Summer Catch Up - July 30th - August 6th

We left for our BIG three week vacation that covered just about 2000 miles at the very end of July. The kids did fantastic through the whole trip. We started the first part of the week in The Dalles, OR with my Aunt Debbie, my Aunt Joyvonne, my Grandparents and my Mom, Stephen and Micah. My aunts have a beautiful home up on the hill side of the Columbia Gorge. While we were there we were able to swim, "hike", celebrate my and my Grandfather's birthday, relax and just play, play, play.


After our visit in The Dalles we headed off to my dad's parents house in Scappoose, OR. We had a fantastic time there as well. We celebrated my birthday a second time with amazing desserts and family. The kids had a great time playing with their "new" cousins and it was great catching up with everyone. We got to go visit the Portland Zoo and meet Jesse's fiance for the first time. We LOVE her!! It was so fun to watch Riann play with everyone and for everyone to FINALLY meet Colby.


Both kids had a hard time leaving after our first stops and they want to go back as soon as we possibly can.

Summer Catch Up - June and July

Goodness!!! I've gotten so far behind this summer its nice to have things start to calm down. No apologies though. We've been having fun and it's been great to be away from the computer most days! I originally planned on doing one big post the the more I put into it I realized it was WAY too long and I was still leaving out too much of the fun stuff, so I'm breaking it down into smaller - more managable - posts ;-).

Here's what's been going on since the last time I posted...

June:

June 14, Colby had another sleeps study done.

This time everything went a LOT better than last time. Overall he was a lot happier throughout the whole test and much more patient with everything going on. He also slept a full 6-7 hour block as opposed to sleeping in 2 hours increments like the last time. I don't think he really ever cried once through out the whole test. There were a few times he fussed a little because he was frustrated and didn't have the ability to fully move but he never let that really get to him. With this test we found that his breathing has improved by about 60% and he does still have sleep apnea but its getting a lot better. We will go back when he's about 18 months to get another scope done on his larynx and then schedule his third sleep study at that time. Hopefully by then he'll be sleeping normal and we can take him off his oxygen at night. That will be a big day in our lives!!

July:

July 3, We celebrated the 4th a little early this year and shot off fireworks with some our our good friends down the street from us. The kids were very excited about the holiday.


July 4, The next morning we woke up and joined our ward/area at the Salem Community 4th of July Celebration Breakfast. We really enjoy going to this every year. The food and company are always fantastic. Because of family trips I missed out on all of the breakfasts our ward did growing up so I enjoy doing this SO much!!! I'm so glad the kids get to participate in things like this.


After the breakfast this year we skipped out on the Rexburg parade and headed off to Ririe Reservoir for a fun day on the lake with some of our other good friends Dave and Terri and their son Nathan and their great dane, Chief. We had a great time. It started off a little cold but right after we took our lunch break the clouds broke and we could not have asked for a more perfect day.


Paul, Dave and Terri showed off their skills as wake surfers and road the "waves" for a little bit while we were out. It was pretty fun to watch. I haven't gotten over my fears of being towed behind a boat so I stayed in the boat with the kiddos, and the dog, and held the flag for everyone. I'm okay with that though. I like being a flag girl!!


After boating we came home to clean up and then headed back over to Dave and Terri's for dinner and more fireworks. The kids loved being out all day.


It was a great way to celebrate our country's independence. A day like this truly made me grateful for my freedoms and for those who fight to keep us safe. We pray for you always. May God forever bless America and those who protect her.

July 17, We had our first family pictures with Colby taken.


It was a beautiful HOT day and we had a great time. I'm amazed at how well the kids did. Riann was her usually unique self and played "shy" every now and then but we had a great time. We had a fantastic photographer. She worked great with the kids and we really enjoyed working with her. There were so many great shots it was too hard to pick which ones to add to my collage!!

This all was a great start to our amazing summer!!!

Riann's First Black Eye...

...and I'm hoping this will be her last but knowing her, I just can't be sure.

On Tuesday we were hanging out at home waiting to see what the weather did because we were thinking about going to the park. Riann had gotten excited and jumped up on our old TV stand to see what it looked like outside. She was wearing socks and silk PJ's and I'm not sure which caused her to lose her footing but she slipped and came down on the window sill and hit her eye. I'm really grateful it wasn't worse. I think she really could have done some serious damage to her eyeball and all of it's functioning parts. I've been trying to "document" the changes in her eye because I think it will be fun to show her them when she's older. Below are a few photos from the last few days...

