Feliz Cumple-Semana

Xaris is one week old today!

Where does time go?

She's been wonderful, so far we're not yet feeling too sleep-deprived because she only wakes up twice in the night.  She is full of wiggles and kicks and beautiful smiles.  

Beautiful Smiles!

I, on the other hand, am still slowly recovering.  Turns out I took quite a beating during childbirth, and had to go back to the Dr. yesterday.  Slowly but surely I'll keep getting better, but I'd rather be on my feet and enjoying walks and other fun stuff with my girl!

She's got tongue skills.

Ricardo made it through this last week, poor guy still had to work a lot because finals are next week and he's the coordinator for the math department.  He'll still work next week, but a little less each day, as finals get underway and things start winding down.  Then he's done!  He'll have small things to do each week, but will be mostly free until July 5th!  He's been wonderful at taking care of us, and I can't rave enough about how terrific he was in the hospital during labor, delivery, and recovery--he even brought me flowers in the hospital.  My hero.

Silly Daddy

Here are some more photos of our darling girl.  

Xaris at one day old.

One Week Old!

Too cute for words.

And while we're on the topic of darling girls, congrats to Judy, who delivered Nory (Eleanor Rose) in under 5 hours of labor (jealous?  Yes!)  We were both due with our girls the same week, so it is exciting that our babies are just a week apart, perhaps they are destined to be best buddies! If only Santa Barbara and Dallas were closer...Congratulations on your beautiful baby Dan and Judy!  Just in time for your first Mother's Day! 

Xaris Sofía Rodríguez

Is here!

And we're home as of 2:00pm today.  

Her details, just in case you want them...

Born at 5:16pm (official time says 5:17pm, but Ricardo says differently...and he took a picture of the clock when it happened) 

on Saturday, May 2nd, 2009.

Height: 19.2 inches

Weight: 6lbs, 15 oz.

full head of dark hair

dark blue-greyish eyes

and cute as can be!

So, here's a photo journal of what our last 50 or so hours have been like:

Trying to rest through early pain/labor/etc...

Nasty old contractions...

Baby needed some more oxygen...contractions were getting to her.

Trying to get rid of the post-delivery shakes and shivers!  And impatiently waiting to see my baby!  (They didn't just rest her on me, since they had been so concerned for her heartrate/oxygen intake...they took her immediately to work on getting the fluid out of her lungs.  So...mama had to wait.)

Beautiful at 5 minutes old.  Look at those gorgeous eyes!

I finally get to hold my baby girl!  

We are so glad that's over with!

Up to our postpartum room

Just resting.

First visitors: Stephanie, Maggie, and Lee, at 8:00pm Saturday.  

(Lee is an associate pastor at the church where I work)

Xaris' first bath...

Grandmama arrived on Sunday!  Smiles for both of them!

I LOVE this picture.

She does look sweet while smiling!

Sunday night, Xaris turns 1 day old.  

More visitors!  John, Debra, and little John Marshall DeSario.  

Thanks for Sunday dinner friends! It was delicious!

Hanging out with my girl.

Monday morning...Daddy-daughter time.

Another visitor: Katie!  

We made it home!  Xaris has been sleeping in her basket for most of the afternoon/evening now...long day, means lots of sleep. 

I don't know what it means for tonight's sleep schedule though...

Thank you all for your well-wishes and prayers!

Random news & tidbits

It's getting more and more humid in North Texas, which makes me feel more tired, heavy, cranky, etc.  

So I'm avoiding the outdoors, and staying inside in our newly serviced A/C 

(hence a random post with no real story to share)!  

I have taken some pictures with my phone over the last few days, here's what's been going on.

My last night (maybe?) at St. Luke Youth.  If baby comes, I'll not be there for a few weeks.  The next 4 wednesdays are all covered by volunteers (but if baby doesn't come yet, I'll still be there).  Russ came, brought his guitar, so we had youth worship!

They like the hand motions :)

For the last two weeks I worked on a special "daddy-to-be" gift for Ricardo.  It included a toy abacus, so he can be teaching baby her math skills from the get go (it was the only toy he wanted for her).  But I also painted a series of "math geek" onesies.  This one is my favorite.  

And the broken dreams=I was baking cupcakes yesterday and the entire rack fell out of the oven, spilling the cupcakes all over the floor and mostly inside the bottom of the still-hot oven.  It was a horrid mess to clean up, and all these sad little broken cupcakes got scorched.  

Perhaps my one instance of the pregnant clumsiness the books talk about?  

Yes We Can!

Put together a stroller, that is.

My suegro (father-in-law) is a bus driver who happened to drop off a bunch of high schoolers from El Paso at a competition in Ft. Worth this weekend.  He arrived yesterday, so Ricardo went out to pick him up last night, and he stayed the day with us today.  

Our stroller also happened to arrive today, so the guys set out to put it together!

What? I have to read instructions?

They would medal in the synchronized stroller-building event.

Ta-da!!

Ricardo and his dad

Me and my suegro

too cute

So, since so many of you are crafty and creative and do-it-yourself-ers, I thought I'd share another friends' new business blog with you.  She's just getting started, and she not only makes cute little baby and kid clothes like this:

(Sorry Sarah, I hope you don't mind that I shamelessly purloined this photo off your blog...)

But she also does some rockin' photography and interior design. So go visit and check it out for yourselves--I've started a link of my friends' businesses and art to the right of the page. 

www.sarah-ellen.com

A piece of pretty

There's not much here, but when you can find it, pretty DOES exist in places in Dallas.  

It's all human-made though (the lake, arboretum, or heavily landscaped campuses), there's no natural pretty to be found.  It takes a lot of effort to get things to grow/bloom/be pretty here.

That being said, I was on campus today, and here's a picture of where I got my master's degree:

Grass is actually green for a few weeks in Dallas, and things are blooming in the background!

All that will quickly disappear--as it is getting warmer and warmer.  Yesterday and today have been too hot, 80's -90's with more humidity than is comfortable.  It doesn't help that I have a built-in heater though.

And the deluge...

The last baby shower.

This one was all-church, and it was huge!  I was actually pretty stressed about opening all those gifts, wanting to be respectful of people who didn't want to be sitting there forever, but also giving enough time and attention to each and making sure people know how truly grateful and appreciative I am...what a challenge!

The ladies/families who hosted all went in together and got us a glider rocker!  

I love it!

Carmen and her husband recently joined the church.

She's due with a baby girl to arrive 8 weeks after ours!

Just so you can get the feel for just how BIG this shower was...

here's about half.  Maybe.  Almost. 

I got to try out the rocker...

and sit in it the whole time I opened gifts!

Ricardo was there--good thing!  He helped with the big gifts.

I can't bend down to the floor quite as easily anymore.

Showing off one (yep, we got a few) of the gorgeous homemade quilts we received.

Showing off the hat and sweater Momma B made!

That's Danielle--the youth who volunteered to be "Christmas Elf".  She stood the whole time, passing me new gifts, taking the tissue paper and trash, and keeping me informed at how I was progressing ("you haven't even started the ones on the table yet!")

Phew.  We made it!  Tired...time to go home for a nap?

Nope...I still had to lead worship and preach in 2 hours.  

We lowered the back seat of the Jeep and packed everything in.  

We (and everyone else) were shocked it all fit! 

I'm glad, though...because two trips would have seemed WAY excessive.

Spoiled baby girl!!