look-a-likes

We recently introduced some easy finger-foods to Lady-LE, and it brought back all sorts of fun memories from when L first tried graham crackers. Oh man it's crazy how much time flies and how cute my babies are. 

They look quite a bit a like, don't they?

race for the cure

Back in June last year (a couple weeks before Lady-L was born), we found out that Ryan's dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lymphoma. It was scary, unknown, really advanced, overwhelming, intimidating, and difficult. Ry's parents told us over the phone, and when they came out to meet Lady-L when she was born we still didn't have many answers as to treatment. Bit by bit questions were answered and he started chemotherapy. The cancer had spread all over, but they were hopeful and optimistic. 

A few months later, in October, we received another phone call from Ryan's parents telling us they discovered that my mother-in-law had breast cancer. Once again it was scary, overwhelming, and difficult. My father-in-law is such a good man, and loves to use humor to help ease tension or worries, so he would say, "Ya know, we're best friends and we like to do things together!" Cancer included. 

{Lady-L's blessing day, 07.18.10}
{Lady-L is named after Ryan's father}

So right in the middle of my father-in-law's chemo treatments, my mother-in-law had a double mastectomy and reconstruction.. Results were good that she was cancer free, and recovery was the last thing to concentrate on. It continues to be the goal as she has experienced four surgeries since then trying to combat infections and complications. 

Recovery is this elusive term that seems to keep hovering over them but never quite settling. However, we are all incredibly grateful for their progress and continue to be hopeful for this to be done with. It has been a difficult time for Ry and I to be so far from family, and we cherish those days spent with them over Thanksgiving. Our faith and hope in the Plan of Happiness has deepened as has our love for one another. 

Why share this now? Because I think that I am the luckiest person in the world to know and love these two phenomenal people and to have their love in return. And my sister-in-law is challenging us all to sign up for a Race for the Cure this year and I wanted to extend the challenge to everyone I know. She has started a blog sharing a little bit of their story, in addition to a growing list of all those who sign up to run. I love this idea and loving tribute to two of the most amazing people I have ever met. Ryan and I will DEFINITELY be running for them, and I hope that you will too. 

{G & C with all their grandchildren, 11.26.10}

You can find my sister-in-law's blog HERE if you would like to read more and sign up.

We love you Nonnie and PopPop!

thank you

I'm not sure who you are, but thank you for delivering these sweet flowers from my best friend. It means so much to know that I'm not alone. What a wonderful Valentine's day surprise!

My heart is so full!

early valentine

Since Ry would be gone this year for Valentine's day, I gave him his present before he left back in January. I love any and all food-related gifts, so here's what I gave him: a RootBeer Sampler! Now we can finally be root beer connoisseurs! We broke into it that night, and I think I'm as excited to try all the different varieties as Ryan is.

Since then I had to go back to a particular store where I found two more varieties! I couldn't help but pick them up, even though they weren't included in the original 12. Here's to many, many more date nights where we can sample our rootbeer varieties together!

seven months

I feel like through this past month Lady-L has all of the sudden decided to show us her personality and it is SO fun. She is growing and learning, and I love her to pieces. I can't believe how fast the time goes.

Few Favorites:

-loves to blow raspberries; especially when she's tired. They are the strongest in the middle of the night.

-she smiles with her eyes just as much as with her mouth. I love watching her eyes light up when she's happy.

-laughing at mommy's funny faces

-incredibly responsive to facial expressions

-takes a bottle! After months of trying, she finally took one particular sippy (only one - we tried lots of different bottles and sippys). Then after a couple weeks of taking only one sippy, she finally caught the concept and has now graduated to a bottle (I know ... a little backwards. But I like bottles better. So there.)! Hooray!

-giggles a ton at big brother

-rolls over both ways, but still doesn't chose to do it that often

-obsessed with her tongue

-said goodbye to swaddling a few nights ago. She likes to have the blanket around her belly/legs though, so we still do that.

-sleeping still is a little rough. We decided to focus on the bottle first, and then the sleeping. One down, one to go! 

