1 Month Birthday

First of all, everyone that left a guess about who was who in the last blog post was correct! 1 - Noah, 2 - Myra, 3 - Lexi! Good Job! I thought it was pretty easy and I guess everyone else did too!
I just wanted to say I CAN NOT believe my new baby is already a month old! Where did the time go? He gets cuter and cuter every day and we all love him a lot. The girls especially can't leave him alone. Myra is especially extra helpful and is always wanting to hold him. What a lucky little baby to get so much attention! Noah has been a fairly fussy baby so far. The doctor thinks he has reflux and put him on medication for it. It has helped some, but he still likes to cry, A LOT! Hopefully he'll start to get over that soon. He loves to snuggle with us and is doing better and better at eating. We are so glad to have him in our family!

Dad giving the girls a piggy-back ride up to bed. Such a great Daddy!

Guess Who?

I recently realized that we have pictures of all 3 of our kids wearing the same sleeper outfit. They aren't great pictures, but see if you can guess who is who.


1.


2.


3.

Baby Guessing Game Winners

I almost forgot about this! We actually had 2 people guess correctly the day of Noah's birth - August 28th! So, we are going to give out a prize to both of you! Congratulations to Erin Druce and Christa Maynes! Please send me your email addresses so I can send out your prize! Either leave it in the comment section, or send me an email at shannon_keyser@yahoo.com

Touchdown

Last week Chad starting playing flag football. It's something the city puts together and a friend of his invited him to be on the team. He did it last year also, but I think I only went to 1 game - it was so cold and the games were all at 9 last year. Anyway, we went last week and again this week. The kids love running around the field and it's fun to watch Chad play. Last night, he even caught an interception and ran down the field to score one of the team's 2 touchdowns for the night! I was so proud of him! Too bad I don't have a video! Here are a couple of pictures from the first week. He's the one with the white headband.

Noah's Baby Shower

On Saturday, my friend Janelle threw me a Baby Shower for Noah! Out of 3 kids, this was only the 2nd baby shower I've ever had, so I was pretty excited about it. It was a lot of fun chatting with my friends and eating yummy food. I've been so blessed to have made such good friends here in Logan. It was also really nice that my mom was able to come up for the shower and I feel bad I didn't get any pictures with her in them. I received a ton of very cute outfits for Noah and several other handy baby items. It was so helpful since we really don't have anything for Noah. Thanks Janelle for putting together such a fun shower!

Preschool 2009-2010

Myra started preschool again last week. She missed the first day because of Noah's arrival, so these pictures are of her first day, but the 2nd day for everyone else. She was pretty excited to go, but when we dropped her off, she ran after us crying because we had apparently forgotten to give her a hug and a kiss good-bye. Once we told her good-bye for the 2nd time, she was just fine. She's such a tender-hearted little girl! For preschool this year, we are doing Joy School with 4 other moms and their kids. I don't have my first turn until November. It should be fun!


Lexi had to join in on the pictures! She is still adjusting to not having Myra around. She really misses her when she's gone.

Preschool 2009-2010. Camille, Myra, Elaina, Jenna and Cody.

A friend posted similar stats on her blog, so I'm going to steal the idea. Thanks Janelle!

Age: 4 years 4 months

Height: 39 inches (3ft. 3in.)

Weight: 36 lbs.

Hair color: strawberry blonde (she calls it strawberry pink)

Favorites: I think a lot of these change on a daily basis!

Animal: horse

Food: Ravioli

Game: MarioKart

Toy: Seahorse stuffed animal

Thing to do: play with stuff and watch movies

Book: Finklehopper Frog

Color: all the colors

Movie: So Dear to my Heart

Primary Song: Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam

My best friend is: Lexi and Camille

Other friends I like to play with: All of my friends

Things I like to do with my friends: play with them

If I had a pet it would be a: a lamb

named: Dolphi

What people like about me: They like to play with me

Things I can do really well: Play with my family

Michael Jackson Video

I'm not much of a Michael Jackson fan, but I came across this video and loved it! This guy is very talented! I just thought I'd share...

