It's a GIRL!!! Sierra Lynn DeJong

It was Thursday morning about 0330 and I awoke to Brenda on the phone...interesting, I wonder what is up.   She was on the phone with the doctor and the hospital and I knew that this time it was for real.  She was having contractions that were very strong and they did not let her move around freely.  This was serious.  On the way to the hospital she was not feeling great and I knew that when I parked, we had to get into the building withing about 60 seconds since that is about how far the contractions were apart.

Once we got in, they took some blood to run some tests and get ready for the epidural, but there was not time for that.  It is a good thing that thee doctors did not tell her the epidural was not going to happen since that would have sent her over the edge.  At one point the doctor had to tell Brenda she could not kick him anymore and that the screaming was not helping and she needed to push.  That is all the motivation she needed and about 5 minutes of pushing later, the baby was here and I was able announce the "IT'S A GIRL!!!"

Here she is about 1 minute after and so...so purple.  She was 9lbs and 15oz's with lots and lot of rolls.  She was so very very precious and really did not cry alot.  We are hoping the lack of crying is a sign of things to come.

Double chin anyone!

Please note my "birth shirt".  I have worn this for every one of my kids birthdays and have received quite a few comments on it from the nurses over the last few years.

Here is a close up of the insignia on the shirt.  The nurse this time started laughing and then said it took her a while to figure it out but thought it was very funny.  I only wish I could get a bigger logo on the shirt so you could not miss it as I walked around the labor and delivery floor.

Sierra had some low blood sugar (as did Matthew) so off to the NICU it was.

If you have to be in the NICU, Spokane is the place to be.  They have a great staff that is pretty easy going and they have a good sense of humor.  Sierra shared a room with a 1lb 14oz baby.  She was bigger than four other babies in her area put together!

Soooooo Cute.

Constantly sleeping as always.

Finally she it awake.

Happy mama.

While heading out to run some errands on of the days I noticed I was ticketed in the hospital parking lot. The NICU nurse carries around a roll of "validation stickers" that she told me to put on the sticker on the ticket and you should be good to go.  A whole $3 ticket...I mean seriously.

Even with the ticket, you are not going to damper my spirits.

Time to finally go home.

This was the first time the boys got to see their sister close up.  They could not go into the NICU so this was the first time they got to inspect her.

James loves to hold her and does so at least a hour a day or so.   

Happy brothers

Jim and Sandra came up and took care of the boys when we were at the hospital and were able to spend some time with Sierra

I think this reminds me of Matthew so much.  He used to sit like this for hours.

Here is a very happy grandma.

False Alarm and Matthew is 3!

The other day I got this little hand made card from my son(James).  He is getting pretty good at his letters for a kid who is not even 5.  It is scary how much he knows.  I think that some day he will teach me a thing or two about life and maybe he will figure out the secret of what women want.  I don't expect it, but one can always hope that some day a man will find the secret.

It appears that he has my sense of vocabulary.

A couple of weeks ago we had a chance to go to the museum and see some real culture.  Lego creations were on display and the boys had a great time seeing some life size  or even bigger than life creations.  Lego's are the toys that are timeless and they received a lot of them for Christmas so they thought going to see some "cool creations" was a pretty fun afternoon.

Of course after we got home James wanted to make some creations of his own.  He make this "jet ski rocket".  He entered it into the Lego Creations magazine, but they have not emailed back yet so this may be the only time the world will get to see this creation.

The boys got invited to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese's and had a blast.  They spent all afternoon playing games and running around earning tickets only to earn a cesta type toy that likely was worth about $0.50.  They had a ton of fun and did not act too much like psychos so it was fun for us as well.

Matthew wanted to "play" this game which was not as fun as you may have thought, but he liked it all the same.

Last Friday we headed to the hospital in the morning since Brenda was having contractions that were about 5 minutes apart.  I sprung into action and the game was on.

Here is Brenda breezing though a contraction.

Proof that they were contractions, but after about 4 hours at the hospital, we were saddened to find that it was really just false contractions and were discharged.  They wait continues.

Last Sunday it was Matthews birthday and when the boys came up in the morning and say the sign and the tablecloth on the table, it was fun to listen to them talk back and forth about it being Matthews birthday.  Matthew is still so young that anything you do on his birthday is good enough and he really enjoys it.

Curious George pancakes were the order of the morning and I thought they turned out pretty good for not having done anything like this before.

Here he is giving a thumbs up.

The weather was so nice it was time to get the bike out for a ride around the yard.  Matthew is getting pretty good and I think that he will be riding by himself by the end of 2016, but I wont pressure him of course.

James was back to his old antics and Matthew and I decided we should chase him on the mower.  We chased him and he was going at a pretty good clip over the plywood covering the horseshoe pit and the bike slid right out from under him.  He did pretty good and did not cry, but he decided he should "take a break" at that point in time.

Matthew had fun putting the frosting on his birthday cupcakes.

Sunday night we went over to a friends house for some games, but Matthew kind of thought it was a party all for him.  We will continue to let him think that as it was super cute and made life a lot easier for us.

Brenda continues to grow bigger and bigger.

They boys do not know what the future is going to hold for them or mom, but we all know who holds the future.  They don't seem to care if it is going to be a girl or a boy and just want to be able to hold the baby.