Our Little Model

So here are ALL the pictures (that turned out somewhat decent) from Cade's first photo shoot! I know, I know... I took WAY too long to get these up here, but better late than never! I may be somewhat biased, but DANG our little boy is cute! Enjoy!

Baby Cade

Once again, our wonderful friend Mandy took pictures for us! Unfortunately, Cade was being a punk the whole time. He kept crying and wouldn't fall asleep. Dang child! We kept having to stick in his binky and let him suck on it for a few seconds and then pull it out of his mouth and quickly get a few shots. How annoying... but it worked! They turned out great! Thanks so much Mandy!

Here is a link to some of the pictures she took. We'll get more in a little bit!

Family Visits

Naturally, we've had more visitors in the past week than we have in the two years we've lived here :) Guess that's what happens when you have kids! We've been loving it and I think our families have too!

Here is Cade with his cousin Brooklyn. She used to seem so small!

Since Cade has so much hair, we decided to style it like daddy's :) This is Auntie Bailey's favorite hair style on Cade

One night when Ryan and Cindy (Darren's Parents) were over it started to get a little late. I think Cade was looking for his bedtime snack. We caught the end of Cade's hunt for food:

Our little Peanut Face is here!

Cade Darren Litchfield (dubbed Peanut Face from the womb)
Born at 11:56 am Thursday February 19th 2009
7 lbs 10 oz, 19.5" long

He's FINALLY HERE!!! And I'm FINALLY not pregnant... though I may still appear 4 or 5 months along... dang it.

Anyway, after having contractions for more than 24 hours, they were finally consistent enough to head to the hospital. We arrived there at about 11:30 on Wednesday night. My contractions were getting more and more painful by the minute.

Here I am BEFORE the epidural. I would like to say that I was posing for this picture, but apparently this is actually what I looked like. I was having major back labor and wanted the epidural ASAP.

This is me AFTER the epidural :) Fake cheesy smile! I felt MUCH better! Best decision I ever made (which I made LONG before I was pregnant)! Since I got a total of maybe 45 minutes of sleep the night before, I was exhausted. Once the epidural started working I went to bed. Darren had a little bed rolled in for him to fall asleep on too!

The next morning, my mom and Bailey came to the hospital and brought Darren some breakfast. We kind of just hung out while I tried to keep my eyes open. After a while, my dad surprised me by walking into the room! He was out of town on business, but changed his flight so he could be there when the little guy was born! What a wonderful treat!

Once it was time to push, everyone but Darren cleared out of the room and the nurse came in. I pushed for about a half hour and the nurse said STOP PUSHING! He was coming quicker than we expected so we just sat around and waited for the doctor to show up. Once she arrived, I pushed a couple times and he was out! We had a little scare when he came out with the cord around his neck. Unfortunately the doctor had to cut it in the middle initially to get him out safely, but Darren got to make the final cut later. I had always imagined having the baby placed on my chest right after he was born, as I cried tears of joy and forgot about everything else going on. But when Cade was placed on my chest, his body was limp and his arms flopped lifeless at his sides. They quickly took him off of me and rushed to get him oxygen so he would start breathing. Everything was normal within a few minutes. It's amazing, the instant love you have for your baby. He's everything we could have ever hoped for!

We fall more and more in love with him every day! He makes the cutest faces, especially when he's sleeping! We can't stop staring at him and I don't think you'd be able to catch us without a smile on our faces! It's crazy to think that we're PARENTS and we have a BABY! It's still very unreal, but feels natural all at the same time.


Below is a slideshow of some of the fun pictures we've taken so far.

We just HAD to post this video of the cute little squeal Cade makes as he works his way into an all out scream. We can't help but laugh every time he does it :)

Prego Pictures!

So yesterday, our friend Mandy took prego pictures for us! She needed someone to practice on and we needed pictures of us and the belly! Boy did we get lucky! We had a lot of fun taking them! Picking ones that we BOTH like is always hard because I usually don't like my face in most of them and Darren still doesn't know how to smile... bad combination. But I'm not gonna lie... we got some pretty dang cute ones!

You can take a look a some more pictures HERE
And HERE is a link to Mandy's blog which has a couple that may not be on the link above.

