Cute Candids

Here's the little tough guy showing off his new undershirt.

Sleeping so peacefully...

The Many Faces of Sam

Ryan and I love this smile best. It's his crooked smile--usually just the left side of his mouth smiles, and it's so cute.

You know every colicky baby there is a different solution, and almost anything and everything has been suggested to us from garlic oil to hot water bottles to long rides in the car. There are three things that we have found that seem to be helping Sam--and it only took us 8 weeks to figure it out!! 1. Gripe Water, an herbal remedy to help soothe the stomach. 2. Changing his feeding schedule from eating at 4, 7, & 10pm to 5, 8, & 11pm. and 3. Running water! Yep, if he's really worked up I just go start a load of laundry or turn on the shower. 75% of the time he calms down right away! Weird, but you get to the point that it doesn't matter--you'd juggle vicious man-eating piranhas with your bare hands if the crying would only stop!! Thankfully God has been showing us that there is light at the end of the colicky tunnel and is easing some of Sam's discomfort.

Well, gotta go. We are having the seniors from the youth group over to our house for pizza for lunch today, and I have "a few" things to do to get everything ready! Also, Ryan has his first youth activity tonight that he is in charge of and giving the devotional for. Please keep it in your prayers if you would. We are hoping some new kids from the community would come. Have a Great Weekend!

My Two Favorite Bookworms!

We have been really glad to see Alex get his love for books back. He loves to flip through the pages and find things he knows the sign for. He also is getting batter about sitting somewhat stll while we read to him. I was even thinking about trying him on some of the paper pages books I have--until I saw what he did to one in the church nursery! Yeah, um, we'll just wait a bit longer for those!!

Video Clips

Here are a couple of video clips of the boys' latest antics. Mostly some cuteness I know the grandparents will enjoy seeing! The first one is Alex getting excited about his oreos--one of his FAVES!! The other is some of Sam's squirming and smiling. I'm not the best videographer, and my commentary is usually pretty lame, but the kids are cute!!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

7 Weeks Old

People are always asking me if my boys look alike...well, see what you think!

Alex at 7 weeks old...

Sam at 7 weeks old...

Think Spring!??

When you look at this pic of our new church taken just 3 days ago you might begin to wonder if spring will ever come! Well, thankfully out here in the west the sun shines all the time and all that snow is already melted away. So, as we welcome the first day of spring we are enjoying some gorgeous sunshine and hope to take a walk this afternoon since it is supposed to reach 60 degrees!!

Well, God is good and despite some of Sam's issues with allergies and congestion he is growing like a weed. By my scales here at home he is 12.5 pounds. He changes every day and is "talking"more and more. He's still colicy in the evening, but we are hopful that as he will be 7 weeks old tomorrow we might be half way through with that!

Alex loves our big livingroom window! He likes to watch the cars drive past and to wave bye-bye to daddy as he walks past to go to work. I hope to get him a bird feeder to put outside so he can watch the birds this summer!

Hello From Nebraska!

Well, here we are in front of our new house in Norfolk, NE. We are using the church parsonage which is right next to the church and it is so nice to be able to walk to and from church/work for Ryan. We have been doing tons and tons of unpacking, organizing, painting and decorating and already the house feels like home to us! We are really thankful to have this house to be able to use as we get settled here. I will try to post some pics soon of the inside of the house. Ryan is enjoying jumping right in to the ministry here. He has already traveled with the students at the school to the Nebraska Association of Christian Schools Bible Quizzing and Fine Arts Competition overnight and will be preaching all day this Sunday as Pastor Hess is out of town. He is keeping busy setting up his office as well. I will say it is still strange for me to hear folks call him Pastor Ryan! The people at the church are so sweet, bringing us meals and housewarming gifts. I can't believe we have been here two weeks already! It has been so tiring, but God is good and is giving us the energy we need to get the necessary things done.
Alex is finally paying more attention to Sam--both a good and bad thing. Good because it shows he is coming to grips with reality! Bad because he now wants to give Sam "kisses" all the time. The problem with this is to Alex "giving a kiss" means to stick your forhead out to be kissed. This means that when he "gives a kiss" to poor Sam they just end up bonking heads. We are trying to put a stop to this and encouraging him to kiss Sam's arm, toes, hand, whatever, just not his poor little head!!
This is Sam's new smile! As many of you know we have been struggling with the poor babe, trying to get to the bottom of the severe congestion problem he has been dealing with, on top of the colic. Well, we have switched him to a hypoallergenic formula and started him on some gripe water and things have gotten a lot better. We still have a bad night of walking the floors and crying here and there, but things are much better than they were. And the best part is that we have been able to see the happy side of our baby! We have seen some smiles and enjoyed watching him breathe a little easier!
This is Alex's cheesey grin! He is really enjoying our little trips over to the church and especially the gym. He loves how his voice echoes in the gym and he will just run, run, run while he is yelling out gibber-jabbers and laughing! I gave him a haircut today and he looks so grown! He sure is a fun handful!