Baby Showers - Round 1

The last couple of weeks have been pretty eventful around the Brooks household. Our friends and family have really pitched in to help us prepare for baby Aidan’s arrival, because over the past ten days we have had three, that’s right, three baby showers. Things got started Tuesday of last week with April’s baby shower at work. Then, that same day, the people at Brandon’s job threw him a surprise baby shower. However, he prefers to call it a baby ‘party’ because it sounds much more masculine :) As you can imagine, after two showers on the same day, there was quite a collection of gifts to unload at the end of the day (some pics are posted below).

Then, this past Sunday, Brandon’s family had a baby shower for us. It was held in one of the meeting rooms at the rec center in town. The ladies who organized the shower really did a great job with the decorations and refreshments (some pics are posted below). Everything was really nice. There were even a couple of toddlers in attendance, so we were able to flash forward a little and get a glimpse of what our life might be like in a year or so!

We (and Aidan) received so many useful and thoughtful gifts; clothes, blankets, bedding, diapers and diaper supplies, bottles, bath and baby care supplies, books, toys, and so much more. We feel extremely blessed to have such generous friends and family. Yesterday, with the help of some gift cards, we bought Aidan’s stroller and car seat. We are looking forward to getting the car seat installed and prepared for the big day! After looking over the instructions for both the stroller and car seat, we kinda feel like we need to study and take notes in order to be able to use everything properly.

A couple of other things to note: April had her 34 week checkup on Monday. Dr. M was on vacation, so she saw Dr. Wheeler again. He is definitely an energetic guy. He said that everything looked great; Aidan’s heart rate was in the 130’s. Dr. Wheeler also said that based on how things are progressing, he wouldn’t be surprised if Aidan made his appearance a week or so earlier than expected! And also, April’s friend Heather had her daughter, Amidy, yesterday morning. So, congratulations Heather!

I suppose that about wraps up all of the latest news. April’s family is having a shower for us next weekend. So, we should have some more post worthy material soon. Some of the pictures we’ve taken recently are posted below.

This is after both of the work showers from last Tuesday.

Cake from the shower on Sunday.

This is the pre-sort photo after we got home from the shower on Sunday.

The 'after' photo. See, we can organize.

Rusty asked to model some of Aidan's new attire.

32 Week Doctor's Visit

Well, apparently we are bad bloggers, because it has been several weeks since our last posting. There just hasn’t been much going on since April’s February doctor’s appointment. We still have eight weeks to go until the anticipated arrival of baby Aidan, and after all the excitement of having the 4-D ultrasound, and showing everyone pictures of the cutest baby in the world :) , it seems like we have been in a holding pattern until those busy last few weeks of the pregnancy begin. However, we are about to enter the stretch of baby showers, final adjustments to the nursery, and preparing the cats for the extent to which their world is about to change.

And along those lines, we think that Kasey senses that something is going on. She has demonstrated a bit of an attitude adjustment over the past few weeks. She still exhibits her characteristic heir of superiority, but has been much more ‘lovey’ as of late (sitting with/by us more often, wanting to be petted). You see, her previous owners gave her to us because they didn’t want to have a cat in the house after their baby was born. We believe she has made the adjustment to 'sweeter cat' to prevent being relocated once again.

Anyway, we have been doing little things here and there in preparation for Aidan’s arrival. When we make trips to Publix or Wal-Mart, we try to buy a little something for him each time we go; things like pacifiers, Mylicon drops, and Tylenol. This past weekend, we bought him a cute pack of onesies (with jungle critter designs) at Wal-Mart.

We have noticed lately that the manner in which the time remaining until the due date is expressed really makes a difference in how close, or far away, it seems. For example, when we think of having eight weeks remaining, we usually think, well that’s two whole months….that seems like SO far away. But, when we think of eight weeks as only 56 days, it seems like it will be no time at all before he makes his appearance in the world. It doesn’t seem possible that almost eight months have passed since we found out we were pregnant. He was once just a barely visible speck on an ultrasound, and now he is a punching, kicking little three pound person. And he really enjoys ‘working out’ to Metallica :)

Well, now on to more recent news. April had her 32 week check-up on Monday. Dr. M was running a good bit behind, so she ended up seeing Dr. Wheeler instead. She hadn’t seen him before, but he was nice, and very energetic. They did all of the usual diagnostic stuff, urinalysis, measurement, fetal heart rate, etc. Dr. Wheeler said that everything was going great. Aidan’s heart rate was 157, and as usual, he tried to hide from the nurse while she was measuring his heartbeat (she said that he turned away as soon as she put the wand on April’s stomach). He has always shown a general dislike of any type of diagnostic procedure.

