Guy Smiley

William has been smiling in his sleep since he was about two weeks old. The first time I saw him smile I thought my heart was going to melt right out of my chest.

Lately this is our favorite game to play with Will, as it usually elicits a great big smile. What to Expect says babies start smiling socially around 6 weeks, so that's what I'm hoping these adorable grins are!



Guy Smiley. 12.31.12 from Sandra Butler on Vimeo.

Christmas 2012

Gifts from William

William was a busy little elf and made quite a few presents this year! Not bad for a five week old :)

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas, and we wish you a fantastic New Year, too! 2012 was pretty great, let's see what 2013 has in store.

Love, The Butlers

It's Almost Time!

Holy moly, I did it. I wrapped my Christmas presents. William was fairly cooperative and I got them all done! They aren't under a tree, but sitting on an ottoman. Hey, small victories.

Now that I have my presents wrapped, I'm starting to get really excited about Christmas - I guess it's about time!

Wrapping my Christmas gifts is the first "Christmasy" thing I've done this year, outside of listen to Christmas carols here and there. Well, I did help decorate the tree at my mom's house, and I hit up the tree lighting in Detroit before Will was born, but the tree lighting was in November so it doesn't feel like it counts. Normally by now I would have my whole house decorated, I would have made five trillion Christmas cookies and a pie to boot and I would have hit up all the fun, festive midnight holiday shopping nights in Ann Arbor and Detroit. I guess something has been keeping me a bit preoccupied this December :)

What traditions do you have that get you in the Christmas spirit? I'm can't wait until Will is big enough to help out with our family traditions and to also create new traditions involving him!

You've Got the Sweetest Little Baby Face

Papa

Mama

 

Baby

Could it be any more apparent that this kid is ours? :)

One Month!

 My sweet little boy is a month old today. How is this possible? How is he already "old news"? (not in my book, but I'm sure there are some Facebook friends out there who are already sick of hearing about every little thing this baby does :)

I still haven't even healed from all my "battle wounds" yet, which is probably why William still feels so incredibly new. Well, that and the fact that everything he does is absolutely fantastic and amazing to me. My friends who are parents assured me I would feel so fascinated by this kid, and I didn't believe them. I have been proven wrong!

I'll admit, this past month has been a blur of diapers, feedings and waking at all hours of the night. I can barely remember the first week of his life. This little man has wrecked my internal clock and I'm becoming quite the night owl - which leads to me sleeping all morning.... I'm just sleeping when baby sleeps :) But honestly, this first month has not been as bad as I thought it would be. There have been some tears (from Will as well as myself :) and some moments of "Oh my gosh... what have I done? Why did I ever think I should have a baby?" But for the most part, I've just loved snuggling and loving on this boy and getting to know his fantastic self!

William already looks so much bigger to me than he did when he was first born. His head is rounder and his skin has mostly cleared up. His face is bigger and his features are starting to become more proportionality positioned on his face. He's also getting more hair on the top of his head (have to even out that mullet we've got going on... :) I also cannot get over all the sounds this kid makes! He grunts and growls like a little dinosaur when he's hungry or fussy (he rarely cries!) and when he's content or sleepy he makes the sweetest little breathy cooing sounds, it just melts my heart.

I'm planning on taking a picture of William in this chair each month. Getting a decent picture of a newborn in a chair is kind of hard to do...

This is the outfit Will came home from the hospital in. Look how he's grown! I can't even handle it.

William celebrated his one month birthday by getting his Pavlik Harness for his hip dysplasia, boo! After reading parent comments on a bunch of message boards, I had myself all worked up over how terrible this brace was going to be. Of course I take everything from message boards with a grain of salt, but we really got fortunate with our situation. Everything I've been worried about has pretty much been resolved. It seems that most orthopedic surgeons want the baby to wear the harness 24/7 for the first 12 weeks and the harness cannot be taken off for anything - not changing clothes, not baths, nothing. Our orthopedic surgeon said we can take the harness off him every day to dress him (meaning he can wear clothes over or under the brace!), he will still be able to wear quite a few of the outfits he already has, he still fits in his car seat, we can take the brace off to bathe him and we can still swaddle him (thank goodness! This kid loves his swaddle!). Most importantly, the brace isn't as intrusive as it looks and I can still get plenty of snuggles from my little man. :) Will has an appointment in February to have another ultrasound done on his hips, keeping our fingers crossed it all looks good and maybe he'll get let out of this thing early!

