Spencer's 3 month update!

Spencer's 3 month update:

• He truly is the best baby. Extremely mellow and very sweet and happy.
• Smiles a lot - when eating, when tickled, kissed, sang to or smiled at
• His feet are ticklish
• He loves to be sang to
• He eats like a horse and is getting chunkier by the day to prove it!
• He typically gets up only 1 time a night. Once he eats he falls right back to sleep.
• He doesn't really cry but every once in a while he'll do trembly-frowny-lip and it's heartbreaking
• He has an adoring and very protective big brother

2 years and 2 months

Cooper turned 2 years old and Spencer turned 2 months old just a day apart! Here's what our boys are up to:

Spencer:

• He smiles, big, sweet smiles on purpose. If you smile down at him he'll smile back up and when they're really big he coos too. 

• He loves his playmat - he smiles and gets very excited at the moving birds and music.

• He's a great sleeper. He's already sleeping about 8 hours straight - typically he goes to bed at 9pm and doesn't wake to eat until about 5a or even 6a and then will fall back asleep until 8a or 9a. 

• Hates the pacifier. I should be glad but that sucker really comes in handy in the first year and he just refuses all models!

• Still on 100% mommy's milk which I'm proud of because... it's hard work! He does both nurse and take pumped milk from a bottle - thank goodness because this baby seriously eats all the time and about 30 ounces during the day.

• He's a very mellow baby - he hardly cries and if he does it's only for food.

• He has a lot of body strength already! He'll be in the jumper pretty early on. 

Cooper:

• He's learning new words and putting together new 2-3 sentences everyday. Right now his most used are "that one," "there it is," "milk please," "bye bye dada," "it's okay baby," "where's the baby?," "where'd the baby go?"

• His favorite things in order are: trains, Winnie the Pooh (especially "e-awh' or Eeyore), any other transportation, balls, rocks/sticks/mud.

• He likes the baby an awful lot! He is very protective and always wants to make sure that he can see him at all times.

• He loves to run - he'll often run laps in the house, always wants to play chase and unfortunately takes off in a sprint at any given time.

• He's very sweet and polite. He'll give big bye-byes, hugs and kisses and always says please and thank you. 

• He can be quite the little turkey too - especially when tired or thirsty . He has such a personality and is very extroverted with his feelings. 

• His fav foods are: ravioli, corn on the cob, beans, dry waffles, cheese sticks and he likes to drink milk.

• He still loves his crib so we're not going to move him into a toddler bed until he's ready.

Fingerpainting!

Spencer's Nursery

Spencer's nursery is not 100% complete but I decided to go ahead and post a few pics because... when are you ever really finished with a room? The nursery has a simple yellow and gray scheme with a chevron theme and elephant accents. The elephants are a nod to the family vacation to a Thailand elephant farm while I was 7 months pregnant with Spencer. The room is made up of many handmade elements and was put together with a lot of love!

FULL ROOM VIEW
I plan to add several additional elements including custom wood letters over the crib with Spencer's name, a "You are my sunshine" canvas print, yellow bedding and a circular, yellow rug. 

CRIB SIDE VIEW
Chevrons: painted by my awesome handyman/hubby. Paint colors were color-matched using our canvas bins at a Korean paint store in the alley
Curtains: Blackout (key!) curtains in gray
Deco balls: Purchased at the Thailand night market. Took Owen approx 1 hour and 3 gray hairs each to put together

LEFT SIDE VIEW
Dresser/hutch and night stand: We designed 3 pieces and they were custom-made by MeWha's out of Korean Paulownia wood
Chair: I had this chair in Cooper's nursery. The best chair ever made.
*I added the photo with blankets spilling out of the drawer - it will remind me months from now that while taking these photos I was juggling the baby in one arm and cleaning up after the toddler with the other - ha! 

These canvas bins have unlimited uses and when our MeWha dresser arrived a little shorter than anticipated these added just the right height and fit perfectly inside the lip on the roof of the hutch.  

This dresser doubles as a changing table and perfectly fits the changing pad inside the lip on the roof of the piece. The elephant lamp was also purchased in Thailand.   

My amazing friend, Karen made this pillow for Spencer with fabrics from Korea's Happy Quilt.  

My sweet friend from Camp Humphrey's made this baby blanket for Spencer in his nursery's signature chevron print. Gorgeous! 

