Max is Two months old!!

March 8th, 2010 - Max is now 2 months old!!

Milestones achieved so far this month have been:

smiling more often, laughing out loud, batting at objects, grasping a few objects, putting weight on his legs, following objects by moving his head and almost having complete control of his head.

At his 2 month check up, he was 12 pds 13 oz and 24 inches long. He is in the 80% percentile for weight and the 75 percentile for length. He unfortunately had to have shots on this day. It was a rough day for us all.

Kitchen Remodeling Pics

So, finally, we have before and after pics of the new kitchen.  Check ‘em out – the old kitchen is on the left and the new one is on the right… (you can click them for larger versions)

notice the horrible white tile floor and the idiotic tile countertop (that whoever lived here before did themselves, so it was crooked and had the wrong kind of grout)

now we’ve got a sweet travertine floor, custom-built maple cabinets, and black granite countertops

(this is looking to the right as you walk in) and for some reason, there were no lower cabinets on the right when you walked into the kitchen – and the ONLY upper cabinets we had were these two

now with lower cabinets, DRAWERS!!!, and upper cabinets.. also an awesome diagonal tile backsplash with mini black tile accent stripe…

before we had an ugly white sink and super awesome painted plywood lower cabinet doors… notice the cabinet on the left of the sink – it was half the normal depth so there was horrible storage space inside…

now, we’ve got a corner double sink… with detachable spray spout… and sweet custom-built angled doors underneath… you can see one of our sweet stainless steel light switch covers that match the appliances…

you can really see the half-deep cabinet, when compared to the stove… the burner pans were horrible and there was a burn on the back by the dials…

now we’ve got a sweet stainless model with a flat-top cook surface… it’s also a convection oven… and we’ve got the new wall-mounted microwave with a vent

so here you can see the awesome plywood cabinet doors… and why not make the shallow cabinet even suckier with three shelves instead of the standard two??

now, we have another DRAWER!!! and a cool James Bond pull-out hidden trash can…

before: super small smelly refrigerator

after: super awesome oversized stainless version

and one of our favorite new features – by the back door, our dog leashes have dog butt hangers!

Max is one month old!!

February 8th, 2010 - Max is one month old.

His milestones he has achieved are:

smiling , cooing, turning toward sounds, and turning away from bright lights.

At his one month check up he was 10 pds 14 oz and 22 1/4 inches. He is a growing boy!! He is in the 75 percentile for all three categories.

He is a very chill baby and hardly ever cries. He is still sleeping a lot, which Jordin thinks is kind of boring. We all love him very much!!

Max’s first Bath

We were so excited to give Max his first bath!!

Needless to say, he was less than thrilled!

Jordin thought it was pretty funny though!!

Maxwell Dean Gifford

I know this is a long time coming but we have been very busy!!

We welcomed Max on January 8th 2010 at 9:44pm. He was 8pds 5 oz and 21 inches. He was perfect. He has red hair and looks just like his dad.

The labor and delivery process was pretty uneventful. I went in on Thursday night at 9 pm to have Cervadil placed. Cervadil helps the cervix thin.

At 6 am, they took me up to labor and delivery and started the IV and Pitocin. At this point, I still had it in my head that I was going to go as natural as possible.

I worked through my contractions for 6 hours until they broke my water at 12:30. At about 1:30, I asked for an epidural. It was awful pain. Greg was an amazing coach though - rubbing my back and making sure I had what I needed. When they broke my water, they noticed that there was a little meconium in the amniotic fluid. For those of you who do not know what meconium is… the easiest way to explain is that Max has his first stool in utero. Dr. Richards told us that they would have the NICU staff on hand in the room and they would have to hand him over ASAP to suck out any fluid. He did not want to take the chance of him aspirating any fluid and getting sick.

At about 9 pm, Dr. Richards came in and let me know that it was time. I was incredibly excited and ready to go. I was ready to work, in my head I was expecting a 9 pound plus baby, so I was very determined to get him out.

I pushed for about 20 minutes and he was here. Like they said before, they whisked him off to the NICU set up and sucked out any fluid.

Everything turned out to be perfect and he was handed over to me and daddy!!

We were absolutely, unequivocally, head over heels in love with this little guy. We spent the next few days recovering and soaking up the idea of having Max here.

We had a little set back on the day we were supposed to go home. Max had a little jaundice and unfortunately, we had to stay another day.

We finally got to go home on Monday. Jordin got to meet Max that same day.

That is the seal of approval from big brother Jordin.

We are finally home :)

Christmas

We had three great Christmases this year. We had one with my family the weekend before Christmas. It was more for the kids than the adults. Jordin and Cyah had so much fun. Naomi and I bought the unborn babies gifts too. I of course had to shop for the girls. I love little girl clothes. I think its opposite for what you have, because Naomi loves to shop for boy clothes for me.

Cyah loved opening her presents.

There is a big mess in the house because it was right in the middle of the kitchen renovation.

Our second Christmas was with Greg’s family. It was really nice this year because Gramps and Uncle David were there to celebrate with us. I know that we all enjoyed having them.

Jordin was raising his hand letting PeePaw know that it was his turn to open a present.

This is a letter from Santa to Jordin…Here is what it said.

Jordin got bunk beds from Santa this year so Grandmother and Peepaw bought his sheets and blankets for him.

The third was with Myself, Greg and Jordin…

These are the gifts that Santa brought Jordin this year :)

We had a wonderful, blessed Christmas.