Praises and Prayer

The first praise we have to go along with the title of this blog is we had our official follow-up appointment for our baby girl's growth and she passed with flying colors. She weighed in at 1lb. 8oz. Her length actually was above the 50%! The most important measurement for them was her belly, as that had fallen in the 3% last time; this time is was in the 26% which I thought still was maybe small, but they said that's great....so we'll take it! At this point in time my doctor didn't think we would need to do anymore ultrasounds to follow her growth/weight we'll just keep track like any other pregnancy with my weight and uterus measurements. Not many people get a 24 week ultrasound, so we were lucky to be blessed with some more wonderful 3-D pictures of our little girl. Here are some that we just had to share with you...isn't she adorable?! :)

Our second praise to God is for our Denver (I want to call him our little Denver, but I guess I need to get out of that habit as he's growing and soon will be a BIG brother!). Denver continues to amaze us every day. He's growing into this adorable, intelligent, fun, loving boy. This boys vocabulary continues to grow every day it seems. Denver received an "ABC fridge toy" for Christmas that had originally been put away so we didn't have too many new things out at once. I took this out a week or 2 ago and within the first hour of it being on the fridge he hit the button that sings the "ABC's" and he began saying a b c with it! I was busy in the kitchen and couldn't believe my ears and then later that night he did it for his Daddy without even playing with the toy! He continues to love music and to "rock out" to it. His little arms go up in the air and he moves them around like he's directing a band or playing the drums. Anytime he hears music he stops and starts dancing. Denver's also learned how to give a serious/mean look and gives it out all the time now. When he gets yelled at for doing something he's not supposed to do he looks at you and stares you down with this look.

Denver got to enjoy this past weekend with his 1st cousin Jacob! He loved on him so much. Denver would always be looking for Jacob and if he'd see his car seat he'd go over there and start moving the blankets around trying to find him knowing that it was Jacob's. When he'd find him he'd be leaning in for lots of love, whether it was kisses or to snuggle his head to him. There were moments of slight jealousy when Jacob was getting the attention that Denver so desperately thought he needed, but he really did quite well. We just hope and pray that Denver feels the same about his little sister when he finds out that she's here to stay, not just for a weekend!

Our other request for prayer is for Denver to continue to grow and to be healthy. We are approaching Denver's 15 month "birthday" and this is when we go back in for another weight check and a decision on what to do about his continual drop on the growth chart. I've talked to one of the neonatologists that I work with in the NICU and asked her for advice if we should go ahead and do the testing that our pediatrician wants to do and after explaining things to her she felt that it would probably best if we did, as if there is something wrong it's all things we can "fix" and how terrible would we feel if we didn't do it when we could've helped him. While saying this, I also want people to understand that I truly believe that our amazing little boy is just going to be little his whole life whether we like it or not, and that nothing is wrong with him. At Church the other day I realized how much more active our little man is than a lot of kids his age. Denver runs non-stop and doesn't like to take extra time to eat any extra calories. He'd rather continue to burn the ones he's taken in by running and playing.

Denver loves mac and cheese!

We have quite the little cleaner on our hands. This past Sunday we caught Denver "cleaning" the vacuum cleaner with some wet wipes that he got into. There are plenty of other times when we've been cleaning and he'll find a paper towel and start wiping down the floor or the ledge by the window. Maybe I'll have a helper to keep this house clean before the baby comes!? :)

