I wish you a merry christmas!

Last night Brandon and I were wrapping presents for his students and listening to Third Day's Christmas Offerings CD when I was struck by the last song on the cd. The song Merry Christmas inspired me to write a little note here in our blog to say merry christmas to our child, not Noah, but the child we have yet to meet. 


A long time ago before meeting Brandon I had felt a calling on my heart. The calling of adoption. Don't get me wrong...I always prayed I was able to have children one day, but I also felt that there are so many children out there without someone to love on them and tell them just how much God loves them. I knew that whoever I married had to share in this desire for our family and I was thrilled when Brandon was just as excited to adopt one day as I was. 
A year ago or so we were at A Weekend to Remember marriage retreat when one of the speakers told his story about adopting his children. The one part that has still stuck with me to this day was he spoke about their birth certificates. They had some problems with the paper work and finally had everything settled when they got the boys birth certificates in the mail and he noticed he and his wife's age on the birth certificate was wrong. Frustrated he called the agency and fixing the problem when the lady informed him there was no problem that was their ages when their boys where born. 
He said he began to think about what he was doing when he was that age & how selfish he was, not knowing that at that very same time his children were out in the world without someone to love & protect them. 


So to that child or children we have yet to meet I want to say: 
While you are not here right now, you have always been in my heart. We love you more than you will ever know and thank God for bringing you to us. I can't wait to tell you just how much our big and amazing God loves you. I pray you are safe right now whenever you are. Please stay strong and know this Christmas you are not forgotten. We love you very much! Merry Christmas my child!


Merry Christmas by Third Day: 
There's a little girl trembling on a cold December morn
Crying for momma's arms
At an orphanage just outside a little China town
There the forgotten are

But half a world away I hang the stockings by the fire
And dream about the day when I can finally call you mine

It's Christmas time again but you're not home
Your family is here and yet you're somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas

As I hang the tinsel on the tree and watch the twinkling lights
I'm warmed by the fire's glow
Outside the children tumble in a wonderland of white,
Make angels in the snow

But half a world away you try your best to fight the tears
And hope that heaven's angels come to carry you here

It's Christmas time again but you're not home
Your family is here and yet you're somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas

Christmas is a time to celebrate the holy child
And we celebrate his perfect gift of love
He came to earth to give his life
And prepare a place for us
So we could have a home with him above

It's Christmas time again and now you're home
Your family is here so you will never be alone
So tonight before you go to sleep, I'll hold you in my arms
And I'll tell you from my heart, and I'll you from my heart
I wish you Merry Christmas

Noah's newborn picts!

Yes my child is almost three months and yes I am just now posting his newborn photos!

A few years ago I met some of Brandon's friends from Samford, one of them being Mrs Ashleigh Peak. Little did I know (or she know) that a few years later she would have an AMAZING photography gig and be taking picts of my cute naked baby! Check out her site http://www.ashleighpeak.com/

A little background on the photo session...it took around three hours for Noah to FINALLY pass out enough so we could move him around to get some picts. She was SOOO patient though and managed to get some amazing shots while I was holding him trying to get him to fall asleep.
In the photos where I am holding him by the crib, right after those picts we realized that he had pooped ALL down my shirt. No wonder he was so relaxed in the pictures. hehe! Hope you enjoy them!

 

The first month!

Here's a recap of our first month....
First, when you see Noah's newborn picts you will notice he looks like he got punched in the face! The poor thing actually had a reaction to his eye ointment. In the hospital they give all newborns erythromycin ointment BUT they were out for some reason and were using gentamycin ointment instead. I found out that one of the adverse reactions can be chemical burns to the skin, which he had. He started to have these HUGE blisters under his eyes our second night in the hospital. In the pictures you will see they had healed over and were drying up. POOR BABY! Thankfully there was no scarring. We DEFINITELY know it didn't affect his vision, the big guy stares at EVERYTHING!

