The First Week

Grandma Clayson stayed for the rest of the week after Sport was born.  We were super grateful for all her help.  She cleaned our bathroom!  I might have to have another baby soon, our sink never looked so good.  On Friday, Grandpa, Gracie and Charity arrived.  Dash was thrilled to see more cousins.  They ate dinner and stretched for awhile and then they all loaded up and headed over to see Mount Rushmore (or Mountain City, as Dash calls it) under the night spotlights.  Colt, Sport, and I stayed home and called it an early night.  Saturday morning, all the Clayson family headed back to Idaho and by Saturday afternoon Grandma and Grandpa Madsen pulled up to the delight of the boys.  They came with us to the ward trunk-or-treat and then the next day, Brandan took them all to Spearfish, SD to visit the Wildlife Sanctuary and his friends there.  The Madsens left on Monday morning and Dash has been asking who is coming next since their departure.

Dash absolutely loves to hold Sport and will do so for long periods of time.

 Oct. 29th - Grandma and Grandpa Clayson at Mount Rushmore.

Oct. 29th - Charity, Gracie and Dash at Mount Rushmore.

Grandma and Grandpa with Sport.

Charity and Gracie with Sport.

Oct. 30th - We carved pumpkins while waiting for the Madsens to get to our house.

The boys were complete babies about gutting the pumpkins and in the end Brandan and I ended up doing the gutting and carving by ourselves.  We had fun anyway.

Oct. 30 -Naked Sport.

Grandma playing with the boys.

Superman and Spiderman trunk-or-treating in Newcastle with Daddy.

Oct 30- It had been a long day.

Oct. 31 - Grandma and Grandpa with Dash and Colt at the Wildlife Sanctuary.

Colt looking at the mountain lion.

Dash and Colt with the mountain lions.

Grandpa, Daddy, Dash and Colt with the camels.

Grandma and Grandpa with Sport.

The Big B-Day (Finally)

So my induction day finally came.  Monday morning Brandan, Colt and I all woke up early.  Colt wasn't necessarily supposed to wake up, but he had been sick all weekend and not sleeping well so he was up anyway.  Brandan and I headed out into the rain and made the drive to the Rapid City, South Dakota hospital.  While we drove, we tried to think up a name for the baby.  I don't think people believe us when we say we really don't have a name picked out before the baby is born, but it is very, very true.  We had decided just the night before on the middle name of Brent because it had significance in both families.  The true story of the baby's first name is this:

We were in the hospital with me hooked up to IVs and on pitocin and, of course, we were watching television.  In the meantime, we kept suggesting random names, mostly inspired by objects in the room, such as "switch" and "frame"; yes, we were that desperate.  It won't come as a surprise to most women who've spent time in a labor and delivery room with the average husband that the television kept finding its way to the sports stations.  I happened to notice the station title, FoxSports, and jokinly suggested "Fox".  We laughed and then Brand said, "What about Sport?"

So five hours and five failed epidural pokes later, Sport Brent Madsen was born at 7lbs 5oz and 19 1/2 inches.  Sport had tons of dark brown hair and a great set of lungs.

Mom, Cam, Jill, Kamber, Dash and Colt were killing time in Rapid City that day waiting for the birth announcement so they were able to come meet Sport soon after birth.  We were glad to show off our new addition and if they didn't think he was as beautiful as we did, they hid it well.

DISCLAIMER:  I'm not exactly overly proud of all these pictures, this isn't exactly my most photogenic time, but since I'm using this blog as a family journal...I'm willing to share pictures I might not otherwise.  (Just keep that in mind when you look at my horribly swollen face.  I was on an IV for over 10 hours!)

5 am, October 25th- We had to distract Colt with a movie so we could make our get away to the hospital.

This is our labor and delivery room.

Sport Brent Madsen about 3 minutes after birth...gooey, but cute.

The boys meet Sport.  Colt was a little nervous at first, but they both loved him.

New family photo. Yikes. This one probably won't ever make it on the wall.

Sport after his bath.

Daddy and Sport.

Colt finally warmed up to Sport and has been more than helpful ever since.

Sport loves to suck his fingers.  He had his fingers in his mouth immediately after birth and most of the time over the next few days.

Daddy and Sport watching ESPN in the hospital.

October 26th - Sport getting dressed to come home.

Mom and Sport just after arriving home from the hospital.

Grandma Clayson was just putting the boys to bed when we got home from the hospital, but they stayed up long enough to snuggle their new brother.

Help Arrives

On October 23, the troops arrived.  Cam, Jill, Kamber and Mom made the trip to Upton to help out with the boys when the baby came.  We were super excited to see family and they truly were awesome help. 