My teacher, turned mentor, turned friend sent me this uber cool lamp that doubles a s a docking station for music players - perfect for Spencer's lullabies  And we love to read at the Hein house so here's the beginning of Spencer's book collection started with several books from our friend's Kim and Liam. The elephant to the right was hand-carved at Patara Elephant Farm where we spent a day as elephant owners while vacationing in Thailand. 

These white shelves display a few keepsakes including elephants and a Nambi silver cup sent by Spencer's Great Uncle Ed. 

A nursery wouldn't be complete with a bunch of stuffed animals! 

And the nursery's crown jewel. 

Introducing Spencer Duke Hein

Today is New Year's Day in Korea and I suppose a very good day to get started on my resolution - to blog more. 

And I couldn't think of a better topic to re-start with than the birth of our second baby boy. So without further adieu .. we're thrilled to introduce Spencer Duke Hein!

Born on December 21st at 8:14am in Seoul, Korea at the Brian Allgood Army Hospital. Weighing 8 pounds and 5.2 ounces and measuring 19.5 inches long.  

This pic was taken by one of the OR nurses only about 10 minutes after Spencer was born. I was still on the operating table.

And me and Spencer only 2 1/2 hours before Spencer was born. 

Daddy in his nifty OR scrubs - in just a few minutes they roll me into the OR for the spinal and to prep for surgery.

My OR team was fantastic and helped me keep as calm as I could be. The spinal was really easy and I appreciated that my team was completely focused on me and my surgery (vs talking about what they were going to have for lunch).  During my last C-section there were over 20 people in the room for a teaching opportunity so I also liked the smaller team. Cooper was delivered extremely quickly but Spencer took a while longer so Owen was able to see much more of the surgery this time (kudos for not passing out!). When he was finally delivered and started to cry is when I felt that rush of overwhelming emotion. It felt like ages until I could hold him but it was worth the wait.

... And welcome to the world! 

Just a few minutes after Spencer was born. 

Another photo that I didn't get to see until much later - Spencer's first bath. I was still in recovery at this point but Owen was with him the entire time.

Cooper meeting Spencer for the first time. Cooper gave Spencer the little bear and Spencer gave Cooper a train - Cooper liked Spence immediately! 

Cooper took to Spencer very quickly. This was the very first shots of Cooper getting to hold his new baby brother and he's very excited! 

Cooper giving Spencer baby brother kisses. Heartbreakingly sweet. 

Spencer and his daddy.

3rd day in the hospital before being discharged. Spencer loves having his hands free and in his mouth.

We have a GREAT sleeper on our hands - yay!

In love.

A note on Spencer's middle name: 
Spencer's middle name is short for my maiden name - Dukatnik. My big brother went by Duke in the Army and my dad even had a band called the Duke Brother's growing up. Cooper's middle name is a family named passed down on Owen's side so we wanted Cooper to have that connection on my side. Plus, Duke is just cool.

33 Weeks and Counting

33 weeks and counting! Cooper's baby brother heartbeat and Cooper talking away plus a quick look at the baby's sweet face! 

Seoul Science Museum & Funny Bicycles

We had such a fun and busy summer that my desktop is filled with folders of pics just waiting to be posted about. Tonight, I chose to blog about our Seoul Science Museum adventure from June because... It was one of the last trips with Aimee and the kids, we love any trip with dino bones and the funny bicycles were a blast! 

About 2 minutes into our trip, before we even got off base we had a flat tire so we took a left instead of a right turn to the Auto Hobby shop and they had us jacked in the air fixing the tire in no time. The best part is all 4 kids sat in the back watching a movie while we were in the air - getting a tire fixed has never been easier - oh, and there was no charge!  

After the flat tire detour, a kiddo throwing up in the car and a 1 hour, 45 minute drive we finally arrived! 

Dinos & Rocks:

T-Rex head - always a popular exhibit!

The large cat bones - these were absolutely enormous!

More big dino bones.

Mammoth bones.

Entry into the rock exhibit.

Technology: 

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car.

Robot Fish Tank and Robot Exhibit.

Mechanical lungs.

Space & Air:

Korean jet - Cooper loved this area - kept staring at the planes, he's his daddy's son!

Apollo engine.

LEM (Lunar Excursion Model) & Rover.

Interactive:

Cooper's favorite part of the museum - playing with gears, pullies and levers with Rachel and Rowan. 

