Ryan Duke - a photographic retrospective

I was going to do a long post all about Ryan's birth, but I got started and it was wearing me out...so for now, I am just going to post some pictures, so everyone can see how handsome he is, and give you a brief summary of his life so far...This is me, right after they officially admitted me to the hospital. As you can see, I was in good spirits. Ryan was 20 inches and 8.2 pounds when he was born. Pretty average size, but when I saw him for the first time, I said "oh, he's so small!" Here is the proud daddy:

These pics look a little weird, as Jared took them without the flash, cause he was trying not to make his first bath any worse:

He has since grown 1 3/4 inches and is up to 8.13 lbs. He is SUPER mellow. He only fusses for a short time when he is getting his diaper changed (really, who can blame him?) or when he is hungry, but as soon as his needs are met, he is happy to sit quietly using his shifty eyes to see what is going on around him. He has big dimples in both cheeks. I only have one on my left side, and just when I am smiling, but he has them all the time. As you can see, it was a poor choice of finger I used to point out his dimples, sorry!

The big kids couldn't wait to meet him:

Nate came with Daddy to bring Ryan and I home from the hospital. He couldn't be more pleased to finally have his little brother here. As he told me "I have been waiting my whole life to have a baby brother!"

The only "problem" we had the first few days of having Ryan home, was the big kids fighting over who got to hold him. Since his newness has worn off, the fighting over holding him has stopped, thank goodness, but they still want to hold him all the time and be great helpers.

I can't try and be modest here, I make BEAUTIFUL babies. When Ryan came out, he didn't have a cone head or any birthmarks or any of that baby acne...he is just one good lookin' baby!

They say babies don't smile before 6 weeks or so, but I have photographic evidence that this is not the case for Ryan, as he is only 2 weeks old in his super smiley picture, and no one will ever be able to convince me it was just gas.

Hopefully that is enough pictures for now for those of you who have been pestering me to update my blog. I have tons more, and I promise they will get posted in the next few days...keep checking back.