Here are some pictures, finally.

AJ's first bottle of mommy's milk at 5 weeks old. I've been a little lazy with the pumping. ;)

AJ finally got to meet his Aunt Valerie. We had a great visit with the Hartmans.

I walked in to the dining room one day to find Vince loving on AJ. I love each of my boys so much, but my heart positively melts when I see them loving each other.

All the Ripleys, Christmas 2008.

You Gotta Be Kiddin Me!

Quick post. Dan and I were sitting here watching TV, playing on our laptops, minding our own business while AJ snoozed on his tummy on the couch next to Dan. All of a sudden, Dan saw something move next to him...it was our five and a half week old baby ROLLING OVER!!! What the heck! I think going from tummy to back is easier, but still!!! Thank goodness he rolled toward the back of the couch and not onto the floor! By the way, AJ weighs 12 pounds already. I'll post pictures of Cheeks McGee soon.

Sorry, but I can't post pics

The boys are doing great. I tried adding some pics but we're having some technical difficulties. Anthony is pushing 10 pounds or more by now and Vince...just woke up from his nap, so this is going to be a very short and uninteresting post. Hope you're all well. Happy Winter!!!!

More photos...per Mandy's request

Here are some new photos of the boys. Hope you enjoy them. You might notice that we're all wearing pajamas a lot these days. It certainly cuts down on laundry...one day we'll go back to being decent, clothes-wearing folks, but for now we're enjoying being casual (and warm!).

Happy birthday, indeed!

Well, my birthday gift to Dan this year was a wheel barrow that he's been asking for. Let's just say I have been outdone once and for all. I'm pretty sure I can't top the birthday gift he just got. Anthony Jacob Ripley came flying into this world at 5:36pm on Dan's 38th birthday (the 12th). He weighed 7lbs, 7oz and was 20.5 inches long. He has been an absolute dream baby so far. He latched on right away and has nursed fantastically. I haven't had hardly a moment of pain since the moment he was born (the moments before he was born, however, are an entirely different story).

We had a babysitter for Vince up until right after AJ was born and then Dan's best friend Artie came over and stayed with Vince a while longer. I spent the night at the hospital with just me and AJ and it was perfect. I was able to bond with him just one on one, and I feel like we really needed that because once we throw Vince into the mix, it might be a bit different. Vince met his baby brother this morning and was very ... I can't even think of the word ... curious, maybe?

We left the hospital as soon as we could so that we could get settled. We got home around 9pm tonight and we are so happy to be home. We had terrible reception in the hospital room, so if you were expecting a phone call sooner, I apologize. Thank you to those of you who have tried to call but been cut off due to the terrible reception. You're welcome to call any time and if we're not too busy with the boys, we will be happy to chat with you.

Anthony Jacob Ripley...home at last!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Nope, not to AJ, but to Dan. Today Dan is 38 and as he is fond of saying, he just gets better with age, like a fine wine. We are looking forward to hanging out and celebrating as a family today and having lunch together before Dan goes to work this afternoon. I'm still hopeful I can give him a baby for his birthday, but if not, hopefully the full moon tomorrow will help pull this baby out!

Still no baby

Overdue

Nope. No baby yet. Try again later.

Baby Ripley Update

For those of you who may be placing wagers on baby Ripley's arrival:

I went to the dr today and I have not made much progress since a week and a half ago. I have been having a few contractions per day, but I don't think they're anything to get excited about. I'm dilated to 1cm and thinning. The baby has begun to descend, though, which was nice to hear. I was told once this week that I had dropped (I can't tell, myself), so the dr confirmed it!

I am more pregnant now than I've ever been, since Vince was born by this time in my last pregnancy. I am really looking forward to having a completely natural birth, so I am praying that the baby will come on his own...soon. The dr said that they will want to induce me if I go to 41.5 weeks, which means we are praying for AJ to arrive on or before Nov 17. Feel free to join us in praying for this! But we do trust that God has a perfect date all picked out for AJ to makes his appearance and are just trying to enjoy the last few full nights of sleep we all can get.

Vince and Dan and I got our last photos of just the 3 of us today. We had a lot of fun and we're really looking forward to getting the prints at the end of next week. They aren't the quality of Sarah Hedman Photography (www.sarahhedmanphotography.com), but we'll take what we can get.

Hope you're enjoying your first days of November. Don't forget to vote!! (As if I had to remind you.)

Chickens, Worms, Pirates, Superheros and ... a goose?

We had fun dressing up for Halloween today. Vince loved wearing his Chicken costume. Some friends stopped by to say hi, too.

Vincent the chicken, Finn the pirate, and DJ the superhero

Aundrea the glow-worm, Vince the chicken and DJ the superhero



Vince the chicken. He lays pumpkins, not eggs.

The other day Vince was walking around with a sippy cup not paying attention to the corner of the wall he was heading for. He may have been a chicken for Halloween, but a goose came and laid an egg on his forehead earlier in the week!

38.5 weeks

Well, as you can see we're at about 38 and a half weeks and still VERY pregnant. I keep knocking people/things over with the belly.

Bandy's Pumpkin Patch

We made a trip to Bandy's Pumpkin Patch today. I'm sure it will be the first of many in the years to come. We all had a great time. Vince had not had much of a nap, but he was a total champ all afternoon. We started out by just checking out some pumpkins: Vince got one for himself and one for AJ and was carrying them around in his wagon. Then we went on a "hay" ride (it was actually straw, but we much preferred the straw). Then we went to the "Fun Barn" where Vince crawled through a tunnel for about 15 minutes over and over and over, and then he played in a corn bin! We strolled around a bit longer and picked up a couple more pumpkins and had a snack and that was about all we could handle. Vince had such fun and he passed out almost as soon as he got in the car. Hopefully next year we can make it through the corn maze, but this year I was paranoid my water would break halfway through and we would get lost trying to get out! Enjoy some pics and a video below:

Halloween Preview

Madi Hartman loaned Vince a cute chicken costume, so the latest animal sound we've learned is what a chicken says. See below to find out exactly what a chicken says.

It's autumn!

We were playing outside today and decided to let Vince get his first leaf-stomping experience. We are heading to the pumpkin patch this weekend, but here is our first set of fall photos.

New baby, mischief, belly kisses, and climbing

Finn Kunz spent some time at our house last week while his mommy and daddy went to the hospital to bring little Eli into the world. Welcome, Eli! We had a great time playing with Finn for 2 days. The boys wore me out, but they did great together. We did a lot of reading. I loved that they both love to read:







I think I'll just have to get used to lots of mischief with at least two boys in the house. Vince has a head start on AJ, but I bet Anthony will catch up in no time:



Mommy and Vince; it's hard to get him comfy on my lap with the belly in the way, but we usually find a way to make do:






Dan was kissing the belly one day and - not to be out done - Vince decided he wanted to join in.




Vincent recently discovered he loves Veggie Tales. Since we don't have cable, it's the only TV he ever watches...for the sake of my sanity, I try to rotate the 3 DVDs we have, but he doesn't seem to mind. He loves to sit on the couch while he watches, and he always wants to be on one end or the other, never in the middle. I couldn't remember the sign for vegetables or cartoons, so for a while I was just making the signs for V and T. I've since looked up the appropriate signs, but I was too late. When he wants to watch Veggie Tales he waves his hand in the air, because he can't form the letters yet. Enjoy the following clip of his newfound independence:

Vince's first official boo boo

Someone crashed in the driveway yesterday. The meanie in me wanted to say "that's what you get for running away from Mommy" but the Mommy in me won out and there were tears (from me, not him). He was a tough boy, got up and walked into the house and let me clean it up. Here's a pic of the "wound" for the few who might actually be interested.

