Happy Halloween!

DSC_8604.jpg, originally uploaded by Brian Bjork.

Brian Rebekah and Rachel all wish you a happy Halloween!

iPads

DSC_2758.jpg, originally uploaded by Brian Bjork.

Brian here,

The iPad was announced a while back and it looked like a sort of cool gadget. However, the price of over $500 seemed a little bit steep for a device that's primary purpose seems to be reading eBooks and surfing the internet. After all, my PC can do all of those things. Even if someone GAVE me an iPad, what would I even use it for?

Today I found out why an iPad is more useful than a normal computer or laptop.

And the reason is:

*Drum Roll*

You can easily surf the web using an iPad while going number two.

Rachel's Welcome Shower

DSC_8545.jpg, originally uploaded by Brian Bjork.

Two weekends ago Rachel's grammy (Brian's mother) and great-grammy (Brian's grammy) threw a welcome shower. I have to admit I was a little worried about how Rachel would do. Babies are not known to cooperate or operate on our schedules. After all my unnecessary fretting Rachel slept through most of the shower and we had a great time eating, opening gifts, seeing family, and meeting Grammy's friends. Grammy and Great-Grammy did a fabulous job planning, decorating, and cooking.

Rachel Learns a New Trick

DSC_8484.jpg, originally uploaded by Brian Bjork.

Brian here,

Last night we put Rachel down in the crib all bundled up and turned out the lights around 10:15pm. She wasn't quite ready to fall asleep yet but she didn't cry and just lay there until she fell asleep.

At 5:20 am Rebekah and I woke up but didn't say anything. Then again at 5:30, and 5:40. Finally by 5:50 Rebekah asked, "She hasn't woken up yet." to which I replied, "She needs to soon, I've been waiting until she cried to go potty!"

Anyway, Rachel didn't wake up until 7:30 when I finally decided it was time for me to get out of bed and stop sleeping. And since we woke her up she wasn't starving and didn't cry madly while we changed her diaper.

In other Rachel news, she has started getting fussy when she has a wet diaper. So now we get to change her diapers even more. But she is quiet again after we change them so that's nice.

Rachel Hits 8 Pounds

DSC_8526.jpg, originally uploaded by Brian Bjork.

Brian here,

Wednesday afternoon when I got home from work we weighed Rachel and she finally hit the 8 pound mark! Only 16 ounces left to hit 9 pounds right?

Wednesday night I was lying on the couch with my belly up and I held Rachel so she was sitting on my tummy. She seemed to really enjoy sitting up like that because she had a heated seat (me) and she got to look all around the room. It was a nice little break since lately she has seemed to be extra fussy.

Rachel Models For Us

Brian here,

Rachel decided she wanted to wear her Halloween outfit a little early this year and then she asked us to take her picture. So here she is showing off.

Rachel Gains Weight

DSC_8519.jpg, originally uploaded by Brian Bjork.

Brian here,

When Rachel was first born the doctor was worried about her weight because she wasn't gaining enough weight per day and she was in the 3rd percentile for baby weight which was way too low according to the doctor. After a couple of weeks of doctor visits and finding out that she still wasn't gaining enough Rebekah and I decided to stop listening to the doctor about allowing 3 hours in between feedings if she wasn't asking to be fed. We decided that during the day we would force her to eat every two hours if she didn't ask for it sooner. This plan worked wonderfully and she started to gain over an ounce a day which made the doctor happy.

At Rachel's 1 month appointment the doctor said, "Keep doing what you are doing." We weren't a big fan of that because feeding her every two hours and waking up twice during the night for feeding is really tough so we bought a baby scale to keep track of Rachel's weight so we could start experimenting with feeding times. Wednesday night we decided to let Rachel go 4 hours between feedings at night and she gained 2 ounces! So Thursday night we didn't even set the alarm. We let her crying wake us up for feeding and she only woke up once! This is great news because Rebekah only has to feed Rachel once and I don't have to feed her at all. Then Rebekah can keep sleeping after I wake up to get ready for work. We weighed her again Thursday afternoon and she had only gained .5 ounces. Hopefully she will gain a little more by Friday afternoon.

Pacifier Addict

Hi my name is Rachel and I am a pacifieroholic...

