Random pictures

For my parents:

Thankful

Garry and I were talking yesterday, on our way home with the boys from yet another grocery trip (we've only made about 6 in the last week getting ready for Thanksgiving, because we invariably forget something we need at each trip) about what we're thankful for this year. I thought I would write out my list of things that I'm thankful for.

I'm thankful for my wonderful husband, who even though he can be grouchy and sometimes really, really irritating, is still the most amazing husband and father I could have ever asked for.

I'm thankful for my two beautiful boys. Scooter, for all that he can drive me insane most of the time, is my little man, sometimes so grown-up, sometimes wanting nothing more than to cuddle with his mommy. And Quin, who is exactly one month old today, is a snuggle bug, and so laid back that sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky as to have such a relaxed little guy.

I'm thankful for Doc, who gets in the way constantly, refuses to learn how to close the back door after he bangs through it, and shreds newspaper in the backyard, but is so gentle with both of the boys and mostly behaves himself in the house.

I'm thankful for my parents, who have been nothing but supportive my entire life, and my sisters, with whom I've shared so many experiences, and though we fight sometimes, we can always make up over tea.

And I'm thankful that I get to spend Thanksgiving with those I love the most.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Thanksgiving is tomorrow!

And that means my parents will be here, weather and airlines permitting! I'm so excited - I haven't seen my mom since Easter and my dad since Christmas. They're going to be stunned at how much Scooter has grown and changed. The last time my dad saw him, he was still crawling and cruising everywhere; he hadn't gotten to the walking stage yet, let alone running, climbing, and all the things he's doing now. And my mother - she saw Scooter walking, somewhat wobbly still. So it will be a huge surprise for them to see him now.

Garry's brother Rocky is also coming in town for the holiday. He and a friend rented a car and are driving up from Austin today. They should be here tonight sometime; they'll both spend the night, then Josh (the friend) is heading up to visit family and Rocky will stay here with us for a few days. We're going to have a houseful!

A couple of pictures for now...

Apparently my dog thinks he is also a baby:


Quin sleeping peacefully:


Scooter being helpful:


More to come later - Scooter is yelling for Mommy's attention!

Picture overload!

Well, we finally went through the last month of pictures that we've taken, and decided to share a few. Most are of Scooter, but we finally managed to get a couple good ones of Quin.

I hope my mom doesn't show this to my first girlfriend!


I think I'm a duck:


Mischief:


Sleeping baby:


I love my brother!




More pictures to come of Quin in the next few days. We just realized that we are sorely behind in taking pictures of Quin, especially when compared to Scooter.

Halloween

Godzilla!!!

Ugh! Migraine!

So, for the first time in nearly a year, I'm hit with a migraine. Not just my usual feel really crappy migraine, but double vision want to curl up in a little ball and cry migraine. And of course, Scooter picks this morning to through the mother of all tantrums and throw his sippy cup with enough force to shatter the bottom and send milk flying everywhere in the dining room. Quin, of course, woke up freaking out at the noise; Scooter was crying hysterically in his high chair because he scared himself; and I honestly thought about curling up and just dying.

What really sucks is that I had planned to take the boys to the zoo with a friend and her two little girls, and obviously that didn't happen. Garry came home from work, got Scooter dressed - I couldn't even manage that - and took him to my wonderful, sweet daycare provider's house, even though technically Scooter's not supposed to start daycare again until Monday. I got some sleep and the headache, while not completely gone, is at least more manageable.

As soon as I find the cable for my camera, I will post more pictures of the boys. We have a couple of pictures of Scooter in his Halloween costume (he was a bright green dinosaur!) and a couple of better ones of Quin than the newborn shots we have posted.

Quin is waking up, so I must go tend to him and start on laundry and dinner. I'm thinking lasagna sounds good for dinner tonight.

Eight days old, 1 week at home

We've been home from the hospital for a week, and Quin is eight days old today. It seems like time is flying for me; I'm already starting to have trouble remembering when I didn't have two little boys to take care of!

Quin had his first doctor's appointment yesterday. He weighed in at 6 lbs 5 oz (5 oz over his birth weight) and the doctor was pretty pleased by that. We also had his circumcision done yesterday - poor little guy! I feel guilty at times that we circ our boys, but at the same time, I've seen enough research to convince me that there is a medical reason for it, and besides, the agreement I have with Garry is that he makes those decisions for our boys, while I can make body modification decisions for any girls that we might have (earrings and the like).

