Mother's Day, Viva Las Vegas

Raina & Harrison spent the last week in Las Vegas with Raina's family which included Sunday, Mother's Day. Sadly Michael could not come for the visit however he sent this new mommy a surprise fancy box of chocolates (see below, very cool).

Harrison, about 14 weeks & 14 pounds!

Fancy Chocolates that look like mice (but taste better!)

Although we were not with our little immediate family, it was still a very special day as my mother, Winnie, had all three of her children with her, as well as her new grandson, which is a rare occurrence since Jonathan lives in Boston and our visiting schedules seldom jive. In fact, a lot of schedules were arranged to make this a memorable visit. In addition to Jon, my Uncle Billy and his partner Paul brought my grandad (Winnie's father) from San Francisco for the weekend; Hart's son Burke and his wife Judy came to visit twice; Aunt Sharon came over twice and cousin Derrick came over for dinner too. So much family! On Sunday we visited the cemetery where Grandma & Grandpa Mapel and Grandma Ng is buried so Harrison really got the ancestral tour! Thank you to everyone for making the last week really great.

Uncle Jon

Judy & Burke

Winnie & Hart

Great Grand Dad

Aunt Sharon

Uncle Billy

Also on Mother's Day, we took Harrison to church to receive a blessing, which is customary in the Mormon church to start off the baby's life on the right foot, if you will. This entails a group of men to stand up and perform the blessing and I was so happy to have my dad give the blessing with Hart (mom's husband) and Jon there as well. I had hoped Harrison would fall asleep by blessing time and when he did not, I feared he would wail during the blessing but he managed to hold it together until it was over (thanks for making mom proud!). After the blessing and a trip to the cemetery, we gathered at mom's house for a little party. The food was delicious (mom's food is always delish) and the company great.

Blessing Day

Mom's Day was not the only big day during this trip... Harrison slept 8 hours straight one night and 7 hours another!!! Albeit he slept from 8pm to 4am (morning of 5/8), this mom could not have asked for a better gift! Around 1am I started waking up hourly, not because I needed to ensure he was breathing (although I did check) but because my instincts were telling me he was about to break the sleep record. Each hour I did the math in my head and once I hit 8 hours I got so happy that I practically woke him up to celebrate! Both instances occurred after particularly busy days and his naps were not as frequent or long as usual... this made him pretty cranky which was really hard to deal with (took me 4 tries and 3 hours to put him to bed) so I'm not sure it is a good trade off for longer sleep periods. I need to find a happy medium. Otherwise, he has been able to sleep 8 hours waking up around hour 4, eating and then going directly back to sleep without a diaper change, so that's nearly as good.

4am on May 8th (yep, mommy took a picture!)

Dad and Barbi have a big, new swimming pool that is perfect on a hot day; Las Vegas was about 15 degrees warmer than usual, pushing 100 degrees... ug, so hot! I bought Harrison some swim diapers and dressed him in his swim suit from grandma Dreslaine, sprayed him with sun screen and hat, and then dipped him waste high in the pool with Aunt Chyna... at which time he promptly wailed and we pulled him out and sat by the pool instead! Oh well, he will surely grow into a water loving baby. Raina would spend nearly every day every summer at Grandpa Ken & Grandma Ann's house in the pool with Jon and cousins Terra and Derrick. Hopefully Harrison will get a similar experience during future visits to Grandpa and Oma.

"Swimming" with Oma

Grandpa Dale is rather obsessed on Harrison growing up as fast as possible. It was all I could do to keep him from feeding Harrison a double bottle or bananas or ice cream. As you can see below, Grandpa thinks a 3 month old should be on the verge of walking. To be fair, Harrison will stride his legs if you pick him up under the arm pits ~~ sorry grandpa, it will be next spring before he is really walking!

Another highlight was visiting my best friend from high school Megan and her husband and daughters. They are expecting a little girl in a few months so we had plenty to talk about and her daughters were very intrigued by Harrison. I brought him over sleeping and they were begging to wake him up and share their toys with him - how sweet! Unfortunately once awake, he was pretty fussy for some unknown reason, evident by his expression below.

Raina & Megan, together again!

Below are a few random pictures from our time there; not really any stories behind them, more for your viewing pleasure.

Hart & Harrison. Hart is really a large man and the juxtaposition of their two hands was really sweet...

Dad took this cute picture of Harrison's foot; the pediatrician says he actually has big feet but they still look small and precious to me.

Baby's first BBQ; PoPo made really thick (and tasty) hamburgers which were nearly impossible to wrap your mouth around.

Uncle Jon & Aunt Chyna goofing around.