First Cold

It's official Bennett has his first cold at the ripe old age of 4.5 weeks.  He can thank his older brother for this wonderful experience this early in life.

After our awesome night, we decided to take B to the doctor.  He sounded like he had gunk in his lungs and I wanted to rule out anything serious.  

After an unpleasant nose swab and a 15 minute wait, we found out he was negative for flu and RSV.  I was extremely happy with these results.  

So now we have to wait out the cold.  Since he is so little his cold will last longer than a normal cold.  I guess we can't start building up the immune system soon enough.

Rough Night

Gabriel has been fighting a cold since the weekend.  I thought it had been clearing up, but bedtime came around and the coughing and runny nose came back.

He finally went to sleep around 8:30 - way past his bedtime. He was asleep until 2 and then he only wanted me to lay in the bed with him.  This would be ok since he is sick and only for a little while, but Bennett started not feeling well.

Bennett woke me up around 1:30 for normal feeding.  He then couldn't get comfortable or back to sleep.  He is now coughing and spitting up (something he rarely does).  I finally got him back to sleep in the bouncy chair at 2:30am and then Gabriel calls out.  

I give Gabriel more medicine for his cold and eventually fall asleep next to him.  I'm awoken by kicks from Gabriel and Bennett crying for a feeding at 4:30am.  

I return to our room to feed Bennett just in time to hear Gabriel cry out for me.  A quick kid swap and Scott is now sleeping in Gabriel's room and Bennett is screaming for food, diaper change and congestion.  

Oh it's going to be a very long day and it might be spent at the doctor's office.  

For now I'll try to get some sleep.

St. Nicholas Day

We remembered to celebrate St. Nicholas Day(December 6th) this year.  And it was a bit of a rush.  My mom was leaving after her month long visit that morning.  So she and I left for the airport at 6am (ouch) and by the time I arrived home Gabe and Bennett were awake.

Scott said Gabe found Bennett's gift first and was playing with that when he noticed his gift in his shoes.  Gabriel was pretty excited with his 2 new trucks.  It's almost like St. Nicholas new what he liked.  These are the only quick pictures that Scott could get before Gabe was busy playing.

1 Month

Bennett had his 1 month doctor appointment this week.  He is a happy, healthy and solid little boy.  His all important stats are:

Height - 23.5 inches ( up 2 inches since his 2 week visit)
Weight - 10.14 1/2 ( up 2.5lbs since his 2 week visit)
Head - 36 cm (up 1 cm since his 2 week visit)

He just wasn't feeling it

He has and is going through his first cold.  He really loves his brother for introducing that to him.  He is still a very good sleeper.  He typically wakes up around 2am to eat and then again around 5am.  Overall he is still napping most of the day.  It really is amazing how different this maternity leave is compared to Gabriel's.  Bennett and I are venturing out way more than I ever thought to before.  Give us a list of errands and we are on it.

Bennett has helped cook many dinners, his first Christmas cookie batch, a few trips to the mall and even picking up his brother from daycare.  It's hard to believe we didn't have him with us a few short weeks ago because I don't know where we'd be without him in our lives.

Love you little B!

Christmas decorating

After getting the tree back to the house and a couple boys down for a nap, Scott and I managed to get the house decorated for Christmas and watch the Husker game.  Every year I'm amazed with all that I have and stuff that I think I need to make my house even more Christmasy( I know, not a word).  A special thanks to Pinterest for allowing to see everything creative and think I should live at Hobby Lobby.

I do have to say that our house looks great and it was a nice change for my parents to see our house at Christmas time...we all know they will not travel north in the winter, unless it's the birth of a grandson.

Gabe was able to help out with the Nativity Set.  Although, that has quickly become off limits to him.

Leaves

We had a couple really nice days in late November, after an early snow.  And we took advantage of that weather and did some needed outdoor home improvements.  Most notably raking all the leaves that had fallen off the huge trees in our front yard.  Once Scott and Gabe were done we had 9 bags filled with leaves.

In the process of raking leaves Scott taught Gabriel the fun of raking leaves.  They fell in them, run through them and threw them at each other.  It was a lot of fun to watch.

Oh Christmas Tree

It's that time of year again. We cut down our tree and started getting ready for Christmas.

Normally, we have to wait to the weekend after Thanksgiving to get our tree and decorations up do to holiday travel.  This year, with Bennett's arrival, we stayed in St. Louis and are enjoying the 4 day weekend.

We headed down to Festus to Meert's Christmas Tree Farm to cut down our tree.  I guess everyone else had the same idea as me, get there early because everyone will be Black Friday shopping.  We decided not to wait for the tractor to take us to our tree type.

We walked over and started our search.  Amazingly enough the selection was good and easy.  We looked at just a few trees before we made our selection.

I swear this is a family of 4

Gabe looking anywhere but at Dad

After a few slices with the saw, Scott had the tree down and it was time to head back to the barn.  Gabe and I hung out checking out sticks and an empty creek while Scott tied the tree to the top of the car.

And just like that, we were headed home to watch the Husker game.