A friendship for a lifetime!

We are so excited to be able to say that we officially have a new addition to the family!

Tobiah William Schwarz

Born Tuesday, July 26th, 2011 @ 5:21 am

7 lbs 5 oz and 19 in

He is so perfect in every way and we are so excited that he finally decided to join us in this world! Mama and baby are doing great! We are so excited for Darek and Steph and it is so fun to see my brother with a baby as I think Zeke was one of the first babies that he has held!

Cute family!

We are so excited to be an uncle and aunt again!

Uncle Michael

Auntie Emily

Proud grandparents!

I just love this picture! It fills my heart with so much joy! I know they have waiting for a long time to be grandparents and now they are doubly blessed and I know they are so excited! I am so thankful that they are close enough to be able to visit often, I love that they will be such an active part in Z's life!

Time for the cousins to meet!

KT introducing Zeke to Toby

Best buds already!

Love it!

I am so excited that Zeke and Toby are so close in age and will be able to grow up together! I know that the will be best buds just like their parents! Darek and I have pretty much always been best friends (even though sometimes we may of had a crazy way of showing it) and then when we got married our spouses fit right into the mix and the 4 of us are best friends and so it is so special to both have baby boys so close together and have them be best buds too!

Adding babies to our family is sure making for interesting family gatherings already! We all got together for the first time, along with my uncle Mark, and Steph's mom and there wasn't a boring moment! :-) And it may be a while until we are all able to eat as a family again and if we do it sure won't be on our time! The joys of adding little ones to the family! But of course its totally worth it!  Its so fun to have our family growing, it's about time and I am loving every minute!

That's all for now! Zeke is calling! :-)

Babies Vs. Puppies

So as we have started this journey down parenthood lane we have recalled the moments in which many people have told us that having a puppy is way different than having a baby!

BOY WERE THEY RIGHT!!!!!

At the point of being one month in we have decided that having a puppy is WAY harder than having a baby! Comparing the two at this point in the game:
- Zeke sleeps through the night the majority of the time VS. Jaxon would not of if we wouldn't of let him sleep in the bed with us, he would wake up every 2 hours if we had him sleep in his crate (so we let him sleep with us so we could get some sleep).
- Zeke poos and pees in a diaper VS. Jaxon pooed and peed on the floor and we had to take him outside every hour or two to train him to do his business out there.
- Zeke stays where ever you put him down at VS. Jaxon was running around the house getting into everything, we had to keep our eyes on him constantly.
- Zeke eats for free VS. Jaxon needs dog food and treats that we have to buy.
- Zeke has no teeth and can't bite VS. Jaxon had the sharpest little puppy teeth and would bite us and everything as we were training him not to.

:-)

Jaxon Bear when he was a puppy

Zeke when he was a day old

Though I know a lot of these things will change and soon Zeke will be running all over the house and we will have to teach him not to bit and so on. But as I look at the comparisons I realize that having a puppy is like getting thrown straight into toddler-hood! So though we will eventually get to that same point again now with Zeke at least we are getting eased into it this time! But after the first 8 months to a year with a puppy you are usually done with most of the challenges as with a baby I hear that it is always changing and hard times continue to come. Puppies don't have hormones, though ours does seem to give us some attitude from time to time! :-)

This is all in fun and of course we truly love both of our boys! And take every moment, good or challenging, and cherish them!

New milestones!

Our little Z is continuing to melt our hearts one day at a time as he continues to grow up way to fast! He has passed through a couple milestones and they are so bittersweet! It's so fun for these new things to be happening, but they seem to be coming so fast!

The first new milestone is that he has officially grown out of his first outfit! And he is on the verge of growing out his first round of onesies! On Saturday I put him in this outfit

I could barely squeeze him into it and could only snap a couple of the snaps on the bottom! When I took it off of him and thought that I'll need to wash it and then pack it away I got a little sad. It's so crazy to think that we are already at this point! Though I honestly thought it would come sooner,  because I thought he would be bigger when he was born because both Mike and I were about 8.5 pounds when we were born and then became very chunky babies! Though he is def holding his own in the getting chubby department! We think he is probably already over 9 pounds if not close to 10 pounds.

His second milestone is more of the heart melter! Mike was gone on Saturday and Sunday this past weekend and when he got home I handed Zeke over to him. He was saying hi to him and then all of a sudden Zeke's face totally lit up and he started smiling! (He is at the point now that he smiles in response to seeing people that he knows (mostly Mike and I) or when he gets excited.) It was the sweetest thing and Mike got so excited! I felt like my heart was just spilling over with joy seeing this all take place! I loved seeing Zeke get so excited to see his daddy and also seeing Mike get so excited to have Zeke smile at him! It is a moment that I want to make sure that I never forget! It's amazing how this little guy has the ability to make us feel this way!

I hope to get a few more blogs up here soon! I have so much I want to write about, not to mention we have had some other exciting things happen in our family! My mom is staying with us tonight and will be here tomorrow, so a lot of times I can get some good blogging done! So, sorry if I bombard you with new posts!

The good, the bad, and the ugly

We've had a lot of good thus far as I have mentioned in my previous posts.

We've had a few "bad" days, as will be the case in new adventure.

Unfortunately we have also had a handful of ugly days! I hesitated writing this post as I am not one to complain about things and I hate being a downer, but as I have mentioned these things to ladies I have come to discover that they are quite common. It had really made me wish that I had known that sooner so I could of asked them for advice or even just for support. I felt like I was alone on this and battling through something that very few have. So I am writing this to let others ladies know that they aren't alone and that I am more than happy to answer any questions or be of help in any way that I can.

So here we go:

A couple weeks into this whole being a mama gig, I developed mastitis, I won't go into what it is as it can be a bit TMI. So you can read more about what it is here. I started to feel really yucky and have flu-like symptoms, then it got to the point that it was so painful when I would feed Zeke that I would just cry (this hurt way worse than labor!). At first I didn't really know what the deal was, as I didn't know what mastitis was (which also means that I didn't know what to do to prevent it). So I super googled it and realized that my symptoms matched up perfectly. I researched natural ways to combat it and started to improve, but then the next day it got way worse and so Mike and my mom ganged up on me and made me go in and get it checked out. They gave me an antibiotic (which I am so not a fan of at all) and something for pain (which I am also not a fan of so I never ended up using them) and told me to REST (which is hard for me)! It took a bit but it finally did start to clear up, but in the mean time they said that I should pump if it was too painful to feed. Then shortly after that I was still having a lot of pain but with different symptoms and so I super googled again and figured out that I probably had thrush. It is a common occurrence when you are on antibiotics (stuff like this is why I dislike medications and antibiotics, though I understand there is a time a place for it). Again you can read about that here. Thrush is easily passed between mom and baby while breastfeeding, but thankfully since Zeke was being bottle fed at the time he never got it. So I got some cream and some more medication (I don't think I have had so many prescriptions combined during my whole life as I have had in the past month) and now thankfully I am coming out of it and hope to be done with all of this crazy stuff soon!

I am anxious to get this all officially behind us and start breastfeeding Zeke again. I am a bit nervous that he might have nipple confusion once we start again, so I am really praying that he takes back to it. I never really got the opportunity to enjoy the experience, I know a lot of ladies talk about it being one of their favorite things. So I really hope to be able to experience that yet. Pumping has been quite time consuming and is making it tricky to get things done around the house since Zeke has been cluster feeding during the day. So I pretty much will bottle feed him, play, do diaper changes, put him down to sleep, pump, try to quick grab something to eat and then start everything over again. Though we are getting good sleep at night, so I try not tot complain too much.

