making my debut on the blogosphere.

As you have heard, our new kiddo has arrived. The stats are correct and he was born at 1613 EST on the 1st of April, 2009...SAY APRIL FOOL'S AND BE BEATEN.

The delivery went much smoother this time compared to the last adventure, but we had our share of drama. After lunch Josh and I were hanging out in the room with Kathy. She had received her epidural and was feeling pretty good. She started to progress a little (around 5cm dialated) and she started feeling things a little more. Josh was getting a little needy, so I decided to take him for a walk and find his grandparents. We went down to the cafeteria where I thought they were but didn't see them at all. I wanted to give Kathy some time to progress a little so we took a walk around the children's hospital. We looked at the paintings and fishes and then wandered out to the park. As we got to the park, I felt my phone buzz and saw it was Kathy's dad. I tried to call back but couldn't reach him. I started to head back in and put Josh on my shoulders. As we walked in the hospital I was being paged to L & D. I started running nearly mowing down some student doctors that were not moving with a sense of purpose. I got to the 5th floor saw Ellen and tossed her Josh as I ran by. I was only gone for 45 mins to an hour and she was READY (and even waiting for me) when I got back. I barely made it; everybody was dressed out and about to deliver without me. Kathy pushed for 13 mins and we had our kiddo. She did AWESOME as usual and really impressed the medical staff with how tough and calm she was.

She is doing great right now and here are the pics of our newest addition SAMUEL HENRY LEWTON:




there he is...which brings me to my final point: my kids cannot be born without me leaving for a while...sorry Kathy.