Grant smiles :) from Chelsea Tedder on Vimeo.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Grant smiles :)
I'm just learning how to post videos online in a better format so here is my first try. Sweet smiles and talking from Grant for his dad!
Grant smiles :) from Chelsea Tedder on Vimeo.
Grant smiles :) from Chelsea Tedder on Vimeo.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Monday, August 27, 2012
The Big 3-0
I'm still here! Looks like this blog has taken a back seat to baby raising :) Even my blog reading is scarce these days! I have lots to update you on but I don't have it in me to do a big summer wrap-up post yet so I'll start with my birthday.
I turned 30 yesterday. Wow! We celebrated Matt's 30th in April so mine wasn't such a shocker but still...30?! How did time pass so quickly?
Before my mom and Meg left they planned a little family celebration with cousin - 30 treats for my 30th birthday. They had 30 fun candies plus icing for cupcake decorating. During my pregnancy I developed a major sweet tooth that hasn't seemed to go away since Grant arrived....hm.
Here are some pics from that celebration :)
Do you spy the scar on my forehead? I'll get to that explanation at some point....
Can we PLEASE get in on some of this delicious food?
And on to the sweet part...
Do you see the 30 different sweets??
Yum.
I wasn't the only one interested in a decked out cupcake :)
All the celebrating wore Grant out.
My sweet boy :) What a joy he is!
This past weekend we spent at the lake...the weather was heavenly and it was SO nice to have some time to relax as our family of 4 (including Willow of course). I even had the chance to read my book in the sun while Matt hung out with Grant! I'd been missing my reading time since my mom and Meg (aka my baby whisperers) left the lake....
We had some friends over on Saturday night for another birthday celebration.
The newly engaged - congrats to Linds and Tom!
Grant received lots of love :) What a lucky boy...
He couldn't help but be too cute to put down...(Please note Will had on her cute face too :) We haven't forgetten about her and she receives no shortage of attention herself!)
We had a gorgeous late summer sunset to cap off the day.
The day of my birthday I woke up to sweet snuggles from G...
Then we spent the morning on the porch...
And the rest of the day enjoying the amazing weather.
It was the happiest of birthdays! Hooray for 30!
xoxo
I turned 30 yesterday. Wow! We celebrated Matt's 30th in April so mine wasn't such a shocker but still...30?! How did time pass so quickly?
Before my mom and Meg left they planned a little family celebration with cousin - 30 treats for my 30th birthday. They had 30 fun candies plus icing for cupcake decorating. During my pregnancy I developed a major sweet tooth that hasn't seemed to go away since Grant arrived....hm.
Here are some pics from that celebration :)
Do you spy the scar on my forehead? I'll get to that explanation at some point....
Can we PLEASE get in on some of this delicious food?
And on to the sweet part...
Do you see the 30 different sweets??
Yum.
I wasn't the only one interested in a decked out cupcake :)
All the celebrating wore Grant out.
My sweet boy :) What a joy he is!
This past weekend we spent at the lake...the weather was heavenly and it was SO nice to have some time to relax as our family of 4 (including Willow of course). I even had the chance to read my book in the sun while Matt hung out with Grant! I'd been missing my reading time since my mom and Meg (aka my baby whisperers) left the lake....
We had some friends over on Saturday night for another birthday celebration.
The newly engaged - congrats to Linds and Tom!
Grant received lots of love :) What a lucky boy...
He couldn't help but be too cute to put down...(Please note Will had on her cute face too :) We haven't forgetten about her and she receives no shortage of attention herself!)
We had a gorgeous late summer sunset to cap off the day.
The day of my birthday I woke up to sweet snuggles from G...
Then we spent the morning on the porch...
And the rest of the day enjoying the amazing weather.
It was the happiest of birthdays! Hooray for 30!
xoxo
Friday, August 10, 2012
Pass the baby...
We are so lucky to have lots of friends and family that have been excited to meet Grant. I figured I'd do a post on all his first meet and greets :) What follows will be pics of a bunch of people passing him around - ha! He is going to meet more friends when we head to VA in September and there are some people I've missed taking a picture of too so I'm sorry to those of you who aren't represented below!
Of course you've seen his dad, aunt, and Bubbie holding him already...Cousin also visited him in the hospital on his birthday :)
Friends came to see us on day 2 in the hospital.
Then when we got home...
DOC!
Grant's gramma and grandpa :)
Uncle John!!!
How amazing is it to have Great Grandparents??
Cousin love.
Aunt love :)
And Uncle love :)
It feels amazing to be so loved. That's all for now...More later!
xoxo
Of course you've seen his dad, aunt, and Bubbie holding him already...Cousin also visited him in the hospital on his birthday :)
Friends came to see us on day 2 in the hospital.
Then when we got home...
