All About the Allens

Monday, May 5, 2008

Kirsten Visits!

Kirsten came from Nashville to visit this weekend! She got lots of quality Ryder time & he of course LOVED his Aunt Kiki!! :) We had to give her a good taste of Austin, so we shopped, showed her around town & ate Mexican food ALL weekend- what else? I mean really- we ate Pappasitos, Freebird & Chuys! You thought I was kidding. It was SO great to be with her, we miss her so, so much!! Come back soon...

Ryder's first trip to Pappasitos had to be documented...
I think he liked it, he behaved very nicely!

The boys in plaid...

Kirsten, me & Ryder - he's in that sling I'm wearing!

Our baby boys love her... rocky even slept with her & cried when she left!

And on a side note bath time is getting better (there's less screaming now!), I just had to follow up on the previous bath blog.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

one month later

That's right... he's 4 weeks old today. In a way I can't believe it's been that long and then in another way it feels like he's been here forever! Our life has changed in so many ways over the month. Let's see, for starters we do no get any REM sleep!! One night last week he slept for 5 hours and I woke up panicked that something was horribly wrong! But that 5 hours was a fluke I think, we're still averaging 3 hours at a time. But seriously life is different, but it's good. Everyone always told us this, but it's true, you never realize how selfish you are till you have a child! I also never realized how much time I had and how easy it was to do simple things like, oh, shower. :)

Now that Ryder's a month he's much more alert and aware of his surroundings. He responds to sounds and voices and smiles occasionally. (He loves hearing his Daddy's voice when he comes home!) His cries are starting to make more since and he's getting better at letting mommy know what he needs! :) He's gotten out of the house a good bit now- we've been on walks, shopping trips, to church and met most friends and we're planning on taking our first trip home next weekend! Tomorrow he gets to meet his Aunt KiKi :) Kirsten is coming from Nashville to spend the weekend with us! Yeah!!!

So here's a little video of Ryder TODAY...

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Splish, Splash... he doesn't like his bath!

This week was really our first week on our own after all the help & company the past week. And although things were really overwhelming at times we made it and either it's getting easier or we're just learning how to cope on this amount of sleep & delirium!

Yesterday Mimi (my mom) called and said she was coming for the day while Poppi was at the guitar show... she just couldn't take not seeing Ryder another week! So we got Ryder out to do a little shopping and moving around. With the exception of a MAJOR spit up in Macy's we made it through the day out pretty well! (I'm talking we had to change the clothes & clean up the new car seat kind of spit up!) :) Last night we decided it was time for the first big BATH! I had a feeling it was gonna go a little like this...

Not so happy to begin with.

A little more unhappy in the water.

"I SURRENDER! GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

"Hey, what did I do to deserve this anyway?"

It got a little better...

And then we took him out...

But Mimi got him calmed down again eventually

Hopefully bath time will go better next time!

Girls Visit

Well, I haven't been as good about BABY Blogging as I'd hoped these past couple weeks, but I think we're still just running in survival mode as of now! I think I'll be better and maybe even more annoying with baby blogs as things settle in and become a little easier.

Last weekend Michelle, Rachel & Katey drove down to meet Ryder. He loved them of course. They cooked and helped out and got mommy out of the house for a few minutes (although that left Daddy with a screaming baby!!) We had a great time, but it was definitely a different "girls" weekend with a newborn! :)

Friday, April 11, 2008

One Week Later.

It's now been one week since Mr. Ryder entered the world... or should I say shook up OUR world!?! Things have been crazy and stressful at times, but overall very good. We have had several mostly sleepless nights, but help to get us through. We came home from the hospital Saturday afternoon, we were given the choice to stay through Sunday, but I was ready to get home! My parents stayed for the weekend and then my mom stayed till Tuesday and then Daniel's mom came down Wednesday through today. And tonight Michelle, Rachel & Katey are coming down. So we've been very blessed with lots of help. Ryder had his first pediatricians appointment this week and is doing very well and we had our first outing yesterday to Starbucks and Target, of course. I'm doing pretty well, still recovering a little, but feeling much better and Daniel is hanging in there through a tough week of working on little sleep! Here are some pictures to update the week...

Getting ready to go home.

Ryder, meet your doggy-brother, Rocky.

Mimi & Poppi are proud, ya think?

A little sibling rivalry starting here. I was trying to take Ryder's picture and Rocky jumped right up on the couch in front of him to get HIS picture taken instead!

Happy in his swing.

Look how CUTE he is!!!

Sleeps all day... up all night...

Friday, April 4, 2008

Welcome to the WORLD!

He's Here!!!

Ryder Marcus Allen
April 3rd, 5:21pm
8 pounds 2 ounces, 21 inches

Here's the short & mainly condensed version... We went in Wednesday night to begin the induction process. My water broke at 6 am Thursday morning, as the day progressed so did my body, but not to the extent that was needed and by 4pm it was determined, for various reasons including size, position and time a C-section was the best option. So as my Dr. said, we got ready for a birthday party. The surgery was quick and smooth as prayed for and everything went perfectly. Even to the point of my doctor discovering and removing some endometriosis on both ovaries that my have resulted in a delayed pregnancy this time and could have prevented or delayed pregnancy in the future... praise God, His ways our better than ours! Our precious, perfect little baby boy was born right after 5pm. His name is Ryder Marcus- middle name is my Daddy's middle name. He is healthy, sweet, calm & feeding well. I am still in the hospital and will go home tomorrow afternoon or Sunday morning. Thank you all so much for your love & prayers. Here are some pictures, plenty more to follow!!!!!

Getting ready for baby...after a long day of contractions and waiting...