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Micah let me sleep for 5 hours last night before waking up to be fed!! I LOVE this kid!! :) (and for so many more reasons than just that I got a good night's rest!) :) There really isn't a whole lot to report... Micah is continuing to grow like crazy... he's already outgrown several outfits... and is getting stronger and cuter every day. He has been holding his head up pretty much since he was born, but these days, if we're holding him facing us, he will hold his head up to look around for quite a while.

We've discovered that he likes being held facing out so he can see what's going on around him.

I've always believed anyone who has told me, "kids grow up so fast," but now that I'm experiencing it with my own child, it's crazy how true that is! We love watching him as he looks around and takes it all in... especially when he makes a goofy face. :) Unfortunately, I never seem to have the camera ready when that happens. Hopefully I'll get better at capturing the many faces of Micah. :)

Micah is quite the star in our family... Aaron has even started referring to the two of us as "MTS", or "Micah's Transportation System"... since whenever we show up at my parents' house, they say "Micah's here!" I guess it doesn't matter if we're there or not... Micah's the main attraction these days. :)

In addition to visits to Grannie Jannie and Pops' house, we've had several visitors at our house as well, so without further adieu...

My old roommate, Sarah, was one of the first non-family visitors to see Micah with his eyes open.

Our friends, the Gustafsons came down from Michigan to meet Micah. (ok, not JUST to meet Micah... they were here for other reasons too) :)

Lori was another one of the lucky visitors to see Micah awake and active

Vanessa came by with her girls, Elle and Jazzy... one of my favorite families to babysit for!

Jazzy and Micah

Elle and Micah

In other exciting news, Micah made his first trip across the state line last weekend. We went up to Kenosha for the day to see Aaron's sister and brother in law, and Micah's cousin Emma. Thankfully, Micah doesn't seem to mind being in his car seat, and rides in the car put him right to sleep. We're hoping it stays that way! :)

Emma checking Micah out ~

After that last picture was taken, Emma wasn't too interested in Micah... but she did snuggle up next to him when Auntie Tracy (aka Emma's mommy) was holding him. I think she wanted some snuggle time too :)

Auntie Tracy is getting good at this! :)

1 Month!!

I would really like to know what happened to January. I'm having the hardest time believing that Micah is 1 month old already! Actually, one month and one day, as I'm writing this. :) We were at the pediatrician this afternoon for his 1 month checkup, and he's doing great! He's gained almost 2 1/2 pounds since his last appointment, and grown 2 inches since we left the hospital. He weighs 10 pounds, 9 ounces, and is 22 1/2 inches tall. (75th percentile for both height and weight... so right on target) I guess we're doing something right! :)

Battle scar from, not his first shot... he had one at the hospital... but the first shot he got while mom and dad watched. We all did pretty well... Micah howled as the needle went in, but handled it like a champ.

A friend of mine suggested that we take a picture of Micah with the same stuffed animal or object every month to track how much he changes, which I thought was a great idea! We got this enormous bear as a shower gift, so I thought it'd be fun to take his picture with that and see how long it takes Micah to outgrow this bear. (I'm thinking it'll be a while, but probably not as long as we think)

Here, Micah is 1 week old...

Here, he's 1 month old...

Already, quite a difference! Our little guy is growing up... and it's happening SO FAST! :) My mom gave me an embroidered picture as a shower gift that has a poem on it about how things like cleaning house can wait because babies grow up so fast, so enjoy them while you've got them, and it's SO true! Being quite the "Monica Geller" myself, (at times neurotic about the cleanliness of the house) I thought I'd struggle to let go of my OCD with that, but since Micah's been around, I haven't been nearly as concerned with how clean the house is. :) I've been far too wrapped up in this little miracle, and not wanting to miss a second of his life! And I've got the insane amount of pictures of him to prove it! Here are just a few...

