Tulip Time and Mother's Day Fun!

Well, this past weekend was tulip time and sawyer actually seemed to enjoy his first tulip time celebration! on thursday we got dressed up and walked in the baby parade. sawyer didnt seem to mind wearing his costume at all- and he looked so cute in his little dutch hat! he was really tired though and wanted to be carried- so we each got to carry him two blocks(me, gma cathy, gma val and aunt beth), which actually worked out very well. he did great the whole time. then i stipped his sweaty costume off and he took a nice nap in the bjorn with his hat still on. tourists kept telling me how adorable he was (as if i didnt already know :) )
















we even walked around the entire "dutch market" craft show with him and he took another snooze in the bjorn. i swear that thing is like baby crack- it knocks him right out. i worked on friday and im happy to say that it wasnt crazy at all- thank goodness! actually it was one of the funnest days i have had at work! sawyer got to be in the baby parade again that day with gradma val and grandpa erv. sawyer made grandpa erv carry him and sawyer took a little nap. he is such a cuddler!














saturday my friend from college leeann and her fiance caleb came down to visit for tulip time. we took sawyer to his first parade. it was sort of hot and very bright- he didnt seem to think it was all that great.















we also went back to the dutch market so leeann could look around. zach and caleb got sunburnt- leeann, sawyer and i did not! saturday night we took sawyer to his first night parade- he was mesmerized by the floats! he loved watching them go by.



















then he got super tired since it was past his bedtime- i must be getting cruncier and less inhibited by the minute because i def. let him nurse under our giant blanket- no one even noticed :) that is something i never thought i would do! at the parade we happened to end up sitting next to chase's older brother and his family. chases neices took turns holding sawyer. ashton was sawyers age when chase died- she looks and acts so much like him! she is sooo cute- she kept asking me "hey, is that your baby?" chase would have had so much fun with her-she is a wild woman!!! we had a bonfire at our house after the parade- very fun! we stayed up until 2 am hanging out with chases other, younger brother brett. i seriously adore him!
















today i celebrated my first mother's day!! (even though last year this time i was like 3 weeks pregnant but of course had no idea yet!) being a mommy is the most wonderful thing i have ever experienced in my entire life! the love is just unbelieveable. zach, sawyer and i slept in until 10 today!! i was so tired. then we celebrated with some family at my grandmas house. we came home and the three of us fell asleep on the couch for two hours! like i said- we were so tired! we had dinner at zach's parents house tonight. for mother's day zach, sawyer and i are going to go pick out flowers for my new deck planters!! i cant wait! oh, and my laptop came on friday but no one was home to sign for it so i will get it tomorrow!!!!!!!!!! im pumped! HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL THE MOMMIES! hope everyone else had a great day too.

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!

F you Swine Flu.

Well, Zach and Sawyer (and grandpa and grandma) left for the Ozarks about an hour ago...it was harder than I thought it would be to see them drive away- harder than leaving him for the day because I knew I wouldnt see them again until sunday and I just kept thinking- get there safely because if something happens to both of you, Ive just lost everything :( Granted I have to work all weekend and wouldnt get to spend the weekend with Sawyer anyway, but still-it sucked. In a way Im glad that he will be gone all weekend though so that I dont have to worry about exposing him to swine flu- it has been decided that the ER is where everyone in the region who THINKS they have the swine flu, will go to get tested. Wow, THANKS how did we get that honor (ok, i know why they picked the ER, its because we have a negative airflow room- which is hard to explain but when you turn on the negative airflow function- which we did yesterday- it keeps the air in the room circulating in a way that airborn infection spreading is inhibited). I had to get fitted for a mask yesterday morning when I got to work- its 95% effective against swine flu and other airborn disease. We can also wear a device called a "papper" which is one of those giant hoods that goes over your head and around your neck and has a little backpack device that you wear that pumps clean air into your hood- yep like on the movie outbreak. Im anticipating that this weekend is going to suck a big one. One of those shifts at work where when you get home you strip down to your undies in the garage, throw your clothes in the washer on super hot and scrub down in the shower for a while. If we do start seeing cases in Iowa, they are going to provide us with scrubs to change into and out of at work. Right now we have isolation gowns, which are hot and suck to wear. The thing is, people are acting histerical about the swine flu but seriously, stop calling the ER- you DONT HAVE IT! NO your kid dosent have swine flu just because he has a fever, if you didn't just get back from mexico, or make out with a pig then you dont have it so stop pestering me and acting like a crazy person! Its not a pandemic yet in the US but its being made out to be one already and the media is scaring everyone more than necessary. Yes it sucks that we have no immunity to it, but if people dont get it and then get over it, we wont ever get immunity. I kid you not someone called in and asked if they had swine flu because they ate mexican food, and another person called in and when we asked if they had traveled to an area affected the response was "no but i did go to wal mart" Yes wal-mart is skeezy, but last time i checked they werent selling the swine flu....yet.

