Life Continues (part 2)

I finally have a few minutes to post some stuff we've been up to with our family of four now! Brandon's Mom and John were in town and it was great having them here to help us out with Violet and Owen and keeping my house in order!

The Life Continues

First of all, I need to post a correction.  I forgot to mention that Nina Schmidgal was our first visitor in the hospital late on May 14th.  She wasn't going to be able to come the next day (with Joel) so she came quickly the night of his birth.  Here she is showing off our boy.  She also took some pictures which were awesome, but what do you expect from the Brown family official photographer.  Here are some of the great pictures she took when she came to visit:

        

          

Its been a long time since we've added more pictures and data about the growing family.  Let's see.  Owen left the hospital at 7 lbs and 14 oz on the expected transition between living off of Mom internally to actually eating.  Per the plan, we took him to the pediatrician on his first week birthday.  He was up to 8lbs and 4oz.  Then on his second week birthday we took him back.  He was up to 8lbs and 14 oz.  This guy is eating it up! 

           So tired after such a big day at the doctors office.

Big "O" is One Week Old

We survived the rest of our time at the hospital and they let us go home (Us meaning Grace and Owen, I was just the strap-hanger).  Here's a picture of Owen and our Nurse Patti.  She did a wonderful job taking care of Grace and we definitely missed her when we got home.  I couldn't quite compete with her.  

Here's Grace bringing down Big O so we can drive him home.  It seemed like such a short time between when he was born until we took him home, but at the same time, it was so much longer and restful (relatively) than when Violet was born.  With Vi, we only had about a day and a half in the hospital compared to Owen's four days.  He's dressed out in an outfit that Vi picked out for him, especially adorable hat with little ears.  Grace is looking good and I'm looking a little worse for wear.  

 

Pretty Flowers for Owen

Grace has been so excited to see the flowers that our family sent for her stay in the hospital.  Here's a few pictures that we've gotten.  Unfortunately, I am not what you would call "knowledgeable in flowers," or able to name the types of flowers that are shown.  What I can say is the flowers are beautiful and I thought they were just what Grace needed.  I would describe them as gorgeous.   

 This one came from Bob and Vicki Welty.  

This one came from Papa and Nana in California.  When the Nurse brought it in, she said that in her twenty years, she hadn't seen something so cute.  

  This one is from Grandma and Grandpa in Missouri.  

We'll be going home tomorrow at about noon.  Violet will be waiting for Owen to come home.  

Also last night, our good friends the Blackanns came for a visit with Taylor and their new son Bo.  Here's a picture of them with Owen.  They were so nice, they brought a pizza for me (yummy!) and presents for Violet and Grace.  

We also had a visit from our friend Tiffani (who is due in June) after she got off of work.  But for the sake of Owen, she didn't want to hold him {she works at another hospital in town in the NICU and was afraid to get our little Owen sick}. Sooo, we don't have a picture of her for the blog.  More when we get home.  

Day two in the Hospital

Yesterday Owen and Grace had some visitors. The most important being Violet. She came with her Aunt LaLa, Mom Mom, and Chase to meet Owen. Pop Pop came a little later. When she came in, she ran to the side of Grace's bed. Grace had wanted to talk with her and then introduce her to Owen. Vi would have none of it. She sat on Grace's bed for about a minute and then hopped up and started saying "Ohhh!, Ohhh! Baby Owen." She was so excited and just wanted to hold him. We sat her down on the bed, with Grace helping, and put Owen in her arms. She was so excited. She wanted to cover him up with blankets (he already had two) cause he was "crying" according to her. He was ofcourse just sleeping. Then she proceeded to point out the features on his face. Here's her pointing at his chin.

Chase also wanted to get his hands on Owen and could hardly wait until Vi was done. Before she left, we were able to get our first family picture with our babies. Christina (Tia), Pastor Joel, and Pastor Dave also came up to see our little star.

So, we survived our first full day. Owen is doing well. He does very well at eating.

Here's a few pictures of us waking up this morning. He ate at about 4 this morning and then let us sleep to almost 8. He has become quite a cuddler, which is good since he's also got a bit of gas. So, he'll fuss and the only way to get rid of it is to burp him. After our relaxing morning, he had his circumcision. (He was not happy about that) and I may have been more tramatized than he was.

After his snip snip, he had some trouble relaxing. He didn't even want to eat, which for this guy is a bit change. I'll try to get some video up of Vi with Owen later.

Baby Owen has Arrived

Baby Owen has joined us in the world outside of Grace's tummy. He was born at 3:28, which is pretty funny since our surgery was scheduled for 1 pm. Here's Grace doing a bit of multi-tasking while waiting.









When Grace did finally get into the OR, she spent a few minutes getting her combined spinal/epidural telling the nice Dr how it sorta hurts. On a side note, the ansteseologist (SP?) was named Happe(spoken Happy), so that was a good sign. Here's what I looked like all scrubbed up, ready for the operating room.


I got to sit in the room with Grace and talk to her, but she was not up for much conversation.


So I kept talking to her. I didn't watch as they opened her up, but when they pulled him out and showed him to us, I went over to watch as they cleaned him up.

Owen came out, peaked over the curtain to look at mommy and went to go get cleaned up.






He weighed 8lbs 8.8Oz. (Correction from the 8lbs 9Ozs I posted earlier) and was 21 inches long. When we tried to move him from the scale, he grabbed a hold of it and wouldn't let go.

He's beautiful and looks so much like Violet( See her below after Owen's picture of him eating his hand). Owen came out crying and instantaniously was given a 9 Apgar with a 10 10 minutes later. As soon as he hit the warming table he started sucking cause he was ready to eat. See below. He has a lot of hair with a mullet (Serious up front, all party in the back).


He's got huge feet (like daddy), a Brown-family Chin (cleafed chin), and long, long fingers.


Here's m'boy in his first bath.

He's such a happy baby and is all about eating and sleeping (my dream days). He's strong and is already pushing off with his gigantic feeI can't wait for everybody to meet him.

Violet's Aunt La La

What fun Violet has with her Aunt La La! And what a great picture of the two of them! We are so glad her and Chase are back in the area and so thankful for all she does to help me with my little munchkin:)