One Month Old

I thought this was an important milestone worth documenting. Brielle is getting so big- I am already losing my newborn! She is a very sweet girl and we have just loved having her in our family. We're not quite at the stage where I can coax a smile out of her and take a picture at the same time though her smile is adorable- hopefully I can capture it soon.

The Tooth Fairy Makes Her Debut

Sunday morning, while Brayden was brushing his teeth, his first tooth came out. He was THRILLED- I mean jumping, dancing, singing thrilled! He was so excited, he even asked to go to bed early. The tooth fairy did come, and brought him a dollar. He is so proud, now, of his toothless grin and anxious to get himself to that dollar store and spend his dollar.

Haloween Pictures--Better Late than Never!

What it's like to have 3!

Since having Brielle, everyone is always asking what it is like to have three. There are of course two parts to my answer. The first, is that it is wonderful. I am so blessed to have three beautiful healthy children who mean everything to me and bless and enrich my life. The second part to the answer is that it's HARD. I am always exhausted, on the verge of an emotional breakdown, and my house is always a mess. The challenge is not so much the number of the children but, rather their individual "issues." Lets start with Makenna.
Makenna loves the baby in a cute but slightly smothering way. She is definitely having some adjustment issues which when combined with her "strong will" make for a frustrating experience. It has been a lesson in parenting for me and the only thing that works with her is extreme patience and of course picking my battles. So, yes, she has lollipops at breakfast time, wears her favorite clothes out of the dirty laundry basket, and church shoes to play outside... but for now we are just trying to get by- survival mode, I call it. The hardest part for me is the new phrases she has acquired. They are
"I dont love you"
"I dont want you"
"You're not my friend anymore" & my personal favorite
"You're a bad mommy"
Of course her cuteness counters those "less pleasant" behaviors. Ever so often she does tell me that in fact she does love me, and I do sympathize with her. It's hard to lose your spot as the baby in the family.
And then on to Brayden. He is a great helper. He loves Brielle and is actually quite useful. He helps with Makenna a lot and he tries to help with Brielle too. We have our moments of frustration but for the most part, he is just a great kid.
Brielle is a very sweet baby. My issue with her is SLEEP, or the lack thereof. Lately, at night sleep periods have become shorter and wakeful periods have become longer. It does make me quite crazy. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people who handles sleep deprivation very well. Otherwise I cant complain. Her fussiness is quite manageable and she is quite adorable- dont you think?As for Kevin- He is the reason I am surviving. He helps me get sleep, he calms my fussy baby, he changes diapers and he tempers Makenna's tantrums. I am truly blessed!

Brielle's Blessing

Last Sunday was a big day for Brielle. Kevin gave her a beautiful blessing at church and we were overjoyed to have so much of our family with us. Brielle was only two weeks old so the dress that I made for her was a bit big, but still cute. We were esspecially lucky to have Aunt Julie around to take some fabulous pictures. Here are a few. If you want to see more, click on the link to Julie's blog and her website has a slideshow of them all and a link to the web album.

BABY BRIELLE HAS ARRIVED!!!

We are so excited and happy to announce the birth of

Brielle Rose Brandvold
7lbs 14 oz
Born October 15th at 12:27pm

And here is her story...
We got the call from Labor and Delivery at the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center at 6 am. They told us they had a free room and a nurse so we rushed to the hospital to have our baby. We didn't expect the induction to happen that way so it made it a bit more exciting. By 7:30, I was getting my I.V. and getting ready to be in labour. The doctor arrived shortly thereafter and broke my water. I was suprised by what little pain I was in and I was holding off on getting the epidural (just to maintain mobility). However, the nurses kept getting upset with me because when I moved, their monitors weren't giving accurate readings so eventually I gave in and just got the epidural. By the time the anesthesiologist got there I was indeed having pain so it was good timing. Getting the epidural was the worst part of my labor (so I can't hardly complain). The anesthesiologist treated me more like a farm animal than a person. He was pulling me here and pushing me there and I always just feel nervous about the whole procedure. Once that was over, Kevin and I enjoyed a couple of episodes of Full House and Family Matters (daytime tv is really lacking these days) while waiting for me to dilate. I started to feel weird pressure around 11:30ish and the next time a nurse wandered in I asked her to check me and sure enough I was completely dilated. She went to find our nurse and call the doctor. When our nurse arrived around 12:15, she said the doctor was on his way. We were chatting when I told her I was feeling even more pressure, she took one look and actually said "oh my gosh" ran to the door and yelled out- "the baby is coming" (Apparently her head was already half way out). I was actually laughing at her at that point. It was pretty obvious this was a new experience for this young nurse who had told us just moments before that she had never had the experience of a doctor not making it in time. Some other doctor then came in and starting getting his "stuff" on and just then my Doctor arrived and told the nurses not to move my legs or the baby would come out. So the nurses put his stuff on and he told me to give a gentle push and out she came.
It was wonderful. Here are the pictures:

Our Annual Pumpkin Patch Adventure

Of all the pumpkin patches we have visited in our family life- this year we found the best of all. Last night for FHE, we went to Hee Haws in Pleasant Grove and it was so much fun. It was a nice warm night and we didn't get at all lost getting there so considering that alone, it beats last year. Here are some of the highlights.This was a mini maze for the kids- they loved it.

And here are the pigs- kind of, sort of, cute in a weird sort of way. There were pigs and goats and bunnies and cows. It was at this point where I pulled out the hand sanitizer and squirted myself and children about every two minutes (I'm not really much of a farm girl).

Unfortunately my camera batteries died when the great pig chase happened. They put the kids in a big pen with the pigs and had a contest to see which kid could grab hold of one of the pigs first. It was hilarious! Makenna was too scared to try but Brayden got right in there and ran after those pigs. However, when he came to the pig he couldn't quite bring himself to actually grab onto it. He gets an A for effort though- I don't think I could've grabbed a pig either. This pig was quite a sight- 1300lbs!!! I don't know if I should say Wow or Gross.

Makenna LOVED her pony ride and doesn't she just look like a pro?

This picture is like "Wheres Waldo?" only its "Where's Kenna?" It was like a sand box but it was dried corn, hence the "Corn Box"
And here we see the real reason we do fun "kid activities"- obviously more for Dad than the kids but he lets them come along too :) Yes, the picture below does show Kevin riding on the kids tractor pull. What a good dad!

Here is a picture of Brayden on the "Trick or Treat Hayride." It was a definite highlight. We all loaded up and rode through the pumpkin patch on a big trailer filled with had and at various intervals we were met by an array of costumed characters who pelted candy at us as we rode by. I guess it was fun...and a little dangerous. At one point the tractor pulling us ran out of gas so that made things even more exciting. It was definitely the stuff memories are made of!
And finally, we did make it out to the pumpkin patch to pick some very prized pumpkins. So now we are ready for Halloween- we just of course need to add one more member to our family to claim that very littlest pumpkin. Just 6 more days!!!