Tell me a joke, daddy!

this week has been pleasant- i have been off work since friday and have enjoyed just being home with sawyer everyday. i work tomorrow and then this weekend. zach is going to possibly attempt to take sawyer on his very first Ozarks trip this weekend while i work- should be interesting to see how zach handles sawyer without me for three days! not 100% sure on the logistics of transporting the 90ish ounces of frozen breast milk sawyer will need to be away from me that long will go... but i guess zach will figure it out. (yes i have a ridiculous amount of frozen bm..im a milk cow ok) and yes it will be terrible to be apart from them both for the whole weekend but im so tired when i work the weekends anyway AND i wont have to worry about exposing sawyer to swine flu (joking!..sorta). sawyer is ussually asleep for the night when i get home anyways. and the kid seriously adores his dad- he gives zach huge smiles when he comes home for lunch and after work. and yesterday he even gave daddy the most adorable big belly laugh! it was his first laugh- it was so cute! zach was making goofy faces at him. it was the best sound i think i have ever heard! i love it! i think now he will roll soon too- he seems so close. he has been sleeping well through the night again which is great! he also loves to read books now so we spend lots of time reading-he seems very interested in the pictures! he likes to "talk" about what i read to him.

Birthday Fun

yesterday was very fun- we went to my aunt ann's house for our joint bday party- it was aunt ann's birthday yesterday! in my family we have 5 birthdays in the same week in april, strange, i know- but mostly awesome! since friday had been my golden birthday (24 on the 24th) she had a golden birthday theme for me- with golden foods and drinks (think lemonade, cheese and crackers and organic yellow carrots!), golden silverwear, golden plates and napkins, golden flowers ect. it was awesome and i felt very special! it was much more fun than my actual birthday when i worked! sawyer was awesome all day long yesterday- he rode the whole hour there in the car without any fuss at all- which was awesome! he even took a bottle AND a nap while we were there- and then we went to babys r us, micheals and best buy and he was happy. he was fine in the car on the way home too- maybe he is over his carseat hatred now..lets hope so. zach and i looked at new laptops at best buy because zach said i could get a new one as my birthday gift!!!! yay!!! i have been using my laptop from college since our desktop decided to not recognize our web browser a few months ago....i havent figured out how to fix this yet...i need to get my pictures off of it and then reset everything and see if that works- but the deal is that zach is now going to use the desktop for midtown custom bending- his bending business and i have to transfer his files from his old shop computer to the desktop and get everything ready to go... I decided that i wanted to order my laptop online though so I could customize it the way I wanted..i got bluetooth, a tv tuner, photoshop, ect. Should be pretty sweet. I cant wait for it to come!! AND i saved over 40 bucks just by googling for a coupon- and zach made fun of me until he saw it work! Ha!
oh and sawyer is sleeping through the night again, im wondering if he was just having a growth spurt last week and that is why he was waking up at 2am wanting to eat- he is fitting in lots of his 3-6 month stuff this week so he must have grown... he is getting SO good about sleeping no though. I guess i shouldnt have obsessed over it so much because he is doing great now all on his own. He falls asleep on his own so much easier now- I can lay him in his bed after he eats and is tired and he will fall asleep- it is so awesome! Granted its not 100% of the time but's still...amazing.
When Sawyer was born cooper decided to move into our walk-in-closet to sleep, im assuming to get away from the crying- Zach lovingly dubbed the closet coopers "doggy bedroom". Now that sawyer is sleeping through the night more consistently, cooper decided that he was going to come out of doggy bedroom and sleep in his dog bed..i guess i didnt realize how much of his snoring was blocked out by him being in the closet, needless to say, dog bed now lives in doggy bedroom and we all sleep much better- coopers snoring literally woke sawyer up one night at 2am- not cool!

