It's a GIRL!

Click on the link to see pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/sealhoefs/NewAlbum111608452PM#

Adellyn Ruth Hoefs was born on Tuesday November 11 at 8:41 am; 7 lbs 3 oz, 20 in. long. (For those of you who don't know my family, Ruth was my grandma Becker's name and my great-grandma Nickols name) She was born by c-section and Elliot was able to get video of the whole surgery. He stood by my head so you can't see most of the gross stuff, but you can see the important part as they pull her out. I'm not planning on posting the video because it is almost 9 minutes long, but if you want to see it, let me know. (by the way, that 9 minutes felt like an eternity because I was so anxious to find out the sex and to hear that first cry!) My parents had Landen all week so Elliot stayed in the hospital with me. Since we doctor in Norton, I had Elliot work all week so that he could save his time off for this week when I really need him because I can't lift Landen. When my parents and Landen came to see us, Landen reacted about how I expected. My mom picked up Adellyn, and my dad was holding Landen. Mom took Adellyn over to Dad and Landen and he took one look at her, turned away and started shaking his head and fighting to be put down. We kept trying the rest of the evening and we finally got him to kiss her hand. Since then he has gotten better. He kisses her head, giggles at every noise she makes, touches her nose and eyes and holds his cell phone up to her head. He has also thrown things at her and hit her, so we have to watch him closely if he is in the same room as her. It has been a rough week for him, but I think he will be a really good big brother once he gets used to this change. To make things worse, he got a new tooth last week, so that was making him feel sick. He had a really bad runny nose which caused a bad cough and he wasn't sleeping or eating as good as normal. I think part of the problem was that he was home sick and he missed us. Today he acted more like normal than he has since Adellyn was born.

Adellyn is a really good baby. She only cries when she is hungry and she is a good eater. She nurses really well and I have not gotten as sore I did with Landen. She also sleeps really good. She still has days and nights a little mixed up, but it is getting better and she does her binging in the late evening instead of the middle of the night now. I have had her sleep on my chest in the recliner for the two nights we have been home. I did it for two reasons, one; it's too difficult to get up at night with the pain and two; she woke Landen up the first night home and he had to get up and run around and have a snack for a half hour before going back to bed. Right now at 11:30 pm, she is in her cradle sleeping soundly (and like an idiot, I am not sleeping).

I have been doing pretty good. I went more than 24 hours without taking a percoset in the hospital (I only had advil), but since I have been home, I have been taking it as often as possible. I think I am doing too much, but it is hard to see the mess and not do something about it. I still have not been able to unpack my bag completely. It's been harder this time because I have Landen to worry about as well as a newborn. I get my staples out tomorrow (Monday), so hopefully that will help me feel better because I won't have that pulling feeling anymore. I am looking forward to being able to lift Landen again.

I have a great story that will be fun to tell Adellyn when she is older. I was released from the hospital on Friday around 1pm. I had Elliot stop at the pharmacy first so that I could fill my perscription and he wanted to stop at New Age so everyone in the office could see Adellyn. As we pulled into the parking lot, Elliot's phone rang. It was someone from New Age saying that email wasn't working. Elliot thought that it should be a quick fix and that we wouldn't have to stay any longer than we had planned. Well, that wasn't the case. His email server crashed and he couldn't figure out why or how to fix it. An hour later he told me that I could just go home and he would figure out how to get home later. He forgot that I am not allowed to drive. So I called my parents and asked if they could come get me. My mom couldn't becuase Landen was taking a much needed nap, but my dad was able to come down. Luckily, Adellyn was still asleep. I did wake her up before my dad got there because she ate at 11am at the hospital and slept through everything we had done until 2pm. I didn't want her waking up on the way home since it was extremely windy and rainy. We just waited for Elliot at my parents' house so we didn't have to swap vehicles later. He called to tell us he was leaving Norton at 5:20, and we finally got to our home in Arapahoe around 7pm...what a day! I told Elliot that I am going to put this story in Adellyn's baby book and that we will look back and laugh about it some day.

Halloween pictures

Here are some good pictures from Halloween. These are from Connie's camera.

a couple stories

Last night I thought of something I forgot to include in my update. I'm sure I've mentioned before how observant Landen is, and this proves it. For the last few weeks he has been going into my room to play. He climbs up onto the bench in front of my mirror where I fix my hair and put on my make-up (when I actually wear it). He has watched me enough times that he knows what to do with a lot of the stuff I have sitting out. He bushes his hair with my brush, brushes his face with my make-up brush, "puts on" or eats chap stick, pretends to spray my B&BW body sprays and hair sprays and the whole time he jabbers on about something. When he "sprays" something, he make the sound effect... ssss ssss sssss. He usually makes a mess, so I try to keep him out, but he is pretty sneaky. He almost always throws a fit when I take him out and shut the door.

