More Mateo Pics...

Here are some more pictures from yesterday and today for friends and family. We tried to get the memory cards from everyone's camera and upload their pictures to OUR computer so we would have them all together. So, some of these are from yesterday and some are from today. They are not well organized either, but I hope you enjoy them anyway.

The two grandmothers (Nana and Grandmommy) with Mateo right after he was born...

Mckayla, me, Mateo, and Mya...I love that Mya is too busy looking at Mateo to smile for the camera. She sure loves him though. They came to visit again today and she kept saying "baby, baby, baby". Mckayla also wanted to hold him today but he was asleep and we didn't want to wake him. I know that Mateo is going to get lots of love from these two cousins of his. I can't wait for him to meet Gabby and Caiden too.

My mom with Mateo right after he was born....please ignore me in the background....yuck

Like I said, these pictures are a little out of order, but here is my last belly picture taken 12/29 at about 2am.

Front view....who knew Mateo would weigh over 8 pounds!?!?!

This picture was taken by Antonio RIGHT after Mateo was born. The nurses had wiped him off a bit and then put him on my chest....so Mateo was literally a minute or 2 old. He did come out crying too(as you can see)...

Aunt E. E. and Mateo

My mom (Grandmommy) and Mateo while we were still in the L&D room...

My friend Ashley holding Tatum. She came by to see him this morning. It was my plan to take pictures of ALL the visitors that came to the hospital, but I didn't do so well with that as the day went on. I totally forgot to take pictures of a few of you and I am sorry about that....I will take them next time...

Mateo passed his hearing test...

My grandmother, Gran (Mateo's great grandmother) holding Mateo today. She drove all the way from Jackson, TN today to meet him.

Mya and Laurie

Tatum meeting Mateo for the first time. She was 'being gentle' and rubbing his back like I was doing. She came in the middle of feeding time for Mateo, so I stopped feeding him so she could see him. Needless to say, he wasn't too happy about the quick stop to eating so he was crying a bit.

Tatum checking out her little brother, Mateo

Tatum decided Mateo needed a few kisses...

Tatum does NOT like to pose for pictures these days. As soon as you ask her to, she will do anything BUT pose. She WILL say 'CHEESE' but won't look at the camera usually. However, today, she didn't mind posing, smiling, and actually LOOKING at the camera with Mateo.

Our first picture as a family of 4. I look horrible, but I still love this picture of us all.

I thought this next picture was cute...Tatum is keeping a close eye on Mateo while Eliana is holding him. She didn't want him too far out of her sight I guess.

Tatum was letting me fix her ribbons in her hair and I thought this was so cute. You can tell from the BIG SMILE that she is just so excited about Mateo finally being here. I hope that is still the case when she figures out he is actually going home with us!

Our friend Shane stopped by for a visit too.

Antonio and Eliana, his sister. I think this is an awesome picture of them both.

Everything is still going great with Mateo. I slept well last night with only a few interruptions from nurses.

Breastfeeding is still a concern of mine, but we have had lots of help from one of the ladies in the nursery(which I LOVE!!!) and she is back again tonight. I also had a lactation consultant come in to help with a feeding today too. She was a little off the wall, but I got some good info from her too. She was ALL about making feeding times=family times. She wanted me feeding, Antonio holding Mateo's hands, and my mom rubbing Mateo's feet. It was a little MUCH for me since it isn't realistic that all that will be going on when we get home. Anyway, I am just taking it one day at a time.

Mateo is very easy going. He slept at the end of my bed for 2 hours today. He doesn't mind it (right now) that we weren't holding him either. I hope that this transitions to the house as well. It will make things much easier. I do think he looks alot like Tatum did when she was a baby. I promise to do some side by side pics to compare them, but I will save that for when things slow down and we are actually at home.

As you can see from the pictures, Tatum did meet Mateo today and she loves him. I let her sit in bed with me and hold him in her lap. She was giving him kisses, rubbing his back, and pointing to all of his body parts (nose, ears, mouth, eyes, hair, etc). Tatum will be staying with Eliana again tonight and then she will be back home with us tomorrow night for New Year's Eve and then we will all be home together all day New Years Day too. This will give us a definite look into how our life is going to be as a family of 4.

I guess that's all for now. It is about time for Mateo to come back to the room for a feeding and then I will try to get some sleep.

Tomorrow will be a BIG day for us....Mateo is getting circumcised. Please keep him in your prayers...and us too. I hope we do good at keeping him as pain free as possible. If anyone has any suggestions to make his life as easy as possible over the next few days until he heals completely, let me know!!!

He's HERE!!!!

Mateo Christian Simpson made his appearance today at 3:53pm. He weighed 8 pounds 1 ounce and is 19 3/4inches long.

I am blogging from the hospital, so this will be short, but here are a few pics for the family that couldn't be here with us....

Here is me showing off the tag on my epidural line...
Proud Daddy looking over Mateo

Dr. Bannister holding Mateo.....I still LOVE her!!!

Me checking out Mateo...counting all fingers and toes...

Mateo tonight after he got a bath...

Me looking horrible and TIRED and Mateo doing what he did all night....sleeping in either my arms or Antonio's arms.

Antonio and Mateo dressed in their Memphis gear watching the game in the hospital...

In this last picture, Mateo really looks like Tatum....I have a picture of Tatum that looks alot liket this one....I will have to do a side by side comparison later.

My delivery today was wonderful. I could not have asked for anything more. I was a little surprised that Mateo weighs over 8 pounds, but he still looks so tiny.

Tatum and Mateo have not met yet. Tatum will be coming to the hospital tomorrow to see him for the first time, so i am sure there will be LOTS of pictures taken then.

Antonio, Mateo, and I are in the hospital til Wednesday. Thanks for all of your prayers! We are doing well and I am trying to recover from delivery, catch up on sleep, and get down this breastfeeding stuff.

I will post more pictures later when I get time.

Last Hours of Pregnancy

Well, I am less than 5 hours away from being induced and I must say this pregnancy has flown by. I am so excited for tomorrow and can't wait to finally get my hands on Mateo. The best part will be seeing Tatum's reaction to her new baby brother. I think she is finally 'getting it' a little more.

I won't make this a long post since I am going to attempt to get an hour or 2 of sleep tonight, but I want to ask any and all of you praying people to say an extra prayer for our family tonight and tomorrow.

We are praying for a healthy delivery of Mateo! I am expecting it all to go well tomorrow and will hopefully be able to post pictures from the hospital maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. I had hoped to teach Antonio how to blog for me so he could do it, but that didn't happen, so I will do what I feel up to.

Thanks for the prayers in advance. We are already so blessed and can't wait to meet the next blessing in our family! Our PERFECT Christmas present may be a little late, but I know it will be well worth the wait!

It Could ALWAYS Be Worse....

Today, Saturday, didn't exactly go according to my plans. Here's why...

This morning Tatum woke up around 7am (we got to sleep in a bit). We all got up and were watching TV and I asked Antonio to run and get breakfast somewhere(either donuts or McDonalds). He finally agreed and headed out the door, but turned around and asked me where my car was. Of course, I thought this was his way of putting off going to get breakfast, so we did the whole "that's not funny Antonio" and he would respond "I'm not kidding!" Well I finally believed him and got up and looked. Sure enough, my car was NOT in the carport where we parked it last night.

So, Antonio called the police and I made some calls to get some car information (license plate #, VIN #, etc). Two officers showed up about 10 minutes later and Antonio went out since I was still on the phone. He told them that my car had been stolen to which one officer replied..."Sir, have you been making your car payments and are you up to date with them??" Only in Memphis would they ask this first, but it gave Antonio a laugh at the time and me a laugh later. Anyway, we filed a report and they left.

Later, Antonio decided to take HIS car and go get breakfast. He then discovered they had been in his car too because everything in his center console was out in the seat and his fishing tackle box was in front of our neighbor's house. They stole some things, but nothing notable.

I was very upset about my car being stolen, but MORE upset because my hospital bag that I had packed for baby and me was in my car. It contained LOTS of new stuff (nursing bras, PJs for the hospital, baby's take home outfit, a VERY expensive blanket for the baby, my crocs, etc...just lots of stuff that we needed for the hospital). This meant that all of it needed to be packed again. Luckily I made a list of things when I packed them, so we took that list and headed out for the day to go replace things. We made a few stops and I picked up a rental car and we headed home to regroup.

When we got home, Antonio and I decided Tatum needed a nap, so he stayed with her and I ran to Babies R Us and Baby Gap. While at BRU, I 'saw the light' and realized that I have onStar in my car with free service for a year (which i am still under) and I was SURE they could track my car since they knew where I was when I had my car wreck earlier this year. Anyway, i rushed home and made several calls and long story short, onStar started tracking my car and said they would contact the local police to release the information to them.

About 20-30 minutes later, we got a call from the police that they had located my car and i could come pick it up. It was about 2 miles from our house parked at an apartment complex, so of course we have no clue who stole my car. I peaked in the back and Tatum's car seat was still in the car (Praise GOD!), but my suitcase that I had been stressing over all day was GONE. (BOO!)

The officers said thanks to onStar they located the car. It was the same officers that filed the police report that morning. We were very thankful they called us instead of towing it to the impound lot....that saved us a few weeks and lots of $$$$ in towing and storage fees. The officer asked me to look inside and tell them what was missing, so I opened the door and told them that I didn't know what was missing but THIS (I held up a stolen CD player) was not mine. They kind of smirked and took it. A few things here and there were missing (phone charger, change, ipod cord, hospital paper work to get induced, fleet gas card, etc) but nothing big other than my suitcase. There was also a VERY strong smell in the car and lots of 'stuff' in the floor on the passenger side. I asked the officer if it was tobacco or weed. After he got done giggling inside, he assured me that it was just tobacco.

The people that took my car DID go joy riding in it. They managed to drive about 50 miles and scratch up the front right side of the car and the back left of the car. Nothing major, it's drivable, but will need to be fixed. Antonio will have to take it to a body shop Monday or Tuesday and let them take pics and do an estimate to send to my company.

So, we THINK we know how they got my car. The spare key for my car was in Antonio's car (we are pretty sure). And we are thinking that Antonio may have left his car unlocked. SO, they probably got into his car, found the keys to MY car and took my car. That is the only thing we can came up with because there is no broken glass and no signs that they hot wired my car. This brings up more worry because if this is the case, then this means that this person (people) still have keys to my car and can come back again. So we parked my car up against our storage shed and Antonio's car is inches from my car. There is no way they can get it out without doing some major damage and hopefully that is more hassle to them than it is worth. Anyway, we will also be getting my car rekeyed next week too.

Needless to say, this pretty much took up most of our day. However, we never got overly stressed out about it. While it was a hassle and a major inconvience, it could have been much worse. No one got hurt, they didnt' break into our house, and we did get my car back. No tears were cried (except for Tatum's dislike of shopping all day) and while we still have TONS of stuff that I want to get done before the baby comes, it will still be okay if they don't get done. The clothes will still need to be washed, the house will always need to be cleaner, but that's okay.

We are about 25 hours (right now) from going in to be induced and I am getting so excited to meet Mateo! All of this other stuff can wait.

If I don't have a chance to blog again tomorrow, I will try to later on in the week with lots of pictures. I hope everyone has a great and safe New Years!

Please keep us in your prayers that all goes well with the induction Monday, the epidural works great, and Mateo comes quickly!

Christmas Eve Happenings....

My pictures are backwards, so we will start with tonight and then go to this afternoon. Antonio and I needed to find something last minute, so we (I) decided we needed to try Target....we went and they didn't have it. SO, we (I) decided we should tough it and go to Wal Mart. We got about a half a mile from the Wal Mart entrance and this is what it looked like....
this next picture is closer to the Wal Mart entrance...

Needless to say, we did not even TRY Wal Mart. We decided it wasn't worth it.

Tonight when we got home, Tatum had to put out her reindeer food before going to bed. Here are Antonio and Tatum putting out the food...

Tatum wanted to be sure ALL the food was out so that Santa's reindeer could DEFINITELY see it and be sure to stop...

Now to this afternoon.....Tatum and I got ready and went down to where Antonio works to go to his Christmas party. Here is a picture of Tatum before we left the house...

Tatum and I bought a ton of little candy canes so she could pass them out to all of the employees. Here is Ms. Ann (aka the bossman's wife) helping Tatum pass out the candy canes.

Ron (aka the bossman) got a card from all of his employees. It was HUGE....here it is....

Antonio and Tatum....

Sonny works with Antonio too. Here he is getting his card and gift...

Tatum loved Ms. Ann. She spoiled her a bit by walking her around and talking to her.

Since I am due 'any day now', Antonio, Tatum, and I could not travel out of town. Instead we did some last minute shopping and went out to dinner. THEN we (I) decided I wanted some ice cream, so we went to Chick-fil-A, but they were closed, so then we headed to Wendy's and it was closed, then McDonald's close to our house and they no longer have an ice cream machine, so we drove about 10 min to another McDonald's and I FINALLY got my ice cream. It was good, but I had my mind set on Chick-fil-A's ice cream. I guess I will have to get that sometime Friday.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a safe and blessed Christmas with family and friends. I will try to be sure to take pictures over the next 2 days. Until then, be blessed!