Jacob

Forgive the blogging delay—I’ve been a tad occupied these past couple of weeks.

Jacob William Davis Grundberg was born at 8:16am on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at Christus St. John Hospital in Nassau Bay, TX.


He weighed in at 7lbs and 14 oz, and is 20 inches long. I was so happy to see such a big, healthy, NOISEY little baby boy.

He has a fringe of blondish hair around the bottom of his head, and his eyes are general newborn blue---I suspect they might turn brown in a few months, just like his brothers’ did.


William Davis is a family name on my side of the family. He was the founder of the Howsley ranch in Throckmorton, TX (where the Howsleys are kind of superstars—our name is {or used to be} on the movie theater. Nevermind that there are only about 1660 people still living there—in Throckmorton, that is, not the movie theater). Steven and I like names that mean something—especially if they’re family names. And though having two middle names makes for a rather big title for such a teeny guy, we liked it and set it in stone on the birth certificate.




David and Stevie are doing well in their new roles as big brothers. I think they’ve been a tad confused about why Mommy is limping around so much and why they’re continually being shipped from one friend’s house to another. But other than that, they’ve been a huge help in retrieving pacifiers, grabbing diapers, and doing their darndest to make baby Jake laugh (though admittedly he’s kind of a tough crowd at the moment).





Overwhelmed, frazzled, engrossed, anxious, and overjoyed are just a few of the adjectives that describe our feelings at the moment. But we’re so, so glad that Jacob is finally here. Though it’s sometimes hard work, we’re having a great time getting to know each other, and we feel incredibly grateful to have such a sweet, perfect little guy joining our family.

Final Thoughts

I've been up since about 2:45am, and I need to start getting ready at about 4. The actual delivery is scheduled for 7:15am (c-section), and so we have to be at the hospital by 5am. I am wide awake with excitement/anticipation/fear/nostalgia. I also have killer allergies, which helped to make this early morning a bit earlier than expected.

The boys are sleeping over at Marby's tonight. She called us around 9:30pm--David was exhausted and a little hysterical about not having mom and dad close by. It was heartbreaking to hear his sad, tired little voice on the phone. I wonder how he'll handle his new role as big brother after being the baby for so long. I watched him playing with Marby's littlest one tonight, and he looked so big. Stevie, I think, will take it all in stride and relish his new role as "eldest bro."

I think to myself, "how in the heck am I supposed to do this without Mom here?" I know it will be fine---but it's just not quite right. This was her special time, and OH how she loved babies. And I don't think I lifted a finger the entire time she was there after the boys were born. I had no idea how lucky I was--but I know now. Like I said, I know I'll be able to do it and everything will turn out alright. I just wish she was here.

Well, Jake, I hope you're enjoying these last few hours of being on the inside. I'm feeling awfully overwhelmed at the thought of meeting you at last--I feel like I've waited for you for so long. Be patient with me, kid, and remember that even though I'm sure I'll botch things up many a time, I already love you so much that it almost hurts. See you in a few hours.

Baby Shower

FINALLY, I'm managing to blog about the wonderful baby shower my friends Cindy White, Carina Olsen, Amber Cowley, Amie Haddock, Becky Eldridge, and Joan Jordan threw me on February 27th. It was such great fun!

Since I have a zoo theme for my nursery, it was also the theme for the baby shower. (We ended up having it at the church since there were so many people there. It was awesome!)


The food was A. MAZ. ING. I'm always amazed by people who can make delicious food and make it LOOK this pretty at the same time.


Chelle E. made the cake, and it was probably one of the most dangerously delicious things I've ever eaten.

We played a hilarious game where we had some volunteers compete on who could drink (sip?) all the water out of a baby bottle first. It was pretty entertaining. (Amber won, of course!)



We played a few other games as well, one of which was guessing which pictures were Jenny and Steve as a baby.



Baby Jacob and I got SO MANY wonderful things! And I had such a great time opening them.




All-in-all, it was a wonderful party. I had a marvelous time, and left feeling pretty darn loved.

List of Things to Do...

before the Baby arrives next Tuesday....

1. Buy shelves and a dresser for the nursery. Currently all the wonderful baby things we received from friends are strewn haphazardly around the house---and it's driving me cuckoo bananas.

2. Build/install said shelves and dresser

3. Babysit for people as much as possible during the next week, so as to not feel horribly guilty when I start farming out the boys after Little Bit arrives.

4. Think of a middle name.

5. Get my garden box hammered and nailed and filled with good soil and compost. Ideally I'd like to plant my tomatoes and peppers, but we'll see what actually gets accomplished.

6. Put the stinking crib back together.

7. Buy a baby swing so as to maintain sanity--I'm hoping the swift swinging motions will bewilder the baby temporarily and distract him enough to fall back asleep when needed.

