Haha. . . ironic?

I just realized that I just posted 2 things today - one birth, and one death. Maybe I'm the only one who finds that funny. But, "if you were in my head, you'd be laughing too!"

In loving memory. . .

of Ronald Brown.  Preston's grandpa passed away Tuesday night. He took a couple of bad falls over the weekend apparently. We were lucky to be able to visit them last Thanksgiving in Missouri and spend some time with him. I think we're going to take our first long road trip with 2 kids tomorrow and head up there for the funeral. A sad reason to get together with family, but still a good opportunity to support them!

Cousin Makaila

Congrats to My sister and her husband on their new baby girl! She was born last Saturday (September 3rd) and is a cutie! I don't have a picture I can put up yet, but hopefully there will be one soon!

Makaila Bean Baker
7 lbs 12 oz
20.9 inches

Just for the record, Brayden and Zander's only 2 cousins are both named Makaila, but spelled differently. Preston's sister's daughter is spelled Mikayla. I just hope that they figure out that all cousins aren't named the same thing. Hehe. Good thing it's a great name!

A bunch of pictures I loaded forever ago and didn't publish for some reason :)

Waiting to be taken back to triage. I'm trying to make a funny face, but it wasn't dramatic enough so I just look weird :) Hey, I'm in labor!

Brayden wanted to try out Zander's bed

Long toes!

What do you think?

Here's some baby pictures of Preston & I and Brayden & Zander. I think it's pretty apparent that one child looks much like Daddy and one looks much like Mommy. What do you think?

Preston - not sure how old.
Maybe 5 months?

Angie - 1 Month

Brayden - almost 8 months
(this was actually the
day we moved to Florida)

Zander - 1 week old

I used to think Brayden was a pretty good mix of both of us, but the bigger he gets, the more like Preston he looks. When he was born, Preston and I both agreed that he had my nose, my chin, my mouth, my fingers, my toes. Some of that is still true, but after seeing Zander I'd categorize their traits like this:

BRAYDEN

eyes: Preston

ears: Preston

hairline: Preston

hair: Angie

forehead: Preston

nose: Preston

mouth: Angie

chin: Angie

skin: Preston (I wish all our kids had Preston's skin!)

toes: Angie

fingers: not sure

bootie: Angie

ZANDER

eyes: Angie

ears: Angie

hairline: Angie

hair: Angie (we think)

forhead: Angie

nose: Angie

mouth: Angie

chin: Angie

skin: Angie

toes: Angie

fingers: Angie

bootie: Preston (at least there's something!)

Obviously Zander isn't a perfect clone of me, so there's definitely Preston mixed into those traits. Now the trick is figuring out what. . . But, looks can be deceiving. So far I'd say Zander has more of Preston's personality. We'll see what we think as he gets older!!

Tux Photo Shoot

When Brayden was 6 weeks old we took him to the Target portrait studio where I was working and got some great pictures of him. Half the pictures were of him in a build-a-bear tux and we have one hanging on our wall. I thought it'd be fun to hang a matching picture of Zander, but since he's bigger than Brayden was I thought I better get one asap. Of course I didn't want to pay for them, so I did my own. I think there's at least a couple good ones. I haven't done any editing yet, so hopefully they'll look even better :)

Brayden's picture on the wall

This is probably the winner for a spot
 on the wall after some cropping.

Newborn sleepy face

Looking at the roses

That's the monkey (Bubba) that
Preston proposed with,
which is where the tux came from.
also in need of cropping

And a couple pictures of the brothers just for kicks.

Chunker

We're back from the hospital now and all seems well. While we were there they weighed Zander each day to make sure he was gaining weight. I was amazed at the results! The first day they weighed him at 8 lbs 6 oz. The next day he was 8 lbs 7 oz. Remember how he was born 8 lbs 1 oz? Yeah, they usually give babies 2 weeks to get back to their birth weight. We have a little chunker on our hands. Just for fun, here's Brayden at two months and Zander in the same outfit at 12 days. It looks a little baggy on him because we have it unsnapped at the bottom due to his circumcision surgery this morning. But you can still see the difference!

Brayden - 2 months

Zander - 12 days

Here's some things I've learned about Zander in his first week and a half of life.

- Music is not nearly as calming to him as it was to Brayden.

- He loves head rubs and not only calms down, but often gets big smiles.

- He's a believing spirit. I don't know how I know that, I just do. This is a special "close to heaven" time and I just know that's one of his gifts. He gets it from me :) hehe. 

- He doesn't often find the need to cry. He just whimpers like a puppy when he's hungry and grunts a bit when he has bubbles or diaper gifts to leave.

- He's a very patient baby, but cries at pain more quickly than Brayden ever did. Brayden may be small, but he's a tough kiddo. Zander may be bigger, but I'm not convinced that he'll be tougher. 

Just as an example of the boy's differences in personality, when they breastfeed the react much differently to my abundant milk supply. When the milk started spraying for Brayden, he would raise his little eyebrows and start gulping as fast as he could. Zander simply lets go and then wants to come back on. Very different philosophies on life. Or breastfeeding at least :) "when the milk goes faster, gulp faster" vs. " when the milk goes faster, step away."

Anyway, we love our boys and all their differences and similarities.