Three Months Old, So Handsome!

Hanging with Grandma

Zac is hanging out with Grandma and his cousin Madison. Thomas the train is one of Madison's favorite books and I am sure it will be Zac's soon.

The 6th Dude Ranch Thanksgiving Dinner

The long-awaited reinstatement of a Dude Ranch Tradition, after a slight deviation from “Annual.” Here are a few pictures of the event. If only you could taste that Ham. It was to die for! :)

Zac Loves the New Swing!

Zac got a new swing last night ...our friend Grace grew out of it and is letting Zac borrow it. He loves it! Here he is enjoying his new swing with the little blue bear and Tawny the lion.

Some Fun Pics of Zac, Two Months Old

Zac is smiling and talking more and more each day. He is so much fun! I feel like the luckiest person on earth, I wish you all could get to hang out with Zac as much as I get to!

Trip to Sunriver

October 10 through 14 - Our first overnight trip with Zac ... We traveled to Sunriver where my family had rented a house for the week. Jeremy took some days off, and I am still on maternity leave, so we were able to stay four nights. Zac's four aunts, two uncles, Grandma and Grandpa, and two cousins, were lots of help playing with him, holding him, changing him, putting him to sleep, etc. It was fun! :-)


Aunt Amy with her three nephews, L-R Micah, Zac, Kaleb


Micah loves his little baby cousin!


Zac learns about his crazy uncle Luke.





Frog Lake, on the trip back home

Great Grandma Martin's B-day

October 7, 2007 - We traveled to Albany to celebrate my Grandma's Birthday with the Martin clan. Zac got to meet his great grandma for the first time.

Madison's first Year

Here is a video that my brother Jake made for his daughters first year of life.

Mohawks are back in style...

So Zac tells me mohawks are in and that is how he wants his hair styled everyday now. We took him to church and he saw lots of little babies and now he wants to be up on latest baby styles. I just think he wants to show off to all the newborn girls that he has long hair.

Drop and give me 20!

I told Zac he had to drop and give me 20 so that he could be big and strong.

But why Daddy?

Because Daddy know best

Oh alright

12..13..14..15..

This is hard work Daddy ..18..19..20

I did it Daddy I did it

What now you want me to do situps?

Uh I am so tired out.....

Okay just chew on your knuckle and look cute

Sandynet Mesh

In Sandy we have a home grown ISP called Sandynet. Here is Joe installing a meshing radio on the light polls down the streets by our house. It connects to a radio on the side of our house and then uplinks to City Hall before heading out to the internet on 100Mb fiber. At this point in time residents can pay $19.95 a month and connect to one of these radios and get upload and download speeds of 6MB to 12MB. It sure beats the Verizon 768K download and 128K upload. Oh and by the way you can cancel your home phone as well because you don't need it like you do with DSL. When I did the math I saved $600 a year by switching to a faster system.

Here is Joe and Zac hanging out. Joe is the Network Engineer for Sandynet and a good friend. I think by the time Zac turns 4 he will be the top Network Engineer in his class with the help of Daddy and his friends.

Momma and her boy...

Look how cute they are.

Diapers only hold so much...

Here are a couple of smiles. You have to be careful when holding Zac because his diaper does not always hold everything he puts into it as I have personally found out 3 times now. Once in public.

Zachary's birth story

Here's the birth story for those of you who are interested in such details...
Jeremy and I arrived at the hospital on the Tuesday before he was born. My doctor wanted to induce labor with pitocin, because we were suspicious that my water may have been leaking from a high break. I was less than one centimeter dilated, and my cervix 80% effaced (same as it had been for over a week). After one day on pitocin, no labor. Wednesday we tried a different route—cervidil (sp?) to try to soften the cervix. Thursday we tried the cervidil again for 12 more hours and then spent the night back on pitocin. Friday morning my doctor had a genius idea that proved to be the ticket. He wanted to give me an epidural so that he could break my water, which I guess would have been too painful without the epidural. So we did that, and I requested to have the epidural "turned off" or whatever, so that I could experience labor without it. I was put back on pitocin, and labor started right up. Hard and fast! After 7 hours of labor contractions I was just sure I was ready to give birth, because the contractions were so painful and without a break. Well, I was 2 centimeters dilated. So I asked to have that epidural back. After only 2 hours with the epidural, I was finally 10 cent. and ready to have a baby. Zac continued his laid back attitude, however (or was it "stubbornness"? Hm.), and I pushed for four-and-a-half hours before he was finally left with no choice but to show himself to the world.
Zachary had to be treated for jaundice before we left the hospital, and we were finally sent home on Monday, exactly 6 days and 1 hour after we'd arrived there. Since we've been home we've had to make almost daily trips to the pediatrician's office, hospital lab, lactation clinic, etc. It's been pretty crazy and anything but restful! Zachary seems to prefer sleeping to nursing, and my milk supply is not all that great, so he's struggling with weight gain. Other than that, he's a very healthy baby, as the Dr. said Friday at his two-week check-up. And Jeremy and I are gradually recuperating and adjusting to this incredible new life as parents.
We are so happy! Zachary is simply amazing, so cute and cuddly, so soft and warm. We love him like we could never have dreamed, and funny—after only a couple of days it was hard to imagine we ever lived without him.

How did our parents do it?

So what a fun time we have been having. We don't sleep much and life consist of feeding, burping, pumping, then finger feeding with supplement and breast milk, burping then cleaning all the pumping equipment to turn around and do it all over again in an hour or so. Oh and don't forget the couple of diaper changes in there as well. I have an all new respect for parents. I never thought the whole process would be so time consuming. I thought I would be able to clean the house, do a little landscaping, maybe build a fence while Lisa was watching Zach sleep the day away. Let me tell you I was dreaming. They say it takes a village to raise a kid and now I know why.

A trip to Gresham for a little 5 min weigh in at the doctors office should take only 45 min round trip at the most. But when you throw in one feeding that takes 45 minutes and then a diaper change the trip can take 2 to 3 hours and then you don't dare stop anywhere on the way home because you have to get back to feed again.

If your reading this and are about to have a baby soon, do everything you might ever need to do now before the baby comes because you will not have the ability to do it when the baby arrives. How do all those single parents do it? Lisa's Mom and Dad stayed with us for the first week and what a great blessing that was.

Lisa would like to know from anyone that has a newborn when do you get that nap they tell you to take. I myself am wondering the same thing. People say "sleep when the baby sleeps" well that doesn't seem to work out.

Now those that don't have a Baby or kids are going wow we may not want to have kids if it is like that. Well I can tell you it is also the best thing that has ever changed our life. I can't imagine life with out little Zachary. So I find my very selfish self dieing to my ever going love of my son.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately as every time I picked up the computer to put a post on I was needed in the process I explained above. And then I picked sleep over the new post. So I hope you enjoy the new pictures below.

A few more pictures....

After bring Zachary home we put him in his crib and thought this bed might be to big for him. :)

Here are the name tags that we all had to wear at the hospital. Zach had two one on his foot and one on his hand.

Here in his bassinet he sleeps. He is so cute.


Here I am caring him to his very first Oktoberfest at 8 days old. He is part German. He didn't really like the front pack but once we got walking he fell fast asleep.

Lots of visitors...