Scooter went to daycare for a little while yesterday while we were at the doctor's office and seemed to have fun. I think getting him back into daycare next week will be a really good thing for him; he misses his friends and the routine will really help him out - he's one of those kids that just does better when he has a routine to follow. Plus I do better when I have a routine, so it should work out well for all of us. I can have some time to spend with Quin alone, and Scooter will have his friends in the mornings. Not to mention it's good practice for when I go back to work in January! We're seeing some increased separation anxiety with Scooter, and I would hate to keep him home with me non-stop until January, only to have to essentially throw him back into daycare again, with all the anxiety and misery that entails.

I'm doing well, all things considered. Pretty moody, but so far nothing more than the baby blues, I think. I'm watching myself pretty closely for signs of PPD since I'm so high risk for it, and so far all symptoms have been really transitory and easily resolved by taking a 5 minute timeout for myself. When the 5 minute timeouts stop working, I'll be calling the doctor to request some meds, since that's the first sign of a problem for me. Hopefully that won't happen, but I'm pretty well prepared for it, since I needed meds after Scooter was born to help control my moods.

Nursing is going awesome this time around! Scooter is starting to show a little interest in what I'm doing when I feed Quin, and I'm wondering if he will decide that he wants to try too. We'll handle that when it happens, I suppose. He doesn't seem to mind too much when I'm nursing Quin, so that at least is a good thing for us.

Quin will be waking up any time for a feed and a change, so I'm off to get ready for that! More pictures to come as soon as I get them downloaded from the camera!

Introducing Quinlan VanRanseler (aka Thumper!)

Well, it's official - Quinlan VanRanseler was born at 4:25 am, Monday, October 22! We came home from the hospital today and are getting our bearings as a family of 4 plus 1 dog. Quin's delivery was probably the easiest I could have imagined; he was born 13 hours after my water broke and only needed two good pushes! He weighed 6 pounds even and was 19 inches long.

We don't have too many pictures yet, but will be added more in the next few days. Here are a couple to tide everyone over for the time being.







More later - off to take a nap while both boys are sleeping!

Oops

I just realized that I haven't written anything in what feels like forever, so I figured I should probably update a little. I'm really trying to remember to keep up with this, and sadly I'm more consistent with this than I have been with other journals.

I'll be 38 weeks pregnant tomorrow - my God, where has the time gone? I feel like I just found out I was pregnant a couple of weeks ago! I can't believe that within a month I'll have a new baby boy - I'm both excited and terrified! Thumper is rolling around like crazy; he's so much more active than Scooter ever was! We have our next appointment tomorrow, at which point we'll find out whether I'm making any progress towards having this little guy. Part of me hopes that I'll have made some progress, and part of me doesn't want to spend the next few weeks in an agony of when like I was with Scooter. Nothing like spending three weeks in labour and progressing and hearing, "Any day now!" from the doctor, and then... nothing. I'd almost rather not have progress and then just suddenly go into labour, and be pleasantly surprised!

Scooter is doing well overall. He's moved his bedtime later; instead of going to bed by 6:30 he's insisting on staying up until 7:30-8, which is fun since I get to see him and spend time with him in the evenings, but the mornings currently suck! He's a little grouch every morning and doesn't want to get up/get dressed/go to daycare. Apparently he's fine once he gets to daycare, but it's a battle every morning now to get him ready. We still aren't very verbal yet, although I think it's really more of a choice on his part rather than an inability to talk. After all, why talk when you can point and shriek to get what you want? It's getting frustrating for all of us, and I'm hoping that he decides to start talking soon. It would be a nice change from the shrieking that we get from him right now when he wants to communicate.

The biggest news in our house is Carla moving out. She has decided to get a house with her boyfriend, and she will be moving the week before the 1st most likely. She's already begun to pack her things. Luckily most of what is in the house and in use belongs to Garry and I - 90% of the kitchen things, those sorts of things. We did go out Monday evening and buy new furniture, which will be delivered on Saturday - I'm excited to get it! I love getting new furniture! We still need to find a small breakfast table, and eventually we'll need to furnish the spare bedroom, but we've made a start on things. There are some other little things we need to buy to replace what she's taking with her when she moves, but not much. We'll miss having her around, but it's really for the best and time to part ways, I think. It was getting too stressful between all of us, the dog, the cat, and with Thumper almost here, it's a good time. We're currently working to cut our household expenses as the majority of my maternity leave will be unpaid, but otherwise not much will actually change, I don't think. Our little family's routine will largely stay exactly the same as it is.

Okay, once again, I'm rambling! I'm going to try and post a few new pictures this weekend, probably a belly picture and some of the new furniture and of Scooter.

Friends

Two weeks ago one of my closest friends moved away. The weekend before she left, she and her kids were over for a playdate, and I took some pictures of everyone.

The boys:




The girls:






And what has to be one of my favorite pictures of a little girl: