6 Weeks Old

Cute little Damian chatting and smiling with Ben this afternoon.

Promise... 100% Teeth Free!

I love this picture. He is so happy here. This picture makes me think he is saying something like: "See I have no teeth. No teeth on top. No teeth on bottom. 100% teeth free."

Many Faces of Damian

Damian has MANY different faces. I am still learning what some of those faces mean. But one thing for sure, is that they are rather entertaining. Today Ben was talking with him and I tried to capture some of those faces. He is becoming such a little character. I look forward to seeing him every morning and I wonder what kind of little man he is going to be. All I know right now, is that he is perfect and wonderful and such a little pleasure to have. I think that I am the luckiest momma ever! So here are some of the pictures from today.

Trust me when I say there are still many more faces that have not been captured!

Feeding Damian

Cyndi trying to feed Damian. She has about a 10 second attention span for this. I think she left and came back 2 or 3 times during his feeding. But at least she is trying. Damian was very patient with her. She would look in one direction and move her hand accidental and Damian would make little sounds to remind her that he was eating that.

Tin Foil Potatoes

Saturday's are the only real evenings we get to spend together as a family, since Ben works nights. So we usually try to have a braai. Ben has taught Cyndi how to clean, butter, season and wrap potatoes to put on the fire. Tonight I decided to document the process since little Cyndi is so good at it and I think she is feeling a little out of it since Damian gets most of the attention (he is ALWAYS wanting food). So here it goes:

Step 1:

First you wash the potatoes.

Cyndi pointing out the black spots of dirt that needed to be cleaned.

Step 2:

Dry the potatoes

Step 3:

Get Dad to fork the potatoes

Step 4:

Butter the potatoes

Step 5:

Roll buttered potatoes in garlic

Step 6:

Roll potato in tin foil

Cyndi is a champ at doing this. She gets a little upset after she has buttered the potatoes since she HATES having stuff on her hands like that.

Left Over Cake

There was left over cake from the balloon cake. So Cyndi got to ice it for Ouma. It was an egg cake, so it would not be eaten at my house. Cyndi did a great job at icing the cake until she realized that she was allowed to eat the icing. She quickly lost interest in icing the cake.

Icing the top

Icing the sides

I saved the cake and smoothed the icing evenly or else it would have been a smeared blob of icing on top and some on the sides. The Cyndi (with mom's help) wrote on the cake.

Eating the icing.

The pictures were taken on my phone that is why the quality is not great.

Balloon Cake

A lady at Ben's work ordered a cake. She wanted a balloon cake for a birthday party. I think the kid is turning 3. She wanted 3 balloons. There are 2 chocolate and 1 yellow cake, iced with vanilla buttercream.

Ames Family Sleeping

Some of the best pictures of everyone sleeping.

I love this one of little Damian. He looks like he is going to throw a football or something. Definitely going to be an little jock!

Ben was trying to get Cyndi to take a nap. Well I guess it worked a little to well.

On Sunday we were listening to conference and we noticed that Cyndi was rather quite on the floor at our feet. I think its funny. She looks she fell sleep and then fell over and that is how she landed.

Family Loves

Nap Time

My extremely cute snuggle bum!

He refused to take a nap in his crib. He loves to snuggle.

This was him waiting for me to come and snuggle with him.

Damian's Blessing Cake

This is the cake that I made for Damian's blessing. It was a coconut cake with lemon icing. It tasted rather good.

Smiles All Around

Smiling at Mommy! Love this little boy.

Chatty Damian

Little Damian is a very verbal little boy. Even when he is sleeping, he makes noises. They are so cute. I am slowly learning what a bunch of them mean, but most of them are just him making noises. We have been trying to get him on video making some noises and this is what we got. So cute!

Cute Pictures of Damian

Damian holding his first piece of mail - his social.

Whats that over there? I am so memorization by it!

Damian's Baby Blessing

Fast Sunday, August 7th, we had Damian's baby blessing. We had a great support from family and some friends. Sadly most of our friends were out of town that Sunday. All in all, it was a great day.

