7 months

Today Ryker is 7 months old.
It really is amazing how much a baby changes in their first year of life.
Ryker has been a busy baby this month and here are some of his accomplishments:
*Mastered rolling
*Mastered low-crawling
*This last week he has transitioned to the traditional crawl, he is still working on perfecting it, but he is pretty good at it.
*Pulls himself to a standing position on furniture
*Makes the sound "mama" and it just melts my heart. (He totally knows what he is saying.)
*First Ear infection- He got an ear infection and bronchitis at the same time. Poor baby. He is still really stuffed-up and requires being sat up still some nights, and he rubs his ear ALOT...he is still on antibiotics, hopefully it gets better soon.
*The only thing I can kinda get him to eat is rice cereal. Probably because it is mixed with breastmilk, but he at least doesn't throw it up. All fruits and veggies are thrown-up or accompanied with excessive gagging. We will be discussing this at the doctor (his six month well-baby check up is on April 8th....oops, just a little behind).
*He still doesn't like the idea of a bottle. I have left him for about 4 hours with a babysitter and bottles. She said he wants them, then pushes them away, pulls them back to his face, then pushes it away. He is so confused. Usually he just gives up and sleeps until I get home.
*He loves Gunnar and watches him closely. He thinks everything Gunnar does is hilarious, which worries me a bit.
*He is a tough cookie. Gunnar wrestles with him, bonks him on the head, and pushes him often but silly Ryker just keeps laughing.
*He is still my happy, sweet baby. He loves smiling at strangers and getting a lot of attention. He will go to just about anyone.

As one of my friend's had a baby and I was admiring their pictures, really, were my babies ever that little? They really do grow up way to fast.

tears @ McDonalds

Tonight we took our kids to McDonalds. It is raining constantly here, it's rather depressing if you ask me, but because of the rain we are always looking for entertainment indoors. We usually go to this indoor bounce house place, but decided to just go to McDonald's playland this evening.
We arrived and Gunnar instantly threw a fit about going on the toys...really tantrums are totally uncool and we are really having to stress this to Gunnar lately. So, instead of playing, he had to go sit down and take a breather before he could go play. Once he was relaxed and done with the crying, he nicely ask Kyle if he could go "play" and calmly walked to the play area. I was busy ordering food and spilling the tray with our drinks and food on it to be part of the tantrum throwing incident.
Anyways...Gunnar played his heart out, while I sat there and cried. I noticed two ladies in front of me. They had two kids probably about 10 and 7 with them, a boy and girl. I saw them tell the kids it was time to go. The mother of the kids smacked the older boy across the face and told him that he wasn't suppose to be hitting other kids (hmm...wonder where he learned to hit). Then the boy sat down and started to cry. The girl and boy were so devastated it was time to go, not because they had to stop playing, but because they knew they wouldn't see their mom for a while. As the mom was helping the daughter put on her coat and telling her how soft and beautiful the coat was I realized that the mom wasn't leaving with them. The other lady tried explaining to the kids that their mom was coughing and didn't think she could continue her visit. But in an attempt to comfort the kids she told them they would talk to two ladies who they mentioned by name and see if they could make the mom's visit next Friday a little longer.
As I looked at my kids full of joy, smiles, and fortunate enough to have a mom and dad who love each other and them, my heart broke for this family. I don't know the circumstances behind this family or the situation, but they are definitely laying heavy on my heart tonight. As I tucked my kids into bed and kissed them goodnight I prayed for these two kids whose mom doesn't get to tuck them into bed. I am assuming they are in a safer and better environment now, but I pray their mom figures out her own life and is able to give her children the love they desire and deserve.
So long story short, Gunnar had a blast at McDonalds playing on the dirty toys, but I had a much more depressing evening.
Anyways....on to some BIG NEWS!
Ryker pulled himself to a standing today.

Ryker has been doing the more traditional crawl this week, verses his low-crawl that he has been doing for a while now.

