Elisha

Elisha moved to West Texas last fall to be the assistant coach of the Womens Basketball team.   She came up for a last minute visit that also fell on her birthday.  We got to celebrate by getting mani/pedis.

So fun to have a familiar face in town.

My little love bug Brady

We went to Benihanas that night, Elisha's request.  Notice me holding the car seat because Al can't lift anything from his surgery, the worst.

Alex had his class pet Frisco that week so we took him with us to snap some pictures for the class book.

Our kids love Benihanas.  Cole loves the Shrimp which he calls French.  They've been so much recently they can narrate everything the cook does, haha.

After dinner we had Leashes favorite, Funfetti cake!!  Happy Birthday, so fun to see you and spend your Birthday with you.

Baby Fun

 One of the hardest things about having a baby is how much everything changes.  Schedules, sleep (oh the sleep), daytime activities, dinner time, bath time, bed time, basically everything.  It's one of the most amazing and horrendous experiences I've ever gone through, but worth it for the little people they become.   Costco got more complicated with the car seat, but Brady was asleep so I built a tower around him.

Cole and Alex's new luggage for Christmas came in the mail a month late, but perfect timing for our surprise trip to California.

I went to a Thursday night baby shower which is the night Al plays basketball.  I agreed I would be back by 9 so at 8:55 he sent me a picture of his basketball shoes by the door, oh geez!!  Lets be honest, who gets out more :), but being the good wife I am, I sent him this picture of Karina and I and came home.

How sweet are these 3 boys.  Cole and Alex are so sweet with him, always hugging kissing, singing, and just hanging out with Brady boy.

Sometimes I'll prop him on his Boppy so he can watch tv with them.

Matching jammies, yay!!

Making dinner with a nursing baby gets complicated especially when Al is out of town.  I have no idea what I'll do when he's mobile.  

Bath time is probably the craziest.  I usually throw Cole and Alex in the shower or bath, bathe Brady in the sink and then it's go time.  Pajamas, brush teeth, give Brady his lotion massage and then he is READY to nurse.  I usually put Brady to sleep first and then do the other 2 separate so they'll go to bed faster.  

How sweet is this.  Brady is 5 months old as I type this and he will never lay on your shoulder!!  He always looks around and arches his back.  Hopefully we can change that because I love to snuggle this sweet baby boy.

Brady 2 Months

This sweet baby is a dream and isn't he darling.

At 2 months old we had Brady on a pretty good bedtime routine.  

Sleeping 4 hour stretches

First flight to NYC in first class

Started smiling a lot

Around 9 weeks he got a horrible cold and ear infection from his brothers.  He had to take antibiotics and I had him sleep in the rock n play which i had remembered someone gave us and that helped him a lot. 

At 2.5 months he was nursing in about 10 minutes

Started cooing

Waking up 2 times to eat

Slept for 8 hours once and it was amazing

Going to bed right around 7 or 8 which gives me a couple hours of me time which is crucial especially when Al is traveling. Usually he'll go to sleep right away or you have to give him his binky a couple times.

Takes a bottle 2 times a week so I can go on dates with Al!!

A side by side comparison with his brothers.  Alex, Cole, and Brady all at 2 months.  I think he has Alex's eyes and mouth and Coles nose.

Appendicitis

Al had been having horrible stomach pains since he went to Trevor's wedding in October.  My mom had taken him to the ER in Utah where they gave him morphine and said it was most likely ulcers and he was ok to fly home.  When he got home that night he was doubled over in pain so I had our neighbor come over who is his Dr and he told him to take Nexium for a couple months.  He had a a few more episodes over the next couple months which thankfully always happened while he was at home.  I talked him into going to the Dr who referred him to another Dr who told him he need to get an Endoscopy.  He did that at the beginning of January only to find nothing which Al predicted would happen.  Then one Sunday morning it happened again.  I decided I would take the kids to church but by the time I had gotten all of us ready Al told me he wanted to take him to the hospital.  I called my friend Heather who picked up Alex and Cole and took him to the ER.  They made him wait far too long until they gave him some drugs/dilaudid for the pain.  

They ended up doing an ultrasound, blood test which showed high white blood cells, and a CT scan which finally showed he had appendicitis.  They admitted him that night and scheduled a surgery for the next day.  It was a long day sitting there, but thankfully they found the problem, Heather had my boys, and Brady was little enough to just sleep and nurse.

They told him he couldn't eat that night since he was having surgery the next day which didn't end up happening until 5pm so he basically went 2 days without food, poor Al.  How cute is this picture.  It could have been so much worse, but it's always a little scary thinking about if something happened to Al.  I seriously don't know how I would live without him, actually I couldn't and I hope I never have to.

