So far, so good

Braden is officially 8 days old now. He loves to keep Mommy and Daddy up at night while sleeping all day long. Sasha is doing much, much better. She really likes her little brother. It has been great to have Grandma Andersen here to help during this first week. We wish the rest of you could be here as well. Hilary says that last picture does not look like Braden at all so here are some more pictures.


We are so blessed to have little Braden in our lives. He and Sasha are the loves of our lives. It is so wonderful to have our own little family growing (especially with such cute kids!). We wish you all could be here to see him and watch him grow. Anytime you feel like coming up to visit, our couch is a comfortable one! At least, that is what Hilary's mom tells me.
Stay tuned for more pictures!

It's a BOY!!!

Well, we already knew he was a boy, but here is finally here. And what a crazy week to do it in. Here is a quick rundown before I describe him in baby detail. Sasha was admitted to the Pediatrics wing of the hospital Monday night with a possible kidney infection. This is her in her hospital cage ... I mean crib, with her IV.









She is starting to do better. She spent two nights in the hospital. They are now ruling it a viral infection. Her only symptoms have been a spiking fever of 103. Other than that, she seems ok. She just had a chest x-ray yesterday and they are still trying to figure it out. So, we spent the night with Sasha in Pediatrics and Hilary started having contractions. At 6am, the nurses looked at Hilary and decided she needed to be wheeled down to the Labor and Delivery wing. Brit stayed with Sasha until at 8am he called Hilary and she said he had better get down there. At 9:05 am, a baby boy was born. Braden Andrew Glad, weighing in at 9 lbs. 3 oz and 22 in. long. Hilary had no anesthesia, no epideral, nothing. She is awesome!











Before the doctor decided that Sasha had a viral infection, she was able to come see her new little brother. Notice her IV tagging along.





Sasha was able to go home one day before Hilary was released. Everyone is home now and doing better. We had a lot of really good friends to take care of us and we thank you all and we thank everyone else for their prayers. Here is my favorite picture thus far of Braden ...

Large with child

Here is the most recent picture of Hilary. It was taken yesterday outside our apartment. This one is mostly for Emy who requested a pic to see how big Hilary has gotten. So, here you go.

We are doing well. Hilary is not quite progressed enough to deliver yet, but we are anxiously anticipating our little boy's arrival. It could be this weekend; it could be in two weeks. Hopefully, sooner than later.

Our camera is back!

Now that an entire month has passed, we have our camera back ... again. This time there was a smudge on the inside of the lense, so they fixed that and for some reason also replaced the autofocus. I guess it was a good thing that the smudge was there. So, Hilary's stomach is looking very large right now. She is definately ready to have this baby. This picture is actually a week old. She is even bigger now!

The other day was garbage day, so emptied all the garbages and wastebaskets accordingly. This is what I found when I came back in the house...Good thing we only put paper in that wastebasket! Sasha's other favorite new game is playing with bubbles. Hilary got out the bubbles the other day and Sasha thought that was the coolest thing she had ever seen.

She sure is a handful, but she is so much fun! Everyday is a new adventure. Stay tuned for more pictures.

New Favorite Things

Sasha has developed a love for several new things. Most recently, she decided it would be good to start cleaning the house. She also has become a super-fan of swings. So much in fact, that she screams and cries when we try to take her away from her swing. It's like she is "one" with the swing, or something. The most popular new favorite is painting...finger-painting, that is. Along with painting pretty things on paper comes painting everything else as well. Apparently, Sasha decided our house needed some extra decorations.








It's a good thing that all that finger-painting is water soluble, otherwise, we might have some serious scrubbing to do in order to not lose our renter's deposit. Even with all the cleaning she is learning how to do, I have a sneaking suspicion she would not be too much into scrubbing detail.

random

Well, we had to send our camera in to the manufacturer again because they left a smudge on the lense last time they fixed it for us. So, my point is that we do not have a camera right now. But, here are some recent pics anyways. Soon, I will get a profile pic of Hilary. She is as big as she was when she was ready to deliver Sasha and she still has over a month left. Just wait for it...I'll have it soon enough. School starts two weeks from today and I can't say that I am very excited for it to start. I bought some books today so that means that school is officially here. Booooooo! Oh, well. Only two more years, right? Right.

