Happy Halloween from (Where’s) Waldo, Horse/Cowboy, Cat in the Hat and Olaf the snowman.

We spent the night at a church party with Cousin Rafa and Tia Minda.  Rafa was an adorable monkey.

We had some food, and Micah had fun playing all of the games.  It was nice to be indoors with the little kiddos.

He didn’t last very long in the horse costume (it was hot), but he still looked cute in his cowboy hat and flannel shirt.

Jonah even attempted a couple games, but mostly just sat around and looked cute.

I’m already thinking about what we should be next year… 🙂

Just a quick post with some cute pictures from the 4th of July.  Love to all of you!

Since we think Jonah is sooo cute, we checked into the possibility of hiring a professional photographer to take some newborn pictures for us.  However, it turns out that it would have cost more than we expected.  Instead, we decided to spend a day taking some pictures of our own to see if we could get some cute ones.  I may be partial, but I think they turned out pretty nice.  Enjoy!

Jonah Olaf Knutson was born on Thursday, February 20th at 9:08am.  He weighed 8lb 14oz and was 20.5 inches long.

Throughout the pregnancy doctors were estimating (due to the measurements that they took) that Baby #2 would be about the same size as Micah was when he was born (10 and a half pounds), or even bigger.  We were going to try for a VBAC, but due to various circumstances, we ended up going in for a scheduled c-section a few days before the due date.  I was SO READY to get that baby OUT!  It actually turned out to be quite convenient because were able to drop off Micah with my parents the night before, come home to pack things up, and get some good sleep the night before.  I felt huge.

The next morning, we had to be to the hospital by 6am.  As I was prepped (aka pumped up with TONS of fluids) and we waited for our scheduled time, Matt and I finally discussed names a bit.  Weeks ago we had narrowed our options down to about 6 boy names, but we figured that we should probably shorten the list a bit more before he was actually born.  Luckily, we had already agreed on a middle name (Olaf), so it was just the first name that we were discussing.

The name Olaf is from my grandpa, who passed away three months ago at the age of 98.  He was an amazing man, and was so excited for us to have a baby.  Even though they were never able to meet, Jonah will have a lot that he can learn from the life of his great-grandpa Olaf.

By the time they came to get me from our room, we were down to two first names, which we thought was good.  Minutes later, we were meeting our little boy for the first time.  We looked at him together, and decided that he should be named Jonah.  He was so nice and pink, and had a really strong set of screaming lungs.

When they brought him to the warmer to get cleaned and weighed, we were very surprised (as was the doctor) to hear that he *only* weighed 8lb 14oz.

I’m pretty sure I used the word “tiny peanut” to describe him at some point. The nurses laughed, and assured me that he was still a pretty big baby.

While the doctor finished up with me, Matt took Jonah to the nursery where they measured him and did some tests.  As it turns out, he had very low blood sugar, so they gave him a little bit of milk to keep it from going lower before he could nurse.

By the time they brought him to me, he was happy, pink, and ready to eat again.  After the difficulty I had nursing Micah at the beginning, I was prepared for a struggle, but he latched right on and nursed like a champ.  

It was so great to get to see and hold our newest little boy.

By the time they transferred us to a post-postpartum room, we looked out the window and saw that it had started to snow.  As it turned out, it was quite a crazy storm that messed up traffic for several days.  Lucky for us, we were cozy in our room, watching it all out the window.

We sat around in our room for most of the day, because the weather and traffic were so bad people couldn’t safely make it out to see us.  Matt and I were able to relax and cuddle our new baby as I recovered from my c-section.

By later that night, I was able to get up and walk around a bit, and they brought us down to the nursery to see Jonah get his first (sponge) bath.

They closely monitored his blood sugar over the next few days (which eventually evened out) and did a few other tests, which he passed.  Yay!

Hearing test

Over the next few days, we had several visitors who braved the slippery roads to come visit us.

“Aunties” (my cousins) Christine and Sarah

Tío Moy and Tía Minda

Auntie Sandi

Uncle Tim

Grandma and Grandpa Johnson came, and brought Micah to come see his new little brother.

Micah was excited to see us, and it was so good to see him, too!  He was interested in this new little baby, and slightly cautious.  We had been talking about Baby Brother for so long, and he finally got to meet him!

Proud Big Brother

Family of four

By Sunday morning, we were so ready to go home!  We packed up all of our things and put Jonah into some “real” clothes.  Turns out, they were way too big, but they still looked really cute on him. 🙂

Jonah didn’t even seem to mind the car seat.  We bundled him all up because it was really cold outside!

A nurse came to bring us down to the car, and we were on our way home!

The roads were definitely slippery, but we made it home (all 1.3 miles) safely.  We were greeted at the front door by a flower delivery from the previous day.  Seriously?  What delivery person leaves a flower arrangement on the porch in sub zero temps?

Very dead flowers

(Luckily, the flower company cheerfully replaced the arrangement the next day.)

Much better!

When we came in the door, one of the first things that we saw was that part of the ceiling in the dining room had fallen down.  We figure it’s most likely due to some ice dams on the roof and all the snow.

