February 22, 2007 - Hanging out!

Sam looks around the room from his perch on the floor. Probably looking out for siblings that may not see him there. Allison saw me taking pictures of Sam and had to get in on the action.
She loves to say 'cheese'!

February 21, 2007 - Nicholas spends some quality time with Sam

Nicholas has been fighting a cold on and off for a little over a week, so he has been told to try to stay away from the baby. Well, today he got the opportunity to hold his little brother, he was thrilled.

February 21, 2007 - Roller Coaster of a Day for Nicholas!

We woke up Wednesday morning to a world of fog, we couldn't see across the field behind us. We were not surprised to find that Oak Ridge schools were on a 2 hour delay and this includes Nicholas' preschool (which is at our church and therefore, not in our school district). Anyway, Nicholas was heartbroken to hear that there was no school because they had a field trip to Home Depot planned. Nicholas had looked forward to this field trip for weeks. The whole family settled into a slow start to the morning and everyone was still in there pajamas when the phone rang at 9:15 am. It was Nicholas' teacher wondering if he was still coming for the field trip. After a short conversation, with me inquiring why there was a field trip when there was no school and her stating that she didn't know it either until the supervisor of the school told her, I told her he would be there as soon as possible. We got Nicholas dressed in record time and Paul and Nicholas were out the door by 9:30. The field trip was supposed to start at 9:30 and we are 1/2 hour away from Home Depot on a good day. Apparently, the fog was much worse by our house than the other side of town and Paul and Nicholas got there by 10:00. They only missed part of the scavenger hunt through the store, but were able to do the woodworking project with the rest of the class. He came home with a new Home Depot apron, a wood fire truck and a certificate. He is very excited to show grandpa (a Home Depot employee in Kentwood) his handiwork.

Nicholas and the fire truck he built at Home Depot.

February 21, 2007 - Weigh In!

I had to take Sam in for another weigh in on Wednesday the 21st. This time he gained 6 ounces in 5 days, so he is up to 8 pounds 12 1/2 ounces. That is a significant improvement. He is still several ounces short of having regained his birth weight. They like to see them have regained this weight by 2 weeks of age and Sam is now 4 weeks old. We still have to be very particular about how many feedings he gets a day, and that they are good feedings. We don't have to weigh in next week, but the doctor requested that we move his 2 month appointment up to 6 weeks so we can continue to keep a close eye on his weight gain and make sure he keeps gaining ground.

February 17 & 18, 2007 - New Pictures of Sam!

On the 16th, we took Sam back into the doctor to be weighed. We still need to get him back up to birthweight. Well, as of Friday the 16th, he had only gained 2 1/2 ounces since the Thursday before. He weighed in at 8 pounds, 6 1/2 ounces. This is still not where we needed to be. However, at least he is gaining weight and not losing. After questions about his schedule, his diaper history (wet/dirty) etc, I was told to keep doing what I was doing as far as his feeding schedule and that I could continue to let him sleep longer at night (yeah, I was afraid they were going to say I needed to wake him up to eat). If he became lethargic or anything I would need to supplement with a bottle of formula, but otherwise I could continue as I was doing and bring him back next week to be weighed again.

Sam is definately still a content baby and rarely complains about anything. He has noticeably more awake time and therefore, is eating better at each feeding. Allison has started to become a bit more difficult to deal with, as she is now constantly crawling in his chair and many other things. She likes to touch him, try to crawl on top of him, and has been seen ripping his mini-boppy pillow right out from under him. We have to take Sam with us where ever we go in the house as the only time she can't get to him is when he is in his bassinet. I am sure this will pass, as she is probably coming to realization that he is staying, and she is fighting for position in the family. We are just having to make sure that if we aren't holding the baby, that we give her plenty of cuddles and hugs.

Sam is hanging out in his rocking chair.With the cold weather, Sam likes to wear his hat to help him warm up after his bath. After bathtime, he gets all bundled up and relaxes with his "pipey".

Sam looks around from a new vantage point, his mini-boppy pillow. We bought this for when Allison was born and the pillow has a pink side and a green side. It is very important to Nicholas to make sure that Sam always lays on the green side because he is a boy.

