Kieran's 2nd week

It's been a fun week with little Kieran. He's kept us busy for sure! We've had many visitors stopping by with home cooked meals and fresh baby-holding arms. It's been loads of fun showing off our little one. He prefers napping on us but the couch pillows and Shiway's beautiful crocheted blanket will do in a pinch. Thanks Shiway! Kieran loves his blanket - you'll see we take it everywhere :)


Bushka and Grandaddy (Kaufman) sent a wonderful rocking chair that has turned into the house favorite. It's my primary nursing spot but Kieran shows here that nursing isn't all it's good for. He melts if you rock him long enough.


Kieran had his first home bath last week. It was just a quick wipe down with a wash cloth but you'd have thought we were trying to drown him for all the fuss he gave us! To get back at us Kieran peed as soon as we wrapped him in a clean towel and set him in his little chair. He's quite the covert wetter...we still haven't caught him in the act. We can keep him naked as long as we want and he'll stay dry. The moment you turn him on his belly or throw a blanket over him it's all over. Pee city. Thanks to Hieke for the great bath towel...it's officially been christened ;)

Grandpa and Grandma Lee (Nielson) gave Kieran his super comfy vibrating chair. Boy, what an important little piece of furniture! It's really our only baby "helper" and it's great when I need five minutes hands free to run to the outhouse or to brush my teeth. Sometimes it even works as an afternoon nap spot. Here he is vibrating away. I wouldn't mind one in my size.

What a sweet little boy. We've had more awake time with Kieran this week. He's much more content to sit back and take in his surroundings these days. We've discovered that he's got the most beautiful deep blue eyes and his little sleep smiles have given us a preview of his perfect little baby grin - complete with little baby dimples. Can't wait to see it for the first time during his waking hours! He loves his squirrel suit (what we call his "mommy's nuts" shirt) from Auntie April. Thanks April!

Happy New Year!

What a start to 2008 for us! It's been a wonderful first four days with our little sweetie. He's still happy and content, we're still surprisingly rested, and the kitties have already accepted our new little creature into the pride. It's been a smooth and delightful transition into parenthood. In the last 24 hours we've also managed to come to a decision on a name for this little guy. So, at the risk of being awfully impersonal, but to avoid several days of phone calls that we can't seem to manage already we hope announcing here will be forgiven. That said, we are pleased and excited to introduce our beautiful little son,

Kieran Wester Kaufman

We checked and it turns out that he is in fact the cutest little Alaskan born on the last day of 2007. We thought so. All the best to our family and friends in the coming year!

Coming home

Welcome home baby! We brought our little muffin home after 12 hours of lounging around our comfortable room at the birth center. It was such a sweet feeling to bring this little one home with us. He fits right in. Here he is sporting the fluffy down bunting I bought for him about 6 years ago - one of the reasons I knew we wanted a winter baby :) All this time I thought it would be too small. Not quite!


He's the best late Christmas present we could have ever asked for. Do storks fly down chimneys too?

Max working his magic. The exercise ball is the best crying baby cure around. Look how much we've learned in the first 18 hours of parenthood!

Auntie Rachel stopped by in the evening to bring us a hot, home cooked dinner (her excuse) and to meet the baby she stuck around to help us with over her holiday break. Bless you Rach! We were in need of some taking care of and food was the last thing on our minds. We owe you for that one!

The baby took to cabin living easily, starting out with a nice nap on the couch. Our first night together was peaceful and cozy and even included some good solid sleep. This little guy has been an expert eater from the start (did anyone have any doubt?) and he falls asleep easily after a good meal. So far he couldn't be easier. Or cuter.

It's a Boy!!

Ta Da!! After 42 weeks and a whopper of a last day our little boy was born in the early hours of New Years Eve. He entered the world screaming and didn't stop for 30 minutes...must have had a lot to say about how long it took his momma to push him out! Maybe he got it out of his system because he's been a happy little baby ever since. Here he is just a few hours after he was born. His stats: 8 lbs. 9 oz. and 21 inches long. Head: 14 3/4 inches. Yowsah!


We managed to pull off the out of hospital birth just under the wire, getting labor started just 6 hours before the dreaded deadline. It was a huge relief to go ahead with our plans with the midwives and everything worked out just as we had hoped. The birth was uncomplicated and relatively quick at around 8 hours, though 3 of those hours were spent trying to push this baby Kaufman head the final two inches - poor baby! (And I think Max will agree...poor momma!)


