Happy Halloween!

Thank goodness for work and ward Halloween parties so that I had a reason to dress up Matthew even though he's too young to Trick or Treat! :-)

Matthew's Blessing Day

Matthew was blessed this past Sunday, Oct. 16 in Las Vegas. It was a busy weekend but ended up being wonderful. Matthew's blessing was absolutely perfect and we are so thankful for all the friends and family that took the time out of their busy schedules to come support us. Matthew has so many awesome family members that I can't wait for him to really get to know.

Doesn't he look so handsome??? His smile melts my heart.

After Vegas me and Matthew were able to drive to LA with my parents and spend a day there. It was so fun and we can't wait to go back at Christmas. My dad was able to get some really awesome pictures of Matthew (of him smiling! yay!) and my mom seemed to have the magic touch. She could always get him smiling so big and at one point when Matthew was having a small temper tantrum :) she gave him a bubble bath in the sink and he calmed right down and looked so content.


Matthew is perfecting both his smile and his pouty face, and is learning how to use them to get what he wants. Uh-oh. I better learn to not be such a softy. I can't believe he is almost two months old!!! Time sure flies.

Our Move To Phoenix and Life Here So Far (based off of the pictures of Matthew on my phone)

So ever since we packed up our apartment in Nashville I haven't been good about taking pictures with my nice camera. I have, however, taken lots of pictures of Matthew with my phone. Even though the quality of these pictures isn't great, they're still pretty cute... and I figured I'd tell the story of the move using them.

We loaded up the moving truck and Michael left for Phoenix with the truck and our car on a Friday around noon. Me and Matthew stayed in the almost empty apartment until Monday. It was a long few days.... all I had was a suitcase, a laptop, a phone, an air mattress, (borrowed from our friends) and Matthew. Thank heavens Matthew kept me entertained! :-) This is what our living room looked like:
Matthew took lots of short naps on my pillow, but I didn't let him sleep there at night when I couldn't keep an eye on him. He loved those pillow naps though.

We enjoyed each other's company, but I'm pretty sure he missed his dad.... (I did too)

During those few days I gave Matthew a bath using this baby bath thing..... I didn't think I'd ever use it so it didn't make it into the moving truck and ended up getting left behind in Nashville. Bummer, because I actually loved it. It held Matthew up (but still partially in the water) so well. I love this picture, because it shows Matthew's classic 'bath hands'- he hates putting his hands in the water even though he loves his baths.


Anyway, Matthew really started to learn to smile during this time, and I still haven't really gotten a good picture of it! Lame. I did, however, get a picture of the very end of a smile when my friend was about to take us to the airport.... you can kinda tell he'd just been smiling right? ;-)

I was super anxious about the plane ride with Matthew, especially because he was being so fussy in the airport! This picture was taken in the airport just before he woke up angry.... haha.

Luckily, the plane ride wasn't too bad. He cried a little but mostly slept. Woohoo!

It was SO nice to get to Phoenix and have a furnished apartment again. Sitting on the floor really gets old after a couple days. Our new apartment is great, other than the ancient kitchen appliances and the fact that we can hear EVERY STEP (no exaggeration) that our upstairs neighbors take. And every step that their dog takes. Ugh. But this apartment has two bathrooms and an actual dining area and a walk-in closet!! Oh how I love my walk-in closet. However, on my second day here our AC went out. Not okay for 100 degree weather! So Matthew wore this for the afternoon until we got the maintenance guy to come fix it.

So yeah, I like Phoenix a lot so far. The weather is great (I'm sure I'll be humming a different tune come next summer... but this winter will be fabulous) and we live in a nice neighborhood with so much good shopping nearby! Seriously, me and Matthew go window shopping every day to a new store. He loves just looking around from his car seat in the cart at all the shelves.


I put a toy on his car seat the other day thinking he might swat at it, but he's too young I guess because he looked at it like it was going to bite him.

I also decorated our apartment for Halloween before I even got our apartment completely unpacked. I love that I can make Matthew all festive too.

And because this is funny- this is the kind of thing that happens whenever Michael and Matthew are left alone together... :)

As for Matthew's sleeping habits, the shirt he's wearing in this next picture is pretty perfect. He's our alarm clock at 11 p.m., 1 a.m., 3 a.m., 5 a.m., etc.....

