A beautiful boy, Tytus was born on Tuesday March 2nd at 2:34pm weighing 7 pounds and 13 ounces.  He is 19.5 inches long.

We went to the Hospital on Monday March 1st for induction.  We left with our baby boy on Friday.  He has been healthy, eating well, sleeping well…and yes, all those other bodily functions (pooping & peeing well)!

Of course we are biased because we are his parents but right now we can’t believe how ’stinkin’ cute he is (as Stephanie would say)!

Yesterday we went to our ‘Newborn Club’ appointment and his weight HAD NOT dropped the usual 10% after birth, so apparently he is keeping his weight up!

Who knew my culinary skills would come in handy for swaddling, I wrap him up tight like a burrito!

[we are sorry blog posts come so infrequent now, but we are new parents and that keeps us busy...plus you can come see us and catch us online on facebook, where we have more pictures of Tytus and you may find us online for 'chat' in between naps , diaper changes, and feedings!]

http://www.facebook.com/tyronebcookin

http://www.facebook.com/stephanie.w.barton

We took one more trip to San Francisco to try a couple of places and visit and old favorite before the baby comes.  We visited Dynamo Donuts & Coffee, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and for lunch we went to Rocco’s…in the video you may need to increase the sound to hear my voice sometimes.  Its a work in progress, I am an amatuer at any kind of video making.  Enjoy!

Remember when I wrote this post with pictures:

Culinary Mystery (you need to read this to understand the rest of the post)

Well after almost 2 years someone wrote in a with a link to the answer!  But first I want to ask why Arthur from Sheffield England DID NOT KNOW what it was, when it came from his neck of the woods!

Joe writes this:  I have come across one of these and Googled to find out what it is. I can confirm, it’s a double sided fork / skewer for serving steak…Hope this helps!

Here is the mystery solved Link.

Its funny because at the time I had exhausted all kinds of Internet searches including Google and had not come up with anything…but first you got to know what your looking for!  And it was almost 2 years ago!

Thanks Joe!

Yep, thats right…we moved into our new ‘crib’ on the 30th and finished the final touches of hanging pictures in the new place on the 31st.  Then on the 1st I came home from work and put together our new crib, which Steph’s parents bought us…we picked it up from JC Penneys.

So now we are in our 2 bedroom apartment literally on the backside of the building we were living in previously so there was no loading of vehicles or trucks for moving stuff.

A friend of mine I met thru work came over and helped me move all the big stuff (good tip: Home Depot sells four wheel flat moving dollies for $19, get you some, they are handy for all sorts of things) he also brung a 6 wheel dolly and a Mikata (?) cordless drill with tool bits. That was quite handy for breaking down and putting together our bed.

Later in the evening Lindsey a friend of Steph’s came over and helped us finish all the small stuff as I cleaned the kitchen and vacuumed all the floors…earlier Steph cleaned the bathroom (that about wore her out!).  So don’t worry, there was no heavy lifting for Stephanie and I kept her well fed all day (and the help).

This month we will be taking some professional pictures for our late Christmas gift to the ‘homefolks’ (it was scheduled earlier in the month but Steph’s Grandma passed away).  We will also be attending some ‘baby’ classes thru Kaiser Permanente (our insurance and hospital conglomerate).

Steph thinks the baby has hickups (right now as I type this) because the jumpy movements are pretty rhythmic…he’s proven to be pretty active without any hickups tho’.  Ask Stephanie, she’s not getting much sleep and quite frequently yelling OW! ~ And at the same time there is some comedic value in it all for me!

We’re (or should I just say Stephanie) scoping ‘Craigs List’ for our odd and end furniture we will be getting for the babies room…ahhh window shopping on the web

Unfortunately Steph’s grandmother (on her fathers side) passed away recently.  I was able to get time off of work to travel with Steph to attend the funeral in Green Bay WI.  Although it was a sad time, it was also a good time to be with Steph’s family and spend time catching up, visiting, and meeting more family not previously known by me.  I cooked the last dinner meal before we left (and David cooked breakfast that morning, Steph’s brother) and we had a great time.  David and Steph were also in the kitchen helping me out with the menu I prepared for dinner.

Next up this month I am going home to visit for a few days…why is it when you travel home there’s always too much to do and not enough time to do it in?  I feel like last February when we blew thru town we were in such a state of ‘rush, rush, rush’ I could not enjoy our time with my family.  Hopefully this time will be more relaxed since we both have jobs, a place to live, and are pretty much settled.  Unlike last time.

Steph’s pregnancy is going better now that her vomiting has seemed to stop for almost 2 weeks now…things were really getting rough for her.  She was also started on some additional meds to help with the nausea.  She is due end of February and I hear her friends are starting to plan a baby shower.

A few changes I am going to make is that this blog/website will be moving back to a ‘free’ platform so for now you can go to http://tyroneandstephanie.com and look at all our stuff from the last 3 or so years but eventually that site will go away and you will have the new blog at http://tyroneandstephanie.blogspot.com which is were this new letter/post is coming from.  Although I will try to keep the domain name, so maybe it will still be tyroneandstephanie.com?  I will know for sure later.

The reasons are several, easier to maintain, to use, and I can manage my pictures thru picasa.  Plus this is all tied together with my email. And did I mention free?  Yeah, I like free stuff. I will also not have to pay for it, or keep up with maintenance as I think things will be getting a tad bit busier pretty soon for us.

I am collecting my experiences as a husband with a pregnant wife that I will probably post later as I think you will find them funny, insightful, and/or something you can relate to ( of course if my wife lets me )…until next time, say a prayer for us husbands!

Oh, almost forgot, Stephanie’s birthday is this month on the sixteenth!  Wish her a great one if you remember!

We went to an ultrasound on Thursday to find out the sex of the baby (or that’s why I went, and to see that all was well and healthy), and it was a boy!

Stephanie and I had an arrangement, she would name the girl, and I would name the boy.  So he will be named Titus Nathaniel.  Two strong, great Biblical names that together mean (appropriately) Giant Gift of God!

Titus means Giant in the Greek, and Nathaniel means Gift of God in the Hebrew.  We will probably call him Ty or Nathan after he is born, but because I am stubborn and never actually cared for being called Ty myself (I prefer Tyrone – except my older relatives get away with it) I will probably have to warm up to it, I will probably call him Titus…

No matter, all is well.  Just to be clear, if it was a girl I would be just as excited and made sure she grew up to be “Daddy’s little girl” as much as was possible if it was up to me!