More Outdoor Fun

With the recent hot weather, the boys have wanted to play outside, especially when I told them we could get out the slip 'n slide. We were going to do it on Monday for FHE, but their friend Kyle came over to play for a bit, then it got too late to do it. So after Ben finished his homework yesterday, they all got into their swimming suits so they could do it then.

The one bad thing about doing it yesterday was that it was about 15 degrees cooler than the day before, and it was windy. But the boys didn't seem to mind. Especially Daniel, who never really got to play in it much last year. He's decided he loves playing in water and ended up getting wetter than anyone else. They did all get a bit on the cold side with the wind blowing on them, but it didn't stop them from playing for more than an hour in the water. They had a pretty good time.

Here's a few pictures of them all playing:




And since it seems to be a tradition lately, here's another random picture, this time of Ben holding Abby with Chris close by. This was taken a few nights ago and was probably the first time Ben had actually held her.

Catching Up

I've been meaning to add to the blog for a while now. I've had a few things to blog about and just haven't been ambitious enough to spend the time writing stuff down. It doesn't help that I've been totally addicted to facebook and spend most of my time online there and then don't feel like spending more time here.

For Mother's Day, I was going to post the talk I found that I had written and had to give in the Rochester City Branch while I was on my mission 12 years ago. I hadn't written down any of the "My Mom" jokes I had told at the end of it and can't even remember exactly where I had thrown those in, but it was fun to read the talk. I would go ahead and post it here, but it would make for a really, really long post. If you really want to read it, let me know and I'll send it to you in a Word file (.doc).

Three days after Mother's Day, it was Bryce's and my 10th anniversary. I was going to scan pictures from our wedding and post those and some random pictures from throughout the years and talk about how wonderful it's all been and all that. It didn't happen. And with soccer practices and everything else, we haven't done anything yet to celebrate it. We have had a couple of people offer to babysit for us for free, so we may still get a chance one of these days to go out. Especially since we've found out that Abby will take a bottle just fine and Cindy sent me her really nice electric breast pump. It was rather nice that day to sign the title of Bryce's old car over to our 18 year-old next door neighbor so she can have a car to take to college. Yes, we told them all about the problems we've had with it. They took it to their mechanic and had it checked out and had about $1,000 worth of work done on it. It was worth it to them to fix it, especially since we were just letting them take it off our hands. But really, it has been a great 10 years. I'm looking forward to the next 10.

The day after our anniversary, Abby turned 6 weeks old. It still seems like the time is going much faster since she's been born than it was going before. I went to my 6 week check-up with the doctor. He said that he thought that Abby was a beautiful baby and I had to agree.

Saturday was Kids Cup for the boys. It was the last soccer games of the season and they each had 2 games. There were all sorts of booths with games and some big jumper things to play on. The boys probably liked seeing the snakes, lizards, and tortiose the best. Alex kept telling everyone how he got to hold one of the snakes. With 6 soccer games and only 2 of them overlapping, we were over at the park pretty much all day. Unfortunately, Ben's team lost both their games, but Alex's won both and Chris's won one and lost one. It wasn't really surprising that Chris's team lost their last game, since it was at 4:20 and all the kids were pretty tired of soccer by then. Alex scored 6 goals in his first game and 4 goals in his second game. He was pretty excited. At the end of each of their last games, they were given a t-shirt and a medal. Here are some pictures of them playing, etc.

These first two are from Ben's soccer game:



Now here's Alex at his game:

This is Alex with his shirt and medal:


Here's Chris's game:

This is Chris and his team lined up and waiting for their shirts and medals:

And Chris getting his medal:

Here's a short video that I like to call, "How Chris Plays Soccer." It has no sound though, so if you're not hearing anything, that's normal. Chris will be the one in the middle of the screen at the end.


And just to throw it in, here's a picture of Bryce, Chris, and Abby:

One Month Check-up

I took Abby in for her one month check-up this morning. Luckily, there wasn't as long of a wait as there has been in the past since I had Alex, Chris, and Daniel with me.

The appointment went well. She looks healthy, still a little yellow, but everything else looks good. She now weighs 8 pounds, 13 ounces and they measured her back at 20-3/4 inches. That puts her at about the 35th percentile for both height and weight. Her head is a little smaller, at about the 13th percentile, but it's growing and going up on the scale too.

Because she is still looking yellow a bit, and because of the antibody, her doctor had me take her down to the lab for another blood test. He was going to check to make sure she's not anemic and check her biliruben count and check for a different kind of jaundice to make sure she's okay. He said that usually at this age if they're jaundiced it's because of breastfeeding, but he wanted to make sure the antibody wasn't causing problems still.

The boys tried to be good for the doctor appointment and for the lab, but they just had a few too many wiggles that had to get out occasionally. For the most part they were pretty good, but they did have their moments. So I got out of there without too big of a headache. :)

Update:
The doctor's office called this afternoon and said that everything with the blood tests checked out okay and they'll retest them again at her 2 month appointment. I'm supposed to watch for her looking pale though, and if she does, I take her in sooner.

One Month Old

Abigail is a month old today. That month has gone by really fast for me. A lot faster than the month before I had her, that's for sure. She's smiling a little bit now and sometimes sounds like she laughs. She seems to like being tickled, since she gets a rather pleasant expression on her face when I tickle her. She's still a good baby and we love having her in our family.

Here are some more pictures of her. :)

This first one was taken back on the 23rd of Chris holding Abby:


The rest of these look pretty similar to the others I've posted previously, but they were taken today: