Smiles!!!

I finally succeeded in catching some of Matty's smiles on camera! He is turning into a very smiley boy. He is especially happy after eating and having his diapers changed. When we have him on the changing table, if we put our faces close to his and talk to him, he will usually reward us with some big smiles. You should hear the ridiculous baby talk that comes out of Juan and I in order to coax smiles from him!

Here are some smiley face pictures, as well as some other funny faces captured when I wasn't fast enough to catch him smiling.

Visit from Grandma & Grandpa Thurman & Uncle David

Matthew enjoyed a very nice visit with his grandparents Thurman and uncle David last week. It was great to have extra hands to take care of Matty and Juan's mom made several of Juan's favorite dinners while here - YUM! We really appreciated the help and enjoyed seeing Matty get aquainted with his grandparents and uncle.

Here are some pictures from the visit:

Chunker!

Matthew had a doctor's appointment last week (at his 4 week birthday) and weighed in at a whopping 10 lbs 5 oz. Keep in mind, he was only 8 lbs at his 2 week birthday, so he increased his weight by over 25% in 2 weeks! Thus, we now call him our little chunker. Check out these chubby cheeks -

Unfortunately, all that eating has given him some very impressive gas. The Dr. advised me to give up dairy and nuts to see if that will help. Anyone who knows me knows what a major sacrifice it is for me to give up CHEESE, but I sure hope it will help him digest a little easier. Right now, each dirty diaper is preceeded by a good 30 minutes of red-faced grunting, groaning and flailing arms and legs. Poor little guy!

Funny faces

We get alot of entertainment from watching the faces that Matty makes. He's starting to give us little smiles when he's content - usually as he's falling asleep after eating. I've tried and tried to catch one of those on film, but no luck yet. But, here are some funny faces I caught on film the other day -

Tummy Time

We've started doing "tummy time" with Matty to help him work on strengthening his neck muscles so he can lift his head. It's the first of many things that he doesn't particularly enjoy, but we make him do anyway "for his own good". Here's are some pictures and a video clip of tummy time.

Home from the Hospital

After two nights in the hospital, we headed home on Sunday, September 2nd.

A few days later, Grandma and Grandpa Felling arrived for a visit. They were quite enamored with their new little grandson. And, they were a wondeful help for his parents! They took nighttime baby duty, cooked, did laundry, grocery shopped and my Mom made slip covers for the cushions on the glider in Matty's room. We really appreciated the help and it was fun to see them get acquianted with the boy.

Matty has had several other visitors since coming home from the hospital - thanks to all who have stopped by! It's been nice to have company since we are much more homebound then we are accustomed to right now!

We've gotten fairly well settled in at home. We have a baby-holding receptacle in just about every room and are starting to get the hang of things. Here's a picture of Matty chilling out in his bouncy chair - which is one of his favorite places to nap.

And, here's a picture from his first bath. He was not such a big fan of bath time, or any other time when the diaper region is exposed to the air. But, after following my Mom's tip of warming up a towel for him in the dryer first, and wrapping him up in that during bath time, he's been much more cooperative during bath time.

Matthew Juan Thurman has arrived!

Matthew made his arrival on 8/31/2007 at 6:22am, weighing in at 7 lbs 6 oz, and measuring 21.25 inches long. His early arrival was a bit of a suprise - I had my weekly check up on the morning of 8/30 and was not dilated at all. I was really bummed after the appointment, thinking I had at least another week of being hugely pregnant ahead of me. But, at about 6:45pm that evening, I got up from the couch to answer the phone (Juan calling on his way home), and my water broke!

The phone conversation went something like this:
Emily: "OhmygodmywaterjustbrokethebabyiscominggethomeNOWahhhhhhhhh"
Juan: "What???"
Emily: "MY WATER JUST BROKE!"
Juan: "So, what does this mean?"
Emily: "Didn't you pay any attention in the class? This means, we're having a baby tonight!!!"

Contractions started shortly thereafter, and we arrived at the hospital at about 8:30pm. It's a good thing we got there when we did - the combination of a full moon and a low pressure weather system apparently sent every pregnant lady in Houston into labor that night and we got the very last private labor & delivery room.

We were joined by our labor support crew of Angela Ho, Christa Robbins and Jamie Lee. I cannot thank them enough for staying up all night with us and providing lots of comfort, comedy and support! You ladies rock!!

With the exception of the SEVEN tries it took for the nurses to get my IV in, everything went smoothly after that. I was 2 centimeters at around 9:30, 5 centimeters by midnight (I also got my epidural at that point, which was AWESOME), and 9 centimeters by 2:30am. But, things slowed down after that. Matthew took his own sweet time moving into position, and his heart rate dropped the first time I tried pushing, so we had to wait awhile before trying again. But, by 6:22am, we had our beautiful little boy.