Talking Brianna

Heather was having a little fun at Brianna's expense, so I had to catch it on video because it was so hysterical.

And Garin apparently thinks my feet are hysterical...

Surf Time, Bath Time and Growing Babies

My babies are getting so big, it's hard to believe!

I took them up to the North Shore a couple of weeks ago because the waves are starting to get big - they were around 10-12 feet that morning. I wanted to watch the surfers catch some waves, and we did get to see a little bit of action! The real action is going on right now during the Triple Crown of Surfing. The waves can be up to 30 or 40 feet. I'll have to send some pictures of that once I get down there for the surf competition. Anyways, here are a few pictures of the beach!


Garin acting like he's never seen sand before...



A couple of surfer dudes (the kind in their 50s - what DO these people do for work that they can come out and surf on a Tuesday morning?!) saw me taking pictures and asked if I was taking pictures of the kids' dad. I said no, their dad is in Afganistan, we're just taking some pictures to send him. A few minutes later one of them came down and offered to take a picture that we could send to him, and then told me to tell him thanks for his service! I thought it was awefully nice!





So here are the obligatory bathtime pictures. She wasn't too happy in this picture, but she's getting a lot better with baths - mostly due to her increased ability to hold up her head.





Lookin' cute in her monkey outfit! I think it's my favorite little outfit! Only 2 weeks away from being 3 months old and she's finally grown out of newborn size clothes and into 0-3 month!!


Poor sad Brianna...

That's better! Don't let the smile fool you, it's really just gas. ;)

Because she's a premie, she's a bit behind on her development. She has just started holding her head up at my shoulder and keeping it up for longer periods of time in the last couple of weekends. It's getting steadier and steadier every day. It's hard to believe at this same age Garin was sitting in his Bumbo seat - she's nowhere near ready for that!

I'm looking forward to her first real smiles. She still only makes fleeting eye contact. I feel grateful if she holds my gaze for a few seconds, but that's about the extent of it. She's becoming more and more aware of everything around her, so I'm encouraged that it'll happen soon. It's hard not to get worried when Garin was smiling and laughing at the same age, but I have to remind myself that it will take her time to catch up. She HAS started to coo in the last few days, so that's definately an encouragement!

Well that's all for now! My early Christmas (and Valentine's day, and anniversary, and birthday as Brant tells me) arrived a week ago and it's a new laptop! So now I can upload pictures and videos downstairs and make my posts more often!!!

Halloween Pictures!

I was originally going to take Garin trick-or-treating, but my sister's church was having a halloween-alternative festival out at a ranch, so I loaded up the kiddos and we went there instead. A great choice - I don't give him candy, so he woudn't have been eating it anyways, and I sure don't need the calories. So we had a great time. Here are the pics.


The cousins - and yes, that's my almost-seven-year-old niece. Terrifying. I have a feeling that having a daughter is going to be scarier and scarier the older she gets...


My cute little dragon!


Riding in a power wheels - I'd think a dragon could fly instead!


Taking a break to nurse Brianna


I LOVE my phil and ted stroller - that's Garin riding in the bottom part.


Brianna in her Halloween outfit that says "mommy's under my spell"




My sister, Heather, obviously enjoying herself...

Good Morning

It's an early morning here in Hawaii, as it has been for the last several days. Garin has been having a string of mornings that start between 5 and 5:30. I've been counting myself lucky if he sleeps until six. Alas, this morning he started waking up at 455, and I went to get him at 5:30. So I figured it was as good a time as any to blog. Except Garin thinks that when mommy is sitting on the exercise ball that doubles as a desk chair is time to sit on her lap and bounce, while pounding on the keyboard. So after a few good bounces I distracted him with an old wallet filled with book club memberships and expired gift cards. Here's a video of why he thinks when mommy sits down it's enthusiastic bouncing time:



Meanwhile Brianna is sleeping peacefully on my bed. She usually wakes up to nurse around 4 or 5 and then sleeps for a couple more hours. I wish her brother would do the same! She's been getting much more alert, observing the world around her, and showing the beginnings of social smiles. Since she was a preemie, she's a little behind on her development, so she's more like a one month old than a two month old. But it's been fun watching her wake up to the world.

