Christmas Video

Thought I would quickly post this video for all the family we are not with this Christmas! We miss you and love you!

Trip to Virginia

We spent last weekend in the DC area visiting with some of Dan's family. We stayed with Dan's Aunt and her whole family and Dan's Dad was there too. It was great to get to know them a little better. I really enjoyed playing Nertz after the kids were in bed. I forgot how much fun that game is. We always get home from trips and realize we didn't take pictures with anyone so we tried to be better this time.

Our Camera

We have had our new camera for over a year now and I can't tell you how many times Dan and I have said, "I am so glad we bought this camera." It is not always convenient to lug it around, but it can take amazing pictures.

I saw a pin on Pinterest about using wrapping paper as a background for portraits and I just had to try it. I moved Parker's crib and pretty much set up our own little portrait studio. Dan, who was supposed to be writing a paper, decided to help out.

Family Pictures

Ethan Wants to Crawl

Our little guy is growing up too fast. He is already showing signs of crawling:

I went outside to get the mail this afternoon and this was waiting for me when I got back.

Where does he come up with this stuff?

Last year after Christmas I bought a Fisher Price Nativity for the boys. Parker was playing with it while I fed Ethan some food. Here is an actual conversation we had.

Parker: "Mom, what are they doing?"
Kari: (turns to look at the above scene) "I don't know. What are they doing?"
Parker: "They animals are watching sheep play on the computer."
Kari: busts up laughing

Ethan is 5 Months

Crazy right?!? It seems like there is no way he could be that old, but it is true. At his 4 month appointment, which I never blogged about and didn't happen until he was almost 4 1/2 months old, Ethan weighed 15 pounds. He is our little chunk. He is loving baby food. He is an amazing sleeper. He is very ticklish. He wants to move around and is getting pretty good at it. He gets up on his hands and toes and then slides backwards. He mastered rolling a while ago and now sleeps on his tummy. He loves his brother. It is so cute to see him light up when Parker gives him some attention. He loves taking a bath and makes a huge mess by splashing water everywhere. He loves books. He has the cutest little cheeks. He has a lot of hair but it is pretty light so it doesn't look like much. Here are some random pictures that I took of him tonight.

Parker is 3

Parker turned 3 last month. We had a little party with us and some friends that live in our complex. But Parker was so excited about the fire truck and tractors he got that he didn't eat any cake. So the next day I asked him if he wanted any and he got all sad because he wanted it on his birthday. So we had his birthday again the next day. Silly kid.

We are so grateful to have him in our lives. He is so curious and smart. He asks a hundred questions a day (at least) and even though I get annoyed sometimes I do like it. It means he loves to learn and it is amazing how much he remembers. He is still not potty trained, but is perfectly capable of doing it. He told me the other day, "I love going poo poo in my diaper." Potty training attempt #2 is coming soon. He still sleeps in his crib which we love. We love that he is trapped at night and we still get him to take naps because of it. :) He goes through phases, some quicker than others, of what he loves. Right now he is on fire trucks and Cars 2. He loves his little brother. He tries to cuddle with him and loves "helping" him roll around. He says that everyone is his best friend. He went to sharing time in primary for the first time last week. I guess he told them he didn't want to be there and wanted to go find his Dad. When Parker gets upset with us for telling him no he says, "I want someone to save me. I am scared of you." I wonder what the neighbors think?! We sure do love the little guy. I am excited to see what new adventures there are in store for us.

Halloween

Ok so I am a little late on the Halloween post. I can't remember the last time I dressed up for Halloween. My problem with Halloween isn't the dressing up part, it is the spending lots of money to dress up that I don't like. I am not creative enough to make a costume out of stuff I already have. But now that Parker is getting older and understands stuff more I feel pretty lame. Basically, I am trying to say that next year I might make a better effort at dressing up. :)

This year Parker decided he wanted to be Buzz Lightyear. Considering his weird obsession with what he wears and the tantrums that are caused by it I was reluctant to by a Buzz Lightyear costume. And then there is the fact that it costs like $20 to buy a costume that I would secretly be hoping he would only wear the one time instead of all day every day. Compromise. We bought him some pajamas that look like Buzz Lightyear. He will look like Buzz Lightyear for Halloween and he can wear them every night if he wants to. About 10 minutes before we were supposed to leave for the Ward Trunk-or-Treat I felt bad that he didn't have a full costume. He didn't care, but I did. So I made him some wings. He had fun. He got lots of candy that Dan and I ate. Oh yeah, Ethan wore Parker's old bear suit. He was so cute. Here are some pictures:

Carving a Pumpkin with Daddy




Lighting our jack-o-lantern.


Passing out candy...see the sleeping bear behind me.


Our little bear.


Buzz.

June in November

Our blog is the only form of family history that happens in this house. It has been bugging me that I never blogged about Ethan's birth story so here it is....5 months later. Better late than never right?!? Be warned it is not the best writing. I just wanted to get the details down quick.

