Thursday, January 31, 2008

Sweetness.

So, we made these sweet little creations today. However, they're nowhere near as sweet as their cute little baker.
Serious business.

Creative mixing.

Funny baker. And, if you really want to know...he was saying "to infinity and beyond..." Really. He was.

Time for the taste test.

They passed.

I love those pudgy little hands.

I let the baker go to town on a few warm cookies. And, to save on laundry, I just took his shirt off. Later I honestly scrubbed melted chocolate out of his belly button. Wish I'd gotten a picture of that...

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Winter.

There are a lot of things I don't like about winter. Shoveling. Not being able to run around outside with bare feet. Having to remember pre-heat the car for the kiddies. Dry skin. The heating bill. Fresh fruit being so expensive. Add this winter...wondering if our car will start or not. However - it's times like this weekend that I forget about all of that & just love winter time. We went to a family party with sledding, cocoa, and just hanging out in the warm lodge and visiting. It was so much fun to watch all the kids - and to play like one too!
Noah really did have a great time...he just kept asking where the "horsies" were. He knew we were in that neck of the woods I guess. Cool icicles at least anyway, huh?

Simply Sweet.

I snapped these over the weekend as we were getting ready to run out the door to take care of some errands...


I'm glad I did.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Free Stuff!

So, who doesn't like free stuff? Check out this website, it's a great idea. This lady created it to promote some of her friends' online businesses & it looks like other businesses will be able to jump on board too. The more people that enter the drawings, the more businesses that will want to sign on...therefor leading to more free stuff! :) She will give a link to a different online business each Monday...all you have to do is check it out and post a comment to enter that week's give-away! (No cost or anything to enter) You just have to include your first name, last initial and the state you live in & she when she posts the winner you have 3 days to email back and claim your prize. Fun, huh? The first business is a super cute baby store (I'm hoping to get lucky & win something myself!), so take a gander. Here's the link: http://www.ilovegiveaways.blogspot.com/

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Yum.

Couldn't you just eat this cuteness up?! I had to snap a few pictures of Lincoln at bath-time today. He was all wrapped up in his cute hooded towel (thanks Aunt Joy!) & was dishing out some of the cutest expressions.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Hmmmm....

So, does anything look strange with this picture? :) I guess Noah couldn't decide if he felt more like a pirate or a cowboy this morning. And why should he have to decide if he can be both, right?

I haven't been good about giving Lincoln tummy time, so while Noah was napping I laid a blanket out on the couch and geared myself up to cheer him on. As suspected, Lincoln wasn't fond of laying on his tummy - so I snapped a quick picture and then gave him his pacifier hoping to sooth him a bit...
...obviously it worked. This picture was taken literally 10 seconds after the previous one. I guess we'll work on tummy time later, huh?

Monday, January 14, 2008

Quiet Imagination

Earlier this morning I was concerned why I couldn't hear Noah. I'm sure that any parent can relate to that feeling. So, when I rounded the corner I was expecting to see some sort of messy mischief. Instead I saw Noah, still in pj's with his cowboy hat donned, playing with his shadow in the morning sunlight. It was really quite adorable. He was pointing at it, swaying back and forth and jabbering at his shadow...even giving it a few kisses. There is little that I enjoy doing more with Noah than watching his imagination at work. Luckily my camera was nearby so I could capture the sweet little moment - then it was back to watching him (less quietly) moving the contents of the toy room into the front room :)

2 months already?!

I took this picture after church yesterday. Lincoln is 2 months old as of yesterday...how does time continue to fly by so quickly? He's smiling and cooing a lot lately, and is such a sweet, good natured little guy. At his checkup today he weighed in at 15 pounds 9 ounces & measured 24.5 inches! Sheesh!
I love my three boys!
This picture is from a little over a week ago. I couldn't resist taking a photo of them in their matching sweaters. Too cute! Don't worry...I'll get over the matching thing before they're old enough to get teased :)

Monday, January 7, 2008

Rant - kind of long, but please read...

I've been meaning to post my frustrations on this topic for several weeks & am just getting around to it, so I'll try to summarize my thoughts and give a couple of links on the topic. Most women who've had a baby have heard of banking their cord blood. And the extent that most people (that I've talked to) know about it - is that it's expensive and not likely that you'll need to use it.

I got advertisements on banking my cord blood in my shopping bag when buying maternity clothing, got 'junk mail' on the topic, and saw ads in parenting magazines. I started saving information from several different companies during my pregnancy until Mark & I could sit down and sort through the information to make the choice that would be best for us. To summarize things - we decided against private cord blood banking, but during my research I found out something interesting...you can DONATE your cord blood. I was interested & so I did some research on my own on the topic. I found out a lot of great information, and really wanted to donate once the baby (Lincoln) was born.

Now, here's where I got frustrated. I found out that I was too far along in my pregnancy to start initiating the process of cord blood donation (a women should start making arrangements by week 34 of pregnancy). And there's even a cord blood bank in Salt Lake City! I was so disappointed to have such a valuable resource be thrown in garbage just because I wasn't informed in time about the option of donation. I was frustrated with myself for not knowing, but also frustrated with my physician & the child birth class we took -that we forked over $60 to inform us on the different options to be aware of surrounding childbirth. I do not understand why a two sentence pitch, or an informational pamphlet couldn't have been included by one of these resources that could at least tip off people to look into it themselves if they're interested. I sure would have looked into it sooner if I'd even have known that it was an option!

Here are a few tid-bits of info I learned in my researching cord blood donation:
  • Cord blood is one of three sources of cells used in transplant - the other two are bone marrow and peripheral blood.
  • Donation is costless, painless, risk free, doesn't change/interrupt your birthing experience, and if a large enough number blood forming cells aren't collected then they can still at least be used for research.
  • At least 70 diseases have been treated with stem cells. These include cancers (leukemias, lymphomas, myelomas), blood disorders (thalassemias, sickle cell anemia, Fanconi's anemia), immune deficiency diseases, genetic diseases and others.
  • There's no potential ethical dilemma like with embryonic stem cell usage, since the blood is collected from an otherwise disposed of umbilical cord.
  • Donation is anonymous.
  • The most common recipient of these donations are children with leukemia.
  • Cord blood does not have to match the recipient's tissue type as closely as that in a bone marrow transplant.
  • The transplanted cord blood stem cells are thought to be more forgiving of a recipient's immune cells, hence better survival rate and improved quality of life are expected in cord blood transplant recipients (less severe rejection, less frequent hospitalization).
  • You cannot donate if you have history of AIDS, hepatitis, family history of certain genetic diseases, or if you are pregnant with multiples (twins, etc).

I'm certainly not an expert on the topic, but figured that I could at least do what I can to spread what basic information that I know to other people - I wish someone had for me. Although I will admit that I read on one source that they won't take a donation from higher risk situations like an emergency c-section (like mine), so I wouldn't have ended up donating anyway I guess.

Here's a link to an article that I found at a local newspaper:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20041126/ai_n11487043

marrow.org had lots of good information too. Here's a link to their FAQ on cord blood:

http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Donate_Cord_Blood_Share_Life/Cord_Blood_Donation_FAQs/index.html

And here's a link to the company's website that services Utah (they're nationwide & international though). Feel free to click on their 'frequent questions' link for lot of good info too:

http://www.stemcyteinc.com/

I found out also that even if your hospital (or state) doesn't offer cord blood donation collection that there are services that can usually still take care of things if arrangements are made well enough in advance. And, lastly, if none of this is enough of a reason to donate - I read this on the Stem Cyte website & it blew my mind...

"Should you, the child, his/her biologic siblings or biologic father ever need the donated umbilical cord blood, StemCyte will provide the unit free of charge. If the donated unit has already been used for transplantation, StemCyte will attempt to provide the next most compatible unit available in it's inventory"

So, why NOT donate if you're able??!! Please pass this info on to other women you know that are pregnant or may become pregnant. (Do I sound like a medication commercial from TV or something?) Seriously though. Especially after recently finding out that our close friends' baby boy has leukemia, and not knowing what treatments he'd be needing, I felt even more passionate about passing on this information. Who knows whose loved one you could end up helping...maybe your own?

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Cold, yet happy!

Alright. I'm not a big fan of the cold myself. I do enjoy snowboarding & snowshoeing - and occasionally building a snowman, sledding or a quick snowball fight...but for me the conditions need to be such that I'm staying warm. So, when enjoying the outdoors, generally my happiness factor correlates pretty directly with how cold I am...the colder I am, the less happy. So, it is amusing to me to watch how little the cold ever seems to affect Noah. In fact, he probably wouldn't have even protested to have been sent outside in jeans and a t-shirt today. Anyhow, I bundled him up and sent him outside to play with Dad while Lincoln and I stayed toasty inside. Noah caught on right away how to fill up his new snowball thrower with snow, but wasn't as interested in throwing the snow as he was in eating it. So, here he is enjoying himself not long after going outside...toasty warm, and content.
...starting to get a bit colder, yet having a good ol' time.
Cheeks and nose getting more rosy from the cold, but having more fun all the time!

He's been outisde for quite a while now & he must be cold, but he's sure not showing it! Is it just me, or does he seem to get MORE happy the colder things get? He's sure having a blast enjoying himself...until he has to come inside anyway.
You'll really have to have the sound on your computer turned up all the way to get the full affect of this little video clip. Noah is enjoying a snow-snack while saying his cute little "MmmMmmMmm".

Friday, January 4, 2008

Just because.

I suppose it's nostalgia, but I love seeing Noah play on this wooden chair. You see, it was mine when I was a little girl & I just loved it. Anyhow - here are a couple of cute pictures from this morning!

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Smiley guy

Lincoln's smiles just melt our hearts. And, as far as other updates on him - he turned 7 weeks old yesterday, and when he was weighed a few days ago he was 14 1/2 pounds. Not exactly a little lightweight. Anyhow, push play to catch his contagious little grin...

Giving things a try...

Irony. So, when Noah was a little baby we were never able to get him to take a pacifier...and he hated being in this very bouncy seat. Lincoln loves both. So, this morning when I wasn't looking Noah climbed up and sat in the bouncy seat and popped Lincoln's binky in his mouth. I guess he figured that he'd see what they were like. I'm actually surprised that he hadn't tried them out sooner. Anyway, I got a good chuckle out of it & took a quick video clip...

Buddies

I usually put out the play-mat for Lincoln while Noah is napping, but decided to pull it out earlier the other morning. Noah thought it lookied like lots of fun, and crawled right up next to Linc and layed down. They layed there and "played" for a good 15 minutes. It was really cute & I couldn't help but be excited for when they're a little bit older and they can really interact and play together. Here's a quick video clip from their playtime...