I finally broke down and let Rachel have her pacifier a couple weeks ago. She was crying inconsolably and we had already noticed she loved sucking on fingers. I worry that our fingers are not the cleanest things to put in her mouth. Any way, as soon as we put her pacifier in her mouth she began to frantically suck and calmed down.

As some of you know I have had a hatred for pacifiers and said my child would never have one. I know God has a sense of humor, and I imagine him laughing about my proclamation and disdain for something as trivial as a pacifier. He created Rachel to have a need to suck greater than her need to eat. Even after she eats her fill she will often want to suck more. Someday we may have to wean her from her pacifier, but for now she is an infant and we are meeting her needs and bringing her pleasure and comfort. While I still do not love the idea of a pacifier I can appreciate its usefulness.

I suppose we should thank Grandma Short for having the foresight to buy her an adorable pacifier.

Rachel Turns 1 Month Old

Brian Here,

I'm sure Rebekah will be posting about Rachel turning a month old but I figure I will throw in my feelings as well. It's hard to believe it's been a whole month. The time seems to fly by since taking care of her seems to keep me distracted from the clock. Rachel is maturing though and she's getting a little bit bigger. It's nice because she does not feel so fragile anymore and she is starting to look around at things which is way more fun than her just sleeping all the time. She still likes to be held a lot which is cool because I still like holding her a lot. Hopefully I will get a little tired of holding her by the time she starts crawling and stuff so I won't feel like I'm missing out. Being a dad is way better than I expected it would be. So far it hasn't been as great of a financial strain on us as I had worried, and changing diapers and holding her all the time don't seem to be as much work as I thought they would be. And the best part is that she's nice and cuddly. She also likes getting fed by her daddy in the middle of the night.

The Princess and The Pea

These mattresses are really lumpy and uncomfortable.



Waaaaah!



Exhausted.

So, I had this brilliant idea that we would take a picture of Rachel serenely sleeping on a pile of "mattresses" with a "pea" stuffed between two of them ala Princes and the Pea. Super cute, right? Had I thought about the story a little more I might have remembered that the princess was unable to sleep because of the pea. Rachel is a princess and true to the story was also unable to sleep because of the pea. Oh well, she still took adorable pictures.

We got our video camera

Brian Here,

We got our new video camera on Wednesday thanks to fast 2 day shipping from Amazon Prime. I like the benefits of Amazon Prime but I don't think they are worth $80/year. But Rebekah and I are buying plenty of things this month from Amazon.com since video cameras seem to need lots of little accessories. Thursday night I ordered Adobe Premiere Elements 9 so I will be able to break our home movies into the most interesting small clips for uploading to the internet. Unfortunately the demo puts a dumb "Movie made by Premiere Elements Demo" band across any clips I produce right now but that will be remedied on Tuesday when my paid for version shows up. The new camera is lots of fun. We've taken some movies of Rachel doing stuff, and of us doing things to Rachel too. I'm sure you all look forward to seeing some movies of her. Just tune in after Tuesday evening.

weeding Weekend

DSC_8491.jpg, originally uploaded by Brian Bjork.

Brian Here,

Rebekah decided that it would be a good weekend to start weeding the front yard, which has lots of weeds in it. For those of you who don't know, My parents came over 3 weeks ago and helped me plant a new lawn in the front and back yards. Well, a lot of grass has come up. A whole lot more than the first time we attempted to plant in May. There are far fewer weeds this time which has made the planting a success. Still, there are a lot of weeds that need to be pulled out and a lot of bare spots that need to get re-seeded.

I also mowed the lawn this weekend which made it look very nice!

This afternoon I weeded from 1:30 to 5:00 which is quite a while and Rachel and Rebekah came out when they could to pull weeds also. Special thanks goes out to my Mom for coming to help. Not only did she pull a ton of weeds, she inspired me to stay outside working for at least an hour more than I would have if she didn't come over. So Thank You Mom!

I would like to invite anyone over int the next couple of weeks to come pull weeds in our front yard. It's just SO MUCH FUN! *wink* *wink*

The Garage Door is Fixed!

DSC_7875.jpg, originally uploaded by Brian Bjork.

