How big is Cassia?

She is laying next to a size 0-3, so not very.

you are tiny.

5 weeks old

how long till Cassia notices I'm not holding her?

3...2..1...

One month!

Cassia is now one month old. Happy birthday, crazy eyes.

Liam has found something he likes about the baby

Pushing her on the swing is fun. That's about it, so far.

Swing is a success.

I am once again able to complete tasks without holding a baby! For about an hour, but still.

GOOOOAL...!

We see a future soccer fan here.

Valentine's all month long

Promise I am not neglecting Liam by lack of pictures of him in the blog lately. He's been sick for about 2 weeks and basically watching cartoons and eating pudding the whole time. He has a sore throat, low fever, upset stomach, and earache. I've had an ear ache for a few days now, we're glad Grandma Maggie is here to hold the baby so she doesn't catch it too. Liam did make Valentines last night, including one for himself. He also declared today is "Happy Liam Day!" which when asked, means "a party with lots of animals".

Did I mention its snowing and we can't go do anything? Otherwise I think we could have Liam Day at the Boise Zoo. He did eat a good breakfast though, a chocolate chip bagel with cream cheese and whipped cream.

Grandma has probably held Cassia more this week then Aaron and I combined out first year

he's sick but still made himself a Valentine

3 weeks old!

Baby Girl

Cassia is adjusting well to life outside the womb. Liam is even being a good big brother, though he's still not too sure about the baby. The happiest member of the family is Jasper, who follows Cassia everywhere and keeps bringing her the tennis ball. He can not wait until she is old enough to play fetch with him. As of her 2 week appt with Dr. Beauchaine she weighed 6lbs 7oz and her jaundice was almost gone. Yay!

Cassis is home!

Baby girl is home, and an angel. We feel like the universe is compensating for how much bad luck we have by giving us two very calm very good kids. Cassia is a lot like Liam, very laid back. She has Liam's hair and coloring. Her eyes are probably going to be brown, as they are the same color Liam's were when he was born. Her eyes are her daddy's, but her mouth is different. Maybe some Burlison genes snuck in this time? We'll see. Either way, she is a beautiful little girl. 

Liam is warming to her, even tried feeding her a banana. When I was in the shower she began to cry and Jerad went and grabbed her. When I got out Liam says "Mama! Daddy took your baby!"

Of course

Cassia was born on 2-3-11, and she survived her first fire barely after her 12 hour birthday. We were woken at 2:30am by a nurse who told me that there was a fire and we might have to evacuate. I waited with Cassia a few minutes, then she came back and told us we were moving. 

We left our room to see a parade of new moms and babies being lead to the elevators. The nursery was full of smoke and there was about an inch of water on the floor. The Boise Fire Department was there, and one guys told us "if anyone doesn't have a name picked out, my name is Terry. And this is Roberto, if you want a sexier name". The Maternity Ward ran out of wheelchairs, and most the girls were being pushed in office chairs. We went down from the 8th floor to the 2nd (Labor and Delivery) where we were put in groups of 3 and waited for new rooms. I ended up on the 9th floor (went from 8013 to 9514, my rooms were almost on top of each other). I had to leave everything in my room, so no one could get a hold of me. The nurses did great though, especially Annette and Estelle who were my favorites. My OB/GYN came to see me the next day (Dr. Klomp, who is awesome) and he told me that all the OBs were hunting all over the hospital for their patients. Here is a news article on it: 

Investigators: Cause of fire that forced Boise hospital to move maternity ward Friday unknown

