The Fun We Have

My sister and I have had some good laughs. Riding around on her scooter going about 30mph wearing our "cool" sunglasses, while pregnant was one of those times that gave us a chuckle. I feel like we're re-enacting Dumb and Dumber.

People of Walmart

We saw this kid shopping in Walmart not too long ago. Mike tried to get his picture without him knowing, but he turned right as Mike was going to take a picture on his phone. So then Mike just asked the guy if he could get his photo because he thought his Oriental robe was "awesome." The kid was so flattered that he proudly posed for us and proceeded to tell us where we could get one for ourselves. :)

Baby Gramps

Hey everyone. I am no longer pregnant! Yay! So Baby Gramps has arrived. Okay, okay, we didn't end up naming him Graham Paul (although, that woulda been funny and cute...) We went through about 8 name books this time, and even scoured the dictionary for names. It was rough, lemme tell ya. The good news is that he has a name, unlike Jacob who was "Baby Boy" for about a week after his birth. We decided on the name Haven Elias Bates. He was born on his due date 11/11/11 at 12:27pm. He was 8lbs. 12oz. and 21 inches. Biggest baby of ours so far. The babies get progressively bigger with each pregnancy. Coincidentally I get bigger with each pregnancy too, psh.

So right now Mike and Vessel are at church and I just got Jacob and Haven down for naps, AT THE SAME TIME, no less. Nice work, mama. I am pretty brain dead on account of Haven not sleeping a wink last night. First night in the hospital he was a dream. Slept well, ate well, and barely made a peep. Last night Mike and I took turns holding him, rocking him, changing him, and feeding him. Well, Mike didn't do much in that last department, actually. :) This kid just wants to eat a lot. I'm sure he'll be happy when my milk comes in. TMI? I think he's gonna be the one baby of ours who takes to the pacifier like a fish takes to water. The others did not want to be pacified. Haven, apparently does. He's got a pretty bad oral fixation, I'll give him that. He's cute though. I can see he resembles the others a little, while still maintaining his own look. He's got a nice round noggin' and a little bit of dark brown hair on top. Big cheeks and the "Bates nose." So far, Jacob has not been so thrilled about baby Haven being here. He's curious, of course, but also very ambivalent and jealous and not wanting to share his mama. :( Vessel, on the other hand, has been super excited and very helpful.

So I've got a ton more to tell you all. Like the particulars of the birth and delivery, cos I know you all want to hear the juicy details (no pun intended.) I also have a name post lined up to publish soon. Right now I better get some rest of my own, while the 2 little hooligans are asleep. Here are some pictures to wrap this up:

SQUASH!

It was Halloween night and we had just gotten done trick-or-treating when Vessel reminded us that we never got a pumpkin to carve. We had planned to get one before Halloween, but with so much going on the week before, we never got around to it. So, we headed to the store to get a pumpkin for Vessel. After all, every kid needs to carve a jack-o-lantern for Halloween, right? But when we got to the store we soon found out that all the pumpkins were gone. So we had to improvise. We'd have to get a gourd of some kind, something big enough to carve. The only thing available that seemed big enough was this spaghetti squash. So we convinced Vessel it was way cooler than a pumpkin, and took it up front to purchase it. Well, we didn't end up carving it that night since it was so late by the time we got home. And the next day was pretty busy as well. Okay, to be honest, we didn't carve the thing until 4 days into November. I know, talk about crappy parent, huh? Well, at least we carved it. And it was difficult! The flesh of the squash was a lot harder. We broke 2 knives trying to cut it open and carve it's face. Scooping the guts out proved to be equally difficult because the top was so narrow I could barely get my hand in. But we did it. And Vessel was pleased as punch, which is all that really matters.

Broken knives