Two Weeks Old

Week two started with a visit to the lactation nurses. I was nervous about the visit, but they were thrilled with how well we were all doing! Hayden was already up to 7 pounds 6 ounces...well past his birth weight after only one week. We left the appointment feeling great about our first week of nursing!

GiGi and Aunt Tracy stayed until Friday. We celebrated our first night at the house just the 4 of us and looked forward to the weekend! On Saturday morning "Uncle" Brent came back to visit with Ashley and his mom, Sue. They brought brunch and spent a few hours hanging out with Hayden. Later that afternoon Tyler picked up his "little brother" Ethan to come hang out. We were so impressed with Ethan's desire to hold the baby. He knew exactly what to do!

On Sunday we had more visitors! My Uncle, Aunt and cousins made the trip over to meet the little guy. He was so zonked out while they were here that they passed him around for a few hours and he never woke up. He is a happy kid when he is being held!!

On Sunday afternoon we went on a family walk through the neighborhood. It had been raining so much, we were thrilled to enjoy the fresh air and beautiful day!

We discovered some fun things during week 2...like the fact that Hayden has a favorite sleeping position.

Tyler, on the other hand, seems to be napping on anything in sight. :)

We got some great pictures of the little guy this week. His eyes are starting to learn to focus, so we got SEVERAL cross eyed pictures in an effort to get a couple of good ones!

And we can't forget about our first baby....she has been INCREDIBLE during this transition!! She seems to like Hayden just fine so far, but the real apple of her eye these days is her stuffed giraffe. :)

Happy Birthday GiGi!

Yesterday was GiGi's Birthday! We could never thank her for EVERYTHING she did for us when baby Hayden arrived (not to mention the 10 months of preparing for him!), but we did make sure to grab a few pictures while she was here. We all miss her already and love her SO much!! Thank goodness she lives so close. :)

Mom,

I don't think many people are lucky enough to have the kind of relationship that you and I share. I will never be able to thank you for everything that relationship means to me, but...

THANK YOU for researching endlessly while we looked for the perfect stroller for our family.

THANK YOU for buying the Mamaroo for Hayden, then signing the card from Tess, Sophie and Scout.

THANK YOU for spending a weekend putting hundreds of dot decals on the walls, one by one.

THANK YOU for figuring out why our clothes have been shrinking. :)

THANK YOU for driving in the middle of the night to meet us at the hospital.

THANK YOU for being there in the delivery room, but somehow still making it about me and Tyler.

THANK YOU for taking care of our furry baby while we were first meeting our newest one.

THANK YOU for taking care of EVERYTHING at the house, so we could take care of Hayden.

THANK YOU for spending so much time away from Dad and Sophie, we are so grateful.

THANK YOU for coming back to spend the week with me when Tyler had to go back to work.

THANK YOU, mostly, for showing me what a mother should be.

I am so excited to be sharing all of this with you. A silly little blog post doesn't even begin to do it justice, but you deserve a little taste of just how much you're appreciated!

I love you!!

One Week Old

Hayden's first week was a great one! We had lots of visitors...and took LOTS of naps! 

We stayed 2 nights at the hospital and could not have had a better experience there. Family and friends came to visit and before we knew it we were on our way home.

 The grandparents and aunts spent lots of time with us at the hospital. I could kick Tyler and I for not getting pictures of Hayden in the hospital with ANY of his grandparents!! We did manage to get some with Aunts Amy and Tracy.

Meeting Papa (Great-Grandpa) for the first time.

We had visits from our close friends in Charlotte as well!

Then we headed home as a family where we were greeted by grandparents and aunts (at this point we could probably call them the paparazzi) and a very excited Tess!

We all napped through the weekend...dad, mom and baby.

Then on Monday we headed out to visit the Pediatrician for the first time. Hayden had already started gaining back the weight he lost in the hospital, so after a great checkup we were scheduled for his next appointment at one month.

Also on Monday, Hayden got to meet his other Great-Grandparents and his Great Aunt who drove all the way from Florida!

4 generations!

And to wrap up his first week, Hayden had a squirmy photo shoot with mom and opened a gift from GiGi....his very own Ya Ya! Tracy and I grew up with Ya Ya and now Hayden will too. :)

Hayden Day!

Well, we've got some catching up to do! March 23, 2011 marked one of the most exciting days in mine and Tyler's lives...we welcomed our son, Hayden Graham Key, into the world! My hope is to update the blog weekly, at the very least, with a picture of Hayden and a recap of exciting things from the week before. I'm going to put the highlights and picture on a 4x6 card so they can be printed and added to his baby book. To bring us up to date (how has it already been almost 2 weeks?!), here are the details of the beginning of our adventure. :)

My contractions started after a fabulous "last supper" out at one of our favorite restaurants. Around 11:30pm, on the night of Hayden's due date, I got out of bed and spent the next couple of hours trying to figure out if they were real contractions....the kind worth waking up my doctor in the middle of the night. :) We called the doctor and headed to the hospital around 4:30am and thankfully I was far enough along to be admitted. I happily got my epidural around 7:30am and was able to rest a little as the morning progressed. After just over an hour of pushing, our handsome guy made his grand entrance into the world at 3:18pm. He weighed 7 pounds 1.7 ounces and was 20 inches long. Both sets of grandparents and his fabulous aunts were all there to welcome him!

