Random bits from our week

Tomorrow Holly and Harmony head home. I am nervous, quite nervous. This will be the first time I will be on my own with all three kids. I usually require a lot of sleep and need to adjust to less for a while. If I don't post for a while it's probably due to utter exhaustion on my end.
Piper is pointing to our turtles, which she calls cacka. She also says cacka for tractor and helicopter. It's very confusing.
Asher still has a love for bubbles. Unfortunately he also still has a love for spilling the bubbles.

On Friday it was in the 70's so we headed out to the beach. We walked around for a while and then after lunch we headed to Jockey's Ridge. Dexter never made it out of the car due to his milk obsession.

Dexter's first week

Nate's mom and sister are down for a total of two weeks. It has been so awesome having help for this long. I have spent most of the time cuddling Dex and taking care of him. Other than the fact that he doesn't sleep well at night he is a very easy baby.
Asher and Piper wanted to share their toys and piled them up on Dex while he was taking a nap.

Tea Party

After school last week I had a tea party set up. I used a dinosaur sandwich cutter and we had apple juice instead of tea once again.

Dexter attended the party, but slept through it and chose to have milk instead.

Park Day

Last week Nate, Holly, and Harmony took the kids to the park while Dexter and I stayed at home. Asher still hasn't gotten the hang of his bike, and we're going to try to work on that this summer.
Piper of course wants to do everything her brother does.

First days home

Dexter spends most of his days sleeping. I am having fun putting him in different outfits and blankets. Clarissa knit him this hat and I knit the blanket.
One of his favorite activities so far is sleeping in front of the window and sunbathing.
I can't even describe how much I love this little guy.

Baby Dexter

Dexter Constantine Niphakis was born at 8:11 am. He weighed 6 pounds, 10 ounces. He was 20 inches long. This was the first time we didn't know if the baby was going to be a girl or a boy. I heard him cry and then Nate announced "It's a boy". We both cried. I'm so glad we didn't find out earlier what we were having.
I got to hold him briefly before Nate and Dexter went off to the nursery. Clarissa stayed with me while they finished up the surgery. It was a very busy day so I had to wait in recovery for about an hour before Dex was brought back to me.
He looks a lot like Asher did as a baby, just darker.
Nate gave him his first sink bath.

Here is when I really got to hold him. We stayed in the hospital for two nights. It was rougher than I anticipated. I developed a pretty severe spinal headache (which I still have). The incision pain is also a lot worse this time. Since we've been home I've been in bed most of the time. It's been hard on all of us. The kids want to spend time with me and I just have to stay in bed. Luckily my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are down taking care of us. The kids love being with them.

Prepping for Dexter

On March 30th we checked in the hospital at 5:30 am. These are the last few shots of the baby in my belly.

My friend Clarissa was able to be there the entire morning. It was so amazing to have her support the entire time. This was right before I was taken back for surgery.