Precious First Moments with Baby Cassiel

She's here! Our little girl, Cassiel Sofia, arrived on Thursday, April 21st at 1pm. She weighed 7lbs, 13 oz and was 21 3/4 inches long. She's beautiful and sweet and a complete joy.

My Mom came down for the birth and has spent two weeks with us taking care of the house and meals and our overall needs so that I can focus on the kids. She's been a dream and has allowed us to transition into this new life stage without completely falling apart.

Alex meeting his little sister at the hospital for the first time. He's been sweet and attentive and totaly accepting of this new little addition. He's definitely had more than one meltdown and has been more demanding of Mama and Papa, but overall, he's thrilled with the new baby.

He picked out a special present for Cassiel before she was born - a ballerina tooth box for the tooth fairy. Super cute that she won't even have teeth for a while, let alone be losing them, but also that he understands that she's a girl and therefore will like pink and ballerinas. Where do they learn the gender distinction so early?! I thought he'd buy her a train or a car or something he's in to right now, but nope, he picked her something uber girly.

Proud Papa with his little girl...

Labor was surprisingly easy, praise God.

My Doctor decided, after reviewing her notes on Alex's delivery, that we had to plan for a big baby and a complicated delivery, so she induced me one week early. In hindsight it seems unneccesary, but when she rattled off all of the potential risks, we couldn't resist in good conscience. I was really anxious about being induced. Aside from just being unnatural, I'd heard that the pitocin made for unbearable contractions. We were scheduled for 10pm on Weds night at Cedars Sinai - the Weds night of Holy Week, by the way. By midnight they began the pitocin, I had an epidural around 7am and was in active labor by 9am. Meanwhile, President Obama was in town which had traffic completely shut down on the westside and my Doctor was scheduled to be in Manhattan Beach midday. Sigh. It's never good to have your labor dictated by your Doctor's schedule. Fortunately, the baby cooperated and flew out after less than 5 minutes of pushing. It was amazing! I literally only pushed four times and she popped out. Such a different experience from my first labor.
Alex, in true form, made sure he got sufficient attention amidst all the Cassiel excitement. He came home from daycare Wednesday night with pink eye. Uncle Seth and Aunt Jen came to the rescue and arranged to watch him on Thursday since we couldn't send him back to daycare. Simultaneously, I was diagnosed with strep throat in the hospital. The poor labor and delivery nurses had no idea how to conduct a strep test - not exactly their area of expertise. It was both funny and aggravating.

Cassiel's first day at home...

Alex learned really quickly that he gets a good reaction out of us when he kisses the baby. He now smothers her in kisses all day long.

Alex: "Look how cute I am kissing the baby!"

ahhh....if only she slept so peacefully at night...

Thanking God for these two little blessings which bring us so much joy.

We mistakenly placed the baby swing in Alex's corner where he goes for privacy when he's filling his diaper with poo-poos. Oops. Poor baby.

Alejandro took two weeks off work and it was a glorious two weeks. We loved every minute of having him home with us. He's such a devoted daddy and so great with both of them. Case in point, he created an 'Alex' playlist on his iPod with all of the theme songs from Alex's favorite TV shows and movies. Alex plays it at home when he's missing Papa and it makes me smile every time.

Baby's first bath.

Thank goodness for Grammy. She brought Alex enough presents to keep him entertained until Christmas.

Ohhhh sweet girl...

Grandpa with the kiddoes

These first couple of weeks already have been filled with countless breathtaking moments. We feel so fortunate and so grateful for these two little angels.