Week on Wall Street

   Well I know its been awhile but the Brownie is going to report on the New York trip! I went to NYC for a week in May without my Muffin and Oreo. It was a fun little adventure but sad to be away from my two favorite treats. The reason for going to New York was to fulfill a school credit. There were about 18 students and 2 professors that went.
   We went to 9 businesses over the course of the week and visited companies like Goldman Sachs, Brownstone Investment, UBS, New York Stock Exchange, and the Federal Reserve to name a few! It was like a businessman's dream to go to the financial capital of the world!
   In the evenings we got to go sight seeing, shopping, and partying. Sight seeing involved places like Empire State building, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, the 911 Memorial, Grand Central Station, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a Yankees game!
   I had to be creative with my evening free time because my friends enjoyed partying in clubs and bars so I hung out at the hotel. Here are a couple pictures from the trip...

The Empire State building entrance way

 The Chrysler Building

 New York City

 911 Memorial of one of the Twin Towers

 The Brooklyn Bridge

 The Statue of Liberty (closed for remodeling)

 Tour of Grand Central Station

 A 16 oz New York Strip at Michael Jordan's Steakhouse

              The  Metropolitan Museum of Art-- One of the biggest museums in the world!

 We got to go to a Yankee's game! That was super fun but HOT!

 A hotdog and cheese fries

 New York Stock Exchange- Market Maker was in charge of all 25 of these stocks!

 The famous Bull by the New York Stock Exchange

The New York Stock Exchange

Photos Of Our little Oreo

Once again we were very blessed to have the Brownie's aunt do newborn pictures for our little Oreo. Newborn photos were really fun. There is not much that we had to do to get ready for them. The only thing that we needed to do was to keep the little guy up for about 1-1.5 hrs before the photo shoot. This ended up being a little more difficult then expected. It's not easy keeping a newborn up when they want to sleep. When we got to the photo shoot we fed the Oreo and then he was out for the count and was really good for the entire shoot. Here are some of our favorite pictures.

  

Our Birth Story

Its surprising how fast nine months goes by. One minute your telling your family and friends that your expecting and the next minute you are telling them that you are on the way to the birth center! It was magical experience. Contractions started at 2:00 am on Sunday, April 1st. It took awhile for us to realize what was really going on. Contractions were mostly manageable for most of the day. We labored at home as long as we could but then we left for the birth center and arrived at 9:00 pm. When we got there, the Midwives checked the Muffin to see how far along she was. We were super surprised to find out the Muffin was fully dilated when we had arrived. 5-10 minutes after arriving, the Muffin’s water broke and we knew we weren’t far from having a baby. Contractions were so intense that the Muffin wanted to get into the tub and which was very relaxing. After getting in, she didn’t want to get out! We ended up having a water baby at 9:47pm. The Brownie checked to see if it was a boy or a girl and it was a BOY!! Even though we both wanted a girl, we weren’t disappointed upon having a boy. The whole experience was amazing and spiritual and we would do it again!! Our little Oreo was very alert right after delivery. The Brownie got to spend 40 minutes with the handsome Oreo. The Brownie enjoyed bonding with the Oreo and it was an amazing feeling to be a new dad! The Oreo was 7 pounds 5 ounces at birth and was 20 1/2 inches long. The Oreo had a full head of dark hair. We love our little Oreo and are so blessed to have him in our home. The pictures below are from the first week.

 

     

Fun Prenatal Pictures

The Brownie has an aunt who does prenatal and infant photos and she offered to take pictures for us. We spent the evening flashing our lives away in front of the camera. We had A LOT of fun and we decided to share some of our favorite pictures with you!

 

 

 

The Arrival of the Car Seat

 

In the mail, we received the Oreo’s car seat.

         

 

 

It came in a GIGANTIC box and was left at our doorstep. We were super excited about getting this car seat and installing it.

                     

 

It was an adventure getting the car seat installed properly.We finally took it to a car seat inspection company in Murray and they assisted us and we passed!!

 

                   

The Crib

So we made our big announcement... mentioned a few things about how the pregnancy is going... and now its time to start getting ready. Getting ready for the day we bring our little one home has been a lot of fun and a little stressful at times. There are so many things that people think that you should get. We have had to narrow down what we think are the essentials. Out of the thousands of things that we could have started with, the first major purchase we made for our little Oreo was the crib. This little adventure started online and ended in Logan. In Logan there is a place called Stork Landing who specializes in baby items. We spent more time in this store then probably any other store we have ever been in together. It took us over two hours (exceeding closing time) to choose this crib. Let’s just say we were pretty pleased with our purchase by the time we left. 
                            
This is what we started with. This crib did not come in a box because we took the floor model and so they wrapped it up in cardboard with bubble wrap and some other material. The crib came in about six different pieces.

    
Putting the crib together turned out to be a pretty simple process. Nothing like you would imagine from all the funny jokes you hear about the dad trying to put all the baby stuff together. Before you start to think that the Brownie did all the work think again….. The Muffin did help where she could.
                                  
And now for the finished product……
                         
We decided to decorate the crib with a few accessories that we got. The white blanked was made by one of the grandparents (its super soft), the sheep in the corner actually folds out as a blanket and that was found by the Brownie’s dad, and the little shirt was our first baby clothes purchase. The Muffin could not resist that it said, “I Love Daddy” on the front.
                                                      
After all that work, we decided that our little baby corner still needed a little more decorating. We found these super cute wall stickers at the store and decided that they would be perfect for the crib corner.
                                                  
So our wall went from this…….
To this….   

Its not much but we like it and now it feels a little more suitable for our little Oreo!