Jimmy * Esther * Zeke * Lilly

It was a wonderful morning listening to the first session of General Conference! Jimmy and I took turns holding Zeke, and loved looking at him while we listened.

For the past few years during conference, I would wish that I could be holding my baby while I watched conference. Then, I would say to myself, “Maybe we’ll have our baby by the next conference.” Each conference, my heart would ache as I would think that another six months had passed, and we were still childless. Since conferences are six months apart, I guess I would use them as mile markers. I remember a few times where I would say to Jimmy, “Okay, I can make it two more months, but that’s all” The two months would go by, and I would say “okay I can make it another month” It was too hard for me to think about waiting another year, but if I broke it down into months at a time, and sometimes days at a time, it was a little more bareable.

As I held my precious little baby boy this afternoon, I realized that I had a baby during conference! I was so thankful, and my heart burst with joy! This all may seems a little silly, but to me it is wonderful. I am so grateful for our amazing birth mother, Samantha, and for Heavenly Father in giving us the gift of parenthood!

Zeke is now almost 3 weeks old and he’s doing great. He’s had quite an eventful week. On Monday, he visited the doctor for his 2 week check up and was weighed at 6 pounds 15 ounces! He’s eating well and gaining weight. As of Monday, the girth of his head was in the 13th percentile. He was in the 7th percentile for weight and 11th percentile for height. We’re sure he’s above 7 pounds now, as his face and neck are putting on a little bit of weight. He’s a growing boy!

Wednesday, we got family pictures taken at Kiddie Kandids. He did good, except for one grumpy picture where he was sitting up. We love it anyway and think he’s just the cutest kid ever. You can see a thumbnail of the pictures here.

On Thursday, Zeke met his great grandma and grandpa on Jimmy’s side of the family. They were excited to meet their newest great grandchild and thought he was absolutely adorable.

We’ve almost hit the 1000 picture mark on Flickr. We have some waiting to be uploaded, so that should be passed up very soon.

Zeke is sleeping snug and sound right now, so I think we’ll head to bed.

Here’s our family webcam picture taken tonight.

Zeke had a big day yesterday. He had a very special visit by Sam and her mom, and then we went on our first walk together. Zeke was so good through the whole walk. Esther and I were so excited to be on a walk with our baby boy, that we just kept walking and walking.

We saw a few families in our ward while on the walk and got to show little Zeke to them. We walked up and around the Provo Temple, and then decided that we wanted to walk down to the BYU Creamery to get some ice cream.

We’ve dreamed of going on a walk together with our baby to the Creamery for years, and it finally came true. On our way, we saw Natasha, who we were secretly hoping we’d see as we walked past her building.

We made it to the Creamery, got some ice cream, and made it all the way back home after a quick stop to see some of our favorite little girls.

Zeke only started to get fussy about the last 5 minutes as we were nearing home.

He is such a good little boy! It was a really, really long walk, and he was an angel.