Oh, how I've missed you!

Ah, my blog.... you are like an old friend that I miss so much but avoid because it's going to be so long and awkward to catch up with you! But I'm going to have that long, boring conversation with you soon. I can't wait.

CHANGES!!!

So much has happened over the last couple of weeks that it is crazy! I will summarize:
I have a job.
We are moving to Tucson.
I am in training in Chicago this week and will be back in Chicago next week too.
This means that the first time that I spent more than 2 hours away from Sutton I am also spending 4 days away from him! It's HARD!!!
Owen started going to preschool full-time. He's been having lots of fun, but this is also hard for me.

I'll update when I have more time. But my job is with a company called BrainLAB that makes incredible software and instruments for image guided surgery. You can check out www.brainlab.com if you are interested. They make some pretty amazing things. I will be working as a clinical specialist and will be working at a Tucson hospital that is opening a CT BrainSUITE (if interested, you can also check this out on the website). This is a really new and exciting thing (there are only like 4 in the country) and I am really excited for the opportunity to be a part of it. I will actually be there in the OR as it used.

So, there are a lot of huge adjustments for our family coming at us really quickly.

Sutton is Six Months Old (+1 Week)

For my happy, beautiful baby.... here is a recap of your 6 month journey to today:

After an easy, low maintenance pregnancy I guess you felt the need to add some drama. You were born with the cord wrapped around your neck, which caused a high respiratory rate and low oxygen saturation level. You had to go to neonatal intensive care immediately after you were born and they wouldn't let me come see you for a couple of hours. With how worried I was, I guess it was probably a good thing I didn't see you like this. But I was very upset about not being able to see you at the time. You did not even have a name yet. After a couple of hours they took this contraption off you, but you still stayed in NICU for about 36 hours.

Then we all stayed together in the hospital for another night. We went home in a daze that I think we are still in. I am constantly amazed at how blessed I am to have our little family.

Each Grandma stayed with us for a different week during your first month. This was necessary for our survival and is so appreciated.

For your first couple of months you slept a lot, but always wanted to be held. Because you slept so much it was kind of hard for us to figure out a schedule for you. You woke up every time we put you down for a nap but would be so tired. So we both quickly got addicted to this:

Which we transitioned into an addiction to this:

We just stopped using this swaddler about 3 days ago. (as well as your wedge pillow that I lovingly refer to as little wedgie.) I thought you would wake yourself up a lot, but you have actually been doing great without them.

Since the first day you learned how to smile, the expression has hardly left your face. I like to think that we have something to do with your wonderful disposition, but I'm pretty sure we probably were just lucky enough to hit the baby jackpot. It really is amazing how happy you are. You've always loved to watch Owen play. And for some reason don't even mind when he talks to you from 2 inches away from your face. He loves to kiss you; always on either the cheek or the hand.

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By 4 months old, you always wanted a toy in your hands that you could shove comfortably into your mouth. You also started eating solid foods and cannot get enough. Pears, oatmeal, and sweet potatoes are your favorites. You started sitting up a couple of weeks ago and now you've gotten pretty good at rolling and kicking yourself around to wherever you want to go. Yesterday I left you inside to play on the floor for a few minutes while I went outside to throw a baseball for Owen. I heard you squirming around, and when I looked over I saw you right by the window watching us, about 5 feet from where I left you!

You have the most amazing Daddy I could ever imagine. Your face lights up every time he comes home from work. He's so gentle during your late night fussing, and he knows that no boy is ever too young to wrestle. You do a really good job of completely freaking him out any time you spit up within 5 feet of him. This is pretty humorous for your mom. If you look at the picture below, you'll see he even loves you enough to hold you when you're wearing your Sun Devil outfit. Trust me... that means a lot.

You've always enjoyed being outside, but now you even get excited to go to the park. You watch Owen and all the big kids and I feel like you even already have the desire to want to join them. You start kicking your legs every time.

I'm really trying to remember everything you do... but I know my tired little mind has already forgotten many precious things that it wanted to hold on to. The little baby at the bottom of my blog page is getting scarily close to the 1 year mark. You definitely already have a unique independence, so I'm sure you'll be walking away from me before I know what's happened.