February 16, 2007 - A night at the pool!


Earlier in the season Cory and Catherine discovered that East Kentwood High School has open swimming on Friday nights. They have been going quite frequently with Shawn and Erin (and Owen and Joshua of course). Anyway, we got together to celebrate the January and February birthdays in the family and they invited us to take the kids swimming. The kids had so much fun. They have a wading pool that is great for the them to have a little freedom. Here are some of our moments.

Allison gets a face full...getting a little too confident I think.
Having fun!

Joshua shares his ball with Uncle Paul, Nicholas and Gabrielle.

(Sorry...we can't see your face Joshua).

Gabrielle enjoys the water.

Owen goes fountain surfing.

Nicholas checks out the fountain too.

Nicholas and Gabrielle.

Owen spent a large part of the evening just pushing himself around the pool backward.

Gabrielle pushes Allison around in Joshua's floatie.

February 15, 2007 - One for the baby book!

Just had to put this one down on paper because it really cracked me up. I know from past experience with Gabrielle and also, from talking with friends--- that it is quite normal for younger children to express quite an interest in the nursing process. We have just told them all that Sam eats "mama's milk". Allison, in particular, is always reminding me of this fact, whenever I am feeding Sam. So, I am sitting in the living room doing just that, and Allison walks into the room. She has a Little People dragon in one hand and a Little People horse in the other, she has each of them held up to her shirt and starts telling me "milk, milk". I just had to laugh. You'd think she would at least be trying to feed one of her baby dolls, but instead my daughter nurses her dragon and her horse.

February 14, 2007 - Valentine's Day

We try not to get into the whole "candy valentine's day" thing. Nicholas comes home with candy from preschool and we always know they will get spoiled by Grandma with candy too (Grandma's prerogative you know!). So, we usually try to get the kids a $5-$10 present instead. Papa usually does the valentine's day selections, and this year he found a couple great clearance items, so they ended up with 2 gifts to share between them all and they were a little bigger than usual.

Nicholas and Gabrielle open a "Lightning McQueen" game called: Tractor Tippin'

They love it....it is recommended for a little older children

but they play it very well with a few rule modifications that mama made.

They have to collect as many tractors as possible, without waking FRANK

the angry combine. If they wake Frank he sends anybody in his way

back to Start and takes one of their tractors away.

After Allison woke up from her nap we let them open present #2.

Papa got a great deal on the Little People Kingdom Castle.

It comes with a king, queen and dragon. Allison latched onto the dragon

right away and Nicholas took the king and Gabrielle took the queen.

Perfect, each of them got a character they were happy with and NO FIGHTING.

February 10, 2007 - A little time with my little brother!

Allison got the opportunity to have a little quality time with Papa and Sam the other day. Here is the proud big sister and her moment....

February 7, 2007 - A new hat!

As you have probably noticed, the tighter fitting hats are pretty popular these days. Anyway, Paul has been wearing one to work lately, as he works in a warehouse type building and it is often pretty cold, so most of his co-workers wear hats throughout the day. Well, Allison is pretty taken with his hat as well as hats in general and is often wearing her winter hat around the house. The other day, I picked up a few light weight cotton hats for Sam, so he could have one on in his car seat during this cold weather, without getting too overheated. Anyway, Allison saw his new hats and had a fit because she wanted to wear Sam's hat. I remembered that I had the same hats in pink when she was a baby. So I dug one out, and she was perfectly content wearing it around the house for half the day, saying "hat". It's a little small but she thinks she's pretty cool, just like her Papa! On a slightly different note, (sorry we didn't get a picture), Allison walks into my bedroom this afternoon saying "hat"....again, I looked over to find her with a pair of Gabrielle's Dora underwear on her head. The underwear was perfectly placed so each of Allison's pigtails was perfectly popping through one of the leg holes. (What a time for dead batteries in the digital camera).

February 6, 2007 - It's my due date, and I'm already almost 2 weeks old!