 

Once we were home we started to try to settle in. Nursing was going well but we started to notice he was grunting ALL the time. We also started to notice that the "babies sleep 22 hours a day" concept was NOT our little man. He was up more than he was asleep. THANKFULLY Brandon's mom and my mom live close by so they would come over and take shifts walking Noah around to keep him from screaming. His poor little tummy....he would bring his little knees up to his chest and just scream!!! It was very hard to come home with your new baby not knowing what to expect and hear him scream every time you put him down. It was especially hard when I had friends with newborns and older baby who were already on schedules and already had their baby sleeping 5-7 hours at night. I spent the first 3 weeks of his life feeling like a failure. I finally found peace in my mother-in-law...Brandon's older brother, Wes, had terrible colic when he was little. Every time I felt like no one understood she would tell me stories about how she felt. It was so comforting to have someone echo the same thoughts and feelings I had. Anywho, back to the little guy....the first 4 weeks were spent sleeping 1-2 hours at a time and eating anywhere from every hour to every 3 hours. But after a while we started to get into a routine of getting up and switching off. The chaos became our norm!

While the sleeping and eating were crazy, we still had a lot of fun first!

First car ride. Going home from the hospital. Dad drove REALLY slow!

Noah meeting his cousin Naomi for the 1st time. She likes him as long as their Lolli isn't holding him and not her. (She is the princess!)

First game day with daddy. (They were REALLY into the game!) Notice the orange and white outfit Noah was sporting.

Napping in his bouncy seat. He wasn't even heavy enough to make the seat bounce. Such a little cutie!

First bottle with dad. We were very nervous he wouldn't take it, but there was NO hesitation. All he cared about was that it was food and he was hungry.

This is Noah's best friend, Mr. Giraffe. They spend time staring at each other on the changing table. Noah just kicks and giggles and talks to him forever on that table!

Dad and Noah were hanging on the coach together and Piper felt left out. She sat next to them all night. Every time Noah made a noise Piper was up and right there, checking on him. She is a very good big sis!

This is what Noah thinks of Piper and her kisses and barking! Seriously, he made this expression after Piper licked him. haha

My mom (Noah's na-na) went to change him and told me to run in there. I was FREAKING OUT wondering what happened to him. When I got there I saw this....NO MORE UMBILICAL CORD!

Noah's first bath. He did SOOOO good. He didn't cry until we got to his face and head. At first he just stared at us wondering what in the world we were doing to him. haha! After I wrapped him up he stopped crying and just stared with those big brown eyes!

This was after our first stroll in the neighborhood. He LOVES being outside. In the late morning we usually go in the backyard with Piper and sing hyms while slow dancing together. It is the BEST part of my day and warms my heart more than anything. How can I not help but sing praises to God when Im holding this perfect and healthy little miracle that God gave a sinner like me.

 Just a cute little picture of him sleeping on his Boppy pillow. 

Mandi, one of my old UT nursing buddies, had her bday in late October. We went over to our friends the Ransones' to watch the UT/Bama game and celebrate Mandi's day. Of course we cheered on UT to what turned out to be a sad ending to the game. Noah made sure he was in the right colors for his Aunt Mandi!

 

Here are the picts we took on the day he turned ONE MONTH! I had to wait for Brandon to get home so it was late when we finally got them. As you can tell he is moving in it too. We took a TON of them but he wouldn't hold still for a second so we just went with it. I have a feeling he is going to be a hyper guy! 

Well that is our first month! All in all it has been one sleepless, crazy, and joy filled month! I still can not believe I have this little miracle! God is good! 

NOAH IS HERE!

My precious little angel is asleep right now so Im attempting to write this quickly before he wakes up. We will see how far I get, promise to post more later.

Here's how the story goes:

I had a baby shower on Sunday Sept. 20th. It was given by my awesome youth group girls and the two other youth group leaders that are preggors had the shower with me. After the shower we went to youth group and I told everyone bye and I would see them Tuesday at the hospital.

When leaving that night I kept thinking, wow I'm done...that was the last thing I had scheduled before Im scheduled for my induction on Tuesday. I had a mental list of everything I needed to run around and do Monday to feel "really" ready for Noah, but wondered if I would make it. That night I joked with Brandon about how I felt like I might go into labor on Monday while running around because my body and Noah just knew we were done and ready for him to come. Well, I guess I was right!

At 3:30am on Monday morning I woke up with the worst cramp ever! I had not had any contractions before this so I wasn't sure what it was. I got up thinking I just had to pee or I was just uncomfortable. Sure enough about 12 minutes later the pain came back. I got on facebook and started looking around trying to distract myself. HAHA! Once another contraction came 11 min later I realized it was the real deal! I WAS IN LABOR!

