Newborn Pics

Here are some of the newborn pics I took. FYI, I highly, highly recommend getting a professional to take your newborn baby pics,and believe me when I say this...They earn every penny!

First, I will mention, newborn skin is really blotchy, and shows EVERYTHING, so what your photographer doesn't mention, is the hours they spend photoshopping just the skin alone. Next, when you are photographer/nurser/mom/trying to work vigorously during your little one's deepest sleep under bright lights, in the room being heated with a space heater (because all the websites mention its important to keep that little naked body warm to keep it asleep), and your thyroid is probably way out of whack because you no longer have one and you just had a baby, so who knows what dose of meds you should be on...let me just say sweating is an understatement here.

So let me start with my uber photoshopped best shots.

Baby in a Box Showing But Crack = Baby in a box showing that her bum didn't get wiped quite good enough after her last poo. This required lots of photoshopping.

I liked this setup, however I couldn't get the hand out from in front of her face, when I finally did she moved her entire body into an unflattering position, then she peed all over the blanket.

The next are pretty sweet, and just required lots of skin deblotching and diaper marks to be taken out.

Now lets go to the ones that didn't work:


This basket one was taken 1 week previous to the one above. First, its amazing how much a baby grows in a week. But the problem with week 1 basket photos, is that she woke up! And since Zander spent the first two months of her life cross-eyed, you can see why these shots weren't working out so great.

So one week later, I try again...

My how my baby grew, so fitting in the basket became much harder, I tried everything, including my foot thinking I would just try to photoshop it out, but then I realize that would look dumb because then she would look like her head was just floating there. I got 1 basket shot out of 400.

Then I tried this cute idea I found on Pinterest, only it was with a sibling pair that had a smaller age gap between them, so even though Calvin is wearing jeans, it looks a bit creepy perverted maybe kiddee pornish.

See I swear, wearing jeans.

And last we have the "Princess and the Pea." The idea is there, but as you can see, the execution was lacking.

Zander Professional Hospital Pic

Hospital pics! This amazing hat and booties was made by my uber talented cousin Chrissy!

Calvin's First Day of Kindergarten

Calvin started Kindergarten this year. He goes to Pioneer School of the Arts. I was so happy he finally got into this school. Boise/Meridian has pretty much cut art from the budget, so this is the only way I could get him in a school that did Art. His teacher is Mrs. Dahle and he loves it! He is learning how to read even better, he had his site words down before he left preschool, but now he is actually reading. It's super fun to see his progression...what's not so fun, is I think he has grown 6 inches since school started. Even looking at this picture makes me sad. I am hoping to make it to the end of the year without buying new jeans, however the jeans that were too long when school started, are about a centimeter away from being floods!

Calvin's Diarama

This is what Calvin stayed busy doing while I was in the hospital.

More random first week or two shots...

Random Zander Pics in first week

Weightloss Help

If anyone needs help on their weightloss journey, I can send my 5 year old your way.  Upon opening a package of candy corns, Calvin says to me or more like yells: "Stop eating those, you'll be fat! Remember, be skinny!" Nothing like a little inspiration yelling in your face.

Zander Grace

We were lucky enough to finally welcome this sweet baby girl into our lives on July 17, 2012 at 5:30 pm. Much to my relief, she actually came a day before her scheduled c-section. As many of you know, I've been a bit worried this pregnancy, with my past radiation and previous issues, so when my doctor scheduled her c-section for a Wednesday, as happy as I was to get her here I had my worries with that particular day.  Sensible me tells me I'm dumb, but superstitious me didn't one more thing to worry about...what is that you may ask? It all comes down to the Monday's child poem:

Mondays child is fair of face, 

Tuesdays child is full of grace,

Wednesdays child is full of woe,

Thursdays child has far to go,

Fridays child is loving and giving,

Saturdays child works hard for his living,

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

Stupid poem has one bad day to be born on, and it was Wednesday, but clearly this girl had plans of her own and didn't want her mom to worry. And I was so happy she came on Tuesday, that that is how Zander Grace got her middle name!

