Lots of work

When my sister Sherry was in town we painted the basement in a "Word World" theme. We spent so many hours on this basement. Here are a few pictures. When it's completely finished I'll post more pictures.

My sister Sherry holding Rayna. She was here over Labor Day. Sorry for the delay in posts. I also have pictures from our trip to the State Fair, but that will have to come at a later time.
Thanks again for all of your hard work while you were here. I love the basement and I love you!

Brock saying, "Hi MOM!"

Watch them grow...

Brock with Rayna at 2 weeks and then at 7 weeks. Wow, 5 weeks makes a huge difference.

Rayna meets some very important people

I'm still learning some of the functions of my new camera. I found this option called "Happy Faces" which allows me to add a smile to a face that doesn't have a smile. I was playing with this feature and thought the results were pretty funny and worth sharing. The photo above is the original photo...no smile

This is a computer generated smile. The camera has a scale of 1-5 for how big you make the "fake" smile. This is a 5.

This is a 3 on the smile scale. Some of the ones I played with looked pretty natural (not like this one).

This is my dear friend Gail. She was one of my classmates in x-ray school. She really enjoyed meeting Rayna.

Gail had a brain tumor removed while we were in school together (2004).
It came back and she just had a second surgery in August of this year (2009) to remove as much of it as possible. The sling you see is supporting her broken collar bone, which she got from falling off of her bike one day when she had cabin fever.
It was great seeing you again Gail. I hope your collar bone feels better soon!

Ben and Emily welcomed their beautiful baby girl to the world on September 22. Gabrielle Teresa weighed 10 lbs. 2 oz. and was born sometime around 2:00 pm. Here she is side by side with Rayna. Gabrielle is 8 days old and Rayna is one day shy of 7 weeks. They were both 21 inches long at birth. It's amazing how much they grow (and stretch out) in 7 weeks! Welcome to the family little Gabrielle!

Eyes open!

Here are Brock and Brayden playing in the living room of Ben and Emily's place.

Here is a 7 week picture of Rayna. She just had a bath and was warming up under our lights on the kitchen table. It's amazing how much heat those little "candle" style bulbs put off. It reminds me of a science experiment I did in grade school when I grew bean plants under different types of light. Let's just say incandescent light bulbs did not win.

Rayna has begun to smile. It's pretty tricky to catch her on camera. This is either the beginning or the end of a big one.

Rayna is waving "Good bye"
I'll post some more pictures of Brock soon.

Family gathering and more

Here is Brock playing hide and seek.

Rayna...catching some ray to help her jaundice go away
(Even though this is being posted in late September, this photo was taken when she was only a few days old.)

Me and my mom

The above photo was taken at Phil and Randi's house. Grandad and Uncle Mark flew in to town for Ruth's birthday.
It was so good to see you all!

Brock wanted to try...

Brock wanted to hold Rayna the other day. It's so sweet to watch him interact with her but I find myself on pins and needles because he does not know how to handle something delicate. He's a very "rough and tumble" 2 year old. I let him hold an egg one time and it was broke before I could even tell him to be gentle. At the end of this video you can see that he's done holding her.

A Card from her Cousin Taylor

Rayna got a card from her cousin Taylor the other day. It's very sweet. I hope you can read the message inside. If you double click on the image it should fill up the whole screen so you can read the words. Thanks Taylor for our cards. See you around Thanksgiving!

Rayna and Brock

Here's Rayna and her bunny "Joan". We all went to the Mall of America and visited the Build a Bear Workshop. Brock picked out a monkey and named him George. My mom made this bunny for Rayna and named her Joan. They are pretty close in size right now.

It took awhile but Brock finally let me take some pictures of him with Rayna. He loves his sister and is so good with her. He likes to toss her diapers away for me. She was trying to get her fingers in her mouth and Brock is trying to help her.

Side by side

I love this picture...she's looks so peaceful.

Here's my favorite so far!

Tiny toes

Tiny fingers

Big blue eyes

Our first few days as a family of 4

These photos are all in reverse order. For some reason, when I choose them to put on the blog, they get stacked in the wrong order. I usually take the time to copy, paste and then delete the duplicates and put them in the correct order, but I am on a tight time line today so you'll have to think backwards.

Brock found a big bug while playing outside. I have no idea what kind of bug it is, probably a beetle or something, but it was HUGE and he loved it!

Vero made me an delicious chocolate cake with strawberries and fresh whip cream for my 34th birthday. She rushed it over and nearly had a breakdown as it started to melt in the hot sun during rush hour's stop and go traffic. It was wonderful! Thank you so very much for think of me.

Brock and Daddy sharing a hot dog or sausage of some kind that they got at the hardware store. I had Rayna on Thursday evening and decided I was ready to go home by Saturday afternoon. Our house was quite busy on Sunday. Juan was fixing our main floor bathroom and Frank and Vero came over to work on the front of the house. Vero watched Brock for most of the day while Josh and Frank put up our new wood trim by or front door. Thanks Juan, Frank and Vero!

Juan, had at work in the bathroom.

Vero painted with Brock as Rayna and I got some fresh air after a nice nap!

It was a hot day...here we are. It's Sunday so Rayna is 3 days old in this picture. She has grown so much already and she's only 13 days old today! (I'll get more pictures up soon)

Remember when I said these were in reverse order? Here's Daddy sleeping with Rayna in the hospital. This is the chair that Josh had to sleep in while we were there. It reclines to an "almost" flat position. What a trooper!

This is the first time Rayna really opened her eyes for us. She just had her first bath in the hospital and is under a heat lamp getting all toasty. She just stared and us as if she was trying to memorize everything about our faces. I love this little girl so much!

Her first bath. She didn't really like it but she tolerated it well.

Let's meet Rayna Joan!

Well, this is the story of Rayna Joan Reitan's entry into this world. Josh and I arrived at Methodist hospital on Thursday, August 13th at 8:00 in the morning with a planned c-section at 9:40. When Dr. Witzke came in to talk to me she decided she would give me the chance to try to have her vaginally. By 9:30 I was hooked up to an iv of oxitocin to see if a low dose would kick start my body into natural labor. The oxitocin helped my contractions to become regular and stronger. I was checked again at 3:30 in the afternoon and there was no change to my cervix. I decided to try a little longer. By 5:30 there was still no progress and Josh and I decided we waited long enough and really wanted to meet our little girl. I signed the consent form for the c-section and Rayna was born at 6:09 in the evening on August 13th.

Here I am at some point during the induction. My mom and step-dad brought Brock by before his nap to see me. He did not want to leave my side the entire time he was there. You can see he brought "his baby" with him.

There she is! All slimy and covered in goo!

Just minutes old.

Our first photo together. They are putting me back together as this picture is being taken.

Brock meets Rayna. He couldn't stop looking at her. Rayna is pronounced "RAY-nah". My mom's name is Joan so that's how we chose her middle name.

Proud Grandma Joan

Grandpa Juan

Rayna's first night...just a few hours old.

Nana and Grandpapa say hello. Rayna had lots of guests while we were in the hospital. Britta, Matt, Ben, Emily, Brayden and lots of friends. Thank you for all of your love and support. We are so excited to finally meet our little angle. We love you Rayna!