Definitely some excitement for the first few minutes home, but nothing too bad.  Later that afternoon, my parents came to drop off Micah.  We were glad to all be home.

Micah has handled the change about as expected.  He loves Jonah, is super curious, and is a great helper, but he also has requires a of of extra love and attention (and patience).

It has buttons!!

We are so wonderfully blessed by friends and family members coming to visit, and sending cards, messages, phone calls, meals, and gifts.  Thank you to everyone for celebrating the arrival of Jonah Olaf with us!!

A few days after Micah turned two, we decided it was time for him to try sleeping in a big boy bed.  In just a few months, Baby Brother will be needing the crib, and we wanted the transition to be as smooth as possible.  Micah will also eventually be switching rooms at our house so that we can keep all of the baby stuff where it is.

Since we have some time, we decided to break up the big change into several little steps.

Step 1: Convert crib into “big boy bed.”

Our crib has this neat feature where you can take off the front and add an extra bar so that it becomes a toddler bed.  On the night we made the switch, Micah was super excited to help Daddy make his big boy bed.

He loves this little screw gun.

Once it was time for bed, he was a tiny bit nervous, but he took a few minutes to check out the new look of his bed.

He loved the way that he could crawl in and out of the bed all by himself.  Honestly, I was a bit concerned that he might be doing that all night.

Once it was time for bed, we went through our normal bedtime routine, said “it’s time for bed,” and he crawled right in.  We turned out the light, tucked him in, said his prayers, and sang a song like we always do.  As we left I thought, This could be a really long night…

We went downstairs and waited to hear his little feet running across the floor or his bedroom door opening.  It never did.  We didn’t hear a peep.

The next morning, I fully expected a cheerful little boy to bound into our room at 5:45am, but he didn’t.  He stayed in his bed and quietly (but with increasing volume) said “Mommy… Daddy…” like he always does in the morning.  We opened up the door and he was sitting in his bed, happy to see us.  He climbed out of bed and we went downstairs.

Was it a fluke?  That seemed way too easy.  We’ll have to wait and see how naptime goes…

At naptime he did climb out of bed two or three times, but just the sound of my footsteps approaching his door sent him diving back into bed.  By the time I reached the door he would shyly smile at me from the bed and say, “Hi mommy.”

As the days went on, I kept on waiting for things to get really difficult.  For him to refuse to stay in bed and run around like crazy.  For us to have to go all Super Nanny on him and bring him back to bed over and over and over.  It never happened.

One night at 2am I heard Micah’s door creak open.  Half asleep, I waited for another noise, but didn’t hear anything.  I sat up and looked at the doorway to our room, and saw him standing there holding his monkey.  When he saw me move he said, “Hi mommy!  Go downstairs and play?”  I said, “No, it’s still sleepy time.  Let’s go back to bed.” and I led him back into his room.  He willingly got back in and lay his head down.  I didn’t hear another peep until morning.

Micah loves his big boy bed, and we’ve been super impressed with how well he’s done in there.

Step 2: The BIG big boy bed

After two months of Mich  in the toddler bed, we decided it was time to transition him out of the crib/toddler bed and into a BIG big boy bed.  We skipped a real toddler bed, because I didn’t want to buy one (along with all the bedding and stuff), and we had twin size bed waiting for him.

My plan was to move out the crib and put the twin bed in its place.  Well, that didn’t work as well as I thought it would, because once we measured we realized that the twin bed wouldn’t fit on that wall.  We ended up having to rearrange ALL the furniture in his room that night.  Now, we’ll have to move it all back when we turn the room back into a nursery.  Oh well.

Once again, Micah was very excited to help Daddy take apart the crib.

He got to use his little screw gun again, and put himself in charge of keeping track of all the screws as Daddy took them out. What a great little helper.

(I think it’s hilarious that I took two almost identical pictures last time we were converting his bed.  It wasn’t even on purpose!)

Once we got the new bed put together, he climbed right up and plopped down on the pillow.  It made me heart do a little flutter to see how small my boy looked in such a BIG bed!

We moved around some more furniture and found a blanket to put along the edge to make sure he didn’t fall out.  He absolutely loved his new bed!

This transition was a bit more difficult, because he now has real sheets (good for getting feet tangled) and the room looks different (“scary shadows”) but he has still taken it all so well.

One of my favorite parts of this new bed is that I can lie down next to him in bed (to look at the ceiling and talk about shadows or pray/sing together).  I never would have done that in the toddler bed, both because I don’t think we both would have fit, and because I’d be afraid to break it.

The last step will be to move this bed into his new room in a few weeks.  Now, if only we could get him to sleep under the covers without getting all tangled or throwing them off.  Winter is coming.  Brrr.

It’s so fun to watch Micah growing into a such sweet little boy.  Each one of these milestones makes me more and more proud to be his mommy.  I’m sure that the BIG transition in a few months (from King of the House, to Big Brother) will be a bit more challenging, but we’ll get through it.  He’ll be a great big bro.

Obligatory cute ending picture