In other news

Sawyer is now over 1 week old. Mom watched the boys so that Bryce and I could go grab some dinner to celebrate Sawyer's 1-week birthday on Thursday. It was nice to get out of the house for a little bit. We have been cooped up all week because it has been ghastly hot outside and Will has been sick. He woke up with a fever on Tuesday and was still not feeling very well when he left for the Ott family reunion with Bryce yesterday. Bryce reports that he seems to be feeling better though so I am hopeful that he will be a new boy when he gets home later today. Will spent the week whining and crying and wanting to be held and snuggled and just generally having melt downs over every little thing. I felt bad for the poor kid. I think he was already feeling kind of insecure since his mommy was paying so much attention to the new baby and it only made things worse when he just wanted to snuggle but mommy kept having to make him get down because of the "big owie" on her stomach. We also were worried about him getting Sawyer sick as he kept wanting to give "baby brother kisses" but we were trying to keep him as far away as possible. He was probably wondering why he wasn't allowed near his mommy or brother any more. This week was kind of stressful so I was very glad to have my mom here to try to distract Will and keep him happy. The fever lasted for about 2 1/2 days and we think he had a sore throat because we couldn't get him to eat anything--not even a milkshake. He found a Hershey's kiss and was excited to eat it but 2 seconds after he put it in his mouth he started screaming "Don't like it!" and putting his hands by his mouth. He also kept saying "Wipe it, Wipe it" and trying to rub his face on me. I think that was the best he could do at explaining that his throat hurt everytime he swallowed. I have my fingers crossed that he is much improved when he gets home this afternoon.


Sawyer, on the other hand, continues to be the world's most content baby. Sometimes he likes to work up an appetite with a good scream for a minute or 2, but even his worst is not that bad. Unlike Will who wanted to eat ALL the time, but refused to nurse, Sawyer nurses but has to be reminded to eat sometimes. He usually wants to eat about every 4 hours, but sometimes if he doesn't wake up we have to remind him that he needs to eat again. He is an awfully cute little guy. Bryce still thinks he looks just like Will, but I think he looks like an entirely different baby all together. But both my boys are awfully cute at any rate (sorry to brag). Sawyer's head full of dark hair hasn't fallen out yet so we shall see if it lasts. (I was born with a head of dark hair, but my mom says it all fell out and grew back in a different color.)

Bryce and Will are still gone at the family reunion in Tropic and my mom went to lunch with her mom so at the moment it is just me and Sawyer at home and it is very quiet. I haven't showered yet today so of course someone just came ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door. I'm not expecting anyone so I was fully prepared to ignore it, but they kept insistently pounding on the door so I got up to see who it was. I tried to peek through the blinds and all I could see was the mail truck parked on the street so I thought "hmm..maybe it is a package I guess I better open the door." Of course, when I opened the door...in my pajamas...with my hair looking lovely...it was a door-to-door salesman. Sawyer chose that moment to start screaming bloody murder (he usually never makes a peep so this was fortuitous), but the guy was just like "Someone sounds unhappy" and kept talking. Sawyer got louder and louder until finally I interrupted the guy and said "Sorry but my baby is totally screaming" to which he replied "You can go get him." I'm thinking "Umm..or you can go away now." So I said "Sorry but he probably wants to eat--thanks though" and went inside. I hate door-to-door salesmen and our neighborhood gets a TON of them in the summer. Unfortunately with the design of our house there is no way to peek and see who is at the front door except by looking out the big picture window in the living room which means the person at the door can see you trying to peek out.

I managed to pick up a cough while I was in the hospital and I keep startling Sawyer who is asleep on me. I hope it goes away soon because it is annoying. Also, coughing (or laughing or especially sneezing) after a c-section is really uncomfortable!

I rented "Cars" to give Will something to do while he wasn't feeling well and I think he has watched it about 8 million times already. Well, I should say that he has made me play it that many times -- he doesn't seem to pay it much attention when it is on, but then he will surprise me by saying lines he memorized and stuff like that. We are getting our $2.99's worth out of that rental for sure. Will woke up crying at 2 in the morning the other night and all he would say was "Racecars....racecars"--fortunately I got him back to sleep because I really didn't want to watch Cars at 2 in the morning!

Happy Birthday Will!

