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!