There are straps that go from the strap around his chest down to his ankles to those bootie things on his feet. The straps from the chest tighten to keep his hips in that double "Captain Morgan" position. Will kind of looks like he's ready to do the Gangam Style dance... :)

That's pretty much all that's going on at the Butler house right now. I'm trying to find time to wrap my Christmas presents, if you end up getting a gift from me that is in a plastic bag instead of some sort of wrapping, don't be offended. :)

Baby B's Room - The Finished Product! (Mostly)

I guess it's about time I shared some pics of Will's room. I yacked your ear off about his room for the past 6 months or so, I should share the end result :)

I wanted to wait until his room was "finished" before I shared pictures - pictures on the wall, a few more decorative touches - but since little man surprised us a few weeks early, and I'm busier now than I've ever been in my life, I have a feeling it's going to be a very long time before his room is actually up to my standards of being finished. (P.S. This kid sleeps all the darn time, how and I still so incredibly busy??? Having a newborn isn't all sitting around drinking coffee and baking cookies, ya know? :)

So here we go. May I add that my husband worked his butt off on this room and had to deal with an incredibly pregnant/irrational me while doing so. For example: "There is a scuff on that wall over there! The whole room is ruined! You need to repaint the entire room!" then, two hours later after my wave of pregnancy hormones had subsided for the time being, I would regain my senses and realize how cute the room actually was. This went on for literally my entire pregnancy. My husband deserves some kind of trophy or something for putting up with me.

 Ta-da! Will's room. We love it a lot. Please also take a second to look at the before picture of this room. The transformation is pretty amazing, especially considering that Dave and I procrastinate on pretty much everything.

I feel like the shelves in his room look pretty cluttered right now, but once I actually get some things hung on the wall, it will even things out a bit.

And of course, a picture of William! Look at him hanging out in his crib like a big kid so his mama could take these pictures!

In other news, William had an ultrasound on his hips today. His right hip has taken care of itself quite nicely, but the left is still dislocated and clicking and other such business - boo! We have an appointment with his orthopedic surgeon next week, and it's looking like he will have to wear a brace for a bit. I'm disappointed, but grateful this was all caught early and can be taken care of quickly before his bones ossify. The device William will actually be wearing is called a Pavlik Harness, it looks like this, and I hate it. But we're going to call it a brace, because a harness sounds like Will is a dog or we're going to be hanging him from a trapeze or something, you know?

That's all that's going on around here right now. A lot of the time I just have a date with the TV when I'm not taking care of the endless diapers and laundry and bottles and nursing and what not. Hopefully I'll have some (somewhat interesting) things to post about soon! :)

Life is Good

Baby B has Arrived!

I can't believe it has taken me this long to write this post. I mean, the main event has finally happened and I don't even post about it for 10 days. I guess having a newborn is a much busier time than I thought it would be :)

Baby B's name is William Michael Butler. He joined our family on 11/18/12 at 12pm. Exactly 19" and exactly 7lbs (he's so precise :). William was my grandpa's name and Michael is Dave's middle name as well as his dad's name.

Baby Will surprised us and showed up a whole two weeks early, luckily I just gone shopping at Babies R Us the day before and got some last minute baby necessities. I just had a feeling Will was going to surprise us that weekend, that Saturday I had even said to Dave "I feel weird, if I go into labor you can come home from work, right?" (Dave is a paramedic and on the road during his entire shift, he doesn't just work for some insensitive employer who wouldn't let him leave :). The last couple weeks of my pregnancy I was absolutely miserable, I was in so much physical discomfort and all I wanted was to get that baby out! But when William came early and my pregnancy ended before I thought it would, I actually went through a period of being really sad about not being pregnant anymore and not having William snuggled inside me all the time. Of course that passed after a day or two and I am so glad that this little man is in our lives! He was the best early Christmas gift I've ever received :)

William ended up being breach, so we had a c-section. I really wanted to try and get him to turn over, but my water had already broken by the time we found out he was breach, so it would have been too risky. I was pretty bummed about that turn of events, but I'm healing up well and things are going pretty well for Will. He does have hip dysplasia from being in the breach position and might end up in a brace for a little bit. The thought of him in a brace breaks my heart, but it's much better than him having surgery!

