We're still alive, just tired...

Here is our send-off picture from Dupont Hospital.


We're doing pretty good at home. Brendan seems to be taking things ok. He is slowing learning that he needs to share Mama's lap...


Thankfully, he has found room on Mama's lap for sucking his thumb on Teddy while she still holds his brother Luke.

In other news, we had some friends stop by today and helped clean up around here. It was nice to get the help. The house is looking better, but not perfect (but with two boys, plus a daddy, will it ever get or stay clean?!).

I was able to take Brendan with me to church this morning. I sat with another family who took over taking care of Brendan while I was fighting falling asleep.

Kira and Luke stayed at home from church with a friend to make sure they could get around at home. They'll be back next Sunday for Luke's Baptism at Zion (2313 Hanna St, Fort Wayne) @ 9am.

I've opened up commenting on our blog. Now ANYONE can comment with or without a Blogger account. When I start getting comment spam, I'll have to lock it down again. (Spam is annoying in my inbox, but when people do that on a family website about our children, that is low. ) I'm sure that I'll eventually have to go back to requiring a Blogger account for comments. It is a free account and they don't send you spam. You can just go through the account creation and skip creating a blog altogether. (If you decide to stick with anonymous comments, please at least mention your name so we know who you are.)

Beyond that, we're tired and need to get to sleep. Luke finished his snack, so Daddy will join them by going to bed.

Sleep well!



Thanks again for everything Dupont.

Home Sweet Home!

We're all home now safe and sound. Brendan did pretty good with Luke coming home. He even "helped" by taking Luke's shoes off.

We got our hero Mandi today. It was great to have her again and she remembered us. She was our last nurse who helped us pack up and go home. It was a nice end to our stay at Dupont.

Thanks for all the comments, I haven't gotten to read them yet, but I will tomorrow. It's really nice to know someone reads this.

We're all doing well, just sleepy. Good night! ... zzz ... zzz ... zzz ...

Tired update ... zzz ... zzz ...

I'm going to try to write some more here, but I'm very tired and it will show ...

Luke is a cutey pie. He is so small and adorable. He loves being held by Mommy.

I think the Baptism will be next Sunday at 9am at Zion Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, IN. There are a few last details to work out, but I will post about that when I find out more.

We have had a wonderful time here at the hospital. The nurses truly make the 'difference' here at this hospital. They have all been wonderful. We owe a big thanks to all our nurses as they have made all the difference in the world. Ana was great in helping to get us checked in, started, etc. Maryellen did a great job on Thursday by helping us through most of labor. She was wonderful and I felt awful that she couldn't stick around the extra couple hour(s) until Luke was born. We hadn't started pushing yet, and it was past the shift change so she had to go. :-( Staci took over after her and was absolutely wonderful (she was the best reliever for Maryellen). When she first took over, she asked if we wanted anything and I asked for her to get the baby to come out and sure enough we started pushing and got to hold the baby within an hour or three. She also was helping with our recover afterwards and did a great job. Renee also helped us out with Luke with some of the cleaning up and such and she was nice but we didn't see her very much. When we got to postpartum, Candice took over during the night and was great. We had her again last night. Niki was our nurse during the day yesterday and she was also very good. But we owe a HUGE thanks to our wonderful nurses who have made the difference.

I think that we might get Mandi today, she was one of our nurses with Brendan and did a wonderful job.

Is it a bad sign that I'm not only starting to recognize nurses from last time with Brendan, but also the administrative, cleaning and room service staff? At least they are all really nice.

Kira's doctor was able to make it for delivery and everything went better than expected. Luke was small enough to make it pretty easy on Kira.

When he was born, he was so quiet. They were trying to get him to cry but he was too busy being content. That has held true the rest of the time that we have been here. Brendan was a noisy sleeper. Every few minutes he would make some noise, even while asleep so it was difficult for us to sleep but we could always here that he was doing ok. Luke on the other hand has been quiet, a little too quiet. Every so often while he is asleep we have to poke at his fingers just to see them wiggle around, because you can't even hear him breathing. He's doing great though. He's been very quiet and happy. He has been eating very well and sleeping very well.

