A different holiday routine

This holiday season is a little different than we are used to.  Having a newborn has really changed things this year.  We tend to stay home and indoors a lot more than we are used to! Blake and I won't be taking a Christmas shopping trip to Lincoln or Omaha, (sad for me as I love Christmas shopping!) we haven't drove around looking at lights much this year, our house is minimally decorated, and we haven't played in the snow at all yet.  (we did take one evening last week and went out to eat at Runza, (Brooks' choice) and looked at a few lights, but that's about it!) However, we are enjoying our little addition to the family! He has been a great baby!  He does a pretty good job sleeping at night (usually 3 hour chunks of sleep) and is starting to have more and more times he is awake and just watching his surroundings.  Anyway, here are a few pictures of things we've been up to.
Brooks helped my mom and I make all the Christmas goodies for the ACE open house a couple weeks ago.  We made probably close to 500 cookies and treats, and there were quite a few left over! oh well, we will know not to make so much next year!
Brooks did a great job unwrapping all the hershey kisses and putting them on the pretzels.

 Keely loves playing with puzzles

 Barrett has still been sleeping pretty good for naps.  He can sleep through most of the chaos from the other kids! Time will tell how long that will last!

 Keely is obsessed with Barrett.  Sometimes it causes problems when she wants to touch his face and rock him in his seat or put his pacifier in his mouth when he's already asleep.  She gets super mad when we tell her to leave him alone.  Hopefully she will grow out of this phase quickly! We are lucky Barrett is such an easy going baby!

 To keep up with tradition, we did attempt another gingerbread house this year.  Brooks was super excited to do one again.  It didn't go as smoothly this year since Keely got to help and threw a fit that I didn't let her eat all the gummy candies, but we still managed to get the house completely decorated! 

 Brooks wanted it to look as much like the picture on the box as possible.  I think he did a pretty good job with a little help from me!

 Barrett also got his first tub bath! He did a great job and didn't cry at all! Hope that continues too!

 Lastly, I love pictures of babies wrapped in a towel after their bath.  Too cute!

Comparison

For those that like to try and figure out who looks like who, here are some newborn pictures of our three kids.  I have a hard time trying to figure out who they look like, but maybe that's because I see them everyday.  At times Barrett reminds me of Brooks, but it could just be the fact they are my boys!

Here are some pictures of Brooks

 And then here is Keely:

 And finally Barrett:

 

So now you can decide for yourselves if they look alike or completely different!

Barrett Lee

Welcome to the world Barrett Lee Burgess!

Barrett was born November 20, at 5:39 pm and weighed 7lbs 15oz and was 19 inches long.  My water broke early Wednesday morning, at 12:40 am, so we woke up, called my parents (who took 3 tries of calling the house phone before someone answered!), and waited for them to get to our house to stay with Brooks and Keely so we didn't have to wake them up before we headed to the hospital.  We got to the hospital about 2:00 am and tried to get some sleep since I was not very far along in labor and feeling minimal contractions.  They ended up inducing me by starting Potussin (sp?) around 5 am or so since I couldn't sleep anyway and we needed to get something happening! I started feeling stronger contractions about mid morning.  Labor was moving a little slow, but that was ok since I had to get payroll submitted for ACE that morning anyway! :) Finally around 1 pm I was far enough along to get an epidural and we hoped I would progress pretty fast from there like I did with Keely.  I tried to get some sleep during this time too since I hadn't slept any since before we left home.  I didn't get much sleep and finally a little after 5 they determined I was finally progressing enough to get things ready for Barrett to come! After pushing twice, Barrett was born! While it was a fairly long labor, it wasn't terrible.  It actually mirrored my labor with Brooks because my water broke with Brooks at about 12:45 am and he was born at 7:35 pm later that evening.  Funny how my two boys were so similar coming into the world, and Keely was very different! It will be fun to see how they continue to compare and differ as they grow up!

My mom brought Keely and Brooks over to meet Barrett the next morning.  Brooks was excited and I think Keely really had no idea what was going on and ignored him for the most part until we got her up close to look at him.  She kept saying, "ooo, baby.  oooo, baby" over and over.

She was fascinated by his little feet!

Brooks has been really good about having a baby around and seems very interested in him.  He has said several times that he wants Barrett to be a football player when he gets older.  I think Brooks will love having a brother to play sports with!

Here is Barrett the 1st full day we were home.  He slept ALOT! I don't remember how much my other kids slept when they were newborns, but it seems like Barrett sleeps more.  In the first few days I had to wake him up several times during the day and at night to eat after 4 hours of not eating.  He had lost 8% body weight by the time we had left the hospital and really didn't show much interest in eating unless we forced him.  However, he has started getting better with eating and at his 1 week weight checkup, he was already up to 8 lbs 4 oz, so it seems he's growing just fine! Let's hope this sleeping/laid back attitude continues! Sure would make it easier on us all!