For the next month or so, April will be on a two week check-up schedule at the doc’s office. Then, as we get closer to the due date, she will have weekly appointments. Between the doctor visits, baby showers, and all of the other last minute things we haven’t thought of yet, we should have a pretty eventful couple of months leading up to Aidan’s arrival. So, we should have plenty to post about. Sorry about the lengthy posting today. If you’re still awake, thanks for reading.

Aidan in 4D !

April had her 29 week OB checkup yesterday, and everything is progressing nicely. The most recent visits have been pretty routine; they collect a urine sample, then it’s off to the exam room, Dr. M enters, asks if we have any questions, measures April’s stomach, and off we go. But, we had some added excitement to yesterday’s appointment because we had the 4D Ultrasound performed! It was amazing to be able to see what Aidan is actually going to look like. Feeling his kicks and movements are going to take on a whole new perspective now that we know the faces he makes while moving around and doing his exercises :)

The tech who performed the ultrasound was one we had not met before, but she was extremely nice. We knew from previous visits that our little guy doesn’t much care for the ultrasound process; he has a habit of curling up with his hands in front of his face once the ultrasound begins. We were hoping he would be more cooperative this time, but he’s definitely consistent, because he did the same thing yesterday. The tech got some good views and pictures when she first began, but after a couple of minutes, Aidan decided that he no longer wished to cooperate. He pulled his hands up to his face and decided to be camera shy for several minutes. But, the ultrasound tech was persistent, and managed to get some pretty good shots toward the end of the session.

Some of our favorite pictures are posted below. Not that we are biased or anything, but we think he’s a handsome little guy!



Showing off those chubby cheeks.

We can't tell for sure, but it looks to us like he is sucking his thumb.

Aidan is tired of having his picture made, and is ready to rumble!

How cute are those toes?

Kasey's Celebration of Festivus

There’s an episode of Seinfeld in which Frank Costanza creates his own holiday, called Festivus. If you, like us, are fans of the show, you no doubt remember the episode. Well, part of the celebration of Festivus involves the ‘Airing of Grievances’. During this ‘Airing of Grievances’, family members are supposed to let everyone in attendance know what each has done to anger, disappoint, or frustrate them over the past year. (Kind of a twisted version of the ‘What I am Thankful For’ Thanksgiving tradition)

Well, Kasey has expanded on this practice and chooses instead to air her grievances on a daily basis. As we mentioned in our first posting, Kasey is the most vocal and critical of our three cats, never hesitant to voice her displeasure to the humans who occupy her house. Particularly offensive to her are those occasions when we allow the food dish to empty. When this occurs, she generally begins with a few ‘warning meows’ to inform us that there is a problem. If an extended amount of time elapses without a resolution of the situation, she implements the second phase of her battle plan, which is a ruthless combination of psychology, aesthetics, and an assault on the auditory nerves.

She runs into the utility room (where the food is stored), jumps onto the washing machine (what we call her ‘grievance stump’), and meows incessantly until the dish is refilled. And, to her credit, the jump onto the washing machine is a bold psychological move; most likely honed by thousands of years of instinct, and the ability of a species to adapt and survive. Evidently this is done in an attempt to intimidate us, and assert her authority by bombarding us with meows while at an elevated position, putting her at more of an eye level with ‘the enemy’. Her final weapon is that she is just so cute, that it is extremely difficult to stay mad at her (as seen below) for an extended period of time.

Anyway, below is a great picture April took of Kasey last week during one of her grievance sessions.


See.....you can't stay mad when this face is looking back at you :)

The Nursery

Brandon is all smiles now. But this is before we started on the changing table!

And these pieces go where?

Did you notice the watchdog in the corner?

We had a little bit of excitement last weekend because, after countless hours of online searching, and waiting a few weeks for delivery, we finally got the furniture for the nursery. So, we spent a few hours each night on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday assembling everything. An assembly project of this scale can be somewhat tedious and stressful, but we think we handled it pretty well. We started with the crib on Thursday night, but after completing most of the assembly steps, the crib still didn't seem as sturdy as it should have been. After a call to customer service on Friday, we found out that a few steps of the instructions were incorrect. So, we tried again (with the correct assembly instructions) on Friday night, and everything fit together much better. (Imagine that!)

