Kid Update

Not much has really been going on at our house the past 3 weeks except getting used to having a newborn around! Keely is growing fast and at her 2 week appointment (it was actually only 10 days since birth because that's the only appt we could get!)  she was already up to 8 lbs 9 oz.  Everything else was great at the checkup and it appears we have a very healthy little girl. Brooks also had his 2 year appointment at the same time as Keely's 2 week.  Brooks has fallen into the 10th percentile in height and weight (he's 24 lbs and I can't remember the height).  He had been in the 25th percentile in weight, so the doctor just wants to monitor his weight and make sure he is still gaining weight and not losing.  We are supposed to get him as many extra calories throughout the day as we can (this can be difficult with the very limited things he likes to eat!)  It's hard when all Brooks wants to eat for lunch is a bowl of peas! We've been trying to get him to try new foods like pizza and macaroni and cheese, but haven't had any success.  He just screams when we try and make him put it in his mouth! So this will be a hurdle we will have to continue to work at, but in the meantime, chocolate milk whenever he wants has made for a happy boy! 

Here are just some pictures from the past week or so. 

Keely is such a different sleeper than I ever remember Brooks being.  She will fall asleep after nursing and we try so hard to get her to wake up, but a lot of the time she just wants to sleep wherever we lay her down! I never remember Brooks just falling asleep on the couch like this!

 Brooks still loves to give Keely kisses!

 Enjoying the great outdoors.  Brooks and Cheyenne are still the best of friends!

Brooks wanted to show Keely how he plays Angry Birds on the iPod.  Someday I'm sure she'll really enjoy it when he tries to share that with her!

 

Sibling Resemblance

I just wanted to post some recent pictures of our little Keely and compare her to a couple of Brooks' baby pics.  There is definitely a sibling resemblance!

Keely in her first Sunday dress

Here are some comparison pictures...
 The first one is Keely and the second one is Brooks

 Here is another one, Brooks is the first one and Keely is the second.  Sorry, I couldn't get the pictures exactly side by side!










Guess our kids with the same birthday might actually look like twins 2 years apart!  It'll be interesting to see how Keely changes as she grows up and whether she'll continue to resemble Brooks or not!

Birthday Party

Before it gets too far from Brooks' birthday, I wanted to post some pictures of the party we had for him and Lane.  I'm holding Keely as I write this, so it will just be mostly pictures!

 Brooks loved all his gifts and plays with all of them probably daily! He got a baseball glove, set of golf clubs, play food, a VeggieTales book, a toy push lawn mower, and a Tag Jr.

 He loves his Tag Junior!

 Brooks and his Thomas cake.  I had to quickly frost it for him right before the party since I had been in the hospital all night and morning with false labor! It actually turned out about as I had pictured in my mind!

 The birthday boys with their cakes! 

Brooks had to watch Lane pretty close to see how to blow out the candles.

 He tried so hard!!

 Grandpa had to help out :)

 Yummy!

A Very Special Day

Welcome to the world Keely Jane Burgess!

