Cousins!

The newest generation of cousins in the Brown family... Evan, Eleanor and Charlotte!

Minnie Mouse is bigger than Eleanor!

When Charlotte was born, we had this picture showing her smaller than Cougar the cat. This time, I thought I'd take a picture of Eleanor with her big sister's Minnie Mouse. She'll be big enough to carry Minnie around soon enough! Seriously though, Eleanor had her two week checkup yesterday and she's back to birth weight right on time. She's growing like a weed already!

Official Portraits

The photo to the left is the one we picked to send out with our baby announcements, but I really liked the one above too. So I figured I'd post both and let you enjoy both! She's two weeks old tomorrow.

Back to our roots

It was time to update the header to include our newest member of our family, and I thought it was appropriate to also go back to our 'brown' roots. Let me know what you think.

Wesolowski Visit

My parents from Vancouver were sick last weekend when Eleanor was born, so they didn't get to meet her until yesterday when they came to spend a pleasant couple days with us. We even managed to find a little sun so they could take a picture of our whole family for us with nice light!

They let anyone get a drivers license these days

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Everyone Home

So we're all home tonight, and so far so good. Charlotte spent a bunch of time today playing with her Mickey Mouse Surprise Clubhouse that Eleanor was nice enough to "bring" with her and give to Charlotte as a gift! Charlotte was very cute when she opened the present and immediately went over and said "Thank You Eleanor" before playing with it.

Later Charlotte got to sit on the couch and hold her baby sister on her lap for the first time. Charlotte is having a little trouble understanding that mommy is fragile right now and can't roughhouse, but she seems to get that Eleanor needs to be treated gently.

Yesterday at the hospital, we were happily surprised to find that our regular pediatrician, Dr. Sinfuego, was doing his monthly two-day hospital rotation on the two days we were there! Heidi got this great picture today. As he left he told Heidi to give Charlotte a kiss for him. He's a great doc.

So now Heidi will be resting for a couple weeks recovering from her surgery, while Eleanor's job will be to eat, poop, and sleep. Charlotte and I will be in charge of the household for now, so we'll be lucky if we still have power and water after the next few weeks. Anyway, we're looking forward to a quiet weekend, and seeing what Eleanor will do next!

The Big Meeting: Charlotte Hearts Eleanor

This afternoon was the big meeting between big and little sisters, setting what will hopefully be a loving relationship that will last a lifetime.

Charlotte had been staying with our dear freinds in Auburn, so I left the hospital around 1:00 to go get her and bring her to the hospital. We needed to go pickup Murphy dog from the kennel too, so we ran home, then to the hospital. Charlotte seemed a litte nervous as we got to the hospital, but when we got to the hotel room, she was really excited just to see Mommy. There were obviously a lot of emotions on Charlotte's part, and it was very hard to help her understand that Mommy couldn't pick her up or help her on to the bed, but I think in the end she had a good time and at least understands that Eleanor is her sister and is coming home tomorrow. Charlotte kept saying that Eleanor looks like a doll, which may be my fault since I think I used that analogy at one point. In any case, we'll be spending a lot of time in the next couple weeks helping Charlotte to understand how fragile a new baby is!

Later on the Andrew family dropped by for a visit and a hearty laugh! Charlotte was being silly at one point and Heidi was worried because she was laughing so much it hurt.

And finally a little surprise for anyone who made it down this far, a picture of the new girl without her hat on! Tomorrow is the day she gets to come home, so the real challenge begins then.

Day two begins

After a fairly sleepless night, day two in the life of Eleanor is going well. She's eating really well, and doing all the things in her diaper that make doctors and nurses happy. Heidi just got disconnected from all the IV's and other tubes, and was able to take a shower. She can now eat whatever she wants (that is, if it's available at the hospital!) and can go for walks around the hospital floor.
Big Sis Charlotte gets to come for her visit this afternoon, I'm sure we'll have plenty of pictures later after that big event!

Eleanor's First 12 Hours in Pictures

It's been a whirlwind of a day, but now that things are settling down, I thought I'd post the best pictures of the day.

It was a beautiful day in Bellevue today, crystal clear skies all day. This was the view from our first room, where Heidi was prepped for the surgery, and Eleanor spent the first hour after her arrival.

We were the first family to use this room since it was recently remodeled. It is very nice, but the staff had a hard time finding all the supplies!

After we moved into the long-term recovery room, I got time to take more pictures of the beaming new mom and baby.

The Browns were able to come spend a couple hours at the hospital with us today.

Here's Eleanor in a rare non-blanketed moment.

Feet!

As the day wound down, our freinds Ryan and Tori stopped by. They're due with their first child in just a few months!

Tommorow is another big day... Charlotte will come to visit in the afternoon! More coverage on this blog and the Twitter feed as time allows and news happens.

Meet Eleanor Marie Brown

Meet Eleanor Marie Brown, the newest member of the Brown family. Eleanor was born this morning at 9:28 am. She weighs 6 lbs 6 ozs, and is 18 3/4 inches long.

OK, now that we have the vitals out of the way, some thoughts. First she looks A LOT like Charlotte did at that point in her life. Her cry is totally different though, which I think is cool. She's been awfully quiet so far, but I imagine that will change over the next few days. The surgery seemed to go really well (I can't say for sure since I wasn't the one operated on!), and Heidi seems to be handling everything really well.

We'll be at the hospital until at least Friday, but they have free wi-fi, so I'll try to make a few more posts over the next few days. Thanks for all the nice emails we've already gotten, and we look forward to introducing Eleanor to everyone!

Countdown to Baby 2!

If all goes as planned, we're about 24 hours way from meeting the newest addition to our family! Early tomorrow, we'll set out against the traditional March snow (right) and make our way to the hospital.
Now you may be asking yourself, how will I find out all the exciting news? I'm glad you asked, because that's what this post is all about.
The first wave of news will come in the little box on the left hand side of our page called "Pat's Mini Blog". That box is connected to my Twitter feed, and I'll be making occasional posts there over the next few days. That's probably where the vital statistics will be posted, along with the first announcement of a name. For those unfamiliar with Twitter, I can post to that box with a text from my phone.
Later in the day as time allows, I'll post more to this blog, and hopefully be able to add photos pretty quickly, and maybe even video. We'll just have to see how the day progresses.
Anyway, we're all looking forward to meeting this new one. We hope you'll enjoy reading all about her!

Fortune cookies

We ate out at the local Monogolian Grill tonight and our fortune cookies for all three of us were very appropriate!

Thanks Eric and Enga!

Charlotte is rocking this awesome dress that our friend Enga found in Spokane. I had to spend a night in Spokane on my trip over the weekend, so Eric delivered it when we met up Friday night. I have to admit, if I had known we wouldn't be able to get great kids clothes like this in Seattle, we may not have made the move!