 - Idaho Statesman

Published: 02/04/11

Several dozen patients on the 8th floor maternity ward at St. Luke's Boise Medical Center had to be moved to a different floor after a fire early Friday morning. The fire is believed to have started in a trash bag in a storage room, but exactly what sparked it is still unknown, investigators said later in the day.
The cause of the fire has been ruled undetermined, according to Boise Fire spokeswoman Lynn Hightower. St. Luke's spokeswoman Beth Toal said the 8th floor maternity ward is expected to reopen on Sunday, after it has been cleaned up.
No one was injured in the fire, which was put out quickly by sprinklers and a St. Luke's employee with an extinguisher, but the patients were moved because of smoke in the area, according to Boise fire reports.
Twenty-nine mothers and 18 newborn babies were moved to rooms on other floors, Toal said. The 8th floor is for mothers who have already delivered babies. Mothers who haven't yet delivered their babies are on the second floor.
Boise fire crews were sent to St. Luke's Downtown campus around 2:38 a.m. Friday. When crews arrived, hospital employees were in the process of moving patients to other floors.
"The hospital staff and patients were calm and helpful and the evacuation seemed to go as smooth and efficiently as possible," Boise Fire Battalion Chief Tom Pawek said.
Boise fire investigators are still trying to determine what caused the fire.
There was some smoke and water damage to the 8th floor Mother Baby Care Unit and hospital crews are in the process of cleaning that up, hospital officials said Friday morning.
Hospital officials say Friday's fire is totally unrelated to an incident Jan. 21 when a vacuum pump caught fire in a sub-basement of the medical center.

Glowworm is home

Cassia had jaundice and had to come home with a "bili blanket" which basically is a glowing blanket that plugs into the wall. She wore it all weekend, but her numbers have come down enough that we don't need it anymore. Good thing too, cause it looked pretty uncomfortable.

Welcome, baby Cassia Sparrow McCartney

Born 2-3-11 at 1:11pm, 6 lbs 2oz, 20 inches long, 4 hours of labor and 2 pushes. Baby is happy and healthy and resting peacefully as we speak. 

newborn

 

Cat!

Guess which one is real?

Other Mother's .25 sale

Liam tagged along and was a saint while I rummaged for 5T boys clothes and baby girl clothes. We got a huge bag for $8.25. Here is a sample of what I found:

 

last time I wear a gray shirt in my third trimester

Liam and I are painting a train bank he got from the $1 Store today. He looks over at me, concerned

Liam: Is there an elephant in your tummy?

Molly: No, honey its a baby.

Liam: Is it hungry?

.

This is Halloween, this is Halloween, Halloween Halloween Halloween Halloween!

We have Halloween year round. My mom's friend Audrey mailed us a care package, Liam opened it. He pulled out the gummi spider then handed me the bag. The rest was baby girl clothes wrapped in pink tissue paper. "Uh...you take this mama".  So to summarize:

Liam, likes: spiders 

Liam dislikes: pink tissue paper. 

Also, thanks Audrey!

making snowmen (indoors)

Liam told me who they were, from L to R: Elsbeth, Mama, Liam, Daddy

and now Daddy lost his head. And we look so happy during the decapitation

We made snowmen, Liam wanted a family. I made a baby snowman for the little sister. Liam smashed it and says "that's not a baby snowman. It's just snowballs" Then he had me make an Elsbeth. 

Hopefully he does not actually try and smash the real baby. (coming in 3 months).

Baby registry + baby updates

We started our registry for Baby Girl. We took Liam along to Babies R Us and let him help. He ended up picking out most of the registry. He kept saying "this is for my little sister" and pointing at anything and everything. Most of the registry is blue, has bugs, and includes a stuffed crocodile. Jerad and I did manage to sneak in some actual girl items, but Liam was having so much fun we let him take over. After all, it is his little sister. 

We started a Target registry too, but haven't gone in and actually scanned in the store yet. We figure its better to wait until January or December since then we don't have to worry about seasonal items being gone by the time we get to our due date. 

I had my 6 month appt this last Monday. She is growing fine and her heartbeat is 150 (normal). It's just such a relief to us to have a healthy baby. She kicks constantly. I was reading in bed and she kicked the book and the book hit me in the face. She also kicks my seatbelt (the entire time its on) so car sickness is a bit of a problem. We're glad she's active, since she's gonna have to keep up with a very busy brother.

picked by Daddy, I think he did a pretty good job!

We're OK with pink in small amounts, but like the purple better

Another pick by Dad

And this starts Liam's registry picks.

Liam may have been thinking of himself a little

He picked this out himself! We think he made a good choice.

Nightlight, Liam has the turtle

Another choice by Liam