The Denver Funnies

So we've had a couple of really good laughs here in our house lately and I thought I'd share them with everyone else. Evan and I always say "What would we do if we didn't have Denver?" and "We laugh so much more now that we have Denver."....so here's why! The best "funnies" seem to happen when I'm at work & the boys are at home just the 2 of them: -Evan put Denver to bed and went to bed himself. Around 1a.m. or so he heard Denver cry, but he quit within 10 seconds or less. Later Evan turned the video monitor on to check on him and he couldn't see him so he went to check on him.......Denver was sleeping on his floor! -The lights were turned down so Denver could wind down as this is about the only way for him to understand it's night time and time to settle down. Denver's learned to either go hide or be very quiet and good so we forget about him and don't make him go to bed as early. Well, this night he was crouched down by one of our rocker recliners with his back to Evan. He was playing with something really well, says Evan. After a good 10 minutes go by Denver comes walking to Daddy with a cup (basically empty) of chocolate pudding and a spoon! Needless to say....Denver had been playing with his pudding and it was now all over him, his new blankie, and of course the floor! I won't tell you how he got the pudding and spoon...Evan can share that one. -Evan was doing some painting in the nursery (just so you know...he only did touch up painting in the closet...I did the rest!) and I wasn't home from work yet. Then he realized he hadn't seen or heard Denver for quite some time so he went looking for him and calling his name. Evan eventually found him sitting on the middle of the couch passed out, snoring away! -The one "funny" that I can think of right now that happened when I was at home was when we ordered pizza...it was called Mexican Delight and was pretty spicy. Denver loves spicy food just like us and kept coming back for more bites, but wasn't drinking anything (and we did offer!)....I had 2 glasses of water with mine. All of a sudden he went running and screaming, grabbing at his tongue! We finally talked him into drinking some milk, but once it got better he started eating pizza again and didn't keep on drinking. The next time he was even more dramatic about it and we couldn't convince him to drink anything so I had to get the ice cream out and even that took some convincing.

Family Vacation

We took a family vacation last weekend to the cities. Well, basically to Albertville! We love to go shopping at the Albertville outlet mall and we needed a break from our normal routine and to just get away so we went to shop and get some baby things.

We had a wonderful time. Our time included shopping, swimming at the hotel (which Denver absolutely loved!), going out to eat, and RELAXING! One day we spent at the outlet mall. We made 2 trips to Babies R Us to get our double stroller, a "gate" for Denver's big boy bed, and some other odds and ends and we went to Cabela's which Daddy of course loved. Denver was very interested in looking at all the animals and thought it was great too.

Denver loved every minute in the pool. He loved to splash and splash. Denver also really enjoyed laying on his back in the water and kicking and splashing that way too. He was crazy most of the time. Denver loved being Mr. Independent too and want to get in the pool all by himself by walking down the stairs hanging onto the railing.

Dad and Denver looking at the animals.

Denver's "fishy" face after seeing the fish!

We once again were reminded how much work it is to go on vacation now and not quite sure we're ready to do it with 2 any time soon!!!! We were creative (sort of) on how to keep Denver's milk cold while we were out and about and it was nice to take a cooler along for his milk and snacks so that we could have some water and pop along and not pay so much for all of that! :)

Here Denver's digging in the cooler. He loves playing with ice; he's just fascinated.

Denver was a "big" boy in many ways this weekend in the cities. See how in the following pictures:

Sleeping in a "big" bed (and he never fell out!)

Took showers all weekend long. We couldn't get him out!

By the end of the trip Denver was exhausted. We'd get in the car and start driving and he'd konk out almost immediately.

This is a picture of Denver sleeping in his car seat on the ride home.

There are lots more updates coming....but we've been a little busy and have had internet troubles so be patient.

Twenty Pounds!

Oops, I completely forgot to tell you Denver's weight at the clinic yesterday. We have finally hit the 20 pound mark! Wahoo! Denver weighed in at 20lbs 1oz, but he did have a diaper on...it was dry though, I switched it out right before I put him on the scale....so he's about 20lbs right on the mark. I've also been asked for belly pictures. Well, sad enough we have NONE so far. I felt we did really good with belly pictures with Denver, but this poor little girl is going to have to deal with not much. I keep on meaning to start, but haven't gotten it done. I'm too busy running around after Denver that I don't have time to make sure I look good enough for a camera! :) I will make it a priority over the next week or so and will post one then. You'll just have to wait patiently. :)

Always going to be little? Or is it just reflux?!

Probably a combination of the two! We had our feeding evaluation today. They asked me to explain why we were there, what Denver was doing with his foods, what he liked to eat, and what he didn't like to eat, and then they let him eat and play with the food! After doing all of this they and I kept coming back to it's probably just reflux that's causing our eating problems. They were very happy with his big variety of food and not being bothered by different textures as this can be a problem with kids. They also gave me lots of good ideas of how I can increase calories in Denver's diet by adding different things to foods and other good snacks that are good calories and maybe a little higher in fat than some things. Once our appointment was over I called our pediatrician and asked for another prescription for Prevacid again and he wanted to see us so we then went to the clinic for an appointment there. They did a weight check and to our delight he is up on the growth chart!!!!!! He's a little above the 3% now! It's funny how this was a HUGE deal to us! Our pediatrician was happy with his move up on the growth chart and decided that we'd start him on Prevacid again and he'd see him back at his next well baby check up which will be with his little baby sister (as he will be 18 months around when she's born and she will have to go in to see our pediatrician a couple days after being discharged from the hospital)! We want to thank everyone for all of their prayers for Denver, for us, and for all the people who have been involved in trying to find a "fix" for our little man! We couldn't be happier that they think this is the only reason he's been dropping on the growth chart. (Sorry I don't have any pictures for this post. I've been too busy working, getting stuff ready for the baby, and running around taking Denver to appt's, etc that I just haven't had time to take much for pictures lately.)

