Unto us, a child is given. Unto us, a child is born!

And his name shall be called....

Spencer Evan Lamar

Born December 18th, 13:05
7lbs 3oz, 22 inches

Throughout my pregnancy Adam and I would occasionally joke about reverting to "self-induction"if baby decided he wanted to stay much longer than his scheduled 40 weeks. On Thursday evening I told Adam to start googling ideas. I said this more out of boredom and humor rather than seriously wanting to self-induce.

We had a good laugh about some of the suggestions we found. One tip said to sit cross legged. Making a joke out of it I sat criss-cross apple-sauce for about 20 minutes in our recliner while we read through the rest of our search.

It was getting late and I was getting tired. Finally at 11pm I told Adam I was ready for bed. We made our way upstairs, went through our bedtime routines and went to sleep. I was woken up two and a half hours later with one of the strongest contractions I had ever felt! I had three very uncomfortable contractions before I finally woke Adam up. If I was going to be awake and uncomfortable Adam might as well be too right?

I continued to have strong contractions and had Adam time them, they were consistently three minutes apart. We phoned the hospital to let them know we were on our way. We spent a few minutes gathering the rest of my hospital bag items and were at the hospital by 2:30. I was already 4 centimeters and agreed to an epidural when it was offered to me. The next few hours involved waiting, waiting to be 10 centimeters, waiting two hours for the epidural to wear off...Finally my midwife told me it was time to start pushing and 40 minutes later Spencer made his debut.

Not too bad for a first timer:)

Spencer was very patient while the midwives poked and prodded him.

Spencer and I had to stay two nights in the hospital for routine monitoring. We both passed all our tests and were able to come home Sunday evening.

During our stay at the hospital one of our friends showed up to visit and took some nice photos for us. He snapped this nice one of Adam (I think it has a "professional photo shoot" look to it) and the first black and white picture of Spencer.

We are all very happy to be home. The first night was rough and we are all sleep deprived (except for Spencer, he seems to get plenty of sleep) but with time we are getting adjusted. I know we are going to have good days and bad days but Spencer is the BEST Christmas present we could have ever asked for and we are so blessed to have him as part of our family.

London Trip

Even though the UK doesn't recognize Thanksgiving (seeing how it is sort of an American holiday) Adam still got the day off work. We are a bit spoiled here when it comes to holiday leave because Adam gets BOTH the British and the American holidays off. We don't complain, at least, not about that anyway...

With the day off and nothing to do, Adam and I took a bus down to London. We just walked around ALL day, probably a total of 5 miles. I was exhausted by the end of our trip, but I don't regret going.

This was the first major attraction we came across. Adam couldn't resist snapping a photo of The Shopping Channel sign...

We truly had PERFECT England weather. It only misted on us for about three and a half minutes, not even enough to bust out the umbrellas but it was enough to produce this beautiful rainbow. If you look close, this is actually a double rainbow. You might be able to see the faint second rainbow on the left side above the obvious rainbow:) It was incredibly vibrant -- even some of the locals were stopping for a look.

I am not sure why they felt the need to post this phrase on this building, but it is a nice reminder.

This is the House of Parliament.

I am sure this bridge has a name-but I don't know what it is. I love this picture!

The buildings here have a lot of statues and crescents on them like the picture above and below. I find them simply amazing.

This was one of the more entertaining statues.

This is another side of the House of Parliament. There were guards with big guns on this side of the building. While walking by I saw one of the guards with a gun pull out his cell phone and send a quick text. I wish I could have got a picture of him but it all happened so fast.

Here is a historical statue...in the middle of a car park (aka parking lot). It just felt out of place...Adam found it really amusing.

Ah Big Ben. We actually saw and heard him strike at 3 o'clock.

I felt like this picture really captured the culture and essence of London; it is a busy city! We want to make another trip down to London again sometime; there was so much to see and do. We at least want to go visit the Temple (which isn't actually in London), and maybe even catch a showing of Les Miserables.

