Summer fishin'

Enjoying Reed

I can't even explain how much we're lovin' little Reed!  He has a pretty mellow temperament so far and we're loving every day that he gets more and more aware of what's around him.

When we consulted with a cardiologist before Reed's birth, we decided to take a low intervention route and have him not be on medication once the medicine I was taking for him wore off.  He seemed to do well for the first few days but then when he was 10 days old we caught his little heart hammering away at about 240 bpm.  It converted back down but hovered in the 180s range throughout the night (a normal infant heart rate is 120-160).  We called the doctor in the morning (who called us back from Panama where he's doing a medical mission!) and got him a medication to start on.  As far as we can tell he's responding to the med well and his heart has been in the normal range every time we've checked it.

 I never thought a stethoscope would mean so much to me! :)

I'm a swaddler and Reed seems to always manage to poke his little feet out of the bottom.

 So far he's been sleeping excellently...all day long.  He takes these super solid naps and I have to wake him up to eat almost every time.  He has no problem waking up every 3 hours to eat in the night, however!

 The kids can't get enough of him during the few short hours that he's awake each day.  They each love holding him, talking to him, drawing pictures for him to look at, and sweet little Gracen sloves to sing to him.

In other news, Alden made this "Harry Potter" and "Hungarian Horntail" dragon out of Knex that I thought was pretty creative!

Graduation Day

Today Jaron's class is holding their graduation ceremonies in Boston, where the school is headquartered.  We decided against attending since we weren't sure where we'd be at with Reed's health.

I can't believe this day is here.  What a journey it's been!

I feel like our med school journey has brought Jaron and I closer as we've worked so hard and leaned on each other so much to get through what has often been a difficult experience.  Our overall goal going into med school was to be able to provide for our growing family but it's been awesome watching Jaron get to learn and do things that he's excited about.  He's going to make a fantastic family practitioner, in my unbiased opinion!

Thank you to everyone who has supported us through this journey, especially to Jaron's parents.

Congratulations Jaron Brunson, M.D.!!!!!

Life in Idaho

Since we've got a baby around the camera's been out a lot more lately.  Here's a whole bunch of random pictures from the last few weeks.

I promised myself I'd take a picture of our Kansas place before we moved...and then I never did.  So here's a picture of the house we're renting, in case I don't get around to it when we move out next year! :)  It's so nice to have a little more space than we've been used to.  It still seems strange to live in a subdivision, and I probably wouldn't want to live in one forever, but it does have some perks: a park around the corner, a neighborhood pool, and lots of young families nearby.  

Our neighbor held an ice cream "get to know you night" in their driveway last weekend and it was fun to meet our neighbors. Some of the da's brought out some instruments and sang us some songs.  Then our ten-year-old neighbor brought out his recorder and played "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."  Eli ran up to me and asked if he could get an instrument and play it.  I was shocked (my shy little Eli?!) and amused at the thought of what "instrument" he was going to bring out (we have a bucket of toy instruments).  He came back a few minutes later with a cheapie plastic recorder and stood at the top of the driveway, shaking like a leaf, while he played an indecipherable song.  I clapped pretty hard.  My sweet little Eli!

Three cute kids (and one shockingly handsome man in the background)!

A few weeks ago we went on a "jump start labor" walk/bike ride...didn't work.

Needless to say, I felt pretty safe on that walk!

I put Alden into time out on the stairs the other day (which hasn't happened in a looong time) and it didn't work out too well.  Apparently time out on the stairs looked more interesting than whatever Eli and Gracen were doing at the time.  I don't think it ended up being much of a punishment!

Reed is hands down the most popular member of our family, which is tricky since all they want to do is hold him and all he wants to do is sleep.  Eli is especially sweet with Reed.  This morning we were laying in my bed with Reed in between us and Eli was telling me all the things he's going to teach him soon (like "the names of all the animals").

Gracen sings a lot lately.  The other day she came down strumming this tiny plastic guitar, singing a combination of songs she's sort-of learned from church.  Pretty darn cute.

"Look, mom: THREE babies!"

We are still reading Harry Potter every night (we're on the fourth book now!).  Eli got up one morning, asked for crayons, glue, and paper and drew this awesome little Maurader's Map.  Hogwarts is on the top left corner, in case you can't tell.  I'm surprised at how much Harry Potter play has gone on since we started reading - they're pretty into the books!

The new princess dress we snatched at a garage sale for $1.  She couldn't be happier than when she's in this dress.  She always has scruffy looking hair because she doesn't let me put hair elastics in  (apparently princesses wear their hair down).

I am seriously, seriously in love with this little bundle.  I am glad that I had three kids so close together but its been really nice to have only one "baby" this time - I feel like I get to enjoy him a little more. :)

Don't you just want to kiss those cheeks?!  His full head of hair sure makes him look like one handsome little man, in my opinion.

We are seriously loving our first fenced in backyard.  As you can see by the planters, we have our first vegetable garden: watermelons, tomatoes, cucumbers, and something else (I'm having cognitive deficiencies from lack of sleep!).  Since Jaron doesn't start his residency program for a few weeks yet, we're spending a lot of time in the backyard playing soccer and basketball.

And the other night, I convinced Jaron to spend the night in the tent with the kids.  He had a much rougher night than I did with the new baby!

Back in Kansas...

Amidst all that's happened over the last few weeks, I haven't gotten a chance to post the last of our Kansas pictures.

Right before we moved, Alden lost his first tooth!  He cried way back in kindergarten about being the "only kid" at school who hadn't lost a tooth.  Needless to say, he was pretty excited.  He was equally excited to learn that the tooth fairy trades him a dollar for each tooth.  Alden has become quite the saver and has developed a decent sized bank account over the last few years.

 

I know my kids are way too old to bathe each other.  But it's just so easy that way.  And they just have so much fun. :) Here they were showing me their "wild hair."

We got to do some fun things with friends before we left Kansas.  We hit Deanna Rose Farmstead on a beautiful morning.  We'll definitely miss Deanna Rose this summer, with it's free petting zoos, parks, etc.  But we'll miss the people we went with even more!

Right before we left we got to have dinner with Jaron's brother's family one more time. We didn't take advantage of living so close to them near enough!

After Jaron and the kids took off, my friends spoiled me by making sure I didn't have a chance to be lonely.  Ashlee came over and helped me clean the apartment.  RaDawn took me out to a new vietnamese restaurant for lunch.  That night I had dinner at Amy's.  The next day a bunch of us gathered at Marilyn's for an Asian lunch and that night Billie took me out to dinner and the ballet.  I managed to get pictures of almost none of all that. :(  I am sure missing the great group of friends we had in Kansas!