eighteen!

My baby Krew turned 18 months old on Sunday!  I cannot believe how fast that time has gone.  This age is one of my favorites!  He's still little enough to be my baby, and old enough to be learning new things every day, trying new things on his own, and really letting his personality shine!

He has been sleeping better since his surgery, but not perfect. In the past two weeks he's only had two nights where he yells for 2-3 hours.  That's a huge improvement over the past several months, so I'll take it!

He is such a smart little guy!  He can name and point out colors and gets them right about 75% of the time. He points out stars, ovals, X's and O's.  He still LOVES to count!  He knows how to spell his name!  He can't say K (in fact, he can't say it ever, so he is Doo, Kade is Day, and Ky is Dy), but if I say, "K" he will follow will "R-E-W!"   This last week he learned how/got tall enough to open all the doors in the house!  Which means he can help himself to a snack in the pantry, fall  scoot down the stairs, and go out into the garage!  In fact, this morning he went out into the garage 7 times in one hour!  Time for some safety locks!
He loves to push chairs around in the kitchen so that he can reach everything in the drawers and on the counters.  Yesterday it was dumping a cup of water from the counter onto himself, dumping a large container of paper clips from the drawer all over the floor, and finding my lipstick in the drawer and sicking his cute little finger all the way through it!  Nothing is safe anymore!!

He still loves Mickey Mouse more than any other character/toy/show/app.  And he still calls him, "Bow" (like what you do on stage after a great performance, not what you wear in your hair).

Since the snow finally melted a couple of weeks ago, he has discovered the joy of being outside, and that is where he wants to be 24/7.  He loves looking for birds, sticks, dirt, grass, and running around with his brothers!

He's either looking at something interesting outside, or planning some way to escape so that he can go out there and play!

We love you Krew and feel so lucky to have you in our family!

the little man has surgery

On Tuesday, Krew had surgery.  We've know since he was born that he was most likely going to have to have a hernia repaired, and the day finally came.  Of course, I hardly slept the night before, worried and anxious.I was glad that he didn't know what was coming, but also worried that I wasn't going to be able to help him understand why he was in pain.  Kade had an almost identical surgery when he was four months old, so I knew a little bit about what to expect.  I'm not sure if that made things easier or harder.

 I do think that Krew looks super cute in his little hospital gown!

 I held it together pretty well considering Bart wasn't there with us for the first hour or so, since he was getting the other boys ready and to a neighbors house, and Krew and I had to be at the hospital at 6:15am.  I was okay talking to the nurses, helping Krew change, talking to the anesthesiologist, and talking to more nurses.  I was super thankful that Krew did not ask to eat or drink anything, since I would have had to tell him no.  I was also thankful when Bart finally got there to be with us.  I felt like I was on the verge of crying all morning, (I'm a crier, if you didn't already know!), but after talking to the surgeon, I lost it.  It didn't help that he said as he was leaving, "It's harder on moms than it is on the kids.  I've never seen a mom that didn't cry when we take their little ones away."  That did it!  One of the hardest moments I've had since becoming a mom was handing my four-month old little Kade to the nurse and watching her take him away to surgery.  And just thinking about doing that again made the tears flow.
Luckily, the nurse anesthetist that was going to be in the surgery knew Bart and offered to let him go back with Krew to get him sedated.  So, instead of watching the nurse take Krew away, I got to see his strong daddy take him down the hall in his arms.  Bart got to stay with him just until he was asleep, but it was so much better knowing that Krew didn't have to go to that strange, scary room, with all those people fussing around him, alone.
The waiting while he was in surgery was exactly as difficult as I had expected it to be.  When the surgeon finally came to see us, he said that things had gone well, but that the hernia was much bigger than he had thought and it had taken quite a bit longer to take care of it.  But, Krew had done well and it was over!!
As soon we could, we went back to recovery to see him.  And as soon as I held him, the tears came again.  I was so relieved that it was over!!

 He was quite groggy for a long time, and when he did open his eyes, I could see the morphine and not my sweet baby.  But, he did drink some apple juice in his sleep, so they let us take him home!

