More fun with family and some randoms

It has been so fun to have both of our parents come to see Anderson. Bob came out the same time as Denise, but had to go home after only a few days. We were so sad!! Thanks for coming out though Bob...it was so fun to see you!! We sure did miss you the rest of the time Denise was here...

This little guy has been growing by the second!! It kills me that he is going to be four weeks old on Friday. I hate it. It seems like he changes every day. I wish that he would stay teeny tiny for a lot longer. He has been a great baby so far besides waking up too much at night. The lack of sleep is catching up to me. Last night he only woke up at 1, 4 and 7. Maybe this will be the start of better nights to come! ...I hope.

Jack is loving being a big brother. He is very nice and careful with Anderson. I wish he was that nice to Justin and me. :) I just need to remind myself that he is only 2. I asked my mom if she thought he was a devil child after his horrible week he had when they were here. Her response went something like this... "I think the difference between him and some other kids his age is that they just cry and scream when they get mad, but Jack knows how to tell you off...and he does." Oh, my sweet little Jack.

On a different note, he has been super excited about Halloween this year. He is going as Batman, and has already tried out his costume at a couple different Halloween parties. My mom and Justin's Grandma Diamond both recently got him a Batman cape. Now that he has two he is SUPER excited about having friends over to play Batman. It's so funny because he really has no idea who he really is, but he LOVES to pretend that he does. He will do anything that we tell him Batman does, including eating carrots or other vegetables we have for dinner. We always tell him, "You should eat your broccoli. Batman eats it and it will make you strong just like him!" So far, it seems to be working.

While Denise was here, of course, we went to Patterson's. Even though it was not very warm and slightly windy, as you can see from this picture, we still had fun.

Jack was brave enough to try out the tire swing for the first time. He doesn't like swings very much so I am surprised he liked it.

Back in the trees at the farm... I love all the leaves on the ground and the pretty trees.

Denise was such a huge help while she was here. I don't know what to do now that I have to do my own laundry, take care of Jack and cook my own meals! She made my life extremely easy which made it so nice to be able to focus on Anderson. Thank you so much Denise!! It is definitely a different story now that all of our help has left. It took me three hours on Friday to get everyone ready and actually out the door to Target. Three hours! You might be thinking that is impossible, but it's not. I'm not sure why it took us that long, but it did. On Sunday, Justin has meetings at 8 and I was lucky enough to not have to go this Sunday (we usually go early with him because we only have one car). I looked at the clock and we had 45 minutes until we needed to leave. I felt at that moment that that was more than enough time and we would for sure make it to church before nine. Well, we got there ten minutes late. I don't know how people do it with multiple children. This is definitely something I am going to have to get used to.

So far Anderson loves the bath. The past few times we have put him in there he just looks around and hangs out. I love to see his skinny little body and his long frog legs. He is just so stinking cute!!! At least we think so.

Nice and clean!

I am super in love with this guy. He just makes me smile every time I look at him, even if it is 2 o'clock in the morning. He is a pretty noisy baby though. He makes lots of weird noises including one that sounds like a mixture of a grunt and a machine gun. It's really funny! I'm not sure why he does it but it makes me laugh. I just cannot believe he is going to be a month old!!! It is going by so fast, and I am not happy about it. Before I know it he will be telling me off, just like his cutie pie older brother.

P.S. This is the view from my driveway right now, looking down my street. Did I ever mention that I LOVE Ohio?! It doesn't get much prettier than that.

Anderson's Blessing

Both of our parent's overlapped their trip for one day so we wanted to take advantage of them being here and bless Anderson. Justin did such a great job and Anderson was quiet through the whole blessing even though he was hungry. I'm so glad that we decided to bless him even though he was only 9 days old! It just wouldn't have been the same without family here. We are so happy that they were all able to come.

My parents...

Justin's parents...

Anderson was a little too small for the outfits we had. This was the smaller of the two. He still looked so cute even though his pants went up to his armpits! You can't tell with his little shirt on, thank goodness. :)

It is so weird that we have two kids!! Things have gone good so far but we have had a lot of help. We will see when everyone leaves how we are able to manage having 2.

Jack did not want to hold Anderson in these pictures. He kept saying that he is too heavy. They are still pretty cute though. I guess it is a good thing that Jack doesn't really want to hold him and touch him all the time. Less that I have to worry. :)

Grandma & Grandpa Brownell

While my parents were here, we tried to fit in a couple of fun things among all the baby stuff. We went to see the lake downtown Cleveland and walked around for a while. We also stopped at the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame and took a tour of Johnny Cash's tour bus. We read the sign outside that said he had spent over $550,000 it in the 80's. We were expecting to see something extremely nice, and after the tour we decided that Johnny Cash got ripped off. It was not nice inside and there was nothing special about it! Totally lame... He later sold it after his wife died for $30,000 to someone who donated it to the Hall of Fame.

Downtown Cleveland

Does it get any cuter than that? :) I'm so glad my parents were able to come and see Anderson while he is brand new. They change so fast!! I already feel like he looks different after the week that they were here!

My mom must have the special touch. Anderson loved to snug with her! He would just crash every time. It was nice to have an extra pair of hands to hold him.

We also spent some time in Kirtland, the John Johnson Farm and the Isaac Morley Farm which is the picture above. It's always nice to visit the sites again and feel the spirit in all of those special places from our church history. We found out on Sunday though that we had picked the wrong day to go to Kirtland. President Monson was there on Saturday!! We obviously weren't in tune when we picked Tuesday to go there.

Jack and I went to the park a while ago with some friends and a little boy came in a full Batman costume. Ever since then, Jack has been running around saying that he is Batman. My mom and I found this mask at JoAnn's and we had to get it! This is Jack's Batman face. I'm not sure why he does that but we think it is hilarious. This bottom picture is my Dad's Batman face... wow. :) Doesn't he look just like him?!