I couldn't remember if I was supposed to call the dr or not and wasn't sure if I should wake up Brandon yet. I remembered one of my friends, Amanda Cantrell had written on her blog about her labor story, so I got online and read it to see when she woke up Luke. HAHA!

I woke up Brandon at 4:30 and let him know we wouldn't make it to Tuesday's induction. I let him know they were still far apart so he could go back to sleep. He of course was a little to excited to sleep so he popped up and we started packing.

After packing we took some pictures of his room and waited on the contractions to get closer. At around 7am my contractions were 7 minutes apart and I decided what was another 2 minutes? We were going! We got to the hospital around 7:30 after stopping by chick-fil-a for breakfast for Brandon and Sprite for me. Carrie, our nurse, checked me into a room since the next day was our induction day and she thought it wouldn't be nice to send me home to contract more to be induced 24 hours later!

Dr. Aycock saw me at 9:30 and I had gone from 3 to 4 centimeters in an hour so he decided to keep. PRAISE GOD! He broke my water and then things got fun! The next 20 minutes made me VERY glad for modern medicine and CRNA's. My epidural was amazing! I didn't feel it all and in 5 minutes I was completely pain free! From then on the rest of the day was a breeze! I was contracting like a super star and didn't feel a thing! I was laughing and talking as friends and family showed up to meet Noah.

Around 1:45 they noticed a dip in Noah's heart rate and decided to flip me on my head, put some oxygen on me, and placed an internal monitor on me. When she checked me she noticed I had gone from 7 to 9 centimeters in like 30 minutes! Carrie said he was probably a little stressed about that. Then she said something really scary...READY TO PUSH!?

At 2:12 we began pushing (never felt a thing, like I had to ask them if I was even pushing!) and at 2:42pm on Sept 21st Noah Thomas Brown was born!

After some time by ourselves as a new family, Brandon invited the grandparents and uncle dave in to meet the newest edition. He was WIDE EYED from the moment he came out. I was in love instantly. I couldn't believe I just had a baby!!!

That is our story to how our little miracle came to us. Here are some pictures from the day, more to come:

Ready or not!

I know it has been forever since we posted anything. Our computer had a little bug so we couldn't use it. But Brandon is backing up all the pictures tonight so hopefully tomorrow I will be able to upload some new picts of the house and the progress Noah and I are making. We are growing bigger everyday!

Here's a quick update on things in our life:

We are 36 weeks, 37 on Sunday. At our last 3 visits we have found out that our little man might be ready to come before we were ready for him. At our 34 week visit I was measuring 35 weeks and was already 1cm and 50%. Dr. Riseling was excited and told us nothing to worry about, she just thought it meant we wouldn't make it all 40 weeks (FINE BY ME!) She also said that we might have our due date off a little bit. Since we were blessed with Noah without really trying we were unsure of our due date. We originally thought it was Sept. 24th but after our ultrasound at 19 weeks they changed our due date to Oct. 4th. Now, Dr. Riseling is thinking we are somewhere in between there, so whenever Mr. Noah is ready she is ready!

Well of course Brandon and I left our 34 week visit VERY excited! (and nervous). We still had SOOOO much to do with the house and Noah's room!!! Thanks be to God for our wonderful families. All of our parents immediately chipped in and started helping around the house to get everything done. Before we knew it the house was painted, Noah's things were starting to come out of storage, and new carpet was in our bedroom. It was amazing!

This past Thursday we went to our 36 week visit. The night before I had told Brandon I was done! HAHA. I said if she told me I could go that day then I was going! Before we went in, we both made our guesses about what she would say. At the 35 week visit we jumped to 2 cm and 70% so who knew what she would say this time! I guessed that nothing happened and he was going to stall out on us after all the early excitement. Brandon said he was scared to guess since every time we get surprised. HAHA!

BOY OH BOY were we surprised. We were 3cm and 80%. She also told us that he very low and she couldn't believe I wasn't having contractions yet. She told me I would probably be go into labor in a week. Next she asked a question that confused us both. "How do you feel about induction?" Induction? But you just said you would be surprised if I lasted another week. Why would I go over my due date? That is when she told us how we might be farther along than we thought and since he is trying to make his way in the world but my body isn't cooperating I might need a little help.

Next thing we knew, we are at the check out counter scheduling our induction for Sept. 22nd. So we just cut off like 2 weeks of our getting ready time! I was freaking out, but my amazing husband was calm as always. He was so reassuring that we would get everything done and at the end of the day all that mattered was our little boy was coming home.

We are working all weekend to finish things up. Pending that I don't go into labor tonight, I should be able to post some pictures tomorrow of the progress we are making. If not, then our bags are packed and we are ready to go! (Hope it doesn't hurt too bad!!!!)

~Amanda

Won't you be my neighbor?

Ok, so I'm at work with ONE patient in our unit & if I say those dreaded words that no one in health care dare say I know we will get like 6 patients! So....While trying to stay busy I started looking at houses. We have been wanting to move for awhile, but our renovation is taking a little longer than expected.
Now that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel & because our little family is about to expand we have started to look at houses. Here is where the problem lies.....WHERE TO LIVE!?
The dilemma: We are wanting to live by friends or at least in a neighborhood with people more our age & not across from people who party till 4 am on the weekends & have drunk friends in our driveway arguing.
We also doubt we are wanting to move out east just because we both work in Memphis & I don't think I can get up much earlier than I am now!

So here is where you come in! I need suggestions about good/bad neighborhoods and if you have any houses around you for sale. I figure if we want to live by friends, ask the friends! So let the suggestions start pouring in!

Amanda

What are little boys made of?

Sorry it has taken so long to get these picts up here. Life is still crazy in the Brown household, but we love it!

As most of you know Brandon and I are expecting our little boy Noah October 4th. That's right, Im 29 weeks! Wow this is flying by! Here are a few snap shots to get everyone caught up on how Noah and I are growing!

Brandon & I right after we got the good news! I took the test EARLY in the morning & ran to wake up Brandon. That's why he looks half asleep. Poor guy!

Noah & I smiling with his cousin Naomi at her photo shoot!

18 weeks. The start of a bump.

24 weeks. Now with a bump that doesn't come & go! Pardon the messy room in the background. This is when Noah got REALLY active! No need to do "kick counts" he hardly sleeps!

25 wks with my fellow pregnant youth group leaders. We are all having boys! We almost have a basketball team! On my left: Katie 20 wks & on my right: Sarah 22 wks

At the beach for the 4th, now 27 weeks. I'm going to post more picts from our trip this week. It was Naomi's 1st time to hit the pool!

28 weeks! Noah is growing like a weed! He is very active!! Brandon can see him waving hello from across the room. If this is any indication to what he'll be like on the outside, we are in trouble!

That brings us to present day. I have a picture of me at 29 weeks but haven't uploaded it yet. Ill try to this week.

Here are some facts about what Noah's up to at 29 weeks:

*17 inches *around 3 pounds *Brain is growing *blinking *practice breathing *hiccups

*he can hear, smell, taste, feel, & see *suck his thumb

It is so exciting to think in a few months he will be here! It seems like time was standing still at one point and now its FLYING! I pray we finish his nursery and the house before he gets here. We have the crib and glider up together & paint is starting to go up. Hopefully by this weekend I will be able to take pictures of the nursery to show everyone. I LOVE IT! Brandon has been SO great at picking things out & letting me do what I want to the room. We are painting the walls with 10 inch pale blue & green stripes with a 1 inch white stripe in between. I love my man for being up to the challenge of painting that!

OH! One more thing I forgot! His name!!!! We decided to name our little bundle of joy: Noah Thomas Brown. Noah, a biblical name we loved, meaning peaceful or comforter. Which means he'll probably be a ball of fire. haha. We both liked the story of Noah, a man who was faithful to God even though all those around him had turned away from God. Such a story of faith! The whole world was turning away from God & here is a man building an ark in a drought because of his faith in God!

Thomas is his middle name. This is Brandon's mom's maiden name. There are no men in her family to carry on the name so we said if we had a boy we would pass it along. It is also Brandon's brother (Noah's uncle's) middle name & my step-grandfathers middle name. So that works out well!

Well I guess thats enough for now. I need to put myself to bed so I can get started on another busy week at the Jude! Hope you all are having a great & blessed week!

Amanda

What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails, and puppy dogs tails
That's what little boys are made of !"