This is the life...

Well, one day this week I kept an eye on Blake for a few hours while i was working and Abby and her family went to spend some time mini-golfing. He was pretty easy going and pretty much slept the entire time (good b/c i was trying to get a few things done for work)...at one point i looked over to make sure he was doing alright and he had got himself into this comfortable situation...hat down over his eyes, arms down his sleeves. Pretty funny. I had to take a picture 'cause i just thought it looked like the good life. Make yourself comfortable, wrapped up in a blanket, not too shabby. There's another pic like this in the album if you take a look.



This week was nice. We had Abby's family here part of the week and had a really nice time with them. We got out and did some fishing (and Brandi pretty much crushed us...caught like 6 fish while i only caught 1)...that was a nice relaxing afternoon. We ventured out to breakfast one morning and attempted taking Blake out. All went well and he enjoyed the change in scenery. Otherwise we got some good relaxing it and have a good time hanging out with all of them.

Check out this picture of this proud grandma (nanna) and grandpa (papa)...



More Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jasen.bankson/BlakeMichael

Bonding

It's been a nice relaxing weekend with the Burns family in town. We've been enjoying time with family and just taking it easy. We got a little fishing in, although Blake didn't get to go this time :-) Kona seems to be taking a new interest in Blake, especially today, as she is starting to realize he's probably going to be around for a while. She snuggled up next to him tonight and fell asleep on his lap.

Otherwise Blake has been doing well. He sleeps about 4 hours at a time at night, which is pretty managable, and we were able to take him out a few times this weekend to a soccer game and then for a couple walks. He's pretty easy to take out...he usually just sleeps. Everybody says to enjoy that because it won't be long and he won't want to sleep anymore...well i still like to sleep, so maybe we'll get lucky and he'll have my genes and be a sleeper. Guess we'll find out.

a few more pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jasen.bankson/BlakeMichael

A few days after...

Well, it's been a couple days now and things are going well. He is still waking up about 4 times a night to eat, but otherwise he is pretty easy going. A lot of sleeping, eating and pooping. It sure is fun to just watch though and wonder what he is thinking sometimes as they look around and take in the new surroundings.

We took him on his first walk around the neighborhood yesterday and he seemed to like it a lot...he slept the whole time :-) Guess we'll keep that in mind when we can't get him to fall asleep.

We posted a few more pictures for you to check out.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jasen.bankson/BlakeMichael

Going Home!

Today we headed home from the hospital. It was a good stay and we got good treatment and A LOT of advice from the hospital staff. It was a good experience overall. But, we were ready to head home and have a little more space. We got discharged about noon and they sent us home with a frozen lasagna dinner...how nice of them...i wonder how much it cost our insurance for that meal ;-)

We headed home and were curious to see how Kona would react to the Blake, but she actually was really excited and we're not sure if she's realizes that he's here to stay yet, but she thought he was very interesting. She welcome him with a nice lick on the hands, so we're pretty sure she is ok with having him around. She's been around a lot of our friends kids and has been really nice and likes them, so hopefully she'll feel the same about Black (after he keeps her up half the night).

Last night Blake wanted to do quite a bit of feeding and that was tiring, but it wasn't too bad and being able to sleep in was nice. Hopefully we can get him on some sort of regular schedule sooner than later, but for now I guess the benefit is we get to see what it's like to be up at all hours of the night for the first time since the college days. (maybe we'll call Rachel if we're lonely since she was the only one that responded to the text i sent at 1am on Thursday morning when we went in to the hospital ;-) )

We posted a few more pictures...same link as before:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jasen.bankson/BlakeMichael

Day 2 - Visitors

Well, day 2 Blake got his first fishing pole (thanks great-grandpa Houser!) and caught his first fish...well, kind of a whale if you look close. Things went well and so far he is excited to be in the world. We took it a little easier today and had quite a few visitors come by and say hi. It was nice to have everybody come by.

We did a video conference with Grandma and Grandpa Bankson this morning for in the hospital room. That was pretty fun and it was exciting to be able to introduce Blake to them. All the hospital staff were pretty fascinated by the video conference call...i guess not many people have done it here :-) It was fun and nice to be able to do that with them.

Rumor has it that the second night can be more difficult because they have had enough time to rest and are ready to FEED...all night. Well, i suppose we'll find out and hopefully he will sleep some ;-)

He had his 24 hour tests today and they checked out his hearing and everything checked out good. All in all he seems to be a pretty healthy good little guy. We're looking forward to taking him home and watching him grow. We sent a hat home yesterday for Kona to check out and get familiar with, so hopefully she will be as excited about him as we are. She has been pretty good about other people's kids and has been around them since she was a puppy, so we think she should adapt just fine.

We posted a few more pictures of Blake that we took today. You can see them at the same link as before:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jasen.bankson/BlakeMichael

Blake Michael Bankson

Announcing the newest addition to the family: Blake Michael Bankson!!
He was born on August 29th and is 6lbs 6oz and 20 1/4 inches long

Well, it was a bit of a mid-night adventure with Abby's water breaking at 12:45am, but it was all worth it. I woke up to go use the bathroom at 12:45 and as i got out bed Abby said, 'Jaaaassseeennnn....i think my water just broke!' (imagine a nervous, wake up from a deep-sleep tone :-) ) That sprang us into action...we got her out of bed and then she started doubting whether it was really her water that broke or not and I was like, are you kidding? (it was like someone had dumped a bucket of water on the bed). Then she says, well, i'll call the hospital and see if they want us to come in...I said, ok, sounds good...i'll go load the bags into the car (knowing we're going in and this is the real deal)

So, we let Abby's grandparents know we were headed in (they have been with us since the c-section false alarm last week) and that sparked plenty of excitement. We took off to the hospital honking the horn to let the neighbors know we were on our way (at the request of some of the neighbors...they said the middle of the night trips were the best).

We got settled in at the hospital (which BTW is great...it's like a hotel...no real hurry to get out of here) and things started to get going. It started out pretty slow, so we both tried to get a little sleep while things weren't too intense. Not much happened for about the next 11.5 hours...just contractions and slow progress. He was 'sunny side up' (facing the front instead of the back) so Abby had a lot of back labor for a while, but then after she moved around a little he turned into the right position and from there it was a pretty quick process...about 30 minutes until he arrived. Things went smooth and into the world came Blake Michael Bankson. It's quite the experience seeing a baby born and realizing the miracle of it, it's tough to explain the excitement and things you feel when you become a parent. (i'm sure other parents out there can relate).

Here are some more pictures from the first couple hours of his life...
http://picasaweb.google.com/jasen.bankson

We'll be trying to blog more regularly and there should be more pictures to come soon, so check back.

Jasen

Florida Vacation

We thought we would post some pictures from our vacation in Florida last week. Sure was a great time. We needed the break and some time at the beach. We started the week off with the annual first sunburn of the year...not really intentionally, but seems like every year we think we can head out into the sun (even with sunscreen) and not burn...and almost always do. Well, this year was no exception and we peeled off an entire layer of skin. But we had a great time. We explored West Palm Beach, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and then headed over for a day in Orlando at Disneyworld.

Here are some more pics you can check out...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8152352@N03/