DOC!
Grant's gramma and grandpa :)
Uncle John!!!
How amazing is it to have Great Grandparents??
Cousin love.
Aunt love :)
And Uncle love :)
It feels amazing to be so loved. That's all for now...More later!
xoxo
Friday, July 27, 2012
4 years!
Happy Anniversary to us :)
I say this every year....but I can't believe it has been 4 years since this day!
We started as 2 and are now a family of 4 (because Willow counts of course). Lucky us we now get to take awkward family photos :) Perhaps we'll get better at those.
I'm can't describe how thankful I am for what the past 4 years have brought. It's amazing that the heart is big enough to hold all the love as it grows and grows. Thanks to Matt for making me so incredibly happy!
Ah.
xo!
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Birth Story
Hello friends! I'm sorry for the blog hiatus! I'm having so much fun with our sweet baby in this beautiful summer weather that it makes it hard to find time to sit down and write. Perhaps I should try blog writing while I'm up for hours in the middle of the night....I'm thinking this post would make even less sense then than it will now so I'll stick to trying to find some daylight hours to blog :) Please forgive spelling errors and typos...
I'm not quite sure where to start with updates so I figured it'd be best to start from the beginning with a very PG version of Grant's birth. Believe me...it's the one you would rather read!
I have started the sentence "Childbirth is like..." a few times and erased it because there really is no description that quite captures it. It's wonderful, amazing, a miracle, excruciating, terrifying, and empowering all at once.
As I posted what feels like forever ago...I was on "modified bed rest" for about the last 3 weeks of my pregnancy due to high blood pressure. It wasn't so bad but I was feeling a bit stir crazy by the end. Plus it was getting hot around here and we have no AC! Pregnant + HOT + No AC = Misery. I went into the office on Monday June 18 at 39 weeks because they wanted to schedule a date to induce me. At that visit they accidentally broke my water while checking my cervix...crazier things have happened I guess. It was a blessing in disguise for me because it meant I didn't have to pick an induction day (something that was giving me lots of anxiety!)...that day or the next would be baby day!
We headed to the hospital about 6 hours labor around 8pm...no contractions yet as you can tell from my smiling posed pic :) This was the view from Labor and Delivery - not bad huh?
We waited in our room for a few hours because the floor was completely full of women having babies...
My mom and Meg made it up from VA (they drove up that day - lucky I didn't go in any earlier than that!)...they stopped by to say hello.
Around midnight a resident was available to administer a drug that was supposed to help with dilation. We thought we'd have a few hours to sleep but about 15 mins later I started having contractions. At first they were manageable...I did some of the things we learned about in my natural birth class (walking the halls, etc).
The pictures stopped here because things quickly changed. Contractions sped up, came stronger, closer together, and lasted longer than I imagined they would so early on in labor. My only effective pain relief was in the bathtub (I know it sounds quite hippie but worked for me). I told the nurse I couldn't get out unless I had an epidural! Ha. Epidural it was for me by about 5am. It was amazing.
After that I rested easy for most of the day...contractions were coming steadily and things were progressing until about 3 that afternoon then things stalled. The doctor started Pitocin and about 4 hours later I was allowed to start pushing. By this time my epidural had mostly worn off. Pushing is painful. I'm going to leave it at that.
I pushed for almost 2 hours. Whew. The room was full. 4 nurses - there was a shift change but my day nurses stayed to see if he was going to be a boy or girl :) My doctor, a resident, Meg, my mom, Matt! I was oblivious. Meg documented some of this part...
My mom said you fall in love with the doctor that delivers your baby and it's so true! I absolutely loved ours. She was amazingly calm and I trusted her so much it made my delivery feel like the most natural (although painful) event.
I can't describe how it felt but I was so surrounded by love and support. That feeling was what kept me going when I REALLY thought I couldn't. Grant was born at 7:56pm on June 19th after almost 19 hours of labor! His actual birth is a blur - I remember being so thankful that he was healthy and OUT that it took several minutes of holding him to realize that he was a boy!
The only thing I hoped for (other than a healthy baby) was to be able to hold him immediately after he was born. I was grateful that Grant was able to be given right to me. They took him briefly to get his footprints and check his Apgar scores once Matt cut the umbilical cord and then I got him back.
Matt spent that time letting everyone know he was here :)
Then he finally had his chance to hold him...
I couldn't believe that about 1 hour later we were told it was time to head down to the mother/infant unit. I was shocked I was expected to hop up out of bed and get in a wheelchair! Luckily I managed much better than I thought :) Downstairs Meg and my mom had a chance to hold him...
Spending 2 nights in the hospital was nice. It was great to have the support of the doctors and nurses as we learned how to take care of our sweet baby.
