I went to checkup on my parents house this week with the kids. I knew Brenden would be excited to be there after not going for a couple of weeks and I knew he’d want to play in the back yard. I packed a lunch and we set off planning to play for about an 1-1.5 h. We ended up playing outside for about 4 hours (let’s just say I didn’t remember the back door locked automatically) and had a great time. I’d taken the camera and video camera and I’m posting some shots from the day. I’m still working on video. I’ve got a couple of little things recorded and just need time to edit them.

Playing in the leaves.

Prepairing to slide down the hill.

Aren't I cute? I used this photo to enter him in the Regis & Kelly baby contest.

Climbing the big hill after some good fun in the leaves.

I can't say that Emily fully appreciated the time outside.

A couple of weeks ago when Brenden was at Mother’s Day Out they took pictures of all the kids. We got them back today and I think they turned out great! The first one is what they gave us and the second one is a proof of another pose.

I’m trying to take more pictures of the kids to help my parents and sister keep up so hopefully that will translate to more pictures here.

Brenden slept like this as a newborn. We called him touchdown baby. So of course we had to get a picture of Emily in the same pose!

Brenden got a haircut yesterday and is very happy to show it off.

He was very excited to go for his haircut because he remembered they have a Thomas train set there. They have Gordon and he doesn't have him at home. He was sick yesterday and he somehow got it in his head that he was getting the haircut because he was sick. So he kept telling me he was sick again and he needed to go get his haircut because he wanted to go back and play with Gordon more.

Here are a few pictures of our day yesterday:

Brenden had been enjoying playing in this box, so we turned it into a car.

He really likes the steering wheel and the windshield.

Look how cute and pink she is.

After a long day at work Patrick spends some cuddle time with Em.

After having my Mom here to help for the last three weeks we took her to the airport this past Saturday morning. We won’t get to see my parents until the end of March. They’ve been such a huge part of our daily lives for the last few years that it will be a big adjustment for us, but I’m really excited for them about the adventure they are on.

My Mom helped out so much while she was here. She watched Brenden while we were in the hospital and paid lots of extra attention to him when we got home too. She also accomplished something major by getting him to sleep in his bed again. ( he hasn’t been doing that since we moved-he’s been on the floor in his room). He’d also developed a bad habit of thinking he needed the overhead light on to sleep and night and she helped get him down to just a lamp.

Thanks for all your help Mom! We already miss you guys.

Brenden developed an imaginary frenemy while we were at the hospital. His name is Cocoa and we can’t tell if he’s nice or something to be feared. He seems to switch. Brenden’s been telling us he’s scared a lot lately. I’d think it was a ploy to keep us in his room at night if he didn’t actually look so scared.

Patrick went back to work on Monday. It’s busy season there, which means he can’t even think about coming home until 7. 3 days in and I’m not enjoying busy season much, but I never do. I really liked having our little family together all day. But I guess we’d be homeless if we did that for too long!

So it’s just been Brenden, Emily and I during the day and though we’ve had some rough patches, I think we are gonna make it!

Grandma and Emily enjoying some time together.

Mom took this picture of Emily before the night before she left.

Though we all wanted to watch the inauguration coverage on Tuesday it didn’t seem to work. There were doctor’s appointments to attend, a pool guy to wait for and then I got really sick. Luckily, we’d recorded the coverage.

Wednesday morning when I woke up, my Mom told me that Brenden had been saying Barack Obama all morning and he started to say it again. They hadn’t talked about him or anything. Brenden was just saying it. We started watching while Brenden took his nap, but he woke up early and was watching some with us. He said, no Barack Obama. But when we were done watching he wanted “Barack Obama again.”

Last night before bed we were all sitting in the office watching my screen saver display all our pictures. A picture of the Washington Monument appeared and Brenden said, “Barack Obama.” We were all amazed that he recognized it as the same place without all the people and the flags there.

My Mom semi-jokingly told Brenden yesterday that he was driving her crazy and his response was “driving McDonalds.” I’m not sure if he seriously wanted her to take him there or if he knew that he was making a joke, but once he found out it was funny, he has made it into a joke. And it’s pretty funny.

He has two other phrases that I really like right now. One is “I can’t sleep.” Which is said anytime sleep is mentioned. The other is, “I can’t like it.” He means he doesn’t like it, but it sure is cute!

My friend Kelli threw a “Sip and See” party as a way for us to have friends over to meet Emily. The party was a book theme and Kelli worked hard to create book themed dishes such as Green eggs and ham. It a really nice day. Here are a few pictures.

