Bath Time

So we gave Eli his first "real" bath. He was pretty cool and content for the first few minutes, until.....

Overall, we think he did pretty well and seemed to enjoy it (reference the above picture for evidence).

Eli meets his Peeps- Week 2

Two weeks into parenthood and all is well. Eli is giving us more personality everyday- eyes are open more often, smiles are more defined, and his cries even have a little "voice" to them. Aunt Jamie was away for the week and when she returned Friday, she noticed how much he has already grown.

Highlights of the week: We made our first family outing- ice cream at Cold Stone and a walk in the park. Perfect. We also gave Eli is first full-on naked bath- it was going well until he peed on the sugar container on our kitchen sink. Nice.

Eli has been introduced to a lot of important people in his life- more surrogate aunts and uncles than he can imagine. We think he is going to have trouble knowing his blood relatives from his community-family, which we are cool with. Here are some pics of these first meetings and interactions.

*Note: To date, grandparents have not been officially renamed. The ( ) after their names below are what we have been using so far, mostly for our own entertainment.
*Note 2: Actual aunts and uncles have been indicated with a "*" after their name.

Grandpa Duke (aka Mr.Duke)

Grandma Hester (aka Grandma) and Uncle Justin's* Foot

Grandma Duke (aka DeDe) and Aunt Jamie*Aunt Sara BethGrandpa Hester (aka Jimmy)Aunt Teryn & Uncle ChadAunt Inga*

Uncle Mathew (and Laurianne's elbow)

Uncle Justin*
(Eli always looks much smaller when Justin holds him)Uncle Loffi
(I feel very passionate about my responsibility as a father
to make sure Eli never knows Loffi's first name- J)

Aunt Jessie
(Ryan's childhood friend and knowledgeable delivery nurse)Uncle Andy

Week One Highlights

So Eli is officially one week old now.
Here are a few of our favorite pictures of his life so far...

Eli is here!

On Tuesday, June 3 at 4:22 pm, Eli Adam Hester entered this world.

He weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. Even just a few minutes after he was born, he was very alert and was scanning the room checking out his surroundings.




Here he is with just a small piece of our entourage that waited patiently, and some impatiently, for his arrival.
Eli with Aunt Jamie and De De (Alva).

Eli and Ryan just before we left the hospital. All the nurses at Williamson were amazing and it was hard to leave these nice people that played such an important role in the first few days of Eli's life.

We will add more pictures later to properly tell the story of Eli's arrival.

Thanks for all the support and prayers from our wonderful group of family and friends. We appreciate everyone's excitement and willingness to help in any way.
Eli is blessed to have so many people in his life who already care so much about him.