for sale

We're officially on the market! Well, at least our house is. I'm so excited to finally get this moving, so to speak. Our realtor said the market has picked up a bit lately so I hope that's good news for us. Keep fingers crossed for a speedy sale! Anyone want to volunteer to help us pack and move? No? Didn't think so :)

Ben has been doing great. Eat, sleep and poop. He's sure got that mastered. The other boys are good as well, just driving me crazy! I know you want pictures, so here's a few. . .

Benny's first bath. He loved it! Washcloth added for modesty. He doesn't want anyone to get jealous :)

his real mother is angelina jolie

Take a look at those lips. . .



6 days old

2 weeks old

2 weeks old

So far out of our 3 kids we have 1 Braaten and 2 Hoyum's. To me, Ben looks so much like Alex who looks so much like Chad. I even call him Alex some times.

Ben has been such a good baby so far. He goes down for the night around 11 pm and sleeps 'till around 3-4 am, eats and goes back to sleep 'till around 6:30-7 am. A few times he's skipped the night feeding and slept 'till 6-7 am. Those are great nights.

He seems to have settled into a nap schedule as well from 11 am to 2-3 pm. Lately he marathon feeds in the evening 'till bedtime but that's ok because he lets me get my sleep in the night.

His color is getting better but he still has goopy yellow/green stuff coming out of his eyes. We have meds for him, so hopefully that will clear up soon.

Benny is just a blessing and we are so glad he is part of our family.

just jack

Things around here seem to be all about baby right now, so I thought I would post about my oldest for a change. Here's a run-down on Jack right now. . .

-he is all boy all the time
-he loves to play with his tractors and is very particular with his 'work'

-wants a gravity box like Casey's with "firm wheels" (whatever that means)

-is very talkative and loves to explain things in detail (wonder where he got that from?)

-loves, loves, loves going to the farm and helping dad

-is excited about starting school in the fall

-loves his baby brother and sings him songs to calm him down

-just learned to ride his bike with training wheels

-is starting to get freckles

Jack is finally tall enough to ride his bike this year, so we got that out a couple of weeks before Ben was born and now he's riding like a pro. We will probably wait 'till later this summer if not next to take the training wheels off. He still leans pretty good and we just can't afford more medical bills right now! Here he is in action:

The other night he went with Chad to do chores and found this hat in the garage. It has now become his all time favorite and he wears it all the time. Chad sized it down so it kinda fits him. He is such a little farmer.

last bili update...

Ben had another bili check Wed. and it was down 2.7 points to 15! That is great news because we got to return the bili blanket and he is now cordless :) We went back up today to make sure it didn't go back up and the level was down to 12 point something. She was very pleased with that kind of drop. We don't have to go back until he is 8 weeks.



He is 21 1/4" long (grew a 1/4 inch since birth) and is 9 lbs 9 oz. Just .09 oz away from his birth weight. Hurray for boobie juice!



I promise to post more pictures soon. They're on my other computer so I'll have to do that one of these days. It's been soooo crazy since Ben has been born with all the unexpected trips to LaCrosse and everything, I haven't had time to do my normal stuff. Although Chad changed the belt in the vacuum so now it actually works and that right there made my whole day! Little things make me happy, what can I say.



About Benjamin's name and what we are calling him--I guess we call him Ben, Benny, and Benjamin (and Benjamin Wyatt when he's naughty which will unfortunately be coming too soon). That's what I liked about the names Jackson and Benjamin. You have a few options on what to call them and they can choose what they want to be called when they get older.

benny's bili update

Had yet another appointment to check Ben's bili level today. The good news is that it's down from Sat. (17.7 down from 18.2). The bad news is that it's at least 2 more days with the photo therapy which isn't exactly bad news since he gets to stay home and doesn't need to go into the hospital. He just needs to keep eating and pooping and hopefully Wednesday he can be done with the bili blanket.

Some more good news is he is up 3 oz. since Saturday so that puts him at 9 lbs. 5 oz. Almost back to his birth weight! He had a bit of a puke issue early on, but now just spits up a little so now he should gain weight and poo like a champ! That's another one of those things you'd never thought you'd be so excited when a kid pooped :)

Chad has been AWESOME! He's helped me so much with the boys and even getting up with Ben. He's been keeping up with the kitchen and dishes which is a never ending battle. He's a great hubs and I love him to bits.

Mom and Dave came up to help the day Ben was born and were huge, HUGE help. Even though mom had a cold and had the boys a lot by herself she was awesome. By the time she left she had lost her voice and injured her shoulder. Can't say we didn't show her a good time, right?

Thanks again, Mom. We could not have done it without your help. The boys loved having you guys here and they miss you very much. Now I can't wait till they go to your house for a few days :)

he's here!

Benjamin Wyatt made his appearance on May 5 at 2:20 pm. He weighed in at 9lbs 10oz and is 21" long. We are so excited he is finally here!!!

Meet the newest member of our family...

His delivery was my best yet. I had the all natural water birth that I wanted and it was perfect. He's perfect. We stayed in the hospital for 25 hours after he was born and got to go home. It was awesome. I feel great and he is such a snuggle bug!

His brothers love him so much! Jack is great with him. Alex needs to work on being a little more gentle but what do expect from a 2 year old.

Ben has some issues with jaundice which has kept us pretty busy running back to La Crosse every day for bili checks. We picked up the bili blanket photo therapy machine yesterday to help him get rid of the excess bilirubin. He has a different blood type than I do so I think that's causing some issues. Luckily we can do home photo therapy and so far he hasn't had to go back in the hospital. Keep your fingers crossed for that.

Here he is on his glow worm blanket looking so impressed...

We have another doctors apt. on Monday for another bili check and exam. I hope by then, he can come off the blanket. We will see.

He's been a pretty good sleeper. He's given me at least a 4 hour stretch of sleep each night. I'm still tired and don't have enough hours in the day to get stuff done (which is why this post is late) but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

still here

No baby yet. It doesn't look like he's ready to make his appearance yet, which is ok I guess. He's given Chad some extra time to get more farming done which is good. I have another midwife appointment tomorrow so we will see how things are looking and hopefully she can rough me up a bit to get things moving.

My camera is in the van ready to go but I really want to get a photo of my 39-40 week belly on here so maybe I'll have Chad take one tonight and I'll post it later.

The weather has been really nice the last couple of days so the boys have been outside a lot. It's great because they can burn off energy and I can get a few things done around the house.

Gram and Gramp are back down in the valley now. As Jack said, "They came back on the rocket ship from Florida." Don't quite know where he got that from, but it's cute. Lisa, Mikey, and Jacob were up this weekend as well as Nana and Papa Dave so we had a great first family meal down in the valley. It seems like they've never left. I like that. Not a lot of change except for all the new arrivals, of course. That's the kind of change I can handle!