Introducing Liam Coray Brannon

Liam Coray Brannon made his debut on February 16, 2012 at 11:12 am. He weighed 8 lbs. even and was 20 3/4 inches long.

Kiley and I went into the hospital at 12:30 am on the 16th for me to get induced. They were able to start the pitocin at about 1:30 am. Not much happened between that at 8:00 am. I was having contractions, but they didn't hurt at all. The nurse kept asking me what my pain level was on a scale of 0-10. It was maybe at a 1.

Kiley and I were both anxious for something more to happen. My doctor came in about 8:00 am and was surprised to see that things were moving as slow as they were and broke my water to get things moving. At that point he hoped I would have him by 4:00pm.

But move they did! He broke my water about 8:15 am and hard labor kicked in almost immediately. I had hard contractions from that point on. I got my epidural about 10:30 am, at which point I was dilated to a 3. By the time he was done with my epidural, I was at a 9.

The nurse called my doctor who didn't believe I could be that far along. He came in about 11:00 am and I pushed for about 10 minutes and Liam was here!

When I first saw him, I immediately thought he looked just like Gabbie!

Mom and Liam... I was smitten the moment I saw him!

Gabbie immediately fell in love with little Liam. Grandma Dianne did too!

Daddy and his little man!

Our little family is now complete. Welcome to the world, Liam Coray!

He has melted our hearts already!

So Behind!

I am so behind in blogging! So behind, in fact, that when I think about getting caught up, I just shut down! So, here is my commitment that over the next month I will stay caught up on the current happenings - like Liam's arrival and stuff - and get caught up on old posts.

Quick update on Liam - he could show up anytime now. If I don't have him by February 16, I will get induced that morning. Let the countdown begin!

Stay tuned!

Dance & Tumbling Class

We signed Gabbie up for a ballet/tap class as well as tumbling class. She has been so excited to start her classes... that is until the day came to actually go!

Kiley took her for the first day and these were the pictures that I got during the class...

She wanted nothing to do with it! Kiley made her stay in the class, but as you can clearly see, she kept her distance and her expression left no doubt how she felt about being there.

Her tumbling class was a little better, probably because our fabulous sitter, Jodi, took her and there were no parents there.

And 3 weeks later, this was her at dance today!

She loves dance class and I have to admit that I was definitely a proud mom watching from the sidelines. My little girl is growing up!

Christmas 2011

Once again, we had a wonderful Christmas this year! Gabbie was so much fun and really understood what was happening for the first time!

She was excited about Santa and even made him cookies... to which she helped herself!

I told her Santa may not be happy about her eating his cookies and drinking her milk. Her response was that Santa is very nice and will be happy to share!

Trying on the Christmas Socks on Christmas Eve...

And she must have been good, because Santa treated her very well! Gabbie got a bunch of dress up outfits, stuffed animals and a make-up brush set!

She also got a Princess pillow and blanket!

Nana Vicky and Papa Charles came out from Utah to celebrate with us. Nana and Gabbie played all day with all the fun stuff Santa brought!

And even made a gingerbread house!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas as well!

Our Little Ariel - Take 2!

Well, it should come as no surprise that Gabbie decided that she wanted to be Ariel for Halloween this year! When we first started asking what she wanted to be for Halloween a couple of months ago, she originally said she wanted to be Santa Claus. However, when she started looking at actual costumes, she quickly changed her mind to Ariel.

So here she is, our Little Ariel!

This year was the first year she really had an understanding of what was happening and that made it so much fun! She was so excited to be Ariel and even practiced her Trick or Treating skills by making us practice. She would close the doors in the hallway and Kiley and I had to each retreat to a room. She would knock on the door, say Trick or Treat and then get pretend candy from us.

Our practice paid off and she was an immediate pro when it came time to do it for real!

We almost weren't able to take her since she had come down with Pink Eye the day before. We got her on drops the day of Halloween and the doctor said she would be fine to go

Trick or Treating!

So we took her out and hit a couple of house, one of which was Jodi's, her fabulous babysitter!

We hit it at the perfect time - just as her best friend Trysten showed up!

Trysten is the Super Hero!

Then Gabbie got Jodi's grandkids to sit down and they all sang along to her Ariel necklace.

Prior to Halloween, we tried our hand at Pumpkin Carving again. Gabbie still wasn't to hip on sticking her hand into the goo, but she had a fun time!

Here she is being a ghost!