8. Blog about the amazing baby shower my friends threw for me last Saturday---I’m trying to scrounge up a few pictures, because wouldn’t you know I forgot to bring my camera???

9. Write a besquillion thank you notes that express how truly, incredibly grateful I am to my beautiful friends, and how much I love them.

10. Take a deep breath and be happy that I'm finally going to meet him in just 10 days.

11. I'll take care of #11 right now. In the past I've always been a bit too horrified by the staggering enormity of my pregnant body to memorialize it for posterity, but this time I thought I would go ahead and do it. So without further ado, here I am at 37 weeks:

Non-sequential Goings-on of the Grundies

We took the Toyota in to the shop on Friday, and they STILL can’t definitively tell us why the stinkin’ “Check Engine” light keeps coming on. This must truly be an automotive mystery, as this is the third repair shop we’ve taken it too. Anyway, this means that all 4 of us have been packing into the car each day at 6:30am to take Steven to his van pool (which makes for very sleepy kids and one grouchy mama).

........Look how happy we were when we bought the Toyota 8 years ago. Little did we know the havoc it would wreak down the road.........

Yesterday, I took both kiddos in for their routine dental check-ups, and both came out with clear bills of health. I’m not completely sure I’ll be bringing them back to this dentist, though. For some reason, they don’t allow parents to go back with the kids for the check-ups. While I realize this is their “policy”, I just don’t like it one bit. I want to know what’s going on back there! Plus, Stevie was feeling a little scared, and I really would have liked to comfort him. (David, however, was JUST fine with leaving with some stranger who would be putting their fingers all up in his mouth. He even said to me, “I’m not gonna cry, Mama.”--and he didn’t).

..................Here they are showing off their squeaky clean teeth...................

I also went to the baby doctor yesterday, and they’ve moved up my delivery date! Jacob’s new birthday will be March 16th at 7am---that’s only 2 weeks away! So much to do! Unfortunately, I feel myself getting more and more sluggish as each day passes, and I feel like I could sleep for a week. Well, I better do it now, because they’ll be no sleeping once he gets here! (Am I really ready for this? Is anyone ever really ready for this?)

At any rate, we really need to figure out his middle name.

Look, Television Set...

No matter how often you try and shove it done my throat,

1) Cheating on your spouse (or even entertaining the thought) is NEVER OKAY!—I don’t care HOW many outlandish, apologetic scenarios you dream up. There are too many people’s lives at stake, and there are some times in life where you just say no. Period.

2) “Going Green” will never be more important than moral integrity and human kindness. So just keep that in mind as you continue to try and soothe your conscience by making environmentalism and naturalism the new world religion.

3) Women and Men get old and ugly. And believe it or not, people still love them. Because contrary to what you seem to preach, there ARE more important things than being forever young and beautiful. So please, for the love of Pete, stop trying to convince me that I need to look 20 at age 40 and that my worth as a woman has some sort of expiration date.

4) Believing in God does not equal ignorance. And just because you’re religious does not mean you automatically hate/discriminate/disapprove of all other religions and lifestyles and are tolerance and empathy-free. Please stop trying to assuage the guilt you feel for repudiating your own childhood religions by insisting that ALL religious piety is short-sighted and nothing more than a crutch and a blindfold. Oh, and P.S.—Agnosticism is a cop-out.

There. I feel better now. It’s fun to yell at imaginary adversaries.

You Know You're Tired When...

We've been staying up rather late at our house lately due to our obsession with the Olympics. And when I say "we" I have to (guiltily) include the boys.

The other day Stevie started to fall asleep on the floor. Since David was already in bed, we urged Stevie to hop on up the stairs and start getting ready for bed. He drowsily got up, and when we started up the stairs a few minutes later, this is what we found.



Bless his heart--he just couldn't make those 3 extra steps into his bedroom.

Incidentally, does anyone else have kids who sleep with their eyes partly open? It's kinda creepy.

Pictures of our New House

Since I officially chronicled the purchase of our minivan, I thought I'd finally put some pictures of our new house up. (This is mainly for posterity and my Arlington Peeps!)

Here's the front outside. I've always liked red brick.

Here's the front entryway/staircase. (These stairs still kill me, by the way)

This is our front room, or music room or whatever. Quite frankly, we're not entirely sure what to do in here. We thought maybe a couple of reading chairs and we've put the congas in there...but the coffee table still needs to be moved to the attic.

Our family room. Lots of natural light and a cozy fireplace that we actually use quite frequently, believe it or not.

This is, er, technically our dining room. But because we don't really have a need for a formal dining room, and we DO have a need to put all the kids' toys (seeing as how the bedrooms are pretty small) we went ahead and made the switch. Hopefully we'll get some organization going in there one of these days...

