We bought a house.  We move in on Thursday.  Come by and visit if you want.

Levi

Levi smiles, we really like it. Hope you like it too.

Feelings

Levi loves you.

8 weeks old

Its definitely time for a "kid update" and I've been informed of that many, many times :) Let me preface this post by saying- I have 7 weeks worth of photos here. (whoopsie!) I tried to collage as many as I could, so if anyone (particularly those who requested photos) wants a particular photo, just let me know and we'll send you a full sized version of it.

Now, let the photo attack begin!!

Mara has been very excited about her brother since long before he arrived, so he's gotten plenty of hugs and kisses.

It amazed me how similar newborns could be...but that didn't last long.

Levi doesn't sleep as well or as often as Mara did. She actually likes that a lot!!

Especially at 5 in the morning... yay, no sleeping!!

Except for during the day when it seems everyone gets to sleep except for mom. (In Ian's defense, there was a picture of me sleeping, but I refused to put it on the blog, haha!)

For Memorial day, we honored the many who died serving our country by going to the park and grilling hot dogs. Levi didn't care much, but Mara thought it was pretty awesome.

Levi also had his first snuggle from a girl. They are only a week apart in age- so adorable!

Levi started out really small...

But he quickly outgrew his receiving blankets, and his newborn sized clothes!

Needless to say, he has been an exciting addition to the family.

In Mara news: She turned two!! She thinks "icecream," "cake" and "presents" are fantastic words :)

Speaking of presents, she loved hers!

She didn't mind the cupcakes and cookies we made recently, either.

When playing she can be quite hilarious. Here she is lining up her toys on the bookshelf and using the sugar as a chair to watch sesame street. She really loves playing in the living room- especially when daddy is involved. A child sized tower? I think we should! A wooden ski turned into a race track? Why not!

She's growing up so quickly!! Officially in toddler sizes and walking in mom and dad's shoes. I remember when she was just my little baby girl...

Its been crazy around here, but we sure love it!!

A New Badge

I got a new badge at work. This is my old one.

This is my new one. It came with some other new things; like a salary, corporate card, and benefits. I like my new badge.

Baby Levi's Story

So Levi will be a week old tomorrow...allow me to enlighten you all about his appearance :)

At my 37 week appointment (on a Tuesday), the midwife informed me that I was progressing nicely and she "wouldn't be surprised if I had a baby within the week." So needless to say, as the following Monday drew to a close, I was pretty disappointed. Lucky for me, I awoke at 3 AM thinking to myself, "oh yea, this is it." I labored at home until about 6:30 when the next door neighbor (whose baby was only a week old) came over with her little family to be with Mara. I had hoped to labor in the jacuzzi tub at the hospital, but by the time I arrived at the hospital, got checked in, and had the mandatory 20 min monitoring of contractions, I was getting to the breaking point. I received my epidural around 8- remembering suddenly all of the reason why I got one last time. I took a nap, started pushing just before 11, and by 11:15 AM, I was holding my cute little boy in my arms. Waiting for that moment was the longest 8 hours of my life! (except the 23 hours it took to get Mara...)

As he was lying on my chest, the nurses were cleaning him off and chatting with me. I don't remember exactly what I was asked, but my response surprised me more than it did Ian. I said "With Mara ...(it was this way)... but with Levi ...(it was that way)." I caught myself and with bulging eyes, turned to Ian and said "I guess his name is Levi!"

We hadn't chosen a name before going to the hospital. We like to have multiple names that we like, and then after seeing the babe, we pick the one that looks right. When Mara was born, we had 5, but with Levi, we only had 3. Levi David, David Graham, and Christopher David. Ian was leaning towards Levi, and I was leaning towards Christopher.

David is a family name, courtesy of Ian's Father, and we knew we wanted to use that name somewhere since (a) we like him and (b) this is the first of his 20 grandchildren to carry on the Pierce family name.

Levi was actually put on the list before we even knew what gender Mara was. We were watching the Giro d'Italia (cycling- think Tour de France, but its in Italy) and one of the American riders Ian was rooting for was Levi Leiphemer. Ian asked how I liked the name Levi, and we joked that if it was a boy, his name would be Levi. Instead, it was a girl, so Levi was filed away until we were looking for boy names. (The funniest thing about the name Levi is that my brother and his wife also liked the name Levi. After they chose not to use it for their first son, we joked that it would be a race to see who had the next boy... I guess we won, sorry guys! Hehe)

Graham was just a name we heard in a movie, and we both liked it. Eventually though, I had a hard time thinking Graham without following it with cracker.

Christopher is Ian's middle name, so I thought it would be fun to use it to kind of chain the fathers and sons together. I wanted to avoid a name that was too popular, but when it would have significance like that, I didn't mind.

So anyway, Levi David Pierce was born at 11:12 AM on the 16th of August; weighing in at 7 lbs 9 oz, and measuring 21.5 inches long.

He's been on photo therapy since day 2, and according to the Doctor's orders, he's got to be on there 2 of every 3 hours. That basically means feeding time and then back into the lights, so hopefully today will be the last day and we'll get to snuggle him more.

Either way, we all love him!

A New Baby Bump

In case you were wondering, Christen is no longer pregnant. We are happy to introduce the newest little addition to our family. Mom and baby are both doing fine.

Levi David Pierce

born: 8/16/2011 at 11:12 am

7 lb 9 oz, 21.5 in

Mara is a proud big sister.