My Baby Boy

I've been a pretty crappy mom in keeping track of Kevin's milestones. Hopefully his feelings aren't hurt when he's older. This is my post all about Kevin!

Kevin is 8 months old! (Tomorrow)

He has one cute little tooth on the bottom.

He LOVES Cheerios.

He never sits still when eating (nursing included)

He's been sitting up really well for a couple months now.

He scoots around like crazy on his tummy and has already experimented enough around the stairs to take a tumble down the little ones.

Today Kaylee decided to help "teach" Kevin to crawl out of nowhere :) ...

He wears 12 month clothes and has been for a while. Since he started scooting they are getting more loose on him.

He thinks his big sister is HILARIOUS.

He has a giggle that melts my heart!

He will soon be wearing a hard contact lens and hopefully will be able to use both eyes.

He is a really sweet baby. People just sense his sweetness when they are with him.

He loves to drink and eat a lot of prunes which he needs for digestive success.

He blows a lot of raspberries. That is how he lets me know he is awake... I just hear lip buzzing coming from the other room and I know he's up.

He loves to jump in the bouncer we are borrowing.

He likes to growl.

I can't even begin to explain how much I love this little boy. He's just so sweet and I want to gobble him up :)

Dancing With The Stars

Ryan and I had so much fun in California last weekend. We went to Six Flags on Friday (blog post about that to come.) We spent some time with my family on Saturday. Then we spent Sunday evening at Chelsie's house with Laurie, Jeff, and Chelsie.

On Monday and Tuesday we went to Dancing With the Stars while my cousin Ally watched the kiddos. This is the first time we've had a chance to go since her first season with Ty Murray.

We met up with Jeff and Laurie who were driving Chelsie's car and parked in her spot on the lot.


Kristin Chenoweth was at the show on Monday so Ryan insisted we go get a picture with her. She is TINY... like maybe 80 lbs of tininess. This is not her best picture but it's what we got.

I'm kind of bashful about taking pictures with people. I feel so dumb asking. So be warned I don't have many pictures of people besides this because Ryan insisted on this one.

After the show Monday we had a quick dinner at Magianos where we saw Carrie Ann and Shirly Ballas. We went back to the studio for a live interview with ABC 4 news.
After that Chelsie wanted to go to Mark's show at The Mint.
You can see him on stage behind her...

They marked my wrist to signify I was 21... like it mattered

It was fun! Mark told Chelsie to come up on stage and sing with him. It was so fun to see her preform in that setting. Check her out...

After that we went to Yogurtland with Corky Ballas for frozen yogurt... yum.

Tuesday night was bittersweet since Romeo and Chelsie's time on season 12 came to an end.
We waited for her to do all her press interviews after the show and I took this picture while waiting because it made me laugh...


After her interviews we rushed over to Jimmy Kimmel Live and hung out back stage while she waited to go on with Romeo.

They made us show ID to give us an over 21 wristband... again like it matters.


In case you missed it, here is their interview with Jimmy

After Jimmy we went out to eat at a little sushi place in LA. It was pretty good. It was nice to just sit there with Chelsie, Jeff, and Laurie and talk.

Chelsie is so talented, beautiful and just a good person. She is experiencing so many amazing things in her life right now and it's exciting for her but I think people forget that she is a normal person with insecurities and dreams just like anyone else. I love having her for a sister in law!

Thanks for the good times Chels!

Graduation!

Graduation was fabulous!

Thursday night was commencement... Don't go to commencement. It is a waste of time and there is a ton a traffic so it is a huge pain! My mom and Ryan came - bless their hearts!

Here is proof we did go and that there were way too many people there! I think they said there was 7000 graduates. Then add their families... YIKES!

Friday morning at 11:00 was the School of Family Life Graduation which I thoroughly enjoyed.
When I first showed up I saw that everyone had yellow tassels and as you see above I purchased white... whoops. Luckily my graduation was in the same building as the bookstore where I bought it so I waltzed on over and did a quick exchange :)


Walking in.

The valedictorian gave a speech which was... how do I say this... lame. It was obnoxiously self centered and not what it should have been. Then the much anticipated musical number! (most of you probably already saw this)

For whatever reason I'm kind of embarrassed every time I watch this.

