1 week old

Landon after being weighed at 1 week: 6lbs 12oz

Landon is 1 week old!  Part of us can't believe he's already here (we still have a couple more days before our "due date"), part can't believe he's already one week old, and part can't remember our life before he was here.  We honestly could not imagine beforehand how much we would be in love with this little guy.  Becoming parents is just so... unimaginable?! 

This week has been a pretty great week.  John took off work for the entire week.  He probably has slept the least out of all of us.  John enjoys "watching movies" and  "daddy time" with Landon in the evenings.  Shani usually nurses then goes to bed around 9-10pm, John then wakes her up to nurse again about 3 hours later, both the boys then come to bed, Landon will nurse again a few hours later, then Shani gets her time with Landon in the morning.  It's been a really smooth routine for us. The only hard part is it will be changing when John heads back to work at Napa on Thursday.  Having the time to sleep and recover has made a huge difference for Shani this week.  John is an amazing husband and father!  Along the sleep lines, Landon is a sleeper!  He will sleep for 2-3 hours then nurse, then go back to sleep, then nurse, etc.  The only time he really cries is when he's hungry, when he's getting a bath, or if he's cold when getting his diaper changed.  Otherwise he's asleep. He has been looking around more recently, taking in the world for a few minutes before falling asleep.  It's been really special the last two days as we have watched him begin to explore the world.  He looks like a completely different baby with those eyes open.  

As for who he looks like, you'll have to let us know.  Compared to certain baby pictures he looks like he could be either one of us.  We get more often that he looks like John.  Shani loves it, but still has a hard time seeing John in Landon with that dark hair of his.  Maybe he's a perfect blend?!  We'll put up our baby pictures soon and you can see what you think.

Landon had his 1 week check-up with the midwives.  He now weighs 6lbs 12oz (2oz heavier than his birth weight).  Shani swore that he weighed 7.5lbs!  The midwives were happy though because they hope the baby gets to birth weight by 1 week.  He's already ahead of the game so we are thinking he'll be a big boy!  He still has his Grandpa Gary's chicken legs though!

We've been having a great time with family this week.  We had family dinner at Shani's parent's house on Saturday.  Uncle Chris flew in from OC for the weekend to see his new nephew.  This was our first "long" car ride with Landon (10 minutes) to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  We then had John's family over Sunday evening.  Landon spent time with his cousin Morgan who's still a little unsure how small and fragile he is (little does she know she'll be helping babysit soon).  It was so much fun to spend this time with those we love and the new addition to our family.  I'm sure we'll have many more of these in the future!

Landon napping with Mommy

Nap time for Daddy and Landon

Eye's open to meet Uncle Chris for the 1st time

Uncle Chris and Auntie Kathryn

Grandma Mac

Cousin Morgan

Grandmomma Donna

Grandpa Gary

Auntie Kim, Uncle Josh, and cousin Morgan

Allow us to introduce you to....

Landon Soich-David!

After three days (and a 9 month pregnancy) we finally decided on a name!  We didn't think it would be this hard, but we guess everyone has different struggles.  Ours was obviously this.  We had a long list of names we weren't opposed to, but not necessarily a list of names we really wanted.  Even his actual birth day Shani had no desire to name him because she didn't have anything in mind.  John was definitely more antsy and he wanted a name picked by day two. There we were on day three.  We decided to make a more determined effort to figure out which name we felt fit our son.  We narrowed our list down to three names.  We then decided to rank them individually, write them down, and compare our rankings to see if we agreed.  We had the same #2, but our #1's and 3's were switched (soon after we decided to take our #2 name off the list). 

John tried a new tactic. He took two little stuffed animals and assigned a name to each (an elephant for Shan's #1 and a turtle for John's #1). He then tried to see if our son would "choose" one.  He reached for the elephant! Well, er...he flailed his arm his hand hit the elephant. Results were inconclusive. So, John tried a new test. He rubbed the baby with the stuffed animals and put them across the room and told Mochi to get one. She chose the turtle.  With her choice John realized he actually liked the "elephant" name better. We started leaning toward the elephant. 

At lunch Shani's dad mentioned that we should pray about the name we should use.  Shani was upset that although she had thanked God for all the blessings we had gone through, she had not prayed about his name.  So as she sat on the couch nursing our son, she prayed that God give her guidance in figuring out a name.  As Shani prayed, John thought to himself that he really wanted a "sign" that the "elephant" name was a good decision.  Not five minutes later we looked out the window and it was beginning to rain although it was still sunny. John commented, "I wonder if there is a rainbow." He opened the door and didn't take two steps before he saw a perfect rainbow in the sky above the house across the street--a not-so-subtle sign. Shani also took this rainbow as guidance from God.  Landon it was.

