Caleb's Blessing Day

Last Sunday we blessed Caleb. It was beautiful, and I was so happy to have JoDee's family there with us.

The snazzy blessing outfit.

It came with a hat, but we decided to leave it at home.

Isn't he a doll?

My family.

It kills me how old my two boys are getting!

Tom and I with our baby boy.

Trouble!
These three loved being together over the weekend. It was a lot of fun for them to play and they were all best of friends, as you can tell.

My boys and lovely nieces, in order: Baylee, Madalyn, Collin, Caleb, Andersyn and Talin.

I can't tell you how much I miss these girls! It was so nice to not be outnumbered for once!

I'm trying to convince Andersyn to save up her money and come for a visit this summer and have some one on one time. I was so incredulous at how grown up she is!

We were trying very hard to keep these guys out of the grass in their Sunday clothes, they loved to be outside playing.

Madalyn & Caleb.

Andersyn & Caleb.

Again!

This child is attracted to poison oak, or the other way around.

If you recall, last year we had a run in with poison oak all over his face, and now he has found it again.

I don't know what to say...

Nauvoo Picture Overload

This is where Caleb spent the entire trip, Tom and I took turns carrying him.
The beautiful Nauvoo Temple.

This is a statue of Joseph and Hyrum right in front of the temple. It's gorgeous, and I love this picture that Tom has taken.

Me and my boys in front of the temple, you can see the Mississippi in the background.

Talin and Collin.

There were a ton of little shops we stopped in and looked through.

Me and Caleb. The boys were busy making rope. We learned how to do that, how the pioneers made bread and lots of other things. The boys loved it.

Are these not the cutest pioneer boys ever?

They got to dress up in Pioneer clothes and do the things the pioneer children did.

There were games and tools they used back then that the boys had a great time doing.

Talin hauling water!

I had to help Collin out on the stilts.

(And yes, that's Caleb on me as well, so tiny!)

Tom helping out Talin.

Here are the boys in a little school room they had.

Collin, Tom and Talin at dinner.

This is at the Women's Center, they have a ton of statues dedicated to woman and it's absolutely beautiful. I kept saying to Tom that I wanted to spend some time in the Women's Center. And my boys not knowing what that was kept whining, "I don't want to go to the women's place!"

It was pretty funny, I think they were okay once we got there.

Here is a statue of two people courting, and I thought it was so funny in a creepy kind of way that Collin was appearing in between them.

The Family.

It was so cold when we were there, and it rained a lot. Tom forgot his jacket so he was super lucky to be able to buy a Nauvoo sweatshirt. They did have a sweatshirt that said "I Love Mormon Boys", I really had to hold back Tom from getting that one. Ha ha!

Our last day it was pouring rain, but Tom had been wanting to go on the ox ride the whole time we were there. So we dragged the boys out of the car and did the ride in the rain.

Nauvoo was a lot of fun, it was great to take the boys and teach them about the pioneers, and it did a lot to raise my own appreciation of them and what they've done for the church. They truly were amazing, courageous and faithful people.

Catch up

I have a significant amount of blogging to catch up on. We had the Nauvoo trip, JoDee's visit, Caleb's blessing day, but I have not had time to sit down and blog about it because of this sweet boy.

He started coughing Friday night, took him into the doctor on Monday and big surprise, he has not been gaining weight very well. He's only 8 pounds 15 ounces and off the charts.

So I was asked to use the breast pump, put the milk in the bottle and feed him that way so we could measure the amount he's getting. Well, he refuses to take the bottle and just ends up screaming hysterically. So he doesn't eat. Long story short, my milk hasn't come in for over a day now and my child won't bottle feed, so I have a fun new toy where I hook up tubes to my breast that drip the milk in while Caleb is latched on. Lovely. When I get some spare time I'll blog about all the fun stuff.

Our Crazy Night

So I read the weather warnings on-line of severe thunderstorms, possible tornadoes and wild winds. But they always say those kinds of things... and well, it never turns out this bad!

This is the result of Sunday nights storm. These are branches from a tree in our yard and below you can see the monstrous tree that fell down into our neighbors driveway and into the street.
We are lucky it didn't fall the other way into the house. When this huge tree did fall the entire house shook and I seriously thought it was going to fall apart, the wind was so bad. That's when we gathered the boys up out of bed and headed down into the basement for a "fun campout".

The storm took out our power lines, so we had no power from 10:00 Sunday night until this morning.

This storm seriously freaked me out. I'm exceptionally grateful we did not have any tornadoes come through Des Moines, I know many people in Iowa are suffering from the aftermath of the tornadoes that tore through the state.

Many were saying the winds got up to 80 mph. I don't know how accurate that is, but it must be pretty close to take down these huge trees.

You can see above the man working to get the branches off the wires. We had people working throughout the night last night to get our power fixed. I fell asleep after eleven and could still see their lights outside and hear them fixing things.

Our neighbor was exceptionally lucky his car did not get smashed. Talking to him the morning after the storm he said he went out to get something out of his car and as he was walking away, that's when the tree fell. Freaky!

But everyone is safe and we're glad for that! We did go to Nauvoo over the weekend, those pictures to come soon!

Sweet Little Boy

Sweet Little Boy + Stick =
Pain.

