Toesies!

We have had such an amazing couple of weeks! Mom was here before Luke's arrival, so we all enjoyed some special Grandma time. Luke arrived, Jacob and Grandma had more quality time together, and now we are settling into being home. A few thank yous: to Mom for sharing her time, love, and wisdom with us. To KK, Ali, and Dad for sharing Mom, during the holidays and everything. To all of our family and friends for your prayers, thoughts, cards, emails, and calls.

We thought you might enjoy a few more pictures and a great video clip of Jacob and Luke. In case you aren't fluent in Jacob-ese, you can hear my voice in the background translating for you!

Hello World!

His name is Luke… and this is how he got here:

*Warning: This is a long story with a lot of details. If you are a picture-book kind of person, here’s the bottom line: Luke was born on Monday, 12.29.08 at 5:42 pm in Tarzana, California. He weighed 8 pounds and measured 21 inches long and has blue eyes and dirty blond hair. Now you can skip to the pictures. For those who want to know the details, read on…

On Monday morning, Grandma Costley came down to watch Jacob (still sleeping), while Tiff and I snuck out to the hospital. We checked in to the hospital, Tiff got her sweet hospital gown and the adventure began. Tiff and I had decided that this would be an unmedicated birth (for various reasons) and communicated that to the nurse. She seemed to doubt my wife’s ability to deal with the pain and go through with it. Bad idea, do not bet against my wife. You will lose. That kind of gives away part of the story, but that’s ok, I just wanted to underscore how crazy-tough Tiff is in case any of you doubted as well. A couple failed attempts at the initial IV setup had us a little concerned, but that didn’t slow us down. At 10:30 am, Tiff got started on round one of the anti-biotics. Tiff was strep B positive, which means she tested positive for a bacteria that many humans carry without ever knowing it and without becoming ill as a result of their carrying it. As such, they want to get two rounds of anti-biotics in mom before delivery to greatly reduce the risk to the baby. At 12:30 pm she started on the pitocin and round two of the anti-biotics. The contractions came slowly at first, nothing that seriously interfered with Tiff’s mad Sudoku skills. By around 2:30 pm, when the doctor came in to break Tiff’s water, she was at a two and the contractions had reached the “uncomfortable” stage. For the next hour and a half, Tiff was able to breathe through the contractions and relax in between. By 4:30 pm the contractions had gotten pretty uncomfortable. The doctor checked her and she was at a four. The doctor told her to work through the contractions for another thirty minutes, get to a five or six, and then she would turn off the pitocin, let Tiff get in the shower to relax, and then we would see if labor would continue on its own. Just shy of the 30 minute mark Tiff was, one might say, in quite a bit of pain and questioning whether or not she could make it the rest of the way. She told me to call the doctor in, so I knew that she wasn’t messing around. When the doctor came in, Tiff explained the pain and the doctor checked her again. Tiff was not at a five or six like that doctor thought she would be… she was at an eight while resting, and almost a nine during the contractions! She had reached the “transition” phase, which we had learned about in our birthing class. Transition is usually a brief period, twenty minutes or so, when the contractions hurt like crazy and one feels like she might be losing her mind. That is kind of how it was, but with reassurances that she was in transition and that it would be over soon, Tiff battled through it. As we neared 5:30, Tiff was heard saying things like: “I can’t do it, they said I could, but I can’t.” The doctor kindly noted that she was at a ten, that she was almost done, and that she would have a baby in her arms in about fifteen minutes. After a couple more pushes and Tiff’s comment that she couldn’t “push for hours” and that she “couldn’t do it”, the doctor said “you already did it, one more push and your baby will be here.” Tiff told the doctor that she didn’t believe her, then gave one more push and sure enough, Luke’s head emerged. Another little push and out popped his shoulders. Then the doctor tells me to take Luke, while he is still half inside Tiff mind you! I politely told her that I thought that he was a little too slippery for me to be handling him. She told me to grab him anyways. I grabbed the little guy under the arms, helped him the rest of the way into the world and handed him to Tiff. (Easily one of the most amazing moments of my life, right there with marrying Tiff, and Jacob’s birth.) The next part leads me to a little advice. I won’t try to say that no one should get epidurals or anything like that. However, what I will suggest is that you tell the doctor and nurses that you want to hold the baby for the first hour or so of his/her life. They can postpone the weighing, measuring, shots, tests, bath, etc… all you have to do is ask. That first hour of Tiff holding Luke was awesome. He sat on her chest and calmly looked up at his mom, and then I took a turn holding him while he just gazed up at me, wondering what was going on. After that we took care of all the other stuff and moved to our recovery room. The little guy was born at 5:42 pm, in Tarzana, California; he weighed 8 pounds and measured 21 inches in length. He has blue eyes and dirty blond hair.
The next morning, Luke and I went down to the nursery for his blood test. His “billy-count” (ya, that can’t be the medically correct terminology, nor the correct spelling) was a little high, and since Luke’s blood type was different than Tiff’s, he had to be under lights for the rest of the hospital stay. This included him lying under fluorescent lights, with nothing on but his diaper and some fabric “sunglasses” velcroed to the side of his head. Yes, velcroed… not a word, but an accurate description of the setup. I’m not going to lie to you, that was a bummer. He could only come out from under the lights for feeding, and for a maximum of thirty minutes every three hours. We made sure that we squeezed in a little time to hold the little guy before we strapped the shades back on and put him back under the lights. The next hurdle came after the circumcision. The procedure went fine, but the little guy had to pee before we could be discharged from the hospital. Unfortunately that had not occurred by Wednesday at 11:00 am, which is the normal discharge time. He had most likely peed sometime between the circumcision on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, but we hadn’t noticed it, and the nurses needed proof. As the time went on, we were dying to get out of there. Tiff and I got the water running in the bathroom, I poured water from a pitcher into a cup and back again, and Tiff took of Luke’s diaper, all in an effort to coax out a little urine. After that didn’t work, we asked the nurse if she new any tricks. Actually, I should back up to the point where I asked Tiff if I should maybe take matters into my own hands and make one of his diapers look as if he had wet it. She looked at me as if she wasn’t totally opposed to the idea, but we tried asking the nurse for ideas first. The nurse asked around and heard that laying him on the cold scale might help. She seemed concerned that we might think she was crazy for suggesting such a thing, but I quickly agreed to accompany her to the nursery to try. First they put Luke on the scale and took of his diaper… nothing. Then the nurse tried fanning him below the belt to see if the cold air would help… nothing. At this point, the other dad in the nursery with his new baby looked a little concerned, as if he was questioning the competence of the nursing staff based on this little covert operation we had going on. Our nurse called another nurse over and joked that she should say something to Luke in Spanish, hey we were desperate. The other nurse suggested drizzling a little warm water on the little guy’s nether regions. First few sprinkles… nothing, and I began to lose hope. Round two… the little geyser went off like old faithful… “Mission accomplished, back to base Joe.” (That’s from Seinfeld.) Just then, Tiff emerged from our hospital room with a desperate yet hopeful look on her face, essentially asking without words whether Luke had peed. I gave her the thumbs up and, while totally oblivious to the fact that other people were in the hallway and she was just in her hospital gown, Tiff raised her arms and triumphantly exclaimed “YES”! After that, we packed up and shipped out of that joint.
Though reasonably nervous about the journey, I safely navigated the 101 freeway and Malibu Canyon to get us home. We had to wrap these special lights in Luke’s blanket to help him with the jaundice, but that is done now. Mom and Luke are healthy and doing well. The Malibu branch of the Moore family is now four members strong and loving it. Jacob loves watching his little brother, who he calls “Baby Ñuke”. Baby Luke loves eating and sleeping. Mommy and Daddy love sleeping.

