First tooth

Logan popped his first tooth through somewhere in Minnesota. His second one followed a few weeks later. And while he is getting his first teeth, Noelle is losing hers. She discovered her first loose tooth a few days after Logan got his tooth. And just to brag a little on the cute kid, He is not yet 8 months and is already pulling himself up on furniture, crawling proficently and using the "pincher grasp" to pick up food and feed himself. He is also learning to give kisses to the cute baby in the mirror.

In the blink of an eye

We had a scary experience with Wyatt recently that I hope will renew all you parents to some safety tips. We were swimming at our friend's pool with a few families and most of us were out of the pool and inside. Noelle and her friend were still in the pool at the shallow end playing on the steps. Ben was outside with another dad and was watching them. Wyatt had gotten out of the pool, taken his life jacket off and was playing with his friend in the yard around the pool. Because Noelle and her friend did not have life jackets on (which we allowed because they can touch for a few feet out at that end of the pool) Ben was being very conscious to look back frequently at them while he was talking to the other dad a few feet away.

Suddenly Ben got a bad feeling and quickly scanned the area for the kids. He didn't see Wyatt. He started walking toward the pool and saw Wyatt floating face down. Ben jumped in the pool and pulled him out and laid him down on the side. Wyatt was blue and not breathing. He gave him a few breaths and the other dad ran inside to call 911 and yelled for someone who knew CPR to run outside. Two of the other moms ran outside and our other friend dropped to her knees to pray (Thank you!!) I don't really know CPR so I didn't rush out but started to realize that my kids and the kids of the dad who ran inside were the only ones out there so there was a good chance something was wrong with one of mine. Since we have already lost our first child at birth to a birth defect, I was confident that God would not allow us to lose another child (whether or not that is reality, it is just something I have to tell myself) so when I saw Wyatt laying there I did not panic as I was sure he would be okay. Ben on the other hand was hysterical as he was sure that it was all over. As I knelt down by Wyatt one of the moms said "He has a heartbeat." which further encouraged me that he would be fine. They tilted his head back and gave him a few breaths and then his mouth started moving and he took a few breaths on his own. The color rushed back and he started crying. The fireman showed up just after that and checked his breathing and said he seemed to be doing well but we would have to take him to the ER to get him checked out. Our friend drove us to the ER and they took chest x-ray and blood tests and said we were very lucky and he would be 100% fine. WHEWWWW!

We were so blessed that God protected our sweet Wyatt. The last several days we have reveled in our family and appreciated the fact that we could have lost Wyatt and our family would have never been the same. We find greater joy in every interaction between Wyatt and his brother and sister and are so thankful we don't have to explain why their brother isn't here anymore. Noelle was very scared by the situation because she didn't realize there was a problem and thought Wyatt was playing. She also didn't like seeing the fireman around and everyone being upset. She felt much better after she came to see him at the hospital and knew he was okay. She doesn't like to hear us talk about Wyatt's "pool problem" although since we have had to tell the story over and over countless times. Wyatt just said he tried to go swimming and drank a lot of water. He doesn't seem very affected by the situation at all thankfully. We think of all the things that could have happened and are glad the situation worked out so well.

So needless to say, swimming lessons are first on our agenda this fall. Although our nurse told us that her son was taking swimming lessons and he fell off the table they have in the water to keep them up higher and his teacher didn't notice and she had to run over and get him out. So always go with your child to swim lessons and watch them at all times.

Also we never imagined that Wyatt would go back in the pool on his own without his lifejacket on. We always stress that you have to wear your jacket in the pool unless mom and dad are with you. Earlier we had been practicing with them without their jackets so maybe that is where he got the idea. You can never tell what kids are thinking. Noelle also didn't know that Wyatt was not breathing and that it was a problem. She thought he was playing in the water. So don't trust your young kids to watch the younger ones.

We were very lucky that Wyatt didn't need much resuscitating and that the fire station is about 1 mile away from the house we were at, but none of us really knew CPR even though our friend had taken it recently, she realized she couldn't really think of what the proper procedure was either. So I encourage all parents to take CPR classes whenever possible. We would never have gotten over it if we were unable to resuscitate him when we should have been able to.

So thanks to all who knew of the situation and were praying for our family. Thanks also to all our friends who were there with us and were so supportive and encouraging, especially to Ben who felt horrible it happened on his watch even though he did everything right.

We are so thankful Wyatt is still here with us and praise God for him.

Chicago trip

The town of Sturgis was CRAZY with motorcycles!! They were everywhere. If I was into motorcycles it would have been really cool. We didn't really walk around much. It was a little intimidating and we would have felt really conspicuous walking around with a baby. It just felt wrong. I did get out of the car on a side street and walked a few blocks. I was greeted with an eyeful of old women dressed like teenagers. A particularly memorable one was a 60ish woman wearing a thong bikini, chaps and tatoos. She was in shape (luckily) but it was still 60 year old skin and it wasn't pretty.
We took this picture of Logan on a Harley in a Burger King parking lot. As we were driving through town earlier, Krista joked that if someone commented on the baby, as people tend to do, we should say, "Thanks, can we get a picture of him on your bike?" Not thinking that would ever happen we just laughed about it.
So I was sitting in the car in the parking lot while Krista ran inside for a drink and I had the door open with my legs out because of the heat with Logan on my lap. A group of bikers drive up and park nearby and the biker chick says." Oh a baby, can I come see him?" I think PERFECT. "Sure," I say," can I get a picture of him on your bike?" So she went and asked her husband and they were really nice and he took his shirt off and put it down on the hot part of the motorcycle so Logan wouldn't get burned. I had my huge zoom lens on my camera but I wasn't about to miss the opportunity by stopping to change it so I had to back up really far to get a picture. Logan wasn't looking at me so I am calling his name and the biker guy comes back by me and is trying to get his attention too. I really wish I had the situation on video cause it was really funny seeing the shirtless tattoed biker waving at the baby. So I took a few pictures and wished the bikers a fun time at the rally and then surprised Krista with the pictures when she got back to the car.



So after Sturgis we went to Mt Rushmore about 40 miles away which was also swarming with bikers. It was pretty neat but didn't take much time to go through the museum and take a few pictures of the rock. You could hike up to the faces but I was NOT interested in doing that with a baby on my back.

We stopped a few more places before we got to Chicago but this was our major excitement for the trip.

In Chicago we walked down the Miracle Mile - just a street with a lot of stores- and down to Navy Pier. We h ad lunch at Giordano's pizza which was AWESOME!!! The American Girls store was crazy with so much stuff to buy all for a DOLL!! I'm sure we will buy a few things for Noelle at some point but some of it was ridiculous. I guess all the rich people need something to spend their money on to make up for not spending time with their kids! (Just kidding)
I really enjoyed the city of Chicago. It was neat seeing the huge skyscrapers that are much taller than the ones here. The part we were in seemed nice and normal. I was waiting to run into all the freaks we usually have around our city but I only saw 1 or 2. There were lots of families and regular looking people wearing clothes from JCPenney.

I am running out of time to write due to a crying baby so I will wrap up by saying we had a GREAT time and Logan behaved AMAZINGLY well. I figured he would be good but he was beyond good. So thanks for your prayers.
Krista is now safely settled in a house in Wheaton with 4 other girls and enjoying her job and the humidity (crazy but she likes it).

Music to a mother's ears.

I heard some of the best things a mother can hear out of the mouth of my two children today.

Noelle - You were right, Mommy!!! This was said after her dentist appt to get a cavity filled and I had told her the gas would make it not hurt. She was actually laughing while they were drilling because the vibrations tickled. I'm sure the laughing gas helped some.

Wyatt - I will share some of my money with you, Sissy! Sweet boy. We had recently rediscovered a stash of money in his piggy bank and Noelle's was pretty much empty. At Walmart they had a bunch of clearance toys that we were looking at and Noelle was asking for toys that I didn't want to spend money on and I told her that she couldn't get anything because she didn't really have any money in her piggy bank. Wyatt piped up from the cart that he would share his money with her. All on his own with no prompting. What a great heart!

I have lots more posts to do but have not had the time recently. After getting back from our trip to Chicago, we immediately went camping and then rode out the heat wave at my parent's house with their air conditioning. So I am just now back home and have to clean up the messes from the last two weeks so we can have company over tomorrow. So I will try to get to those posts soon. i have some cute pics to share.

On the road again...

Well our trip so far has been great!  Logan is doing very well with only a few meltdowns. We are currently 160 miles west of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Some highlights of the trip were scoring a huge jacuzzi suite for the price of a single room on our first night. After that it has been the Super 8 and a lousy Best Western. Day 2 we went through Butte, Montana where we enjoyed their farmer's market. We stopped in Billings at a restaurant Krista had found on the internet that had great cinnamon rolls. And today we enjoyed the 2008 Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, ND.  Logan had his picture taken on a Harley, I got an eyeful of several scantily dressed old women and we managed not to piss off any old bikers. We then journeyed to Wall Drug which is a very cool, huge variety of stores, food and random touristy things. We finally made it to our hotel at 8:45 pm after crossing over into Central time. I hate losing a whole hour in 2 seconds.  Well I am off to bed as soon as I can get Logan to sleep. He still thinks it is 2 hours earlier than it is. Wish me luck!