Three Teeth and Counting

Well, on September 20th Lucas cut through his first bottom tooth, then the next one on the next day! This past Saturday he cut through one on the top, and I can feel the second top tooth wanting to poke through any day now. Yeah! He's done really well with it - just some fussiness, but no fever, runny nose, rash, diaper rash, etc. He's had a fairly easy go of it so far, and continues to sleep well so that's good. :) He looks even cuter now - I'll have to try to get a close-up pic so you can see his toothy grin.

My prayer request for him now is that I can get him to take a bottle. He's not wanting to, so we've started trying new things. A friend from church gave me a whole bag of bottles she was finished with - there are different from the ones we've tried so far. I had a friend suggest to me a few weeks back that I try giving him a bottle first thing in the morning because he'd be really hungry and more motivated to take it. Well, that didn't work! All I did was make him mad - very mad! *tee-hee* Lucas - 1, Mommy - 0. :) So I got online and did some searching, and lo and behold that's the worst time to try to give a baby a bottle when you're first starting to bottle feed! LOL Too funny. I got lots of good ideas, though, and Sunday I commenced with trying every day to get him to take a bottle. I put him in the front pack facing away from me on Sunday afternoon between his feedings. Then I put just a little water in one of the new types of bottle. He gnawed on that for a while, so I made 2 ounces of formula and he gnawed and even sucked on that a little bit - I think he ended up with an ounce of it in him, but it took over 1/2 hour. :) I count that as success, though, because he didn't fight or cry. Then yesterday I tried the same thing with 2 more ounces. He lasted about 15 minutes of chewing on it and basically got nothing down, but I will keep trying. He's eating rice cereal now - it's funny to see the faces he makes. :) Appreciate prayers for that!

Have a wonderful week - will post more on the rest of us shortly!

To Infinity, And Beyond!!

Another Caleb/Noah funny:
~~
Caleb: "Hey, Noah! We've got new minty toothpaste!"
Noah: "Is it REALLY minty?"
Caleb: "It's INFINITY minty!"

Tomatoes, Zucchini, and Thumb

Wow - it's been several weeks since I've posted! ~~ Where to start? We are FINALLY getting to harvest some tomatoes. I have a bowlful on the counter that I'm hoping to can tomorrow - I should get 4 pints or so. That's actually 4 more than we thought we would get! We have TONS of green tomatoes out there, but need another month or so of summer before we would lots to ripen. We have had two good weeks of warm and humid weather, so that's why the bowlful. We also got a total of 7 zucchini! My basil and parsley was also prolific, so I may try to harvest the rest and make up some pestos to freeze. A good friend came over last Saturday and we made a batch of "Orange Green Tomato Relish" - it's really yummy - tastes like REALLY good sweet pickle relish, and the guys are enjoying it on burgers and hot dogs. We got 9 cups from one batch, and I will make one more batch hopefully in the next few weeks. I don't eat it, but it was fun to make and smelled good! :) Green tomatoes, onion, orange marmalade, brown sugar, and balsamic/apple cider vinegar. MMMM. We also were able to shred a bunch of zucchini she'd been given - we got 48 cups for the freezer! (Thank goodness a friend loaned me her food processor - those are slick!! I put a 'want ad' on freecycle for one and am hoping to find one of my own now!) ~~

The latest on Lucas is that he is now 4 months old (on the 19th) - Yikes! About two weeks ago he found his thumb! He's doing just what Caleb did - he kind of munches on it most of the time, but now that he's cutting teeth (yes!) he's starting to suck it a lot more. It's so cute. We are fighting the battle to get Caleb to stop sucking his thumb now - his LuLus are staying on his bed during the day now and he seems to not suck his thumb if he's not holding a LuLu. :) I would guess that Lucas will cut a tooth on the bottom any day now - we can feel both of them very close, but not really see them well. He doesn't seem to be struggling with them right now - just a bit fussier I guess, and lots of drool. The big boys think the drool is gross! Haha!! ~~

We had a good visit on Labor day with Marnee & Papa (Jeff's parents) -- they boys played croquet for the first time and loved it. I'm also looking for a croquet set now. :) They also enjoyed riding bikes in the big driveway, running on the 'trails' they had mowed in their big backyard, and hula-hooping. (I discovered that I have graduated to the 'adult-gimongo-sized' hula hoop -- couldn't keep the kid-sized ones up at all.) I remember a mint-green hula hoop that made a neat whir-click sound growing up. Noah's new passion is to see a tree-frog up-close and personal someday, so he spent lots of time searching the tree-trunks for frogs, but never saw one. Jeff and I just enjoyed relaxing and eating good food. :) ~~

Well, we started school this week! The first two days went REALLY well! PTL I was a bit nervious with how it was going to work with Lucas around, but he's cooperating well enough for me to keep Noah and Caleb moving. Our school days will likely be a bit longer this year as we take more "free time" breaks for me to change diapers, etc., but it's working well. The boys are LOVING it so far - we'll see how long that lasts!! LOL Today we are taking the day off because I have a hair appointment in the afternoon and the furnace guys are here all day so the table is shoved out of their way, etc. We are getting a new furnace today - thank the Lord! The old one was still working - we had to replace a part last year, but it's over 40 years old and really uses a lot of energy, so with all the good rebates we decided to do that now. We will be toasty warm this winter. :) ~~

Jeff has had a busy few weeks - we started up our fall programming this past week and it's been exciting! Sundays we have added a prayer service at 8am. It's a quiet service with focused/directed prayer. I won't be going to that service for a while, but it was well attended and several commented on how they enjoyed it. Then the "regular" service with kids programming, then fellowship and Farley after the service. Fun With Farley is a program I developed of short activities that the kids do in order to learn about and minister to the missionaries we support...they read their updates and answer questions, watch short clips about the countries they are in, do 'fact hunts' on the countries, learn about their 'jobs', and much more. They then get Bible Bucks to spend at the 'store'. It's been neat to see the kids come rushing in to do the next activity, and it's been good for the adults as well to get to know our missionaries better and pray for them. We also write notes to the missionaries as a Farley activity. ~~ Last night we also started back up our Family Night programming. We have simple supper and salad bar at 6pm, then kids/adult programming from 6:30-7:30. There were LOTS of new families there last night - what a blessing. There is a new adult Bible Study starting up, and we also just started a mom's group study! Yeah - I'm excited about that -- there were 5 of us last night, but three more gals are coming who were either ill/out of town. We have three regularly attending infants now, and last night we had 7 toddlers!! (Last year on Wed. nights we had one.) God is good - I pray He continues to minister to families in our neighborhoods. ~~

I'm staying busy with work for TKDa - I am now running invoices for BNSF Railway once each month, so I have steady hours for that. They also recently had to lay-off the Rail Division administrative assistant, so they have asked me to take on some of what she had been doing. Some weeks that makes me busy, and some weeks it's just the usual 4-5 hours. I am grateful for a good paying job that I can do at home, especially when so many friends have lost jobs in the past year.

Wow! I need to do this more often. :) Enjoy the pictures!

Another funny...

Today in the van the boys were chatting. All of a sudden Noah got a great idea and said, "Hey, Caleb! Let's make up new words for our rear end!" :) Lord, have mercy.

County Fair

Well, last week came and went! We are finally having some consistent summer weather. Although, on Wednesday it POURED rain almost the whole day long! It was amazing...we ended up only having to shop-vac the basement twice...some folks had inches of water in their basements, and we found out later we got 4 inches of rain that day alone. Wowsers.

The boys and I went to the South St. Louis County fair on Saturday - it's small and closeby, so we ventured out. (Jeff needed that day to catch up at church.) I am so glad we did! Kids 12 and under were free, and it only cost $3 for me. They had GREAT barns full of animals and friendly people to tell us all about them, and the petting barn was the best I've ever seen...they had all the typical farm animals, then also camels, llamas, alpacas, and a wallaby! We fed pretty much all of them. :) We also got to see a lumberjack show - those guys are nutso strong! The boys each got to keep a slab of wood that had been used in the show and they had the two main lumberjacks who competed sign them. They did a 'boom log' race...four logs kind of strapped together end to end and they tried to run all the way across them to the other dock and then back. One guy did it!! It was pretty neat. We of course ate some good fair fries and kettle corn. :) We also got to see a Dock Dogs show...they set up a pool that was over 30 feet long that had a long dock on one end, then dogs race down the dock and take flying leaps into the water...it was really fun. A few of the dogs ran right up to the edge, then stopped and hopped in!! LOL Then there were at least two that we saw who each went over 22 feet!! Looked like they were flying. We also played a few games, and the boys even humored me and went in the main exhibit hall - they were DELIGHTED to find out that you can enter lego creations in the fair, and are already busy planning and building the things they want to enter next year. I don't know if any of you have ever seen the 'crazy frog' on youtube, but Noah made a crazy frog that's really good!! We came home happy and tuckered out. Lucas did great - hung in there and just enjoyed looking around from the stroller. We found a person to loan us a folding chair from their booth so I could sit in some shade to nurse him, and the whole day was just really fun.


Friday night Jeff and I went on a date!!! Ronda Thierer watched all three boys and Jeff and I rode the motorcycle downtown and had mexican with some good friends of ours that we hadn't visited with in several months. They are the pastor/wife at a baptist church across town. It was a beautiful night and perfect for riding the motorcycle! We ran out of gas just as we got off the interstate coming home...thankfully there's a gas station right there. I didn't realize it, but the motorcycle doesn't have a gas gauge on it! :) It was a funny way to end the evening. When we came home the house was dark and quiet - Ronda had all three boys in bed sleeping peacefully!!! Ahhhh!!!!

Other than that, we are just busy gearing up for school. I have to order a couple more books for Noah, but we are almost ready. We're going to move some things around in the end of the living room near the bathroom and kind of have that end of things be devoted to school. Going to paint a tall shelf from the garage and bring it in - hopefully we can corral all the school stuff in there. :)

Lucas is three months old now...*sniff sniff* He's back to sleeping 11 hours at night after about a week of getting up in the middle of the night to eat again. Can't get him to take good naps yet, but with good sleep at night I know that will come.

More to come!

YOU'RE NOT GONNA BELIEVE THIS!!

Ok - I think everyone knows we are HUGE Extreme Home Makeover fans at our house. I think everyone probably also knows that I vowed if they were ever building a home within a 250 mile radius of us we'd go. Well, they are building a house in South Range, which is just a little bit south of Superior, Wisconsin, and today the boys and I went to the build!!! It was pretty awesome how they orchestrate everything. On my way there I wasn't sure I was still on the right road (think lonely road) and I came to an intersection and saw a van with an EHM logo in the window and a couple of people who I thought were probably traffic directors. So I pulled up behind them, and lo and behold they were shooting some footage of Paige! She was on the other side of the van where we couldn't see her, but the lady I spoke with asked if the boys wanted to get out and speak with her and we were like, "YES!!" We jumped out and made small talk and then I got a great pic of Noah and Paige!!!!! She was very nice and didn't seem to rush us at all - Caleb got a little shy and didn't want his picture taken! Then they pointed us in the direction of the house. After parking in a field nearby we walked over to the house and were told right away by a lady whose hubby was working in the house that Paulie and Ty weren't there today. We were bummed, but after getting to met Paige it didn't really matter. :) We just watched and the boys played with some friends we ran into and had a great time. All of a sudden I realize that off to the side they are shooting footage of Eduardo! So we headed that direction and watched them shoot the same thing at least 6 times. Then he headed over to where we were!! There was a rush of people, so we kind of herded into the group and eventually the boys got up to him and he signed their hats and then told them he liked their hair cuts!! (They both have mohawks again.) He was also very polite and kind - the picture is of him signing Noah's hat and you can see the tippy top of Noah's head in the foreground. The last picture is (as Noah puts it) the boys "freaking out because we got Eduardo's autograph!!!" :)

What a fun, fun day. You all HAVE to go if it's ever near you. :) :)

