Brighton's newborn pictures

I'm so excited about these pictures! It was so much fun! Thank you Mitzi so much for all the time and effort spent in taking these great pictures. We truly appreciate it. Here are some of our favorites.

By the way, we hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!!!

He's Here!

This is one of my favorite views of newborns with their curled little backs and their cute hair.

After 3 and 1/2 long hours of Labor and 4 whole minutes of pushing we finally have our little Brighton Finn. He weighed in at 8 pounds and 12 ounces and measures 21 inches long. And we finally have a dark haired baby. I think that he looks a lot like Lance's baby pictures. And I'm pretty sure his eyes will be brown. He's a little sweetie! Ivie and Zander are so excited to have him home and meet him for the first time. Zander just kept pointing at him and jumping around and saying "Baby, a baby!" Ivie likes to stroke his head or feet and says "Hi, baby Brighton"

I'm excited!

I have a few things to be excited about. Today's my birthday. Always a day to look forward to with fun things planned. I really just planned on celebrating in the hospital but I'm still here and no contractions yet so I might as well have some fun. I'm also excited for little baby Brighton that will be here soon. I am scheduled to go in Sunday morning if I don't go sooner. (probably not) Yesterday I had my last appointment and the Doc says he's close to eight pounds and I'm at a 3 for any of you who are interested. So I'm still feeling like I could go at any time just because he's bigger than my other babies and I'm really feeling it. My hips feel like they're broken into pieces and the pressure on them and everything else feels great as you can imagine. I'm also excited for Christmas. I kind of wish that it was in a couple of days just because I want to give all the presents that I've been planning on for so long. But then I remember that I will be having a baby and I'm going to wish that it probably wasn't so close in a few days so that I can feel up to all the Christmas activities.

Well, this post is getting long but here are a couple of pictures from our first Christmas tradition for the season. We had family night and the kids got to open their first presents a pair of pj's and their ornament and then they got to hang it on the tree and we decorated the rest of the tree. Then we read a Christmas story and sang a few Christmas songs.

Next time for sure we'll have some baby pics!!

Waiting on Brighton

I have been trying to get everything ready for the new baby. I've organized drawers, closets, blankets, clothes, etc. I have cleaned the bassinet and put clean sheets inside. I even bought newborn diapers and anything else I could think of so that everything is ready when we get home from the hospital.
It probably sounds like I think I'm going to have the baby any minute and obviously I have a few weeks left, but it feels really good to be ready just in case.

I have pretty much bought and wrapped most of my Christmas gifts as well. I want to make sure I don't have anything I need to get done after Brighton is born, especially Christmas shopping.

This is the quilt that I made for Brighton, it was one of my first real quilts so it's not perfect but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Anyway, I went to the Doc today and he said that little Brighton is measuring at 7 lbs. 4 oz. which is just 2 oz. shy of what Zander weighed when he was born and I still have 3 weeks! He got a pretty good picture of his little face. I took a picture of it so it's bad quality but you can still see his little face. Lance and I were laughing because he looks just like Zander so along with the ultrasound here's a picture of Zander as a newborn and you can see what you think.

So now we're just waiting until Brighton is ready to come. Hopefully the next post is of real pictures of our little guy. Now let's do a fun little poll and see who's right in a few weeks. Tell me what color of hair you think he will have and what you think he will weigh. My guess is blonde hair and 7lbs. 14 oz. Lance's guess is blonde hair and 7 lbs. 1 oz.

October Fun!

Ivie had her 4th birthday on Oct. 27. She wanted a princess cake and got to pick out her barbie. She's even dressed appropriately thanks to Grandma's dress ups. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday breakfast and she said "Pink pancakes and eggsit" which means egg nog. She also got to go out to lunch with Grandma Shaw and shopping with Grandma Froerer. I also took her to Color Me Mine on 25th street and she painted a mug and put her handprints on a plate. I'm interested to see how they turn out but we had fun anyway.

Ivie decided a couple days before her birthday that she would cut her hair. I thought she was playing quietly in her room while I was on the phone and then when she brought out some of my jewelry I knew that she had been into forbidden things. I came into the bathroom and found jewelry, makeup, scissors, and a little stool she had brought in to access them. Then I noticed the huge chunk of hair in the garbage and tried not to scream into the phone. Obviously she had a great time in there. Ivie is in time out in this picture and holding a baggy with her hair inside as I try to explain why she can't cut her hair. I trimmed a couple inches off later but we are just going to try to cover it up for a while cause I'm not ready for her hair to be that short.

