A Different Kind Of Romance

Our first year of dating Shawn's job involved working through Sunday night. After staying up for 24 hours he would somehow find the energy to drive to my house and leave me something on my car. Sometimes it was a flower and sometimes (my favorite) he would leave hand drawn notes. It was the cutest thing. Over the years he still does little romantic things, but like most relationships that new relationship romance evolves into something else long term. I guess you could call it life events appreciation. I have listened to my friends talk about the appreciation of their spouse when having a child and feeling of love that hasn't been experienced before. I have heard other people complain because their expectations of their spouse in this new situation weren't being met. I had no doubt which category I would be in. I am VERY spoiled by Shawn. He takes care of me and puts up with me in a way no one else would. I had no doubt he would spoil her too.

I wanted a cute diaper bag. You have to carry it around everywhere and I do love my accessories. We looked everywhere we went and couldn't find something we liked. We went to the Galleria to buy the only one that we both thought was ok and Shawn wanted to try Louis Vuitton first. I told him they stopped making diaper bags three years ago but he insisted. I am happy he won that argument because he looked at the luggage and saw they did some custom pieces. I will admit Mommy got a little jealous of Graysen after Daddy spent an hour with the guy coming up with this. He was so happy when it came in. She is going to love it someday. I love it now.

Shawn is the decorator in our relationship. Show me a color wheel of paint samples and it brings an immediate shudder. All I knew was I wanted it to be gray and pink and have this crystal chandelier that I saw. We both wanted a round crib and it is about the same price to have custom bedding. I had no idea what that would entail. He spent days going to every fabric store in Houston trying to find pink and gray fabrics that coordinated. He drove me CRAZY showing me fabric samples but when he showed me the drawing he made to send to the lady it was the best feeling. He really tried hard to make it perfect for her and when I do the blog about her nursery you will see that it is.

One of my friends from Canada posted some pictures of a shadow box with her newborns hand and foot done in plaster. I thought it was such a neat thing to have and told Shawn about it. He went on-line and found a kit and ordered it. It was quite the adventure keeping her foot still for 2 minutes. I will post the final product when he is done painting it.

Those are the things I expected to have happen.

What I didn't expect was the overwhelming love you feel when you walk in the door from running an errand to see this..

These moments are what life is really about ..and I am so happy to be on this journey with Shawn.

Happy First Father's Day William Shawn Speer

Your girls love you very much.

Coming Home

Graysen is going to be a month old tomorrow and I am just now doing her coming home day. I thought about skipping it but I would have left out some important visitors.

We were very happy that we got to spend a few hours in the room by ourselves with her. We had a very good 2nd night except for one

nurse who was so annoying, I had to wake Shawn up to get rid of her. He knew by the way I said his name it was about to get ugly and he very sweetly got out of bed and in his very nice Shawn way told her to get lost. I can not say enough nice things about Texas Women's Hospital. I was questioning my decision a little before but I am so thankful that I delivered there. With the exception of that one baby night nurse, everyone was fantastic.

Rochelle and Todd stopped by around lunch time to visit, and Rochelle helped pack up our room, which was very nice. I was ready to leave that morning, but we had to wait for the pediatrician to clear her. Shawn was very anxious to leave and had everything packed by noon.

Auntie Jennise was working and I was worried about her making it in time. She showed up right as the pediatrician released us.

Big Poppa and Mimi sent us an amazing flower arrangement. It was so pretty all the nurses came by our room to see it. We weren't sure how we were going to get it home and when Shawn called Mimi she came over to help us.

We wouldn't have made it home without the help. We seemed to multiply in items.

Shawn was so anxious to get home, that while I was talking to Jennise I didn't realize he had taken EVERYTHING down to the car. So instead of my dress and old faithful flip flops, I was wheeled out of the hospital in my nightgown and shoeless. Those pictures just weren't pretty.

