What Was I THINKING?

Yesterday we went to St. George because Shane had to take the life insurance test again. We decided to take Brody and that is where things started to get interesting. When we got there I needed to feed him so Shane parked in the parking garage to give me a little more shelter to hide me from the public. It was hot so I had the air conditioner running. Well, the battery started to die and I realized that I hadn't actually started the car. I hurried and turned it off but it was too late. The car wouldn't start. We went inside the building and hung out in the lobby of the building until Shane got done. It wasn't very fun considering the alternative which was shopping. Sadly I had messed that one up. While we were sitting there I said a quick prayer that we would be able to find someone that could help us and I wasn't too worried and stayed pretty calm because I knew Shane would know what to do. He came out and I said, "Guess what I did. Have you ever had a moment where you think Oh My Gosh What Was I Thinking? Well I had one while you were in Taking the test." He thought I got into a fender bender but then he thought that I wouldn't be there if that was the case. I asked, "Your Aunt lives in St. George right?" Luckily she did so we called her and she sent Shane's cousin over with his truck to jump start our car. The bad thing was that our car was in the parking garage where we had parked next to a pillar and had cars on both sides of us. They just put the car in neutral and backed it into the empty space behind us. We got our car started just fine and the rest of the trip went great. Shane knew it wasn't a big deal and he was really patient with me. I'm very thankful for that. I feel like for having a baby just barely over 4 weeks ago and my hormones still making me crazy, I handled things pretty well. When someone saw us pushing the car back they made a comment of, "Looks like a Pontiac." That was the one comment that bothered me because this is the only problem I've had with my car and it was totally my fault. I was more embarrassed than anything that I let something so stupid happen.

ONE Of The Moments We've Been Waiting For

We now have a roof on the carport and the new part of the kitchen. Also today they officially busted out the wall! I said it's one of the moments because the day it's finished is the moment we're really waiting for. Things have been going quite fast the last 2 weeks. We're happy to see the progress. Here are some updated photos.

Brody's First Vacation

This last weekend Brody got to go on his first vacation. We went to Lyman for a family reunion and to celebrate Shane's grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. We left here on Friday and made it in time for the 50th party. Here Brody met lots of new relatives. He was passed around and held so much that he doesn't know what to do with himself now when we try to put him down. The only times I got to see him were when he was hungry or needed a diaper change. Other than that as long as I could see him I was okay. All I pretty much had to do was look for his Aunt Kara and I knew where he was. She was dying to see him so bad being stuck up in Logan that when she finally got her hands on him it was hard for anyone else to get to hold him. It was her bonding time with him. Saturday we had the Chappell family reunion. It was held at a park. We had food and visited with people that came. Well actually I sat there with Brody while Shane played basketball with his cousins. Once the food was ready though I had lots of people offering to take Brody so that I could eat. Shane's mom won out and we didn't see him again until he'd peed though his diaper and needed a change. It was so hot at the park we ended up back at the house ready for naps. Sunday we went to sacrament meeting where Brody threw a fit during the sacrament because he was hungry. I had some milk in the diaper bag that I had previously pumped so after he had that he was good the rest of the time. It was his first time going to church. After church we had a big dinner with a lot of family there and we were soon on the road back home after that.

Here is Brody being held by his Great-Grandma Chappell. She was one of the many that showered him with love over the weekend. This was at their 50th Anniversary party.

This was also taken at the 50th party. This is Grandma Chappell holding her 2 grandkids Keziah and Brody. Keziah is quite the character. She is at the busy stage where she doesn't slow down very much.

One quick story: Shane and I needed to go to the store one evening so we left him home with his Grandma Bezanson for a little while. They were sitting on her bed and Brody caught sight of the picture of Jesus on the wall. He stared at and studied that picture for 20 minutes. He had a look of recognition on his face. It was like he was looking at it thinking, "I know him." We just thought it was really neat. For as young as he is we've really enjoyed watching him develop and start to figure things out. He's started to realize that when he puts his hands in his mouth he's sucking on himself. He'll put his hand in his mouth and get kind of startled then he'll put it back in his mouth. I really love being a parent.

Randomness

Now for the post I really want to write. I have some new pictures that I wanted to post of our favorite little guy, Brody. I have managed to get some pictures where he is awake.

Here he's in his bouncy chair. I'm annoyed that I can't get some of my pictures to face the right way. It corrects some but there are a lot that I'd like to be turned another direction. This is one of them.

He likes to run the show. Shane was holding him and he had to move around to find the perfect spot to lay. When he found it (right by Shane's heart) he would cry or throw a fit if anyone tried to move him. He doesn't look very comfy here but he sure liked it. He does look cute though.

