books

We got a book exchange letter from Josh's cousin Holly the other day. It looks like fun! It is like the old fashioned chain letters that I used to hate, but this one is great- it's for kids. You mail it to 6 people and pretty soon, your child is supposed to receive 36 books in the mail. There's nothing better than books, especially for a kid in a family full of teachers! :) I am going to fill all my letters out today and then get a book for the boy on my list while I'm in Rawlins this weekend.

I realized while thinking of who I would send mine on to, however, that probably most of the kids on Josh's side of the family also received this letter from Holly. So please, please, please don't send it on to me again- I only know 6 other people with kids, so I don't want to have to break the chain because I'm not able to send it on again! Pick some other people that would NOT have gotten the letter from Holly and send it to them- every kid deserves books and being read to!!

Holly, thanks for sending it to us! How fun. And Kristen, it's coming to you, so be prepared!! :)

beautiful!

I need to start keeping my camera in my car. I saw the most beautiful sight on my drive home from my concert tonight. The mountains were dark and there was spectacular lightning going on on top of the mountains. The sun was shining in the west though, making the fields at the base of the mountains shine with a brilliant green color. There was a John Deere tractor in one of the fields, shining bright with the sun. And if that wasn't enough, in front of the awesome lightning, the dark mountains, the beautiful grass, and the tractor, a bald eagle went flying past. Talk about a beautiful sight!

screaming

We went to Lingle for Mother's Day weekend. It was HOT- in the 90's each day! Friday night,we woke up to the most eerie screaming I've ever heard, coming from outside. I thought it was in the yard. I ran outside because our dogs were outside, and I thought maybe one of them was very seriously hurt. They both came running up to the deck, so they were fine. The screaming continued. Josh and I thought they were coyotes. Craig and Lennie said the next morning that they thought they were coyotes, too. They said they howl and scream to call dogs out to where they are- I'm glad our dogs didn't go out there! I brought them in the house for the rest of the night- I was scared!! I was talking to a teacher at lunch today and she said that sounds like it might have been mountain lions- they scream like a woman, and that's what I was hearing!

Saturday afternoon, Lennie and I went to see my great aunt Dorothy while Josh and Craig golfed. Brecken cried and cried when he saw her- he's never done that before. He was tired, so I'm thinking that's why he did it. Soon he warmed up to her though and smiled and showed off. Then we went to see Josh's Great Aunt Lucile at her nursing home. She was playing bingo when we got there so lots of people got to admire Brecken. He enjoyed grinning at them all. He got to see a live fish tank, he thought that was pretty fun.

Josh and I got to go visit with Josh's best friend Matt. He just got home from a year and a half in Iraq. We are very glad he made it home safely.

Saturday night we had a BBQ here at the house. Jeff and Beth had come home, and Pee-Wee and Mae, and Joel, Annie and the kids were all there too, so the house was full and noisy! We had a good time though.

Sunday morning we went to church in Jay Em since none of them had ever met Brecken. Then had Lira's for lunch (YUM!) then came home yesterday afternoon. We are lucky- Brecken slept the whole way! He woke up about 5 miles outside of Saratoga. YAY for good naps! We only had to stop once- Josh looked in the rearview mirror while we were driving through the canyon and he saw Birdie walking around in the bed of our truck! We had put their travel kennels in the back, and she somehow got her door open and was walking around. So we had to stop and put her back in. Josh said he put her in and shut the door and she got mad and turned her back to him. Amazing what personalities dogs have. :)

We had quite the thunderstorm last night. It didn't rain but we got some good lightning and thunder. It didn't wake Brecken up, but Birdie (who is deathly afraid of thunder!) whined and tried to hide. I don't think Hogan even stopped snoring.

Hope everyone had a fabulous Mother's Day! I told Brecken that I was pretty sure the law was "no whining from children" on Mother's Day, but he didn't listen. That happens, when church falls right during his morning nap!

ml's

I was looking at one of Brecken's bottles this evening and I just had to stop and go, "WOW". He is now eating about 6.5 ounces at a time sometimes. If you don't want to do the math, that means about 195-200 ml's. It honestly seems like just last week when we were struggling to get him to eat 58 ml's so that we could go home from the hospital. That 58 ml's would be eaten in one hour, if we were lucky. Now the 195 ml's can be eaten in about 15 minutes if he's hungry enough. Then I think about Brecken's first feeding, he ate 10 ml's and most of it was forced. He had tired out after 4 ml's. I am still amazed every single day at how fast he is changing. I love every minute of it but I am sad at the same time, he's not my tiny little baby anymore! He's now getting an attitude. He was mad when I picked him up from the babysitter's today because he was having a graham cracker snack and he wasn't done yet. He will also throw my hand away from him if I try to give him something he wants. However, his smiles outnumber that by far. You should've seen him this afternoon- he smiled at everyone we saw in the grocery store. He's such a wonderful little boy. And you should see him when I pick him up from the babysitter. He grins and drops what he is doing (with the exception of his snack today!) and when I pick him up, he wraps his little arms around my neck and puts his lips all over my cheeks. He'll kiss me forever and ever! I love that. I will NEVER tire of that!!

Enough of the sappy stuff.

We got to see Josh's cousin Kevin today. He was in town for a blood drive at Josh's school. He came right over and picked Brecken up from his stroller and Brecken loved every minute of it. We haven't seen Kevin since Christmas, I don't think!

Well, I better head to bed so I can get a tiny bit of sleep before Brecken decides to be hungry again. My goal tonight, while Josh was at his EMT class, was to get the laundry put away. Didn't happen. As the saying goes, "Why do today what will still be there tomorrow?" ;)

dada, mama

Brecken has started saying words we can understand! Too bad they don't have any meaning to him. :) Sunday is when he sarted babbling "Dada". Everything is Dada now. His little tiny sweet voice is the best! I especially love when he whispers. It's too cute. Even on the way to daycare, he'll sit in his car seat and whisper and babble.

This morning, he finally said Mama! I keep asking him to say it and before, he would just giggle. I don't know what is so funny about Mama! This morning, he said it so plainly and loud that you couldn't miss it. Too bad he was looking at his car seat while saying it! :) He did say it again while eating dinner tonight. He was looking straight at me when he said it, but I'm sure that in his head, it meant, "Yum, sweet potatoes and corn is so good!" :)

swinging

Here is a video of Brecken swinging on his cousin Ryan's swing outside this weekend!

on our own

Well, Brecken and I are all on our own this week. Josh left at 4:30 this morning for the Teton Science School in Jackson for the week with the 8th graders from his school. Hopefully they will have fun and hopfully Friday will get here soon!

all grown up.

My little boy is all grown up. He sat in the shopping cart at the store today instead of in his car seat in the basket. I kind of had to hold him because he kept wanting to turn around and see what I was putting in the cart, and he's not steady enough to turn and sit at the same time yet. :)

7 months old

Wow, has it been a while since I've updated this! Brecken is now 7 months old and hilarious. He jabbers and jabbers and I'd give a million dollars to know what he's talking about. No recognizable words yet but as much as he's talking, it shouldn't be too long! (even though I said that about the teeth, and we have yet to see one still!) He still laughs and giggles at the dogs and loves petting the cat, too. I took him to get weighed this afternoon and he is 15 pounds, 2 ounces. One more pound in one month. Way to go, Champ! I'm sure once he starts eating "real" food, too, he'll start packing on the pounds. Right now, he gets a piece of food to his lips and immediately starts gagging. Silly boy, he doesn't even know what the food is before he decides to start gagging! The only "big person" food he will eat is graham crackers. LOVES those and makes a big mess.

Josh has started his Intermediate EMT class so he's now gone two nights a week to Rawlins. I have to admit, I'm glad this class is in the spring and summer (through June), because last time he traveled for an EMT class, we lived in Lingle, and he had that terrible roll-over accident. This time the weather is nicer (knock on wood...) and he's carpooling with another EMT, so that makes me feel better. :)

I think my boy is finally asleep, so I am going to go to bed too!!

another contest

I entered the below picture into another contest. If you have a moment, vote for us!

http://photocontest.shutterfly.com/action/photocontest/vote?entry=183829

just have to brag...

Brecken and his cousin Ryan went to an Easter Egg hunt on Saturday. Afterwards, they checked out what was in their Easter baskets. (And yes- Brecken is sitting all on his own! He learned how to do that on Friday night!)

goopy eyes

I guess Josh called Dr. Jake this morning- the past couple mornings, B hasn't been able to open his eyes from all the goop that was seeping out of them. He LITERALLY couldn't open his right eye this morning until we cleared it all off with a washcloth (which B hated) so Josh called Jake and asked if it was still his cold and Jake said "enough of this- let's get him on meds." So now he's on 10 days of antibiotics. Hopefully that will get rid of whatever ear infection he still has left, too. The poor kid looks like he was in a fight- with one eye not open all the way!!

boy, was it funny.

You should've seen and heard my little boy on Wednesday night. The dogs wanted to play ball, so Birdie would put the ball in my lap while I was holding Brecken. I'd pick up the ball and have Brecken "help" me throw it. The dogs would go running, and Brecken would burst into the giggles. We played like this for probably 20 minutes. Birdie sometimes would sit right in front of Brecken and NOT give the ball, and Brecken would laugh and try to grab it out of Birdie's mouth. Our dog Hogan is famous for getting the ball and then laying down with it, and growing very loud when Birdie tries to get it to bring to me to play. It's Hogan's "game". He was doing this that night too, so I'd call, "Hogan, Hogan!" Brecken would just laugh. So I called, "Birdie!" and he didn't laugh. Something about the name Hogan must be funny!

The poor boy had to spend a lot of time at school this week, as Josh and I both had parent/teacher conferences Tuesday and Thursday nights until 8:00. Josh brought him with him on Tuesday night and B did so well. He sat in his Bumbo and watched his Baby Einstein DVDs, ate some dinner, grinned at people, had a great time. Yesterday he came with me, and did not have fun at all. He cried most of the night. Good thing I only saw one parent last night, and that was while one of our other teachers just happened to have taken B from me so I was able to sit down and eat some dinner!

I have a school work day today, but Josh does not, so B and Josh are hanging out today. Josh has a test this afternoon so he can take the Advanced Intermediate class for his EMT stuff, so I'll go pick B up and go to Walcott Jct. to meet Jeffrey to pass on some stuff as he goes to Lingle for Easter. My sister and brother-in-law and nephew are coming tonight to spend Easter weekend with us. My mom and dad went to San Diego for Easter so my dad could take a class. How fun- I'm jealous!!

vote for Brecken!

I entered Brecken in a cute baby contest on Shutterfly. Vote for B!!

http://photocontest.shutterfly.com/action/photocontest/vote?entry=181806

croup.

Brecken caught a bit of the croup this weekend so he's been miserable-crying at the top of his lungs and you can still hardly hear him. I feel so bad for him. It got bad enough that we called the doctor on call yesterday (who happened to be Dr. Jake) and took him in to the clinic where he ended up getting a nebulizer treatment and then the machine sent home with us to do every 6 hours. He hates it and cries, but maybe crying will make him breathe in the nebulizer air better. It's a little oxygen mask that we just hold in front of his face and he gets really mad when he turns his head and you move with it! The poor boy. I hope it goes away soon- his cough scares the living daylights out of me. His daycare person today is Dr. Jake's wife, and she herself is a labor and delivery nurse. So it makes me feel better knowing he's probably in better care at their house than he is at ours! Brecken's ear infection is back with this croup, and Jake looked at it again this morning when Josh dropped Brecken off at their house. He said we'll keep an eye on it this week and if it doesn't get better when the illness goes away, we'll start antibiotics. But for now we'll just keep an eye on it to make sure it gets better, not worse.

Brecken was breathing a tad bit better this morning and was smiling a little more, so maybe the worst is over.

well baby check

Brecken got his shots finally yesterday afternoon. He's up to 14 lbs, 7 oz. (10th percentile), 26.5 inches long (30th percentile), and his head was 43 cm. (50th percentile). Josh and I found a small lump in B's belly a couple weeks ago but didn't think much of it- but Jake felt it yesterday and called it something I can't remember, but basically it's a malformation of one of the stomach muscles, which he will most likely grow out of and it's nothing to worry about.

B LOVED playing with the paper on the exam table because it made tons and tons of noise! But he did not love his shots. He had a bath last night and when Josh took the band-aid off his leg, there was a lot of blood on it- so that one must have hurt an awful lot!! I gave him ibuprofen before bed though and not again, and he hasn't been whiny or anything, so that's good.

While in Chicago, B had peach baby food for dinner one night. A couple hours later, he was laying on our hotel bed and vomited like I've never seen a baby vomit before. It was not spit up, it was full out vomit. He puked about as much as a 4 year old would and it was very scary- he was choking on it since he was laying on his back, and thank the Lord we hadn't all gone to bed yet so we were awake for the whole thing. I had to scoop him up and turn him over and Josh was hitting his back to get it all out. It was so scary. We had to call the front desk and ask to get a whole new change of linens since it was all over the comforter, sheets, and pillowcases! So yesterday we asked about the peaches and Jake said not to give him any again until he's 2. He said the vomiting and diarrhea he had that night also, makes him think B's allergic to peaches so to wait until he's 2 again to try again.

We're getting quite the blizzard here- the interstate is all closed and so is the road from Saratoga to the interstate. Hopefully they won't close between Saratoga and Encampment, I don't want to get stuck here tonight!!!

something you don't see very often anymore

So I went to our local gas station today to buy a newspaper and saw something you don't see very often anymore: a guy standing outside the gas station, talking on the pay phone. I haven't seen that in years, now that almost everyone has a cell phone. I don't even know how much a call on a pay phone costs anymore!

We had a good trip to Chicago. Brecken did a great job traveling. He was asleep for his first airplane take-off so his ears were fine. He woke up later and liked looking at everything, including the thing in the seat pockets about what to do in case of emergency. He liked to "read" that. He was not asleep for landing, so his ears bothered him and he cried, but that was the only time. On the way home, he got to ride in his car seat because the plane wasn't full. He thought take-off was pretty fun- the plane started shaking and going fast and he grabbed his car seat and grinned. Then the pressure hit him and he didn't like that anymore!

My grandma's new assisted living place is very nice. She still gets a view of Lake Michigan, which was very important to her. And, her new apartment is 2 rooms instead of one like her old place, so her bed can be in a different room. It's actually two apartments, converted into one. It's very nice. We had lunch with her in her dining room the first day. I wasn't impressed with the food but Grandma was so as long as she's happy, that's all that counts. :) She had a wonderful time showing Brecken off to anyone who would look, which was most everyone!

Back to school tomorrow... It'll be a long haul until school gets out. We don't have any days off between now and then. And Josh was telling his mom what all we have to do every single weekend from now until then, and we're jam packed! Every weekend is booked with something or other! Hopefully that will make the time go fast.

a visit to the doctor

Brecken had his 6-month check-up yesterday. We get to the clinic and they said, "Your appointment was last week!" I said, "No, you specificallytold me the 14th!" She said, "Well if you come back tomorrow, we can probably squeeze you in." She wasn't going to let me see anyone, even after I told her I was pretty sure Brecken had an ear infection. So in walks Josh and goes, "We can't even see Dr. Noton today?" All of a sudden, the story changed and she goes, "I'll see what I can do." There was NOBODY in the waiting room and no cars in the parking lot, so it's not like they were busy. So we saw Dr. Noton. She checked Brecken's ears first, after I told her he hates laying down and he's been rubbing his right ear for the past couple days. Sure enough, I was right, he has an ear infection!! It's just a mild one though, so she didn't put him on antibiotics, intead she gave him a pretty heavy duty decongestant prescription. (Heavy duty price too- our share was $33!!) She's pretty sure it will clear up when his cold goes away, that's why she didn't give him antibiotics. I called my sister to tell her now that Ryan doesn't get ear infections now, he passed them on to Brecken. :) Anyway, since he's sick, she couldn't give him shots. We have to come back when B is well. I was going to take him next week when we get back from Chicago but Trish, a PA, is the only one in the office that week and I refuse to see her. She's an idiot. So we'll go on the 28th, when we can see Jake. They did weigh B though, and he gained almost another pound. He's up to14 pounds, 2 oz. Still in the 3-5th percentile. We measured him when we got home and he's 26.5 inches, and that's the 50-75th percentile. He's a long skinny guy. :) I looked up in my baby book how much I weighed at 6 months, and from what I can tell on the dot on the chart, he and I weigh about the exact same! I was about 2 inches shorter at that age though! I gave B his medicine at 7:00 and he ate and went to bed about 8:00. He wouldn't lay in his crib again, so I put him in his car seat in the crib and he fell right asleep. The medicine says it might make him sleepy, and I guess it does because he didn't wake up again until 4:00 to eat! Then I had to wake him up at 6:30 to get him dressed. The bottle says to give it to him every 6 hours as needed, and I only gave it to him the one time, so maybe it just made him feel enough better to relax and finally get a good night's rest! I told Josh this morning it was the best $33 I ever spent. :) So hopefully, he'll have a better day at Dana's today- he had a miserable day yesterday. Dana almost called me in the afternoon to come get him because he couldn't quit crying. I gave him medicine at 7:00 this morning so hopefully that will help a bit. He was still pretty stuffy, but I hope his ears feel better! He was smiling and laughing this morning so hopefully that's a good sign.

sick again!

So Sunday night, Brecken went to bed at 8:00. At 10:00 when Josh and I went to bed, Brecken had a cold. Somewhere between those two hours, it crept up on him! It was the strangest thing. The poor boy, he had a stuffy nose and couldn't breathe well, and a raw sounding voice. He didn't sleep any worse than usual, but when he did wake up, he'd cry in almost a panic because he couldn't breathe like he usually does.

Last night, he didn't sleep. I'm pretty sure he didn't sleep at ALL, because I don't remember sleeping any. I'm pretty sure I was up all night long- in fact, I lost count of how many times I got out of bed. I don't know why I bothered going back to bed at all. The poor kid just wouldn't sleep. And doesn't it figure- this morning he FINALLY fell into a good sleep, but at 6:00 a.m.!! How frustrating. I let him sleep until 6:45, then had to wake him up so he could eat before we left for Encampment. I didn't get him dressed though, I kept him in his jammies and threw his clothes into the diaper bag. I let the babysitter know that Josh could come get him if she needed him to but so far it seems to be going OK up there.

Josh's school had baby piglets born- the FFA is raising pigs and they had piglets a couple weeks ago. It was so nice outside yesterday, we took Brecken to see them. He loves the dogs and the cat so we thought he might love piggies, too. Only, he was NOT in the mood. The FFA teacher picked one up and it squealed and Brecken totally lost it. He cried SOOOO hard and wouldn't stop. So we took him home. We'll try again in a couple days, when he's feeling better. His ears must have been sensitive to sound last night because after we got home he was sitting on Josh's lap and Josh sneezed. Brecken cried and cried again. Granted, Josh's sneezes are NOT quiet, but Brecken's never had a problem with it before! Poor kid.

Brecken has his 6 month appointment tomorrow! That's right, he turned 6 months old on Sunday. MAN, time flies. I know I keep saying that, but really. I never expected it to go so fast! I saw a tiny little baby in the mall on Saturday and couldn't believe that mine was ever that small. Brecken no longer lays on his belly when you put him that way- he flips over right away. YAY!! I'm thinking it won't be TOO long before he figures out how to move. You can see it in his eyes, he really wants to run around with the kids at daycare but just doesn't quite know how yet. Once he does, we better watch out- this kid will be a mover!!

rolling

Brecken rolled over from his front to his belly yesterday, even though nobody saw it. I was in the kitchen and Josh put Brecken on his belly in the living room. He then turned to the couch to grab the remote control and when he turned around again, Brecken was on his back! He must not do it for an audience, because he has not done it again! But with that "trick" yesterday, that means he has now accomplished rolling both ways.

He is also spitting like a pro. Flabby lips and all. He thinks it is absolutely hilarious, of course, and it is, except for when he has something besides spit in his mouth! He gets funnier and funnier as the days go by. Yesterday morning, Josh was watching the news and not Brecken while he was in his jumperoo. So Brecken would do his fake cough until Josh looked over, and Brecken would just grin and laugh at him. As soon as Josh looked away again, the fake cough came back. What a goof.

We're off to Casper tomorrow to meet my family. My cousin's basketball team was playing at State Basketball this week, but got beat yesterday and today so they will not be playing tomorrow, like we all hoped. We'll all still get together for the day, however. My mom and dad have a wonderful GPS navigation system that talks to you and we are borrowing it when we go to Chicago next week. We will get it from them tomorrow and see if it navigates us back home. :)

a new trick

Brecken has discovered a new trick. He is now aware of when he has a bunch of slobber in his mouth and if he is laying on his back, he gargles it. If he's upright, he blows raspberries. He thinks he's pretty funny. What IS funny though is when he has cereal in his mouth and blows- the fact that he's blowing it out isn't funny, but his precious little face after he does it is hysterical. He blows the cereal out, then looks at you with the "MOM! Did you see that?!" look on his face and grins his beautiful little grin. Tonight while feeding him I had a coughing spell and he had a mouth full of cereal, so he coughed after I was done. Don't know if it was on purpose or not, but all his cereal dribbled out onto his chin. He belly laughed for probably a good minute about that one. It was too funny for me NOT to laugh, so I laughed right along with him. What a goofy boy we have!

Brecken got to come with me to work for a little while this morning. We had a late start day so teachers could have meetings. Our daycare lady always has all her relative's kids at her house on late start days, and I knew there'd be upwards of 10 kids over there until school started at 9:30. They get pretty wild, as any kid does when they are in elementary school, so I brought B to our meeting this morning and he did great! He even stared very seriously at my principal and listened to every word he said. I had to smile about that because he was better behaved than some of our teachers were. :) I dropped B off at 9:15 just as all the kids were leaving for school. Then it was just him, his little friend that is turing one year old next week, and our daycare lady's 2 year old. Much more sane. :)

spring! (or close to it)

It's been so nice out the past couple days. Yesterday wasn't really that warm, but it was 40 and the sun was out, so Brecken and I went for his first walk around Saratoga. He'd been on walks before in Gillette when we went to visit my parents, but not in Saratoga because it's been so dang cold. Yesterday I bundled him up and we walked all the way to the post office (halfway across town) to get the mail. It felt good to get out!

sleep

If you were/are lucky enough to have a baby that sleeps through the night, thank your lucky stars and don't take it for granted. Unfortunately, I am not one of those lucky ones. Brecken is turning 6 months old on Sunday (already! Yikes, where does the time go?!) and has slept through the night 2 times in his whole life. And before I get any emails saying that I just need to let him cry and he'll learn to put himself to sleep, I am not a believer in the "cry it out" method. Babies cry for a reason and I will not let him lay there and cry himself until the point of utter exhaustion. I know that he is not just crying so that I will come in and play with him. If he was doing that, he'd open his eyes, see me, and smile. He does not do that. He cries until he is fed. And it's not out of habit because sometimes he'll go 5 hours, and sometimes he'll go 2. He's just HUNGRY. I thought I might be running low on milk- so we gave him bottles for a few nights to see if he'd eat more and sleep longer. Nope, not the case. He just needs to eat. And frankly, I'm a bit tired of people assuming he's sleeping through the night and then telling me, "Oh, well my baby was sleeping 10 hours a night at 3 weeks, so I wonder what is wrong with yours." NOTHING IS WRONG WITH HIM. He will sleep through the night when he's ready to. I think I'm doing pretty good for not having slept through the night myself since last April. (that's when my bladder shrunk to the size of a dime.) It's OK- 25 years down the line when my kids are all gone, I'll be missing them and missing the time we spent together in the middle of the night. That's what I keep telling myself at 2:00 a.m. when I'm dead tired and my boy is starving. :)

Josh went to Denver for the weekend for a coaching clinic. B and I had a nice relaxing weekend- didn't change out of our jammies until noon, played, practiced rolling over, just hung out. I was glad to have Josh back last night though. He goes to a science camp in April, for a whole week. That will be interesting.

I just checked the temperature outside and it says 50 degrees! YAY!! I've been waiting and waiting for some warm weather.

surgery

My nephew Ryan has to have tubes put in his ears. He's had almost as many ear infections as he is months old- and is constantly on antibiotics. They saw a pediatric ear, nose, and throat doctor from Ft. Collins today and are going down next week to get tubes put in Ryan's ears. He might possibly be getting his adnoids out too. The poor kid has had a stuffy nose practically since he was born, so maybe that would help clear his poor little nose up!

I was thinking in the shower this morning, "I'm glad our baby was born healthy." Then I remembered the $100,000 in hospital bills we accumulated when Brecken was born. :) So I then changed my thought to, "So after Brecken finally got out of the hospital, I'm glad he's stayed healthy." :)

I stocked up on teething tablets and toys that vibrate when bitten this weekend. The poor little guy won't quit whining. I'm sure it's because of his teeth that we can't see yet but I'm sure we will soon. He's been sleeping like crap lately, too. Hopefully tonight with some teething tablets right before bed, he will sleep a little better.

I have gotten the planners from the hospital in the mail. I just haven't gotten around to mailing them out. I will hopefully get to it this week. I have an elementary school program tomorrow night and after that, hopefully my life will slow down a little!

a day full of basketball

We sure had a day full of basketball- Josh's jr. high girls' tournament was today, in Saratoga this year. His B team was invited this year, and played Encampment first. The B team lost. :( Their next game was against Wamsutter for 5th and 6th place and won! So they ended up 5th place. That's pretty good for a bunch of 6th graders and some 7th graders! I sure felt bad for Wamsutter- they only have 5 tiny girls, and one of them is a 5th grader even. And one of their players kept fouling out of every game because she apparently thought the game was football and kept tackling girls.

Josh's A team played Encampment since Encampment won the first game and Josh's team had a bye, and Encampment surprised everyone by winning! Josh's team was bummed. But in the 3rd and 4th place game, they played Hanna and won, so they ended up in 3rd place.

Busy day for Brecken- Jeff and his girlfriend came over last night, and Craig and Lennie came over this morning. With all that and all the games, he didn't take a nap at all today. 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, but that is worthless. So this evening after we got home, he was crying uncontrollably- he was just so tired and couldn't settle down. Josh and I ended up having to take him for a ride in the pickup and drove 40 miles to get him to sleep and stay that way. Poor guy. Then we got home and he woke up 10 minutes later of course. I fed him some more and he was smiling so we hung out in the living room for a while, then he got cranky so I fed him some cereal, put his jammies on, and put him to bed. He's been asleep for an hour now, so hopefully he'll stay that way for a long time! :)

poor baby. (or should I say babies?)

My baby boy is sick. :( He finally got the cold that is going around. His friend Ryan had to go home from daycare early yesterday because of it- he had a high fever to go with it. Brecken doesn't have a fever, but his nose is so full, and he's coughing really badly, and his eyes are watering, and he's throwing up every once in a while. He slept OK until about 5:00 this morning and then he couldn't breathe very well on his back anymore. I called the clinic and I'm going to take him in at 4:00 this afternoon. Better safe than sorry, especially since RSV is going around our town.