-sitting up all by herself

-sometimes sucks her thumb and thinks it's pretty dang cool

-I am really questioning the need for teeth. She seems to be always in pain these days.

-rubs her left ear lately whenever she's tired

-has two teeth

These two now love to sit up next to each other and play. It is darling to watch.

 The one food item that continues to be a "no" is squash. She always does this squished up nose face and clamps her mouth shut. funny girl.

This was earlier in the month practicing our sitting-up position. She's a pro now.

Angelic. Honestly. I love her. 

An Early Valentine's Tribute

For those of you who frequent our blog, you've likely noticed that the majority (read all) of our blog posts are courtesy of my talented, creative wife. She has a way with written word that still amazes me. Admittedly, I am lazy and inconsistent when it comes to recording memories, journaling, letter-writing, and pretty much anything of the sort. However, I am trying to break this mold I've created for myself.

Some, but probably not most of you know that I currently am living in Quito, Ecuador for the month of February, currently completing a Global Health elective in my 4th year of medical school. What does that mean exactly? Well, I received some funding to come and experience medicine in a developing country, practice my Spanish, and gain an ever greater appreciation for the Latin culture. I hope this will help me in my future practice as many patients of Emergency Departments around the country are Latin, many of whom speak little or no English.

(And finally getting to the reason for this post...) This fantastic experience would not be possible without the complete support of an incredibly selfless, strong, and loving wife. There were times leading up to this trip that I doubted my desire to leave, for various reasons, and although I'm sure she would love to not be a single parent right now, she never let me give up on what I had talked about doing for so long. I often tell people that Heather is my better-3/4, and being here makes me realize that the ratio is even more skewed. I can't possibly express here exactly what I feel for her, nor how my love for her has grown since being apart, but I will attempt to thank her for 5 1/2 years of being steadfast, energetic, fun, loving, patient, and again, completely selfless. And she has only grown in these attributes over the years.

As part of this gift, I am going to make a serious effort to record my experiences here in South America. Although we talk almost everyday, I hope that by sitting down and writing my thoughts, I can give her, as well as you readers and myself, some insight into what I am doing. Heather is a record-keeper, so hopefully this will live up to her high standards.

I'll start by giving a quick overview of what's going on, and then will hopefully get into some more detail in later posts.

We arrived in Quito on Sunday, January 31, and reported for orientation and clinical duties at 7:30 the following morning. So far, it's been a blast, although the clinical rotation isn't quite what I had anticipated, and some kinks are still being worked out. I'm working in the ICU of a large, social security hospital in Quito that receives some of the sickest patients in the country. Granted, most of these patients aren't very talkative, but it's been a growing experience, and I'll hopefully get more patient interaction in the coming weeks. I definitely have ample opportunities to speak Spanish with the residents and doctors; Intensive Care Medicine was hard enough in English, and being thrown into a busy unit has been tough and challenging, but strangely rewarding as well. The teams are great, and we even have had some opportunities to teach them some techniques that we use in the US and at OSU, specifically ultrasound.

Our days typically start around 615 with an Ecua-shower, followed by breakfast at home with our host family (pictures to come). We catch the crazy-scary buses around 7 and arrive at the hospital around 730 to round and help out until 12. We then bus to the Spanish-school, find a place to eat lunch, and then have Spanish classes from 2-6. Despite serving a Spanish-speaking mission and minoring in the language in college, I've forgotten quite a bit and it's nice to be able to learn and practice from Ivan, our teacher. I say we because I traveled here with a med school buddy Justin Wheeler, along with 3 other guys from our class. Justin and I are staying with the same family, and the other 3 are spread between 2 other homes.

Since this post is already forever-long I'll finish by saying again that this experience would be possible without Heather, who I miss dearly every day. I will be honest and admit that some very manly tears have been shed since I have been here, even just thinking about my beautiful family in Ohio. I love you and look forward to seeing you.

A view of the ED entrance to the hospital

A traditional Ecuadorean dinner in La Mariscal

A view of our breakfast spread - fresh fruit every day!

Our room, and a faux-studying Justin

The city from our window

ice storm

One thing that I surprisingly have fallen in love with while here in Ohio are ice storms. The first one I experienced was while catching the bus down to campus for my internship our first winter here. We pass by a golf course on the way, and the sun was shining. It was absolutely breathtaking to see the sun shining through all the branches of the trees - it reflected light in every direction possible and completely had me mesmerized. I had yet to feel that winter was beautiful here in Ohio until that moment. 

That one single memory has sustained me through subsequent snow and ice storms we have had. There have been more sun-shining-on-the-ice days, and I try to soak them in. We woke up to our first ice storm of the winter this morning, and with the first glance out the window I had that craving to go outside and take a picture. Here are a few that I took.

It amazes me that water can freeze like this.  

The brick wall outside our back door was covered by ice. Seriously?! So cool!

 Take a look at the small cable holding up our little bird house. All the telephone wires are covered as well, with hundreds of little icicles hanging down.

I love how each icicle is unique and marvelous. I love how it invites the light into itself. And I love how it continues to change shape as it grows and melts. Always changing and always beautiful. 

Love it! 

If only I were adventurous enough to take L on the ice skating rink outside our front door. Maybe this afternoon? We shall see.

the big brother

It's really easy to write post after post of Lady-LE. There are simply so many "new" things she is doing that are fun and exciting AND she holds still long enough for a picture. But. L does a ton of "new" things too these days (mostly related to new words/phrases/sentences) and I wanted to document a few.

{I REALLY want to edit this and lighten it up! Grrr ...}

{About Food}

-very particular about his PB&J's. So particular in fact, that he won't eat them ANYwhere except at home. It's that homemade jam goodness that he's fond of. (Quite the jam-snob)

-recently learned to drink the milk from his cereal bowl and thinks it's the coolest thing in the world
-obsessed with "Daddy Cereal" which is Quaker's Oatmeal Squares with a Hint of Brown Sugar. Try it. You'll love it.
-hates ice cream
-When asked what he wants to drink he says, "Cup of juice. After cup of juice, cup of milk. After cup of milk, cup of water." And he will hold me to that exact order.
-would eat yogurt, cantaloupe, fruit snacks, and graham crackers all day long if possible

{About Talking}

-has full conversations with himself: "apple juice or milk. Which would you like? Milk? Yes!"   "play a few more minutes? Ahh ... I don't think so. Please? Yes!"  

-needs to talk on the phone every time it rings because it's usually Daddy calling to say hi
-started saying "No thank you" on his own
-is really good at using pronouns for his age

-loves to help mommy say prayers (as in he says it first and I repeat him) - and says the most darling prayers in the world.

-his first prayer all by himself went like this: "Heavenly Father, we thank thee for Jesus. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." Totally made me cry.

-Came up to me today and said, "I miss Daddy and that makes me sad." {we're working on using words like sad and mad instead of throwing tantrums} Broke my heart!

-Honestly is talking so well and I am constantly amazed at the sentences that he throws together. Using a lot more clarity in his words too.

{Totally Random}

-favorite letters are M, W, and A. He can recognize every letter in the alphabet without having them in order. Still working on numbers.

-hates to share

-loves to 'play football' while we watch a game. This consists of standing in a ready position, and once the play begins, he does this shuffle/stutter step while turning in circles, then throws up whatever he's holding (typically his bear) and falls down when he catches it. Pretty sure that's how the pros do it too.
-still takes and honestly needs one nap a day
-completely not potty-trained. It's not looking too close in our future either.
-loves animals - all kinds
-carries his trains around in one of my casual purses everywhere.
-loves to read books

He is such a darling big brother. Very possessive of Lady-L, and tries to defend her already when he sees other kids getting close to her. Yesterday in the car she was crying pretty hard on our way home from playing, and he kept saying "It's okay Lady-L (although her real name), we're almost home. We're almost home." It was sweet and tender and melted my heart. I'm pretty sure my heart melts on a daily basis with these two kids. What a beautiful life I have!

