Some of Denver's Cute Words

Wow are all of you ever lucky this week with all these updates I've done! :) I have finally had a little time, but not quite sure that I really have....maybe it's just I've made time and haven't felt the best lately so I've been doing things that are a little more low key; like holding a camcorder and sitting on the computer. Yesterday morning I got the video camera out while Denver was eating breakfast. He absolutely loves bananas. He was also so kind to say some of his words for the camera. Denver is always asking for nanas. We also just love how he says hot so he gets asked to say that many times throughout the day.

Otherwise not much else is new here. We had a birthday party for Denver last night and are having a small one tomorrow so there will be pictures coming, but probably not until Monday...the big day! I can't believe it's almost here. When I think back to what we were doing a year ago it just blows me away how our lives have changed and all the more love that we have in our lives now because of Denver. We hope all of you have been touched by our little man as much as we have been!

Don't forget to vote for a baby sister or baby brother for Denver! I know there are lots of you who read this that haven't voted.

Walking?

Here's the "news" that everyone has been waiting for today. It's been kind of funny how "antsy" some of you have gotten about the new "news". Sorry if I disappointed anyone, but it's big stuff to us first time parents! Denver finally has decided that walking is fun! Before he'd take steps here and there and in between furniture and stuff, but never wanted to anymore than that...he'd rather get down and crawl. Well, this week he started taking off. Of course every time you get out the video camera he only takes a couple steps and falls down. Since every one was getting so antsy about the news I decided this video was good enough. Enjoy!

In the Pantry

Denver LOVES to get in the pantry, the linen closet (that's full of other goodies as well, extra shampoo and that sort of thing), and in the fridge. Here are some pictures from the end of October when Denver got in the pantry without me knowing it at first. All of a sudden I hear boxes being emptied and turn the corner to find Denver making a mess!

I hope to have another post later today as we have a little news to share, but I don't have the post "together" yet.

Happy (belated) Halloween!

Once again we've been running like crazy. I finally have some peace and quiet here at home that I can quick update everyone on our busy (and maybe exciting, as well) lives. On Halloween Evan and I got to see Baby #2 for the second time. Of course it was amazing to see that little baby inside me, moving all around, and of course his or her hands were right by his or her face. We're wondering if we have another thumb sucker on the way. It's another active little baby and I can't wait to start feeling him/her move around. I think Evan was amazed at how much this little one is moving around and that I couldn't feel it. I think they told us how long the baby is, but of course I can't remember what they told me and I don't think they gave us a weight. Every thing looked great at this appointment. The baby's heartbeat was 167 beats per minute. We keep getting more excited about this new little bundle of joy and know that God really did know what He was doing when He thought it was time to add some more love in our house!

Here is a picture from our ultrasound of our baby! He/She is looking right at us with his/her hands by his/her face...we like to think that little left hand is waving at us saying "Hi Mom and Dad! I love you!"

The rest of our Halloween day was kind of crazy. My doctor was way behind in the clinic as she had a delivery she had to go to, so I was at the hospital from 9:45a.m. until 1:10p.m.! (They did let me leave the clinic and run and do some things for work and a quick trip to Target while I was waiting so I guess it wasn't completely at the hospital.) After that it was time to get laundry and packing done (as Evan went deer hunting with my Dad and some other people...he left late Friday night and came back late Sunday night; and while Evan was hunting Denver, my Mom, and I went to Omaha to help my sister get ready for her baby...sorry we forgot to take a picture of Denver and his Aunt Kim with her big belly so no picture to post for those of you wondering how big that baby is getting...we just need to find her some extra time so she can do a blog too!), and an oil change on my car besides finding some lunch and picking up Denver from the neighbors. After we got every thing done the 3 of us jumped in the car and went to Freeman. We put Denver in his Halloween costume (pictures below) and quick took him to see Great Grandma Mabel and Great Grandpa Melvin and then Denver decided he had enough and needed to eat supper as it was getting late. After we ate supper we took Daddy to Great Uncle Loren's and Great Aunt Carolyn's (and of course cousin Drew's....which it was his birthday...Happy Birthday again Drew!) where we dropped off Daddy to leave for hunting and then Denver and I headed to my Mom and Dad's so Mom, Denver, and I could leave for Omaha. This was perfect as Denver slept most of the way there and made the drive wonderful! Unfortunately, I craziness during the day prevented us from taking Denver to see all of his other Grandparents/Great Grandparents/ other family members/and friends in his costume so if someone really wants to see him in person in his costume call us up and we'll see what we can work out. Hopefully next year we won't be so busy and Denver will have more energy for trick or treating...but we'll see how the baby does...ah, never ending. :)

So that's our life this past weekend in a nutshell (well, sort of, I guess). Evan did not get a deer. The weather was too nice that they barely saw any deer. Denver and I took Evan to the airport on Tuesday. Evan is in Las Vegas until Saturday evening where he is attending NACE (an auto body convention for work). Tuesday night he got to go to the Nascar track there and ride in a car and today he got to meet Archie Manning in person. I sent the little camera with him so hopefully he'll have some pictures to share.

Denver's still working on walking. He's still convinced it's way faster to crawl than walk. He will take steps here and there on his own from one thing to the next and he will walk between people at times. Also, I don't think I ever shared we were able to stop giving Denver his Prevacid (his acid reflux medicine). We quit this at least a month ago probably and he's been doing great! His vocabulary continues to grow every day. His favorite word is hot. Every thing is hot, but he does really know what it means as he'll pick up some food that is hot and say hot and throw it back down or when I'm getting some thing out of the toaster, oven, etc. he says "hot". I think that's it for now. His big birthday is coming soon so there will be an update then if not before.

First Bubble Bath

Denver has his first bubble bath this past weekend. We continue to struggle with his little bottom. I called dermatology again last Friday and they decided we should go back to the last cream they had prescribed and do it twice a day for 2 weeks along with the Aveeno baths that we also had done before. Several of the girls I work with swear by soaking babies bad bottoms in a little Dreft. So, Saturday night I said let's try some Dreft in Denver's bath along with his Aveeno bath. Believe it or not, Sunday Denver's bottom looked great again. Now we started his cream on Friday again, plus I've also been using A&D which I've never been a believer in it, but we had gotten some free tubes of it and when I was looking at the tube the other day I noticed it said to use for very dry skin. What was it that made it better, I'm not sure, I'm just happy it looks good again. I hope that it stays this way even after we're done with our cream for 2 weeks.

Here are some pictures of Denver in his 1st bubble bath. He wasn't quite sure what to think of it. He would try to eat the bubbles and Daddy was worried that he'd get it in his eyes and that it would hurt so he actually didn't soak in the Dreft (and bubbles) very long. We've also cut down on baths for the time being to just every other day. Our routine had been every night before bed, but we thought that might be drying his butt out as well.

Denver also said a new word today. I made some HyVee waffles this morning in the toaster oven and when I took them out I said they are "hot" and in return Denver said "hot, hot, hot". Of course when I could go get the video camera he wouldn't say it anymore, but it was super cute.

Denver loves to play in small spaces and to hide and play peek. He'll be playing in the living room and all of a sudden his face will light up and he'll quickly crawl over by the couch where he can hide by the side of the couch and then pop out and play "peek!". He also loves to crawl underneath his high chair and to play there. Thank goodness he has finally learned how to get himself back out after he gets under there as he used to the be stuck and would cry until you'd come help me back out.

What does the cow say?

Denver loves to go to the farm or to be outside where he can hear the dogs barking. When Denver sees Grandma Verni he usually starts looking around and mooing. He knows he goes to see the cows with her. One of Denver's favorite words it "moo", except it usually comes out "boo". I called Evan from work one day to check on them and he said every thing is "boo, boo", what's with that and I laughed and reminded him that Denver was looking for the cows!

Denver has gotten really good at climbing up the stairs. I haven't ever timed him, but I'm sure he can get up all the stairs from the basement to the upstairs in less than a minute. Denver has also been fighting a cold off and on since he turned 10 months old. We had finally been runny nose free for a week or more and then he woke up with a runny nose again. He's been a good sport about it. Today he acted like he didn't feel good, but just kept on going and still had a great appetite so I'm thankful for that. Daddy has a cold too, so Mommy's hoping she can steer clear!

Denver's 4th tooth popped through last week. This one has been even slower at coming through than his 3rd one. I kind of think this one has bothered him the most too. He has times that he just seems in pain and he chews so hard on things. The last couple of nights he's gotten up during the night...which we think is because his tooth is bothering him. We give him some Motrin or Tylenol and then he goes right back to sleep. He seems to know that once he has that it will get better! Smart kid!

I put a poll on the side by Denver's picture and age ticker. Please take the time to vote if you think Denver will have a baby brother or a baby sister. We do plan on finding out in advance again. Evan is very anxious to know, but we have quite awhile to wait so during that waiting time we thought it would be fun to see what everyone else thinks.

