happy new year!

wow, where did 2010 go! i guess being pregnant and having a baby will make the time go by in warp speed! what a year it was though:

found out we were pregnant

celebrated my last birthday in my 20's!

celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary

got the house ready for a new baby

HAD A BABY!!

took our first road trip with graham at thanksgiving to grana and grampa's

hosted graham and mason's first christmas at our house with the whole fam!

and celebrated new years eve with graham's newest friends kiera, derek, dawn and ej!

what will 2011 bring?! guess we'll have to wait and see. i guess it's time to make some new years resolutions too, huh?!

christmas photos!

i went a little overboard with the photos this christmas. guess it could have been worse!
check them all out here!!

if there are any you would like high-res versions of just let me know and i can email them to you.

we all had a wonderful time with everyone though and miss all the hustle and bustle. the house is far too quiet now. we're not quite sure what to do with ourselves right now. graham is taking it upon himself to nap! poor little guy needs it though after the day he's had though.

here's to the new year!!

two month stats

today graham had his two month well baby visit. thankfully grana and grampa stuck around this morning to lend some moral support for the visit since there were shots involved. he did such a great job though. he did cry when he got his vaccines, but i was able to soothe him and calm him down in an instant once the nurse was done and handed him to me (thank you mother nature!!).



well and i'm happy to report that my little dude is growing into a big dude!!!

weight - 11 pounds 3 ounces (29%) (increase of 2.6 pounds since one month visit)
height - 22.5 inches (24%) (increase of 2 inches since one month visit)
head circumference - 15.75 inches (42%) (increase of 0.75 inches since one month visit)

it looks like he might have a herniated umbilical cord, but it's nothing to worry about. once he starts walking his ab muscles should be able to pull everything together and he'll have his innie belly button back. he also might have a very small case of cradle cap, so we picked up some baby oil and are looking for a shampoo brush so we can start massaging his scalp with that at bathtime.

and just for future reference we found out three interesting remedies:

1 - malox! graham has a slight little cough that the doctor thinks might be a little bit of reflux and said to give him a teaspoon of malox after he eats if we wanted to. never would have thought of that!!
2- pedialyte or dark karo syrup! the little 'rasinet' looking pieces (that's what i think they look like) in his poop, combined with him straining to poop sometimes could be a sign of constipation. so a teaspoon of the karo syrup or 2 ounces of pedialyte once or twice a day should get rid of it!

who would have thunk it!! we're going to let him try to work things out naturally, but if anything gets any worse we might give one of these a try.

visit from gg

today we had to say goodbye to gg as she flew back home to massachusettes.
we had such a good time with her and graham loved being held and loved by her.



thank you so much for coming and celebrating the holidays with us!!

love my dad

i love my dad. he's so silly!!



and mom thinks we're two pretty good looking dudes!!

first christmas

what a wonderful first christmas it was indeed!



graham got tons of toys and clothes from santa this year and he got some good cuddling time in with grana and grampa as well. he didn't really know what to think of the whole day, but he definitely enjoyed playing with his stacking blocks and stacking rings later in the evening. they're very fun to look at! the rest of the day was spent eating and hanging out with family and it was perfect.

and graham has been giving mommy the best christmas gift yet recently....sleep!!! the past couple nights he has been sleeping for 5.5-6 hours for the first stretch and then 3 hours the second stretch! hopefully this trend will continue and he'll be officially sleeping through the night every night now. (keeping my fingers crossed!)

we hope everyone had a wonderful christmas and that santa was good to all the other kiddos!
here's to a safe and happy new year!

dj lesson

boys and their toys!
grady got to show off his new serato itch turntables and gave tim his first dj lesson.



olivia benefited from this lesson as well and showed us her fabulous dance moves and bouncing skills!

the hertel clan

even though i am technically a sanner, i will always be a hertel.
and it was so great to have all of us together with our families for the holidays.
it was definitely a special one with two family members celebrating their first christmas. and all the kids must have been very good this year with the amount of presents santa left under the tree! hopefully they'll be just as good in 2011!!

so gentle

graham is so lucky to have such a sweet cousin!



miss olivia gave graham some good lovin' and kisses while she visited. and in return, graham let olivia borrow his silkie.

