Bryker loves his sister!

All he wanted to do the whole time was touch her or hold her!

More Pictures

(We took off the flash for these last two and the lighting was horrible.)

She's Here!

Introducing Makenna Meyer Couser! She was born around 8 am yesterday and weighed eight pounds, six ounces and was 20.5 inches long. The nurses were joking in the O.R. that she is our preemie compared to her brother! Other than breaking my 17-year streak of NOT throwing up, everything is great! Between not eating for 18 hours and being on morphine, I was so nauseated yesterday. Luckily today has been much better. Here are a few pictures, but hopefully we'll get some better ones today. (We haven't even taken a family photo yet.)

The past week

This last week has been crazy. First, our air conditioning went out (well, kind of...it wasn't completely out but it was broken so we had to turn it on and off every hour or two and it just wasn't working right). Then Bryker got a fever which kind of turned into croup. The doctor prescribed a steroid for him to drink and after we picked it up from the pharmacy, we laughed because the drink was more than half of a sippy cup full. Yeah, he took one sip and he was done. Luckily we only had one bad night and then the croup was gone. On the bright side, Grandma Couser was in Indiana for business and then came and stayed with us for a few days. Bryker was thoroughly spoiled and I got some nice breaks. He scored a new Spidey suit...


And we went to the Choo Choo restaurant in Des Plaines. It's this cute little place that delivers meals on an electric train. Not only is the entertainment great for kids, but Gary gave his cheeseburger an 11 out of 10 and said we are definitely going back just for that.

The A/C guys came yesterday and put in a new unit so we are back in business! So now I guess we're ready to have this baby. My mom comes in tonight to stay for a week. Here I am at 39 weeks:

**I was really, really tempted to crop off my head in this picture but then I told myself, no I'm not that vain. (But really I am.) Oh yeah, and that is my Rick's College t-shirt from 1999. And guess what? It's a MEDIUM! Crazy how the styles and "tightness" of clothes have changed!

At my last doctor's appointment, he was checking the heartbeat and measuring the baby and then said this, "Unless you're hiding it somewhere, I would guess she's in the 7-pound range." I'm thinking to myself, you're seeing the full view so I don't know where I would be hiding anything. We'll see how close he is! Also, the hospital called today to remind me about my c-section tomorrow. Good thing...I almost forgot!!

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We'll post pictures soon!

Pregnancy Update

We are getting down to the final weeks of this pregnancy - FINALLY! So the c-section is scheduled for Monday, June 29 at Noon. It's kind of crazy to think we'll have our little girl in just 20 days! Overall, I'm feeling pretty good; still able to workout and stuff. With my last pregnancy I couldn't workout the last couple of months because I literally couldn't fit my feet into my gym shoes. Just so you know I'm not exaggerating, here are the feet from last time:


And that was even at 32 weeks. Here they are now at 36.5 weeks:

I really don't know how I functioned for over two months on those water balloons. This is embarassing, but I had to buy these shoes at Payless to get me through the end of that pregnancy. When I showed up for Bryker's one-week checkup, a really heavy nurse had on the exact same shoes. You better believe I complimented her on them.

So at least I'm not quite as uncomfortable this time around. Now I'm just curious to see if we have another 9-pounder coming up!

Summertime?

We thought we had summer here but then it left! This time of year is always like this in Chicago and Buffalo - one day it's 80, the next day it's 60. But here are a few beach pictures from a couple weeks ago.


Cute Lily...

This was so funny...Claire face-planted it in the sand and she was NOT excited about me taking this picture. Too cute!

Bryker and Ollie digging in the sand...

Finally Bryker agreed to eat his lunch on the walk home...

Since the warm weather didn't last, and Gary had a week off of school in May, we decided to head to an indoor resort called Key Lime Cove. Bryker LOVED it.

(By the way, this is Bryker's new thing: he shoots his Spiderman webbing at you if you're doing something he doesn't like...such as taking his picture!)

Finally, for Memorial Day, we skipped the traditional BBQ and went for the "untraditional" dinner at P.F. Chang's (it's never a wrong time to go there!). Then we decided to have some fun downtown and took Bryker on a horse and carriage ride. Yes, we were the nerdy tourists riding down Michigan Avenue in the carriage! It was really fun but totally not worth the money. Oh well, a one-time thing for sure.

(Although Bryker liked the views of the buildings and stuff, he kept asking where Scamper was and what he was doing. He insisted on a picture with Scamper after the ride was over.)