Introducing...Andrew Charles Erwin!

As pretty much all of you know by now, our little Andrew arrived safe and sound on August 17! So here's my post about our new little boy!

So to leave off from my last post....Mark got home from his class on the 10th (he passed it by the way, woohoo! It was a class to go towards him getting his Level 1 Certification...I think... :), we had a nice, calm weekend, then Wednesday morning Grammy arrived here and I had my last OB appt! The dr. said I was ALMOST a 4 and could go pretty much anytime...which was good news I suppose. Anyway...we got Grammy settled in and enjoyed some time with her for the day and the next. On Thursday afternoon though I started getting regular contractions and they steadily increased throughout the rest of the day. So my amazing friend Gwyn picked Evelyn up for the night and later on around 10:30pm. Grammy, Mark, and I headed to the hospital!

before going to the hospital 

We had to do the "hour" of observation to make sure I was in labor...uh, duh, I was...and then they let me stay. Unfortunately my back labor pains picked up once we got to the hospital, super not fun, so I requested my epidural, got it at 1am and then tried to sleep for the rest of the night! Boy is that hard to do though! First of all, I don't sleep well in other places anyway, then the nurses kept coming in and checking things, then one of the darn monitors was on the fritz and kept going off randomly for no reason, then the blood pressure cuff was set on a timer to check my blood pressure every hour or less, and on top of that we had Grammy and Mark sleeping soundly with some nice snoring going on  :) So sleep was a bit hard for me until I luckily remembered I had some headphones in my camera bag so I turned on some music and got a bit of sleep. :)

Looks super comfy right? he slept like this most of the night...

So a little bit after 9am the midwife came in and broke my water and not long after that things got more intense (my epidural was wearing off a bit...not fun either!) and I was ready to push so the nurse ran off and go the midwife again and some other nurses and not too long later at 9:55am sweet little Andrew was born! We were all pretty surprised at how much hair he had and how dark it was....never expected to have a dark haired little guy! It's such a funny color though because there's spots of lighter/reddish in it so it's gonna be interesting to see what it finally ends up as!

 Anyway, they gave him to me right away and pretty much left him there with me (after they cut the cord of course) for like an hour, kinda surprised about that too but also super glad! Loved having that initial bonding time with him....I got to hold Evelyn for a few minutes and then they took her off to weigh/etc/then up to the nursery. Little Andrew cuddled right up to me and totally conked out then after awhile woke up and latched right on for his first nursing try. :) It was definitely a much nicer experience having him with me :)

hello sweet boy!

so glad he's here! 

and meeting daddy! 

meeting Grammy...

He did have to go to the nursery eventually so Mark went up with him and he was weighed/measured/cleaned up. He weighed 8lbs 4 oz and was 21 1/2 in. I got to eat lunch and move to my actual room. We stayed in the hospital til after lunch on Sunday and then got to go home! Andrew has been such a good little baby....just eats and sleeps, as most babies do...but he's not really a fussy thing or anything like that and when he's awake, he's AWAKE. He's like Evelyn there...very alert for a little newborn when he's awake. He's a better nurser than Evelyn too so he's been a better sleeper, another thing I'm very glad for! He's sleeping pretty decent during the night so far....most of the time only waking up 3x's or so. He's also a lot cuddlier than Evelyn, which I LOVE. I love cuddly little babies that snuggle up when they're sleeping! Evelyn definitely wasn't like that...still isn't very cuddly. He's definitely not as...well I guess "tense" or fiesty as Evelyn....she had to be swaddled pretty much to sleep well and while he's ok with being swaddled, he seems to sleep better not being wrapped up so tight.

getting weighed...8lbs 4 oz!

LOVE all his hair!

Evelyn has been doing pretty good with him...she's overall pretty gentle and likes to hold and kiss him. The first time she saw him at the hospital she asked where the baby girl was and was a bit disappointed that we only had a boy baby but has been getting over that disappointment fairly well since. Well she hasn't mentioned it being a brother/girl or anything of the sort anyway :) Although today we were at my friend's house and she jokingly told Evelyn that it was "her" baby and Evelyn was like, no it's our baby! And my friend said, well can I keep him? And Evelyn was like...ok! So I said that wasn't very nice and why didn't she want to keep our baby? and Evelyn said, we can get a different one! SO I think she was hoping to trade for a girl baby :) Silly girl....but last week she came in my room one morning, sat up on the bed and was talking to Andrew and told me that he was her "best friend", even though he was just a boy baby. Super sweet! I think she's going to be a good big sister :)

me and my kiddos! 

Evelyn meeting Andrew for the first time!

first kiss ;)

Daddy and his boy :)

daddy and the kiddos :)

chillin' at the hospital

time to go home!

 So since we've been home we haven't been up to all that much. Grammy was here to help out but we ended up hanging out here at home most of the time, watching tv (I caught her up on Season 2 of "Raising Hope", which is a SUPER funny show), Momma did some reading/relaxing, and of course spent lots of time with our new boy! It was a great two weeks with Mom here and I was very sad to see her go this week :(

finally home!

stretchin' out...he likes to have at least one of his hands up by his head. 

so cute!

even cuter! naptime with daddy :)

not a very clear pic but this is a pic of him holding his head up....both him and Evelyn were pretty much holding their heads up super early! my babies are strong :)

see? hands up :) super cute

trying to hold up his head during tummy time :)

first little sponge bath at home!

so devastating! :) 

He is SUPER smiley when he's falling asleep, it's so cute!

Grammy's last day :( 

you can kinda see what I mean about the lighter streaks in his hair in these two pics....

in some spots it looks like the tips are reddish/lighter and the roots are dark...super funny! love it though

One thing we did get to do with Momma here was go to the beach! She wanted to see it before she left so we went and I took the opportunity to snap a few pics while we were there :) They turned out pretty darn cute I must say! Andrew was one week old in these pics btw....

So there you go! Pretty much caught up with the first two weeks of little Andrew's life! I can't believe he'll be two weeks tomorrow....its really flown by! I'm planning on taking some more indoor pics of Andrew tomorrow so hopefully he cooperates and they turn out :) til next time!