I can't believe it's already February. Brian is a month old as of yesterday, and what a month! He is changing so fast, as babies do. He is still pretty laid back, but he has been having some tummy issues that make him fussy sometimes. He spits up a lot more than my other two did (but that's not saying much since they almost never spit up!) He started smiling at me before he was 3 weeks old, and is smiling more frequently now, as well as making those cute little baby noises. He weighs over 9 pounds, and is still a great eater! He has forgotten how to sleep for more than 3 hours at night, but I think he is growing so fast he is just getting hungry. He continues to study the world with wide eyes, just like he did right after he was born! James and Eliza, who had been kind of uninterested in Brian for the first few weeks, are starting to pay more attention to him as he can interact with them more. Brian is just a part of the family! Here are a few pictures of him recently:

First trip to the park, 2 weeks old

Baby laundry

Visiting in Memphis

Brian's first bath, 3 weeks old

One month old!

And here is our newest family portrait:

We are so blessed!

Well, Brian survived his first road trip! We went to Memphis this weekend to show off our baby to my extended family, and also took a day-trip from there to Jackson, TN, to see Jay's sister and her family. Brian did great, sleeping the whole time we were in the car. It was fun watching my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents play "pass-the-baby", each wanting to get a turn to hold him. He was barely put down all weekend!

We have been busy! Besides our road trip this weekend, we have been to the park, the dentist (for me, not Brian!), and the kids' schools. James got two reading awards last Friday, so I went to the awards ceremony. He was very proud of his trophies! I took Brian into Eliza's school when I picked her up one day so that her class could see him. They were so excited!

Jay is back at work this week, so I have been picking the kids up from school. I haven't quite gotten the hang of getting ready to go somewhere with a baby again, so I have been a little late each time so far. I think I am getting better, though! Someday I will be on time!

We are looking forward to having Jay's mom visit this weekend! Uh, oh, Brian is crying, gotta go! Some pictures of our recent adventures can be found on my flickr.

Sorry, but my life revolves around baby right now! Brian is doing great, and he is a great eater, which means I have little time for anything else! He is already nearly back up to his birth weight. He is a pretty good sleeper, letting me get some much-needed rest. He is not a consistent night-sleeper, but he has been having a long sleep period about every other night, which is probably better than my other 2 were doing at this age! I love all his little faces, and getting him dressed in his cute little clothes.

We have already been able to a little bit of visiting this week. It was good to get out of the house for a while! Wednesday night my mom took the kids to AWANA at church, so Jay and I took Brian to go pick them up afterward. We had quite a crowd of admirers, all wanting to take a peek at the 6-day-old baby! Several of the kids there had never seen a baby that small before. Saturday we were able to go visit Jay's Mimi, who lives in a nursing home. She kept asking if Brian was premature…I guess she has forgotten how small babies are when they are newborn! She really enjoyed getting to hold him.

God has blessed us with a beautiful, precious baby. This picture that Jay took the other day really captures Brian's sweet little self:

We have pictures of each of our kids coming home from the hospital in the car seat:

Brian got to have a new car seat because our old one "expired" in December. There is actually a date on the seat that says "Do not use after…" Plastic gets brittle over time, so it makes sense that it wouldn't last forever!

We are having so much fun with our new baby! He has been really laid back so far, only crying if he's really hungry or when I change his diaper. He has even been sleeping for about 3 1/2 hours at night, then waking up once to nurse and going back to sleep for another 3 hours or so. We are so blessed!

When James was born, we couldn't believe how smoothly his birth went. I was induced on my due date, so we showed up at 6:00 that morning, and had a baby by 1:00 that afternoon. Eliza was not much different, except that I went into labor on my own. We showed up at the hospital around 5:00 PM, and had a baby 2 hours later. We hoped this birth experience would be similar, and we weren't disappointed!

I was supposed to have a doctor appointment Wednesday, December 30, but when we got there we were told that my doctor had to do an emergency surgery, so we would have to reschedule for the next day. I was a little disappointed, because I had been having lots of contractions and I wanted to see if any progress had been made. But we went home and waited to see the doctor Thursday morning. They took my blood pressure soon after we arrived and it was pretty high, but they weren't overly concerned; they would just check it again before I left. We saw the doctor, who confirmed that I had made some progress. We talked about scheduling an induction for the next week in case I had not gone into labor by then. I mentioned my blood pressure and how I had been induced with my first baby because of it, and the doctor left to look at the schedule. It was New Year's Eve, so things were a little different than normal, I think. He came back and said, "Let's go ahead and induce you this afternoon." Okay! My doctor would not be able to attend the delivery, but I was okay with that. I got his wife's doctor instead!

We went straight to the hospital and arrived there around noon. (We had packed just in case, and the kids were already at my parents' house for the doctor appointment.) The doctor broke my water, and they started Pitocin to get the contractions going. I managed to handle the pain until about 3:30 or so, when I asked for an epidural. It was wonderful! After that, I almost went to sleep. They didn't check my progress again until sometime after 5:00PM, and the nurse said, "You are ready to have a baby!" They got the doctor in pretty quickly, and after 3 rounds of pushing, Brian was born at 5:54! Nearly my whole family was in the waiting room, and they got to come in and meet him right after he was born. It was great!

After the delivery, my blood pressure remained high for a while. It went down a little during the night, but was back up again the next day, so they told me to stay lying down on my left side. That was very frustrating! I wanted to be up and about, because I felt pretty good, but I had to stay in the bed as much as possible. It finally started staying at a fairly normal level (still high, but not as bad), so they were not concerned enough to keep me there longer than planned, and we went home Saturday morning. I guess it was a good thing we went ahead and had the baby…it could have turned into something really bad if we had waited!

