I think we'll keep him...

Well, after two and half weeks, we have decided that we still like Brian, and I think we'll keep him.  It turns out that he is quite the angelic baby, which is good because Colton gets really concerned whenever the baby cries.  He's very sensitive to others' suffering...

Here are some recent pics:

We remembered to take a picture of the whole family before leaving the hospital.

I love my boys!

Colton likes to make sure that Brian has his binky.

So peaceful...

Brian rarely cries, so we were surprised to hear him shreaking.  We found that he had managed to get one arm out of his sleeve and through the neck hole.  Though stylish, he didn't seem too fond of the off-one-shoulder look.

I was attempting a very artful photo shoot of Brian in a basket, but as you can see, he was not a fan.  He just about did a head dive off the front in order to get out of it.

I think he's awfully cute!

Blue Num Num

I had this brilliant plan to be a basketball for Halloween (assuming that I was still pregnant), and I would make Justin and Colton matching basket ball jerseys.  It was going to be awesome.  But then I became convinced that I probably wouldn't make it to Halloween...so I didn't make the costumes.  And then it became apparent that I probably would make it to Halloween, but I really wasn't in the mood to make costumes, so then I had to improvise.  And by improvise, I mean go to the party store and find a costume for Colton.

So what did I come up with?  Well, I found a sweet blue M&M costume on sale for $9 bucks.  We had a winner!  It also seems appropriate because Colton and Justin actually have a little game that they play where Colton says that he's a blue M&M (pronounced "num num"), and Justin pretends like he's going to try to eat him--so Colton runs away.

The best part--by far--of Colton's costume is his cute little skinny legs sticking out the bottom.  I know he's going to hate me  someday for dressing him like this, but it was just too darn cute to pass up.  (And we did put a covering on his legs before sending him out in the cold...)  Ironically, when Halloween actually came, I thought I was in labor, so he actually went trick-or-treating with Michael and Julie.  Good thing I didn't make the basketball outfits!

Brian Justin Scott

Well that tricky trickster thought a full day of false labor would be a good way to prepare me for less than two hours of real labor.  Here's how it went down:

I woke up around 2:30 with my first contraction.  After about three, I could tell that these were definitely of a more painful variety than I had been feeling on Monday.  I woke Justin up so we could start timing them.  They were already coming 4 minutes apart.  We decided to get up and start getting stuff ready, and my water broke. We called our neighbor Noelle who graciously came to sleep on our couch and look after Colton.  By the time she got to our house around 3:15 ish, the contractions were already coming about 2-3 minutes apart, and were much more painful than anything I actually felt when Colton was born.  (I should point out that I got my epidural nice and early with Colton...)  We got to the hospital around 3:30 am.  Justin helped me into the lobby and then went to move the car.  This is what they told us to do on the tour of the hospital.  But when the next contraction hit, and I let out a little squeal of pain, I think it made the security guard uncomfortable enough that he helped me into a wheelchair and pushed me up to Labor and Delivery.

So it had only been about an hour since I'd felt the first contraction, but they were coming about every two minutes and lasting a very unpleasant minute.  When I got to L&D, the anesthesiologist was standing there waiting.  I could not have been more happy to see anyone.  Unfortunately, they made me sign a whole bunch of paperwork before they let him come in.  Justin got back from parking the car about this time, and I'll be honest, I may have been screaming just a little bit with every contraction.  It kind of hurt.  A lot.  I was already at a 7 cm when I arrived at the hospital.  They finally let the anesthesiologist in a little after 4 am.  The epidural had just enough time to take a little of the edge off, because when the doctor came back in, it was go time.  I think I pushed about three times, and he was born at 4:21 am.  Justin then passed out at 4:21:30.  Fortunately, he knew it was coming and was able to sit down and secure himself in a chair before losing consciousness.

Even though this delivery was a lot more intense than Colton's, it was over so quickly that it almost seemed like it didn't happen.  I think by 7 am I was already untethered from all machines and IVs and feeling pretty good.  Brian is perfect and healthy.  He weighed 8 lbs 4 oz and is 21 inches long.  (A mere three lbs heavier than his older brother!)  We're so happy he's here!!

 

I think his torso is twice as wide as Colton's was.  He kind of looks like a sumo wrestler in comparison.

Lots of dark brown hair!

They gave me lots of bling.

Brian got some too.

We forgot to take any pictures of all three of us when Colton was born, so we made sure to do it this time.  Too bad you can't really see the baby...We'll take some tomorrow before we go home.

He's an awfully cute little burrito.

Welcome to the world little Brian!

