Hanging At Home

The Poyer's are finally at home getting settled and getting used to our baby Drake (Love the Drake!!!).  To be honest, baby boy is being pretty easy although he eats all of the time.  My goodness!  When he is not eating, he is just one happy, chill, little baby.

Amber and I are working on a system through the night and for now, we are doing pretty well sleep wise.  In all actuality, what keeps me awake is Amber struggling to get back to sleep after her turn feeding.  Poor girl!  I can fall asleep right away and (in the spirit of the forthcoming Christmas movie season) could sleep through a dump truck driving through a nitro-glycerin plant (name that one for a free foot massage from Amber).  But we are managing.  Thank goodness that Amber's parents swung through for a couple of days and helped Amber get some sleep and recover while I tended to my duties at work.

Needless to say, Roxy is loving being a big sister and does a wonderful job.  She wants to hold Drake a bunch of times during the day and has learned to say "all done" when she is...all done holding Drake.  Much better than shoving him off of her lap as she had been doing.  Her newest accomplishments include her death-defying leaps off of the table, couch, bed, and any other apparatus high enough to gun her adrenaline and freak out her mother.  She is also great at jibber-jabbering and is now putting together some sentences.  It is fun to see her wake up just about every morning with some new tricks.

We just have the best support system here in Omaha.  The Glasgow's are the best cousins, Uncles, Aunts, friends, anyone could ask for and they love Drake (Love the Drake!!!).  We have been spending a lot of time there and the kiddos just love their cousins.  Thank goodness for all of the love and support we get from Emily - she has just been the best.  My parents have always been pretty awesome Grandparents.  You can pretty much see my dad's smile from about 20 miles away and same with Grandma!

We are having a ton of fun and life is awfully great here in Omaha.  This week will be my first business trip so we will see how life is back to the daily grind. Come and visit when you have the time!

Drake Owen Poyer

Well surprise, surprise!  Little Drake Owner Poyer joined us a bit early on 10/11/12 and we are just so excited to have such a great bundle of joy!

A cruel trick of fate that he has a full set of hair - but I have no problem living vicariously through him!

His face looks quite like Roxy's when she was born except that he has more hair.  This is Amber's rationale for having a bit of indigestion during her pregnancy (we love Old Wives).

It was such a tender mercy that Drake came when he did.  I was on a business trip to Memphis getting ready to wrap up travel for the baby.  I figured that a ten day buffer would be just fine.  Amber told me on Tuesday that she was having some mild contractions but not to worry as they were not bad.  Thus, I went about changing the world one mutual fund at a time.  As planned, I got home to Omaha late on Wednesday plopping into bed around 1145 at night.  While in a pretty nice slumber, Amber started slugging me in the side and telling me how much pain she was in.  I thought that it was pretty selfish of her to make me up at 2AM given how stressful it is to have a pregnant spouse.  But I told her to suck it up and went back to bed.  Roxy woke me up at 230AM and I took her into her room and fell asleep on the floor. 

Around 330, I woke up to some large screams coming from our bathroom.  I awoke and ran to find her in the bathtub yelling at me...at me of all people!  "Call your parents," she yelled.  "We are going to the hospital".  After a dozen unanswered calls, I reached out to our brother-in-law, Superman Jeff Glasgow, who answered after one ring and was over to our house in 5 minutes.  I had the car and bags packed up, and off we went.  It was so much fun to zoom through the empty streets at 345 and despite my speeding and running through the red lights, no police cars were serving our community (must be those despicable budget cuts I keep hearing about on TV all of the time these days).  I thought that I heard a couple of sirens going off, but it was just Amber moaning and wailing in the seat next to me.  She looked pretty uncomfortable even though I was the one who did not have a chance to shower, change, or even brush my teeth. I must have looked pretty awful pulling up to the emergency room that is for sure!

