I'm so glad when Daddy comes home

It's already Jake's favorite part of the day. He's non-stop smiles when Matt walks in the door!

Those smiles even continue through diaper changes with Daddy. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

PS-This is Jake at 6 weeks. He's growing up so fast! A catch-up post is definitely in order.

Black and white

I wanted to take these as part of Jake's little one-week-old photo shoot. But then my little one-week-old woke up and was way more interested in food than cameras, naturally, so we had to put the idea on hold for a while longer. Therefore, I present to you Jake at the ripe old age of 15 days:

Matt had Jake in his hands for about 0.2 seconds before Jake decided they'd make a delicious snack.

We're sort of obsessed with him. Can you tell? (And can you blame us?)

Week two

Week two rolled around and we felt like we were really getting the hang of the whole caring-for-a-newborn thing. Jake's schedule was getting a bit more predictable, and at least one of us was getting quality sleep:

The highlight of the week was having my mom and sister Heidi in town. They arrived in the middle of the night on Jake's one-week birthday and were able to stay for five whole days, which is a small miracle if you know my family!

Matt and I loved having them here, and all of the excitement wore our little guy right out. Being a baby is hard work!

Jake had a busy week full of Skyping...

And taking lots of baths...

And giving lots of kisses... and eating constantly...

So maybe we use his rooting reflex to steal kisses.

And discovering his thumb...

And cuddling...

And sleeping in all sorts of places.
(If only Jake slept as much as pictures insinuate! He's actually awake far, far more often than he's asleep. We're just too busy playing with him in those moments to whip out a camera.)

He was deep in thought in Aunt Heidi's arms in the picture on the left!

Actually, the person who had the busiest week was my superwoman mom. She grocery shopped, cooked healthy meals, filled our freezer, deep cleaned our house, and still had time to cuddle up with Jake.

She is, clearly, the best mom and grandma on the planet.

Heidi was also ultra-helpful around the house and with Jake. It was nice to just cuddle up with Matt on the couch while our baby was happily cuddled by his beautiful aunt right next to us.

It was so great having Mom and Heidi here, and I was definitely sad to see them go.

That "I miss my mom" feeling was compounded when everything seemed to fall apart the day after they left. I came down with a painful case of mastitis, the doctor and lactation consultant ordered me to stop nursing and pump instead for a couple days (for reasons other than mastitis), and Jake happened to catch a cold. I felt miserable--both physically because of the mastitis and emotionally because of the pumping/bottle thing. It worried me since it can sometimes sabotage nursing--especially so early in the game. All of this went down on Matt's birthday, of course. On the bright side, the sight of Matt feeding our little guy was adorable.

Thankfully, nursing didn't go out the window; although we definitely experienced major difficulties as I recovered and my body readjusted and Jake learned how to handle both a bottle and mom. To be honest, it's only now just finally starting to be better and we're almost 6 weeks into it. But hey, the timing couldn't be any better because we have a busy week ahead of us! My family -- parents and seven younger siblings -- are arriving in three days and we have all sorts of fun things planned. Many thanks to Utah schools for scheduling a fall break.

The first week

Bringing our baby home was yet another surreal experience in a long line of "can you believe this is really happening?" moments surrounding Jake's birth. Matt and I were so excited to drive away from the hospital and officially begin our lives together as a family of three! We spent that first week in the best kind of daze, just happily wrapped up in our baby boy.

Jake wasn't so sure about the car seat thing at first, but five minutes later he was a believer.

That first week of Jake's life naturally brought a lot of "firsts" for our little guy. These included:

*First power outage.
It was out for four hours on our first night home! Who knew we'd be changing diapers with tiny flashlights?

*First college football Saturday.

Cheering for the Falcons and the Cougs back-to-back wore him out!

*First Sunday nap.

And plenty more naps...

*First sponge bath at home.

Our little guy likes being clean. He also likes sucking on things like fingers, hands, biceps and binkies.

*First doctor's appointment.

Jake had a one-week appointment since he was so tiny when he was born. Babies are supposed to be back to their birth weight by their two-week check-up, but our little champ was a full half-pound heavier at the one week mark!

*First walk around the neighborhood.

This is one of our new favorite things.

*First photoshoot.

I already shared the "real" pictures but here are a few more snapshots from that day.

This picture makes us laugh. Jake apparently wanted to share the spotlight with his daddy.

My mom and sister Heidi arrived just in time to kick off week two, which I'll post about next!