Announcing for the first time....Matthew John DeJong

Been out of town for on and off for a while, but got home from a job this Wednesday night.  Got home about 6pm and thought about going to our small groups dinner at a friends house, but was a bit tired, so crashed at home and had dinner with the family.  After dinner is was time for a bath.  James loves baths and running around nicked....just like his old man.

 

James with his towel

 

 Seriously cannot get any better than this.

 

I got a little tired so I hit the hay around 11pm, but Brenda could not sleep like normal so stayed up till 12.  Right about then, she started to have a few contractions at 5-7 minute intervals, but just let me sleep.  About 3:30am she finally woke me up saying that she was going to call the doctor since the contractions had not stopped, slowed, or decreased.  Doctors orders were to come in.  Fortunately we have friends that are usually up very early and gave them a call.  We dropped James off at 4:30 and were at the hospital about 5:15am.  After getting quickly checked in, they found out Brenda was progressing nicely and we were definitely going to be having a baby.  Brenda hoped to give VBAC a try and thankfully the  doctor on call was on our side.

 

After about a hour and fifteen minutes of pushing bam...done.  There it was, a new boy.  Brenda was a champ and amazed everyone in the room with her pain tolerance and stamina.  Matthew John DeJong was born Thursday at 11:56am weighing in at 9lbs 4oz and 21" long.  And this kid was two weeks early, good thing he did not go full term.  Can you say thank heavens for modern medicine!

Lot of tears from both Mom and myself were had.  There was a med student in the room to help with the delivery (her second delivery and the first one was quite traumatic from what we hear), and even she was tearing up. 

Matthew was not keen on the bright lights, but warmed up quite well.

 

Slight tinge of red hair.  Brenda thought it would be black, but the DeJong bloodline wins out again.

 

So the first year med student was kind of shy, but really got into the whole birth.  She helped pull him out and a couple of times during the pushing she got really excited and yelled out "its coming".

Doctor Reuter on the right was awesome.  After the birth he had some final work to complete and the intern got to help out.  It apparently was a bit too much for her and there was too much blood, because as we (her and I) were watching the doctor she suddenly said" I think I need to sit down".  When I looked up she was very pale and looked about ready to pass out.  She went to sit down and then I grabbed the shoehorn looking tool she was holding to lend the doctor a hand.  A nurse was able to fill in, but it was nice to be  apart of the action for a while.

About about a hour in the room Brenda started to feed him.  Eventually Matthew was having a bit of trouble breathing and had to go get checked out.  After some assessment, it was decided that with his low blood sugar (common with diabetic mothers) and heavy breathing he was going to need a IV which immediate means admittance to NICU.  Having him in the NICU is like having Yao Ming at a midget convention...he is bigger than any two of those babies combined.

 

Bummer for us since that means he is not in your room and may take a while to get discharged. 

 

Super cute.

 

Brenda's parents got here about 7:30pm and then were off to get James so he could sleep in his own bed.  Meanwhile I am at the hospital with Brenda sleeping on a 4' long couch.  Luckily for Brenda the hospital bed got an 1.5' extension on the end of it so she is very comfortable.  I guess very comfortable may be a bit of an overstatement since she did just go through childbirth.

Please note the shirt I am wearing for the delivery.  It is a vet shirt that I reassured the doctor and the student I would be able to help if there was any major issues.  Not that I am a vet or anything, but I have palpated a few cows before.

That kid smells so good.

 

My parents got here today and gave me a chance to get out of he hospital and go to the Bell for some real food.  James also got to come over to the hospital today and see his new brother through the viewing window in the NICU.  Hopefully we get Matthew out of the NICU tomorrow, but with every doctor or shift change the stories change so who really knows.

Here is James hamming it up in the viewing room.  While he was at our friends house he had a spill walking the mail to the house and has quite the bump on his head and scratches on his nose, but that is the way a boy should look.

Well, that is the end....or should I say the beginning.

 

 

 

Christmas/New Years

So now we are up to Christmas and new years.  Brenda wanted me to make a step stool for James so he could participate in what we are doing in the kitchen so I did.  It was really a 2wk before Christmas gift though since he really wanted to see what was going on.  He likes to get on it and move it all over the place, and it matches the ceiling and cabinets so we like it too.

Took way to long to design it and make it so it could be a small toy box as well, but we never use it for that.

Cuteness

When the dump truck arrived from Aunt Tami it was making all sorts of noises in the box and he could not wait to get it open.  My parents came down for the 22nd-24th and we opened a few presents on the 23rd.

What is that I hear....a present??

Playing with said present.

The pillow pet was not a hit out of the box.  Uncle Joel and Aunt Missy did a great job picking a gift out.

He warmed up after a while and gave it a kiss.  He now rides the pet while holding onto the antlers.

 

Brenda's parents came on the 24th and stayed till the 29th. We had a great time with them as well. We opened the rest of the presents with them on the 24th.

I gave Brenda this pot.  It was a kind of "here woman...now make me some food" gift, but she loves it and we have used it a lot.

Brenda found this at a second hand kids store for like $10.  It drives, makes sounds, and has motorised arm so ti was also a hit.

