Playing in the Rain

We had a wonderful day on Saturday and loved being outside. Sadly I forgot my camera. Sunday we woke up to torrential down pour and had to take advantage of it. Chloe had a blast running around in the rain. It didn't last long, but we got lots of fun pictures, and mode lots of memories. 

We Moved......AGAIN!

Zach finally finished the training program with Ferguson! Which meant that we were packing up and moving somewhere else! This time I was even less excited than I was to move to Denver. We moved two states away to Iowa. Cedar Rapids to be specific. Cedar Rapids is the second largest city in Iowa. That isn't actually saying much seeing as how the actual city's population is 150,000. But we did it, we move to a small city in really the middle of nowhere.

We are working on our second month here, and I can finally say I am starting to like it. When we first moved here I hated it. When we moved we didn't have a home yet, so we were living in a Residence Inn. It was amazing for a hotel. They cooked for us, cleaned (when we let them), and they loved the kids. But it was -15 outside and Bentsen hated the pool. So our little hotel apartment got small real quick.

{the hotel in the summer}

Cedar Rapids has two small malls  one small mall, and a mall in the process of being torn down. The shopping is better than when we lived in Logan though. We have two, yes two, TARGETS!!! They are also opening a HomeGoods and a Hobby Lobby this fall, across from the small mall. Thank goodness we are only 20-30 minutes away from a cute little town, Coralville. They have a huge mall, Children's Museum, lots of shopping and food. 

The weather in Iowa is a little strange. It gets super cold and dry in the winter with lots of snow. In the summer though its hot and humid. Since I spent most of my summers in Houston growing up. I am no stranger to hot and humid. But this is the mid-west. I thought things were a little more mild here. (at least when it comes to summer heat). I keep asking people if it is comparable to southern summers, and they kindly tell me know, and that I will get use to the humidity. FINGERS CROSSED. We are officially in TORNADO season (Denver got tornado's too) and I am starting to panic. We don't have any 72 Hour kits yet, and I think I mention them to Zach 2-3 times a day! Again I have been asking everyone and again they seem to tell me that they are very very uncommon here in Cedar Rapids. Some even telling me they can't even remember when the last one was. You would think that would lessen my fears a tad. WRONG......They test the city warning system the first Wednesday of every month, and when they test my fears are brought right back to the topic of conversation. 

So far Cedar Rapids is growing on me. I have this feeling that when it comes time for another transfer, I won't want to leave. 

Growing up!!

 4 Month check up:

Height: 26.5 inches  95% 

Weight 15.14 ounces 50%

Growing up so big and strong. I love my little man 

2 Year check up:

Height: 34.5 inches 75%

Weight: 23.5 pounds 5%

She may be small but she is happy and super energetic and I wouldn't have it any other way

Pyloric Stenosis

HUH??? I think that is what I thought the first time I heard Pyloric Stenosis. When Bentsen was 3 weeks old we made of first trip to the doctor. My sweet little boy had started having a hard time keeping anything down. He was always so sad, and was throwing up way more than a normal "spitter"
At first we thought it could just be a case of acid reflux, so we put Bentsen on Zantac, and an added rice cereal. It really didn't help much but we were still in transit. We were trying lots of different formulas trying to figure out a way to make it work. But nothing was help my sweet little man feel better. We finally made it to Denver and it was only our second day here and we had already made an appointment with a new pediatrician. We switched Bentsen from Zantac, to Prevacid. It worked for a week. and then it just stopped. We went back to the doctor, but he was still gaining weight. The doctors weren't supper worried, but we were still wanting to figure out what was wrong. They upped his dose of Prevacid and had me add a tsp. of rice cereal to his bottles. That's when it happened. Bentsen was throwing up everything he was eating. I took him to the doctor bright and early Monday July 1. He had lost a whole pound in 3 days. Our doctor sent us to The Children's Hospital of Colorado. They did some ultrasounds and they weren't able to see what they really wanted to see. They had us admitted to the emergency department of the hospital. By the time we were admitted it was 2 in the afternoon. Poor Bentsen hadn't had anything to eat since 8:30 that morning. He wasn't happy and Chloe was getting upset that she was stuck in the stroller all day. We had an amazing nurse in the ED, and they helped with Chloe so much. They finally decided to admit us to the hospital for more testing and to hopefully figure out what was wrong with my little boy! They told us that Bentsen couldn't eat anything. So we had a stressful night trying to keep Bentsen calm and as happy as we could. The next morning bright and early we had another ultra sound and they finally saw what they needed to see. Bentsen has Pyloric Stenosis. By this time I knew what those medical words meant for my little boy, but for those of you who don't I'll explain. Pyloric Stenosis is when the muscle between the stomach and the intestines spasms and doesn't allow anything to pass through. This is something that is usually caught very quickly, because its hard to miss. Babies projectile vomit everything they eat, can't gain weight and rapidly loose weight. It can be very dangerous because babies are growing so fast. The brain needs all the food it can get. But with Bentsen, he was projectile vomiting, but he wasn't loosing weight, he was actually gaining weight. all be it slowly he was gaining weight. It wasn't until that weekend right before the first of July that he lost any weight.

