In Love

It's hard to believe that baby Nathan is almost one month old!  Just as everyone says time is flying by.  We've had a great few weeks though watching our sweet boy grow and even start to develop new skills.  We are so in love with our little guy and marvel at him all day long.  Here are some of our favorite things about him:

*The cute faces he makes
*When he sneezes, yawns or hiccups
*How he loves his hands
*The funny movements he makes when naked
*Bath time
*Tummy time
*How he cuddles when we hold him
*Reading books to him
*Special moments feeding him in the middle of the night
*Anytime he's awake--he has such a personality!
*His tiny little swaddled body in his huge crib
*His little feet

He had his 2 week check-up with the pediatrician a couple weeks ago and he was 9 lbs. at that point and at around the 45th and 50th percentile for head size and length.  The nurse said he's a very well proportioned boy.  :)  We love our pediatrician and he said everything is looking great with Nathan so far!

Here are some photos from the past couple of weeks:

First sponge bath

We think he looks a lot like his Papa!

Auntie Jessica visited!

The Spaulding boys

With Uncle Ryan

Nathan's first bath!

Could he be any cuter?

Auntie Karen and Taylor visited!

We are also very lucky in that we have my talented brother Ryan who's been taking more professional shots of Nathan for us.  Here are some of our favorites from Nathan's last photoshoot:

3 Years

James and I celebrated our 3-year anniversary this week.  3 years ago today I got to marry the most incredible man I've ever met.  It was a gorgeous sunny Seattle weekend and we couldn't have imagined a more perfect weekend of celebrating with family and friends. 

We celebrated our anniversary by going out on a date night to the John Howie steak restaurant.  For those of you who live in the area, you MUST go to this restaurant if you've never been.  It's SO GOOD!  Definitely a special occasion place though as it's pretty pricey.  Thanks to Barb and Jay for babysitting so we could enjoy this special night and celebrate. 

James and I like to follow the traditional anniversary gift ideas every year.  The traditional gift for 3 years is leather.  James got some new UGG leather slippers and I got a beautiful black leather purse.  James also surprised me with a gorgeous necklace with an emerald pendant and a white gold N initial.  Emerald is Nathan's birthstone and the N obviously stands for Nathan.  It was my "push" present as my sister-in-law called it--basically my gift for going through labor.  What a thoughtful husband!

James you are the greatest husband and father.  God has truly blessed me with you in my life and I can't wait to continue on this life adventure with you for 50+ more years!  I love you so much my best friend and true soul mate!

He's Here!

Our beautiful son Nathan James Spaulding was born on May 10, 2012 at 6:11pm at Overlake Hospital.  He was 8 lbs. 3 oz and was 20 inches long.  We can't believe he's finally here and we're just mesmerized with him so far!  Every day is definitely an adventure and something new to learn.  But we're having lots of fun being parents.  As you might expect, keeping up on normal life is a little challenging right now.  I barely have time to check email.  So blog posts might be few and far between, but I'm going to try and post when I can so we can have it for memories.  Here are some photos from Nathan's first week.  He's 1 week old today!!!  It's already moving fast!

Proud Papa!

Family anxiously waiting to meet little Nathan

So blessed and happy!

Meeting my little guy for the first time

We love when he makes this face!

We call this the doughnut face

Meeting Grampa

Meeting Gramma Barb

Meeting Nana and Pops

Auntie Becca and Gavin

Time to go home from the hospital!

Using his rocker chair for the first time

Celebrating Mother's Day

First stroller ride!

Visit from Auntie Kristine

He loves to curl up on Papa's chest

Visit from Jesse and Heidi--Nathan's godparents

Aunties Heidi and Leslie

First time using a binkie--helps soothe him during diaper changes

The Nest

Our nursery is finally set up and ready to welcome our new little one whenever he decides to arrive!  We tried to create a cozy, not too gender specific room with a few personal touches and I think we accomplished our goal.  There are still a few spots that are "in progress" because we want to wait to put up pictures of him after he arrives.  But for the most part I think we're done with this project for now.  Now all we need is a sweet little baby to fill it!