I love this boy! 

snow days

Remember L's fear and hatred toward the snow last year? Oh boy am I glad those days are over! 

A friend invited us over to play in the snow a few days ago, and I am proud to say that L enjoyed it. Horray! 

It still takes him a while to warm up to it, and he even started crying the first time I sat down in the snow (because I got "dirty" he said). But with enough coaxing and peer pressure he soon learned how to throw snow up in the air and loved it. So did I.

 Cute J who was not afraid of the snow at all! 

 Hard-working S was trying to mow the backyard. The snow definitely slowed his progress.

Our good buddies who played with us.

 This is soon after the discovery of throwing it in the air. His entire face would light up and he would be all smiles and do it again. At one point I was videotaping him, and he kept walking towards me with a handful of snow ready to launch. He eventually had me cornered in the yard and I had to turn off the camera and run - this kid is dangerous! 

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes

{or at least on my hat and mittens - I know. Doesn't rhyme, but it's still cute.}

The girls stayed inside and had a grand ol' time being warm and cozy. 

Oh man does this make me excited to have a yard someday.

blue bear reunited

We were pleasantly surprised with the return of one beloved member of our family today. He returned from a brief stay in Michigan and has been sorely missed by this little boy everyday since. Now if we could only have the other member of our family return home soon (the one who's on the other end of the phone conversation), then our little family will be complete again. 

None of us like being separated very much! 

six months

You would think that I would be writing this post after a good night's rest, considering the fact that Lady-L is six months old. Hate to disappoint (really, I do. Trust me.), but I'm going on a total of four hours of sleep because of this lovely lady. Fever, you ask? No. Ear infection or otherwise inflicted? No. Teething? Perhaps. Refusing to sleep longer than 3.5 hours without additional feedings? Yes. And you know what hurts even worse than the droopy eyelids and significant drop in patience levels? The fact that I did this to myself. Ouch.

You see, she was a great sleeper right from the get-go. She was consistently putting in a 6-7 hour stretch each night followed by shorter segments. She got slightly congested, and then we left for our six-week vacation adventure. Which translates to paranoid-mom in the middle of the night with the feed-her-quick-to-keep-her-quiet mentality so she won't wake up other family members sharing the room or hallway or house. So now we're all settled back home, and she hasn't slept longer than four hours in over a month and it's catching up on me.

Either way, sleep deprived or not, she's still darling and wonderful and my favorite. So here are her recent happenings.

New Stats: will update next week after Dr's appointment

Few Favorites:
-Adamantly refuses bottles and I'm becoming desperate.  I'm leaving her for over a week at the end of February and this doesn't give me much time to force teach her. L had no problems whatsoever with bottles (or any kind of eating for that matter), so I'm way out of my league here. Need counseling.
-Got her first tooth right after Christmas
-Loved watching all her cousins and always having someone hold her while visiting family
-Has eaten her first rice cereal and baby foods. It still takes her a bit of spitting out to remember how to keep her tongue out of the way, and every once in a while she shows a strong dislike for peas and carrots - but I can typically still feed them to her the next day or so. She maintains a pretty consistent love-hate relationship with food.
-Needs to be sitting up able to see things all the time
-Absolutely loves being sung to, especially "Here's a Ball for Baby." She giggles every time I do the peek-a-boo part.
-Snorts when she's laughing really hard
-Struggles to sleep - period - if she's not swaddled. She's quite the escape artist too, which aggravates the problem.
-Impresses me with how chill she is most of the time. Quite the content little baby!
-So close to rolling over, but not yet.
-Getting more stable at sitting on her own, but still needs very close hands.
-Quite skilled with the pacifier. If she can find it with her hands (which means if her flapping arms just happen to come across it) then she can usually figure out how to get it back in. Keeps her busy for a while, which is pretty cute to watch.
-Short attention span while doing anything (eating especially)
-LOVES it when I squish her face with kisses over and over again. Guaranteed smile, with a chance of giggles.
-Smiles even after being tackled by big brother in a hug. They have this mutual understanding I think.
-No longer falling asleep on-the-go like she used to. Sad day. Looks like we'll be needing to stay home more often which sounds like torture to a 2.5 year old (and his mom).
-blows raspberries all.the.time.
-learned how to eat her toes

All in all, she is wonderful and I love her to pieces!

solid

While out in Utah, we decided to start Lady-L on solids. An entire month later than we did with L. Oh well, second kid right? Between two sisters, we probably took over a hundred pictures of the event (she was quite the crowd pleaser), but I have none of them. Forgot to save them onto my hard drive before leaving. Bummer! Mom, a CD of pictures is coming, right?

Anyway, here's a link to my younger sister's commentary of the event on my parent's blog. If you'd like to see pictures, she has plenty! And if you don't take the time to go look, I won't judge. Just know that you're missing out on one dang cute baby if I do say so myself. So cute, in fact, that I can't stop kissing her cheeks. Love her!

Lady-L's first food extravaganza

needing updates

So after six weeks of traveling and being with wonderful family and friends, I have a lot to catch up on. However, I only have some of the pictures, and don't have any photo-editing resources with me. Isn't it silly that I'm scared of putting un-edited pictures on my blog? I do it all the time, but that's when it's by choice. Now that I don't have a choice, I feel torn and look at every picture with this awful judgment of "are you good enough". Lame, I know. But until I get all the pictures and my photo-programs back, I will do my {almost} best at working on those updates. While blogging is not a priority, I still need to document something of these past few months for my own memory-sake.

So please forgive the awful lighting and the extra details that would be cropped out - but I just had to include a picture of this darling. She is quite the eater and proud of it. See you all again soon!

temple square

My parents had four tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir mini-concert with David Archuleta on a Sunday morning, so we made a little trip out of it and stayed overnight in SLC Saturday. We visited Temple Square Saturday night with a few thousand best friends, and had a wonderful time. 

There is something about this place that makes my entire heart want to burst with happiness. I felt absolutely giddy walking through the conference center courtyard, holding hands with L, looking at the temple. The entire time walking around I felt like I couldn't soak it in fast enough, and that maybe if I held my breath time would slow down {note to self: doesn't work}. The peacefulness of the temple combined with the excitement of Christmas had me completely mesmerized.  

 It had L mesmerized too. We could sing any primary song in the book, except I Love to See the Temple until we actually saw the temple! It was so cute. And once we saw it, we sang it loud and clear. He kept talking about it over and over again and that led into talking about the Logan, UT temple which we would see on a some-what daily basis while visiting UT. It was wonderful to see him recognize and appreciate the temple for being such a special place. 

 {photo credits go to my talented little sister K who was kind enough to snap pictures for me while I dealt with my kiddos. Thank you K!}

Oh I had wonderful dreams of getting this perfect-sacred-feeling-eternal-glimpse-kind-of-a-shot with my kids and I in front of the temple. Why do I even let myself daydream about things like that?! The above picture perfectly illustrates how L was the entire night {and every other day of his life for that matter}. Going way too fast for the camera and not slowing down for my heart's desire. Could I ever imagine how much I would love that little boy? Maybe next time we go to temple square - with Daddy this time - we'll get that picture I'm dreaming of. :)

After we had exhausted ourselves we made it to the hotel. I love how hotel rooms seem to bring out this hyper side of kids - both L and Lady-L were happy as could be at 11:30pm. It didn't hurt that Grandpa B gave them lots of special attention either.

The next day was short, and quite enjoyable. The adults all went to the Music & the Spoken Word followed by the mini-concert while I stayed and watched the kids in the hotel room and got a chance to catch up with one of my dear friends and her fiance {mad that I didn't snap a picture}. Then we drove home and all tried to recover from the lack of sleep. What a fun last-minute trip! Thanks Mom & Dad!