Greatma and Greatpa came to visit us at the beginning of October. My Grandparents are such amazing and fun people. We are so glad they took the time to come see us. We did lots of fun things including going to Edgerton park, Lyman Orchards, the park, and the Trolley museum.I'm glad they got to see James soon after he was born and Quinn and Greatpa struck up a great relationship. Greatpa was a good sport and kept Quinn entertained.
It was so wonderful to see them and can't wait to see them again!

Just had to share

I love this picture! It was taken a few days after James was born. Quinn crawled over and set his car carefully on top of James. It was very sweet.

The Zoo!

In the middle of October we decided to go to the zoo one last time before it got too cold. It was a lot of fun!


Quinn seemed more interested in the zoo itself instead of the animals. Like these stairs. I think he went up and down about 8 times before I was finally able to convince him to move on.
This is what James thought about it all.

Quinn had fun pretending to be a peacock,
seeing how long his arms were,

pretending to be a parrie dog, popping in and out of those holes, chasing a peacock, pretending to milk a cow and watching this Toucan.

I liked these fun signs they had up for Halloween

James' Blessing

We were so lucky to have members from both of our families come out to meet James and to be here for his baby blessing.

Gramma and Papi

Grandma and Grandpa Bracken

A baby blessing is a special opportunity for the baby to receive a name and to to have special blessings promised that will help them throughout their life. We blessed James on August 29th. Peter performed the blessing and Grandpa, Papi, and our friend Nate also participated.

James looked super cute in his little white suit and bow tie that Grandma bought for him

Daddy and James

Long or short?

I am in desperate need of a new haircut and style. I love having long hair but don't have the time to style it as much as I would like to and it takes for ever to dry and straighten. Either way I want to go I need it to be at least 3" shorter.



I like this first one a lot. I love all of the layers and feel that it would be pretty easy to maintain.

I am also really drawn to this type of hairstyle. It's cute and sassy but definitely a lot shorter and I am kinda scared to cut off all that hair. Also, the shorter my hair the more wavy, frizzy and curly it is so getting it straight is more of a challenge.

Which one do you think I should go with?

2 Months

Our cute smiley guy! After two months its hard to picture how things were without James. At his two month visit he weighed in at 10lbs 2 oz and 23" long. Quinn has definitely gotten used to having a little brother and is magnifying his roll as a big brother. If he hears James crying he is instantly there, trying to rock him, give him a binkie or patting him. He also loves shaking his hand while asking "How do you do?', giving James high fives and playing pat-a-cake.


Even though he looks a little mad in this picture I think James likes having Quinn around. Yesterday Quinn was holding James and James just snuggled right into Quinn and looked so content.



James loves sticking his tongue out. So dang cute!

The Labor Story: Part III

We started the pitocin around 7:30pm. They started slowly turning the doses up every 30 minutes or so. After a while I noticed the the contractions were finally getting longer and steady. Around 9pm I decided that I should get up and walk around for a little. Since you have to be monitored continuously when you are on pitocin they hooked me up to a portable monitor. It was basically a big belly band with that could hold the monitors in place against my belly.

We walked out of the delivery room, turned right walked to the end of the hallway, turned around, and as we passed by our room in the middle of the hallway I was done! I did not feel good. So we decided to sit on the yoga ball. As soon as I sat down the contractions left me gasping. They had gone from being mild to full force in a matter of seconds. After about 30 minutes of laboring on the yoga ball I thought I was going to die. They told me that I was doing great, that I had gone from a 2 to a 5 in just a half hour and it was going really fast. Definitely not fast enough in my opinion.

Things were going quickly though. Soon I was at a 7 and I could not handle anymore. I couldn't remember a single reason for not wanting an epidural. All I knew was that I needed help and that the pain had to stop now. I felt satisfied that I had worked hard at this and it was time for some pain relief. So we asked for an epidural. Melanie said ok but warned me that James would probably be here before the epidural. I was comforted to know that I wouldn't have to stick it out much longer. Melanie was right and not too long after, our little Jimmy Bean was born

We love this little guy so much its hard to express. He is sweet and handsome and has a very wise old spirit. We are so glad he is a part of our family