Brotherly L-O-V-E!

Seth's 1st Valentine's Day! (And one of my fave pics of the two of them yet!!) I put this on the blog before I edited it, my print will be much better than this copy.

Seth, 4 mos

Jakey, 3 yrs

My cuties! Jakey is a big boy, but Seth is a huge boy! His percentiles are all close to 100%, 4 month post soon to come and a 3 year for Jakey too. I have my stats tucked away since their appts were weeks ago. I'll get to it!! :)

Seth, 3 mos

Jakey, 3 yrs (barely!)

Seth, 2 mos

Jake, almost 3

Love their matching shirts Daddy picked out for them!!

Jakey is the best big brother we could've ever imagined and we love how they love eachother! Seth totally lights up as Jake talks to him or gets near him! It just melts us daily and we are so loving having our two boys.

More posts soon! Jakey turns 3, Seth is 4 mos, Karsyn's showers and birth, Jakey and Mommy go with our good friends to Sesame Street Live and a couple of other pics too cute not to share! Hoping things slow down a bit so I can share what we've been up to.

Surgery is over!

The left side of my face 6 days after surgery (drain had been taken out and swelling got really bad at this point)

I didn't see what my head looked like until the dressing came off at home

This was the day after surgery, with drain still in

Well, LOTS has happened with our family since I last blogged. I know all of you know that, but I'm hoping to keep this blog up to date and doing a horrible job! I want this written record of our major life events, fun things we do, happenings with our babies, etc on here as well. I have Christmas, New Year's, tons of pics of the boys, etc to post!

The biggest thing that has happened and kind of overshadowed most of that for our family was my second brain surgery. We dreaded it every day from the time we were told it was needed (early November). I am so very thankful to say it is over and I am ok! Ha. My fears were the major things such as memory and vision staying in tact which is what can be affected by this type of surgery. There are also complications such as seizures and meningitis and other serious things that were very possible that I was scared of. The amount of people praying astonished me! I received notes from friends of friends or friends of family from work or some other place telling us that we had people praying for us. I got cards from people in the mail who I have never met or even heard their name. Then, we have our amazing friends and family who have visited, cooked, prayed, brought treats, and cried with us during all of this. The amount of support has been humbling. My family was all at the hospital between 5-6am the morning of surgery and my mom ended up staying the whole day and spent the night, meaning she was at the hospital for over 30 hours (not counting driving home) and still helped with our babies and cooking meals for Jeremy. My Gran and Aunt Lissa have kept Jakey for a week and a half. By far the longest I've ever been away from him. He had so much fun and without them it would've been so much harder. They offered to come stay with the boys during surgery and the next day take Jake off our hands for a few days. It ended up being around 10 days and they claimed they still would never be ready to give him up. Recovery has been so much easier for the four of us because he was being super spoiled with park trips, the zoo, eating out, watching movies, playing and shopping, and getting their undivided attention. I am so, so thankful for the sacrifices of all of my family taking perfect care of the boys, taking off from work, and being there for us when we needed them most!

Anyway, I wanna sum up my surgery experience this time:

5:30am: arrive at hospital

7:30am: After kissing Jeremy, my mom, my dad, Court, Haley, Matt, My Uncle Jon (and Jakey, Seth and Gran and Lissa the night before) I was taken back for prep and surgery. I was still awake and remember talking to the drs and nurses and looking around that (not pleasant) room before surgery.

9:00am: Surgery (cutting) began after shaving part of my head, marking my face/head with markers and installing a halo using 4 pins into my head that stabilized it during surgery. They also placed drops in my eyes to protect them from scratching with surgical tools and placed IV's in my left (artery) wrist, left hand, right hand and even my right ankle. A catheter was also put in and stayed in for that day and the following three days until I left the hospital.