Michael Jackson remix @ Yahoo! Video

"Nurses"

As I was sitting on the couch with Myra the other day, I noticed her lift her shirt up and begin to examine her chest. When I asked her what she was doing, she replied, "I'm just checking to see if my "nurses" have gotten any bigger."

That girl is just way too funny! She keeps us all laughing!

Noah's Update

Today was Noah's 2 week doctors appointment. First of all, I CAN NOT believe that he's already 2 weeks old. What a blur that time has been! With his initial hospital stay, the 2nd hospital stay and my recovery problems, time has just flown by! It makes me sad. These little ones grow up WAY too fast! Anyway, Noah looked great at his appointment. He weighed in at 6lb. 1 oz., wow! And was 19 1/2 inches long. All of the tests results were in from his hospital stay and they didn't find anything wrong. It's kind of frustrating not knowing what was wrong with him, but it's also a relief that all the tests they did for all of the horrible things that could have been wrong with him were negative. We are just relieved that he's doing so much better! Like a normal newborn! He's even been doing pretty good at night, just waking up at around 2 and then around 5 to eat, but going right back to sleep. Myra and Lexi were always such good sleepers, I have my hopes high for Noah as well!
Thanks to everyone for their well-wishes on Noah's behalf! I'm sure your thoughts and prayers have helped him recover!

Adventure's with Noah

We were so excited that Noah was able to come home from the hospital healthy and without a stay in the NICU. (Especially since that's where both our girls ended up in the beginning.) However, he must have been feeling left out, because on Sunday night he got sick enough to warrant a 2 night stay at the hospital. Not the NICU because he had already left the hospital, so I got to stay with him in the pediatric area. Starting on Friday, Noah had started becoming quite lethargic. We thought it was because of some medication I was taking so I stopped it on Saturday. By Sunday, I was starting to get worried because he hadn't come out of it and it had been over 24 hours since I'd taken the meds and we could barely get him to eat. That evening we noticed that had a fever so I called the doctors and they said to take him right to the ER. The next 3 hours were such a nightmare. Little Noah was poked and prodded so many times I lost count. They had a horrible time getting blood and starting an IV and then they had to do a Spinal Tap to check if he had meningitis. After 4 tries, they got a tiny sample. I think I cried about as much as he did. They finally admitted him at around 10 that night. Yesterday was just a wait and see kind of day and by the evening he had starting waking up finally to eat and was much more alert and his fever had gone down. This morning the results came back negative for meningitis. Thank goodness! We are still waiting on some other tests, but the doctor is thinking he had some sort of virus. Noah was doing well enough today that they let us take him home this afternoon. We are so grateful that he is doing better and hope that we don't ever have to go through this again.
His sisters really missed him.

And now for the details... (Warning, it's going to be long!)

