Jen's Birthday

A quick shout out to Jen on her birthday. She's way fun to be with, chillaxs with a couple of my boys pretty often, and is at least 18 today. We're coming up on 3 years of awesomeness and having lots of fun together.

iPhone App Competition

Family and Friends! Put it on your calendar- April 13th (Tuesday) at 6pm in W408 of the Tanner Building on campus- come to the iPhone Development competition and vote for our app Tipping Bucket! Bring all your friends and come support us!

Wahoo!

About a year ago Zach tested positive for being allergic to wheat, dairy, eggs, and peanuts. I took Zach to the allergist this morning to have him retested and we got some great news! Zach has completely outgrown is dairy allergy. Oh the possibilities this opens up! We don't have to buy expensive almond milk anymore! I'll have to make him some homemade Mac N Cheese with his quinoa noodles tonight to celebrate...and maybe give him some ice cream :).

Another piece of good news we got is that Zach is now only mildly allergic to wheat rather than very allergic to it! His reaction to the skin prick was so much smaller this time around. The doctor is thinking that we can get Zach retested in a year and he'll probably have outgrown that allergy by then! I can't wait to be able to give my little boy some bread.

Zach is still very allergic to eggs and peanuts but those are so much easier to work around and/or avoid. The peanut one is bad enough that we need to keep his epi pen handy. We're so grateful for the progress he's made. This is definitely an answer to prayers.

Now for a couple of random pictures. I love the crazy static hair in the first one.

Good News

Zach is now doing so much better. It looks like the diet the doctor told us to give him helped do the trick. You know you're a mom if you get excited to see solid poop? Thanks to everyone who prayed for him!

Poor Zachary

Poor Zach has been sick for 3 weeks now. His symptoms have included: puking, diarrhea, difficulty sleeping, loss of appetite, and sometimes grouchiness. With it all he really has been a really good sport and has been his happy, crazy self most of the time.

My symptoms have included: Lack of sleep, overexposure to toddler bodily fluids (and the smells that come with them), painfully dry hands (from so much cleaning and laundry), and lots of worry. Being 2nd trimester prego doesn't make things easier.

It's really hard to be the mom when your little one is so sick. It's hard to see them so miserable and not know how to make it better. It's hard to see Zach get skinny when you're doing your best to feed him foods his body can handle. Zach used to be an amazing eater but has recently become extremely picky and scared to even try most things we offer him.

We've taken Zach to the doctor twice now and ruled out several possibilities.

• It's not contagious - it's a great blessing to still go play outside when he feels up to it
• Though he's gotten pretty skinny, he hasn't lost enough weight to worry the doctor
• It's not a bacteria infection, ear infection, or pneumonia
• It's probably not a food allergy - His diet is already restricted enough with his being allergic to wheat, dairy, eggs, and peanuts.

Right now, the doctor thinks that Zach had a viral infection in his intestines. These can last 1 to 2 weeks and leave enough damage that the body can take up to a month to fully heal. Zach hasn't puked since last Wednesday and this goes well with the current theory. He gave us a special diet to try to help Zach's intestines have a chance to heal. If Zach isn't better by Thursday we call back and the doctor will do further testing. We're really praying this diet works and would appreciate any additional prayers for Zach.

Derrick has been wonderful through all of this. He gets up with Zach and me in the middle of the night so one of us can clean and comfort Zach while the other cleans up the rest of the mess. He helps with dinner and gives me chances to get more sleep when he's got to be exhausted too. He's also been a shoulder to cry on. Derrick does all this while in the last semester of his master's program, working part time, and serving as the ward executive secretary. He's a wonderful husband. My sister Melissa has also been an amazing help through all of this as well.

iPhone App Competition

I wanted to let you know about a good cause and ask for your help.

I'm on a team in the BYU/Omniture iPhone App competition, and I wanted to share the app we created with you. The easy link is: http://bit.ly/tb_app

We decided to help out a charity (http://TippingBucket.org) with our app. They host a project on their front page for a limited amount of time, and the project sets a goal for money they want to raise during that time. If they meet their goal, the bucket tips and the contributors are charged. If the bucket doesn't tip, no one is charged. 100% of contributions go to the project. Our app makes it easy to check the status of the bucket and to make contributions. Check back daily to see how the bucket is going.

A lot of teams chose to make simple games, or other mindless entries. Help us show that supporting a good cause is a good approach for these competitions. Please share the app with others you know with iPhones or iPod Touches.

I'll be keeping everyone updated on the competition as it goes along. The analytics tracking period lasts about 3 weeks. (Starting today)

Zach's Got Something to Tell You

Looks like Zach will be getting a little partner in crime. Here's the proof :).


We had our 20 week ultrasound today and are so excited to find out that we're having a little boy. This little guy was curled into a cute ball. Everything is looking good and his heartbeat is very strong. After measuring him, the ultrasound technician said my due date may be moved from July 29 to July 20. That'd mean I'm 21 1/2 weeks prego rather than 20! We'll find out for sure at my next appointment. I'll post a belly picture once I get around to taking one :). Until then, here are some more pictures of Zach. With this kid running around how could we not be incredibly excited to have another little boy?

Love the bed head look

Reading with Derrick

This kid loves to draw

What?! He's actually kinda smiling at the camera?

Goofing around during dinner

Little Helper

Meesa and Andrew, Derrick's sister and brother-in-law, came into town last week and took us out to dinner. Zach doesn't do well stuck in a booster chair for long periods of time so I brought some of his toys to entertain him. Not surprisingly, he got them pretty dirty. Instead of washing the toys myself I decided to get Zach involved and have him help me. I cleaned the sinks and counters really well (so I wouldn't cringe at the thought of Zach touching them) and then set everything up. Zach was so excited to help me and had a blast. We spent a good hour of the morning giving his animals a "bath". Maybe I'll get him to help me clean more of his toys? Here are some pictures of the adventure. No matter what I try I can't get him to look at the camera anymore.

Baby Shoe Tutorial

I received some requests to write a tutorial for the baby shoes I make so here it is. As I said in my last craft post, I used this pattern to make the shoes and only made a couple adjustments. I've never taken a sewing class or really been taught to sew more than straight lines so I made up some of this as I went along. As another side not, because of Zach I can only make things at night so please excuse the bad lighting on the photos :).

1.) Using the pattern in the link above (this website: http://goosiegirls.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/baby-shoe-tutorial/) cut out 4 of each piece - 2 from fabric and 2 from felt. Make sure you have pieces cut so that you'll have a left and a right shoe.


2.) Iron all the pieces of fabric.

Assembling the pieces

3.) Using an iron fold in the rough edges.


4.) Sew the strap onto a piece of felt.


5.) Cut off the excess felt and set aside. Repeat steps 3-5 for the 2nd strap.


6.) Place 2 corresponding sole pieces together with right sides facing out and sew. Repeat for 2nd sole.


7.) Place 2 corresponding side pieces together; wrong sides out. Sew leaving 1 unfinished edge so you can turn the piece right-side out. Repeat with 2nd side piece.


8.) Turn side pieces right-side out and iron.


9.) Sew around the inside of the curve, keeping close to the edge. Repeat.


Putting the pieces together

10.) I'm not sure the best way to explain this next part so hopefully the picture makes sense. I lined the pieces up as shown below so I wouldn't need to unpick part of the shoe and resew it to add the strap. Make sure you don't sew the strap down when you're going around the other side.
Due to the shape of the pieces I found that it was easier to position the pieces as I sewed rather than pinning it all in place ahead of time. The ends should overlap a little bit. There have been a few times when the side piece ended up being a little short to line up with the start. To fix this I would attach the side further in from the edge of the heel of the sole rather than lining up the 2 pieces.


11.) Turn the shoe right-side out. Because I didn't want the strap flapping around I attach it to the top of the shoe. See picture below.


12.) To make the strap into a buckle I hand-sewed on a hook and eye. Velcro also works.


13.) Embellish as you like and you've got a finished pair of baby shoes.


