Nathan James has arrived!!!

It's funny that the night I wrote the last entry was the night I went into labor! Who knew?!

Nathan was born April 8 at 11:55 pm (3.44 kg and 52 cm -approximately 7.5 lbs and 20.5 in) . It was a long day, but everything went very smoothly. We had no problems communicating with our doctor and his staff. They were all great!!! We spent two nights in the hospital (2 very long nights!). The pediatrician wanted to have Nathan in the hospital for a full 24 hours before releasing him, and my doctor didn't want to let me go the next morning either.

Nathan slept so hard the night he was born that his hat wiggled down over his eyes by sunrise. After 9 months of darkness, who wants light shining in their eyes?!

We've been home for going on 2 weeks now - my, oh, my, how time does fly! We've had lots of visitors already. In fact, today about 12-15 neighbor ladies came over for coffee just to see Nathan. A neighbor and a friend served so I could rest and visit with the women who came. It was really sweet of them.

So I thought I would share a few pictures with you of a few odds and ends we've received over the past week or two.

Nathan's first gold coin - a traditional gift. It's about the size of a dime.
We can hang on to it as a keepsake or take it to a gold jeweler and trade it in for cash or a piece of jewelry. What do you think we should do???

My gift from the neighbors that came for coffee today.
Gold earrings and pendant with "diamond-like" stones.

This was pinned on the back of one of the sweater vests Nathan received from a neighbor.
According to their beliefs, complimenting a baby excessively can invoke bad luck, and this bead (the one with the "eye" looking thing) is believed to ward off any harm that could come from that bad luck.

A few more hand-made sweater vests.