the waymans

Ethan's First Photoshoot

2008-08-11T16:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, Andre, our great friend, is such an amazing photographer... he came over this morning and took some shots of our little E... check them out on his blog under "Ethan Wayman" - so good!!
http://www.theanblog.blogspot.com/

Things I love

2008-08-04T20:52:00.000-07:00

I love watching my wife and son sleep!

I love watching my boy discover things...like his thumb.

And I just love watching my son watch me.

Sleep deprivation

2008-08-02T17:15:00.000-07:00

It's been a little over two weeks since Ethan came home, and it's amazing how quickly the time has gone. Through no small help from the Grandmas, along with a bunch of really great meals that some of our friends brought by for us, we've been able to start figuring out parenthood. We've also spent countless hours just staring at our boy. It's been tiring at times; Ethan sleeps most of the day and then at night it's play time (I think he's training us). We love this kid!

After Bathtime

Ethan with his Grandma Carol

Ethan and Grandma Cindy

Ethan smiles...a lot! He even laughs in his sleep from time to time.
Which raises an interesting question: what do infants find funny?

Ethan's had lots of visitors. Here he is with his uncle John.

Mom is Ethan's favorite mattress.

The End:

Figuring out parenthood

2008-07-20T21:36:00.000-07:00

Ethan's 5th day is coming to a close.

Parenthood is easy when you have a bunch of nurses telling you what to do, but now we're home and trying to remember everything they showed us (and making lots of it up as we go).

It took us a while to figure out breast-feeding, but we're getting the hang of it and Ethan took his first bath at home today. We've learned that caring for the kid works a lot better when we work together as a team. Below are a few pictures and a video of my kid!

Ethan keepin' his eyes on the prize.

Clean machine!

Ethan right after his first bath at home.

You mean to tell me I get to live here?

Yes!

My favorite football. Check out the size of my boys feet.

Ethan's Advent

2008-07-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

1:30 AM - 4.5 hours into labor
The calm before the storm.

Cathy hanging out with the soon to be grandmas.
Hard to tell who's the most excited.

While the girls hang,
Eric futilely tries to get a couple minutes of rest.

At 6:07pm on July 15th, after a BRIEF 21 hour labor, Ethan Daniel Wayman made his entrance into the world. He thought it would be fun to see how many hospital staffers he could get to come wish him happy birthday, so he decided to hold his breath for over 6 minutes. His mom and dad didn't think it was that funny.

The first meeting.

And now we're three!

Because the labor was so difficult, the doctors wanted to check Ethan's vitals, so the boys said bye to mom and went upstairs. Cathy was sad, but I got to spend a full hour alone with his boy. I haven't cried this much in my whole life!!!

21 hours of labor and Cathy's still gorgeous!

There's just no way to get close enough.

Kissing and hugging isn't enough;

I feel like I want to ingest him!

What you lookin' at?

Ethan's hearing test. He passed, but didn't like how the earphones made him look like Princess Leiah!

My Uncle Peter may be the tallest guy in the family for now, but if Ethan's feet are any indication, his days are numbered.

The Waymans 2.0

My brother Brad practicing. He'll have his ownlittle dude in the next 3 months.

When life gets too hard, suck it up!

Going home. We only had 2 days in the hospital, but we felt the need to bring everything we own.Cat carries the precious cargo, I'm the pack-mule.

I've got my boy wrapped around my little finger, but something tells me he's still in control. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation or the fact that he's only 3 days old, but he's already got more stuff than I've ever owned!

Male Bonding Time::

I've been waiting to take a nap with my boy ever since I found out we were pregnant. It was well worth the wait!!!!

Pregnancy Pictures

2008-07-07T14:47:00.000-07:00

Coming soon...

Babymoon pics (May '08)

2008-06-19T12:02:00.001-07:00

We planned for a "babymoon" get-a-way before Ethan arrived beginning of May, '08. Since we only had a few days we pricelined it and stayed local in Newport Beach - we realized just how much we take advantage of the gorgeous place we live! We stayed at the Newport Hyatt, went to all the surrounding beach cities and "acted as tourists" and had the time of our lives! Of course many of the days were spent around the pool under the cabanas :)

Our date night pictures - we went out to a nice dinner and walked along the beach of Laguna:

Also in Laguna, we went on a day outing and met some tourists from Canada - interesting, my hair looks very "lionish" this day!

belly pictures (Dec-June '08)

2008-06-19T11:26:00.000-07:00

Journey with me through the progression of my belly shots - my husband is a good photographer eh? :)

December 1, 2008 (2 months prego)
February 16, 2008 (4 1/2 months)

March 13, 2008 (5 1/2 months)

April 17, 2008 (6 1/2 months)

April 30, 2008 (7 months)

May 29, 2008 (8 months)

June 17, 2008 (8 1/2 months)

1 month to go!