11:30: Dr. Kim came out to update my family that they'd gotten to the tumor and that surgery was going as expected

1:00: Dr Kim let my family know the surgery was successful, the tumor was all gone, and that they were sewing me up and I would be in recovery for the next two hours

6:00: After being in recovery for 5 HOURS I was given a room in the NeuroICU. This is wayy too long to be in recovery. I heard people moaning and screaming in pain and a man next to me had pulled out his IV's. You DON'T wanna be awake in there. :)

In the ICU I had the usual monitors (pulse, heart rate, blood pressure, etc), blood sugar taken every 4 hours, dilaudid pain reliever in my IV every two hours, blood work every 6 hours to check my pituitary hormones, medicines in my IV's to supplement brain hormones every 6 hours, and after a couple of days they began shots in my stomach to thin the blood. Upon waking up I had a drain in my head getting rid of the fluid build up from surgery. They took that out on the third morning and it took a couple of days after that for the side of my head to swell up really big.

Honestly, typing all of this out sounds like torture, and it was not fun, but it was much more comfortable that the first brain surgery that went through my gums, nose, and sinuses to get through to the tumor which made my entire face swollen, nose packed, stitches in my gums, and left a hole in my sinuses.

I am so, so thankful for my amazing family, friends and everyone who has taken the time to pray, encourage, support, visit, send cards, bring food, keep our boys, and just plain be there for us and suffer with us thru one of the hardest things we have ever been through.

It may not be a good memory, but it is our memory whether we like it or not. The fact that we have a God that loves us and is waiting for us in heaven where there is no pain and the best family and friends on earth made it all bearable and we are now on the "easier" side of surgery.

Currently I am feeling much better! I am still on lots of meds and am not released to drive, lift or carry my babies or anything else, or bend over. I also have a strong radiation "surgery" in a few weeks where I will have to be awake as the destroy the remnants of the tumor with radiation. I am a little nervous about that and still not totally myself after surgery, but it has gone as good as can be expected so far! I am getting my stitches out on Tuesday and hopefully after that will be weaned off of some of my meds and released to start getting back to normal before the radiation procedure.

*Take this post as my not trying to be uptight about what I look like or what people think of it. I can't believe I just posted these pics for anyone to see! :)

Brother is 2 Months!

2 month shot/well check day (drove to San Marcos outlet mall after this, shopped for hours, then drove another hour to Gran's house. No pain meds needed, but just your first huge blowout that day!) Yuck.

the sweetest face!

He'll sleep anywhere, in any position. But always while staring and smiling at the Christmas tree. :)

Sooo chubby. He's got 3 pounds on Jake at this age. Thanks to full formula, I'm sure!

Sweet Brother, at two months you:

-are adorable! Sometimes you look exactly like your brother Jake and sometimes you look nothing like him, we hear comments both ways. Daddy and Gammie don't think you look much like Jakey right now, most other people do. You actually look way more like him in pictures than real life to me and many others as well.

-Seem huge! Your two month well check went perfectly and you weighed in at 14lbs and 241/2 inches putting you around 92% for height and 80% in weight.

-Are super smiley all the time! You love to watch us move around the room and also hold and talk to you. You always gaa and coo back and make the cutest faces!

-Are eating 6 ounces every 3 hours-ish. You do sleep though times where you should eat and went 5 hours during the day w/out eating. Check out the above pics--we didn't worry about you missing one at all =). You feed a ton after you wake up in the morning and a few hours before you go to bed to store up so you can sleep long.

-You still sleep most of the day, have no napping schedule but just do it most of the day, anywhere we are. You are up probably only 30 mins to an hour at most before you are asleep again. You don't wake up at night anymore, usually 5-6am if it is during the night and then go right back to sleep until 9 or 10am when you're hungry again. Your longest w/out eating during the night was 10.5 hours!

-You are an easy baby! We are saving your new swing for Christmas and only have a bouncer and play mat and you are really content on those for about 20-30mins several times a day while I get stuff done. You fall asleep on both of them regularly. A swing will make it even easier to put you down, and give you something else to look at. We also put you to bed at night awake somewhat so you've learned to soothe yourself to sleep pretty well.

