Birthday Dinner

We decided to be brave and take Stian out for his first restaurant experience to celebrate Kris's birthday. We went to the Mexcian place because it has yummy food, and is pretty casual, so we figured people wouldn't care too much if Stian started sqwaking. But Stian seemed generally unimpressed by the restaurant as he slept the whole time.

More visitors

Kris's sister Karin, her husband Brad and their son Klebo have come for a visit to meet Stian, celebrate Kris's birthday and New Years.

One Month Old!

Well, technically yesterday was Stian's one month birthday, but Stian decided to celebrate the day by crying and fussing all day. So I didn't take any pictures of that, nor did I have any spare time to post anything. But he's off to a much better start today. (although he's beginning to fuss a little - I guess he's had enough of the activity gym!)

Much Better

Kris decided Stian had had enough of the silly Christmas outfits, so he changed him into something still Chistmasy, but not so humiliating. Thanks to Laura, John, Anna Sofia and Sunniva for the much more sophisticated Christmas outfit (and thanks to Wayne, Kelly and Nathaniel for the wrist rattle).

The humiliation continues

Ah, more embarrassing Christmas outfits...





(Stian would like to take a moment to remind us that he will be picking our nursing home someday - so we should just yuk it up now while we can.)

Sock Monkey!

Meet Edmund the Sock Monkey! (thanks Clea! He's adorable!)

Christmas Eve

My parents are here to celebrate Christmas with us - here are few pictures, there will undoubtedly by plenty more from today and tomorrow to post later.





Kris's co-worker, Jen, has a son who is almost exactly one year older than Stian. She loaned us a whole bunch of his clothes. In the batch of clothes are several Christmas outfits. They are a tad big for Stian, but they are still awfully cute. Here's one of them.

Cutie Booties

My mom made these adorable little booties. Unfortunately they are a tad small already (Stian appears to have big feet) - so he's not going to get too much use out of them. But they sure are cute!

Introducing a bottle

I've been a little nervous about introducing a bottle because I don't want to confuse Stian and make breastfeeding more difficult. But everything I've read says you really need to do it between two to four weeks for success. If you wait much longer the baby might refuse the bottle altogether. So we finally tried it yesterday. He took it like a champ (although looked a little confused as to why Daddy was feeding him), and hasn't had any problems breastfeeding since then. So hopefully won't have any problems. He had no problems with the bottle again this morning either.

Strolling

We've been taking Stian out for walks when the weather has been permitting (it's 50 here today and so all the snow in the picture below is pretty much gone). We've been using the stroller, but thought we'd give the Snugli a try. It's a little hard to get a newborn into it, but works great once he's in. Thanks to Laura and John for the hand-me-down Snugli and the hand-me-down snowsuit (there really is a baby in there).

So tired

It's apparently hard work cluster feeding and trying to drive your poor mother insane. Poor Stian was just far too tired for tummy time on Saturday.

First Bath

Stian finally had his first bath today. We've been meaning to do it for awhile - but he's been crazy cluster feeding lately - nursing about 45 minutes out of every hour, which is exhausting and leaves little time for anything else. The feeding slowed down today, so I'm hoping it was just a growth spurt and he'll now go back to a more humane schedule. So anyway, we finally got him into the bath.

Snow Day!

Kris has been digging us out all day long - we got 14" of snow last night. Last February when we got a record 18" we contemplated buying a snowblower, but we figured we would never get that much snow again. Well, 14" isn't quite that much, but it's still an awful lot of snow to dig out by hand when you have as long of a driveway as we do.



And of course now the wind is howling and blowing it all back across the driveway again...

The Happy Family

This picture was taken after a particularly rough night, and I have "nap hair" - but it's a family picture nonetheless. And our look of exhaustion captures the feeling of the moment!

Super Baby!

Stian has been getting in his tummy time - and he has to work so hard to lift his enormous head. It requires he counterbalance by also lifting up his legs. He's super baby!

I give up!

This was how Stian was napping before dinner tonight. We figured he was either surrendering or pretending he was a moose.

Grandma to the rescue!

My mom has been here for the last week, and it has been so great to have her here! She's been keeping me sane and helping with cooking and cleaning - and of course she's been helping with cuddling Stian! She leaves in the morning though (well, it's morning now as Stian isn't really sleeping at the moment so I'm posting one handed as he stares around wide-eyed) and then we'll be on our own for awhile, at least until she comes back in a little over a week with my dad for Christmas.

Two Three Four

Christian II, Kristian III, Kristian IV

Farfar and Bestemor

Kris's parents just left this morning. They were here for a very quick trip - got here on Monday evening and left again today. They just wanted to pop down and meet their little grandson and help us out while my mom was too sick to come. It was great to have them here. They seemed to like their little grandson quite a bit too. Bestemor didn't want to put him down at all - so he got lots of extra cuddles.