Ryan was looking all official as always so people thought maybe this was going to be broadcast somewhere. He even had someone want him to do work for them... Typical. :)


After me there was a speaker who I thoroughly enjoyed. He talked about avoiding being the "expert" but using our learned skills with humility. He was funny, especially for us family life majors. Unfortunately my family said he was too quiet and they didn't really hear anything he said :(

I of course later got to walk across and get my little diploma holder dealy.


Everyone is happy I'm done!


After the ceremony we all went to Pizza Pie Cafe... MMMMM obviously I picked it since I'm OBSESSED WITH IT!


Thanks to everyone who came and supported me or sent cards or other messages!

did life just get easier or harder?

With my graduation ceremony finally being here, I've been contemplating tonight the things I've been putting off and saying I would do when school is done... I think my life is about to get more hectic with my "projects"

Project Mommy -Be a good mom

seriously I have felt so guilty lately for how awful I have been to Kaylee. I've not only neglected to make her life fun, but sometimes I'm just plain mean to her when stressed and then I feel awful and wish I had a rewind button. She's two for heavens sake.

Project Skinny -Get back down to the size I was when Ryan married me

This one might take a little longer.

Project Good Housewife -Have a clean(er) house, and make meals

I'm sorry but I don't remember the last time we cleaned the bathroom. It's embarrassing! Also I like having home cooked meals on the table at dinnertime and that has been far too rare as of late.

Project Social - Have a social life

I know you might be thinking, "but she spends more time on Facebook than anyone I know" but seriously facebook was just an excuse to avoid school and does not count. I want to spend time going out to lunch with my sister in laws or shopping with my sisters. I want to do my visiting teaching and actually know the names of some people in my ward (PATHETIC!)

Project Toilet - Complete potty training

Kaylee made a huge splash into this all on her own but she needs me to have time to work with her to get her to the point where she totally gets it.

Project Doula - get certified

I've mentioned it before but I'm ready to start reading my doula books. I've already checked out the first two required books.

There'a probably plenty more but these are the ones that just came to me... if you are still reading then I'm impressed!

Graduation Announcement

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Once there was a...

On the first Saturday and Sunday in April we always watch General Conference. This year we woke up to a large amount of snow on Sunday so in between sessions Ryan made Kaylee a snow...mouse.

She loves snow men but no one ever had a chance to make her one this winter so she finally got one.


She was very helpful...

Surgery 2

We checked in at 7:00 am on Friday for Kevin's surgery. Since he would have to be put under I was not supposed to feed him anything after 4:00 am. I fed him at 2:30 then set an alarm for just before 4:00 so I could make sure he got one last feeding. He had no interest in waking up at 4:00 sand I was tired so I didn't push it. By the time they finally were ready to put him under, he had been without any food for probably 6 hours and was still all smiles...


Eventually they checked all his vitals and dilated his eye. We had to put him in little hospital jammies...

Isn't he cute? Dr. Larson puts a black mark over the eye so there are no mistakes.

They predicted an hour and a half for the surgery but it took longer. I tried not to worry about it because I trust Dr. Larson.
He came out of the surgery for a consultation with us and told us that he removed the cataract but could not get the lens to stay in place. Apparently his eye just isn't rigid enough yet. He attempted putting the lens in more than once and every time he put the eye back up to pressure the lens would fall back in his eye. Hence the reason it took longer.
Kevin eventually work up and I was standing there when he did. I fed him a bottle of glucose water then tried to nurse him. He was still a little too out of it to succeed nursing so I tried to pump without much luck. I decided to just give him some formula for the first time in his life so he could just be fed and happy. After eating he went back to sleep.

He was pretty lethargic after the surgery because the anesthesia take a full 24 hours to really ware off.
They sent us home with a steroid drop, an antibiotic drop, a dilating drop, and a cream for the night. I had these drops last time but this time I have to do even more often! It's insane. Every time I look at the clock I think Oh geese I forgot his ______ drop.
Saturday I met with the Dr. again just to make sure nothing looked strange. He is such a caring doctor. He admitted that he had been thinking of Kevin a lot over the last 24 hours trying to decide what's best for him. He genuinely wants to figure out what is best for every patient.
We are meeting again a week from Monday to discuss what's next.
Kevin will be back to wearing a lens. During this surgery he took a lot of measurements and found that Kevin has a pretty strong astigmatism. This is why his lens never fit very well. He will probably end up getting a hard contact lens that will be custom fit.

In the grand scheme of things, it's really not that big of a deal. As far as birth defects go, it's a pretty mild one. Kevin is a fabulous baby.
I actually got some money for participating in a birth defects national study ;)