The picture on the bottom left is Dave's friend Keith and his 2 week old daughter Claire. Dave was excited for Will to meet his future girl :)

This past week or so at home with Will has been great. Dave was home with us for the week which was amazing, I really don't think I could have pulled off the first week without him, especially since Dave is working nights right now and William definitely wants to eat all night! Dave has been such a huge help with William and really jumped right into the role of being a dad, he's a complete natural!

We are so in love with our little baby boy, I get all teary eyed when I look at him and think about the fact that this is the only time he'll ever be this little. I want to video tape every minute of his life so I can hang on to how small, snuggly and perfect he is. I love just sitting and watching him sleep, or in the rare moments he's wide awake I love all the adorable coos, grunts, growls and "baby dinosaur" noises he makes. He also has the best facial expressions and has already let out a giggle one day when a gas bubble popped in his tummy :)

As of right now, being a mom is a bit harder, but also quite a bit easier than I imagined it would be. I'm looking forward to the day when this feels like I know how to handle most situations this baby throws my way instead of thinking out every move and planning our entire day around when Will may want to eat. I'm pretty sure the first time I take Will out on my own is going to be absolutely terrifying, but I'm up for the challenge! Dave goes back to work tonight and I have to admit that I'm pretty scared, even though I have a degree in child development and I have quite a bit of experience with infants under my belt, a lot of this feels so new to me! I feel lucky to have so many friends and family close by who have offered their support to us, it feels good knowing I have a back up in case I'm about to lose my mind at 3 am and Dave is at work, I give so much credit to those who have babies with no family around to help!

From here on out you can pretty much expect my blog to be filled with pictures of William, we're kind of obsessed with this guy :)

Baby Shower #2

Last weekend my friend SiRui threw a baby shower for all my friends. She absolutely went to town on this shower and I can't even imagine how much planning went into it! I kind of failed at taking pictures of this event (thanks to my friend Katie for snapping some pictures! :) But let me tell you, there was some amazing goodness happening. There was chocolate fondue with all sorts of delish dippers (just imagine everything you might want to dip into chocolate, including potato chips), mini hot dogs wrapped in bacon and an array of drool-worthy, yummy dips!

I was so excited to have all my friends in one place showering Baby and I will warm wishes and some fantastic new mom advice. I love having so many friends who are moms and can tell me all the nitty-gritty secrets about having a baby and being a mom.

The game in the top picture is pin the sperm on the uterus :)

  What's a shower without some super awesome surprises?: 1. SiRui planned onesie tie-dying, and she even got onesies in all different sizes up to 24 months, so baby can rock the tie dye for years (Voldy had to be involved in the picture taking :). That picture is just a very small sample of all the onesies created! | 2. My sister-in-law, Heather made us a photo collage of baby pictures of Dave and I... how much did I cry when I opened this? So much. | 3. SiRui also planned an adorable canvas on which everyone wrote wishes for Baby and our family. The finished product is so cute! | 4. My friend Dawn does wood burnings and made these super cute wood burnings for the baby's room, I can't wait to hang them up! Look at that sheep. | 5. Back in August my friends and I went to Alpena, and while in an antique store I fell in love with the vintage baby quilt above. Those sneaky friends of mine totally distracted me and bought the quilt while we were there! I love them :)

Today my wonderful mother and sister-in-laws threw us shower #3... it may be another week before I get the pictures up since being 37 weeks pregnant makes me so tired I never want to move again, but I'll try to be a little more ambitious about it :)

Also, a great big congratulations to our friends Keith and Emily on the birth of their second daughter, Claire! She was born on 11/6/12 and I can't wait to meet that little lady! (Dave and Keith have been friends since they were 8 years old, Dave has already decided that if Baby B is a boy, he and baby Claire will be getting hitched in the future. Watch out Claire! :)

An Apple Pie is Born

Finally! Happy fall! :)

Baby Shower #1

Yes... I'm getting more than one baby shower. I'm well aware of how lucky/spoiled I am and Dave and I feel so grateful to have so many friends and family who want to help welcome little B into our lives!

