One month and then some

Blakely turned one month at the beginning of this month.  I'm a little behind.  She weighed 9 lbs. 15.5 oz. (70%) and is 21 inches long (75%).  I think both of my girls are going to be taller than their brother.  She is such a good baby, when I remember to give her her acid reflux medicine.  She wakes up once a night, between 4 and 6.  The other day I had to wake her up at 6:40 to eat (she last ate at 9 the night before), because I had a dr.'s appointment and I was afraid she wouldn't wake up until it was time to go.  She is starting to smile, which I love!  Maicee loves her to pieces, and Kyson adores her.  Kyson is doing better eating, he gained a whole pound in one month, which is more than he gained the previous 7 months!  His appetite is getting better, as long as he doesn't have any milk products.  Poor kid.  And Maicee is enjoying school and learning so much everyday!  She is so smart!  She is going to be really bummed when she realizes she can't start school with all her friends in the fall.  Dan is in an internal medicine rotation right now.  It demands a lot of his time, especially when he is on call.  But he's not interested in it.  He just got accepted for a 6 week rotation this summer in Hawaii.  I'm super jealous that he gets to go to Hawaii for free, and get paid while he is there.  I'm tempted to find someone to watch my 2 older kids and go join him for a week or two.  But that probably won't happen.

 



I got one good picture of her at one month.  I love this outfit Aunt Tracie bought her.

She is so stinking cute!

And I had to throw in one of Kyson on his roller coaster he got for Christmas.

Maicee and Kyson cheering for the Broncos.

Last weekend Dan was on call and didn't get to come home, so we went down to Colorado Springs and spent the day with him.  There is this fun little place called "Focus on the Family Welcome Center".  The kids had a blast there.

Maicee cried when we had to leave.

Daddy all dressed up waiting for a call to go into the hospital.  Luckily he didn't get called while we were there!

Kyson loves his baby sister!

Maicee really likes putting this little crown on Blakely's head.

She is so cute!

Here is the start of her smile.  She smiles with her whole face, mouth wide open.

Here it is!

Stuck in a rut...

It's true, I have been such a slacker lately.  I feel like our lives are terribly boring, and no one wants to hear about that.  And I'm still having issues loading pictures.  Thanks for the suggestions (Beth, I swear you are the only one that reads my blog) but I don't have a slot for a memory card on my computer.  Lame, right?  And I seriously don't take enough pictures of my cute little baby.  Poor thing.  Maicee has hundreds of pictures, Kyson has about half that, and Blakely I fear is just not going to have as many.  I should get over the anger I have for my mom because I only have 1 baby picture- I was her 4th child.  Now I get it.  Maybe when the weather gets nicer, we won't be as boring.  Maybe.  But we are all still alive and well.  Oh, and an update on Blakely.  In the hospital, the pediatrician was doing her normal routine, and she asked me if Blakely was ever breech.  She was for like a month or two.  She informed me she could possibly have hip dysplasia, which is congenital dislocation of the hips.  If caught early enough, it can be treated with a simple brace.  I take her into her first dr.'s appointment with our pediatrician, and one of the first things he says is "hmmm, she may have hip dysplasia."  He then wrote a prescription for an ultrasound on her hips.  We didn't have her insurance card yet, so we had to wait on that.  At each appointment, he would test her and she kept getting better.  So when I took her in for her ultrasound, I was pretty sure she didn't have it.  And the ultrasound came back normal!  Well, that's all that's going on with us.

An update

I'm sorry I'm such a slacker in the blogging department.  But I do have a good excuse.  I don't like to blog without pictures, and since Dan wiped my computer clean, I'm having a hard time getting pictures from my camera onto the computer.  Like it doesn't happen at all.  Before, when I would plug my camera in, a little screen would come up and ask if I wanted to download all the new pictures.  I would say yes, and ten seconds later I would have pictures on my computer.  Well, that little screen doesn't come up anymore, and the only way to get pictures is to transfer them from the camera to the computer, so they are not on the camera anymore.  So annoying.  If any of you have any ideas how to fix this, please let me know.  
Blakely is just growing like a weed.  She loves to eat!  I had to take her in last week, and she gained about a pound and a half in one week.  She weighed in at 9 pounds.  I'm pretty sure Maicee and Kyson didn't hit 9 pounds until their 2nd months.  She is such a good little sleeper as well.  I think I would die if she wasn't.  She wakes up around 2:30- 3:00 to eat, then goes back to bed until 6:30- 7:00.  And her siblings sure do love her.  Kyson is always very interested in whatever she is doing.  He likes to help me burp her, too.  Maicee is always loving on her, giving her kisses, hugging her.  One of the first days we were home from the hospital, Maicee came upstairs with me to feed her.  She was sleeping in her little bassinet, and Maicee was sitting on my night stand trying to wake her up.  I walked into the bathroom for 10 seconds to finish brushing my teeth, came back out, and Maicee was sitting on the night stand with Blakely in her lap.  I about had a heart attack.  Maicee had the biggest smile on her face.  I calmly explained to her that she can't pick sister up without help from mom or dad, or she might hurt sister's neck.  She could seriously hold her all day long. 
Blakely goes back to the dr. next week, and we find out whether or not she has to wear a brace on her hips.  The dr. says it's no big deal, but I would rather not have to deal with it.