We are having a great time at home with our newly expanded family! The kids have been out of school, so they have had the chance to get to know their new brother. They start back tomorrow, but Jay will be home for another week and a half, so that will help. It has been a great start to a New Year! I hope you are having a blessed New Year as well!

We are very happy to announce the birth of our baby boy! Brian Gabriel was born December 31, 2009, at 5:54 PM. He weighed in at 6 lbs, 15 oz, and was 21.5 in long. We are home now and both doing great!

More pictures from his birthday can be found on Jay's flickr. We are a family of 5 now!

No baby yet, but I think it's getting close…I have had some pretty convincing contractions today, although they are not regular. I have actually started packing a bag! I thought you might like to see a picture of the cradle, which is ready to hold a sleeping baby:

Before Eliza was born, I started looking for bedding for the cradle, but couldn't find any that I liked. (We didn't have the cradle when James was born; he slept in a pack-and-play for his first 6 months while we were living with my parents.) I finally decided that I would just make my own bedding. I found the perfect stars-and-moons fabric and went to work making a bumper pad and sheets. I appliqued 16 stars and moons around the outside of the bumper pad and added piping at the top. It was a crazy sewing project that I designed myself, and it turned out to be a lot of hard work, but I was very pleased with the results. I even made a mobile to match! I vowed never to take on a project like that again, though! I bought a pink knit blanket with stars on it for Eliza, which added the perfect amount of girliness to the white-and-tan bedding. Here she is enjoying my handiwork right after we brought her home from the hospital:

For this baby, I needed something to make the cradle more boyish. I found the soft blue and brown star blanket at Target, and it works perfectly! I love the colors, and I was so glad to find something with stars. I like it when things come together…it satisfies something inside of me. :)

Well, we are in the waiting game now! There's only one week left until my due date, so we should have a baby within the next couple of weeks. It still hasn't quite sunk in yet that there will be a new baby in the house…I guess it will once we come home from the hospital! We still have stuff to do (I still need to pack for the hospital, and clean this place up a bit!), but all the critical stuff is in place- car seat, cradle, clean clothes. Oops, I guess we should buy some diapers! :)

We made it through Christmas. In fact, we finished our Christmas shopping today, and will probably wrap most of the presents tonight. We haven't actually seen anyone to give presents to except for our kids, since we stayed home this year. We'll celebrate Christmas with my family sometime early this week (they have been in Memphis with my extended family), then we'll see my Memphis relatives in the next few weeks when we go to show off a baby! It felt really strange to not go anywhere for Christmas, but we were afraid to stray too far from home, just in case I went into labor. Christmas morning was fun with the kids enjoying Santa Claus presents, and then we let them open presents from us. But the rest of the day just felt really odd. Even the day after Christmas was just a weird day of staying at home, and I'm sure my strange hormonal state was not helping. Last night things started looking up, though, and today was a good day of going to church, eating out, and visiting with Jay's grandmother, Mimi, in the nursing home. I'm glad my family is returning home tonight…I think it will help to know they are back in town!

I have been having a few contractions off-and-on, but nothing really serious yet. I go see the doctor Wednesday, so we'll see how things are looking then. Right now, we are just enjoying the break from school and work! I do like having my family home with me, even if it does mean I don't get my regular time alone. It's probably why I can't seem to get much accomplished!

I love this time of year, but, oh, is it ever busy! I think things will slow down by Christmas Eve, and until then, I just hope I don't throw myself into labor! :) (Don't worry, I'm not planning on doing too much, just enough!) This week has been crazy with practices for our church's Christmas special, which is being held this weekend. Wednesday afternoon I had a doctor appointment, and everything looks great. The baby is in the head-down position, which I was relieved to hear! Wednesday night the kids got to go caroling with AWANA (I had to miss it because of practice, but I'm sure it was fun!) Yesterday I was finally able to finish putting together treats for all of James' and Eliza's classes, and wrap teacher gifts. I also went through some boxes of baby clothes so that I can hopefully start washing some things for our new baby soon!

Today was a fun day for James' class as they had "Storyland Day". Each grade had decorated their hallway with a Christmas story, and the kids got to wear pajamas and rotate around the school to hear each different story. I walked around with James' class for a little while, then left and headed over to Eliza's school to help out with her Christmas party. It was a fun morning, but exhausting!

Tonight my family is coming over for some chili and just to hang out. Adrienne and Jon are going out of town in the morning, and we won't be able to see the family all together again until after Christmas, since they are all headed to Memphis and we have decided to stay home. (I guess it has something to with being scared I might go into labor while we're there.) So we invited them all over here tonight, and I am supposed to be cooking and cleaning right now, but I'm taking a little break first. They probably won't mind if the house doesn't look exactly perfect!

Jay has been extremely busy finishing up a big project at work this week, so we haven't seen much of him lately. Today is supposed to be his last day of work for a while, so hopefully we will be seeing a lot more of him! He will be working from home some, I'm sure, but he doesn't officially have to go back to work until a few weeks after the baby is born. He could really use the break, and we are looking forward to spending some time with Daddy!

Saturday Eliza has a birthday party to attend, and then we have our Christmas special Saturday night. Sunday morning is church (as usual), then that evening is the second showing of our Christmas special. I will be singing in the choir, and James is also singing a song with the children's choir. We would love to have you come watch if you are in the area! It's at Parkway Place Baptist Church at 6:00PM both nights.

Monday things should slow down a little bit, but we do have a preschool pajama party at the church that night. Tuesday is James' last day of school, and I am planning on helping out with his Christmas party that afternoon. I have another doctor appointment Wednesday morning, and Thursday is Christmas Eve! Somewhere in there, we have to finish shopping (we're almost done!) and wrap presents (I haven't started). We are also trying to get ready for baby, who will be here in just a couple of weeks! I know it will all get done, but it's going to be crazy for a while!