The Little Guy

More Home Pics

For those of you who want to see what the actual home is supposed to look like it is finally far enough along to show you.  There is obviously much more work to do... (i.e. trim, grading, landscaping, lawn, etc. etc.) but this gives you a much better idea how everything is progressing. 

Quinn 's Again Awake

Shakespeare, in describing purgatory in his play Hamlet said those who were in that place were, "Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, and for the day confined to fast in fires, 'till the foul crimes done in [their] days of nature are burnt and purged away."  Perhaps the insane sleepless nights are a kind of purgatory which all parents must suffer through in order to have the joys of children.  (God's way of making sure you are really serious about this parenting business.)

We discovered shortly before we left the hospital that Quinn has a cleft pallate.  Not knowing much about this, a specialist came to visit us to explain what that meant and what that will mean for Quinn as he grows up.  Apparently, this is one of the most common forms of birth defects about 1 in every 600 babies has it.  What it means is that there is a hole in Quinn's pallet (roof of his mouth) which connects his nose to his mouth.  

It means he cannot nurse like a normal child from the breast; however, is not life-threatning and has a 75% chance of being resolved with a surgery when Quinn is between 6-9 months.  It may cause some speech and dental problems later on, but for now we are just happy to have a healthy baby boy.  Right now the problem is nutritional.  Quinn just needs nutrients and were he to continue to attempt to do this at the breast he would likely use more energy in the attempt than get the nutrients he needs.  The solution is apparently to use a special "Pigeon" nipple that costs about $22 a piece.

Since Mer and I believe strongly in the necessity of breast milk but we must bottle feed Quinn we have been doing a lot of research into breast pumps.  The problem of breast pumps is that they consume a lot of time.  One has to spend a half an hour or more pumping, then another half an hour or more feeding the child  (not to mention the regular cleaning of all the valves and do-hickeys that come with it).  Effectively this more than doubles the amount of time that is required just to sustain the nutritional needs of this baby (not to mention all the diaper changing, etc. that just is part of having a baby to begin with.)  When this feeding is done every two hours you can begin to see why the reference to sleepless purgatory seems more appropriate.  Mer deserves a gold star for her efforts.  She is the best and most devoted mommy.  

(The resources of time and personnel are finite so thus we are in search of the ideal method [optimization routine] to maximize that precious comodity there is all too often little of... sleep!)

Birthday Boy

You only really have one birthday and this is his.  Welcome to the world Quinn David Cory.  6 pounds, 8 ounces.  19.5 inches long.  We have pictures for everyone to get to know him.

Labor started at 11:30AM and ended around 5:30PM.  No anaesthetics!  Mommy is a tough one!

When his water broke he "baptized" the certified nurse/midwife.  A giant gush splashed her right in the face.  This nursing thing is not for the weak.  (I'm just glad I was standing back and to the side of all the action. )  Delivery was smooth.  No major complications other than the aforementioned.  Mommy and baby are doing just fine.

Here are the pictures.  Undoubtedly that is really what you wanted to see anyway.  He has really small feet and what looks to be dark curly/wavy hair.  If you look really closely you can see that he is perhaps the cutest baby on the face of the earth.  (Maybe you can't see that... those glances are perhaps reserved for mommy and daddy... although he is already quite popular in the nursery.  He struck up a conversation with one of the nurses and had her rolling on the floor.  Maybe someday he will be a comedian in future?)

Patience is a virtue

Okay, we haven't had our baby yet. Hold tight. When he is born we will post pics to let you know. Right now we are just waiting. I have removed the baby ticker because it was moving backwards. Kind of a downer. Check back later : )

Bricks by Brick

Yea, we finally have some brick on our house.

Our Foyer (obviously there is still a lot to do).

The windows in our Family Room.

The view from our family room. I love these trees!

Happy Halloween

Daddy and Alex's Halloween Activity (while Mom was at a midwife appointment).

Trunk or Treat!

Our First Pumpkin

"Touch the pumpkin, Alex."

This pumpkin may have been a bit big for Alex, but that didn't stop him from trying.

We took our first family trip to the pumpkin patch. This was exciting because we saw some friends there and many other fun things. Other than goats, sheep, bunnies, chickens and emus we also played in hay. Does fall get any better? We rode a wagon to the pumpkins to pick the perfect one (or two). One of the smart farm workers commented that I already had a pumpkin (meaning my big belly). It is amazing what perfect strangers come up with, especially here in Richmond. We did leave with two medium sized pumpkins and one tired little boy. A job well done.

Here are more pictures of the home for those of you interested in that sort of thing.  The brick will go up in a few days.  Meanwhile all the interior stuff is being completed.  (Plumbing, HVAC, Electrical, Stairs, etc.)

Another fetal pic

So hopefully you aren't too sick of seeing these. But I gotta show it to grandmas. His face is getting chubbier, but he wouldn't move his hand from his face. Little stinker!

More Home Pictures

Since this is one of my primary occupations I get used to seeing things unfold; however, here are more pictures for any interested.  This now at least bears the shape that it will when it is completed minus, of course, all the finishing touches.  

Progress on the Home Front

Hey everyone.  Apparently a trained monkey could edit one of these Blog things.  So I guess it shouldn't be terribly difficult for me to put a few lines together. Yea, that's right this is the male half of the team and I post items to this blog only once in a blue moon... or is that a lunar eclipse... anyway, not very often.

So here are some pictures of our house.  It is finally starting to take shape.  Sadly the roof is not fully trussed so you can't even see what the entire roof's shape will fully look like in these pictures.  But hopefully there is enough to give you the general idea.  There is always more later.

Hopefully things will take better shape in the future... so you can see what it will look like.  So far Mer is happy with the progress.  We still have a long way to go.

Fun Times With Family

Happy 2nd Birthday to our little boy! I think he was most excited about blowing out the candles on his cake. You know how boys like fire. During the day we took him to the Playroom. He said it was, "Really fun."

Alex's Grandma Trink came all the way from Utah to visit. We had a great time. She even came with us to Lake Anna on Labor Day weekend.

Ethnie is at the helm of Grandpa's fishing boat.

We all enjoyed a good swim. The little kids also enjoyed jumping into the lake.

Smores anyone?

Grandma Trink took Alex on the Choo Choo Train at Short Pump. He really did not want to get off. Mommy just watched because she didn't feel like going into labor yet. Give her a few more months.

We have some walls

Wahoo! We have walls in the lower level of our house.

These are the windows of our family room.

This is our garage.

Framing Started

Hooray! The Framing of our house has started. Hopefully it will be done in a couple of weeks.
These are the pics of our basement.

Our Summer Vacation

We had a brief, action-packed summer vacation. It was fun, but we were tired when we got home. Among our many adventures: spending the night with Grandma Chris & Grandpa Cory, an afternoon at the Choo-Choo Barn in Lancaster, the Philadelphia Zoo with Chrishell's (Erin's sister) family, and the National Aquarium in Baltimore. We also managed to hit Ikea on the way home (don't ask me why that was so exciting). Whew! And all that in a long weekend. We had a great time!

All aboard! The Choo Choo Barn in Lancaster, PA.



At the Philadelphia Zoo with Chrishell, Patrick & the cute cousins. Alex had his first pony ride!



The National Aquarium in Baltimore. Alex was most excited by the escalators.

Things are moving along.

Alex likes taking his animals for rides around the house.

This is a huge pile of dirt that was moved from our lot.

Here I am standing by our tall basement.

Yes, we have a foundation. The black stuff is tar that is used to waterproof the foundation.

Olympic schedule

We are getting excited

Olympic Medal winners at NBC Olympics.com!

More Gamma Pics

Here are more ultrasound pics. I have to say that this 4-D imaging is pretty cool. Pretty amazing if you want to know the truth. They have never done this kind of ultrasound for us before so it was really fun to get these pictures of Alex's little brother. The mystery in the belly.