So happy half-birthday my sweet boy! Thanks for all the wet baby kisses tonight, even if you were just trying to eat my face. I'll never forget your giant, red, always wet cheeks that I got to kiss back.

Excuses, Excuses

I really wanted to do a post last week for Sutton's big 6 month birthday. But things have been crazy! We were gone all day on Thursday doing different things (dr. appointment, shopping, dinner at Carrie's) and we left early Friday to go to Tucson for the holiday weekend. We were so happy that Colin got Good Friday off so that we could go early and hang out with everybody in Tucson. Unfortunately, Owen and Colin both started to get really sick on Friday with really bad fevers, chest congestion and coughs. So, the weekend turned out a bit differently than we planned. Owen still stayed in high spirits and loved doing all the Easter festivities. He was sad that since he was sick the neighbor boys couldnt join in the egg hunt, but really excited because that meant that he got 3 times as many eggs! Kathy was really smart and filled most of them with pieces of dried fruit instead of candy (although, he still got plenty of candy). And he fell asleep right in my arms during the Easter church service. Anyway, I'm getting way ahead of myself. I really just wanted to write a little post to say that I'm not going to beable to write a post quite yet. Pretty silly, I guess. Sutton and I ended up getting sick when we came home (found out this morning both boys have ear infections) and I had to go to Chicago and back yesterday for a job interview. But more on that adventure later! So, I'm sorry Sutton, your half-birthday post will come later. Once you sleep more than 15 minutes without waking yourself up with a coughing fit and once I can get all this junk drained out of my head so that I can think about how truly wonderful you are.

Oops!

One Oops! for me: Lack of sleep has caused me to be super scatter-brained... today when I pulled Owen's sheets out of the washing machine I also found a raisin, half of a plastic Easter egg, and a pull-up (luckily unused). I've learned my lesson... no more laundry!

And one for my hubby: Colin cooked a great dinner last night of tri-tip. As we were eating Owen left the table to play in the living room. It's a good thing, because when I went in to tell him he had to come finish his meal I noticed our grill was on fire! Huge flames a foot from our house. Colin didn't believe me. He said that he must have just left the grill on and I should just turn it off. He finally came out to see the lid on fire and melting. We were lucky we saw it when we did and only needed a pitcher of water to put it out. I think he wins the Oops! award for the week.

Best Friends

This is my new favorite picture!

Owen gives lots of big brother kisses.

Are you noticing the trend? Owen loves to hold Sutton, and Sutton loves to be held by Owen! It's so nice to see. It melts my heart every time. And yesterday in the car I hear Owen whisper "Sshhh.... be quiet Mommy, Sutton is sleeping. Can I still hold his hand even though he's asleep?" Awe... tear.

This is Owen's pillow and blanket mountain. I thought it was pretty cute that he included Sutton's boppy pillow and asked me to let Sutton play with him.

Hello Again

I feel like I have not posted in a very long time. It's actually only been a couple of weeks; but at the rate I was going the last couple of months, I guess that is a long time between posts. We've just been doing so much lately that I fell behind and then the thought of catching up on everything that has been going on seemed so overwhelming. So, I started avoiding my blog. But I'm back now... only I decided rather than write about everything we've been doing, I'd rather write more about nothing. I'd prefer just to say that everything has been going great!