Some friends of ours gave Micah this adorable hat! This picture just makes me smile. :)

Aaron had said, before Micah was born, that no child of his would ever wear shoes unless they were necessary for walking. I thought I'd found a loophole for that when I found socks that looked like hightop sneakers, but when we got these shoes as a gift from our neighbors, I had to put them on him. Even Aaron agreed they were really cute. :)

One of our other favorite things about Micah these days is his ability to suck on a pacifier. He doesn't really hold it in his mouth for too long by himself, but when he does, he really goes to town! Since my dad is such a Simpsons fan, I compared Micah to Maggie Simpson once, and Dad/Pops thought that was pretty appropriate. :) I've never tried to post a video before, so I hope this works...

The first time we brought him to church, I thought to myself, "what will I do if he starts fussing during the service? I can't give him a pacifier.... that'll be louder than his fussing!" :) Thankfully, he's done really well the two times we've had him in church, and I haven't even needed the pacifier. The doctor told us today that we're in the middle of the fussiest time in his life, and that if he's not too fussy we should count our blessings. Which we are... and the fact that he's not terribly fussy is just one of the many blessings Micah has brought to our lives. We are incredibly thankful for him... we've had a great first month with him, and are looking forward to many, many more!

More Pictures...

Well, we're settling in to more of a routine... though it seems like that "routine" changes daily. Aaron has been back to work for a few weeks now and that leaves Micah and me home on our own. We've had a good mix of time to ourselves and visitors, and I've been thankful that things have gone as well as they have. To be honest, I was really nervous about Aaron going back to work. And at the time that he went back, hormones were going crazy, so you would have thought I was sending him off to another country for years, rather than off to work for the day. At any rate, we survived. :) And like I said, we had a nice balance of visitors and time to ourselves... however, I haven't taken as many pictures of the time we've had to ourselves. I have taken plenty of pictures of the visitors we've had, so I'll post those here for your viewing pleasure. :) Enjoy!

Micah's first manicure :)

Grandma and Grandpa K came down for the weekend to celebrate Grandma's birthday with us

Auntie Tracy and Uncle Eric

Micah has been so much more alert lately! He's probably awake for a few hours every day... unfortunately, those hours are usually between 10 p.m. and midnight. :)

Auntie Tracy and Micah being sassy with their tongues sticking out :)

Uncle Eric and Micah

3 generations of Klingenmaier men

Our little family

So Aaron came home from work this day with his hands filthier than I've ever seen them! He scrubbed them several times, but grease from the exhaust duct at Burger King is not easy to get off. The reason my face looks so disgusted in this picture is because Micah decided daddy's hands looked tasty and was sucking on Aaron's thumb. I was completely grossed out, but Micah seemed pretty content. :)

Micah meets our friends Kim and Jonathan

Micah meets Shana... whose baby boy is due Feb. 7 :)

Grannie Jannie loving her newest grandbaby

Saying hi to Pops

Goofy Uncle Jim, who is incapable of smiling normally for a picture

"Tummy time" with Grannie Jannie

Hello, bright eyes! :)

My FAVORITE picture of my boys :)

And that's our life in photos for the past couple of weeks! :) I'm still not great at keeping up with this blog, but at least it hasn't been 5 months. Hopefully, as our routine gets more stable, I'll be able to post more frequently and keep you all up to date on our little family.

Introductions...

Well, we've been home for 11 days now, and it has been a nice mix of activity, visitors, and peace and quiet. I think we're adjusting well to being a family and we're looking forward to all that the future holds for us in our new role as parents. There really isn't a whole lot to say as far as what we've been up to these past 2 weeks, but there are a bunch of pictures that can give you an idea of all that's been going on. I think I'll let the pictures do the talking. :)

This was taken our first night being home as a family. If I can get my act together, it might be used on a late Christmas card/birth announcement... stay tuned!

Daddy's first hour at home with Micah...

Mommy's first hour at home with Micah...

This was what I woke up to our first full day home. How cute! :)

Grannie Jannie and Micah

Pops T and Micah

Grandpa K and Auntie Tracy were down for a funeral and stopped by to see Micah. I LOVE this picture!

