and...more pictures

Cru fell sleep on my lap last night and his leg's were crossed. It was so cute!
Cru...rocking out with his skull candy head phones (thanks fuzz) 
and Cru is finally enjoying tummy...sort of
We are off to California on friday for 16 days and we are so excited! We'll try to post while we are out there! Hope everyone has a merry christmas and a happy  new year! 

Picture Update!!!

okay...here's some pictures from the last month! 

Cru got to sit on Santa's lap for the first time at the ward party!  (thanks David! You were an excellent Santa!)
Cru had his first experience of of flirting at the ward party. JaNae was holding him when Kate and Candace came up to play with his hands. He LOVED it. Candace came back after they left and said "Bye Screw". I hope it's the last time he's called that! 
Cru and Andrew Arnold hanging out at the Stake Dinner at Aspen Grove in Sundance. It was so nice to have them sleeping and hanging out. 
We were SO lucky to have our favorite family come visit! The McClintocks came out from Missouri to visit Heidi's family for thanksgiving and we got a taste! It was so fun to see them, see how big Luke is and meet Chloe for the first time! 

CRU

alright, Cru had his 3 week birthday yesterday! We tortured him on Monday with a little sniperooney, a PKU test and an x-ray. The good thing out of that day was that his air pockets are all gone and we have no more x-rays to get! (phew). and we found out that Cru is growing very well and eating better than some people thought. He was 9 lb 9 oz on Monday and now 22 inches long. He basically could squash any of the other new baby's at church, even though half of them are older than him!

Cru is looking cuter and cuter everyday! I love it. He does the funniest things with his face which everyone in my family will admit to also doing! His hair is blonde and his eyes are blue for now. Shad and I are having so much fun with him!

I went back to school on the 7th so it's been a juggling act getting ready for school every morning, feeding Cru (or pumping for food later) getting Cru ready and taking him to kind friends houses to watch him when Shad can't. But it's working out and we only have 3 more weeks of it. Sadly I'll then be going back to work on the 9th :(

Everyone's been asking for more pictures so here's a few! Enjoy!

Ps, in the pictures Shad got him the I heart NY outfit while he was there this summer. So we had to take pictures of him wearing it.

shout out

Shad has shot the Redline Bicycle Catalog for the last 2 years and they gave us a little shout out on their website:  http://www.redlinebicycles.com/freestyle/index.html

Also Cru is doing a lot better. We will have x-ray's done soon to check on the air pockets but the doctors assume they will go away on their own. His Bilirubin is all gone and he's been off the lights for 1 week and we couldn't be happier! We love learning all the fun little things that Cru likes and dislikes and we've learned a lot about parenting in these last 16 days!

Here are a few random photos that I recently took of Cru. Enjoy!

Introducing....

Cru Acel Hopkins

Born Tuesday, October 28th at 5:46pm

Weighing in at.... ready for this?! 8lb 15.4oz / 21 and 1/2 inch long!

Cru had a few complications coming out and a few more once he came out into the world. He was born with a Pneumothorax which is an air pocket in the lungs. His was on both sides of his lungs in between his lungs and his rib cage. He also had one around his heart. They kept him in the Nursery the whole time we were in the hospital (tuesday until friday) and I got discharged on Thursday but decided to pay the hospital to stay with him until he was discharged. As of friday when we left the air pockets were gone except for the one around the heart which they say will eventually just leave on it's own. We'll get more x-ray's in a week or so. On Wednesday afternoon Cru developed Bilirubin which is Jaundice so he was kept under special lights until us leaving. When we were discharged friday the hospital sent over someone to bring us special lights that Cru is supposed to live under until his bilirubin level has gone down to normal. (Poor guy really doesn't like living under these lights!) We will be getting blood tests done daily until then.

Although it was all a bit complicated, we are SOO glad to have Cru here. We feel so blessed that everyone has been so excited to welcome Cru into this world. And we feel so blessed that we had amazing Doctor's that were able to prevent a C-section and hospital staff that were all able to help Cru continue to get better! Orem Community Hospital had the most amazing and helpful staff and doctors. We are so grateful for everyone's prayers, love, support, and help.

Enjoy the pictures...sorry there are not a ton, but it was pretty hectic for a while so we didn't take many. (and he had not so pretty tubes, IV's, monitors, etc. on him for a while. But we do know he's amazingly strong because he ripped out the IV from his hand...hence the IV in his head!)

deadline!

http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/video/episodes/?vid=767161#vid=767161

well, we are getting down to the wire, so in order to prepare ourselves we watched an episode of the office. Dwight and Michael really helped us feel at ease! check it out.

Oh, and it's just the first minute and a half...