God's Plans

Isn't it funny how we can have our own "plans" made, but then God intervenes and makes His plan happen! About 5 weeks ago we were once again reminded that God is in control and He has different plans than us. Some of you may be wondering what this "change in plans" was for us, while several others of you have already heard God's big plans for us. Well ready or not....just like us....God thinks we need a bigger family....yes, already! Denver is going to be a big brother some time the middle of May 2009! This will make the kids about 18 months apart. After reading everything you just read you know that this wasn't exactly our plan and you probably have guessed right...it's taken us a long time to absorb this information (as it has and/or will be for most people), BUT we couldn't be HAPPIER. There are lots of "details" that are overwhelming us, but the thought of Denver having a little playmate every day is exciting. We are also excited and curious about how the 3 cousins (my sister's little boy that should be here in a little over a month!) will get along and what they will scheme up! During this time we ask you to pray for us and God's guidance upon us. May God keep His hand upon us and our little miracle on the way; and make this baby grow strong and healthy. Also, to keep us all healthy, as Mommy has been extremely tired (attemping to feed 3....I've been given the okay to keep on nursing through my first trimester, but we've been working on cutting back for my sake and for Denver's as he has enough change coming in the next 7 months) and not feeling the best which in turn has created more work for Daddy (as if he doesn't work hard enough!) and Denver who I think some times wonders "Why doesn't Mom play with me as much as she used too? And why does Daddy run around and do so much, that he doesn't have as much time to play with me either?".

Daddy was so excited about sharing the news he did some photo-shopping and sent this out to his co-workers (and just waited at his desk for responses from people) and some friends.

See our new little miracle's ticker at the bottom of our blog (it was too big to go on the side by Denver's and our anniverary one and I couldn't make it any smaller so that's where it had to go). It will keep you updated on how old this little baby is and about how many days we have to wait until to we get to meet this new, special addition to our family!

Our Lil Pumpkin

I'm not sure that I'll have time to update towards the end of the week so thought I'd get this blog done now. Denver will be 11 months on Friday! Where has the time gone? We've had so much fun with him and watching him learn new things, but at the same time I'm sad to see my little boy get so big! We'll see how that BIG birthday goes in a month. I will just savor all my time with him now as I know it will just go faster as he gets older. There isn't much new to update on Denver. His butt had been all clear, but now it's been acting up a little bit again and I'm at a loss of what to do. We'll see what it does in the next couple of days and see if we need to go back in for it or not, but please pray that it just heals and we're done with it. I hope to have some more fall pictures later, but maybe those will be his 1 year pictures, but for now here is Denver with his pumpkin that Grandma Verni thought he needed! :) We had wanted to go to the Pumpkin Patch with him as well, but on our way out there on Saturday it started raining so we never went and I work the next 2 weekends so I'm not sure that we'll make it this year.

Sleepless Nights?

I thought once you got through the sleepless nights stage it was basically over other than an occasional night here or there. Well, boy was I wrong! The occasional night here and there is several nights in a row here and there (which recently seems to be quite often)! When Denver's butt was so owie he started getting up during the night...we're guessing because he was itchy and in pain. Now he's been doing it again. First, we thought it was because he kicks all of his covers off and rolls all around in his bed so we went and bought new jammies yesterday so he wouldn't freeze (they are fleece WITH feet so he should stay warm, right?), well once again a little before 1a.m. we hear a "waaa, waaaa" coming from Denver's room. Daddy went and saw he was still wrapped up so at least last night it wasn't out of being cold...and then told him it was still "na-nigh time", but he continued to scream frantically. I went and got some Motrin, gave it to him, wrapped him up (because now he did have the covers off), and immediately silence! Now we think it's those silly teeth. When you look at his gums you can see white all over so I'm guessing it won't be long and this kiddo will have a mouth full of teeth! I'm pretty sure the other top front tooth is really close to popping through. Then again at 5a.m. came more crying. We gave in and let him eat, he ate and went right back to sleep. That's such a dilemma....when you're tired and just want that last little bit of sleep and you know if you feed the guy he'll go back to sleep that's all you want to do, but then you wonder if we feed him is he going to keep on getting up this early in the morning and wanting to eat? We've also been trying to cut back on the nursing and switch to the sippy cup. We've struggled here as well. Denver will drink some milk out of his sippy cup, but he won't consume the amount of milk in a day that he's supposed to unless he nurses! Anyone with any advice or suggestions we'd gladly take them. (You can even leave a quick comment at the bottom of this "Sleepless Nights?" blog by clicking on comment! Hint, hint....are people scared to leave comments...seems only people who have a blog ever leave comments on anyones blog.)

Denver showing off a pair of his new warm jammies!