My engineer husband was very nervous he wasn't going to pass the car seat test...

but he did just fine.

When we got home we unloaded as fast as possible and got ready for Aunt Marisa and Uncle Lee to come over who drove in from Dallas for the occasion. We were so excited for Graysen to meet her cousins, including Marisa's newest who we had only seen once. Tessa and Graysen are 4 weeks apart and we hope they grow up to be the bestest of friends.

Unfortunately this is the only pic of Marisa. If you look really closely at the left hand corner you can see her pretty smile. We didn't realize how jaundiced Graysen was until we saw her next to Tessa.

It was fun to have Jaxson, Leila, Tessa, and Graysen all together.

Shawn bought Bearnard and put him in our wine room a few years ago. At least now we have a reason for having him.

Graysen's "Birth" Day

I tried really hard to have no expectations of what my delivery day would be like. I knew trying to control that situation wasn't going to get me anywhere, and whatever was going to happen that day would happen in whatever way God intended it. The only thing I knew was that my Doctor thought it would be best for me to not go past my due date and so the week before we scheduled it for May 17th. I really thought it was going to happen before but despite my efforts to try EVERY wives tale I heard we ended up driving to the hospital on my actual due date to be induced.

All checked in and the process has started.

We wanted to have a fun relaxing day and when we found out we could only have two additional people in the delivery room all day we knew which two of our best friends we wanted in the room.

Jeremy gave me the best gift of all that day by keeping Shawn occupied and both of us entertained. Unfortunately I was so mesmerized by the interpretive dance, balloon hunt, and them practicing their SNL skit this is the only pre-birth picture of him. We did actually get work done as well.

Right before it was time to start pushing I had a few second thoughts about having Rochelle help me (I thought I was shy... turns out I'm not) but I am so glad she was there. I wouldn't have made it through the last hour of pushing without her. Not as impactful, but still important, she also took pictures and changed the music. I should have done a play-list. Maybe next time.

We started the pitocin at 8 a.m. They thought I would start pushing at 5 but the last cm took forever and we started at around 7. At 9:33 P.M our little girl entered the world weighing 8lbs 2 ounces and measuring 20 1/2 inches.

A very proud Daddy

She hasn't figured out yet that Daddy is actually wrapped around HER finger.

This is my I am happy that is over smile..oh, and could you please put some more fluid in my body because I don't have enough in my face.

Grandma Speer and Uncle Todd

Uncle Jer-Bear

Grandpa Dunnigan and Dolores

We finally got to our post-partum room around midnight and after Jeremy helped Shawn move everything and brought us food, we were finally alone. Well, except for the nurse for mommy and nurse for Graysen that came every hour all night. The next morning I felt surprisingly good. I even used a curling iron after my shower which the nurse found amusing for some reason. I knew we were going to have a long day of visitors which I was very much looking forward to. The first visitor was Samantha who had Sprinkles cupcakes sent to my room. Unfortunately we didn't have the camera ready yet so we didn't get a picture.

Then came Michael,

and Mimi Speer

and Aunt Leslie

and then all the Liardon's

I loved this picture of Lucy so she has two pictures.

Chris and Brittany and Uncle Josh and Aunt Kelly

Mr. and Mrs. McKnight

Uncle Grant and Aunt Lisa

Aunt Rachael

Uncle Ryan, Aunt Terie, and Aunt Brandi (Uncle Blee was working but came to visit later)

Aunt Cailean and Aunt Rachael

My little buddy Caiden

It was a very special day and we felt so loved by our friends and family. A big thank you to everyone who had a part in it.

A Quick Picture

I am not starting off with this blogging thing very well...She is 16 days old and I still haven't done the post..oops. I did at least get the pictures off the camera so maybe it will happen in the next couple of days. Here are a couple of pictures I got from our photographer from her newborn pictures yesterday and I couldn't resist sharing them. We love these lips so much and are having so much fun with her I can't seem to do anything else.