Gotta Love it, BABY!

This past week as a mother of THREE and having a new baby has reminded me how much I LOVE being a mom! My perceptions may be a little skewed as I've had a lot of help from Mimi and Nate, but nevertheless, I must be honest when I say nothing in the world is better than being a mom! Here are a few things I love about motherhood:

• I just love naked babies! I love Caleb's soft skin and I love his newborn smell. One of my favorite things is rubbing Caleb down with lotion every night and after bath time. I love holding my new baby and having his body melt in my arms. I love holding my other children and rocking them and singing and reading to them. I love to kiss their cheeks, and one of my favorite things is sneaking quietly into their rooms when they are asleep and kissing them.
  

• I love laughing with (and at) my children! They are so silly! Not only do they say and do funny things, but as you can see here they wear funny things as well! This little pink hat was made and given to Mara from a nice elderly lady in our ward when she was a baby. She has made it grow with her and stretched it out, but she loves to wear it!
  
  

• I love that I can share all this joy with my best friend and husband! I couldn't do it without his help and he made it all possible! I'm grateful Nate loves being a dad. It is so fun to watch him wrestle and play with his kids.

There are many, many more reasons of motherhood that I love, but it would probably take all night to finish so I'll cut it short and write more later.

Here are a bunch of pictures which may be boring to some, but since we are far away from family and friends who do not get to see day to day these sweet children I figure it's the best we can do!

One Week Old!

I wish the hands of time would slow down while I enjoy my newborn baby! I hate that Caleb will grow in the wink of an eye! I don't know if Caleb is an extra good baby or if three times the charm and I know what I'm doing a little more than the first two, but it just seems easy caring for Caleb and I have just loved every minute of the past week--everything, even extra diapers,
waking up in the middle of the night, the pain of surgery, it's all worth it--I love it!

Just to give you a little idea of what we've learned about Caleb in just a week:

• Caleb is a super eater--he loves nursing and it's going great.

• He HATES his diaper changed! It's the only time he cries, and not just a little fuss, he full out screams and does a really sad 'ohhh, ohhh' sound! He gets so mad when he gets his diaper changed he hoses everything down!! (even himself sometimes!) Mara gets very concerned about her baby brother crying and runs to him with binki in hand and says, "it's okay buddy, don't cry. it's okay!"
  

• Caleb loves to sleep! Even at night time he sleeps for a good stretch of time, and when he wakes up he doesn't even cry! He just makes these really REALLY loud snorting noises and roots around. Nate said, "I feel like I'm sleeping with a gerbal in my room!" Once he's fed he goes right back to sleep for another extra long stretch of sleep! It's great!
  

• Caleb can pick up his head and has good neck support already. We give him tummy time every night and he can move his little head around and pick it up off the blanket--pretty good for a one week old!

• Caleb is very easy going! We used to call Mara 'Mara-mellow', I think we might call Caleb 'content-Caleb'.
  

Newest Lewis!!

Caleb Daniel Lewis

Our 'little' or not so little guy has finally arrived! He is perfect in every way and was definitely worth the wait! Caleb looks quite a bit like Ty but acts more like Mara! He arrived on Tuesday January 20 at 8:21 am. He weighed 9 lbs and was 20 inches long.

Everything went well with the delivery. My doctor was able to deliver him so I'm grateful he waited for her to return from her vacation. The staff was awesome, I really appreciate all the doctors and nurses that took such good care of us. Caleb was the only baby born this week in the Tillamook Hospital so we had all the attention from the nursing staff. It was nice to feel pampered!

Caleb LOVES to sleep! He is a great sleeper and a great eater! When he was born his blood sugar level was very low. He had to supplement on formula for the first day. His weight dropped to 8 lbs 11 oz on Thursday, but his weight was up to 8 lbs 14 oz on Friday--nearly back to his delivery weight.

Ty and Mara absolutely adore their baby brother. Mara was thrilled to see a new baby from the first moment! It took Ty a couple minutes to warm up to the idea, but once he started talking about all the fun things he was going to do with his baby brother (like go camping, wrestle, play ball...) he couldn't wait to hold him! They are both very helpful if that is the right word! They smother him with kisses, loves, and constantly want to share their toys and give him the binki--whether he wants it or not!