My other baby, Josh, is hurting too. He slipped on the ice this morning while going out to start the cars. He caught himself, but twisted his knee. He wasn't as lucky when he got to school- he fell on the ice there too, and went down. His biology book hit his eye, so he's going to tell everyone that I gave him a black eye for Valentine's Day. He also cut his hand, but he said it doesn't need stitches. So he's at school miserable, with a twisted knee, a cut hand, a black eye, and a headache.

Maybe someday I'll get over MY cold and I can take care of my boys!

The BIG news for the day though, is that Brecken rolled over last night!! He was laying on the couch and Josh was working with him on rolling, and he did it, twice! From back to front even! Our babysitter told me this morning that yesterday, he had been trying really hard, and he finally succeeded last night. What a big week- starting to belly laugh, turning 5 months old, and rolling over!

5 months old already.

I can't believe Brecken turned 5 months old on Sunday! MAN, time flies. I took him to get weighed yesterday afternoon and he gained exactly a pound in exactly a month. He is now 13 pounds, 4 ounces. He has surpassed his cousin Ryan by a lot now- my sister didn't have a weight for Ryan at 5 months but at 6 months, Ryan was 13 pounds, 1 ounce. Soon, we'll be passing on clothes to Ryan and not the other way around. :)

This is Josh's last week of basketball. I can't say my feelings are hurt, it will be nice to have him home before 5:30 every day. It seems like he has lots of meetings for his ambulance service, his fire service, etc. So when he gets home at 5:30 and has a meeting like last night, from 6:30-9:00, it seems we never get to see him! So I will be kind of glad that basketball concludes this weekend with their tournament.

laughing

Brecken's been laughing a little for a couple months now, but this weekend he started REALLY laughing. It's not just a "ha!" with a smile anymore, it's all out giggling and it is so, so funny. Yesterday was the first time he's ever done it. He was in his jumperoo and I had his feet, making him go up and down. He was laughing pretty hard at that. Tonight, we got back from Laramie and he was pretty tired and grouchy, but when I laid him on his changing table to get his jammies on, he started smiling. (He loves his changing table for some reason!) I told him "You were a good boy today!" and for some reason, that hit his funny bone because he started laughing so hard he ran out of breath. I was laughing pretty hard too. What a great sound to hear- your little boy laughing for real, and laughing so hard that he runs out of breath. :)

mobile

Brecken has the Symphony in Motion mobile over his crib and he LOVES it. It plays for 15 minutes and you have a choice of Beethoven, Bach, or Mozart. There are fun little animals with polka dots and lines that move around and he will just stare and stare, and even laugh at it. The first one we had broke in November. The music still played but the animals wouldn't move around. We know the lady that owns the store my mom bought it at, so she was nice enough to exchange it for us. Today, the mobile quit again. The music still plays, but the animals don't move. I'm so sad. I changed the batteries twice and it still won't work. I'm completely bummed- Brecken LOVES that mobile and now it won't move around. I wonder if the lady at the store in Gillette will exchange it for us again. :(

calendars

If you want a calendar, let me know! Email us at jks@communicomm.com I heard back from the hospital and this is what the lady said:

Hi Kara,
Your family's photo is one of my favorites of the entire calendar! I hope Brecken is doing well. :)
I would be happy to send you as many calendars as you would like (free of charge) we appreciate you being willing to let us photograph you during such an emotional time in your life! It really comes thru in the photo and I think you can be proud of the fact that many people will be affected by that photo and (hopefully) take action with their elected officials because of it.
Just let me know how many you'd like and where to send them!
Take care,
Julie Snyder
Advocacy Coordinator
The Children's Hospital Denver
(303) 861-6253


So let me know ASAP and I'll send in an order. I think I'll get one for Dr. Keeler and for Dr. DeHart, who helped us so much in Laramie when Brecken was born.

the picture

Here are a few pictures of what went into Denver Childrens' planner. I took a picture of the November postcard we are on, a close-up of the picture they used (but my camera's flash made Josh's face look shiny...) and the inside front cover. No word back from the hospital to see if I can buy more of those, but our email server just upgraded and I think it's eating some of my emails. I'll have to try again this weekend.

We got it, we got it!

Some of you may remember way back when Brecken was born, a photographer came around Denver Children's and took our very first family picture, for a calendar the hospital was putting together. He took the picture, we signed the release and gave him Brecken's information, and they said they'd mail us a calendar when it was published. We never got it. We thought either a) they ended up not printing it, or b) our picture didn't make it in there so they didn't mail us one.

Today, we got the calendar in the mail! It's like a planner- it has monthly calendars in it and then each month comes with two postcards that are already filled out, to mail to senators and people like that, in support of child advocacy. On the front of each postcard is a picture of a child from the hospital. We made it in the calendar twice! Once in the front cover (a big picture!) and then we are on a postcard for November, too! I'm so excited! It's going in my cedar chest so we can keep it for always, but I emailed the hospital to see if we could buy some more, since I know some other people will want one too. (Grandmas especially!) Hopefully they will email back and say how to buy some! If so, I'll post the information on here so anyone else that wants to buy one can do so.

Just had to share! I'm pretty excited about it!! Brecken looks so different now. The picture was taken when he was five days old and still in the NICU- his face and eyes were swollen because he had just gotten his CPAP out. He's still beautiful though!

strange question of the day...

I got asked after school today if Brecken was my GRANDSON. It was a kindergartener, and kindergarteners have no concept of age, but this girl would ask me every day before B was born if I was having a baby, and then when I came back to school, she asked every single day for three weeks if I'd bring my baby to school... So you'd think she would remember he was my baby, and not my grandson!!

Brecken stayed in Saratoga today because Dana had a dentist appointment. (That's why Brecken was at school this afternoon- Deb coaches basketball in Encampment so she brings Brecken to me on the days she watches him.) Deborah and Jake both went to BYU and don't like Wyoming, so I made sure Brecken wore his Cowboy onesie, hat, and the sweats I bought him at the bookstore. :) I saw Jake at the store tonight and he said Brecken was fussy all day until Jake put a BYU shirt on him and then he settled down. I said, "Yeah, right." :)

Josh's basketball teams went to Rawlins this afternoon. They're playing an A, a B, and a C game so he won't be back until 8 or after. So it's just me, a tired Brecken, the cat, and two annoying dogs for a while tonight.

I think Brecken is catching up to Ryan....

The first picture was taken the first time Brecken and Ryan met, on September 23 when we got transfered back to Laramie's hospital after being in Denver. The second picture was taken this past weekend, on January 20. I think pretty soon Brecken will be bigger. :)

weekend with the cousin

We haven't seen Kristen and David and Ryan since Thanksgiving, so we figured a visit was due. Kristen and David just moved into a new house too, so we wanted to see it. We packed up the car and headed over to Laramie on Friday night. The dogs came with us since their new house has a fenced yard for them to play in. The dogs loved it, since they found a sack of garbage buried under the snow- in it was a pair of old underwear (gross), a phone book, a pop can, and a DOG TOY! They thought that was pretty neat.

The babies had fun looking at each other. Ryan would reach over and touch Brecken and Brecken would grab Ryan's hand, it was pretty cute to see them play together. And Brecken was totally interested in watching Ryan play with toys, since Brecken hasn't quite figured out what to do with them yet. He might know now, since he just stared and stared at Ryan playing. It was almost as if his brain was saying, "OH! That's what you're supposed to do with those! You put them in your mouth!" :)

We also got new phones this weekend. We were on Union Wireless, which sucks. They are really expensive- we shared 900 minutes a month and spent $110 for it. Absolutely ridiculous. Verizon didn't have service here when we moved to Saratoga, so there went our great plan and the IN network! HOWEVER, just a few weeks ago, Verizon put a tower up outside of town! Hip, hip, HOORAY! So we went to the Verizon store in Laramie and got back on their plans. Those of you that need our new phone numbers, an email with them will be coming shortly.

More snow today, glad we came home when we did. In fact, our EMTs were called out to help Rawlins and Hanna with a "multiple car wreck" on I-80 last night. Josh went to see if they neede more help since he wasn't on call last night about midnight, but wasn't needed so he came home. That's a scary stretch of interstate- glad we weren't on it. We're under a snow advisory today.

busy day for Josh.

So no relaxing for Josh today: The pager went off this morning around 10, I think, for a guy that possibly had a heart attack. He works at the nursing home and that's where they got called to. Josh went, because he didn't think there was anyone signed up to be on-call, but there was, so he got to come home and didn't have to go to Rawlins.

Then at noon, he went snowmobiling with Dr. Jake for a couple hours. He had just gotten home and walked in the door, didn't even take his coat off, and the pager went off AGAIN, this time for the fire dept. to respond to somewhere a block away from us for a possible gas leak. He just drove over there and met the fire chief, and found someone who had accidentally run over the line. So they blocked traffic and waited for a fire truck to show up, and they called the gas guy who came and shut it off. So no big deal.

Then, we sat down to dinner, and the pager went off AGAIN, for Search and Rescue to go up above Encampment to find some missing snowmobilers. He's still out there. I hate when he goes out on S&R because I always feel like he's going to get lost too! But he promised never to go anywhere by himself. And if he were the one lost, I'd sure want everyone out there looking for him, so I'm glad he goes, but I breathe a lot better when he comes home!!

So, in one day, he's been on 3 different calls, for all 3 different departments he works for! Not very often that that happens!! And the weird thing is, that's twice in a row now where he's gone snowmobiling during the day and that night, he gets called out to find lost snowmobilers. Strange.

