A Visit with the Aramigans

We were so excited when the Aramigans told us that they were going to brave the awful heat and humidity to come and visit us in Texas. We try to warn people away during the summer since it's so hot and miserable but we were so happy that they decided not to listen to us and came anyways. One of my biggest regrets about moving to Texas is that we don't get to see our friends as often and our kids will not have the opportunity to grow up with each other. Thankfully even though we live so far apart it has not stopped Riley and Gabe from being the best of buddies. I can't wait for Maddie and Meara to do the same. Although if the two of them are like their brothers, we parents are going to be in for it. We managed to do quite a bit during their four day stay with us -- we went to the Space Center, Children's Museum, rode the train at the park, jumped around at Pump It Up, visited Ben's lab. The boys converted Maddie's room into their own personal wrestling arena and they had "battles" every night. The boys would warm up to "Eye of the Tiger" and then get down to business. I'm afraid to even post some of the video footage of the two of them (and their trainers/daddies!!). What is extremely disturbing is that the other night Riley randomly started singing Eye of the Tiger. No four-year-old should know the words to that song!!

Click here for a link to some pictures from their visit. Thank you for coming to visit us and we can't wait to do it again!!

Pictures

I started a blog post over 3 months ago but never got around to finishing it. Since people keep asking to see pictures of the kids I decided to forgo all the words and just post some pictures of them. Click here to see what we've been up to.

Two Months and other Random Posts

We took Maddie in for her 2 month checkup and her stats were:

Weight: 11 lbs 2 oz (59%)

Height: 22 inches (36%)

Head: 15 inches (33%)

As you can see she's growing like a champ. It's definitely nice this time around not to have to worry so much about whether or not she's growing and on track! She's an extremely mellow baby and only gets upset when she's hungry. She's a great eater and a good sleeper. A little before the 2 month mark she went from waking every 2-3 hours at night to sleeping most of the night. She consistently goes to bed between 7:30-8:30 pm and doesn't wake up until 4:30-5:30 am (she's even done quite a few nights where she sleeps all they way through until 7 in the morning) to eat and then goes back to sleep for another 4 hours. We definitely cannot complain about her sleeping! We're just hoping that she decides to keep doing this! She's not a great daytime napper (unless she's sleeping on one of us!). Ben's uncle and aunt were here for a visit and she pretty much stayed awake the whole day -- it was unbelievable since she wasn't really fussy or cranky.

Riley is doing well and loves his little sister. I bring Maddie with me when I go to pick Riley up from school and all the kids love to come over to us to see the baby. Riley is really protective of her and is always telling them not to touch his little sister. Too cute! Riley is really into Transformers (the original one) and Star Wars right now and Ben is in heaven!

As I mentioned, Ben's Aunt Irene and Uncle Ken came for a visit. We had a great time and Riley had a blast. Aunt Irene now knows what a Transformer is and probably now knows more than she ever wanted to about Autobots, Decepticons, and Dinobots. Riley loved playing Transformers with the both of them. During breakfast one morning, Riley said the cutest thing. Ben, Riley, Uncle Ken, and I were sitting around the table when Riley turned to Uncle Ken and said, "where's your girl?" It was so funny!

Here are some pics:

Riley's a great helper with Maddie!
The very first day there was nice weather after the freeze we headed outdoors for a picnic in downton Houston.

Love this picture. Only Riley would decide that he needed to wear his protective glasses while drawing!

Some cute pics of the two of them

Pretending to be a dinobot

Dressed up for Go Texan Day. I need to find him some cowboy boots!

One thing I love about not working is I have time to do fun things like make these cute valentine goodie bags for Riley's school party

Having a deep conversation with Aunt Irene over breakfast

Uncle Ken and Riley playing Dinobots

One Month

Madelyn turned one month old last week and I thought it would be a good time to post some more pictures.

It amazes Ben and I how much Madelyn looks like Riley when he was a baby. Here's a picture of Madelyn (in pink) and Riley (in blue) in similar positions.

When we took Madelyn in for her 2 week checkup she was up to 7 pounds 4 ounces -- a 7 ounce weight gain from her birthweight! She's a great eater and a good daytime sleeper. She's not horrible at night but she still insists on waking up every 2 hours for food. I think it's such a shock to Ben and I since we didn't go through this with Riley. By the time Riley came home from the hospital he was sleeping 4-5 hours between feedings at night so it wasn't that bad. She's a very happy baby and only ever cries when she's hungry.

So far she doesn't like her swing that much

Her hair is pretty much non-existent except for a tuff of hair at the back of her head. Reminds me of a duck's tailfeathers!!

Sleeps just like her big brother did

I never got a chance with Riley to do newborn photos for him so I wanted to make sure that I did them for Madelyn this time around. Unfortunately since it was the holidays our regular photographer was away on vacation but she referred us to one of her colleagues and we totally lucked out. As Ben said she was like a baby whisperer. It was amazing! Here's a link to her website with a couple of pictures from Madelyn's shoot.

