welcome to the world baby van!!

Thursday we went to the hospital at around 6 am to bring baby van into the world..

much like his brother, he has a flare for drama and didn't come into the world in a well-behaved manor. he chose to come in blue and breathless, actually needing to be breathed for with a bag until he decided he was done messing with us.. right when the pediatrician came in to intervene, he cried and pinked up! fortunately for us, we had seen this trick by his older brother so we were pretty calm about it, relatively speaking.

daddy was thrilled with our new fat addition! 8 lbs 11 oz at 11:54 AM.. he was 20 1/2 inches long.

after a good scrub over my pal looked much more handsome.

van's first girl catcher hair-do!!

nana thought her new pal was pretty sweet too..

and cope was pretty indifferent!









but did manage to borrow mom's camera and do some photography of his own.

we had to give cope mom's camera game to get him in the bed so we could take a picture together.. let's just say he was NOT interested in family photos..

my sweet pal was quite a snuzzler and we got to take him home the next day after his circumcision..

what a great early christmas gift! we are so lucky and blessed to have this healthy, sweet baby.

thanksgiving!

thanksgiving was fun at the madray house. we missed being with family since mama can't fly, but spent the day with our friends the burys. cope got to play with his good pal joe, which he enjoyed, and of course we ate too much!! cope did bring home a nifty hat from ms. tara's house that he wore to the grocery store to the tune of many compliments from the shoppers..

he also got to play with daddy's deer that he killed and thought that was pretty cool
when it came time to do the christmas decorating, my pal was NOT a very useful engine. he kept tearing off my fake candy canes and trying to eat them, relocating the rest of the ornaments, "mommy put it on the top" and breaking the ones we left on the bottom. he also kept collecting a deck of cards and throwing them at the tree.. i guess that is his creative contribution... and of course he had to get down and see what dad was doing when he added the water.. what a helper!!

my sweet pal is growing up too quickly!! it is so fun to watch him experiment and learn, though.. he really is the the love of my life.. they say your heart grows big enough for a second but i have to wait to see that before i believe it. i guess we'll find out soon enough.. we have so many things to be thankful for!

2 weeks til baby...

as it gets closer to baby time, my pal and his dad have been hanging out together having boy time a good bit..

daddy and cope taking a family nap (i started on the couch next to cope but the baby takes up too much room so i had to relocate to the bedroom!)
cope and his new favorite toy..

"daddy you want to play cars?? i love to play cars!"

when we couldn't find my little buddy the other night at 10 pm but could hear him snoring.. we ultimately found him under his bed!! we had to literally move the bed to get him out from under there and put him to sleep..

and of course cope and dad spend a lot of time outdoors together.. they definitely have that in common.

my pal has also been practicing his sharing and friendship skills.. here he is at a party with his pal chloe and his treats that he has grown to love (another trait he picked up from dad).. he actually picked up a cupcake off the ground (footprint and all) and started chowing down before we got it out of his hands!

spooky halloween

so we started off our halloween festivities by attending the georgetown parks and rec halloween carnival, which cope found to be fantastic.. not only did he get a sucker (his favorite food), but there were balls involved! he also got to stay up way past his bedtime because mommy dropped the truck keys in a field.. we were eventually reunited with them, but it was a longer trek than planned. then on friday my pal had his halloween party at ms. tara's house. he wore his handy manny costume but still didn't really "get it".. he sure loved the cupcakes, though!
















































by the time the "real deal" got her on sunday night, my pal had become well-versed in trick or treating, courtesy of the dora halloween special which played non-stop on our DVR for the last week. we went to the carsons' house and cope's pals evan and chloe (thing 1 and thing 2), weston (the fonz), and fat baby tyler (the green monster who is 12 months old and weighs just a pound or 2 shy of cope's weight), were out in full force!

my buddy loved all the spooky decorations in the neighborhood and ran (leading the pack) from house to house.
my pal got to eat one small bag of m&m's and then became the neighborhood start by handing out candy, 2 huge handfuls at a time, to all of the stragglers at ms. chelcy's house. he had a ball and we did too!

fall!

so we went to marble falls and visited the pumpkin patch last weekend. my pal found the goats to be the most exciting thing there. he was a little tentative at first (or maybe dad was just worried he'd get his short baby fingers chewed off)

he latched on to a little yellow/white pumpkin and that was the one we took home for him.

my handsome little fella! we had quite the time until he pooped his pants and we realized we didn't have wipes. so our visit was somewhat shortlived but still fun.. a little trip to HEB for wipes, some clean britches and one thomas and elmo potty movie later, we were home and my buddy had a good nap.