Last weekend my mom, sister and aunts threw us a wonderful shower. It was so nice to see all of my family and see how excited and loving everyone is about this baby already!

 My sister had a super cute and fun idea - everyone wrote a note to the Baby or our family on note cards shaped like baby items. Now we have lots of warm wishes for us and the baby! Also, please take a second to look at that adorable cake. How cute is that???

 While we loved and were so grateful for everything we received, we did get a few extra special surprises as well:

1. A bunting knit by Dave's grandma when he was a newborn, Dave came home from the hospital in it! | 2. An adorable teddy bear and matching blanket, also knit by Dave's grandma | 3. A diaper cake made by my cousin for my mom's shower when I was a baby | 4. My very first toy when I was a baby, given to me by my daddy (insert "awww" here) | 5. A gorgeous blanket crocheted by my aunt and a Velveteen Rabbit  from my God Daughter. 

Today I had my second baby shower thrown by amazing friend SiRui. The shower was so much fun and it was great to see all of my friends! Pictures coming soon :)

Life is Good

1. D-Town sunset on Woodward | 2. Cute centerpieces from my baby shower (more pictures coming soon!) | 3. Photographer Dave | 4. Mmmmm..... pie | 5. Shadow baby bump :) | 6. Yummy lunch at Crane's in the City - if you are in Holland, go there. It's amazing. | 7. I feel like fall came so early and it's already leaving, you know? | 8. West coast sunset on Lake MI

Camping!

This weekend Dave and I went out to Holly, MI for our last campout of the year. I'm always a little sad for the very last camping trip, but I looove this trip so much as fall weather is pretty much the best.

The Halloween campout is with my mom's family, and every year we do all sorts of fall/Halloweeney things like a chili cook-off, sometimes we carve pumpkins, we have delicious warm drinks and a costume contest! Most campgrounds have a costume contest for their Halloween campout and we tend to win group contest a lot, I think it's just because there are so many of us and there's power in numbers, you know?

My sister came up with the good idea of Pacman and ghosts for our costumes this year. I had made a joke that I was the right shape for Mrs. Pacman... and won myself that costume. Of course this meant Dave had to Mr. Pacman, which he wasn't all that thrilled about. (he tends to opt out of the costume contest :) If he knew I was posting these pictures, he might be kind of ticked.... but I'd rather ask for forgiveness than permission. :)

My aunts, sister, cousins and mom worked so hard on these costumes, they turned out really great! We won group contest and the grand prize was.... a variety pack of carabiners! Woo hoo! Honestly, the weirdest prize ever, but it's not about the prize :)

What are you (or your cutie patootie kids) being for Halloween this year?

I love my family :)

Cutest couple on the block... totally

Craft #2

Two completed crafts in a month? Whaaaaat? Yes, it's true. This one took be a bit of time to complete, but mostly because I'm a procrastinator, I could have actually busted this out in a weekend if I would have just buckled down.

Since I started planning the baby's room, I've been kind of obsessed with what mobile I was going to put up. I'm not sure why this was so heavily in the front of my mind, but I think it may have been because I knew I didn't want a traditional mobile. I wanted something above the baby's crib for it to look at, but I also knew I didn't want a plastic noisemaker with smiling animals and flashing lights......

 

case in point.... *shudder*

Where is a girl to turn when she wants something that can't be found in stores? Etsy of course, but its seems that every cute mobile on that site cost at least $50, which I also really wasn't down for. So all my hunting around the internet lead me to find these cutie things, which inspired the mobile I made:

These mobiles were found here, here and here.

I'm pretty darn pleased with the way this mobile turned out. I think it goes well with the "feel" I have going on in the baby's room, I made it myself - which always feels good, and it will offer some contrast and visual interest for Baby to look at. 