 He spent most of the day sleeping in my arms.  He would wake up for about 20 minutes at a time and just sit with me, and then fall back asleep.  I loved spending the day snuggling.  It's funny because there are lots of days when Krew wakes up and I hold him and say, "Let's just spend the whole day snuggling." But of course we can't ever do that.  Well Tuesday we did!  He finally perked up around 6:00 and played and laughed and even though I could tell he was in pain, I was happy to see him be himself!
The last few days he's been almost back to his happy little self, and I'm sure it won't be long before he is back to the crazy, happy, silly, sweet, mischievous Krew we all love so much!

easter 2013

 I feel like it wasn't very long ago at all that I was posting egg-dying pictures here on the blog.  Can't believe that it has been an entire year!

 We had a great Easter, despite the fact that there were still several inches of snow outside, and the Easter Bunny had to hide all the eggs inside this year.

 The Easter Bunny brought Krew this cute bubble-blowing gator.

 Since Krew didn't get much practice at our playgroup egg hunt in the snow, it took him a little while to figure out what he was supposed to do when he found an egg.  But then he found the candy inside and became very interested in finding more eggs.

 I love this picture of him laying on his tummy, reaching around to grab the egg.  There was probably an easier way to get it!

 

 Ky and Kade were both excited about the fact that Easter is the one day out of the whole year that they get to eat candy BEFORE breakfast!

 The Easter Bunny brought Lego Minifigures for the twins again this year.

 I made the boys all matching ties again this year.   I cannot believe how much Krew has changed since last year's matching-Easter-ties-picture:

2012

2013

Our camera timer photo of the whole family was a fail! But, I had to include it anyway because we hardly ever get a picture of all of us together, especially one where we are all dressed nicely!  Happy Easter!

he's a climber!

 Krew is such a climber!  It amazes me the things he can climb up on and the places he can get to.  He has already learned that if he pushes a chair, box, etc. somewhere, he can climb up and get to what he wants.  Nothing is safe any more!

 Up here on the little table in the kitchen is one of his favorite places to play.  I tried putting away the chairs so he can't get on the table, but it didn't stop him.  He simply pulls himself up on the table and then plays at the counter.  

The other day, he was out of sight for less than 90 seconds.  I came in my room to find him up on my computer desk!  Notice that he's already pushed the mouse off (it's dangling behind the desk), and he was moments away from pushing the monitor off the back of the desk!  If he gets through toddlerhood without a broken bone or a concussion, I will be shocked!

what's wrong with this egg hunt?

Today, some friends and I decided to have a little egg hunt in the park for our kids who are all on spring break.  It was a gorgeous, sunny day, but something about this egg hunt just didn't seem quite right...

Oh, yeah, it's all the snow that is still on the ground!  Hurry up spring, we are (impatiently) waiting for you!

I think the kids had fun anyway, except the three littlest ones who were having troubles walking in the snow!

happy 17 months!

I can't believe my baby is 17 months old today!  I haven't been doing monthly updates since he turned 1, but I wanted to write down a few of the things he is doing lately that I never want to forget!

I wish I could preserve:

~ The cute way he says, "no!"
~ The way he sings (the edited version) of "Locked Out of Heaven"
~The way he growls at us and pats on the floor, and tries to get us to do the same.  Then, when we growl at him and beat on the floor, instead of running away, he runs straight at us!
~The way he counts!  Most of the time it's: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10.
~The way he jumps up and down with both hands above his head and says, "Yay!!"
~The way he puckers up for a kiss.  His pucker is so big it blocks his nostrils (it's a lot cuter than it sounds!)
~The way he climbs on everything!
~The way he asks us to sing "Rock-a-bye Baby" before bed each night
~His chubby cheeks and tummy
~The way he makes everyone else "perform" if we try to get him to.  For instance, if we start asking him, where's your nose, eyes, etc., he will do it once and then go around the room making everyone else perform the same task before he will do any more.
~The sweet hugs he gives his brothers
~The way he throws tantrums!  Not that I like when he throws tantrums, just the way he does it.  He will throw himself on the floor, lying on his tummy, then he says, "Nigh, night!"  (As if I will be so disappointed that he is thinking about going to sleep I might let him have his way!)
~The way he learns new words everyday and surprises me when he uses them.
~The way he remembers things like the name of a shape (star and oval), and points out something different that is a star or oval and names the shape correctly!
~The way he says "color."  It's the same sound you would make by wiggling your tongue quickly from side to side.  He loves to color!

He is such a sweet, fun, smart little boy and I feel so blessed to be his mom!  Now if we could just get that bonkerton to stop screaming at night...

a dream come true: rock & roll edition

Last Wednesday was amazing, memorable, fun, and LOUD!  That's because Bart and I had 2nd row floor seats to the Daughtry concert!!!

Our friends Greta and Adam came with us.  We had dinner at Chipotle before the concert, and it was so much fun to get caught up with them.  It was especially fun because we could not remember the last time we hung out together without being interrupted every five minutes by a child (or two, or six!).  Their seats weren't very close to ours, but we met up at each intermission, which is pretty much the only time you can have a conversation at a concert anyway.

The opening band was called Aranda.  I'd never heard their music before, but they sounded pretty good.  Right away we knew we were in for a fun evening being that close.  At one point while they were performing, Chris Daughtry stood on the side of the stage and was videoing them.  I think he thought no one could see him, but that wasn't the case!  Let me just mention here that I have been a huge fan of Chris Daughtry since his American Idol days!  He is my favorite musical artist, and one of my favorite celebrities.  Greta and I went to his concert 2 1/2 years ago (but our seats weren't this awesome), and to that point it was my favorite concert ever!  So, seeing him so close up was a dream come true!

Isn't this picture awesome?!  If it were a little bit better quality, it could be an official concert poster or something.  I guess I could always have it printed poster-size and hang it in my house.  Yes!  This is how close we were.  Okay, so the camera is zoomed in a little bit, but this camera doesn't have a lot of zoom, so this is basically how close we were.

Here's proof that I was there!  It's also proof that my flyaways, a.k.a. hair regrowth after my crazy post-baby hair loss were there too.  See that platform over my shoulder on the left-hand side of the picture?  Sometimes the band members would come and stand on that platform and then we were really close!  Funny story:  at one point Chris Daughtry came on that platform and was reaching out and touching hands with the fans.  So, I jumped over the front-row seats. Only, the heel of my boots got caught on the top of the chair and it took me a few extra seconds to untangle myself.  So, by the time I got up there, I missed his hand by a few seconds!

This might be my favorite picture!!

At another point in the concert, he was singing directly to me!  I'm not even making it up.  Ask Bart.  It was awesome!

I got some awesome pictures and some fun videos.  Most of the videos are hard to hear though because my camera couldn't handle all the bass and the kick drum.  The songs with lots of bass and drums, just sound like crazy static.
The other band that performed that night was 3 Doors Down.  I'm not a huge fan, and in fact, I didn't think I was going to recognize more than a couple of their songs.  It turned out though, that I recognized lots of their songs, and had just never realized that it was their song.

So another fun story about being so close to the stage.  This guitarist changed his guitar so many times.  But, sometimes he used this LSU one.  LSU and Bart's Florida Gators are huge rivals.  So, at one point when the guitarist looked up, Bart did the Gator Chomp to him, he noticed and shook his head at Bart.  It was fun to be so close that we were interacting with the bands!

At the very end, Chris came back out and sang 3 Doors Down's song, "Kryptonite" with them.  Hence the Superman shirt.  It was one of the best parts of the evening!  And see?  He's looking at me again :)

I seriously had so much fun!  It was nice to be out on a date with Bart that lasted that long, and that didn't consist of a quick dinner and running to Target or Walmart.  The music was good, and loud, and I know I'm going to remember this for a long time!
Also, I'm considering picking up photography again, only specializing in concert photography.  Not because these pictures are perfect, but because it would be fun to go to concerts and be in front of the front row, and be able to take pictures with no heads in the way. Okay, so that's never going to happen.  Maybe I'll just become a groupie!