My Big Boys

The other day Collin informed me that my belly is just a little bit fat now. I'm strong, I brushed it off and had another cookie. How could I be angry with this face and an observation filled with such honesty. My two boys have been interesting as of late, maybe it's the lack of attention they've been receiving since Caleb has been born, I'm not sure, but it worries me. I know I'm a divided woman now and it's hard to give everyone the time they need, we're working on it.
But I find it hard not to lose my temper with them at times. For instance, the first day Caleb got his hearing aide in we were in the car picking up Talin, and Collin was in the backseat with Caleb as usual when I hear the buzzing of his hearing aide. Collin had managed to take it out and completely apart. What???
Then a day later Talin casually pulled the hearing aide out of Caleb's ear and tells me, "I don't think he needs to hear right now." And once again, what???
Maybe it's jealousy...we're working on it.

But they are super cute and will always be my source of amusement through this difficult time. I do wish I would have sent the camera with Tom for father and sons campout. They had a great time. I heard they were walking around at night and decided to follow a trail leading into the forest. The boys were freaking out, especially Collin when he all of a sudden turned around and started running downhill with his arms sticking straight up and screaming. Must have been hilarious. Tom says he looked like E.T. with his arms straight up in the air running. Who throws their arms in the air to run from impending danger anyway? Talin sat by while Tom told the story laughing and informing us over and over again that he wasn't scared, he just pretended to be scared. Ha! Wish I could have been there.

Baby Update

Caleb went to the pediatrician on Thursday and the cardiologist on Friday.

The great news?

He's looking super fabulous. His weight gain is great, and the doctor's keep asking me what I'm doing differently and if I've been supplementing. Nope, I've got super powerful breastmilk I guess, at least I can do something well! Anyway, here are the boy's stats for his two month check-up:



Weight: 8 pounds 12 ounces - 10%

Height: 20 1/2 inches - under 5%



Yeah, he's still a little squirt, but he's a growing little squirt.

And we have set the date for heart surgery, it will be July 23rd.

I need a hobby...

What do you do when your big boys go off to a father and sons overnighter?

You build the Temple of Doom with Legos of course. My accomplice didn't make it to the end of construction.

Went to the Audiologist Today

Pre-hearing aide baby:

Post-hearing aide baby:

He wears it well.

he can hear!

Looking forward to tomorrow.

Feeling frustrated today with Caleb. He has been fussing and crying continually, not sure what the problem is. I can get him to quiet only when I sing loudly in his left ear. So then that breaks my heart. Does he realize he can't hear and is upset by it? Or is that just me feeling sorry for the situation? I don't know. Tomorrow he gets his hearing aide, we'll see if that improves his mood.

New Post

I seriously don't know where the time goes. Things seem to be happening quite quickly around here. On Wednesday Tom takes his last test for the semester and I'm so excited for that and so is he, as you can imagine. He gets a week and a half off before he starts his clinics. I have so many "projects" I want to work on with him while he's around, we'll see what actually gets done though.

And in a few weeks JoDee's family is going to be coming through and stopping off for a visit. We are super excited for that, I'm thrilled to see my nieces and hang out with them. I'm hoping we'll be able to do something fun, like go to the zoo out in Omaha with them and see Winter Quarters.

For some reason Spring seems to be packed with events and get togethers that seem never ending. It's kind of nice to be kept busy and I did not jinx myself and attended no doctor's appointments this past week, which was a wonderful relief. Although we'll be making it up next week! And the boys are getting so close to being done with their school year, which kind of freaks me out, because they are restless little men and will want to be entertained all summer by me. We'll have to figure something out!

Here are some pictures I've been taking of Caleb the past week. He's so cute and seems to be getting so big. He's becoming more and more of a little person each day and has started cooing at Tom and I, it seriously melts my heart. I don't know what's wrong with me, I've never been such a sucker for a cute face before!
He's so darn cute and I can't wait to see what he weighs next week. He seems huge to me, but then I have to remind myself that he's still wearing newborn clothes, so he hasn't grown that much, but he's definitely grown!

So this is the new thing he does, he sticks out his tongue all the time. I tried to get a good picture of him doing it, but this was the best one. Usually he'll stick it all the way out down his chin, and it's the oddest thing, kind of freaks me out, but it's beyond adorable at the same time.

Here are the big boys. A friend in my ward gave me a suit that her little boy had grown out of, and Talin was so excited to receive it. He's wanted a church suit for a very long time, but we've never been able to afford one, so I was so happy to receive this for him. He was very proud of how he looked on Sunday and spent a lot of time admiring himself in the mirror. And Collin is just happy that I let him pick out his own outfits every week. I was actually surprised he didn't have a problem with Talin wearing a new suit and him not having one. Soon enough it will be his though.
These two boys are so much fun lately, absolute stinkers, but fun. The other day Talin turned to me and says, "Mom, I think Collin is stronger than me and could probably beat me up if he wanted to." I just laughed and agreed in my head, because Collin will no doubt pass up Talin in size before too long.

And Caleb has turned into his father's child in the evenings. I still am not sleeping a ton with this boy throughout the night, so I fall asleep early or just go to bed by nine. While Tom stays up and takes care of his little man. Although Caleb has been a little bit of a nightmare from seven until ten each night, I don't know what's going on with him, but he fusses and doesn't want to eat and just yells at us. Hopefully this is just a stage that will pass.

Okay, Tom does this freaky thing with Caleb and makes him walk like he's a little man, and it seriously freaks me out. I don't know why, but I feel like I can visualize him walking on his own for real and how bizarre that would really be. I have an insane imagination, just go with me on this one.

Wouldn't you be terrified if this little person walked into the living room on his own?