Deer Baby, Sawyer Sleeps, and a Nice Weekend

We had a pretty great weekend at our house! The forecast called for a yucky, rainy weekend but the days turned out to be nice with thunderstorms at night! saturday we got a bit of planting done in the yard. everything is so green finally!! my peonies finally started to bloom, they are so pretty again this year, and the peonies we planted last year that didnt grow, grew this year which is awesome!!!! they didnt flower but perhaps next year- i was just excited that they grew! we also went on a nice walk on the path behind the house. zach has been seeing a tiny baby deer in the "green space" area and we wanted to see if we could see it again. we didnt, but the walk was nice- sawyer fell right asleep and cooper had a blast-of course he found a mud puddle to play in right away! i tell him that he is the dirtiest dog in the world!






























here are sawyer and i in the yard near the garden.
















this was the prettiest thing! on the bank of the big creek in our yard there are a TON on dasies growing this year- twice as many as last year. it is georgeous, but sadly it was hard to get a picture of how neat it really is!






























here sawyer and i are under the giant tree by the creek- it is the most awesome location for his future tree house- right next to a bend in the creek, and its so nice and shady under there.
















We had friends over Saturday night. Zach has mastered making amazing bbq chicken on the grill It was so good. Also Saturday night was the first night that we ever put Sawyer to bed in his crib in his own room- he has been sleeping right next to me in a little "van wyk baby bed" which is the bed that every van wyk in Zachs family has slept in since his dad and aunts and uncles were babies. It was awesome because he was just right there next to me and i could see him..but he wasnt in the bed with me. But Zach's cousin just had a baby so it is time to pass it on. He can't sleep in our room untill he goes to college :) He had a rough time last night and woke up a few times after i put him to bed. I had to let him snuggle his puppy toy and listen to George Strait to get him to fall asleep (a habit that daddy started..) he finally stayed asleep at about 10 and slept all night long, even through the thunderstorm which was awesome because it woke me up! Tonight he went to bed at 8 and has been doing great! He cuddled puppy and listend to George Strait again :) but he fell asleep and didnt cry! He loves puppy. Here is is on Saturday playing in his exersaucer AND of course giving puppy a big cuddle at the same time. He is such a snuggler!! I love it!
















Today we went to a cub's game with Chase's parents. The Iowa Donor Network was giving organ donors familys tickets so they brought us along. Saldly the cubs didnt win but it was really nice weather today! I totally got some sun-FINALLY! Here we are with Chase's family.
















Paul and Zach had matching hats, shirts (chase's organ donor be someones hero shirts that we all wore to the game) khaki cargo shorts and matching blue tounges :)

















I am hoping for nice weather this week! I really want to head to the pool this week and get a bit more color. I have a bit of a farmer tan after today!

Sawyer eats Cereal

A few days ago we let Sawyer try rice cereal for the first time and he LOVED it! he ate it right down! it gets pretty messy but he seems to really enjoy getting to eat some food- though i think he def. still prefers to nurse the best. he is also allowed to start eating some baby food now but we havent started that yet...dr w said to start with orange veggies when we start him on food. im going to make baby food for him though as much as possible- i read some not so great things about the store bought kind! i think we will do carrots first and then squash, maybe sweet potatoes...

here is sawyer eating cereal for the first time

things have been busy here with graduation, ect. This weekend we went to uncle marcus's grad party-what a great time! Sawyer was so happy the whole time and was a big hit with everyone there. zach epoxied our garage floor this weekend and it looks great! i cant park my jeep on it for 3 more days though!- thats the only bad part because it looks so so so much nicer now. we also got a blueberry bush and a raspberry bush for our yard this weekend! and more strawberry plants too! and i have been putting my clothesline to good use with these nice days!

here is Sawyer giggling!