Now that we had an answer, we knew that Bentsen was going to have surgery that afternoon. My heart was pounding,  and I wasn't sure what to think. Part of me was so happy that we finally had an answer and it was something we could fix. But at the same time, my 8 week old baby was going to have surgery and I couldn't do anything about it.

We were able to take him to the surgical center, but we had to hand him off before he went into the operating room. That was a hard moment. We had Chloe with us, so I didn't want to scare her, so I held all my tears in. and left my little sweet baby in the arms of a caring nurse.

The surgery took only an hour and he recovered rather quickly, by the next afternoon he was home! I am so thankful that the day we took Bentsen home, my dad and Leslie were arriving. It was nice to have company to take our mind of the craziness that had just happened. We were in good hands with Leslie being a nurse she was able to set my mind at ease if anything did happen. I don't know what we would have done with out them there!

The surgery was a simple surgery and they were hoping for amazing results. He has just grown and grown and become such a different baby!! I am so grateful for the amazing doctors and nurses that were able to help us figure out what was wrong with our sweet man!!

 waiting in the emergency department

 the morning of the surgery

 waiting for bentsen to be out of surgery

chloe didn't know what was going on, just a happy girl making silly faces

 all done with surgery, just really sleepy

 the black thing on his arm is where his IV is, they put that on so he won't mess it it

Bentsen's First Photo Shoot

The amazing Mckenzie Deakins at Photograpybymckenzie.com was so sweet to take our pictures!! 

 It took awhile for Chloe to warm up to the camera

 Fish Face

 Just leave me alone and let me eat this yummy sucker

Mckenzie lovely little joined us in some of the pictures! 

The most stressful moments in life...

Bentsen was born on May 6th, and we were so lucky to be able to bless him before we moved to Denver. Zach was able to bless Bentsen on Father's day 2013 

 We forgot to get a picture taken in our Sunday Clothes.

Baby Boy Bentsen's Birth Story

Our Little boy made his entrance into this amazing world on May 6 2013 at 12:35 in the afternoon. 

The crazy weekend had ended, Zach had graduated, and had a day doing his military drills, and Chloe and I had our last day together as just the two of us. We had scheduled my induction for the morning of Monday May 6, My Dr. told me to call the hospital in the morning around 6 to find out what time they would need us to come in and start the whole process. Well I had been having irregular contractions all night. Zach and I decided not to worry about anything seeing as how we would be going to the hospital in the morning anyways. We made plans with our wonderful neighbors to watch Chloe all day on Monday so Zach could be at the hospital with me.

At around 4:00 am, I was woken up by a crazy sensation, well to be honest I had a dream that I had wet the bed, and all of a sudden I felt a little damp. I woke up and knew right away that my water had broke. I woke Zach up and told him it was time. I showered and texted our neighbor to see if she happened to be awake. Well she wasn't but she heard my text and told me to just bring Chloe over anyways. She just put Chloe back to bed and no one was the wiser. We arrived at the hospital a little after 5 and they admitted us right away.

They had me in my bed and an IV in my arm right away. They did have to wait until they heard from my Dr. until they could start the pitocin though. The whole process wasn't horrible and happened rather quickly. They got my pit drip started and soon after I started feeling the contractions. Which by the way are a quite painful and grow more painful faster with the pit drip than I had expected. (If you know Chloe's birth story at all you know I never had to feel a contraction.) I finally was given the epidural and things were a little better. This time though my epidural made my whole body feel like, when your foot starts waking up from being asleep. I wasn't the biggest fan, and I kept sliding down on my bed, and couldn't help move myself back up. But if I had to deal with that to not feel the pain I could deal.

I would say around 11-11:30 I felt a lot of pressure and felt a small need to push. The came in to check me and I was only between a 6 and 7. Well around 12 I felt even more pressure and had them come in and check me again. This time I was a 10 and ready to have this baby!! Bentsen came in three contractions and was a health 8.9 pound baby, 21 inches long and so happy!!


I couldn't be more happy with my little family of 4. Just so perfect!! Chloe loves her little brother so much. She is nothing but sweet and helpful with him.