Max's first time holding his little son. He's a natural baby soother and has been a huge help while I've been recovering. This baby likes to bounce and bouncing isn't in the cards for me at the moment. Luckily Daddy likes his job and happily volunteers to take even our temporarily unhappy little baby boy.

Our fantastic midwife Vanessa helped Max give the baby his much needed first bath. Here he is all pink and clean.

Ten fingers and ten toes. Perfect and healthy. We couldn't be happier. Thanks to all of our wonderful family and friends for your support and encouragement and good wishes. We can't tell you how much you all mean to us and how important you have been through this whole experience. We look forward to introducing our little boy to all of you soon!

Merry Christmas!

We thought some folks might be wondering by now how the birth went, how our life as new parents is treating us, how well the baby is sleeping...well, we wish we could tell you! We are still expectant parents, patiently waiting for the little one to decide it's time to meet us in person. We haven't got much to complain about though. We spent the past two days with good friends and with the freedom to eat when we wanted to, sleep when we wanted to, and stay out as late as we wanted to (not very late as it turns out). So now that we've had a fun, social Christmas we're ready to get this show on the road. I'm feeling fine, though moving a bit more slowly, and running out of belly space. Max and I agreed that tomorrow would make an excellent birth day.

In the meantime, we managed to get a tree up in time for Christmas. We found a poor little white spruce in the woods by the cabin with more growth rings than we care to admit to. This was an old timer. It's a hard life in the bog.


Still got that belly.

Rufus immediately made a comfy nest under the tree where he has spent most of his time over the last several days. It's within reach of all the bows and wrapped packages that have been so much fun to attack. He managed to open several before Christmas morning.

We'll put up an update when we have some news. Thanks to all of you who have called to check in with us this week! We're feeling awfully popular these days :) Much love and big hugs, M&M

Siding and drywall progress

Here's a sneak peek at the siding. This photo was taken Thursday evening. Since then the siding crew has finished this wall and installed the soffit. They'll move to the north side on Monday and continue to work around the house following Max's progress on the furring strips.


These photos show the current state of the interior. It's pretty darned exciting to see the studs covered and to get a feel for how the finished rooms will look! First impression...they look a bit smaller, but the house is feeling super cozy now that all the insulation is in and the walls are solid walls. The echoes are gone and the interior has a whole new resonance. This view looks toward the front entry.

The guys didn't make all the way around to the kitchen today but they got pretty close.

The upstairs is looking good too. The drywall made the bigggest difference upstairs where we can no longer look through the studs from one end of the house to the other. It's made the bedrooms feel smaller but I think it'll just be a matter of getting used to the new walls. This is the upstairs hallway looking into the linen closet and guest bedroom.

Finally, here's the north side of the living room. We're still waiting on the deck door on the right. Once that's in (Monday?!?) we'll be "officially" closed in...but a piece of rigid foam insulation does a nice job in the meantime. So that's where we are right now. We're starting to feel like living here may happen one day soon! That's a great feeling :)

All's quiet on the baby front

Well, we've almost made it to tomorrow's baby due date and we don't have any baby updates yet. I had a good checkup with the midwives on Thursday and all systems are go for the birth center. I'm excited to see how this labor and birth business goes but we're waiting patiently until things start happening. Max and I decided this weekend was too busy at the house to have a baby anyway, so I can't say we're awfully disappointed that the little one hasn't decided to make an early entrance. We think Tuesday would be fine though, so we'll see how well baby listens to his silly parents.

In the meantime, we've been enjoying our current family. I sat down with the kitties this afternoon and watched a documentary about ravens. It was much appreciated by little Rufus (formerly Tiger - I think we've finally stopped renaming him) who watched the whole hour-long program. (I know, we're not supposed to let the kids watch tv...the new kiddo will have different rules!)

We have plenty of ravens hanging out or traveling through the yard here and it sure seems like the cats recognize the birds on the screen...they used this opportunity to explore ravens up close.

Rufus retreated to his favorite seat for the rest of the show giving Suki a chance to get an up close look. Entertaining and educational. Our cats love PBS.