I love this little purple outfit.  It used to be Maicee's.

Maicee is always in her face like this.

This is her favorite sleep position. 

Birth story, and a name?

This is for you Beth!

So this whole pregnancy my dr. has wanted to induce me Dec. 7, if I hadn't had the baby yet.  I was totally down with being induced.  We were supposed to go in at 6 am Friday morning.  I got up at 5, showered and dressed, and got the rest of my stuff ready.  Then I noticed I had missed a call from the hospital.  They had no beds open.  They were hoping to get me in by mid-morning.  So I went back to bed for a little while.  They finally called at about 9:40; they still didn't have any open beds, but they put me in a triage room and said a room should open up in 1/2 hour.  They didn't want to break my water or do anything until I had my own room.  We didn't get into the room until 2!  My dr. came in and broke my water, and nothing happened.  With Kyson, she broke my water, and almost immediately I started having hard contractions.  We waited about 2 hours, and still nothing.  So they started me on PIT, which I absolutely hate.  But within 1/2 hour, I was having some pretty strong contractions.  I still wasn't dilating, though.  I was at a 4 when I went in, and I was still at a 4 a couple of hours later.  When my contractions picked up, they checked me again and I was only at a 5.  Then my contractions got really bad, way worse than with Kyson.  But I guess PIT does that to you.  I went for about an hour with really, really bad contractions, and I just couldn't make my body relax, so I asked for an epidural.  At about that point I was dilated to a 6.  The guy came in, gave me an epidural in about 10 minutes.  My blood pressure dropped really low, which made the baby's heart rate drop really low, and they were running around frantically trying to get my bp up. I had 2 contractions with the epidural, then I felt a lot of pressure.  So they checked me again and I was at a 10 and it was time to push.  Yay!  Can I just say that epidurals are amazing.  I wanted to kiss the anesthesiologist.  But, I controlled myself and didn't.  5 minutes later, and she was here!  They had to take her over to the clean up station right away because there was meconium in my water and she ingested it.  But once they got her cleared, they brought her over to me.  She weighs 7 lbs. 8 oz. and is 19 1/2 inches long.  She is such a sweet baby, and such a good nurser.  I had such a hard time with Maicee and Kyson getting them to latch on.  Not her, she latched on her first try and hasn't had any problems nursing.  Yay!  We still don't have a name for her, though.  We are open to suggestions, if you have any!

Maicee's birthday party

I don't think I took any pictures on Maicee's real birthday.  But I got plenty of her birthday party.  She had a Tinkerbell themed birthday party.

 

This is her butterfly cake, that she insisted on having.

Ants on a log, that no one ate

Lady bug cheese and crackers.  Thanks Richelle for the food ideas!

Presents!

The kids making Tinkerbell friendship bracelets

Maicee pouting, of course

The donut game

Kerrigan

Brooklyn

Ava

Nice donut face, Ava

Kirsten

Luke

Serenity

Hailey

Rhianna

We just love Ava

Opening presents

And this is the day we decorated our tree, and "Buddy" the elf came to stay with us for the holidays.

Kyson just loves this Minnie Mouse

So handsome

Kyson and his Minnie.

Tomorrow baby sister joins our family.  Wish me luck!

A little bit of Halloween

I didn't take many pictures at Halloween.  I know, I'm a slacker.  Oh well.

 

Maicee was a witch

Of course we went trick-or-treating with cousins Kerrigan (the pirate) and Colton (the pirate parrot)

Kyson wore his costume for like 2 seconds, I'm lucky I got a picture of it.

Yeah, he's a turd.

So cute!

September and October happenings

 

We bought a basketball hoop at a garage sale this summer, and Kyson loves playing with it. He's actually pretty good.



 

Slam dunk! 

I love his face in this one.  He has this much fun every time he plays with it.

He hardly ever misses!

So, I went shopping with my SIL one day, and decided to get Kyson a sucker.  I got what I believed would be the least messiest sucker.  This was after I wiped his face 3 times.  He definitely enjoyed the sucker!

So one day I started the bathtub for the kids.  Then I got their clothes all ready.  I called for Kyson, but couldn't find him anywhere upstairs.  The gate was shut so I knew he had to be up there somewhere.  I called his name again, and thought I heard him in their room.  Went and looked and he still wasn't in there.  I looked in their bathroom twice, but never looked in the tub (the tub is behind the door).  I told Maicee to start looking for him.  She came giggling into my room, where I was searching the closet, and said he was in the tub in his jammies.  Sure enough, I go in there and there is Kyson.  I guess he got a little impatient with me and just crawled in the tub himself.

He was having a blast!

This is Maicee's Halloween costume this year.  We went to a fall carnival at Dan's school, which is always tons of fun.  I brought Kyson's costume, but I don't think Dan likes it much because he wouldn't put it on him.  He's Frankenstein.

These are Maicee's butterfly wings.  The balloon guy they have there every year is amazing!