Christmas Pictures

We decided to drive down to Bakersfield on Christmas Eve to spend a few days with my parents. It was fun to open all of our presents there. We always act out the nativity story on Christmas Eve. This year Mike and Makenzie were Mary and Joseph, Austin was baby Jesus, and Tyler and I were sheperds.

I love this picture of Makenzie. It's a true miracle because she is actually smiling nicely AND looking at the camera at the same time. AMAZING!!

Here she is holding Austin. I literally have to keep Tyler and makenzie from fighting over who gets to hold Austin first. They ADORE him!!

Just a few weeks old. Look at those hands!

Bath time in the kitchen sink. Austin LOVES the bath. He always makes the silliest faces while he's in there.

So-- as you can tell, I chopped my hair off. I'm still undecided as to whether or not I like it as much as my long hair. I think the short hair makes me look a lot older. But it's nice because it's so easy and fast to do. Now I can work at growing it out again. Here is a picture of April and I together. April surprised my parents this year and just showed up on their doorstep a few days before Christmas! It was so good to see her and so nice to have her around to help out with Austin. She loves babies and I swear that Austin LOVED her. She could always get him to calm down when he was fussy. Too bad she can't come home with me too.

Another silly face!!

This Christmas was a Lego christmas for Tyler. He got four different Starwars Lego ships to build- this was one of the smallest. Unfortunately it only took him a few days to do them all and now I have nothing left to entertain him with :) ha ha.

My mom, April and Austin.

I know it doesn't really look like it, but Austin is finally putting on more weight. He almost has a double chin now and his thighs actually have some fat on him. I'm glad that all those feedings are doing something.

My little peanut

I can't believe how much I am enjoying having another little one in our family, even with all of the sleep deprivation. I just can't get over how cute Austin is. I am trying to take in every minute of this stage because I know he won't be a newborn for long.

Just a little guy.

So handsome! I love the few moments when he is actually awake.

How to Induce Labor

Many of you have reached out wondering how we helped Melanie successfully induce labor. I thought that it might be useful to lay out last Saturday's activities so that those of you planning on having more kids will know how to get the ball rolling. The good news is that the formula is pretty simple--the bad news is that you will only be able to use this method if your baby is due in the end of November or early December.

The first piece of nature's birthing puzzle lies in the delicate wings of a butterfly--more precisely the Monarch butterfly. The butterflies spend the winter near Santa Cruz California and if you want to be successful inducing labor, that means that you will have to pay us a visit here in the bay area...consider it an open invitation.

Tyler and his friends Emma and Tyler Wirthlin walking down the trail to see the butterflies.

We're not sure exactly how the butterflies fit into inducing labor, but we figure that it has something to do with communing with nature. Living here in California has made us extra sensitive to mother nature and all of her granola goodness....

We had seen a few butterflies flying around and thought it was pretty cool, then another observer pointed out that the majority of the butterflies were still grouped together high in the trees.

Lots of butterflies.

The noble labor-inducing Monarch.

The next ingredient required to successfully induce labor is to be near the unending rhythm of the sea. We chose Natural Bridges Monument because of its proximity to the butterflies, but I'd guess anywhere with regular wave sets will do. It seems that the approaching and receding waves encourage contractions.

Big contraction-causing waves.

Grandma and Grandpa Lewis hoping that the waves get things moving with their very pregnant daughter.

Tyler looking longingly toward the sea for his soon to arrive little brother.

I'm not sure if you can tell from this picture, but Melanie is actually mid-contraction. Note the smile on her face indicating that we are still missing a key ingredient to full-blown labor.

The final step is to locate and fell your family Christmas tree deep in the wilderness. You will have to go full on Griswold on this one. To make sure that we were in the right spirit everyone but me got into the cheesy elf-face insert for the above photo, while I filled the mountain air with echoes of O Tannenbaum. Magical...

After hiking around the side of a mountain for the better part of an hour, my proginy laid claim to the tree behind them in the picture. We had heard that the scent of evergreen sap helps to lure out the baby, so we kept Mel's nose close to the saw as I took down one of mother nature's best.

The sacrificial tree strewn with ornaments.

Butterflies + Ocean Rhythm + Felled Evergreen=Austin

We've proven this can work--now we are offering the recipe to all of our friends and family before we go to market with this to turn a buck or two. Let us know when you want to come out!!!--Mike

More Pictures of Baby Austin

Well, we made it back home today. I didn't want to stay in the hospital since I wasn't getting any sleep there anyways. Today we came home and Mike watched Austin while I took a nice, long and much needed nap. Tyler and Makenzie are both so excited to have us home - they fight about who gets to hold Austin first. We've decided to name him Austin Ryan Droubay.

