Day 1

Day 1 at home: Lots and lots of sleeping!

Welcome Logan!

We're proud to introduce our second son: Logan Robert Billing.  He was born yesterday at 1:04pm, weighing 8lbs 7oz and was 19.5in long.  A pretty big baby for being a week early!  Everything went perfectly smooth during the c-section and the surgery and recovery were much better than with Ryder.  It was so weird to show up at the hospital with a scheduled birth!  Funny though, in the 90 minutes leading up to the surgery, I had a ton of contractions!  Little Logan knew what we were here for :)

And, I know what you're here for...picutres!  So here are a few:

The rainy day today is perfect for catching some zzz's

Daddy admiring our little man

Grandpa Robert, Logan Robert, Daddy and Big Brother

Logan made his arrival at 1:04pm (as seen on the clock behind Dr. Hallstrom).

He came out screaming (unlike Ryder), so that brought tears of joy to my eyes.

Logan with his delivering doc this morning

So far he has been giving us lots of time to rest throughout the night and during the day today.  Lets hope that continues for a little while :)

The Big Day

Today's the big day - the one we've been looking forward to, preparing for & counting down to for 9 months...We're now only hours away from meeting our little boy...

We had a special dinner last night and breakfast this morning - enjoying our last few meals as a family of 3.  (Though this morning, I only cooked since I cannot eat or drink anything until after surgery this afternoon...this is a very very tough thing for a 9 month pregnant mamma to do!!!) 

Next post: baby photos!! :)  Can't wait to introduce our little one!

Last fam photo with only 3 of us!!

MoA

We go the Mall of America a lot...especially in the winter.  We like that we can be out for a walk after dark, we can grab a bite to eat together and Ryder loves to watch the "trains" (rollercoasters) at Nickelodeon Universe.  But the last time that we went, Ryder actually got to ride on one of the "trains"!  He was a little nervous waiting for take-off, but loved the ride :)

Less Than A Week!!

With less than a week until Ryder becomes a brother (and we become parents of two!), he must have felt the need to study up. At naptime yesterday, he "read" my Pregnancy Week-by-Week book about 4 times before falling asleep.  He's going to be such a good big brother :)

Fridays With Ryder

I have been slacking a bit on posts (and enjoying family time instead), but I thought I'd do a quick recap of the last couple Fridays Ryder and I have had together.  I'll be missing him today since I'm volunteering with Habitat for work - but I'll more than make up for that with the time I can spend with him on maternity leave...starting next week!!

Last Friday, we went to the Children's Museum and had so much fun exploring together:

Playing guitar and dancing while watching himself on the screen :)

Our special coffee date!

He liked the whipped cream on top waaay more than his hot chocolate...

Baking together in our cute aprons. He loves helping measure and mix the ingredients, but wasn't really big on the final product.  That's okay, more for mom and dad :)

We do art almost every Friday.  This time, he painted a number of pictures on his own - including making his very own handprints.

And probably his favorite Friday activitiy - gymnastics.  He loves the trampoline, jumping into the foam pit and walking through the little courses they set up for the toddlers (like above - he did so good on the balance beam!)

Oh how different next Friday will be!!

37 Weeks

Message to Baby Brother: "We're ready for you to come out and play!"

At 37 weeks, Baby Brother is considered "full term." This means his lungs are fully developed and his body is ready to survive outside mommy's womb.  He is also over 6 pounds this week.  We're anxiously awaiting his arrival!

Swim Class

Ryder has started swimming lessons again.  This is his third season of swimming at Foss.

Some new things we've noticed this spring:
- He can do "monkey cheeks" on command
- He can climb out of the pool
- He smiles & giggles a lot more during class
- He swam without dads help this week! (wearing the special "backpack")

Some things that are the same:
- He listens to the teacher intently
- He still has his tongue sticking out of his mouth most of the time

For fun, here's a flashback: first swim class

Go Twins!

We took Ryder to his first ever Twins game yesterday.  This was pretty exciting since he absolutely loves baseball.  And we had such great seats that he seemed to actually follow the game - he watched intently, clapped when the Twins did well and let us know when the ball went "waaay up in the sky" or when someone broke a bat.  He was so well-behaved that it was even a nice date for mom and dad :)  And of course, we had to follow up with about an hour long session of batting practice when we got home :)

Happy Easter

This year was the first year Ryder got to find a basket from the Easter Bunny.  I loved sharing this activity as a family and can't believe I didn't take a picture!  But I did take a few other pictures of us celebrating the holiday:

This morning we started off the day with an egg hunt at Tartan Park.

Fam photo at Tartan Park

He also had a few eggs to find at home (excited about eating his raisin treats)

Note the cute spring seersucker pants made by mom :)

And before nap, we played a little baseball out in the yard.

Have a Happy Easter!!

36 Weeks

At 36 weeks, I am still feeling good.  I'm getting super excited to meet this little guy, but know these last 3 weeks with just Shawn and Ryder are special, too.  My favorite things about being pregnant at this point are:

- Feeling my tummy and figuring out what position baby is in.  Where his knees are, his back, his little toes...

- Getting to tell people I'm due this month! when they ask :)

A picture of the "3 of us" leaving my doctor appt this morning (me, Ryder and baby)

Jen and I at our prenatal yoga class last night.  Only days apart! It's been so fun to be pregnant together :)

Como Zoo

Even though Saturday turned out to be chilly, we had a great time at the Como Zoo and Conservatory. This is my favorite picture from the day:

Week 35

"WK 35"

Baby is growing bigger and bigger...At this point, he is over 5 lbs.  Some notes about this point in my pregnancy:

- My belly button has popped - does that mean the baby's done 'cooking'??  I only know this from looking in a mirror because...

- I can no longer see my belly button

- Ryder has told people "I'm going to have a baby brother at my house!" Sounds like he's getting excited.

- This morning Ryder said "Mama, I want to snuggle with my baby brother" - awww :) Me, too Ryder.

- I am savoring the baby's movements knowing I only have a few weeks left

- At 32 weeks, my wedding ring started getting tight and I had to take it off.  With Ryder, I had to stop wearing it at 16 weeks!  I appreciated the extension this time around.

- I'm ready for that warm weather to return for good because none of my jackets zip anymore!