The scene of the accident.

Just moments after she hit. Icing her eye.

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Just like in most cases it's much more colorful in real life. The photos don't do it justice. She's liked watching it change. Every once and a while she'll ask me to show her what it looks like in the mirror. She doesn't let anyone touch it, even though I don't think it hurts anymore. Since her scab came off today it looks a lot better. She's been really good about the whole thing. On the first day she said her head hurt quite a few times but never let me give her Tylenol. I'm glad she's okay though. We are very blessed that it wasn't worse.

Day 07 - A picture of your most treasured things.

The Things I Treasure Most

I changed the topic of this post from item to things because my kids aren't items of mine. However, they are a part of my life that I treasure most. They have taught me so much about myself, both good and bad. They teach me that there is always something better in life to look forward to and that tomorrow is always worth getting excited for, no matter how hard today was. Both of them are huge blessings to me in ways that I can't fully describe. I am so grateful the Lord has given me Riann and Colby and that he trusts me enough to raise his children. I know I have LOTS to work on as a mom but I'm grateful that the Lord has also provided a way for me to learn from my mistakes and get better as I go. I know I'll never be a perfect mother but with each smile I get and each moment I have to cuddle and kiss my babies I know that it will be fun and worth the eternity I have to work on perfection.

More Easter

This will be a quick one. I got the rest of our Easter pictures up and wanted to add them.

I still haven't gotten into the knack of gift buying because we have such fantastic Grandparents and they are so wonderful and making sure the kids have great treats during the holidays. We decided to keep things simple and low key this year and we added a few things to their gift but for the most part the Grandparents got Riann and Colby these wonderful gifts.

On the left is Colby's gift, the middle is Paul and mine, and on the right is Riann's.
On the top is the layout and how Riann and Paul found them in the morning.

We decided last minute to hide a few Easter eggs
around the house for Riann to find in the morning.

Riann breaking into her Easter basket and FINALLY getting to eat the chocolate
bunny she had been waiting for 3 LONG weeks to have.
Colby just had fun watching.

Taking family pictures after church.
(I think it would have gone over MUCH better had we done it before church.)

Riann in the 4 beautiful Easter dresses she got from her
Grandma and Grandpa Vreeken and from Big Jim and Grandma Cheri.

We had a very simple but fantastic Easter. Hope you all did too!!!

New Baby Food

modernhomemodernbaby.com

We have been working with Colby for the last two months on eating cereal and drinking from a bottle. We haven't made any progress on the bottle (this kid can't figure out how to suck on a bottle or a pacifier for the life of him) but we're slowly making progress on the food. He really struggles eating off of a spoon and HATES cereal so I've been trying to find other options for feeding him. In an effort to find different things he liked it seems like I was just creating a bigger distaste for food, especially when he was being spoon fed. I got to the point where I would feed him with a syringe because he had such a hard time with a spoon. He would do okay with the first tablespoon but then when the cereal taste set in he'd get very upset with me. I kept trying to figure out different options with the syringe but I didn't know how I was going to keep doing this when it was time to move onto baby foods that were thicker.

A while back my mom had mentioned that she had seen a family friend feed her new baby food from pouches at a baby shower she had gone to. She though it was the coolest thing, seeing how things have changed since she was feeding little ones. I didn't really think twice about it because I had never seen anything like that and I was so frustrated with how things were going I just didn't want to waist anymore money on food. After getting advice from friends I had been working with Colby on different table foods like carrots, peas and bananas and he did well with them but he couldn't get the knack for chewing or picking them up like I hoped.

In the Easter package my mom sent for both kids she included the Gerber Yogurt Melts for Colby. I was happy to have some on hand because Riann LOVED them and I thought maybe when Colby was a little older he'd like them too. After looking at the package of yogurt melts a million times I thought to myself, "Colby already knows how to chew and swallow his freeze dried Antacid pill - why couldn't he eat these if they were broken up?" So after asking Paul what he thought, we tried them out. Colby was a little unsure of them at the beginning but after a few bites he really seemed to enjoy them. After making progress on those, the conversation I had with my mom about the baby food pouches came back to mind. I thought maybe I should look into them more thinking, "Colby hasn't been a "traditional" kid from the beginning so maybe I should start looking into less traditional ways to feed him". I had looked at the few stores we have here in Rexburg and didn't have any luck. After talking to the friend of mine who my mom had mentioned in our conversation I found that these pouches were sold at Target. Sadly our only Target is in Idaho Falls which is 30 minutes from Rexburg. I had gotten super anxious to try these and I couldn't get them out of my mind. I ended up needing to do a run to Sam's club and using that as my excuse I packed up the kids as soon as Paul had the car home and we set off.