My mom gets here this evening, so I'm sure the little guy will continue to get extra cuddles this week with his other grandma!

Polka dots

All is going well here. So far Stian is a pretty content little baby - at least during the day. He's a little more needy at night. But even then he's not too bad. He just wants to be held. So Kris and I have to take turns with him so the other can sleep. And Stian will sleep for short stretches on his own in the bassinet, just not for long stretches.

Here he is in the adorable polka dot outfit he got from Karin and Brad and the hat my mom made.

visitors

We've been busy with the little one, as I'm sure you can imagine. But I thought I ought to post at least one picture. We have Kris's parents here with us today and tomorrow and then my mom arrives on Wednesday for a week. My poor mom was supposed to come on Sunday but has been suffering from a terrible cold and is finally getting over it. So Stian is getting to meet some of his family.

While we were in the hospital he got to meet two of our friends who dropped by for an hour one evening. We don't have a picture of Kevin, but here is Dawn holding Stian.



More pics and updates to come as we find time.

He's Here

Stian was born on Tuesday evening (11/27) at 7:20pm. Weighing in at 8 lbs 1.4 oz, he was 20 3/4" long and his head was 15" in diameter.



More details and photos to come.

Lefse!

When Kris and I were married over six years ago Laura and John got us an incredible wedding gift - all the equipment you need to make lefse. We've never had a chance to actually use it. But we had decided we were finally going to do it this weekend. Unfortunately my OB put me on bedrest for the weekend, so I couldn't help. But Kris decided to go ahead and do it without me. So I came downstairs just long enough to take a few pictures, and of course eat some when he was done! It turned out really well - especially considering he had never made it before. So now we have lefse in the freezer just waiting for Christmas! (notice Kris's super cool t-shirt he got for free when working for the city of Bloomington. :))

Belly pic

Here's my ever-growing belly at 38 weeks and 2 days.

Christmas Tree

We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving dinner with just the two of us. We made and ate way more food than we needed to - but isn't that what you are supposed to do on Thanksgiving?

We also put up the Christmas tree. It's a little early, but I really wanted to make sure we got it up this year. I love having a Christmas tree up, I think they're so pretty. So here are a couple of pictures.

Getting Ready!

We're getting closer and closer to at least being physically ready for Jolly's arrival.

After much discussion about what to do about a changing table - we really didn't want to spend the money on one, but didn't already have a piece of furniture that would work, so Kris was maybe going to make one - I finally had a brainstorm and realized we could set up a changing station in the laundry room, which is just right off the nursery! But this room was just so blaringly white with while walls, white tile, white washer and drier, white sink, white countertop, white cupboards, that it kind of hurt the eyes to be in there. So we decided to paint one wall and generally make it a little more pleasant in there. The laundry room is also just off of one of the upstairs bathrooms, which has a Caribbean theme. We had some left over paint from doing the bathroom, and had a bunch of things we had bought in the Caribbean and not ended up using when we did the bathroom. So we were able to dig through that stuff and come up with some things to make it a little cozier in there. I think it turned out pretty well - hopefully it will also work well for changing diapers.





We've also spent a fair amount of time finishing up in the nursery and getting that ready to go. Here are some pictures of that.

Notice the crib that Laura and John gave us and the gorgeous quilt that my mom's friend Donna made:


Here's an antique rocking chair that belonged to my Great Grandfather Perusina (my dad's mom's dad) - and the microwave stand that Kris made many years ago when we lived in the apartment in St. Paul.


Lots of gifts from folks on the shelves that we made a few years ago (when our 4 year old neighbor "helped" us paint and ended up covering himself in primer the evening before his first day of school - yes, our neighbors were thrilled)


Look at all the tiny clothes!


Here's a card I got from Katy that I framed. It's for the year of the Golden Pig - which is Jolly's Chinese astrological sign. Apparently it is very lucky to be born in the year of the Golden Pig.



And finally, here is Kris having way too much fun trying to get the bouncey seat on loan from Jennifer to work.

37 week ultrasound

We had an ultrasound this week to check on Jolly's growth. He's looking good and healthy. They estimated his weight at 7lbs 3oz already, but everything I've read has said those estimates can be wildly inaccurate at this stage. But in any case, he's measuring a little ahead, which is a good thing.

It appears Jolly is a little Loftus - he has short legs, a big head, a long back and a little bladder (the ultrasound tech said it was problaby just little because he had just peed - but Kris still felt the need to make a crack about that).

We only got a couple of pictues from this ultrasound. I generally don't like front view face pictures on ultrasounds because I think they are a little creepy - but this one isn't too bad. So here's Jolly:

Artsy Fartsy

Here are some artsy fartsy pictures to entertain you while we all wait for Jolly to make his grand appearance!









This one makes me want to sneeze: