Halloween 2007

Isaac in his chili pepper costume

Isaac in his cow costume

Our friends A.W.E.S.O.M.-O (South Park) and Velma(Scooby-Doo) had a Halloween Party

Can you imagine everyone's surprise when K-Fed showed up! He came without his kids so he tied one on that night. You can imagine the stories he told about Brit.

Heather was a wizard and I came as a sailor and we brought Isaac out in his cow outfit

The Halloween party was also a birthday party for Velma Dinkley's (Carol) sister Daphne Blake (Becky). They are doing their "Solving a mystery" pose.

After Mark got tired of wearing a cardboard box he put on the dog's lobster costume and was a poor imitation of Zoidberg from Futurama. Their dog Gus, with the amazingly long tongue.

Some of the pumpkins carved that night.

Theodore Roosevelt

"Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far" Stanley has taken this quote to heart. If anyone needs a forest cleared just give Stanley a call. No treats needed, he eats the sticks when he is done carrying them.

Stanley's Halloween Bee costume.

Gus trying on the Bee costume.

Gus trying on the Michigan baby socks that we refuse to allow Isaac to wear.

Friends and Family

Our friend Mark and Isaac in the hospital

Our friend Kirk and Isaac in the hospital

Our friend Meghan and Isaac at home

Our friend Mike and Isaac at home

Heather's cousin Ann and Isaac at the Peterson Baby Shower

Heather, Isaac and I at the neighbor's house.


Isaac's first badger outfit. He looks unhappy but the badgers won 44-3 against Northern Illinois

We thought we would include some friends and family with Isaac. So if you want to make it on the blog just make sure we get a picture of you holding Isaac and we will put it up.

Pumpkin Carving

Grandpa Stapleton's Pumpkin- Children of the 80's, doesn't it look like the emblem from Thundercats!

Grandma Stapleton's Pumpkin- Winnie the Pooh to fit in with our baby room theme

Donnie's Pumpkin- Not to bad if I do say so myself

All the pumpkins outside on our deck.

As much as I would like you to believe that the Stapleton family carved these free hand, alas the artist gene does not run on the male side of my family. My mom does possess artistic skill but it doesn't focus itself on pumpkin carving. So how did we do it? We cheated! We used templates that we traced onto the pumpkin. I know, big shock. I would highly recommend this as it makes really neat pumpkins.

First Bath

Let just say Isaac wasn't a fan of his first bath. I believe it was the temperature changes that bothered him. He went from nice warm clothes to drafty room with luke warm water. We cleaned him as fast as we could but to no avail. Right before we were finished, Isaac showed us how much he was enjoying the bath by pooping in his new bath tub. For those of you who have never seen baby poop its the mustard looking stuff in the last picture. He has since had a second bath, with not much better results. No poop this time but much more crying. Hopefully he will get used to it because no matter how hard I try I can't convince Heather to bypass baths.

Rule Number One

Always keep it pointed down!

When you are in the hospital they give you an overload of information on how to take care of your baby. The purpose of this information is to make you feel stupid after you leave the hospital :-). They give you all this information shortly after the baby is born when the mother is exhausted and on pain meds and the father is exhausted from making telephone calls and celebrating the birth of his first son. So you retain about .1% of everything they tell you. You always remember them mentioning something after you have already made the mistake they told you to avoid. One such case is when we picked up Isaac after a nap to find that his clothes and bedsheet was drenched in urine. When we removed his diaper it was bone dry. It was then that it struck us like a bolt of lightening. We had forgot to point his dandy doodle down when we put on his diaper. So instead of peeing into the diaper he peed up his stomach and onto all his clothes. So this is a first warning to all future parents out there, remember to point it down when putting on a diaper.

Always be ready!

Isaac strikes again. Isaac decided he would have a little fun at his mother's expense this week. Heather was attempting to change his diaper for the second time. I had been in charge of that department since he was born because it was hard for Heather to get up and down and I couldn't help with feeding him(my boobs do not lactate). She had removed his dirty diaper and was in the process of putting a new one on when Isaac decided he had to go the bathroom again. So he let it fly. He peed in his own face which startled him. Then he decided he would get his revenge by pooping for the next ten minutes. It was happening so fast they never had time to get another diaper on him. By the time Heather called me up to see, her and her mom were rolling with laughter and there was a pile of wipes twice as tall as Isaac. Just to prove his point he pooped one last time as I walked in the room. Since that time we both have become much more careful about having another diaper ready, just in case he decides to test us again.

Whose your daddy?

This is why the blog was created, to document the arrival of our first child. Isaac Jacob Stapleton was born on October 12, 2007 at 5:24pm. He weighed 8 pounds 6 ounces. He was 20 inches long. He has huge feet (something we think he gets from his Grandpa Jacob.) He is about 5 minutes old in this picture.

Grandma and Grandpa Jacob



Grandma and Grandpa Stapleton

On my way home from the hospital

Some skin time between Isaac and Mom

Hello, I am just waking up

The Story:

Heather had an appointment on Oct 11 to schedule an induction because Isaac was already 8 days overdue. She went through various test to determine that he was doing fine in utero. We scheduled an induction for Sunday, Oct 14 at 7:30pm. They did an ultrasound and gave us a picture of him sucking his hand. Apparently he was pretty content! We came home from our appointment and went to eat dinner with some friends. While we were there Heather said that something was "different." We came home and went right to bed to get some sleep in case we had to wake up early. Heather woke me up at 5:00am to say that she thought it was getting close to time. We timed contractions until 10am when they were four and a half minutes apart. Then we went to the hospital. When they examined her she was 4 cm dilated, so we were on our way. By noon, she was 6 cm. The contractions were getting really bad and she said that she didn't think that she was going to be able to keep it up and do a natural delivery. We decided to ask for an epidural. They gave her an IV and started the bag of saline that is required before the drugs. After the saline they came and told us that the doctor was at another hospital and wouldn't be back for at least an hour. We hadn't wanted to use any other drugs besides a possible Epidural but all of the staff kept suggesting an injection of a morphine derivative drug to "take the edge off" that would last for a bit over an hour. We decided to take it while we waited for the doctor... or so we thought. Once the appointed hour was over, no doctor was there. They decided to check her dilation. She was 10 cm!! The nurse was surprised at how long Heather's contractions lasted. Normally women's contractions last 45 to 60 seconds. Heather's lasted close to 2 mins, which is why she moved from 4 to 10 cm so quickly. So she couldn't have an epidural anyway(doctors won't start an epidural once a woman is fully dilated). So, around 2pm she started pushing. She pushed for about an hour and we could see about a inch diameter circle of his head. Everything was going great, she was moving along quickly. Then Isaac got stuck. Heather pushed for the next two hours without any progress. Finally with Heather close to exhausted, we had to evaluate our options. The doctor said we could a) continue pushing, without much chance of it working; b) use forceps to help the baby out; or, c) have a C section. We went with b) Forceps. The doctor sold us on the idea by saying he was really good with them. Then as they got ready, we could tell he was going to let the resident doctor ( meaning doctor who doesn't know what he is doing yet) perform the forceps extraction. Heather who had been pretty quiet up to this point (besides contractions) asked him if he was going to do it. He replied "Do you want me to?" Which she politely responded "Yes." When what we were both really thinking was "Your goddam right you are going to do it it." It only took two contractions with the help of forceps for Isaac to be born. He cried right away and had an Apgar score of 9 out of 10, which is great. He only had a little scrape on his cheek from the forceps and his battle with the uterus.