Whenever we go over to the twins' house, Sasha wants to hold one of the babies. We think she is really going to like having a little brother at home. Except for when Mommy is holding the baby, then Sasha also wants to be held.

This last one was on the fourth of July out in Cour d'Alene. Sasha just can't get enough of the water!

Waterskiing

A couple of weeks ago some friends of ours took us waterskiing to Porcupine Bay. It is about an hour northwest of Spokane. There were a total of about four boats on the entire lake on a friday afternoon. Three of the four women on board were pregnant (two of them VERY prego) so those two did not get in the water to ski. Brit went wakeboarding and also, for the first time ever, got up on a slalom ski!! (I hope that is how you spell it). It was a lot of fun. They kept telling me that I was riding the wakeboard like a slalom because for some reason I didn't like to bend my front leg. So I said, "what the heck! I'll give it a shot!" With a few instructions by our captain, I was up on the slalom ski on the first attempt. That was a lot of fun. However, I still like the wakeboard a little better because I like surfing the wake. Don't mind the farmer tan!

Sasha was on the boat with us the whole time and she absolutely loved it! She couldn't get enough of watching people ski, watching the bald eagles and the golden eagles flying overhead, or having the wind blow in her face. It was so much fun to see how much she enjoyed it. She is becoming a real fish. Hilary has taken her over to Ashley's place to swim several times. Sasha just can't get enough of it. (Sasha's farmer tan is from the lifejacket at the lake)

It's official ...

It's official ... Sasha has allergies. Allergic to what? Well, not only is she allergic to all dairy, but also to peanuts, and dogs. I think she just likes to make our lives difficult just because she has been such a wonderful easy child. Now she is making up for all the times that she was a super good baby. She has a 90+% chance of growing out of the dairy allergy by the time she is five. If we are really good, she has a 20% chance of growing out of the peanut allergy. And dogs ... well, the doctor just laughed at us when we asked what her chances were on that one. Gratefully, the dog allergy seems to be somewhat minor, so since both Hilary and I are dog-loving people, we may still be able to have one someday.

All we have to do is completely abstain from any exposure to any dairy or nuts in her food. Do you realize how many things have dairy or nuts in them? Thankfully, we really don't have to worry about her eating any dogs. Basically, the doctor told us she can eat lots of beef and pork (That's my little girl!!! she definately takes after her daddy on the meat-loving), and she can eat lots of fruits and veggies. And...that's about it. Some diet, huh?

Animals are SO COOL!!!

While we were in SLC, we went to good ole' Hogle Zoo (just for Sasha). She loved it! She was just in awe the entire time. She didn't quite know what to think about all the strange animals that she was seeing. The gibbons monkey was whooping and hollering all sorts of crazy sounds. Very entertaining. However, of all the animals, I think Sasha's favorite part of the whole day was the misters because is was a very hot day.














We even got to see her favorite animal up close and personal ...


After we left SLC, we went to Boise for a few days and ended up going to the Boise zoo where Sasha seemed to enjoy the animals a little bit more (we think it was because she recognized some of them from three days before). She got to ride a komodo dragon and a camel. She seemed to have a great time and we enjoyed it as well. I think next year will be even better!

We think her favorite thing at the Boise Zoo was a little mouse that she found behind some glass.

My, how time flies!!!

We are back from our vacation in SLC. We are sad that we couldn't see everyone that we would have liked to but our time was very limited and spent mostly with all the wedding details for Hilary's little sister. The wedding was beautiful! The weather was hot! and we had a great time. Sasha loved being around so many people and she did very well considering she didn't have any naps on the entire wedding day and didn't get to bed until after 10pm.

By the end of the day, the only thing we could feel was the throbbing pain in our feet. It was a great ceremony and a wonderful reception. Good luck to Emily and Matt.

Zoo pictures coming soon...