This is at Black Island Farms which we found out later is not as cheap as we thought it was :)

The kids sure enjoyed it. We thought for some reason that the entrance into the courtyard was free and didn't think twice when we just walked in. We assumed that you had to pay for the cornmaze and some of the bigger activities but we thought the courtyard was just open to everyone. Well we came to our senses a few days later but we were surprised that we were all able to just walk in without anyone saying anything.

For Halloween I dressed up as a Star-Bellied Sneetch from Dr.Seuss, Lance and Zander were Thing1 and Thing 2 from the Cat in the Hat, and Ivie was Ariel. I think that Zander's costume was very fitting for him. He has been a little stinker lately causing all sorts of chaos around the house. But doesn't he look cute posing on the beanbag!

Zander running in circles

So I have tried to upload this video a few times. I finally gave up trying to put up a shorter clip so this one is pretty long and you really only need to see 20 seconds of it.

Zander does this every day for at least 10 minutes straight. Lance and I always laugh cause he just keeps going and doesn't stop except for a few seconds to catch his breath or to get back up when he falls. He's so determined to keep going even when he's tired and out of breath. Sometimes we'll say "faster Zander" and his eyes will get big and he'll try even harder to go faster. I took this video after he had been running around for a while and then chasing Ivie around the house for a while.

Ivie & Zander Pictures

We had Mitzi take Ivie & Zander's pictures and they turned out awesome as usual. Zander was a little stinker trying to get him to smile or even look at the camera but his pictures turned out a lot better than I expected. Each picture really captured the personality of our little monkeys. Here are a few of our favorites. Thanks so much Mitzi for going all over the place and for the great pictures- we absolutely love them!

Eyelashes and Tea Parties

I finally decided to have my friend Mitzi do my eyelashes. I was a little worried that I might touch my eyes too much and that they would hurt or drive me crazy. I have been surprised how much I like them. Everyday I wake up and I have long black eyelashes. I don't even feel like I need to put anymore makeup on unless I want to. This is great for me since I really don't put makeup on everyday but I don't want to go out in public without it or people think I'm 12 years old. They haven't bothered my eyes either. Maybe because I know I can't rub my eyes or maybe because I don't have to wash mascara off. And I love that I can go swimming and not worry about my makeup either. Anyway, not to promote my friend or anything but I would definitely recommend getting these eyelash extensions. I honestly think they are the Best!

My Cute Aunt Cindy had a Alice in Wonderland Tea Party. She really put a lot of work into it to make it a perfect event for the kids. Everything was so cute. The kids really loved it. Especially getting their own decorated little chocolate cake. Ivie absolutely loves tea parties and dressing up so this was great for her. Zander usually loves running around without clothes on so he didn't really love this part but he certainly loved the cake!

Eyelash Extensions Giveaway!

My friend Mitzi is doing eyelash extensions and they look awesome! My sister got them right before she went to Cancun and loved that she had long black eyelashes the whole week even when she was swimming. Mitzi is offering a giveaway for a full set of eyelashes. Check out her blog for all the details so you can enter too! She also charges a ton less than any of the salons around and does a better job than most of them as well.


http://mitzirae.blogspot.com/2009/07/giveaway.html

Lake Powell, July 4th, Lagoon, and Pregnancy!

We had an awesome trip to Lake Powell with a bunch of awesome people. We spent a lot of time tubing, playing games and eating food. We had perfect weather, and the perfect shady spot. What better vacation is there! We got home, took showers, and got up early for 4th of July celebrations. We had a full day of activities and we were so tired that we ended up watching the fireworks from the back deck of the Froerer's home. Zander fell asleep before the fireworks even started, and Ivie followed only a few minutes after.

I finally finished cleaning up my house on Tuesday, (with a few laundry loads to go) and then we were off to Lagoon on Wednesday. I have been so tired lately and I kept thinking it was pregnancy related but now I realize that anyone would be tired after this kind of a schedule. As for pregnancy, I am now about 18 weeks and we found out that it is a little boy. I'm just starting to feel little kicks which is my favorite part about being pregnant. The vericose veins, I would say, are my least favorite part! But at least they give me an excuse to sit down and let Lance help me.