My brother asked me today if having a baby was what I thought it would be and as I have said before the baby part of everything has been way easier than I thought it would be. But the "me" part of everything has been harder than I thought it would be, it made it a bit harder too because I was feeling so good the first couple of weeks until I was hit with these things. I just try to remember the saying " Your biggest struggle will be your greatest victory!" So that just means that this will start to get easy for us here soon!

I just want any ladies out there that is fighting either of these things now or in the future to feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions or just want some support and want to talk about it. I totally understand that its really painful and can be hard to deal with on top of the lack of sleep and emotional state that we are in. It was also really hard for me to switch to just bottle feeding as I felt like a bad mom and that I was failing, but I had to remember that I couldn't properly take care of Z or my family if I wasn't taking care of myself first. Also to those new moms or about to be new moms out there, read up on these and do your best to prevent them from effecting you. I really wish I would of known before hand how common they were because then I definitely would of researched them and found out how to do my best to keep them from hitting me.

YouTube Channel

We created a YouTube channel to upload our family videos to. Its a bit quicker and more convenient than uploading them to the blog or emailing them out to everyone as we have a flip video camera and they have it all set up in the software!

Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/bemicrew

 

Add it to your favorites and check back often and I will do my best to keep it updated with the newest videos of our family adventures! 

First playdate!

Though there wasn't much playing going on this time, just lots of sleeping, eating, fussing & pooing! :-P

Today we had the wonderful pleasure of having the Wind family over and getting to meet baby Emmett! He is such a cutie! It was so crazy to see how little he is compared to Ezekiel, even though they weighed the same at birth and Emmett was actually 2 inches longer than Zeke at birth as well. What a difference a month makes!

Ezekiel, a little over a month old, & Emmett, almost a week old.

It was so fun to be able to meet Emmett and to hear about how everything has been going for them and to be able to swap stories and experiences. It's so fun to be in such a similar place in life as our friends! We were fur-baby parents together first and now we are skin-baby parents together now! It just helps to hear their similar stories and to know that we aren't alone or...crazy!

The Wind & Bemis Crews (the puppies were busy sniffing around)

The guys with their boys!

The puppies were excited to see each other as always! Jaxon was trying to figure out who the new little person was, I think he wanted to make sure he wasn't coming to stay too! I think he thinks 1 is enough! :-)

We are hoping to get in at least one more playdate before they head off for their adventures in Sweden! Then it will be until next summer that we will all get together again. Crazy to think that our boys will be a year old already then and it will be here before we know it!

Thanks Andy & Annette for coming to share your little man with us! We are so happy for you guys and are excited to see him grow up! Congratulations!

A month ago today...

the most handsome, adorable, smart, strong, perfect (in my opinion) little boy in the whole world made his grand entrance into this world! I can't believe it's already been a month, I feel like we were just in our hospital room holding him for the first time! Though it feels like so long ago that I was pregnant!

One month ago today!

One month old!

The last month has been fun, exciting, joyful, tiring, emotional, plus a million more emotions (at least for me)! I know I have said this a million times but Ezekiel has been such an awesome baby, so thankfully most of our time over the last month have been the positive emotions! I know we will have our moments going forward but up until this point we have really been eased into this whole parenting gig!

So over the past month Zeke has really grown and changed, it's crazy how much babies develop in such short amounts of time! He has been eating and sleeping like a rockstar, we have had many nights that he has slept through the night, the nights that he does wake up its just once around 3 or 4 am.

Passed out in mommies arms!

Outside of eating, sleeping and pooing (which is also a rockstar at, his toots can be heard from the other room, better out than in!), he is starting to do a lot of other things. As I posted in our last blog, he is rolling from his stomach to his back already! I thought maybe it was a fluke, but he keeps on doing it! Which makes it hard to do tummy time when he keeps rolling to his back! Speaking of tummy time, he is also doing so good with that! He is so strong and can lift his head really well, his legs are also really strong and he is a good kicker!

He spends a lot of his awake time either under his jungle gym checking everything out,

doing tummy time, reading (or maybe just being read to), and doing some cuddling! He is focusing in on things now and follow moving objects, which then means going cross eyed sometimes too!