Riley playing with Maddie in her playmat.

Next to her he looks like a giant!

Riley is adjusting to being a big brother. He loves his sister and tells her all the time and loves to give her hugs and kisses. What he doesn't like is not being the center of attention or having us busy with Madelyn when he wants someone to play with. We had some issues initially but things are getting back to normal.

Riley's idea of "fielding" during t-ball

Everyone's favorite time at t-ball -- snacktime!

A cute picture of daddy and Riley

A Valentine's Day craft project I just finished. Now that I'm at home for the next couple of months I can finally do some baking and other things that I hadn't had the time to work on. This craft project involved cutting hundreds of felt circles and if I hadn't been home there was no way I would have been able to do it. I think it turned out great and it looks fantastic on the wall for Valentine's Day.

An Early Christmas Present

All during the pregnancy my goal was to have the pregnancy go until after the holidays and have our baby girl some time in the new year. Everything was going to plan and in my head I still had plenty of time to get everything done for Christmas and work before the birth. Imagine my surprise when I showed up for my weekly doctor's appointment on December 9th and she told me that she wanted to schedule the birth for the week of December 20th. I never even considered that because of all the meds I was on for the pregnancy that we would have to plan the birth instead of just waiting for my water to break. So what should have been 4 weeks away was now less than 2 weeks away! To say I was a little shocked was an understatement. I couldn't figure out how I was going to get everything done for Christmas and things settled at work before that date. Thankfully my parents and sister were arriving in Houston on the 11th so we had some extra help around the house and I was able to stay late at work to get things done. We scheduled my inducement for December 21st and I worked until the day before to get things done. All the presents for Christmas were wrapped, shipped, and under the tree. Things at work were as settled as they could be. So the morning of December 21st we were as ready as we were going to be.

That morning we woke up, got Riley settled with breakfast and the grandparents and were at the hospital by 7:30 am. Got settled in the room and met our nurses (who were fantastic!!). It took 5 attempts and finally an anesthesiologist to get an IV in me. Finally, by 10:30 we were ready to start the pitocin. Since my OB had a clinic in a nearby city that morning she had me get a very low dose of pitocin - 1x1 which is very slow since most people who get induced get either 3x3 or 4x4. We were prepared for a very slow and long day. I was already having contractions that morning and according to the nurses they were pretty big contractions but I was so used to these that I really didn't feel any pain. By 1:00 pm my contractions were coming quite regularly but I was still pretty pain free and even fell asleep for a little while. At around 2 pm I was still only 4 cm dilated so the nurses thought I still had plenty of time and that we would deliver some time that evening. Little did they know that that was not how my body works! At 2:50 pm I knew things were changing. I had to use the restroom and when I came out I warned them that the baby was going to be here soon. My pain levels hadn't really increased even though I was having more contractions so the nurses didn't really think that I was fully dilated yet. Thankfully they had everything ready in the room. They checked me again and I was fully dilated. They paged my OB and she said she was on her way but they paged the in house doctor just in case. It's a good thing they did because in less than 15 minutes Madelyn Quinn was here. Apparently I didn't seem to be in enough pain because the doc thought I had had an epidural because I wasn't screaming during the contractions and pushing!! I know I have a really high tolerance for pain but I thought that was hilarous after Ben told me that later. My regular OB didn't quite make it in time for the delivery which is sad since this is the second time that I haven't been able to have my regular doc deliver me (especially since they both did all the work to get me to that point).

Madelyn's stats:
Born at 3:12 pm
Weight: 6 pounds 13 ounces
Length: 19 1/4 inches

Everything went smoothly until that point but once I delivered my blood pressure spiked (even though it has been normal during my whole pregnancy) and I was told I had to be put on magnesium sulfate (I had this with Riley too). If you have had this you know how lovely it feels going down your IV and through your system and how it totally makes you light headed and woozy. I was thrilled to have to be put on this again. What totally sucked about it though was that since the first four IV attempts failed in the normal places the anesthesiologist had to put the IV in the crease of my arm so I couldn't move my right arm anywhere without disturbing the IV and causing a whole lot of beeping and shutting off my IV. That made it really difficult to hold Madelyn and try to breast feed and made for a really uncomfortable night. Other than that my hospital stay was pretty uneventful and we left the hospital on the 23rd. Madelyn did have some jaundice though so we had to take her back to the hospital for blood draws on the 24th, 25th, and 26th which was not too fun. Luckily her levels stabilized and we didn't have to go back to the hospital for any phototherapy.

We had a great Christmas. Riley and Maddie were spoiled as usual. Click on the picture below for some pictures of Madelyn and our Christmas.

Happy New Year everyone!