-Your big brother is totally and completely in love with having a baby brother. He loves to hold you and kiss you all over, especially your feet and head. He asks to squeeze your face :), and wants you to catch and play football with him daily. He makes sure you're coming with us when we go places and just loves you to pieces. It's been amazing and brings us such joy to watch how he loves you.

-You have very minor tummy problems and are on gentlease formula. You show signs of pain and fuss sometimes when you go to the bathroom but other than that you only fuss if you're really hungry. People commented that they still haven't hardly seen you with your eyes open or cry. You're definitely like Jakey in being a super sleepy baby. We're just waiting for the day Jake doesn't ask to go to bed before bedtime, haha.

-You have great head control and don't need much support at all anymore and don't seem as newborn to hold anymore.

-You have rolled over a few times but don't do it that often--you're never awake long enough to need to move. Hehe.

-You have already been on three road trips, to Canton, College Station and San Antonio and did perfectly!

-Are affectionately called brother by me, your daddy and Jakey. We just love that Jakey tells us, "It's not baby Seth, it's brother. He's my brother." He has the sweetest voice and we just all call him that now. :)

Basically, you are so precious, perfect, healthy, happy, chubby, and bring our entire family more joy than you will ever know! Soooo thankful for our sweet, sweet boy!

we are THANKFUL ~ 2011!

Our family of....FOUR!!

My mom, her siblings and mom

Haley and Kris

Dad, Mom, Matt

Court, Shad, Kaleb

Our family

My big baby :)

LOVE this. Jakey loves Papaw...just a little. :)

Gran and Seth

We had a great Thanksgiving! Soo thankful for our family and new addition precious Seth this year. We had lots of family time, food, games, black friday shopping, Christmas decorating, laughing, time with friends, etc. We are so very thankful to the One who gave us everything we have! Lots and lots to thank Him for this Thanksgiving and every single day. :)

ps- we had Thanksgiving w/the Worley side of the family on Saturday, but my camera battery was dead after the long week/weekend! :(

More of sweet baby Seth...(and his precious big bro)!

Seth- 2wks old, first trip to church!

Sooo sweet of Jakey. The best big bro!




He always sleeps w/his hand like this :) He was only a couple weeks here.

my first Christmas!

Loungin on brother! 6 weeks old! (And filling out a 3 month outfit, easy!)

Jakey keeps us laughing!!

First time to church pic w/Mommy

3 weeks old

6 weeks old w/Santa and sweet big brother. Can't believe Jakey's almost 3 :(

Can ya tell that we are all just so, so in love with this perfect baby boy? Lovin' life. :)

Baby Seth is here!

And he is as precious as they come! He's an amazing baby! He looks sometimes like a mini Jakey as a newborn and sometimes doesn't look like him at all. He has a perfect little round head, a little bit of light brown hair and perfect skin. Just like big bro Jakey he has huge hands with long, skinny fingers and long, narrow feet. Although his newborn clothes are loose, his feet are balled up in his footed clothes.

He is a great sleeper just like big bro too, what a relief! Technically we're only getting up one time at night, around 3am. But usually he's up around 7 to eat again but likes to go back to sleep until 9:30 or 10am or around then I wake him to eat/get dressed/get out of the house. I'm hoping he's gained weight since his last weight check so we can let him sleep and not start waking him up at night. We'll see at his weight check tomorrow!

He's very pleasant and seems to be content. There hasn't been a reason yet where he's fussy and we couldn't figure out what the problem was.

We are so enjoying have a newborn again. It's such a sweet feeling during a nap or in the evening watching tv to just pass him back and forth as he sleeps on our chests while we're relaxing and catching up on our shows after Jakey goes to bed. I know it won't stay like this for long, and that just kills me! Now that he's two weeks old and we're starting to venture out to places other than the dr, I'm also trying to find a balance between going out and staying in. When we're out and about I just feel like I'm not enjoying the baby. When we're in more than one day in a row Jakey is asking where we're going, who's coming to visit him that day, and telling me places he wants to go. I know if I just go, go, go these days will pass even quicker. The days I enjoy most right now are the days we're home and I get to play with Jake, love on and hold the baby, and also be productive at home. Obviously with an average of 3 weekly dr appts between me and the baby lately getting out of the house to keep a balance is not a problem! This too shall pass, and this week should be our last week with dr appts 3 days out of the week.

