Finn at 1 week

Brotherly Love

"Momma, I think maybe I love him."

Giving kisses

Giving hugs

Rocking Finn and making sure he has his binky

My 3 Boys!!

So, I am seriously outnumbered here in the Jones household, but I'm loving it! I love being the mom of 2 boys. One of these days I'll have to share how I feel about being the mom of boys, but in the meantime, I wanted to share a little about each of my boys.

First, Reid. What can I say except that he has been amazing this week! I'm really not looking forward to having him go back to work. It has been so nice to have him home and he has been a huge help to me. I love seeing him play with Kai (right now they're playing the Wii) and holding Finn. I love having help clean things up a bit and I love that he does it so willingly and is so supportive. I have a wonderful, wonderful husband.

Kai is our precious boy and always will be. He has had a bit of a tough time sharing mommy this week, but things have gotten better. We've had a few meltdowns and demands of "Momma put baby down" but today he insisted on giving Finn hugs and cuddles and told me that he loves him. Thank goodness! I have a feeling we're not done by a long shot with some of the meltdowns, but I'm so grateful that he has the vocabulary to express himself and so the meltdowns don't involve much physical violence. They're more just crying and demanding. On Monday, he spent the morning with my visiting teaching companion while Reid picked us up from the hospital. Once we got home Kai proceeded to tell me that he had slammed a door at "the other house". When I asked him why he said "I was sad". I asked why he was sad and he said "Because Momma and Daddy no come get me.". Heartbreaking, huh? But so wonderful that he could tell me. Now I just have to ask my companion if the story is true. :)

Finally there is Finn. He has been a very calm and generally easy baby this week. I know that no good thing lasts forever, but I appreciate that he has given us this calm week to ease into parenting two little guys. His nights and days are completely backwards (I don't think I could emphasize that enough) and so he has worn us out, but at least it's somewhat enjoyable. He has become a fantastic eater, which I'm hoping will help fill him out a bit. At his appointment on Wednesday he still weighed 5 pounds 14 ounces, so we have weight to gain. At least he's not going backwards.

I love my family! I love that we've had this week to be a family of 4 and to enjoy each other's company. We are looking forward to the help that's arriving tomorrow, but this week really has been wonderful.

Finn Alexander Jones

We are so excited to have Finn as part of our family! He came 10 days before his due date and after a relatively quick labor (about 6.5 hours), taking us all by surprise. He gave us a little scare at the beginning as he managed to aspirate meconium and required oxygen. Because of his oxygen requirements, Finn was placed in the NICU and given an IV. Poor little guy was hooked up to all kinds of monitors. But I was happy to wake up on Sunday morning and find that he had come off the oxygen at 1am that day and we only had to give him a few more good feedings before he could come off of the IV. He was finally released from the NICU at about 4pm on Sunday (after 24 hours there). We were happy to have him join me on the mom/baby floor and meet his older brother for the first time. They exchanged presents and we had a little birthday party. Kai had picked out cupcakes and foot rattles for Finn, and Finn brought Kai a Percy train and bathtub markers.Finn and I were released from the hospital on Monday morning and were excited to get home. At home Finn had one more surprise for Kai--a tent and tunnel set-up complete with basketball hoop and balls. Kai has been thrilled with his presents! Finn, in the meantime, has been content to eat and sleep, except between the hours of 10pm and 2am, when for some reason he wants to cuddle and be held and not let me sleep at all!

The last time Finn was weighed was Sunday evening. He weighed in at a mere 5 pounds 14 ounces. Wow! Needless to say, he seems so tiny and all of a sudden Kai seems huge! We have him wearing premie diapers and newborn clothes, which are just swallowing him whole. He is eating well and so I expect he'll be gaining weight in no time. His first doctor's appointment is tomorrow, so I'll let you know.

Welcome home Finn!

Arrived

For those that don't follow Facebook... Baby boy Jones arrived at 11:58 am weighing 6 pounds 7 ounces and is 19.5 inches long. Pictures, and hopefully name will follow in a couple days.

Baby on the way

Angie started having the non-braxton/hicks contractions last night. We are at the hospital right now. Things are progressing well. I am sure Angie would not appreciate me sharing all the little details. It'll suffice to say that I hope to be able to bring Kai in to see his new brother, soon. I'll post again when the little one arrives. Yea!

I Love You Forever

I need to apologize up-front for the randomness and length of this post, but our lives lately have seemed to be really random. We have been busy preparing for the big changes to come and it's funny what things have seemed to become important to get done. I had practically given up on getting several things done on my "to-do list", when last week I get a bit of a kick in the rear from my midwife. (let's just say that some bloodwork came back with some strange results that could have resulted in an induction) It was actually good, as I was able to finish the most important items on my list in two days. This week I've been concentrating on the little things that I didn't think I was going to get to do. Some of those include purchasing bedding for Kai's new beds and curtains for his room, stocking up on food, buying Kai new art supplies, etc. In some ways, I feel that I've been a shop-a-holic this last week. But then I remember how hard it was to get out when Kai was an infant, and with the flu going around, I'm not sure that I'm going to want to go out so much after this new baby arrives. Hence the need to stock up now--like a squirrel for winter I guess.

Old man winter raised his ugly head this weekend
with freezing fog!

