$500 Walmart Gift Card Giveaway

You'll probably notice the new button on my sidebar for Bargain Briana. Well, she is offering a giveaway on her blog, in partnership with Nestle, for a $500 Walmart gift card. We can all use some help these days and $500 can go a long way at Walmart. To enter all you have to do is post a comment with your favorite money saving back to school tip. Then there are 4 "bonus" entries you can get by subscribing to her blog via email or RSS feed (I did the RSS feed), adding her button (I did!), blogging about the giveaway (hence my second blog for today, don't you feel lucky!!!), tweeting about the giveaway, and Telling a friend using the widget on her page. I know this is 5 ways, but you can only do up to 4 of these. So go on over to her page here, enter the contest and check out some of her great money saving tips and bargains!

Brotherly Love

Some pics of my two sons during one of the moments that Jonah was interested in holding "baby Micah". Aren't they soooo sweet!?!?! (don't you just love Boppy's??? They make holding a baby so much easier for little hands!)

What a good big brother Jonah is becoming! He loves his little brother and is so concerned for him!

Micah had his one month check up today. And, drum roll please.... he is 8 pounds 2 ounces! YEAH! So he is growing, at least he is gaining weight. He's still the same length, but now that he's gaining weight so well, he'll start getting longer I'd imagine. He's doing really well, and is hitting all of the milestones that he should be right now so we're very relieved and excited!

I know this is a short post, but I just wanted to share these sweet pics and update you all on Micah's growth. Have a great weekend! We are going to Steven's uncles house tomorrow to celebrate his grandma's birthday so I'll post more pics this weekend! Make it a good one!

One Month Old

I can't believe that our little man is one month old today. Steven and I went out on a date Friday night and we were talking about how incredibly fast this month flew by. It's true: the more kids you have and the older you get, the faster the days, weeks, months, years tend to go!

We have so enjoyed having Micah as part of our family. He has molded in so well that it really hasn't taken much effort. Brianna and Jonah absolutely love him, and they are always wanting to hold him and kiss him (Bri much more than Jonah, but he definately has his moments where he is interested!) They are usually very sweet with him, although you do hear the occassional "Be gentle!", "That's too rough!". Brianna has so much confidence with him that it almost scares me sometimes! I have to remind her often that he is not a babydoll, to which she replies "yes, he is! He's my babydoll!" (Yikes!)

Micah is very calm and laid back (you'd have to be coming in to this noisy family!) and can sleep through anything (which is good because his brother and sister are VERY LOUD!!!!) He is very cuddly, which I love, and he loves to be held and snuggled. We still only hear a peep out of him when he's hunger (and then can he reve it up!) and if he's getting bored (if he's been in the swing, bouncie seat, on his belly for tummy time too long!) He'll have his one month appointment this week so I don't have any official stats to give you, but we think he's about 8 pounds now. (YEAH!) He's still long and skinny as you'll see from the pics I took.

But we are having a really good time, and I'm trying to enjoy every moment because our family won't stay like this forever! (I don't know what I'll do when he's mobile too!!!! HELP!!!!)

Oh, bytheway Jonah is starting to show some interest in potty training (he went pee-pee on the potty last night after bath! YIPPY!!!) so hopefully we'll be gettin' that done soon, and getting him out of diapers (hence, saving ourselves big money!!!!!) so I'll keep you posted on potty training because I'm sure you're all just dying to know! (And if you were here he'd tell you all about it!)

Weekend Fun

This weekend was busy but good. On Friday my mom took time off work and drove up to Indy. We went up to get some office some supplies from my aunt whose company was bought out and they are moving to another office. They don't need all the office supplies so my aunt made it possible for us to grab some. We got a great corner desk for the office (that will be PERFECT for scrapbooking!!!!), a couple of filing cabinets to store scrapbooking and other craft supplies, a metal bookcase, and a lot of metal shelving units that we can bolt together and then bolt to the wall in the garage for food storage. It saved us THOUSANDS of dollars, and was worth the $100 or so that we spent in gas and food getting up there and back.