Brian Here,

There was a lot of excitement around here on Tuesday evening when I came home with the delivered parts and lube delivered from Amazon.com. I was able to finally fix the garage door opener which was a great feeling. No more turning off the car before opening the garage door and pulling in! The installation was quite simple and I used Genie Lube to lubricate the screw shaft as recommended by the directions. Not only does the garage door opener work again but it is quieter than ever. YAY! Apparently Genie has been making these types of garage door openers since 1960 so it's possible that the garage door opener was installed in 1974 when our house was built. However, I would guess that it isn't quite that old due to the way it is installed. It looks more like it was installed after the original owners moved in. Still, it could easily be 30 years old.

Curing Procrastination

DSC_8458.jpg, originally uploaded by Brian Bjork.

Besides increasing my popularity having a baby has cured my procrastination problem. I have never been a huge procrastinator unless it applied to housework and chores. Chores are just not fun and I can think of a hundred other things I would rather be doing. Since Rachel came along I have only a small amount of time each day when I have two hands available. I have to plan that time wisely in order to get chores including laundry, dishes, and general cleaning complete or at least started each day. I have decided that completing or at least starting one chore per day is an excellent goal and one I can be successful with. No more procrastination in this household. We are all about planning, time management, and efficiency.

My Computer and the TV

Last week I ordered a cable that allows me to hook up my computer to our TV.  This is exciting because now we can put streamed Netflix movies and TV shows along with Streamed TV shows from Hulu onto our TV and control the volume with the remote control.  Since our TV isn't a high definition TV the lower resolution of Netflix and Hulu looks really great. In fact, I can't seem to tell the difference between that and DVDs being played on our TV. YAY!  Right now my computer is hooked up a few feet from our TV on a card table so I've ordered an extension cable which will come next week. Then I can put my computer back in my computer desk.

Rachel Rolls Over

RollOver, originally uploaded by Brian Bjork.

Brian Here,

So you should be able to play the movie and watch Rachel roll over at only 3 weeks old. Oh Yeah. My kid is awesome!

This is our first time blogging a movie and we used my old 3 megapixel digital camera to record it. My friend Ben Shell just bought a camcorder and I've seen the videos it takes so I think we will probably get that one and we will be ordering it fairly soon. Perhaps even today. So higher quality videos with sound are coming in the future.

Late Night Conversations

Rebekah: "What are you doing?"
Brian: "Figuring out Rachel's linear connections."
Rebekah: "What?  Rachel doesn't need linear connections."
Brian:  "She does if she is going to spin."
Rebekah (laughing hysterically): "She is not a pump.  Go to bed."

This is just a sampling of things Brian and I talk about in the middle of the night.  Our conversations are not based in reality and often make little sense.  They are the result of disturbed sleep.  We are still having to wake Rachel up at night to eat every three hours.  Because she does not consistently wake up on her own we set the alarm and are jolted awake every three hours.  In between the three hours we will often wake up thinking there is something we have to do and end up discussing it.  We have talked about misplacing her, feeding her, Brian needing to make milk, and solving linear connections.

The Garage Door Broke

Yesterday when I got home I opened the garage door and it opened about 2 feet and then slammed down. It turns out that the little carriage that pulls the garage door up broke. It has little teeth that have all been broken or warn down. My parents came over to help me take the carriage off and diagnose the problem which was super nice of them. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) We went to Lowe's and they didn't have the spare part so this morning I ordered the part from Amazon.com. I also ordered some Genie Lube to lube the screw shaft up again. In order to get faster shipping I signed up for my free month trial of Amazon prime which gives free 2 day shipping on all products that have super saver shipping available. This works well since I will probably also be buying a video camera this month and some software to edit movies. So movies of Rachel will be coming to the blog sometime soon.

Back at Work Full Time

DSC_8424.jpg, originally uploaded by Brian Bjork.

Brian here,



On Wednesday I had to start going back to work full time. Being away from home for 9 and a half hours is quite a bit more than 4 and a half, but the transition is going pretty well. It's nice that I only had to do 3 full days before the weekend came to give all of us a little break. The great thing is that work has been keeping me really busy which helps the hours go by faster.  I miss my girls when I'm away though.  More so than before we had Rachel because we are going to bed earlier so we have less time together when I get home.