A Cute One

Well, one thing that I love about digital cameras is that you can take as many pictures as you want without having to pay to develop all the ones that don't turn out just right. Yesterday I was determined to get a really cute shot of Courtland for his birth announcement, so after about 20 minutes of propping Courtland up on the blanket and pillow on the couch, adjusting the lighting, and repeatedly sticking his pacifier in his mouth to get him to calm down and then removing it so that I could get a good shot without the pacifier in it, and 379 photos later (yes, I did say 379), I ended up with one I was really pleased with. So, now I just need to make the birth announcements.

Two Weeks Old

Well, we’ve had a busy, but good week this week. After Michael had his week off of work when Courtland was born, he had to make up the time he had off and was scheduled a very busy week this week – he was on call for 30-hour shifts overnight just about every other day this week. He told me that I should probably write the blog post this week, since if he were to write it he would just say that he was tired of working an 80 hour work week. Luckily, we have one more week of surgery before he gets to start his dermatopathology rotation next Monday, which we have heard will have a much better schedule.

So, Michael went back to work on Friday last week, and my parents and brothers were able to come here on Saturday night last weekend. It was not only nice to have my family here to spend time with them, but it was nice to have all the extra help they gave me with the new baby and the boys, especially since Michael was on call this week on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday. Luckily this upcoming week he only has to be on call one more time before this rotation is over.

This week we had a lot of fun. On Tuesday it was the intern ski day – one of the few nice perks we got since Michael has been working here. All of the interns in his program got the day off of work to go up to Snowbird for an all-expense paid day of nice food, relaxing, and our choice of skiing or a massage. Michael chose skiing (which I would have chosen too, had I not just had a baby), and my brothers were able to go up and ski with Michael too, which was really nice. I took Courtland with me, and Mom and Grandma were kind enough to watch the other boys for us. There was a lot of beautiful powder and the snow was coming down in big, soft flakes for most of the day. After a few hours it was time for the massage, and the other ladies there offered to hold Courtland for me while I went for that. It was very nice and relaxing, and I have to say that it was even better than the massage I got when we celebrated our anniversary last month, if only because now that I’m not pregnant anymore I was able to lay on my stomach and they could use a little more pressure. When I came back to the group’s room afterwards, I was surprised to see everyone back inside from skiing. The mountain had been shut down because of avalanche hazards, and an avalanche had shut down the road up to the resort too. There were little signs posted by the doors that it was illegal to go outside before they were no longer concerned about the avalanche dangers. Luckily for Michael and my brothers they got to go back out before too long, especially since they’d only had a chance to ski two runs up until that time. We had a nice relaxing day, and although Michael and the boys were worn out afterwards, they had a nice ski day with some really great runs.

Although we didn’t end up taking any pictures at the ski day, here is a cute shot of Eli wearing my ski helmet when we got out all the ski gear:

The rest of the week we just got to hang out with the family. My mom and I got some shopping in, and she was able to get a lot of work done on the blessing dress for my sister’s baby girl, Lizzie, who was due a couple of days ago and will be induced by the end of the week if she hasn’t come on her own yet by then. They are planning on blessing Lizzie next month, so Mom was working really hard to try to get the dress done, even with her broken arm. (We are thinking of blessing Courtland the second week in April, but will let you all know an exact date when we decide for sure). Oh, and yesterday we also went and looked at some really cute little headbands and hair bows for Lizzie, and Mom ended up getting one of the little headbands to use as a pattern to make more. They are cute because you can attach any bow or flower on a hair clip to the headband, and make it match any different outfit you want. I came home and pulled out some ribbon to try to make a couple of bows like the ones we had seen, since they were a little different than the kinds I had made before. I think they turned out pretty cute. So, I sent those and several more I had already made with Mom to give to Michelle when she has her baby.

This week we’ve also been just a little concerned about Courtland. On Thursday we went for his 2-week check-up, (when healthy babies are supposed to have gotten back up to their birth weight after loosing some weight after birth), and Courtland was exactly 1 pound under his birth weight at that time. The doctor had us recalibrate the scale and weigh him again, but it was the same the second time too. So, she ordered several labs to make sure that he didn’t have any metabolic problems, since he has been nursing well and hasn’t seemed to be sick at all, so she didn’t know why he would be loosing weight. She said that it was possible that his weight just dipped later than normal, for some unknown reason, and would come up soon, but she wanted to rule out any other problems. When I went to the lab downstairs that usually does the bloodwork when it is needed for the kids, they turned off the light in the room and put a little red light under his hands and elbows to shine through and show his veins, and said that he was too small and they couldn’t do the labs there. So, I went back up to the pediatrician and she sent us to Primary Children’s Hospital, where they would have more experience drawing blood for several different labs from a newborn. We got there, and a big redhead man with a high-pitched voice was the lab assistant to draw Courtland’s blood. First he tried one arm, then the other arm, then he called in another person who tried it on one of his hands, before they finally decided to make two little pricks right next to each other on his heal and fill the five little vials from there. After a lot of crying from Courtland (and apologizing from the lab worker that the baby had to go through all that), they got it done. We talked to the doctor that night, and she said that all the labs had come back normal, except that his biliruben level hadn’t gone down since the week before, but that’s not too concerning since it isn’t at a high enough level to be concerned about. So, the doctor said to come back on Monday and have his weight checked again. We went in today and he was up to 7 pounds 8 ounces (he had gained 2 ounces since Thursday), so even though that’s not a lot, it is good that he’s gaining and not loosing. Since his labs were normal and he is eating fine, and not acting sick, we are just going to go back in in another week to check him again, and let the doctor know if we notice anything abnormal in his behavior. So, things look like they are going well with that.

I didn’t really realize how thin Courtland looked, after loosing that weight, but comparing the photos of him this week to the ones that we took of him right after he was born, he sure looks like a different baby – his face is much thinner now than in those first photos. But he sure is adorable!

Another thing that has been really nice the last 4 days is that his sleeping at night has gotten a lot better. Before that, he was having a hard time most nights, often crying for 1 to 3 hours at a time in the night before calming down and sleeping in the early morning hours. I have never had a baby do that before, so it was getting a little wearing (even with all the help I’ve gotten from family to be able to rest during the daytime). But recently he has started to do much better. He has slept for about a 6-hour stretch at a time during the night these last four days. That makes a big difference. Three of these last four nights we have taken him in the shower, dressed him up in a fuzzy warm outfit, and fed him right before bed, which seems to help him calm down a lot before he goes to sleep.

So, also this week Kolby got to go to his piano lesson with his Uncle Aaron, who also plays the piano, which was fun for him. And he got to go on Friday afternoon to Justin Owens’ birthday party, which he was really excited about. And Kolby, Eli, and Camden all got to go to the store and pick out some cute fabrics to sew something with Nana (they wanted to try sewing when they saw her sewing the blessing dress). So, they each made a cute little pouch, kind of like a mini pillow case, that they can carry things in. They have been carrying around books and toys in their “pockets” since then. And yesterday morning my mom went with me to our ward enrichment activity, a demo class at a food storage store called Kitchen Kneads. We learned some interesting info about grains, got some good recipes, and Mom was nice enough to get me some different kinds of grains that they had for sale there, which should be nice to try out. And then on Saturday night we went and got new cell phones. So, for our family members and the few friends who call us on our cell phone, just so you know, my cell phone number is the same number, but it is now an AT&T phone and not a Verizon phone anymore. So, if you don’t have AT&T, please try to avoid calling my cell phone (except on nights and weekends). Michael’s new cell phone is Verizon, though, so you are welcome to use that number if you have a Verizon plan. (So, if you need either of our cell phone numbers, just e-mail and we’d be glad to give those to you). Oh, and I just finished a book today, called Three Cups of Tea – it’s about a man who builds schools in rural Pakistan towns. I thought it was a pretty good book, and would recomend it to others.

So, yesterday was Michael’s day off. My family left in the morning. Then we bathed the boys and they went with Michael to church. Michael said Eli had a fit and wouldn’t go to his primary class (which is unusual for him), and he ended up going with Michael to the adult class until Michael had to teach the lesson the last hour, so Eli went into his old nursery class. Luckily he said that he would go back to his primary class next week, so we’ll see how that goes. Hopefully there won't be any more problems.

I went with Grandma last night to a viewing for a girl in our ward who died this week, she had health problems due to her Down Syndrome. At our church there is a program called “visiting teaching,” where each woman in the ward has a few other women who she tries to make regular monthly trips to visit with them and share a gospel lesson. Melissa, the girl who passed away, was the daughter of one of the ladies who I visit teach. Actually, since Courtland was born just over two weeks ago, that is the second one of my visiting teaching sisters who has passed away. The other one was a lady who had recently become one of our visiting teaching sisters a couple months ago, but because of some health issues and other problems had rescheduled our two appointments from the last couple months, so we hadn’t even had a chance to meet her yet. She had Multiple Schlurosis, and I believe her death was related to that health condition too. I feel really bad that I’ve had so much going on with having the new baby that I haven’t been very helpful to the families of these sisters, although the women from church have helped them out with food, so I’m not sure what I really could have done.

Well, our week was busy but fun. I was really sad to see my family go, although we are toying with the idea of visiting them in a couple of months when Michael has a week off work, and taking the kids for a trip to Disney Land. So that would be fun – especially if Michelle and Jake are there then with their new baby. And we are also looking forward to the next time that we will get to see Michael’s family. We have made plans for a trip out to Rochester in March, and Debbie and Mindy have been kind enough to say they will come and help watch the boys for us while we go to find a house, which is so nice of them! I keep thinking that if I’ll just allow myself to stop stressing out about finding a house, that this Rochester trip might end up being kind of a fun little vacation – especially since it will just be Michael, Courtland, and I (since the airplanes only have so many extra oxygen masks for each row of seats, it has been quite some time since Michael and I have even been able to sit on the same row on an airplane together with all of our little kids, let alone actually be able to sit on two seats right next to each other – what a luxury!) But I have been looking this week at ratings (based on test scores) of school districts and specific elementary schools in Monroe County, NY, and have been surprised that some are rated much higher or much lower than I expected based off of the recommendations we have been getting for various school districts in the Rochester area. The districts in that county range from one in Pittsfield, NY that is rated 14th out of 694 districts in the state; down to the Rochester City district that is rated 672nd out of 694. That is a big difference. There is just so much more that we have to consider in finding a place to live now that our family has grown up a bit. I guess it will all work out in the end, though (it had better work out, since living in a card-board bow on the side of the road isn’t really an option with 5 kids).

Well, I’m trying to include some cute pictures of Courtland. Although I haven’t gotten any really adorable shots of him yet (I realized, as I looked through the pictures last night, that none of them really show just how cute he is, so I’m going to have to try to get some good ones one of these days, but these will have to do for now). Oh, and here are a couple pictures of the homemade Valentine’s cards that Kolby and Eli made for their preschool class. For anyone who happened to be wondering, this is what 42 Valentine’s look like. :)

Hope you all have a good week, and we’ll keep you updated with all that is going on with us, although I’m afraid it may not be too exciting for a little while – I have to admit that I’m a little overwhelmed with baby number 5 and all these little boys, even though with living with Grandma we have even more help now than ever before. So we may not venture out for a while, except for things that we really have to get done. Maybe after Michael starts his next rotation, though, and he is around to help a little more, I might become a little more brave. We’ll see.

Oh, and here is a cute clip that I just had to include of Kolby “playing” the piano (one of the digital piano’s demo songs), and the other three boys dancing around to the music, from last weekend. How cute!

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Pictures of Courtland

Well, everyone has been asking for more photos of Courtland, so here are lots of photos and a couple short video clips. He is such a little cutie! He is the only one of our boys who has a cute little cleft in his chin (like his Daddy). His hair is a light brown color, and his eyes are dark blue. He has a good little personality – he seems to be trying to sleep pretty well the last day or so, and since visiting a lactation specialist this afternoon I think we’ve got this whole nursing thing down, so things should be getting a little easier from here on out. He likes his baby swing and his pacifier, and since he was giving me a hard time with nursing the last couple days we found out that he takes a bottle really well too. When he was born Courtland had lots of red blotchy spots on his face and we thought that maybe he had really sensitive skin, but it has mostly cleared up since then.

His brothers all seem to like him – we haven’t had any jealousy issues yet (cross your fingers that things will continue to go well in that department), and every once in a while even little Isaac will come over and give him and kiss or hug without us even asking him to (we often ask him to give us kisses and hugs). I thought that the boys would do well with the new baby, but was a little concerned about how Isaac would react, especially since he seems to be more attached to Michael and I than the older boys were at his age, and because with moving to Utah we aren’t really around anyone else with kids Isaac’s age or younger so he hasn’t been around little babies at all, but he has done very well with Courtland so far.

Well, here are lots of fun pictures of this cute little guy:

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Eli's Birthday

We had a fun day on Eli’s birthday Saturday. In the morning the boys were very excited to have the chocolate milk that I had gotten as a special birthday breakfast item. And Eli surprised us by choosing to have cereal (what he has most every morning) for his birthday brunch, instead of the muffins we got.

After breakfast he opened his gift from us: several new animal toys.

Later that morning I cut Michael’s hair while the boys watched cartoons, and Isaac must have been pretty worn out from our game night the night before, because he fell asleep on the couch and napped for about half an hour.

Eli was excited to open his gifts from Nana and Papa that arrived in the mail right on time – he was excited about the new trains and asked if he could take them to bed with him later on.

Around noon we all met Grandma Bradshaw at Coldstone and she treated everyone to ice cream for Eli’s birthday. (I was such a kind Mommy – I let the boys choose whatever they wanted, not even worrying that Camden’s chocolate ice cream would likely leave a big mess or that Kolby’s peanut butter ice cream with gummy bears in it sounded like a rather unpleasant combination to me). [Actually, all the boys did end up being really clean and none of them spilled their ice cream at all, which was nice.]

After we got home, the boys took naps, and while they were napping Michael and I went to pick up his car from the mechanics. When we got home, we were glad to catch the Owens before they left – they unexpectedly showed up with a birthday gift for Eli – how thoughtful! The boys played together for a little while before we had to head out. Before leaving, Eli opened his gift from Grandma Faun, a fun book about a zebra that a friend of her had written – he also insisted on reading his new book later on that night and taking it to bed with him. We ended up going to Café Rio for dinner (did you know that if you dine in, you get free quesadillas for all of the kids?) Then we went to Toys’R’Us for Eli to pick out some gifts with his birthday money from Grandpa Dick and Grandma Debbie and from Grandma Faun. After the boys had fun shopping (and playing) in Toys’R’Us for a while, Eli ended up with quite a little stash of gifts: two new Disney movies (Wall-E and Sleeping Beauty), two new Eye-Spy puzzles, and three more of the plastic animals that go with his set. It did take a little explaining for him to understand that he was picking out what he wanted for his gifts (not looking for wrapped gifts at the store), but he was excited about what he got. We ended up putting together one of his new puzzles for family home evening last night, and the three older boys really enjoyed that activity.

A Fun Game Night

When the Owens came over the other night, we had so much fun having dinner and playing games together. The kids enjoyed the night too.

Camden and Jessica reading books together:

The boys watching a movie after Isaac and Jessica fell asleep:

A Picture of Isaac and a Short Update on this Pregnancy

I had to share this adorable picture of Isaac:

So, on another note, things are looking pretty good for this baby arriving soon. At my appointment yesterday the midwife said that she thinks I will go into labor before my induction date next Tuesday. So, that’s not very long to wait, even if I do end up being induced. I found a baby book for Courtland yesterday. I think I have just about everything ready for his arrival now.

A Sleep-Over with Cousin Jaden!

Last Saturday we went to Mel and Christian’s for a family dinner, and on the drive there Kolby asked if he could sleep over at his cousin, Jaden’s, house. After explaining to him that it isn’t polite to invite yourself to sleep over at someone else’s house, but that it’s ok to invite someone to your house if Mommy and Daddy say it’s alright, he asked if Jaden could sleep over at our house that night. I told him that it wouldn’t work that night because Jaden wouldn’t be able to get back to his house in time for church the next morning, but said that we could invite him to spend the night after Eli’s birthday party on Thursday (since Kolby and Eli don’t have preschool on Fridays). This worked for Mel, and we made plans for the sleep over.

The boys were excited for Jaden to stay, and I was glad that Jaden seemed excited, and not at all nervous about staying after his parents left too. We put the kids to bed around 8:00, with Jaden and Eli sharing Eli’s big bed together, and they did pretty well. As expected, they played and talked in bed for quite a while. Around 10:00 Jaden came out of the bedroom, and with a very concerned look on his face, told us that Eli had broken his pillow. It turns out Eli had just taken the pillowcase off, so that was an easy fix. :) We ended up putting Jaden in our bed (just because we didn’t want them to wake up Isaac, who shares a room with Eli), and then we moved Jaden back into Eli’s bed after they had both fallen asleep. In the morning the kids all played with toys and colored until breakfast time, we ate, and then they played all morning until lunch. After lunch I put all five boys down for naps, and Christian ended up coming to pick Jaden up while he was napping. I thought that it went very well, for how young the boys are. And they had so much fun! I took this picture that night before the boys went to bed, and I think it turned out so cute of each of them:

Temple Open House

The other day we got to go to the open house of the Draper, Utah temple. Whenever a new temple is built it is open to the public to take a tour through the temple until the temple is dedicated. We thought it was a wonderful opportunity for our boys to get to go inside the temple (since children have to be at least 12 years old before they can go inside a temple after it has been dedicated). The boys did very well with being quiet inside (except when Isaac got really excited when we entered the celestial room and kept making loud "talking" noises until we left that room -- but even Isaac was very quiet for the rest of the tour). My favorite part was showing the boys a sealing room and telling them that it was like the room in the San Diego temple where Mommy and Daddy were married. We held them up and showed them the large mirrors on either side of the room, and how the reflections seemed to go on and on as they reflected back and forth in both of the mirrors, and we told them that was like a family who is sealed together for eternity and gets to be together forever. Kolby had his mouth wide open with a look of awe on his face when I told him that, it was so sweet! So, it turned out to be a really good experience for our whole family.

Isaac's Curls

So, last weekend we were giving the boys baths before church in the morning, and when Isaac got out of the tub his hair looked curly, so I decided to try doing his hair like Camden’s. I think it turned out so cute! Had to post a couple photos. And then I had to take pictures of each of the other boys in their new church sweaters too. So handsome!

Here is a shot of Isaac from last week, and one of Camden when he was 1 year old. (Everyone always says they look alike now, but I don't think they look all that similar when you compare pictures of them at the same age, except their adorable hair and the color of their cute blue eyes -- but I do have to admit, with Isaac's hair all curly like this it did remind me a lot of when Camden was his age).