Brothers Who Play Together

I love watching the boys when they are playing nicely together. Finn even instigates as often as Kai does. Finn just loves his big brother (most of the time) and will lean over to grab him and get his attention. It's so cute and Kai loves it, too. Here's a clip from Saturday morning. They had been at it for about 5 minutes before Reid got out the camera and by that time Kai had pretty much abandoned the game he was playing and wasn't waiting for Finn to "get him". But you can see the smiles on both faces and hear the giggles. So fun!

Baby Food

Admittedly, when Kai was little I didn't feel any need to provide him with food other than the store bought kind.  With Finn's additional caloric needs however, I have really felt that it would be best to be more aware of what he is getting and ultimately, to make it myself.  Instead of pureeing his fruits and veggies with water like the store bought ones do, I can puree it with formula.  Presto--extra calories!!  So, last week we started with a little bit of fruit, avocado to be exact.  It's the highest fat and calorie fruit there is.  And yes, it's a fruit.

Avocados are very easy to prepare.  I purchased an avocado already ripe, sliced it, dipped it in a water/lemon juice bath and then froze it.  When it's time to eat, I retrieve a slice, microwave briefly, add in formula and it's ready.  I get at least 6 slices out of one avocado--that's 6 days of fruit.  So far, Finn doesn't seem super-excited about it.  He's not rejecting it, just not overly excited.  We've had 4 days of avocado, so I'm going to move on and see if we can find something he loves.  Yesterday I made a sweet potato puree.  Which, once again, was easy.  Just bake the potato, take off the skin, and then puree with formula.  I then put the puree in an ice cube tray for easy freezing and transferred to a ziploc bag that was labeled and dated.  I got a little over 10 cubes out of one big potato.  I'm anxious for him to try it.  (Yes, I know it says the general recommendation is to not freeze formula, but I couldn't get it to puree without a liquid. So, I did use just a little formula.  We'll see how it turns out.  I'm sure I'll have to thin my cubes anyway because there's not much in there at all.  If the cubes seem a little weird I'll just redo it with water and see how that works.  Like I said, I'll have to thin them later anyway with more formula.)

I don't plan on making all of his food, just the ones that I feel I can add to.  The fruits and veggies are real easy and while I'm at it I'm hoping that I can introduce Kai to some new things as well.  He could stand to gain some weight, too.  If you're curious, I've been using this site for recipes, tips, and ideas.  I love all of the information that they have from storage to new fruit and veggie ideas, to how to cook/prepare, etc.  On Saturday I made a baked banana for Kai that we really enjoyed.

So, here's to continued cooking and hoping that Finn will appreciate the efforts!

Playing Around

I can't believe it's been two weeks since I've posted. Life with two kids gets busy, but good grief that's not an excuse. Anyway, here are some pictures from play time last week. I thought it was funny that Finn, who had been laying on his back under the play gym, decided to flip over to play with the toys with his mouth. Pretty much everything goes in his mouth these days, including my arm. He still has no teeth, but we must be getting close. We'll see.

These last couple of pictures are ones that Kai took. He did a good job!

My two boys. We love them THISSSSSSS much!

He's a Sitter!

It's as if Finn flipped a switch last Friday. He went from sitting for just a few seconds at a time to really sitting. He can sit for minutes at a time (5-10 as long as no one knocks him over). He can even look up and around and still keep his balance. It's been fun to sit him on a blanket and give him a toy and watch him really be able to use his hands and play. We LOVE our Finn!

Clinic Catch-Up

Finn had his 6-month clinic visit yesterday. It went very well, other than being long. He weighed in at 14 pounds 6 ounces (which was 3 ounces shy of a 2 pound gain since his last visit on March 1), measured 25 inches long (I had her measure twice since that was a 1.75 inch gain since March 1), and had 96% oxygen saturation. He's eating like a champ and, for the most part, loves his rice cereal. He's sleeping well--3 naps a day and a stretch of 7.5 to 10 hours at night. And most importantly, he's happy.

The only real issue that I wanted to address at clinic yesterday was his noisy breathing. We did antibiotics from February 1 to March 1 for a suspected sinus infection. Nothing really changed. We took him off of antibiotics on March 1 only to start them again around March 4 because of what I think was a cold. We did a 14 day round of antibiotics at that time and he's been off of them ever since, but his breathing has never cleared up. We hesitantly used a humidifier for 5 days and that didn't work. We've done nose suctioning and saline spray, still no change. I'm at a loss and wanted the doctor to really take a look at it.

The nurse could hear him breathing over the noise of the other kids in the waiting room, as could the RT. Of course when the doctor came in, though, Finn was getting tired and not really active and so his breathing sounded nice and clear. At one point the doctor and I were talking when Finn started to heavy breathe and the doctor stopped, looked at him, and said "Wow, you are a snorter!" I guess he hadn't really believed the rest of us. He didn't even hear him at his worst, but he took a good look in his mouth and nose, which Finn didn't like at all. In the end he decided that he would call our pediatrician and talk with her. Some kids with CF have difficulty with their sinuses and he's considering ordering a CT scan to get a look at Finn's. We'll see what they decide in the next couple of weeks. He's fairly confident that the snorting is not allergy related and is coming from his sinuses. So, if we don't hear back before then, we'll find out at Finn's 6 month check-up on the 22nd.

I'm so glad that he's doing well and I'm so proud of my little guy. He's a trooper! I'm also so grateful for the friends that watched Kai for me yesterday. I think he may have found his first little girlfriend! Too bad Madeleine is now in the other ward. But that's probably good for me and his mom. If they had started holding hands in nursery I'm sure we would have heard about it!!

Hippity Hoppity Easter!

For the second year in a row, we celebrated Easter at home without actually going to a church service. Last year we were snowed out and this year happened to be General Conference weekend. That means that we can attend church from the luxury of our own living room!

Saturday was a busy day as we were assigned to clean the classrooms at church. So bright and early Saturday morning we trooped over to the chapel and cleaned up the classrooms as quick as we could. Only one vacuum was working (don't ask us why!) so Reid took vacuum duty and Kai and I did the chair stacking and dusting. We were done more quickly and then played in the nursery until Reid finished up. Finn was about as patient as he could be, but by the time we were winding down cleaning he was definitely ready to go home.At home we enjoyed the first 2-hour session of conference as much as we could between juggling the two kids and watching, and then we had a lunch break. We all ended up crashing and taking nice long naps. We woke up about 30 minutes before the end of the second session, thereby ensuring that we pretty much missed the entire thing. So, we skipped right to the egg dyeing. Kai had a good time and was actually able to do most of it himself this year. We saved one egg at the end for Finn. It was fun!

After that, Reid ran out to pick up our somewhat traditional conference Chinese food. He had just enough time to eat his Chinese, shower, and then run-out the door for the priesthood session that is only shown in the chapels. For the first time in a couple of months, I was left with both kids to do dinner and bedtime alone. I was proud of myself and glad that Kai had had a good nap. I got Finn down and then Kai helped me clean up the house quickly for the Easter Bunny. Then it was Kai's turn for bed. We were done about 40 minutes before Reid came home from conference.

That night the Easter Bunny came, even leaving an egg in Kai's room. When he woke up, the egg hunt began. This year it took him about 15 minutes to find everything. Not too bad. We enjoyed some cinnamon rolls (that were slightly undercooked for some reason) for breakfast and then prepared for the third session of conference. We decided to present Kai with a surprise toy from Momma and Daddy for Easter--a very large set of duplo blocks!! Kai loves his blocks and it helped distract him while I was able to enjoy most of the Sunday morning conference session. Reid enjoyed the session while sorting through the new blocks. I think both boys had a good time!

Yes, it's a Lego Thomas!

Finally, we laid down during the Sunday afternoon session of conference for Kai's nap. He slept well, Reid slept a bit, and I was able to catch a fair portion of the talks. It was a good session. One of my favorites I think.

We finished the day with a small Easter dinner--ham, mashed potatoes, and an asparagus salad. I splurged and bought a Honey Baked Ham this year. It was ok, but not really worth the price. The rest was pretty easy to whip together. Generally we like to have larger holiday meals, but with everything going on this weekend I didn't think I wanted to add to the stress. All in all it was a nice weekend. It was great to remember the resurrection of our Savior, to hear the prophets testify of Him and His divine mission and to be with our family. What a blessed life we live!

B & C Weeks

We have continued our letters of the week with a B week and 2 C weeks. B week was spent blowing bubbles, playing with balloons, and making yummy St. Patrick's Day Brownies. (Sorry that I ate half of the pan before taking the picture! They were yummy.)

With C week I wasn't as diligent/organized as I would have liked, so we did it twice. We talked about cows and caterpillars and even made one. And we concluded the week with Conference Cinnamon rolls and Conference Chinese (two of our family traditions).


After 2 weeks of the letter C, Kai was very excited to talk about the letter D today. So, let the letters continue!

PS. Notice Kai's new hair cut. Doesn't he look great?!

The Doggie

You can imagine me rolling my eyes and shaking my head as I recount the problems we are having with "the" doggie.

The doggie is a stuffed animal that I purchased last year after Valentine's Day on serious clearance. Kai picked it out as something that he wanted. So, I bought it and put it away until Valentine's Day this year. However, when I pulled it out this year Kai took one look at it, threw it down, and told me to throw it away. He didn't want it. I was a little hurt, but decided to see if Finn would like it. And he did! Finn loves the doggie. So, I gave it to him. He didn't have any stuffed animals and he loved it so much. I was thrilled.

Well, Kai quickly saw that the dog was now a desirable object and began to insist that it was his. It has taken a lot of repetition to get through to him that it is Finn's doggie. But that still hasn't stopped him from wanting the animal. Anytime that Kai sees Finn playing with it he will come over, offer Finn another toy (something that I've told Kai he must do if he wants to play with what Finn has), take the doggie, walk five feet, and then discard it. When I see this happen, I insist that Kai return the doggie to Finn since he no longer wants to play with it. I can't even count the number of times this has resulted in a meltdown that eventually ends with Kai in timeout for either not returning the dog or for returning it by throwing it at Finn.

It kills me that we're having this problem. It's not as if Kai does not have too many stuffed animals (enter exhibit A).

It's fairly clear that Kai only wants this particular animal because it's something that Finn wants and enjoys. I'm really hoping he outgrows this possessiveness, because this is really just silly.

Crazy Days

Wow--things here have been busy. The craziness seems to have started the last weekend in March. We had scheduled a carpet and air duct cleaner to come out on Saturday the 27th, and so the craziness started the day before. Reid came home that Friday afternoon around 3pm to help get the furniture off of the carpet so that we would be ready for our early 8am cleaning time. We worked for several hours Friday night and then woke early on Saturday to do the last little details. By the time it was 8am, we were ready. However, it was snowing pretty hard. The cleaner called slightly after 8am to tell us that he was having trouble getting up our road. After several runs up our very slight hill on the road, he made it to our house only to take one look at the drift on our driveway and refuse to go any further. To be fair, yes he would have gotten stuck. But still, I was frustrated. We rescheduled for Monday morning and thus began our weekend of living with no furniture or toys on the carpet and a kitchen full of furniture and other items. The biggest challenge was finding a way to keep Kai entertained. We did some painting of ceramic toys I had found at Wal-mart and Finn even helped by doing some light wrestling with Kai. By Sunday evening, I was ready to have our house back to normal, but for the most part it didn't turn out to be a horrible weekend.Monday morning we stayed at the house as long as we could. I got light-headed pretty quickly from the dust stirred up by the cleaning and once he started spraying the anti-microbial stuff, I decided to evacuate with the kids. Reid stayed behind at the house. Kai, Finn, and I did several errands--deposited a check at the bank, got Kai a haircut (that he actually endured with only one minor breakdown--a miracle!), and then finally went to Target where we found new bath toys for Kai and then had lunch. We returned home 10 minutes after the cleaner left only to hear that we had to stay off of the carpet for the next 5 hours. Ugghhh!! This was even harder than the entire weekend. But we survived and we now have clean carpets and vents. Hallelujah!