Familia Black

Tyler’s First Meal

Ryan — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 16:39:38 +0000

Today Tyler enjoyed his first meal, an exquisite feast of rice cereal! Here’s a video showing how he reacted to his first real food:

Tyler’s New Toy

Ryan — Sat, 22 May 2010 22:51:05 +0000

Here’s a short clip of us having some fun outside as a family, with Tyler’s new toy. As you will see, Tyler’s becoming quite the little magician.

High Red Belt Taekwondo Testing

Ryan — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:46:49 +0000

Today’s testing went fairly well. For some reason we didn’t do free sparring, which is too bad, since I really enjoy that aspect of it. Hopefully we’ll do it next time.

It took me a few tries to break the board, since the Grandmaster wanted me to break it at head height (rather than waist high as practiced), and used only one board holder instead of two, which requires a more advanced technique known as “speed breaking”. He seems to like to throw me curve balls like that at testing time. In my multiple tries I sent the instructor careening into the mirror a couple times (the flying side kick has a lot of power behind it, and is frequently seen in movies).

This was Tyler’s first time coming to watch Daddy at TKD testing, and he didn’t complain, and was very happy! Enjoy the video!

(It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, because we’ve been too busy with everything going on right now. I will be posting another video of Tyler soon as well.)

Four Weeks & Counting

Ryan — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:36:43 +0000

Tyler is four weeks old now, and growing and changing every day. He has managed to turn himself over, and can support the weight of his head and move it around.

We hope you get a laugh out of watching this exclusive video that reveals a little more about what’s going on in our home!

Tyler, the first two weeks

Ryan — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:30:44 +0000

It’s been two weeks since little Tyler was born, and things are going well. His parents are doing fine, even with all the side-effects of massive sleep deprivation . He especially enjoys spending time with Mommy, who works very hard to keep him clean and fed. Here are some highlights from his first two weeks. He grows and changes really fast!

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Jason performs piano live on TV!

Ryan — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:53:27 +0000

Last week my brother Jason was flown out to Los Angeles to perform piano for a segment on the Ellen Degeneres show. You can get more info about him at his website, http://jasonlyleblack.com. Please share this video with family and friends!

Meet Tyler, our new special friend!

Ryan — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 04:34:53 +0000

We have a new addition to our family that we are very excited about! Here are some photos and video clips from the hospital, when he was less than 24 hours old!

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All About Tyler:

Name: Tyler Ryan Black
Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Time: 10:34 pm
Weight: 7 lbs 13 oz (3544 g)
Length: 20 inches (51 cm)
Apgar Score: 9

He is a happy and healthy baby, sleeps a lot, is very mellow, likes to look around, likes to make funny faces, and so far only cries when he is hungry or cold!

The Full Story:

It all started at 1:30 am on Wednesday when Laura woke up with bleeding and contractions. She continued having irregular contractions throughout the night and into the morning, but was still able to sleep for the most part.

The contractions continued throughout the day, and when the bleeding increased, we called her doctor to get his analysis of the situation. He recommended we go to the hospital so that they could do a quick check of everything.

We arrived at Davis County Hospital in Layton at 4:30 pm. The nurse checked all of Laura’s vitals, and she was fine. Her water had not yet broken, but she was fully effaced, and had dilated to 2 cm. The nurse then called the doctor to give him an update, and he said that she was in the early stages of labor, and if Laura wanted, he would come and induce her right then and there. We felt good about it, and luckily we had brought the “hospital bag” with us just in case, so we decided to go ahead and take the plunge.

They started her on pitocin at 6:10 pm. This caused the contractions to be more frequent, and much more intense. We worked together to get through the more painful ones. At 7:45pm she received an epidural, which completely got rid of the pain, but still left her with limited movement in her legs, and a soft sensation of pressure during contractions.

At 10:30 pm she had fully dilated to 10 cm. The doctor suited up, turned on the stadium lights, and she began pushing. On the first push/contraction, she moved the baby’s head almost completely into the birth canal. His heart rate began to drop very quickly to dangerously low levels, so the doctor grabbed the vacuum, and on the next push/contraction, our little boy popped right out!

I got to cut the umbilical cord, and then held Tyler while Laura passed the afterbirth, which came out all in one piece without problems.

It was a very intense and exciting experience for both of us. Laura will be quite sore for a while, since she had severe (3rd degree) tearing of the skin and muscle tissues from a certain somebody’s big head. The doctor used four complete sutures to sew her back together.

We stayed at the hospital for another day and half, and the nurses took good care of mom and baby during the initial recovery period. They answered all of our many questions, and were very friendly. Laura enjoyed the hospital food, and we enjoyed a candlelight dinner the night before we checked out. She even got a scalp massage with hair cut and styling at the on-site spa! We also came up with his name while at the hospital, since we got tired of calling him “baby”.

We are very happy and grateful to have little Tyler with us!

12 Days of Christmas “Twelve-tet”

Ryan — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:17:10 +0000

Here’s a fun little video of a song Jason arranged and played, and I filmed and edited it for him. You can also see it directly on YouTube here. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Photos

Ryan — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:44:46 +0000

We took a bunch of family photos Thanksgiving day, and here are a couple of Laura and I. Jason snapped the picture and I did all the post-production in Adobe Lightroom. Isn’t Laura beautiful?

Taekwondo Testing (High Brown Belt)

Ryan — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:47:58 +0000

Testing is here once again, and this time I tried for my High Brown Belt. The morning of testing I woke up with severe back and neck spasms, which made testing really difficult and painful, but luckily I still made the cut. I’m the one with the white headband.