the nutcracker ballet

Makena busting a move to the Christmas music...I guess she is feeling better.

our trip to see santa

Makena was not happy about sitting on Santa's lap, so somehow Ben and I ended up in the picture. My personal favorite part about this photo is the look on Emma's face...all of Makena's crying made her not so sure she wanted to be there. About 10 minutes after this picture was taken, we were eating lunch at uvillage when suddenly the look on Makena's face went blank. After repeatedly asking her if she was ok, we realized that she was completely unresponsive. At first we thought she was choking, but she didn't have a look of distress, just a blank stare. After a couple of minutes she started to turn blue and that is when we started to panic. Ben called 911, an ER nurse who was eating in the restaurant came over to look at her, and we realized she was having a seizure. By the time the EMTs got there she had started to move her hands and make some moaning noises. We took an ambulance to Children's Hospital where they found that she had a very high fever but no other symptoms. It turns out that she was having a febrile seizure, which is a seizure that is the body's defense mechanism to an extremely high fever. Only about 5% of children have these seizures, and of those 5%, about 35% have another one. The good news is that they grow out of them by the time they are seven. So other then completely freaking out her parents, we are thankful that she is just fine.

New blog app

I know I have failed miserably at updating this the last month or so, but I just got a new app on my phone that will hopefully encourage me to stay more on top of it! I just uploaded a bunch of photos and videos to our computer, so a months worth of posts will be coming shortly, but until then here is a pic of a couple of cute ladybugs!

emma at 4 weeks

I finally caught a few photos of emma smiling!  They are pretty close up and a little blurry, but those smiles usually don't last very long so I was trying to be quick! We have noticed that when Emma is awake and making faces she looks totally different then Makena did as a baby, but you get that girl asleep and expressionless and they look like twins! It's a good thing all our photos are time stamped, or in a few years we might not know who is who. We also think that the third picture in this group looks an awful lot like Grandpa VandenBos...he seems to get all the glory with our children! You may also notice that this girl has some serious acne going on right now! Oh well, it shouldn't last long and then she will have her perfect baby skin back!

first ballet class

Makena had her first dance class today! It was successful in many ways. Makena did successfully dance, she also successfully ignored almost every instruction the teacher gave her, successfully distracted other children from what they were supposed to be doing, successfully watched herself in the mirror 85% of the time, successfully made me laugh, and successfully convinced me that she needs more structured activities that involve listening to and obeying rules. I couldn't decide which video was the best to include, so I just put them all up. Some are a little long, but have little gems at the end so hang in there for the whole video!

First thing they did: Makena had me fooled into thinking she was going to listen to the teacher.

And then it begins...

What you can't see in this video is everyone else doing exactly what they are supposed to!

I had to stop this video when makena started trying to "clean-up" the other kids mats

The closest she got to participating...

Fast forward to half-way through, and then watch makena jump!

Makena at the end of this clip: "man do I look good"

In the end, the teacher said that it might be helpful if I participate next week to try to get makena to get involved in what the rest of the class is doing. Looks like I will be taking dance too!

the dancing queen

Our little flower girl danced the night away at Tim and Jessica's wedding this weekend. She danced for about 2 hours straight in the freezing cold with no shoes or sweater on. She loved those groomsmen and felt right at home being in the center of their dance circle. Her main moves included sitting on the floor and shakin it, hands on the floor and shakin it, clapping and shakin it, and well...just about any way she could manage to shake that little bum of hers!

Now, as far as her actual job as the flower girl...she ran down the aisle yelling "daddy" and didn't throw a single flower...but at least she wasn't crying the whole way like at the rehearsal!

The wedding was beautiful and so much fun, and we were so glad to get to be a part of celebrating the marriage of such good friends. Jess was very beautiful and Tim very handsome (even if he did have something stuck in his eye causing his "eyes to water"), but I am lame and don't have any pics of the bride and groom.

I tried to get some sweet videos of her shakin it, but I only had the regular camera and it was pretty dark, so these will have to do. And sorry they are sideways, I don't have the energy to figure out how to fix them...

Makena gets the whole fam on the dance floor (yes, emma is in there somewhere). Aren't we cute in our matching yellow outfits?

edited photoshoot

Click Here for all of the edited versions of Mac's photo shoot. Thanks again sis!!

backyard photo shoot

Auntie Mac came over for a quick photo shoot the night before she left to go back to New York. Though they are not edited yet (Mac will be very angry at me for showing these pre-edits) here is a little sneak preview. Once she is done editing them they won't even look like the same pics, but seeing how she just went back to school, I don't plan on getting the edited ones anytime soon! Emma was a fairly good model, even though it was not very warm outside. Makena, on the other hand, was NOT excited about having her picture taken. The rest of the photos are on picasa but I have to warn you that these are the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are a few that prove just how NOT photogenic ben and I are!