Keely Jane was born on May 3 at 12:17am and was 7 lbs 13 oz and 18.5 inches long.  Everything went smoothly with delivery, and she's a beautiful, healthy baby girl!  I woke up Wednesday during the night several times to stronger contractions, but since I had been having them off and on since Saturday, I wasn't too concerned.  I didn't feel well all that morning, but just kinda rested since Blake didn't go into work until noon.  Brooks and I went in to ACE after lunch and I worked and stopped at the grocery store all while having contractions that seemed to be getting more regular.  I finally called the doctor at around 2 and they told me to come in this time.  I had just put Brooks down for a nap, so I waited until my mom arrived around 3:15 to stay with Brooks and then Blake came home from work and we went in.  They obviously kept us this time and had me started on a small amount of pitocin to keep things moving.  I finally had an epidural around 8 or 8:30 that evening (I think) and after that I felt much better.  I was still feeling the strong contractions like every 2 minutes, but it was better than before.  They upped the medicine in the epidural and they checked my progress around 10:45, but I was still only 5 cm dilated.  At this point the doctor predicted the baby would come around 2am, so I think everyone just kinda relaxed and had it in our minds it would be awhile yet!  I actually fell asleep around 11:20 for about 20 min until the nurse decided to check me again just to see how far I was.  This was at like 11:50 and she was shocked to find that I was completely dilated and the baby was just about to come out and we could have the baby before midnight if we tried! (I was completely numb from the waist down and could feel nothing thanks to the excellent epidural!) However, they had nothing prepared in the room for baby to come and the doctor wasn't even there at that point, so we couldn't quite get her before midnight.  I started pushing around 12:05, and she was out by 12:17! So no, we did not purposely wait until May 3 to have Keely so that her and Brooks would have the same birthday.  She almost came May 2! The doctors said we could 'fudge' the time and make it May 2, but we decided to just keep the exact time she was born no matter what! So Happy Birthday to my 2 babies exactly 2 years apart!  Keely and I are both doing fine (I feel so much better already than I did being pregnant!).  Now for what you all have been waiting for...pictures!!
 

 Brooks meeting Keely for the first time.  He wasn't too sure what to think!

 First attempt at a family photo.  Brooks liked to come up on the bed with me to see Keely :)

 Brooks has warmed up to her well and likes to just look at her....

And kiss her....

And rock her....he just needs to learn to be a little more gentle! :)

 My two May babies :)

Quick Update

We had quite the eventful last couple of days here at our house.  It started Saturday when we finally got rid of our pool table downstairs! YAY!! We sold it to a friend of Curtis' and they came and picked it up that evening.  Luckily they managed to get it up the stairs with only some minor wall bumps and scrapes, but oh well, it's gone and we have so much more room in our basement now! Blake did end up having to help (much to his dismay) but they definitely needed the extra help cause there were just 3 other guys besides him. 

However, that night after they all left, I started feeling contractions.  They were not extremely painful, but enough that I was noticing each one.  I started counting in between and they were coming every 5-8 minutes, so we called the hospital and they told us to go ahead and come in.  This was at about 9:00 that evening.  We had kept Brooks up just in case we decided to go in, so we got him in his jammies and took him to my parents house.  We dropped him off and settled him in with them and then got to the hospital about 10ish.  They checked me in and hooked me up to the monitors to see how things were going.  Baby was moving a ton and I was still having consistent contractions, but I was only dilated about 2 cm at most.  Then the contractions started slowing down around 11:30, so they took me off the monitors and told me to just get some sleep.  Yeah right! I got about 30 min or so and then the contractions started again and this time were a little stronger and again 5 min apart.  This lasted from 1:00-2:30, then they decided to hook me up again to the monitors since I couldn't sleep anyway.  Shortly after they hooked me up, the contractions quit again! ugh!! I tried to get some more sleep and got maybe an hour or two, but nothing good! Finally I just decided to quit trying to sleep around 6.  I was having some contractions, but not consistent, and not as strong.  They brought me eggs and a blueberry roll and juice for breakfast, which was much appreciated since I was starving! They started talking about sending me home at this point since I was still only dilated 2 cm and not having strong contractions.  I was pretty bummed at that point! But then our very indecisive little girl decided that she wanted to try and be born again and the contractions started getting more regular and stronger again! They ended up putting me on pitocin at this point to see if that could just jump start things the rest of the way and get me progressing faster.  This was about 7:30.  I started doing really well on the pitocin and had strong, regular contractions, but still not dilating anymore.  The contractions started slowing down again around 9:30 or so, and they finally decided that my body just wasn't quite ready to get rid of this little girl yet.  They thought about breaking my water, but decided me going naturally over the next week (since I'm still a week early) would be the better option.  So we were sent home.  I was a little disappointed we couldn't meet our little girl yet, but I also didn't want to end up with a longer labor than necessary or even a C-section, so I got over it without too much struggle. :) 