Nana's Visit

Nana Sandy came for a short visit this weekend. Right now the guest room is Anthony's room. We will leave the guest bed up until he's a few months old so that visitors have a place to sleep when they come to visit the boys. AJ will sleep in a bassinet or swing in the office (which is attached to the master bedroom) until he's a little older. Anyway, my mom had a great time seeing Vince and he loved seeing her. I have to say, I'm just a little jealous that he says "Nana" so much more readily than he says "mama." Of course the little loverboy melted her heart the first morning by leaning in for an unprompted kiss from nana. He had a runny nose while she was here and she showed me a little trick to squish his nose from the top a few times instead of just wiping it. It seemed to be less irritating for his little nose and he cooperates much better for the squishing than the wiping. Of course, saying "squish squish squish" helps him think it's more fun too. He actually brought me a kleenex this morning and stuck his nose out for me to squish it.

Here's a cute pic of Vince with his Nana.

We miss her already and can't wait to see her again at Thanksgiving when she and papa come to visit! Hope you all had a nice weekend.

Check the Facts

Sometimes it's hard to know whom to believe when two different people are promising to be the best President ever. Neither one of them is above lying; they are politicians, after all. Here's a website Dan found that helps sort out the facts from the fiction: http://www.factcheck.org/

Eeeeewwwwwah!!!!!!!

Yuuuuccckkkkkyyyy!!!!!! Vince just had his first big boy throw up. BLEH!!! Gross! I miss spit up. Why can't we always just have spit up? Spit up I can handle. Pregnant women should not have to clean up big boy stuff. Yuck. Ew.

The Testing Has Begun

Oh, my goodness. The testing phase is in full force. Vince has been testing every word I say. Wait a minute: Just at this exact moment (7:45pm on 9/17/08) I realized it's my fault because I let him slide on the potty training thing. I think he realized I would cave if he put up enough of a fight on the potty training, so he wants to see what else I will cave on. Crap. Now I'm the mom who caves. Vince has been incredibly whiny lately and I'm realizing that it's because we allow it. So, we implemented the no-whine rule. That's going great. Now he started refusing to obey direct orders that he has proven himself perfectly capable of obeying. So we have implemented the no-disobeying-perfectly-reasonable-requests rule. That one is a little different. I discovered that Time Out was completely ineffective discipline for this particular child when it comes to that. We went back and forth to Time Out for about 15 minutes earlier today because Vince refused to help put a puzzle away (our favorite puzzle - a 10 foot long alphabet train, which we also use as animal flash cards). After we finally got all the pieces back in the box, one piece and one Time Out at a time, he lost the puzzle. Then tonight, after a short-lived battle of the wills, I remembered that I'm the grown up and have more power than just to put him in Time Out. So I stripped Vincent of all book privileges. That one's really gonna sting for all of us, because lately that's his favorite thing to do. He goes and gets one and brings it to us and sits on our lap and reads and chit chats with us. But tonight he refused to help put them away at bedtime so I let him watch me remove each one of his books from his shelf. Ouch. He'll earn them back one at a time, but it's going to be rough in the meantime, I'm sure.


This is Vince before he forfeited his book privileges:






It's taken a while, but I finally realized nobody is going to come knock on our door and say, "Hi, welcome to town. Wanna be friends?" So I've been getting more proactive about talking to people when I normally would just smile and keep walking. We visited a twice a month mommy group today. It's called MOPs (Mothers of Preschoolers) and the moms get together in one room and the kids go to a nursery and everybody gets to have some fun social time with people who communicate on their own developmental level!! I'm so glad Vince is finally getting to hang out with more kids. We had Finn Kunz over for a playdate last week and are hoping to make that a weekly (if not more often) date. The boys had a really good time together. Vince had been so starved for attention from other kids that by the end of the playdate he was chasing poor Finn around trying to hug him. Finn didn't realize what he was doing at first, but after the first couple hugs, he started hugging back. I just about melted. It was so sweet. Then the same thing happened to Vince at the park yesterday. A little girl kept chasing him around wanting to hug him and after about 10 attempts he realized she was being sweet, so he hugged her back. My little loverboy! We have another playdate set up for tomorrow morning with some other folks we've become acquainted with in passing.


Oh, Gabe, this is for you: I had a dr. appointment on Monday and baby AJ is doing just fine. He's been moving around a lot, so next time you see me, you can put your hand on the belly and feel him move around, okay? Here's a picture of the growing belly for you. Love you, bud.