AND....on top of becoming the tantrum master, Gunnar said his name today. If only I could get him to say it for the video camera, it is super cute. He also looked at me a day or so ago and very clearly said "HEY! Don't push!" as I was attempting to help direct him in the appropriate direction to his room.
PLUS...the biggest bonus of the day, both boys seem to be feeling significantly better!!!!

A great friend

There are times in our lives that we feel very blessed. One of the greatest blessings in life next to family is friends. I have truly been blessed with some great friends. This week I got to spend a couple of days with one of those great blessings, Jami C. We meet in college, she is the reason I know Kyle (her cousin). This August will be 10 years of knowing each other as we meet as freshman in college.

 Jami is someone you can trust and always count on. She took part of her Spring Break and flew to see us. She is working on her masters in counseling and working full-time. She is a busy lady. I am sure she had a lot of better things to do.
Unfortunately my kids got super sick. Gunnar had to have a chest x-ray to ensure he didn't have pnemonia. We are praising God it came back clear and he has bronchiolitis. In addition to the bronchiolitis he has an ear infection and pink eye. Ryker is sick too with an ear infection and bronchiolitis. So...I don't think her visit was that fun. We tired to get out of the house as much as possible, but we usually had to take turns so either Kyle or I could be home with the sick kids. It was a bummer, but great to see her. She did a lot of holding sick babies and going to doctor appointments with sick babies. She was a trooper. But really, she was such a great support and sport about it all, which is one of the reasons she is so great, she didn't care!
Jami holding they two boys. She even survived watching both of them for about 15 minutes while I went and picked up Kyle from an appointment. 

 Jami hanging out at breakfast with the boys.

 I drove her down to Portland yesterday after Gunnar's follow-up appointment to ensure he was getting better. The weather was horrible. Kyle and Gunnar stayed at home while Ryker and I drove her down. I was sad to say goodbye, but I am sure she was excited to get away from all the sickies.
We look forward to seeing her hopefully soon time soon, when we are all healthy!
All the medications I have to remember to give my little boys everyday....

Family visits

Kathy and Megan came up this weekend. This was Ryker's first time meeting his Aunt Megan. We really didn't do much exciting (but that is the current trend here if you haven't noticed).We tried to go bowling one night, but with a wait time of over 40 minutes for a lane we opted to head back home. Gunnar did score some awesome balloons from the custodian at the bowling alley, so he thought it was a great trip.  Megan drove Kyle around shopping a bit, but really Kathy and Megan just enjoyed their time loving on the kids. Kathy also did some cleaning, it was much appreciated, but I always feel like such a lazy bum when people who are visiting start cleaning...
Gunnar helped his Grandma Kathy and Aunt Megan bake a yummy cake.

Grandma Kathy gave the boys their baths.

And I made them all pose for a picture...

 I will say it again, it is such a blessing to be back near family again. Our kids (and us) really are blessed to have family that loves and cares about us so much. We are hoping to see the rest of the grandparents and crew soon.
And just because they are cute, check out Gunnar giving Ryker a bike ride.

Wawa

We have had a busy weekend out and about...and its not over yet.
Yesterday after Kyle was done working we went to Auburn so Kyle could do some gun accessory shopping. 
Today we started out at the flea market here on Fort Lewis. Really, not impressive, I felt like if we bought anything there we might end up with some fleas. After wandering around a bit there, we went into Tacoma to an airsoft place to drop of Kyle's airsoft gun that needs some repairs. We ate a disappointing lunch at Wendy's (at least the frosty was good), then headed into Seattle. We went to Outdoor Emporium , which was lots of fun. We spent a good couple hours in there until our kids were just completely finished with it all. We got some stuff for Kyle's fly fishing, and did a lot of looking and things that we want to do some price comparision on.
We got back in the car and started home. After about 5 minutes in the car everyone was unhappy. Kyle and I decided that the day hadn't really been fair to the kids as they had been trapped in either their carseat or stroller.
So thanks to our handy-dandy GPS were we at the waterfront and a park within about 15 minutes. It wasn't the best part ever, but it had a slide and offered plenty of entertainment for us, plus it is always nice to be by the water. We were there for about an hour and half playing and enjoying a bit of the sunshine.
Back in the car we went, and within five minutes all my boys were fast asleep. I made a quick stop for pizza at Papa Murphy's and stopped at Home Depot for weather stripping.
Then we were home sweet home.
It was a fun but busy day.
Here are a few pictures for our visit at the park.
Gunnar's new word is water, which sounds a little more like "wawa" when he says it. We have to stop and look at everything water oriented. So being by a large body of water and in a rainy area with lots of mud puddles, you can imagine how quickly we get anywhere.

 Ryker and I. He is such a happy boy and smiles at everyone, I have been so blessed with such happy kiddos.

?

Can't think of anything to exciting to write about.
Life has been "normal," whatever that means around here.
Kyle goes to medical appointments. I drive him around, wrangle the boys, and work on my online classes (only 3 more to go).
We all got the flu, I was the only one who didn't puke (yea me!).
However, I did get mastitis again. I was so sick I even passed-out cold on the kitchen floor. It was pretty scary (at least Kyle thinks so) and I was really sick, but all is well now.
Ryker is officially 6 months old which means baby food. Except, I can't get him to eat anything! It is so frustrating, I don't remember this problem with Gunnar. He throws everything up even just plain rice. I have tried just about every veggie and today in desperation to just get him to eat something I tried bananas (Gunnar's fav). He threw those up at me too! He also doesn't want to take a bottle (even if it is breast milk). Pretty sure this kid is going to be attached to my boob until he is 18! Really, HELP! If anyone has suggestions or tips please let me know. I have been trying to be patient, but we have been trying this food thing for a couple of weeks and gotten no where!!!
Gunnar went to the daycare center here for the first time earlier this week. He seemed to enjoy it, sadly he had to arrive at nap time which I am sure wans't thrilling. But they said he played well with the others. He sure did make my day when I went to pick him up and he came running to me yelling "MAMA" and gave me a big ol' hug. I am going to start attending Kyle's medical appointments with him and we get free childcare during that time. Ryker can't go yet because of the bottle issue.  Tomorrow Gunnar will be there from 8am-1pm. So long, it makes me so sad to drop him off there. Life is so dull without him. He loves being with the other kids, on Wednesday night we went to church and they had dinner before, so the kids stayed with us for that. When we walked into church Gunnar started to go directly towards the nursery and actually cried when I told him he had to eat dinner first. Haha...he loves the nursery. Most kids cry about having to go in, not having to wait to go in. I guess we know he is loved in there.
I should give a potty training update: I don't want to make excuses, go ahead and judge us, laugh at us, do what you will, but we quit. At least for now. Between me having mastitis and being super sick, and Kyle's broke foot, running Gunnar to the bathroom just wasn't happening. He still requires quite a bit of assistance getting to the toilet and such.  Then immediately following the mastitis, everyone got the flu which didn't help the cause either. Also public restrooms were a challenge, a big challenge! So, the good news Gunnar knows when he is going, he makes announcements all the time. Plus he hates his diaper. He will sometimes take his diaper off and run to the bathroom and will be successful, but until he is saying the word "potty" Kyle and I have agreed to wait. That way rather than the signal of his grabbing his butt or doing the pee dance he can verbalize his needs to us. Poor Gunnar, he was doing really awesome, and we had many accident free days so I am really sad it stopped, but when I was sick it was just to much.
Here are a few picture to satisfy the grandmas. Even though we live closer we are still a good 4-6 hours away from our family which puts a limit on our visits, especially with this crazy weather!
The boys playing in their tunnel that goes to a tent. Gunnar is giving Kyle a kiss.

 Ryker is king of the tunnel.

 Hey! Who is down there?

 I don't post many pictures of myself on the blog, and this isn't the greatest, but here is me and my boys.

 Gunnar had a major blow-out today. I honestly don't remember anything like this every happening before. It was horrific. He got taken directly to the bath. Apparently Oma thought she needed a bath too. Gross! I was making dinner when it all happened so once I got Gunnar cleaned up to get in the bath water then Kyle took over. I really hope Kyle drained the dirty dog water (as I requested) and gave Gunnar a clean bath, but I wouldn't count on it.