Catching Up

wow - it's been a few weeks since I posted last! Not a whole lot new happening here, but wanted to update. Noah and Caleb's latest obsession is Pokemon - they are trading cards that you play games with and each one has a fictional creature on it. They have been checking out Pokemon books at the library for months now and pore over them nearly every day. They have favorite creatures and know all about their 'powers' and weapons, etc. The big find for Noah a week ago at our local grocery store was a Pokemon (cartoon) video for $1.99 - he bought it with his own money and we have watched it more times than I care to count already. :) Then today the boys spent their own money to buy their first sets of Pokemon cards - I have to admit I love Pokemon right now also because they played with the ALL afternoon. :) Happily. :) No fighting. :) My new cry instead of "Calgon, take me away!" will now be "Send Pokemon cards now!!"

Lucas is growing bigger - I should take him in and just get him weighed because I'm curious. Met a gal last week who gave me several larger sized diaper covers and a few more cloth diapers that she had used - what a life saver. I need to make several more of the next size up. :) We love the cloth diapers, though...haven't bought diapers in almost 5 weeks - we even use them on Sundays now. Anyway, Lucas is really smiling and interacting with us now - it's so fun! He continues to sleep great - even did three 10-hr stretches this week at night. He's getting a little better at napping as I have gotten more discplined about laying him down for his naps. :( Hard to do - I'd rather hold him sometimes. Sometimes I still do. :)

I am slowly but surely feeling like we have a new normal routine now. Last week I spent several hours online ordering school materials for the boys - whoo boy. Can't believe it's that time already. Sheesh! Should be a good year and I'm excited to get back into the school routine. We are starting a mom's group (something along the lines of MOPS) at church this year and I'm helping to plan it - pray with us that it will draw the new moms and younger moms into relationship more. We have several young moms who attend regularly who we are trying to 'connect with' more.

Jeff is doing well - had a good trip to Chicago and we're all glad he's back. He has a wedding this Saturday and next and one in September. He seems to be doing better with his neck/shoulder/back pain since we got the new mattress. I'm loving having a QUEEN size bed now! I'm still adjusting to the softness, but I like it a lot. Jeff also worked some more on the finishing work in our bedroom. Mostly painting and attaching the trim (already cut just not attached) and then we're done.

Another week in the life of the Hyatts. :)

The Week in Review

Well, Lucas is officially 2 months old...actually almost 10 weeks. Scary!! He's doing lots of neat stuff now - makes eye contact, smiles, chuckles, and is just a delight to have around! He's still sleeping great and even put himself to sleep without crying tonight when I put him down! Thank you Lord!

Jeff is in Chicago for a few days at a course of sorts through the Transforming Center. It's held at a retreat center in Chicago once every quarter for two years. The boys and I are doing just great so far, although I must admit that I love having a big dog when Jeff is gone. :)

Not much to tell about last week - it was good, but went fast.

Caleb Quote

Well, I hate to admit it, but the latest conversations at the Hyatt house are centering around Noah's desire for a guinea pig. We have pretty much decided he can get one after he earns most of the $$ for it and all the equipment. Yesterday Noah picked up dog poo in the yard for a quarter...he came in and said he almost puked but really wanted the quarter. :) Later in the day we were all in the car and Noah said, "Daddy will buy the guinea pig, and I will buy the cage and all his stuff." To which Caleb chimed in, "And I'll buy the cupcakes!" :)

New Hair Cut

This is the "after" pic. :) She cut 11 inches off, then I went back two days later and she cut off 2 more! I'm loving it.

Spirit Valley Days

There was a sand pile with money in it...each age group got two minutes to find and keep as much coin as they could! The boys both tried out the climbing wall and got their faces painted. Lucas just hung out. :)

Spirit Valley Days

Well, our summer outreach is finally here! Instead of doing VBS this year, our church sponsored "Kids' Korner" at Spirit Valley Days here in West Duluth. It's Wednesday through Saturday activities each afternoon and evening. Kids' Korner runs various times each day, and we are staffing all the activities there...ranges from carnival type games to hands-on science area, free popcorn, crafts, etc. There are several stages set up in this end of town for various acts and bands to perform each afternoon and evening, and so far the boys and I caught a very cool magic act. The Minnesota State Yo-Yo champion gave exhibits today, but the weather was really cold and yucky, so we didn't venture out today. The big boys were able to ride on the church float in the parade tonight, though. I dropped them off and Jeff picked them up so that I could keep Lucas inside. The float was small this year, but seemed like a favorite because it was pulled by a horse! The kids thought it was great anyway! We handed out 4000 pieces of candy and tons of flyers for the kids' programs at the church. So far it's been a great opportunity to speak with families who wouldn't even bring their kids to VBS.

Caleb had a doc appointment on Monday...he has these random night-time barfs about once every other month or so. Doc said he probably has a loose esophogial sphincter, and that it usually tightens up more around age 6-7. In the meantime, we put a couple of pillows under his mattress to lift the head of his bed, and he needs to eat dinner a bit earlier and stay away from caffiene and carbonation (we don't drink a lot of that anyway.) Hopefully this will help. The biggest challenge for me will be to get dinner on ealier...we sometimes eat at 7 or 8pm. It's just how our days go, but I will have to develop a different routine now. Glad to know it's nothing serious for him, though.

Lucas also had a doc appointment yesterday - got his first round of shots (man, that's just hard to watch!) and did great. He weighs 11 lbs 14 oz. :) I was close on my guess of 12 lbs. :) He continues to sleep really well - goes 8-9 hours on the first stretch now, so I'm really not up in the middle of the night any more. He also is taking a bottle just great now, so I actually had someone watch him for an hour while I took Caleb to the doc! Whoo-hoo! Freedom!!! :) He still nurses, but it's great to know that I can leave him with a bottle.

Jeff's back is really hurting him again...every so often it just goes ping and then he's in a lot of pain for up to a week. He went to the chiropractor today and it helped a big, but it's still really hurting him. The chiro said to ice it instead of using heat (which he usually uses) because it's a muscle inflammation...his head actually looks crooked on his shoulders because that muscle is pulling/spasming so hard. Ouch.

I am getting my hair cut short tomorrow, if I don't chicken out. :) I printed a couple of different looks from pics I found on the computer and will let my hair-dresser pick the one she thinks would be best - she's great with my type of hair. I can't believe how gray I am getting!!! Sheesh. Am saving up to color it again soon! *grin*

That's it for now - we are glad to be feeling good and hoping for some warmer weather soon.

No more sickies!

OK...this past week has pretty much been a wash....literally. I think I have washed Caleb's bedding three times now, and the rest of it once. I am HOPING we are done being sick now. Thought we were done, and Caleb threw up in the night again. He has an appointment on Monday to see if he has some reflux issues that might be triggering his random nightime barfs. We'll see! I ended up with a migraine last week...woke up with it Tuesday morning. Took the meds that I can take and still nurse Lucas all day long and it didn't make a dent. Wednesday I just took tylenol all day because my prescription meds have high caffeine and Lucas didn't sleep well...again, didn't make a dent. Thursday woke up with bad nausea and still the headache...called the doc and he said to take the imitrex and pump and dump for 8 hours after that. No problem, EXCEPT for the fact that I hadn't given Lucas a bottle yet and didn't have any breastmilk banked. So!! I was able to lay down and put high heat on my head for a while, and that seemed to ease it. At noon I made a formula bottle for Lucas, prayed, and about five minutes into the process he figured it out and drank the whole thing!! YEAH GOD! After that he slep some more, so I laid down with the heat again, and the headache FINALLY broke! I didn't even end up taking an imitrex. Thank you, Lord. I didn't see the light of day for four days and yesterday we went out and ran a few errands. Two whole days with no barfs and that makes us all happy! Somewhere in all of this I was up in the night (and Jeff) with Caleb barfing, and I washed all the bedding. Basically nothing else got done this week (by me, that is...Jeff did a TON...dishes, laundry, taking care of all the boys, etc.) So! I should be working to catch up on everything right now! :)

That's basically our week in a nutshell! Sheesh...I'm so glad it's over, and so glad that Lucas can now take a bottle and that frees me up to be gone or even just put him in the nursery at church! Yeah!

New Pics - 2009 4th of July

We went to a friend's cabin for the 4th and had beautiful weather for hanging out on the deck and playing in the water!

Barf Patrol

Well! What an interesting week! Caleb threw up in the night (all over his bed) on Wednesday night. He was fine in the morning and pretty miffed that he could only have toast for breakfast. We washed bedding and cleaned the room. Then Thursday night Noah threw up in the night - he managed to get most of his in the waste basket, but again toast for breakfast and laundry. Made it through Friday with no barfs. :) Saturday we went for the afternoon/evening to a cabin on a lake with friends from church and their extended family. What fun - the boys played hard swimming and playing on the beach. We of course pigged out, then decided to go ahead and stay late to watch their fireworks off the dock. We ended up getting the boys in bed around 11:30...needless to say, we were all worn out this evening.

Well, Caleb barfed at church right at the end of the service. Thankfully one of his teachers in kids' church saw him bolt for the bathroom and went after him and helped him until I could hand off Lucas to someone and go in to help. We went straight home, and Caleb has barfed and been sick all afternoon. He's still not feeling good, so I'm praying some good sleep for him and that he'll wake up better. Hoping the rest of us don't go down with whatever this is...I'm tired of washing bedding. :)

That was our week!! More to come soon!

Back From Camp!

Well, the verdict is in: Camp was awesome! :) Noah had lots of great stories to tell and was the third place winner in the Bible verse memorization competition - which garnered a prize of $2.50 (he added it to his lego savings stash.) :) His favorite part of the week was shooting BB guns, and when Jeff asked him what he DIDN'T like about camp, he said, "Coming home!" The funny part is that he brought home three clean pairs of underwear. Gotta love it.

Update 6/30/09

Well, Lucas is growing like a weed! I haven't had him weighed in a month, but he was 9 lbs 5 oz way back then, so I think it's safe to say that he's up over 10 lbs now! :) His 8-wk appointment will be in two weeks - can you believe that he's 6 weeks old already? This mama can't! Wow. He is really starting to express himself, which is so fun. He tracks our movement now with his eyes and moves his head to follow us around the room, and also has started smiling and cooing at us (which the big boys just love!) The big boys like to 'interpret' for me and tell me what he's really saying - too cute!

Caleb and I have been hanging out since Noah is at camp this week Mon-Wed. It's amazing how easy Caleb is and how fun he is when Noah is not around!! He actually gets to talk and express himself, and can play with any toy he wants to without a "Hey, that's mine!" fight over it. I'm loving that!

Haven't heard a peep from the camp, so I'm assuming Noah is having a great time with the other three children from our church. He went to camp last year, but that camp has gotten too expensive for us/our church family ($200 for three days?!?!) so they went to a different camp this year. I visisted the camp with our director of Children & Family ministries way back before I had Lucas and it's a GREAT camp, just smaller (and better, in my opinion!) We'll see what Noah says when he gets home later today.

Jeff is working hard at church, although a few less hours now that summer is here and we take a break with our Wednesday night programming. He had last Sunday off because we were hanging out with his sister Christy and her family and his parents. Todd and Christy and the girls were in town from Long Island, NY. We went down to his parents' last week Sunday evening through Wednesday - had a great time! We went to the MN Zoo on Monday - it's a huge zoo and took most of the day; then to Lego Land at the Mall of America so Noah could spend some birthday money that evening. Then Tuesday we went to the Water Park of America - largest water park in America; then Wednesday we came home and crashed until Friday when Jeff's family came up to Duluth for Friday/Saturday. :) We went to Gooseberry falls on Friday, then hung out on Saturday. Needless to say, we all crashed on Sunday/Monday. :) Even Lucas slept a lot both of those days!

That's it for this update! Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Noah made a bead snake, Caleb, and Lucas.

Introduction

Hey, everyone! I'm starting a new blog page so that I can keep friends and family updated on our lives. I've tried a couple of other ways of keeping in touch that I haven't stuck with, so I'm trying again. I'll try to post regular updates on the kids and keep pics posted so you can see the boys growing up! More to come soon!