11.1.11

Wouldn't it be awesome if your birthday were 11.1.11?  After fourteen hours of contractions yesterday, we thought our little guy would definitely get that awesome birthday.  But then, in a horribly cruel trick of nature, everything stopped and it turned out that it was all just a false alarm.  At least we didn't go to the hospital.  It's bad enough that I made Justin come home from work and Julie come pick up Colton to spend the night.  Seriously, there's really nothing worse than being mentally prepared for the arrival of the baby, only to have nothing happen.  Sheesh!

Nesting

Justin calls it nesting.  I call it wanting to have somewhere to sit in the basement.  Either way, about a month and a half ago, I decided it was time for us make our downstairs the main family room.  There were several cascading effects of this decision: We would need a new couch to put upstairs so that we can move the comfy, red, movie-watching couch downstairs, and we would need to paint the basement--including the ceiling.  It turns out that painting the ceiling is a very un-gratifying task.  I know because I did it entirely by myself.  (I should point out that while I was painting the ceiling--and the rest of the basement--Justin was stuck behind the furnace in the laundry room installing a new outlet so we can mount the TV to the wall downstairs--yet another of those cascading effects.  Anyway, I realized very quickly that safety goggles and some type of covering for my hair would be essential.  When Colton saw how cool I looked, he wanted to get in on the action as well.  

Yes, I was painting at 7.5 months pregnant.

Colton really liked working with the roller.  (Sorry, I guess I should have rotated the picture before uploading it...) 

Nothing like painting with a two-year-old.  It was serious mother-son bonding. (And someday I'll get around to rotating this picture.)

At some point in the future, I will post pictures of the finished product.  Right now we're still waiting for the new couch to arrive.  They gave us a 4-12 week window.  So it should arrive sometime between now and Christmas...

A doozy

They say that you have weird dreams when you are pregnant.  I have weird dreams even when I'm not pregnant, but last night's was a real doozy.  I dreamt that we were watching my belly move (which is a common occurence these days) and marveling at how weird it is that there is a living thing inside me.  As we are watching, we see a little hand stick out.  And then I thought, "Hey wait!  I shouldn't be able to see an actual hand sticking out."  Then I looked down and realized that the baby had ripped a hole through my belly so as to be able to stick his hand out.  It was kind of gross looking--blood and guts and everything.  So I showed Justin (in the dream), who almost passed out at the sight of it.  We decided that we should probably go to the doctor considering the baby was starting to emerge of his own accord, but I realized I didn't have my phone with me, and I didn't know the doctor's phone number.  So we decided to drive to my parents' house to get my phone (we were living in a strange alternate universe where Provo and Arlington were somehow combined).  When we finally got my phone, we called the doctor, but she wasn't listening as I tried to explain there was a big hole in my belly with the baby's hand sticking out.  She kept asking about contractions--but I wasn't having any.  I think it was about at this point that Colton came bounding in saying "Me awake!" so I didn't get to see the exciting conclusion.  Pity.

Anyone out there good at interpreting dreams?  My personal take: I'm soooooooooo ready to have this baby!!

Ultimate Super Birthday Cake

I know Justin's birthday was a long time ago...September 2 to be precise (there seems to have been some confusion about that among certain members of my family who were using the anniversary of the restoration of the priesthood (May 15) as a way of remembering his birthday, so I thought I'd clarify).

Since we were going to be on vacation with the Piersons on his magical day, Jen and I decided that we should join forces to create a fourteen-layer cake-of-a-lifetime.  Here's  what we came up with:

Jen and I both made a cake and baked it into seven pancake-thick layers.

Then we made a delicious chocolate glaze to smother over each layer.

It took both of us to do all the layering and smothering.

It was getting pretty tall...

...and tasting pretty darn delicious.

However, it wasn't much to look at, so we decided to add an outside layer of chocolate-cream cheese buttercream frosting.

That looks better.

We forgot to bring any candles with us, so we had to use a flashlight.  It's amazing how he was able to blow it out.

And then we cut into it.  Yum.  No, double yum....to the max.

Happy Birthday Justin!

Big Walk (Part II)

I know I already posted about this, but Jen shared her pictures of the day with me, and I couldn't resist passing them along to my adoring public.

In case you forgot I was pregnant, refer to bowling ball above. (That was a month ago...I've grown and inch a week since then...)

Much better action shot than I got of Justin and Colton running "fast like McQueen."

I'm pretty sure that Matt was trying to imitate Colton's run.  Either that or he was returning to his primate roots.  Kind of hard to tell which...

We made it to the "ba-ba ba"  (That is Colton's version of waterfall.  Now--a month later--it has at least developed to "wa-wa ba."  Progress.)

Pure happiness.

After playing in the water, his shorts were a little wet...so he got to enjoy Oreos in his undies at the end of the hike.  