Someday Denver will probably not appreciate me for sharing this story, but it's too funny to not share and have documented for Denver to read some day so here goes our past Sunday afternoon. If you have a weak stomach you may not want to read this. When we got home from Church we put Denver in his high chair to eat his lunch. He was being poky with eating, but very content so Evan and I began doing other things around the house while he finished. After awhile Denver decided he was done and Evan took him out of his high chair; when he took him out he never thought to check his pants first....as a Denver who sat there that long, that quiet...he had to be up to something. We continued on with our things until I heard Evan yelling from the other room. I went to find the problem and Evan's pointing to the floor...."I think that's poop...where did it come from?!?!". I said sure enough and it came from him (pointing to Denver after looking down his pants). We went to Denver's room, put a blanket on his floor and I went to take off his shoe to put my hand in a pile of poop stuck to his shoe! As if this wasn't enough to make Evan get all excited I started pulling off Denver's pants to find poop stuck to his pants and all the way down his leg....stuck to his onesie, etc, etc (you can only imagine....as the onesie came off up the back to his head it went). We immediately went and put Denver in the tub to finish cleaning him up where we then would give him a bath. Before we could get him wiped up Denver plopped his little bottom down on the tub and now we had a tub to get clean before we could start filling the tub besides finish cleaning him up. Needless to say, we've never had quite the excitement with changing a diaper before and we HOPE this will be the one and only time. :)

Denver has found the "tupperware cupboard"! The tupperware cupboard is one of the cupboards that I haven't minded if Denver found and/or played in and today he found it alright. He had all sorts of containers out and was finding the right lids for them and putting them on. He loves stacking things and putting lids on things so he had a blast with this for quite some time.

Denver loves to sit in our rocker recliners and to rock. Today he wanted his blanket and a pillow so he could lay and rock. He also loves to play on the couch and thinks he's hot stuff when he's on "big people" furniture without being held.

Updates on the kiddos

It's been a little crazy here lately that I haven't had time to do any updates, so I figured I better get a quick update done before anyone goes through any withdrawals! :) First, last week we had another ultrasound to see our baby girl. This was for the study that we are participating in and it was so nice to see our little girl again. The ultrasound tech was great and spent lots of time getting very accurate measurements and said she weighed 14 oz. This is a 3 oz. gain in a week and one day, and I am not a doctor, but I think that's a pretty big gain, so I'm guessing our measurements at our 20 week ultrasound were not correct and that she really isn't too little! She is laying in a hard position for getting good measurements by ultrasound so that's part of the problem. This also makes her less photogenic than Denver was for his 2o week ultrasound, but we were able to get a couple more glimpses and pictures of our little girl in 3-D. We have another appointment in a little over a week with my doctor and will have a follow-up ultrasound for that (if you're wondering...the study we are participating in does not give my doctor any information (and vice versa) and that's partly why there are so many ultrasounds).

Now...our little man. He's keeping us busy as always. Denver has gotten very fast and loves to run around. This has become a problem with shopping; which Mommy loves to do so very much. The other day I was in the fabric store and put him down and looked away for one second and turned back around and he was gone. He's so fast and too short that he's not easy to spot! Don't worry...it didn't take long and I found him. He also LOVES to play in between the racks of clothes. I know all kids love to do this, but this is kind of funny because Evan and I always talk about how we liked to play in the racks of clothes when we were little and remember doing it at the same store...so we joke we maybe even played with each other as kids in that store! The past couple days Denver has not been acting himself again. Sunday he threw up for the "first" time (other than his "spit ups" from reflux when he was younger). Since then he hasn't been very interested in eating or drinking. I took him into the clinic yesterday as we had noticed he had been pulling on his ears a little more (which he seemed to have started when he had his cold a couple weeks ago). Of course his ears looked great, but that was a big relief since Daddy had to have tubes in his ears when he was little. It was obvious when we were in the clinic that he didn't feel good so they didn't want to just send us home without checking out anything else so they checked him for RSV and influenza. The quick strip came back negative and we're waiting on the longer results. This test can also detect if he has some other virus, that I can't remember the name of, but our pediatrician said if he has that virus we can't do anything for it (like any virus it just has to run its course), but that would be the explanation for his crabbiness. They also checked his weight which was a big disappointment for both Evan and me...and of course our pediatrician too. He weighed 18lbs. 11oz. I had so hoped he would be in the 19lbs area! This weight puts Denver at a 2oz. gain since his 1 year check almost 2 months ago. Although, with that said we have to keep in mind he was sick several weeks ago and went about a week without eating so he lost a lot of weight and he has gained that back so we need to be thankful for that. Last night Denver seemed happier and more himself again. We went to cousin Ethan's basketball game and when Denver was running through the hallway he fell and bit his lip and now has a fat lip! It's a little owie looking but he ate almost a full bowl of oatmeal this morning so it must not be bothering him! So, I think he's back on track. Otherwise, not a whole lot to update on Denver. His vocabulary continues to grow and he gets smarter every day about how every day things work. He now will take his "uck" (dirty diaper) after I change him and go put it in the diaper genie. Yesterday he tried pushing the button that you have to push in as you lift up the baby gate to open the gate because he wanted to go downstairs. He's gotten really good at drinking from a regular cup or a bottled drink. We've been trying to let him feed himself with his own silverware more and more. This is very hard for us though as he makes a mess and he loves to play/explore with his food and silverware. He's getting pretty good at it and can stab things with his fork to eat and scoop things with his spoon. I also think a mouthful of teeth are on there way in and that's been a big part of his crabbiness.