What I've been most excited about in the last week was the arrival of a new chest freezer. We have so much room for frozen food now!! I went to CostCo with Kai this week and bought some frozen meals, veggies, fruit, meat, you name it. It's so fun to know that I have more storage room to work with and a bit more of a stock pile.

Kai has been an angel, for the most part. He's always a great helper--he wants to do anything that I do. And he doesn't seem to mind the shopping or driving. He's also done a complete 180 degree turn on how he feels about his big boy bed. The mattresses to the bed arrived on Tuesday and he has slowly warmed up to the idea. In fact, if we let him, he'd be sleeping in there right now. We're holding out until tomorrow night so that Reid can spend the night with him. It's a daddy/Kai sleepover!

Testing out his big boy bed

My only concern with Kai is his interaction with other kids. He has recently really taken to hitting and pushing. And he doesn't need to be provoked to do it. I've been at a loss as to how to handle it, although we haven't had a big problem since I took away his Thomas train last week for pushing a little girl. Time-outs just weren't working, but taking away Thomas seemed to help. Despite his problem with other children, Kai has been nothing but sweet with me and Reid. For at least the last week or so, we have been blessed with random hugs and statements of "I really love you, momma/daddy" at least 15 times a day. No kidding and that's not an exaggeration. I can't decide if I like the "I really love you" more than I like the "I'll love you forever" that he also says. Both melt my heart. I don't know if this increased outpouring of love has anything to do with the changes he is sensing in the house or if it's just an unassociated phase. Either way, it's adorable and sweet and we love it.

How Kai eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

With everything else that I've been doing around the house, I've also wanted to make sure to get some quality time in with Kai. One of his favorite things to do is go to the library, and so we've tried to make a habit out of that every Thursday morning. They have toddler time at 10am, so we go and sing songs, listen to books, and do tickles (Kai loves those) and then we color at their table, pick out new books, read other books, and finally get some duck food from the front desk to feed the ducks at the pond. It's always a fun outing and I have to push Kai back into the car after an hour. It's something that I hope we can continue to do once I've gotten a little more settled handling him and a baby.

Feeding the ducks

Other than all of that (isn't that enough?), we're just in a holding pattern, waiting for this little guy to decide it's time to make his arrival. Kai showed up pretty much right on time, and that's what I'm hoping this little guy will do. Of course, my mom's pregnancies just got longer and longer (ugghh), so I'm really hoping that's not some sort of hereditary thing. If you haven't cast your vote yet (most of you haven't), please due. I'd love to see your guesses and who knows, maybe I'll find some great prize to share with the winner!

Baby Guessing Game

Ok, so I've started a baby pool for all who are interested. Click here to enter your guesses, or follow the link on the right sidebar. I'm looking forward to the guesses and good luck!

Kai-ism

While looking at a coloring book page of a bear in outerspace....

Kai: Where is he?
Momma: He's in outerspace. He's an astronaut.
Kai: Those are planets!
Momma: That's right. Do you know where Kai lives?
Kai: On this one. It's blue and green.
Momma: That's right. Do you know what the blue and green planet is called?
Kai: KAI!

Internet Shopping

Reid's a computer guy, and so it's no surprise that he is a fan of internet shopping. What surprises me is that after 4 and 1/2 years of marriage, I am now a complete convert! I have even made clothing purchases online!! (the horror!!! :P) So, when we set out to find furniture for Kai's big boy room this weekend, would it be a shock to say that we ended up doing all of our shopping online. The plus side is that we can browse many stores ("sites") in very little time and price hunt quite quickly. The downside is that it's going to take a while for us to receive our purchases. But, we're quite happy with what we decided on for the bedroom. We picked out bunk beds and a matching dresser. Aren't they nice??! (Sorry, they don't have a picture of the dresser with the matching stain.)

Now add to this MAJOR purchase the fact that we decided to switch cell phone carriers on Friday, order new cell phones, and order a chest freezer (all from the internet of course), we should have known we were asking for trouble. Just to purchase our furniture took me about three calls to the company website and two calls to the credit card company, who kept switching me to the fraud line and asking me trivia questions about Reid (since he's the primary card holder). I was seriously at the point where I thought the only thing left they could ask for would be my blood!! Thank goodness they didn't and we were finally able to get the transaction to go through. We won't talk about how much time I wasted on the phone though!

Anyway, we're getting there. We won't know when Kai's furniture will be delivered until they actually put it on the truck and give us a tracking number, but it looks like we're definitely going to be cutting it close. Reid just may be assembling bunk beds at home, while I'm in the hospital with a new baby. Wouldn't that be funny?!!

Out on a Limb

I'm going out on a limb and putting this out there for you. Off and on over the year, I've been working on turning my blog into a book. I know there are a lot of programs and websites that'll do it for you, but I really wanted to personalize this and not have just a simple book. So, I've been doing it through Heritage Makers. It's the first time that I've done a book on my own (without one of their templates) and while it's taking quite a bit of time, I'm really liking the finished product. So HERE it is! I've worked my way up to the Jones' Family reunion and from there it's all still a work in progress. As I get closer to being done, I'll post a new link so you can see how it turns out. Oh, and there's no cover yet, so when you first pull it up it'll be blank. Just turn the page. :P