While we were there we also stopped in to see Nana and Bob for a few hours. Nana and Stacey and the kids had come over the week before to meet Micah, but it was fun to take him up and introduce him to Bob and Christina and her kids. While we were there the kids discovered the blueberry bushes that are on their property. Nana and Bob actually stumbled upon them by accident. They were in the yard and Bob was going to cut them down until they realized they had blueberries on them. The kids had a blast picking blueberries to bring home with us. I think Jonah ate more then he put in the basket! That kid LOVES blueberries!

Friday night Chris flew in from South Dakota to meet Micah for the first time. He got in very late so we didn't see him til Saturday morning...but it was so good to see him, even if it was only 36 hours or something like that.

We made blueberry pancakes with our freshly picked blueberries then we decided to go to the museum. We were going to go to the Children's museum but when we got there the kids saw the set up for the dinosaur exhibit and wanted to see that. So we went to see Dinosaurs Unearthed and I have to say that it was pretty awesome. Jonah was absolutely amazed and kept running around saying "Wow!", "Look at that!", "It's awesome, Uncle Michael! It's awesome!" (that last one he heard Brianna say first and then he started saying it over and over!) We thought he might be a little afraid because they had animatronic dinosaurs that roared and looked around and moved, but he LOVED it! Brianna also thought it was very cool. She's not as into dinosaurs as her little brother, but I think she learned alot on that trip.

So we got in lots of quality family time which is always good..and was especially good because Steven had return to work this week. I'm sure it's going to be hard for him to go back after 2 weeks of being with us 24/7 (then again...it might not be THAT hard!)

So that's what we did this weekend. What did you do?

2 weeks

What a life...sitting by the pool, rocking out to Michael Jackson, and writting on our blog. I love summer, don't you?!?!?! (And I love wireless internet! Such a great invention!) The sun finally came out this afternoon making it a very nice day indeed. Micah and I are just sitting here chillin' while Steven, Bri and Jonah are swimming with Steven's cousin Kaitlyn. And I thought, well, while I was sitting here that I would update you on the last two weeks.

Micah is doing really well. We were at the doctor last week for his one week check-up and he was 6 pounds 3 ounces, so he had gained back all of his birth weight and then a little more. He is 20 1/2 inches long. They said he looks good and healthy. He does have a clogged tear duct that causes his eye to crust up and get all runny, so we have to massage it 3-4 times a day to open it up. Hopefully that will clear up soon, some days it looks really good, and others not so much. Tuesday we got a call from the pediatrician's office saying that they needed to run his PKU test again. So yesterday we had to take him to the hospital for the test because his one from when he was born came back abnormal (well, actually they ran it twice, the first was abnormal, the second was normal!). The PKU tests proteins and amino acids and has a lot to do with metabolism. So hopefully this test will come back normal like the second one they ran and we can check that off the list. But we won't know for about two weeks. (Why I don't know because the first one only takes about 2 days to get the results so I don't know why this one is going to take so long!)

The other two are doing really well. They are adjusting well to having a baby in the house, the biggest problem we are having is with them being in his face all the time. Especially Brianna. She is always wanting to kiss him, which is fine, but she HAS to be right in his face. She can't kiss him on the top of his head, or his forehead...no it has be on the check and then her hair and everything is all over him! They also can't leave him alone when he's sleeping, but we're working on it. But they are both doing really well and we try to involve them in taking care of him whenever we can. Like picking out his clothes, getting diapers and wipes for us, holding him, etc. They are both great little helpers! Now if only they could show as much enthusiasm for cleaning their rooms we'd be great!!!!

So all in all, things are going really well and we're all feeling good about where we are right now. Things just feel good, ya know?!?! So that's the 2 week update. And of course I have pictures to show off that we've taken today. Enjoy!

Some more pictures

So, we've been home for 5 days now and are still in the process of adjusting to life with a new baby as a family of 5. The kids are doing really well, although we have seen some examples of jealousy. It tends to be directed to each other though instead of Micah. (Like just now Bri came downstairs and told us Jonah had drawn on her door with markers. Clearly he was needing some attention...even if it was negative attention!)