Big Walk

Over Labor Day, we decided it was time to introduce Colton to hiking.  We were in the Shenandoahs with the fabulous Piersons, so it seemed like a good Sunday activity to get outside and enjoy the beauties of nature.  For some reason, rather than telling him that we were going on "a hike," we told him that we were going on a "big walk."  I'm not sure why we didn't just call it a hike.  But that is not the point here.  The point is that Colton was a super hiker, or big walker--whatever you want to call it.  He spent the first mile forcing Justin to jog with him "fast like McQueen" (or "bast mean" as this phrase would sound to the average human ear).  This picture doesn't really do justice to the fact that they were moving at quite a clip (especially compared to 7-months-pregnant me).

Despite how much Colton loves running, the highlight of this particular big walk was the little pool full of gravel at the bottom of the waterfall.  

Grab two handfuls of gravel.

Pull back...

Release!

Sheer delight to watch all those little rocks go plop, plop, plop in the water.

Then he realized it was fun to get in the water himself...

Smile! (He's figured out that he should make a face when we say to smile.  At least this time it wasn't his sour face.)

Sadly, getting his feet all wet led to some pretty nasty blisters--and that was the end of him going fast like McQueen.  On the other hand, it was the beginning of a great bicep workout for Justin who got to carry him the rest of the way...

Awesome new phrases

Colton is once again proving that (despite my worst fears) he actually will hit his developmental milestones.  I was convinced he'd never learn to crawl...or get teeth...or most recently, learn to talk.  Well, he may be unintelligible, but the boy's vocabulary is starting to take off.  (Today at the grocery store, he revealed that he knows how to say "want that."  It turns out that there are a lot of things that he wants at the grocery store.  None of them were on the vegetable aisle.)

Yesterday he decided to put two fantastic phrases on repeat: "Mommy pretty!"  "Mommy fun!"   I'll give Justin the credit for teaching him these phrases, but I'll tell you that nothing makes you feel better than hearing someone tell you over and over that you are pretty and fun.  Keep up the good work, Colton!

Blue Cup! Blue Cup!

Last night, as Justin and I were turning out the lights and heading to bed, we suddenly heard a wimper, then a seriously distressed cry.  I went into Colton's room to see what was going on, and I found him walking toward the door saying "Blue cup! Blue cup!"  At this point he'd been asleep for about three hours, so I tried to just send him back to bed, but he continued to insist that he needed a blue cup.  So Justin went to the cupboard and brought Colton a blue plastic Dixie cup.  Colton grabbed it, snuggled it, and settled right in to bed happily holding his blue cup.

We were on vacation last weekend, so we were using plastic cups rather than regular ones, but I had no idea that he'd developed such an attachment.  It made us laugh pretty hard.

Tool belts

Justin was in Colton's room (so that he could take apart the crib and spray paint it brown) with his tool belt.  Colton didn't want to be out-done by Dad, so he grabbed his tool belt as well.  Colton quickly discovered that a felt hammer is not as good of a tool as a real screw driver....

(And I will soon post the grand results of the spray painting and Colton (and baby's) new room...Get excited!)

Lucky Duck

The other day when Justin came home from work, Colton started shouting "lucky duck! lucky duck!"  We couldn't figure out what he meant--or where he would have learned that phrase (it's not one I use on a regular basis...).  Then, when Justin changed out of his work clothes--particularly taking off his socks and shoes--we realized that Colton was referring to Daddy's "yucky sock."  Colton has such a discerning nose...I suppose that's what a couple of months of heat and humidity will do.  Odor-eaters are on the shopping list.  (Sorry, Justin).

Flying

Colton really liked Ben and Camie's LoveSeat.  Especially when Justin threw him into it from across the room.

Cousins!

Colton had a great time playing with his cousins this weekend.  And we had fun making them pose together in their diapers...

Two

It's hard to believe that I have a two-year-old.  On the one hand, it seems strange to imagine a time without our little Colty-bug, but on the other hand it's crazy how fast time has flown by.  This birthday was fun to celebrate because, unlike last year, he understood two things: Birthdays = cake and presents are good.  A few days before his birthday, I started asking him, "What happens on your birthday?"  And he would immediately respond, "CAKE!!" (And sometimes he'd also throw in "Meen Yang" which clearly means ice cream...)  So I obliged my dear boy with a Bob the tomato cake.

Not too shabby for someone with no cake-decorating skillz.  You can at least see the resemblance. 

Colton waiting for us to start singing.

Colton deciding we should probably pray before digging into the cake.  He is very adamant about blessing all food before he eats it.  He also usually likes to include Bob and Larry in his prayers anyway, so praying over a Bob cake seems very appropriate.

Blowing out his candle.

And the moment he'd been waiting for...CAKE!!!

We love you, Colton!!