Linda and a friend made this wonderful diaper cake that has kept us all looking to see what new things we can find hidden in it!

Patrick's grandmother made a special effort to come meet Emily and we were so glad to capture that in a picture.

Patrick's Aunt Patty giving Brenden some attention!

Noah and Brenden were happy to have each other as playmates and enjoyed playing with cars together.

I’m finally writing about Emily. But I’ve been looking back at this blog and realized I didn’t write about Brenden until he was 3 weeks old, so I’m still slightly ahead!

The first picture of Emily with her eyes open.

Emily was born January 5th at 3:58 pm. She was 9 lbs 12.3 oz and 19.5 inches long. Though going into a c-section knowingly is a lot scarier than going into an impromptu one, I made it through fine. I had pain in the hospital but it was so much less pain than the first time around and I feel like I’ve healed much faster. (Though I did come down with bronchitis that really knocked me down for several days and am just getting over that!)

Emily lost 11% of her birth weight before leaving the hospital, which is 1% more than the doctor’s like. We were having trouble with feedings. But after switching to formula she’s building back up. At her two week appointment her stats looked like this: 9 lbs 7.4 oz 20 1/2 inches long and a tiny head at 13 3/4 inches. We’ll go back on Tuesday just to make sure she’s made it back up to birth weight, but judging by the vigorous eating the girl does, she’ll be fine!

Brenden really loves her. He loves to get right in her face when she’s sleeping and say, “Emily, Emily, Emily.” And also, “Emily you ok?” She’s a great sleeper and so far, has been a pretty easy agreeable baby.

Here is our first family photo:

I realize I haven’t written and properly introduced Emily yet, but I know Patrick emailed and blogged already. I will write soon, but for now a few pictures from today.

Finally a closer look at her face–Even if there is a little spit up!

Brenden watches tv while Patrick feeds Emily.

Brenden likes to say Emily Emily Emily and hold her hand. I think right about here though he was busy getting his chocolate cake fingers on her!

We are quickly approaching huge changes that are all good, but still a little scary. As of right now, I’m still scheduled for my c-section 1 week from today. I should know more details tomorrow, but don’t expect that date to change.

Also, due to a great opportunity for my parents, they won’t be able to spend as much time with us as we are used to for a while. Well, actually that isn’t entirely true…My mom will come stay with us for a bit when after the baby is born to help us all adjust and to help take care of Brenden.

Both great things, but big changes to adjust to. I’m sure we’ll all do well though.

Once again Patrick actually beat me to blogging about our Christmas, but I thought I’d share a couple of different pictures from the past few weeks.

Richardson sets up Santa's Village by the civic center. We went on a freezing cold night. Brenden's favorite part was this fire truck in the parking lot that all the kids were climbing on. Oh, and the cookie Mrs. Claus gave him!

Our Christmas Tree when it was fresh and perfect.

Riding his new elephant.

Waiting for Mom to get his gifts out of their packages.

Impressing everyone that not only can he play super collapse, he's really good at it!

My c-section was officially schedule today for Jan 5th at Noon. 3 days before Patrick’s birthday. We are getting very anxious to find out of it is an Emily or a Luke. Yes, those are the first names we’ve picked out. I’ll try to get some pictures of Brenden up soon, I know it’s been a bit since I’ve done any updating!

Brenden has been enjoying climbing up on my desk at least once a day to use my built in camera to take our picture. He likes to watch himself blink as fast as he can, stick out his tongue and make funny faces into the camera. He also likes to bring his “car soap” up onto the desk and lift it up into the picture. It’s been a funny little game. I thought I’d post a couple of our better pictures for fun.

If Jan 6th is the date, then there are a little less than 11 weeks to go until the baby comes! In some ways I am more than ready but in others not so much. We got a few rooms in the house professionally painted last week which includes the baby’s room, but there is still work left. I had wanted to put up bead board and chair rail, but think I may have to settle for just chair rail. Then we need to set up the furniture. We’ve still got a few supplies to gather too. And in moments when Brenden is really hyper I freak out a little about how I’m going to handle two crazy dogs, a vengeful cat and two kids. But it can be done. I’m getting more and more anxious to find out what we are having too! So it feels like no time and a long time all at once. But I know it will pass quickly with all the holiday rush that’s coming.

