The Many Faces of Ruark

Two months old in these pictures and we can already tell he's going to be an animated child! Look at that neck of his!!



He's always pulling faces and smiling, what a happy baby! We can hardly believe how he has grown! At two months old he was 11 pounds 14 ounces and 23 inches long! What a little stud!






Look at all of the faces he pulls in just two minutes time! It's easy to see why we love our beautiful boy!











Ruark smiles every chance he gets!

He loves watching TV which drives me crazy!




Mom says it's a good thing it means he has good eyesight and hearing. We love telling him funny stories and singing him songs, he just coos and smiles a huge smile and warms our heart!



Time is flying by so quickly! Two months have gone by, he's already taken his first road trip...Arizona at 1week old, and his first flight...California 7 weeks old!




I don't want him to grow any more! I want him to stay tiny forever...but I'm feeling that dream slipping away from me every day. How thankful we are Ruark is growing so strong and healthy!
He is such a big boy!

Blessings

We had Ruark's blessing here at home, it was much more intimate that way and gave all of our friends and family time to enjoy Ruark. Here's a picture of him in his blessing outfit. He loves making faces and seems mesmerized by the camera these days!

He hated that hat, every time I put it on his head he screamed! Doesn't he know, "Mama knows best?"

Chase gave Ruark the most beautiful blessing, we are so lucky to have a righteous priesthood holder in our home. He was told that his name throughout his life and what people throughout the world would know him as is Ruark Chase Andrews. I keep wondering for what reason the world will know his name...only time will tell! He was also blessed that he would find a "little" wife, good to remind him of, if ever tries to marry a fat girl! Just kidding! (kind of)

Photo Shoot

On Ruark's fourth day in this world, I had to do his first photo shoot!

My sister Danielle came over and helped with some of the shots. We had so much fun taking his photos!

What a model he is! He was so alert and worked the camera! Who knows maybe he was listening from heaven all those years of instruction when we had the modeling business!

We got so many great shots, it's amazing, especially because he's a newborn.

He really is heaven sent and the best Christmas present we've EVER had! I wish he had been born on Christmas day.

I had been dreaming of taking this shot since I found out I was pregnant.

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Some days we feel so bad that we kiss him so much, we are so in love with our son!

We are so happy to FINALLY be parents! We are so thankful we waited, but so glad that he's FINALLY here!

Take me home

Finally, after three days in the hospital we couldn't wait to leave!! So we packed his tiny body in the car and made our way home. It's terrifying taking that short drive. I couldn't help sobbing pulling into our driveway so excited to finally have him home...I blame it on the hormones! We couldn't get enough of Ruark, all we did is hold him, kiss him and cuddle him. What a beautiful boy!

Ruark is such a good baby, from the moment he arrived he was so calm, they laid him on my belly when he came out and he just stared right into our eyes like he knew exactly who we were. He ate every 4 hours, for only 10 minutes we are so lucky to have had the chance to get so much sleep!

Every time I turned around I'd find my two little men cuddled up. Chase is such a good dad, I am continually surprised by his tenderness and the love he has for his son and me. We are so lucky!

I hadn't planned on Ruark being so tiny, I brought 0-3 month size to bring him home from the hospital, needless to say the outfit was HUGE on him.

What beautiful boys I have!!

Naming Ruark

We knew his name would be Ruark but we couldn't decide on a middle name. We plan on naming our girl Charlize after Chase, and so we thought maybe name him after me, Nicholas. We tried everything for a middle name...Daniel, David, Kristoff, Christofer, Nicholas, Gary, Eugene, Charles, Kevin, Aiden, Xavier, Christian, Wendell, Jack...and so on. The night before we checked out we asked him all those names out...we tried calling him those names and nothing fit. Every time we used one of those other names, he made a face. Finally we had no more ideas, when I all of a sudden thought what about Chase, we never really thought about naming him Chase. And when we called him Ruark Chase Andrews, we got goosebumps and Ruark gave us the biggest smile. Call it gas or whatever you will...he knew his name and he picked it out. We had no choice, he was a little Chase everyone who came to see Ruark couldn't stop gushing how much he was the spitting image of Chase. The only ones who didn't agree were Chase's family...which was a little odd! So here he is, Ruark Chase Andrews!

Finally here

Well, after all the things I tried to go into labor, all I got was weeks of contractions, no sleep and NO BABY! I was finally able to go into the hospital at 11:30 PM December 30th, 2008. They started the pitocin right away, two hours of contractions later Chase found liquid all over the floor...the pitocin wasn't plugged into my IV, medicine was running all over the floor. I was contracting all on my own. YEA! At 2:00 am the pitocin finally got started and away we went!


At 4 I was almost at a 4, so they gave me some Stadol so I could sleep until the anesthesiologist was able to get to the hospital. I could barely wake up to get the epidural! I was so tired, Chase held me up to get the epidural and then put me back to sleep. I was so loopy from the Stadol all I could talk about was Lego Batman! Which I played like crazy the last few days! At 9:00 I was almost there, at 10:30 they started waking me up because it was almost time. Chase was putting cold washcloths on my face trying to wake me up!


This picture was taken when they woke me up to start pushing. It had been a LONG night for all of us! Mom, Chase, my sister Angela and Danielle were all there coaching and helping me. It was the coolest experience!

10:55 I started pushing...20 minutes later Ruark was here!!! He was the most beautiful newborn I had ever seen! LONG, DARK hair and SO beautiful. Chase didn't think he was very cute at first, I had forgotten to explain that they're gray and covered with gook when they come out. He was definitely relieved when he started to "pink"up and get even cuter! Ruark just layed on my belly and stared into our eyes, he was so calm.

What a Proud Papa!

December 31, 20081:15 am

6 pounds 10 ounces

20 inches long

How thankful and lucky are we that our son has so many people who love him! Chase's mom Susan, and little sister Sadie were out in the waiting room during the delivery. We were so glad they were able to experience the first moments of Ruark's life!

My dad was just around the corner from the hospital, he couldn't believe it was over so quickly, none of us could! He ran right over to hold his newest grandson, he was the thirteenth in my family, and seventh in Chase's. I can't wait to do it again!

Almost done

We are so excited to welcome Ruark to our family! We have waited for what seems like forever to have a baby and now my pregnancy is coming to a close and I can't wait to have my body back and Ruark in our arms! I look like I'm smuggling a small planet under my shirt, no fat jokes please!

This picture was taken 11days before Ruark was born. We spent a weekend with my family in Island Park celebrating Christmas!

What a wonderful way to celebrate the birth of our Savior, than with a birth of our own!

We had such a wonderful Christmas anticipating the birth of Ruark. I was having contractions every 5-10 minutes for two weeks before they induced me!

We decided to keep the costs down as much as possible, and get family gifts. We got a new computer monitor and an awesome video camera, (to tape the birth). No