A quickie

Hunter loves Brylee and has only tried to kill her twice :) The first time, Brylee was put on the couch, Bryant came into the front room to get something and then went back to the bedroom. I thought he was coming to sit at the computer, quickly said that I was headed to the restroom and left. When I came out Bryant informed me that he had just taken Hunter off of Brylee's head. Apparently he wanted to sit right next to her and ended up on top of her.

The second time, Hunter wanted the blanket that was underneath Brylee and so he pulled it out from underneath her. Unfortunately, Brylee came with the blanket. She didn't seemed to phased by the occurrence.

As a result of all this love, Hunter wants to be right next to Brylee most of the time. I am amazed at how bit Hunter looks next to Brylee. He still has major baby like features and looks very much like a big baby to me still. This is a strange complex for me because when we had Hunter, Tucker looked very much like the big boy that I thought he was. Perhaps it is because Hunter still seems to have the baby chunk on him and Tucker was a very lean boy when Hunter came along.


This is Tucker with his friend Armani. They generally play well together and it is fun for Tucker to have someone his age to interact with. Here they are sharing the plasma car that Tucker got for Christmas. Sorry Michelle and Daniel, We would have gotten it through you (and I'm sure yours is better) but it was too cheap the day after Thanksgiving to pass up.

Snow Snow Snow

We got some wonderful snow on Wednesday and after nap time Bryant took the boys out to play in it along with Armani (our neighbor Tucker's age) and her parents. I snuck out to get a couple of pictures and then ran back inside to get warm and keep an eye on Brylee.

Here is Bryant and Tucker


Here is Hunter enjoying Lock, Armani's dad, throwing snowballs at Katie (Armani's mom) and Armani.


Hunter loved being outside


Tucker found a demolished snowman and was helping to destroy the bottom half of it.


Fortunately I did not go outside in my WARM coat and I was holding the camera so Bryant threw the snowball at Hunter instead of me. Hunter thought it was the coolest.


The snow continued to fall off and on throughout the remainder of Wednesday leaving a nice collection on our balcony, so today the boys played in the snow on the balcony. I like having a balcony, it lets the boys play "outside" while I can accomplish something else inside like the dishes. Bryant was nice enough to go outside and throw some snowballs from the ground up at the boys. I don't know why but they love getting hit with snow :0P

Neither of them wanted to come inside but their faces were nice and red and they were looking rather cold so Bryant pulled them one at a time back inside and put them in a nice warm shower.

I'm glad we were able to get them snow pants so cheap after Thanksgiving, it makes it so easy to let them play in the snow.

Baby Brylee!!

Here I am right before heading to the hospital to have Brylee!


Brylee Lynnea Whiting was born at 6:20 pm, weighed 7lbs 3 oz, and was 19.5 inches tall, although one week later she measured at 20.5 inches so I don't know what to believe ;) I had an epidural for the delivery and didn't feel a thing once again. The epidural was so strong that I did not even notice Brylee move down the birth canal and think to call the nurses in. Fortunately, the monitor was no longer picking up her heart beat so the nurse came in and after not finding the heart beat for a minute decided to check how dilated I was only to discover Brylee's head was almost out. She ran to the door and called for a "code white." I had two doctors and three or four nurses in the room for the delivery. Even though my doctor was making rounds in the hospital that day he walked into the room the moment after Brylee was born. She he missed the delivery but showed up in time to stitch me up. I'm glad we have medicaid and I don't have to worry about who is getting paid what for that delivery. I can only imagine that all three doctors are going to want something for what they did :)

I was so surprised when they first showed her to me. She was so small!! 7lbs 11 oz may seem like a big baby to some people but it is almost a whole pound smaller than my next smallest baby. It is fun to have a baby that actually looks like a newborn rather than a one month old. I am thoroughly enjoying it!

Here is Brylee, only a few minutes old.




Here is Brylee one day old. I was surprised by how dark her haired looked. I expected all of our children to be born with super white hair (just like Tucker and Hunter). Her hair is lighter towards the ends but has the darker roots like Bryant's hair.




Here are her two older brothers. Hunter had become fascinated with babies lately and always smiles at them and wants to touch them at church. He was super excited to have a baby of his own to hold :) As you can see Tucker was quite excited too.



Hunter loves to give Brylee hugs and kisses and wants to hold her all the time (even if only for a few seconds)


Here she is two days old before leaving the hospital!


Shortly after Brylee and I got home from the hospital, Brylee had to be put under the blue lights to help her break down the biliruben. We had a few rough nights, and having had children under the lights before, I don't think I was as strict with her treatment. I knew that if we kept her under there as much as possible (but still allowed her out when she was grumpy) that she would get over it eventually and she only had to be under the lights for two nights (the second being the harder of the two)

Christmas

This year we finally got a tree topper. Every year I mean to get one the day after Christmas when they are really cheap but I either forget or never get around to it. Well Bryant found a beautiful star, reasonably priced, for the top of our tree this year while out shopping Saturday after Thanksgiving. This was the only decoration on our tree this year because the boys seemed to be completely incapable of leaving the tree alone for more than five minutes. This also resulted in us not putting/leaving any presents under the Christmas tree. So when presents arrived from their great-grandma Cooley we just had to open them so the boys got to open a present a couple weeks early.

