Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Baby Dedication!

Wow, I guess when you become a parent you stop the avid blogging! :)

Nahum continues to be the complete JOY of our lives and we are SOOOO incredibly thankful for him. God is still providing for us financially so that I can stay home and raise and care for our boy. Praise Him for that!

For Halloween, Nahum dressed as Linus from the Peanuts cartoon. That was the only "costume" that Daddy approved of since he's really too young to understand what's going on. He was still pretty cute though.


Thanksgiving was certainly a test of endurance for all of us. We had extended familiy from all sides in town so that made for a 3-day Thanksgiving extraveganza! Poor baby boy didn't really get the rest he needed to recooperate, but he survived. Nahum got to meet his newest cousin, Nathan Jackson who was born about 6 months after him, to Chris and Suzanne Jackson.



He also got to meet his Uncle Samuel and Aunt Meg and Great-Grandma Pat for the fist time, at the Estes Thanksgiving meal in Visalia.






Christmas was SUCH a blessing this year.




We enjoyed a Christmas Eve candle light service at Steven's Dad's church and then we got to open presents with my imediate family that night. Christmas day was spent in Reedley with the Estes'. All of Steven's siblings and their families were together this year and I know that is special to my in-laws and to all of us. The Barker kids REALLY loved being around Nahum and he loved spending time with his cousins!


The day-after Christmas, we were blessed to have Nahum's baby dedication at Grace Community Church with Papa. All the Estes Barker's were there as well as my mom's family. Our dear friends Megan and Paul Hemphill and Leslie and Eric Rata were able to join us for this blessing too and we are SO happy they were there!





Here are all the original Estes siblings and their spouses. Samuel and Meg, Beth and Bryan Barker, Steven and me, and Peter and Katie will be married this coming June 2011!

Raspberries & Coos

Man, I don't update this blog enough. I should, and I know I could use the excuse that I'm a new mommy, but honestly it's cause I update on FB so much that I forget about the blog!

So, Nahum turned 5 months last week! YIKES!!! I'm SO excited by all the new things he is doing these days. He can blow raspberries and babble and coo a lot more. He loves squeeling with glee! I just love it! He LOVES playing with his Daddy and I am SO thankful for that too.

Here are some recent pictures of him...
Here are all the Estes grandkids!

Here is Nahum at our Great Aunt Floretta and Ray White's wedding in September.

Here is Nahum with his Great Grandpa Clayton.

Here is Steven's parents with Nahum.

Update

Well, I intended to post new things as Nahum got older and now I realize I just do that on Facebook, so here's some things that you may have missed.

Nahum met some of his friends for the first time:
Nahum and Charlie are 3 weeks apart. (Nahum is older)
Nahum and Samara are 3 months apart. (Samara is older)
And Nahum and Freddy are 6 weeks apart. (Nahum is older)

Nahum also got to meet all his Barker cousins too!

And we went for a visit to Bass Lake for Daddy's birthday, so Nahum got to meet his Great-Great Aunts: Linda and Dorothy & Great-Great Uncles Bill and Mark too!

Here's a picture of out little family on Steven's birthday. Nahum turned 3 months old the same day!

First Father's Day

Yesterday was Steven's very first Father's Day! We went to the early service at church, I made an ice cream cake and we went to my family's house for a BBQ and spent the day relaxing.

Nahum is 6 weeks old now and has continued to do SO much changing! We just love watching him make new faces and he is even starting to smile more often. It just fills my heart with joy everytime I get to spend time with him!

We're excited to welcome our family from LA and from Texas this next week. There will be many more pictures to come~

1 Month Old!

Nahum had his 1 month birthday a couple of days ago and I can't believe how much he has changed and is STILL changing!

I have been breastfeeding exclusively and he is just turning into this delightfully chubby boy and I am so pleased and thankful. We weighed him last night at Kaiser and he weighs at least 9 pounds now!

He has been struggling with some digestive issues. We're not sure what the exact problem is, but he just cries and makes painful faces right before he "relieves" himself and then he's fine. It just breaks my heart to see him in such pain though. I have cut out dairy products from my diet for a week now to see if that helps him digest any easier and to be honest, I haven't seen any real improvement. I will keep with it for about another week and then re-evaluate that decision. I gotta say, I really miss eating ice cream now that the weather is warming up! But to be a mother is to sacrifice, so I'll gladly do that for him.

Here are some pictures from this last month. You can really see the change in him.

He's HERE!!!

Nahum Levi Estes was born early at 37 weeks and 2 days on Thursday, May 6, 2010. He weighs 5 pounds, 10 oz and is 19" long! Not much baby fat, so they are monitoring his body temp to make sure he's ok. We're both doing well and happy to have him here!

More to come~

36 weeks and counting...

Today I am 36 weeks pregnant and worked my very last day of work! YAY! I can now sleep past 5am and get some much-needed chores done around the house before Nahum comes!

We had a doctors appointment yesterday at Kaiser. The fetal heart monitor reading was good. They did have to "buzz" him to get more movement but it worked and it was fine. Our nurse practitioner measured my uterus and did some kind of vaginal/rectal test for a bacteria that could be there. I'm pretty sure it's not anything to worry about otherwise they would have notified me by now.

My blood pressure was higher than they liked to see so she's going to have me come in for the fetal heart monitor 2 times a week now until delivery instead of just 1. That's ok with me because I want to make sure there isn't any pressure on Nahum's heart.

I have been having more and more contractions throughout the day; especially yesterday and today. There have been a few times it was painful or felt like stretching or sharp pain for a few seconds. So, I think my body is still just getting ready. I should start keeping better track of how long the contractions are and how far apart they are. I guess I just keep thinking that when REAL labor starts, it will feel MUCH more painful and then I'll know the difference. That may not be accurate or very responsible of me, but I really don't have any other experience to go off of.

Nahum continues to move in rolling movements and lately I've felt him stretching (like w/ a yawning movement) towards my bladder and that is making things more uncomfortable.

The last several times I've gotten to take a nap during the afternoons; I'm sleeping VERY soundly. So much so that I wake up drooling and in the same position (which is good for me 'cause I usually switch sides a lot.) I am also waking up not remembering what day it is or how long I've been asleep. So, my best quality sleep is during the afternoons. At night it's spent tossing, turning and getting up to use the bathroom or straighten out a leg cramp (which are also more frequent now.)
!!
My co-workers threw me a surprise baby shower on Monday and that was so nice. I honestly thought they were going to forget about me and that I'd have my last day of work and that would be it, but they did a great job! We got a couple more cute outfits, a home-made blanket, some full-sized Johnson & Johnson bath products and a REALLY big Target gift card! AND my co-worker made a Hungry Caterpillar cake too! We felt very blessed by them all.

I have one more baby shower this Sunday afternoon for the ladies I grew up with in Sanger and some of Steven's and Debby's close friends from Reedley. I haven't seen many of these women in years so it will be SO nice to catch up! I'm really looking forward to it!