Garin gets a big kick out of his little sister. I have to watch to keep him from picking her up when she's laying down in the swing or sitting in front of me.



They're the sweetest babies. I've been lucky to have pretty easy babies so far (despite the early mornings). It makes me nervous to think about having more, wondering when I'll get a difficult one!

Yesterday was a rough day for my sister. Her husband has been home on his mid-tour leave for the last 18 days and left yesterday afternoon to go back to Iraq for five more months. It was really rough on the kids to see him leave again, so I anticipate some moody children the next few days! It was especially hard on Austin, who is twelve now, watching his dad leave again. It makes me so grateful that my husband is in the Air Force and we hopefully won't have to do this again. It's hard on us, but not so much on the kids.

Well it's Halloween, so I'm sure I'll be posting pictures of Garin in his dragon costume tomorrow. I think we're going to my sister's church's fall festival this afternoon for a little while to play games and have some fun. Then I'll bring Garin back for a little taste of trick-or-treating for 30 minutes or so. Should be fun!

I'll leave everyone with a few pictures of our growing family, Brianna's waking up, so I've got to go!

Garin Playing

I'm doing one-handed posting today, so I'll let the video speak for itself. One of the neighbor kids was playing with his remote controlled tank (army base), and Garin thought that was pretty cool.

Eight Weeks Old!

Brianna has grown so much in the last eight weeks! I can't say for sure how big she is (that will have to wait until the 2 month checkup next week), but I'm pretty confident she's between 6 & 7 lbs now, and she's definately longer. In fact, she's finally outgrown most of her preemie clothing and is now wearing mostly newborn sizes! At this rate, she might be wearing her 0-3 month clothing at three months!

Garin, however, is ahead of the game. He was 28lb 8oz and 33 1/2 inches at his 18 month appointment - solidly in the 70th percentile for height and weight. Solid is the word that best describes Garin! He's built like a brick! Wonder where he gets that from... Shoes are the items that are killing us. He's been wearing 18 month clothing since he was 12 months, and shouldn't need to size up for a few months, so that's nice, but man, the kid's feet are growing like crazy! I had to buy him size 6 shoes about 3 months ago and just had to buy him size seven shoes because his little toes were hanging over the end of his sandals!

We've been getting some pretty decent sleep at night. Every couple of nights Brianna seems to have about two hours of wakefulness/fussiness, but mostly we go to bed around 10, and she's up once or twice between then and six, when Garin typically wakes up. And she has at least a couple good long naps during the days, so that's nice. She's definately more aware of the world around her and loves to stare at everyone's faces and looks around. And she's growing into her nose, so that's a plus!! =)

Well, that's all for now, I'll post some pictures!

Welcome Brianna!

Well, it's been a bit crazy last few weeks. I meant to update everyone before now, but as you'll soon see, it's been a BIT of a whirlwind.

At my 36 week appointment last Friday (the 22nd) the midwife noted that I was measuring VERY small for 35 weeks - more like 29/30 weeks. Because of the concern, they wanted to do an in depth ultrasound and monitor Brianna through Non-Stress Tests (NSTs). On the next Tuesday, they did the scan and found that she was indeed very small - about 4 1/2lbs and only in the 10th percentile. They were further concerned that her abdominal circumference was even further behind, only the 2nd percentile. They wanted to continue monitoring her, and if she didn't improve by the 10th, they were going to induce.

On Friday (the 29th) I woke up around 3:30am with contractions. They were fairly intense, but nothing to be concerned about, and after going to the bathroom at 4:30 they tapered off and were gone by the time I left for my NST appointment at 9:30. My NST showed that everything was going fine, and my amniotic fluid levels were good, so I came home.

That night I woke up around midnight again to some pretty good contractions, but they were very irregular, and again, nothing that caused me any concern. Besides I'd been kind of sick to my stomach from lunch the day before. For whatever reason, eating at Ruby Tuesdays always messes with my intestines (sorry for the details, but if you don't want to read gory details, then you'd better stop reading and just go look at the pictures!!). The contractions were pretty short, around 15-30 seconds, really intense (had to breath through them), but VERY irregular - mostly 15 minutes apart, but sometimes 5, 10, or even 20. They continued through the morning and I was just not feeling well. In fact, I began to get worried that something was REALLY wrong, and that Brianna might be in trouble. I didn't, however, think I was in labor. We called Labor & Delivery and they said to come on in and they'd check me out.

