the early days

i can't believe our sweet babe is three months old now -
here are some of my favorite pictures of baby darrel's first month.

some precious ones of him sleeping (these first ones are my all time favorites).

with  john and christopher in his first days/weeks.

meeting tio pat for the first time.

and with ella and andrew when he was starting to fill out at three and four weeks old.

john apparently took this one of me and the babe, he was about a week old.

i had no idea he took it but i'm so glad he did, i really love it.

and a blurry morning one with john john.

a couple of my good friends threw me a surprise shower.

they invited all my 'school mom' friends - here are ella and the darling girls with baby d.

it was so sweet of them and so lovely, i found out about it about an hour before.

so glad i found out  - plenty of time to get myself ready :)

those thunder thighs - i love this pic and love those chunks and rolls :)

(almost all) the kids doing 'tummy time' with 'the presh': baby darrel.

another sweet sleeping shot.

on the way out of the school board mtg at a month old, he looked so darn cute!

arriving home after his/our first walk together.

those cheeks...have gotten so many comments on them.

i absolutely adore this picture:

those precious fisted hands placed so sweetly together -

oh, those fat, wrinkly sweet sweet hands just made my heart stop when i saw them.
this was my view looking down at him as he was nursing.

so beautiful, i just had to take a picture of it as i want to cherish all these special moments.

he is my first child born in this age of the smartphones -

have gone crazy taking pics of him with my phone, took a million of him in those first weeks.

love that i will have them to remember those early days as they are gone before you know it.

tried to post just a few here, will be posting more when i do posts on him with each child.

we are all loving this precious babe more than words could ever express.

halloween 2013

it began with the halloween parade at school in the afternoon.
my little kindergartener looked pretty darn cute...

the 8th graders always have a big halloween celebration with their 1st grade buddies.
it was so cute to see christopher taking care of his little friend.
proud moment for me to observe him watching over and teaching him good manners.

i only had two trick-or-treaters home for the annual front door picture (plus the babe:)
the boys both had tournament football games and got home later...
yes, crazy that there are catholic school football games on halloween!

 uncle bobby still gets into the holiday - makes it so fun for my kids:)

i got to spend the evening with this beautiful little superbaby attached to me:)

we went to a neighborhood block party before heading out door to door.
ella and elise dressed the same again this year.
they looked adorable, as usual.  

we stopped at grandma's for a little rest and ella got to see her little cuz, felix.
then we headed to elise's to hang out at their huge halloween party for a bit.

the little guy was knocked out on me when we got home.
he slept on me most of the evening.
i loved having my little babe asleep on me, so sweet :)

he looked so adorable when he woke up too.
i could just eat him up, oh how i love these babies of mine...

nani has come over for years on halloween.
she stays at our house and passes out candy while we take the kids trick or treating.
this year it was especially helpful to have her there with the boys schedule.
after football, they were able to come and go with their friends - thank u nani!

here is andrew with his friends who came over after football to go out in the 'hood with him.
couldn't get the red eye out, and i'm not quite sure what his costume is -
i gave him a million ideas in the days prior, he apparently didn't like any of them.

chris and his friends decided last minute to go as men in black.
they threw the outfits together when they got home.
apparently there weren't enough suit jackets to go around, makes it all the more funny.

john started doing this pose in the pictures, so some of andrew's friends joined in too.
they all had a great time, so fun for them to have so many school friends nearby.

chris and i went to our next door neighbors halloween party the weekend before.
put these costumes together 10 minutes before we left, luckily we had them in the closet.
i borrowed the skirt from ella (with some tweaking :)

we went for about 15 minutes without darrel while he slept.
the kids called when he woke up and chris walked right next door to get him.
it was so nice to be so close to home!

 

when we got home, he fell asleep on ella (a regular occurence in his early days).

he looked so adorable on her, i could not get over it!

he looked like a little doll in the picture above - so dang cute.

i just cannot get enough of this precious baby, i am soaking him up.

when i had him in the carrier on halloween a lady yelled out from across the street,

"is that a real baby?" - ha too funny.

 

it was a great halloween and so nice that the next day was a friday = short school day.
i look forward to the next couple years when it will fall on the weekend!

Darrel Joseph

arrived on the afternoon of september 3rd weighing 8lbs. 1 oz. and 20 1/2 inches long.
he came at the perfect time, my doctor had just gotten in town the night before.
i really wanted her to be there (she's my across the street neighbor).
it was one day before his actual due date.

nani was in the waiting room this time before i gave birth since it was during the day.
we typically have called her to come right after the baby is born -
i've had natural childbirth with all - we didn't think she could handle seeing me in pain:)

i was worried about going into labor (and making it to the hospital),
since i've had a couple extremely fast ones -
and while people think that's great, it is very intense and overwhelming.
i am so happy to say it was a nice gradual and quick at the end labor and delivery -
i had asked lots of mom's at school to pray for me, the prayers were definitely answered :)

and what a precious gift to receive at the end of all that hard work.
of course we were instantly in love with this wonderful new addition to our family.
we named him after his great-grandfather who had 12 children -
and who we are lucky enough to see every sunday for dinner thanks to my in-laws.

since he came so fast during the actual delivery, he got some fluid in his lungs.
so, he was our first baby to have to go into the nursery.
i was in there all the time!  here he is with daddy in the nursery...

my water broke at 6:30 in the morning, so the kids knew it was going to be a special day.
here i am on the way to the hospital - au natural -

and while i don't have many photos of myself throughout the pregnancy,

here i am four days before Darrel was born, and then two days before he was born.

it is fun to have these to look back on.

here is the precious little guy on our way home from the hospital.

john asked me throughout my entire pregnancy if he could be the first to hold the baby.
he was so excited, all the kids were...

 

nani made us a wonderful meal the evening we came home from the hospital.

i had to take a picture of the salad, it looked so pretty - it was delicious.

darrel had some jaundice in the hospital and in the days following.
we had to take him to the doctor everyday for three days to get his levels checked.
i was so worried about the possibility that he would have to go back to the hospital -
but after lots of prayers from family and friends he was in the clear :)

he has been a sweet baby from the start and we are absolutely enamored by him.
the kids are all so good with him and have been so incredibly helpful -
we all love having a baby in the house, it has been such a wonderful blessing!