We had a really big weekend (see previous post about zoo, plus a visit from Grandma and Grandpa on Sunday). Despite falling asleep for about 5 minutes in the cart at the grocery store, Brenden didn’t get a nap yesterday and he didn’t end up falling asleep in his room until after 9:00. He slept restlessly all night waking up twice. I thought he’d sleep nice and late this morning, but for some reason he was up and ready to go at around 7:30. He was much more mellow than he usually is in the morning though and I was even able to catch a picture of him giving our Bailey dog some love.

(Just in case it looks funny, his eyes aren’t two different colors, I just didn’t do a good red-eye reduction on one.)

He went to play care while I went to the chiropractor and he’s really worn out. He’s napping soundly. He’s going to start going to a mothers day out every Thursday at the play care we occasionally send him to. He’s ready to be out with kids but I’m not ready for him to be in something everyday just yet. We’ll wait until he’s 3 to start that. Or at least until Jan. when we might be able to get him in a more formal program of some sort. But actually trying to research all the different preschools was kind of making my head hurt!

After a long and busy week for Patrick we relaxed at the Dallas zoo on Saturday with some friends. I thought with two kids we’d be there 3 hours at most, but we ended up staying about 5. We had such a good time and the kids did great. Little Will took a short nap but Brenden waited until we were in the car on the way home. He fell asleep mid-ice cream cone. Now that is tired! Here are some pictures:

Brenden really had a good time climbing on the rocks and getting as close as he could to the water. He would have been happy to see no more of the zoo than what was right in this area.

We got to the zoo right when it opened at 9 and had the place to ourselves for probably about half an hour. This slide still had dew on it when Brenden went down.

Pretending to lick the egg.

Brenden keep turning to us and saying “What’s that?” He and Will sure were having fun together.

Brenden was really coveting Will’s stroller. There was a cool steering wheel attachment and Will was nice enough to let Brenden ride in it for a bit. Brenden never wanted to get out of it. He just kept honking the horn. And we thought letting him ride in a wagon would be more fun than bringing his stroller!

He thought sticking his head through the sign was pretty fun. Even though it took Patrick a bit to get our camera on and get the picture taken!

Sorry my pictures have been smaller than usual. We are doing some computer shuffling and I’m waiting to get photoshop back on my “new” computer. Should be soon.

On the suggestion of a Friend we went to visit the Owen’s Farm pumpkin patch last weekend. Patrick actually beat me to a post about it…with pictures and everything. Check it out if you missed it.

http://www.patrickburleson.com/?p=307

After getting a couple of high readings on my fasting blood sugar at home, I was asked to start checking it every day instead of every other day and then to fax my results in each week on Tuesdays. When I faxed my numbers in for the 2nd week this past Tuesday, I immediately got a call to come in. So casting aside my plans for dropping Brenden off to play with kids while I went to the chiropractor for an adjustment and a massage, I rushed through my shower and went to the doctor where I knew what news was coming.

And it came. Insulin. But it isn’t the horrible thing I always thought it would be. Not that I like it, but it could be a lot worse. I only have to take it once a day, first thing in the morning. The needles actually hurt much less than taking my blood sugar too. So I’ve been getting through it for about a week now, and I think I will survive what I thought would be one of my worst nightmares.

The other piece of news I learned while at the doctor is that he’s looking at Jan. 6th for my c-section. I’m not sure that is a set date yet, but that’s what I know so far. Means Patrick just might be celebrating his birthday in the hospital!

Yesterday was my ultrasound. Patrick worked from home in the morning and then took the rest of the day off to go with Brenden and I to the doctor.

We had the same tech that did my sonogram when I was pregnant with Brenden and I really like her. She is very friendly and patient with all our questions. We were both wavering a little on the way there about finding out the sex of the baby and the tech told us she was the perfect person to talk us back into not knowing, which she did.

Because of Brenden’s hand, my doctor had asked to have special attention paid to the upper limbs. The baby was very cooperative. It clearly flashed us all 10 finger and all 10 toes. The tech said it is very rare to see all the fingers stretched out and we got to see it. Patrick thought it was interesting that the hand the baby showed most closely was the right one (the one Brenden is missing). We also got to see both hands at the same time which is supposed to be rare too.

The baby seemed to want to show us everything we needed to see and nicely kept the legs crossed so we saw nothing we didn’t! So yet again, even if we’d wanted to know the gender, we wouldn’t! Looks like growth is fine and all the chambers of the heart are there. Brain looks good too.

Here are the picts:

We had a nice family day after the sonogram and Patrick and I took turns getting haircuts and getting things done. Brenden got a haircut today and below are some pictures.