Welcome Claire Elise Brandon!

The newest addition to KayLynn and David's family, Claire Elise, was born today, Aug. 17, at 7:01 p.m. She weighed seven pounds even and was 19 3/4 inches long. KayLynn was a champ, laboring for 19 hours with nary a drug and apparently barely a peep. It was reported by the midwife and nurses that KayLynn and David were one of the best laboring teams they had seen. We love them so much and are so thrilled to have a brand new niece!

I got to visit Claire just an hour and a half after she was born. She has beautiful dainty features and is already basking in the glow of the smiles on her parents' faces. Truly, neither one of them could stop smiling. Babies are indescribably precious and this baby was born into a whole lot of love. Congratulations David and KayLynn!!

p.s. Even though it isn't about us, we are so excited to have another cousin! One nephew and one niece, all in just over a months time. It's going to be so fun watching our kids grow up with their cousins. Aubrey and Claire will have to band together against the three little monkey boys, Nathan, Dane, and Jonny. Family is great!

A conversation with Aubrey

Jenny directed me towards this cute blog where a mom asked her son a bunch of questions and posted the answers. I enjoyed it so much that I thought I should repeat it. Here are the questions that I asked Aubrey and her word for word answers. Jen, thanks for the great idea! For anyone with kids old enough to do this with, you should try it. It was so fun to hear her answers.

What is something mom always tells you to do?
Today is what you do, you make lunch. (Yep, makes no sense.)

What makes mommy happy?
My heart.

What makes mommy sad?
When you slip. (See earlier post about falling in cat puke.)

What does mommy do that makes you laugh?
How you make me laugh is to say "BOO!" Can you say boo? Does my heart still make you happy?

How old is mommy?
Um, twenty-six.

How tall is mommy?
(Stretch arms high in the air) "Like this!"

What is mommy's favorite thing to do?
Your favorite thing is to wash the dishes.

What does mommy do when you're not around?
Um, cry. You cry and cry and cry.

If mommy were famous what would she be famous for?
(Clearly not understanding the question) Um, famous for my heart.

What is something mommy is good at?
Really good at making some letters. You are good at taking movies down for us.

What is mommy's job?
Your job is to write a message to someone, like that. (She was referencing me writing down her answers.)

What is mommy's favorite food?
Casserole.

What is something you like to do with mommy?
Read books.

If mommy were a cartoon character, what would she be?
You're a creature!

What do you like to do?
To write my name and read books.

How are mommy and Aubrey the same?
How we're the same, we're both pink. (She had on pink butterfly wings and I had on a pink skirt.)

How are mommy and Aubrey different?
We wear different clothes.

How do you know mommy loves you?
You say "I love you, way up to heaven."

When it Rains, it Pours

The Jones Family continues to be under quarantine. Greg finally went to the doctor yesterday after being on day 8 of respiratory illness. They gave him a steroid shot for inflammation and put him on a 10 day dose of antibiotics. Nathan, on day 5 of hacking, lethargy, and not eating got taken to the doctor as well. He is the proud owner of double ear infections. He also hacked so hard after lunch that he threw up all over himself, the bed, and the floor. Dane had acquired a pretty nice cough himself and has slept with us the last two nights. Aubrey and I are the only ones who haven't succumbed yet, must be that strong XX thing. NOT FUN!

In other health reports, Dane had a weight check on Monday after I decided he wasn't putting much weight on. I was right. Just seven ounces in a month, which isn't much at all. Currently he has only put on 1 lb. 4 oz. in the last three months. We decided to go full force with the Zantac and hope that really helps. He is being fed constantly so we're not sure what else to do. He has another weight check next week and a follow up with the doc in two weeks. Any other suggestions on how to fatten a baby?

To say this hasn't been a great day is a gross understatement. What cemented it into awful was when (this is a true story) I slipped on an unseen puddle of kitty barf (yep, you read that right) and crashed to the ground. Where I landed on my hand is swollen and purple and I have nice scrapes on my arm and leg. I HATE OUR CATS and am ready for this day to be over. So, who's coming to my house to clean it and make dinner? Those are two things that aren't happening today.

The pity party isn't over but I'll stop making you hear about it.

Zoo pictures

Jonny, gazing adoringly at Uncle Greg.
Nathan on the "spiderweb" at the zoo.
What a cute little spider!
Look, it's a rat. How exotic!
The otter slide. It was so slow you almost went backwards.
Mommy and Daddy, I am pooped!
Greg has never looked so attractive to me.

Goat hair is easier to brush than Aubrey hair.

