Baby Adam and Off to Kindergarten

Well the last 3 weeks or so have been pretty busy around here as most of you know. On July 31st we welcomed Adam Martin into the world. He was 8lbs and 20 inches (nice even numbers to remember). We had lots of family visit at the hospital and the staff was very nice. I have to say that other than the sleeping accomodations that they overall medical experince this time around was much better than with Alana. Our only real hiccup was that Mom wasn't making enough milk right away and he started getting a little yellow and lost a little more weight than they like to see. So we started supplementing with formula at the hospital and that had everything straightened around in a few days. So by the time we went back for our 2 week appointment he was back up over his birth weight which was very good. It was also nice to have Grandma Pam down to stay with us that first week home. She was able to keep Alana pretty occupied so I could work a few days and we could save some daycare cost. Then I took off last week to hang out at home and take Alana to Chuck E. Cheese and the State Fair. Both were pretty fun. I discovered that Alana has really good hand eye coordination when it comes to winning tickets at Chuck E.. And at the Fair we got to meet Governor Culver and at the U. of Iowa booth they had Floyd of Rosedale sitting out where you could touch him and take pics. I'll leave you hanging as to which one I was more excited about :)

Alana has become a very good big sister. She loved to give him kisses and hold him. She's also going to be on the over protective side we can tell already.

And speaking of Alana... Today was her first day of Kindergarten. She's been pretty excited about it, even after being a little apprehensive after meet the teacher night. All the kids come that night, so it was kind of a circus with all the parents there too. But then this morning she comes bounding into our bedroom annoucing she was ready for Kindergarten. And all was well until it was time for Mom, Dad, and Adam to go. Then we had a few tears (from everyone). So Janelle and I were very anxious to see how the day went. She had a great time. She knows a few kids in her class from our street and one from her daycare, plus she really liked her teacher, so hopefully she'll keep adjusting well.

So that is about it for us. Coming up here in a couple weeks I'll be taking Alana on her first trip to Kinnick, so that should be interesting. That is about it for really big plans for the most part, but I'm sure more things will come up, they always do...

Baby coming soon...

Ok, so I'm just as lousy keeping up on this thing as I was the other webpage. Anyway, here's a summary of what's been going on with the VB family.

For the most part things have been going very well. The bun in the oven is right on schedule, and barring an early arrival, we are scheduled to go in on the 31st of July first thing in the morning for the c-section. I'll be posting information once the little guy gets here that I'm sure you'll all be waiting for.

For major events, we had Adventurland Day again this year with the Bernhards, and this year Erica, Payton, Stefanie, Mark, and Olivia all joined us. All I have to say is 11 hours of Adventureland is not so much fun after awhile. After a certian point it just becomes a quest to make it to close, because you've just come so far...

We also had a very nice 4th of July weekend. The weather felt more like Easter, but hey, with a pregnant wife in the house in July, I'll take 70 degree days whenever I can get them. But to have to have sweatshirts out on the 4th for the parade at 2PM was a little crazy. Must be global warming...

Otherwise we've been prepping Alana for the big arrival. We're not sure that she totally understands the permanence of what is about to happen, but we think that she is handling it all ok. It should be interesting though...

Projects and graduation

Ok, so much for keeping up on this more often. It's been kind of busy around here though. I've been keeping busy with getting some projects done around the house before the baby gets here. We replaced all the doors on the main floor. This started out as a project to just replace the basement door with a french door, but as Janelle said, while you're doing one what's another 3. So after about 3 weeks of messing around I got that done (with a little help from Mitch to help hang them). And if I hadn't been inhaling enough fumes, Janelle decided we should update the upstairs bathroom. So two coats of primer and two coats of paint later, we changed from ducky blue to a brown jungle. So while I've been inhaling massive doses of VOCs Janelle has been working to get all the baby stuff together and hitting garage sales so we'll be ready for this little guy to show up.

Speaking of the little guy, everything is going well. He does a good job of keeping mommy awake at night kicking around, but I would think that beats puking. We are at 32 weeks now, so less than two months to go. We are going to the dr. every other week now, and we are planning on the c-section this time around. So one of the next couple visits we'll be picking out his birthday, which is kind of wierd, but works for us since we are such planners. Just so he doesn't decide to show up early now...

As for Alana she had a very big week a couple weeks ago. It was preschool graduation night. It was very cute. All her class was there and they got to go across the stage to get diplomas and then they had a few songs with actions for all the parents.

Other than that we went up to Rich and El's for Mothers Day and had fun playing around on the farm. Alana has become quite the golf cart driver all of a sudden as scary as that sounds.