Here they are posing, as required, before opening the presents.


Neither of them needed help ripping the paper :)



Here they are enjoying their new toys.



Christmas eve, we put all the presents under the tree while the boys were still awake. We were taking quite the risk. The boys were actually really good at staking them and knocking them down but did not try to open them. I was amazed. As a result we let each boy open one present after dinner (plus it provided Bryant and I the opportunity to sit and relax while the boys played with a new toy).

Here is Tucker with his present. I tried to get him to open a present that I knew was a toy he would enjoy playing with but he insisted on opening this present from his Uncle Jeremy (toy Story 2). After opening presents we watched the movie while the boys played with the present Hunter opened.



Yes I double wrapped Hunter's Christmas present. I did this, originally thinking that the presents would go under the tree more than a day early, so that if the boys tried to open a present and actually ripped some of the paper before Bryant or I could stop them at least they wouldn't know what was inside cause it was wrapped again.



Here is the tree after Santa came to our house.


Tucker really loved the fire engine


Hunter really loved this expanding ball. He laughed every time he pulled it open and then let it collapse back down.




This is Bryant's present from his parents and brother Jeff. Tucker is showing him how to rip the paper off :) He is such a good helper.




It is the Garret Ace 250 metal detector that he has been wanting for a while now. He was so excited!


This is Hunter opening a present, with Tucker encouraging him along the way


Here is Tucker opening the present exclaiming "rip, rip, rip, rip" the entire time.

December

This is Tucker refusing to smile for the camera. Every time Bryant would ask Tucker to smile he would say "noooo." Well one of the times he said no he smiled at the same time and we got thes great picture of him :)


Tucker, Hunter, and I ran around the house pretending to be cowboys. The boys worn the hats, Tucker was nice enough to share my hat with me sometime, and together we raced back and forth through the apartment galloping to the sounds of our own hoof prints. Hunter thought Tucker and I were crazy but he loves hats so much that he wore his the rest of the evening :)





i tried to set up the crib we got from a couple that moved out of ward during the summer only to discover that the crib has no screws. I don't know if the couple gave me the screws or forgot to give them to me. Either way I have no idea where the screws are. So I initially thought Brylee would get to enjoy a sturdy full size crib (the first of our children) but alas she gets the old school rickety port-a-crib that we got from my grandma when I was pregnant with Tucker that was probably the same crib my father slept in over 60 years ago. After I got the port-a-crib set up, Hunter loved "sleeping" in it with the first pink blanket we got for Brylee. Hunter is likely to despise the existence of this picture when he gets older but he is such a darn cute boy :)

Thanksgiving

Bryant's parents and brother Jordan came to our house for Thanksgiving this year. It was strange not traveling down to the valley and seeing both of our families, but it was fun to put Thanksgiving on ourselves. Wednesday night Bryant and I set to work on preparing the big feast. My father and I communicated through text messages comparing how far along each of us was. My sister-in-law Juli was nice enough to be the go between and felt truly sorry to learn that we only have one mixing bowl for our kitchen aid making it impossible to work on multiple projects at a time. It was a lot of fun. My dad claimed the only reason we were ahead in making food was because we were only serving eight people instead of twenty :0P

Fortunately for us, all of our neighbors were with family for Thanksgiving and so we were able to us our neighbors oven to cook the Turkey and our oven to cook the rolls, stuffing, and everything else. Dinner was wonderful! Too bad we didn't think of taking a picture of our masterpiece with all its colors until after we had eaten half of it and started cleaning up.

On Friday we went to lots of "black Friday" deals. No we did not wake up at midnight or go to stores as some other unreasonable hour. We left the house after taking our time waking up and getting ready. Surprisingly, everything we wanted was still at the stores when we got there despite the LATE hour :) Tucker had lots of fun riding in Grandma and Grandpa's truck. He even went with them to Lehi to go to Rod Works. Along the way they saw lots of construction vehicles alongside the freeway. Grandpa tried to point out one of the construction vehicles calling it a digger and Tucker kindly corrected him saying "No, that's not a digger, it's a front end loader (or whatever type of construction vehicle it was)" Tucker knows his construction vehicles well and loves playing with them just as much. Thank you Grandma for getting him some more!

Saturday was spent similar to Friday, with Grandma spoiling Tucker even more. We received quite the snow storm Saturday night through Sunday morning while Bryant's family was trying to pack up to head home. Tucker and Hunter had lots of fun playing in the snow that was on the balcony and getting hit by snowballs thrown by Uncle Jordan.




After being hit with of few of Jordan's snowballs, Tucker started throwing snow at Hunter. The boys had so much fun playing outside!



After Bryant's family was all packed up they said goodbye. Tucker did not realize they were leaving FOREVER until they started to pull away without. He immediately exclaimed quite distraught "Oh no! I need to go in Grandma and Grandpa's truck!" I explained that Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Jordan were driving home to Arizona and he said "that's sad." Tucker truly enjoyed spending lots of time with his Grandparents and Uncle Jordan and continuously asks when they are coming up again.

After church, Bryant and Tucker sat down and watched "How to train your Dragon" and finished off the popcorn that Grandma bought for Tucker :)