Brothers

Cooper has been talking for the last month about how he "misses Miles."  He's been so excited to meet him, but we weren't sure what he would actually think.  But so far he is doing really well and loves his baby brother.  He talks to him all the time and wants to help him out.  He is constantly trying to give him pacis since that is Cooper's favorite thing and whenever he gets up in the morning or from nap he immediately goes to find Miles and say hi to him.  Here's a few shots of their first days together.

When we got home from the hospital Cooper didn't want to hold Miles, but he wanted him to sit right next to him on the couch while he watched his show.

But quickly he asked to hold him.  And was so excited to do so.  And he has asked to hold him 100 times since then and even will tell me "I'll hold Miles" when I need to go do something else.  He still needs some help to hold onto him but he is doing a great job being gentle.

We also got a few pictures in their shirts that I made (before Miles outgrows his since most of his newborn clothes won't fit long!)

Sweet brothers.  It's been so fun to see them meet each other this past week and we're looking forward to years of fun together!

Hospital Photo Shoot

Months ago I had asked a friend of mine who is a photographer to come take pictures at the hospital when Miles was born.  I thought it would be a fun way to get some newborn type pictures as well as pictures of Cooper meeting Miles.  When all the hospital policies changed we adjusted expectations as we realized Cooper would not be coming up and we also would not have a photographer coming either.  So I grabbed a few accessories to take with us and we staged our own photo shoot with all the time we had in the hospital.  

I got this swaddle and hat with an Amazon gift card someone had given me.

Sweet squishy face.

We love our new little guy

Welcome to the world Miles!

Welcome Baby Miles

After months of waiting, including a crazy last couple of months in the midst of a pandemic, the day finally arrived for us to meet baby Miles.  We decided fairly early on to plan for a repeat c-section.  So we'd had May 19 on our calendar for a few months.

We headed in Tuesday afternoon.  After Covid screening at the entrance, we were both given masks to wear while we were in the hospital.  Luckily they exchanged mine for an oxygen mask after not too long and it ended up not being too crazy.

Miles Caleb Daniels was born at 3:26 that afternoon.  He weighed 9lbs 9 oz and was 20.5 inches long.  My doctor had been saying for a while that she thought he was big, but even she was surprised by how big!

I ended up having some high blood pressure and some extra bleeding, so we settled in to the recovery room while they monitored me.  We both got some good snuggles with Miles.

We also had time for a quick FaceTime call with big brother!  We wanted him to be the first to "meet" Miles.

We ended up spending an extra night in Labor and Delivery due to the complications I had.  My doctor just wanted me to be monitored more closely for the night.  I was so thankful for her diligence and the care of all of the staff at the hospital this week!

Since we weren't allowed to have any visitors while we were in the hospital, we settled in and snuggled up with our new little guy.  It ended up being a good time to work on feeding and nap on and off throughout the day and night.

After some last minute lab work, we finally headed home Friday afternoon!  It was so good to head home to start life with our family of four!

Baby Brother Month!

Happy May!  We have officially made it to a new month, and it's an exciting one since it is baby month around here!  The last 2 months were definitely not how we planned to spend our last weeks as a family of 3, but it has turned out to be a sweet time at home together and I've been working a lot on getting things organized and ready for baby brother.

Welcome to his room!

We are reusing the Navy sheets and other things we had for Cooper and adding in a few gray accents along with some new artwork.  We bought digital files for these prints off Etsy and then had them printed on boards at Sams. {We love you to the moon and back, Seek Adventure, Oh the places you'll go}

We bought some new curtains and a new diaper pail.  I made the letters for his name out of canvases, scrapbook paper, and wooden letters

Reusing the shelves and the blue bins, then added in some gray bins as well.  I've got his closet set up with some extra drawers and his NB and 0-3 month clothes hanging up.

I've also been working on some freezer meals.  Even though we have our extra freezer we don't have a ton of empty freezer space so I'm not making a ton.  But I did make some extra shepherd pie and some bbq chicken.  We also have lots of meat frozen ready to put in the crockpot or oven with just a little bit of seasoning to make some of our favorites.  We did our final Sams stockup today!

And I made Miles a hooded towel just like Cooper has one that he still uses.

Today David hung up the monitor in the nursery.  We got a whole new monitor system since our old one was losing battery fast, so we'll put a new camera up in Cooper's room soon too.  Other than that I've been washing his clothes, sanitizing all the bottles again, organizing all the other rooms, cleaning out our fridge and pantry, etc. etc.

And we've been enjoying some last few adventures as a family of 3.  Cooper is enjoying all the extra family time and the weather has been wonderful so we've been able to get outside a lot. 

The countdown is on and we can't wait to meet baby Miles in about 3 weeks!