Benjamin Allen Ketcher

Baby Benjamin arrived by c-section on Friday, November 11th. He shares his birthday with his Grandpa Allen and his Papa Ketcher--so cool. He's healthy and strong. The doc had ordered an ultrasound on his kidneys because they looked large before he was born, but everything was just fine! Hooray! He weighed in at 8 lb. 7 oz. and was 20 and 1/2" long. Big little guy for being just over a week early! He is super cute, and I see a lot of Evan in him. He eats like a champ but is always hungry. Last night he also slept like a champ! (I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high about that just yet.)



Our doctor had been worried about placenta accreta since about 18 weeks. That meant I would absolutely have to have a c-section (which we expected because it seems no docs in OK will do VBACs anymore) with the chance that this could be our last child if the surgery didn't go well. Through lots of fasting and prayer, everything went great with delivery--no surgery required past the typical c-section!

However, in recovery I started feeling a lot of pain. When they tried to get me up to walk around, I almost passed out. Several hours later I started having difficulty breathing. Because of our family's history with blood clots they ordered a CT scan, and there found that I was bleeding internally. So, lucky me, I got to have a blood transfusion. Once that took place I was better able to recover, and they ended up letting us out of the hospital the following Tuesday.

Evan has been such a fantastic big brother to Ben. He's always walking up to him and saying, "Awww, hi Baby Ben!" and rubbing his head or giving him a snuggle. He loves to hold Ben as well. He's eating up all the attention from his Grandpa and Grandma Allen, who are here helping out (thank heavens!) and who have been absolutely fantastic. We look forward to Papa and Nana's arrival this week as well.


So all in all we're doing great. We are so happy that Benjamin is in our family!

Halloween Fun/Photo Overload

I know, this post has way too many pictures. We've been trying to fit a lot in before baby comes (this coming Friday--YIKES!) and celebrating Halloween all month is just so easy! So here's what we've been doing. And sorry, the photos are in reverse order.

Evan told us for a month that he wanted to be a fire fighter for Halloween. When we went to pick out the costume, he saw this T-Rex and said, "I want to ride on a DINOSAUR!" So the costume changed to caveman on dinosaur. John likes to call him our Tyranocentaurus Rex.

Trunk or Treat

We went to a pumpkin patch where Evan enjoyed a pony ride, petting zoo, tractor hay ride, corn maze and picking out his own pumpkin.



For FHE one night we made these little pipe cleaner spiders. Which were a lot harder to make look like spiders than I thought they would be! Just shows my crafting abilities--or lack of.

Our library had a pumpkin decorating activity that we went to with some friends. This was the final product.

Another FHE activity--build your own Haunted House.

We also did a little pumpkin and ghost decorating. I gave E choices on shapes for the eyes, noses and mouths, and he just decided to use them all. Waste not!



That about wraps up our Halloween festivities. We're on candy overload here. Hope your Halloween was happy!