I wish the lighting was better on his face, but with the flash it totally over exposed the picture. He loves his pacifier and I'm thankful for that. He's a good fit thrower at feeding time. He nurses fine sometimes, but other times he throws huge fits and demands me to pump and feed it to him in a bottle because he's too tired or lazy to latch on.

Shane doing what he knows best... Letting Brody sleep on his chest and play football. This is an every day activity. I absolutely loathe football right now, but I guess it's alright as long as he's doing something productive also.

Here he was being Mommy's little sidekick while I was working on the computer. When he's not set on being in someone's arms you will usually find him in his bouncy chair right along side whoever is watching him. He was actually awake and being really interactive here.

Bath time! This is the first bath we've given him where he's actually not cried. I guess he's deciding that it's really not that bad. Just wait until his cord stump falls off he actually gets to have a bath and not a sponge bath.

We were trying to get him to grin and this is the closest we got. He grins a lot for being so young. A lot of people say their early grins are just gas but I don't believe them because the way Brody acts when he grins doesn't say, "I have gas."

He was just loving having the warm water splashed on his head. The look on his face when we do it is priceless and this isn't even his best reaction. These are all the pictures I have for now. I will continue to find new things to take pictures of. Oh yeah... Another cool thing we've discovered is that he's trying to roll over already. We know he has strong neck muscles. He's really good at trying to hold his head up. I can't wait for his cord to fall off so we can start putting him on his stomach more when he's awake.

A Week Of Good Work

After last week's fiasco with the rain a lot was done to the house. Here are some pictures of the progress.

We now have more new roof than we did old roof. It's kind of funny but we will have one awesome car port and kitchen when all is said and done. We should have a bid on the cabinets for the kitchen Monday.

Happy Anniversary #1

This was actually taken the night before our anniversary but it is the new updated picture of our little family. We were watching Mary Poppins together and my mom decided we needed a picture of us all cuddled on the couch. Brody thinks he needs to be part of the action no matter whether he's awake or asleep. That's okay because we quite enjoy having him around.

Last night I was trying to get him to wake up so I could feed him. He's really good at sleeping through feedings so I took him into the bedroom and was getting ready to lay him in bed (he usually wakes up then). As soon as I unwrapped him from his blanket he immediately stretched out like this. It made me laugh so I had to take a picture of him.

This is just a close up of him. He ended up waking up before I got him to bed so It was good since his milk was all pumped and waiting for him. That is what I usually have to do when he wont wake up. When we took him in for his newborn check up he had gone from 7lb 8oz to 6lb 6oz which was about 15% of his body weight gone. I had to reschedule a weight check and it resulted in scheduling another one because he weighed the same 2 days after the first one. Yesterday was his other weight check and in 6 days he had gone from 6lb 6oz to 7lb 2oz. He had gained about 2oz a day. If he keeps it up he'll be at his birth weight just in time for his 2 week check up. There was a thought that I would have to suppliment him on formula. I actually did suppliment him a little but it was less than 10 oz. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with formula. That stuff stinks horribly. Overall things are looking up and he's a healthy happy baby!

Shane and I celebrated our 1st anniversary on the 11th. It turned out to be a really fun day. I made a scrapbook on Shutterfly of our wedding first year together. It went over really well and it will be fun to have so we can look back and remember all the good times we had just getting started. After I gave Shane the book he got showered and dressed up. He made some excuse up that he needed to go into the office for a little bit and would be back soon. a while later there was a knock on the door and when I opened it these flowers were on the porch. He tried to closely match them to the flowers used at the wedding. He got the big pink gerber dasies and some kind of lilly in there. The lilly wasn't the one we used but it was close enough. He must have spent a lot on just the flowers alone. He also got me a willow tree figurine of a couple that was titled "Together". He knows I love willow tree figurines so he can't go wrong there. When he got home I found out that he made up the excuse of going into the office just so he could get out of the house without any questions. Later that night he took me to the Garden House for dinner. They put us up in the loft all by ourselves. It was really neat because there was a stained glass window by the table and it was dimly lit. I ordered filet mignon and shrimp. Shane got chicken and shrimp. Usually when we eat there the main dish is good but the veggies and other stuff is a little boring and tasteless, but everything was delicious this last time. To top everything off we ended dinner with a brownie sundae that was really good. After that we tried to give Brody a bath but all it resulted in was a big fit because he was hungry and we didn't want to feed him before a bath. We ended up bathing him yesterday instead.

So Cute!

Brody is so cute! Everyday I find more and more reasons to love him. Here are a few daily activities of his.