It was my birthday yesterday and Evan invited a couple friends over for supper. It was nice to hang out at home, but do something with some of our friends. We're at the time in our lives where almost all of our friends are either pregnant or have a child or too. Denver loved being able to play with some of his friends at his house. It was so cute watching them play together. At one point all 3 of the little ones were back in a little corner. I didn't get to my camera fast enough so I didn't get a picture of it, but it was pretty funny. Denver is always finding the tiniest places to crawl into. He likes to trap himself behind his jumperoo (which we found out can be dangerous...Daddy was napping one day while Mommy was at work and woke up to Denver crying because his head was stuck in the railing!! Don't worry Daddy got it right out, but it sure scared Dad and I don't know that he'll fall asleep while Denver's roaming around anymore!), he also loves to crawl under his high chair and to play under there...the problem is figuring out how to get back out of all these places.

Here are some more pictures of our little man:

Denver loves to crawl in the closet and play in there. Typically he gets himself into trouble in there because he always pulls the little scrubber off the swiffer and chews on it (GROSS!). He'd play in there for hours if you let him.

Here's Denver walking to Mom. He still won't take more than 6 steps and then decides its faster to get down on the floor and crawl. Evan thinks he'd win a crawling contest for speed. If you open the fridge door you can bet he'll be there in a couple seconds no matter where he was in the house before you opened the fridge!

New Things

Denver keeps on learning and doing new things. He also had his first cold, which I forgot to include in his 10 month blog. The day Denver turned 10 months he came down with his first cold. He had a runny nose and a cough and his lungs sounded terrible. I bulb syringed his nose tons during that week which he absolutely hated. It was finally better and now he's working on his top left front tooth and this in turn has caused a runny nose too! The poor guy. He hasn't been to fussy with this tooth coming in, but the other night when I had to go to work I think it was bothering him and he just wanted me to sit and hold him...it was very hard for me to walk out the door! Here are some pictures I took of Denver the other day. If you notice his pants are a little big, it's because we moved up a size. His jeans that are 6-12 months are too short, but these 12-18 month are pretty big yet too! I wish they didn't put such a big span between sizes; oh well at least he can wear these for a LONG time. Evan was shaving the other night when he gave Denver a bath and when he was done he put his face in the tub to wash off his face and blew bubbles. Denver immediately picked up on this and started doing it too. Here's a video of him, it's too cute!

Here's a video of Denver when I walked into his room to get him out of his crib after his afternoon nap. He typically wakes up happy and loves to play around in his crib before he starts hollering for someone to come and get him.

This is an older video of Denver playing in the tub. He loves to make "noises" in cups.

Denver is 10 Months Old!

Believe it or not Denver was 10 months old last week Wednesday. He continues to be a busy little boy. He crawls all over, loves to push his little "walker" all around the house, he crawls up the stairs (and has caused a couple of scares!), learning how to feed himself with a spoon, learning animal sounds (has been making tractor sounds for quite some time), and who knows what else! Denver has also taken up to 5 steps on his own. He's scared to do it by himself and if you don't have him preoccupied with seeing Mom or Dad a couple feet away from him he'll plop his little butt down on the floor instead of walk, but that's okay with me! When he takes off I'm afraid it will take a day or 2 and he'll be running! We were too busy to take pictures the day Denver turned 10 months, but I took some 2 weeks prior that I never got posted and I attempted for some more yesterday, but he didn't really cooperate.

An update on Denver's butt is....that it is ALL BETTER!!!!! We couldn't be happier and I've learned to absolutely love dermatology! They took such good care of us, I couldn't be happier. I never had to sit on hold when calling the clinic, they returned phone calls within 5 minutes, and they even called to check on Denver this week and to let us know that his culture did come back showing some staph so they were indeed correct that his little butt was infected through fungus and bacteria. Denver will finish his oral antibiotics tomorrow which he has done wonderful with...he gets excited when he sees me come with a syringe of "pink stuff" and we're done to his special cream of once a day and then next week we'll go to once every other day and then we will also have a follow up appointment that week as well.

Other things going on in the Kindt household are finally winding down. We finally had a Sunday with NO plans; it was absolutely amazing to be able to do our own thing and spend the day as a family. Evan went on a fishing trip last Saturday with his Grandpa Pootsie. He couldn't bare ending his summer of fishing with catching nothing. They actually limited out on walleyes so Evan is semi-content in the fishing department now.

Here's Denver feeding himself his breakfast (yogurt....he LOVES yogurt!)

