Jonathan Wyatt

My sister and brother in law delivered their second baby boy today, which makes me an aunt again! His name is Jonathan Wyatt and they will call him Wyatt. He was 4 weeks early, but this was a scheduled c-section from the beginning because of complications that can occur if she goes much further than 36 weeks. He is super cute and I wish I could see him in person! I am posting pics of him and Elena as a newborn below so we can all ooooh and aaaaah over their sweet chubby cheeks!

Elena

Wyatt

A Cure for the Runniness!

No, not the nose kind. Though we are dealing with that too a little this week!

The runniness I refer to is that of the Gerber Pears. Anyone else out there wonder WHY in the world are baby food pears Sooooooooooooooo runny?? Seriously, they manage to make every other fruit a texture that you can at least get a heap on a spoon and into a little mouth, but the pears are in a league of their own! And this isn't a new problem! The pears were runny 4 years ago when Elias was on baby food too!

All that to explain the little experiement Elena and I had this morning. Guess what folks? It is easier and MUCH LESS MESSY to slurp your pears through a straw! It is like her very own "my first smoothie"! Aren't we hip?

Added plus- as you can see from the pictures, slurping sludge is MUCH fun for a 13 month old!

Wrapped

You know what they say about little girls and Daddies, right? About being wrapped around her little finger?

Elena: "Daddy, can I have the keys to my very own brand new Mustang?"

Daddy: "Ok, sweetie"

Nobody panic- it's only a joke. We did not, I repeat- did NOT- buy a red mustang! :)

School Daze

Wow- What a week! Elias started school on Monday. He is going to a class called "4's Plus" for the kids who will turn 5 between August and November this year and just missed the cutoff for kindergarten. It is 4 days a week, 3 hours a day.

We all went together for the first day of school because it was a half day (isn't a 3 hour class already a half day?!), so the kids only stayed for an hour and a half. We took pictures and tried to capture the memories we will forever have of his very first day. Elias went to class more then willingly and was happy to tell me all the details of his day when I picked him up (which, by the way, is very cool because you just get in the line of minivans and the teacher brings your child right to the car!).

Over the week he has told me about lots of things:

1. His new friends include Luke, Jack (who is his new best friend, he says), McKenna, Abby, Elizabeth, Colson, Ryan, Riley, Emily, Connor, Morgan, Alexis, and Kyle

2. The following was brought for show & tell this week (each kid gets a day and can bring 3 things): a doll, a vase, a stuffed bunny, a stuffed dog, a Jeff Gordon car, a James train that Elias' cousin Jacob also has.

3. Elias gets to bring show & tell this Monday. He has chosen Mr. Pig, his Leap Pad, and a toy Hummer.

4. He got to listen to a story on headphones one day.

5. He got to play in the sand table with Jack one day.

6. He learned Matthew 28:20 "I will be with you always".

7. He practiced writing letter "C" each day.

8. He worked on a workbook each day.

9. He built a house on Thursday. (not sure what that is about!)

Anyway, it is neat that he is so verbal about what he has done each day. The teacher has a list of what activities are planned, but it is nice to hear the excitement in Elias as he tells me what he has been doing! He even sang me his new "circle time" song after the second day of class- I will post a video soon...

Is It A Toy Store?

Elias has never been to Chuck-E-Cheese. So when we recently went there for a family night, he had a lot of questions. When we pulled in the parking lot he read the sign and yelled "Yeah! Chuck-E-Cheese!!!" But when I said "What IS Chuck-E-Cheese, Elias?", he replied "A toy store?" We went inside and he soon realized what exactly he was going to get to do. "Pizza AND games!!!!" he exclaimed. We really thought he would have a great time and Elena would be along for the ride, but, as you can clearly see from the pictures, she had herself quite a good time as well! I think the horse was her favorite thing in the whole place. She does have cowboy and cowgirl genes afterall!

Sleep Baby Sleep

Last night was Elena's sleep study at the children's hospital downtown. One word: AWFUL!!! I tried to have a really positive attitude going in with her- telling her excitedly how she as going to get to "sleep in a different baby bed tonight". When they began hooking her up to everything (already an hour past her normal bedtime), I made it a game of counting the "stickers" and seeing what color would be next. But when they got to putting stuff on her head, she was not a happy girl! They "papoosed" her, which means that they wrapped her in a sheet with her arms at her sides so tight that she could not move. Still, she as able to bring her feet up and kick like a dolphin to let us know what she thought about it. Eventually she had about 10 things stuck to her face and about 10-15 in her hair on her head. All these wires were gathered together at the back of her head and her head was mummy-wrapped all the way around her hair and under her chin. Everything was fairly stable except the nose things. As soon as she was un-papoosed she proceeded to show us all that tape was no match for her. Those nose things were coming out!