We put the dresser and changing table together on Saturday night. Some of the pics above show Brandon sorting through all of the pieces for the dresser. We thought that it would be the most difficult piece to put together, but it was actually the easiest. In fact, the piece that we thought would be no problem at all (the changing table) ended up taking the longest. It probably took twice the time and effort compared to the other two pieces. So much so, that we had to pause mid-assembly for a Steak-Out break in order to re-charge and relax a little.

Anyway, after a weekend of furniture assembly, we are very pleased with how everything turned out. As you can see, baby boy Brooks is going to have a safari themed room.

December Ultrasound Pictures

These pictures are from December. It's really neat for us to be able to look back at the first few ultrasounds and see how much he has grown over the past several months.

November Ultrasound Pictures

These pictures are from mid November, and as you can see...... It's a Boy! (Handsome, isn't he?) We were so excited to finally know what our little one was going to be. We were also surprised to find this out so early. Because during this appointment at Dr. McMichens' office, they were just going to draw blood from April for lab work, do a urinalysis, and listen to the baby's heartbeat. But our favorite nurse said that she was having trouble hearing the heartbeat, so she would have to send April back for an ultrasound to accurately check the heart rate. As you can imagine, we had no objections :)

September Ultrasound Pictures

These are the first couple of ultrasound pictures from mid to late September. The doctor who did the ultrasound on September 10th said the baby looked like a gummy bear, but we call it the 'Teddy Graham' picture :)

The First Ultrasound

This is the first ultrasound picture (from August 27th), which provided visual evidence that we were mommy and daddy to be :) At this point Baby Brooks is but a tiny speck in the upper right corner of the doughnut shape in the center of the picture. We always jokingly referred to this as 'The Doughnut' picture.

Our First Posting

Welcome to the blog for the Brooks family! We set up this blog space because we thought it would be a fun place to post pictures and info about our soon to be growing family. Since this is our first posting, we should probably provide a little bit of back-story.

So…..we were married at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens in February 2003, and are just a couple of weeks away from celebrating our six year anniversary. We have three cats; Rusty, Dharma, and Kasey. They have provided us with countless hours of entertainment over the years. Rusty is the mischievous one of the bunch, and is always into something (and spends a good bit of time at the food dish as you can see in the pictures). Dharma is the sweetest animal on earth, content to spend the majority of her day sleeping, being petted, or snuggling up to us (naps on the couch are her favorite). And Kasey is the most vocal of the group, never afraid to voice her displeasure, whether it is over a semi-empty food dish, a litter box she feels needs emptying, or just her general displeasure having to share ‘her’ house with the humans. (She is also a master of the 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning,’ Hey, I am awake, so why aren’t you?’, meow-meow alarm clock).

….and now on to the primary reason we decided to become bloggers. We have always known that someday we would want to start a family. And we tried for quite some time, but had no luck getting pregnant. Then, last year, we went to see Dr. Cynthia Sites, a reproductive endocrinologist at the Kirklin Clinic in Birmingham. She and her staff were extremely nice and encouraging. One of our favorites was a doctor who was always upbeat, with a smile on her face, but unfortunately had a consonant filled last name that we could never pronounce or remember :) After our initial few appointments with them, we were cautiously optimistic that this time we really would get pregnant.

Which takes us to August of last year, when after a series of medications, a few boxes of ovulation detectors, Brandon’s first experience giving a injection (ouch!), and a couple of dozen or so home pregnancy tests, we finally started to see the double (You’re Pregnant!) lines. Obviously, we were extremely excited, but were still a little cautious until we got confirmation from the doctor. So, we scheduled an appointment with Dr. Sites for lab work and an ultrasound. And during our appointment later that week, we found out that the double lines were indeed correct. We were pregnant!

April decided that she wanted Dr. Timothy McMichens in Huntsville to be her obstetrician, so around October of last year, we started seeing Dr. McMichens for all of the routine, monthly appointments. Dr. McMichens is really nice, patient, and easy to talk to. He never makes us feel rushed, and always takes the time to ask if we have any questions. We also really like our primary nurse and ultrasound technician. They have all done their best to make this an awesome experience for us. The due date for the much anticipated Baby Brooks is April 26th! And that pretty much catches you up to to the present. We are going to post some of the ultrasound pics, etc. from the last few months to show everyone what we've been up to. We will also begin posting current info to share our experiences from here on out.

Thanks for reading!