Ross Jacob McDowell is here!

So, I'm a bit delayed in getting this updated but we are very excited to announce the arrival of the newest McDowell boy... Ross Jacob McDowell. He was born Sat, Oct 24th at 6:02 pm weighing in at 8 lbs, 2.3 oz and is 19.5 inches long. Sticking with family tradition he has a full head of dark hair, although maybe not quite as dark as Reid or Ryan's was.

We came home on Monday afternoon and we've not done a whole lot this week but we have ventured out for a few outings (doctor appts, Wal-Mart trip, running shoe trip).

Ross left the hospital weighing 7 lbs, 11 oz. We went back Tuesday for a weight check and he was down to 7 lbs, 6.4 oz. Yesterday we were at the dr office for H1N1 vaccines for Russ, Reid and Ryan and I weighed Ross. He was up to 7 lbs, 9 oz. The dr had said he hoped to see an ounce a day gain until he was back at his birth weight so I think we're on the right track. We're currently setting a timer and waking him every 2 - 2.5 hours during the day and every 3 hours during the night. He's getting this eating thing down too! We go to the dr at 1:00 today for his first official check-up. We'll hopefully get some conclusions on his kidney, a good report on his weight and bilirubin levels, etc. Hopefully we'll be back at birth weight soon and we can let him command his eating and sleeping schedules - it is just never fun or a good idea to wake a sleeping baby, right?

Here are some pictures from his first two days...

Dr Peck (he has delivered all three of our boys)

Nurse Gloria - by far the best nurse ever!

Practice makes perfect...

Lots of new around here so this post is mostly for practice... New camera, new software, etc. I'm trying to make sure we've got our new camera set up to download pics and also practicing taking pics with it. My first effort at pictures was Reid's FIRST real hockey game today... unfortunately, I have no good pictures to share - I'll keep practicing. Still pictures take just fine - as you'll see by a couple of them attached... but the hockey ones will take me a bit.

This may be the only picture of me we share for a while but Russ took this still of me while I was cleaning out our "old" camera. 37 weeks officially (and measuring 38) ... we're full term now and as you can see - certainly ready! :)

Here is Reid in his locker room before the game - all suited up and ready to go!

Reid during game - I'm pretty sure this was a break away... or maybe not ;)

Another of Reid during the game - they played the Line Creek team from North Kansas City. They had one really good kid and I'm sure beat us pretty bad but we don't keep score at this age.

Big Hockey Fans!

The local Russell Stovers hockey team played in town this weekend. As most of you know, we are housing for the team again this year. We've had many housing kids throught the last couple of years (some for a few nights, some a few weeks, and some for a year). I think we're up to about 10 or 11 that have stayed here at some point in time.

Ross Kovaks has been living with us since sometime in August. The boys just love him! The first couple of weeks with a new housing "kid" is always the most difficult. The boys get totally hyper and we spend a lot of time trying to make sure they aren't too annoying. For the player it's always a time of adjustment - getting used to us, our house, rules, etc. For most of the boys that have stayed with us, this is their first time away from home for any length of time as well.

We're now getting to that point in time with Ross where he is just one of the family. The boys are excited when he comes home at night from practice but they no longer feel like they have to be on top of him 24/7. Ross knows what the boys are and are not allowed to do so he's become a help to us too. It's always nice having an extra set of hands around dinner time or around the house that knows they have to eat what's on their plates first before they can have more chips, etc.

So, anyway, back to the point of the post.... The team played four games in town last weekend and we were able to take the boys over to watch a couple of them. We had some shirts made for the boys to wear that were quite a hit. Reid "designed" his himself. The back has Ross # (24) on it and says Go Ross above the number. On the front he wanted it to say "Russell Stovers Fan" so that's what we did. Ryan's says Kovacs' Fan on the front and has 24 on the back. We put Ryan's on for the 8:00 game Saturday night and he wore it through the game, through the night and all day on Sunday. We finally MADE him change and bathe Sunday night!

I wish I would have got a picture of Ross with the boys but we never got it done - we'll have to do that next time they play in town. Here are some pics of the boys showing off their shirts with dad.

THIS Month

So, we don't know what day but we do know that our baby boy will be here THIS month... I've NEVER been so excited for October to roll around :) Baby Ross' room is ready (pictures below). We've got a few things to finalize - hospital paperwork, pack bags for the hospital, and a few minor purchases to make. The hardest part this time is not knowing when he's coming because we have a lot of other issues to plan around this time - the boys' activities, school, etc.

Tomorrow we go for our final appointment with our specialist for one last look at the baby's kidneys and for measurements to determine his size - I'll update with what we find out at the appointment.

** Update - We had our final sonogram with the specialist today and they estimate the baby to be 6 lbs, 2 oz at this time and I was measuring 35 weeks, 6 days (36 weeks tomorrow). Dr Peck has said that he will induce on 10/27 if he has not come on his own by then so 3.5 weeks at most.