Caleb is perfectly patient, and it's a good thing to! He is patient with his two siblings smothering him. He's patient when it comes time to eat and his mommy isn't quite ready! He is really easy going and a happy baby. I prayed very hard before Caleb arrived that he would be healthy, happy, and an easy baby. I think my prayers have been answered, although it's only been five days so we'll see what happens.

The Six B's

We are familiar with President Hinckley's six B's, (Be prayerful, Be humble, Be true...) but this past week we've come up with six B's of our own:

Blue Skies
What a BEAUTIFUL week we've had! We enjoyed wonderful weather of sunshine and blue skies almost every day! We went on picnics, walks and hikes, played at the park and the beach. Ty loved riding his scooter at the skate park. Every moment we could was spent outdoors, it felt like spring! In fact my tulips I planted in the fall have started coming up already! Yikes! We know rain is in the forecast, but for January weather in Tillamook it sure has been fantastic!


Beach
Nate, bless his heart, gave me and Mimi the day off on Saturday and spent the day with the kids. We enjoyed a great lunch at Chinese, with a quiet meal of egg roles, sweat-and-sour pork, and scheshwan beef!! (Yum!) We did some shopping, there's really not much to do in Tillamook besides Fred Meyer, but it was still nice to get a little break. Nate not only took the kids to the beach but helped Ty ride his two-wheel bike and pulled the kids in the wagon to the park! What a great husband and dad!!


Birthday
Happy Birthday Nate!! You might be wondering why half the cake is missing on Nate's birthday cake...well Nate has a fetish with hot cake and when it came out of the oven the night before he was pretty adamant about celebrating his 'birthday eve' by eating his cake while it was still warm! Nate is excited about his new fishing pole to take his little buddy fishing this summer--he hopes to catch at least one fish! Ty gave his daddy a new foam sword so they could have sword fights, but with the first swing his new sword broke! What a rip-off, we will take it back tomorrow!

Beauties
I've been wanting a haircut for several weeks, but kept putting it off until after the baby came! I soon realized I'd be waiting a while for this little guy so I might as well get it taken care of before he comes! Well Mama and Mara both got haircuts and we are very pleased with how they turned out! Did Nate notice? Well... he was actually there when the beautician came over to cut it. He helped look through a magazine and told me all the haircuts not to do! Mara was very pleased with her hair this morning and when Nate came in the door to go to church she ran up and said "Daddy look, pretty hair!"

Belly
In case you've been wondering what the belly looks like after waiting an extra week and a half well...here it is! One full day to go! I can hardly wait! I've gotten some really funny (and not so funny) comments waiting for this baby to come:

"You look like you are going to blow!"
"You were looking so good...I mean, well..."
"You have really grown this week"
"Haven't you had this baby yet?"
"Holy Cow, I thought you had that baby a month ago!"


all Boy
Today after church Nate and I stood in the hall to visit for a minute while Mimi went in the primary room to get Ty. When she found him he had pinned a poor kid to the floor in a wrestling move and announced: "I've pinned him!" Poor little Seth didn't know what had hit him and was crying out for his life "Get off me!" Why Ty is wrestling his buddies in church I don't know, but we had to have a little talk on the way home about 'no wrestling at church!' In between smiles and smirks we kindly explained that wresting was only okay at home with daddy, not at primary! He said 'but I am so strong, I can beat anyone!

Sunshine?

Today was the first day that we saw sunshine and blue skies in over a week! We almost forgot how wonderful sunshine feels on our faces! For the past week it has been raining-- no pouring. When it rains it pours here in Oregon, and most of our town looked like this from all the rain:

(This is the town north of Tillamook, but many of the roads were flooded as well here in town)

We decided that since we weren't having a baby today and we had a beautiful sunny day we would make the most of it and play at the beach. Let me remind you that it is still January--it was sunny but on the chilly side (only around 40 degrees!).

The kids didn't mind the cold weather, although by the end Mara said "I'm cold, let's go to house." and Ty responded "No Mara, it's not that bad!" He never gets cold! He could have stayed all day long!