I'm not going to lie, this thing was kind of a pain in the butt to make, but mostly because it was messy and involved a lot of steps. Once I got into the swing of things I actually got it done pretty quickly, and I think I would make one of these again. :)

Sunday Funday

I still have a mile long to-do list for all the preparations we need to make before B arrives. Do you think I did any of those things this weekend? No! But it was such a nice, relaxing weekend I can forgive myself :)

What did I do on this blissful Sunday, you ask yourself...

I joined the rest of the United States and read "The Help" (I may have just started reading it Friday night...). This book was so good! I've read so many books lately on how to be pregnant like a rockstar, how to give birth like a rockstar, how to get your baby to sleep like a rockstar... I just can't handle all that baby/pregnancy business anymore, I needed to read a "real" book.

I started this book knowing nothing about the plot other than it gave the perspective of African American house maids in the '60's, that is literally all I knew about it other than everyone was flipping their lids over it. I think I might have been the only person left who didn't know anything about this book, and IMDB just confirmed that there was a movie made of this book.... last year... so I'm not going to get into the plot here, but read it!

What else did I do?

I bought some pumpkins for my yard (even got one for the baby :), picked a whole pile of mostly green tomatoes - I need to find something to do with those bad boys, ate a yummy pot pie and finally went to the orchard for apples and cinnamon doughnuts. Oh there will be pies... and applesauce.... and it will be amazing!

Also, what is up with this weather, Michigan??? It was a solid 68 degrees all day. Last week it frosted just about every day, we turned on the heat, my tomato plants are so dead (hence all the green tomatoes I picked), I had to scrape my car windows every morning, now it's time for late summer temperatures again?

Due to this crazy (but I guess not that surprising) weather there was a thunder storm near my house last night, after the first clap of thunder rolled through I went outside because I thought an explosion had happened. In my brain an explosion was more likely in mid-October than a thunderstorm, and that was the first logical conclusion it jumped to. (Also, this could just be crazy pregnancy brain, but we'll chalk it up to the weather being crazy and not me :)

Travelin'

For our anniversary, last weekend Dave and I headed out to the west coast (of Michigan....). I love lake Michigan this time of year - colorful trees, crisp air, usually good temperatures and all the towns are far less crowded than the summer. We spent the weekend hanging out in Holland, Saugatuck and Grand Rapids, which are all kind of in the general area of right here:

The weather was a bit cold and cloudy, but overall still really great. Holland and Saugatuck were their usual adorable, kitchy, quaint selves. I had never spent much time in Grand Rapids.... but it was kind of weird. I mean, we only spent a few hours there trolling around the downtown area, so maybe we were missing out on the awesomeness that is Grand Rapids, but it was kind of like Detroit had a baby with Ann Arbor or Royal Oak - it wanted so badly to be this cool, artsy downtown.... but something was just missing. If you have suggestions on things not to miss/do in Grand Rapids, let me know! I don't want to write off that city so soon. :)

It was a great weekend full of lots of good food and good beer (good beer for Dave... never hit up areas known for their good beer when you're pregnant, so terrible :)

Dave became quite the little shutterbug on this trip, which I loved! Between the two of us we took around 300 pics, so here are just a handful:

 There were cool sculptures everywhere you looked, I loved it!

 We're kind of a big deal around here...

 Freezing my tush off on the beach! The rest of the trip was not this cold or windy :)

 My favorite picture Dave took :)

 All those steps + being out of shape + being almost 8 months pregnant = holy moly

 We hiked this big trail through the woods that spit us out in Holland State Park. This adorable jack-o-lantern was left over from their Halloween campout, I just loved it! Some kid worked really hard on this :)

 Shadowy fun :)

 Grand Rapids was wrapping up Art Prize 2012, so we got to see some of the exhibits left. These flowers were all made of pop bottles! "Floral Flourish"

This is a bronze (?) looking sculpture of a man hanging from a wire, suspended between two buildings. Definitely caught my eye and surprised me! The name of the piece is "Gravity Matters Little".

 "Atmosphere", a collection of iPhone pictures of the sky and clouds. The overall effect of this was really stunning.