Take Me Out...

Dallen has a talent. It's quite a talent. He has a mean vibrato. :) He loves to sing Take Me Out to the Ball Game and it is adorable, but the best part is the way he finishes it off. My dad managed to catch him on video. The quality is not good and it is sideways but what matters is that you can hear the talent. :)

 A couple of funny Dallen sayings lately:

"When 2 was done being the age I was, I had a birthday and turned 3."

He and Jack were sitting on the floor playing. Jack was holding a toy squirrel and said "you stupid squirrel" to which Dallen immediately responded "I am not a squirrel Jack." Just funny to me that he automatically assumed that if Jack was saying something mean he was referring to him. And that it wasn't the "stupid" part that bothered him, but the squirrel.

Mr. Jack

Now it's time for a post about Jack-the post that I would have written back on his birthday if I hadn't been in the middle of a million and fifty other things.

First of all, Jack is finally toothless! I love toothless kids. In this case though, his teeth never got loose. I had to take him to the dentist to get them pulled because the ones behind were growing in. I hope that doesn't happen with all his teeth. But you can't beat a toothless smile: (or almost toothless since those adult ones are already growing in)

(And by the way-that's fudgesicle around his mouth. That's what summers all about right?)

On Jack's birthday we had only lived here for less than 48 hours and we also baptized Nathan that day. I was worried because I didn't want Nathan's birthday to overshadow Jack's birthday but Jack was unconcerned and still had a great day. After the baptism we went to a park nearby and had a party with both sets of great grandparents, both sets of grandparents and all sorts of uncles and one of the Aunt Natalies and cousin Daniel. Jack was a happy camper.

I love this kid so much. Jack was such a challenge from the age of 1 until he turned 5. Then something happened and all of a sudden he was much more agreeable. Still strong willed and knows what he wants, but willing to express it or deal with it in a more reasonable way.

Jack's obsession right now (and when I say obsession with Jack-I do mean obsession) is Legos. I love it because it is the first toy or activity that has been able to fully capture Jack's attention. He has never been one to play by himself contentedly-until now. And he is a master at coming up with cool creations (and leaving them all over the house and underfoot). :)

Jack is passionate-when he loves something he loves it. When he hates something he hates it.

Jack is tender. He is my most sensitive and emotional child. He is in love with baby Adam and wants to hold him and snuggle him all the time. Leaving San Diego was hard on him-we had a lot of crying and night terrors. Happily he has totally adjusted to Utah and loves it here.

Jack did wonderfully in Kindergarten this year. He is very smart, good at math and reading and made some wonderful friends. Honestly, if I could have hand picked his friends I would have picked the same ones he did. Great choices. He is quiet in class-I hope he gets a teacher this year who will draw him out a little more-but always follows instructions and is a good friend to others. Every time I was in his classroom helping I was proud to see how good he was in class.

What more can I say? Jack is a wonderful kid who I love!

My New Mantra

Lately when we ask Dallen to do something like pick up his toys before bedtime his response has been "I'm just tired of doing everything."

Me too Dallen. Me too. You have no idea how tired mommy is of doing EVERYthing. :)

Nathan's Big Days

It's well over a month past birthdays/baptism and I haven't written about them yet, but what can I say...life's been crazy.

We pulled into town (as in, moved into Utah) on Nathan's 8th birthday-he was a trooper about traveling on his birthday. We let him open presents every so often while we drove and then that night we went out to dinner with the WHOLE family at the Brick Oven-his favorite restaurant. He said it was a good birthday-I hope it was. At least he got to have a cool party in San Diego before we left.

Two days later he was baptized. It was really neat because we had so much family there. And since we knew no one in the ward yet, it was only family other than the Bishopric representative, the Ward Mission Leader and the Primary representative.

It was really neat to have so much family:

Great Grandma and Grandpa:

 

Great Granny and Gramps:

Grandma and Grandpa:

3 of The Uncles: (Tim, Scott and Jason)

Grammy and Grandpa:

Aunt Natalie and Uncle Alex and Cousin Daniel

With a very proud mommy and daddy

And, the whole family:

Also,  Aunt Dina and Uncle Bruce (Josh's aunt and uncle) were there too but we didn't get a picture.

I wish Josh's face wasn't so dark in this picture. My photo editing software is on the other computer...

It was really special. Nathan's two Grandpas gave the talks. Grandpa A talked about Baptism and it was really cute, because Nathan kept putting his input in all through the talk. Also, he made mom and dad look good with his knowledge of the covenants he was making. Way to go Nathan!! Grandpa P talked about the gift of the Holy Ghost. He was baptized and confirmed with all of these men participating. When Nathan came up out of the water Jack just about jumped out of his chair with excitement which was neat. He said he was really feeling the spirit. 