Here is a picture of our boy on his due date.... I just keep thinking that if I had carried him this far he most likely would have been close to 10 pounds. Thank you for induced labor. On Thursday the 8th, Sam did have his 2 weeks checkup. For the most part, everything is perfect, however, he has not yet regained his birth weight as he weighed in at only 8 pounds, 4 ounces. This did not surprise me in a way, as he has been a lot more interested in sleeping than eating and often sleeps 7 - 10 hours at night (not like a normal newborn as most of you know). Anyway, we have had to put him on a more scheduled eating schedule of every 2-3 hours during the day, but can still let him sleep one longer shift at night. Of course, trying to wake a newborn to eat is a difficult task. You may succeed in waking him up by changing his diaper, but getting his to say awake while he eats is a totally different undertaking. We weigh in again this week, and will see if there is an improvement, or something to be concerned about.

February 5, 2007 - This is what happens when your diaper doesn't hold!

Every mother has gone through this, but they become more rare the older our children get (unless an illness is involved). Well, Allison has a bad episode the other day where she made a mess out of t-shirt, sweatshirt and of course her pants when her diaper definately didn't hold. There was only one option, and that was a middle of the day dip in the sink. She wasn't happy with the idea at all at first, as it has been a long time since she has needed a kitchen sink bath, but once Nicholas brought her one of his bath toys she actually enjoyed the experience, and got mad when I took her out.

February 4, 2007 - It's way too quiet in there...
... We should have known better!

It was Sunday afternoon and we were pretty much snowed in. Most of the churches in W. Michigan were closed. Ours wasn't but we weren't going to venture out in sub zero temperatures with 4 kids as young as ours, one of them being a newborn. Anyway, Allison and Sam were taking both taking a nap and Paul and I were actually going to relax a little in the living room. Nicholas and Gabrielle were playing nicely in the den, or so we thought.

First of all, they had their activity boxes out: crayons, markers, glue, etc; which is normally a "kitchen table only activity". I guess we were being a little lazy and since they seemed to be getting along quite well we let things go that afternoon, as everyone was suffering from cabin fever and a little peace and quiet were a welcome reprieve. Needless to say, we learned our lesson, a couple of hours later I found a chunk of hair on the kitchen floor (see below). This was the first chunk of about 5-8 that we ended up finding. Apparently, Nicholas decided that it would be fun to take a scissors to his sisters hair. UGGGHHH...I almost cried. I can't believe Gabrielle didn't make a fuss when he did it. Once they were done playing and she began moving around the house, the chunks of hair that had stuck to her clothes began falling in various places in the house.

Thankfully, he didn't touch her bangs, and he didn't take any chunks out of the bottom of her hairline. There are several areas where she has small sections that are now as short as 3 inches long and a couple of areas where she has 4-6 inch long pieces. He mainly stuck to the top section of her head and around her part. So far, most people won't notice and I have still been able to pull most of it into her pigtails. If you don't look for it you won't find it, but it is going to be quite a while before these sections grow out.

February 4, 2007 - Catching a snooze with Papa on a Sunday afternoon!

January 30-February 2, 2007

Samuel's First Week

We started off the week with a very sleepy boy. I am not sure if it was because he was early, OR some say that bigger babies are more content to begin with. Anyway, Sunday through Tuesday of this week Samuel did nothing more than sleep. I had a difficult time getting him to even wake up to eat, and when he did he barely ate anything at all. He was even sleeping 7 hours at night. Something I am totally not used to...both Gabrielle and Allison ate every 2 hours around the clock after they were first born and they were both big babies too. Anyway, by Tuesday afternoon, he started to be awake more and catch on to the eating thing and now he is a pro at nursing and definately filling his allottment of diapers.

He still will go 3-4 hours comfortably between feedings, but eats very well when he does. BONUS....he has only given us one sleepless night so far, the other nights he is only waking once during the night (between 3 and 5 am) and then sleeps until 8-9am. Totally not used to that....Allison has been keeping us up during the night more than he has.