Brenda got a hand made sign for the back portch which indicates the year we bought our house in Greenacres....also known as DeJong Acres.

 

Brenda's dad gave James a handmade tool box with a bunch of vintage tools he was able to paint and make look pretty cool.

 

It was a huge hit and he loves screwdrivers.  He is constantly trying to fix the couch and chair...not that it is broken.

 

James also likes to sit on the stairs and especially likes it when people sit with him.

James and Grandma Coloring

 

Where are we now...kind of fuzzy, but Ben and Laura came on the 29th and left on the 1st.

Again, another picture on the stairs, but this time with some friends his own size.

 

Addison and James on the step stool using it as a bench.

 We went with them to Downtown on the 31st for some fun time on the vintage carousel.  No matter how old you are it is actually quite a lot of fun.

 

Ashton and Addy had a great time and rode it three times.

James also had fun, but got scarred at one point when I was getting a but rowdy.

 

Then back at home and everyone gone and we got some snow.  We did not make another snowman, but James and I had a good time going around in the snow.

Brenda is getting bigger and we had an appointment yesterday that put the kid at 8lbs 5oz...I am so glad I am not a woman.  If the kid does not come soon we are going to have to get another c-section, which is probably the more likely scenario.

Christmas Tree time

So once again the time has passed and I am left to remember through a blog post, the fun that I have had this past month.  It started with the annual getting of the Christmas tree.  I do not look down or scoff at those who purchase a tree from a lot, but I like to think of myself as exceedingly cheap and drag my family (along with our friends) into the woods of North Idaho to search for the perfect tree.

Noah was not thrilled with the snow, but it did not take long and we had procured the perfect tree.

 

Said perfect tree....and the family is not to bad either.

Here we are hauling the 10' beast out of the woods.  I had to cut 3.5 feet off of the thing to get it even close to getting into the house.  Chris's tree was better looking, but nothing a little creative trimming could not fix.

Brenda was good at entertaining the kids during the search.

 

After all was said and done it was a nice outing and we got what we wanted.  A couple days later we also were blessed with a heavy snowstorm.  Although the snow only stayed around for a short time, James and I made the best of it.

The snowman may look good, but with it being so warm, it only actually stayed up for about 1 hour and the then the top rolled off.  I am going to need some practice to get this snowman thing down.

James had a good time, and so did I.  Man that kid is cute.

But for some reason he cannot wait till the spring.  He loves this little lawn mower I got out a dumpster at work.  He has no idea that it was supposed to blow bubbles, and he could care less.

 

Warning- the next post will be picture heavy and arrive shortly.

California or bust

We had two free tickets to anywhere in the US and we had to decide where to go.  It all started when I got fed up with Alaska Airlines.  I stopped using the credit card I have from them last year when they tried to charge me $75 for the privilege of having thee card.  Of course that did not go over well with me and I called to cancel so they decided to waive the fee for the year.  So another year goes by and I called to cancel the card again and they decided since I stopped using the card they would not waive the fee so the card was cancelled.  After it was canceled they informed me that all of my points would be removed from my account within 24hrs, so we had to buy tickets and quickly.   CA was the place and after we got the tickets, I scheduled work down there so we got to extend the trip and had a great time.  Did I mention I hate credit cards...Dave Ramsey is the new cool, and if you don't know what I am talking about you need to listen up and get a clue.

When we got there we drove down to Myron and Andrea Kamper's in Visalia.  James got to play with Jake.  While playing in the garage they found a lizard and put it in a bowl.

Jake touched it and so did James.

He loved to watch the thing run around outside.  It was the source of much yelling and high pitched screams.

Myron is a vet and I got a chance to go visit a goat dairy with him.  These goats look possessed.

Baby goats sucking the milk down.  This is they way to run a  dairy, very little smell, clean and dry...very neat to see and any goat milk you would buy in Trader Joes comes right from this dairy.

Back at the homestead.

The girls looking awesome as ever...not sure what they were laughing about here, but I think it was me taking the picture.

We had a chance to also visit my grandparents.

James had a great time with my grandmother, especially trying to figure out why her ear kept squealing (her hearing aid sweaks all of the time).

Then we hung out with the Schenks.  After dinner it is shirts off wrestling time at their house and man is it a good time.

Mo looks quite interesting in this picture.  She is one tough girl and those kids are so darn cute.

Clothing optional.

After Riptown it was time for San Jose.

We went to Harry and Mindy's house and they had a bunch of people over to connect with again.  Here James is embracing Lucy who was born the day after he was.  She talks alot, but James is much bigger. 

Mindy was due any day and she was showing.  It turns out they day we left to come home she gave birth at 6am...we did not get a chance to see the baby though.

We got to have dinner with Jeff and Jen as well and hang out with the two girls they have.  We were so thankful to have a place to stay and crashed at Drew and Amy's house.  They were very hospitable and we had a great time catching up with all of our friends.

This is the best sight for the whole trip though.  James has been on a kick of high pitched whining lately and 2 minutes of that feels like an eternity and makes you want to jump out of a car traveling at 60mph down the road.  I assume it is partly due to his inability to talk yet, but we have been taking steps to curb the whining like turning the radio up, taking deep breaths, and then putting him in his crib...when will it stop?????