Another fun filled weekend...

Rhys got a new bath tub to try. It says it will take him up to toddlerness but I highly doubt it...however, as long as it keeps him happy now we're all good. Its amazing how fast he grows out of things that he's hardly used. The basinett has maybe a good week left before he kicks his way out of it. I'm not quite ready to put him in the crib in the other room so we're going to have to figure something out till he's a bit older.

I've got some much other stuff to write about...baby sleep class sucess...hooter hider...but I'm a bit sleepy so it will have to wait till tomorrow.

This weekend's fun!

Shannon and I took Rhys mini golfing on Sunday...well he slept thru most of it but we had a good time :)


Bath time! :) Rhys LOVES the water and here he is in the baby bathtub which spans both of our sinks. As you can see, he's too long for it already...he's grown out of the baby bucket, our sink and now the baby bath...looks like this kid is going to take showers from now till thanksgiving.

My favorite pic

We've got several hundred photos of this kid so far and there are some that are just so beautiful that I couldn't begin to put them in order. The one below however, is one that I truely love the most. I'll preface it by saying he was home from the hospital for about a week, we were both exhausted running errands all day and generally trying to figure each other out. I still couldn't believe that he was ours and we would be keeping him forever. I laid him on our bed and crawled next to him and we had the best nap I've had in a long time...just me and the peeper.

Massage time!

Rhys and I just got back from our first infant massage class and I'm happy to report that he loved it!!! http://www.harmonybirth.com/ There was one other baby just a couple of weeks younger than him but he had about 8 lbs on her. Our instructor was a really lovely Irish woman who had taught in Ireland for several years before coming to America. She gave us each a bottle of oil and we stripped our little ones down to their diapers. She let us know at the beginning if the baby got fussy, tired or hungry that we could stop for a bit and take care of them...well Rhys of course was hungry all of the time so we had to stop 3 times during the hour long class so he could fill his belly. When he wasn't eating he was laughing at me trying to manipulate his little body and singing silly songs to go with the techniques we were using. The other baby was a bit premature so she was still struggling a bit and Rhys was fascinated by her...his big brown eyes were glued to her whenever she peeped. Infant massage is supposed to be really good for babies who have colic or upset tummies. Since Rhys doesn't have either, we're just going to use this as another way to be hands on with him and have some mommy and me time. He loved getting his legs shaken and then folded into his big belly. He's got a laugh and smile that could melt the world and it was awesome to spend that hour with him on the floor rubbing his chunky thighs and pudgy cheeks. The instructor kept having the other couple come over and touch Rhys so that they'd relax a bit and know what to look for in a happy baby. Since he loves being passed around, having a couple strangers poke his belly didn't faze him a bit.
So this is a whole series of Saturday classes Rhys and I are going to take. Next weekend is "Sleep time for mommy and baby"...basically getting them over that last feeding hump to sleep through the night. He still gets up at 2ish for a feed and then is down till 7am so no complaints but just want to see what else we could be doing to help him rest.
After that one is Part 2 of the massage series so we'll keep up his progress.

More randomness

Hopefully this is a better picture of Aunt Sarah and Rhys. There does seem to be a trend of her looking a bit spacy...must find more pics

And here's Grandpa Leahy who is holding one of the cutest little ones, Sammy. I have a feeling that Rhys and Sammy will have lots of adventures and get into way too much trouble together.
Me and Rhys chillin' in Australia.
WOW look at my double chin!!! At least my Great Oma looks awesome!
Ah, my Nanny...but I'm in that stupid white dress. Oh well at least she didn't make me wear the booties.

My Godparents

Here are my Godparents aka my Grandma and Papa Keeler. Since my mom and dad's family live too far away, Grandma and Papa "adopted" Sarah and I and have treated us like we were their real grandkids. It was so wonderful to bring Rhys to them...he really took to Grandma.

Funny stuff...

Quote for the day:
"Whatever you give a woman, she's going to multiply.
If you give her a house, she'll give you a home.
If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal.
If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart.
She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her.
So... if you give her crap, you will receive more shit than any one human being can handle."
Taken from one of my favorite blogs http://atyourcervix.blogspot.com/2008/09/quote-of-day.html

If you get bored at work these are my 2 go-to sites to look at to make me laugh.
http://failblog.org/
http://icanhascheezburger.com/

Need a different picture

So I didn't pick the most flattering outfit for his baptism. I didn't anticipate being able to fit into normal clothes so quickly after he was born so here are a couple of better ones...me and Shan at a Mexican restaurant and one from the Aussie Muster...