Last night we tried one of the new pouches and it was so happy with the results. They aren't anything amazing in terms of taste. They have odd "flavor" combinations but in general they are just like any other kind of baby food. Colby wasn't sure of the taste at first and he wont eat a ton at each setting but I can lay him in my arms and squeeze a tiny amount of food into his mouth at a time. He has such a hard time eating sitting up because he can't get the food back past the tip of his tongue and so feeding him this way seems to help him eat, swallow and enjoy his food. It's also a lot cleaner for a kid like him because we can keep his hands out of the way and we don't have to scoop up everything he accidentally spits out as he's trying to tongue/swallow his food.

What I love about these too is I don't have to empty them into a bowl and worry about them spoiling before I can get back to it. I just have to warm the pouch up in a cup of warm water, screw off the lid and serve. Then when Colby's done I can put the lid back on and keep the rest in the fridge. We are also able to feel him more often each day with these because he has an easier time eating. With the cereals and other baby foods it was such a pain to set up a meal that I never wanted to do it more than once because I never wanted him dressed when he ate he was so messy. I think I'll be buying a lot more as long as he continues to like this method and as long as he keeps eating. This has been a great change in our routine and so far it has been a great product!!!

Fun in the Sun and Happy Easter

What a beautiful Easter weekend!!! And as far as we know Sunday should be even better than today!!!

The last week or two have been a little hard on us, especially Riann, because it's been fairly nice outside, with a little wind, but it's been C-O-L-D. Too cold to take the kiddos out even dressed in warm clothes, well, with what warm clothes we have left in the house... :-/

Each morning this last week Riann has woken up and come into the living room and checked the trees. When she sees that they aren't moving or barely moving she immediately comes to Paul or I and says, "It's not windy, can we go outside to play today?!" It has been so hard to tell her no. She has been a great sport about it though. She's had mild cabin fever but she's really been great with understanding why we can't get out. I'm excited for the change in weather that will hopefully be coming soon though. Colby seems to like being out side just as much as the rest of us, which is wonderful because Riann HATED being outside her first 6 months. I'm glad he's pretty relaxed about that.

Last night when we checked the weather report for this weekend we were excited to see that we were going to possibly get temps up in the 50's today and we just couldn't stay inside. We had originally planned to just participate in the Easter egg hunt down the street but as we were coordinating times with a few of our friends and found that one family was already at the park and another one of our friends were on the way to meet them. Once we learned that we dropped everything we were doing and rushed out the door. It was a fantastic day!! It was so much fun to have Paul with us at the park this time. Riann loved playing with him and just having him around all day long and I have to admit I was a little excited to spend the extra time outside of the house with him too.

Riann at the park.

Family trip down the slide.

Colby at the park.

After our fun park adventure we rushed to do a few errands and then booked it over to the Egg Hunt. We cut it close but we were lucky that we weren't the only other ones arriving right on the dot. When we got there we were directed to the young children's section, for kids age 0-3. We waited for about 5 minutes, got the rules on the event, and the kids were set lose. Riann did a lot better this year but she didn't go as crazy and I was kind of hoping she would. As I was watching her collect eggs I slowly realized that she was only collecting pink eggs. I don't know when she started liking pink but today seemed to be a big day for pink. After a little coaxing she decided to pick up a few other colors and some of the other treats that were sitting down on the grass. I was hoping to post a video so you could see it all but I wont load :-(. Maybe I'll get it up on YouTube and get a link to it later. The most important thing was that Riann really seemed to have a lot of fun. I think she was tired and not feeling too well but over all I think she had good day too.

At the Easter Egg Hunt.

We had a great day today and I'm so grateful for this season. As a family we need to spend more time studying the life of the Savior and learning the true lessons of Easter. I am so grateful for the Lord's sacrifice and what it means for my life. I know that he rose from the tomb on the 3rd day and at that time he granted me the chance to truly be forgiven.

I'm grateful for the Savior who died so that I could live again. I hope that we can all take a little time to reflect in this blessing and what it means for our lives.

Happy Easter Everyone!!