Hospital Day 2

The second day at the hospital can basically be summed up with one picture...
Let's just say it was a rough first night. Its only been one day but Phil has already mastered the art of holding the baby while sleeping. ^__^

Hospital Day 1 - Baby Calvin has arrived!

August 30th was a special day - Phil and I welcomed the newest addition to our family, baby Calvin! It was a surprisingly quick labor and delivery (a little under 7 hours for the entire labor, only 1 hour and 45 minutes of which were actually spent in the hospital), so his head wasn't too cone-shaped. He was born at 9:42am. Here he is freshly wiped down and weighed right after the delivery, all 7 lbs. 7 ounces of him. I'm not really sure who he looks like, me or Phil, but he definitely has my nose!

They took the baby off to the nursery to get fully cleaned off and dressed. Afterwards they brought him to my recovery room in a separate wing of the hospital. Thankfully the hospital ordered some food for me because I was hungry!


There he is completely knocked out. Phil likes to call this Calvin's "Rocky" pose. I guess despite my best efforts he still came out as a Rocky after all.

Not sure if this is true for all newborns but he sure does like to flail his arms around when he sleeps.

Calvin's Auntie Mandy came to visit later that afternoon. Calvin's squishing his cousin Madeline in this picture. Madeline is due in another month. I think Mandy is hoping that her labor/deliver is just as quick.

Calvin also got visits from both sets of grandparents. My mom had a trip scheduled around the time of Calvin's actual due date, so she was very happy that he came early so she didn't miss his arrival.

Phil's parents drove in all the way from New York to see him.

And he got his very first lucky red envelope from his Grandpa.

My brother-in-law, Tam, came by to say hello too. Its good practice for him when the big day for Madeline comes along.

Baby and daddy - so cute!

Calvin stayed asleep for most of the day. It seems like he's taking after Phil already with his ability to sleep through anything and everything. But we did catch a few minutes where he was awake with eyes wide open.



But he seems so much more content when he's sleeping. I think I detect the hint of a smile! ^__^

IHOP

On Sunday we got together with one of Phil's ex-coworkers, Joanna, for brunch at IHOP. Phil had been craving breakfast food. But I think we went a little crazy on the pancakes. It seems like almost every single dish at IHOP comes with pancakes - although I guess that shouldn't be surprising considering it's the International House of Pancakes...

It had been so long since we last saw Joanna so it was nice to get together just to chat and hang out.


Phil is excited about his chocolate chip pancakes.


I ended up ordering something off of their "minion" menu, which is part of the whole "Despicable Me" movie promotion. It wasn't anything super special, just hash browns and eggs, with a stack of pancakes and berry sauce. The pancakes were very tasty, but not as good as Phil's chocolate chip pancakes.



It's a good thing we went out on Sunday because it turns out that will probably end up being the last time we get out of the house for a while...

Mandy's Birthday Dinner

Mandy's birthday is coming up on Wednesday, but since getting together during the week is difficult we are celebrating a little early. With all the consulting she does she ends up eating out a lot, so we decided to enjoy a home cooked meal at home. This time my mom did all the cooking so I got a little break. And we finally have a dining room table that can fit everyone! (me, mom, Mandy, Tam, and Phil behind the camera)


My mom made smoked salmon with an onion/fish egg topping that was actually pretty good - and coming from someone that doesn't really eat seafood that has to count for something. And some beef stir fry and spicy pork chops.


I was going to make a cake for Mandy, but didn't end up having time, so I bought a cheesecake sampler from Wegman's. They always have really good desserts.

I even busted out some candles so we could sing happy birthday - 8 for good luck. She looks so happy in this picture. Hopefully that means she enjoyed her birthday dinner.

Friendly's with Friends

We've been trying to keep our weekends low key since the baby is supposed to come soon, so I spent Saturday at home watching movies with my highschool friend, Jamie. After some movie watching and some Band Hero playing (Phil's new toy), we decided to head out for dinner. Phil's coworker, Anand, came by to join us. Destination: Friendly's - the only "chain" restaurant in our town.

The meal was off to a good start - Phil and I shared a mint chocolate chip milkshake. Can you believe there was so much milkshake that entire tin cup is almost full to the brim with more milkshake? I guess I'm not that surprised since their milkshakes have 5 scoops of ice cream...No complaints here though! ^__~

And the bendy straw they gave us was one of the color changing ones that turns blue when it's cold. I haven't seen those since I was in grade school!

The main reason we decided to go to Friendly's was because of their new sandwich - the Grilled Cheese Burger Melt. A burger served between 2 grilled cheese sandwiches. Phil was practically drooling when he saw the ad for it. This is what it was supposed to look like...

This is what he ended up getting...it was definitely much more smooshed looking than we expected.

I ordered their queso burger melt, which was basically just a burger sandwiched in toast instead of buns, with queso and tortilla strips. It was OK, but the burger was kind of dry. If the burger was a little tastier it would have been perfect. Even this sandwich looked bigger than Phil's burger melt.

There's my friend Jamie, getting ready to chow down on her chicken bruschetta supermelt. I guess we haven't been hanging out enough recently for her to be used to my compulsive picture taking...

I couldn't finish my whole burger sandwich, so Phil decided to combine my sandwich with his to try and make something that looked more like the pictures.

A little bit better, right? I still think it's funny that my burger sandwich was bigger.