One other cute thing Landen has started doing is kissing the baby...my belly. He likes to kiss it over and over again. I wonder if he will kiss the baby or my belly after the baby comes!

another update

part of the cradle that Elliot is building







Landen being goofy while eating theatre popcorn








Landen sitting with the pumpkins that I grew...they were suppose to be pie pumpkins, but they got really big. Notice the green one has Landen's name in it. I scratched it in when the pumpkin was small and the skin was thin and it scarred it...we used to do that when I was a kid.




playing with his food









trying to climb out of the high chair...and showing off for the camera










Landen was a puppy for Halloween. I tried to paint his face, but all I managed to get was his nose and he wiped it off before we left the house.
I'll try to get some better pictures posted later when I get them from Connie and my Mom.

















We haven't done a whole lot since my last post. We made it to see one of Justina's volleyball games on the 9th. Landen was really good and he enjoyed getting to play with Sutton after the game. A couple weeks later Landen and I went with my parents to see Jerome's last home football game. I didn't get to watch much of the game because I had to chase Landen, but it was a good game from what I could watch. (By the way, Justina and Jerome are my cousins and both are seniors this year. Dexter, Jerome's little brother, is a freshman this year and he has gotten a lot of playing time this year. He'll be fun to watch as he goes through high school.)

I have been trying to get a lot of stuff done before the baby comes...which is coming up pretty quick! I have had Connie come over to help me do some canning a couple of times. We did plum and cherry jellies a couple of weeks ago and the other day we canned tomato soup and juice. I'm so glad to get the 9 gallons of tomatoes out of my freezer! I had a very productive garden again this year. In fact, I have so many jars of canned tomatoes (soup, juice and whole) that I am only going to grow a couple of plants next year for eating and sharing...no canning! I still have several gallon bags of bell peppers in my freezer, but they are useful in cooking. Elliot knows how to make his pepper jelly now, so he might use them for that later this fall or winter. As far as my "to do before baby list" goes, I still have a couple sewing projects to take of, but I enjoy sewing...getting it done during Landen's naps is a different story. That explains my lack of updates.

The only really big thing we have done since my last post is we went to Lincoln last weekend. Elliot had a dentist appointment and we used the trip to buy that last things we needed before the baby comes and to do the majority of our Christmas shopping. Yes, that's right, Christmas shopping in October. We decided trying to get it done with a 17 month wild child and a newborn would not be easy or fun, so we did it early. Anything else we need to get will have to be done online.

Well, that's all I can think of to post about this time. At the rate I am going, I probably won't post anything (expect maybe more Halloween pictures) until after the baby is born. Enjoy these nice days we have been having, they may not last long.

Never slowing down!

Trying out crayons for the first time.











Landen decided to climb the ladder with uncle Adam to help him decorate for the wedding reception.








Sutton and Landen were entertaining everyone with their dance moves at Adam and Kayla's wedding reception.






Sutton and Landen enjoying a sucker at Rail Fest in North Platte.









Karen and I decided to have the boys' faces painted. Sutton had the same thing painted on his face, but he smeared it almost right away.






Landen was enjoying cartoons one morning while I was getting ready to go to the doctor.







Landen watched Daddy put some spices in the pizza dough last weekend, so he thought he needed to add some more. He is going to be a good little helper in the kitchen!









Sometimes Landen will disappear to his room and will be very quiet and this is what I usually find when I go to check on him. He loves to just look at his books. When I sit down to try to read some of them, he closes the book or runs off to play with something else.








As I have mentioned in the past, Landen loves playing in the water. He was drinking the water as it came out of the drain holes in my planters on the deck. He had actually done this several time over the summer, I finally just got a picture of it.







Our Schwan's man always gives Landen a sheet of stickers to play with, so Landen and Daddy were being silly and putting them on their noses.