Justin was really sick all week long, and Jack was being a grouch all week, but besides all that we had a lot of fun. As always it goes by way too fast!!! I couldn't believe it had been a week when I dropped them off at the airport. I'm not sure when we will get to see them next since we are staying here for all of the holidays... SAD!!

Thank you so much for coming Mom and Dad and for all that you did for us!! I miss you guys already. You better come back soon!! Love you!

Little Anderson

We've made it to day 5! Anderson has been a great little baby so far and we are loving all the snuggling time. My mom and dad are here and it has been fun to have them. We have been pretty lazy, but have managed to still do a couple fun things.

This is a picture of Jack with Anderson in the hospital. He wanted to hold him but about 2 seconds after, he told Justin that he is too heavy and didn't want to anymore. Jack has been having a rough time the past few days. We had to be to the hospital early so he stayed the night at Pete and Brittany's house the night before. (Thank you guys again!!!) He has had a bad cold, a new brother, and a wacky schedule...all of which have contributed to one grouchy little boy. Hopefully as he starts to feel better, his attitude will get better along with it!

Justin did a pretty good job of telling the story, but I will add the things that I remember...

We made it to the hospital at 6am. Our first nurse was really nice, but she was in training and could not get my IV in for anything. This was one of the worst parts of the whole day. I have a nice bruise from it now. She finally got it in the other arm and start the pit really slow. We hung out until 9:30 when I got my epidural which was wonderful. I had only felt a few stronger contractions up to this point so I was thankful to get it so early. Then Dr. Reider came in and broke my water and cranked up the pit. Justin and I pretty much just watched movies all day waiting for me to dilate all the way. It was actually a pretty relaxing day, strange as it seems. Around3:00pm, Dr. Reider came in and said that I was to a 9 and that Anderson was posterior. He asked me if I wanted to just try and push to see if we could make some progress or if I wanted to try a couple things to get him to rotate a little. I decided to try and push and see what happened... 25 minutes later he was born! It was fabulous. I honestly did not even feel like I had just had a baby. I hope my next delivery goes exactly the same way this one did. Everything went so smoothly and I hardly felt any pain compared to when Jack was born. It was such a great day. We are so glad to have him here!! And I am extremely glad to not be pregnant anymore!! It is such a blessing to have him here and know that he is healthy and that everything went so well. All of that anxiety of wondering how things will go is gone, and it is a great feeling. Now I just get to enjoy my little guy!!!

INTRODUCING ANDERSON KADE HEATON

This is the morning of the appointment just before we left our house to go to the hospital. We had to be there at 6:00 AM. so we got up at 4:30.

This is Stacey waiting to get her IV. By around 6:45 they had gotten us to our room, placed her IV and had started Pitocin. They were great! Just after he was born they took him over to weigh and measure him.

6 pounds 14 oz and 20 inches long.

He is getting dressed for the first time!

They had just put that goop in his eyes. I guess it is for a good reason and at least it doesn't hurt them at all.

This is the proud mommy just after he was born! She did a great job and I am so proud of her!

The nurse is bathing him for the first time. He cried a lot and didn't seem to like it at all.

I went and got Jack once things had settled down and Stacey had got to her new room. He could have really cared less for baby brother and hardly even noticed he was there. He was way more excited about the balloons and toy car that his baby brother brought him

We are now a family of four!! I am not quite sure if it has set in yet. This is just a taste of the pictures to come. Stacey is much better at this but I thought I would at least get a few up today. All in all it was an amazing experience and turned out so much better than the first time with Jack. We had an amazing staff and are so grateful for all of them. We are especially grateful for our new baby boy and couldn't be happier to be parents again. It really is the best feeling in the world!

Here is a little update on Stacey and the baby. We got to the hospital this morning at 6:00 AM. They got us right to our room, got her IV in and started her on Pitocin. She was on that until she got her epidural at 9:30 AM. They broke her water right after she got the epidural and then they have been upping the dose of Pitocin every so often since that point. She is now dilated to a 9 however the baby is posterior (AGAIN). We may have to wait to see if he turns on his own. However, we are hoping that it is not too much longer. Stacey feels great and has hardly had an ounce of pain. This experience has been much better than her first one. We are both excited to meet our new boy and hope that pictures will be up soon! Thanks for all your support and blessings!

Akron 1/2 Marathon

Justin and a few friends from school decided to do a half marathon together. As the time came closer to the race, everyone ended up backing out except for Justin. Luckily, he recruited wonder woman Hollie to do it with him. This is them right before the race. Don't you love her pink pants!? It made it easy for me to spot her in the crowd. :) It started at 7am and it was still dark outside! We had to leave around 5am which is way too early for me! I was worried about Jack being grouchy from waking up so early but he was a trooper the whole time.

I saw this guy's shirt and thought it was super funny...I wonder how many people were having that same thought run through their mind.

Here they are after just getting started. Obviously this is a horrible picture, but Hollie is in the white and Justin is peeking up behind the girl with the head phones.

So I figured out after the whole race was over that my digital zoom was on!! It made ALL the pictures blurry and I was so sad after I finally figured out what was wrong!! Anyways, this is Justin crossing the finish line. His goal was to beat 2 hours and he came in a 1 hr and 49 minutes! Way to go!!!

After all that running and he still has a smile on his face!

Here comes Hollie at 1 hr 54 minutes, right behind Justin. She cut off around 10 minutes from her last half marathon. What a woman!!

Way to go Dad!!! (Blurry....grrr!)

The awesome runners. Way to go guys! You did GREAT!!!