what happens in vegas...

...gets posted for everyone to see!

For President's Day weekend, we decided to take a mini-vacation to Las Vegas to meet up with our wonderful friends, Nick and Shay, and their adorable daughter, Reagan! The drive to Vegas was about 6 hours, cause we hit a TON of traffic! (The ride home was much better & took about 5.5 hours). We arrived in Vegas around 7 pm @ the Las Vegas Hilton and Suri got to meet Aunt Shay, Uncle Nick and her bff Reagan for the first time! It was sooo cute to see the babies (Reag is 9 1/2 months, Suri - 6 weeks) together! Although we spent a lot of the time in the hotel room - it's tough traveling with youngins - we had such an amazing time! It was awesome to see our best friends & to just get away for the weekend! Suri did wonderfully on her first vacation - sleeping most of the time while we were out and most of the time on the car rides to/from Vegas. We can't wait to see our friends again & plan another fun adventure! Love you guys!

P.s. - videos to come, when I figure out how to post them from our camcorder ;)

Suri in front of the Vegas sign - - - Viva Las Vegas! - - - Reagan & Suri

The Hansens w/ baby Suri - - - - - Reag in her strawberry jammies

Shay and I @ the Miracle Mile Mall where the ceiling looks like the sky outside!

The Paris Hotel - - - Nick & Shay <3 them - - - Reag @ the Eiffel Tower - - - Seth & I in Paris (I wish!) maybe one day :)

Reagan & Suri bonding ;) - - - the amazing Dads w/ their precious girls

Shay & Reag @ the Aquarium in Ceasars Palace

Daddy & me with Suri Jean

Reagan & Suri BFFs! --- Love this pic - Reag's giving this look like, 'This is my baby, don't touch!' --- Suri smiling while Reag checks out her outfit :)

Uncle Seth w/ Reagan. She is soo adorable & starting to talk & walk & makes the cutest faces & noises! We love her <3

the bffs

Our family

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's Suri's first Valentine's Day! She has an adorable little dress for this special day & she got all dolled up! We plan on making crepes tonight for Daddy as a special treat! Strawberries, nutella & powdered sugar! YUM!

Also, here are some pics from the visit this weekend with Aunt Ashley & Jake.

Daddy thought we should test out the Bumbo too! She was not very happy with it yet. She has a really strong neck though - since birth she's been able to hold it up for short periods of time - and when she finally masters it - then she'll be ready for her Bumbo!

In the mean time, some of Suri's quirks at one month old:

*She LOVES her butt to be patted! It calms her down & puts her to sleep... usually.
*After she was born, she made a noise EXACTLY like a monkey! Oooh oooh aah aah! No lie.
*She's starting to coo & makes lots of noise! Even in her sleep.
*When sleeping, she loves to have her hands in the air - it looks like she's praising the Lord. And if you try to put them down, they spring back up! :)
*She sleeps about four to five hours through the night - most nights. Usually when she's in Mommy & Daddy's bed.
*She's starting to be mesmerized by her mobile in her crib & loves lights.
*She is now outgrowing her newborn clothes and wearing 0-3 months. She doesn't have a lot, so she's also started on her 3m clothes.
*She's in size 1 diapers - only because what we thought were newborn diapers turned out to be size 1's. oops. So she was only in newborn size diapers for about 3 weeks.
*She'll be smiling soon. Mostly now she does it when she sleeps or toots, but the 6 week mark (Wednesday) is when she's supposed to start returning smiles at people.
*Daddy calls her his lil Peanut.

That's about all I can think of at the moment. She's getting bigger every day & every day we grow more in love with her. She's our lil sweetheart! Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Visiting the Princess

Everyone wants to meet baby Suri! Here she is with some of her visitors:

Her first visitor was Aunt Regina in the L&D room.


Then Grandma Anne & Grandpa Kevin came by to see their first grandbaby!

Uncle Abbott holding his little niece


Uncle Elliott with baby Suri

Nana & Papa came to visit the weekend after Suri was born

Gramma Denise came to stay & help out with baby Suri

She still has a lot more people to meet! Aunt Ashley and Uncle Jake came to visit this weekend - pics to come. She met Uncle Kyle last weekend - no pics, sorry. This coming weekend, she takes her first trip - to VEGAS! - to meet her Aunt Shay, Uncle Nick and best friend Reagan! Then in March, she will meet the rest of her aunts & uncles, great aunts, great great grandmas, etc. And most importantly her brother & sister, Ares & Luna!!!! Then she meets the rest of my side in July & also all of our friends in VA! She's going to be Little Miss Popular this year! :)

Welcome to the world Suri Jean!

On January 5th at 4:47 pm, Suri Jean was born! She weighed in at 8 lbs exactly and was 20.5 inches long!

The semi- short version of the labor story: Seth and I decided to go on one last date night on January 4, since my family would be coming in the next day and it would be the last time it would ever be just the two of us. So we went out to Truluck's in La Jolla, a steak and seafood restaurant (with amazing chocolate cake!). During the dinner, I was feeling a lot of pressure but didn't think anything of it. Thought it was just cramps basically. Then on the car ride, they were getting a bit more intense. When we got home, I was pacing back and forth across the room as the "cramps" seemed to get more intense and more frequent. Seth started timing the contractions (duh sarah!) and said, "um, yeah I think we need to go to the hospital!" me: "are you serious?" haha...I was in disbelief that this was really about to happen. LABOR. We got to the hospital around 9:30 pm and I was at 3.5 cm - so we were instructed to stay at the hospital, but to walk around for two hours! So we did and when we returned, I had progressed to 4.5 cm. The contractions were getting way more intense and when I was admitted to a Labor & Delivery room, I asked for an epidural and received one at around 5 cm.

Then we hit a wall. No progress for quite some time. So they decided to help it along with pitocin. Eventually I made it to 8 cm and the doctor came into break my water. So from that point on, there was LOTS of pressure & it was getting close to pushing time! At 10 cm, the nurse had me do some "practice pushes" & with those baby's head was already visible. The nurse called the doctor who was over at her other office and stuck in the parking garage!! lovely. I could feel tons of pressure and said to the nurse, "um...I think I need to push!" Suri was definitely ready to come out, but the hospital staff was not. The nurse told me to breathe to keep the baby in! Ok now. Really? I wait 9+ months and take a freaking childbirth class to learn how to push her out & you want me to hold her in?! Thanks a lot. At this point, it's getting much harder to hold her in and they call the in house OB. He comes and suits up and as soon as he's about to tell me to push - my doctor comes in. Now we wait for her to suit up - and just as she puts her glove on and says push - which I do - there is beautiful baby Suri! The cord was wrapped around her a bit, but they quickly fixed it. Daddy cut the cord, and then they placed our beautiful little baby girl on my chest!

It was the most amazing experience ever! Seth was the most wonderful labor coach in the world!

Now we are a happy little family & we are enjoying every minute with our precious girl! She is absolutely beautiful & we are so in love <3