So I think that gets us up to date on what is going on here. I'll try to keep this up a little more now that the baby is getting closer and let you know when we have that birthday figured out.

Easter and Alana's birthday

Ok time to get caught up on what has been going on around here. We've been pretty busy the last few weeks. The weekend of Easter Grandma Pam and Tom were in town. She brought lots of goodies and so did the Easter bunny. We also spent the Saturday before Easter at the Easter celebration at Living History Farms, which is where one of the pictures above was taken. Alana was also a big girl and went up to the front of church to sing with the rest of the kids during Easter service. The funniest thing about Easter weekend was Alana was scared that the Easter Bunny was going to come upstairs to her room, so we had to leave a note where he would see it on the door to make sure that he didn't.

Easter weekend was also the beginning of Alana's birthday week. The day before her birthday she got to take cupcakes to school. Then we took the day off work for her birthday and had a fun day. She also got to pick out her Build-A-Bear where she picked out a pink unicorn that has Hannah Montana singing built into it. Then Friday of birthday week we had a party at Backyard Adventures with 9 of her school friends, the Bernhards, the Mitch Zeman family, Grandma and Grandpa Zeman, and Uncle Nate and Grandpa Wally. Needless to say that was quite the experience. The kids were all very good, but lots and lots of energy. And to top off the turning 5 experience for Alana, she had her 5 year doctor appointment yesterday. That was not much fun after 3 shots and a finger prick to get blood.

That pretty much gets you up to date on what is going on around here. Nothing much new with the baby, just growing and Janelle is really showing now. So until next time...

And it's a baby...

So we had our level 2 ultrasound last Wednesday and everything went very well according to the ultrasound tech anyway (all the official results got to our OB/GYN to share with us at our next monthly appointment next week). We were kind of bummed that Alana was not able to go with us. She spiked a fever again Tuesday afternoon, so it was a good thing it was spring break down here and Brylie was able to come over and watch her for a few hours while we went to our appointment. Alana ended up staying at home the rest of the week and really didn't kick the fever until today (Sunday). We did take her to the doctor on Tuesday when her fever spiked as it was the 3rd time in about 7 weeks that it went that high, but after several tests at the doctor (a blood draw and first time peeing in a cup) they came up with nothing. So we have a follow up with her regular pediatrician tomorrow just to see if there is anything we need to investigate further or if we've just had really lousy luck the last couple months in the sick department.

Oh yeah and I suppose you would like to know what we have growing in mommy's tummy there. Well lets just say that we are going to be hitting a lot of garage sales this spring and summer getting new clothes as we can't have the little guy sporting all the pink we have stored away. Alana's response to the news she is going to have a little brother, "Ugh, I don't want a brother." And so it begins already :)

Dancing, getting sick, and water park

Well I lied a bit on my last post. I thought I had everything updated on Alana's old website that we had been doing but I forgot one thing. The weekend before Valentines Day our church had a Daddy Daughter Dance that Alana and I went to. It was very fun dressing up for both of us (although I think my sports coat has shrunk a bit) and Alana even got a corsage which she thought was very cool. The dance itself was very fun and Alana was very surprised to hear a "shake your booty" song as something she likes to do is shake her booty and sing that, she just didn't realize it was a real song. Oh the things we learn at daycare.

The other fun picture with this post is from our weekend trip to Omaha a couple weeks ago. We spent a couple days hanging out at a hotel there that has an indoor waterpark attached. Alana and I had lots of fun as Janelle couldn't really ride any of the fun slides as they might not agree with Fetus so much. After being too scared to go down a little bit bigger slide, once we got Alana to go down it once, she about wore the thing out the rest of the weekend. She's kind of funny that way.

The not so awesome thing around here lately is everyone has been sick at least once, and a little more than the morning variety with Janelle. Early in February Alana came down with a nasty sinus infection that required a trip to the doctor. Then the next week Janelle and I spent two days home from work with stomach flu. And now this past weekend Alana shot up a fever like she did with her earlier sinus infection so another trip to the doctor and another two days home from school for her.

Only other news is we had our latest baby doctor appointment this week and everything is looking good, we even took Alana so she could hear the heartbeat which she thought was pretty cool. We also scheduled our level 2 ultrasound for March 18th, and we plan on finding out what little Fetus is, so maybe we'll blab, maybe not. Guess you'll have to check back after the 18th to find out.

Welcome to Van Balleblog

Welcome to our new home on the internet. We are hoping that with this new site we'll keep things updated a little more often and keep you up to date on our expanding family. Our last post is out on our BabiesOnline site yet if you want to get caught up from Thanksgiving until now, but that will be the last one out there, so keep visiting here often to get our updates.

Bryon, Janelle, Alana, and "Fetus"