Pictures of Jonny

Julie, Jason, and "new cousin Jonny" (as Nathan called him)
A precious picture of Dane that Jason took
The whole clan. Look at Dane pulling Jonny's hair!
COUSINS!
Aubrey and Jonny
Nathan and Jonny
Me with my first nephew

There should be more pictures to come, some of just Jonny and Greg with Jonny. Our email is having a tough time getting emails with attachments and many of the pictures that Jason forwarded to me bounced back. Stay tune though, there is more cuteness where that came from!

If you were a Nathan this is what you would have done this morning

You would have woken up at 5:45 and crawled into bed with Mom and Dad. You would have laid there peacefully for 2.4 seconds until bursting up and shouting, "I NEED A SNACK!"

You would have said you needed to poop and sat on the toilet for 15 minutes with nothing happening while you sister gives your mom the play by play. "Mom, Nathan is pushing SO HARD, like this, grrrrrrrr! I looked but there's not poop yet. Nathan, do you want a book?"

After getting off the potty with no poop to show for the work you would have promptly pooped your clean underwear and shorts.

You would have been in time out at least five times for various indiscretions like biting your sister, repeatedly not being gentle with your baby brother and shouting "NO WAY!" at your mom when she asked you to finish your milk.

While in time out you would have thrown every shoe off the shoe rack onto the floor. When forced to pick up the mess you would have done so but only done it while wearing a pair of your daddy's shoes. You know, to speed the process up.

You would have dumped out a bag of fishy crackers into your mom's purse at your sister's dance class.

You would have dumped a cup of dad's chewed up sunflower seed shells (see earlier post) onto the floor of the van.

You would have said, "Look Mommy, I do it by myself" to show your mom that you had colored your Uncle David a birthday picture. On the counter.

You would have tried to sign "I love you" to your mommy over and over again and asked for dozens of exploding kisses.

You would have done all of this with the BIGGEST smile on your face.

I LOVE YOU NATHAN!

Catch up

Things are quite different than my last post. I'll begin by saying that we ended up going to Seattle last weekend to meet our new nephew. Lest you think we are an inconsiderate bunch of clods for bringing them the intestinal flu, let me explain.

Greg came home from work on Thursday, thinking he was coming down something. He was nervous, having seen what I went through. I originally thought I had food poisoning but changed my mind when others got sick. Once Greg was home and ate something though he felt fine. Friday morning rolled around and we were all okay. Running, eating, playing. Greg and I thought once again that I probably had food poisoning (which is my final diagnosis on the matter). We called Julie and Jason and got their opinion. They said come so we did. I'm SO GLAD we did because we were healthy and continue to be so. Plus, we didn't miss out on our opportunity to see baby Jonny. He was as beautiful as his pictures and so snuggly. The only thing the pictures didn't do justice was his HAIR! It is amazing. It isn't just long, it's thick. At three weeks old the kid gets bed head! When you hold him you must pet him. Truly, our kids don't have that much hair until nearly two years of age.

While there we also squeezed in a visit to the Tacoma Zoo, stayed with Jason's parents, and got in some good baby snuggling. Jonny is perfect and a great addition to the Jones/Reynolds families. Thanks Julie and Jason for a lovely weekend!

Secondly, happy anniversary to us! Greg and I were married 8 years ago today. Our wonderful friends Angela and Justin share the exact same anniversary as us (they got married four hours before us) so obviously August 5, 2000 was a blessed day from the start. We spent the evening enjoying a special dinner (by special I mean something that had multiple items of food and none of them were pancakes or sandwiches), sipping girly wine that I will drink, and deciding which of the several hundred movies we haven't seen to rent at Blockbuster. Greg is my best friend and a committed partner in all parts of our life and I am so fortunate to be with him. And he's stinking blessed to have me, I am a supremely wonderful wife. :-) Eight years flies by when you are with the person you love. Heck, if we were celebrities people would be asking us for our marriage secrets and how we make it work. I would say with separate closets, lots of snuggles, and a high tolerance for emotional women and men who make awful sounds when eating sunflower seeds. I LOVE YOU GREG!

OH S#@&!!!!!!

Oh, I'm sorry, is that an inappropriate title? Well tough, because that's exactly what is going on around here.

Two days ago I started to not feel well. Sparing details, I became increasingly ill over the course of the day and decided that it was food poisoning. That night though I broke into fever, chills, aches, and congratulated myself on getting the intestinal flu from no known source. Yesterday was awful. Greg stayed home from work and I laid on the couch, moaning from the stomach cramps, spending quality time in the bathroom, and sipping Gatorade.

