Snow and Sledding

We woke up on Christmas Eve day to a lot of snow. We were lazy all day but then after Brooke's afternoon nap we decided we needed to try some sledding. Ryan went out and was shoveling the sidewalk and I was getting Brooke bundled up to play. She woke up from her nap a mess and was crying about everything. It took me forever to get her gloves on because she kept crying and I was losing my temper. I wanted to scrap the whole idea because I figured she'd fall down in the snow and cry and want to come back in. We didn't have a sled so we called Poppy and he said he'd bring his over. Again, I figured Brooke would be over the snow by the time Poppy made it over, but I was definitely wrong. She got outside and loved it. Playing in the snow:

Playing in the snow from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Poppy pulling Brooke on the sled:

Pulled on the sled from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

I decided that I didn't want to miss out on the sledding action so I bundled Brenna in the stroller and we all went. Here is Brenna all bundled:



So we get down to the hill at the end of our street and I'm at the bottom with Brenna and Ryan and Poppy are at the top with Brooke. They asked if I was ready to film and I said yes and they said they were ready to go except Brooke was the only one sitting on the sled. I said, "you aren't sending her down by herself are you?" and they said "yes". I said, "what, she's 2 years old!" They assured me she'd be fine. So her first trip down was pretty slow and she loved it. After that she acted like a pro. I was so impressed with her. We had a blast.

Brooke Sledding from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Here she is riding with Poppy, but it wasn't fast enough for her liking:

Sledding with Poppy from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Brenna Laughing

Brenna is really starting to find her voice. She has laughed a couple of times and it's awfully precious.

Brenna laughing from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Christmas at Big Cedar

The weekend before Christmas we met Ryan's family at Big Cedar to celebrate Christmas. Ryan's mom actually took Brooke down a few days early. Brooke had a lot of fun. She did tons of activities. She decorated cookies (or in other words, ate a bunch of candy toppings), decorated a stocking, rode a horse and took an evening wagon ride to look at Christmas lights. We all had a really good time.

Decorating a stocking:



Riding a horse:

Beginning of horse ride from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

End of horse ride from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Brooke opening her doll named Brianna:



Brooke on the evening wagon ride:

OOPS, I don't have pictures yet because I am waiting on Aunt Rachel to send them to me!!!!!

Brooke's Visit to Santa

Brooke's daycare went to visit Santa at the mall. Brooke acted excited and in the car on the way she said she loved Santa and she wasn't scared and wasn't going to cry. Of course her prediction turned out to be false. Once her first fellow classmate started to cry it was all downhill for every child after. Brooke didn't even get close to him.

All is well before walking into the Santa section:




Daddy is coaching Brooke on what to do and say:

Before Santa from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Sitting in the Santa enclosure and things are starting to get shaky.



All is NOT well. Got too close to Santa.



All is well again after leaving Santa.

Carousel from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Brooke cracks me up. When Ryan was coaching her, he said she is supposed to ask Santa for what she wants. So we asked her what she wants and she was being silly and said "a shotgun". Ryan and I both started laughing. I said, "Brooke, who really wants a shotgun" and she smiled and said "daddy"! She sure has her daddy figured out!

Sweet Sisters

I hope and pray that Brooke and Brenna will have the special relationship that I have with my sisters!

Brenna - 2 months old

She is growing so fast. It seems like she is hardly a baby to me anymore. Life is definitely hectic and crazy have two girls now. Brenna came be as sweet as can be, but can go from quiet and happy to full screaming mad in a span of two seconds. When she is hungry she wants to be fed 10 seconds ago! I don't remember Brooke ever having lungs like Brenna does.

At her 2 month doctors visit Brenna weighed 11 pounds 4 ounces (63rd percentile) and was 23 inches long (82nd percentile).



Brenna sitting in a big girl chair:

Brooke is ready for winter

Brooke just daily amazes us. She speaks like she is at least 3 years old. She is able to identify so much machinery, thanks to her daddy. She knows backhoes, trackhoes, compacter, paver, hi-lift, skid-steer and motorgrader! We were driving the other day and she said, "look mom, there is a skid-steer on the playground" and I turned and looked and sure enough! And at her daycare they have words for the week and at dinner daddy had eaten all of his spaghetti and Brooke said, "look mom, daddy had a big appetite (which was the word of the week a few weeks earlier)!" Too cute!

Happy Thanksgiving

All the family was together at Thanksgiving and it was fun seeing all the cousins playing together!

Starting to Smile

At the park

We took advantage of one of the last warmer days of fall.

At the park from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Brooke's Aunt Elise will have a heart attack when she sees this video since a vehicle shouldn't move inches without a baby in the car seat. Don't worry, we were in a wide open parking lot with not another vehicle in sight! :)

Driving 101 from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Mommy's Girls

My girls are such a blessing!

Brenna - A month old

They don't really do a whole lot at just over a month old . . . but they sure are cute! At her one month doctor's visit, Brenna weighed 9 pounds and 14 ounces (75th percentile) and was 21.75 inches long (81 percentile).

Brenna from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Leaf Pile

We don't have enough trees in our yard to get a leaf pile together I really wanted Brooke to be able to play in one so we had to use the leaf pile at Poppy's house. Poppy was eager for Brooke to play in one, too (and he even rake up a few bags of his neighbors leaves to get a good leaf pile)!

Poppy was a little rougher than I would've been . . . that's for sure!

Leaf pile from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Cute Cousins

Brooke went and visited her cousins and they kept singing songs together at the table . . . precious!

The Cousins from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Brooke's pillow

I normally carry Brenna into Brooke's room in the morning. Brooke now wants me to put Brenna on her pillow and read them books. It's awfully precious. Brooke is doing amazingly well with Brenna. We were worried she would be very jealous but she has handled it beautifully . . . so far. She loves to kiss on Brenna and always wants to know where Brenna is and if Brenna is crying she likes to get Brenna's pacifier and give it to her.

So I snapped a couple of pics of my girls lying on Brooke's pillow together.

On Brooke's pillow from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Brenna for the last month

1 day old:



Home from the hospital:




3 days old:

Brenna from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

4 days old:





6 days old:



A week old:




8 days old:




13 days old:




21 days old:



A month old:

Brenna from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Trick or Treat

At daycare Brooke learned about trick or treating so I figured we'd need to give it a shot this year. Brooke was super cute. She had to ring the doorbell (in fact at one house the lady opened the door without her getting to ring the doorbell and Brooke got upset so the lady was nice enough to close the door and let Brooke ring the bell), then she would say "trick or treat". It was really cute. We hit up about 10 houses on our street. Papa and Nana (G) came over and went with us. Papa was her "wheels" and carried her between most of the houses. Brenna even went along for the ride, but she was knocked out against my chest in a baby carrier.

Here is Brooke in her giraffe costume (she couldn't see out very well):


Here is Brooke practicing to go:

Trick or Treat Practice from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Here is Papa carrying her around:


Here is Brooke doing her thing:

Trick or Treat from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Halloween Girls

This is my girls in Halloween shirts. Brooke learned a Halloween song at daycare. One night she just started shouting it and it was so cute. It goes "After you. . . witches, bats and big black cats. Oooooh . . . BOO!" I'm not a fan of Halloween myself but Brooke seemed to like it even though she thinks most of it is scary!

Halloween girls from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Brooke meeting Brenna

Ryan's mom brought Brooke to the hospital several hours after Brenna was born. It was really cute when they met for the first time. Ryan was sitting on a couch holding Brenna and I was sitting on the hospital bed. Brooke came in and ran over to me and I grabbed her up and hugged her and she looked at her daddy and pointed at Brenna and said "what's that?" We laughed and told her it was her new baby sister (which she pronounced as "Brenda" for the first few days).

So Brooke went over to her daddy and this was the video footage of these two precious sisters.

Brooke meeting Brenna from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Brenna's First Bath

Daddy did a good job giving Brenna her first bath!

Brenna's First Bath from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Happy Brenna

She pretty much fussed and cried for the first hour and a half straight after she was born!

Brenna Crying from Jaira Grathwohl on Vimeo.

Brenna Christy Grathwohl

Our newest family addition is finally here. She sure took her time in arriving. I met with my doctor the day before my due date and she ran some tests and said she was comfortable letting me go 7 to 10 days past my due date unless I wanted to go ahead and be induced. I was intially thinking I'd like to do it without drugs so I wanted my body to go into labor on it's own this time to see how it would be so I told my doctor I wanted to have more time. So she tentatively scheduled an induction for a week past my due date (Wednesday, October 6th) and said we could push it back a few days if I wanted when the time came.

As the days wore on, each night I say to Ryan, "I think tomorrow might be the day", Ryan would scoff and say, "we're having the baby next Wednesday at the induction." Well Tuesday rolled around and I realized Ryan was right. His mom came up Tuesday night to stay with us to help take care of Brooke while we were at the hospital. Starting around 6 o'clock on Tuesday evening I started having a few contractions every hour. I had talked to my oldest sister earlier in the week about trying to do it without drugs and she gave me the sage advice of . . . "don't be a hero!" I had thought about it all week and I decided that she was right. There was no point in me trying to be a hero and do it without drugs when it is so much easier with it. So I was having about 3 or 4 contractions an hour and at about 9:30 PM on Tuesday night, Ryan suggested we all go to bed since we had our induction scheduled for 10 AM the next day. I thought that maybe once I was lying down the contractions would stop, but that didn't happen. I continued to have about 3 or 4 an hour. Ryan was knocked out next to me and I was never able to fall asleep because I would just be relaxing and falling asleep and I'd have another contraction. At about 1 AM the contractions were getting quite painful so I got out of bed and laid on the couch for a while. I was having to stand up and lean forward during every contraction since the contractions were now centering in my lower back (like last time . . . groan . . . I was hoping for no back labor this time)!

At some point I decided I needed to start writing down the times of my contractions since you are supposed to go to the hospital once the contractions are 5 minutes apart for an hour. I figured I'd wake Ryan up after 40 minutes of 5 minutes apart and we'd count the travel time to the hospital in the hour. So I had a list of times and I had contractions 5 minutes apart for about 30 minutes and then the last 6 contractions had all been 3 minutes apart. I realized I needed to get Ryan up now! So at 3:30 AM I told Ryan it was "go time!" So he got out of bed and we told his mom we were leaving and we headed out the door.
I don't think Ryan obeyed a single traffic law on the way to the hospital and I got a kick out of that since I was pretty much in serious pain at this point. Ryan parked at the main entrance to the hospital and we walked up to the door and realized it was locked. So like a couple of morons we got back in the car and drove to the emergency room entrance. We were walking in and I stopped short of the counter and was leaning against the wall with a contraction and Ryan hustled up to the counter and said "contractions 3 minutes apart". I hadn't realized that Ryan was so tense until he said that and it made me laugh. The lady calmly looked at him and said, "your name please!"

Then this man slowly walks out and says "let me find a wheelchair". I said I wanted to walk and he said they couldn't let me do that. So he's taking his dear sweet time locating a wheelchair and finally finds one and gets me in it and then slowly sashays through the hallways. I'm just wanting drugs and this guy is taking a lifetime. I could tell Ryan was ready to grab the wheelchair and hustle me through the hallways. So we finally got checked in and got in a room and I said "I want to make it clear that I want an epidural as fast as possible!" The nurse grimaced and I said what does that mean? She said it takes a while. That they have to put in the iv and take blood and then it would be 30 minutes. Well I could last 30 more minutes but didn't want to have to wait much longer. So the nurse sticks my right arm with the iv and it doesn't take. So then she comes around to my left and sticks me and doesn't get it. Then she calls a nurse from a different floor to come up and do my iv. Again, Ryan and I are getting aggravated! Finally this other nurse comes in and gets the iv. I guess I should know that 30 minutes in hospital time isn't really 30 minutes. I don't know what the deal was but it took almost 2 and a half hours before they came to give me an epidural. Then they had to stick me twice for the epidural. It just wasn't my day I guess!

Shortly after the epidural my doctor came in since she was scheduled to work that morning which is why I was getting induced that day! So she came in and wanted to break my water to get things going! It was nice to have my own doctor there! So things went pretty quickly after that. They didn't have to give me any potocin so it made me feel good that the contractions were all me . . . even though I couldn't feel them much anymore after the epidural! :) Pushing was much faster this time. I bet I only pushed 8 to 10 times. At the end the nurse said don't push, don't do a thing and she was holding a smock out and shouting at my doctor in the hallway to come in. The nurse put the smock on my doctor and I pushed one time and she was out! I guess Brenna pooped on her way out so when they flopped her up on my tummy she had poop on her feet and the blanket. Ryan said he looked down at the doctor and she had a lot all over her! Yuck! Luckily she didn't swallow anything so her injesting the merconium wasn't an issue (which I read was very common for overdue babies). Unlike Brooke who laid on my stomach and quietly looked at Ryan and I the first time, Brenna was wailing and proceeded to keep at it for about the first hour and a half. We were sure on the name at first but decided on Brenna Christy. She was 7 pounds 13 ounces and 22 inches long and was born at 10:30 AM on Wednesday, October 6th!

Enjoying labor after the epidural!


Daddy being silly waiting for his baby girl's arrival!




I don't know why her skin color looks so weird here!