Great Uncle Richard came too.

Our friend Beckie stopped by to meet Micah

So did our friends Billy and Katie from our small group

Micah meets cousin Emma...

... who was VERY curious about all the new smells coming from this little person

the Klingenmaier siblings with the next generation

And that brings us up to date on Micah's introductions to our friends. We've really enjoyed showing him off so far, and seeing as how we've barely scratched the surface of people to introduce him to, I'm sure there will be more postings with pictures of Micah being passed around. :) Ahh... the life of a newborn. Thanks for hanging in there with us, kiddo! :)

I think it's safe to say that I'm a terrible blogger. 5 months since my last post?!? Yikes! And now that our baby is here, I'm supposed to have MORE time to keep up with this? Who am I kidding? So, I'll just apologize in advance for the amount of time that I'm sure will lapse between blog entries. Hopefully it won't be 5 months, but I'm pretty sure blogging won't be a daily occurrence. Time will tell, I guess. :)

I should probably do a brief re-cap of the past 5 months, but it seems like there are much more important things to write about, so I'll suffice it to say that the rest of my pregnancy went pretty smoothly... I ended up with signs of preeclampsia towards the end, and really started feeling like the hippopotamus for Christmas from that children's song... but the end result was a beautiful baby boy, and like I'd been told so many times by friends and family, all of the misery of the 3rd trimester is a distant memory now that Micah Robert is in our arms. I was induced around 8:00 on December 30th, and after a LONG day of lying around and waiting (thanks to the wonders of the epidural... it was a fairly pain-free day), Micah was delivered via c-section at around 6:41 p.m. on the 31st. The doctor gave me the option of going ahead with a c-section or waiting and seeing if things would continue to progress naturally. At that point, Micah's heart rate was slowing with each contraction, and as time went on it was taking longer for him to recover, which indicated that he was getting tired. Since there was no guarantee that I wouldn't end up needing a c-section in the end anyways, I decided it wasn't worth it to put Micah through the stress of more labor, and we were whisked off to the operating room. Literally, it wasn't more than a half an hour between the conversation with the doctor and making the decision to go ahead with the c-section, and hearing Micah scream for the first time. What an amazing sound! I think as soon as I heard the words, "it's a boy!" the waterworks started and all the pain and discomfort I'd been feeling just evaporated into thin air. Our son was here!

He's a strong little guy too... and proved it by rolling onto his side almost as soon as he was placed on the table to be cleaned up. I think everyone in the operating room was amazed by that and we heard, "I've never seen anything like that before!" and "wow! Did you see that?!?" over and over again. That's our little guy! He'd been quite the acrobat in my belly for the past 9 months.... why not show off for the outside world? :) Aaron got Micah's footprints stamped on his arm... what we affectionately refer to as the "daddy tat"... and he didn't want to wash his arm for a few days after Micah was born. :)

The rest of our time in the delivery/operating room is kind of a blur for me, but once we made it up to recovery and they asked me if I wanted to hold Micah, I snapped out of whatever drug-induced fog I'd been in and enjoyed every second of recovery. :)

One of the best parts of having Micah on the 31st... in addition to the tax break everyone talks about... is that my sister and brother-in-law were still in town and were able to come see us and meet Micah before getting on a plane 12 hours later. That had been a prayer of mine since they got here... that our baby would come while they were still around. Praise the Lord that worked out! We had a little too much on our minds to be thinking about snapping pictures at this point, but between Lisa and my parents, there are a few I can post... :)

Pops T surrounded by daddy, Uncle Matt and Auntie Lisa... sleepy mommy is in the background

Auntie Lisa and Uncle Matt with Micah

The proud papa on baby's first New Years :)

I know there are more pictures out there somewhere, and no doubt more to blog about, but for now I'll leave it at that. I'd better leave something for the next post... 5 months from now ;)