Tess's 6th Birthday

We had a great weekend, celebrating Tess's 6th birthday, a little each day for three days!  I got to get out of the house for a while on Friday to do our shopping for the birthday girl.  Bryan fed Bree 2 bottles while I was gone and she did great!  It's so nice when a baby will take a bottle so Mom gets a little time alone!  Then, that evening we met Gma and Gpa Terry at Chuck E. Cheese's for pizza and games.  It's been years & years since I've been to a Chuck E. Cheese's; Bryan & the kids had never gone before.  As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, Miles saw and recognized the sign and yelled "Chuck E. Cheese's!"  (Man, TV commercials, even on PBS, really do get into kids' subconcious!)  Here is Tess on a ride where she had to pedal a bike and then her chair lifted up.  She thought this was a pretty fun game.

 Miles is playing his favorite:  basketball

 Here is where Chuck E. gathers all the kids for a song & dance, and then he throws a bunch of tickets in the air for the kids to catch.

 This is Miles and me while he was doing a Nascar racing game.  He's concentrating pretty hard.

 Here is Tess on Saturday, her actual birthday.  One of the things she really wanted was makeup.  "Real" makeup.  So we got her some blush and lipstick.  I think the lipstick is already about halfway gone because she puts it on so often, and so generously! 

We also got her a new swimming pool.  We had a cute inflatable princess pool, but it got a hole in it, plus I only liked to keep it up on the grass for a day or two before deflating it, because I was always worried about it killing the grass.  So, this is a plastic one, that we can put on the patio and just leave up all summer.  So far the kids love it.  (Here they are with a few neighbor friends.)

On Sunday, we had Papa, Charlotte, and Gma & Gpa J come up for cake & ice cream.  For her cake this year, Tess said she wanted a "tooth" cake, since she just lost her tooth.  I wrote the "Happy Birthday Tess" and drew the outline of a tooth, and then Tess wanted to decorate the tooth.  She drew a face on it, with a big grin, and the tooth's grin was also missing its tooth.  Cute!  She was pretty excited to be able to decorate her own cake, and it sure made it easy for me!

 And, lastly, I'll leave you with a lovely picture that our sweet 6-year-old took of herself.  It's a very flattering shot.

The first week

Bree is already over one week old! She is such a joy to us. So far she's still in the eat-sleep-poop phase with little crying; it's terrific. Each day she's awake for just a little bit longer during the day but she continues to sleep at night, other than to eat of course. (Knock on wood....) We keep expecting her to have long crying periods during the night like the other two kids did, but so far, so good. She's crying more during the day, but it's so much easier to deal with at 3:00 in the afternoon compared to 3:00 in the morning! So, I'll take it! Here are a few photos of her this week. She loves to lace her fingers together. (Did I mention she has long, skinny fingers and long skinny feet! Maybe she'll play the piano and have big feet like her mom!)

 

Bryan had the whole week off last week and it was so fabulous for him to be home. He mainly took care of Tess & Miles so that Bree and I could do what we needed to (eat-sleep-poop, etc.) We were very spoiled with great dinners from family and ward members and Bryan had a blast with the older kids. One day they drove out to the desert to go tarantula hunting. I must admit that I was very happy that they came home empty-handed. However, they did find what Bryan said was the biggest Black Widow he had ever seen! Yuck! I'm glad I was home with Bree.

Also that day, they took Bryan's .22 out for some shooting practice. Tess & Miles had never done that before and they thought it was just fantastic. They both loved shooting, and they even went out again later during the week with Bryan's sister and her family. What cute little rednecks we are raising!

Father's Day was eventful for Tess... We had Stake Conference and Bryan didn't really want to go and sit through it with the 2 older kids (who can blame him?) and I wasn't about to take Bree yet, so we just stayed home and hung out. Tess has had a very loose tooth for several weeks now and we keep encouraging her to let us yank it out. Finally on Father's Day, we talked her into it. Bryan got some dental floss and tied it around the tooth. Before Tess (or I) even knew it he yanked so quick and so hard that the tooth went flying! Miles found it on the carpet and Tess was really wigged out (by the pain, but mostly by the blood in her mouth). I don't think it hurt her too badly, but I think the sight of the blood made her freak a little bit. After the initial shock wore off, she got pretty excited about the tooth fairy coming. I bought a wonderful little "tooth fairy pillow" that hangs on her doorknob with a picture of a tooth monster on it. He holds the tooth in a pocket until the tooth fairy can come that night. Tess was upset when she found out that the tooth fairy would take her tooth, so I suggested that she write the tooth fairy a note, asking if she could keep it. 