Our mischievous little boy!

We continue to run like crazy between working and going to basketball games and everything else going on in our lives. Last weekend we actually had a weekend that we got to relax and make our own plans. Saturday night Evan and I enjoyed a night out with some friends which was absolutely wonderful. Saturday morning we finally got our Christmas tree taken down along with the other Christmas decorations. Here's some pictures of Denver enjoying the last few looks at the tree before we took it all down. I never really accomplished any pictures of him in front of the tree this year (other than this one below) as he would run away as soon as I put him in front of it! Oh well, next year he'll understand and he can hold his little sister down and I'll get a picture! :)

Our "Little" New Years Gift

Now that the baby poll has closed and our 20 week ultrasound has been completed we thought you might like to know if you voted correctly or not. Believe it or not, more people voted correct than not! That's right...we are going to have a baby GIRL!! Everything looked great, but we will be having a couple more ultrasounds. One reason is we have agreed to be in a study that our hospital is doing which gives us the opportunity to have 2 extra ultrasounds; 1 of those is next week and the other one is around 30 or 32 weeks I believe. The other reason is that my doctor and one of the perinatologists have agreed that they want to make sure our little girl continues to grow well so we will have another ultrasound a month from now. She measured a little smaller on ultrasound than they would've liked to see, but they also realize that we have a "little" boy at home so it's probably fine; they just want to double check. This really isn't a big concern; it's just they would rather be safe than sorry. Our little girl likes to have her hands by her face, but she wasn't sucking on her thumb like Denver was constantly during his 20 week ultrasound. She weighed in at 11 ounces. We compared Denver's 20 week ultrasound pictures to hers and looking a the 3-D picture we can see a little difference, so MAYBE this time Mommy will get some credit when this little girl makes her appearance in this world!

We hope each and everyone of you have a wonderful New Year and that you will receive many blessings.

Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas, or should I say Christmas'! Our first gathering was last Sunday with the Schaap family, the second was with the Kindt's on Christmas Eve (but Mommy had to work so she missed out on the fun), the third was our family Christmas which was when Mommy got home from work on Christmas day, the 4th was Friday night with Evan's immediate family, the 5th was with the Schmeichel's on Saturday for lunch and then that evening we had the Waltner family Christmas, and then Sunday for lunch we had my immediate family Christmas for Christmas number 7! Christmas number 8 with the Schrag/Hofer family (Evan's step dad's family) will be in January. Crazy, huh? It was, but it was great to see all of our family members and Denver thought all the opening of presents was great. I was a little worried what he'd think when all the Christmas' were over, but today he started lacking interest in opening gifts after a couple were opened, so I think he got it out of his system!

Denver continues to LOVE balls!

Denver playing the piano

Denver got some wonderful gifts and loves all of them. Daddy packed some of them away as we don't have room for all of them and this way we can cycle them in and out so he doesn't get bored with them. The highlight gifts were probably from Uncle Aaron, a Little Tikes basketball hoop and from Grandpa Rodney and Grandma Verni which was another Little Tikes toy; a little slide that also has a steering wheel on it.