Some more of Reid

{Coming Soon - Reid's Kindergarten Picture - it's a GREAT school picture}

Last weekend was Reid's birthday party and it was quite the party! Reid had 5 friends join him at Cici's pizza (of course this was after we learned that Beach Bum's went out of business after I had delivered the FIRST set of invitations for there). We played games and ate pizza. Cici's is a buffet but Russ just got each kid a plate with one slice cheese, one slice pepperoni, and a cheese breadstick - which worked perfectly!

After Cici's we went back to our house and opened presents and did a piñata. This part of the party got a bit hectic because I squeezed things together too tight and it was starting to get dark. Russ and Ross got the projector set up and our neighborhood kids started to show up - roughly 30 of them! We projected Star Wars: the Clone Wars on our house while some kids watched and most kids ran and played. We had a concession stand full of chocolate, candy and juice boxes - the kids were in heaven. Russ and Ross popped 14 bags of popcorn and handed out popcorn sacks during the movie. Many, many comments from kids and parents after the party about it being a huge success. We all had so much fun!

Earlier that day Reid had his second soccer game. He played well in his first soccer game but he was unbelievable in his second game. We lost track of how many goals he actually scored. We know that he had at least 6 as Beth had come to watch and made a comment about him having two hat tricks... but we think he scored at least one or two after that as well. He was on fire! Almost as good as all of his goals were his celebrations moves after each goal. They started with hands in the air and by the last goal he was pumping fists, spinning in circles and basically really celebrating his success :)

Reid has the chance to earn a Kindergarten Superstar each day at school. He has really struggled with listening and earning that star as of lately. Russ and I decided to reward him for being able to get his stars. Our deal this week was if he got four out of five stars he could stay up later on Friday night. If he got five out of five stars we would take him to Toys R Us for a new toy. He got his star on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday... when I walked in to pick him up on Thursday he just broke down in tears. He had not gotten his star :( He was really upset about it but we talked about how he wasn't going to be perfect every day and he still had a good shot at having a really good week by getting his star on Friday... which he did. We're really proud of his week this week. It's a lot of pressure for him but I think he's really understanding what he needs to do to get his star and we're hoping we begin to see more progress in his listening, etc.

One of Reid's good friends, Caden, couldn't make it to his birthday party last weekend. The boys have been asking a lot about having their first sleepover so Caden's parents let him invite Reid over for each of their first sleepovers. Reid had hockey practice and then I got him showered, fed and sent on down the cul-de-sac to Caden's house. He got there around 8:00 and was super excited and hyper. My cell phone rang at 9:30 (which was what time Diane had said she was going to shoot to get them in bed). The caller ID was the Miller home number. Reid kind of whines "Hi Mom." I said "Hey honey, how are you doing?" He said, "well, I just miss you" He decided he wanted to come home. I walked down the street and met him and he talked all the way home. He didn't ask to stay up later, just asked for one more book. I read him another book and tucked him in bed. His good night quote couldn't be any cuter "That sleepover sure was fun, we even got popcorn. And, oh yeah, can I go back in the morning cause we're having pancakes for breakfast." And I think he was out like 5 seconds later. So funny!

Our "country" boys...

This post is long overdue but I had to get it up as I just love so many of these pictures and have so many great memories from this weekend. The weekend of 8/21 - 8/23 we went to visit Russ' parents out on their farm. We spent most of the weekend outside. The weather was gorgeous and we really let the boys do a lot of roaming and playing outside. We only took play clothes and we let them romp around and get dirty all weekend!

Grandpa had some hay bales out in the hay pasture that got rained on and were no good so we rode down and watched dad pick them all up for grandpa so they could be thrown in the ditch. Ryan, dad and grandpa rode the tractor down to the field and mom and Reid rode the 4 wheeler down. Once down there we all hopped on the trailer to ride over to the bales - those are the pictures of the boys sitting on the trailer shooting me with their guns. Had to share the picture of Russ throwing bales on the trailer - hard at work men are so sexy :)

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After the hard work of clearing the hay field we took the boys down to throw rocks into the creek.

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After a few tosses of some big rocks, we ended up wading and practically swimming in the creek. The boys had a ton of fun and we had fun watching them. The weather and lighting was gorgeous so I'm sharing a ton of pictures.

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Our trip ended on Sunday with some good old fashioned target practice and shooting of our guns... (and yes, mom actually shot her first gun and hit the target!) The boys like riding the 4 wheeler down with dad and grandpa to look at the target after each round of practice. I included pictures of the boys in their hearing protection so you all know that their hearing truly is "selective" and not damaged because of their exposure to firearms - lol.

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Oh, yes, and both boys had a lot of fun climbing around the hay bales in the barn and Reid started getting a little adventurous climbing to the top and jumping around on them too.

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Russ had recently bought the boys a book titled "Hello Truman" that talks about Mizzou traditions and places on campus. The book has been a hit with both boys but Ryan especially took a liking to it. We ended our trip by stopping in Columbia to walk around the campus and show the boys the columns, Jesse Hall, Memorial Union, and Faurot field. The boys were especially excited to discover that MU has a McDonald's on campus and are certain that it is where they want to go to school now.