Here Comes Santa Claus...

We took Mr. Luke to "sit" on Santa's lap at NorthPark on Saturday, December 8th. We thought we were doing well to get in line for our ticket to see Santa at 8:40 a.m., but we quickly learned upon arriving that a lot of people decided to camp out for their place in line. (When I say camp out, I mean, people brought in their own camp chairs so they wouldn't have to sit on the ground.) There were very few children actually in line as most people, I guess, have learned to send one parent to wait for their ticket and then go back home until it's actually time to have their kid's picture taken with Santa. I guess we now know for next year! Once the ticket line opened up, we had our number in less than 5 minutes. We were told to come back after 2:00 and that we should be able to hop right in. Our little guy had been doing great all morning, of course, until we went back to get our place in line and he had fallen asleep. When he woke up, he decided it was time to be fussy. Great timing, kiddo! Jeremy patiently waited in line, letting other families go ahead of him, while I strolled around Santa's little house trying to calm our little guy down. I am sure we will one day get the crying kid picture, but I was hoping it wouldn't be this year. Well, my wish came true...kind of. Luke did not cry when I put him in Santa's arms (success!), but he looks so confused as to why I handed him over to this man in a big red suit. I felt really selfish after we finished because this picture was definitely more about me wanting my baby's picture with Santa. I hope that Luke will enjoy getting his picture made with Santa when he gets a little older and can share his wish list.

Luke with Mom in front of one of the many trees inside of NorthPark.

Luke and Santa

Elmo photo-bombed this picture :)

Gobble! Gobble!

We had a busy Thanksgiving Day, but it was well worth the craziness to be able to spend the day with both of our families! We started the morning off by watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and getting our food ready for the TWO Thanksgiving meals we were supposed to eat. I can't wait for Luke to be old enough to watch the parade with me. This has always been one of my favorite things to do on Thanksgiving morning with my family. I hope he will enjoy it as much as I do! Sadly, I was so wrapped up in getting Luke fed and ready for the day, that I completely forgot about turning the parade on until my brother texted me to see if I was watching it. Fail! Thank goodness for DVR! 

We spent the early afternoon in Frisco with Jeremy's side of the family and then headed out to Keller to eat with my side of the family. No, we did not end up eating two meals. There was just no way that was going to happen, however, I did manage to gulp down some of my aunt Linda's stuffing. She inherited my Nana's recipe and makes it every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't know what she does to it, but it has always been my favorite! 

Mr. Luke enjoyed being played with, held, and kissed on all day by our families. We have learned that everything now revolves around him. I know we are still important, but he definitely steals the show!

Playtime after lunch

Luke was ready for dessert!

Grant, Brock, Luke, and Melissa

Katy stopped by to see Luke. We missed Keith, Jack, and Sydney! Luke can't wait to meet them, too!

Thank you, Katy, for taking our picture!

I hope you had a wonderful Turkey Day with your family!

A camping we will go...

One of our favorite things to do as a family is going camping. We try to go camping at least once or twice a year and are currently working our way through all of the state parks in Texas. One of the trips that we have taken for the past 9 years has been to go camping for our friend, Greta's, birthday. This year she chose a location close to home since our group of friends now includes some of our children, which enabled Jeremy and I to be able to join in for the day. We have never missed a trip and were glad we were able to make it out for a little while! Although we didn't stay over night in the 30 degree weather, we did make the trek to Mineral Wells State Park the weekend of October 27th to hang out with our friends, hike around the park, and gather around the campfire.

Hiking around Mineral Wells State Park. 

Luke's first hiking adventure with Dad! We decided to try out the ErgoBaby for the first time. Luke did a great job, but slept through the whole experience. Hopefully he will be awake for our next hiking adventure!

Lake Mineral Wells...views like this are what make hiking so worthwhile!

Kerbey meeting Dottie for the first time.

Hanging around the campfire with Mom. 

Happy birthday to Greta!

In order to keep up with Luke's schedule, we headed to Possum Kingdom Lake to stay at Mike and Susan's house for the night. This was Luke's first trip to PK. It seems as though he wanted to soak in every possible moment he could because he didn't sleep much that night. I don't blame him...we love PK, too!

Luke's first trip to Possum Kingdom Lake.

We can't wait to take the little guy on many more camping trips and visits to the lake as he gets a little older. I hope he will love the outdoors as much as we do!

