Block Party

We had our annual cul-de-sac party this weekend.  We had a great time and met a few new neighbors.  The housing market in our area is starting to pick up and several houses around us have finally sold.  Yay!

Niko had a great time running around and playing with the neighbors.  Then he used Ryker's head as a launching pad for the Human Torch and I had to get on to him about being gentle with his brother.  Sigh....

Jaundice

Ugh.  It's hard for me to even post this picture.  Here is my beloved new son drinking formula.  Gross.  Well, Ryker's jaundice has not gotten any better so the doctor has diagnosed him with breastmilk jaundice.  I have never even heard of it before, but it does exist.  

We took him to the doctor on Thursday after noticing that and even the whites of his eyes are yellow!!!  Once again, he had his blood drawn and his bilirubin rate spiked up to 16 mg/dl (should be under 5 mg/dl.)  

One of the things you can do is suspend breastfeeding for 3 days in an attempt to "reboot" the digestive system.  That's what we will be doing this weekend.  We have another appointment on Monday to see if it works!

Niko's 4th Birthday Party!

At first Niko was shocked... then a bit scared... then shocked again by the Chuck E. Cheese robot.

 

Chuck E Cheese then came out in 'real life' and put a crown on Niko's head and proceeded to dance with the kids.

 

Here is his pimp crown....

After the crowning, medallioning and dancing, they stick the birthday kid in the ticket blaster.  It looks like one of those 70's game show gimmicks.   You can sort of see the look of horror/wonder on his face.

  He scored the best prize!  1,000 tickets!

 The last known photo of the Lego cake...

 Candles out!  Then it's game time!

 

Niko with his buddy Louis.

 Alyssa and Louis.

Godparents and Grandma 'O'.

Our group loved the skeeball games.

 Gooch showing his NBA skillz.

  The Browning Boys playing games with Niko-chan.

Parents with the Birthday Boy!  (Proof we love him.)  :)   And yes... this was the best photo of him we got.  It was hard to pry him away from the games.

DoDa and Grandpa Morris

Niko really wanted to be in the photo so here he is... photo bombing.
 

Grandpa Morris, DoDa and Baby Ryker.
 

Had to take this photo.... Grandpa is not a fan of holding newborns....  :)

DoDa Time!

DoDa (my mom) came for a visit after Ryker was born to help us out.  Niko REALLY liked tormenting her with board game after board game.  Thanks so much to DoDa for helping us out on the first week of our new family!  :)

More Ryker

 Minutes after birth.

 Getting weighed.

 Proud pappa.

 Peek a boo.

 First meetings.  Brothers!!!

 Tia Maria.

 Scoreboard shot.

 Updated Nakahodo family photo.

Introducing the new and improved Team Nakahodo!  :)

Ryker is here!

Neil and I are proud to introduce our second son, Ryker Kaito! His middle name is a traditional Japanese name that means "ocean." He was born at 7:13 p.m. on Saturday, August 25. He was 6 pounds, 7.6 ounces and 18 inches long.

My water broke at 5:30 a.m. and Neil and I were shocked!  I was two weeks early and even earlier when you figure I had to be induced two weeks late with Niko.  We had our bags prepacked, but we really weren't prepared for this.  To make things a bit more complex, now we had to wake up the soon-to-be big brother and get him in the car too!

We got to the hospital around 6:30 a.m. and so our day began.  I was still only dilated to 1 cm and I walked the halls like you see on TV.  After 4 hours of walking with little results, I was again put on pitocin.  Ugh.  After 4 hours of 'active' (pitocin) labor I was in a lot of pain and broke down and had another epidural at 5 p.m.  This time was not as easy as the first time and I had to have two people try to put the epidural in and got poked several times... not fun.  I was in much better shape by 5:30 p.m. and within an hour went from 5 cm to full dilation.  Woot!  Go epidural!

The doctor arrived around 7 p.m. and after I was prepped, little man was delivered after a push and a half!  It was CRAZY!!!!  We had a much different experience for Ryker's birth than Niko's birth. It really is easier the second time around like they said!

We were thinking of naming him Kaito as his first name and calling him Kai, but he looks a bit more like my side of the family than Niko so we wound up naming him Ryker Kaito instead.  :)