Parker's 1 month well baby stats: Height: 20.5" (9th percentile), Weight: 8.1 lbs (11th percentile), Head Circumference: 14.5" (18th percentile).

Parker's 4 month well baby stats: Height: 25" (47th percentile), Weight: 15 lbs 11.5 oz (61st percentile), Head Circumference: 16.5" (35th percentile).

Can't believe how fast our baby boy is growing. Some of Parker's favorite things right now include: -Watering the flowers with his Grannie (he loves getting his toes wet) -Eating (I guess in his case drinking), -Laughing and smiling, -Bath time (he loves getting his hair washed and splashing in his baby tub), -Sitting in his bouncy chair and kicking his chunky little legs, -Rolling from his back onto his belly. We love our little guy so much and feel so blessed to have this cute little pumpkin in our family.

Pregnancy, Birth and Baby

On April 15, 2012 our beautiful baby boy was born so I wanted to write a post about my pregnancy journey. Brace yourself because this might be a bit lengthy. At the beginning of last year Jeremy and I had started talking about how we both felt it was finally time to start trying to have a baby. I was going to be graduating from nursing school that year and we both knew that it was the right time to expand our little family. Every month I got very anxious and excited wondering if this would be the month that I would find out I was pregnant, but every month I was disappointed by either a negative pregnancy test or an unwanted visit from aunt flow. When July rolled around I was convinced that I was never going to be able to get pregnant and that we should probably start looking into adoption...needless to say, I was being a bit dramatic. Then August rolled around and I started having the usual cramping and so forth that comes when I'm expecting a visit from aunt flow. I was T.O.'d because I knew that this meant that once again I was not pregnant. A couple of days passed and I still had not gotten my period so without any hope or expectations I decided to take a pregnancy test. To my surprise this is what I saw....

I was shocked, excited, nervous, because I knew that life was no longer going to be the same, it was about to get so much better. I was finally going to be a mother. Pregnancy for me was definitely interesting to say the least. In May, 2011 Jeremy got transferred to Massachusetts for work so we bought a home and moved to the East Coast. I became pregnant in July and in August I had to head back to Louisiana to finish up my last semester of nursing school. I lived in a motel that smelled like cigarette smoke, which kicked the nausea up about ten notches, and made it hard to keep any food down. Because of this I ended up losing about 5 pounds in the first trimester but luckily I had no problem gaining weight after that. This is a picture of the ultrasound that was done my first 12 week OB appointment.

Here is another image that was take at 16 weeks. It's not very common to have an ultrasound done at that point in pregnancy but they were having a difficult time finding a heartbeat with the doppler so they wanted to make sure everything was OK.

At 24 weeks I was finished with school and back in Massachusetts. They did an extensive ultrasound at this point to identify the sex of the baby (I was sure he was a girl...so much for mother's instinct) and to check all of his internal organs to make sure everything was developing properly.

Here are some pictures of my growing baby bump.

24 weeks prego

26 weeks prego

28 weeks prego

30 weeks prego

38 weeks prego and ready to pop At 38 weeks pregnant I am starting to feel like pregnancy will never end. The last month of pregnancy is definitely the longest. It was getting harder to sleep at this point and even walking, aka waddling, was difficult. I was pretty miserable by this point so I started trying everything I had ever read about to move things along and induce labor. I tried eating spicy foods, pineapple, black licorice, I tried walking, taking evening primrose oil pills, but nothing seemed to work. Our little baby was still cooking in there and was not ready to come out I guess. Then on Saturday night, April 14th, when I was 40 weeks and 4 days, at about 6pm I started to have contractions that were different then the usual Braxton Hicks that I had been having occasionally. These contractions hurt!! I still was not convinced I was in labor but I decided to start timing the contractions anyway. I was told by my midwife to call when the contractions were 5 minutes apart, at least 1 minute long each and lasting for 1 hour. Slowly throughout the night they started getting closer and closer together so I told Jeremy he had better go to bed and get some sleep before we had to go to the hospital. I tried sleeping but the contractions were too uncomfortable so I just decided to hang out until it was time to go. Finally at around 11:30pm I called my midwife and told her I thought it was time. She tried to convince me to hang out at home a little longer but I told her I needed the epidural a-sap. She said OK and told us we could come in and that they would check me to make sure I was really in labor. When we got to the hospital they examined me and determined that I was 2.5cm dilated and almost 100% effaced so they decided it was OK to admit me...woo hoo!! Once we were in our room and settled for some reason I was trying to be brave and hold out as long as I could before asking for the epidural, but by about 4am on Sunday morning I could not take it anymore and I called the nurse to have them give me the goods. I can't even explain how amazing it felt to feel complete and total relief when the meds kicked in...it was heavenly. Several hours passed but unfortunately, labor was not progressing like they wanted it to so at about 8am they started me on Pitocin so that I would start dilating quicker. At 9am they bumped up the Pitocin and I went from being dilated to 3cm to 7cm in less then an hour. Jeremy was out getting some breakfast and checking on PeeWee and Homer so I quickly called him and told him to come back to the hospital because this baby was coming soon. At around 11am I started to feel a very strong urge to push so they called in my midwife and it was show time! I had an awesome nurse to assist me while I was pushing and an EMT student in the room who asked for permission to watch. I'm pretty sure he was completely grossed out by the end...along with Jeremy. Jeremy wanted to stay on the upper half of me during the delivery since he was pretty sure he would pass out if he had to see everything that goes on below, so my nurse put him in charge of placing cool wash cloths on my forehead and he did great. Finally, after about an hour of pushing our little guy was born. The NICU team was called in at the end of the delivery because baby had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and he was clenching it with one fist. Because of this he became somewhat distressed inside my belly and had what they call meconium, which is a baby's first bowel movement inside of me. Thankfully though, everything turned out fine and our baby was perfect in every way.