Daddy's so proud...he's already dunking! Here are some pictures of Denver shootin' hoops.

Denver can climb up the "rock wall" all by himself! He also likes to try to crawl up the slide, but that's a little trickier.

Denver's appetite came back in full force for the holidays. Christmas Eve for lunch he maybe even ate more than his daddy! Saturday evening with the Waltner family he had a blast with all the yummy food and we got a cute video of him putting his plate up to his face to eat off of which was pretty funny.

Grandpa Rodney, Cousin Jacob, Denver, and Grandma Verni

Grandma Verni bought "her boys" matching Christmas shirts to wear

Denver's vocabulary continues to grow. On Christmas day Evan called me at work and said, "Did you know your son can say "cracker"?" I don't think I can list all the words he says anymore....but some of the newer ones are cracker, hey, hi (finally...we've only been working on that one forever), Jacob, kitty, thank you (at times), and we think he's trying to say Denver, but it sounds a lot like daddy.

Denver still loves his cousin Jacob, but today we saw a little more of the jealousy come out of him. Hmmm...what will it be like when the baby is around 24/7? Good thing we have almost 5 months of growing up before he has to put of with a baby that much! :)

I think awhile back ago on a blog I promised to post a video and if I remember correctly it was of Denver playing baseball. Well, I finally got it edited down a little bit, so here it is, enjoy...baseball at the Kindt's!

Our Family Christmas Pictures

Also, I just wanted to update on Denver's cold. He's finally starting to turn the corner and started eating better for us again. This afternoon he ate almost as much as he used to for lunch. I'm sure it would've been funny to watch him and I this afternoon while he was eating as every time he took a bite I would get all excited and "cheer" him on and then he'd clap for himself. It was pretty cute; but when isn't he cute? :)

(Our pictures are thanks to some friends of ours who work for Festive Studios which is in Hartford...thanks so much for taking them; we love them!)

The Sick Report

Just thought I'd give you an update on Denver. We went to the clinic again yesterday to have blood drawn again. Of course Doc Z (the way Sanford Health does all the scheduling, charting, etc now...we went to paperless charting) was down and they couldn't get a hold of Dr. McKercher to see what he really wanted drawn so they drew everything they drew on Monday! This meant Denver had to be poked in his arm again. We walked into the room and he immediately started pointed to the door in his own way saying Mommy get me out of here! Thankfully they got the blood on the first try this time. We waited in the waiting room for the results as I didn't want to have to come back if they decided they needed to see him or something as we didn't see the doctor. Every one's prayers were answered and Denver's sodium level was only 1 above the high end of normal so we don't have to go back anymore unless he doesn't get better. I also used this time to ask for any suggestions of how to get him to eat or drink and they told me everything I already knew and was trying. Denver is still not very interested in eating or drinking. Now, that I know his sodium level is coming down I'm starting to worry about his weight again which I know can't be helped right now. I don't think I reported on his weight at the clinic on Monday. They weighed him on a different scale. A "big" boy scale! He got to stand up on a different, instead of sitting or laying on it. He just stood there and looked at me smiling; it was so cute. Due to a different scale and him wearing clothes and a diaper I don't know where his weight was at officially on Monday compared to his well baby visits when they make them strip naked for an actual weight. He weighed 19lbs 5oz, which was probably about the same as the last time he was in the clinic, but he was dehydrated so we'll take the excuse of him missing his water weight! Anyway, just keep on praying for him to gain a little more weight and to eat a little better (especially right now). I have known since he was born that he was going to be little as we (his parents) aren't very big people so we can't expect him to be big, but I do hope we can be 20lbs when he goes back for his 15 month re-weigh. The most exciting thing about Denver hitting the 20 pound mark is that we get to turn his car seat to forward facing! So all in all, the little man is feeling better as he's running around and playing some again. He actually has let me put him down to do this update, but has come back and wanted to help me so here's a little story from Denver: km mbmm jtg ittttttt b b mktttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttbnnnvbbvS (Sorry we haven't had time to take new pictures to add to this post. There will be Christmas pictures coming eventually)

1st trip to the doctor for being sick!