I think that we are over a huge hump with Owen. The "terrible twos" for Owen were more like the terrible 2.6-3.25. But we have really been working on modifying some of his not so desirable behaviors and it has helped a lot! And I really recommend the book Childwise. Its principles are based on teaching the morality behind behaving so that the child has the tools to think out why they should behave certain ways. Some of the suggestions I thought would be really hard to implement were actually really easy. I would sit down and explain to Owen what was going to change, for instance that I was going to start choosing what he ate for breakfast and if he had a choice about it I would ask him. And it worked! Breakfast is no longer a battle! This one was really easy. Some changes took a little longer, but almost every difficulty has improved. He now actually listens to what I ask of him (most of the time) and is getting better at communicating what he wants and how he feels (i.e. less tantrums). Another tip that has really helped was getting him to say "Yes, Mommy" when I call his name or tell him he needs to do something. At first I thought this sounded pretty Mommy Dearest and maybe a little creepy, but it has really helped to get him to listen and to acknowledge that he heard. We started it out as a game, and he loved it. He asks to "practice saying yes" all the time! When we introduced this "game" we also told him that whenever he said one of our names that we would also answer with a "Yes, Owen" to show the same respect to him. It has helped him to be able to tell us more of what he wants and how he feels. He also is getting used to then not always getting what he wants. This has been a harder lesson, but is definitely getting better. Even Colin's Mom, who of course thought Owen was perfect even in the middle of a world-class tantrum, commented that Owen must have been abducted by aliens because she didn't recognize him the last time she was here. This remark was also brought on by the fact that Owen now eats vegetables!!! It's crazy; it's like every thing fell into place all at once. So it's kind of a case of the chicken and the egg... who really knows which came first. But his improved behavior, better diet, and becoming "regular" (the bathroom kind) all have definitely been reinforcing the rest of these key changes and we are much happier for it!!! One thing we are still working on is being nice to the kids that he is around the most. He is the sweetest boy in the world to kids in his class and strangers at the park. I can't tell you how many times I've seen him spontaneously hand over a train to a child at the bookstore with a smiley "Here you go. You can play with this one." Yet, he is sometimes so mean to cousin Kierstyn and 2nd cousin Brandon. So, these are the next battles we are going to conquer.

Anyway, we've been keeping busy with trips to the park, visits to the Easter Bunny, and visiting friends. I also fit a job interview in there, but haven't heard anything back. :( Last night we got to go meet Ryan and Jill's new baby girl Erin Ashley Clark who was born on the 11th. She is adorable! So happy we got to go see. Jill looks like she is doing great and Brandon is really excited for his baby sister. Although, Jill says that he did already ask if she could go back in mommy's tummy. I guess that probably sums up how every big brother or sister feels at first. But, he will get used to the new wonderful person in their family.

So, I haven't talked at all about Sutton. I figured I would wait until his 6 month half-birthday next week and do an all Sutton post. But, I will leave you with a few pictures of the adorable little guy (who is unofficially sitting up)!!!

Can you see Owen hiding behind him? He's getting ready for a "peek a boo".

"Give me some food crazy woman!!"

The end.

I figured some of you have not seen the back of this crazy head. He has a permanent mini mohawk and this picture does not even do justice to the perfectly defined white, hairless stripe on the back of his head and the red tail right below it!

SHE is a grandma?

I think my mom is way too energetic (not to mention skinny) for the Grandma title. But she takes it on with pride.

The greatest park EVER

We went to Enchanted Island today, which is an amusement park for young kids by downtown Phoenix. It was so much fun! Mom and Dad- after all the money you've shelled out to take these kids to Disneyland, I almost hate to let you know that as we were leaving (after spending $30 for the six of us) Owen said "That was just like Disneyland." But for them, it really was. I think the pictures tell it all...

This was our favorite!

I LOVE this picture of Kierstyn!

Owen and Batman riding the train

This is how Sutton spent most the day.

This huge smile is how Sutton looks most of the time. This one was inspired by the train ride.

I Just Can't Pick a Favorite

I owe these

Some pictures that have fallen into the "I will post later" category from the last few weeks

My Birthday party pics:

Cake Decorating

Sutton with Colin's Grandma

Owen at the park

A Day in the Life

Woke up, got out of bed. Dragged a comb across my head. Found my way downstairs and drank a cup, And looking up I noticed I was late....

Sorry, when I wrote the title of this post I of course thought of this song. And, of course, this is not how my day started because I have not yet combed my hair and when you have no life you're never late for anything!

But I have already made a trip to Africa (Acticra if you want to talk like Owen) to go on a safari and eat bubble gum ice cream. So, it has been a pretty exciting day after all. It went a little something like this...

6am- Both kids woke up early after an agonizing night of continuously waking up with Sutton (combination of new teeth, a cold and sore throat, and forgetting his baby pillow in Tucson)

6:02-7:00- I have to admit that I was a grumpy bear this morning and spent most of the first hour nagging at Colin. Mostly for "always" leaving the syrup out and "never" doing the dishes (two words I know I shouldn't use)... to which he replied that he only uses syrup once a month. I muttered something about how he must then just get it out to torment me. (don't I sound pleasant). Owen and Colin took a shower and ate breakfast while I fed and played with Sutton. Colin left for work at 7.

