Two Weeks Old!

Brooke is now a little over two weeks old. I can't believe it's gone by so fast. She had her 2 week appointment on Thursday, and the doctor said she looks great. Brooke was up to 7 lbs 14 oz (37%), so they were happy she had gone up 10 oz past her birth weight.  She was 20.25 inches (51%) and her head was 13.5 inches (15%). All my kids have small heads. She has been a very good baby so far. She is much more cuddly than our others, so I end up holding her A LOT. My first week by myself with all 3 went much better than I thought it would. Hopefully this week is the same :)

 

Alyssa likes holding her a little more. The kids fight over who gets to hold Brooke first. 

Dallin has been a great help. He holds her quite a bit, especially when I'm making breakfast and dinner.

Alyssa's First Haircut

Alyssa got her first haircut. Grandma Petersen cut it while she was out here for the baby. She really didn't want it, but after giving her some PEZ candy she didn't care what was happening to her hair. I was afraid she would lose all her curls, but her hair still curled a little. I think she looks pretty cute :)

The before:

 

Getting it cut: 

 

The after:

Sister bonding!

Alyssa has finally warmed up to Brooke. She held her for the first time yesterday, and she loved it. She now wants to be by her a lot of the time. She is always very concerned about where she is. Alyssa picked out Brooke's outfit yesterday, and it was purple (her favorite color so they would match). I hope this is the beginning of a great sister relationship :)

And here is Big Brother looking after his sister. He will be such a good and protective older brother :)

Brooke

Brooke Olivia has joined our family. She was due on the 16th, and I really didn't want her to come on Friday the 13th :) Well, on Friday the 13th at 2:50 I woke up to some contractions. After the 2nd one, which was about 6 minutes apart I told Jeff he wasn't going to work today. We timed them for about an hour and they were anywhere from 4-8 minutes. I finally decided to get up at 4 and shower. Well, I stood up and they started coming every 2 minutes. So my wonderful sister in law came over around 4 to stay with the kids. Thanks again!

We got checked in and into the room at the hospital at 4:55, and I was a 7. Brooke was born at 6:09 am, so another quick birth. She was 7 lbs 3.8 oz and was 20 inches long. I guess my kids are all going to be about the same :) The first night was rough. Jeff and I got about an hour of sleep each. The 2nd night the nurses took her and we got 4 hours of wonderful sleep. We are very excited to have her in our family.


Brooke is great at finding her thumb...hope she is not a thumb sucker!
The kids were very excited and came to see her later in the day. Dallin was very excited to see her and wanted to hold her immediately. He held her several times.
Alyssa was content to just look at her. She finally said she wanted to hold her. I attempted to put Brooke on her lap and she decided quickly she did not.

We came home today, and Dallin immediately wanted to hold her again. Alyssa not so much. I am very glad to be home.

Happy Easter!

We had a fun Easter weekend. On Saturday morning the kids had a primary Easter activity. They had a special message from the missionaries about the true meaning of Easter, and then they got to go on a Easter Egg hunt. It wasn't very warm, but the kids didn't seem to mind (only me).

Alyssa was terrified at first, but then she got the hang of it. She was even happier once she realized there was candy in the eggs.
Dallin was very excited. I think he was more excited to play on the playground afterwards, especially with his cousins.
On Saturday afternoon we had an Easter Egg hunt at Jeff's sister's house. The kids had a great time getting all the good candy :)

On Sunday morning the kids got to find their Easter basket from the Easter bunny. They only had a few minutes to look at it because we have church at 9!

We tried to take pictures of them in their new outfits, but they were just being silly. The one with their best smiles was of them running away from us....
But here is a decent looking one.
After church we went over to Jeff's sister's house to take pictures of the kids in their matching outfits. It's pretty hard to get pictures of all 4 of them with smiles. Here's the best we could do :)

Then we took pictures of the families. Remember I am 39 weeks along....
Finally we made it home from church and pictures, so the kids could actually go through their Easter baskets. Dallin loves his new trucks :)
It was a great Easter weekend. I am glad we live close to family and enjoyed being with them. Jeanna made a delicious Easter dinner on Sunday night. The kids had so much fun playing hide and seek while the adults chatted after dinner.

Having some Fun

Now that some of the major house things are done, we have had a little more fun lately. Jeff and I have still worked on some projects. Jeff's parents were here awhile ago, and they helped get lots of outside projects done. Jeff was very grateful for his dad's help in building a shed. They helped bring lots of dirt in to fill all the holes the previous dogs had dug. They helped us pick out carpet and rip out the old nasty stuff. It was so gross and nasty, and now we have nice new carpet. Jeff and I have done some more painting, but now there is just bathrooms left! I don't know when we actually get to them because hopefully our baby will be arriving soon!!! Less than 2 weeks left until my due date, so she can come anytime:)

Our children's museum pass expired on the march 31st so we went to the children's museum here in town last week to check it out. It is very small, but the kids didn't seem to mind. Dallin's favorite part was the miniature golf course. We played a couple of rounds :)

They also enjoyed "driving" the bus and tractors.

Dallin enjoyed milking the cow. Alyssa was scared of it.
There was a dark cave for them to go in and color with chalk. I thought Alyssa looked so cute dressed up in the outfit.
Dallin has enjoyed helping dad mow the lawn. Jeff is enjoying his new lawn mower :) Dallin asks to do it every day. Jeff doesn't like it that much though.
The kids love their new sandbox that they got last night.

Children's Museum!

On Saturday we decided to take a break from doing "house stuff" and drive to Iowa City. It is Dallin's spring break and he really wanted to drive to Kansas to visit Grandma and Grandpa, but I am a little too far along to make that trip. We would drive through and stop at the mall in Iowa City every time we drove to Jeff's sister's house. The mall has a chick fil a and a children's museum that the kids begged us to take them to every time. We still have our museum membership through the end of the month, so we decided to go. The kids had a blast! I thought it was a really nice museum.

The kids favorite spot was the flying section. We spent over 1/2 the time in that part. They probably would have stayed all day if we let them. There was one section to make your own rocket to stomp up into the air. There was a section to make paper airplanes and practice flying them. There was a parachute section too. There was also a real airplane for the kids to get into and pretend they were flying. Dallin even dressed the part :)
Dallin and Jeff also did the flight simulators. Dallin needs lots of practice if I am ever going to get in a plane with him :)
The kids had fun getting into the hot air balloon.
There were also about 5 little airplanes. They really liked getting inside them.
There was this huge slide that they went down a ton! Alyssa would only go with Daddy, but they loved it. It did look pretty fun!
Next we headed over to the "moving" section. Dallin made it to the top of the rock climbing wall. Alyssa tried but didn't go anywhere :)
They made cars and raced them down the track. I think they both won several times.
Alyssa's favorite section was the store. She thought it was awesome!
While Alyssa kept shopping, Dallin drove the ambulance. They had a little hospital and everything.
Alyssa really liked going across this bridge, but only if she could hold daddy's hand.
The last section we went to was the lego room. They had tables full of legos, so everyone made their own designs. I think JEff and Alyssa had the best ones :)
After the museum we went to Chick Fil A!! It was so yummy. I wish we had one closer, but it's probably a good thing there isn't one close. Since this was in a mall, we had to do some shopping. And to end the day we got a milk shake from Chick Fil A and from Whitey's! YUMMY! It was a very long day for me. My feet were all swollen by the time we got back into the car. The drive home felt very long. It was a great day though!