Enjoying his crib

One more video...I've been trying to capture smiles all week, but it's hard to have the camera ready fast enough!

Cooing

Here's a video of Joshua makin' some noise...

A quick post - pictures from this month

Click here for Pictures from the past month...

One month old today

He's so good at holding up his head!

Such a strong boy!

Joshua turns one month old today. What a blessing he's been to us in this first month. Dan and I are crazy about him and are definitely convinced he's the cutest baby around. We are doing well and have been blessed abundantly by friends and family helping us in all kinds of ways.

He looks like he's up to something here!

Life with Josh seems normal and surreal all at once. Sometimes it seems so crazy that he's our child and we'll be taking care of him for many years to come. Life has certainly been irreverisibly forever changed...then at the same time, there's moments (mostly during naps) where it feels like it's just me and Daniel again and things are not different than they were 4 weeks ago. (Except for I definitely am not missing my big belly!)

There's not too much to report for recent adventures, but we are taking advantage of Josh's portablility right now. On Sunday we took him for a walk until he fell asleep (the stroller works wonders for that and we are so glad because it makes it possible to get out of the house) then parked it to the side of the tennis courts near our house and played tennis while he napped!

Josh's third week of life was filled with a lot of "firsts"...1st FSU football game viewing, 1st walk, 1st bottle, and 1st road trip (to see Daniel's grandma in Orlando)!

Follow the link to see more pictures from Week 3.

Last week Papa, Gigi and Aunt Anna came to visit. Joshua had fun playing with them and going for walks on the beach.

This is a cradle that Papa made.

It's beautiful!

Over the weekend, Aunt Sassy dropped in to meet her newest nephew.

Click here for the rest of the pictures from Week 4. (I promise we won't continue this weekly barrage of pictures forever!)

Joshua's Second Week

Click here for some pictures from Week 2! Enjoy!

Week 2

My Labor Story

Saturday morning I went garage saleing with my friend Anissa. At about noon we had finished hunting for “baby treasures”, and I headed home because I wasn’t feeling very well. I felt like I was coming down with the flu or a cold – achy, headache, tired, crampy. Dan had worked overnight on Friday night, so he was sleeping when I got home. I decided to take a nap too. When we woke up around 3 pm, I still felt off, but we started puttering around the house. We hadn’t taken any pictures of my belly in a few weeks, so we decided to do that.

10/13/2007 4:23pm

Around this time, my cramps started feeling worse. I remember Daniel saying as he was taking my picture, “Try not to look like you’re in pain for this one.” I still just thought I was getting sick or having Braxton-Hicks because the cramps weren’t like what they had described in our childbirth class or like what I expected, but they did seem to be getting more intense.

It seems like so many first time moms end up at the hospital with a false alarm and I didn’t want to get my hopes up only to get sent home, so I kept telling myself that I couldn’t be in labor, it was too early. Dan, in PA mode, offered to check and see if I was in labor. I was 5 cm dilated. At that point he knew we would be having a baby in the next 24 hours or so, but still I was sort of in denial. Thinking that we still had hours of early labor ahead of us, we thought we’d go to the beach to pass some time before heading to the hospital. Dan left to go buy bait so he could fish and I stayed home to get ready to go because I was moving kind of slow. By the time he got back, about 5 pm, I was laying in the bed, breathing through contractions. We started timing contractions, and they were about three minutes apart and a minute long and getting more intense. Our doctor had told us to call the office answering service if we thought I was in labor, and then a nurse would call back to determine if we needed to head to the hospital. Dan called the answering service and while we were waiting for them to call back, he started gathering the rest of the stuff to take to the hospital. It took him a long time to get everything together because he had to stop every 2-3 minutes to help me through the contractions. I was on my hands and knees on our bedroom floor during the contractions and trying to help him locate stuff for our hospital bags in between. We finally had our bags packed, but the doctor’s office still hadn’t called us back. The contractions were pretty intense, so we decided we’d better head to the hospital anyway.

We got to the hospital around 6pm. When we walked in, the nurse at the front desk asked, “Are you here to visit someone?” Daniel said, “No, we think we’re here to have a baby.” They examined me, decided we were right, and took me to a delivery room. I was still at about 5-6 cm. The contractions were really intense and painful by then. Daniel was a great coach. All the nurses kept saying that they were going to hire him out as a birth coach. They asked me if I was planning on getting an epidural, and I said that I didn’t know yet. The contractions got more and more intense, and I had no idea if I was progressing or not. I felt like I could handle it for another hour or two without drugs, but not if I was looking at 14 more hours of labor or something like that. I figured I surely had several more hours of labor ahead of me, so after a little while, I asked the nurse for the epidural, but I had to wait until I finished the IV of antibiotics for Group B Strep before they could start it. Just after that my water broke. The nurse checked me and said I was completely dilated and could start pushing if I wanted to, even though the doctor hadn’t arrived yet! So much for the epidural – there wasn’t time! I didn’t really have the urge to push though, so I just kept breathing through contractions and saying things to Dan like, “I hate this.” and “This is bad.” He’d tell me to relax whatever part of my body I was tensing up, and I’d say, “I can’t.”, but then would relax that part. A little after 7 pm, the doctor arrived and told me it was time to push. I pushed through about 4-5 contractions and at 7:25 pm our precious baby boy was born.

It was a short, intense labor, not at all what I was expecting, but looking back, I wouldn’t change anything about the way that it happened. Who can complain about being in labor for only 4 or 5 hours? Of course, we’ll have to be careful the next time around because I think second babies usually come faster!

10/13/2007 7:55pm

Grandparents are great!

Papa and Gigi came to visit Joshua in the hospital.

Three generations of Kuder boys

Grandma and Grandpa Nettleton came a few days later to meet their first grandchild.

After Joshua's first bath...

We took some videos on our camera, but they probably aren't too exciting for anyone other than us and the grandparents! This one is from after Joshua's first bath. He's wearing a gown that Daniel's grandma gave to him when he was born! He seems to really like bath time!

Mom is so proud!

Live Action

This is pretty much what we do all day...sit around and watch Joshua! I think this one is from Oct 16th, so he's about three days old!

Week 1

Introducing Joshua Daniel

Going bananas!

Our backyard has literally at least 35 banana trees in it (they're in the background of the latest post of my baby belly). Some of them (amazingly) produced bananas this year! So, for the past few weeks we've had an ABUNDANCE of bananas. We've already made two rounds of banana bread, chocolate covered bananas, eaten as many bananas as possible, and shared with friends, plus today I must have put at least 25 overripe ones in the freezer for future use...and there's more to come!

We "harvest" them when they're green and let them ripen in the garage. Doesn't this just look funny and totally tropical (do I really live here?)!

Close up

Getting Bigger

36 weeks and counting...

What I'm thinking on today...

Romans 12:1-3 The Message

"So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

States I've Visited

I (Vanessa) set a goal in high school to visit all 50 states. I just have left the ones in gray, so I'm getting there!



Visited US States Map from TravelBlog

Growing

I thought I'd wait until there was something to see before posting pictures of my growing belly. Not sure this does it justice, but I thought I'd spare the public from my bare belly.

24 weeks

Apparently the baby likes it inside as he/she gave us the thumbs up sign during our last ultrasound!

Our first home

We have really enjoyed living near the beach this year, so we're going to stay in the area. We bought this cute, little, green, beachhouse on the left and close on it May 31st. The house needs some work, but we think we can do most of it ourselves. I'm busy increasing my collection of paint chips and daydreaming about the possibilities. It's fun, but overwhelming. The options are endless. We have a few pictures of the inside, but it's hard to tell what it's like. When we finish working on it we'll have to post some before and after shots.



The main living area is basically one big room with the kitchen, eating area, and family room.


Hall bathroom and master bedroom

Triathlon in St. Augustine

My friend Anissa talked me into doing a triathlon in St. Augustine a few weeks ago. It was one of my "un-committed" New Year's Resolutions, so I thought I'd go for it -- it was now or never (at least in 2007 considering my new condition). Somehow when we signed up for the race, April 21st, seemed like a long time away, but when it came down to it, it was only about three weeks. Our first swim took place just one week before the race, so needless to say, we were a little anxious about how the race would go and wondering what we'd gotten ourselves into. It was supposed to be a 1/2 mile swim, 12 mile bike, 5K run. Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately, in our case), a Noreaster blew in and the ocean was CRAZY! The waves were just churning and the white caps were huge! They cancelled the swimming part the morning of the race and replaced it with a 2 mile run...

The start of the race

The runs were on the beach, which we hadn't anticipated. Although a little bit more work, it also gave us some scenery to look at. After our first 2 miles, we were off to our bikes...

And now the final 5K!

(Notice the choppy waves in the background)

Baby Kuder!!!

We're expecting an addition to our family at the end of October. We are really excited and feel so blessed and also a little scared about this new responsibility. I had my first ultrasound last week and was amazed to see how developed the baby is, especially considering it's only 3-4 inches in size!

Ultrasound at 14 weeks

Since I'm sure people will ask -- no we don't know if it's a girl or a boy yet. It's still too early to tell, but we think we're going to wait and be surprised when s/he is born! It is amazing though to think that even though we don't know the sex or what he or she looks like all of that is already determined...God knows all the details about our child...how amazing!

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Psalm 139:13-17

Some recent pictures...

Well, it's been a while since I've updated this site and my friend Nate (a consistent blogger) requested some new posts! The first link is of Daniel surfing near our house. He got a surfboard for graduation and is learning to fit in with the surf culture of Atlantic Beach! The other link is some pictures from a trip I took for work to Nuremberg, Germany.

See the pictures by following the link below:

Surfin' Stud
Trip to Germany

Disney Marathon

I said it last time and I'm saying it again, and I mean it this time (I think) -- "I will not run another marathon". At about Mile 20, I remembered why I said I would never do it again...but, I made it to the end on my feet -- Thank God!

Snapshots of Christmas

Got this recipe at Christmas time

Churrasco w/Chimichurri sauce and yellow rice

Tim loved his Christmas gift!
Sofie & Marc take a nap
Ryan the Power Ranger...look at those muscles

A little Christmas Day side trip to Pocahontas, IA -- why not?
Sneaky Renee Family Pictures

Attack of the lobster gloves (or should I say penguin muffins?)




Emily and Hannah - adorable!

Princess Pajamas

Dan and Van's Christmas Tree

I'm impersonating my shirt (it says "roar")