Welcome, Baby Ian!

So....We pretty much dropped off the blogosphere while we were getting our house and lives ready for our new baby.  We last left things with "we will let you know what the gender of our baby is".  Well, Its a Boy!  Our son, Ian Michael, took his first breaths at 12:28 on Friday, June 14.  Amanda started to labor in the wee hours of the morning and we checked into the hospital at about 4 am.  She progressed slowly and steadily for the first five or six hours that we were at the hospital.  Little Ian was having a dance party in her belly, which I tried to document in the video below, but as soon as the film started rolling, he calmed down a bit.

Amanda had an epidural a little before 11 am, and I decided to go in to work (my office is about 2 minutes from the hospital) to take care of some things while she tried to  rest.  She called me at about noon to tell me that things were starting to happen and that I should make my way back soon.  About ten minutes later, she called again and said that I needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible.  That lit a fire under me. The next time she called, I was in the turn lane to pull into the Hospital driveway.  She told me to run when I parked the car, so I did.  I arrived at the delivery room about 5 minutes before the doctor and about 15 minutes later we had a little boy!  It was a much different experience than the labor and delivery experience we had with Hannah.  Here are the baby stats:

Name:  Ian Michael
Date and Time of Birth: June 14, 2013 at 12:28 pm
Weight: 8 lb 4 oz
Height: 21 inches

I have included some pictures below for your enjoyment:

Mommy holding Ian minutes after birth

Mommy's all smiles

At the baby warmer with his weight displayed

All snuggled up tight with Mommy

Baby and Daddy

Our little philosopher

Hannah meets Ian

Brother and Sister Peek-a-Boo

Awake and alert

Crazy Holiday Madness

I am sorry that I have been neglectful the last few months.  I have been busy growing a baby (which involves being pretty medicated and sick) and trying to wrangle a 2-year old.  So needless to say I have been pretty busy.

Lets do a quick holiday recap.

Halloween

The Grinch and Cindy-Lou Who were quite the site to see.  Hannah had a blast Trunk-or-Treating at the annual church Halloween Party.  We opted to skip going out door to door because Daddy was out of town and Mommy was feeling the effects of morning sickness all night.  Instead we had a few friends over and passed out candy to some of the neighborhood kids.  It was exciting because it was the first year that we actually had people come to our door.

Thanksgiving

We had the lowest key Thanksgiving I think possible.  Josh couldn't go without all the trimmings so he spent the day cooking while Hannah and I did a little vegging.  The food was great thanks to our wonderful chef.  We had a great dinner and a relaxing time Skyping with the family that we couldn't be with.

Christmas

We had the opportunity to host my younger brother Cameron and his wife Katie for the holiday.  They drove in from Austin since we are the closest family.  We had a blast exploring the city in 70 degree weather on Christmas Eve and opening lots of presents on Christmas Morning.  Here we are in the aftermath of the festivities complete with matching jammies that I whipped together that weekend (so much for planning ahead and buying the fabric at Thanksgiving).

We decided it had been so nice that the zoo might be a fun place to visit before the family headed out. It was fun despite the nice weather abandoning us so we all froze as we walked around.  We saw the Tigers.

 Hannah learned to use her pockets.

 And we had a lot of fun visiting the rest of the animals, including the giraffes.

 And Just for good measure, here is a cute picture of Hannah sporting her Christmas dress.

 I am going to try to be back soon to share some pictures of the crazy house projects that we have been up to lately as well and next week we will have the big gender reveal of the baby that is hiding in my belly. (That is how we have been explaining it to Hannah so that she can somewhat understand).