4 months old!

Brecken went in for his four month check up yesterday. He's doing well! His head is in the 50th percentile, he is now 25 inches long (50th percentile) and 12 pounds, 4 ounces! (10th percentile). Everything else checked out perfectly. And each time we go to Dr. Jake, he hears less and less of Brecken's murmer, so that's awesome.

We got more snow again in the past couple days. It started snowing Thursday night. By the time I got to school on Friday, there was 13 inches of snow in Encampment. By the time I left to come home, Encampment had another 6-8 inches! I drove an average of 35 mph on the highway home. The roads were terrible. We got a lot in Saratoga too, but not as much as Encampment. I bet Saratoga got another 12 inches though. The snow is now level with our front porch again. Our neighbor brought home a tractor/plow from work last night and was nice enough to plow our driveway for us. Then he plowed our roads because the plows hadn't been out yet. Pretty sad when you have to plow your own roads. The plows here are terrible. They don't get around to plowing until it's been on the ground for about 24 hours. A bit ridiculous, in my opinion.

Josh was supposed to go to a science conference in Casper yesterday and today but it was cancelled due to the weather. His jr. high basketball games got cancelled today also. He just got called out on an ambulance call though, so hopefully he'll get to enjoy this afternoon by snuggling up on the couch with a warm blanket- it is 3 degrees below zero outside right now!

food

It seems that our little guy sure likes food. He's been eating cereal since Saturday night and gobbles it right up. Tonight, he was LUNGING for the spoon. He wouldn't keep his head back and wait for Josh to bring the spoon to him, he had to go to the spoon. At one point, Josh was being "slow" getting more cereal on the spoon so Brecken put his head down and started licking it off the high chair tray. I couldn't stop laughing. What a goof! Then we put his jammies on and he had his drink of milk, and fell asleep while nursing. Until I put him in his crib, then he woke up to smile at me for a while. I kissed him goodnight and told him to sleep well, and left and he fell asleep all by himself. He's really good about that- he doesn't cry when I put him down and tell him goodnight. Just falls asleep.

Brecken goes for his shots on Friday, so we'll see how much he's grown!

We had quite the ground blizzard storm this weekend. We could hardly see across the street Monday morning because the wind was blowing so hard, it was blowing all the snow we have on the ground already all around in the air. It was gusting to probably about 70 mph- and the wind was steady at 40-50. Here's how strong it was: Our neighbor has a snowmobile trailer with two snowmobiles on it sitting on the edge of the street in front of his house. Monday morning, the front end of the trailer was pointed at a 45 degree angle TOWARD his house instead of parallel to it. And on the way to Encampment, one of the ranches has a HUGE log archway over the road to the ranch. The logs are giant. The wind blew it over Sunday night. There were logs laying all over the entrance to the ranch and nobody could get in or out.

That's some serious wind.

sitting up

Brecken really is wanting to sit up lately. If we recline him back, he'll throw his head forward and grunt to try to sit up all the way. And he must have strong stomach muscles because he's succeeded a couple times! He would've thrown himself out of the carseat the other day if he hadn't have been strapped in!

We got more snow last night. I was on my way up the hill on the street where our babysitter lives, and her husband (who teaches with me) stopped me to tell me there was ice on his walkway to the house. That was very nice of him to tell me that, but since they don't plow the streets in town and he was on the "good" part of the street, I had to be in the snowy part and got stuck while stopped. Clint (the teacher/husband) tried to push me out but it didn't work. So he loaded up Brecken and myself and brought us up to his house, then brought me to school while I left the car stuck on the side of the road. He took my car keys and took a couple of his boys in 1st hour to go get my car unstuck. That was super nice of him. He felt bad for getting me stuck but I told him I'd rather get stuck than slip on the ice with Brecken!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Welcome to the year 2007! 2006 was an amazing year, I can't wait to see what 2007 brings.

We had a great Christmas vacation. We started off with a snowmobile trip on the 22nd, our first official day of break. Josh and I had great fun until we got completely stuck in four feet of powder. Thank goodness some big strong men came to help Josh get us both out- I wasn't going to be able to lift much! Brecken stayed at Josh's secretary's house for the day and did a great job.

The 23rd we went to Lingle for Christmas Eve celebrations with Craig's side of the family. We had a great time. We went to church on the 24th, then had lunch with everyone and presents. We left there about 4:30 and headed up to Gillette for Christmas. My grandma, aunt, uncle, and two cousins came over too. We had a great time and had a lot of fun. We got wonderful gifts that totally filled up our van- we weren't sure we'd make it home with all of them! We celebrated my dad's birthday on the 28th and then headed back to Lingle on the 29th for Christmas with just the Sandlian family. More wonderful stuff to shove into our van! We had a good time though. On the 30th, we were able to take Brecken to meet his great-great Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Earl (my grandma's brother and his wife) for the first time. We also got to help Josh's great aunt Lois and great uncle Bob celebrate at their 50th anniversary party.

Brecken changed a lot over the break! He's now able to reach for things, yet not consistently. But he'll get there. Two weeks ago, he had no idea he had hands, and is now grabbing his baby keys or linkadoos. His new favorite thing to chew on is his hands. He LOVES sticking his fist (or both, if he can manage) into his mouth and chomping away. He's a drool monster because of it. He also had his first true giggle on Christmas Eve. And he graduated to size 2 diapers. He's sitting up with just a little bit of support from us on his waist, and loves to stand. he's got very strong neck and leg muscles. He's getting so big!

Hope you all had a great Christmas! Happy New Year!

PS- Dodi, I stole the picture of us off your website. Hope you don't mind. :)

gross, gross, gross

So the Encampment Elementary School went caroling to the Senior Center after lunch today. Since I'm in charge of all the carols, I went along. Everything was fine until about day 7 of the 12 Days of Christmas and one of my 2nd graders puked right in front of me. GROSS, GROSS, GROSS. I felt so bad for the kid. But all I could think of was when I was in 1st grade, we did a musical, "A Walk with Mr. Peeps". I was on the "stage" and the other kids were on the risers singing, and I hear this girl go, "UGH! HE PUKED ON ME!" Sure enough, the boy on the risers behind the girl threw up all over her hair, the back of her dress, everything. That's about all I remember of that program, and I don't even remember who the boy and girl were, but 20 years later, that yell of disgust still sticks with me!

the dumbest question I've ever heard!

So I was at the post office today, waiting in line to buy stamps so I could mail my Christmas cards. The lady in front of me was trying to mail something and the post office lady was trying to figure out how to ship it. She asked her supervisor and the supervisor said, "Where is it going to?" The lady mailing it said, "South Korea." The supervisor then said, "Is that in the United States?"

You've got to be kidding me! I almost died right then and there.

another new baby!

Last week on Dec. 13th, Josh's cousin Summer had a baby girl. Welcome to the world, Anna Rachelle!

christmas in cheyenne

We had a nice Christmas this weekend in Cheyenne. We went over Saturday morning after dropping the dogs off at the kennel- we went down through CO to get to Laramie though. It had started snowing pretty hard and I do NOT trust those truckers on I-80 in the snow. We went up to Riverside (Encampment), and took that highway down towards Walden, CO, and up through Woods Landing to Laramie that way. Josh goes that way quite often on the ambulance. It was a really pretty drive through the mountains.

Brecken got some fun presents- Karlee helped him open every single one of them. She helped hand out presents but couldn't read any of the names so Jeff would tell her who to bring it to. But she got to Brecken's, and she goes, "THIS ONE IS FOR BRECKEN!!" We asked how she knew that, and she goes, "Because my mommy wrapped it." :) Trevor had Brecken's name this year. He gave Brecken some polar fleece slippers and a fleece blanket with a puppy on it and if you push the puppy's head, it squeaks like dog toys!! Then from Craig and Lennie, he got a set of 3 emergency vehicle toys- an ambulance, a tow truck, and something else, I can't remember. From Josh's Aunt Barbara and Uncle Keith, he got a foam book about cows (all the kids got one) and a Glo Worm that not only lights up but plays lullabies too. Then from Josh's Aunt Bev and Uncle David, he got tiny little tiny Croc shoes! They're so cute. Brecken's are navy blue. Trevor's are blue swirled, and Parker's are camo colored. Brecken's are too big, he'll have to grow into them.

Saturday night our hotel had a swimming pool so the kids went swimming with Joel and Jeff and Josh. Annie gave me a swim diaper to put on Brecken but Brecken did not like swimming. It was too cold. So I took him out and wrapped him in a towel and he fell asleep watching the kids play in the pool. I had a severe migraine so Josh and I and Brecken went back to the room and fell asleep while the others went back to Brady and Stacey's and played cards. Don't know what time they got home- it was plenty after midnight, that's for sure.