7:00- Made coffee. Poured coffee. Had to reheat coffee numerous times before I had the time to actually drink it while it was still hot. Also played with the boys, did dishes, and sang songs with Owen for Sutton. Owen ate a grapefruit, which he for some reason kept accidently calling a lemon, which made us both laugh.

8:00- Owen decided he wanted to go for a trip. So, we packed our bags (which ended up being filled with only play food) and left on an airplane/laundry basket for Africa. While in Africa we ate all the food we brought along, went on a jeep ride and saw lots of animals, and ran into baby Sutton. Owen said his favorite part of the trip was eating bubble gum ice cream (how has he ever heard of such a thing???). We then "flew" home and put all the food back in Owen's kitchen. Lately, in order to get Owen to help clean up we play riddly, riddly, ree and he has to pick up whatever it is that I see after he guesses it. This takes way longer than if he would just clean up, but at least we have fun, kind of learn, and get his room sort of picked up. :)
(Don't worry... Sutton wasn't just being ignored during this whole time)

8:45- Sutton went down for his morning nap. He was VERY tired from waking up too early, but I didn't want to get him too far off schedule, so I kep him up until as close to the normal 9:00 as possible. I then caved into Owen's plea to watch one of his shows. I think it was Clifford. Then we "had" to watch Curious George. OK, Owen. By this time I was already exhausted and used this time to peacefully check emails. The person who I interviewed with wants to know if I am available to relocate to Florida. Am I? I don't even know.

10:00- Owen and I take turns "sneaking up" on eachother to do dinosaur tickles. This is his favorite thing to do right now. This then turns into a game of hide-and-seek.

10:45- Yeah! Sutton took a really long morning nap and wakes up happy! I feed him while Owen colors on his doodle pro.

11:15- We go to McDonalds (Hey you, stop judging me!!!) and bring chicken nuggets and a cheeseburger to the park to have a picnic. Thanks to the new $1 4 pack, you can now get 8 nuggets for less than 6. This puzzles me. While we were at the park Owen plays with a 4 year old and a 5 year old boy (Owen was by far the biggest). They play hide and seek. Side note: this 5 year old was hilarious! He was so bossy, but Owen totally didn't mind. He told me that he just turned "the big 5", that his sister is 20 and "she's getting really old", and that his mom is "oh wait, let me go ask her...... she says she's 46. That's REALLY old." After playing hide-and-seek, they pretend to be firemen. Pretty cute stuff. Sutton seemed to really enjoy the fresh air and watching the kids play. He also enjoyed spitting up all over himself, my pants, and my camera.

12:45- We came home, read a story, and now.... wait for it.... I think I actually have two sleeping children! I'm not sure, Owen's pretty good at faking it, but I haven't heard a peep and it's now 1:30!

So, I know that I haven't posted pictures for a while. But I've been feeling pretty lazy. Not that it's hard to just plug the camera into the computer. We'll see if I'm up for it later. Maybe I'll edit them into this post. And, i guess "A Day in the Life" isn't really accurate since I only described a morning. But it seems like it's been at least a week since I woke up this morning. My mom is coming tonight and she's a pretty big sucker for her grandkids, so maybe I'll get some sleep tonight. Here's hoping!

Thank You Prunes!!!!

