The first few weeks at home

I don't even know where to start. I have so much to blog about and so little time to do it. I really want to write down these memories and moments as I know they will leave my memory so quickly. Oh how precious these first few weeks have been! Thank goodness for the iPhone camera. 

So let's see. James was born on Tuesday, April 16th and we brought him home on Friday,  April 19th. Shortly after we got home we were greeted with Austin's siblings - Peyt, Alissa and Caroline joined us and then Leila and Jeremy came in a few hours later. We had a full house on our first night home and we didn't want it any other way! My mom was here too, of course. Speaking of my mom (GiGi) she stayed with us until James was 2 weeks and 2 days old! It was AMAZING. We loved having her here and all the help she gave us. Holy cow have I missed her! She will be back soon..4 weeks to be exact! 

On Sunday April 18th James went for his first doctor appointment. He had lost a bit more weight so we had to go back for weight checks for several days. I also had to pump and give him additional breast milk with the SNS system. It was...interesting. More on that on a whole different post.

Sometimes we make a mess while we eat. :)

James is 3 weeks old now and we have had lots and lots of visitors. Lots of friends and family and it's been great. This Monday was actually my first full day alone with him and it was so fun. I've been alone with him all week now (3 days) and absolutely love it. I love having him all to myself and I love being able to do whatever we want! We spend our days cuddling, nursing, and changing lots of poop! I think I will do a post on a typical day for us soon, but for now this post is filled with lots of randomness and lots of pictures.

Lots of skin to skin time for James and me. My favorite part of our day. 

He went out on his first shopping trip on Friday April 26th. I used the Moby wrap and he LOVED it. We were out for several hours and he did awesome! 

Last week James' belly button stump fell off. It was still a little gooey so I was skeptical to submerge him in water. He has been getting bird baths with a washcloth but all that changed last night when he had his first bath! He did awesome and LOVED the water. He just chilled and took it all in. Austin videoed it with our big camera so I'll try to post that when I can. I wasn't really surprised with how much he loved the water, he is a super chill baby but also I loooove water so of course I knew he would be just like his mama! :) 

 We are so blessed with such a good baby. He is SO chill. I swear he hardly ever cries. He mostly cries for one reason - he's hungry. He will cry randomly when he has gas issues or just wants to be held. Overall he has been so awesome and so easy. He sleeps great at night in his newborn sleeper next to our bed, up every 3-4 hours (last night he did a 5 hour stretch!!) and he nurses and goes right back to sleep. He eats well and does everything he is suppose to do. Our only trouble has been my low milk supply and trying to get that up but that's a whole post in itself. He is just such a good baby, I am one proud proud mama!  These 3 weeks have gone by so fast. 

Christmas 2012

We had an awesome Christmas this year but it went by waaaay too fast. Austin and I both had to work Christmas Eve but once we got off we drove straight to the lake to be with all the Green's. It was so nice being together, even it was only for 48 hours. 

Christmas Eve night Leila was down digging in the basement and found a box of Peyt and Austins art/letters/reports cards/random kid stuff etc. and brought it upstairs. We went through it and almost died laughing. I have not laughed that hard in so long! Austin had one particular letter to the tooth fairy that had us all on the floor.  

The day after Christmas we drove to Fayetteville to see my family and spent 2 days with them. We had a great time and stayed super busy. On Friday Austin went to Danville to go hunting and killed his first buck! I'm not sure why exactly but I feel a little proud. :) Mom and I got lots of nursery stuff finished and the room is now totally empty! wahoo!
NYE was pretty awesome as well...just the two of us. We shopped and ran errands most of the day and then came home and cooked a feast. Deer burgers, shrimp, grilled veggies, pasta salad and the most amazing creamy banana pecan pie. Ohhhh man.

Sweet Caroline...getting so big!

A few of my monogrammed items...

Mama and me

Christmas Day with baby James!

Sweet Molly girl

Christmas Tree at the Green's! So pretty!

OBX

We had a super fun beach week, minus Irene running us off on our last day. Damn Irene.  This is the second year a hurricane has cut our trip short so we've all decided next summer we are going to the beach in July. There will be no more of that!

Susan has all these Members Only jackets so we all put them on and took a family picture! Austin's fit him to a T :)

Abi said she LOVES crab legs so we took her to get some while we were at the beach.  We didn't really believe she would love and eat them like she did and she surely surprised us! She ate 2 whole claws herself! 

Bobby's brother Reagan came up from Charleston and stayed with us a few nights.  He cooked us an AMAZING dinner with hush puppies, soft shell crabs, fried flounder, fried shrimp and king mackerel. 

We went pier fishing around 11 o'clock one night.  We had a fun time but didn't catch much.  Only a few blue crabs and some small fish they threw back in.  Aus got his fishing fix :)

Can't wait to do it again next year!!!