Monday, October 24, 2011

Shutterfly Promotion

This week Shutterfly is offering bloggers 25 FREE Holiday Cards!
How awesome is that?

Shutterfly is once again offering 25 free holiday cards for bloggers. Go sign up here and they’ll let you know if you qualify.
to participate, you will need to blog about Shutterfly or the holiday card you choose.
If you’re not a blogger or don’t want to blog about your holiday cards, you can get 20 photo cards for $1.49 shipped from SeeHere.
Thanks, The Red Kitchen!

I love Shutterfly and do all of my picture printing through them. They offer great quality and a great price. I can't wait to recieve my free holiday cards!

Saturday, October 15, 2011

6 months, a little late

Levi turned 6 months old last Sunday and he is the cutest little six month old that I have ever seen.
We had our 6 month appointment on Friday and Levi is turning into quite the big little fella.

He weighed in at a whopping 17 pounds and measures 27 1/4 inches long.
Believe it or not he is just under the 50th percentile for weight but is nearing the top of the chart when it comes to height...just over the 90th percentile.

If you remember Barret was always rocking the charts too, but didn't reach the 90th percentile until his 12 month well baby check up.

It is safe to say that we have two little weeds in our family.


Levi's 6 month birthday was the same day as baby dedications at church. What an awesome way to celebrate our little man. Both sets of grandparents came down to help as we celebrated the day we dedicated our little Levi to the Lord.
Along with turning six months Levi is starting to learn how to pull himself up. He tries so hard and uses every muscle in his body to get it but is not quite there yet.
Mama made baby food for the first time too. Bananas, squash, green beans, and pears. I really enjoy it. There is something about it that is just really relaxing. I think Levi likes it a lot better than all that jarred food too. I am sure it tastes better because it is made with a Mama's love :)

Mama and Barret went to the ISU parade today with a friend. Barret really didn't like the ISU marching band, but the rest of the parade was fine, We saw a few tractors and lots of dogs, so he was in heaven! Added bonus, all of the candy. And everyone knows that when your at a parade the rules of how many pieces of candy you can eat are gone. I am pretty sure Barret ate at least 10 different pieces of candy. He even figured out how to take the wrappers off on his own....what a little smarty!

Anyway, lots if random thoughts in this post, but as you know, we have a crazy life here, and random is just what I have right now.

Enjoy your beautiful fall weekend

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Sentences

Yesterday Barret said his first sentence!!!! Actually he said three.

At breakfast we had a conversation about a coat and hat that were resting on one of the chairs.
He looked at me and said. "is this my coat?' I said, "it used to be yours, but now it is Levi's coat." He then said, "is this my hat?" and I replied, "no, that is Levi's hat.

Our first actual conversation at the breakfast table :)


Later on in the day Barret said, "this is heavy" and he was right, he was carrying a stack of cones around the yard, and they certainly were heavy.

He seems to have all of a sudden learned and now understands the meaning of a lot of new words. He is such a smart little cookie :)

'rockock' the baby


This is my baby.....

This is my other baby.....





This is Barret's baby :)


About a week ago Barret took on a new interest. His baby is now very very important to him. The bear gets dressed, the bear gets his diaper changed, the bear eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the bear even gets put in the baby bjorn.





The bear plays outside, he colors, he helps pick up toys with his bear paws, he goes down the slide, he 'jumps' into the bushes, and he even takes bubble baths.



I don't know what it was that made him so important all of a sudden, but I think it is so cute. Barret walks around the house cuddle his 'baby' and his favorite thing to do with him is to ask us to swaddle the bear in Barret's blankie and then he goes to the rocking chair and rocks.


He says, 'baby, rockock? uhhu' with a big grin on his face. His bear then either gets placed gently on someones bed for a nap or tossed over the side of the crib or pack-n-play for a not so comfortable nap.


The bear has been through the bubble bath, or I guess we can say the washing machine now 4 times in the last 7 days. The first time we put him in Barret was very excited, he put in the detergent, he opened up the machine, tossed the bear in, and closed it up. But as soon as the machine turned on, Barret's world seemed to have come to an end. He screamed and screamed, and just wanted his bear. He kept pounding on the machine to try and let him out (we have and HE front loader, so he can see the bear inside getting tumbled around). Thankfully I was thinking when I started the machine and only set it for a quick 19 minute cycle. But those 19 minutes were long enough. The dryer was out of the question, lucky for us our washing machine as a high spin setting and he was practically dry already. We now try to make the babies bubble bath time when we are going to be out of the house, or when Barret is very engaged in something else.


He loves his bear :)

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

The E.R., two breathing treatments, and a steroid later....

Levi has croup.... don't know what that is? Basically it is this terrible terrible sore throat your baby gets from a virus and it makes parents feel absolutely awful.

Last Monday I took Barret to the store with me to get a few things for Daddy's birthday the next day. Levi was taking a nap when we left for the store and when we got home everything just seemed to be going down hill. It was a rainy day, and of course when we got home from the store the rain started coming down even harder, leaving us to dodge the huge puddles in the back yard as we sprinted to the deck. We got Barret ready for bed and he came running in to Steve shouting 'bubu, bubu'. Steve went into our room where Levi had been napping, and he was red, sweaty, and screaming at the top of his lungs, but you could barely hear him because his throat was so sore. We tried to calm him, but he wouldn't stop. We could feel him breathing, it felt like his ribs were rattling. I didn't want to be the frantic mom who just jumped in the car and took him to the E.R. so I calmly suggested that maybe I go after I tried to nurse him and changed his diaper. Steve just laughed a little because he knew that was all that I wanted to do....rush to the E.R.
So, I said good night to Barret, and we headed for the E.R. He cried the whole way there, and then we had to wait about 45 minutes before we even saw a nurse. When they finally admitted us the doctor came in and just watched him breathe. I was much more upset about it than the staff seemed to be (which is to be expected) as they casually walked in and out of the room. The doctor decided on croup, so to treat it there they were going to give him a steroid and then try a breathing treatment to help open up the passage way. After they got everyone on the same page we had to wait about an hour before they came in with the steroid. So of course, I had gotten Levi to finally fall asleep and had to wake him up so they could shoot some nasty smelling liquid down his throat. His heart rate was a lot higher than they expected it to be after this so we had to wait an hour or so before they could try the breathing treatment on him.

The breathing treatment made me want to cry. Basically I had to hold Levi in my lap, hold a gas mask over his face and listen to him scream louder than I have ever heard, while this mist was blowing in his face. He couldn't stop coughing and his throat sounded more horse than it had before. After two minutes of this, the respiratory tech came in and checked his vitals. We then waited another hour before doing the whole treatment for a second time. They concluded that it didn't seem to be helping him much but prescribed the steroid for him to take for the next four days and then sent us home. Super!
So the next four days were basically filled with sleep for our little Levi. He does seem a lot better, bust still has a pretty chesty cough from time to time.

But hey, now he can say that he went to the E.R. one night just like his big brother :)