And then it was time for the best part of the meal - dessert! I know, even after that 5 scoop milkshake, but you can't go to Friendly's and not get dessert. Phil and I shared the forbidden brownie chocolate sundae (or at least I think that's what it was called). He can't wait for me to finish taking my picture so he can dig in.

Ah, so much ice cream...but so good... ^__^

Uncle Ringo's BBQ

On Sunday it was time for the annual BBQ at Uncle Ringo's. I'm still not really sure how Phil's family knows Ringo's family. Unfortunately it was raining on and off during the BBQ, so no volleyball game in the backyard this year.

When we first arrived it was mostly just desserts, so Phil decided to start on those first. Don't be fooled though not all of the desserts were actually what they looked like. For instance, the brownie looking things actually ended up being chocolate banana bread. But the desserts were all still really good. I brought funfetti cupcakes, and there was much debate over whether or not there was enough frosting - debate mostly sparked by Phil of course.


Then the meat started to come out. Ribs - yum!

There was also tons of fruit, corn on the cob and baked yams.

Lots of different types of pasta salad, and hot dogs, which are always a big hit.

That's Ringo's daughter Lauren on the right along with her cousins - at least I think they were cousins...

And of course after chowing down heavily Phil had to have his post-meal nap. Lucia was testing how asleep he really was - he was out cold! Not even the scent of shish kabobs being waved in his face could wake him. ^__^

But Lucia and Kevin were not far behind Phil with the napping. In the end everyone ended up passed out on the floor in the living room. Now that's the true test of a good BBQ. ^__~

Mandy's Baby Shower

For Mandy's baby shower I had originally just made one present, but after the crazy baby shower she threw me and the diaper tricycle I had to up the ante. This was my original present. It was a baby flower basket. For the basket part I used the Puj Tub, which is basically a foamy flat material that snaps together so you can fit it inside a sink to wash the baby in. Inside is a bunch of diapers rolled to look like roses, plus some cute girlie baby clothes also rolled up to look like flowers. Add some wash cloths and diapers in the back for butterflies, a couple hangy stroller toys and a butterfly Winnie the Pooh and you get a baby flower basket! ^__~

The second thing I ended up putting together was wash cloth cupcakes that spelled out the baby's name - Madeline. Mandy needed a new muffin tin anyway.

And the final piece was the diaper carriage. I got the idea for this one from online. Diaper wheels topped with more diapers, receiving blankets and a onesie. It didn't end up looking exactly like the one I saw online, but I did the best I could without instructions.

The onesie says "If you think I'm cute, you should see my mommy." ^__~

Mom and I helped Mandy's friends, Nicole and Linda, plan the baby shower. The location was at a place called Olde Mill Inn in Basking Ridge. They had a room for small parties in the back. The setup was really nice. mom even bought some flowers for the center piece on each table.

Instead of having fancy favors for everyone we prepared a chocolate covered pretzel and made a donation to LiveStrong for the walk that Mandy is doing the following weekend.

There was even an outside patio where we were able to setup all the baby shower games. Mandy seemed happy with how everything turned out when she arrived.

Some of the baby games/activities we setup included a baby picture game. Everyone was supposed to bring a baby picture and guess who is who. Unfortunately most people forgot their baby pictures, but we still played anyway.

We also had a guess that nursery rhyme game. I had picked out the lines for that game, but I guess it was harder than I thought it was. I ended up having to sing a lot of the nursery rhymes at the end. But I guess it's good practice for when baby Calvin arrives. ^__^

We also had some bibs and onesies for people to decorate.

There were some cute onesies. One of my favorites was the "Got Pho?".

Some of the other games we played involved guessing candy bar names that corresponded with different things during pregnancy, and guessing the size of Mandy's belly.

Here we are with the mommy-to-be! (Linda, Nicole, Mandy, and me) I guess technically there's 2 mommys-to-be, but I already had my day.


Mommy spent a lot of the time chatting away with Tam's mom and some of his other relatives. So young to be grandma's!

The food was a southern style buffet - cornbread, fried chicken, bacon-wrapped meatloaf (that's right! Mandy was especially excited about that one), mac and cheese, beans, the whole nine yards. You don't have to tell the 2 pregnant ladies to dig in, we're way ahead of you! ^__~

We tried to have a Paris/Madeline theme for the baby shower, since Mandy decided to name the baby Madeline. So we even had an eiffel tower wall decal and a Madeline themed carrot cake for dessert. They did an awesome job with the cake! Too bad it didn't taste as good as it looked.




While everyone had some cake Mandy got to work opening presents. Check out the classy diaper cake! That one was from Tam's cousin, who just had a baby last month. When she had time to make a diaper cake while taking care of a newborn I have no idea...


Mandy knows some extremely crafty people. Can you believe this cute dress was handmade?

As was this baby blanket. It was crocheted by Tam's new sister-in-law. She had just gotten married the weekend before, and still managed to find time to make this blanket. It has a square with each letter of the alphabet - how cute is that?

My mom brought one of Mandy's old dresses from when she was younger. Somehow I don't think Calvin would be able to wear any of my old baby clothes...

There were a lot of presents to open and we almost didn't make it out of the room in time for the next party, but we were able to wrap everything up in the end and get all the presents packed into the cars to go back to Mandy's house. Overall I think the shower was pretty successful. And of course I had to get a sister shot with Mandy outside the Olde Mill Inn (with baby Calvin and Madeline of course).