2008-06-19T11:24:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a journey our pregnancy has been - so fun! We would highly recommend it to all our married friends, we've been married just over 4 years, so we feel we've really been able to create a solid foundation in our relationship to be ready (well as ready as you can be) for little Ethan to arrive into this world. Now we're only 1 month away from our due date (July 18th) and can hardly believe how quickly time has flown by!! SOOOO, for all ya'll just chomping at the bit to see my prego belly, I thought we'd FINALLY post some belly pics for you :) (check out our post on "belly pictures" to see them). I find out today what position the baby is in (i.e. hopefully he'll be head down) so we'll let you know more as we find out - so surreal to know he'll be here soon, so unreal to think that he has characteristics of both Eric and I, can't wait to meet him! Love to you, Cathy

Alaska (August '05)

2008-06-19T11:09:00.000-07:00

One of our most fond and treasured trips with the Wayman family: Alaska. Ken, Eric's dad, chartered a boat in which 8 of us went into the wild for a 3 week adventure - one of the most beautiful/breathtaking places in the world, especially when you can experience it without being on a huge cruise-ship... this is the way to go! ... to be continued for Eric to share more... and for more pictures to be downloaded... visit back soon :)

Yes, this is Eric and his brother Tyler on an iceburg in the middle of the ocean... a little scary for me, but the boys loved the adventure!

Sweet Italia (May '07)

2008-06-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

Really, lets just call it how it is, Italy is the BEST place on earth :) So, after I graduated with my Master's, Eric decided it was time to take a big trip together to my fav place.

We spent 3 weeks in beautiful Italia, starting out in Florence (the next 5 pictures)...

Here is the convent that we stayed in, just across the Arno River, about a 5 minute block from the main part of the city... really such a neat experience with the nuns, but a little ackward as this was the starting grounds of trying to have our first child ;)
The famous "ponte vecchio" bridge

The architecture in Florence is unreal - this is my fav "big city" in Italy

Michaelangelo's "The David" - AMAZING!!! Some say this is a self-portrait... who knows, but he carved this out of left-over marble, and it was done in one piece with no other supporting structures like many statues of this size... if you are ever there, this is a MUST SEE.

We met up for the day with a group of friends I graduated with - so fun we were all in Florence at the same time :)

After Florence, we ventured just 18 kilometers from Florence to the cutest villa in Tuscany, called 'La Fornella' in a little town called Paterno (http://www.lafornella.com/) - we stayed here for a week and visited various hilltowns in Tuscany - this was quite the experience as we had our own apartment, so we shopped and felt like a local. By far, one of our very favorite places on our trip.

Most nights at the villa we made dinner and came outside to eat - how can you not with this amazing view?

Ahhh... fresh fruit

We rented a car while in Tuscany, and unfortunately got into a fender-bender while visiting the hilltown of 'Lucca' - even so, they called it a "no fault" accident, and before we knew it the people that we hit were asking us to send them a postcard from Cali :) Such nice people!

Venezia!! (next 3 pictures)

The famous Saint Mark's Square - it was rainy while we were there, so every night the square would flood and people would just walk right through it.

Picture taken while standing on the 'Rialto bridge'

Just one of many canals in beautiful Venice

After Venezia, we took a train to the Austrian Alps, in the Dolomite region of Italy... we stayed in a quaint town called 'Castelrotto' (another favorite part of our trip)... (next 4 pictures)

We stayed in a bed/breakfast with the Troker family - they only spoke German, so it was really interesting trying to communicate... just the nicest family! And oddly enough, we noticed that all the older men wore aprons everywhere they went!

During our stay in Castelrotto, we travelled by bus up the mountain and hiked in the Dolomites (Alpe di Siusi) for 6 hours - the first part was freezing, as you can tell it was snowed over - the second part (as you can see in the next picture) was sunny and full of greenery.

Eric couldn't help but sing "The hills are alive...." (you can finish the song!)

After the Dolomites, we headed over to Lake Como (next 2 pictures) and stayed in this great little town called 'Varenna' - isn't it beautiful? This was also one of our most favorite stops - like Rick Steves' says "see how slow you can get your heart rate to go when you visit lake como"... so relaxing...

Varenna has beautiful gardens...

From Lake Como we took a train to the 'Cinque Terre' along the coast (next 2 pictures) - there are 5 towns built on the rocks of the Cinque Terre - you can hike, boat or take a train between the towns - in this picture we were hiking down towards the town of 'Vernazza'

We were able to hook up and travel to the Cinque Terre with Peter & Julie, Eric's aunt and uncle and spent the night in their villa along the coast - it's so fun to get to see relatives/friends while overseas!

From the Cinque Terre we took a LONG train ride South to Sorrento... while there, we visited the ruins of 'Pompeii" right outside of Naples
The last trek of our journey was conquering Rome - but as Eric said, Rome conquered us as we tried to see it in just a few days - amazing place, but very large with a lot to see!

This is St. Peter's Bascilica and the Vatican

The famous Roman Colosseum

Eric showing off ;)