School Picture Day, Fall 2010

They practiced smiling all day for this! Love it!

Fun in the Sun

Bryce came home from the hospital with a bit of jaundice so we were instructed to have him exposed to sunlight. We hoped that that would be enough, but his bilirubin count continued to rise after we got home. The doctor decided he needed some additional treatment and prescribed 24 hours on the bilirubin phototherapy light. :)

It was kind of cute how he "glowed in the dark" for a night. It was kind of a pain because he had to be on it as much as possible - so pretty much we only took it off for diaper changes. The rest of the time he seemed as though he had a tail. The light wand was really thin and fit under his

onsie...thank God he only had to stay on it for a day and his jaundice went away pretty quickly.

On a positive note, we were able to get some extra snuggles in - I didn't want him to get all wrapped up in the (really short) chord after all!

The Scoop on Bryce's Birthday...

After being discharged from Holland Hospital Friday 9/24, we were instructed to go home "get some rest" and come back at 8 am Saturday morning 9/25. Easier said than done! Saturday 9/25 was a date that we had anticipated the first annual Walk for Water fundraiser for Water Missions International for a long long time. Well, babies come when babies come! We were blessed with friends that were willing to take Leah so my parents could run the fundraiser all day with out a 2 year old "helper". This is us, dropping Leah off on our way to the hospital (which incidently, we passed the water purification machine and my parents on their way to setting up). I have labeled this picture 'Before there were 4'

The day went smoothly, but a bit longer than we had expected. I went in and was dialted to a 3 and almost all the way efaced...but it still took 12 hours for our little one to arrive. I was hooked up to pitocin and a bunch of fluids and away we ..sat around. The epidural was granted and put in about 2 pm in the hopes that it would allow them to crank up the pitocin and get the party started! We sat around some more....mainly because I was numb and was a captive audience.

At 7 pm our wonderful nurse was leaving...but she wanted to check one more time if I had progressed and if I had, she was going to stay until he was born. How sweet!! I hadn't really, so we said our goodbyes and thankyou's and the new nurse was going to come in...Between 7 pm and 7:13pm, I went from 8 cm to "complete"!! It must have been the whiff of a competition between me and the lady in the room next door. We began pushing, the dr. came in and Bryce Matthew was born at 8:02 pm. What a miracle he is!

Leah came to meet her baby brother the next morning. She was wearing a big sister shirt that was given to her by her babysitters the day before. Cute guys!! She was very interested and loving for about 3 minutes and then tried to destroy the hospital room for the rest of the time she visited...we knew our work was cut out for us!

This is Bryce chillin' in his bed. We were checking out name books in the hospital...just to be sure on his name and came across Bryce....meaning "Alert and Ambitious" yep, looks about right?

We passed the 'put your baby in the carseat' test and were cleared to go home to start a new chapter in our life! What a great time it has been so far!! to be continued...

Tractor

Rick and Leah are doing lots of yard work together while I am inside keeping tabs on Bryce.

Rick figured it was time to teach Leah to drive the tractor - which is her dream come true. She LOVES all things tractor!!

Apparently there is a song that the singer yells out "Big Truck" and that is what she is yelling at the end of the video though it is almost impossible to decipher.