Joy, Joy, Joy!

New mama and Corey Samuel!

Proud auntie with the little peanut!

Corey is already giving Uncle Mike "the look."

Seriously, Miles doesn't have enough toys at Grandma & Grandpa Nickolays. :)

Rub-a-dub-dub - Miles in the tub.

Sweet boy getting his hair washed.

It's those eyes that melt my heart!

A recording of Miles videoconferencing with his Gray grandparents.
He is very technologically savvy for his months!

Joy, joy, joy - a new baby is born!
My little nephew, Miles' cousin, is born! October 23rd Rachel and Graham celebrated a happy birthday with Corey Samuel at Fairview Southdale Hospital. I was so lucky to be one of Corey's first visitors and holding such a tiny little bundle brought back so many wonderful memories and emotions of Miles' birth and first few days of life in the world. Sweet baby Corey is a little peanut with light to medium brown hair. He actually has a lot of hair for a baby but not as much as Miles had - but seriously who does? Corey weighs 7 lbs. 12 ounces and is 20 inches long. For those that know Rachel and Graham I'll let them tell you his whole, awesome birth story.

And oh how they grow...
Holding Corey I thought - was Miles once this small? It has been amazing this weekend to look back to Miles' pictures and think that yes, he once was as tiny and to reflect on how much he's grown in these three fast months. Thinking of Rachel's new little family also makes me think of the early days with a newborn - round the clock feedings, loud newborn cries and parental exhaustion. When you're in those moments it seems like your new baby is so fragile and that you'll never sleep again but time really does fly by and before you know it your little 7-8 pounder is a whopping 15 pounds and smiling and cooing away.

Mamarazzi
After feeling weeks of frustration at not capturing all 5000 Kodak moments a day of Miles with our old point and shoot digital camera because of slow shutter speed and the inability to take good close-ups of that adorable face (for every one cute, close-up face shot you see of Miles on the blog think of the 100 I took that didn't turn out) Mike and I made an investment and bought a Nikon D3000 SLR digital camera. While you may not notice a huge difference yet in our photography skills in the pictures I have posted here we can tell a huge difference already. The picture above of Miles laying on his belly in the tub is a shot I've been trying to capture every week for a month with very blurry, unsatisfactory results until today with my new camera - I finally got the shot I've been wanting. I joked with Mike that being a "mamarazzi" might just be my new hobby. We are going to be signing up for some SLR digital photography classes very soon!

Grandparent moments of the week:
Videoconferencing with the Gray Grandparents in Arizona. Playing the "stinky feet" game with Grandpa Nickolay and storytimes with Grandma Nickolay.

A good day
Today was a good day - I know that my sister and new nephew are healthy and being well taken care of at the hospital, we enjoyed a fun Vikings party at the Carlson household where Miles got a lot of love and attention from great-aunties and his feet tickled by his young second cousins and I got to spend lots of quality time with Miles. My favorite moments with Miles today have been laying on our bed with him, tickling his belly and watching that sweet smile (his eyes truly sparkle when he smiles); washing Miles hair in the sink and laughing as he kicks, kicks, kicks his feet in the baby tub; and smelling his clean, soft hair and watching him run his little chubby fingers through his curls. It's these little things that mean the most.