His middle name was much easier and determined months ago.  John's family's tradition is to have the first born son take the paternal grandfather's name as a middle name.  Shani's family's tradition is to have a Japanese name for a middle name.  We really wanted to incorporate these traditions into our family, but had to figure out exactly how to accomplish it.  Shani didn't want two middle names because it was important that both traditions were held in equal importance and not one name to be "used" more than the other.  Soichiro is Shani's "Poppa's" name who passed away a few years ago.  When it came to finding a Japanese middle name for our son, we knew that we wanted to honor him.  David is John's dad's name and another man of great importance in our lives.  It is an honor to keep both traditions going. 

 We shared our decision with Shani's parents and John's mom via birthday cake. Donna picked up John's special order on her way over. John was promised by the cake lady that the cake would be in a covered box and she wouldn't ruin the surprise. It turns out that "covered" means clear plastic and "wouldn't ruin the surprise" loosely translates to asking Donna 'Is it a birthday cake for Landon?' as she shows her the cake and they try to read the name together. Go figure :)

Other than the difficulties associated with naming Landon, things are going really well. We've had wonderful support, love, gifts, and food from friends and family. We thankfully continue to be truly blessed with good health.

Happy Birthday Landon Soich-David!

Mac Family

Eyes actually open!

Happy Valentine's....Baby?!?!?!!!

What a day.....The full story will be coming soon. For now, rest assured that Baby Mac was born today, February 14th, at 12:24pm in our bedroom. He weighed 6 pounds and 10 ounces and is 19.25 inches long. Shan did an amazing job in labor and during his birth. I could not be more proud of her. Both Shan and the baby are doing very well.  

We want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone for the support and love over the past months and all of the warm wishes today. We also want to thank Donna and Gary, Kat, and Kim for being present and so supportive during those final few hours--or in Gary's case, final few minutes :-) We especially want to thank our midwives Marlene and Kaleem, and their apprentice Randi for first helping us conceive and then bring this little guy into the world. You are life givers. Thank you for this most precious gift. 


Here are a few pictures of the day's events. More to come.

Shani's last night pregnant! She has no idea!

Mochi helping out with labor...Still smiling between contractions

 

Shani hits the tub...Contractions are strong now!

Oh Boy oh Boy!

Minutes old...

That was tough work!

Baby's first outfit "Born at Home"

Proud Parents! What a special way to share Valentine's Day

Trekking in Tahoe

We were planning on doing a snow picnic/walk to try out new winter jackets this weekend. John had other plans. He decided to wait until Saturday morning to share them with Shani. Once he got up (Shani had been up for a couple hours), he said we were going to South Lake Tahoe for the night.  He booked a dog-friendly motel so we could take Mochi with us. Shani, who usually has to be forced to be spontaneous, was very excited to go.  So we packed up our stuff and headed out.

We stopped for a nice brunch in Placerville and then continued to Tahoe.  We checked into our little motel around 1pm, changed for our snow hike, and were off.  John found a hike near Fallen Leaf Lake, southwest of Lake Tahoe. Before we made it to the trail head we came across a bunch of cars parked by a small side road that was closed for the winter. It looked well traveled, so we decided that we'd hike it. We had no idea how long the hike was, where it would go, or how hard it was, but we were off.  After hiking, almost entirely uphill, for 45 minutes we passed someone coming down (on cross country skis). We inconvenienced him greatly by asking him where the trail went (he had to take out his headphones...gasp!).  He said it went to Angora lookout, about 20 minutes further. So we kept on trekking.  Mochi had no problem with the snow and was running around and John was very patient with his speed.  Shani's work-out class did her good as she kept chugging along.

Mochi (the little speck in the middle) leading the pack

No prob for John

Shani holding up

Finally we made it to the lookout!  It was absolutely beautiful.  It was quite a bit more windy up at the top, but bearable.  The lake and snowy hillside were just amazing.  Shani was very happy (John was a proud husband) and wanted pictures as proof that she made it to the top.  We found out once we were home that the hike was about 3.8 miles round trip with an elevation gain of 800 feet!  Not to shabby for a 37.5 week pregnant gal!  

Angora Lake from the lookout

37.5 weeks pregnant

This was a very fun and spontaneous weekend to get away.  John is a great husband and had a brilliant idea.  We are so glad we got this time together.  We had so much fun and enjoyed doing something different than we normally get to do.  Although we hope to do similar things when we have kids (yes we plan to bring them along), it was nice to do this just the two of us!

Belly Shots

My cousins Crystal and Steve were generous enough to take some maternity pictures for us.  We were a little unsure if we wanted to take pictures, but we decided we did want to capture this time.  Thankfully Crystal and Steve made us feel comfortable and allowed us to have a great time.  We were really happy with how they turned out and wanted to share.  If you ever want family pictures or what not, let us know and we'll pass on their info, they are great photographers!