James has been gaining weight like crazy, true to his older brother's style. He's now in the 90th percentile for weight. Look at those chins!

We went to visit my brother and his family in Chicago for Thanksgiving. Thanks to them for an awesome meal while I sat around and nursed and special thanks to Hannah for sharing her toys.
Isaac and Hannah loved to play together, especially with elmo.
Isaac's always the ladies man.
We got out once to see the Chicago Botanic Gardens and used Jeremiah and Megan's brand new double stroller. It was freezing! We liked the greenhouses.


James liked the greenhouses too.
Jeremiah got excited for their new arrival (coming in January!), James making him remember all the sleepless nights and endless rocking. He's wearing a sweatband because we made a movie called "Donutman" to share in the glory of our sister Anne who completed an Ironman last week. It was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. The best part was eating the donuts. Mmm...

More James

Grandma K came to visit

Isaac and Grandma K became great friends. They played in the leaves together, went to the store innumerable times for random groceries and to ride in the car cart and for a free cookie, played with cars and playdough, made cookies and cake, sung and danced to Hokey Pokey, etc. She also cooked many delicious meals and treats and cleaned and babysat while I slept. She took such good care of us that I stopped losing weight while she was here (thankfully I've started to shed pounds again). We did manage to do a few fun things while she was here--went to the Science Center, the outlets, and the zoo.

How James saw the animals

The walk to the zoo in the leaves was almost more fun than the zoo

We miss you, Grandma K! You were so much help and so much fun!

Happy Halloween!

Since the trunk or treat at church, Isaac keeps saying "Hoween" over and over in an attempt to get candy.

Choo! Choo!

A testimony

I’ve not given enough credit to my Heavenly Father for how this birth turned out, which I wanted to rectify. I sometimes feel silly bearing my testimony but I felt like I should post this. This pregnancy has been full of anxiety for me as I really wanted to have a VBAC and not go through the pain of another C-section. Plus, I knew that I would be stuck with more C-sections if I had another one and that made me nervous about having more kids.

I’ve been praying the whole 9 months that I could deliver vaginally and sometimes felt good about it and sometimes full of despair. Well, when it was the week before my due date I got very discouraged and noticed a book in our bookshelf—Drawing on the Powers of Heaven. It was a book about the power of faith and how God wants to give us what we desire—he just wants us to live worthy of the blessings and to ask for them. Plus, we had exert our faith that he would fulfill our prayers, which required positive thinking. So I exerted all the faith I could and tried to think positive, which sometimes was very difficult. I prayed constantly through the days that the baby would come within 5 days of his due date. Blake gave me a blessing the day after my due date during which he told me that God was pleased with the choices I’ve made in my life and according to my faith, everything would work out according to my desires.

I don’t know where the Castor oil fits in to any of this, but I do know I had the baby just 3 days past his due date, which was a miracle to me because he didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Also, when the baby was in distress and his heart rate was dropping and I seemed to see all my progress vanishing before my eyes, I prayed that I would know the right way to push so the baby could come out. I felt that I wasn’t doing it right. That was when the doctor said we had to choose a C-section or the vacuum and I just had a feeling that Heavenly Father was going to bless me—I just needed to exert my faith. It was a hard thing for me to go against every single person in that room who thought I was making the wrong decision. I could see it in Blake’s eyes that he thought I should stop trying but he was supportive and stuck with my decision. When they told me this was the last time, to push with everything I had, I suddenly knew that I needed to push more from below than straight on and that’s when the baby popped out. I felt so guided and extremely blessed that Heavenly Father helped me have the baby the way I wanted to. Heavenly Father wants to bless us and he will and DOES.

Introducing

James Perry Newman

Born Saturday, October 23, 2010 at 8:29 AM

7 lbs 8 oz

21.5 inches

If anyone is late and wants to have their baby, we have the secret! Castor oil. We had tried everything else and heard to take castor oil, so on Friday evening we picked some up and I took some at around 5 PM. After some yucky effects, at 11 PM I was having consistent contractions and having trouble sleeping. At 2 AM my contractions were very painful. Some very nice friends came over and slept at our house at 3:15 AM and we made it to the hospital by 3:45. Blake and I were very pleased to find out that I wasn't just having Castor oil effects and I was in fact in labor. Everything went fast and smoothly (slowed down once I got my epidural, thank goodness) and I was able to have a VBAC as planned. The baby wasn't tolerating pushing very well so the doctor told me she'd rather do a C-section but she could try the vacuum. I wasn't ready to give up so I said vacuum and luckily the baby popped right out!

He's a cute little bundle and is much sleepier than Isaac was. It's hard to get him to wake up enough to eat, which definitely was not a problem Isaac had. Isaac is so sweet with the baby and as soon as he saw him wanted to hold him and give him kisses. Then he was done and wanted to play with cars. He'll be a great big brother.

Welcome to our family, little James!

Many adventures

My nesting has taken the form of not cleaning, but hurry and visit all the places you've wanted to visit before the baby comes. Here are some pictures of our adventures.

Pick your own apples at Eckert's Farm. Wholesome family fun!

Yum!

Isaac's favorite part was riding to and from the fields on the "cu" = truck = wagon behind a tractor.

There was a fun little fair outside where we got to sit on tractors, ride John Deere trikes, play mini golf, and be jealous of those big kids riding the horses and swings.

Bee Tree park on memorial day
How the first 15 minutes of our hike went
How the rest of our hike went

I want mom to carry me now

We found a half price day for the Meramec Caverns so we braved the hour drive down there. Isaac did really well in the car, both ways, and was in awe of the cave when we got there. He wouldn't let us put him down the whole time. I was just glad we didn't have to worry about him touching things that weren't to be touched. It was a neat cave with lots of awesome stalactites and stuff. There was a little free fair outside and Isaac got to ride a little tractor train twice!

The Great Forest Park Hot Air Balloon Race. Blake and I have attended every year we've lived here.

Isaac loved the "la la"s and would wave "bye bye" to the people inside, who were also waving.

He maybe loved his blonde brownie more than the "la la"s.

Possibly the only pregnant picture of Marie to ever be published.

We'll miss you, Owen

You've been the best little brother in training we could have asked for.

We heart Forest Park

I am too fat to have pictures taken of me. So last Sunday I had fun taking lots of pictures of Isaac and Blake, who are always cute.

Classic lampposts all over our neighborhood

"The "choo" is over there..."

Silly boys

Funny how fun it is to go up and down stairs

Probably my favorite

The excitement of the month is that I finally gave in and bought Isaac some crocs. They were his first shoes last year and he loved them. Owen has some so whenever he comes over and takes them off, Isaac jumps on them and squeezes his feet in them. So we went to the mall a week ago and bought fluorescent yellow crocs and now interspersed between Isaac's random talk about "choo choo"s is "shoe! mall! buy!"

This pregnancy is going by really fast. I forgot how crazy I get--sorry to Blake. I am very sensitive, whereas usually I feel like a have a pretty thick shell. We rented a movie the other night and I ended up bawling, "What if you die and I have to tell Isaac you weren't coming home anymore? He wouldn't understand and would be so sad." This was only slightly related to the plot of the movie we were watching. This is the quilt for baby.

We submitted residency applications! St. Louis, Portland, Salt Lake City, Denver, Phoenix, Chicago, Iowa City, Cleveland, Ann Arbor, etc.