Everyone that was there. Sorry Charne that you are half in there and Jane was there as well - she was taking this picture.

The Priesthood who was in the circle.

Three generations of Ames.

All of us.

Almost 100 years difference here. Crazy, I know. This is Ken Forsyth. He is Ben's grandfathers older brother.

Thank you to everyone who came and supported our family on this great day, and to all of those who wanted to be there, but sadly were out of town.

Blessing Day Outfits

I made Cyndi a cute new dress and Damians blessing outfit for the blessing. I wanted Cyndi to feel special as well. I forgot to take some super cute pictures of the kids in their outfits, but here are their outfits. You can probably see more detail in them like this anyway.

Princess Cyndi got a nice royal purple bubble dress. There is tulle inside to give it some more poof.

Prince Damian got a nice shiny 3 piece white outfit. The pattern was about 12 million time to big - even though it said it was a newborn size. Ben helped me scale it down to a more appropriate size.

Up close on the vest. I 'detailed' it with a light blue thread. It looked really good and unless you were looking very close, you would never really know that it was light blue.

Both my little sweethearts looks like a million bucks that day.

1 Month and Recovery

So I can't believe that this month has gone by so quickly. My little boy is already 1 month old. My oh my how quickly time does fly. On Friday we had little Damian's 1 month check up. He is 8lbs 11oz. Technically he has put on 1lb 6oz, but I like to say he put on 2lbs. When he was in the hospital he dropped down to 6lbs 110z, thus putting on 2lbs. He is a very good little eater, but sleeping could use some work. He can sleep for a good 4-5 hour stretch - if he wants to. Usually that stretch is from around 2pm-ish to 6pm-ish. Then again from 10pm-ish to around 3am-ish. He does not want to go back to sleep at 3am though. But all in all, he is fabulous and I want to keep him forever and ever!

Recovery has been easy and hard at the same time. Easy since I kind of know what to expect and hard because well, it was major abdominal surgery (as my dr and every other medical professional keeps telling me). Like everything there has been good days and bad days. And as I near the end of the 6 week recovery phase, there are more good days than bad. At the beginning I had about 7 different pills that I was taking for one thing or another, so I am not glad to say that I am back to my regular 3 plus one more. My doctor said that I lost more blood than expected during the c-section and then my hemoglobin levels were low already. I am now on iron pills to bring my hemoglobin levels back up.

My dad has been saying with us for the past few weeks. It has been great to have him around. He helps out a lot by playing with Cyndi or cuddling with Damian. It gives me a moment to do something other than feed Damian and chase Cyndi around.

We also had Damian's baby blessing at the beginning of August. More on that in a different post though.

Here are a bunch of pictures, in no order, of Damian in the past month:

Ben burping Damian in the middle of his feeding - he was not happy. He was chomping on his binki.

I love this picture. We have an ultrasound picture of him like this, so it is cool to see him do it out of my tummy.

Being silly at bath time. He loves his hair being washed, but as for the rest of him - its touch and go.

My cute little mole.

He loves to sleep on his tummy. So when he gets the opportunity - usually when he is on someone he is so cute!

More cute sleeping, this time on me.

We had out first official blowout. This one was awesome. He was sleeping on me and I got up to do something and when I moved the pillow out from under him, it was orange. My hand was already under his bum so I got a little worried. I cautiously took him to his change around and put him down. The picture above is what I found on him. I checked myself up and down and there was nothing on me. Not even my hand. Expecting to find a big mess in his diaper I was surprised to find there was NOTHING in his diaper. He is a talented little boy, that is for sure.

Damian tolerates his binki. He will only suck on it if you hold it in his mouth and then just before he falls asleep he will spit it out.

Snuggles with Oupa.

Bonding time with Oupa

Cyndi and Damian - she can be gentle sometimes.

Snuggled in Dad's arms. I love the way he is sleeping in the picture.