The day our precious gift was born

It's time...
Our little guy decided he was ready to meet us one week before his predicted due date. After questioning whether or not my water had really broken at 1:30 in the morning on September 17th, we realized our little man was ready to join us. We called our parents on the way to the hospital to let them know what was going on, and, of course, my parents were ready to jump in the car and come to the hospital. We told them it could be anywhere between 12-24 hours and that we would let them know when we were getting close to meeting our son. Did they listen? Absolutely not. The nurse came in an HOUR after we had gotten into our room and said my parents were at the door wanting to come in. Jeremy and I were not surprised one bit that they were there. As much as we knew we should rest, that just didn't happen. Between the excitement that this day had arrived, nervousness about what was coming, and nurses and family coming in and out of our room all day, we did not get any sleep. It actually ended up being wonderful having our family there to help us through the day.

On our way to Labor and Delivery

Backtracking a little...
One conversation we had on the way to the hospital was regarding our baby's name. We had narrowed our choices down to Luke and Carter, but still had not decided what we were going to call our baby when he debuted. I am the planner in the family and had been trying to nail down a name for months, but someone...Jeremy...kept telling me, "He's not coming tomorrow." Well, that excuse was no longer valid, because he was coming at some point TODAY! Of course we arrived at the hospital with no decision being made, of course. I would love to blame this on Jeremy, but I am just as indecisive, even though I wanted this to have already been done. We decided we would wait until we saw our little one for the first time before we made our decision. 

Back to the story...
Jeremy and I didn't really have a plan for exactly how we wanted the delivery to go, but I was open to an epidural and was hoping to have our little guy naturally. The nurse kept checking on me to see if I was ready for the epidural, but I really wasn't in any pain, thankfully. She mentioned that the anesthesiologist had several moms ahead of me and that she was wanting to make sure I didn't get too uncomfortable before getting the epidural. Although I was feeling just fine, my contractions were supposedly getting to the point that I should have been feeling something. We decided we would go ahead and get in line for the anesthesiologist. I think this was the one thing that I worried about more than any other part of the whole delivery process and it really wasn't that bad. Once the epidural was in I really couldn't feel anything below my waist. Strangely, though, I still had a little bit of movement in my right leg and foot. What a weird feeling to see my legs lying there and to have absolutely no control over them. 

The day flew by and still no arrival of our baby boy. My doctor kept coming by every hour to check on me and see if I was dilated anymore, but the highest I had gotten by about 6:00 that night was a 3. We decided that a C-section was probably the best thing to do since so much time had already passed since I "drained my swimming pool", as Dr. Ryder put it. I honestly was not really that anxious throughout the day until I asked when we would be going in for the C-section. Right when the decision was made to go this route, our operating room was being prepped and we were on our way. The nerves started to kick in, but I really didn't have much time to think about any fears I had at this point. I remember each person in my room introducing themselves and talking me through what was going on. I really couldn't feel anything from my chest down...again...weird feeling. It didn't seem like that much time had passed when I heard my doctor say that our little man was out. I hated not being able to see him right away, but Jeremy gave me the play by play as to what they were doing with him to get him ready for the world. I remember asking him whether he looked like a Luke or a Carter, to which he responded, "He looks like a baby". You think? As soon as they got his breathing under control and the purple shade he had turned when he came out to fade, he was brought over to me so I could meet him. Again, I could not hold him, but I completely fell in love with the most handsome baby boy. We decided to call him Luke Carter Pendery once our family of three was brought together for the first time. I definitely think our little Luke looks like a Luke and I know that we made the perfect decision. The whole not having a name picked out was hard for me, but I held on to a text that my cousin's wife, Melissa, sent me. She said that God already knew his name and that that should help take away any stress I was experiencing by not having a name. Thank you, Melissa, for those words. You were so right!

Welcome to the world baby Luke!

We feel truly blessed by this little angel that God has entrusted to us. We thank everyone who came up to the hospital to meet our new addition and for those who stopped by once we got home. I am still amazed at how much joy Luke has brought into our lives and into the lives of everyone he meets.

 

Luke Carter Pendery---September 17, 2012---7:44 p.m.---7 pounds, 12 ounces

Making Memories

I've been thinking about starting a blog for awhile now and have finally had a chance to get started. My goal is to be able to record as many of our family's adventures as possible so that Luke will one day be able to look back at his childhood and share his experiences with his future family. I have always loved taking pictures and am the first to post pictures on Facebook or to e-mail them out to family and friends, but I thought this would be a fun way to capture a better look into our day to day lives. 

Bare with me as I travel back in time to share some of the experiences we have had since our little guy was born! Here we go...