ole!

miss olivia found a sombrero!

friends

instant friends...just add....drool?!



these two were friends the moment they met. they kept looking at each other, shared some playtime on the floor together and even caught mason holding graham's hand. too cute!!

two months

happy two month birthday little dude!



you're getting so big and time is going by far too fast.
we go for your two month well visit on the 30th, so i don't have your stats yet, but here is what you have accomplished this month:

you took your first roadtrip to grana and grampa's house for thanksgiving
you are technically sleeping through the night. your average first stretch length is 5-5.5 hours long (followed by an average 3 hour stretch after that)!! your longest stretch so far has been 6.5 hours. THANK YOU!!
you have outgrown your newborn outfits and are officially wearing 0-3 months clothes
you have outgrown newborn diapers and are officially wearing size 1 diapers
you flashed your first real smile
you had your first visit with santa
you experienced your first snowfall
you are able to hold your head up for a very long while when being held
you've managed to tolerate baths much better than you have before (you only start crying when you're taken out...and who wouldn't at that point!!)
you've discovered that laying on your playmat is fun, tummy time isn't as much fun...but you'll tolerate it sometimes
i don't think you've completely discovered that your hands are yours, but you definitely bring them to your mouth a lot more
you love looking at bright colors and are starting to reach out to books and toys
and on your actual two month birthday you met your uncle tim, aunt andrea, cousin olivia and cousin mason for the very first time!

let the festivities begin!!!

OMG (olivia, mason & graham) christmas 2011!!!
can't wait for the excitement to begin!



i don't think there are enough presents!! (and this is before uncle tim, aunt andrea, aunt sue and gg added their gifts!)

sneezy

behold.....my most FAVORITE noise ever now!! the post sneeze sigh!!

naughty or nice

we weren't sure if we were going to have time to take graham to see santa this year, but luckily we found some today! we had to wait until 2:15 to see him (it was 11:15 when we got there), but luckily they had a pager system (like at a restaurant) and we could do some shopping, eat, etc. while we waited.

graham was an awesome waiter and slept the entire time. the people in line were betting he wasn't going to wake up for the picture...



buuuuuuuuuuuuuut...look who decided to wake up right when it was our time to see santa!!!

the little dude has been such a good boy this year. he's bound to get some good gifts from the man in the red suit!! he was very excited when we told him that (see picture below)! okay, so maybe he was right about to sneeze, but he still looks excited! :)

lazy saturday night

nothing better than staying at home with my kids! :)



as you can see, the little dude was out for the count. he had been a little fussy today and i think all the energy he exerted took a toll on him. not that we were complaining! he's become quite the snuggler with mommy and loves to nap on me. i'm going to soak it all in while i can. it won't be too long where i won't be able to have these moments all day long!

foto friday

happy birthday to you! happy birthday to you! happy birthday to daddy! happy birthday to you!
we love you so much and can't wait for you to come home so we can all celebrate together!

(ps...grana, you were right, we've got a little dimple!)

find out who else is foto friday-ing!

baby blues

i love his baby blue eyes, especially when they're staring at me so lovingly. will they stay?!



and i'm thinking the little dude might have a hint of red to his hair!! we could have a strawberry blonde one on our hands.
red hair combined with blue eyes = lady killer! :)

let it snow!

it's only a small amount compared to the massive amount of snow we got earlier this year (recall SNOWtorious B.I.G.), but this is technically little dude's first snow!!! i took pictures this morning, but the snow has continued the whole day and there is probably a good inch or so on the ground now.



and seeing as i have no one to take a picture of us in the snow, i had to improvise and put graham in his chair in front of the door. i guess it kind of worked! since it's cold and snowy outside, we have been inside snuggling and keeping warm. i love days like this!

fine friends

today we got out of the house and went over to the murray's. it was the first time we had been there since we had the dude. they had all come over to our house to see graham awhile back, but criostoir and bella were definitely happy to have graham's undivided attention for a bit! they were so gentle and loving. i can't wait until graham is big enough to play back with them!



some other folks who were thrilled to have graham's undivided attention were miss colleen and miss jodi! he loved every second of being held by them. and mommy enjoyed having a little break! miss jodi will be one of graham's teachers at daycare, and something tells me he's going to have no problem adjusting to new people or a new schedule!