Potty Update

It turns out I don't need a will of my own. Valerie has enough for all of us. After a rough first day of potty training, I turned to my BFF and of course she had the strength I needed to help me keep my resolve. She also had some fantastic pointers since she's potty trained 2 already and will soon be training another. Vince has done pretty well today...by "pretty well" I mean that he hasn't screamed bloody murder when I put him on the potty yet, thanks to the idea Val gave me to blow bubbles while we're waiting for the pee. He finally got to taste an M&M since he successfully pottied in the toilet and begged for more (alas, I'm a meanie and wouldn't relent; he gets one for pee and two for poo when he goes on the toilet). Anyway, we're still plugging away.

Happy Friday to those of you who count the weekdays still.

Here we go!!!

Vincent has been giving us some cues that he's ready for the big boy potty...so, we're starting to potty train! Right now it's more of changing wet underwear and sitting on the potty a million times a day, but he loves sitting on the potty and he definitely loves his step stool. I've been reading more and more about potty training from birth, and there's a family at one of the churches we have visited who has done it, and when you get all the facts it doesn't sound quite as preposterous as most would think. I know Mr. Curtis is probably laughing at us right now, but that's okay. Laugh away, Aaron. We don't mind a bit!
Dan's not 100% percent sold on the training from birth thing yet, and neither am I, but it would be nice to have 2 kids under 2 years old and not have to buy diapers for either one!


UPDATE. 5 HOURS LATER:

Oh. My. Goodness. I haven't been this exhausted since Vince was nursing every two hours. It turns out Vince doesn't like sitting on the potty quite as much any more. I'm seriously debating whether to continue with the training.

Oh, Boy!

We found out the sex of the new baby: BOY! We're very excited and I'm sure Vince will appreciate it some day too...not at first though. ;)

We brought home a little souvenir from Bloomington this weekend, too. See below.

yikes

Okay, it's after midnight. I should not be posting a blog, but I was emptying the camera photos onto the hard drive and I came across this pic. We are going to a wedding on Sunday so we were making sure Vince's suit would fit him. It does. He chased me down after I put it on him and while I was squatting to take a photo, he totally knocked me over and this is the shot I got of him. Maybe I'm just so tired that I'm slap-happy, but I cannot stop laughing about it; I had to share. I'll post some nice pictures after the wedding...if we can get some.

Little helper

We have white ceramic tile in our kitchen. It is a total pain to keep clean. I have to spot clean it all day long. Also, Vince has a really hard time while I'm cooking or doing dishes. He always wants to be on the counter or be picked up so that he can see what's going on. One day I had a bright idea of giving him a pot and and a spoon, which was great. It kept him occupied every time we were in the kitchen that day. And that was it. The next day he caught on to my scheme. Anyway, one day I was on the floor spot-cleaning the floor and he was watching me with a lot of interest. So I gave him his first chore as the oldest Ripley kid: cleaning the floors for mommy. He's pretty good at it and sometimes carries the towel around for quite a while looking for places to clean; even furniture and carpet floors. here's a little video of him:

He also likes to look out the window or sit on the front porch and watch the kids play at the park. recently he's started waving and saying hi to them. kinda cute.

29 weeks and other fun photos

Wow. I think the doctor must be wrong. I had it stuck in my head that I wasn't getting that big because of what my dr said (see previous post). Then I took a photo of myself at 29 weeks because that's when we had our preggo pics done with Vince and I wanted to compare. So imagine my surprise when I looked at the photos and saw that I am HUGE! you also might be able to tell that the belly button has started to poke out this time, which it didn't do with Vince. Vince loves my outie! heehee.



Here are some other photos for your viewing pleasure:

Aunt Valerie, Vince and Jacob


Vince finally has shown an interest in television...and he watches just like we do...which is funny, because I don't think he's ever really seen us watch tv like that. Anytime the tv is on when he's in the area, we're up moving around...that's what we look like after he's in bed!!!!