Life with Eli

Eli's first bath

Grantham giving his baby brother a kiss. I didn't ask him to do this...he loves giving Eli spontaneous kisses :)

This is kind of like the last picture but I wanted to post it because I like the way Grantham is holding Eli's hand (again, I didn't ask him to do this).

I didn't mention this in the post but as you can see we have a bit of a chunker. He weighed 11 lbs 5 ounces at 3 weeks...WOW!!!

Well...I think we have officially gotten into the swing of things with another newborn. Eli is such a great baby! We have really gotten into a good routine and he is an excellent eater and sleeper (praise the Lord :). To be completely honest, as I approached the end of my pregnancy, I was absolutely dreading having another newborn in the house. I was not dreading having another child...I would just have preferred him to be born 3 months old so we could skip the "newborn stage." I'm not a big fan of the first 3 months because they're just plain hard. I remember when Grantham was 12 weeks old we had a significant shift in the feeling of everything...it just got a lot easier at that age.

With all that being said, I have been very pleasantly surprised at how everything is going. Eli really is such a great baby. We have definitely had our tough days at the Martin household but those are actually more related to Grantham than Eli. He is in the process of dropping his morning nap which has been a rough transition for him and for me (that's a whole other post though :) Don't get me wrong...the newborn phase still is not my favorite. I'm definitely looking forward to the days of being able to sleep through the night again but it's not nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be. Juggling 2 kids really isn't that hard if you have both of them on a good routine. The days just go a lot faster now. I'm trying to enjoy each day for what it holds...even if it's a tough one :)

I've posted a few pictures of Eli's first 4 weeks of life.

Renovation Pictures

Playroom (used to be a covered deck)

Kitchen (added granite countertops, backslpash and appliances)

House with garage added

Renovation Pictures (continued)

Half bathroom that we added underneath the stairs (used to be a closet)

Full bathroom in the bonus room

Bonus Room

Deck

Elijah James Martin

First I want to provide an excuse for why I haven't blogged in over a month (other than the fact that my life has been absolutely crazy :). When we moved Grantham to his big boy room we lost our office for a while; therefore, the computer has been in storage until recently. Now that the renovations are done, the bonus room is doubling as an office and we have the computer back.

Now on to Eli....he is here!!! Elijah James Martin arrived on January 25th at 2:45 A.M. weighing 8 lbs, 11 oz and measuring 20 and 1/2 inches. He is absolutely beautiful and we are already in love with him.

Everything was great with the labor, delivery and the entire hospital experience but once we got released things got a little rocky. We got home around 1:15 on Thursday afternoon and found a very sick little boy. I was concerned about Grantham so made an appointment for him to see the doctor that afternoon. Jamie took him at 3:00 and he was diagnosed with RSV and we were informed that Eli and I would have to leave the house for a few days so Grantham could get over the most contagious part. It's very serious for a newborn to get RSV and if Eli were to contract it we would be in the hospital for a minimum of 48 hours. So our amazing pediatrician...and Sunday School teacher...and friend worked it out for us to stay at one of his family member's vacant houses. Mama came up to help me and the three of us stayed there for a couple of days.

When we took Eli for his "follow up from the hospital" appointment, the doctor said that his lungs were clear and that he thought it would be ok for us to come home as long as we were super careful to keep Grantham away from Eli as much as possible. We have been very careful to wash hands and keep things wiped down with Lysol and so far Eli has shown no signs of RSV. We started to notice an improvement with Grantham but then found out that he has double ear infections so he was really irritable with that for a few days. Just today we started to see glimpses of the Grantham that we love so dearly....my happy boy is starting to come back :)

On top of everything else, last night I started to feel a little bit congested so I called the pediatrician today to see if it was possible that I had RSV. I went to the office to be tested and sure enough I am positive. The baffling thing is that I feel totally fine. I wouldn't even call what I have a cold...I would simply call it a stuffy nose. Apparently, when adults get RSV it's very mild and just looks like the common cold. Even though the symptoms are so minor for adults they can still pass it to children in which case it's a lot more severe. So Jamie and I are having to wear masks anytime we interact with Eli and still remain super cautious with the handwashing, etc. Our pediatrician said that this is the worst season of RSV he has ever seen...I can believe it.

So that's where we are currently. I would just ask everyone for lots and lots and lots of prayer that Eli doesn't get infected. I've asked lots of questions over the course of the past week but I know that I will never understand why all of this happened the week we brought our second child into this world. I do know that I serve an All Powerful God who gives me strength and I know that even though it may feel like it, He will not give me more than I can handle. I know that I will look back on all of this in the future and it will be a distant memory that made our family stronger. Thank you for your prayers!!!

First Haircut

On Saturday, Jamie and I took Grantham to Roger's Barber Shop for his very first haircut. I was a little nervous how everything was going to play out but he did so great! He basically just sat on Jamie's lap the whole time and was a perfect little angel :) Just wanted to share a couple of pictures with you all. Enjoy!!

What's been going on...

...A LOT!!!!!!! Our little family has had so much going on in the past month...as I'm sure you could figure out by my lack of a blog post :) The most notable things are renovations to our house, going to the mountains of NC for Thanksgiving, decorating Grantham's "big boy room" in preparation for Eli's arrival, decorating for Christmas and the fact that our beloved Cocker Spaniel who was 17 years old passed away.

It's been hectic and crazy to say the least. When we found out we were going to have another baby back in May we decided to put our house on the market to make room for our growing family. We knew the housing market was not a good place for sellers but thought we would give it a shot and decided that if it didn't sell by October 31st that we would just renovate instead. Well the house didn't sell and the renovations started the first week of November. I can't even believe how quickly everything is happening. We are adding a double car garage with a bonus room, a playroom, a deck, a half bathroom and updating the kitchen. There is a separate post below this one that has pictures of the progress.

I am ashamed that we left our camera at home over Thanksgiving so I didn't get any pictures. We went to Blowing Rock, NC with Jamie's family and Jamie, Grantham and I had a great time. It was wonderful to be able to spend Thanksgiving with family in the beautiful mountains of NC.

With Eli's arrival coming quickly, we decided we needed to get started on Grantham's big boy room. I am really excited about the way it has turned out...although it's still not completely done. I want to have him sleeping in this room for at least a month before his baby brother arrives that way maybe it won't be so traumatic to have a new baby taking over his old room. There is another separate post with pictures of his new room so you can see what it all looks like. The only thing we are waiting for is his crib and then we can officially move him in. We are borrowing a crib from a friend that he will sleep in until we make the transition to the "big boy bed." I'm certainly not in any rush for this to take place. We just decided to go ahead and set up all of his new furniture that way when we do move him to the twin bed, he will already be familiar with it. On a side note, we also purchased an identical twin bed and bedding set for Eli. The plan is for the boys to eventually share a room :)

The last thing I want to mention is that our dog Bailey passed away. This has been very hard for Jamie and I although we know that it was definitely time. His health had really gone downhill fast in the last couple of months and we had actually been discussing the need to put him down in the near future. One night Jamie was outside doing some work and Bailey was out there with him. Bailey wandered off and never came back. In 17 years, he has NEVER even attempted to leave the yard. The only time we ever put him on a leash was when we took him to the vet or the groomer because there was just no need for one. We were shocked that he left the yard and we searched and searched for him. Jamie searched for several hours 3 days in a row and we never found him. Our assumption is that he wandered off to die in peace. This was hard for us because we weren't able to say goodbye but ultimately, I think we are glad that Bailey made the decision for us rather than us having to make a decision to put him to sleep. I would not say that Bailey was a "good dog"...he was kind of a trouble maker from the beginning :) However, he was one of the sweetest and most loyal dogs I have ever been around. He will be missed!!! The picture at the top of the post was taken by my sister on November 27 which was 3 days before he died.

I apologize for the crazy long post...I told you a lot has been going on!!!! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and is enjoying the Christmas season so far.

**Sorry for the separate posts with the pictures of the renovations and Grantham's room...for some reason blogger wouldn't let me add all of the pics to this post.**

Renovation Pictures

Garage/Bonus Room: View from the street of the house with garage (that's the electrician's truck in the driveway :). You can see the window of the bonus room although I didn't take a picture of the interior. It is HUGE and there is a full bathroom and walk-in closet. Playroom: This was the covered porch right off of the kitchen/dining room. We are converting it to a playroom.

Updated Kitchen: The granite countertops, new appliances and new sink/faucet have been installed. The only thing left to be done is the backsplash.

Deck: There will be 2 entrances to the house from the deck. The door to the left of the picture enters the playroom and the door to the right of the picture enters the new hallway leading to the bonus room. The deck is complete sans being stained. I couldn't get Charlie to move out of the way when I was taking the picture...I guess he was feeling photogenic :)

Half Bathroom: This was a closet underneath the stairs that we are converting to a half bathroom. By the way, that's Charlie's kennel in the picture.