Here are a few other shoes I previously posted in case you would like a few more ideas for embellishments.

Watched Over

Sorry it's been so many weeks since a post. Hopefully a good update will be coming soon.

Something happened this last week that made me so grateful for good people. My little brother Garrett is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in North Carolina. For anyone in the area who might be interested, he's still in his first area, Shelby.

Now for the story. Due to some changes in the email system, there have been some bugs and we found out a couple of days ago that Garrett hasn't been getting any of our emails for the last 3 weeks. For missionaries, getting mail is pretty important so this was a big bummer for him.

On Tuesday, the wife of the stake president where Garrett is serving contacted my mom to let her know what was happening and to see about helping Garrett get some mail. My mom resent old emails to the stake president's wife and some of us wrote additional ones. On Wednesday she emailed my mom a really nice email to let her know that she printed off all the emails that morning and took them over to Garrett so he could read them during lunch. It sounded like this caused Garrett's face to light up and really made his day. She went on to talk about what a good missionary he is and that her son will be going teaching with the missionaries relatively often so they'll get to know each other well. She also said that she'll let us know if he has further problems getting our emails so he doesn't have to go so long without hearing from family. I'm so grateful to know that someone is watching out for my brother while he's so far away. So here's a shout out to good people!

Lots of Crafts (and a Tutorial for Ali)

For the last while I've really gotten into looking through different craft blogs for crafty ideas. I'll put ideas I want to try into different folders. I'll never get around to trying most of them but it's handy to have when I'm looking for a decorating or gift idea. With Christmas and baby showers happening over the last two months, I've had the excuse to try out new craft ideas.

This first one isn't new since I've been appliqueing for awhile now. It is the first time that I've appliqued anything for Zach though. We used this shirt to announce to our family that I'm pregnant. With my family we had Zach where it when they'd visit and when we talked to my parents on Skype and just wait for them to notice it. With Derrick's family we wrapped it up as one of Zach's presents and put it on him during the chaos of opening presents.


The project cost me $0 since I used fabric scraps I had and I got the shirt for free from a Gifts of the Heart Exchange. It's a bit stretched out for Zach but you can't beat free.


For parents/grandparents, I tried digital scrapbooking for the first time. I created the pages using a blog we found where the creator, Summer Driggs, offers tons of free digital scrapbooking kits she created. You can find the blog here. After putting the pages together we got them printed in calendar form. The pictures are different depending on which side of the family the specific calendar was for. Here are a few sample pages.

March

May

June

September

Since I have a boy and most of my friends had boys over the last while, I haven't had much opportunity to make cute girl things. Two of my sister-in-laws will be having girls during the first part of the year and I decided to try making shoes (some with matching onesies) and a flower hat.

I based the shoes on this free pattern I found online for making baby shoes. If there's enough interest I could make a tutorial since I made several changes.







Here's the hat I came up with for Jason and Cassie's baby Emilee. I made up the hat without using a pattern and made the flower using this tutorial. The pattern only shows how to make a 2-layer flower and I made up the bigger white layer.



I posted this picture back in October but my friend Ali asked how I made it (sorry it's taken me so long).


I didn't take pictures while making it but here's the basics of what I did:

I got the idea from the following picture on this website.


Supplies:
- Flower pot or some other container
- Wooden dowels
- Floral foam
- Receiving blankets, burp cloths, or wash cloths
- Clear plastic wrap
- Hot glue gun
- String
- Tape
- Paper: Scrapbook or plain
- Ribbon

Instructions: (I don't remember exactly how I did it but here's the general idea).

To create the flowers:
- Fold a blanket hot dog style (for lack of a better term) a few times to get the desired width. Roll into the spiral shape.
- Secure spiral shape by tying a piece of thin yarn around it. I used white so it wouldn't be as visible.
- Place a dowel on the back middle of the "flower" and secure with tape. I used box tape.
- Cut a piece of clear plastic wrap big enough to cover the "flower" with a couple of inches left over. Cover the "flower" and secure with a ribbon. I used a little bit of yarn underneath the ribbon to make the tie more secure.
- Repeat the above instructions to make desired number of "flowers".