Our kitchen isn't that big and doesn't have many updates, but it's pretty nice and has lots of light. Plus, I'm a sucker for red.

The master bedroom. This isn't really a good shot of it, but I really like it. High ceilings and a pretty ceiling fan.

This is our master bathroom---no moldy tile, no ominously bubbling toilets and enough room to get ready at the same time!

This is probably my favorite part of the master bathroom. I love that I can read in the bathtub...though honestly I haven't used it much.

I'm not sure why it's so comforting to me to have the toilet enclosed in a closet-like enclave. The more doors to lock, the better, I guess

No pictures of the boys' and baby's room and the office---mostly because I just don't have the energy to clean them. We still have a lot we'd like to do to the house (decorating/painting-wise, etc), but that all costs money and I so I think we'll keep it like it is for awhile.

We really waited a long time to buy another home after Chicago, and I'm really glad we did. I feel like we really got what what we needed for a price we could afford. We love the area and hope we can stay here for a good long time.

And for all your Arlington folks out there, the baby's room converts into a guest room at the drop of a hat. So when are you coming down? :)

Happy (Late) Valentine's!

Recently I’ve had terrible cravings for candy---mostly because I know I need to be responsible healthwise and moneywise, and so eating candy seems so naughty! So, this year I jokingly told Steven that he could bypass all flower-related romantic overtures this year and just buy me a bunch of cheapo candy to hoard.

Honestly, I really didn’t think we were going to celebrate this year due to money being tight and me currently being a huge, immobile boat--doesn’t help with feelings of romance, I’ll tell you that right now. I was rather unenthusiastic about it, and didn’t even find someone to watch the kids so we could go out together (because I’m a schlub).

But Steven is a tricky one. On Saturday, he knew I wasn’t feeling that great, and so he sent me upstairs for a nap. When I woke up and came downstairs, this was waiting for me on the kitchen table:


And guess what was inside it?


He also gave me a sweet card that had personal artistic works from all three of my boys, and a sweet message besides. That man is too much---I just don’t understand sometimes how he can be so sweet to me during these times when I must be so thoroughly irritating. He even got little treats for the boys.


That evening, after putting the kids in bed, we ordered some yummy takeout and watched the Olympics together (one of my all-time favorite activities lately). It was just what I wanted and needed. I love this man.

On another note, the boys had their respective Valentine’s parties at preschool last week. David’s was extremely informal and was actually at my house.



The kids exchanged super-cute valentines:


And Stevie made a pretty good haul at his party too:


Hopefully, we'll be working on all this candy for at least a month---but something inside me knows that's a lie.

Stevie's Tooth(lessness)

Sundays at church are really busy for us. First is Sacrament meeting, then 2 hours of Primary for me and Deacons for Steven. Afterwards, we have an hour of choir practice. So needless to say, when church is finally over and the boys have eaten, we practice "Mandatory Nap Time." This is (in theory) where ALL four of us lay down for a much-needed nap.

Well, this Sunday the boys were a tad rowdy. So instead of Mandatory Nap Time, we just let them watch a movie and rest downstairs instead. Big Mistake.

About an hour into it, we hear them start rough-housing and running around a bit. About 20 minutes later, they start bickering back and forth. And right around the hour and a half mark, we hear The Scream coming from Stevie.

You know The Scream, right? It's the difference between the "I'm seriously ticked off about not getting my way" and "okay, SOMETHING'S BLEEDING HERE!" We raced downstairs to find Stevie with a mouthful of blood, and a nervous looking David saying, "But I'm SO sorry, Mommy."

It turns out David wasn't satisfied with Stevie trying to lay down and watch a movie, so he started (once again) antagonizing Stevie by trying to steal his blanket. Stevie grabbed it with his teeth to get a better hold, and wouldn't you know David yanked it right out---along with Stevie's bottom tooth.


I was so mad I couldn't see straight, so I gave myself a quick time-out to calm down while Steven inspected Stevie's bleeding mouth and gave it a good rinse. Afterwards, he handed Stevie off to me and...well, let's just say I'm pretty sure David's never been so worried in his life.

At any rate, we went to the dentist this morning, and after looking at some x-rays, she assured me that everything was just fine. Turns out he was about to lose that tooth anyway, and his adult tooth was just waiting to come in. She also said we should be on the lookout for his other bottom tooth to start getting loose! So this tooth has a date with the Tooth Fairy tonight. (Unfortunately, she's kind of cheap at our house).

I was really hoping their playtime wouldn't get this rough for at least a year or two. Not so. So now we're cracking down on actions and consequences, and praying that our children survive to the age 19, where we can pack them off on missions and let their mission presidents worry about their antics.


The offending tooth.