Welcome Stormy Tyler!

Remember that last post? The one where I was talking about lack of sleep? HA! So much for that! Less than 24 hours later, I was awake yet again, but for a completely different reason...

Please join our family in welcoming to the world

Stormy Tyler Antell!!!

He was born at 2:17 p.m., Monday, May 4, 2009. Weighing in at just under 7 lbs. (6 lbs., 15.8 oz.), he was a whole 20.5 inches tall! When he introduced himself, he had dark curly hair and dark gray eyes; he was so bright-eyed and content as you can see in the picture! Almost immediately we could see he had my wrinkly forehead and expressions, but with every day that goes by, he looks more and more like his daddy—so adorable.

Well, you can imagine, having spent the last nine days getting to know each other, there is a lot to say, so I'm gonna get to it. : ) I'll try to break it up some, though I could go on for days and paragraphs about our little dude. LOL! Adam and I agree he is the most amazing thing we have ever seen, and we are so overjoyed with him we could both burst with pride and love. And we are so happy to be sharing all of this with you all. Be sure to check back often: There's a lot of stuff coming your way!

Sleep as a Precious Commodity

So, here it is, approximately 6:45 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and the third or fourth (?!) time this week I've been awake before dawn and wondering what to do with myself... I mean, honestly, what do you "morning people" even do at this hour? This is totally nuts. Don't get me wrong: It's a lovely time of day, what with watching the sky light up, seeing the first outlines of the tree-tops, listening to the birds wake up and get on with their day. But really, even Mac the turtle who lives in our front yard isn't roaming around in the grass yet, and he lives out there where there is no shutting of the blinds to keep out the light; where there are no pillows to put over his head to hide from the early sun.

A "morning person," I am not, nor have I ever been. (See entry below.) And I'm not being a curmudgeon about being up early; I kind of enjoy the quiet of it all. I just don't know what to DO with myself right now! It's not that I go to bed too much earlier than I used to. Could it be the naps I've been taking, or just the simple discomfort of staying in one position for too long? I don't think I buy the *cough*bullshit*cough* theory that my body is "preparing" for the long, sleepless nights when the baby's first born (because really, aren't the days sleepless too? ...yeah, I thought so. ha!). I like to think my body is smarter than that and knows it should be sleeping right now while it still can! But I've actually been waking up well before 6 a lot of these days. Sometimes I can force myself back to sleep reading a few pages or just turning away from the window and burying my face in the pillow, like I imagine Mac's doing in some bed of leaves out there right now, I'm sure. But on mornings like this, when my hard-working husband actually has the chance to sleep in, I relent to torture him with my tossing and turning, and I succumb to nature's time clock and forgo the pull of my own. (Come on, Adam has to put up with my shit all day! The least I can allow him is a good night's sleep... haha.)

Well, now the coffee's done brewing and I chopped up a cantaloupe that's calling my name, so I guess that's one thing I can go do. Eat breakfast—yum! Maybe I'll clean out the fridge after that...I don't know; but if I think of enough things to do to wear myself out this morning, maybe I'll be ready for a nap after lunch! Nothing like falling asleep with a good book for an aftenoon nap. Ah, home sweet home (and by "home," I mean my bed)!

[/end bitchfest] Thanks for listening! LOL!

G-Ma Sprout’s Blog Entry

Well…this is long overdue, huh? Just wanted to share a little insight with Stormy about his Momma, and share a few baby photos.

Born 21 Sept. 1978 – 9lbs 6ozs, 20.5” at 10:35 pm…She’s still a night owl~ she was born without too much hair, but that rapidly changed. It grew in thick and curly just like her Daddy’s. Has always been brown too. She looked so much like her Daddy that I used to be jealous, but she DID get my cleft chin. No one EVER said how she resembled me when she was a baby…well she didn’t, so I guess that was to be expected.

She was a cute little thing. Always smiling, creating mischief from the time she could grab things. I remember her Dad putting her crib right under the thermostat in her bedroom and I was thinking that wasn’t such a good idea. But, Dad didn’t realize how well she could pull herself up in her crib I guess – so we awoke the next morning to ‘pieces’ of the thermostat everywhere – to include her mouth! Needless to say, we got a new thermostat and her crib changed locations quickly. She loved taking baths and being naked! Some of her favorite things were puzzles, books; especially story time. She hated her swing though cause it usually meant ‘nap-time’ and naps were just never on her agenda.

Believe it or not, as she got older, she became very shy with everyone. Her first time in pre-school, the teacher called me for a conference (after 4 or 5 months) to find out if she knew how to talk! (What happened???) Eventually she came around. The first love of her life was Jamie Lamerding – a little boy her Grandma used to babysit. She stole kisses from him every chance she got! She learned quickly how to get what she wanted from us too; and it wasn’t by pitching a fit and crying. She was extremely charming and ‘cute’. She would smile and roll her eyes at you like ‘aw come on…you know you want to’. Giving up was never her forte either.

Trust me Stormy, don’t try to pull any shenanigan’s with your Mom…she knows ALL the tricks! The stories I’ll be able to tell you…mmm mmm mmm. Gonna be FUN. Plus remember, Grandmas and Grandpas let you do almost everything that Mom and Dad won’t let you do…hehehe. We figure that after dealing with being the ‘responsible’ one for so long with our kids, we earned the right to spoil the grandkids with too much love and attention. We usually have more patience too.