 Here's a picture of her cute note; it says:  Tooth Fairy, Can I keep my tooth but have some money?

The tooth fairy did indeed leave her tooth AND some money, and Tess was as happy as can be. 

New Name...

I've always loved the name of this blog:  Bamatam.  It's catchy to say, and it works so well with our names ("Bryan and Michonne and Tess and Miles.")  Some people had no idea that's what Bamatam stood for and wondered why the heck the blog was called Bamatam.  Other people have asked me what I was going to do once our critter was born... would I change the name?  I still want it to be catchy, but of course we need to incorporate Bree's name in there.  So, here's what I've come up with:  It's still pronounced "bamatam" but now there's a B on the end for Bree.  Bamatamb, with a silent B.  Like lamb, crumb, plumb, door jamb, numb, and dumb, you get the idea.  I will leave the web address as bamatam.blogspot.com because that's just easier, but I've changed the Blog Title to reflect the new name.  Now, we just need to update that family photo to include Bree and we'll be set!

....And...Bree makes three!

She is here!  Our sweet little critter was born at 12:04 pm this afternoon.  She weighed 7 lbs even, and was 18 1/2 inches long.  Her name is Bree Michonne Terry and she is beautiful!

We went in for our induction this morning at 8:00 am.  I felt lots of contractions last night and I was dilated to a 4+ when I first got checked.  As I started to feel the contraction pain, I asked for my epidural.  I figured I was going to get one at some point anyway, so I might as well get it early and avoid any pain!  During the epidural I felt the "electrical shock" that women sometimes feel.  I had not felt it with Tess or Miles, but boy, did I feel it this time.  It was crazy.  I imagine that's what it would feel like to be hit by lightning.  I could feel the electric shock go from my back, all down my leg, and out my foot.  Bryan said my whole leg twitched from it.  At first the epidural wasn't kicking in and I was still feeling quite a bit of pain during the contractions, even though I was pushing the little "give me more drugs" button as often as I could.  The anesthesiologist came back in and gave me a "re-dose" right into the epidural tube.  Whoa betty....it really worked that time!  I have never been so numb!  The nurse re-checked my cervix and I had gone from a 6 to a 10 in about 20 minutes. They told me it was time to push. I felt completely useless during the pushing because I was so stinkin' numb, but it was lovely to feel absolutely no pain, And apparently I did OK because I probably pushed for only 10 minutes and she was here!

 At the hospital, they have started doing more immediate skin-to-skin contact with newborns, which I think is awesome.  They used to take the baby to the crib for the initial stuff: a quick wipe down, weighing and measuring, sucking the goo out of their nose & throat, etc.  Now, they place the baby on mom's chest immediately and do that stuff right there (except for weighing, of course.)  Then, when baby is cleaned up a bit, they lay her right on mom's skin to keep her temperature up and to help get her heartrate steady.  It was so neat; I loved having her right by me so soon.

 (So sorry for the "lots of skin" shot, but this was right during our skin-to-skin time.)

 Bree has lots of dark hair!  Here she is after her first bath.  It's her "mug shot." 

 And there's nothing cuter than a sweet little newborn yawn....

We are so happy that this sweet little angel is in our family!  I was just praying and hoping for her to be healthy, and so far, she's perfectly healthy and strong; sweet as can be.

38 Weeks: She's a stubborn little sucker!

Well, at my 38 week appt today almost nothing had changed (darn it!)  My belly measures 36 weeks, I'm still 80% effaced, and only dilated to a 3.  So it's not looking like anything will happen really soon.  However, my wonderful doctor did say that she feels fine about inducing me at 39 weeks if I don't go naturally before then.  So, the hospital will call me tomorrow to set up a day & time for induction sometime after next Thursday.  Maybe I'll do a bunch of jumping jacks in the meantime :)