Then Sunday night we went ahead and still had Brooks' and Lane's birthday parties.  We had it at my parents house instead of ours since I was exhausted and just didn't want to host anything after our eventful and tiring night! I have a bunch of pictures from the party, and I'll hopefully post more about them in the next couple days!  All had a fun time even though baby girl tried to ruin it all for her big brother and cousin! :)

Anyway, we went to the doctor this morning to see if anything had progressed, and no, I'm still only dilated 2 cm, so we are just waiting to see what happens! ugh! My next appointment is Friday.  Hopefully I will have the baby before then, but who knows.  I'm still having contractions, but not regular or strong enough to warrant another trip to the hospital.  I'm not going in now again until they are really bad or my water breaks! I'm kinda hoping she doesn't come the next couple days and I can get caught up on some rest and get a little more energy back.  Brooks is pretty happy to be home tonight too since he's spent the last 2 days at Grandma's.  We had on the schedule months ago for Brooks to be at grandma's today anyway so I could get end of the month ACE work done, so we just stuck to that plan.  I thankfully got a bunch of work done today, so that was nice not to have to do end of the month stuff with baby around! Brooks keeps saying he had fun at grandma's, but it's pretty evident that he missed being home too! (Don't we all miss home when we are away!) Anyway, that was maybe a little longer post than I had planned, but I just wanted to fill everyone in on what had been happening with us the past couple days! I'll try and keep everyone updated if anything else happens!

To make the blog more interesting, here are just some fun pictures of Brooks with his new toys I bought him a couple weeks ago at a big consignment sale.  It's nice to find him some 'new' things for pretty cheap!!

 Dinosaurs!! I got a huge bag of them for just $10!

 Brooks likes to fly the pterodactyl (sp??)

 I also found a Thomas ramp that Brooks just loves!

 and the best part is he can pretty much just do it by himself without making us help him everytime!

Jell-O Eggs!

Brooks had so much fun making Jell-O Eggs for Easter, that he requested we make them again for his birthday party this coming weekend.  He loves to help stir the jello and see all the different colors.  Amazingly, he also likes to eat the eggs! I say it's amazing, because he still does not try many new things, and he definitely usually doesn't like the taste of new things!  Since he's actually venturing out with texture and taste by eating Jell-O, I agreed to make the eggs with him again.  However, this time around making the Jell-O Eggs has been quite the adventure. 
We started with red ones, and Brooks did an awesome job stirring the mixture.

After we got those all mixed up and poured in the molds, we started with the orange ones.  I have 3 molds, so we can do 2 batches at once.
This is how the orange batch turned out.....

Yes, Brooks fell off the chair while stirring the pudding mixture into the jello.  You can kinda see where he was laying on the floor by the splatter void.  It was a really big mess to clean up.  I grabbed him right away (he was screaming mostly because the whole thing scared him and he was covered in Jell-O) and took him to the bath tub.  He finally calmed down once I got his clothes off him and he could play in the tub.  However, by the time I was done washing him and changing my clothes, the jello had started to solidify on the carpet.  I didn't even know where to start cleaning that up! Rags and paper towels did practically nothing! Blake brought home the rug doctor cleaner (this all happened right at supper time) and started washing the carpet that way.  Thank goodness after many, many, many times over the spots with the rug doctor, it got mostly cleaned up.  We can still see an orange hue in spots, but since we hope to someday replace the kitchen and dining room carpet with laminate wood flooring, we can live with it!  I still think the chairs are sticky in spots, and it will probably take awhile to finally get those all clean, but at least it's pretty well clean!
Anyway, we quit making the eggs that evening, but at lunch the next day we took the red ones out of the fridge and Brooks was still excited about them! And he still loves to sit in those chairs and help/watch me cook.

And of course Brooks enjoyed eating one :)

I decided to continue making the other colors of eggs.  Brooks did get to stir again...."I promise I'm being very careful stirring this time mommy!" (daddy didn't trust it as much as you can see him holding the cup!)  I don't blame him for not wanting to clean up again!!!

We have since successfully mixed up another orange batch, blue, yellow, and purple, so with only green to go yet tomorrow, hopefully this round of making Jell-O eggs will go without more accidents!