It's been a while since my last actual update, so I had to read it again to see if Landen is doing anything new. He has learned a new sign, please. It only took a day of me showing and helping him do it to figure it out and remember it. It really helped that I had some chips that he likes and he kept leading me to them and pointing and grunting...so I took the opportunity to teach him the sign for please. He also has a few new words. He says quack (cack) any time he sees something that looks like a duck (or bird). Elliot taught him monkey and owl. He puts his hands up to his arm pits and says ooo ooo for the monkey. The only time he will do the owl is when he wants to look at this pop up book he has that the eyes move on the owl. He is totally fascinated by that and pulls the book off the shelf while saying who who over and over again. I have also heard him say cracker (cacka). When I ask him to say please and thank you, he kind of says the words as he signs. One thing he says that I forgot to mention last time is he counts two, three. We can't get him to say one, though and we have been working on four and five. I just thought of another word I forgot last time...he says hello anytime he gets to play with a phone...toy or real. He has finally started saying hi (I thought he would say hi before a lot of other words). He finally realized the reaction he can get from people when he says hi, so as we walk through the grocery store, he will say it over and over. He is such a flirt!

September 19th, 20th and 21st was a busy weekend. Friday evening we helped with the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Landen got to play with Kayla's nephews who are 2 and 8 months older than him. He had a lot of fun chasing and copying them. On Saturday morning, I took Landen to Beaver City to watch the Eager Beaver Days parade. We got home a little before noon, ate lunch and then Landen took a nap. Later that afternoon, we went to the church for Adam and Kayla's wedding. From there we went to the reception in Holbrook for supper and the dance. We left around 10:15 and I'm pretty sure that Landen was asleep before we were out of Holbrook. He did not want to have his clothes changed when we got home, but we managed to get him into a dry diaper and pjs. Sunday we had decided to go to North Platte for Rail Fest at Cody Park. We met my cousin there since she lives in North Platte. We rode a minature train and toured a real train that they turned into a museum. We rode a few rides they have at Cody Park. As you can see in the picture above, Landen got his face painted like a puppy. We all had a lot of fun and Landen slept all the way home. The following Tuesday afternoon, I took Landen to a friend's house to play with her son and the kids she babysits. We didn't stay long becuse she had a couple extra kids that day and her son was crabby and needed a nap. The next day I went to Elwood in the afternoon because my photographer was having an open house and doing free mini sessions and a free 8x10 from that session. The next evening we went to McCook because I had an eye appointment. This past week was less eventful. I'm not going to complain about that. Saturday we went to my parents' house in the afternoon. Landen and I rode in the tractor with my Dad for a little while, then we went to town to get the stuff my Mom bought at the auction for all the left over stuff from the Beaver City elementary. (Incase you didn't know, Southern Valley built an elementary connecting to the jr/sr high school which open in 1995...when I was a 7th grader. BC, Oxford and Orleans all closed their doors to students and teachers for the last time this year...sad) We stayed at my parents' house to watch the Husker game and Landen spent the night with them. Sunday morning, Elliot got up early to go to GI to get some more wood to finish the cradle that he is building. I stayed home and slept in and then worked on a sewing project. It was so much more fun with my new sewing machine. I had been using my Great Grandma's machine which is more than twice my age and is practically and antique! After Elliot got home, we ate lunch at his parents' house and then went to pick up Landen. I keep wondering what it would be like if I were teaching and then I think I'm glad I get to be a stay at home mom! I'm scared to think about how busy we will be when we have teenagers in sports and other activities and by then I will be teaching again. I'm glad that's a few years away!

funny video

Here is a cute video of Landen playing with a Halloween jack-in-the-box. The funny thing is that this was the third or fourth time he played it and it still made him jump. He actually acts scared of it now. He starts it and runs away, then he'll turn around and watch and he still jumps when the cat pops out. It makes me laugh every time!

I'll post more pictures (including some from Adam and Kayla's wedding reception) later. Hopefully I will get that done before the end of the weekend.

I forgot something

I had so much that I needed to say in my last post, I inevitably forgot something. Landen had a pretty significant first August 22. He spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa Becker's house without Mom and Dad for the first time! We decided that since he will be staying with them while I am in the hospital, he needed a practice run before hand. They picked him up on their way home from GI and it happened to be about his bedtime, so he was good and sleepy. My Mom said they played for a while when they got home and then they put him to bed and he went to sleep as quickly and easily as he does at home. They also had him most of the next day. I don't think he ever really acted like he missed us and when my parents brought him home, he acted like he didn't want to have anything to do with me. I thought that it would be nice not having him here for a day, but I was actually bored. I ended up taking a nap in the afternoon. Luckily Elliot and I were busy that morning or would have missed Landen even more. We are going to have to have him stay there again before the baby comes. Hopefully things will settle down once the wedding is over.