Toothbrushes

Lp has a newfound obsession with toothbrushes. His favorite drawer to get into is the drawer that contains three of our toothbrushes. If one of us leaves the bathroom door open, he literally runs right in there and opens the drawer to try and find the toothbrushes. If he finds one in there, he runs around the house with it hanging out of his mouth. Obviously this is not very safe and we have, much to his dismay, removed the toothbrushes. So...he gets overjoyed when it is time to brush his teeth at night. He literally throws a tantrum when we are done. Hopefully his love of toothbrushes and oral hygiene continues as he grows:)!

Sledding Fun!

Winter is a long time for a little one to be stuck inside. One of LP's favorite things to do is to stare outside the windows and watch the snow fall. Between LP being sick on and off for so much of the Winter and bitter cold temps, we haven't had much of a chance to be outside with him. The past couple of weeks, however, Brad has taken LP sledding around our house. To say LP LOVES being outside is an understatement. Brad and LP spent over an hour outside together the other day and LP screamed and cried and threw a tantrum when it was time to go inside. Just imagine what he'll do after we make him come inside after a day of playing outside this Summer:). He loves playing outside in the snow, especially on his sled. He will not walk in the boots I bought him, so we either have to carry him or let him wear shoes in the snow. He doesn't seem to care much about being cold and would much rather stay outside playing than come into the warm house.

We absolutely love the time we get with this little one and it's so much fun to watch him learn and experience things for the first time!

Free!

Last week Wednesday, February 17, LP got his cast taken off! He really did so well for the four weeks that he had it on. He didn't use his arm much for the first few days, and then as soon as he realized how to use his arm with the cast on it, he was using it like normal.

He cried quite a bit during the xrays. Thankfully my mom was with me because I wouldn't have been able to be in there with him because of the pregnancy. He did very well during the actual cast removal (I think the banana split flavored dum-dum pop may have helped)!

He didn't really react any differently to having his cast off. He did look at his arm funny for a bit the next morning after he woke up, but other than that he transitioned very well. Praise God that the break healed correctly and that we don't have to do anything further!

Broken Arm Baby

On my way home from getting my haircut, I got a call from Brad stating, "I think I broke our son." Knowing Brad's sense of humor, I laughed and asked him what happened. He said that they were playing in the basement and Brad was pushing LP on his Radio Flyer tricycle. Lp fell off sideways onto his arm and started screaming. Brad said nothing would console him. After a while, Brad was able to calm him and get him to fall asleep.

I thought I better check on him when I got home. I woke him up and started moving his arm. He was a bit whiny, but didn't really cry that hard...until I hyperextended his right arm. As soon as I did this, he started screaming and I knew that we had to take him into urgent care.

Urgent care was very busy that night and we had to wait for about an hour until the doctor arrived. By time the doctor came in, LP was running around and in quite the good mood. I was starting to get worried that we were "those parents." The doctor moved his arm in all different positions and LP just sat there. At that point, the doctor said that we could get xrays if we wanted, but he thought we should just write it off as a sprain. I asked him to hyperextend his arm and as soon as he did, LP screamed and the doctor decided to order xrays. LP did great with the xrays. The doctor read them and said he didn't see anything significant. He said that we should treat it like a sprain. We called Grandpa VV on the way home and he said not to be surprised if we get a call in the am once the radiologist reads the xray.

The next day, Thursday, I was at home attending a teleconference for work. In the middle of my conference, my call waiting beeped in with "Spectrum Health" on the caller ID. As soon as I saw this, I knew that something was broken. The urgent care doctor informed me that LP had a "non-displaced supercondylar break of the right distal humerus." We called grandpa VV and he got us into an orthopedic surgeon in Holland. LP did so well as the doctor put his full arm cast on. He only has to have the cast on for four weeks, so hopefully it goes well!

It's a.....

BOY! This post is SO long overdue and I am pretty sure everyone knows this by now, but I wanted to post to say that we are going to be having another little boy in May. We are so excited to have two boys so close in age and LP is ecstatic too (from what we can tell:))! We had our ultrasound on December 31 and rang in the New Year with news of a healthy baby boy! Praise God!

I am getting much bigger by the day, and have really "popped out" in the last couple of weeks. I seem to be trending right as I did with
LP as far as weight gain and stomach size go. Here is the latest belly picture taken tonight at 22 weeks!

Great Wolf Lodge

Not loving the life jacket
Grandma and Johanna


Loving the jets
Tall, lanky boy...definitely not a Vander Vliet:)

For my parents 60th birthdays and 40th wedding anniversary, the whole Vander Vliet family headed up North to The Great Wolf Lodge for a few days of relaxation and fun. We went up on Sunday and played in the waterpark for awhile. We were all quite hungry, except for me because I might have bought nachos at the park:), so we went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. LP was getting a bit cranky as it was WAY past his bedtime and all the Christmas parties made him get way off schedule. After an hour and a half of trying to get him to sleep, he finally caved so that Brad and I could go down to my parents rooms and play some Catchphrase with my very competitive family.

Monday we went to the park for a while and then Brad watched LP while I went to the mall for a bit. I found some crazy good deals at Gymboree, so I was there a bit longer than I had planned on. Monday night we went out to the Jolly Pumpkin for my dad's 60th birthday. We were fortunate to get babysitters for the night so we had a kidfree night. Unfortunately we also had a Colin-free night because Henry had gotten sick before we left and they didn't feel right about leaving him with a sitter...especially one he didn't know:). After a great dinner, followed by some arcade time, we resorted to my parents room for another round of Catchphrase.

We packed up early Tuesday morning and took LP to the waterpark for one last hurrah. He wasn't loving it that early in the morning, so we headed out of Traverse by noon. Overall we had a wonderful time. Thanks, mom and dad for a great couple of days!

Vander Vliet Christmas 2009

Thinking he was being naughty by taking the ornament off the tree


LP and Grandma

We headed over to my parents house on Christmas day for a crazy, packed day of fun. We started the day with the "counting of the coins." I have to say that I was the proud winner this year. I am saving half of the earnings to go towards a double stroller and the other half has been donated to World Vision. After the coins, we ate a Prime Rib dinner that was very yummy. We let the kids open their presents right after dinner (after being asked 25 times if it was time to open presents yet:)). Abigail got the most annoying toy...EVER...from my parents. She got a play microphone. Of course this was the perfect gift for little Miss Performer, but I have to say that we were all graced with her beautiful singing and antics for the rest of the night:)! LP got some great new toys and was, once again, spoiled by all!