12 Weeks and rolling

Zach has been so much fun to watch and play with lately. His face is very expressive, he makes all kinds of noises, and he is starting to get a bit more mobile. Zach can now roll from his stomach to his back! (Baby steps right?) This video takes place yesterday, a couple minutes after he rolled for the first time. (Sorry about the VERY high pitched voice in the background :) )

Zach also kicks a lot while on his stomach and make some forward progress until his arm gets caught underneath him. We'll see how long it takes for him to figure out arm and leg coordination.

On another note, we moved Zach from the bassinet in our room to the crib in his room last Friday. We're still trying to convince him that he likes the crib.

The Secrets of BYU

I mentioned a little earlier that we're doing a blog for one of my classes, though apparently only Brad cared/commented. (Yeah Brad) So now we have our blog up and running. We're trying to make it fun and interesting, so you should take a look.
The idea behind the blog is to showcase the "Secrets of BYU." We're all going to post the things that we've found that we don't think many people know about on campus, and we'll also accept Secret submissions from anyone who feels themselves "in-the know."
As we get going we'll probably cover some semi-controversial topics like NCMO and the best places to nap on campus, and put up some polls and things.

So it will be fun, and you all should definitely check it out:
BYU Secrets

We'll Miss You Grandpa

My grandpa (mom's dad) passed away this evening. His health had been failing rapidly and we've known it could happen at any time since June. While we've had time to prepare for this, it doesn't change the fact that we'll miss such a wonderful man.

My Grandpa Eddington has always been so loving, humble, and an amazing spiritual giant. He worked at the post office most of his life and is the father of 11 kids. The Gospel and his family were his life. Even at the end those are the things he talked the most about.

I have a lot of fun memories of my grandpa:
- He was so happy to see us when we'd visit and his face would light up.
- He always made sure to bring out the tin with cookies in it and pass it around a few times.
- When I was little we'd always try to run past him without getting caught but he'd always grab us and tickle us.
- He teased his granddaughters when we were younger by calling us his boys.
- Grandpa loved the hymns and Primary songs. He'd love to have the family gather around him to sing the songs or accompany on various instruments.
- He gave me my Patriarchal blessing and many other blessings since I've been away from my dad at school.

I love my Grandpa so much and am so glad that I families are forever so I'll get to see him again. I'm glad that he got to meet Zach a few times. Here's a picture from one of those visits:

July 2008

Haircut

Hair on Sunday morning (if it looks like I just rolled out of bed that's probably because I did...Zach wasn't quite really up yet):


Hair on Wednesday evening:

Zach's First Trip to GJ

This last weekend Derrick, Zach, and I were in Grand Junction, CO so Derrick's brother Tyson could meet Zach. Here's the quick run down:

Friday: Arrived in Grand Junction after driving for 3 1/2 hours and taking at least half an hour break to feed and change Zach. This was his first trip out of Utah and he did pretty well until we were half an hour from GJ. We mostly just hung out and saw the bedrooms that have been remodeled since we were last there.

Saturday: After sleeping in, Zach and I went shopping at Kohl's with Mom Bowen while Derrick worked on applying for next year's summer internships (early deadline). Mom Bowen was very generous and bought some really cute winter clothes for Zach and shirts for both of us for Meesa and Andrew's wedding this October (Meesa is Derrick's older sister). Thanks again for everything!

Later we went to the At&t store for way too long and all got new phones. Until this weekend I'd been on my family's plan but am now on the Bowen family plan. Derrick's been having way to much fun with his new iPhone 3G. I just got a regular phone because they're a lot cheaper but at least it's got florescent green on it and it slides open and shut. (Both are pictured below) The rest of the day was taken up playing with our new phones and of course with Zach.

Zach also had his first bath in a sink. Usually we use a baby bath tub. Zach looks pretty bewildered by the whole experience.

Sunday: Early in the morning Christa brought Ryan, our 15-month-old nephew, over. The cousins have now met. Zach wanted to sleep the whole time and Ryan mostly wanted to poke Zach when he wasn't ignoring him. I see a good friendship in the making :). Later, Mom and Dad Bowen had the chance to show Zach off at church. After a quick lunch we headed back to Provo.

Here's a picture of the cousins with Tyson and me:

Successful "Surgical Procedure"

Thanks to all of you who expressed concern for Zach. He had the little surgical procedure at 10:30 am Friday morning (9/5). Including the time it took to numb the area, the whole thing took 5 minutes tops. Zach was as mad about the numbing process - two long Q-tip things with gross tasting stuff were held under his tongue for 20 seconds - as with the cutting process.

We went to a really nice ENT named Dr. Gibbs. (His name reminded me of Pirates of the Caribbean). They had me hold Zach on my lap and hold him so he was facing away from me. This thankfully spared me from having to see the graphic details. It still broke me heart to hear him start crying harder when the cutting happened but that part took maybe 10 seconds.