View from entry	Changing table.  Uncle Ryan provided the great mobile!
I'm sure I'll be spending lots of time in this glider.  Good thing it's comfy!	Our room theme is classic children's books
Stuffed monkey from Pops (Meg's dad), baby's first pair of sneakers, Meg's old Peter Rabbit bank, collectable Tigger from Uncle Ryan and homemade blocks from Etsy	Can't wait to read all these great books to our son!
James' childhood bear named Charles and Lamb Chop	Maybe this comfy crib will help our baby sleep through the night at a young age (yeah right!)
Thank goodness James, Grampa, and Uncle Johnathin redid this closet--we clearly needed the storage space!	Love this children's book cover banner that Hillary made for my shower--now it's a perfect decoration for the nursery!

Here are some more artistic photos that Uncle Ryan took for us:

"Babymoon"

Last weekend we went on our "babymoon" as some people like to call it.  After all the projects and crazy schedules at work, we realized we needed a weekend getaway just the two of us before baby comes.  A couple years ago we went down to Cannon Beach, Oregon just as James finished up classes for his MBA.  It was such a relaxing, refreshing weekend and we wanted to experience that again. 

We headed down on Friday and enjoyed a yummy pizza dinner at Pizza a Fetta in the town of Cannon Beach.  We stayed at the wonderful Inn at Cannon Beach like we did two years ago.  This time we lucked out and got two nights for the price of one!  That's the beauty of heading to the coast in the winter/early spring time.  The inn never disappoints.  It's right across the street from the beach.  We had a large, but cozy room.  They have fresh baked cookies in the lobby when you arrive and you can rent as many movies as you want.  So the first night we rented a movie, but didn't watch for very long.  Our stressful schedules finally caught up with us and we were out pretty quickly. 

How glorious to sleep in and wake up with nothing to do!  We did manage to walk across the street to one of my favorite bakeries called Waves of Grain to get some fresh baked goods.  Then we hung out and finished our movie.  I forgot to mention that the first night it poured rain and the wind blew like crazy!  It woke me up a few times.  Luckily by about 11am on Saturday, the clouds started to part and we took advantage to finally venture out on the beach.  I just love Cannon Beach especially with the haystack rock.  It never gets old.  It's just so unique and beautiful!  And probably also because it reminds me of the movie Goonies which I think I've seen 100+ times since being a kid. 

We walked the beach all the way into town and then had a yummy brunch at the Lazy Susan Cafe.  By that time the sun was shining brightly!  We totally lucked out because we thought we were gonna have a rainy weekend the whole time.  We wandered around town for awhile and then headed back via the beach.  There is just something so freeing about being at the ocean.  We kept saying how alive we felt just smelling the fresh air and watching the waves crash.  As if we hadn't had enough sleep, we still enjoyed a nap in the afternoon.  That evening we went to one of our favorite restaurants in town called Newman's 988.  I feasted on prawn scampi and James had duck.  Needless to say we definitely weren't deprived of food or sleep on this trip.

We got through two more rented movies before we headed out on Sunday.  But before heading home, we drove to Portland simply to have brunch at Cafe du Berry.  If you've never been there, it's south of the city and we highly recommend it.  They have the MOST AMAZING french toast in the world!  It's so rich and yummy you don't even need to put syrup on it! 

What a perfect getaway weekend--just what we needed and were hoping for.  Can't wait to get back there and to take our son so he can experience the wonderful Oregon coast.  Now back to reality (although reality is pretty dang good right now)!

Love the Haystack rock! 

My belly is almost as big as the rock!

Our wonderful inn

Our cozy room was at the top of the stairs--view of the ocean!

Goodies at the Waves of Grain bakery--definitely made baby happy

Quintessential Oregon Coast shot.  I love how Northwesterners get out on the beach even in stormy weather!

You can almost just hear Chunk and Sloth yelling "Hey you guys!"