"Soy Sauce" is good at Sushi

Well we have had a pretty busy week and weekend. friday night we went out to dinner and sawyer was so good! we brought along his bumbo seat and when the food came we let him sit in it in the middle of the table- he loved it! the waitresses thought he was so cute and the people at the other tables were impressed that he could sit so well- one grandpa type guy thought he was 9 months old because he was sitting up- guess they have never seen a bumbo before lol- he can only sit on his own for about 5 seconds. saturday we drove to iowa city to see anna and nate who were in iowa just for the weekend for nates brothers med school graduation.

sawyer snoozing on the way to iowa city

Seeing aunt anna and uncle nate

With Aunt anna

Aunt anna hadnt gotten to see sawyer since he was three or four weeks old and uncle nate hadnt even met sawyer yet!we all went out and had some delicious sushi together- the bumbo was still in our jeep from the night before so we let sawyer sit in it on the table again..and he loved it again!

Our little "soy sauce" with the kikkoman's soy sauce

Then zach, marcus, sawyer and I had to go home because uncle marcus had to work and zach, sawyer and I had to get our pictures taken at church- sawyer LOVED the lady that took our pictures and he kept laughing at her. He looked really cute!

snoozing on the way home..using his binky which is rare for him

Oh and my new laptop came awhile ago, making it- as you may have noticed- so much faster to upload pictures!! I love it! so in honor of my new faster laptop here is a video of sawyer sort of laughing..its the best on i have gotten yet, he gets super distracted by the camera and wont laugh!

A relatively dull update made more intersting (hopefully) with some cute pictures of Sawyer

These jammies are so funny because...















The feet are horses! They make us laugh every time he wears them :)

well, zach said sawyer did awesome in the ozarks. he did fine for the whole car ride and was happy while they were there too. he did NOT like riding on the boat because he had to wear a life jacket, which apparently he hated. he did like watching zach and grandpa catch fish though. and he loved zach's aunt dee- i guess she can make him laugh more than anyone!! he is laughing actual big laughs now- which is the cutest thing ever! he is VERY social and loves attention and loves to "talk". every morning he wakes up and tells me all about his baby dreams. he also loves to look at the "baby in the mirror" but he acts a bit shy- he gives the baby a biiiig smile and then when the baby smiles back sawyer turns his face away and hides it in my neck- and looks back out of the corner of his eye- and then does it all again. Zach had sawyer all alone on sunday and said they had fun- he took sawyer mushroom hunting in the woods behind the house. last night all of us took a walk around the golf course pond and sawyer seemed to enjoy it- his stroller was awesome on the grass and hills too- so easy to push even "off roading". sawyer seems really happy to have me back and wants me to hold him a lot- which is fine because after not seeing him i want to hold him all day! we cuddled on the couch all afternoon yesterday and we both napped for over 2 hours! it was amazing.














here he is laughing in the condo.

work this weekend was better than anticipated- people were not as swine flu crazy as they were on thursday so that was great. I DID wear my mask once, i wish i would have had my camera because we all looked so funny in our protective gear. i work this friday- tulip time- which can be super crazy. i worked last year either thursday or friday and it was fine though- not very busy at all so we will see.
my laptop is done being built and was shipped yesterday- yay! i cant wait to get it- hurry up UPS!! im seriosly going to drop kick this old ghetto laptop across the room when it comes.

As a side note, im still considering using cloth diapers. I have two right now and im waiting on three more i ordered. one of the ones i have i really like...im thinking i might buy a few more to decide my favorites and then get a bunch... if i do cloth dipes then ill do cloth wipes as well- there is a whole cloth world out there!! Everytime I put the cloth dipes on sawyer he smiles! I think that means he wants to wear cloth diapers!

here is the one i like.















sawyer likes it too- see!
















i ordered another like this but blue and then two others that have velcro instead of the snaps. they are all pocket dipes and are adjustable size so he can wear them until he is potty trained! its hard to tell but there are snaps on the front that make the size adjustable- its on the smallest size now but he can wear it one size bigger right now also.














you can kinda see how it snaps down to be smaller- i dont think it would have fit him when he was tiny though!

sawyer and i went to uncle marcus's track meet today also and sawyer was pretty darn good! after about an hour and a half he got pretty tired so we left and he fell asleep in the car on the way home! we are getting excited for tulip time- i tried to convince zach to walk in the baby parade lol. i dont think ill get it to happen!