Beep, beep, beep!

"Beep, beep, beep" was heard all weekend at our house. It came out of all 3 of our mouths. Needless to say...people were in the road (hmm...I wonder who was in the road the most?!). I'm guessing you're wondering why people were in the road...well, we moved our bedroom to the basement this weekend. Yes, we took the plunge and said ready or not it needs to be done. In order to make room for our little baby girl on the way we decided to move our bedroom to the basement and put the nursery in our room upstairs. Saturday early evening I was voicing my concerns for the little that has been done to prepare for this little girl and how things are only going to get harder and harder to do as time goes on and....our time is running out! Little did I know that I would no longer be sleeping upstairs that night after voicing my concern. Denver has been watching this transformation take place for a couple of weeks or so now as we have been slowly emptying out what used to be our spare bedroom. He learned "beep, beep, beep" when the bed from that room left as he was in the way and since then he's just taken off with it. We've enjoyed many laughs do to this "beep, beep, beep". Denver will realize on his own now that he's in our way and start saying it, or he'll jump on his 4 wheeler and back up on it and say it, etc.; it's pretty cute (and funny at the moment too!).

After the big move of bedroom furniture we started on paint colors. Yesterday Evan took the day off and he went to buy paint for me and when I got up from sleeping (because I worked the night before) I started painting. The plan (and hope) is to finish on Friday! I of course had to make it complicated and am doing several colors so it needs some time to dry in between so I can tape things off and paint some more. That's good though so I don't overdo it...otherwise I probably would've tried to finish it all yesterday! Maybe after the nursery is painted I will get pictures taken and you can see all of the transformations we've made in our house to make room for this little girl.

While I'm on the subject of our little girl, I had another doctor's appointment the other day. Everything continues to look good! I was even told at my appointment that everything is going so well that she felt like the appointment was more for her indulgence than ours. We are getting very excited to meet this little girl, but definitely can wait 2 more months so we can finish getting ready! No prayers for an early delivery this time.....just prayers for a safe, uncomplicated delivery (we are not scheduling a repeat c-section, we are hoping for a natural birth this time, but we're open to whatever happens) and an easy adjustment for the 3 of us adding her into our lives (especially her big brother!). Denver likes to talk about "baby" and will point at my tummy and tell us "baby".

Denver is so confused about the warmer weather and then how it gets cold again. He loves to go outside and can't wait for winter to be over (although as Daddy says...the snow and ice make us money!). We have spent some time outside on the nicer days and had lots of fun, but then the next day when it's cold outside the poor little guy just doesn't get it and gets so upset when we say we can't go outside because it's too cold.

"Hmmm...snow, what should I do with it?"

Finally getting to ride his 4 wheeler outside!

Denver going down the slide all by himself!

We continue to work on going on the potty chair. Denver loves to pull his little seat out and to sit on it, but hasn't achieved the full concept yet. He has gone on it though, so that's a plus. He doesn't have the patience to sit there very long....which is frustrating because it's a lot of work to get a diaper back on the kid so I want our time to be worth while. (Denver hates getting his diaper changed and fights it as much as he can...or at least most of the time.) I started a bad habit with Denver. We have a bowl of ice cream almost every night before we go to bed. The other night when I worked a night shift Denver had been so good for Daddy and then when they were on their way to the living room to go read books before bed Denver had a breakdown and started screaming. Evan went back to the kitchen where Denver was and he was pointing at the freezer. Evan opened it up and Denver pointed right to the ice cream! He was fine once he had his bowl of ice cream for the night! :) Speaking of reading books before bed, Denver has a new favorite book. We signed Denver up for the Dolly Pardon Imagination Library (http://www.dollysimaginationlibrary.com/) after he was born and through this he gets an age appropriate book every month in the mail until he's 5 years old. Last month he got a book called "Mine-o-saur" (it's about a dinosaur that doesn't want to share and takes everything away, but in the end learns how to share) and he absolutely loves it. He runs around saying "mine, mine, mine" which is repeated in the book many times or asks to the read the "mine, mine, mine book". Mine comes out my like "my, my, my".

And the basketball season comes to an end...

Last night we went to our last Freeman Academy basketball game for the season. The boys played a tough game and had an awesome rally back, but unfortunately didn't pull it off. Basketball games were a little different this year for us. Denver likes to run around a lot, so how do we get him to sit still, right? Let me tell you...there are lots of tricks that we pull out of the diaper bag! I take lots of snacks and special toys. I think we actually made it through the whole basketball season without losing anything... other than a sippy cup that Denver threw and it broke and possibly Elmo who MIA, but hopefully he'll be found. For the first game of districts that the boys played in this year I made Denver a shirt. I had been looking all season for a shirt that was school colors, but could never find one so I decided to make my own. With the help of Evan and his co-workers we came up with a cute little saying and everyone seemed to love Denver's shirt. Here are some pictures of Denver's shirt and him with cousin Ethan. We're proud of you Ethan; you played with some great intensity last night!

Denver's shirt reads: "If you think my cousin (#34) is good, you should see ME play!"

and "GO BOBACTS!"

On the drive home last night we talked about how long we've been going home for basketball games...it's been 5 years! We've missed very few games and we always look forward to basketball season and enjoyed watching these boys (and girls) grow and become good basketball players. Now that all my cousins are done playing ball and we'll have 2 kiddos to drag along to games next year we're not so sure how many we'll get to which made the end of the season even harder for us in some ways, but we're glad that if this is the end to our faithfulness to going to games at least we are happy we could watch them have such good seasons this year.