To put into the pot or other container:
- Cut a piece of floral foam so it fits snugly into the container. You can fill in any gaps with extra floral foam.
- Poke the dowels into the floral foam. Vary the depth for more visual interest.
- Since the dowels kept wanting to twist on me I secured them in place using a generous amount of hot glue.
- Cut up strips of paper and use scissors to curl it (like with ribbon). The paper will cover the ugly floral foam. Too speed things up I shredded a good amount of paper in a paper shredder and mixed the prettier curled paper with it.

*There's probably a better way to do this but all I had to work with was a picture :). Good luck!

Zach Update - 18 Months

On January 1st Zachary turned 18 months old. Most of his baby fat rolls have gone and he looks like a little boy rather than my baby. This month's stats are: weight: 26 lbs, height: 34.7 in, and head: 49 cm. He's in the 90's percentile for height and head size and the 50's percentile for weight. Looks like he'll be tall and skinny with a big head like his parents.

With turning 18 months we finally got to take Zach to nursery and leave him there (Zach couldn't handle sitting through Priesthood with Derrick so we'd been taking him to nursery for a couple of months and Derrick would just stay with him). Since Zach had been going to nursery for awhile we figured he'd transition really well. Who wouldn't want to go play with tons of toys and kids their age? Zach surprised us and decided to start being really clingy as of December. We're still waiting for a Sunday where Zach doesn't cry the whole time and end up back with one of us. If anyone has any advice for helping Zach transition, we'd love to hear.

I realized that pretty much every picture on here shows a happy Zach. He's happy most of the time but this is more the face his poor nursery teachers get to see. (He was very upset that he couldn't get out the tennis ball he'd wedged into the cup. Problem solved once the ball got killed by a pair of scissors.)


Zach's gone through so many changes within the last few months. One that's been so fun for him (and us) is that he's gotten a lot better at communicating. Over Christmas break he got a renewed interest in his signing movies and watches them like he's studying them. They'll do a sign and then he'll show it to me while trying to say the word. After I repeat it and tell him how good he did he gets so excited. He can say so many words now, do many signs, and we pretty much always know what he wants. We can ask him to bring us things that he's holding and he'll usually obey. This is great so we don't have to chase him down if he's doing something like trying to pull the batteries out of the remote control. Being able to explain to Zach that we need to change his diaper or put his shoes and coat on to get in the car has led to him being so much more cooperative.

Zach being more clingy has been a little helpful with this pregnancy. I've had a lot of abdominal pain to go with the nausea so it's been nice to have Zach just sit and cuddle with me more often and read books or watch his movies. (He would never do this for the first 17 months of his life unless he'd just woken up.)


Another change with Zach is that he's gotten really into lining things up rather than just destroying any sense of order. He got a farm for Christmas and is always moving the animals from one place to another. Every time he moves them he sets them down so carefully and has to make sure they're all standing up. Zach often likes to show us each animal while making its sound.


At my mom's request, here is a video showing Zach arranging the animals. Just to warn you, the sound on this computer has been weird so I haven't had a chance to listen to it and make sure I didn't say anything too weird while taping.


Zach's also moved to lining up his bath toys.


Zach is such a pleasure to have in our home. He's still wild and crazy most of the time but has started having a few mellower moments. Zach is such a happy kid and gets so excited at the smallest things. He's keeps Derrick and I laughing all the time. His favorite things right now are juice (giving him juice seriously makes his day and once he gets it he runs around saying "juice" over and over), baths, brushing his teeth (kinda random), playing outside regardless of temperature, his farm animals, Blue's Clues, running around with our laundry hamper on his head, and playing ring around the rosie.

Here are a few more pictures of Zach:

First and only tower we've built together. Zach broke it a minute later. Building with legos is still a little beyond him.

He's figured out that Derrick's water bottle is usually full of juice.

We let Zach run around with his juice (green smoothie) before trapping him in his highchair. He somehow managed to make a line down his forehead.