Home with Luke

Sorry it's taken me a few days, but I'm finally ready to let you know this little guy's name.

He is officially Luke, a name I've had on my mind for several weeks, but which we were

able to finally settle on in the hospital when we saw that it means "light" or "bearer of light."

He seems to be a pretty calm baby and Ben in particular wanted to try to find a name to

reflect that.  Luke seems to work, then, don't you think?

Here's Luke all ready to go home from the hospital.  There are two more interesting facts about this picture, though.  First of all, all of our older children came home from the hospital in the same yellow pajama outfit.  I didn't move any baby stuff with me from Georgia, and I was sad to not have that outfit anymore.  (What was I thinking??)  I found another yellow outfit to bring Luke home in, but it was too small!  So we squeezed him into it for the trip home, but he will never wear it again, haha.

The other interesting fact is that we were able to get 90% of the baby things we needed for this guy for free from the MBA Spouse Association clothing & goods exchange or from friends who were getting rid of things.  The biggest missing piece of equipment was a car seat.  A few weeks before my due date, we still didn't have a car seat and we thought we would use Eliza's convertible seat as our infant seat and get her a toddler/booster convertible seat.  But then this infant carrier showed up on our doorstep.  Literally.  Brand new, in the box, no note or tag or anything.  So, thank you to our anonymous infant carrier donor.  We are so thankful to have this seat for our little bundle!

I'd brought a cute little blanket with us to the hospital, but didn't think about the fact that he would need it on our way home to protect him from the frigid spring weather here.  So Ben had already loaded our suitcase (with the blanket in it) in the car when we were ready to leave the hospital.  Luke got covered up with my FSU sweatshirt instead.  I guess it's never to early to show your Seminole spirit, though!

When Ben was holding Luke during scripture reading last night, all of the kids were fighting over who got to sit closest to them.  First Jack sat next to Ben, then when he got up, Cat took his spot, and when he tried to come back to his seat Cat didn't want to move, so he squeezed his way between Ben and Cat.  It was comical.  And so sweet.

Right after his first bath at home... he wasn't a fan.

Jack came out of bed to see what the fuss was all about during Luke's bath.

He was relieved when Luke stopped crying, and he liked his construction truck pajamas.

The girls spent some quality time with Luke before they left for Church this morning.

Overall, I'd say things are going well.  I'm feeling great, but I'm still making a conscious effort to take it easy (which doesn't come naturally to me).  It's been immensely helpful to have Ben's parents in town. Between them being here and Ben being available, I haven't had to do much besides take care of the baby.  It's been wonderful.

Luke is still a pretty calm and content baby.  His main goal in life seems to be to remain in physical contact with someone at all times.  As long as he's being held or is at least touching someone, he is perfectly happy.  So he gets lots of snuggles during the day and at night and nobody seems to mind too much.  He's eating well and fulfilling his diaper duties.  He likes his pacifier, but doesn't have to have it all of the time, which is great.  He's a skinny little guy with dark blue eyes and I love love love his old man hair.  It was particularly awesome after his bath, when its cleanness allowed it to stick out all over.  I think this picture from my last post shows it best:

Yep.  We'll keep him.