Update on Rayna, by Bowman

I would also like to add a quick update on Rayna. She is so smart and says some of the cutest things. Some of the latest things she says are:

 1. Every time we are driving and she notices a sign with letters, she shouts, "ABC's" and then "More ABC's!"

2. Whenever we are driving, we get into the general area and Rayna yells out where we are. "Home!" "Ray Ray" (her friend Reagan's house), "Stamps" is for the library parking lot, "Choo Choo" is for when we drive close to the grocery store with a train in it. We have been living in a Townplace Suites extended stay since July, and even I have started calling it home. I told my boss that Rayna says, "Home!" every time we get close, and he says he needs to get us the heck out of there. It will be nice to have a real place to call home.

3. So in our complex, we have quite a few Chinese people living here, also on an extended business trip. They are always cooking up a storm of various unique smelling foods. One night, I was walking by one of their doors with Rayna and she pointed at the door and said: "People(pronounced popo), Eat... Rice!" We couldn't figure out how she picked up on the fact that Asians always eat rice, but she did. 

4.   Rayna has a lot of code words that don't sound anything like the words she means, but Steph and I know what she is saying. When at the baby-sitters during the labor, Nora called up asking what "passa" means. She was fixing lunch trying to give Rayna a peanut butter sandwich and Rayna just kept telling her "Passa." This means Rayna wants to eat pasta. A few other recent code words Rayna has that only we know are:

Hello Meent - This is her pink telephone

Shries - This means either a butterfly or french fries

Bee - This means bee as well as any other small creature

Out - This means she wants to change locations whether it is off, up, down, in, or out.

Yipe - The sun is in her eyes

Moses - She wants to watch the Prince of Egypt

Mouse - She wants to watch a Mickey Mouse movie

SeeSee - A stupid movie which we have watched countless times. Ask us if you would like to hear the song related to SeeSee.

Clicking her tongue - She wants to watch Peter Pan. (The alligator with the clock ticking inside)

Ee I Ee I O - Whenever we talk about going to the Pumpkin Patch Farm

Mote - Milk (pronounced 멋 - that is for Hyrum)

YeeHaw - She wants to do buckin' bronco on Daddy's back

TeeTee - Thank you

5. Recently she talks on her Hello Meent (pink phone) and says hello to Amy, Nate (those two always go together), Moses (Prince of Egypt), Grandpa and Grandma.

6. Rayna loves to play Hide-n-seek. She usually goes into the bathroom and waits for us to hide throughout the house. Yesterday I went to hide and she never came out so I went to see what she was doing. She was hiding in the corner between the bathtub and the toilet all secret like!

7. Rayna loves eating ketchup. We have to be careful to not let her see the ketchup bottles during mealtimes because she will insist on eating it and will not eat anything else. She will dip anything into it and then just suck off the ketchup and not eat the food. A few weeks ago, Talmage, Johanna, and Luke (who she just loves) moved out of the hotel and they gave us their extra refrigerator items, one which was a ketchup bottle. Now Rayna insists on having a squirt of both bottles on her plate while eating. This is what lunch with Dad turned into while Mommy was in the hospital...

Rayna most efficient method of getting ketchup into her mouth as fast as possible:

1. Swipe up off plate with both hands 

2. Insert all ten grimy fingers covered with ketchup deliciousness into the mouth at once.

Daniel Kenneth Mitchell

On Friday we welcomed a new member of our family into this world! 

Daniel Kenneth Mitchell

Born: November 4, 2011 at 3:38 P.M

Hospital: Inova Loudon Hospital, Leesburg, VA

Weight: 10 lbs 2.5 oz

Length: 21.5 inches

Pre-Birth Story

Stephanie was due on November 3rd and she planned to be induced on the 4th at 7:30 A.M. We dropped Rayna off with Nora and her friend Reagan (featured in the Halloween post as Buzz Lightyear) for the day and headed to the hospital. 

All decked out in her gown!

Steph was excited to see how different childbirth would be with an epidural, compared to Rayna's natural birth. They connected her up to the monitors and asked if she was having any contractions. She said she didn't think so but what do you know, she was having them every ten minutes without even knowing it. They hooked up the pitocin and we just sat there for a few hours waiting for something to happen. Paula, our midwife came in and asked Stephanie if she wanted to start the epidural in time so that she wouldn't have to feel anything. Steph was like, "Why not?" So when she started to barely feel the contractions the anesthesiologist came to do the epidural. This is when I left the room. I could not watch them stick a needle into her spinal cord. Just the thought of that makes me shiver.

This is Steph pretending to be in pain:

This is what she really felt like:

She got the epidural and they told us to wait until she felt some pressure. We waited until about 3:00 p.m. and Steph said she thought she may be feeling a little bit of lower pressure but didn't think it could really be anything cause she could barely feel it. I went and told the nurses that she said she felt some small pressure. When they checked her, she was fully dilated and 100% effaced. They asked her if she wanted to do a few practice pushes and she did. The contractions were a few minutes apart and each time they came she started pushing. It took only four cycles of pushing and the Daniel was out. His head was huge! I couldn't believe that he came out so easily. His shoulders are very wide and they took a little time to wiggle out and then he was born!

Daniel weighed in at 10 lbs and 2 ounces! When the midwife first pulled him out, she said he was so big that he wasn't going to fit newborn diapers. We had to go and get a size 1 for him.

One of the things we noticed about Daniel is that he has hairy little ears! He also has patches of fur on his thighs and back. We figured that didn't come from the Japanese line. That was the first thing Grandpa Ohsiek said. 

Peacefully sleeping.

Steph's midwife was Paula Senner:

The nurse's name was Gifty and Becky in red was a student in training there to watch. 

When asked how she compares the experiences of having a baby naturally at home and in the hospital with an epidural, Steph's response was something like: 

"One of the reasons I chose to do a home birth was because I thought it would be more comfortable and peaceful in my own home. This is 100 times more comfortable than having Rayna at home was and it is a heck of a lot more peaceful!"

It was such a blessing to have modern technology to take away all of the pain. We felt blessed that everything went so smoothly and our baby is so healthy and strong. 

Rayna's First Meeting:

The first thing that Rayna said when she saw the baby was: 

"Brother! Mommy! Out!"

It was so cute to see her so excited to see her new little brother. She likes to hold him and give him soft loves.

Our family all together

Rayna had a fun time playing peek-a-boo in the recovery room. 

Halloween + the rest of October

We debated whether or not to be fun parents and take Rayna trick-or-treating. Being fun won out, and we went! She got better at saying, "trick-or-treat" with each house, and she definitely understood the concept of putting the candy in her bag. Smart child. :)

We went with her little friend Reagan. They looked so cute, but I am horrible at taking decent pictures! My timing is awful, because I could never get a good one of both of them looking at the camera.

Rayna's such a good sport, and she really tries to smile for pictures when I tell her too... haha. This one kills me:

These are some pictures from earlier in the month that I never put on here. Rayna loves wearing her blue fluffy jacket, and it's perfect now that the weather's cooling off so much.

I think she was frustrated with the zipper. She is really into doing things all by herself, but zippers are tough. We zipped it for her, but that wasn't what she wanted.

My wonderful friends Carrie and Nora threw me the cutest shower! It was so cute and festive, and check out those refreshments! They set up a "caramel apple bar," just like a baked potato bar, but so much tastier! I'm so sad that this was the only picture I took.

We went to the pumpkin farm with some friends and had such a good time! Cool fall weather (except that it rained on us...), pumpkins, and farm animals!

Refusing to look at me on the hayride: