Tyler Meets His Grandparents

On January 30th, the day after Tyler arrived home from the hospital, he got to meet Grandma & Grandpa Anderson for the first time! This was especially momentous for Tyler (even if he doesn't know it yet) because he was named after his Grandpa Anderson (Stephen). It was a big day for everyone, and I think that one look at the picture above shows just how excited the new grandparents are! After the initial meeting, there was time for lots of family pictures:

Grandma & Tyler










3 Generations of Andersons
An Anderson Family Portrait






And, very importantly, Tyler got to meet his Uncle Dave (aka the self-christened Mexican Uncle) via webcam! Here's the first picture of Tyler and his Uncle Dave hanging out together. Isn't technology great! The amazing thing about this picture is that Dave actually appears far crisper in this photo than he does on our computer screen. It must be some sort of technology cancelling itself out. Very interesting.... Anyways, Dave is living in Merida, Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula working on his PhD dissertion. As soon as he finishes his research, he's heading out to California to meet the little tyke, but in the meantime, we have the webcam so Dave can watch him grow and Tyler can get to know his uncle. Tyler enjoyed checking out Dave on the screen as well, but I think it was more fun for the grown-ups...at least for now.

And lastly, just because he is so darned cute, here's another picture of Tyler to leave you with...

Welcome Home, Tyler!

On Tuesday, January 29th, Tyler came home from the hospital. I was doing so well that the doctors released us a day early (much to everyone's relief...staying at the hospital is no fun, and not exactly restful). He was SO little in his carseat, and I sat in the back with him because what if the little peanut slipped on the car ride home and we couldn't see him from the front seat? Or what if he cried the whole way and broke his mother's heart?? We just couldn't risk that, so while Daddy drove the car home more carefully than he's ever driven before, I sat in the backseat with Tyler. In the end, we needn't have worried. He fell asleep promptly, and didn't make a peep or move a muscle.

Once we got home, we introduced him to his nursery, but he was unimpressed (and quite asleep). Hopefully he'll like it once he's old enough to see further than 12" from his face. And so, we put him to bed, wrapped up like a burrito in his swaddling, and we placed him in his bassinet for his first nap in his new room!

Tyler's Arrived!

Today is Tyler's 1 week birthday, and he is home and doing great!!! He was born on Saturday, January 26, 2008 at 9:44 am, and he was 7 lbs. 2 oz. and 19 inches long. Right up until the end he made things interesting...turns out, Tyler was not only breech, he had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck twice and his body once. No wonder he couldn't turn around! Poor little guy had open sores on both thumbs and wrists from sucking on them so hard in the womb. We think he tried to pull the cord off his neck and would suck on his wrists when he got stressed. Now that he's here, the first thing he always does when he's upset is to pop those little wrists in his mouth! In the end, it's a good thing that Tyler was a C-section baby, because he was going to be no matter what. At least this way, it wasn't an emergency and we could plan for it. Here's our first family portraits, and my favorite picture of Tyler and I after he was born.

Tyler had lots of visitors on in the hospital, including some of his aunts & uncles and Grandma & Grandpa Pharris.

Here's a shot of all the California men in Tyler's life: Uncle Jon, Grandpa, Dad and Uncle Brian

And here are the California women: Aunt Gretchen, Aunt Ashley, Mom (now that feels weird to type!) and Grandma

We are so grateful for all of our visitors at the hospital, and especially the support of our families!Tyler is very lucky to be born into such a loving bunch. Lot's has happened in the last few weeks, so hopefully I'll be able to catch up on some of it with these posts. My goal is to post once a week, so we'll see how that goes. Stay tuned!