Oh, and we celebrated Michael's 26th birthday.... Matthew's present was finding his voice and having a nice conversation with his dad. Pretty cute.

We're glad to be (almost) settled in and so much closer to family. I'm excited to get to know Phoenix better!

Craziness

My life has pretty much been a crazy whirlwind since Matthew was born... mostly in a good way. :-) Here are some of the craziness highlights:

-We found out that we are moving to Phoenix!!! We are super excited to be moving to the West, but also sad to be leaving the place that we started our little family. And even though when I first pictured Phoenix in my head I saw this....


....Michael has helped me start to see it like this:


I hate moving, and we still have so much to do before we leave. Did I mention that we leave this weekend, and we've barely started packing? Yikes. At least I don't have to drive across the country with a newborn- Michael is doing the driving and me and Matthew are flying. Please pray that my baby behaves on the plane! :-)

-Matthew has decided that he just doesn't want to learn how to sleep during the night, no matter what I try. We've had a couple of really rough nights, and one morning after Matthew was crying all night because he had an upset tummy I even said to Michael, "That was the worst night of my life." Thank heavens for a husband that is SO great with Matthew and helps out all the time. And by the way, how does anyone ever sleep if they have more than one kid? I'm only functioning because I can take naps whenever Matthew does.

-Speaking of Matthew, I pretty much LOVE most of the craziness he has brought into my life.... even if his sleeping skills aren't so great. :-) He is so fun and I can't believe how much I love him. He is already growing up way too fast. I am so glad that he is ours forever. Even though I may have had a couple of the worst nights of my life, I have also had several of the best days of my life. My baby is so awesome.


-We had some visitors- Michael's mom and then my sister and niece. I loved having more people around here and my sister even treated me and my niece to a Taylor Swift concert! It was a seriously cool concert and I was incredibly impressed. Oh, and then my sister took some amazing pictures of Matthew that I'm just loving. Plus, I got to enjoy some fabulous girl time. It also didn't hurt to have so many helping hands around here- especially since I still sometimes feel like a deer in the headlights when it comes to taking care of a newborn.


This week will be all kinds of crazy with packing and saying good-bye to friends but I'm so excited for the new adventures that Phoenix will bring. Good-bye Nashville!

Matthew Michael Byram

Well, Matthew has been here for over a week now, and I figured that it was time to post the story of how he made his way into this world. :-)

On Friday, August 19th, me and Michael decided to go on a date. We grabbed some lunch and then walked around the Opryland Hotel. We had fun looking around in all the little shops and made jokes about how all the walking was going to put me into labor. (I'm not convinced that that's what did it, but hey, it couldn't have hurt!) Anyway, I felt pretty normal until later that night (around 11:30 p.m.) when we were getting ready for bed. I started having what I thought were some uncomfortable Braxton Hicks contractions. I layed down on the couch and watched an episode of House with Michael, and the contractions just got stronger. I was still thinking it was Braxton Hicks so I told Michael we should just go to bed. Within three minutes of laying down, I knew that sleep was NOT going to happen for a while. The contractions got uncomfortable enough to make me jump out of bed and want to walk around. Michael thought that it might be labor, but I still wasn't convinced. I had it in my head that I wasn't going to have my baby until September, and that I might even have to be induced. Anyway, we decided to go back out to the living room and watch TV for a while and just see what would happen.

Well, within about an hour my contractions had gone from really uncomfortable to downright painful. Michael kept asking me during my contractions to rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10, and soon I asked him to stop talking to me during my contractions. He didn't listen, and at first I just ignored him. Then, during a really bad contraction, he made the mistake of once again asking me to rate my pain. I said something ridiculously mean, like, "If you talk to me again during a contraction I'm going to beat your face." Yes, I seriously said that! Even as I was saying it, I was thinking to myself, "Whoa, chill out!! You're being so mean!" Luckily Michael just kind of laughed, and said that he thought we should get ready to go to the hospital. I SO did not want to get to the hospital only to get sent away, so I had Michael call the OB unit at the hospital. The nurse told Michael that as soon as I no longer wanted to talk to him, we should come in. So, based off of my behavior, and the fact that my contractions were 5 minutes apart, we decided we should probably go. In between contractions I helped Michael pack up, and within 10 minutes we were ready to go. I was still terrified of being sent away, but by this time I was in so much pain that I knew that even if I wasn't in real labor I would need some kind of painkiller, because it was just getting worse and worse. We left the house at around 3:15 a.m.

