A Teeny Tiny Announcement

Our beautiful baby boy arrived on March 11, 2011.  He came into this world weighing 6 pounds, 12 ounces and measuring 20 inches.  The delivery was much easier this time around!  And for the record, he's a GREAT baby!  He has been sleeping all the time (not through the night though, of course) and seems so much more relaxed than our first little guy was at this point.  Older brother K is very captivated with him and has been such a great helper since baby K arrived.  I will share the whole birth story in another blog post, but that will have to be another day because things have been pretty busy around our home with 2 amazing boys to take care of.  We are so blessed to have the privilege of raising these 2 wonderful little guys.  

 Kai delivering K.  (He also delivered older brother K)

 Older brother K and baby K meeting for the first time

 Daddy and K's first skin to skin time  

First family picture

Mommy and K's skin to skin time a few minutes after delivery 

Road Rash

Here's a picture of K with his first major accident (at least one that left a major mark).  It's funny because he's taken falls, etc. before that probably hurt worse, but this is a rug burn down the entire length of his nose and it looks terribly painful!!  He was playing with an older boy at church who adores him.  Anyway, they both took a tumble and K's nose apparently took the brunt of the fall.  Poor little guy! :-(  Although as you can tell, he doesn't let much get him down.  He's still as happy as ever!  He's such a huge blessing!

Week 38 and a 1/2

(I had to include one where I'm wearing a maternity outfit instead of the boring black and white regular outfit!)

How far along:  38 1/2 weeks

Best Moment of the Week:  Last week I had a great baby shower brunch with local friends from K's playgroups.  It was so much fun and we got all kinds of awesome gifts for our new little guy.  It was a completely different shower than I've ever had before.  The food was all maple themed because of the start of maple syrup season here and every present we received was made from organic, all natural products.  Several gifts were even wrapped in cloth instead of paper!  Very cool!  

Movement:  He’s slowing down a little now probably because he’s out of room.  He still stretches and moves quite a bit, but it’s not as sudden and jerky.     

Food Craving: Now that I’ve been on iron for a few weeks my ice cravings are gone.  No big cravings at the moment, although today we went out to brunch with some great friends at a Victorian Inn and had some of the best food I’ve had in my life!!!  K ate his fill too, eating as much or more than I did!  He surprises us like that at times. 

What I'm looking forward to: There are soooo many changes taking place right now.  Life is so crazy!!  At the moment I am just ready to meet this little guy and be done with pregnancy.  I love being pregnant, but the last month is soooo hard!  My list of complaints are: not being able to sleep well, back aches, not being able to bend over easily, etc., etc.  But who likes to hear all of the complaints?  On a positive note, people are even more friendly (if that’s possible in our state which I swear has the largest grouping of the friendliest people on earth!) when you’re huge with child.  I get help all the time—from the grocery store to the airlines to the doctor’s offices.  I will miss the special treatment once pregnancy is over.  ;-)

Weekly Wisdom:  A parent's love is whole no matter how many times divided.  ~Robert Brault

Big Brother:  Have I mentioned what a great helper he is lately???  Wow!  This week it seemed we had a doctor’s appt everyday trying to get everything in before I go into labor (K’s 2 year checkup, dermatology appt.’s, OB, and a couple others—our insurance is going to love us!).  Well, K made friends with everyone at every single appt.  From the nurses and doctors all the way to the other patients in the waiting room.  At one point he had 4 different people all playing cars with him.  It was a huge relief because it’s much harder for me to get on the floor and play with him myself at this point. 

Also this week at church, he took a spill and got a nasty rug burn that runs the whole length of his nose.  It looks absolutely terrible and will likely still be there for our first family pictures when our new little one arrives.  I feel so bad for him every time I look at him.  Poor little guy!  He was really tough though and handled it well.  He did catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror while we were brushing his teeth and stared for a long while at his road rash.  I don’t think he liked what he saw either. :-(  It was really cute to see him look so puzzled though!    

Weight:  Several people have asked about how much weight I’ve gained this pregnancy.  I've found that pregnancy affects every woman’s body differently and I’ve had friends that have gained 100 pounds and others that have gained 5 pounds and the shock of it all is that even those that have gained 100 pounds have had it all come back off after the baby comes.  Soooo…with that said, I’ve had a personal goal with each pregnancy to gain in the neighborhood of 20 pounds because for me it seems that weight doesn’t just pour back off of me when I want it to like it seems to for other people.  With K I gained 19 pounds and with this pregnancy I have gained 20 so far, but he’s not here yet, so who knows what the final number will be…  Honestly I don’t think my body could handle much more than that (see my list of complaints above).  

Hopefully my next post will be pictures of our new little guy... :-)  

2 Is Grand!

Last week we celebrated K’s second birthday!  How can it be that he’s 2 already?  We celebrated at home as a small family on the actual day (see pictures) and then had a party with all of his local friends on the weekend (see pictures).  We rented the gym where he has his gym classes every week.  They put on a fantastic birthday program that all the kids seemed to really LOVE!  I think the best part was watching K’s face and excitement.  He seemed to realize that the night was all about him and this reality made him even more thrilled. 

Since he adores Thomas the Train (even though he rarely watches any of the movies), we themed his decorations around that.  He also loves anything having to do with transportation in general—trucks, airplanes, excavators, trains, buses, etc., which makes going anywhere with him an absolute blast because he’s bound to see one and bubble over with excitement.

 

 Our little family celebration at home

 He actually liked his dessert this year! 

 I have no idea where he gets his sweet tooth...;-)  

 His cake (Sorry, I blurred out his name).  

 I love his expressions!  This was taken while everyone was singing to him.  

 Blowing out his candle.  This was taken just before he took Thomas and started trying to make him "drive" on the tracks of his cake.  It was a great, fun mess! 

 So many friends turned out to make the day special!  We are so blessed!

 Circle time of songs and movement

 The proud birthday boy!! 

 K demonstrating for everyone how get up the beams 

 Backwards roll

 Even dads need to have a little fun sometimes!  

 Practicing the "bear crawl"

 Under the parachute 

 Swinging from the rings.  He loves this one! 

 This is another favorite too! 

 Getting awarded his birthday medal 

 Obviously thinking he's pretty special :-)

Group picture with most of the kids--at least the ones that could sit still long enough for a picture.  

This was/is his favorite thing to do.  He absolutely LOVES it and we have such a great time watching him go. He's extremely fast!  Enjoy! 

Last of all, they finished with the bounce houses.  He had a blast on these as well.  

All in all, being 2 has started out well.  K has been such a helper lately which is so nice because my growing belly is making everything a little tougher these days.  By the way, contrary to the pictures above, I was at the party, just the one behind the camera!  I will try to post what will likely be my last belly picture in the next day or so.  Any day now Baby K number 2 will arrive and I think K will be a fantastic big brother!  Thanks for taking a few minutes to re-live his big day!