It's a Beautiful Day

Because yesterday was such a beautiful day, we wanted to spend some time outdoors doing something as a family. We decided to take LP to a new park that he hadn't been to before. He LOVED the park. There was a great playground for him to play on. The other side of the park had some of the most gorgeous landscaping. This was actually the park where Brad and I had our engagement pictures taken. There was a beautiful, clear, creek where we let LP play. He had a blast and loved splashing in the water. Needless to say, we had a full-blown tantrum to deal with on our way to the car. We will definitely be visiting this park again soon!

I only made a two-minute phonecall....

Uh-oh:)


Helping clean up

On July 20, I went to make a phonecall to someone at church. BB was swinging in his swing and I thought LP was playing with his toys. After talking for only a couple of minutes, I hung up the phone and went looking for LP. The top picture shows what I found. I couldn't help myself and I laughed right out loud when I saw him. This, of course, encouraged more powder...all over. After talking to LP about how we don't do this, I asked him to help me clean it up. I think he had as much fun cleaning it up as spilling it all over, so I am afraid this may not be the only time he does this. I guess I need to start putting the powder in the linen closet:)!

BB Lately

Fourth of July

For the 4th of July weekend this year, we decided to make the trip up to Leelanau Pines to visit Brad's family. This was BB's first time up and LP's first time up since he's been "mobile." Brad has many, many memories from when he was a kid that involve Lake Leelanau, Cedar, Traverse City, and "Up North" in general and we both knew how much LP would enjoy it up there as well as spending time with grandpa and grandma.

Not knowing how it would go with two little ones under two, we made the drive up on Friday night not making any promises as to when we would arrive. We actually made it all the way to Cadillac before we had to stop to get dinner and feed LP. We stopped at the state park on Lake Mitchell and let LP run around for awhile before continuing on.

We arrived pretty late, but daddy and LP still found time to play on the new play structure at the park and mommy and BB settled in the trailer. LP slept great in the trailer and we had a pretty good night with BB too!

Because LP was up so late the night before, he slept in until 9:45 on Saturday morning! As Polka Fest was going on in Cedar, we decided to take LP to the Polka parade. It took him a bit to figure out what was going on, but once he did, he LOVED getting all the candy that was being thrown to the kids. While we were there, grandma and grandpa took care of BB for us. Because grandma and grandpa were watching BB during a feeding time, they fed him formula as I didn't have any pumped milk. This was only the second or third time he has had formula and it didn't set well with him at ALL! He projectile vomited many times and even started dryheaving. It was so sad to watch his little body going through so much. He was really lethargic and had very few wet diapers. We had to keep a close eye on him to make sure he didn't get dehydrated. Thankfully, he was back to himself within a few days and we didn't have to take him to the ER.

After the parade, everyone was ready for a nap. After the nap and happy hour, we had dinner and went to see the fireworks. LP really didn't care too much about the fireworks. He liked seeing them, but probably couldn't have cared either way about seeing them. BB slept through the entire evening.

After a somewhat sleepless night with a sick baby, Brad decided to take LP to Northbar Lake and Sleeping Bear Dunes. His parents, nephew, and sister and brother-in-law went with him. I stayed back with BB and headed into Traverse City to get a thermometer for BB. I spent a little time hitting the outlets as well. Then BB and I headed back to the trailer for some R&R before the rest of the crew came back.

Brad and LP had a wonderful time at the Lake. Brad said LP played and played and had such a fun time. The lake really tired him out because he was so tired that we had to wake him up from his nap! After dinner, I took LP and Eli to see the ducks. They were so cute and walked hand in hand the entire way. We ate yummy pizza from the Cedar Tavern and grandma got the boys red, white, and blue popsicles for the 4th of July. Lp LOVED his! He was covered in red and blue dye, but I think he ate every last drop of the popsicle. After baths, we busted out the sparklers. Daddy seemed to have the most fun with the sparklers as LP didn't seem to care about them a whole lot!

We headed home the next day and both boys were perfect on the way home. We made it all the way to Comstock Park before Luke had to eat.

Even though it's a lot of work to get everything together and head up there, I know the boys had a good time and made many memories together. We all had a really nice time!

Belated Post

Brad spent a week at home after BB was born. This was much appreciated as LP needed some special attention and mommy needed as much help as she could get. As we had some beautiful weather the week Brad was home, he decided to take LP to the beach for the first time. Brad decided to take him to PJ Hoffmaster as this is the beach he remembered liking most as a child. After a busy morning of packing the beach bag and traveling for an hour, they finally arrived at the beach.

LP loved the beach! Brad said he had to watch him extra carefully as he had absolutely no fear of the water and wanted "more" and "more" of it, even though the water temperature was very chilly. LP played very hard and slept the entire way home. Even though Brad had plenty to do on his time off, he wanted to spend some time with LP and create some special memories. LP is sure blessed to have a daddy as fun and good to him as Brad! I am sure this is just the first of many trips to the beach for LP!

One Month

July 8, 2010

Dearest Baby boy,
You are officially a little over a month old. I can’t believe how quickly the time passes. There were nights that I wondered if I would ever get any sleep and now you are already a month old! Daddy told me that you would be driving before we know it. I hope that the time doesn’t pass that quickly!
You are the sweetest, most perfect little baby boy! You are absolutely adorable. Before you were born, I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t love you as much as I loved LP. I didn’t know how I could give enough love to two little boys. I have figured it out! I couldn’t love you more and we are so happy and blessed to have you in our lives.
You are doing very well in your first month of life. You like to eat and eat almost exclusively mama’s milk. You get one or two pumped bottles per day as we tend to be “on the go” quite a bit and this seems to work out better. You eat about every 3-4 hours in the morning hours and every 2-2.5 in the afternoon/evening hours.
You are sleeping about two 4-5 hour stretches at night and occasionally sleep for 6-7 hours at a time. You typically nurse in the middle of the night and go back to bed quite easily.
You are such a content baby and rarely get upset by anything. You even don’t mind when you have a wet diaper! You enjoy getting bathed, being talked to, car rides, and swinging in your swing. You really only get crabby when you are hungry or have a really dirty diaper. You even started smiling already! Nobody believed mommy, but I saw your first smile when you were a little older than two weeks, on June 22. Since then, you have really started smiling a lot more. You are so cute and sweet when you smile and I love that we can interact at such an early age.
You are growing like a weed already! At your four week visit on June 29, you weighed 11 lbs 3 ozs and were 23 inches long! I think you are definitely going to double your birthweight by 5 months at this pace! You are definitely out of all your newborn clothes and are already wearing some 6 month things! You are in size one diapers, but I am pretty sure we will need to switch to size two soon.
You have had a few visits to the doctor’s office recently for a couple of different issues. First of all, dad and I discovered that you were “tongue-tied.” I was having some difficulty nursing you and we were told that this may be part of the issue. We talked to an ENT about the issue and he suggested you have the tissue clipped. So, we scheduled an appointment for you to have the very minor surgery. I brought you to the appointment and the doctor told me I should wait outside the room and that you would be done with the surgery very quickly. Within a minute or two of leaving the room, I heard you cry for a brief moment and then it was done. It didn’t seem to bother you at all.
This past weekend, daddy, LP and I headed to Lake Leelanau to visit with Grandma and Grandpa Kuipers. We decided to take LP to the parade and it was too hot to take you with. We didn’t have any pumped milk, so grandma fed you some formula while we were gone. When we got back, you started vomiting…a lot. You vomited so much that you started dry heaving. Daddy and I were so sad to see you so sick. I called the doctor and they told me to watch closely for signs of dehydration. After about six hours or so, you finally got your appetite back and having wet diapers again. However, you continued to vomit a decent amount for the next couple of days. You also seemed to have caught LP’s cold as you started coughing a bit and having a stuffed up nose. Through it all, you were really such a good baby and even though you looked miserable, you seemed pretty happy.
The doctor told me to get you in for an appointment with Dr. Berent when we got back home. So, I took you in and Dr. Berent examined you. He said that everything looked okay and sounded clear, but he was a bit suspicious of something called Pyloric Stenosis. This is a condition in which the stomach narrows to a point that you cannot keep anything down and this can lead to severe dehydration. Surgery is almost always needed to cure this. Dr. Berent said he doesn’t think you have this as you are gaining weight so well and are having plenty of wet diapers per day, but he still wanted to order an ultrasound to rule it out. So, you have that appointment in a couple of days and hopefully everything turns out normal. You seem to be better already, so I am hopeful that nothing major is going on with you.
You are such a joy to have around and we love you SO much. Sometimes I wish I could spend a little more one-on-one time with just you. It’s a bit different being the second baby, but I look so forward to the time I get to cuddle with you at night and during LP’s naps. I love you so much and you are such a wonderful addition to our family!

Love you angel,
Mommy