Nikolas pictures, what else?

Alexander got left out of the "holding the baby" pictures on that last blog, but trust me, it happens. He is so thrilled to have Nikolas. For the first several days after we got home he kept telling me "I like my new baby boy" or we'd say something about the baby and Xander would say, "and it WAS a boy!"

One day Alexander got hurt and he climbed up beside me on the couch and looked at Nikolas, who was asleep, and said "when he opens his eyes again I'm going to show him my blood". I guess it seemed like the perfect thing to do with a brother.


Here are a few pictures from Nikolas' latest photo shoot, he's only had a couple short ones so far, but as soon as I can bend and move more, he's in for a good long session.
He had not so silent observers who liked to jump in the shot.
I liked the look on his face in this one. Nikolas is totally not effected by the kids loud noises or constant motion. I know he's been hearing it for months now and he just doesn't even blink when the go yelling by his bed while he sleeps. He doesn't mind being hugged and kissed on either.
big yawn


We've had a good first week with Nikolas. He's a good boy, had a few long nights but he's getting that all straightened out now. He had boarder line jaundice, and we had to keep going back to the hospital to get him tested every day, but his numbers finally came down Wednesday (after Faron spent many days sitting by the window letting the sun light do it's work on Kole) so that's gotten all resolved without any medical intervention.

This has been my best C-section recovery, so that's handy since there are so many people all over me, not the best if you're in pain. I've had very little pain and feel almost back to normal already, a little slow and weak still, but feeling very good.

Nikolas was not to impressed with his first holiday today, but the rest of us enjoyed it and we were glad to have him "out" and with us!

more babiness

Here are some more pictures from the last couple of days that I wanted to share.


Ok, I know this pictures is a little gross, sorry, but this is the knot that was in Nikolas' umbilical cord, they called it a "true knot", I just think it's cool that I got to see it and see what God protected him from, who knows how long that knot has been there, and it could have meant tragedy at any point.ok, no more gross ones, here's the 5 of them all together at the hospital meeting for the first time.
We got to come home on Saturday, so here's Nikolas getting ready for his first car ride. I love how he's clutching his pacifier, making sure it's not going anywhere.

since we've been home there's been a lot of this going on.

Here's his coming home from the hospital outfit. All of our girls have worn the same outfit home and now all of our boys have too :)

The Baby Is Here!

Here is the latest addition to the Hopper Household:Nikolas Judah. He decided to show himself to us at 8:02 am. He weighed in at 8 lb 6 oz. and was 20 1/2" long. The nurse in the nursery said she thought he was about 37 weeks old due to his movement ratio and the wrinkles on his feet.

He Looks like Xan/Phia in the face. It might be that he will have 2 blonde boys....only time will tell



Moma is doing great. I Love this woman!

A quick note about the birth of Kola, he had a knot on his umbilical cord. The Dr. called him a miracle baby due to the knot being around the cord, yet God is still taking care of him and brought him through birth without it tightening up and choking him. When the Dr. showed it to me, the first thing I saw was the letter omega, which is the last letter assigned to God in Revelation 1:8 "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." Vera thought it could have been a really big deal after realizing what the Dr. said. Both of us have seen how God has had His hand on our lives these last few months and this is another sign of that providential influence.

May the Lord's blessings be upon you,
Faron

Playing in the leaves

We don't have many big established threes around here, so we don't have tons of leaves that the kids can play in, but we did manage to find a couple of trees who were dropping their leaves and have a little fun.

Isabella loves to be up a tree.
Notice that she lost her 2 front teeth in the recent weeks. that's 5 total now!

Sophia was on the ground so she did the raking.


And Isabella jumped from on high.
Sophia also reaped the benefits of her pile.


Xander really wants to climb the trees but he isn't quite tall enough to get up there on his own, so he was getting a little boost here. Once he gets up on the first branch he's good to go.
Ari required quite a bit of assistance, but she had a fun time.



Attempting a shot of all 4.
The toothless grin again.

Sophia's Party party party.

Sophia's wait was finally over and we had her party Saturday!
Since there are always so many costumes in the stores around Sophia's birthday we have always had a costume party, so this year Sophia got to dress as a Hula Dancer with an authentic costume straight from Grammy and Pop's recent trip to Hawaii.
Once the party started my prego brain couldn't keep up with pictures so I never really got a good picture of the other kids in their costumes, but Isabella was a Queen, Alexander a cowboy and Arianna was also a hula dancer. Here is Isabella, and also Grammy, who was AARP Geinie.

Grammy was helping Pop transform into a pirate.

A little costume sharing and switching...


More sharing. Alexander's wearing Aunt Lora's MU enthusiast hat.
Isaiah was dressed as Obama, he had a campaign pin on and would say "Change". It was funny since he actually does look like him!
All the kids shed parts of thier costumes pretty quickly. Here you can see Alexander's from the back at least. Lane was Buzz at this point, he had been a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle at first, and Ella had already ditched her Glenda aHeading down stairs to play.
This was Sophia's "adult" cake, the kids had cupcakes that they got to decorate themselves, so the adults were supposed to eat this one :)


The kids had fun decorating thier cupcakes, we had some ideas printed off from a book we have and they went wild with the candy.


Some of the adults helped too...



Arianna was in baby heaven being able to go back and forth from Lucas to Kaleb.

Here's Sophia checking out the presents.And then opening them.
We also got to play outside quite a bit since it was a fabulous 70 degree day.
Sophia had a great 5th birthday party!