Thanks so much Mandy! They turned out great! You're amazing!

Seattle Thunderbirds!

So our friends the Mortensens have season tickets to the Seattle Thunderbirds hockey team. The gave us tickets to last Friday's game and it was a blast! What a great date night! Brandi had never gone to a hockey game and I had just gone to a few over the years. So here is a breakdown of the night:

Coolest guy ever; had to take a picture. These guys ride all around the free parking lots trying ot get you to pay them to give you a ride to the front door. I felt like I was in Mexico again! We told him no but he said he would do it for free to keep warm. I am all about supporting local business, especially in these times, so we took the "free" ride and gave him a couple of bucks. He also asked us to send him the picture, I believe for his website. So we will now be famous; watch for us.

Faceoff!

He was being dragged away from beating the crap out of our guy! Pretty good fights that night.

The oh so famous "Chuck-a-Puck" contest played in between the 2nd and the 3rd period. You can buy these rubber pucks to chuck at a new car and try to get it into the sunroof or try to get it into one of the buckets surrounding the car. Really fun to watch.

Zambonis

Tied up at the end of the game.

Sudden Death Overtime

We scored and won the game 3 min and 39 sec into the 5 minute sudden death period!

And of course the celebration!

So we don't know a ton about hockey but how can anyone not love to watch any live sporting event where fights are permitted and a game goes into overtime? Again, great date night!

We MAY be crazy...

So this may come as a shock to a lot of you, since it was pretty much out of the blue, but...

WE JUST PUT OUR CONDO ON THE MARKET!!!

Yeah, it's true. Ever since we first started living here (almost two years ago), we have been looking at options for our next place. It's not that we don't like it here, we actually have grown very fond of our little condo and especially the ward we are in. But if you know Darren, this won't come as a shock to you. You'd think once he bought a car, he'd be happy with it for a while, but I swear... the next day he's online checking out cars that he could buy. Apparently it's the same with our home. Maybe it's a guy thing?? Anyways, back to the condo. For the past little while, we've been rearranging our rooms and de-junking to try and find space here for the baby. It hasn't been easy. Then we started talking a little more seriously about our desire to have a house. We figured that we should try to buy a house while prices are so low, since (hopefully) we won't lose too much if we sell our condo (which is comforting in such a terrible market!).

So this is how it came about. We saw a house online that we wanted to check out (which, by the way, we won't be getting) and called up our previous realtor who immediately put things into action. This isn't exactly what we were expecting, but within a few days of talking to her, our condo was put on the market! Weird how things happen with one little phone call!

And yes, we ARE crazy for putting our place on the market right now. Especially since I'm due in less than 3 WEEKS!!! It seems like every time we have something big happening in our lives, EVERYTHING happens. Last time it was getting married, my family moving the day before our wedding, Darren starting a new job and buying and starting to remodel our condo. At least we get things over with all at once! :)

Anyways, with the market the way it is, I'm sure we'll be here for a while. But it will be nice to have the first three weeks (which are apparently the most busy) done with before we have the baby... unless, of course, I pop early! Guess we'll just have to see what happens! But when things feel right, you've just got to do them! It's fun having things so "up in the air" and not knowing what our lives will be like in the somewhat near future. We'll keep you posted on any action... assuming there will be any... :)

Here's a link so you can see pictures of Our First Place! Make sure to click on the link BELOW the picture (not the actual picture) to view them!

Alright Already!

So I've been really bad. I would give you all my excuses (which I actually had... until a couple weeks ago...), but I'll spare you. Long story short: I don't like taking pictures of myself. Darren is ALWAYS trying to get me to take these prego pictures and I always tell him no because I don't have makeup on or my hair is not done or any other excuse I can think of, really. But it's been too long and people keep telling me I have to put pictures up, so I finally caved last night!

This is me at 35 weeks. I can't believe we've got just over a month to go! CRAZY! It's hard to believe that I could POSSIBLY get any bigger, but from what I hear, it's going to happen! But currently I just feel like I'm running out of room. I don't have good posture and slouch when I sit, but have to stop myself from doing so because it hurts my ribs. My stomach is frequently going lop-sided and bulges out in random places. Darren and I get a kick out of watching the different shapes my stomach makes :)

We've finally started buying things (we were putting it off as long as we could because we don't have a lot of room and needed to do some rearranging) and it feels good to get some of our big purchases out of the way (though I've found that the hard part is not forking out the cash, but MAKING the decision... I hate making decisions and so does Darren... bad combo...). We are so excited! It's hard to believe that he will be here so soon! We can't wait!