It was just a bit scary to head home! Good thing my mom was around for a while at our house. I'm not going to lie...the first few weeks are rough on the mom. Your body feels torn apart, you don't sleep, your hormones are crazy. It takes a while to get back to feeling like yourself.
As nice as the hospital was for the support...it was also great to come home!
We were super excited to see our noodle again :) She has been great with Grant!
I tried to have no expectations for what his birth was going to be like but I think they would have been exceeded. Our experience was so wonderful and we loved the doctors and nurses at our hospital. I am SO grateful for his smooth arrival and can't believe it was already 5 weeks ago!
OK more later!
xo!
I'm not quite sure where to start with updates so I figured it'd be best to start from the beginning with a very PG version of Grant's birth. Believe me...it's the one you would rather read!
I have started the sentence "Childbirth is like..." a few times and erased it because there really is no description that quite captures it. It's wonderful, amazing, a miracle, excruciating, terrifying, and empowering all at once.
As I posted what feels like forever ago...I was on "modified bed rest" for about the last 3 weeks of my pregnancy due to high blood pressure. It wasn't so bad but I was feeling a bit stir crazy by the end. Plus it was getting hot around here and we have no AC! Pregnant + HOT + No AC = Misery. I went into the office on Monday June 18 at 39 weeks because they wanted to schedule a date to induce me. At that visit they accidentally broke my water while checking my cervix...crazier things have happened I guess. It was a blessing in disguise for me because it meant I didn't have to pick an induction day (something that was giving me lots of anxiety!)...that day or the next would be baby day!
We headed to the hospital about 6 hours labor around 8pm...no contractions yet as you can tell from my smiling posed pic :) This was the view from Labor and Delivery - not bad huh?
We waited in our room for a few hours because the floor was completely full of women having babies...
My mom and Meg made it up from VA (they drove up that day - lucky I didn't go in any earlier than that!)...they stopped by to say hello.
Around midnight a resident was available to administer a drug that was supposed to help with dilation. We thought we'd have a few hours to sleep but about 15 mins later I started having contractions. At first they were manageable...I did some of the things we learned about in my natural birth class (walking the halls, etc).
The pictures stopped here because things quickly changed. Contractions sped up, came stronger, closer together, and lasted longer than I imagined they would so early on in labor. My only effective pain relief was in the bathtub (I know it sounds quite hippie but worked for me). I told the nurse I couldn't get out unless I had an epidural! Ha. Epidural it was for me by about 5am. It was amazing.
After that I rested easy for most of the day...contractions were coming steadily and things were progressing until about 3 that afternoon then things stalled. The doctor started Pitocin and about 4 hours later I was allowed to start pushing. By this time my epidural had mostly worn off. Pushing is painful. I'm going to leave it at that.
I pushed for almost 2 hours. Whew. The room was full. 4 nurses - there was a shift change but my day nurses stayed to see if he was going to be a boy or girl :) My doctor, a resident, Meg, my mom, Matt! I was oblivious. Meg documented some of this part...
My mom said you fall in love with the doctor that delivers your baby and it's so true! I absolutely loved ours. She was amazingly calm and I trusted her so much it made my delivery feel like the most natural (although painful) event.
I can't describe how it felt but I was so surrounded by love and support. That feeling was what kept me going when I REALLY thought I couldn't. Grant was born at 7:56pm on June 19th after almost 19 hours of labor! His actual birth is a blur - I remember being so thankful that he was healthy and OUT that it took several minutes of holding him to realize that he was a boy!
The only thing I hoped for (other than a healthy baby) was to be able to hold him immediately after he was born. I was grateful that Grant was able to be given right to me. They took him briefly to get his footprints and check his Apgar scores once Matt cut the umbilical cord and then I got him back.
Matt spent that time letting everyone know he was here :)
Then he finally had his chance to hold him...
I couldn't believe that about 1 hour later we were told it was time to head down to the mother/infant unit. I was shocked I was expected to hop up out of bed and get in a wheelchair! Luckily I managed much better than I thought :) Downstairs Meg and my mom had a chance to hold him...
Spending 2 nights in the hospital was nice. It was great to have the support of the doctors and nurses as we learned how to take care of our sweet baby.
It was just a bit scary to head home! Good thing my mom was around for a while at our house. I'm not going to lie...the first few weeks are rough on the mom. Your body feels torn apart, you don't sleep, your hormones are crazy. It takes a while to get back to feeling like yourself.
As nice as the hospital was for the support...it was also great to come home!
We were super excited to see our noodle again :) She has been great with Grant!
I tried to have no expectations for what his birth was going to be like but I think they would have been exceeded. Our experience was so wonderful and we loved the doctors and nurses at our hospital. I am SO grateful for his smooth arrival and can't believe it was already 5 weeks ago!
OK more later!
xo!
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