Focusing too hard & going cross eyed!

It's so fun to watch him discover things! He also is grabbing (which he has been doing since birth) and holding on to things, he holds his ball and his birdie, oh and also my hair! Today for the first time he grabbed a chunk of my hair and wouldn't let go and pulled, so that was a fun first! :-P I love reading to him and showing him the pictures because he actually looks at the pictures!

Reading Transformers so he can watch all the movies with dad!

During his half awake half asleep time he spends a lot of time going to the dog park with his brother Jaxon Bear and cousin Brodie! We also try to get out for lots of walks if the weather allows! The puppies have done so great with the adjustment of the new family member! Their was a short time in which I think Jaxon was feeling a little left out, so we have continued to make sure to include him on things with Z-man,

Cuddle time with Jaxon & Ezekiel! My fav!

make special time for just him, and then try to keep a schedule that was close to our schedule before and get them both out to the dog park and out for walks. Overall it has been a pretty smooth transition!

Mike has taken on the daddy role so well!

Love all my boys!

I knew he would be awesome daddy to our little man, because he has always been so good with kids, but he is even better with our little guy! I try to get Z's schedule to work out so he is awake when he comes home because I can tell that he misses him while he was at work. It just fills my heart with so much joy to see him love on our little boy! And I real feel like we are coming together as a team and this experience is continuing to strengthen our marriage, which I pray for everyday! I know that the trials and frustrations of parenthood can put a lot of strife on marriages so I am very thankful that we are doing well in that area. We also continue to try to make time for just us which we know is really important, though we haven't gotten out of the house yet just the 2 of us, but that will come in time!

Ezekiel James is such an amazing blessing from God to our family! We have been praying for sometime now for this little one and God has fulfilled all of our prayers and more! I just pray that I continue to grow into a mom fit to raise such an amazing child of God! Thankfully I am blessed to be surrounded by so many amazing women that are such wonderful mommies that I can learn from and also ladies that are about to be mommies and we can plow through this journey together!

One month down...that makes us experts...right! :-)

My big one month old boy!

And we be rollin'...

well Zeke that is!

Last night (July 8th, 2011) Ezekiel rolled over for the first time, he rolled from his tummy to his back...TWICE! And we got most of the second one on video! It was so fun to both be there and see him do it for the first time! Maybe its a fluke, but it was still fun! Here is our big guy doing his thing...

Not sure if I am ready for him to be on the move yet, so hopefully he doesn't become an expert at this quite yet!

Time Flies!

So many parents have told us the famous words, "Take in every moment, they grow up so fast!" As we are 3 1/2 weeks into this whole parenting gig, I find that I repeat those words frequently to myself. I know I have mentioned this a bunch of times but he is such a good baby and he makes it so easy to live in the moment with him and not wish away the days because he is fussy or won't sleep. I am sure we will have our moments or days or even weeks (I pray not though) and I will do my best in those times to be content to be there (maybe not happy).

The other night I was holding him, having some mommy & Zeke cuddle time and he did my favorite thing. He went from awake to sleeping, though I do like it when he does that, what I am talking about is the transition in between. The twitchy, smiley, funny face time! I just sat there and watched him do that for I don't know how long and it hit me that some day he won't do this anymore. And I just took in that moment as much as I could and did my best to burn it into my memory, because I never want to forget it! My heart was so filled with love and joy, needless to say (in my hormonal state) the tears just started streaming down my cheeks (and Mike thought I was crazy). He is just a perfect little man and I am feeling so overwhelmed that God has entrusted his life to us, he is truly such an amazing blessing! Some day this little man will no longer be so little and that blows my mind, before I know it I will be sitting in the stands at his football games and yes, I will be one of "those" moms!

I know it will all go too fast, so as for now I'm gonna go cuddle my little guy right now and soak up every moment that I can!