About Nathan on his 8th birthday:

Nathan is a special guy. He has a heart of gold and wants nothing more than to be a good boy. He works hard at everything he does. He excels in school-he is a very good reader and writer. He is also very creative. He is a boy who is friendly with everyone. All of his classmates, girls and boys, seem to enjoy him. He also is willing to play with kids of all ages, which younger kids always love. He enjoys music a lot and is very talented at the piano. He also loves to draw. And he still talks a lot. Oh, and he sort of lives in another world some of the time. :) We love our Snood.

Adam's First Pictures

I feel bad that I haven't posted more than 1-2 pictures of Adam so far. I guess I have some valid excuses, like that he was in the NICU for 13 days and that we are sort of in mayhem in our lives what with moving and having a preemie and whatnot, but still-post some pictures already Amber! Poor 4th kid doesn't want to be neglected.

Adam is a doll. He is so good natured and easy going. I have had all easy babies (or maybe I just have the magic touch right?) but he is the most good natured of all so far. He cries only when he is hungry or getting his diaper changed or having a bath. I can lay him down on the floor and he will look around contentedly for a while and then fall asleep. He is just so sweet.

I admit to holding him and spoiling him a ton since he came home. My mom thinks I will teach him bad habits. I say I don't care. He hardly got held for the first 2 weeks of his life and I am making up for it now big time. (Another reason why I haven't posted pics I guess. It's hard when your arms are full of baby.)

He is up to just over 6 pounds now and something like 20 inches long now. 


Anyway, I truly love this baby and it's a good things since getting him here was quite the ordeal (especially when you count the ectopic back in 2010). So, without further ado, I few pictures of my darling:

He's a deep thinker I guess:

I had to post this picture: this beautiful quilt arrived in the mail from an AMAZING friend Sara. Seriously what kind of friend makes you something like this? A really good one. Adam loves it.Thank you Sara.

And, the first bath. Not a happy camper.

Home for the 4th

And celebrating in style:

Preview

Somebody special is coming to live with me tomorrow. Here is a preview of the room he is coming to live in:

This is the first time I have done very much in the way of a nursery. I love how it turned out. I think I still need to add a few things on the wall and of course on the little shelf there by the turtle. I plan to frame a picture of him or his birth announcement for that spot.

Tomorrow is a big day!

Update on Adam (and me)

Adam is 10 days old now, would have been full term today and is still a dream. I love him, have I mentioned that?

I thought it might be time for an update on how things are going.

Adam is still at the hospital in the special care nursery. I was discharged last Saturday. Since then I have been going to the hospital 4 times a day to feed him. The other 4 feeds he gets through a feeding tube in his nose.

At first I was told I had to do every other feed by mouth, the opposite feed by the feeding tube. This meant going to the hospital at 10:30 p.m. and then waking up to pump around 2 and then going back to the hospital at 4:30 a.m. followed by a 10:30 a.m. and then again at 4:30. We did that for a few days and may I say, that was exhausting, especially for someone trying to recover from a c-section. Now we go just during the day, instead of the middle of the night, 4 times.

So, when we go for a feed, I nurse him as much as I can get him to do. Then he tries a bottle (that is new in the past few days) and then anything else (he always has a set amount he is supposed to eat-right now he is up to 47 grams) he gets through his feeding tube. 

Adam has to eat at least 75% of his feed by mouth in order to get his feeding tube removed and move to entirely by mouth feeds. Yesterday he hit the 75% mark for the first time. Today he has done 100% of all mouth feeds on his own! The entire thing, no feeding tube at all. Tonight he did his entire feed just nursing, no bottle. This kiddo is clearly getting strong enough for this.

The neonatologist gave the go ahead today to move to all mouth feeds. This means he gets to try eating every time, if he won't do it, he gets it through the tube. I am frustrated because I let the nurse do one feed today (one of the ones I don't usually come for) and he only did 19 grams. I think if I had been there I could have gotten him to do much more.

Anyway, I suspect he will be home soon. Very soon. And I can't wait. I am going to rock him and snuggle him endlessly. He is so tiny and so sweet. I can't get a good picture in the nursery but I promise many pictures once he is home.

In the meantime, my incision has been causing some issues. Because of my low platelets I bled way too much and had lots of old blood under the incision. The Dr. has been threatening to reopen my incision and clean it out. UGH! I was really praying to not have that happen.

Wednesday night my incision started to bleed. Conveniently I was on my way to the hospital for a feed at that time so I just went down to labor and delivery. They called the Dr. who said to patch me up the best they could and have me come into his office the next day.

The next morning I REALLY started to bleed, but we started to notice it was old looking blood. Long story short, when I got to the Dr.'s office it turns out that my incision had not opened but was oozing (sorry, that's pretty gross) out the old blood underneath it. It was actually exactly what I wanted to have happen in the way I least expected it. Love it!

So, all is well here. Hopefully we will have a sweet little baby in our midst soon. I am hoping so much that he will be home by the 4th of July, but at least by Tuesday or Wednesday I think. Yay!