Aden's 3rd Birthday Party

Aden loves firetrucks so we decided to do a firetruck theme for his party. Here he is proudly holding one of his gifts (which happened to double as a party activity.)

Auntie Stacy (and I think Uncle Jakey helped too!) made this AWESOME firetruck cake! Aden was SO excited about it. When Jake and Stacy arrived that morning (with cake in hand) Aden's whole face lit up, he ran down the hall into his room, put on his fireman hat, came out and said, "I'm gonna fight fires!" It was very cute! He couldn't take his eyes off the cake. Thank you Auntie Stacy and Uncle Jakey for all of your hard work and creativity. You really made Aden's birthday a memorable one!


I didn't plan any party games because the kids are still on the young side for organized games but they sure had a blast playing with the balloons. They were dancing and jumping and squealing. I wish I had video of it to share with you!

My sweet little fireman!

Working hard on his puzzle

Joshua and Aden (and the plastic dinosour) working together to complete the task at hand

The moms assigned the task of "puzzle assisters" to the dads. It was cute to see them all working together.

Aden's "To the Rescue" firetruck t-shirt was a gift from Jonathan. Hooray for Kohl's clearance rack!

God is so good! It had rained the entire week before Aden's party and it rained for several days after but on the day of the party is was sunny and clear. What a blessing to be able to spend some time outside! As always the bounce house was a huge hit...especially when the dads starting throwing the kids into it from the opening on the top =)

Make a Wish!

Here's sweet Auntie Stacy getting ready to cut the cake.

He couldn't contain his excitement...especially when Auntie Stacy and Daddy let him dig into the whole cake with his fork!

Jonathan found someone's plate of cake and helped himself to a bite or two.

And here he is helping himself to Auntie Stacy's soda. Poor second child...clearly he's learned to fend for himself. =)

Aden got a card in the mail that day from the Foil kids. He was very excited about his three $1 bills that Cora gave him. Right away he asked to put them in his piggy bank...the first ever bills to go in there! Thanks Foil family for remembering Aden's birthday. And great job coloring Evan...we were all very impressed!

Mr. Independent

A couple of days ago I heard the "gounk, gounk, gounk, gounk" sound of lots of liquid spilling and turned the corner in time to see Aden sitting on the table straddling an upside down FULL gallon of milk as he attempted to pour himself a bowl of cereal. My biggest questions was WHY on earth did he have the sofa's throw pillow on the kitchen chair during this act of independence?

It's a good thing our carpet is already thrashed or I probably WOULD have cried over spilled milk!

An Apple A Day...

The other day Aden asked me for an apple and (of course) as soon as Jonathan saw what Aden was getting he wanted one too. So off they went, each with an apple in hand. A few minutes later I found them sitting side-by-side so sweetly munching on their mid-morning snack.

Jonathan is a scrapper when it comes to food so he is always a willing recipient of Aden's leftovers. Apparently Aden passed off his half-eaten apple to Jonathan who proceeded to carry around both apples for much of the day. At some point they disappeared only to show up again several hours later in Jonathan's hands. Who knows where he stashed them? It was pretty funny. Anyway, by the end of the day they were pretty gnarly looking but he had actually eaten quite a bit of the fruit.

An Explanation...

... for the lack of posts lately.

1) Daniel's family was in town for a few days.
2) Aden and I were sick for a week.
3) Jonathan had his surgery.
4) Morning sickness.
5) Jonathan was hospitalized for two days.
A couple of days after his surgery Jonathan got sick too. He sounded awful! We ended up taking him to the ER late Sunday night (well, 1:30am Monday) because he started pausing between breaths (yeah, quite scary!) He was admitted to the hospital where he received breathing treatments and doses of oral steroids for two days. Thankfully he's doing fine now! They don't know if it was something like RSV (a respiratory virus) or if it was the result of damage done to the tissue surrounding his airways from his breathing tube during his surgery. Either way, we're relieved to be home and healthy! This is a picture of him sleeping in his hospital crib.

Anyway, I hope to start posting more often but (because of #4) I can't promise anything.

Jonathan's Surgery

When Jonathan was just a few weeks old we noticed that his circumcision did not look right. His pediatrician referred us to a urologist who confirmed that Jonathan was in need of a circumcision revision. This meant that he would need to have surgery. Since Kaiser only has one pediatric urologist we had to wait seven months to get a surgery date! Well, today was the day...finally! I am so happy to have it behind us! The procedure was an out-patient surgery so we were able to come home this afternoon. Thank you to all who were praying for our little guy today. Jonathan is doing amazingly well. By the way he was playing this evening you'd never know that he was under general anesthesia this morning! The next couple of weeks will require some extra care and caution to help him heal/recover completely and then we'll have the post-op check-up on February 11th. Here are some pictures of the little "patient"...

The classic hospital/surgery socks looked more like leg warmers on his little body!

Here he is starting to feel the effects of the sedation drugs.

In the arms of the OR nurse just before she took him back to the operating room. I was hoping to be there with him when they put him under but the pre-op room was as far as they'd let me go. He was happy and a bit loopy so I doubt he even noticed my absence.

When he first came to from the anesthesia he was crying and flailing and trying to yank off his IV. A quick dose of morphine calmed him right down and he slept off the remaining anesthesia for about an hour.

Poor baby! Going through surgery is hard work for a little guy!

My little trooper! This is post-surgery...a little groggy but in good spirits.

A Fun Welcome Home Surprise!

Daniel was in Oregon this weekend when I found out that I was pregnant so I had the pleasuring of welcoming him home with the exciting news! I filled his car (which was waiting for him near the airport) with pink and blue balloons and taped the fun little message onto his steering wheel. We are thrilled and very thankful to be blessed with another baby! God is so good to us!

Playdate

This morning we had a little playdate at the Smith's house. The kiddos had fun playing outside with Joshua's push cars, pull cars, and battery powered cars and the mommies had fun hanging out too! Thanks for having us Janet!

Joshua was a pro on his battery powered ATV. He is six months younger than Aden and maneuvered that thing fearlessly! I was impressed!

Aden on the other hand was quite uneasy and after just a few moments said, "I'm all done!"

He got off the ATV and made a bee-line for the wagon! He really liked the wagon (and Joshua's firetruck...which I had to pry out of his hands in order to get the picture below!)

I love it when the boys wear matching outfits! This one and the next two all came from Grammy Carla! Thanks Grammy!

Matching Monkeys

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

Peek-a-Boo Mommy!