Garrett Is Almost 3 Weeks Old!

I just cannot believe that tomorrow morning he will be 3 weeks old! It's crazy how the time flies. Right now Garrett is cuddled up, sleeping and snuggling with me and Kimbri is down for a nap.... which means I have a few minutes to upload some pictures to the blog. I really want to be able to have all our pictures and memories together so that we can look back and remember them. And I know I've said this a billion times but we are so happy to have Garrett in our lives! He is just so perfect. We love him! 

Here are some pictures during weeks 2 and 3 of Garrett's life:

Garrett's Great-Grandma & Great-Grandpa Haycock

All bundled up!

His long feet and long toes. Takes after his dad! ;-)

Look at that cute chubby chin!

An incredible father with his little boy:)

Thanks Diana for this amazingly soft and cute blanket!

He literally spit up right as I took the picture. You
can see it drooling out of his mouth! Haha.

Trying to eat his hand during tummy time.

Garrett likes to have his arms out of the blanket.

The Loves of My Life

Right now Rick is at school, Kimbri is down for a nap, and Garrett is sleeping peacefully right beside me. Everything is quiet. And it really gets me thinking about how much I am so blessed to have these three special people in my life. They are each so perfect. They make my life complete and meaningful.  I just love them all so, so much. I can't even begin to imagine my life without them. 

Kimbri has been so cute with Garrett. Whenever Rick brings her into our room in the morning, she immediately looks to the bassinet, or runs over to it if Rick isn't carrying her, and says "ba-ba" which means baby in this instance. (It also means bottle to her).  She'll so often reach her arms out, wanting to hold him. I'll hold him in her lap and she always instantly wraps her arms around him. I'll say, "Give the baby kisses." And she'll so gently touch her mouth to his head and give him kisses. It melts my heart every time. Kimbri is such a fabulous older sister. She is also a fabulous little daughter. As I try to teach her things every day, I think she ends up teaching me more with her beautiful smile, her kind eyes and her loving heart. She brings so much happiness into my life.

Garrett has also brought so much joy into our lives. I can't count the times I've just looked at him, snuggling him in my arms, and thought about how precious and perfect he is. I've thought countless times about how much a miracle it really is to bring a new life into this world. It blows my mind every time I start to think about it. Babies really are just perfect gifts from God. I love everything about Garrett. His long fingers, like his dad's. His cute little feet and toes. His dark hair. His eyes, lips and nose. And especially that adorable double chin he's got going on! He sure loves his food :)  I am so incredibly grateful that Garrett has joined our family and even though he has only been here for a short two weeks and four days, I feel like I have known him my entire life. He is perfect and I'm so glad to be able to call him my son. 

Rick makes my life complete. I don't think I could possibly express how much love I have for him. I'm so happy that he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him... to be with him for the rest of eternity. I'm so glad that I get to be the one to bring his children into this world, to be their mother and to be his wife. So much has happened in the short 2 years and 4.5 months that we've been married.  It has been a bit crazy at times but I wouldn't change a thing! 

Rick is such an incredible student and has worked so hard for our little family. I appreciate how focused and determined he is. Since we got married he has been working so hard to complete all the things he needed to in order to apply to medical school - like shadowing, volunteering, studying for the MCAT, working in a research lab, and getting good grades to build his application. And his hard work has paid off! We are excited for the new adventure that medical school will bring. I'm so grateful to him for being so committed to provide a future for our family.  

Not only has Rick been an outstanding student, more importantly he has been such a dedicated father and husband. He is committed and devoted to his family. I love that he takes the time to sit down and be with Kimbri, showing her his love with his time. He reads with her, gives her baths, gets her dressed and ready for bed, gives her rides on her little car, flies her around the house and makes her giggle. He can always put a smile on her face!  I love the way he holds Garrett in his arms, the way he looks at him with such tenderness and love. I can't help but think how someday Garrett will get to go on "Fathers and Sons" outings with his daddy. Rick is the perfect example for our little boy! I love how much he cares about our two precious little children. I love how great of a husband he is to me. And I love that he is my best friend. 

These are the loves of my life and I couldn't be a more happy girl to get to call them my family! I love you Rick, Kimbri and Garrett!