I rushed into the emergency room to ask for some help, and the nurses at the desk rushed out and picked Amber up in a nice and comfortable, although manual, wheelchair.  We wheeled right on up to the delivery room and it was all hands on deck with doctors and nurses everywhere.  After a quick check, Amber was a full 10 and ready to go.  It was pretty shocking to all.  Amber was pretty uncomfortable, but I was the one in real pain as I had a sore hamstring from a run the day before and I had to stand there next to the bed while Amber was laying down getting fussed over.  I am happy to say that I was able to have a natural birth despite the pain and discomfort.

After all of the early action, Drake decided to sit tight and one by one the nurses and assistants left the room leaving us alone to just soak in the night.  I called my parents a bunch more times to try and get Uncle Jeff some relief but still no answer. 

A funny aside: I was able to connect with my mom around 715AM.  She was great to rush over and help Uncle Jeff and spend the day with Roxy with no complaints.  But I asked her about the missed phone calls.  She told me that she had a dream that the phone kept ringing and she was not able to answer it.  What a coincidence huh?!?!?!?!

Once Amber got filled with the pain meds and started to get a bit more comfortable, we had some laughs.  Does anyone else think it is odd how neglected us father's are despite being in the hospital and at the birth.  I had a headache, an aforementioned sore hamstring, my neck had a kink in it, but nobody once even asked me how I was doing or offered any drugs at all.  I was lucky to be shown where the water was.

I love The Drake!

After a little bit of work, our second doctor of the night stopped by, and at exactly 8AM, The Drake arrived!  I was tremendous during the whole process and barely made a peep.  I thought that I overheard the doctor say that he had never seen such a clean cut of the umbilical cord but that is because he had not seen my previous work with Roxy.  I survived on like two cups of water and one thing of Oreos.  I left a bunch of Oreos in reserve - I was that composed. 

Amber was pretty good herself.  She had some pretty heavy meds because of some pretty major contractions (my hamstring is okay now) and was completely in control the entire time (I found the ice machine without any directions at all!).  The people at LakeSide Hospital were incredible.  It was like a resort and all of the people were just amazing.  So happy, friendly, and helpful (they had unlimited Code Red in the cafeteria). 

Baby Drake came out in 7 minutes once Amber got started pushing and came out as straight as an arrow and with a full head of hair.  He got a quick scrub down and then immediately went into Amber's arm for some skin-to-skin.  It was such a great and wonderful sight to see.  Amber was glowing and was in such great control.  She had a HUMONGOUS smile and just melted right away with him.  We argued about the name for a full 24 hours (Amber liked Zach and I liked it too, but it just did not write out as well as Drake) but he is a total Drake - the Dragon!  We all cuddled together and are so in love with our little man.  He is so chill and happy.  I have only heard him cry a couple of times as he is just so mellow and content.

Roxy came and visited us in the afternoon and she just loves her baby brother (Love The Drake!).  She wants to hold him, touch him, and she is great about checking in on him and making sure he is okay.  She says "love the Drake" (with some prodding from dad) and is trying to say "brother".  She has helped him with a bath, helps to change his diapers, helps him feed with mommy, points out all of his body parts, collects rocks and flowers for him, draws him pictures, tucks him in, kisses his head and feet, and just wants to be around him.  It is amazing!  She is just the best little girl and we love our kiddos so much!  We had some great visits in the hospital and grandma and grandpa got to come and visit too.  They sure love their grandkids. 

Mommy and baby are doing great.  My hamstring is feeling better.  Roxy is quiet during sleep time and that is about it these days; she has so much to say.  Come and visit us anytime!

Happy, happy, happy.

Roxy loves being a big sister.

Another Tahoe Dream

We just returned from our annual Labor Day Tahoe family reunion.  We really love that place and this was our 8th year.  Our friend's the Belliston's joined us from Provo and as always, we had a great time.  The weather was perfect (after the first day of rain).  We decided last year (since we are no longer students and bound by school vacations) to attend the week after Labor Day to try and avoid crowds.  Success!!!  We had most of the beaches all to ourselves and after 8 years, we have a nice little routine that keeps us away from others.