I sat with her for about 10 minutes trying to get her to lay still and go to sleep. I sang, I patted, I kissed. All to no avail. So I finally left her room and went to the nurses station where they were watching her on a video screen. She found the box that all the wires were plugged into and began to pull at it, so I had to go back in a lay her down again. I left again and she cried pretty hard, but laid herself down. This was now about 9:30pm. I went to watch TV in the lounge until 11:00pm and came back to check on her.

I asked "How's she doing?" (because I was ready to go into her room and sleep on the bed next to her, but I knew I should not do this until she was really asleep). He said she was mad. She apparantly kept removing her nose things. He would wait until she was in stage 4 sleep and then try to go fix it. She would wake up and freak out because she has no idea where she is or who he is. So he would fix the nose things and leave and she would pull them out again before she would go back to sleep. He said he had been in her room 6 times or so to fix it. Apparantly this is normal, but I was incredibly frustrated because now we were 4 hours past normal bedtime and she was still not asleep! So we waited for stage 4 again and I went in to fix it. He eventually had to come in and help me, but we got it in and taped all the way across her face and she went back to sleep without pulling it out.

So I laid down around 1:00-ish and slept for an hour and then slept again from around 4:00-5:00. Then they said we were done and sent us home.

We got her all unhooked and cleaned off and came home and went to bed! What a night!!!

I really hope they were able to get enough of a normal night out of her that we get some answers as to why her pulse O2 dropped so low on the two previous home sleep studies. And I hope we never have to do that again!!!

Here are pics of her as we got her ready. I wish I had a full-front one with everything taped on. She didn't think it was very funny that I took any at all, so this is all I got...

Paint a Lawn, Get Our Lawn Mowed!

I made a deal with our 11-year-old neighbor at the beginning of the summer: I would paint him a mural in his room and he would mow our lawn all summer. He decided he wanted a football field- the view from a blimp. He wanted the field to be called "Glacier Stadium" (because of a nickname he has) and be set for the Colts and Cowboys to play. Which, for the record, has happened the last 2 years in a row and the COWBOYS have won both! :)

I finished the mural a few nights ago and here it is...

The Answer to the Age Old Question...

we have discovered the answer to the question we have all pondered at one time or another! So, what came first- the chicken or the egg? Well, in Elena's case, the egg.

Most of you know that we found out last February (through testing at the allergist) that Elena is allergic to eggs. The plan is to keep her egg-free indefinitely and hope she outgrows it. Well, I began introducing chicken into her diet a couple of weeks ago and found that she broke out in welts on her bootie each time she ate chicken. Back to the allergist we went (except this time to a much friendlier guy!) and discovered that she is also allergic to chicken now.

Her milk, tomato, and peanut tests were not positive, but were bigger and redder than the rest of her negatives. So we are praying that she not make a habit out of becoming allergic to new foods.

But at least now we know.... the egg came first!

Daddy's Concert

Daddy had a concert at a local outdoor mall a couple of weeks ago. The kids had a blast. They played in the grass, pushed toy Hummers around, played their musical instruments, etc. I am going to try to post a video of the music, but it may not show up for a day or so...

Goose Goose

One of the cooler hazards of Indiana is the geese that come through this time of year. They are Canadian geese- fun to look at, not so much fun to actually be around. They aren't very nice and they poop everywhere. Anyway, Elena was sitting in her high chair a few days ago saying "Guh, Guh, Guh" and insistently pointing out the window. Guh is her word for Dog (or anything else ending in G: Frog, Pig, etc). I kept telling her there was no dog out there, and then I finally realized she was talking about the geese! I let her down and she and Elias proceeded to watch them excitedly out the back door. We actually went out and fed them some bread in the lot behind ours. The kids were thrilled. Adaryll and I were scared.

Seriously, I thought I was Smarter Than This...

Ok, I have been trying to install a new printer on our computer for around 4 hours now- is something wrong here??? I followed all the instructions to the tee, and it did not work right. My computer saw no new printer, but thought the old one was somewhere in outer space and was concerned enough to keep telling me that "the connection to your HP printer (old printer) has been lost". UGH! I decided to uninstall the old printer and the new one and start over. Still no new printer. I spent an hour on the phone with the support guy (who had a heavy accent- I seem to always get the guys with the heavy accents- I am coming to think the most brilliant people must have heavy accents, thus why I am not a brilliant person when it comes to these things, right?). So after an hour he decides to transfer me to a Level Two person. And, while on hold for this guy, my cordless phone dies. To quote the main character in the books I am reading- "Is there no balm in Gilead?!?!". So I try to call back and then it is after 6:00 in CA and they are no longer answering phones. I then think "maybe it is just the USB cord" and proceed to uninstall and reinstall it all once again using a different cord AND (did I say I wasn't brilliant???) also a different USB port. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. And I am about mad enough now to just throw the whole thing across the room!!! UGH! Could it be that God is trying to teach me a lesson in humility? Or patience? Or maybe it is just proof of what our dear friend Tommy Nelson jokingly says- that computers are of the devil.
So, please, nobody email me anything I might want to print...