Luckily the lingual frenulum (illustrated below):
is just a tiny piece of tissue that doesn't have much if anything as far as nerves and blood vessels go. It only bled a tiny bit and by the time I got a chance to look under Zach's tongue it didn't look like anything had been cut. The area may have been just a little red for a day. We also didn't need to do anything special to take care of the area.

Good news on the eating front. Zach was able to latch on right after the surgery even better than before. Apparently we were really lucky that he could latch on at all to begin with since most tongue-tied babies aren't successful with it. Zach loves to eat and has always been a natural at it. Now that he can latch on better we don't hear quite as many funny grunting sounds while he's eating.

Zach recovered pretty quickly and stopped crying after a few minutes. He slept for awhile after we got home. I'm glad we got it taken care of when we did since it's a bigger procedure once you're older. I'm also so glad Zach did and is doing as well as he is. It was nice there was so little to worry about after all. (Sorry no exciting pictures from the process).

Life can be hard for a 2 month old

Zach had his 2 month check-up on Sept. 2 (Labor Day was the exact 2 month mark). He has grown so much in the last few weeks. This is seen in the chubby cheeks and numerous rolls.

The measurements are as follows:

At 2 weeks:
Weight - 7.9 lbs (28%)
Height - 20.5 in (45%)
Head Circ. - 15 in (71%)

At 2 months:
Weight - 13.6 lbs (89%)
Height - 23.5 in (72%)
Head Circ. - 16.7 in (96%)

Obviously Zach loves his food. We've started this week working on extending the feedings from every 2 hours to every 3 hours.

Now for the hard parts:

#1 - Surgical Procedure. The pediatrician noticed that Zach is tongue-tied. The piece of tissue (lingual frenulum) that attaches the tongue to the bottom of the mouth extends all the way to the tip of his tongue. We'd never noticed before that Zach can't stick his tongue out past his gum line. This would cause speech problems later so it needs to be cut. Jason, my twin, had the same surgical procedure down years ago. Sadly for Zach this unpleasant experience will be happening tomorrow morning (Friday). I'm freaking out at the idea of needing to be there without Derrick (he has a class he can't miss at the time). I know I'll have a hard time with the blood and Zach being understandably upset. Hopefully it won't have too much effect on Zach's ability to latch on while he's healing and getting used to a floppy tongue. It sounds like it's a simple procedure so hopefully I'm worried about nothing.

#2 - Immunizations. Yesterday I took Zach to get his immuniztions. He received a total of 3 shots in his thighs. I gave him Tylenal beforehand and he did pretty good. He cried right while receiving them and fell asleep in my arms within a couple of minutes. The nurse thought his cry was really cute because he's got a deep voice for a baby. I could sympathize with Zach getting his shots since I also had to get a Tetanus booster yesterday because of a lovely ankle injury I got when I gracefully fell off a sidewalk curb on Sunday.

Here we are showing off our bandaids. Zach's bandaids are red and blue and can be seen at the edge of his shorts.


It's been hard on me seeing Zach go through these painful processes even though they are for his own good. It's gotten me thinking about how it is for Heavenly Father when we have to go through hard things. Zach doesn't understand yet why it's good for him to get poked (or have his little procedure tomorrow) and we often don't understand why we have to go through hard things. It's gotta be hard on the Lord to watch us as we cry in pain for Him to end hard times but He does all things for our own good. Being a parent is tough at times!

Hiking the Rock Canyon Trail

So we recently went on a few hikes on the Rock Canyon trail. The first time it was just the 3 of us and for the 2nd time Melissa and Nate joined us. We kept leaving too close to dark to make a while lot of progress but we had a lot of fun anyways. Zach as yet to stay awake for very long while being carried in the backpack. I guess the rocking motion is just too much for him.

At the beginning of the hike. Zach looks pretty unsure about this.

Our at a family picture attempt a few minutes later in the dark and wind.

Derrick with the lovely rock scenery.The trail wasn't named Rock Canyon for nothing.

Derrick really likes to take artistic pictures with his camera. This made the walk back take awhile longer. This is a picture of trees at the end of a beautiful sunset.

Two Months Old!

It's crazy that 2 months have already gone by since Zach joined us. He's such a fun little boy and it's so much fun watching as he learns new things. He's learned how to smile (I started taking the above picture when he was smiling but this expression was in response to the flash), he makes a lot of new cooing sounds (makes the one-sided conversations a bit more exciting), and he can now hold and shake a rattle if we put it in his hand. We're still working on getting him to sleep longer at night. Right now he'll sleep for 3-5 hours before the first feeding and then 2-3 hours every time after that.

Here are a few pictures taken in the last week or two:

If you could blog about anything ...

That's sort of an ironic question to me because technically you could blog about anything. I guess that is exactly the point. For my marketing class as a semester group project we are to create a blog and see how many readers we can get. Personally, I read the blogs that have the content I am interested in, have quippy writing styles, and don't bother me with a whole bunch of extra crap.

I imagine other people feel similarly, but I could always use an informal research poll.
What sort of a blog would you be interested in reading? What attracts you to a blog? What are your blog pet peeves?

I now open the discussion to your rantings.