Finally!!! Here are some photos...

We finally got our usb cable in the mail, so here are some of our favorite photos from emma's first week of life. Things are still going pretty well.

Makena has gotten a little more used to the idea of sharing her daddy, emma decided to only wake up every 3 hours last night (rather then every 1 1/2), and we've even made it to another wedding! Ben went back to work on Thursday, so the girls and I got to have our first outing on our own. It was very successful, other than not finding anything I needed at Target (and lots of things I didn't need).

Next week's adventures include emma's first youth group, first mini-vacation to Port Townsend, and another wedding!

To see a few more photos, check out our picasa album:http://picasaweb.google.com/bvandenbos/TheLifeOfEmmaMaeWeek1?authkey=Gv1sRgCLGintq12pfOogE&feat=directlink

Welcome Emma Mae!

First, let me apologize for the huge blog fail! Would you believe me if I said we've been busy? The other slight problem is that we lost the usb cord to the camera so have been unable to upload photos (good timing). But a new one is in the mail, and we should be in business soon! Until then, here are a few photos taken from our phone.

And now to introduce Emma Mae VandenBos! Emma was born August 18th at 9:15am, she weighed 8lbs 2 oz and was 19.5 in. She is an incredibly healthy, beautiful and laid back baby. I am very thankful that labor and delivery went so much more smoothly then with Makena...only about 7 hrs of labor and 20 minutes of pushing before she came into the world. She came so fast we actually had to wait for the doctor, and 2 pushes after the doctor arrived she was born! I guess it helps being 4 cm dilated before labor even begins.

So far it looks like all hope of having a child that looks like me is lost. Emma looks so similar to Makena as a baby, and even has a very similar disposition so far. Ben just keeps saying it's his strong Dutch genes...no breeding them out!

Makena loves her new baby sister. She wakes up in the morning asking for "mommy, daddy, baby sister." When we ask her what baby sister's name is she answers, "emma baby." She loves to "hold" her, kiss her, and pretty much be involved in everything we do with her. The only thing she doesn't like is when daddy holds emma! In fact, the quote of the week was when Ben and Makena were sitting on the couch one morning and Ben said to Makena, "baby emma looks sad, should we go pick her up?" Makena responded "no baby up, makena up!"

Emma is not quite a week old, but she has already been on many outings! We have gone to two doctors appointments, to Target, out to lunch, out for breakfast, to the swimming pool (Ben and Makena swam while Emma and I watched), and even to a wedding! She is very easy to take out and about since she tends to sleep All the time (except for at night when she decides to get all gassy..and yes I know that's a made up word). So far having two children is an amazing and wonderful experience, and Ben and I are having lots of fun, though I have to admit, we are a little tired!

Still no baby...

Well, my due date has come and gone, and baby is yet to make an appearance. I guess this just means she will be taking after the Nielsen side of the family...always fashionably late! Hey, maybe this one will even look like me! It's probably a good thing that she hasn't decided to pop out the last couple of days though, as Ben has been sick with a fever. I would prefer that Ben is able to be there when his daughter is born!

I have been keeping myself distracted by having lots of fun with Makena the last couple of days. We've been to the pool, the park, the farmer's market, had picnics in the backyard and mommy even got some much needed gardening done yesterday!

i'm taking over

It's official...I'm taking over this blog! Just to make it more dramatic I thought I'd add a nice feminine background for a while, but I make no promises that it will last (unfortunately ben still has full permissions). So please look forward to more frequent, more grammatically correct, and hopefully more interesting posts from the female half of the household (wait...the females are more like 4/5 of the household)! And hopefully we will also be able to post some baby news soon!!

Gas Works

Mackenzie busted out her new lens and shot some family pics of us at Gas Works last weekend.

New Photos!

On picasa...

1 month and counting

One month left until Baby #2 comes. Technically 5 weeks, but we're pushing for her being a little early. We've got one more ultrasound next week which could bump up the due date.

Makena parted ways with her changing table and crib this weekend and helped me get it ready for baby sister. We've got the new baby's room (and most of the garage) roughly organized now. No car in the garage yet, but significant progress has been made :).

Pictures of Makena and the new house are forthcoming.