More Fun at the Pumpkin Patch

These pics are all taken at Pumpkins Etc., a place we go every year. It's a nice little Mom and Pop shop- nothing fancy but they have nice pumpkins and mums at reasonable prices, and every year they have a new litter of kittens that they give away on Halloween. The only down side was stepping in some cat poop that took multiple treatments to get off my shoe! Oh, and I think Don might have banged Tristan's head off the scarecrow cut-out sign. Note to self- trying to get a newborn and a 2 year old to pose for a picture is an exercise in futility. Jordon insisted on sticking his head through the sign instead of just looking through the opening. At least we managed to get something besides just the top of his head!

Pumpkin Patch Fun

This year we took Grandma along with us to visit pumpkin patches- we went to the Red Barn pumpkin patch in Weston and Pumpkins Etc. in Platte City. Here's a shot of Don doing double-decker Dad duty. The place in Weston had farm animals, including piglets, chickens, horses, turkeys, etc. They also have a very nice country store with some unique items- we were able to do some Christmas shopping while there. Tristan was awake the whole time and seemed to be just taking everything in. It was a beautiful October day in the 70's- great day to be enjoying the outdoors. And, for this being our first real family outing with Tristan, I think things went very well. No major meltdowns and everyone had a good time!

Tristan

"I Wanna Hold Him!"

Here are some cute pictures of Jordon being a great big brother. Notice in the picture that includes Don which one is watching Sesame Street!!

Adjusting to Home

Here we are giving Tristan his first bath at home- he was not a happy camper. Since then we have done a couple things to make the process easier, and he seems to like getting baths most of the time. One thing Tristan does that Jordon never did is pee all over any time he gets a chance and the diaper is off. He's sprayed two bedrooms, our bed, his bath tub, and my vehicle to name a few. We're also battling a wicked case of diaper rash but it's hard to get it healed since he's constantly pooping. He is an eating machine and wants to eat all the time. Other pictures here are first car ride on our way to get ice cream and Grandma reading Elmo book to Jordon.

Kirchhoff Family Comes to Visit

Here are shots of some of my family-- Uncle Tim and Lauren, Uncle Jon and Aunt Sarah, along with Grandma, who all came to visit on Saturday. Lauren is expecting Baby Karli any day now (due date 10/19) so Tristan will have a cousin his own age to play with! The girls brought us pizza for lunch, and later we went to Culver's for ice cream.

Coming Home

Of course I was ready to bust out of the hospital as soon as possible, and my OB doc had already said I could go home the day after Tristan was born if I wanted to, so we went home Friday October 1st. We weren't really prepared for how the 2 car seats would take up the whole back seat, but otherwise, things went smoothly. Look how small Tristan looks in his crib- he looks like a kidney bean! It's hard to believe Jordon was once that small...

Big Brother Jordon

Here's Jordon, being a great big brother and doing what he does best, which is climbing on stuff. He has really turned into a "big helper" lately, even before Tristan arrived. But now that he's here, some of the things he says and does are pretty cute. If Tristan's crying, he'll say he needs to go check on him. He wants to give him a pacifier a lot... even if he's not crying and just sleeping. He'll hand me diapers to change him. He's asked to hold him a few times... including at church so that got a lot of attention and smiles. When we go somewhere, he'll say we need to bring baby brother along. One day he made the remark that baby brother was sleeping "he's not screaming". It's a lot of fun to watch the two of them together!

Baby Brother is Here

These are some of the first pictures of Jordon and Tristan together when Jordon came to visit at the hospital. He was surprisingly gentle with him (aside from the one where he poked him in they eye). Jordon's been talking about "baby brother" for a while now, and seemed excited to meet him. He told a lady at church that "baby brother was not in Mamo's belly anymore- he's out!"

Welcome Tristan!!

After lots of wishing and waiting (not so patiently at times) Tristan arrived on his own time, on his due date 9/30/10 at 10:54 am. The day before I had been trying all kinds of things to try and naturally induce labor-- primrose oil, spicy food (voodoo chicken from Jazz), and others but I'm not sure any of it really did the trick. I have to lean toward him just coming because it was his time. I had scheduled an induction on 9/28 as my OB doc was planning to be out of town later in the week, and I was getting pretty uncomfortable... but ended up cancelling the induction the day before at my routine follow-up appt. It just didn't feel right. I'm glad I did now. On Thursday 9/30, I woke up a few minutes before 6 am with the feeling that my water had broke. Mom had been staying with us for a few days to hopefully be there to help with Jordon when the time came for me to go to the hospital... and she was actually in KC for medical care herself having spent the previous weekend in the hospital getting IV antibiotics for an abscessed tooth... but by the time Thursday came around, she was doing much better. Don took Jordon to daycare, and Mom and I went to St. Joseph-- I actually drove cause I thought Mom might drive too slow and the contractions were not that bad yet :) I was surprised to find out that I was only at 2-3 cm upon getting to the hospital-- no wonder it was no where near as intense as when I arrived at the hospital with Jordon and was already dilated to 6 cm at that time. There was plenty of time to get the epidural, which helped a lot. I was aggravated that the hospital had lost my pre-signed consent forms somehow with the scheduling of the induction, so I had to fill out everything again while having contractions and before the epidural. I was fortunate enough that my OB physician, Dr. Bret Gordon, was still at the hospital doing rounds after having done a c-section delivery earlier that am. He was getting on a plane to Vegas later that afternoon, but managed to stay with me as things moved pretty fast. I went from 4 to 8 cm very quickly, and Tristan was born about 5 hours after labor started. The similarities between Jordon and Tristan were amazing. They both weighed 8 lbs. 10 oz, and labor for both was about 5 hours. Tristan was born on his due date; with Jordon I went into labor on his due date but had him at 4 am so he was born the following day. Jordon was 20 inches long; Tristan was 20 and 1/2 inches long. Don and I thought that they looked alike also as newborns-- we'll see how Tristan changes as he gets older. The one thing that is very different about the two boys is their personalities. Jordon was difficult to soothe and cried all the time; Don would work up a sweat doing stairs trying to calm him. Tristan so far has been layed back and quiet for the most part; he cries at predictable times with diaper changes and when he's hungry. At the time that I'm writing this, Tristan is 9 days old. We are adjusting well and things seem a little easier and more comfortable every day. We're looking forward to the journey ahead with our new little one!

Baby Harry

This is Uncle Tim's orphan calf Harry. Lauren's been bottle feeding him twice daily. One day we were down visiting we got to see him eat. Jordon was interested but didn't want to get too close, and stayed on the safe side of the fence.

Balloon Fest

We had hoped to be able to make it out in the morning to see the balloons take flight, but didn't make it in time due to J's multiple morning meltdowns... will have to try again next time as I'm sure it was something to see. We're not sure what these folks were doing, but we were glad to get the chance to see one of the balloons aired up. Jordon also scored a bubble gun which is pretty cool but it took him a whopping 10 minutes to use up all the bubble soap that it came with.

Making Cookies

Jordon loves to help in the kitchen- here we were mixing up some oatmeal scottchies. His favorite part is being able to dump all the ingredients in the bowl. He did a good job of mixing too (with minimal mess)!