The first couple days at home we watched a lot of Snoopy movies for Keely and Brooks.  Keely LOVES Snoopy right now! Especially the Thanksgiving Charlie Brown.

Barrett seems so small right now!

Keely has started fighting some naps and bedtime so needless to say she has been more tired lately.  She finally just gave in while watching Thomas the Tank Engine while I was getting lunch ready one morning.  She did not want to wake up to eat!

Both kids are pretty proud of their little brother!

And finally, Happy Thanksgiving from Brooks! He made a pilgrim hat at preschool and was pretty excited to show me when he got home!

Go Big Red!

A couple of weeks ago, we got the opportunity to go to the Husker football game against Northwestern.  My dad had been offered 3 tickets and since they were still in the middle of harvest and he was unable to go, he offered them to Blake and I.  We thought it would be fun for Brooks to experience a game, so my Mom agreed to watch Keely for the day, and Blake and I took Brooks to the game.  We got there plenty early, which was a good thing because apparently being 8 months pregnant REALLY slows me down walking! We parked pretty far away from the stadium and I think Brooks and I were both tired of walking by the time we got to the stadium! We went down close to the field first so Brooks could see some players warming up and see the field.  Looks like all they are watching right now is the cheerleaders! ha!

We ran into some people I knew from Henderson, so they offered to take a family picture for us.  Brooks looks funny in the pictures because he still thinks he has to open his mouth wide open for a smile, but we are working on it!

Our seats were actually pretty good.  We were on the East side of the stadium at about the 40 yard line, so we got sun most of the game and could see really well. 

Brooks was so excited to get popcorn at the game!

Unfortunately we had a little bit of an issue with our seats.  The company my dad had gotten them from had 3 seats, but only 2 were together and the other one was 6 seats down in the same row.  There was only 2 people sitting in our row when we got there, and they happened to be the 2 seats right next to our 2 seats.  We sat down right next to them, and the lady next to me didn't even acknowledge we were there, say hi, or anything...seemed a little odd to me, but I thought whatever.  I ended up having to nudge her arm to get her attention and asked her if they were seats 12 and 13 (we were 14 and 15 and our other one was 7).  She said yes, and was very quick to say that we must have one seat further down the row.  I said, yes, we do.  She then said, before I could even ask, "We don't move down for anyone.  We've had these seats for 50 years and we don't move.  One of you will have to sit over there."  I was so taken aback by the abruptness of the comment and attitude that I couldn't even answer her back! I understand that they must get asked to move down every game since this company gives their tickets to different people every week, but she was not nice about it AT ALL!  And it was for a 3 year old that literally would only take up 6 inches of room on the bleachers.  What does 6 inches matter!!?!? And of course, once Blake got back and I explained it to him and me being 8 months pregnant and all, I actually cried about the situation! I really didn't want us to have to separate for the whole game! What's the fun in that?!? We decided to just wait it out and see if the people on the other side of Blake would ever show up.  They ended up getting there half way through the 1st quarter, but then left at the end of the 1st qtr, so we were super lucky with that! Brooks was able to sit on Blake's or my lap or stand in between our legs while the seats besides us were full, and he didn't seem to mind one bit! The 4 people behind us also left to go watch the game at a bar because it was too hot for them...yeah, I don't know why because it was super nice, but it was better for us to have the space!! And needless to say, the lady beside me did not say another word to me the entire game.  I couldn't believe the harshness! However, the people in front of us were super nice and talked to Brooks and didn't mind getting elbowed or kneed a few times by a squirmy 3 year old.  Thank goodness!  As you can see in this picture, Brooks didn't mind standing for part of the game! He had a lot of fun.

Letting our balloons go for the first score.  Thank goodness it was on the first drive because I was really tired of holding them between my legs!!

Overall we had a great time, and no, we did not end up staying until the end for the miraculous hail mary play.  :(  We had decided to leave in the middle of the 4th quarter when the score was tied because we knew I would be extremely slow leaving the stadium, and it was already a really long game as it was! Brooks was pretty tired too, (he had wanted to leave in the 1st quarter because he was tired...aka, nap time! but once I took him to the restroom and walked around a little bit with him, he woke up and enjoyed the rest of the game!) so we just headed out.  Blake even ran ahead to pick us up because I was moving so slow...seriously, I could not believe how badly my hips hurt!! Ridiculous! 8 months pregnant to a Husker football game was not the best idea, but hey, we made it! So in the end, we heard the hail mary touchdown in the van on our way out of Lincoln, but at least the Huskers pulled out the win!