We left for the hospital around 10am, bags packed in case they needed for Brianna to be born that day. I still didn't think I was in labor, although the contractions were getting closer together, they weren't getting harder to deal with. I was dreading having to deal with contractions like this for an indefinate amount of time.

We got to the hospital and I got out of the van, and it hit me - really hard contractions. I realize, okay, I think I'm in labor now. I was having to stop a lot on the way in. We got inside, and I REALLY had to go to the bathroom. With my sister attempting to stop me, I went into the bathroom. After starting to go, I realized that I didn't need to go to the bathroom, that was the baby ready to be born!!! My sister dived under the door after hearing me scream when I tried to "go", I stopped pushing (NOT easy to do when you're immenent to give birth), and we started down the hallway, Heather running ahead looking for someone to get a wheelchair.

A man came out from the hospital and came to hold me up. He wanted me to wait while someone was getting a wheelchair, but I screamed that we needed to keep going. We got to the elevators, went up to the L&D floor and started down the hallway, the good samaritan practically carrying me while I screamed from the effort NOT to push my baby out. Someone came running down from L&D and got me in the wheelchair. They pushed me down to an exam room, I climbed up on the table and they shouted that the head was right there. They got me BACK into the wheelchair, pushed me down to a delivery room, I climbed up on a table on my hands & knees while the pulled my pants off, I screamed out something to the effect of "OH MY GOSH!" because with that push I watched my baby's head come out of me - she was still in her bag of waters because they never broke! With that, my daughter was born in her bag of waters, they passed her up to me and I finally rolled over and held my daughter. My shoes were still on, and we had barely arrived at the hospital 10 minutes before.

Brianna was born a month early, but thanks to everyone's prayers, she was perfectly healthy. Tiny, but healthy. She was 4lbs 12oz and 17.5 inches. We're now safely at home, and she's nursing like a champion! Enjoy the pictures!!

Sweet Kisses

It's so amazing how much of a "little boy" Garin has become. He understands so much of what is said and wants to know about everything. Everywhere we go he points and chatters. He has his own little language, and I just can't wait until he's able to enlighten us about his world!

At meals, he's learned to sign "more" while saying "moh!", he also signs "drink" and "all done". This definately helps us figure out what he wants! Although sometimes "moh" doesn't mean he wants more of what's on his plate!

What I love is when we're ready to go outside to play, I tell him to go get his shoes, and he runs and gets them! He'll grab them and run straight to the chair where I put them on. And sometimes, I don't need to tell him. I'll just say, "time to go outside!" and off he goes for his shoes! Or if HE decides it's time to go outside, he'll run and get them.

My favorite, though, is that he knows what kisses and hugs are, and he loves to give them to his momma! Sometimes it's a good smack, but he still gets that mouth wide open from time to time, as you can see from the picture!!

Just a few tidbits from everyday life!

God bless!

Missing Daddy

Everytime I look at this picture, it just makes me want to cry. This is our first "family" deployment - B was deployed twice before Garin was born, but it adds a whole new element once you throw children in the mix. It's easy for adults to understand and deal with being separated, but children don't understand why mommy and daddy are gone. Living with my sister and her children, ages 6-12, I realize that even being 12 and able to "understand" doesn't make it any easier. My brother-in-law has been gone for 7 months - and it'll be 3 until he's even back for a visit, 8 until he's home for good. As much as "for good" means in the army.

It's a little bit easier for B and I than my sister. B is gone for 12 months, not 15, and Garin really is too young to "miss" his daddy. I think it's probably hardest for B. He's so concerned that Garin will forget who he is while he's gone. It's so hard for him to hear me tell stories about what Garin is doing. On one hand, he loves to hear about his son and how much he's doing. But on the other hand, it's killing him that he's missing these precious moments. What keeps him strong, is knowing and really believing that he is doing what God has called him to do, and that what he's doing is making a difference.

