Some pictures of the last 2 weeks

The last two weeks have been fast and slow all at the same time. When you are sleep deprived, that is just the way it goes. Noah had already surpassed his birth weight at his 2 week check up, but has slowed down a bit on weight gain. I would love for him to have gotten to 7 lbs already, but we'll see what happens. He is a good baby, sleeping much of the time and only keeping us up for bits of the night every few days. If you will pray for him, we are hoping he won't have Pyloric Stenosis, which is a hereditary thing (google it). Zach did not have it, but his dad did and it is commonly passed down through generations in white, firstborn males. We would know for sure if he had it when he hits three weeks old (this Sunday). If he had pyloric stenosis, it would require surgery, which would knock me for a loop. He has had a few major barfing sessions, but we are praying it is just a fluke. Here are some pics from the last two weeks:


Noah at two weeks
The big sisters with Noah at just over 1 week

Noah at 1 week old

First time Sydney got to hold Noah

Brynley holding Noah

Leaving the hospital...note all the gray.

Noah Jameson Waters

We will try to update more soon . . . but for now . . .

Noah Jameson Waters
Born on Sunday, April 18th at 3:53 PM (Erin arrived at the hospital at about 3:15 PM!)
Weight: 6 lbs. 2 oz.
Length: 19 1/2 inches
Head: 13 inches
Chest: 12 inches
No drugs . . . they couldn't even get an I.V. into Erin before he was born.

For comparison:
Brynley weighed 6 lbs. 14 oz.
Sydney weighed 7 lbs. 5.8 oz.
(right now we can't remember their lengths)

Erin and Noah are doing well.

First Picture:

Erin is doing well:

Close up:

Brynley and Sydney are not allowed in the hospital and so they came to meet Noah through the window:

After his first bath with clean hair:

What we've been up to lately

It's been a while since I updated this thing and we've been busy. Brynley has been losing teeth and loving school, Sydney is learning to obey the first time she's asked (& if I have forgotten to post it, she's been potty trained for quite a while now - thank goodness!), I'm ready to have this baby, and Zach has started a new job.
We celebrated Easter for the first time at our place (I'm too pregnant to go 3.5 hours away). But over spring break we went to Grandma J's and Papa's to hang out. The girls played in the creek and ran around outside, which they don't get to do much of here due to the fact we have no yard and we live right off one of the busiest streets in Bolivar (the last part is of course, relative. if you live in a big city, Aldrich street is nothing). And we got to go to the St. Louis Zoo, if only for an hour or so.
Zach's job began earlier than we expected it to, and so I am sort of doing the parts of his old job that he cannot do now since he is at his new job. We will officially move off-campus in June and are trying hard to find a place to buy or rent. Neither seems to be going well.

Backed up three years

Oh, the bygone days of the film camera...buy a massive 36-exposure roll of film, snap away, and if you want to see the pictures you MUST take them to get developed. The ease and simplicity is nostalgic and attractive.
Now, we all have our snooty, flashy digital cameras. We think we're soo professional and fancy. But what we are actually doing is creating more work for ourselves. Instead of the measly 3-step process associated with the film camera (put film in, take pictures, develop...gratification) we have created a 5+ step process by owning a digital camera (charge battery, load memory card, take pictures, load on to computer, photoshop the good ones optional, arrange in semi-coherent manner for storage, store, send pics to be developed - this adds the additional step of uploading your pics to their site). This is insanity! Maybe I only feel this way because I've just finished sorting through 3 years of pictures that were downloaded to our computer, never put in any reasonable order and never developed. Needless to say, I'm making shutterfly very happy this month with my over 300 picture order. After sorting, arranging and uploading over 1000 pictures spanning 3.25 years these are some of my favorites:

Brynley daydreaming

Sydney afraid we're leaving her in the tent

The girls and daddy wrestling

Brynley seeing Sydney for the 1st time

Sydney bundled up at a soccer game

Fall picture of Brynley

Sydney in the park (9 months old)

Fuzzy head Sydney (4 months old)

Brynley playing in the rain (2 yrs)

By the way, we did actually go to Hawaii

Above: Akaka Falls Below: Syd at the luau

Brynley, the mermaid

Awesome beach

Just had all the pictures on Zach's Mac, not on the desktop. He switched them over for me this week, so I can tell you about the vacation we took six months ago. It was fun, and as usual, too short - which is always the case with vacations. We went to the big island again. Brynley's favorite part was seeing lava pour into the ocean at night. Sydney pretty much loved the sand and ocean and the occasional friendly sea turtle. Zach and I loved not being in Bolivar for a while and feeling like we could chill out a bit.

the top picture is the girls under a banyan tree. this one is of Waipio Valley, where a lot of taro is grown. It is a breathtaking sight.

The girls and I at the luau.

Brynley and Syd playing while the adults took turns snorkeling.

Yes, there a now wild turkeys in Hawaii. We were a bit confused as to why there were wild turkeys wandering the golf course behind our condo, but my dad let us know that the Wild Turkey Federation had just begun bringing wild turkeys to Hawaii.

Fall pictures....

were a BIG LET DOWN!! WE had soooo much rain - so between days when I was subbing and days when it was raining we had about 2 days to choose from to take pictures. Then, we get to the park, take a few warm-ups and as the sun was hitting the right spot...BAM...dead battery. How did we not check that before we left? Please enjoy the few not quite salvagable pictures we took.

Halloween 2009

This year the girls both decided they wanted to be Disney princesses. Big surprise, I know. After choosing and changing her mind nearly 10 times, Brynley was set on being Cinderella and Sydney chose to be her favorite, Sleeping Beauty. My mom sewed these both in about 36 hours on a whirlwind visit to their house. I helped a bit; maybe I can help more next year (if I am feeling crazy enough to do this again). Here are some pictures of the evening. The pumpkin was Zach’s masterpiece. He carved a fancy Cinderella against his better judgment, but it looks cool.