So thankful for this gorgeous girl and all her help.  She just moved to a city north of us so this makes me sad to look at, but hopefully we will still see her lots.  My boys love her so much and it's so great to have friends that you can rely on during times like these.

Surgery day was long.  That morning we went to visit Al but he was high on drugs and they were bored so we left to grab lunch and go to Dianes.  She took Cole and Alex for the day so I could spend it with Al.

We got to wait in this lovely pre op room, where do you even find a curtain like that!! 

The Dr made it sound like it wasn't a big deal at all and told him if he felt up to it he could go home that night.  Surgery only lasted about an hour and when he got back it was very clear he was in pain and wasn't going anywhere.  I stayed for about an hour until I had to go home to get the Cole and Alex from the babysitter that Diane dropped them off with.

Al had the nurses take this picture later that night when I was at home.

Ready to go home!!  The hardest part of this surgery was Al not being able to lift anything over a gallon of milk for I think 6 weeks, say what.  We have 2 little kids and a baby at home.  It wasn't easy or fun doing everything, but somehow we got through it and 3 months later he's back to lifting the kids, car seat, and gallon of milk :)   We love you Al and are so glad you are healthy!!

NYC 2

On Sunday we slept in until 9 which was amazing, got bundled up and went to the 911 museum.

Last time we were here Al was doing his Ironman and I was pregnant with Cole.

The museum was incredible. One of my favorite things was the slurry wall behind Al that they built the entire museum around.  They say it's a miracle it didn't break that day and flood the subways killing even more people.  I told Al we should come back in 20 years and take this same picture.

We spent a few hours there and it definitely wasn't enough.    What a heartbreaking day for America and all the people that died that day.  I can't even imagine how many families and lives were affected by all of it.  God Bless America

It was supposed to be a cold rainy day, but we ended up getting lucky and it turned out to be great.

On their way to church with Christian and Diane.

Lunch at Chelsea Market which was also amazing.  Just nursing again.....seems to be my life right now, but also grateful that I've always been able to do it, so convenient.

We walked the highland after lunch and soaked it all in, such an incredible city.

That night we had dinner with Christy and Jace.  It's always fun to see her because I feel like we can pickup right where we left off.  So many good laughs and fun times in college.  Looking back I realize how simple and carefree life was.  It just gets crazy and more complicated as we get older and have more kids :)

I found a yummy dessert place on a blog I follow which turned out to be a bar that played 90s hip hop.  We ate these huge milkshakes and sang to Bone Thugs and Harmony with a baby on our lap.

That day was no pants day on the subway so we took it back to our hotel just to see if someone was actually doing it.  We saw on the news that big groups of people did it that morning all over the US.

Our last day there was really cold so we put this ridiculous snow suit on Brady and walked around.

Al's request was a big slice of NY pizza which we found for $3 and was delicious.

It was a perfect weekend getaway and so much fun to spend time with just Al and Brady.  I've learned to cherish these moments because we don't get them too often.  Another upgrade to first class and a hilarious flight attendant that was blowing bubbles down the aisle, it's the little things.

NYC 2016

Al found roundtrip tickets to NYC for around $100 so we decided to take a quick 3 day weekend trip.      Diane watched the boys for us, yay.  We dropped them off Friday night and left early Saturday morning.  We got upgraded to first class thanks to Al's trip to Africa and sat on the plane with a broken heater (soon hot) for 1 hour before they made us get off and board another plane.  Brady was a dream on the flight and didn't make a peep.  

We took a cab to our hotel, settled in and then went for a walk to Eataly

Eataly was amazing.  So many beautiful displays of food, cheeses, and tons of little areas to eat.  

We went for the pizza and pasta and it was some of the best we've ever had.  That lemon pistachio ravioli was to die for.  It makes my mouth water looking at it, yum.

We took the subway a few times which worked out well with both of us being able to carry the stroller up and down the stairs.  Brady was an angel and just went with the flow.  We were worried about him being too cold but it worked out good with my coat, his blanket and hat.

We ended up walking around a ton that night.  We hit Times Square and took it all in.

One of the highlights was being able to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.  It was just as beautiful as I imagined and next time hopefully we can go ice skating.

Adorable little Brady all bundled up.  He is 5 months as I type this and I can't believe how much he's grown.   I also can't believe how much better he was sleeping at 2 months than he is now at 5.

Diane sent us lots of pictures to keep us updated.  They spent the day at Cris and Stevens playing with the girls.  Alex was obviously playing with girl toys which he loves to do and Cole lost one of the mini Ninja Turtles he has in his hand and had a melt down.  Diane ordered another one and had it shipped to our house, haha.