We're getting released tonight at 11:30pm, grrr.... I'm sure that we will survive, but I'm not looking forward to leaving (or even being awake) at that time.

Brendan has been absolutely wonderful. The Richerts have been watching him. They are his God-parents. Apparently, he has been having a great time, laughing and running around. He has visited each day and seems to be doing ok with it. Yesterday, he got to stop by the 'treasure chest' in postpartum. He grabbed the first thing that he saw, some kinda of light up pen. I showed him some other stuff that was in there, but he was too fascinated with the lights on the pen. Our nurse also let us know that we could take him down to the gift shop to get a 'Big Brother' gift bag. He got it and it had a small plastic fighter jet in it. He didn't even look inside of it, but was thrilled that the paperbag made noises when he was shaking it.

Our doctor will be coming back to checkup on us anytime now, so I should get going.

I'll post some more pictures tomorrow (I hope). I'm using dial-up here in the hospital and it's painful to use, much less transfer some pictures.

Leave us a comment to let us know if you stopped by.

... zzz ... zzz

IT'S A BOY!!!

Luke Timothy Standfest - born on 3/16/06 @ 10:18pm
6lbs 11oz - 21 inches







Mom and baby are doing well. We've had a wonderful experience at the hospital. The nurses have been excellent! We're all very tired. I'll post some more pictures and write some more about it when we get home. We should be discharged tomorrow (Saturday) night.

There are some more pictures at http://standfest.org/brendan. Our picture album will probably change over to http://standfest.org/pictures, but I will post more details when that comes along. I was going to do some major work on the website this weekend, but I don't think that I'll get to it any time soon. I wonder why?!

Super Brendan!

Here is the first issue (and probably the last issue) of the comic book 'Super Brendan!'

It's in .pdf format and is approx 1.9 megs. It's extremely cute and worth the 30 second read. Enjoy!

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03/15/06 @ 4:14PM - Update: Some people have not been able to view the comic. I updated the links above so you can click on the image, 'Here is the first issue', or '.pdf format and is approx 1.9 megs' in the above post and you will be able to download the issue and view it.
Depending on your computer, you may have the easiest time viewing it by right clicking on one of the links and selecting 'Save Target As'.
If anyone has any further difficulties, please either drop me an email or leave a comment on this post and I will work to resolve it. - michael

Two New Wishlists!

In case you wanted to spend some money on two adorable children, we have two new wishlists posted in the links on the side. We have an Amazon Wishlist and a Children's Wishlist (with all the stuff that's not on Amazon).

Feel free to browse them and buy large quantities of suggested toys. Our children will smile and our pocketbook will thank you!

P.S. I would still like a Mac Mini and an iPod. Those always make great gifts and the children would benefit with a happy Daddy.

"Beh! Beh!"

I think it means "bird"...
Brendan was babbling at our parakeet Pearl this morning and when I asked him, "Are you talking to the bird?", he looked at me and said, "Beh! Beh!". So I'm going to assume that he was trying to say bird.

36 1/2 Weeks!

I had a doctor's appointment today - everything is looking great. She checked the baby's position. He's definitely head down. Thank goodness! Even though I thought he was, I really needed to hear that from the doctor. He's dropped quite a bit, so hopefully he'll come on time. Dr. Tallon said that if he hasn't come by 41 weeks, she'd like to schedule a C-Section, so I'd appreciate any and all early/on-time prayers for this little one.
Poor Brendan, he got sooo upset when I got up on the examining table! I'm not sure what he thought was going to happen, but it must have been something terrible...
On a happier Brendan note, he stacked two of his Peek-A-Blocks today for the first time! He's been trying for a little while and today he got it. He was so delighted to have figured it out. He did it over and over again, looking up at me each time with this thrilled expression on his face.