Another part of the interactive kid's zone with handwritten notes from Korean children.

And now for the Funny Bicycles (all picks of Cooper and I courtesy of Aimee)! This special center was set-up outside of the Science Museum and was easily among our favorite part of the day. You had one hour to ride dozens of different types of bikes and we made use of every minute!

A bike for 6! 

Cooper's favorite bike - a panda for 2!

The pink cadillac! 

The sideways bike.

And of course our friends - the Brights!

Our 168 Day Korea Update

It's been a bit since I've posted so I thought and appropriate topic would be what Cooper, Mommy & Brother and Daddy have been up to! 

Mommy & Brother:
Brother: Today we had our 20 week appointment on base. This is the only ultrasound given throughout the pregnancy here on Osan for non-high risk pregnancies. The good news is everything looks perfect and our baby boy will arrive at Christmastime. The exact due date is 12/28 but they deliver C-sections on Osan at 39 weeks which puts our new due date of 12/21. This works out great as it should put us at home for Christmas! Owen and I have a long list of names on our chalkboard with votes and vetoes - hopefully we can come to a decision in 19 more weeks! 

Work: I've always been aspirational in terms of my career so my new role as SAHM has been challenging although being with Cooper has been amazing and I don't see how I could ever give that up. I've struggled the past several months trying to find my place in this new role. 

I quickly picked up the publicity and webmaster chair positions for the Osan Officers' Spouses' Club and logged 60 hours my first month working on rebranding the organization and I'm looking forward to utilizing my experience to help advance the organization over the next year. My delay in posting is due to spending Cooper's nap times working on OOSC publicity and web jobs including writing a marketing plan for the year, marketing for the new OOSC cookbook, writing a new sitemap, updating the OOSC website, migrating and updating the OOSC FB page and just a few more OOSC things! 

I still needed another outlet that would allow me to interact with clients and friends and after much research and soul searching (and need for candle options in Korea) I decided to start selling Scentsy. I started my Scentsy business online and my first party is next Monday - I couldn't be more thrilled!

Stateside visit: I've been really homesick for family and for the states. Especially after the friends I made in the first few months left the country permanently for new assignments and many other friends left for stateside to visit for the summer. The permanent moves included the blog's infamous Aimee that was included in most every blog entry from March through June! Didn't realize how difficult that would be but it truly has been hard to have her missing from the Osan landscape. Miss you Aimee! 

I've also been living out of my suitcase at my own home for the past 4 weeks waiting for a Space A flight to visit family. The flights leave on Tuesdays and Thursdays and we haven't made the standby list yet. This is our last week to try for Space A - either way I'll just be happy to unpack. 

Cooper: 
Our little boy is getting taller and smarter by the day. It's quite fun to watch him learning new things. 

New words and phrases as of late:
banana
wee!
daddy's shoes
shoes
yay cooper!
dip it (when he's dipping nuggets into ketchup)
bye, bye dada

and more words from March and May.

New Cooper-isms:
On the playground - Last week Cooper saw a group of older boys climbing the tops of the playground equipment and sliding down and a lightbulb went off that he could go to the big slides too - so now that's his preference. Gives me a heart attack every time but he loves it. 

Big boys, trains and cars: He loves the big kids and especially the big boys. He loves trains and cars. He's all boy!

Movies and TV: Only last month did he start to really love watching TV and movies. So, where the TV had been background noise now I have to be careful about turning it on so he doesn't zone out. His favorites are Sesame Street, Elmo, Thomas the Train and Despicable Me (including the Minion Madness shorts). 

Sleepyhead: Cooper is still a great sleeper - going to bed around 8:30p and waking between 8 and 10am. He naps exactly 3 hours after he wakes for 2-4 hours and just last week he started skipping the afternoon nap. 

Water: Cooper LOVES water any place - the waterpark, water fountains and bathtime!

Daddy:
Owen put on Major in June and quickly earned his keep by working some crazy hours throughout June and much of July (due to a high PCS of squadron members leaving Korea). Now that four new airmen are trained up the hours are starting to normalize a bit. 

Owen's also been hard at work watching the Olympics and doing his own Olympic-style workouts in the pool, on the track and in the gym. 

And he still insists that he has the best wife and son in the whole world and couldn't be happier to add baby #2 to the mix! 

We're also excited to vacation in Thailand in October and posting about all of the great adventures we've had and will have here in Korea!