A friend from work had suggested taking pictures of Denver going crazy with a box of Cheerios. Denver loves Cheerios, but he really didn't go crazy with the box and it took a little for him to figure out he could actually get them out of the box!

The Butt Update

I wanted to update everyone on Denver's poor little butt. After seeing the dermatologist who gave us a special cream that we had to go get from a special pharmacy it started to fade away and we thought we were finally going to have a happy little boy again. Well, we were proven wrong. I worked nights this past weekend and got a phone call from Daddy at 5a.m. Denver had been up since 3a.m. screaming and frantically pulling at his diaper and Daddy couldn't get him to stop crying. Finally around 5:30a.m. Denver calmed down and went back to sleep so Daddy got a couple hours of sleep before he had to go to work. Today we returned to the dermatologist and she put Denver on a different cream and an antibiotic. They think that the fungus has cleared up some (which I agree) and that it looks more bacterial now and are hopefully that the antibotic and new cream along with Aveeno baths will do the trick for us. As long as all goes well we won't return back to the dermatologist for 3 weeks. Thank you for all the prayers you've said for Denver and us and please continue to say them. I'll try to keep you posted.

Drinking Water

Just the other day I decided it was probably time to let Denver drink from a cup by himself. Here's a video of him. Now his meals are all about the cup. He wants it the whole time.

The Power of Prayer

Just wanted to update everyone and tell them how powerful your prayers have been for our family today. As I said earlier today I called our peds clinic and asked for a referral to the dermatologist. After another phone call and waiting about 4 hours our pediatrician's nurse finally returned my phone call. She said she would make the appointment for Denver with a dermatologist and would get back to me with the date and time. I then asked if she thought we'd be able to get in today yet and she kind of laughed at me and said "No, no, you won't get in until the end of October. It's hard to get into a derm.". I responded "Then we need to see McKercher or we need him to come up with another plan as we need something more than what we're doing now." She told me she'd get back to me of what our pediatrician wanted to do and we'd go from there. After hanging up with her I was very disappointed and just didn't know what to do for my little boy. Then I reassured myself it was okay and that we have lots of people praying for Denver and put my trust in God to take care of it. After waiting another hour or so she called us back and said she had derm on the other line and that they had a cancellation and could see us at 1:30p.m. (it was currently 1p.m.!). I said we'll jump in the car and be there. We got to Denver's appointment and waited a long time to be seen, but it was so worth it (or at least I think so as of now). She walked in and took one look at his little bottom and said "Oh, that's a fungus. I know how I'll treat it, but we need to get a slide of it first just to make sure." She was very impressed when I responded with "THANK YOU, I knew it wasn't yeast and that it had to be a fungus". The slide confirmed that Denver has a fungus and she gave us a new cream to try that we actually had to go get from a special pharmacy. God is good! Thank you everyone for your prayers and keep on praying that this cream does that job and Denver gets over this fast. We have a follow-up appointment in 2 weeks unless it doesn't start improving in a couple days then we'll go back sooner.

Denver's First Trip to the Black Hills

Denver had his first experience of a LONG road trip which was to the Black Hills. We went with the Waltner/Schmeichel family. During our time there we went to my cousin Ethan's 2 soccer games and hung out with the family and relaxed the rest of the time (Evan did go fishing....but unfortunately he had no luck AGAIN! I'm beginning to think fish can smell him and say don't go close to him...just kidding honey!). Denver did very well with the long drive. He did have one screaming/crying fit on the way out there, but the rest of the time he was perfect! We did take our portable DVD player along and let him watch Baby Einstein towards the end of the trip on the way out there and on the way back as we were running out of ways to entertain him (sorry for those who disapprove of a 9 month old watching videos, but we all had to stay sane and he loves them!). Here are some pictures from Ethan's first soccer game the night we got there. The first 2 pictures are courtesy of my sister (Yea! Finally some pictures of Mommy and Denver!). These days it seems my hands are a little tied up that I don't get many pictures taken anymore when we are out and about so I don't have many pictures from our trip.

Our whole family stayed in a cabin while we were in the hills. My cousin Paula brought her dog Max along who Denver absolutely LOVES. Where ever Max was is where Denver wanted to be or he had to at least be able to see him. Here's a video of them together.

Denver playing with Max

Before ending this post I have a little prayer request for my little boy. Denver has had a rash in his diaper area for a little over 3 weeks. We've been to the doctor twice for it and today I called back to our peds clinic and asked for a referral to a dermatologist because it's still not better and it's now starting to hurt him. Please pray for the doctors to know what it is, for it to heal, and to quit hurting Denver fast as it just breaks my heart to change his pants because he just cries and cries.