Newborn Heaven Photo Dump

^^Off to a great, highly photogenic start with this first picture as a family of 4!

It's been a pretty great first week home with our Alice girl! (I have a couple great nicknames in mind but I'm waiting to get to know her personality better to see if one of them will stick.) My parents flew in on Sunday morning and were able to stay a little over a week. This was a godsend. Made for the best first-week-home ever. Jack, having been an only child up until this point, was craving attention, and boy did my parents deliver. My dad must have played 4,000 rounds of tag, checkers, and chess. And he was actually successful in teaching Jack the rules and now Jack is like, actually pretty good chess competition? My mom also must've played 4,000 games with Jack. It was wonderful and much needed to be able to spend most of the week resting, recovering, and snuggling my newborn. Mom also cooked all the meals all week, and wow, *chef's kiss*. She outdid herself. She even made us a chicken pot pie from scratch to throw in the oven after they had gone home. An earth angel, that mom of mine. My dad too--they were both so cute and amazing at getting Alice to sleep. Also Dad glued our crib back together. Jack was pretty rough on it his last few months in the crib and a few of the spindles came loose. It remains to be seen if it will be sturdy enough to hold Alice. If not we'll get a new one but I think it's going to do fine. 

Alright, there are too many photos from our week to organize them into chronological order, so I'll just kind of bounce around and caption as I go:

^^Snapped a few sleepy newborn pics during a nap. Was going for fall vibes, but I think this color combo ended up Christmas vibes. Not mad about it. 

 ^^Mom and Dad's last night with us. We had a pizza party and watched a movie, and Jack was pretty sad going to bed knowing Grandma and Grandpa would be going home. His last request of the night was a picture of all of us together on the couch. Savvy was required to participate too haha.

^^I somehow had it in me to join the family for an afternoon at a beach on the Sound. I'm definitely not feeling comfortable recovery-wise these days, but holy cow. It's been miles better than my recovery with Jack. With Jack I needed to be bedridden and on Percocet for quite a while, and even that didn't control the pain very well. This time around I'm mostly doing ok on just Ibuprofen and Tylenol. Incredible. Maybe I'll be fully recovered within 3 months instead of a year?? Feeling cautiously optimistic.

^^At the end of our beach day, an ice cream truck drove by and my dad introduced Jack to the magic within. This is a great time of year for Jack to learn about ice cream trucks, since the season's about over. Of all the dozens of colorful character ice creams, Jack chose a plain vanilla ice cream bar with a chocolate shell lol. He had no regrets, especially not as he took bites out of everyone else's ice cream bars as well. 

^^A quintessential PNW beach. Rocky shores, tall trees off in the distance, and tons of driftwood piled everywhere. 

^^Jack making "boats" from the driftwood.

^^Jack's very first time holding baby Alice! My heart melted. Look at that proud big brother smile! I was so glad my mom suggested and that he was excited to hold her. On our first day back home he was still apprehensive and I didn't want to push it. But this was day 2 and he was feeling a lot more excited about baby. So far he's handling everything like a champ! It's going to be tough when I'm the only adult at home and he has to entertain himself more often, but it will be good for him. And for now he's so excited to come see her first thing in the morning and kiss her goodbye on his way off to preschool. I love how he always greets her with, "Hi, babyyyyy!" and asks me, "Isn't baby Alice so cute?" 

^^lol. I think I have a similar picture of baby Jack as a grumpy little lamb.

^^Nursing leggies. Breastfeeding has also been a much improved experience this time around compared to last time. Alice has never had trouble with latching and between her big appetite and my silicone Haakaa, my milk supply is better now at one week postpartum than it EVER got with Jack. Feeling very grateful for that, even though we're still very much in the ouchie phase of nursing. 

^^Tired but feeling happier than I thought could be possible at 4 days postpartum, so I had to capture this moment in the sunshine on our back patio, sitting with surprisingly little pain and eating a blackberry pie fresh out of the oven, made by my mother from berries they picked just up the road from our house. Long live blackberry season. Long live September! (Now that we've got the childbirth part out of the way.) Oh also, next time you're gonna have a baby, get yourself a cheap zip-up dress/robe from Amazon. The actual only thing I want to wear postpartum. With Jack I legitimately nearly passed out trying to get dressed in my going home outfit of jeans and a sweater. Had to lay down with my legs elevated for an hour after that before they'd discharge me. This time I went with the zip-up robe option. 

Took Jack to get his soccer pictures! Regretted it big time within 20 minutes. Ended up standing in a line for an hour and the pain was rough. Jared got done with work in time to show up and play soccer with Jack a little bit at the end. He went to work all this last week since my parents were here, but he's using his vacation days to take the rest of this week and next week off! Very happy about and grateful for this setup. I should be feeling more like myself and more able to do preschool drop offs by the end of next week. 

^^No we did not go to church yesterday. Yes we did wear dresses. Pants 4never.

^^Um??? Excuse me with this dimple??

^^I want this nap for myself every day forever. Mostly she sleeps in a bassinet by our bed (and she's only been waking up once or twice a night! I'm shook!!), but this morning she fell asleep nursing in my bed and she looked too cozy not to snap a pic. 

And last but CERTAINLY not least . . . at our first car dealership ever, test driving our first family car ever! We've spent the last decade grateful to have no car payments, driving Jared's 16-year-old Honda Accord and my grandmother's 26-year-old Honda Accord we bought cheap off my brother. They have served us very well and gotten us around, but the 16-year-old Honda is having transmission issues and the 26-year-old Honda is starting to randomly die in the middle of the road more and more often, so it's only a matter of time. When Jared installed two carseats in the back of our car and then tried to figure out a way to pick up my parents from the airport, a switch flipped for him and now we're in the active car-hunting process. I've been researching cars all year to narrow it down to a few good options for our family, knowing we'd be at this point pretty soon. And here we are--it's wild! Mostly I was shocked that my body was able to go car shopping at less than 2 weeks postpartum. That's my biggest celebration here haha. 

Our top choice right now is a Palisade SE or SEL. It is not a great time to be car shopping, but honestly who knows if/when it will get better. Used cars are often just as expensive as new cars and don't come with warranties, so we're wincing at the sticker shock and figuring it out. We decided to look at mid-size SUVs with a third row that could easily be folded down and used as cargo space most of the time, but then popped up when carpooling or driving with grandma and grandpa. Wanted something that could handle snow well and potentially tow a small camper someday in the distant future. We LOVED the Palisade we test drove. It also consistently ranks in the top 3 for mid-size SUVs and is a great value in its category. At this point probably the only decision left is if we want to stick with the basic model and have cloth seats, or go a level up so we can have leather. My only hesitation is that their "leather" is called "H-Tex Leatherette" and the research I'm doing indicates that it might scratch/flake off easily. In which case, as much as we'd prefer to have leather with kids, we might choose to go with the base model and cloth seats. Someone persuade me one way or the other. Anyone out there have Palisade and love/hate it? Or anyone out there with a Hyundai that has H-Tex seats and can vouch for how it does or doesn't hold up? Let me know!