Promised Pics

Just a few of the pics I promised...

 This is the first time she has ever done this. She was just laying there talking to Ben, just happy as could be after eating and having a morning bath, and then BAM....she smiled a little, fluttered her eyes, and went to sleep. All by herself! Not even swaddled or with a soother. She only stayed like this for almost an hour, but I'll take it.

 She is so cute when she sleeps! The one plus of her not letting me put her down when she is asleep...I get to watch her sleep! My little Sleeping Beauty.

 This pic was taken by Ben's cousin. These are Brooklynn's Huber cousins. Left to right---Quinn (3months, Ben's cousins baby), Beautiful Brooklynn (2months, our precious little girl), and Landon (2weeks, Ben's sisters baby). Grandma Sue got them all valentines shirts down in St. George. This was just this last week, so its a little late, but we got it. 

I snapped a good one of Brooklynn, not crying this time. Happy Valentines Day Everyone!

 This is one of my favorite pictures of her EVER! She has such fair features...perfectly straight hairline (cant see it in this picture, but its very defined, and all the same length at the back), porcelain skin, perfect kissable lips, cute little nose, and Ben's favorite... bright clear blue eyes! She looks pretty in pink.

 

Another cousins picture. Its hard to get one baby to look at the camera, let alone 3! Again, very fair features.

Finally all looking in the same direction. There skin is all different, so many variations of WHITE lol. Quinn (sorta Asian white?), Brooklynn (Porcelain Doll or Vampire white?), Landon (Redneck white?), yet all white, and yet all super cute.

Fighting with a 2 month old!

Ok Ok, before you freak out, we werent really fighting, although i do have scratch marks up and down my arms. Since I have started supplementing while waiting for my milk to come back in, Brooklynn has become attached to the bottle. She is actually getting food now, so she fights me when i try to breastfeed her. She screamed and scratched me up trying to pull away. Screamed and screamed and screamed. And mommy cried and cried and cried.

I really wanted to continue breastfeeding, cuz its easier because you dont have to sterilize or prepare anything. I kind of feeling like I didnt try had enough, but she wasnt letting me, and wouldnt take me back even if it did come back in. So I was really upset. But not as upset as she was for not getting enough food. So she won that battle. We are now switching to formula.

Slowly trying to wean her off me and forcing some bfing, just so that I dont get sore and engorged. She could quit cold turkey, but I cant. So that is our little update.

Bean Pole

Life is pretty uneventful, except for this cute little munchkin we have here. Valentines day, Brooklynn and I woke up to Maverick barking. Ben had walked in with a great big teddy bear, and Maverick was just trying to protect us lol. Daddy bought a great big bear for her, and a little red travel size bear. Mommy didnt get a teddy bear, but she did get chocolate.

stupid picture wont turn, just tilt your head lol

 shirt from gma huber

She is a little bean pole, being super tall, but scrawnier than all heck. Most of her sleepers are 3-6months for the length, but she absolutely drowns in them cuz she cant fill them out.

One of the reasons for this, we have recently discovered, is that she has not gained any weight in the last week and a half. Ooops! I was doing her weekly weigh in, just to make sure, and its a good thing I did. She has only gained 2lbs 1oz since birth, and she is 8 weeks old...not good. So we went to the pediatrician, and he sent us over to the hospital to do a pre/post feed weight, and wanted a urine sample from her which means....ya you guessed it, my little girl had to have a catheter :( Sad day. But then she was happy, because I had to feed her. She only gained 40g after eating on both sides, and the doctor wants her to be taking 90g at least. So she isnt even getting half of what she should be.

So doc put me on Motilium to try to bring my milk back in, and a new regime for feeding: 15min each side, then top-off with Similac. The "top-off" is more like an entire feeding! Even after feeding her both sides, during which she dozes off because she is bored with not getting anything, she still downs about 3.5oz of formula (wide awake I might add, cuz she is actually getting something). Hopefully she wont start favoring the bottle, but if she does, oh well. As long as she is getting what she needs I dont care where she gets it from.

Although, it would be nice if she could keep sucking off this extra fat from me. I have only lost the initial weight that I lost after birth. I still have about 15lbs to lose before I will be even remotely happy, 25 would be better. I gained so much weight during my pregnancy, its sad. And a whole truck load of stretch marks! :( :( :( That is probably the worst thing that happened to this body of mine. I have wicked stretch marks from my belly button, all the way down to my knees, and some even sneaking across the border to my calves. I wouldnt mind so much if they were just on my tummy, cuz people would never see them, but having them on my legs, people see them all the time. Like even at church in my skirt, cuz some of them dont cover the back of my knees. I hate it! Im going to be one of those ladies who wears nylons all the time just to cover the stretch marks. Its no fair! Not only do you get fat, but my skin gets to be ugly for the rest of my life as well.

She is talking and smiling like crazy now, and it is easy to see how much she has changed when we compare her to her new cousin Landon. She is so big and lively compared to him, and yet she is still so tiny. She is sleeping really good at night, even though I am still sleeping her with me...its just easier. For example, last night she slept from 10:30-7, and that was even just laying beside me, not in the crook of my arm like usual. Now that she is getting the amount of food that she needs, Im going to try to sleep her by herself, since she will be nice and full and satisfied, so she might stay asleep better. Right now she wakes up whenever she is put down. We are trying to break out of that, but its proving difficult.