Sunday morning we got up and it was snowing. In an hour, it snowed several inches. We went and had breakfast with everyone and then tried to leave town, but didn't make it far. We knew I-80 was closed from Laramie to Walcott Jct., but we weren't going to go that way anyway- we were going on the same highway we came over on Saturday. But one mile down the interstate in Cheyenne still, we came across a bad wreck. So we went back to Brady and Stacey's. After a while, we went to the nursing home where Josh's Great Aunt Lucile is recovering from a broken leg. She hadn't met Brecken yet so we took him up there for a little bit. Then we came back and checked the roads again. All of a sudden, it stopped snowing in Cheyenne so we went for it- had to go slow but we made it. On I-80 about 15 or so miles from Cheyenne, there was an overturned semi blocking all the lanes going West, but we were all routed down an off ramp to a semi parking lot, where there was a frontage road. Most everyone took the frontage road and went around the wreck and back onto the interstate. Then we were able to make it to Laramie and over highway 230. Sure was a pretty drive, and driving 30 miles an hour gave me lots of time to look at things! We saw several deer, and even a yearling MOOSE! He was running on the road right smack next to us!! I tried to get a picture but it didn't turn out. We killed a big huge rabbit, too. :( Ran right over it. There were several rabbits out last night.

Got home at 7:00- took 4 hours to get home from Cheyenne. Jeff was driving behind us and stayed the night at our house- called in for a sub for today. He figured if it took that long for a normally-driven 2 hour trip, he didn't want to drive the rest of the way to Lyman. He wouldn't have gotten there until early this morning, I bet. Plus, I-80 opened up again and he would've had to fight all those impatient truckers. I hate those truckers. Always in a hurry.

We didn't make it home in time to get the dogs but I called the kennel when we got to Laramie and the nice lady told me "the kids will be just fine until tomorrow!" Josh went to get them this morning during his prep hour. She said we weren't the only ones that weren't making it back to pick up their dogs yesterday. Several people must have gotten stuck.

This morning it was 0 degrees with NO WIND on my way to work, but really heavy fog. I could only drive 40 to get to Encampment. We prolly have 16 inches of snow here- I can't remember the last time I saw so much snow in 2 days. I took my ruler outside this morning and right outside my classroom, there is 20 inches of snow! Holy moly!

So thanks, everyone for the great gifts! We enjoyed our weekend but were glad to get home.

josh's birthday

Yesterday was Josh's 28th birthday. He's an old man. :)

We had an early out from school yesterday for a funeral yesterday afternoon- a longtime rancher whose kids go to SHS (well one of them does- the younger one goes to a boarding school back East.) died of cancer last week. He was also our state representative. The funeral was at SHS yesterday afternoon so Enc. and Saratoga got out of school at 1:30 so people could go to the funeral. Josh started JH girls' basketball yesterday afternoon at 1:30 at the middle school gym. So I got Brecken from Dana's and brought him to see basketball for a little bit- he actually liked it! He was really watching the girls go up and down the court. He thought that was pretty neat.
Then last night we went to the Saratoga Inn for dinner. Brecken wasn't having any of that. He cried most of the evening- I'm glad we were the only people in the restaurant. (We went at 5:00 since Josh went on-call at 6:00.) So one of us was walking around trying to calm him down while the other one ate. Wasn't exactly the ideal birthday dinner, but it was OK. :) Josh got a free dessert so we took it to go. :)

This morning Brecken kept waking up after 3:30- his nose was stuffed up and he didn't feel good again. The same cold is being passed back and forth between the kids at Dana's. Hopefully over Christmas everyone can get healthy again. Brecken slept in his swing while I got ready for work, and was sleeping pretty good, so I put some clothes in his diaper bag and took him to Dana's in his jammies. I'll put the humidifier in his room tonight to see if that might help him. Poor guy. :(

if you're bored....

Try this site: http://dontshootyoureyeout.com

3 months old

I seriously cannot believe that 3 months ago today, we were in the hospital with a newborn.

Brecken is 3 months old today so I swung by the clinic this afternoon to see how much he weighs and how long he is. He is 11 pounds exactly (up 14 ounces from a month ago) and has gained a half inch- he's now 23.5 inches long. According to percentile charts, he's slipped in the weight percentile. He's only in the 5-10th percentile for weight, but in the 50th-75th percentile for length. I guess we have a tall skinny guy on our hands.

He's been pretty crabby today, don't know why. Deb said he didn't ever take a good nap today, so maybe he'll sleep good tonight?!?! :)

i'm a master!

Holy moly, it's been a long time since I posted. Sorry about that!

I had my graduation on Friday night. I got my Master's diploma several months ago, but went through the graduation ceremony Friday night in Laramie. I got hooded, but you have to give those back with your gowns, and that makes me sad. I really wanted to keep that hood- I worked long and hard for it! :) My friends Erin and Kris also graduated, so that was fun to see them again. It was also the first time they got to see Brecken!

Anyway, graduation was LONG. Longer than my undergrad one, where there were 3 times as many people graduating! They had lots of speeches this time. Only one of them was good. It was the University President- he was funny. The others were just really boring. One seemed like he was just promoting the war (that was the dean of A&S), and the other was some retiring professor that talked about Earth Day. VERY BORING. AND, they had the Snow Dance from the Nutcracker in the middle of graduation since they had just finished putting that on, the weekend before. It was nice, but I've never been to a graduation with a ballet in the middle!! Brecken did a great job through it all. We went to dinner afterwards with Craig and Lennie and Kristen, David, and Ryan, and Brecken got one heck of an acid attack so I didn't get to eat with everyone- I was walking around trying to calm him down. Finally he went to sleep, slept until we got home (didn't stay overnight), ate when we got home and went back to sleep until 7:15 yesterday morning! Granted, we didn't get home until 12:30, but he slept for a good 6 1/2 hours!

Brecken has new Christmas jammies, and he wore them for the first time last night. I hope he still fits into them for Christmas- they aren't any too big, that's for sure! He woke up in the happiest mood this morning. I was singing Christmas carols to him and he was grinning and laughing and trying to sing along. His favorite this morning was "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"- I think it was because of his jammies:

baby's first Christmas

We got our Christmas tree set up tonight. Brecken has 3 Baby's First Christmas ornaments so far. One from Josh and I, and two from my mom and dad. I put them up next to the two Baby's First Christmas 1979 ornaments that I had from my first Christmas. It's kind of a neat collection.

Brecken has not slept well for the past 4 nights because of his cold. I am completely exhausted. It is now 8:45, he's in bed (HOPEFULLY for a long time. But now that I said that, he'll be crying in 10 minutes, I bet!!) and I'm on my way right now. Even if he gets up in a little while, at least I'll have had a LITTLE bit of sleep. I have some serious sleep catching-up to do this weekend.

i'm a real choir teacher now!

This is my second year of teaching choir. I've been in choirs all my life, but never had taught them by myself until last year, my first in Encampment. This year, I had a freshman boy try out for the Wyoming All-State Choir. He has a wonderful voice and I was really hoping he'd make it. Today, the results were posted, and he made it! I feel like a real choir teacher now that I can get choir students into All-State! :) I always had some make it while I was in Torrington teaching band, but those were band students. This is my first choir student to make it. Hooray for Tyler! I didn't get the results until after school today, and Tyler was already gone for the day, so I get to tell him tomorrow morning. He's going to be so excited.

my poor, sick baby. :(

Brecken is sick. :( Friday night/Saturday morning, he was up at 1, 2, 3, 5, 5:45, and 7:00. He ate each time, but he didn't seem himself. He was sneezing and coughing and sounded like he had lots of boogers. We loaded him up to go to Loveland and furniture shop, and he did alright all day... A little fussier than normal, but not bad. I figured he was super tired from not sleeping well.

Well, last night, he went to bed at 10 and was up again at 11:30 and was just crying, crying, crying. A really raw sounding cry. He was super stuffed up. I tried to suck the boogers out with the bulb syringe and he wanted nothing to do with that. He ate some, but couldn't hardly breathe. I would put him back in his crib and he'd cry and cry and choke- the drainage from his nose was choking him in his throat. The only way he would sleep was on my chest, since he was on his belly. Josh listened to his lungs with his stethescope and thought they sounded a bit wheezy, so he called Dr. Noton, who was the doctor on call last night. He knew she was still up because the ambulance was called out about a half hour before that and they took the person to the clinic first. Listening to all the symptoms, she thinks it might be a little case of RSV. She said to let him sleep however he wanted (which for the most part was on one of our chests and sometimes he'd be OK sleeping on his side next to us) and to keep an eye on it last night and if it got worse, to call her again. He didn't get worse though. Thank goodness. He was still really stuffy and coughing and sneezing but it didn't get worse. He was up crying for a lot of the night though. Poor guy, just didn't feel good.

Dr. Noton called us at 7:00 this morning to check on Brecken- that was really nice of her. She said she was going to call in a prescription for him to the pharmacy in Rawlins since our pharmacy isn't open on weekends. Josh went to get it. She said it would dry him out and get the gunk out. Josh has been suctioning a lot of gunk from his mouth and his nose both this morning.

So, hopefully this is the worst of it and after getting some medicine he'll begin to feel better. I'm glad tomorrow's babysitter is a nurse whose husband is our PA, so she can keep an eye on it for us too. And hopefully tonight he'll sleep better because after 2 nights of no sleep, I'm a little beat. :)

so scary

I just about had a heart attack this morning while bringing Brecken to the baby-sitter's. When we get there, I always unlock all the doors so I can open the sliding door on the van when I get to Brecken's side. I leave the car running so it's still warm when I get back in. Well, this morning, I hit the unlock, or so I thought. I got out, shut my door, turned around and saw that my door was LOCKED. I freaked. I didn't know what I was going to do with Brecken locked in the car. In my panic, I grabbed the sliding door on my side of the van and pulled it- and it opened. I've never been so relieved. I have no idea how my door got locked and all the other doors got unlocked, when the doors lock automatically when you start driving. I don't care- I was just relieved that Brecken wasn't locked in the van!!

Phew.

best birthday present ever

My little boy gave me the best birthday present ever- he slept for 6 hours and 15 minutes last night. He was in bed by 10:00 and I didn't have to get up again until this morning at 4:15. What a great gift. :)

new baby!

November 22, 2006: Welcome, Julia Sarah!

first day of daycare

Well, I'm back at work now. I was excited to get back to school, but not excited to leave Brecken at daycare. The lady he's with today is awesome, so that's not a problem, but I'm missing him a lot!! There were tears this morning when Josh took Brecken with him on his way to work. Josh and Brecken were fine, it was me with the tears. :) I can't wait until 4:00 this afternoon when I go to pick him up! Hopefully he did OK today so Deborah doesn't change her mind about watching him! :) He might be a bit cranky today- he does not like formula, and that's what he's having to eat during the days when I'm not there now. Hopefully he aquires the taste quickly so he'll eat and not cry all day long from being hungry. I guess if he's hungry, he'll eat, huh?

Josh went to get the dogs from the kennel this morning during his prep time. Dumb Hogan, so exited, he sat in the car seat base all the way home instead of on the seat. That couldn't have been comfortable!! Both Birdie and Hogan were very glad to see Josh, he said.

We had a good time in Gillette last week. We got lots of Christmas shopping done, we only have a few things left. We were hoping to find a couch we like in Rapid City at the Ashley Furniture store, and have it ordered and sent to the Laramie store so we could go pick it up. (Joel and Annie bought our other set- it's too big to fit in our living room and the loveseat was hanging out in Brecken's room.) Apparently, Ashley Furniture doesn't allow that. Each store is "independently owned", so you have to order it from the store you want to pick it up at. Dumb, beings how they all come from the same Ashley warehouse anyway! So instead, we might go to American Furniture Warehouse this weekend and do some looking around. Right now, the living room looks like we just moved in- it sure is empty! We have two recliners in it, that's it. It'll be good to get a couch again!

hip, hip, hooray!

We're going to Grandma and Gramps' today! I'm pretty excited. We haven't been to my mom and dad's house since the end of summer. It'll be Brecken's first really long trip- both in car time and in overnight time. I'm trying to remember to pack everything we might need! Babies have a lot of stuff.

My sister and David and Ryan will be there tomorrow afternoon. Thursday, we'll eat ourselves silly. Friday, we are going to meet my grandma and my aunt, uncle, and cousins in Buffalo. My grandma has only seen Brecken once and my aunt and uncle haven't met him at all yet! Saturday, we're going SHOPPING in Rapid City. We have a ton of Christmas gifts to get- and haven't really started yet! Yikes.

Sunday will be pretty special- we're having Brecken baptized in my church. He gets to wear his dressy outfit and everything. I'll make sure to post pictures!

Today is also a bit sad- it's my last day at home with Brecken. :( I have to go back to work on Monday. I'm looking forward to getting back, I miss the kids, but I'll miss Brecken too. It'll get easier, I'm sure. And it will make the evening time I have with him that much more special.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!

Brecken says...

GO BRONCOS!!!

owie

Boy, did Brecken have an acid attack last night. He was eating pretty well until I started hearing it come back up his throat and then he'd cry and cry and cry. Then eat and suck like he hadn't eaten in a week (my book said babies will do that to try to wash down the burning), crying while he ate, and then couldn't stand it anymore and cried and cried. It was a painful cry. :( He finally calmed himself down when Josh came to get him from me to give me a break. I felt so bad. So his next meal was a bottle of the special formula. He was able to get down 2 oz. of that (I'm not sure he was STARVING, just needed a snack) and did much better. So maybe we'll have to do a bottle or two a day and see if that helps him. I feel so bad for him. :(

a possible precentile correction

So my sister looked up how much my nephew weighed at 2 months, and he was exactly the same as Brecken. Only she was told that was in the 17th percentile, not the 30th. Hers is probably more accurate- our doctor coaches football with Josh and they got to talking yesterday, so Jake probably wasn't paying that close of attention to the percentile chart. :)

No word on Baby Bailey yet. COME ON, LITTLE BABY! I can't wait to see if you are a girl like they think you might be, because I'm ready to buy some pink!! :)

2 month check-up

Brecken had his 2 month check-up today! The past few days, I've wondered if he had Acid Reflux. He's been crying while eating, I can hear fluid come up his throat and he chokes, swallows it, and then cries, and he's been throwing up a bit more. I mentioned it to Dr. Jake this morning and I was right- Brecken has a bit of reflux. Jake said the crying while eating is a good sign of it. He said we could give Brecken a little bit of water between feedings to soothe the burning and to kind of weight the milk down so it doesn't come back up. He also said when we switch to formula feeding (which he'll be fed formula during the day when at the babysitter's when I go back to work) to have him on Enfamil AR, which is NOT the kind we just bought at Sam's. Figures. :) The grocery store here has it so I bought a can because Jake said to try it out before I go back to work to make sure it'll agree with Brecken's stomach. It's a little heavier of a formula so it won't come back up so easily.

However, that's the only thing "wrong" with Brecken- he's healthy as a horse otherwise! He grew a TON from a month ago. He's not up to 10 lbs, 2 oz!! He grew almost 3 pounds in a month!! He's in the 30th percentile for that now. He's just under 23 inches long, which is almost 3 inches of growth from a month ago, and is in the 50th percentile for that. His noggin grew a bunch too- it's now in the 75th percentile when it was only in the 25th percentile a month ago. :)

He did NOT like his shots, but didn't cry too long. Josh was able to meet us at the doctor because it was during his prep time, so he held Brecken during the shots. I'm glad I didn't have to. :( Brecken fell asleep in the car afterward though, so that's good. It figures, however, because Brecken was in the happiest mood this morning and then we had to go ruin it with shots. This morning, he was just grinning all over the place at that mobile my mom got him. He was having a great time with it.

hmmm...

Not too much new to post. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Josh's cousin's baby, due any day now! We thought the baby would be born by now, but no news as of yet. Come on, baby Bailey!! We're waiting to see what you look like finally!

I finally caught him!

So far, only Josh and I have had the wonderful opportunity to see Brecken smile. Well, here's for the rest of you- I finally caught a smile with my camera! The picture is a tad bit blurry, but you get the idea.

that seals the deal.

Josh is the official bath person. Tonight he gave Brecken a bath and he just laid in the water looking around, not even wimpering. He had a great time. I'm happy being the gal that puts lotion on and puts him in his jammies afterwards if it means I won't have to hear him scream so bad like he did that one time. :)

Adventures in Babysitting Part II

We have a babysitter for all days of the week now. Phew. The pharmicist gave Josh the number of the lady she uses, in Encampment. She's just starting a daycare. Turns out, it's the mom of 3 of my students and her husband is our Ag teacher at school. Her 2 youngest kids are pretty wild, (actually, her 2 middle kids- she has a 2 year old also.) but she's a nice lady and comes to conferences and IEPs and stuff like that. The pharmacist said she really likes Dana and her baby is happy when she goes to pick him up and everything. So I'll be bringing Brecken out to Encampment with me 3 days a week and he'll stay here in town with Deborah 2 days a week. Big relief to finally have someone to watch him!!

feeling refreshed

Brecken slept for 6 hours straight last night! I was amazed. He ate about 10:20 last night and was in bed by 10:45, and didn't wake up to eat again until a little after 4:30 this morning. Hooray! A good 6 hours of sleep for me- I haven't had that since probably my 2nd trimester of being pregnant! I had forgotten what it felt like.

beautiful...

Didn't I tell you Stacey takes beautiful pictures? Here's just a few of my favorite...

WOW!

Josh and I went to Denver yesterday to see the Broadway show, The Lion King. WOW. If you've never seen it and ever get the chance to, you need to go! It was absolutely amazing. We lucked out too, because the only tickets available when I bought them way back in July (!) were in row 7 of the lower level. Talk about great seats!!!

We dropped Brecken off at my sister and her husband's house on our way to Denver. Kristen and David babysat for us for the day and when we left last night, Kristen said she really doesn't want twins. Two babies was a little harder than one. :) It was hard on me, too- that was the first real time I've left him! :(

The bad mommy award of the day goes to...