I know I say he rarely fusses, here is one of his few moments! :-P

Fun Filled 4th of July Weekend!

We had a wonderful weekend filled with lots of friends and family! My parents spent the weekend at our house, which always consists of a couple projects for my dad and Mike to do and cleaning, laundry, and baby cuddling for my mom!And yummy things like this appear around the house when she is here!

Fruity Pebble Bars & Choc Chip Cookies

We love having them come and stay and, of course, we don't mind the extra hands on deck at all! The puppies also love having the extra hands on deck, as long as they are petting them! :-) And of course Zeke loves spending time with Grandpa & Grandma Bear too!

On Saturday we laid low and hung out around the house and then went for a walk. When we returned from our walk I noticed my hydrangea bushes are blooming so beautifully so I went out and cut a few stems to create this beautiful arrangement! I absolutely LOVE hydrangeas and I love that I can cut them from my front yard! Ahhh, love it! So beautiful!

On Sunday we started the day out on a great foot with big Z-man sleeping 8 hours straight! He slept from 1 am (we woke him around midnight to feed him and then put him back down) until 9 am! Praise God! Then we decided to run a few errands, but first stopped at Darek & Steph's because Ezekiel and the puppies wanted to give their Auntie Steph some hydrangeas too! So we hung out there and chatted for a bit! Then we headed to PetCo, Costco, & Home Depot and then had to high tail it home because Mike's brother Jeb was on his way down to visit and meet Ezekiel! It was so great to see Jeb again (he lives in Northern MN so we don't get to see him all that often), Ellie (Jeb's daughter/our niece) is visiting her mom in Florida right now so that's why she didn't come with. But she flies back in on the 29th of the month, so they are planning to swing by before they head home. So we are really looking forward to seeing Ellie again and having her meet Zeke!

Uncle Jeb-o & Ezekiel

After a bit the boys ran to get Chipotle, which is always a must when Jeb comes to visit as he loves it but they don't have one anywhere near him! I have to say too, its only my 2nd time having Chipotle since Zeke was born, I am going through withdrawal! LOL! Just kidding, but really I'm not sure how they are still in business because I am pretty sure I was keeping them afloat! :-P

When we were finished with dinner we realized that it would be around 10 am on the 4th in Korea, so we decided to try and Skype with Mike's brother Joe and family. (Its about a 14 hour time difference so it makes it really tricky for us to find time to talk with them.) Praise God they were home (though we interrupted, bike riding time, sorry Carlie!) and we got to talk with them for about a half of an hour! It was really neat to see all the brothers being able to talk together again, it really warmed my heart! We got to see and talk to Carlie for a little bit too, she is just growing like crazy! She was telling us all about their plans for the day and about the place that they live, it was really cute! She was excited to see Brodie and Jaxon too. We also got to share our Z-man with them again too! (I wish I would of taken some pictures)

Then on Monday, the wonderful 4th of July! My dad and Mike did a couple of projects in Zeke's room for me, they rehung the curtians, made a shelf and hung it, and hung a picture. His room is almost finished, just a couple more finishing touches! We celebrated by heading to Darek & Steph's to meet up with them and go to the Chanhassen 4th of July Parade, the parade route is just a couple blocks from their house. Mark & Katie were there too, so it was fun to see them and spend time with them too! The parade was wonderful and though it was quite noisey, but Ezekiel slept through the whole thing! I wasn't sure how it would go, but it was perfect! He slept through the marching bands, the fire truck sirens, the cars and semis honking their horns, I was really impressed! Then we went back to Darek & Steph's for some yummy cake that my mom made and then we headed home. And just laid low for the rest of the night!

It was a really good family, fun, filled weekend!

Now we are just waiting on some little playmates for Z! My sister in law Steph has about a week left until her due date and Annette Wind has a little less than that! They are both having boys too, so Zeke is really looking forward to his friends coming out to play! I think he is getting bored with us! ;-) We can't wait to meet them! Come on babies!