This one I had to show off his feet. Some people love to have professional naked pictures taken of their kids but I don't really like them. Instead I'm more of a hands and feet kind of person. He has Shane's hands and feet I think. His hands are big and have long fingers. It's also amazing how big his big toes are. My mom commented on the big toes the first time she saw his feet.

Here is Grandma playing with him. He tends to try and sleep through the times when he should be eating so here she was trying to wake him up so he would eat for me. Unfortunately it didn't do the job. Instead we had to give him a bath... actually we were going to give him a bath anyways it just worked out better to bathe and then feed him.

Shane didn't comb his hair out after his bath so he had a curly mess. It was still sticking up the next day. I don't think it will lay down until after we wet it again and brush it out. You can kind of see it sticking up in the picture shown above.

As you can tell he sleeps a lot. Most of the pictures we have of him involve him sleeping. Here he is asleep in his bouncy chair. He is a really good baby and doesn't cry when you set him down. He is content with pretty much anywhere he is set down as long as he is comfortable. I had just unwrapped him to change his clothes for the day and saw how cute he is. This resulted in me taking pictures. I hope you enjoy. I will try to keep taking pictures and posting them.

A Wet Problem

Since April we've been in the middle of a home improvement project. Well, we've finally got the walls put up for the extension of our kitchen. We had to wait for the trusses to come in so it was covered with plastic so that if it rained it would be covered. There was a week where we weren't going to be having anyone working on it since they would be out of town. Of all weeks it decided to rain like crazy this week. We were in no way prepared or even set up for it and the basement was being flooded. This all happened because the water was running off the roof and right down onto the plastic... there it would leak down the house and into the basement or it would leak through the many holes in the plastic and through the spaces between the floor boards. It was also trying to come into the room with the carpet and attempting to get the insulation in the wall wet. This is what it looked like. There was a lot of water as you can see in the picture with the coolers.

There was a lot of water that came down in those 2 days. In the bottom picture there are buckets randomly spaced behind the view of the camera that were catching the drips from the floor boards above. The stuff on the floor came down the wall against the house.

Our New Arrival

After a very short and intense labor from being induced, we finally have our new arrival. His name is Brody Quinn. He was 7lb 8oz and 19 1/2 in. long. They put me on the oxytocin at 4:30 and the doctor came in at 7:00 and broke my water. They worked me up to 8ml an hour of the oxytocin and my contractions were coming so strong and close together that they turned it clear down to 2ml an hour. As soon as I felt contractions after breaking my water I said, "I want an epidural!" I had already signed the paper (thankfully) and so all I had to do was wait for the guy to finish up with the girl before me and I was next. They got the epidural in and waited a little bit for me to feel somewhat comfortable and Phyllis checked me. She didn't have to go far because I was complete and ready to push. They went to get the doctor and he was running back and forth because the girl that got her epidural before me was pushing at the moment. He delivered hers first and came in to deliver mine next. They had me pushing shortly before he came in, but things didn't take long. He made it in time for a couple of contractions and he was out. I only had to push for 30 minutes. My doctor loves delivering babies so much that every morning if he has patients being induced he'll come into the OB and start off his day with, "Let's break some water!" He was so excited to be delivering 2 so close together. Brody was born with a lovely head of hair. I would guess it's about an inch long. His sucking reflexes are very good because he is constantly practicing. Even in his sleep he sucks on his tongue. The last 2 days have been spent with him constantly begging for food. The pediatrician said he's perfect and strong. I was so excited to hear these words. We stayed in the hospital for just over a day and a half. After that we were on our own. We've been doing pretty good and appreciate all those meals we have and will recieve. Shane went to sacrament meeting today and they announced his birth so the ward has stepped in to help out. This has so far been a scary but wonderful experience. Brody is wonderful and we love him so much. Even when he's crying inconsolably he's still cute. Luckily he gets tired fast so he's pretty easy to take care of. Hope you enjoy our pictures.

This was taken just minutes after he was born. At this point the cord has been cut and he's been slightly wiped down. Shane got to give him his first bath in the nursery.

A lot of the pictures we've taken are of him sleeping so we just took this one for fun because he was alert. I still can't get over how cute he is.

He looked so cute lying in his bassinette in the hospital so I had to take a picture. This is a place he rarely ended up. There was always someone just dying to hold him or he was just dying to be held. Phyllis took him to the nursery to wait for the pediatrician to look him over and he insisted she sat in the rocking chair and rocked him till she came. Being a "serogate" grandma she gladly obliged. She told me during delivery to push like I was constipated with a bowling ball. It made me laugh which was good because it made me forget about the pain.