The drive to the hospital was horrible. It was much more like a movie than I care to admit... you know... when the woman in labor is whining and breathing heavy and telling her husband to drive faster. ;-) My contractions were 3-4 minutes apart and I remember just desperately wanting to get there. We had been told to go in through the main ER entrance, and as soon as I walked in the worker said, "You must be in labor." We filled out some paperwork and I kept having to stop what I was writing or pause what I was saying every time I had a contraction. I remember feeling super annoyed at the worker because it seemed like she was taking her sweet time. She also told me that labor, for her, "wasn't that bad" and it made me want to punch her in the face. (As you can see, I'm definitely not the nicest person in the world when I'm in labor. I am also, apparently, a wuss). When I finally got up to my hospital room, I was told to put on the hospital gown. When I was walking to the bathroom I had the worst contraction yet and the nurse told me that I needed to take slower and deeper breaths or I might pass out. I thought to myself, "Hmm, that would be AWESOME." (See? Biggest wuss ever). The nurse checked me and I was dilated to a 5. Michael asked, "So does that mean we're staying?" and the nurse said, "Definitely. This baby is coming very soon." She asked me if I wanted an epidural and I said "YES!" Michael, who is the best husband ever, added that I would want it ASAP. :-) She told me that I would have to get my IV put in first, but she and another nurse blew TWO veins before they finally got one in. Throughout all this I was trying to stay in control and be patient, but I can honestly say that this was the closest I've ever been to losing control. Seriously, women who give birth naturally are so tough.

Anyway, I finally got my epidural around 4:30ish, and I was already dilated to a 7. They were actually pretty quick at getting my epidural, but it felt like hours. :-) The worst part was having to hold still during a contraction while she was putting the needle in my back. The funniest part was when Michael squeezed my hand so hard during it that I had to tell HIM that he was hurting ME and needed to not squeeze me so hard. And the best part was the almost instant relief. Life was so good that I wanted to cry, and I think I may have. I was nice to Michael again, and we took happy pictures.


The epidural slowed down my labor, but I didn't mind. We chatted, got excited, and even took a nap. (We were both exhausted). I was also incredibly nervous because it was still 10 days before my due date and I didn't feel prepared. Looking back, I think I would have felt nervous and unprepared even if I was overdue. Having it all suddenly be so real can really bring out your insecurities. Anyway, by 9 a.m. I was at a 9+, but they decided to let my baby drop as much as possible to shorten the time I had to push. At 11:15 I started pushing with the nurse and within 5 minutes she was telling another nurse to get my doctor. At 11:47 I layed my eyes on the most beautiful baby boy I have ever seen. He was really purple at first but came out screaming so he pinked out pretty quickly. :-) When I held him for the first time I think I felt about a billion emotions. I knew that I had been preparing my entire life for this, and I felt so much love and gratitude toward my husband, my parents, and Heavenly Father. There is nothing quite like the moment where you hold your child and know that your life will never be the same.


The rest of our hospital stay went well. My mom flew in the next day and stayed with us for a week. Thank heavens she did!! She was amazing and it was hard for us to see her go. She made us delicious meals, showed me how to take care of a newborn, and even gave me a much needed pedicure. :-) When she left, I almost felt horrified that she was leaving me alone with a brand new baby. We're still learning, but so far things are going pretty good. People are right when they say that it's hard, but people are even more correct when they say that it's beyond amazing. I can't imagine our life without Matthew.

Some of my favorite things about Matthew include the way he's ALWAYS making noises, how he eats his hands to let us know when he's hungry, (which seems to be pretty much all the time...haha) and the cute faces he makes. He only really cries when he's hungry, and he loves to sleep on people's chests.

Oh, and here are a few of my favorite pictures. :-)