The Birkeland Family Blog

Papa Ric helped build the box with Brian! Brian and I talk often about our childhood days digging in the dirt. We were entertained for hours and hours. Emmi has loved digging in our flower gardens, so to finally put a stop to that her daddy finally decided to build her a sweet sandbox in the backyard. "It may be the sweetest sandbox you have ever seen", Brian would say. It is 8x8 and has a bench surrounding the entire box. It doesn't entertain Emmi for hours yet, but she will sit in there and play for a good while. In her words....."I love it Daddy". P.S. If your at all saying to yourself "what about the cats?" My answer. I remember as a kid coming across that random piece of cat poo and that stench of pee, but we dug it out and kept on playing. And I am still here to tell about it. I'm not too worried. That is why I call it OLD SCHOOL PLAY!!! We didn't worry much about stuff then.

So, I find myself tripping out at the thought that I now have 2 kids. I was completely freaking out before baby Jack arrived due to the fact that I feel like Emmi is a handful and I can't imagine doubling that work. To get myself to calm down I would just tell myself, "everyone does it, right?" Well, to say the least it hasn't been a breeze so far. I am handling the baby fine. Yeah, some sleep deprivation, but Emmi has been a complete "2 year old" nightmare. I believe she is loving her baby brother, although she thinks that smothering, hitting, poking, jumping near his head, yelling in his ear, and collapsing to the floor everytime she doesn't get her way at that moment seems to be a good way to get attention. YIKES!!! My patience is wearing thin. I would LOVE any advice on handling two kids and most importantly handling a 2 year old with a new sibling. This is innocent Emmi loving her brother at the moment

We showed them didn't we Jack? As I said in my last post I was going to tell the hospital that Jack wanted to be born on May 20th regardless of what they say. My last post was written on May 20th at about 7:45 p.m. While writing the post I did feel some stronger contractions but since I had been contracting all day I really just ignored it. Until I published my post and started walking around. They immediately started coming 3 minutes apart and I had to breath through them. Brian was putting Emmi down to sleep, but I barged into the room and said we need to go to the hospital fast. I called Eric and Kelley to take Emmi and in no less than 5 minutes we were out the door. Emmi couldn't have been more thrilled. Off for a sleep over with her cousins. Driving to the hospital was the longest drive possible. The contractions were coming so fast. I was a contortionist in the passenger seat while gripping Brian's thigh everytime a contraction hit. Brian dropped me off in the round a...

False alarm...... No baby today............ The hospital called this morning and said due to the storm there was a huge influx of women that spontaneosly went into labor and that my induction would be cancelled until tomorrow. I was fighting back the tears with the lady.....then I suddenly just turned into hormonal angry lady and told her, "well you just might see me in there anyway". By 11:00 a.m. I started contracting hard about every 5-7 minutes. I had my mom come get Emmi. and all I could think of was that I would show them that I would have this baby. If they weren't going to put me into labor....I would do it myself. I ran errands. Picked out some porch furniture, got some Great Harvest cookies, and hung out on my porch timing my contractions. Well now it is 7:45 p.m. and still contracting every 7-10 minutes and not progressing at all. I guess tomorrow is the day. I am thinking this little boy just wanted to be a Gemini and not a Taurus like his sister. I a...

I can't believe that I can actually say that I am going to meet my newborn son tomorrow. I am so nervous and anxious, yet so dang excited. I just pray that everything goes well and that he comes healthy. I have been having so many dreams of all the complications that could happen, but then again I am the master worrier. If something bad can be imagined, leave it up to me to figure what it could be. Brian had a dream the night before last that we left to Tijuana for the weekend and the baby happened to come. When the baby was born he turned and smiled at Brian and he had a full on bowl cut with dark hair. Brian said he looked like one of The Beatles. So Brian nicknamed him Beatle. The kid could even walk....in fact he walked through the turn style at customs all by himself. Brian was warning him not to touch anything because "everything was dirty" I can't stop laughing. I think I may have a Ringo waiting to come out. Hopefully no bull cut though! I will keep you all po...

My Little CUPCAKE!!! 2 years old This was my mock cake the night before. By the end of frosting this thing I was ready to throw it across the room. I let Emmi have at it. Wow was she in Cupcake heaven? The morning of her birthday we took Emmi to the Zoo. As she was walking out of the house she said, "Bye mama....I am going to highschool" She had her turtle backpack on and ready to go. On Saturday we had a little Cupcake Birthday Party for Emmi. She invited all of her little friends and her cousins. She thought she was for sure the queen for the day. The kids decorated cupcakes and Emmi sat so still and serious while we sang "Happy Birthday". She blew out her candles and then all us adults dug into the Giant Cupcake. Emmi opened presents and loved every minute of the attention. Thank you to all her friends for coming and making Emmi feel so special on her birthday. These cupcakes are Emmi's creative creations. More the frosting the better! Emmi opening all her ...

So do you think to yourself often, "I should have never taught you that"? I am kicking myself for teaching Emmi that GREEN means "GO", and RED means "STOP". Emmi is now in the backseat yelling at me "GO mama, GO, it's GREEN" or "STOP mama it's RED". At first it was considered cute, but now I find myself thinking it is rather annoying. Crap.....I created my own personal back seat driver.