The Story of Baby Jack

Jack William (after Great Grandpa Albert William)

Sunrise Tuesday morning found us checking into the birth center here in town. One of the nurses convinced me over the phone that it was time to come in, so we dropped Brayden off with the sweet neighbors and headed into town.

They thought things were moving pretty quickly, so we were admitted and six hours later, Baby Jack weighed in at 8 pounds and 6 ounces. His little 21 inch self was under a bit of stress from the hour and a half that he was pushed on, and he had a little bit of oxygen and a few extra tests to make sure he was okay. We were able to go home on Wednesday afternoon and Thanksgiving sunrise found Jack in bed with Mommy and Daddy in bed with Brayden. At least we were all together under one roof!

Brayden got to wear a big brother bracelet and push the button that playes a lullaby each time a baby is born. He is doing very well with Jack Jack. He shares his trucks and trains when he isn't driving them around the rim of Jack's carseat (where he sits safely when Mamma is busy), asks to hold "baby Jack" and even says "I kiss Jack?". That isn't to say he isn't testing his little limits and pushing boundries and throwing balls that his brother isn't quite ready to catch, but he is doing pretty well.

Jack is a sweet little baby. He looks so much like his big brother did when we first brought him home. Little Jack even has his Daddy's eyelashes! We will post more when we are able. The days seem to be escaping me at the moment and the internet connection is never good when I am ready.

These two sweet little boys are keeping my on my toes most of the day, but we are over the moon happy to have little brothers to share with the world.

We are so grateful to have such beautiful, wonderful little fellows!

Baby Jack

Good Morning! Baby Jack joined our family this week! He was born on Tuesday, the 23rd of November, and you can see his first official photo here. He was born at 12:10 in the afternoon and he weighed in at 8 pounds, 6 ounces and is 21 inches long.

We will post more as we are up to it!

Small Victories

Brayden has some interesting war stories to tell from the last week. We are deep into the toddler version of self expression through wardrobe choices. And while he is a little hot body that runs and runs around inside of our 68 degree house, it is still only 68 degrees and we insist on long sleeve shirts or a sweatshirt. At times, this is enough to create a maelstrom of toddler furry, tears and discontent; and he spends a good part of the day asking to take the sweatshirt off, and if it happens to have a zipper on it, we can keep it on him for about…5 minutes. We recently found a long sleeve shirt with puppies on it and that helps quite a bit. Socks however are another matter all together.

Brayden received a pair of socks for Halloween that he loves; loves as in wears three days a week if he can find them. This morning Daddy tried to put socks on him that were not Halloween socks…which was fine until Brayden spied his Halloween socks. I have to hide them in the laundry basket tonight when he goes to bed!


He also started asking to go on the potty again. He will stand in the living room and say “Potty?” and then I go along with it, certain he is teasing me and run to the bathroom, where he pulls his potty seat out of the closet, we really quick get him undressed, start to read him a book and sure enough, he goes potty! Then, we say “bye-bye” to the potty as it is flushed away, and we go and call someone as a reward. The child loves the phone almost as much as he loves his books and his daddy’s hats (so if you get a phone call, and all you hear is a sweet little voice saying “POTTY!!”, it’s not a prank, it’s just us-go ahead and help us celebrate!).


This is what my little booger wanted to wear to daycare today. Daddy is his favorite at the moment (which is such good, good timing, and only a little bit of a bummer…I would get used to it faster if Little Stinker would just go ahead and be born already!)

Oh, and here are some pictures of the ducks. We find them in the strangest places these days: on top of the bird feeder, in the trees, on top of the barn, under the three season porch, or just hanging out on the front patio. Here they are on top of the house. Probably hiding from Grizzly, who’s job it is to protect us from the male, who has decided to attack us whenever he sees us (he may find himself on a plate if he doesn’t behave himself through the winter!). This is the female, and she is just checking in to see if we were thinking we were going to come outside anytime soon.

Here is a picture of the day he decided he and his puppy needed to take a nap on the toy box. I guess he does look pretty warm, doesn’t he?

Brayden and Grizzly

My mom and dad were here this last weekend. Dad and Jeremiah replaced the roof on our three season porch (it was a very lovely 60 degrees!). Mom watched Brayden while I trucked out to a health fair to represent the hospital with 5 pounds of muscle, 5 pounds of fat, the BMI chart and a scale.

Both of my parents thought it was a little bit hilarious that Grizzly drags his "stick" around the yard. It was a branch that fell off of the tree in the backyard that we thought was so beautiful and haunting when we first moved in. Grizzly likes it because some kind of little critter lives in there (he is a fantastic mouser!), and he just drags it around the yard. As you can see, he has his choice of sticks...but he likes the big ones I guess.

Mom also took some cute pictures of our little Brayden Butt.

Also known as Little Booger.

The one I am currently growing is the Little Stinker.

I hope the Little Stinker loves Grizzly as much as the Little Booger does.

And I hope Grizzly loves and watches out for the Little Stinker as much as he does for

the Little Booger.

:)

Halloween's Cutest Cowboy

Things have been pretty exciting around here. The Rangers are keeping things interesting in the World Series, so Brayden is showing as much support as he can, wearing his Rangers jammies every night.

And I made Brayden a Halloween costume to go with his pony...

He was a rough, tough cowboy, belt buckle, chaps, pony and all!

He was just a little confused though. He did pretty well with "trick or treat", but when we tried to get him to talk like a "cow" boy, instead of saying "yeeha!" he said "moo".

We got to practice trick or treating on Saturday in the downtown area. Many of the local vendors handed out candy, and we promised the little buddy he could have treats if he just kept his costume on. And he did. I think the older he gets though, the more shy he becomes.

Sunday night was the real deal, and we met the neighbors at the end of the driveway to go as a group. Beulla did a great job!! She got a little jumpy as it got dark, so we parted ways with our group and headed home.

Here is a photo of all of the kids our age in the neighborhood: