Life's a Toybox

It is so funny looking at pictures of my home before little Hayden. It was so clean. So uncluttered. And now I'm pretty sure that it won't be that way again for a very long time. But its okay because we have some fun getting it to that point. Tractor races and playing ball are some of our favorite things today besides our favorite stuffed animal Woof-woof who has an amazing resemblance to our lab, Sadie. We love Woof-woof so much that we tried to get him into the bath just before Hayden joined him. When Daddy is home, we find a way to sit between his feet, whether he is resting or has paused just long enough to situate ourselves there. We are in major need of a backyard. Right now we settle for parks where I spend most of my time toddler-herding. He lets out the war-cry of the baby and runs for the nearest street which is why we choose large parks and I we always start in the middle. But when we're not outside, we're wishing we could be. If you look to our windows you can often see a little boy and a chocolate lab head peering out the window watching the "cucks" (cars and trucks since we are too lazy to say both words though perfectly capable.) They are both interested in watching the world buzz by. Anyway, we have fun letting go of the organization that once was for us to live in each moment with this guy. After all, when will we again get to play tractors, cars, or show simple ball tricks to an audience with more enthusiasm.







We had so much fun playing ball we had to get ready for bath time with the balls in hand.







Nap time for Woof-woof and Sadie










In his nightly position.










A boy and his dog

Easter Blessings

We hope you all had a beautiful and blessed Easter celebrating the gift of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ's resurrection. We certainly did. We had a lovely visitor, Derrick's sister, Michelle for the weekend. We relaxed and Hayden and his aunt did much bonding (I don't think I've gotten that much time off from diaper patrol ever.) There were some casualties and many Starburst Jellybeans lost their lives. I'm still crossing my fingers that my teeth recover. I even chewed the hard outside off the jelly bean and gave Hayden the bean innards, which he loved. I know it sounds crazy but my kid has turned down everything sweet and I was starting to think that his sweet tooth had a cavity. I just wanted to make sure he wasn't broken. Don't worry, it is labor intensive to remove the casing of a jellybean, so he only got four. However, we had to hide to eat jellybeans the rest of the weekend because he always wanted more. He even knew the sound of the jellybeans in the bowl after awhile. Anyway, we had a lovely weekend where we went to the zoo and church on Sunday and even had an Easter Egg hunt. Hayden enjoyed spiking the eggs, so good call on the plastic eggs. We'll hold off on the real ones for a little while longer. It was a little depressing to have rocks and cement walls as the dramatic backdrop for our first Easter egg hunt. Oh well, here's to hoping we'll have grass next year! God bless!

Long Over Due and Other Due Dates

First, my apologies to the ever faithful blog checkers who have spurred me on to get back to doing this (ehehehe, Michelle). From our previous blog entry, you can see that we had a rough start to the year, well, Hayden did. He didn't get better until mid-February and is currently suffering through a second bout of RSV this season. We'll get through it though. And, in case you hadn't heard, we found a specialist who correctly diagnosed his first and most worry-some illness as a bacterial overgrowth post Rotavirus which caused him to continuing throwing up and having diarrhea for weeks after the virus was dead and gone. So the few weeks that we had between illnesses, we have been living it up spending as much time out of the house as humanly possible. Play dates, zoo trips, library children times, parks, and more. Hayden is mastering walking and now working on running. He is into everything he's not supposed to be and so my productivity has decreased while he's been awake and awake time has increased with dropping down to one nap. Great for getting out but a killer when it comes to getting things done. So in that one naptime, I've been napping because I'm a little sleepier the last few months. Which brings me to the second piece of news, a due date. Baby #2 will be joining on or around September 30th. We're very excited for our growing family and have been hard at work looking for a house. We need more room for kiddos including more of a backyard and a little more of a place to offer our guests who we so enjoy having. So we have a deadline, otherwise it could get a little, um, shall we say tight in our current living situation. And now for the pictures which I'm sure most have skipped right to...




We got Hayden some blocks to practice his stacking (and his real joy, knocking over)






Mommy, Sadie and Hayden stacking blocks in new ways. Yes, this is how we fill the evenings sometimes. We're wild!!





Baby #2 at 12 weeks (just last week)




A far away profile shot











Baby sucking his or her thumb (5 weeks until we find out whether the baby is a he or she)






A face shot










A closer profile shot

Update on Prayer Request

After visiting 4 pediatricians and 1 Pediatric GI specialist, we have done a lot of lab tests and are still in the process of getting all of the results. However, we have been advised that this is most likely the remnants of Rotovirus (some good the vaccine did) and because little man is not very chubby, that it is most likely affecting him more severely (I guess chubbier thighs scare the virus away more effectively.) We are almost 3 weeks into this come Monday and we were informed it could last up to 8 weeks. We are no longer considered contagious, whoo hoo, however little man is a time bomb and could explode from either end at any given time during an outing so be prepared for wardrobe change and be prepared to continue our nightly and sometimes twice nightly visit from the barfing fairy. Thank you for your prayers. Please continue to pray that this illness will resolve quickly and his immune system and GI system for that matter will turn to steel! Also visit another blog to see some of our new family photos and photos from Hayden turning 1. Yes, we got his pics taken on what appeared to be an upswing and a good day. The blog is www.staleyphotography.blogspot.com. We're on her January 18th posting. God bless!

First Haircut

Before

During

After

Well, a few hairs were looking kind of scraggily and then there ended up being more hairs and pretty soon we had to get out the buzzers. Hayden wasn't fond of the vibration on his head, so lets just say its not the best haircut. You might not be able to tell the difference in a picture but his hair is definitely shorter. I also discovered that even babies need a conditioning element to their hair. The soap you use on their body just doesn't cut it and down here in 2% humidity, you have to condition, condition, condition. Surely Aveeno was thinking of us when their made their moisturizing shampoo. Anyway, he's freshly shorn and shiny now. PS-I can't believe that I haven't gotten ONE comment on his funny faces entry. I thought it was my best work all year people! If you missed it its in December 2009. I look at it when I need a laugh anyway. Another PS. Prayers for Hayden's health. He's been sick for 12 days now with a GI issue (either nasty virus or new allergy issue or combo-pediatrician's don't know). He eats very little and has lost weight (not a big guy to begin with) and we'll just say has a few wardrobe changes per day.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year...And a Happy Birthday...To Hayden

Well, I hope that Christmas found all of you safe, warm and stuffing yourself full of yummy treats. Derrick and I are trying to tame the food-baby beasts we created over the holidays. We visited Kansas for the 4th time this year-driving both ways this time. Hayden is a trooper. Fourteen hours in a car is no picnic for us, much less a one year old. Yes, its official. He is one. Our Christmas trip to Kansas was a little whiter than what we really were asking for. More like blizzard-like. We got our snow and 10 degree temperatures (again didn't ask for it to be that cold.) We actually got snowed into Grandma and Grandpa's house for 2 days and couldn't get out to other Christmas celebrations and even had to cancel and reschedule Hayden's 1st Birthday party because no one could get to us. Nonetheless, we celebrated it later without a few of our guests who had to head back to their homes far, far away. As for the fiesta, he raked it in thanks to his loving parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncle, and even a great-aunt and uncle. However, he would not partake in his no-milk, no-egg, no-peanut cake. Yes, they make cake mixes for that. Because, our beloved baby is allergic to milk which is in A LOT of things. But, wanting to avoid the commentary on how "we fed our kids everything at this age", we made him his own little special cake (which was good because I tried it) and I decorated a regular cake for everyone else. He was far too interested in all of his new toys to eat this sugary treat, so that's one fight I'll be avoiding for now.

(Almost) One Year of Funny Faces

So one year is around the corner. Yes, one year out of the 18+ that we will be fiscally, amongst other things, responsible for this beautiful little man may not seem like a big deal. But to us, it is proof that we are competent enough to be parents, because we have managed to, God-willing, keep him alive and well for one whole year. Which for us has been eye-opening. Human babies are the most helpless babies of any creature. They don't get up and walk an hour after being born. They definitely can't get their own food and feed themselves after a few months after birth. And they would probably giggle at the sight of a predator and think it was a fuzzy teddy bear. They are curious and constantly have to be protected from themselves. But, obviously what makes them so different is their complexity and intelligence. Our little man, besides being one of our greatest teachers this year, has also provided us with more laughs that any other person. Its amazing that God created their intense dependence on us to grow our love for and attachment to them phenomenally fast. And, oh man, do his Daddy and I love him! As well as a long list of others. But back to the funny part. So I took a ton of pictures of him this year. Actually probably more than that. But in all the pictures, you get some pretty funny faces. So I had to share. Enjoy the many faces of Hayden. He truly is a charismatic little man and has been from the start. Even the nurse who handed him to me at the hospital said so. Merry Christmas! Look for our next entry after the New Year!

Go ahead, make my day

It's my best smile...I promise.

You've got 2 seconds to take a picture of me holding another guy's hand, and I'm not going to smile.

Lounging like a real dude

A baby Pavarotti

Pure orneriness

Caught in the act

I'm ready for my close up

What did you say to me?

Pure glee. Couldn't help but add this one in.

Do I have food on my face?

Don't put me in this thing!

Ok, I'm in, but I'm going to complain about it the whole time

Ahhh, so relaxing. Where's my vino?

Ah man, there goes another pacifier. Can't keep those things in.

Can you see any teeth yet?

My best impression of the bitter beer face man

Grumpy Old Men-the prequel

Having a grand old time

I'm not sure about this anymore

Getting my dance moves on

Break dancing on a couch is much harder

Was that you!

So scary...where's my bunny?

Enough with the camera!

What...is...that?

So tired. Can't fight it anymore. (Thank God for swings)

I don't know about this. I liked my former residence better.