The boys were really excited to see family.  Almost immediately after they arrived, Dash and Colt took Kamber outside to play in the leaves we were supposed to have bagged and thrown out days ago.

On Sunday we we all went for a walk to the park.  I was still hoping to put myself into labor, but no matter what the distraction was nice (for me and the kids).

Colt's 2nd Birthday!

Colt is officially into the terrible twos.  I wouldn't say he waited for his birthday to start being destructive, but it has seemed to intensify since then.  Even as I write this he is emptying cupboards and I believe he may be writing on the walls.  Oh well, it will buy me some time...

October 20th was a beautiful day and so the boys spent most of the morning outdoors "raking" leaves, digging in the dirt, and hauling rocks; all Colt's favorite activites.  In the meantime, I was in the kitchen making a puppy birthday cake.  That night we had our friends, Randy and Tia Bensen and their two children over for dinner and cake.  The Bensen kids are a little older than the boys, but they all played together hard enough to work up a sweat so I would say, overall, Colt had a good day.

October 20th - The boys spent the morning raking and then scattering the leaves.

Colt opening his birthday presents with a little help from Dash.

Colt's puppy birthday cake.

Daddy ended Colt's special day by reading the boys stories.

More of the Same

Well, bad news.  Dash is learning some unfortunate stereotypes. So the other day he tells me, "I'm wanna be a daddy or a grandpa because they're the ones that do work."  Of course, I tell him that mommas and grandmas work too. His reply, "Well, yeah, like clean and stuff." Yikes!  I mean, I'm happy with being a stay-at-home mom, but really.....

Anyway, outside of the high testosterone levels in our home, things are pretty much the same.  By this I mean I still haven't had the baby.  We are still staying busy though, you know, I have all that cleaning to do :).  On Monday, the boys and I went to Rapid City for my doctor's appointment and then on Tuesday we went to Gillette to watch Brand's last football game.  Colt has especially taken to football.  In fact, he thinks coaching is all Brand does.  Throughout the day Colt will ask, "Where's daddy?".  And then he answers himself, "Oh, football."  Actually the way Colt says it makes it seem like Brand is a soccer coach in another country.  Its more like. "Oh, futbal."

Finally yesterday we went back into Rapid City with Jared and Kerri Ivie.  The Ivies wanted to see a bone exhibit that was at the Rushmore Mall so we were really talking it up to the boys about how we were going to go see these bones and Dash got excited because he thought we were going to a museum.  Anyway, when we got there, we decided that the exhibit wasn't worth the admission price, so instead we went to Cabela's and Dash thought all the dead stuffed animals were part of the best museum ever.  In addition to that we stopped by a park and the boys got to eat chicken nuggets and ice cream, so all in all, we had a good day.

Colt at the park in Rapid City.  Colt loves swinging from things and has some surprising upper body strength.

Dash and Abby Ivie at the park in Rapid City.  The boys love playing with Abby and since she is already a head taller than Dash, we feel pretty confident that they'll always be "just friends".

Another week and still waiting

Although I am a little disappointed that I'm not yet reporting the birth of our new baby (I know, I know, patience), we have still kept pretty busy.

Last weekend, we went to Brandan's school to watch conference.  On Sunday, Jared and Kari Ivie and their daughter met us there.  They have just moved to Newcastle to take over an optometrist office there.  Weird how Firth seems to pop up everywhere, huh?  The boys loved playing with Abby and it was fun to chat with the Ivies.  We maybe did a little too much chatting...we are now rewatching conference on our phones. 

This is Brand's classroom where we watched conference.  Check out the big screen!

On Monday I had a doctor's appointment in Rapid City.  We were in a hurry so Dash was getting himself ready.  He loves overalls, or belly pants as he calls them, but he hasn't fit in any for a couple of years.  This doesn't stop him from trying them on, however.  He was rummaging through Colt's drawers and found some overalls and tried to convince me to let him wear them to the doctor's.  It took some talking, but I finally got him to change, but not until after I took a picture.  I figured I'd draw enough attention with two boys in a gynecology office, I didn't need one of the boys looking like Billy Bob Jones. 

Here is Dash wearing Colt's overalls.  He doesn't seem to mind the wedgie.

And our final news: Brand's football team tied in overtime on Tuesday.  It's not technically a win, but it's not a loss either, so we'll take it.

Dash's Drawings

Dash has really been into writing and drawing lately.  He loves practicing his letters and numbers and has gotten pretty good at drawing realistic pictures of his family as you will see from the picture below. 

This is a picture of the family standing next to the pumpkin he wants to carve for Halloween.  Look how happy we are!