This also makes it very difficult for me to do anything around the house, such as putting up pictures so that it doesnt look like when just moved in when we have lived here for 9 months. Its actually quite pathetic. Im not much of a homemaker, when it comes to setting everything up and decorating and such. It also makes it less of a priority when we have this huge house all to ourselves, but not enough to fill it. Half of our house doesnt even get used, except for Ben's Halo tournaments. The basement is basically empty, or filled with things that i dont know where to put them because I dont really need them right now. One of the rooms upstairs is just a storage room too, a place for Ben to keep his sunday clothes and ties and stuff and to store the strollers that are not being used. Its kind of sad. I wish that I had a couple days just to myself so that I could fix it. Its funny...9 months of being pregnant with nothing to do, and I didnt do it, mostly because I didnt really think about it. Now that I have thought about it and want to change it, I cant because I am too busy taking care of this little monkey. Oh well, there are more important things in life.

The feedlot is about to pick up again, because our cows should be calving any day now. Thats only about 30 animals, because the angus herds dont calve till the end of next month/beginning of April. But the Charolais are calving pretty quick here, so Ben has to get everything ready for that. They just built a maternity building, for when we need to help pull some, or there are sick or struggling calves or mommas. It looks really nice. I guess there will be more and more changes to come, because Ben says he wants to keep expanding the feedlot and upgrading it. Our bull sale is coming up pretty quick here too, and Im excited for that. Last year it was pretty fun. We are actually having two this year, at different locations, just to see how they do. We fell very behind on all of our cow paperwork this year, and I dont know why. But it made it very difficult to fix problems that happened almost a year ago. We need to figure out a new way to do it so that we do not run into the same problem next year. We are not even done last years yet, and this year is about to start. Geesh!

Well, thats about it for now I think. Sorry that there arent many pictures this time. Next time

Time...6 Weeks Old Already!

Wow, Brooklynn is already 6 weeks old! How time flies...and yet...it seems like it has been forever, all at the same time. Which is kind of the same as when I was pregnant. Time is such a crazy thing. For example:

45 years ago today, my wonderful mother was born. For her, it seems like time has just flown by. One moment she was my age, and all of a sudden she is 45, mother of 3 (who are almost all graduated), with a little adorable granddaughter....and yes mom, grey hair too lol. Who 'da thunk. Happy birthday to the best mom in the world.

Just over a year and a half ago, Ben and I got married...and now, we have the most precious little daughter anyone could ever have, and one beast of a dog who is crazy jealous of her. I had to go out and buy him a bunch of his own toys (durable so he cant destroy them) just so Brooklynn could have her soothers to herself. He would go after her soother, even if its sitting with a bunch of other stuff, even food. Nope, he wants the soother, "take that ugly hairless puppy!"

Brooklynn is such a precious gift, especially to her daddy. Ben was explaining it to me once, but he didnt really know how to word it. In her baby blessing, Ben wanted her Heavenly Father to let her know how much of a gift she is to her daddy. I asked him about it, particularly why he didnt include mommy too. When he explained it to me, I understood that how he worded it wasnt quite how me meant it, cuz he didnt know how to say it, but that Brooklynn would know just the same. But I get it. He wanted her to know that she was the gift (blessing) he was given, that he wouldn't have had the opportunity to receive, had he not got back on the right track. She is the culmination of every blessing he has received from that decision. That having her makes him recognize how much his life has changed. Its even hard for me to try to explain it, but I can feel what he is trying to say.

Life is so strange. You look around, and see everyone progressing to different stages in their lives, particularly people who are older than you. And you think "wow, being graduated looks so awesome", "college looks easy and fun", "she's married now! thats so crazy. weird", "they have a baby, they are old". And you think that at each transition, the person themselves changes a little, or alot. Especially with having a baby. Being a mom is lots of fun, and work. But when I look at other people I think "what I have doesnt look anything like what they have. They seem like they are a mom, whereas I just feel like I have a baby. This doesnt seem like what so-and-so does, or acts, or feels." And yet, it is exactly what they do and feel. Yes they are graduated, or married, or a mommy. But they are still that person, just with something added to their situation. Again, I dont know if I am explaining this very good.

Brooklynn is growing so much. She has grown out of lots of her sleepers, her cutest ones too unfortunately :( She still has scrawny little legs and arms, she is just tall! I hope that she keeps growing tall, and gets the tall genes from both sides, not the short, cuz there is definitely both on both sides. Her hair is growing really fast too, in some spots. Some of the hairs are so long now, but not all. The top of her head doesnt seem to want to grow hair very fast. But she looks super cute in her headbands! I love 'em.

She is smiling so much now......and TALKING! She likes laying out and just talking to people, or herself, or the wall, doesnt matter to her. Last night she laid there forever, just chattin it up with my mom and Jessica. But she talks with my dad the most. He says its because she likes him most, but I think its just because he is the craziest and makes the strangest faces so she is laughing at him, not with him. She hasnt actually produced a vocal laugh as of yet, but it is just around the corner. She also has yet to roll over, but I think that is just because she hasnt liked laying out until now, so all her tummy time has been on peoples chests or laps, not on the floor. But she has pulled herself up with her arms, and she lifts her head like a pro. Ben is already ready for her to crawl and walk and talk and run. He just wants to be able to play with her more. She loves swimming! Oh boy does she love bath time. She will be screaming, plop her in the water, and BAM, no more screaming. She even fell asleep at the swimming pool last week. I think she is going through a bit of a growth spurt, cuz she is eating all the time and sleeping all the time. And yes, it is possible to do both all the time. She will eat, then fall asleep for about 10 minutes, then wake up and eat a little again, the fall back asleep. So its a little hard for mommy to do anything, she pretty much just sleeps in my arms on the couch, so that when she wakes up 10 min later and starts crying for food, Im right there.
Well thats all for now, time to feed the little monkey again.

Funny Funny....bored out of my mind