Today, approximately 15 minutes ago I got a phone call from Greg saying, "Um, I am coming home NOW." I knew exactly what he meant. I also heard from my mom that my sister Hannah came home from work today with the same crap. (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, pun intended.) May I tell you that if our children get this, which they very well might, I am putting them ALL in diapers. Who cares that Aubrey is potty trained and Nathan is almost as well? I almost put myself in diapers so what can I expect from these poor babies of mine? I think we are in for a LONG weekend.

The real bummer is that we have to cancel our weekend trip to see our new nephew in Seattle. As sad as we are I am certain that no one would thank us if we brought this lovely new baby present with us. Still, we have been really looking forward to this weekend and are disappointed to have to postpone it. Baby Jonny is going to be big before I get to snuggle him!

Enough of this post. A post about poop. I'm sure you are all too disgusted to want to read anymore. I know I am.

Cry Baby Cry

Dane is my third kid. I KNOW in my heart of hearts that he will one day sleep. I mean, it's happened twice before, right? Yet, I am a misery of a mom, breaking into tears of exhaustion at a moment's notice and threatening to run away forever. Or at least to the local hotel for the night just so I can sleep. The kid has been beating us over the head for the past several days, really giving it to us this weekend when I wanted to look my most rested and lovely for my class reunion. But that's a whole other story and not nearly as important as the one about the rest I'm (okay fine, WE'RE) not getting.

You may not know this but I am an emotional exhausted woman. Just as there are emotional drunks, I become weepy, irrational, and bizarre when not given adequate rest. That might explain me huddled on the couch last night, arms wrapped around a pillow, sobbing to my poor husband, "I'm just so exhausted! We are never having another kid! Do you hear me?!?!? I can't do this again! I think I'm dying! Now, get me a Slurpee!"

Thus commenced "time for Dane to cry it out". While we were in Yakima he took to being up for 2 hours in the middle of the night, all smiles and joviality, and waking up multiple more times each night. This had to stop. I was obviously going crazy and Greg and I were dreading night time. So last night, around 10 p.m., Dane woke up and started in. And we dug in our heels. Every 5-10 minutes or so we'd go in, pat him, roll him back onto his tummy (he can do this easily but when screaming seems to only concentrate on lying on his back and kicking frantically), give him his binky, and leave again. Then we'd go back to our air mattress in the living room (since Dane was doing his screaming in our bedroom) and lie there, feeling awful. This lasted for one hour and 5 minutes. And I was counting the whole time. At 11:15ish the wailing stopped and we found him sound asleep, binky in mouth, hands on his blankie, looking beat up. We felt awful. BUT THEN he slept until 6:30 this morning, I fed him, and he went back to sleep until 9 a.m.! And I stopped feeling awful. He was his usual happy self today and the mere hope of sleep has given me strength for another day. I'll let you know how tonight goes. It is no wonder sleep deprivation of a form of torture. It will make you do just about anything.

Shameless plug

Hey there readers. I want to redirect you all, again, to another blog off of my page. It is my cousin Trina's site and she is in the business of making bags. Check them out, she really has a great eye for fabrics and I can vouch for the fact that she does a good job. Plus, her most popular bag is called "Shaine" which I cannot resist since it is my daughter's middle name. (Who happens to be named after Jarali Shaine, Trina's sister.) Anyways, take a look, I think she has some great stuff.

Second thing. This morning I packed up all three of my kids and took them to a movie in an actual theater. I went by myself with all of them. Honor me.

Our valley theater shows free kids movies every Tuesday and Wednesday at 10 a.m. I chose "Charlotte's Web" because the kids love it and it's safe. Nothing scary and nothing unexpected being as they have seen it before. I fell in love with my children all over again today because they LOVED IT. They both beamed while we stood in line for our popcorn and I was an over flowing mom of happiness as they exclaimed in excitement about everything, from the advertising posters to the popcorn to the cool seats (they barely weighed enough to keep them down) to the BIG BIG SCREEN! They were angels. They sat, ate their popcorn, giggled, said, "LOOK AT THAT MOMMY!" a hundred times, and took turns sitting on my lap. Where was Dane you ask? After nursing him shortly after the movie started I put him in his stroller, rocked it with my foot, and he slept in there THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE MOVIE. It was a miracle. We had a great time, I can't wait to do it again. If you have a Regal theater in your area, check it out. They do this all over the state. A person needs mornings like this to remind them that the work of parenting is so worth it. You are watching the world come alive again through someone else's eyes and it is magic.