April - Phillips Leaving and Paintballing

We celebrated Alex’s 9th birthday. He requested homemade fried chicken and mashed potatoes. They were delicious! He also requested my chocolate bundt cake...I was totally flattered.

We got together with some of my friends from high school, Kerstin and Alisha, and company. We got to see Kerstin’s new, beautiful house! It is awesome! We had a delicious spaghetti dinner and watched Big Hero 6. It is crazy how much older our kids are getting. It's fun to see them starting to interact.

Colson was finally blessed! I will write about that in my next post.

We got sick for a week (big surprise) and then the sickness lingered on. Needless to say, that was another week or two that I had to miss out on the gym.

We had a dinner and game night at the Coburns. She made meatball sandwiches with homemade meatballs and bread. She is great in the kitchen! As far as games...who are we kidding. With kids, it is kind of a challenge playing Ticket to Ride. We will have to do a date night next time.

We have a piano! Paul and Mandy were packing up their house for the big move to Chicago, where Paul got a new job. We are so sad to see them go! Mandy posted on Facebook that they were selling their piano. As soon as I saw it, I texted her! I was so lucky to get it because they had like 15 offers, and they even gave me a family discount. I have been wanting a piano really bad so I can hopefully improve my skills again. I played growing up, but then stopped once I started dancing (so pretty much since 9th grade). My hope is to at least get to the point that I can accompany the hymns at church. Plus, it makes a wonderful addition to our couch-less front room! Charlie is enjoying it as well.

Speaking of Paul and Mandy moving, to say farewell we had a dinner with them, Linda, and my family at my parents house. It was a fun get together. We also met up with Paul and Mandy, and cousins, for one final, customary Brick Oven Pizza night. Some of us met up at Paul’s house afterwards for Mandy’s delicious Pazooki’s. Charlie and Lily did great playing together, as always. They will surely be missed. Hopefully, one day, they will find their way back to live in Utah again.

Colson and baby Jack

The month of April means tulips! The Tulip Festival was finally here...and remember who has a membership? Me! I went with Nancy, April, and her girls. The tulips were phenomenal! They were as good as I have ever seen them. Just beautiful! The Tulip Festival is one of my favorite things and it did not disappoint.

...taken right before falling straight back into the flower bed...

We had also done another fun outing earlier this month. We went to the Natural History Museum. It was a scorching hot day outside and we did a lot of indoor walking, but we had lots of fun. Colson did great in the stroller and in the wrap, while Charlie loved walking around (despite recovering from one of his many colds).

Charlie started a transitional playgroup with Kids on the Move. It was every Wednesday for an hour and a half for two months. Charlie loved it, and who could help it?! When you walk in, there are big balls, a ball pit, stairs to climb, etc. It was a class to help prepare Charlie for preschool. Our hope for him was to increase and improve his interactions with peers and to be able to adapt well to the structured learning environment. Charlie and I would call it preschool, and whenever I told him it was time to go to preschool, he never complained or resisted getting into the car. That is huge! And that is how I know he loved it. Of course I loved the support and the things he was learning there, but I also loved that hour and a half with just Colson. It was golden time to get some errands done. It was right next to Target, so it seemed like every week I was going to Target to buy and/or return something for my latest project. Oh, how I looked forward to Wednesdays!

We had another Arbon/Phillips paintballing trip! I missed last year, thanks to pregnancy, but this time I was able to go. Erin ended up watching the boys for me since her kids couldn’t go. I was so thankful to her, because I had such a blast! It was even more fun than the first time we went. We rented from the same place and played at the same field up Hobble Creek Canyon. This time, however, we did not camp, which simplified things quite considerably. There was about 15 of us and we played Steal the Flag, Civil War, Zombie, and a few other strategy games. I took a break in the middle of the day to pump in the car. Lucky, me...but so glad I was able to make it work out. I can’t wait until next time.

Pictures Erin took while tending the boys:

Sadly, Bryan couldn't come because he was going to Prom!

Nicely done, Bryan!

Go big or go home!

The next day, Marc and Andy blessed their baby, Whitley. We were able to attend the luncheon afterwards and reminisce on the fun paintballing trip.

Fa'a and Charlie were good friends by now, after spending the whole day together the day before.

Even Steve flew in for the paintballing trip and blessing!

Jason has a new calling. He was released from Sunday School and Elders Quorum and was called as the Young Men’s First Counselor. I think that is the perfect calling for him. I feel like he will be able to connect with the boys and be a good example to them. You can’t help but like Jason! Although our youth group is pretty small, he will be an influence for good. I am excited for him and know he will do a good job.

Remember how I just mentioned that we were sick? Well, Charlie got sick again, but this time with a stomach bug. The day of our dinner at Brick Oven with the Phillips, I was so excited because Charlie was devouring almost an entire apple at the restaurant. He had had bites of apple here and there before, but he had never eaten apples with such passion before. I was thrilled...until the next day when he was blowing acidic, apple chunks! Ah, I just know he will be ruined towards apples from now on. Poor guy was having a hard time keeping anything down for a couple of days. It was very strong smelling and nasty! Even I will think twice before eating my next apple.

Here's a look at some random April fun:

Loving our Malawi's pizza coupons!

A Pinterest concoction

Snow dusting in April

Another engineer print project:

We (Jason) painted the wood board backing and the trim pieces to make it look like a frame. 

Jason used this genius wedge technique to hang the heavy board. Yay for finally having something up on the wall in our master bedroom!

The California Poppies thrived! They were beautiful!

Alex's birthday dinner - fried chicken!

Colson’s Fifth Month

(March 6 - April 5)

Low and behold, at this point in Colson’s life I was still working on training him with a bottle. I was pumping nightly and trying to feed him a bottle several times a week. Towards the end of the fifth month, I realized I had the best luck while letting him watch TV. I would hold him in a slightly upright position facing the TV and it seemed like the distraction worked. After a few days of this strategy, I was finally able to get him to consistently take the bottle easily, with our without the TV. It only took over a month of nearly daily attempts, but we made it!

Colson likes to grab at and chew at his dangling toys on his playmat.

He is SO entertained by Charlie. While having two kids is definitely harder than one, it has been so nice to have Charlie to entertain Colson….even if Charlie has no idea or is oblivious that Colson is even there. That is one positive side to having two kids.

Colson is getting so close to rolling over.

A skin update: He seems to have these small blackheads here and there on his cheeks and on his chin, but there is not really any acne. He does have sensitive and dry patches on his cheeks though. I bet it is eczema.

Colson finally moved into the real crib. We transitioned Charlie out of the crib and into a big boy bed, which freed it up for Colson to sleep in. No more Pack N Play in the room, hurray!

The morning after St. Patrick’s Day (March 18), Colson woke up at 3am with the sure sound of croup. It was very scary. He was bark/coughing and was straining to breathe. I ran in there and tried to soothe him. I walked him around for a minute and debated if I should go outside in the cooler air or start a shower, but I decided to try and nurse him first. Once he started nursing, he started to relax and the coughing and straining went away. He fell back asleep rather quickly and slept well for another three hours. After that episode we only had a little bit of wheezing here and there, but no fever. He pretty much seemed fine by the next day.

His daily routine switched up a little bit. I started feeding him every three hours, he took an hour (or so) nap every two to three hours, and went to bed around 8:30pm. He would sleep until four or five, I would nurse him, and then he would go back to sleep until seven or eight.

As you can see, we love sitting him in the Bumbo. He seems to like it, too.

Four month measurements:

Height - 29 inches (18%)

Weight - 14 lb 9.5 oz (28%)

Head Circ - 16.73 inches (73%)

Where did all of your hair go?!