christmas wonders

the first time graham saw a christmas tree was at grana and grampa's house at thanksgiving. he LOVED looking at all the twinkling lights and sparkly ornaments. we couldn't wait to get our tree up once we got home so that the little dude had another tree to stare and wonder at.

we had to buy all new plastic ornaments since we just got rid of ours last year thinking we would be able to have glass ornaments on our tree for a few more years. d'oh! so we went with a blue and silver theme. graham seems to thoroughly enjoy all the decorations!



happy holidays!!

foto friday

he's just a love machine!
a 7 week old love machine to be exact!!

post yours and see more foto friday blogs!

a new little one

congratulations to jenn (september & december babies), ben and owen who welcomed their newest little girl to the world this morning.
we are so happy for all of you and can't wait to meet graham's girlfriend! :)

we caught it!

i can't stop watching this video! i didn't think i would catch the moment, but at the last second the little dude flashed his infectious smile!

cleared!

6 weeks!!! OMG!

so i'm going to have a post about me this time!

this morning i had my 6 week postpartum check-up and everything looked great! YEAH! my incision is healing VERY well and the best part....i'm only 3 pounds, yes i said THREE POUNDS, away from my pre-pregnancy weight!! YAHOO!! so that means i have lost 27 pounds in a little over 6 weeks! even my doctor was impressed and gave me the compliment "most mom's aren't able to get the weight off that quick. good job!" :)

i was convinced i was going to gain some of the weight back over the holidays, yet i actually LOST weight over thanksgiving. craziness! so we'll see how christmas goes. i know there's going to be lots of food and sweets that week!!

play time!

little dude just discovered that his activity mat is quite entertaining!



he definitely likes being on his back on the mat, compared to when he's usually on it on his tummy for several minutes.
it's so cute to see him look in the mirror at himself. "who is that handsome baby!!"
favorite toy on the mat so far is the rattle that is right above his head, especially when mommy hits it and it swings for a bit!
he also likes to kick his legs and hit the parrot.

cheese!!!

so it's official...both grady and i got our first smiles from our little dude today!!! they just melted my heart!! we'll try to capture it in a video or photo soon.

tongue tied

graham definitely takes after his father, even down to the tight frenulum (piece of tissue that connects the bottom of the mouth to the under surface of the tongue). we visited the ent today to have him evaluate how tight graham's was and what course of action (if any) we needed to take.

it turns out that graham's frenulum wasn't a severe case, but it was hard to predict how he would be effected by it in the future. the two factors that the doctor said to consider were 1 - his nutrition (is he getting as much as he can when breastfeeding) and 2 - if left untreated he could possibly have a lisp when he grows up.

weighing the pros and cons of these two items, and the fact that grady has first hand knowledge of having a tight frenulum, we decided to have a frenulectomy performed on graham. what sounds like a medieval procedure was actually quite simple and painless.

a topical numbing solution was applied to the under side of graham's tongue and after the medicine kicked in the doctor took a pair of scissors and simply snipped near the base of the bottom side of his tongue, loosening his frenulum immediately. graham made a little bit of a fuss, but that was more because he was having objects shoved into his mouth that weren't the type of objects he wanted!! after two minutes or so he was back to normal, sucking on his binky and asleep in his carrier!

it was amazing at how much more he could move his tongue afterwards. i could also tell a significant improvement in his breastfeeding effectiveness. hopefully this means he'll keep packing on the pounds!

all in all, we are glad we had the procedure done and that we won't have to worry about anything in the future.

more visitors!

it was such a great day since aunt sarah drove up from richmond to hang out with us. it was so nice to have the company and to catch up with her and of course have her meet the little dude for the first time. he was very comfortable with him holding her!!



we ventured out for lunch before sarah had to head back home and once again, graham was perfect the entire time. it was very quiet after sarah left though and we're looking forward to the next time she can come up to visit!

grana & grampa

thank you grana and grampa for playing with me and holding me for 3 days straight! also, thank you for having your christmas tree up. i LOVED looking at all the pretty lights and sparkely ornaments. i can't wait for mom and dad to get our tree up at home.
i love you!
graham