Site Seeing So Far

I wish I could say that Adam and I have been spending every free second site seeing. Our year is going to go fast and we'll be back in the states before we know it. Unfortunately we haven't been able to do as much touring as we would like but once we get settled in our permanent housing and our car arrives (which should all be happening this week) we'll have a little more freedom.

We haven't been completely boring though! We have gotten out to see some nearby attractions. Adam had the day off on Veterans day so we and another couple went to a small town called Tetbury and Gloucester.

We started the morning off in Tetbury where we hit a small farmer's market and local shops. This little town was more like what I was expecting when I thought of moving to England. It was very old and simple with cute little stores. We spent about 3 hours looking around and absorbing the history of Tetbury. Here are some pictures we captured of the small village:
This is the building that held the small farmer's market, and below is a snapshot of one of our purchases. We bought a jar of the best raspberry preserves I have ever tasted!
This was just a really old building that caught our fancy. I don't know if you can tell from the picture or not but the building is slanted slightly to the right.
We had lunch in a traditional English pub and then headed off to Gloucester, which is much bigger and more touristy of a town. Our main interest in Gloucester was the Cathedral. The architecture was stunning including features like glazed fan-vaulted cloisters, medieval stain glass windows and historic tombs. Parts of the Cathedral are over 1300 years old and I was surprised to learn that worship still takes place daily.


This is a picture of one of the tombs we saw inside. I am not sure why it was taken in black and white...
I liked the cloisters the best, I thought they were absolutely amazing. All the detail and time put into creating this masterpiece has me truly awestruck.
I also learned that parts of the first Harry Potter movie were filmed in this Cathedral and I believe that the picture above is one of the settings used. After the movie came out the Gloucester Cathedral showed the movie inside on a big screen to celebrate!


We definitely had a fun filled day and are looking forward to more site seeing in the future!

Busted Big Time

Lately I have been having a hard time sleeping. Most nights I wake up around 3am and toss-n-turn until I finally decide it is hopeless and get up for a few hours. This morning I woke up and was going through my tossing and turning routine when the alarm clock went off! WHAT?!!? I actually slept through an entire night-I was amazed.

I perked right up for two very distinct reasons, 1. I was hungry and it was time to feed the boy, and 2. I was excited for Adam's and my date tonight. Adam bought New Moon tickets for this evening at 5pm; so the sooner he got up and went to work the sooner he could come home and take me to the movie. Yes I am a desperate Twilight fan and really should be commended instead of judged for waiting THIS LONG to go see the movie:)

With motive number two burning strongly in my mind I tried very hard to be Adam's cheerleader and make it look like it was fun and exciting to be awake at 6:30 in the morning. He needed a little more time than I did to perk up so I tried to give him some space. I went out into the living area, had a bowl of cereal and picked up reading where I left off in the third Twilight book.

He finally emerged from the bedroom looking groggy but not upset about my attempts to get him out of bed. He proceeded to get ready for work and I mostly read Twilight to stay out of his way. When he was ready, I helped him out the door and gave him a goodbye kiss.

I had started to feel a little tired with all the reading and charades I put on while Adam was getting ready. I decided I would wait until after he left to lay back down for a few minutes. I watched as he walked down our driveway to make sure he was good and gone before I turned off lights and headed back to bed.

I just started getting warm and cozy when all of a sudden the front door opened. Adam, surprised by the lack of light or wife could say nothing but: "WHAT!?! Oh my Gosh!" I was busted. My fake perky cheerleader cover was blown. I couldn't help but laugh because I had put on a pretty good show implying that I was up for the day. All I could say was "What? I am still tired." Adam let out a "Tell me about it," while he grabbed whatever it was he had come back for and walked back out the door. I guess that just goes to show that I should wait a good 30 minutes to make sure he is good and gone before I assume and go back to bed:)