I know that Garin won't forget his daddy. When I put the phone up to his ear and he hears his daddy's voice, a HUGE grin covers his face. Hopefully he'll soon figure out that he should talk BACK to his dad, not just listen. He'll pick up the cell phone when no ones on it and chatter like no one's business, but put dad on the other end and not a peep! Fortunately with my computer back up and running, we should be able to do some video chat so he can see his daddy, and B can see him.

It's going to be rough knowing that Brianna will be four months old before B gets to see her on his mid-tour. I think that's going to be really difficult. She'll be almost 9 months old when he gets home. On the bright side, that's the age where they really start to show more interest in their fathers anyways. I remember how disappointed B would be when Garin was a few months old and only wanted his mommy. Hopefully Brianna will welcome her daddy home with open arms.

I just stay strong, praying for my husband. I know it's rough for him there. I don't think we realized just how hard it would be for him to be away from his family so long. On the bright side, this should be the only time in his career we'll be separated for a year - shorter deployments yes, but probably not a year. I feel so bad for families like my sister's who serve in the army, where they're gone for 12-15 months, home for 12, almost half of which is spent at training, before they're gone for another 12 months. It's no wonder that the divorce rates in those units is as high as 80%.

Please keep our military families in your prayers. And thanks for listening.

God bless.

Back in Action!

Wow, finally! I've been offline so long because I had some major internet issues in my room. Turns out my wireless adapter was wonky, so I finally went out today and bought a new one, so I'm back in action!!

Not that I've just been sitting around! Wow, it's been a busy summer. Living in such a houseful is definately not dull! My sister's been going crazy getting all the homeschooling stuff ready for the year. The final shipment arrived today, she's got it all organized out in the homeschooling room (AKA, the garage) and on the kids' desks and they "officially" start school on Monday, though she's been having them do assessments to see where they'll start. It's really quite neat, it's actually a public charter school using K-12 curriculum, but they do it at home. So it's kind of a mix of benefits, they all have a teacher assigned that they meet with once a week to go over problem areas, the rest of the time they work at home with their mom and online. The curriculum seems really neat. Almost makes me wish I had kids in school! But I'm not quite ready to rush there yet!

Well, I'm 32 weeks pregnant as of today. I can't believe I'm in the last 8 weeks...well, 6-10 weeks most likely! It doesn't seem like I should be almost ready to give birth again! But then, I think of how much has happened in seven months, and it seems like longer! Plus, I really don't feel as big as I did with Garin. I don't know, what do you think? The top picture is me at 30/31 weeks this time around, and the bottom is me at 30 weeks with Garin. I feel like I'm not as big right now, but maybe I am!!

I can't believe how big Garin's getting. He's definately past the baby stage and is fully a little boy now! He's starting to expand his vocabulary a little more ("no", "dog", "ball", "bird", and "more" making up the bulk of what he has to say), he talks like CRAZY...too bad we don't understand him! He loves pointing out things and jabbering on and on about them. He runs around, trying to keep up with the big kids in the house. It really has been nice to have his cousins around, they are really good with him and he just loves playing with them!

Well, I'm going to catch up on some e-mail and start downloading some pictures now that I'm back online. Here are some of my favorite Garin pictures from the last few weeks!

Playing in the waves out at Bellows Beach Park

Family pictures on Independence Day - my mom, nephew & his girlfriend came out to visit for 2 weeks...Aren't the boys cute with the matching shirts???

Hey, I'm a big boy!!

Family picture up on Kole Kole pass

That's all for now, I should be keeping updated with more posts!! God bless!

Went a LITTLE Crazy

Okay, so girls are SOOO dangerous to shop for. We've got a gymboree outlet here and I went NUTS. I could have bought the whole store! Oh my gosh, I had to remember she'll only be wearing the outfits for a couple months. I'm REALLY in trouble when she gets to Garin's age and is wearing outfits for much longer!

I bought five 0-3 month outfits and five 3-6 month outfits. Tell me I'm not TOO crazy. ;)

So here are all the cute little outfits I bought yesterday!

And I've replaced my desk chair with a balance ball. I figure it'll help me work on my posture and get that little girl in the right position. Hey, anything to make labor easier, right? September 24th is looking closer and closer!