Sawyer sporting his green and white!


oh and here is something weird i have been thinking about. sawyer has "been around" for over a year now! i was pregnant a year ago but didnt know yet for a few more weeks- it took me a while to figure it out lol! i did have my suspicions though- everyone was partying at our house a year ago after tulip time and i poured myself a big drink but never drank any..guess i knew deep down!

24 years, and 3 months old!

For comparison




















1 week






















1 month





















2 months






















3 months






Well, my birthday was fine-I worked and it was pretty busy from about 2 until I left..the day went fast and we had some pretty interesting stuff so it was not bad. I also started my first 2 IVs in 3 months- Im very proud to say that I got them both on the first try with no trouble at all :) I guess it really IS like riding a bicycle. After I started the first one I told the cute old man "ill tell you a secret, that was my first IV in three months because I just came back from maternity leave" and OH man did he think that was AWESOME! He thought it was the funniest thing and bragged to his daughter about it, and then wanted to hear all about Sawyer.
Sawyer gave me the best birthday present last night-He slept through the night again- but without the swing! He woke up at 530 but im pretty sure that if cooper hadnt been snoring SO loud that sawyer would have slept even longer! For some reason cooper decided to sleep in his dog bed last night instead of the closet and then he just wouldnt stop SNORING! Im so happy that he is now sleeping in the little "van wyk baby bed" instead of the swing so we no longer have to worry about rigging up a hammock and a motor- which is what zach said he was gonna do when i said i was afraid sawyer would bring his baby swing to college to sleep in. Now if he keeps it up for a few more nights we can move him into his crib in his very own room! He is getting better and better at sleeping- he has been starting to take better naps- not every day but its improving. He is definately better at self soothing now- a few nights ago I layed him down for bed but he woke up and was making fussy noises. I went in and gave him puppy and he gave puppy a BIG hug and then SERIOUSLY fell asleep instantly right before my eyes- it was so funny and adorable. I was in shock!
Sawyer is three months old today- it is hard to believe that it has already been three months since I had him! Time really does go so fast! He is getting SO CLOSE to giving us a big belly laugh. He laughed in his sleep again a few days ago so Im hoping it will be soon. He kinda laughs now but not a full big belly laugh. He holds his head up on his own very well, and can stand up straight in the exersaucer piano and stomp his feet very hard. I think he will be rolling over soonish too- he dosent seem to despise tummy time as much now and today I swear he was close to rolling over but he started to get cranky so I let him stop doing tummy time. He loves to talk and has so many different sounds that he can make now.

Working Girl ;)

well, i cant believe that it has been 12 weeks already, sawyer is growing up so incredibly fast! i go back to work this week- tuesday and friday this week- im kinda freaking out- he just loves to nurse so much and hates taking a bottle. It took zach a good hour yesterday to get him to take one ounce because sawyer just has no interest in eating from any of the bottles we have tried. Today he did a little better and actually ate about 2 ounces out of a bottle for me while we were in the car- it just makes me feel sad for him because he dosent like it at all. It is going to be so hard for me to be away from him- i miss him so much even when he is asleep for the night! I think that it will be good for the both of us though- Sawyer is going to get to spend time with his grandparents every week and that will be nice for him and for the gparents. And i will get some adult interaction time outside the house every week which i think will probably be good for me too- as hard as it may be. Plus work is how i have met most of the girls i know with babies/pregnant and its so fun to be able to get the kids together. I am a TINY bit excited to go back because it means that i get to see all my friends at work again, i do miss everyone a lot, even the drs and people in other departments! PLUS i did NOT got the college and work my heiny off for four years to do nothing as easy as that may seem right now i really am not going to throw away everything i worked for even if right now I feel like i want to. I already feel like i have forgotten a lot in the last twelve weeks. I think once a nurse, always a nurse- im still thinking i might be interested in ambulance crew or maybe NICU nursing SOMEDAY, right now my hours and the people i work with are too good so im not going anywhere. Im hoping sawyer will start to take a bottle well because it would be SUPER convenient if he would take a bottle in the car so we could get to the ozarks this summer without him getting crabby in the car since he has now decided he hates his carseat. Im SO excited for nice weather. I cant wait to be able to take sawyer outside to play- AND since this has been the second depressing post in a row.. here are some nice pictures of sawyer outside in the grass for the first time ever a few days ago when it was nice.