These are the only new pictures we've gotten so far but I will post more as the days go by. I still can't believe what a little peanut he is.

What a big yawn!!

Austin (TBD) Droubay!!!!

Yes, it has finally happened!! This morning at 12:51 AM Austin officially joined our family. Other than a pronounced lack of sleep, mother and baby are doing great. He weighs in at a slim 6 pounds 6 ounces and is 19 1/2 inches long. He has long fingers and a pretty even layer of fuzz all over his head. Now that all of the important details are out of the way, I'll share a bit about how things played out yesterday.

Saturday morning we decided that we would take a bit of a day trip. Melanie was feeling good, the weather was phenominal and we were all pretty sick of hanging out around the house so we all piled in our car with grandma and grandpa Lewis (who were visiting for Thanksgiving) and headed for the coast. We had a great day looking at the Monarch butterflies resting during their migration, walking along the beach and cutting down a Christmas tree. Melanie was a trooper and walked up and down the mountain side in search of just the right tree for the better part of an hour.

Apparantly all of the climbing did the trick because after we got home in the evening she started having pretty regular, stronger than usual contractions. Things were pretty significant by about 9:30 or so, but Melanie wanted to make sure that she was actually in labor before heading in to the hospital. You see, since she is a labor and delivery nurse she thinks that getting sent home by fellow nurses would be the ultimate humiliation. After a few more very strong, increasingly painful contractions she finally agreed to go in. Long story short, when we got there she was measuring an 8 and delivered within about 2 hours of arriving at the hospital.

Things went very fast and we worried that she wasn't going to be able to get her epidural in time. She was in a lot of pain, but held herself together far better than I did. She gritted her teeth, let out a few Mormon cuss words (I remember a lot of "crap" "o my gosh" "gosh dang it" and "shoot" flowing) and squeezed the blood out of my hands to get through the labor pains. Eventually the epidural was in place and she got enough medication in her system to take the edge off of the actual delivery. After 5 good pushes Austin was out and crying. Awesome. Tyler and Kenzie came to the hospital this morning and took turns holding their baby brother. They will be great siblings and I'm somewhat confident that Austin will survive their company.....

I'm always amazed at the kind of person that my wife is, but I don't think I've ever been more proud of her than I was last night--she was dominant. It was wonderful to have Melanie's parents here to help in the delivery room and take care of Ty and Kenny at home. Thank you Lewises!!! We have realized how much we miss all of our family in other places and wish that we were closer so that we could see you all and enjoy your company, but we are aware of your prayers and thoughts. Thanks for all of your prayers and thoughts--we will keep you posted as things happen over the next weeks. I'm posting a lot of pics--hopefully they all show. We love you all--Mike

Visiting baby brother.

I'd forgotten how much newborns like to do this.

Bundled up.

Tyler doing a great job of holding Austin.

Kenzie making us a little nervous.

We hope that he keeps sleeping as well as he has so far.

Muir Woods

This past weekend we drove up to see the redwoods in Muir woods, just north of San Francisco. Mike wanted to see the trees and I wanted to see if hiking could induce labor. ha ha.

It didn't.

Here's a picture of us with the huge trees- we are way down at the bottom.

Pregnancy Countdown

Well, I have officially three weeks left until my due date! I am getting both excited and nervous. I'm hoping that I won't make it that far before going into labor. I would much rather prefer to be done before December comes but only time will tell. I secretly wish I could be back in Utah at American Fork Hospital where I delivered my last two- just to be someplace familiar. I don't really think that is an option anymore though, ha ha. Anyways- wish me luck. I will try to keep the blog updated weekly on any pregnancy news.

Ardenwood Farms

Today we went to a nearby farm with my friend, Amy, and her two kids since both Tyler and Makenzie had no school today. The kids loved it! We just walked around slowly and let them do pretty much whatever they wanted which included feeding the animals, playing in the leaves and hay, finding dirty old corn husks, and throwing mud clumps out into the fields. It's amazing at how much fun they were having. All the kids came home worn out and tired but there were no break downs or tantrums while we were there. I would call it a complete success. Hey- BTW- only 4 more weeks left.... ... not that I'm counting down or anything.