Here is Roxy's interpretation of what Tahoe is going to be like now that she can run around and own the place:

We stay at a ... quaint little motel just off the beach.  It is by no means very luxurious or nice, but it has good continental breakfasts and a private beach that has nice sand, a playground, and is only accessible with a pass so during this week, it was basically empty.

We decided that this was the year to try a couple of different things so we rented a paddleboard and took advantage of the morning's calm water and the empty beach.  After paving the way for everyone by showing the proper way to abandon ship, Amber, Lori, Joe, and even Grace popped right up and stayed dry.  Roxy was too impacted by her dad's beginning failures to try but she enjoyed laughing from the shore.

Amber and our little boy navigating Lake Tahoe

Grace showing Amber the right way to go

JP and the kiddos digging for treasure and rocks

We were lucky enough to have dinner for the 8th year in a row with Aunt Karen and Uncle Mike as well.  They have been such awesome friends to us over the years and it was so nice to keep our tradition in tact of spending time with them.  Oh, and if you ever need fresh Gazpacho, please look them up as it is Heavenly (pun intended).

We woke up early on Friday to make our trip to our favorite beach, Sand Harbor.  To get there, we have to scale down some treacherous terrain but it is worth the risk as it is so beautiful, secluded, and our own little get away that is seldom shared with others.

I love this view.  It usually takes me about 5 minutes to just get over this view.

This is our favorite place in Tahoe.  It is about 300 yards down to the beach and there is seldom anybody there but us.

Our little ladies enjoy watching us jump up and down off of the rocks.

The water is so clear in Tahoe that you can never really judge how deep the water really is.  These rock outcroppings are awesome because you can jump and dive off of them into water that is over 10 feet deep even though it looks like you could just reach down and touch the bottom.  One really cool rock stands about 15 feet out of the water.  It seems really close to shore and is hugged by rocks on all sides, but from one side of the perch, the water is about 12 feet deep and it makes for some great jumping.  My little pregnant Amber and our boy jumped off this year.  A bunch of hipsters were jumping off before us and as they watched Amber scale the rock, they gave her major props for her adventurousness and declared that we are going to have one wild little boy on our hands!

Our cliff jumping spot where Amber wowed the locals!

Roxy really liked this place as the water was really calm and she could walk in and out of it without stepping on rocks or being worried about waves.  She laughed as we jumped into the water and was such a good sport at digging in the sand and just enjoying the Lake.

From there it was off to Emerald Bay for our family picture.  We now have 8 pics of the same pose from the same spot.  It is kind of cool for us and makes for an easy birthday, Christmas, Anniversary present for Jon to reproduce the pictures in a different format.

Emerald Bay is just so beautiful from either the top or the bottom.

This is our traditional pose taken each year for the past 8 years.  Man, do I love this woman!

Lake Tahoe truly is a magical place for us.

Roxy loves the beach and hates the ducks!

She chased this seagull and duck for around 30 minutes.

This is Amber's new hat.  I think that it is really cute and stylish.  She is such a hipster.  We bought it in Kansas City from a boutique hat shop.  I love her confidence.

Our wild child wanted to let her hair down for her last night in Tahoe.  Who could blame her.

First Birthday

Well we have made it a year with our little Roxanne, and what a great first year it has been.  We celebrated Roxy's Birthday with all my family except Sterling and Brittney who had to get home that morning.  We had a pink zebra theme(gotta love Hobby Lobby).  She loved all the attention and especially the singing of Happy Birthday.  This girl loves music and to dance even if it is 2 seconds of a commercial on TV she is ready to get moving.  We are grateful for all our family for coming and making it a special day.

 

Didn't take long at all for her to dig in.  She was a huge fan of the cupcakes.

 

These two are such good buddies, cousin Wyatt can be such a fun playmate and entertainer for Roxy.

 

Gma and Gpa Poyer got Roxy a fun music set, she is a great tambourine player.

 

Enjoying an evening of bowling, however Roxy was not excited for this picture.

 

This is part of our New Year's Eve celebration.  We went downtown to watch the fireworks, but it was raining so we watched from the car.  Roxy went to bed early while Jon and I did a puzzle.  Exciting, I know, but we enjoyed it.