I was really bad at taking tummy pics this pregnancy, mostly since on more than one occassion people assumed I was having twins, so Jill hurried and snapped one just before I was heading into surgery. Warning,  some pictures are not for the faint of heart, although I hope by putting in black and white you don't realize what is blood :)

Zander Hospital Pics

Calvin and his Collections

So lately Calvin has it in his head that he wants and needs to collect things, which I must add is starting to give me anxiety in the past two weeks we've had the following conversations:

Calvin: "Mom, I broke your glass."
Calvin says this, carrying a pile of broken glass upstairs into my office.
Me: "Oh my gosh, ok can you please give that to me carefully and I'll just go throw it away."
Calvin: "No, I want it for my glass collection."
Me: "You don't get to have a glass collection its dangerous." Then I proceed to take the glass and throw it away.

A week later...

Tye (Calvin's friend): "How come Calvin has broken glass in his closet?"
Me: "Good question." (Then I get up to see where the glass is.) Sure enough its the same pile I had thrown away. "Calvin, what is this doing in your closet?"
Calvin:"I told you its for my glass collection."

A few days after that he asks Will about the worms they had taken fishing the week prior. Will proceeds to tell them they are in the fridge in the garage. Calvin retrieves them and starts to play happily with them. Dissecting them, etc. Just doing his overall best to gross me out. Will tells him to just dump them in the garden. I don't see or hear much about them, and assume he's done that. Until 3 days later when we are on the way out the door to school.

Calvin: "Mom, I really liked those wormies, so I put them in my transformer box."
Me:"What?! sick?!" Scream I dunno, overall freak out session. "Calvin please go get the worms out of your transformer box."
Calvin: "No, I like them, I want to keep them."
Me: "Well they can't live there, can't they live in the garden, or at least the garage?"
Calvin: "Ok, fine but don't tell dad."
Me: "Fine, just get them out of your transformer box."

And today....

Calvin:  "Mom, I have an egg from daddy."
Me:"What kind of egg, like a chocolate egg?"
Calvin: "No, a white egg from the store."
Since Calvin hasn't seen Will since last night, I'm getting concerned.
Me:"So where are you keeping this egg?"
Calvin: "In my room."

Just a little Announcement...

Yes, it's true! We are very excited, and I'm relieved that I finally feel I can be excited. There is nothing like going through everything that I went through last year to make a person a complete headcase about getting pregnant, worrying not only about miscarriage, but hoping my thyroid levels are spot on, since being either hyper or hypo both causes many problems in the fetus, but last worrying about what anomalies radiation might have caused. Not to mention making this feel like its the longest pregnancy ever when you are trying your hardest to conceal it, but your body wants to reveal it upon implantation. So for weeks now, I've been wearing coats, lots of layers, long scarves, and carrying giant purses every where I go, but there gets to be a point where nothing is going to hide this anymore...alas, I've reached that point and then some. But we are very excited, and ultra-sounds reveals, two arms, two legs, and only 1 head, so that makes us even more ecstatic! Right now, our baby girl is due July 25th, but I'm hoping for a lot sooner :)

And as for names...Calvin is determined her name will be Lisa. Don't ask me where he got it, as far as I know he's never even met one. He is very adamant, we'll see who wins this battle.

Police Man Shooting a Bad Guy

I walked downstairs today, and found this in Calvin's sketch pad. It isn't his most careful drawing, but the details kill me. Like the x's for dead eyes, and the mean policeman face. He also loves writing words, even if they don't really make words, but apparently kept making the same nonsense word on this one.

The "Red" Hulk

Calvin was very specific to let me know that this is the "red" Hulk. It's so cute though, he was copying his figurine and tries to include very specific details, yet coloring it red doesn't seem to dawn on him yet.