I can’t wait to meet you; show you all her embarrassing pictures and tell you all the stories in person! I especially can’t wait to hold you, cuddle you and take naps with you. I just hope you don’t turn out like your Mom there…she really didn’t like to be cuddled much – too independent!

Hugs and Kisses
Grandma Mary

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Two weeks old

First Christmas: 3 mos. old

Seven mos. old in the tub!

Nine mos. old with first kitty, Smitty!

36 Weeks!

And now the real countdown begins! Today/tomorrow marks the start of our 36th week of this crazy journey. The last month—I can hardly believe it's here! Most days I feel ready. Some other days...not so much, lol. And everyone keeps telling me that no matter how ready I feel, I am not by any stretch of the imagination, and that no one is ever really ready. Well in response, all I can say is: Suck it, haters! I'm gonna keep pretending I've got my shit together, so there! Neener neener! (Plus! positive thinking about being prepared leaves me in a much calmer state of mind than being anxious about it, so I'm choosing preparedness, even if I'm totally deluded, lol!)

It does help that we got so much done this weekend (with lots of help from Michaela!). The crib is officially put together in the baby's room. Things are washed and put away. We have lots of diapers and other essentials stocked up and organized. All we need now is a little time to relax, sleep, and mentally prepare ourselves to share our lives with an incredible little dude. Adam and I are both sooooo excited to meet him and hold and cuddle him.

We had a check-up today; from here on, we will be going weekly since we are getting so close. And everything looked great as usual! My blood pressure was a little high when I first got there, but after resting on my left side for a few minutes, they rechecked and it was completely normal. Whew! Stormy was also very excited to be there, apparently. He was kicking like crazy, and his heartbeat measured at 150 bmp. He's normally somewhere around 130, but today's measurement was by no means unusual. We just caught him getting some exercise. Well, I tell ya, he'd better get it in now because things are getting really tight in there! As he gets bigger, his movements will become more restricted. He's surrounded in the max amount of amniotic fluid now, so the space around him isn't going to grow anymore. Any more growth will be all baby! Little dude needs a few more weeks to fill out and plump up before he joins us.

So that's all I've got for now, but stay tuned—the really exciting stuff isn't too far away!


(Just fyi, we learned today that pregnant or not, if your blood pressure is running high, laying on your left side to rest for a while is a surefire way to get it to come down a bit. Good information for anyone to know, I think!)

New Blog Tool

Look down there in the bottom right corner under this post. You should see a tiny white envelope with an arrow on top of it. If you want to forward a blog post we've written to any other family or friends, click on the envelope and it will direct you as to what to do. It will save you the few extra steps of copying and pasting. Hope that helps!

35 Weeks, woohoo!!!

So here we are at 35 weeks of pregnancy. Can I just say that this, now, is officially the most uncomfortable I've ever been in my life?!...and it's going to get worse?!...are you effing kidding me?!!! I think I might pass out, y'all. I'm pretty sure the extreme degree of my awkwardness even has Adam freaked the hell out. Sometimes he just stares with his mouth agape as he watches me struggling to get off the couch or out of the bed before remembering to ask me if I need a hand. Hahahaha! Poor guy, he has been so helpful and considerate for the duration, but sometimes I think he's still caught off guard by the whole thing. We get a lot of laughs out of it though! It's an absolute riot to try to explain to him how I feel, or why I get into bed the way I do (not pretty, folks, I assure you that!).

Anyway, regardless of all that, little Stormy and I are doing just fine. We were at the doctors' office yesterday for a check-up, and aside from the massiveness of my feet and ankles due to swelling over the last couple of weeks, everything is still right on track as far as baby's and my growth. Little dude has a strong steady heartbeat at 132 bpm this week, and is kicking around as much as ever, just itching to get out and see the world!

In other news, I have decided that this week is my last week of work. I have felt very fortunate that I have been able to run around and work on my feet all night as long as I have, but it's become really difficult to move around now, so I'm going to call it quits. It's only a week earlier than I had originally planned, so no biggie. But when my co-worker, Yuen, and I can't physically fit past each other behind the bar? Yeah, I think that's a definite sign to get the hell outta there and start my leave, LOL!! Also, now that the swelling has begun (thinking Stay-Puff marshmellows, anyone?), it's a pain in the butt...and thighs...and knees... to get a lot done. My work shoes don't even fit my ginormous ankles, people! So I'll be concentrating on keeping those puppies up as much as I can now while I finish up the last of things around the house in prep for Stormy's arrival, which will be very soon!

We start weekly check-ups with the doctor now that we are so close; and they say after 36 weeks, anything can happen...that's NEXT WEEK! Ahhhhhh!!! The final countdown begins! Keeping in mind the due date is May 27, anyone want to guess what his actual birthday will be?

Family Picture

Hey people! Well, last week we visited "our beach" for our last family vacay before Stormy joins us, though, as you can see from the picture, he is very much present! Every year, we go to Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, where Adam and I got married three years ago; and each year, we seem to add another family member to the trip. This year, we had with us both of Stormy's older cousins, Sophie and Little A, and next year, Stormy will join the ranks of the toddler posse. We can't wait to teach him to swim in the ocean and build sandcastles with his cousins!