It's so amazing how a baby can bring so much into perspective. I just love Jeremy and Jakey even more than I already did, and fell in love with them both as we all three instantly fell in love with Seth. And our friends and family have been so great with visiting, taking Jakey to do fun stuff, praying, showing Jake speacial attention, bring delicious meals and snacks...etc. You just appreciate everyone in your life even more.

The other thing I must note is how amazed and impressed I have been with Jake! He's so, so crazy about his brother I never even expected it! He wants to hold and kiss him all hours of the day. He's shown no jealousy, other than wanting me to hold him at church while I was already holding the baby. He's never shown any negativity towards Seth and always talks about him. He wants to know where Seth is if he can't see him immediately upon waking up or waking from a nap. He just loves him unconditionally and instantly and usually calls him simply, "brother". If it's not brother then it's "baby Seth". I love how Jakey treats him and how he talks about him and how affectionate he is. It makes me very thankful that Jakey not only got a sibling when he got Seth, he got a best buddy and friend. I guess I didn't expect for Jake to respond the way he has and for the bond to be so instant. I can't wait to watch them grow up together! Well, I didn't really need that paragraph, the pictures say it all!!

More posts to come...first time to church, first playdate and a birth story! Oh, and of course, more pics of our handsome baby boy!! I'm off to go love on him :)

*My friend, Jennifer Watrous, is starting a photography business and took all of these pics for us. I just stare at them! I will share her website when she's up and running! Or, you can ask me for her information and I'll gladly share!

Tomorrow's the day...

that we meet our sweet baby#2. We are so excited, and a little nervous. Jake's been talking about "Baby Sefth" for a long time. He gives him kisses and brings him toys every day. It's crazy to think that tomorrow we will hold him, know what he looks like, and count his fingers and toes. We won't wonder how long labor will be or how big he will be ever again. It's crazy that although I'd expected to deliver him before now, it also seems unreal that it's happening tomorrow.
I've been more uncomfortable this pregnancy, for sure. Or shall I say uncomfortable at all. I was not at all ever uncomfortable with Jake. He was 9lbs 7oz and yet I still felt great after 41 weeks and 2 days. I also remember feeling great after his delivery. I remember only having one stitch and being able to shave my legs in the hospital shower the next day.
This go round has been somewhat different. Just in the past 2-3 weeks have I gotten pretty uncomfortable. I've had some headaches, lots of swelling, tingling/numbness (pregnancy carpal tunnel syndrome), sleeping issues, varicose veins that sometimes ache, and also dehydration/itching (related to diabetes insipidus returning for the third time since my brain surgery). The last thing should disappear right after delivery, along with everything else making me uncomfortable. At least I had a great pregnancy up until a few weeks ago! I gained 4lbs each week for the last two weeks, which I'm pretty sure is all water weight since I can't get shoes on other than flip-flops and also can't hardly grip a pen to write with!
I cannot wait to meet our sweet baby Seth and hold him in my arms and kiss his cheeks and hear his little baby noises and just cuddle with someone who will sit still! :)

Please keep us in your prayers tomorrow for a safe and healthy delivery for me and Seth! Jake could also use your prayers, his world is going to be rocked and I know it will be a transition for him. Please pray that Jeremy and I are sensitive to his needs and are the best parents possible for them both!
Also, I have my MRI 9 days after the baby is born. The results of that will help us make many decisions for our future such as if we'll have more kids of our own and if I'll be having another brain surgery. That's kinda gonna be a big deal for us, our emotions, and our family. Especially this soon after a new baby.

Thank you for all of the texts, messages, calls and encouraging words already! We can't wait to meet Seth and for all of you to, too!

Love,
Amanda, Jeremy
Jakey and Baby Seth

STAY TUNED!!