Brody - 1 Month!

I just love this picture...is it a real smile?  Who knows, but I'll take it!

Can you believe that our little Brody, Bro Bro, Buddy Boy is 1 month old already??  Man, that was definitely the fastest first month of any of our babies that I can remember!

Brody continues to be just an absolute angel baby.  He is rarely fussy, pretty content and chill and just accepts all the love he gets from his sisters.  

I decided to weigh him the other day, and he's gained 1.5 pounds in the last two weeks!  

He's starting to chunk up!  

Now...prepare yourself for picture overload!

(You can click on the pictures to see them larger)

 Addison was so excited to hold him "now that he's a big 1 month old"

Looking out the window while his sisters insist on holding his hands.

 

All 5 kiddos celebrating the day 

(ha...kidding, we didn't celebrate, I just yelled "Hey, girls, come sit down and let me get a picture" and they did)

Brody deep in thought - or maybe the sun was really bright coming in the window.  Hard to tell what's going through a baby's mind.

 

Brody is just starting to occasionally coo...not often, but a little bit.  He was cooing while I was taking pictures and making some cute faces.  I don't necessarily think these were REAL smiles, but I'll just pretend he was thrilled about our little photoshoot.

 Then it was back to being stoic.  These pictures show that his eyes are looking quite blue lately, but Addison's looked blue early on as well, so we really have NO idea what they'll end up being.

 Caught a little pouty face...so sad

We just LOVE our little sweet boy and are so grateful he's in our family.

Addison Funnies II

I was going back through some old drafts I had started for blog posts and never actually posted, and found this one...thought I'd share.  Some of these are a couple months old or so, but still funny. Love my crazy Addison!

Addison asked how the baby got in my belly.  I hate that question.  Anyways, I told her that I had an egg in my belly that is growing into a baby.  She said, "What?!  That is just weird, that can't be the real truth!"  So I asked her how she thought it got in there and she said, "Well, I don't know.  Is it like the eggs we eat?"  I told her no, it's a special kind of egg.  Her response was, "Oh, well I bet it is probably poisonous."

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"If you aren't nice to others, others won't be nice to you.  But if others are nice to you, then you be nice...to ME!"

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Addison: What are you making? Is that chili?

Me: No, I'm putting chicken in the crock pot for dinner.

Addison: What? That is NOT chicken.

Me: Yes it is.

Addison: Are you sure it's not turkey? You know, some turkey is made out of chicken.

Me: Uh...no, I'm sure it's chicken.

Addison: Well...is it chicken cluck, cluck, or the chicken that you eat?

Me: It's the chicken that we eat.

Addison: OK.

Apparently she hasn't figured out that "chicken cluck, cluck" becomes chicken that you eat.

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(You have to pay attention to the spellings of quite and quiet to get this)

Addison: Mom, is it time for preschool yet?

Me: It's not quite time yet.

Addison: It's not quiet time?

Me: No, I didn't say quiet, I said quite. It's not quite time.

Addison: So preschool is after quiet time?

Me: No, it just isn't time yet.

Addison: So I don't get quiet time today?

Me: Uh...I guess not. It's not time for preschool, you'll go later.

Addison: So preschool is at quiet time?

Me: Sure Addison...sure.

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Addison got to paint an egg at preschool for her Easter party.  When she brought it home, Claire and her were convinced there was a real baby chick inside, because Claire put a flashlight up to it and could see "something" in there.  (Claire's school class recently hatched chicks in an incubator...she is now the chick expert).  They were so thrilled that they had a real, live baby chick egg.  Addison said, "I'm going to go sit on it to hatch it and if it pecks my bum, then we'll know it's real!"  She claims it pecked her bum.  I had to break it to them that it's just a hard boiled egg, not a real live chick.