Our first family photo :)

SO in LOVE...

Our Handsome Little Guy on his First Day :)

The whole day seems like a bit of a blur already, but our first night as a family of 3 was so special. We brought in sushi for dinner (this momma was SO excited to be eating raw fish again) and enjoyed lots of snuggling and loving. We had so much to look forward to and we were already loving every bit of being a Mom and Dad!

March Madness...a little different this year

March Madness is one of my favorite times of the year, so I have decided to update the blog today instead of Lindsay. Today, millions of people went into work and thought about filling out their brackets or who was their sleeper pick in the tournament. Most years this is all that March Madness would mean to me too, but this year is a lot more special. Instead of filling out brackets, Lindsay and I (with a lot of help from her Mom) are filling out the nursery. We don't care about picking a good sleeper team in the tournament, we're just hoping for a baby that is a good sleeper.

This year will be the most memorable March Madness of my life and not because I'm going to have a perfect bracket or win the $100 from our office pool. This year during March Madness, Lindsay and I will become parents, our parents will become grandparents, our grandparents will become great grandparents and Lindsay even has a great grandmother who will become a great great grandmother. It is a very exciting time for us and we are so blessed to have family and friends as loving and wonderful as we do during this time. Thank you to all of you for your warm wishes, wonderful gifts and just everyone's overall support.

Becoming a father will be a dream come true to me and something that I have always thought of as the greatest experience for a man during his lifetime. Ten years ago, during my high school's "Mr. Menendez" competition, I was asked "Where do you see yourself in ten years?" My response was "I see myself as a father to a son, who is a boy...." Of course I was a bit nervous and the moderator asking the question responded with "Yes Tyler, a son is a boy" which got a good laugh out of the crowd. Being a Dad is something that I have always wanted to do and beginning in the next week or two I'll take my first steps down the path of fatherhood.

I'm sure Lindsay will be updating the blog in the next day or two with more pictures of the nursery. Lindsay and Ellen (Lindsay's mom) did a fabulous job on the room and spent hours this past weekend putting some final touches on it and it looks amazing. This is while Marc (Lindsay's Dad) and I spent a hard weekend at the ACC tournament watching Duke and Carolina battle it out for the ACC championship, which brings me to a story of how March Madness has always been a part of my life since the very beginning.

I was born on March 10, 1984 which was the semi-finals of the ACC tournament. Duke and UNC were playing for a spot in the ACC championship game when I decided it was time to come out. My parents rushed to the hospital and of course like any great man would do, my Dad tried to not only be there for his wife during her time of need, but also pay attention to the basketball score in case she wanted to know who was winning. Well I was born that night, shortly after the game was finished. The game was such a great game, that my Dad wanted to name me after the winning team. Luckily my Mom would never allow that to happen and good thing too, because Duke won the game 77-75 and I'm not sure how I would have turned out if my name was Duke Key.

Nursery Snap Shots

To say that this past week was a productive one would be a HUGE understatement!! We had the nursery painted, furniture delivered and over the weekend, which included a very successful trip to target, we got most of the nugget's room put together. (Talk about a cool reality check...he has a room!) We still have a few things to complete and are really excited about our project for the walls that should be going up this coming weekend. But until it's finished, here are some little peeks to tide you over. :)

The bedding arrived with the furniture and we couldn't wait to get it all put together on the crib!

We filled the nugget's bookcase with all kinds of goodies...

...and of course a little Seminole pride. The pom-pom is from his first game at Doak Campbell Stadium!

I know we will ALL be so grateful for the extra cozy reclining glider.

We got SO lucky on our trip to Target finding all kinds of lime green storage and a great lamp for those dark late night diaper changes!!

And finally, a fun nugget name game! Tyler and I are bursting at the seams after sharing the nugget's name with our families during the baby shower weekend. I'm pretty sure the little guy's name will be flying out before he arrives, but just to keep you wondering a little longer, here's a FUN FACT:

Tyler and I both have the letter "Y" in our first AND last names....and so will the nugget!

Happy Guessing :)

Our Little Family

I am now the proud and overly excited owner of a new iPhone! And it is with my new phone that I captured this little gem while we were upstairs watching a movie one night. Tyler and I were snuggled up watching and since Tess has a new official spot on the couch downstairs, she insisted (with those big brown eyes), that she be allowed to cuddle with us upstairs as well. The only problem is that there is not enough room for all of us on one chair. Tess didn't seem to find the issue with this....she just plopped right down on top of Tyler and made herself quite comfy. :) Moments like this make my heart smile...