Micah is doing really well! We had a home visit with a nurse on Monday and she checked his color, his temp, and his weight. He had gained 3 ounces since we got home which was excellent for only two days! She said he looked like he was doing great. He is a very content baby. He doesn't really cry unless he is hungry and I don't get to him as quick as he thinks I should, or if you undress him to change his diaper. (He hates to be undressed!) He is my only baby that likes to be swaddled. The other two didn't like that but he loves to be nice and tight. It could be something to do with him being early. He still sleeps alot, but is starting to have more awake periods where he just sits and looks around. We're trying not to hold him all the time and put him down when he's sleeping, which is the only reason I'm writing this now. It's so hard though because there is just something about holding a sleeping baby! Especially one as sweet as Micah!

I am doing really well too. I definately don't feel like I just had a baby 6 days ago! But I know that I still need to take it easy and not push myself. It's kind of hard because I want to help Steven as he is trying to get the house whipped back into shape. Yesterday was Bri's room and the kids playroom. Today is Jonah and Micah's room and our closet in our bedroom. I might be able to sit on the bed and help with that one! But mostly I'm spending my time holding the baby, trying to spend time with each of the kids, watching way too much daytime TV, and surfing the web. I'll be glad to get back to normal in a few weeks!

So without further ado here are some more pictures of Micah from his birthday.

That look is just pure love!

Jonah had a shirt that said "Big Brother" and Bri had one that said "Big Sister". We made them with them Wednesday night. (Not Micah's!)

The adoring big sister! (The marks on her face are a story for a different day!)

See- he can be sweet!!!!

Our beautiful kids!

How fast they grow!

Going home. He looks soooo tiny in that carseat!

Arriving home. My mom made that bow on the door! Isn't it awesome!!?!??! She should start selling them!

So that's the update for now! We go to the doctor on Friday for Micah's one week appointment and we'll post more about his progress then.

Introducing....

Micah Edward
July 9, 2009

2:19 pm

6 pounds 2.9 ounces

20 inches long

We are very excited and thankful to announce the arrival of Micah to our family!!! He arrived safe and sound, and a little small, but bigger than had been predicted.

We arrived at the hospital at 6:30 am on Thursday. They got me hooked up to the monitors and got an IV going. They started the pitocin around 8:30 am. By 1:40 I was ready to start pushing, and he made his grand entrance at 2:19 pm. So not quite by lunch time like I had bet the doctor, but pretty close!

He was pink and very healthy. He didn't cry a lot, just when he was being poked by the nurses, and when he did he was very good at calming himself down. But since he didn't cry a lot he also didn't get all the gunk out of his throat that he needed to which caused some problems later in the day.

Thursday night, around 9:30 pm he was admitted to the NICU because of rapid breathing and a problem maintaining his body temperature. They also checked his blood sugar and then just watched him for a few hours. It was something I was not expecting, and it was hard to leave him there and go back to my room, but I was tired and needed my rest also. So we left him, Steven went back a few hours later to sit with him. Then around 12:30 am the nurse came and told us that if he would eat well that they would let him come back to our room. So I went to the NICU to feed him, he ate really well for the first time all day, and by 2 am he was back with me. It was a little scary, but I am so blessed that he was only there a few hours and not a few days!

His big brother and sister are so excited to have him here. Brianna is the little mother hen. She wants to hold Micah all the time. She will let other people take him, but then she cries and whines until she gets him back. We're working on sharing!!! Jonah thinks he's pretty funny (he also said he stinks!) but he looses interest very quickly. We're working on not harming the baby. He's already honked his nose, almost punched him in the head, kicked him in the head, poked his eyes....we can't leave him alone for a minute! But then again, he's 2!!!

We're just happy that he's here safe and sound. Those last few days were pretty stressful and scary but we are very blessed and I'm very glad to be home with my family! Just a few more pictures to hold you until I can update again!

Thanks to all of you for your prayers and concern for our family! We appreciate it and our prayers were answered with a beautiful, healthy baby boy!