Warning: this post falls under the category of "Way too much information"
Some of you may already know (only because I complain to anyone who will listen) that Owen has had a HUGE problem with pooping for a really long time. We're talking once a week! How he held it this long... I don't know. Basically it started to hurt him to go, which caused him to hold it in as long as possible, which of course then continued the cycle. And when he would finally go the sheer size and density of his poop would clog the toilet. EVERY TIME! I expressed concern to his doctor many times; he would just tell me that it was normal and that I should have him sit on the toilet more often. Aagghhhhh! Didn't he know that I already had to physically force him onto the toilet and hold him there and it wasn't helping?
So, I printed out some more of our old potty charts, this time with specific ones for #1 and #2. Five #1 stickers and he gets to paint, 5 #2 stickers and he gets to go to Blockbuster. And I started bribing him onto the toilet with lollipops (all this bribery can't be good parenting, but I didn't know what else to do!). Well, a week and 7 lollipops later, the #2 chart was still empty. We've been giving him prune juice for months, which hasn't helped at all. Finally I bought actual prunes.... and SUCCESS!!! He loves them and eats 4-5 a day. It worked immediately. This was almost 12 days ago and he's gone 5 times. Which for him is a miracle. Yesterday we went and rented Land Before Time.
If you haven't noticed the tone of my recent posts... let me tell you that this has elevated the mood of our entire household! Before this miracle, days 3-6 of Owen not pooping would be unbearable and Owen would spend half of them crying (this might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it is how I remember it) and now sitting on the toilet is no big deal and we are all so much happier for it!
I have no idea why I felt the need to share all this, but I think some day maybe I'll want to remember that dealing with poop consumed at least a third of my daily life for a little while.

An absolutely wonderful, positively perfect, especially terrific day

When I made my Valentine's post I didn't have time to go into detail about how absolutely wonderful, positively perfect, especially terrific our day was (fyi: that description is from one of our favorite bedtime stories, Owen). So, I feel the need to describe it now. We all woke up in great moods and I made breakfast for me and Owen (Colin leaves for work too early and the poor guy never gets a hot breakfast). I had volunteered to stay at Owen's preschool to help with the Valentines Day party; so Sutton and I were there for the whole class from 9-11:30. I got to watch Owen interact with all the other kids, see him be more independent than he ever is at home, and help out with various art activities. Playing outside with the kids was my favorite. Their teacher is great at getting the kids to listen and participate in learning activities, but is anything but playful; so, I think all the kids were really surprised and excited to have a few moms there that actually played with them on the playground and encouraged them to run around like a bunch of crazy kids. Owen's favorite part, of course, was getting Valentines and candy from all the other kids. They had made huge pink and red envelopes to put all their valentines in, and Owen was really proud of his.
Some friends were supposed to come over after school to make cupcakes with us, but we got the bad news on the way home that they were sick. We were sad they couldn't make it, but mostly just felt bad for Jami who was home with 3 sick kids. I can't even imagine. Owen was bummed to not get to see his friends. But, as you saw in the pictures, was still pretty excited to make cupcakes. We baked them and then let them cool while we had quiet time. For the record, since I changed nap time's title to "quiet time" and started telling Owen he just has to rest, he has taken way more naps than during the last two months. Anyway, we decorated them with pink frosting and heart sprinkles. I ruined the cake we baked by taking it out of the pan too early. So I decided to act like I did it on purpose and I cut the cake into various sized hearts and wrote a message for Colin. I thought this was very creative of me. We sent some cupcakes to the sick Richardsons and saved some for Owen to decorate with his friend Alana. Now that the weather is nicer, Owen and I usually play outside during Sutton's late afternoon nap. Lately I get ditched to play with the neighbor girls. This is so cute!!! There are a couple of girls who are about 5 years old and when they play together, it's basically just Owen copying everything they do. We made meatball subs for dinner and Kylie, Zack, Alana, and Grayson came over. It's always fun to get together with them and share/vent about the miracle/headache that comes with parenthood.
Thursday and Friday were both really fun because Owen, Sutton, and I just really enjoyed being together. Not that I don't always enjoy being with them; but I think Owen particularly appreciated having me around on these days. Which felt nice.
Colin took off early on Friday so that we could go to Tucson and celebrate my birthday. His parents watched the kids (thank you, thank you, thank you) and we got to go out for sushi. We both really like sushi and rarely get to eat it. It was such a delicious treat. We went out for a drink afterward and on our late night out were home by 9:30. We were just too exhausted, but we gave it the old college try. Saturday the Heiseys had a little birthday party for me (another thank you), which was a lot of fun and full of more yummy food. Owen got to help decorate the cake that Colin's grandma made. I would post pictures, but I think I left my camera in Tucson. I would know for sure, but I've been too lazy to unpack.

Happy Valentines

I hope everyone's Valentines Day was full of lots of love. Or, at the very least, lots of chocolate. I was one of the lucky ones who got to enjoy both.