I was pretty nervous about having a vbac, but my doctors were very supportive so that was the plan. I did not want to go through labor just to find out I needed a c-section like I did with Parker. Earlier in the pregnancy one of my doctors had talked to me a lot about eating healthy. He said that it was the only thing I had control over and that maybe this baby would be smaller and the delivery would go better. I am happy to report I gained 10 less pounds with Ethan. I was hoping between the decreased weight gain and (fingers crossed) him coming early the VBAC would go fine.

On June 29th, I was 38 weeks and 6 days pregnant. I went in for my 39 week appointment and at that point I had only random single contractions. Nothing too exciting. I asked the doctor about the possibility of having my membranes stripped. And he said we could. I don't remember giving him the ok. He did the physical exam and let me know that I was dilated to 4cm. Then came the pain. Maybe I am a wuss, but membrane stripping was as awful as it sounds for me. However, once he finished the pain was over. Whew! An amazing neighbor was watching Parker for me. We had lunch together when I picked up Parker. She was convinced that I was going to go into labor at anytime so she kicked into mother mode and took over. It was awesome. Low and behold she was right! A couple of hours later (around 2pm) she was driving me to the hospital. Dan left class and met me there.

The contractions picked up pretty quick. Before they got me all setup I was having contractions every 1-2 minutes. I wanted my epidural, but of course the doctor was busy. I eventually got an epidural and it initially felt better than the one I had with Parker. I love epidurals! With the epidural in they broke my water. I was pretty sad when I started feeling the pain on my left side again. The same thing happened when I had Parker. More drugs please! The nurse thought that maybe I was progressing too fast so the epidural didn't take well so she checked me and I was complete. This was around 6pm. The doctor from my office had just left to go home so we got an on-call doctor from another office. We pushed for a long time and it was not looking so good. Ethan was doing fine, but he wasn't moving down much. My belly looked really funny when I was pushing. It looked like he was sticking his butt straight up in the air. Poor thing was stuck. The epidural wore off on the left side again. It hurt so bad! I was ready to give up. He wasn't moving down and I was in a lot of pain. After they fixed the epidural I got to take a "nap" for about an hour and then push some more. He still wasn't coming out. The doctor came in and noticed that my contractions were weakening so they weren't helping him out enough. They put me on some pitocin. She also suggested we try a vacuum. I was so tired and wanted to be done. I asked her if she thought it would work or is she just wanted to try. She said that she knew she could get him out. And she did, but it still took a lot of work! He was born a few minutes before 11pm. He was a lot bigger than any of us thought he would be. He weighed 8 pounds and 11 ounces. He had some problems breathing at first so we didn't really get to be with him for about 4 hours. I wish I could say I had gotten a good nap in that time, but it was hard to sleep.

The delivery was not a fun one. Talking to my doctor afterwards she adviced me to have a c-section with the next one. Even without her advice that is the plan.

State Fair Fun

Dan has fond distant memories of riding a dragon roller coaster at Lagoon when he has a young chap. So, despite being an inch too short we had to get Parker on the dragon roller coaster at the State Fair. He was pretty excited...see first picture. However, once the ride started his demeanor rapidly changed. He would not look up and whimpered throughout the ride...see second picture. They stopped the ride early and we took him off. He was a little traumatized...see third picture. But, he quickly got over that with a little ice cream, a swing ride with mommy and his favorite boat ride! Good times at the State Fair. Unfortunately we were only there for about 45 minutes. We forgot a bottle only to find a random stand that had bottles for sell. We thought it was manna from heaven, but little Ethan would not take the formula so we had to rush on home.

Camping - East coast style

I took Parker on his first real camping trip. I really am a western boy, but I will concede that Fall in the East probably trumps Fall out West. We couldn't pass up the chance to get out there with the leaves changing and the air nice and crisp.

There was about a one mile hike into our campsite, including a ford of a mighty river. Parker was a trooper, largely spurred on by the promise of a lollipop once we set up the tent. We had the whole campground to our own (thank you third year that lets me go any day of the week!) and the whole setting was really impressive...on a forested hill looking over the river. There was a nice carpet of fallen leaves. All Parker wanted to do was go play/sleep in the tent once we got it set up, but I was able to convince him to roast some marshmallows over the fire and explore. However, despite his insistence that all he wanted to do was sleep, once we got in the tent all he wanted to do was play. He put on quite the show with the light sticks and we had a late night game of hide (the light sticks) and go seek in the woods. Once we did get to sleep, Parker proceeded to steel my feeble pillow and push me off my pad...he is grumpy at night. In the morning Parker sat on the edge of the river throwing rocks into the water while I took some pictures.

Overall, it was super nice and refreshing being out in nature, and extra special sharing the experience with Parker. Much more camping to come in the future, next time with the whole gang!