What a whirlwind adventure it is to have a new baby! It seems like I should still be counting down the days to my due date (which is actually today), instead, my baby is already 6 days old! Time goes by WAY too fast. It makes me kind of sad already thinking about Noah getting bigger and growing up. I just know it will all go by so quickly. Anyway...
We went in on the morning of August the 28th for a scheduled c-section. It was NOT how we had hoped things would happen, but after 4 weeks of not dilating at all, the doctor figured it was the best option because of my previous c-section. He figured it would come to that one way or another and a few days early would be better. We had scheduled it the week before, but had really hoped my water would just break. We really didn't like the idea of picking out the baby's due date. At least the doctor told us when to come in, instead of us deciding. Anyway, my mom came up to watch the girls and Chad and I headed to the hospital. As we were getting ready for the surgery, I started getting pretty nervous and somewhat anxious. After all, my last c-section was done under very stressful circumstances. After much reassuring from the nurses and our doctor, I went in to surgery. Everyone thought it was really fun that we didn't know what we were having, so it was fun having everyone extra excited about the delivery. I got so nervous when the time came to find out. It was so exciting when the baby was born and the doctor announced, It's a boy!!!! What a great experience! The surgery went well and I'm continuing to recover. Thank goodness for good pain medication! Anyway, the best part of the hospital experience was that Noah was healthy and we got to have him in the room with us! A first! We were a little worried when he ended up being so little! The previous week we had an ultrasound that put him at about 6lbs. 11oz., so I figured he would be in the 7 pound range. It was quite a shock that he was on 5lb 9oz. I just have small babies, I guess. We were just glad he was healthy. They were a little worried about jaundice and his bilirubin level, but he didn't have any problems with that either. The doctor was quite surprised! I think he thought that Noah would end up under the bilirubin lights for sure. It was such a different birth experience this time around. With Myra and Lexi, we had to trek down the hall to visit them in the NICU and we could only hold them for a certain amount of time. I LOVED having Noah in the room and just snuggling with him for hours. The first couple of days were kind of challenging because Noah was born with NO sucking or rooting reflex. They had us giving him bottles and finger feeding him just to try and get him to suck. That was kind of frustrating because I've not been able to nurse the girls, so I really wanted that to work out with this baby. It was a relief when he finally started sucking and we could focus on getting him to breastfeed. Unfortunately, he had already decided that he enjoyed bottles more, because they were easier, so breastfeeding has been a challenge. They even had me start pumping to get my milk in. I can't tell you how depressing that was! I pumped for 2 and 3 months with Myra and Lexi and it's horrible! Thank goodness it won't be long term with this little guy! After 6 days, he's doing great with it now! Overall, the hospital experience, apart from the bad food, was a good experience. I really enjoyed having all that quiet time to bond with Noah. I love him so much already! Oh, before I forget. A lot of people have wondered where we came up with the name Noah. Prior to his birth day, we did not have any idea what we would name the baby. Chad and I had gone through several baby name books and had written down 25 or so names that we liked. There were several girl names that we really liked, but no boy names had really stood out. We figured the baby was probably a girl since we couldn't come up with any boy names. So, when it was a boy, Chad and I were quite clueless on what we would name him. We went through all our names and narrowed it down to a few that we liked and finally picked Noah. I had always thought it was a pretty well-known or common name, but a lot of people have seemed surprised at it. Anyway, we like it and it seems very fitting already. With Myra and Lexi, it took several weeks for me to really feel comfortable with their names, but I don't feel that was with Noah. And Alton is Chad's middle name, his dad's middle name and his grandpa's middle name. There are 4 generations of Alton's now!
We could have come home on Sunday, but the doctor thought it might be good to have Noah at the hospital one more day just because of his low birth weight and feeding problems. It was such a relief to bring him home on Monday.

Going Home!Chad, Noah and I enjoyed the time together for a couple of days, but we really missed having the girls around. When Noah was sleeping, I kept thinking, now what do I do? I needed the girls to keep me busy. :-) They came home yesterday and Chad went back to work today, so we are just jumping right into things. They are just thrilled with little Noah, or Baby Noah, as they always refer to him. They have been very helpful with getting him extra blankets, toys and lots of hugs and kisses. Lexi even tried getting him out of his car seat yesterday. Thankfully he was still buckled in! They have also been very interested in my feeding him. I figured I would just be open with them about how he eats and I showed them how milk comes out of my breasts. Myra's reaction was, "that's so neat." Then, the next time I fed him, she came running in and offered to "squeeze me" so that she could help Noah eat. Ugh! Silly girl! She was pretty disappointed that she couldn't give him a bottle.
This morning we took Noah to the doctor. They wanted to check his bilirubin again and luckily it was way lower than they expected. Noah went home from the hospital weighing 5lb. 4oz, but he was up to 5lb. 7oz. today, so he is doing great!
Sorry this so long! We are so excited about this new addition to our family! It will definitely be interesting have a little boy. I have to admit that I'm pretty happy about getting away from all the pink and purple clothing.