When we got to our car we noticed a lady feeding the seagulls. She gave us a loaf of bread so we could enjoy feeding the birds as well. We had a blast watching the bird swarm in to eat the bread. They would fly up as soon as the bread left our hands and grab it in their beaks. Mara enjoyed eating the bread as much as the birds did (one piece for the birds, one piece for Mara, one for the birds...!!!)

We went for a little walk around the town of Oceanside, and by the end of our little outing we were all pretty cold, but it was well worth it! It was wonderful to get out of the house and enjoy fresh air. We are hoping for another nice sunny day tomorrow. It would be nice to go play with our daddy.

Who will baby brother be like?

Baby Ty

Baby Mara

We've often asked ourselves what will baby #3 be like? Will he look more like Ty or Mara? Will he have dark brown eyes like Ty or dark blue eyes like Mara? We didn't think we could get such opposite children like Ty and Mara so will this little guy be active, full of energy, needs lots off attention like his brother Ty? Or will he be easy going, rolls with life, and a little more quiet like his sister? All of these are good questions...and we were so excited to find out the answers with our planned delivery on the 9th, BUT if there is one thing you can count on with babies it's don't plan on anything!

For the past week I kept having this feeling that my little 'bun in the oven' wasn't quite ready. The feeling persisted and I just felt like he needed more time to grow and develop. We don't know when his due date really is, we don't know how big he truly is, but we did find out two weeks ago his lungs weren't developed...so who's to say that they are developed now? We don't know! After talking to the Pediatric Nurse at the hospital (who also is a friend at my church) she told me that if our little guy would need to go to the NICU Tillamook doesn't have the capabilities and he would have to be taken to Portland but because of my c-section I would have stay in Tillamook. This alone made me feel like we needed to wait.

So the more we thought about it and prayed about it and talked to others about it, the more at peace we felt about waiting another week. My doctor felt that was a good decision but the only problem is she goes out of town on Saturday for a week! So we are waiting until she returns! I was very concerned about going into labor and not having my doctor around, but I've heard wonderful things about the fill in doctor and he has a lot of experience and I would be in good hands. So if I go into labor we know he's ready to come. If I don't go into labor we know that he'll be here on the 20th!! Wow that seems so far away! I might just be having another 10 lb baby but at least he will be developed and healthy!! So we'll see what happens! Until then we'll just keep wondering and dreaming about what this little one will look like and get more and more excited to see him!

Our two little angels!

Happy New Year!!

Out with the old...in with the new! Happy 2009! What a great way to finish off the past year by playing with family, and what a great way to celebrate the new year with a new baby! We had a blast with Uncle Blake, Papa, and Mimi the past week. It was sad to see Blake and Papa go, but we are happy Mimi would stay a little longer until baby brother joins our family! Despite the cold weather we ventured out for a day to enjoy the sights of the Oregon Coast. We headed south to Newport and saw the Yaquina Head Lighthouse and visitor center, we chowed down on Mo's Famous Clam chowder, we laughed at the loud and stinky sea lions below the dock, and we loved playing at the Newport Aquarium. It was a fun day although we missed our papa who had to stay at the house and work--bummer!

Other things we did this past week...
Ty, Nate, and Blake went on an awesome (but very chilly) hike along the Cape Lookout trail. They said it was freezing but well worth the view. While the rest of us stayed warm in front of the fire at home and watched the rain and hail come down outside the boys hiked five miles along the muddy trail. Somehow they missed all the rain and hail and only experienced blue skies and sunshine where they were!

As for Baby Brother...
I'm trying to keep a smile on my face as I endure one more week of pregnancy! It hasn't been too bad, but once you pass your due date--or in my case the 'scheduled date of delivery' it's a little disappointing! But good news... baby brother will join our family Friday January 9th at 8:00am!! It's scheduled again! Hopefully hopefullly he will have developed lungs and be ready to come to this world. We are excited and anxious to see him! We can hardly wait to kiss his chubby cheeks, nibble on those tender toes, and hold his precious little body!!