Introducing...Elliot!

Elliot is four weeks old today and I just now realized I haven't posted a single video of him.

D'oh!

Here's one of the first ones we captured, about 20 minutes after delivery.

And here's another of the moment I wanted to make sure we recorded--when Kendra met him for the first time.

I think it's pretty rad that they'll both be able to watch this when they bring their own children home...

Life is a Highway

Kendra's recently developed a new obsession.

She loves, and I mean loves, cars.

Both Cars the movie and any small box-shaped toy with wheels.

Notice the face of concentration here.  This is serious business.

Our favorite wrap...

...is a Baby Burrito Wrap!

Looks like he enjoys it, too.

"This is for me, right?"

As we prepared to transition into being a 2-child family, it was necessary to get a double stroller.  I lucked out and found one I loved for an okay price on Craig's List (though in retrospect, I wish I would have talked the seller down, hmph).

Anyway, I also got our infant carseat out to keep with it and stashed it all in the backroom, but every time we go back there, someone gets a bit curious about it.

This was taken before Elliot was born, so she looked at me like I was crazy when I tried to explain to her that somehow the Baby (which to her meant my belly) would be riding around in it.

Hard to believe she used to be this size...

So tiny!

Photo shoots

We love having this guy around.

(I think his cheeks are weighing him down...and check that calic!)

It's so much fun to be able to just sit a newborn somewhere and snap away.

Especially while he's still too young to get away!

To our favorite Daddy

Doin' what Daddies do best...

So, who do you think is enjoying this moment the most?

Cus it looks like this might be a four-way tie...

Three generations

None to old or young to need his beauty sleep.

And oh, how we love them all!

"How do I look, Mommy?"

Shopping with this one has become a whole new level of "FUN"!

History repeating...

We took this picture earlier this week:

Kinda reminds me of this other picture we took about two and a half years ago:

Just a little case of history repeating.

Moses baby

Unfortunately, Elliot got a pretty nasty case of the runs after we got home from the hospital and the high acid of it really did a number on his poor bum, which lead to an equally nasty diaper rash that only got worse when we cleaned it with even gentle wipes.  It's very, very sad--especially for a baby who essentially never cries (seriously, he just doesn't get very worked up at all).

Our treatment is two-fold, and it's been working great.  For changing his diaper we basically give him a little mini-bath instead of wiping his bum.  And at least once a day, we forgo the diaper altogether to dry it up.  Grant has developed a very cool little system for wrapping him and we put cloth diapers under him that we check pretty often and change out as needed.

So we see lots of this around house:

Baby yawns are so cute!

Since he looks like he's all tucked in a basket, I dubbed him "Moses Baby".

 

So cozy...

More from the hospital

Well, when you have a newborn, time has a funny way of just morphing into one big day and it's easy to lose track of.  We can't believe that Elliot has already been here with us for a whole week!

Here we are in the labor and delivery room, less than half an hour after he was born.

Everything about our two children has been different so far, and labor and delivery were no different.  Heck, for this one just going into labor on my own was different!  I was so scared of being the woman who cried, "Labor!" only to get to the hospital and be sent home...but luckily that never happened.

When we saw him, we both commented on how small he was.  We were sure that he was significantly smaller than Kendra had been (who came in at 8lbs 8oz).  In fact, one of the reasons I had worked so hard to stay in shape and not put on too much weight was because she had been so big.  I figured less weight meant smaller baby, so if putting on 60 pounds gave us and 8lb 8oz baby, only 26 would mean like...

9lb 2oz.

Dang.  That seems like a pretty big baby!  I guess we are just so used to toddler Kendra!  We think he definitely looks like a boy.  A Richardson (Grant's maternal grandparents) boy, actually (because Danielle--Grant's cousin for those of you who don't know her--there has been a consensus that he looks remarkably like your last two boys).

Grant accompanied our new baby boy to the nursery for his going-overs and took lots of pictures.  I had more than one nurse report to me that they don't often see new fathers quite as enthusiastic as Grant.  I love that about him.

After giving birth the first time, I realized something that I found a little unbalanced.  A great deal of attention is given to how difficult birth is for the mother...but after seeing 2 newborns now, I'm even more convinced that it's just as difficult and painful for the baby, too.  I think this picture captures pretty well just how wiped out we both were.

I guess even "only" 8 and a half hours of labor (versus 25) is pretty draining.

But he's worth it.

It's funny...we didn't realize how incomplete our family was until he arrived.  He's only been here a week and in sometimes it's still hard to believe (yesterday I walked into the bedroom totally surprised to see him in the bassinet because I was used to seeing it empty) but other times...it's like he's been with us forever.

Little Brother and Big Sister

Unfortunately, our situation is a little different right now than it was when Kendra was born--Grant was able to take 3 weeks off work then and this time he is teaching a summer class that meets daily and requires him to work.  Luckily Grandma and Grandpa Farnsworth have been able to come help out (ie: love up and entertain Kendra so I can focus on sleep and the baby) and we only have to hold out for two and a half more weeks until he can be with us at home much, much more and blogging can pick back up its pace.

But since I've got a few minutes while I'm waiting for something to finish up and go back to bed, I thought I'd at least give you a peek at what our world has been like...

We've been curious to see how Kendra would react to bringing Elliot home and thrusting him into our lives.  It's still very early on, but so far...

...she seems absolutely...

...positively...

...without a doubt...

...smitten.

We all are, really.

She's going to be a fantastic sister--but that's just our humble opinion.

Elliot is born!

We are still at the hospital so our opportunities to share have been limited. In fact it all happened so fast that we haven't fully wrapped our minds around it yet.

This morning Ashley got me up at 3:30am saying we should probably start packing our hospital bag because we were likely to need it today. We sat around timing contractions until 6:00am because we wanted to let Kendra and also Heber and Debbie get some sleep. Then we took Kendra over to Hebber and Debbie, who graciously took care of her (and Heber taught my class for me). Then to the hospital.

A few hours later we were ready to push. Well, Ashley was, in fact she declined the epidural and just went for the gold. 28 minutes of really pushing and we had our son, Elliot Landon Farnsworth.


He weighed in at a generous 9 pounds 2 ounces and arrived looking very manly for a newborn. We'll get some pictures and a more detailed description after we get home and can upload from our cameras. For now we are just sort of recuperating. Especially Ashley. She burst all sorts of capillaries all over her body and is now spotted. If she pushed any harder she would have literally been sweating blood.

IT'S A BOY!