Family pictures

Both of my brothers and their families were in town for Easter, so we took advantage of that and had Ryan's baby blessing on Sunday. Afterwards we attempted some family pictures outside the church. Here's the best one of everyone:

 

Our family:

With Grandma and Grandpa Knight:

Then the fun really started. We tried a Grandma and Grandpa with all the grandkids picture. Annie was a bit upset at first...

Then Justin took away McKenzie's binky, and it was her turn to cry. This is about the bet one we got--at least all the kids' heads are visible.

Rachel did a good job of holding Ryan. Luckily he was asleep and not squirmy. :)

Then on Monday we stepped up the level of torture for a professional family portrait. :) When we got out of the car Rachel asked, "Why are we at K-Mart?" We explained that Olan Mills was inside where we were getting our pictures taken with everyone. And then the tears started. "But pictures at Kmart take so looooong!" I think all the excitement and insanity of having all her cousins around for the weekend was wearing on her, so she was extra susceptible to having a melt down, and she had a hard time calming down. We went and looked at the Easter clearance section while we waited, and she calmed down a bit, but you can still see tears in her eyes in some of the pictures, especially the grandkid pictures. And without further ado, here's our family's picture:

Here's the whole family:

And here are a couple with just the grandkids. Note how Rachel is trying so hard to not cry, and Ryan is doing his best to cry his loudest.

 It turned out way better than you would have guessed with three 0-year-olds, and two 1-year-olds. And now we have lots of great pictures. :)

More baby pictures

Our camera is getting a lot of use lately with our new little cutie around. Here's more pictures of the little guy. I particularly like the cross-eyed one. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back home

Tuesday we came home from the hospital. Rachel was so happy to have her little brother home. 

 

She has been a big help, bringing me my water bottle whenever I'm nursing, and whenever Ryan is awake she'll run and wash her hands, then run back to play with him or hold him. Annie likes looking at him, but doesn't concern herself with him once she's commented "baby!" a couple of times after noticing him.

 

We had a picnic in our backyard to celebrate us being home from the hospital.

Rachel on a pink kick, being Miss Fashion PJ Diva:

 

Annie loves her yogurt, but doesn't think a spoon is as efficient as her whole fist, I guess.

 

The girls think they're so funny.

The girls have really gotten in to baby toys, and especially baby dolls.

Annie gets her babies and puts them in the baby swing or the bouncy seat over and over and over. I like this picture-it shows both her babies, and Annie taking over the bouncy seat, and the binky Annie stole from Ryan. Apparently everything in this house belongs to Annie. :)

Rachel had to check out the bouncy seat, too (with her crazy hair on the randomly decreed crazy hair day). Annie, of course, felt the need to educate Rachel that the bouncy seat was not for Rachel. I put my blanky on it, so it's mine. You can get off now.

So far everyone is doing well adjusting to the new baby. We'll see how this week goes, now that Jake is heading back to work....

More hosptial pictures

Here are a few more pictures of Ryan before we left the hospital. The first day he was born he reminded me of Annie when she was a newborn, but by the second day he looked just like Rachel did when she was a newborn, with the round face and all.

 

This one is Rachel for comparison:

Ryan:

Rachel:

Ryan:

 

Ryan:

 

Ryan:

Rachel:

photo editing

I've been playing around a little with the photo editing capabilities in Picasa. Here are some of the results:

Ryan's birthday

Sitting in the hospital with a sleepy newborn affords a lot more free time than being at home with two busy girls. So I figured we'd better get pictures posted/blogs written while we're here because once we're home there are no guarantees. As Jake posted earlier, Ryan was born this morning at 11:26 am. If you don't care about the details, skip down and just look at the cute pictures. :)

I woke up at about 12:45 am with a contraction that lasted 10+ minutes. When it didn't seem to be letting up I decided to get out of bed and go sit on the couch, where I started keeping track of my contractions. They were not strong, but were 2-3 minutes apart, some lasting 2 minutes. Since I was group B strep positive I knew I would need at least an hour on antibiotics before birth, and my doctor had told me 2 doses would be ideal, but they had to be spaced 4 hours apart (though I ended up getting a different antibiotic because of an allergy, so I only needed one dose). Anyway, since the contractions were so close together, though not strong, and I knew it would be ideal to be there 4-6 hours before giving birth, I called my mom to come out to stay with the girls, and we headed in to the hospital, getting there around 2:30. By 9 am I was only dilated to 5 cm (I was 3-4 cm at my doctor appointment last week) so the doctor broke my water to move things along. And that's just what happened. I ended up getting an epidural around 10:00 (the best epidural I've had, not too strong to make me sick like my previous two, but strong enough to take the major pain away), and shortly after 11:00 we were ready to go. It was the easiest pushing I've ever done and Ryan slid right out into the world. He weighed in at 8 lbs. 1 oz. and 19 inches, the smallest baby we've had yet. I don't mind the trend that each subsequent child keeps getting smaller. :)

There was a little meconium when my water broke, so they did some extra tests and stuff with him, but he was fine, had both APGAR scores of 9, and was soon given the thumbs up.

He loved his bath. Rather, he loved getting his hair washed. 

He did NOT like the rest of his bath. But once he was dry he was mostly content sitting under the baby warmer. 

Once we got moved out of labor and delivery and settled in our room Grandma and Grandpa Knight brought Rachel and Annie to meet their new baby brother. Annie was happy to come in and explore and say "baby!" a couple of times before she mostly ignored him. Rachel was very happy to have the new little guy here. She really liked to hold him. And both times, when she was done holding him and someone took him out of her arms he started crying. Ryan already loves his big sis. And she will be a great little mother for him, I'm sure.