Day one with Olivia

This is a video of when the boys first met Olivia

Happy 1st Birthday

How is it possible that today we have a one year old?  Our lives certainly changed forever the day Olivia was born.  Many days quickly became much crazier, but I couldn’t imagine life without Olivia.  Overall, she has been a really good baby.  We have experienced the typical rough baby moments of ear infections, teething and sleepless nights, but it all came with so much more ease the second time around.  We knew what to expect and we knew we would make it through it. 

 

There is something special about Olivia, she has this sweet little, happy personality.  She is a little bit playful – as she stares down people at the stores, doctors offices and church, trying to get their attention or just to give them a few grins.  She has a calm patience about her, she will quietly sit and wait her turn- some mornings she is in bed with me, just itching for Keith to come out of the bathroom and will quietly peek around the corning to look and see if he is coming.  Yet, when this girl sees food – there is no patience, lots of growling and yelling!  She really watches you close and pays attention to every little thing you do and you can see the focus in her eye or the way her lips are moving as she is trying to mimic you.  I love how much she loves her brothers!  She gets so excited to play with them and literally wrestles with them and attacks them!  Every morning Oliviasaurus comes out to wake up her brothers and she growls and starts grabbing their faces.  I love the way she can tilt her head and give you the sweetest looks and smiles. She is so much calmer than her brother’s were at this age – we haven’t even baby proofed!  At this stage of the game with the boys I think we owned every baby-proofing thing made.  However, she has recently become very familiar with going up the stairs.  And right before she is thinking about doing something naughty, she stops and looks back at you and then usually chickens out.   I love how much she loves her daddy – she could give her mommy a little more of that love!  I love to hold her and snuggle with her, this moments are getting hard as she now fills my arms and would rather be playing. 

 

Happy birthday sweet baby girl! Your mommy loves you! 

Family fun!

Keith's cousins, Lindsay just moved to Grimes, the her sister Megan just moved to Ankeny, so we are right in the middle!  We had been trying to do a get together for a few months and finally were able to make it happen.  Sarah came up with the boys (look how cute Kasper is).  Nick joined us too.  And we even had one more late night visitor.  Keith's cousin Dave, who lives in MN was coming down for a bachelor party and stayed the night with us Friday.  It was great to see him.  The boys just loved him.  So it worked out great to see everyone.  

 

 

 

 

Another great year at the lake

We are getting excited to meet this guy!

 

 

 

 

Another great year at the lake! It was a bit on the cold side, but we did manage to get brave enough to get in!  We hit the outlet mall pretty hard, almost everything was 50% so that was great!  A few other highlights, that I will share (I'll keep a few for the group to myself).

• We went to a fun ISU tailgate party
• Molly and I sat in the hot tub every night, did I mention it was nice to not be pregnant this year
• It was pretty cold, the guys wakeboarded, not the girls!
• We did an 80's happy hour, must do that again next year!
• Ate way too much (or maybe not enough) of Lola's monkey bread!
• Our boat broke, so these people were so kind to let us hang out at their doc for a bit, while the guys got the other boat to bring us back.  Autumn, Jess and I took the jet ski back, which was fun since it's been a couple years since I have been on one.  
• Keith bought a special string / floaty for his sunglasses so he wouldn't lose them in the lake, unfortunately it was in no way helpful when you leave them at a restaurant.  

Big thanks for Keith's parents for staying with the kiddos!  I think Olivia and Grandpa Karl had lots of fun and Grandma Susie was brave enough to take the boys to a few stores, a movie and I think a couple hours at the McD playhouse.  

 

 

How fun was this!  Especially when the water is freezing.

We did a mini surprise toast/celebration for Molly since she is completing her chief residency this summer.  And of course in typical Molly fashion - it's not a big deal guys, it's no different than what you guys did, it just took a little longer.  Sure molly, almost the same!  

 

Behind on blogging!

I have tons of pics I haven't posted.  Here are a few pics from when we went to the farm a while back.  Always great to see Keith's grandparents and I'm always impressed by how well these two get around!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer Flowers

I took the boys to pick up a few plants, which turned into a cart full of flowers.  I would kindly tell Dylan, how about we put that one back, and he would say, oh, I just love it mom.  So finally after a large collection of flowers, I told the boys they could each do their own planter.  Dylan was quite proud of his and all 7 flowers.  Carter was set on a red and a blue.  I guess it will be fitting for the upcoming holiday.  We did have a good time flower shopping!

 

 

She loves her daddy

 

Look Close

 

Look what we found

And of course Carter was not afraid to pick this guy up.  He LOVES bugs and animals and does not hesitate picking anything up!  

 

 

 

This guy was surprisingly fast!  We let him go and he was gone in minutes.  

 

Have you seen this on Pinterest

Less bubble spills?  Not a bad idea, but about a day in Dylan decided to fill it up with the large bottle of bubbles.  He did surprisingly get a lot in without spilling, then once it started overflowing, it was a mess!  Nothing good ever comes with bubbles!

A rough weekend

When Dylan was almost one and broke his arm, I recall I said this was our “first” broken arm.  Well, we are now onto the second and hopefully the last. 

Saturday night the boys finished dinner and asked to play at the big kids- which is just 2 houses down from us.  Not long after they were gone, I heard my neighbor yelling for me, so I ran over as fast as I could.  He had fallen from the monkey bars and I could quickly see that we would be needing to make a trip to the ER.  For as many times as we have been to the ER (and I am talking at least half a dozen times), we were really unprepared for this trip. No idea where my car keys were and everything seemed to be scattered.  No way could all of us have gone without time to pack for Olivia too.  So I hopped in Keith’s truck with a phone that was almost dead, Dylan in his swimming trunks – no shirt, no shoes (luckily the ER still services).  I felt terrible not being able to sit next to him and comfort him.  He kept saying how badly it hurt, but not over-the-top screaming or anything. So I thought maybe he dislocated the elbow.  So I tried to keep him calm telling him stories and then he finally dozed off. I took him to the Unity Point West ER, since it’s a bit closer and seems to be much quicker in and out.  My mom and dad were on their way to get dinner so I called them to come out on the way.  So they arrived not far behind me.  It was really nice to have them there with us!  (I think they later made a midnight stop at Village Inn)

One of the first stops was X-ray. This friends was not pleasant for either me or Dylan.  It really hurt him to move his arm on the table. (I recall this same experience not being fun the last time).  Then we waited, we waited for a long time! 

With some back and forth, they finally shared that it was indeed broken, and it was a bad break, in not a great spot, which was also on a growth plate.  So we would be transported downtown for surgery.  At this point they gave him some Motrin to ease the pain and he would doze off in and out of sleep.  Then they put his arm in a splint and we would get to take a little ride in the ambulance downtown to Blank Children’s Hospital.  Dylan thought this was pretty cool and kept everyone entertained in the ambulance. 

We got checked into the hospital around11:00 and were lucky to talk quickly with the surgeon and go over the procedure.  He had a supercondylar fracture, so basically right above the elbow.  This type of break would require a pin to hold it in place, which they will remove in 4-5 weeks.  He said it will take at least 6 weeks to heal and they will probably keep a cast on a bit longer to ensure it is fully healed. 

Probably the best thing to happen on Saturday night  was I took him to the bathroom in his room and the toilet just went crazy and kept flushing and flushing.  This really took his mind off things and put him in a great mood – telling the nurses they probably needed to get  a worker to fix it and that they would probably need to make  a new pipe!  Then we were off to a new room since they couldn’t fix it. By the time we got settled, Keith was able to join us for a bit (Thanks Scott for staying with the kids so late!)  Dylan was really happy to see Keith. 

I stayed with Dylan at the hospital and tried to sleep in his bed and not hurt him between the broken arm, IV and cords.  (you can imagine how well I slept!)  My mom joined us right away in the morning and it was funny because every single thing Keith told Dylan the night before he repeated to my mom.  My sister was so kind to get to our house early Sunday to watch Olivia and Carter so Keith could be at the hospital with us. Dylan was super excited to have his dad there with him! 

The procedure went pretty well.  The hospital was super quiet, being Father’s Day Sunday.  I never like the feeling of having your child in surgery or being in pain!  The doctor said the procedure went pretty well.  Dylan did OK coming out.  He had this terrible cough from a tube they had in his throat.  And his arm was definitely hurting him badly the first hour or so. Then the Motrin kicked in!  I felt really bad with all of that because I could tell he was really hurting.  Once I got home I realized that they had not given the poor kid anything stronger than Motrin, but he seems to be doing OK with that so I haven’t requested anything stronger.  I told Dylan he was a tough cookie and he thought that was the funniest thing ever!

Once he started feeling a bit better I went home to get Olivia and Carter, Dylan was really excited to have them visit.  By the time we got back Dylan was doing much better. I wish I had a video of him and Carter – they were a hoot!  Dylan was telling him everything from the ambulance ride to the broken toilet to showing him how the bed goes up and down to this jug he had to pee in.    He had gotten Carter a little ice cream and had it in his room fridge – which he was also excited to point out to him.  Carter made him a cute card he was so excited to give him.  It was a picture of a potato –flamer, he said it would make Dylan laugh.  It did! I still have no idea what a potato flamer is.

Dylan is doing pretty darn awesome so far with his cast and using his left hand!  He will say it hurts some, but I have not heard one complaint about not being able to do something or complaining about using the left hand.  However, I am quickly finding the dynamic of having a twin brother who can do anything a bit challenging.  THE poor kid looked so sad trying to ride a big wheel one-handed.  He is really going to miss his bike this summer. We are working on some solutions for sprinklers / water slides. The hard part is not having him lose his balance and fall!  Then I think it’s hard on Carter because his best friend can’t do all the things they do together.

 

Here is a picture of Dylan with his Root beer.  When we were in the hospital I told him he can have his own – full can as soon as we are home and the doctor says it’s OK and that he deserves it!  So when he was drinking it he told me he deserved it!  And he did!

And if you are still with me after this lengthy posted – I should mention the surgeon said if there were two things he could get rid of it would be monkey bars and trampolines!  When I met with him he had just set another 4 year olds arm from monkey bars.