Parker Travis Hansen born on 4/15/2012 at 12:14pm, 6lbs 14oz, 20 inches

One day old heading home from the hospital

We could not be more grateful for this beautiful little angel and we feel so blessed to have him.

Blessed

I know I am the worst blogger every lately but I wanted to do a quick post to share how extremely blessed I am feeling these days. If you have not heard the news by now, those of you who are not on facebook, Jeremy and I are expecting our first baby. I am 12 weeks along and our little bundle is due April 10, 2012. I can't even express how excited we are to finally have the opportunity to become parents. I think Pee Wee has done a great job in preparing us for parenthood--I swear sometimes I think that dog is human with how needy he is and how much TLC he requires. On top of how overjoyed we are about our baby news, some other exciting news is that I will be graduating with my bachelors degree in nursing in just over two months. Not to toot my own horn or anything but this has been such a huge accomplishment for me. I can honestly say that nursing school has been one of the most challenging things I've ever done in my life. What a relief it is to be so close to finishing. I feel like I am starting a perfect new chapter in my life with a new career, new baby, and blessings pouring out all over me. It is an awesome feeling.

Sleepover

Last Friday night I was able to have Maddie, Isaac, and Davis spend the night at our house while Sara and Ryan took some time for a little R & R. I'm not going to lie, I did have to throw back a few stiff drinks to keep me going but having the kids stay over was so much fun and well worth the energy draining. And, other then Pee Wee scaring the crap out of the kids a few times I think they had fun too.

Maddie and Pee Wee bonded when Mads gave Pee some of her peanut butter sandwich...however, the bond was instantly broken when Pee backed her into and corner and scared the crap out of her. Baby steps I guess.


They love feeding Homer and scratching his shell so he will "dance" as they like to call it


Maddie giving Homer some love



Watching Shrek in 3D


Ike still wanted to come to our sleepover even though he broke his arm and had not slept at all the night before. The first thing he asked his mom when he got home from the hospital was "do we still get to sleep over at Brookie's tonight?"


Davis chowing down on pizza. This kid ate an entire jumbo slice.

A few memorable moments from our sleepover...
-Ike got to sleep in his own room and when he saw the t.v. the first thing he said was "Wow, now I can watch movies in my room whenever I want." When I explained to him that the t.v. was not hooked up he said "I don't really like this room, I want to sleep somewhere else."
-Maddie was so cute with Pee Wee and Homer. She kept saying "Homer and Pee Wee are best friends, Homer loves dogs and cats." Even after Pee Wee scared her she kept saying "Awww Pee Wee's so cute, Pee Wee's such a good boy." Love her!!
-Davis was loving all of the treats and goodies. I tried unsuccessfully to keep him away from the popcorn, since he is still a little to young for that, but the second I turned my back he had downed almost Ike's entire bowl... sneaky little guy. He was such a good little guy at our sleepover though and only cried when he ran out of sprite.
-Another highlight, when Ike saw our bathroom upstairs he said to me "Wow, you have two bathrooms? This is going to be great when you have kids and can give them a bath in the tub." So cute!! I also got Ike on video (couldn't get it to load) telling me how we should give Pee Wee some dog treats since he was doing such a good job of not barking...shortly after that statement Pee Wee started chasing Isaac around our backyard barking at the top of his lungs.

It was great having the kids over...I sure do love those little rascals.

New York City

Last Tuesday and Wednesday Jeremy and I made our way to NYC for a quick overnight trip. It was our first time in the big apple and let me tell you it was pretty dang exciting! We ending up getting an explorer pass that allowed us to pick several different attractions that we wanted to see at a lower overall cost. Some of our adventures included Ripley's Believe it or Not (wasn't great--don't waste your money), Madame Tussauds wax museum (loved it), Top of the Rock (a view from the top of Rockefeller plaza), a cruise to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (loved it), and we also went to the American Museum of Natural History (more for kids really), central park, and ground zero. We were able to eat some great food during our trip, including our first New York slice, delicious hamburgers and shakes from the Shake Shack, a ginormous pastrami sandwich from Carnegie Deli, and of course Pinkberry.

Here are some picture of our trip.


Manhattan temple


I love Lucy


Me and the Biebs


Meeting the Clinton's--yee ha


Jer giving Big Poppa some gangsta love


Me and my BFF Kim K


Jeremy was starstruck by Nic Cage as you can see


Loved the architecture on all of the buildings



NYC skyline


King (queen actually)of the world on our cruise boat


Ground zero monument


Rebuilding the towers



So cool up close


This cute little couple took our picture at the top of Rockefeller Plaza and they wanted to get the background just right--bless their hearts


Top of the Rock



Central Park



Ripley's


Times Square at night. Jeremy was a little claustrophobic with all the action but I was soaking it all in.


Times Square (loved the mormon.org ad)


My first New York slice

Other then being completely exhausted by the end we had a great time! Can't wait to see what the city looks like in the fall.

More House Pictures

We are finally feeling settled into our home so I thought I would take a few more pictures to show an update of some of the things we have done.


Entry way


One of our guest bedrooms


Kitchen--not much different looking then before



Dining room


Living room--can't wait until it's cold enough to use the fireplace


Backyard--the metal thing is a firepit


Screened in deck


Another view of the front--I had to show you my cute, red, hanging plants

We are loving our new home, and we are loving New England!