On our own

This is me after no sleep for a couple of days and Rhys looking like he's going to put that bottom lip out and peep for food.

We had to pack 5 suit cases to go to Australia and here's Rhys taking his place at the head of our bed and telling me what to put where. It was a hot day so he had to rock the diaper and socks.
This is Izzy, Shannon's cousin from Australia. She was so patient and gentle with him that he took a big yawn (see below) and promptly fell asleep.
Here is a very flattering picture of Aunt Sarah with Grandpa looking on in the background. We have so many pictures to post of Sarah and Rhys since I have a feeling she's going to be a big part in his life and teach him all of the naughty things we won't bother with. :)

Shan is gone this weekend, partying like a rock star in Sonoma with his coworkers so Rhys and I are on our own. He's asleep for the time being so its a perfect time to blog.

So this first week back from our round the world travels has been a blur. I am so blessed to work where I do b/c my boss is letting me bring Rhys to work with me and keep him in my second office!!! Whoot whoot!!! My co-worker, Yolanda is soooo good with him and he's really taken a shining to her (read: likes her enough to barf on her pretty blue blouse and then fall asleep in her arms). 2 days a week he'll go to a Kiddie Academy right near my work so he can socialize with other infants.

Today he got his first round of immunizations. Shannon and I have read books and books (every book Borders and the local library have to be more accurate) about the pros and cons of immunizations and we've pretty much established that we're smack in the middle. We're for most of the shots, just not the schedule the CDC puts out. We chose not to get him the Hep B the day he was born b/c although I was having a c-section, I wanted the least pain caused to him in his first moments of life. So now we're 2 months into life here and he needs to start the shots. We searched for a pediatrician that would work with us to come up with a vaccine schedule we could all live with. Shannon and I don't believe that giving a 2 month old 6 vaccines in 3 shots along with oral Rotavirus is good for their little developing systems. So we have an arrangement with our doctor that he'll get no more than 2 vaccines at a time, a month spread apart to give his body time to adjust to them.

Shannon and I live by the adage "If it was good enough for us, it will be good enough for our kids". We've stuck to this b/c we both turned out alright so our parents must have done a good job. I think taking that one step further really helped have a smooth pregnancy and ultimately lead to a healthy happy little peeper. I don't pretend to know everything about being a mom b/c frankly Rhys teaches us something new everyday but I know that the "rules" we implemented must have helped a bit. (He did survive me falling down a flight of stairs, getting pneumonia, and getting into a car crash) As soon as we found out I was pregnant, we decided that there would be no raised voices or arguing, I would eat almost exclusively a variety of organic foods(and for that matter a gallon of milk every other day), and we'd play my ipod on my belly every day at the same time so he'd get used to hearing jazz and soft classical music to take a nap to. Now that he's here, he isn't affected by what I eat, no matter the ethnicity and falls asleep very quickly if I've got "Me and Mrs. Jones" and "Mai" playing softly in the background. We just couldn't have done it any other way considering the stress my job puts me thru.

Ok enough rambling...its 11pm and I clearly need some sleep but in the meantime, here are some more pics of the little man.

Pics from our travels

This is Rhys' first bath given to him by his Nanny. You would have sworn he was in a coma b/c he was as calm as he has ever been...must be Nanny's touch. Here we are with Rhys' Godparents, Jena's Uncle Jim and Aunt Susie. He was passed around so much that weekend and got to play with all of his great aunts and uncles and cousins!

This is Rhys's Oma...clearly loving to fall asleep in her arms. This is Ryan, Shannon's brother...can't believe he's an uncle!
Bath time with mommy.
Chillin' with Grandad Garrahy and Uncle Nick.

Since Rhys was 3 weeks old he has been traveling quite a bit...Upstate NY to Australia. Now that we're settling back into a routine posts should be more frequent. Here are a few pics from our adventures.

Bath time

While vacationing in Noosa (Shan's parent's condo near the ocean) we thought to give Rhys a bath since he loves the water so much. We made the dire mistake of not dipping him in warm water with his diaper on first! So as soon as his feet touched the bubbles...

Title explanation

Rhys James Garrahy: born on July 14th, 2008 to Jena (red blooded american) and Shannon (true blue Australian) so that makes Rhys an Ozmerican. He's teaching us that life is as wonderful as you choose to make it and keeps us laughing every day.