We had our first trip to the doctor for being sick yesterday. First, I have to say how good has God been to us to have an almost 13 month old who's never needed to visit the doctor for being sick and has only had 1 small little cold with just a runny nose before! Unfortunately, the doctor was unable to help us make Denver feel better. I had this feeling before we went in, but I just didn't feel I could not go and take the chance of him having to be admitted to the pediatric floor of the hospital because of my own stupidity of thinking he just had a cold. Denver's examination was normal, which I had pretty much determined before we went to the clinic other than being able to see his poor little throat that seemed to be hurting. Denver more than likely has some sort of a viral infection and has been running a low fever since Saturday (it may have even started on Friday as that's when the cough started). He has a bad cough and a runny nose along with it and has struggled to have an appetite to eat and doesn't want much to drink. We've been up during the night the last couple nights. Today he finally has consumed a little more liquid which makes me feel better as his sodium level from the blood draw at the clinic yesterday was pretty elevated which can indicate dehydration. Denver did awesome during his blood draw yesterday. Unfortunately, they didn't get blood during the first poke to his little arm, so they had to poke him in his other arm. He cried and cried, but he was a champ and barely fought us as we held him down. He looked a little peaked and pale, but the rest of his blood work looked good, showing us he was not anemic or fighting an infection. Denver's been very clingy and we've been spending lots of time reading books. Thank goodness I have the next couple of days off from work so I can stay home with him and hopefully he'll be feeling better soon. We ask that you pray for our little guy as he fights through this icky cold and that God gives him the strength to keep going and drinking his fluids so we don't end up in the hospital with an IV. Also, please pray for Evan and I as it's been very hard for us watching Denver feel so cruddy and only being able to give him Tylenol and Motrin and to spend time rocking and reading books to comfort him. What a helpless feeling! We hope that this update finds everyone else HEALTHY and that you can stay that way through this Christmas season!

Since no blog can go without pictures, here are some pictures of Denver in the rocking-recliner chair that we barely move from.

Denver and Jacob

Denver and my trip to Omaha went well. We had a nice smooth ride with the new tires and Denver was a trooper! Denver once again loved his time at Uncle Jeff and Aunt Kim's (and now baby Jacob's) house. He loved seeing all of them, playing with them, playing with their cats (...well pretty much just chasing Jack, as he doesn't really like Denver, but Jack would still look for Denver....and Tony, he just hid so we barely saw him), and "snuggling" with baby Jacob. We helped the Kliewer's start a blog so hopefully I'll get the okay that it's done and there will be a link (in the blog that we follow) to their family blog. Here are some pictures of the boys together.

These buttons are cool! (Denver)

Hey cousin! I think I like you!

While we were in Omaha Denver learned 2 new words; "kitty" and "cheese". Denver loved roaming around their house and this past week he's gotten pretty fast and falls less and less everyday.

We continue to work on getting lots of high calorie foods in Denver to help him grow better. Some days he does great and other days he doesn't eat as well, but I think that's pretty typical for any child. I wish we had a scale that was accurate with the clinics so we could know how much he weighs. Maybe the holidays will help "fatten" him up like it seems to add pounds to all of us adults.

Here's our pizza and pudding boy!

Denver did great at his 1st dentist appointment. Our dentist said that it should be fine and not cause problems done the road for him and we don't have to go back until he's 3!

I worked this past weekend and the boys had lots of fun together. Denver loves to play baseball, but that doesn't work so well when Mommy is at work as someone has to pitch and someone has to help Denver hit. When I get the video downloaded of us playing baseball with him I'll put it on here as it's super cute; he gets SO excited.

I think that's pretty much it for updates in our household. Hope everyone is staying warm in this cold weather!