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Addison was in the living room - supposedly fulfilling a time out.  We heard her start playing the piano, so I said, "Uh...you're not supposed to be playing the piano, your bum is supposed to be on that chair in there."  She said OK, and then a minute later said "My bum is now on the chair!" but we heard the piano again. Marty went to catch her in a lie, and she had dragged the chair over to the piano and was playing it again.  She said, "What?  My bum is in the chair."  She's a stinker.

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Listening to Addison talk to Molly, thinking how sweet they are as she's saying "I like you Molly, I always have fun with you."  Then she giggles and says "Booger?" while holding a booger up to Molly trying to offer her a bite.  REALLY?

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Addison: Mom, I have a sore on my chest. 
Me: You do? How did you get it? 
Addison: Probably from sitting on the toilet too long.

Of course...that makes perfect sense.

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We were sitting in a movie theater, and a baby started crying

. Addison looks over at me shocked and says "Is that your belly crying?!" I laughed and told her no, there's a baby crying in the theater. She says "Oh, it sounded like a baby boy, so I thought it was coming from your belly."

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Addison is pretty smooth. She has been coming into my bed during the night a lot lately, and I'm trying to get her to stop. She came in again last night, and I kind of sighed, ready to try and get her to go back to her room. But before I could say anything, she says; "Mom, I know I'm not supposed to come in here, and I tried really hard to stay in my bed, but I just was too scared. But look, we can just talk about this in the morning." Then she laid down on Marty's side and went to sleep. I just let it go, because how do you respond to that?

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Addison: Mom, I love you but...well, I just don't know what to say.
Me: OK?
Addison:  I mean, I love you, but I just don't know what I'm going to say.
Me: OK, do you need something.
Addison:  Well, um...let me think...oh yes, I'm sick.  I need medicine.
Me: Well, you don't have a fever, so I can't give you medicine.
Addison: Well, I don't have a hot fever, I think I have a poo fever that makes my poop hurt.
Me:  A poo fever?
Addison: Yes, a poo fever makes your poop hurt and makes you throw up.
Me:  Well, please don't throw up.
Addison:  Actually, that's not what fever I have.  I have a metal tecklace fever.
Me: Metal tecklace?
Addison: Yes, it means my hip hurts.
Me:  Sounds serious...guess you should go relax.
Addison:  OK.

Comparing baby pictures

I've had a couple people (OK, a lot of people) ask who we think Brody looks like, since our girls all look so different.  So, I decided to compare Brody's baby picture with them to see if I could figure it out.  The verdict?  I'm still not sure who he looks most like.  Initially we thought he looked most like Addison, but here and there I see similarities with him and the other girls as well. He does seem to have the darker skin and hair like Addison has, and his eyes are VERY dark.  All the girls had the gray/blue eyes as babies and then all but Addison's stayed blue.  So I think he is more than likely going to have dark eyes. I guess only time will tell!  Here are the pictures:

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So, what do you think?  It's hard to tell!

And one last comparison.  My in-laws are visiting, and one of the first things Claire told Marty's mom was that she thinks Brody looks just like Uncle Ben.  So, it made me curious.  I don't see many similarities, other than the dark hair (although Ben had WAY more), maybe the nose shape...but it's still fun to see my sweet baby boy side by side with the boy who's name he now shares.

Picture Overload

This post is mostly going to just be pictures from the last couple weeks...but I'm sure the grandparent's won't complain!  It seems that time flies by when you bring a new baby home and your day is chopped up into feedings every 2-3 hours and constant diaper changes.  But I've been trying to remember to at least take a few pictures.

So, enjoy!

I think the thing the girls love most about Marty being home is wrestling with him.  I, obviously, wasn't getting down on the floor wrestling, so they love when he does.

  

Then he convinced Claire and Addison to massage his back.

A few days after coming home from the hospital, I was feeling antsy to leave the house.  So we loaded everyone up for the first time just to go for a drive.  It's crazy how full the car is now with that one more little person in the back.  Definitely almost maxed out the capacity!

I just love a tiny baby in footie pajamas.

  

We finally did some fireworks a couple days after the 4th of July.  It was really windy at night on the 4th and 5th, so we had to wait.  The girls were SO happy!

I found myself hanging out at home alone with Brody one day, it was SO quiet...which was nice, but also a little boring.  We just hung out and relaxed, which was much needed, but I look forward to the older three girls coming back from visiting my parents.  I may change my mind after they're here though. :)

Just love when this cute boy has his eyes open - which is starting to happen a little more often, but he's still a really sleepy baby.

 

I always seem to forget just how tiny a new baby really is, so I took a picture of Brody alongside my arm to give some perspective.  Such a tiny little guy.

Molly LOVES her baby brother, and with the older three girls gone for a few days, she's had him all to herself.  I just love how adoringly she looks at him and talks to him.  Hopefully she'll always love him this much. 

 My sister, Emily, convinced me to let her come over to get some newborn pictures of Brody.  I wasn't against it, I just am tired and didn't want to put in the effort.  So, she brought everything needed and went to work.  I snapped this first picture with my cell phone (which I'm impressed with the quality) and the ones after I snapped with my own camera.  Emily is going to do any photoshop magic that needs to be done to everything she took, so I'll get a post of those up eventually.

I wanted to get a picture of his hair.  So far he hasn't started rubbing a bald spot on the back of his head.

  

I just love the squished lips and chin!

And there you have it, now we can consider ourselves all caught up...for the time being.

Welcome Baby Brody!

Welcome Brody Benjamin Davis!

Born Sunday, June 29 at 9:44 p.m.

7 lbs. 14 oz.

20 inches

We are SO grateful that our sweet boy is here!  He couldn't wait until his scheduled day, July 3rd, and even decided to crash his Aunt Sara's birthday!  We kind of think Ben had a hand in him coming on Sara's birthday, two weeks early, and the second I heard Brody cry, I knew Ben was there and that we definitely needed to give this sweet boy his uncle's name.

It's just amazing how perfectly everything worked out.  We were definitely watched over!

I feel like there are so many little details to try and include in Brody's "birth story", but it could get really lengthy.  There were so many little tender mercies and things that fell into place so amazingly, I don't want to forget them. So, feel free to skim or skip to the bottom where I will post some more pictures of our cute boy. :)

Brody's original c-section date was July 7th, but as we got closer and closer, I just felt like things were changing and that maybe the due date was off.  After talking to the doctor about it, we decided to move the c-section up to July 3rd.  We also didn't want to risk going into labor, especially with Marty being 5 hours away in California.  I quickly changed a few plans to have Marty and my parents come on July 2nd to be ready for our baby to come, and I did my best to take it easy.

The week before Brody was born, my sister - Aspen - and her kids had been in town for a cousin visit.  It was GREAT fun for the kids (and I enjoyed the company as well).  My mom had been visiting her family in Arizona and was going to be coming here to meet up with Aspen on Friday, June 27th, to go back home together.  I had been secretly hoping that maybe my mom would just stay and not go home between then and the 2nd, but didn't really want to ask her because she'd been gone from home for a few weeks already for different family things.

Luckily, I have two sisters who decided to meddle and they talked to my mom about how I was doing.  They all agreed I needed the help, so my mom surprised me by deciding to stay instead of going home before the baby.  YAY!  It was a HUGE weight off my shoulders.

Saturday was pretty uneventful, we just played, did a little cleaning, a little grocery shopping and hung out.  Sunday morning, my mom helped get us all ready for 9:00 a.m. church and we went - and even made it on time! The whole time we were there, I just felt a little anxious and antsy and was also starting to have some lower back pain.  I figured it was just nerves about the baby coming later that week combined with sitting in church for three hours.  I was having some contractions as well, but assumed they were braxton hicks, so didn't really say anything to anyone.

We got home from church, ate lunch and I laid down and took a nap.  I woke up from the nap with a lot more lower back pain, and it just wouldn't let up. I started feeling anxious again, like this wasn't just regular aches and pains and texted Marty to let him know.  I called my sister Emily to see what she thought and also to ask if she was available to come take me in to the hospital just to be monitored while my mom stayed with the kids.  Having had 4 previous c-sections, going into really strong labor is dangerous, so we have to be very careful.  It was decided that Marty should probably just start driving home in case, and Emily would take me in to the hospital.  We figured we'd know pretty quick if I was really contracting or not and if I wasn't, Marty could turn around and go back to California, but we felt better about that than having him wait to see what the monitoring showed.

So I took a bath, to see if it calmed down the pains, and packed a hospital bag while I waited for Emily to get to my house.  But the pain wasn't letting up.  We decided to call Aunt Sara before I left for the hospital, to sing her happy birthday, and tell her she might have to share her birthday (she was at my sister Aspen's house for her birthday party.  The whole party they were getting updates from Emily about how things were going...HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARA!)

Marty hit the road about 5:00 p.m., and Emily and I got to the hospital around 6:00 p.m. and I got hooked up to the monitors.

I always worry that I am being over paranoid and would get sent home, but to our surprise I was contracting consistently every 4-5 minutes for the first hour, and every 3-4 minutes after that.  

This was the real deal!

The doctor agreed it was time, and somehow - miraculously - Marty wasn't running into any traffic and it was looking like he would make it to St. George by 9 p.m., which is a major record! The doctor decided to schedule us to be ready for the c-section at 9:30, and we just waited for Marty to get there.

At this point, my bishop's wife texted me to let me know they were upstairs if I needed anything (they had a baby a few days earlier).  I told her I would actually like a blessing when Marty got in, and I'd let them know when he was there.

Marty walked in almost exactly at 9:00.  I texted the bishop to come downstairs to help with the blessing and received a beautiful, comforting blessing.

We got our sweet surgery outfits on -

- the nurse came in, we walked back to the OR, got the spinal and everything prepped, and Brody was here at 9:44.

This c-section was BY FAR the easiest one.  I had mentioned to the anesthesiologist that I always get really nauseous and my blood pressure drops during c-sections, so he had doubled my fluid in my IV, which apparently did the trick, because I felt fine the whole time.  It was SO great to not feel so horrible.

Brody didn't cry much at first, sounded like he'd "swallowed a lake" (as the nurses said).  But we did hear him start making some noise and trying to cry after a minute.  They didn't do the traditional laying him on the scale for a picture thing, because he was having trouble clearing out the fluid, so we don't have that.  He had to get put on a CPAP machine for a little bit to get him cleared out, but quickly picked up his stats on his own and we were holding him by about 10:30 or 11:00 p.m.

Looks like dark hair to us...we shall see!

I was up and walking around the next morning and the recovery is going great!  We are so in love with this sweet baby boy of ours.  His sisters just can't get enough of him either!

And now, some more pictures!

This was the first morning in the hospital.

The girls came to see Brody as early as they could Monday morning.  Molly wasn't too thrilled and was insisting that Marty hold her for most of the time.

These three were OVER THE MOON in love with Brody.  Addison started crying when they had to leave, because she "Missed Brody so much already!"

Then we convinced the ragamuffin Molly to join in another picture.

Just some cute baby faces

Caught the end of a gas smile...cute boy!

Brody's bilirubin was a little high, so they put him under lights over night on Tuesday.

And then...we got to go home Wednesday afternoon!

When we got home, Molly showed interest in him.  So we let her hold him for a few minutes.  Unfortunately, she'd been a little sick and Marty took her into instacare later that day...and she has strep.  Awesome!  Luckily, the doctors said newborns are pretty safe against strep, and she hadn't been around him much, so he should be good.

The other girls were also thrilled he was home.

 Who needs TV?  Brody is the best entertainment around.

Emily came over to visit as well...she didn't get much one on one time with him though.

And I just thought he was so cute laying on my bed...I couldn't resist taking this picture.

And there we have it...the extra long introduction to our newest, sweet baby!