For my birthday I got the most adorable deck planter boxes and I can't wait to put them out and fill them up with stuff-I also have two big pots of flowers. Our deck is going to be an awesome plant oasis!! Ill put up pictures when I get everything going. I cant wait- not too much longer and then we can plant- I think after tulip time is when the last frost date is...

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.

Back to the ER

Would YOU want to leave that cute little face?!















well, yesterday was my first day back at work and it went surprisingly better than i anticipated. i think it was harder on me the day before just thinking about being apart than actually having to be apart. im not saying it didnt suck to leave sawyer and be away from him all day, cuz i did miss him like crazy- i kept looking at his newborn picture that was hanging up in the nurses station. he looked so little and new- almost sad like "whoa what just happened, where am i???" and it made me want to snuggle him so bad! I had to choke back tears on the drive to work, and turn up the radio really loud.
the day was steady but not crazy, which was perfect because it made time go by quickly but it wasnt wild- we DID have a level one (heart attack) which i was afraid would happen because its one of the most serious, fast paced things that we deal with- and i didnt really want to do one on my first day back in 3 months, but we did awesome and had the pt on his/her ;) way to dm in 15 minutes- which is extraordinary!!! that made me feel pretty good afterwords, like "ok i can do this again after all" plus its kinda an adrenaline rush which is my fav part of being in the ER. also, it was awesome to get to see everyone again- i did miss all my work buddies A LOT! it was fun to get caught up on all the er gossip again- and dr h was in a good, funny mood. it helped that i got to work with "my nurse" who trained me as an intern and then new grad nurse- she is awesome and i knew she would take good care of me on my first day back AND i got to work with G and I LOVE getting to work with her as much as possible! PLUS our boss brought me the CUTEST gerber daisys in the cutest pink pail AND she also brought us all monster cookies from the bakery because she is awesome.
And Val said that sawyer did awesome too! He drank his bottles with NO fuss at all!!!! So he didn't starve while i was gone- YAY!!! He ate about 22 ounces total, and I pumped about 22 ounces yesterday, which i thought was kinda neat and funny- I used the nice hospital pump which was awesome because its fast and just AWESOME in general, i wish I could buy a hospital pump now after using it!
Val said that he even took TWO naps, and once just drifted off to sleep while laying on a blanket watching her fold laundry- um he NEVER does that for me! And I was so worried that he would freak out the whole time but he didnt. In fact today he has taken TWO good naps for me already! Which is amazing! Zach went and saw him at lunch and then after work had dinner there before coming home and he said that sawyer was just hanging out and seemed very content. Zach gave Sawyer his bath and swaddled him and had him almost asleep by the time i got home, and then i showered the icky ER germs off quick and nursed him and he slept for the first night in the Van Wyk baby bed instead of his swing- and he did fine! He woke up at 2:45 to eat but he has been doing that all week now for some reason- then i put him back in the bed and he fussed a little, but didnt cry, aand then fell asleep own his own (with just a little patting from me) after a few minutes! It was awesome- NO SWING!!
So all in all it was a much better day that I could have imagined! It couldnt have gone better. I love that Sawyer gets to spend time with his grandparents so that he will always have a good relationship with all of them. Also I think its good for him and Zach to have some time together without me around because i do NOT want zach to be one of those dads that calls taking care of their own children "babysitting" because i find that absurd- HELLO its your own child, you arent babysitting you are parenting! Its good for zach to bathe sawyer, and get him ready for bed, feed him, play with him, ect. without having to rely on me for anything- i like that!






















My pretty "welcome back dont be sad" flowers (which i can plant in our yard which makes them even more amazing!!!!)

Seriously I work with the BEST PEOPLE EVER!!!