whats this mommy?


















sleepy face



















loves to snuggle mommy


































what do you think little man?

















in the stroller like a big big
















cutie

1800's bath...

it was an eventful weekend in our house. thursday sawyer was excited to get to play with his buddy megan again and on saturday he met lindsay again. he was MUCH bigger than last time he met lindsay- he was only a week old then! He has changed SO MUCH since then!






































on saturday morning we were thrilled to discover that our water heater decided to go on strike. we then got to enjoy taking "1800's baths" as zach lovingly dubbed the experince, for the rest of the weekend. this is when you have to heat water on the stove and then pour it into the tub until you have enough to bathe in- yes it was awesome. especially after zach worked out in the yard all day and got VERY dirty- he was very excited to clean off all the dirt in 2 inches of lukewarm water. Sick! You might ask- why didnt you just take a cold shower in the unheated water. Well, the water that came out of the tap was LITERALLY so cold that it made your hand hurt if you just stuck it into the running water and it would actually get warmer if you ran some into the tub and let it sit, and by warmer i mean still stinking FREEZING but not ice cold. It was SO FUN!

zach got so dirty by spending most of the day saturday saturday lining the little creekbed with stones to facilitate and beautify the flow. It looks so neat now! I think it is going to be really pretty this spring once the grass gets greener. its pretty hard to tell in the following pictures since the rocks are all dusty and everything is all brown but you can sorta see the water flowing into the little pond. its muddy from getting all stirred up by the work- but it should look neat soon once things start getting greener- it really does look pretty darn sassy compared to before- and i thought it was cute already :).
















and here sawyer and i (and cooper but he is hard to see- he is to my right) are on the bridge zach and i built last spring over the little creek. i put sawyer in his bjorn and then wore zachs coat- but he didnt enjoy having to wear his hat! he fell asleep and i got to enjoy the day outside for a while! Im excited to plant some more climbing flowers on the bridge again this year even though my morning glories last summer didnt climb or bloom until SEPTEMBER! Ill plant much earlier this year in hopes of getting some nice greenery all the way to the top of the bridge! The morning glories were BEAUTIFUL once they started to climb and flower! Im also pretty excited to see if my hydrangeas that are planted on either side of the bridge flower this year- they never got big enough last year to actually have any flowers but they did grow green leaves so maybe THIS year they will be big enough to have a few flowers! One is supposed to be pink and the other blue. They are def. still alive because they both are turning green again already, but they are still TINY, you can't even see them in this picture and they are on either side of the bridge!































Zach thought I looked funny with sawyer zipped into his coat- like i had a "potbelly" or a "funny big belly with little legs poking out" But it was nice to be able to take sawyer out without having to put him into a whole snowsuit since it was too nice for a big bulky snowsuit! He loves the bjorn so much! I was happy to see that my AMAZING, ADORABLE weeping willow tree did good thorough the winter and now has little green buds! - ok so i guess its kinda sawyer's too since we planted it when i was preggo with him last fall- but grandma and papa did pick it out with me in mind- because i LOVE weeping willow trees- i think they seem kinda whimsical i guess?? I just think they are special :) Im excited to watch sawyer and the willow grow together! Its hard to see the little green buds in this picture actually...



















And planted just to the left of the willow was THIS!




















its the daffodil plant that i bought from marcus LAST YEAR for honor society's daffodil days- i bought another this year so now this one will get a friend! I was so excited to see that it bloomed! Zach actually had to point it out to me because he planted it for me last year! What a cutie! Im also excited to see if my rose bush I got about this time last year (got it a few weeks after my birthday so probably actually 11 months ago) is still doing well! It was so pretty last summer!

Zach also put rocks around our firepit on saturday afternoon so we celebrated by having a big bonfire with bryan and linds. It was fun- love bonfires, but turned out to not be the wisest plan for zach and i- we ended up having to heat up water for ANOTHER 1800's bath because it is DISGUSTING to even consider getting into bed without showering after a bonfire...take note of that- if your water heater is broken, a bonfire isnt the best activity for you.

Sunday was easter so we took yet ANOTHER 1800's bath before church-this one wasn't so bad, we put sawyer's bathroom heather into our bathroom to warm the air more, and also got the water pretty warm. Im not saying i envy people with no heated water but it wasn't as bad as the rest. We left the house at 1030 am and went to church and then both sets of our parent's houses and didn't get back home again until 830 that night- sawyer skipped his bath that night, i did NOT feel like heating up any water for him. He actually went to bed ok without his bath first, i think he was pretty worn out. It was great to get to spend the holiday with both of our families. I really do love living with all of them so near by- and we got two amazing meals! Sawyer looked so cute in his big boy button up shirt, and even matched daddy AND grandpa but naughty mommy forgot her camera at home and by the time we got back sawyer was ready for jammies!

finally tonight Zach and grandpa erv put in a new water heater! It is much cuter than the old water heater (as you can tell i dont know much about water heaters). Brandon (from the tire shop) had to come over and help but they got it done, which is AWESOME because im not sure i ever feel like taking another 1800's bath again ever! I might go shower in the warm water just to celebrate!

Sawyer's first shopping excursion

Sawyer's first shopping trip to DM was a success! it actually went as smoothly as anyone could hope for an hour long car ride each way with an exclusively breastfed 2.5 month old. especially considering that recently sawyer has decided he hates his car seat! uncle marcus rode in back with sawyer on the way to dm because he felt to tired to drive after last night's first place track meet (and first place long jump-go uncle marcus!) that didnt end until 11! sawyer got mad about being in the car but then sucked on puppy a bit and took a few sucks on his (pumped milk) bottle and finally took a little nap until we got to dm! he rode in the baby bjorn for a quick old navy trip and picked himself out an outfit to wear to track meets, and a cute sun hat and shorts. my mom bought me an adorable brown dress as part of my birthday present and we had to get one of the sales girls to get it off the mannequin for us because it was the last small- and i wasnt convinced i could fit my new breastfeeding sized chest into an xs and there was NO way the xxl was going to work. then it was over to costco- the most important stop! sawyer was almost out of wipes AND diapers so this was a very important stop! he did great the whole time! he rode in the bjorn and looked at everything and then just drifted off to sleep until it was time to go! he is now the proud owner of 206 kirkland diapers. here is uncle marcus helping with the giant box of dipes- look at those muscles. this will last us about a month- hence the size 3 instead of 1-2. i think he wouldnt have lasted in the 1-2's another month since they only go up to 15 lbs.















as a side note until the cloth dipes i ordered to try out arrive, costco dipes = awesomeness. ive used pampers, huggies and these and i do like pampers swaddlers the best, but for the price and the giantness of the box you get costco wins- they sell huggies at costco too but seriously the kirklands dipes kick huggies butt- i will never buy huggies again! gross. the huggies wipes however i do enjoy, i havent decided between the kirkland wipes vs huggies wipes yet, they are almost the exact same price per wipe... i bought 1,704 wipes today- wow i know- it will last 2-3 months i hope. kids=adorable but not cheap! if i like using the cloth dipes (more on that in another post once they arrive) i will think about also doing cloth wipes...
here is how sawyer spent his shopping trip- all snuggled up!















and here is sawyer on the way home! he woke up and was happy for quite a while while i rode by him and we chatted- then got mad about being in his carseat, threw a fit for a few minutes and slept the rest of the way back to grandmas- he woke up once we got home, played a bit and has since been taking a giant nap! so much stimulation!
















loving puppy, and glad to be done shopping

















loves to bite puppy's face, ears and arms!
















lets go home and see daddy!
















yay! we are going home! i did good




















sawyer and the "pub mix- new LARGER size" which turned out to be a great buy at about 5 bucks for like 3 pounds of "gardettos on crack" as zach described it -because he thought it was tastier than gardettos, but with some similar elements such as those yummy brown rye chips, breadsticks and pretzels.

basically all in all sawyer did great with no public meltdowns, blowout dipes, lost socks, ect. next time we will tackle the mall- no time today! and when we got home i seriously used the last wipes in the wipe warmer- luckily we have 1,704 to refill it with!