Not yet...

The widget says zero days... but baby Luke has yet to arrive. We'll keep you posted. Mean while, here's Jacob doing his "excercises"/almost the splits. This one's for you Dave, Jenny and Joe Cypress!

A Lot Can Happen...

...in 4 Years! Besides really missing my blonde hair and my not-pregnant face, I have to say that we have gotten better with time!

This year we decided to borrow a tradition from some friends (thanks Posterts), and come up with gifts inspired by the traditional anniversary presents. The fourth anniversary is fruit or flowers, so here's what we came up with:

One of Joey's favorites: fruit pizza
Notice Jacob's portion on the lower portion of the roman numeral I. Made with love and a few germs:)

A shout out to our wedding flowers.
I wish I would have caught a picture of Jacob's face as he carried these flowers in from their trip to the store! It was priceless. Beware girls, he has major heart breaker potential when he gets older.

TAWANDA!

This post is a shout out to all those familiar with 'Fried Green Tomatoes' or anyone interested in a good holiday laugh.

Background info: 1. I am one week away from being 'full-term' as they say, which means that the belly has become more than obvious. 2. Joey has been preparing for and taking finals over the past two weeks, which means that Jacob and I have been fending for ourselves and for the most part doing pretty well.

The Story: I can't say that I experience much of a 'nesting' tendency with pregnancy, but I do maintain my usual need to make lists and cross things off. My list on Wednesday included a trip to the mall in order to hit a couple of stores while getting in and out of the car only once. I have to admit that I didn't even feel like I could accomplish that much, until I realized that the mall has "Expectant Mother" parking! With the little bit of enthusiasm that came from that realization, we headed out.

Now for the fun part! There were two cars in front of us as we entered the parking structure, so I just told myself to be patient and wait for the "E.M" parking. Well, the first car actually pulled into the only empty E.M. space, and I thought, "I guess I am out of luck today. I might have to come back another day!" (Yes, the thought of finding a regular parking space was enough to send me all the way home) Then, just as suddenly as they pulled in, they pulled out. Turns out it was an older couple who were probably not 'great with child'.

Now I only had one more car to wait for. Wouldn't you know it, that car also pulled into the space! Encouraged by the first driver's lack of pregnancy, I thought, "What are the chances that this person is actually pregnant?" Well, the chances were high enough that two young ladies (probably in their 20's) parked and got out of their car. However, their figures were showing no signs of pregnancy (at least not such obvious signs as my figure is showing lately). So with the threat of having to come back another time, I decided to confront them!

That's right, I pulled up behind their car, got out of my car, put my hands under and on top of my belly (to add emphasis to its already obvious size), exaggerated the waddle a little more than necessary, and then started the following conversation:

Me: Excuse me Miss, I really am an expectant mother, and I could really use that space." (Now that I think about it, this could have been really insulting, but it didn't dawn on me in the moment.)

Miss: (after hesitating for a minute) Well, we're pregnant too.

Me: (after watching her friend look at her like, are you crazy?!) Oh, in that case, it's fine!

Then I turned to get back in my car. As I got to the door, she said: (in a rather disgruntled voice)"Okay, we're not pregnant, we'll move!"

Sure enough, she moved, I parked, and Jacob and I survived our trip to the mall!

Considering all of the possible outcomes, I have got to give "Miss" props for deciding to leave the space, and I wish her all the holiday cheer she can stand! And, in an effort to avoid confronting any more strangers, I have now limited any possible outings to 1 stop and within 5 minutes, which basically means the grocery store. So, Malibu grocery shoppers BEWARE!

By the way, sorry for the lack of pictures. I just can't get up the courage to post this belly!

Going Hollywood

Joey and I had our first Hollywood gig the other day. A friend from our ward works in the sound business doing all kinds of sound effect, music, and background sound for movies. She was working on a project that included footage from Brazil, so she asked if we would work with some actors on the background conversations. Our friend watched Jacob (Thanks Beth!) as we headed to the sound studio!

It was a lot of fun. The actors were experts in improvisation and we couldnt' believe how many different accents they had mastered. Joey was much more comfortable with the improv aspect of things, but both he and I had our chance at the microphone. Our little taste of Hollywood was a lot of fun.

On another note: Jacob was able to watch snipets of Kung Fu Panda while we were 'in the studio'. He is now obsessed! We hope you enjoy this clip of his dance moves as much as we do. He is watching the music video for Kung Fu Fighting that is on the special features of the DVD.

Continuing with his new found Kung Fu obsession, this is how we found him sleeping:

I'm Chew!

Here is a little conversation we have been practicing with Jacob for the past few weeks. (So far we have not had any luck getting a video, so, for now, you will just have to use your imagination.)

Mom or Dad: Hey Jacob. (wait for some sort of acknowledgement) How old are you?

Jacob: (making the peace sign with two fingers and pointing them at his chest) I'm chew!

That's right, our Jacob is two!

We had a little celebration with several friends this Saturday. The original plan was a beach party with a treasure hunt, but due to high winds, hot temps, and unfortunate fires, we decided to move our little Beach Party inside. I was amazed by how much more aware Jacob was of the whole party idea compared to last year. As we were walking over to the party room he asked, "Sing Happy Birthday to Jacob? Friends come party?"

His friends did come, and we did sing Happy Birthday. Thank you to everyone who celebrated with us, including so many friends and family who we are far away from right now. We can feel you celebrating from a distance!

Here are some pics:

ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!

Apple Boats to go with delicious apple dip.

Beach and Shark Infested Waters Cupcakes

The Candles.

Enjoying the cupcake!