SNOW in SEATTLE???

As you may have seen in a previous post, we were in California until the middle of December. When we got back, it was snowy and until about a week ago, we have been living in a Winter Wonderland! I (totally on purpose) got us stuck in Sammamish at my parents house for most of it! Darren was able to work from home and I wanted to be able to play while he was doing so... can you blame me?? Obviously we weren't actually STUCK in Sammamish, but I liked to pretend we were so we couldn't go home :)

Anyways, while we were there, the boys made a jump in the snow and had a blast going off of it! Here are a few pictures (wish I was better at photography, but you get the idea):



My baby


Benny Boy


Brock, right before he eats it! I have other shots of him, but he spins the other direction so they're all of his backside...

Being out in the snow is not nearly as fun when you can't do anything...

Bailey was nice enough to keep me company while the boys played in the snow. Yes, I AM in rainboots and no, my jacket doesn't zip up...

Is it just me, or do I look really big next to him?? haha


Darren made a snowman in honor of me this year :)

Christmas

I realize I'm a little late, but better late than never, right??

Christmas this year was great! Things got a little crazy when it started snowing and we couldn't do our last minute shopping like we normally would! Just like last year, we basically lived at either of our parent's houses for the weeks surrounding Christmas and New Years, though I think we did so more this year because of the snow. But even with our two-wheel drive, we were able to do all the Christmas activities we normally would have:

Christmas Eve with my side of the family: Fancy dinner, white elephant gift exchange (Darren got a Costco thing of Jelly Belly's and I got The Sandlot DVD... which I brought!), and just hanging out with the family. My dad and Brock, however, had to help us get unstuck before we could head home :)

Christmas Eve NIGHT: Darren and I like to do this part with just the two of us. We spent the night wrapping presents while we watched Elf in our room.

Christmas Morning: We woke up bright and early to open present with each other.

I got my favorite thing: MOVIES!!! I also got a few other items and money to go shopping for new clothes after the baby gets here :)

Darren knew a few big presents he was getting, but for the first time since we've been married, I actually surprised him! I normally don't buy him clothes without having him try them on because he's so dang picky about how they fit! But I decided to go for it and actually did pretty well... if I don't say so myself! He was pretty excited :)

Christmas Day: After opening presents, we headed over to the Litchfields. Snow was already covering the roads, but as we drove, it started coming down hard... so unlike Seattle! It was fun until we barely made it through his parent's neighborhood! Darren and his boys play football on Christmas morning (along with Thanksgiving and New Years) and thus far I had managed to make it to all the games... until today :( It was snowing so hard and while I can handle being cold for a few hours, I didn't want to be cold AND wet. So for the first time since we started dating, I missed a game. And it would have been the perfect game to get pictures at too! Apparently the field was literally FILLED with snow and they were rolling around all over the place! While the boys were gone, Cindy, Lindsay and I watched Sweet Home Alabama and ate a delicious breakfast! When the boys got home, they hopped in the Hot Tub and proceeded to play in the snow in their swimsuits. (I wish I had pictures of that on my camera, but I don't.) They had a lot of fun! We spent the rest of the day playing with Kevin's new Wii, going to the movies, and getting Chinese for dinner (Litchfield family tradition), but unfortunately the restaurant didn't have their Karaoke machine up... they promised they would next year!

Christmas Night: After spending the day with the Litchfields, we headed over to the Beeson's for Christmas night. We had a gift exchange (all gifts provided by my parents... just the way I like it!) where I got some jewelry and $10 and Darren got The Dark Knight. He couldn't have been more thrilled! After that, we basically just hung out and watched a movie (all of us falling asleep before it was over I'm sure) and spent the night.

Christmas this year was absolutely wonderful. I love being with family almost every day and feeling the Christmas spirit! Next year is going to be so different with a little kid... we cannot wait!