I feel like a horrible mommy. Brecken needed a bath today, so I gave him one while Josh was at work. Brecken doesn't normally like baths, but today was terrible. Josh usually gives him the bath, and he will continue to, after today! I got Brecken all ready and put him in our baby tub. I know the water wasn't too hot, or too cold, but Brecken screamed like I've never heard him scream before. He arched his back like the water was scalding. I about died. I took him out right away and wrapped him tight in a towel, and we had a sponge bath instead. I put him back in to wash his hair and rinse off the soap and he screamed and cried until he was hoarse, even though he was only in there a total of maybe 30 seconds. I took him back out and wrapped him up again and took him to his room and rocked him in the glider. He calmed down but I felt absolutely horrible. I think Josh will be the primary bath giver from now on. :(

Brecken went to his first Halloween party last night. Encampment School puts on a carnival each year (the kindergarten teacher told me it's been going on for at least 34 years...) for all the kids. It's a fundraiser for each class, 7-12, along with student council. All the kids come in costumes, so Brecken went as a skeleton. They don't make tiny little costumes for babies, so this 0-3 month one had to work. It was just a little big. :)

Adventures in Babysitting

So I'm starting to panic a little about finding a babysitter for Brecken when I go back to work. We have a lady that is going to watch him 2 days a week but she doesn't want to do any more than that since she still has an 18 month old at home and a 3 year old at home also, that only goes to preschool 2 days a week. So we're still looking for someone to watch Brecken the other 3 days. Josh had talked to a lady he knows this summer that said she might do it, and to call her this fall. Well, we found out last week that she dropped her youngest child off at the home of a family we know, and then never came back to get him. Her husband had to come pick him up, and told the family that his wife left him again, for another guy. Then a few days later, the lady called her husband and begged her way back home.

Needless to say, we won't be calling her.

Last night, our neighbor's grown daughter told Josh she'd babysit. Josh did NOT say "great!" because this is the lady who always brings her own kids to our neighbor's house and screams cuss words at them all day long.

Won't be using her, either.

Ugh. Who knew it would be so hard to find a babysitter! There aren't any daycare centers here in Saratoga, so that's not an option. We have one month until I go back, hopefully something will turn up!!

Lions and tigers and bears, oh MICE!!!!

A couple weeks ago while my parents were here, I was sitting in one of our chairs in the living room and a mouse ran across the ottoman right in front of me. I HATE mice. And we couldn't catch the darn thing. My cat, who is extremely lazy, caught smell of it that evening, but couldn't catch it either. The cheeky little mouse ran up the curtains right beside my cat and walked across the curtain rod. By the time we got up to get rid of it, it vanished. We've caught sight of it a few times in the past couple weeks, but haven't been able to catch it with the mouse poison or the mouse traps yet. It's a tricky little thing, and Charlie has no interest in coming out of my bedroom during the day unless it's to eat. :) HOWEVER, last night I heard a noise and I looked over, and that darn thing was taking a candy corn out of the bowl of candy corns sitting next to the chair. I was in the leather chair with Brecken. It ran back down the table. Josh pulled the couch out, and saw it go underneath the fireplace. (There's about a 6 inch gap under the fireplace and cracks that go somewhere, out to the garage, I'm assuming.) So I watched the fireplace while he ran to his friend Jared's up the street to get some plywood and he drilled the plywood into the bricks and then caulked around it. Hopefully that took care of the problem. We knew it was back there somewhere and set mouse traps and poison, and when Josh checked the trap a few nights ago, it had shut, but no mouse inside, so he had to re-set it. Stupid mouse. Hopefully it is GONE!!! It gives me the heebie jeebies.

Houston, we have a smile!

I could tell that Brecken has been trying to smile for the past few days, so I've been watching carefully. Last night, Josh got the first smile! Then the second, third and fourth! How many smiles have I gotten? NONE. We must have a daddy's boy on our hands. Either that or Josh is funny looking. :) Brecken is 6 weeks old today, and I wondered how far "behind" he'd be in milestones like smiling, since he was a preemie. My nephew Ryan smiled a week and a half earlier than Brecken did, so Brecken's not doing too bad!! Way to go, Buddy!

We had another extremely busy week last week. Josh's mom and dad came for a couple days and as soon as they left, Josh's brother, sister-in-law and their two kids came to visit. They'd actually been here all week hunting, but staying with Annie's cousin. They spent the later part of the week at our house. Now, with no company, it's time to get back into our routine.

busy week

We had a busy week last week, that's why this hasn't been updated in a while. Wednesday, Brecken turned one month old! That was celebrated by taking a trip to the doctor for his one month check up. Brecken wasn't excited by that because he had to get naked. :) He's gained a pound since being released from the hospital! Yay! He's up to 7 pounds, 5 1/4 ounces. He's also just over 20 inches long. Small in the percentiles though, which we expect for a preemie. His head is in the 25th percentile, his length in the 20th percentile, and his weight in the 10th percentile. Dr. Jake wasn't concerned though, since he was so early. As long as he keeps growing, he's good. The rest of his check up was great. Everything looked perfect, including his ears (thank goodness since Josh had so many problems with his ears as a baby) and his chest tube incision. It is still very noticable and will probably have it for the rest of his life, but Dr. Jake said it should fade sometime.

Thursday, my mom and dad came to visit. My dad hasn't seen Brecken since he was still in the NICU and my mom hasn't seen him since he was still in the Infant Care Center. My sister and Ryan came over for the afternoon too, because we had a baby shower at my school. My friend Deb threw it for me. It was supposed to be in September, but plans had to change. :) We got lots of great gifts from my staff and we sure appreciate everyone's kindness!

Friday, Josh's team went to Pine Bluffs to play football. They lost, so they won't be going to any playoff games. :( My mom and I spent Friday re-arranging my kitchen and dining room and getting a good cleaning in.

Yesterday we all went to Casper where Brecken got to meet his Great-grandma (my mom's mom) and his great aunt and uncle, Leona and Kent. We went up there for the State Marching competition. It was held outside this year and the weather was beautiful. We got home last night.

Well, that's the update for here. We're just being lazy today, watching football on TV and catching up on some sleep.

Kara

due date

I forgot to mention earlier that today is Brecken's due date! And instead of having a baby, we have a 4 week old at home. He's 4 weeks old today. He was exactly 4 weeks early. Man, how our lives have changed in the past 4 weeks!

first day trip

We went to Cheyenne on Saturday, just to hang out. There wasn't anything to do at home, so we decided to get out and have some fun. We had some coupons for the Sears Portrait Studio so we got some pictures of Brecken taken. He was awake the whole time which really surprised me, he's usually asleep all morning! My sister and her husband and 3.5 month old came over too and got pictures taken as well. Then we all had lunch at Red Lobster, where Josh's cousin Kevin joined us. Then we did some shopping in the afternoon, then came home. Brecken did great. Soon, we'll have to get back to Cheyenne for Josh's cousin's wife to get some pictures of Brecken. Stacey does the most beautiful pictures- I can't wait.

Also Saturday night, Brecken got the hang of nursing! I don't know why he got it all of a sudden, but he did. He's slowly getting better- but it's hard work and he falls asleep after not too long. But that's OK- baby steps. We have to build up his stamina for nursing just like we did weeks ago with his bottle. So he's taking most of his food still from his bottle, but we'll get there. Slowly. :) I know he can do it though. I remember back to Children's where he was only eating 10 ml's of milk from his bottle and it would take FOREVER for him to get it down, and most of the time it had to go down his feeding tube because after about 4 ml's or so, he was just so, so tired. Now he's sometimes eating 100 ml's in one sitting and scarfing it down! What a trooper he is. I'm so proud of him and his accomplishments, and I tell him that every day.

This morning, in the middle of the night actually, while feeding Brecken, I started thinking about those little babies that are probably still in Denver. I think about them a lot and wonder how they are doing. Little Joseph, with the cleft palate (did I spell that even close to correctly?) and the shortened lower jaw who had surgery to lengthen the jaw a couple days before we left for Laramie again, I wonder if he's breathing better. The poor guy couldn't breathe and it would make him panic and then he REALLY couldn't breathe, poor baby. And little Karson across the hallway who was born at 28 weeks, I wonder if his mommy got to transfer him back closer to home like she was hoping to. And little Sam down the hallway, who was also born at 36 weeks and had Down Syndrome, I wonder how he's doing. His mommy is a biology teacher so she and Josh had quite the conversation. I wonder if he's home yet. And baby Gia, whose little cubical had exploded with pink things. I never did find out why she was there. And I will never, ever forget the mommy and daddy of the little baby born the first Wednesday we were in Denver, who was taken off life support 4 days later on Saturday. His station was next to ours in the NICU. His blood was being taken out of him and run through an ECMO machine, to put oxygen back in the blood or something like that, because his heart couldn't do it for him. That poor mommy and daddy, what a hard decision to take your 4 day old off life support. I thank God for my little boy's health. He was certainly sick, but by FAR one of the healthiest babies there. Thank the Lord.

My little man is waking up and is ready to eat- better get to it. It could take a while. :)

Kara

recognize this baby?

Here he is, Brecken Levi, on the hospital website! We didn't get the picture taken like all the other babies when he was born, since Brecken left in an airplane. So we had it taken when we left the second time. :)

http://www.growingfamily.com/webnursery/babypage_view.asp?URLID=3Z3A7M5B0F

We went to Josh's game against Hanna this afternoon but it started pouring rain so we had to leave. :( Saratoga was ahead 28-6 with 9 minutes left in the 2nd quarter, so I'm assuming we might win.

If anyone is interested in how much a trip to Denver Children's Hospital costs, we got the grand total in the mail today. Not as much as I thought it might be, but enough to take your breath away still! $54,648.33. About $5400/day on average. It didn't break it down into how much his IV was, chest tube, diapers, etc. It just gave us a grand total. Yikes. Thank God for insurance.