He seems to be a very content baby so far which reminds me a lot more of Nicholas as a baby. It seems like Nicholas was laid back and sort of settled himself into his own routine quite early. Both boys were sleeping well in the bassinet, or the bouncy seat or where ever...they also both sleep well on their back (so far). Both of the girls were "moody" and more agitated right from the beginning. It seems like we had to work more to get them to settle down and both of the girls ended up being stomach sleepers, because they just wouldn't get comfortable anywhere and would rarely sleep more than an hour at a time. Hopefully, Sam's contentment trend will continue as we have a very busy household these days.

Here are some pictures we took throughout the week.....

First sponge bath.

He didn't like it...but in his defense it's not very warm anywhere right now.

I tried to make it as quick as possible.

He likes to be touching or holding something in his hands when he sleeps.

In this case, I caught him apparently saying his prayers.

Allison spends some time with her baby brother.

She is doing pretty well so far, but has been caught hitting him once.

She loves to give him kisses and bring him his blanket...only problem is

that she likes to put it right over top of his face.

Allison and Sam have a conversation!

Sam loves to be swaddled nice and tight when he is sleeping.

However, we quickly found that he needs to be able to get his hands

up to his face or he just won't settle down.

Check out my new duds....aren't I handsome?

Hanging out with Papa!

January 25-27, 2007 - HE'S FINALLY HERE

We are excited to finally introduce to you the newest member of our family.
Samuel Robert Van Wesep

was welcomed into this world on

January 25, 2007 at 9:38 pm.
He weighed in at

8 pounds, 15 ounces

(imagine our surprise when an ultrasound the day before predicted a 8lb 2 oz baby, which was still big for being 2 weeks early).

He measures

21 inches long.

After arriving at the hospital at 1:15 pm for labor to be induced, we spent several hours waiting for things to get going. Between getting me settled, then waiting for the doctor to put in his orders, then waiting for IV, waiting for an anesthesiologist, then waiting again...they finally broke my water to start labor at 6:04 pm, by 7:10 we had pitocin to get the contractions going a little stronger and by 9:20 I was ready to push and then had to wait for the doctor...again! Needless to say there was a moment there where I thought the nurse was going to have to deliver. The rest is history as we had him in our arms by 9:38pm.

We still ended up spending a long night, as housekeeping was behind and we ended up waiting in the delivery room until 4:00 am to be moved upstairs to my room. UGGGHHH, we were definately sick of waiting for things. Like Catherine says...they work on Hospital time, not ours!

Here are some pictures.... Enjoy!

Paul and Samuel Here he is.....#4

The kids finally get to see him on Friday morning.


Allison gives him a kiss!

Nicholas gets to hold him all by himself

(Gabrielle still doesn't want too...oh well, in her own time)

Allison is pretty proud of getting to hold her little brother too!

When it was Grandpa's turn, one little girl wanted nothing to do with that.

She got quite upset and had to crawl up on Grandpa's lap to hold Sam some more.

Here is a close up...what a handsome boy!

He already loves snoozing by his Papa!

Getting ready to go home!

The kids are so excited to get Samuel home

and couldn't stay away from him for at least the first hour.

They are being very good about being gentle

and not keeping their hands out of his face...so far!

Saturday afternoon, I found Nicholas just sitting there on my bed, watching

Sam sleep in his bassinet. Later that night, he didn't want to finish watching their

bedtime video, he wanted to sit by Papa and watch Sam.

Nicholas is very interested in making sure Sam is taken care of, he brings him his blanket

and his stuffed puppy, and constantly needs to know where he is.

Sound asleep in the bassinet, it's been a busy few days

I think he's pooped.

January 24, 2007 - Baby Update!

We should be welcoming our newest addition to the family within the next 24 hours. Last week my doctor began wondering how big the baby was. Therefore, he ordered an ultrasound for this morning. With 2 weeks to go before my due date they are estimating that the baby is already just over 8 pounds. Given several circumstances, (the size of the baby, the fact that I am already dilated to 3 cm, and the fact that both Gabrielle and Allison came very quickly--we barely made it to the hospital with Allison) I am scheduled to be induced sometime tomorrow. We don't know what time, they have to call when they have an "opening", but the arrival of baby #4 will be soon.

Keep an eye out for the next update, I should be able to provide you with a much better picture next time. Here a profile shot.... cute kid eh?