The Big Sister

Kimbri is such a good big sister to Garrett! I mentioned this a little bit in my previous post but I finally uploaded some pictures of Kimbri with Garrett and wanted to post them. She loves to hold baby Garrett and always pats him on his head. She even will give him kisses and hugs. Often times she finds his binky that I try to hide under his blanket and tries to put it in his mouth, even when he is sleeping. 

Kimbri and dad came home from church and the first thing she wanted
to do was hold the "ba-ba" - baby. 

She always runs over to his bassinet to look in at Garrett.

Our two precious little kiddos.

She loves touching his head...

...and patting him on his tummy. 

Now I have to share a funny story about what happened at tummy time yesterday. Although Kimbri has adjusted pretty well to having another little person in the house, sometimes she gets a little bit jealous. I have no idea why tummy time made her jealous but it did. Garrett had been in his rocking bassinet next to where Kimbri and I had been playing together. I decided that it was time for Garrett to have tummy time since he was kind of starting to stir and it would be time for him to eat soon. So I took one of the blankets out of his bassinet and lay it on the floor and turned around to get Garrett when all of the sudden Kimbri burst into tears! She literally had alligator tears running down her face. Sometimes we have a little drama queen on our hands :) I quickly tried to make things better by laying one of her blankets down next to Garrett's so that she could also do tummy time. It took quite a few minutes before she calmed down and was alright with the idea of me giving Garrett some tummy time attention. 

This picture is from a different day when she was okay with Garrett having tummy time. She just walked right over to where he was and lay down next to him. 

Kimbri also likes to use Garrett's things... like his hat they gave him in the hospital. I was nursing Garrett on the bed and she found his hat and had put it on her own head before I even realized she had it. I of course thought it was pretty funny and had to take a quick picture before taking it off of her (the camera happened to be sitting right next to the bed on my night stand). It is now pretty stretched out. Oh well. 

And Kimbri also loves to get into Garrett's car seat and sit in it just for fun. Technically she still under the weight limit for this car seat, but now we refer to it as the baby car seat. However, I think she still even thinks of herself as a baby. Haha :)

Garrett's First Bath

We gave Garrett his first bath on January 12, 2013. It had to be a sponge bath because his cord was still on at that time. So we spread a big fluffy towel out on the kitchen table and got the bucket they gave us at the hospital with his hospital sponge and a washcloth and went to work. Pretty sure he did not like it very much! You can obviously tell that from the pictures...

But just look how clean he looks now! And I'm in love with his hair. It was super fluffy right after his bath! 

His Umbilical Cord

Garrett's umbilical cord fell off late last night on January 15 when he was 11 days old. 

When Kimbri's cord fell off I took a picture...at least I didn't save it and put it in a scrapbook! How gross. I hope people don't actually do that. This time around I decided not to take a picture because it honestly just looked disgusting. So I thought I'd just record that it fell off just to remember for memory's sake. 

Garrett's First Blow Out

I don't think we need a picture of Garrett's first blow out... I'll leave it up to your imagination.

But I just had to document his first blow out because Rick was the one who changed it and we have to give him credit for changing such a nasty poopy diaper that ended up all over his clothes!

It happened on January 10, at 6 days old. Haha! Thanks, Rick, for taking care of that one!  ;-) 

Jaundice

When we took Garrett back to the hospital two days after leaving we sadly found out that his bilirubin levels had gone up...which meant we had to start him on the lights. The home healthcare people came and brought a bili-bed and a bili-blanket. Like with Kimbri, they told us to keep him on the lights at all times unless we were feeding him or changing a diaper. And I'll tell ya, it's so hard to bring a brand new baby home and stick them on a bili-bed and not get to snuggle or hold them! 

We had to go back to the hospital the next day and get his heel poked so they could get some blood to test his levels again. They had gone down but only by a little bit. The levels went from a 17.2 to a 16.6.  So for the next few days we had to go back and get his little heel poked so he could get his bilirubin levels tested. The next time they were a 13.8 and then finally down to a 9.5! So by that day we could finally take him off! We had to get the levels down to an 11.9 or lower. And we did it! So now we just get to snuggle and hold our little bundle of joy! 

Here are some pictures we took or Garrett on his bili-bed:

On our way to the hospital to get his levels checked.

Bandaids on his heels every day for a while :(

He got his arm out. And just look at that chubby chin!

We're so glad that Garrett is off the lights now and we can snuggle him all we want! We love you so much Garrett!!