With all the commotion surrounding Sawyer's birth I haven't had a chance to write about Will's 2nd birthday. Will turned 2 on the 17th and celebrated all week long. The night before his birthday I put up some balloons and a happy birthday sign after he went to bed. Bryce also set up the pop-up Thomas the Tank Engine play tent I got for Will using my lexisnexis points. The tent was in the living room right at the bottom of the stairs. When Will woke up in the morning he was standing at the top of the stairs so I told him to come downstairs and see what was here. He started down the stairs and apparently thought I was talking about the pack of swim diapers that was sitting on the bottom step because he stopped to look at those for a while. Then he finished coming down the stairs and spotted Thomas. He got a big smile and said "Thomas!!" and ran over to check it out. I kept telling him "Happy Birthday Will!" but Will kept saying "Happy Birthday Thomas!"...I think he thought we were celebrating Thomas' birthday. He figured it out by the end of the day though.

That evening I ordered some pizza (or "cheapa" as Will calls it) and bought a little cake from Wal-Mart and took Will up to my grandma's house for a little birthday party. My cousin Liz and my brother Kyle came to join in the celebration. Will was a little overwhelmed by all the presents. After he opened the first one he had no interest in opening anything else...he just wanted to play with what he already had. It took about an hour to finally get everything open and I don't know what he liked most. My grandma gave him some toy trains which he was very excited about and his Uncle Kyle gave him a Mr. Potato Head which he is enjoying. He also got a little lawnmower that blows bubbles when you push it (he had been envying the neighbor's for months). He made out pretty well in the present department! His favorite part of the evening, however, was blowing out the candles on his cake. We sang "Happy Birthday" and he blew the candles out all by himself and then was asking "Again? Again?" so we relit the candles and did it over. He wanted to do it again, but we decided twice was enough for one night. That evening when we got home Will was playing with his new toys on the floor in the family room and singing "Happy Birthday to Will" over and over again.

We had already scheduled a birthday party with a few of the neighborhood kids for the Saturday afternoon following Will's birthday, so when Sawyer made his surprise appearance on Thursday morning Bryce decided to just go ahead with the party anyways. I was still in the hospital so I didn't get to see it, but Will got a Thomas the Tank Engine cake and had more pizza and swam in his little kiddy pool and got to open his Thomas themed presents (more things I got for free with my lexisnexis/Westlaw rewards points) from mom and dad. Bryce took care of all the festivities (including getting the house cleaned-up before and after the party) and even made goody bags for the kids. What a good dad.

What Will got for his birthday: (I thought this might be interesting to look back on in 20 years)
* This includes presents from mom and dad, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends.
1. 2 new church outfits
2. bubble-blowing lawnmower
3. Thomas the Tank Engine play tent
4. 3 Thomas the Tank Engine books (Happy Birthday Thomas, Stop Train Stop, Thomas Goes Fishing) --> these are the ones we had taken out of the library that Will was so in love with
5. baseball glove, ball, and tee
6. baseball pitching machine
7. Thomas' Sodor Celebration dvd and Thomas Songs of the Station dvd
8. semi-truck (actually this was a Christmas present but Will had lost interest in opening presents so we just saved it for his birthday)
9. monster truck (broke within 1 week)
10. Mr. Potato Head
11. Set of train cars
12. Train track and another set of cars
13. Floor puzzle
14. $1 (Will loves "monies")
15. Remote-controlled race car (we still need to get batteries for this)
16. Sunglasses/cell phone
17. Coloring book/crayons

It is hard to believe that a year ago Will wasn't quite walking yet and now he runs nonstop, talks up a storm, knows his numbers up to 11, his alphabet, his colors, his shapes, sings songs, and gets into lots of trouble! Happy Birthday Will!!

Baby Brother

This morning at 2:27am Will's little brother was born. Sawyer James weighed in at 5lbs. 15oz. and is 19.5 in. long. He was a bit early, but mom and baby are doing awesome. Here's a few pics. Check back later for more news.

P.S. For kicks, check out the archive and compare this to Will's newborn pics. They look the same to me, minus the hair color.

Impending doom

I am starting to really dread the Bar Exam which is in 18 days. Two days of 10 hour testing. Not enjoyable. Especially since just having to sit in a chair for that long sounds really dreadful even without the pleasure of taking a test at the same time. And oh yeah the baby is due in 31 days...if he decides to wait for his scheduled date. (The baby isn't a cause of impending doom...but the poor guy is kind of playing second fiddle to the bar exam at the moment.)

Bryce and I went to a bed and breakfast (which we won't name because we wouldn't recommend it) for a night to celebrate our 5 year anniversary. Will spent the day with Uncle Kyle and then came up at night to sleep with us. We didn't think we could impose a whole night on a free babysitter. He enjoyed the rock waterfall shower even though it wasn't quite what the website made it out to be! In the future we will go ahead and impose on some unsuspecting family member to keep him overnight, however, because in the morning he was a total pill leading us to get out of there as soon as possible. We still had 45 minutes of our expensive room left to enjoy when we left!

We took Will to an Orem Owlz game and he seemed to have a grand time although I'm not sure he ever even saw that there was a baseball game going on. He was way too busy looking at all the other kids and we ended up sitting next to some friends from church so he was occupied playing with them. There were some fireworks after the game, but he spent most of the time telling the people next to us "Fireworks! Fireworks!" instead of actually watching them. He kept talking about them for days afterwards though so I guess he was impressed. And he got a temporary tattoo which he was pretty excited about.

On the 4th we got up early to take Will to see the hot air balloons. He heard me mention them on the phone with Bryce the day before and ran over to the drawer in the kitchen, rummaged around, and pulled out a hot air balloon-shaped cookie cutter which I would not even have remembered that we owned. But apparently he did. He carried it around all day and had to take it with him the next morning. In the picture you can see him holding it up and saying "Balloons! Up High!" while he looks at the balloons. Silly kid. After looking at the balloons for a couple minutes we found a place to sit and watch the parade. We sat for an hour before it even started and then we were at the very beginning in the "staging area" so even after the parade started there were long pauses between everything. It got really hot and sitting on the curb was getting really uncomfortable so Mom and Dad would have left except that Will was having such a good time. He didn't fuss at all even though we made him stay strapped in his stroller the whole time. He got a balloon animal which lasted under 2 minutes before he dropped it and it popped on the grass. He also got an American flag which he enjoyed waving everytime there was music. We didn't take him to the parade last year so it was his first time and he got a kick out of it. Afterwards we went to IHOP for breakfast along with everyone else in the world and it took us almost 2 hours to get in and out. By that time Will was ready to go back to bed and when we got home he slept for 4 1/2 hours. Then we went to a neighbor's for dinner and watched the Stadium of Fire fireworks from far enough away that we didn't have to deal with traffic. Will was really good all day...but made up for it the next day...and today.

Will has gone to sleep in his crib by himself for 4 days in a row. He has been getting pretty good about going along with our bedtime routine which is 1. use the potty 2. get a clean diaper on 3. put on pjs 4. take flouride drops 5. brush teeth 6. read Goodnight Elmo 7. Say prayers 8. Go to bed. Usually I rock him for a little bit until he gets restless and starts asking for his crib. So then I lay him down and in the past he has always required that I stand right next to the crib until he falls asleep. And considering that he usually won't stop talking it can take a long time. If I say "good night" and leave he freaks out and then it takes even longer. It was driving me crazy so I started saying "Will, Mommy needs to go potty and then I'll come right back." I tried it a few times and he didn't cry when I left the room as long as I returned at some point. But then, miracle of miracles, several nights ago I told him I had to go potty and I just went and laid on my bed because I was exhausted and never heard from Will again! So our new routine is that I lay him in his crib, say "Mommy has to go potty" and he says "Ok Mommy" and then I leave and he goes to sleep...with no crying! He is such a funny kid-- he is pretty agreeable as long as you find the appropriate explanation for everything. For example, he will drink out of sippy cups as long as you tell him that Daddy drinks out of a big cup. And he will drink water as long as you tell him it is just like snack time in nursery. But if you try to get him to do any of these things without the appropriate explanation you are in for a temper tantrum.

Lately Will has been announcing that things are "Delicious!!" At snack time in nursery last Sunday they gave him a pretzel and he took a bite and announced "Delicious!" At the bed and breakfast he wouldn't eat anything they gave us for breakfast, but we found some butter crackers by the tea and coffee and he thought they were "Delicious!" as well. Twizzlers are also "Delicious!"

Will's birthday is on the 17th. I can't believe he will be 2 already!