More Food For Thought

Feeding Brody rice cereal worked for about 2 days. After that whenever we'd put him in his high chair and try to feed him he'd throw a huge fit and spit everything out. I tried putting food in his mouth and then putting his bottle in so he 'd suck it down, but it resulted in an even bigger fit and we ended up giving up. I guess he's not ready for rice cereal yet... we will have to wait a week or so and try him again. On another note here are some pictures of things he does enjoy putting in his mouth.

He is very limber and can put his foot in his mouth

He also enjoys shoving his fist so far into his mouth that he gags himself

Here he is sitting on our new granite counter top. Rules are he's the only one allowed to sit on it and that's only until he's 20lbs.

Last of all I had to show off my twin boys. They both happened to be wearing camo so I took a picture of them.

Food For Thought

Since it's close to Thanksgiving time I decided to do a post about food. Actually it's Brody's adventures in the food world. First I'd like to say that Brody rolled over for the first time on November 3rd. I worked with him earlier that day. All I had to do was hold his top leg on the floor in front of him and he'd do the rest. I was playing our Wii later that day and he was on the floor playing when I notice him roll over out of the corner of my eye. I was so excited I picked him up, cuddled him, and then ran around the house to tell everyone that was home. He was a little slow getting going but now he's a pro at rolling from his back to his stomach. We're still working on him rolling the other way but he hasn't got it yet. He's also started scooting a tiny bit when he's on his stomach. It's amazing to witness your child reach milestones. Speaking of milestones, Brody reached another one. Thursday he turned 16 weeks old so we decided to try him on rice cereal. After 2 days he's doing a little better at getting it in but he still tries to push it out with his tongue. He seems to like it because he cries like he wants food when we put him in his high chair while we eat dinner.

This one Brody was trying to see the TV while holding his own bottle. He's not very good at holding it yet but he does try at times. He's also turned into such a TV junkie that we've resorted to Baby Einstein so he's not just watching crap.

This one was his second day eating rice cereal. He still thrusts his tongue out but if you hold the tip of the spoon in his mouth for a little bit he'll swallow it. Soon he'll learn to eat it easier. The coloring is bad because not all the lights in our kitchen are hooked up to the power so we basically eat in the dark almost. I really didn't want to use the flash but resorted to it in the following pictures because the shutter speed was too slow to snap a clear picture.

This is him drinking his bottle with the rest of his milk in it. Its kind of brown because it has his vitamin D supplement in it.

After learning to eat and a good ole' bottle he was so tuckered out he couldn't even stay awake long enough to get burped. This one I didn't get focused very well. Oh well i'm still trying to learn the art of focusing pictures with an SLR.

My Twin and I

So Mandy told me I had to do this part on my own. She might be embarrassed about these pictures, okay so she is. My best friend Zac and I were pretty much twins this halloween. We both had our mullet wigs and beards, I call them the redneck costumes. I thought we looked pretty good. So I am just going to put a few of us on here for everyone's enjoyment.
Don't we look like brothers?


This one we were doing a funny pose with Zac sticking his gut out and I was showing off my killer boots with my pants tuck in them. I have to say that is the last time I am wearing those Wrangler pants. For some reason it makes me think of drunk guys, I don't know why.

We had to get a nice pic of the backs of our heads to show off our beautiful long locks of hair.

Halloween Chappell Style

Pippi Longstocking, Horse, & Redneck

This year being our first Halloween as parents... it was quite an adventure. It all started with a trip to St. George. Shane went to attempt his life insurance test again while Brody and I drove down the street to K Mart to pass the time. After picking up Shane we headed over the The Childrens Place. We ended up buying a bunch of stuff for Brody's Christmas. After a quick (as quick as you can get when it's slammed) stop at In 'N Out Burger we headed home. We finished cleaning up the house for our party and got into our costumes. We took Brody to 4 houses just so people could see him in his horse costume. After that we came home and started preparing food for our party. Our party was really fun even though only 2 people out of our whole guest list showed up. We understand that it was a weekend and there was a lot of traveling going on. We got 2 Papa Murphies pizzas and only cooked one. We debated on taking the other one down the street to the Missionaries. After a hard day of work today we decided to eat it instead. We also have TONS of little smokies left. Oh yeah and don't forget the root beer. We made dry ice rootbeer and still had 3 gallons left after all was said and done. We also played a game that was quite festive for Halloween... Guillotine is what it is called. Its a card game that is lots of fun. Our day was quite enjoyable and even though Brody wasn't very sure about his costume he did really good about being in it. Sadly we lost one of his gloves on our little outing trick-or-treating.

The thing that made me choose a horse as Brody's costume was the tail and the mane below.

I originally wanted Brody to be a monkey but i'm glad he was a horse. I saw lots of monkeys and only one horse... Brody!

Our New Addition

After 2 1/2 months of not being able to do many things because I couldn't put Brody down, I decided I needed to remedy that. After a lot of research I finally found the perfect thing. A baby swing! Now hopefully I can put him down without throwing a big fit every time. We just got it today and these pictures are of his first ride in it. He was swinging back and forth in all of them so it was quite an adventure trying to get them in focus since I was using my SLR instead of my point and shoot. My favorite picture here is the middle one.

He was asleep for when we put him in it. When he woke up he got a startled look on his face as he looked around. It was like he was wondering, "Where am I? What is this and why am I sitting in it?" He kind of cried and then settled down. I'm still trying to figure out if he's going to like it. Sometimes he does okay but other times he acts like he's scared to be in it. I think he'll settle down once he gets used to it.

A Trip To SUU Campus

Today I rode down to the college so that I could clear up a few things while Shane was in class. My parents were too busy to watch Brody so he got to go with me. What an adventure. I put him in the stroller so I could move him around with ease. I needed to go check my e-mail so I went into the library and as soon as we got there and to a computer station he started crying. I got him out thinking I could get him to stop crying. In the meantime people are looking at me like i'm crazy because I have a screaming baby in the library. I tried to log onto the computer and as soon as I typed my name in (didn't even get to the password) my computer decides to shut down. At that point I just grab the stroller and take off outside to escape the embarrassment. I got the stroller stuck in the door because it's hard to open a door and push a stroller through it and someone ran to my aid. After thanking them with an embarrassed look I found a place to sit down and I fed him. After that we went to the Sharwan Smith Center to sit down and wait for Shane so that I could actually get the things I needed to done. The thing I learned today is don't take your 2 1/2 month old to the college campus and expect him to behave. Or if you do make sure there are 2 of you so one can mind the baby. One of the things I needed to do today was talk to my advisor about getting graduation papers so that I can graduate with my associates in May. Looks like I will have to adventure back to the campus on Tuesday when my advisor gets back. Anyways here are some pictures I took today.

Shane was playing with Brody and decided to put his beanie on his head. Right after this he decided to throw a huge fit so I didn't get a better picture. This one is a little burry.

Brody loves to have his diaper changed. Shane decided to let him lay there with his diaper off because he was so happy. We've also learned that we can put his toy keys in his hand when his fist is clinched and today he just happened to suck on his hand after we put the keys there. I have a feeling we're being set up to have a little streaker when he's old enough to run around.

Mid-night Scare Continued

Friday we took Brody to the pediatrician and had him checked out. They checked his chest and it was fine so his cold is just in his head. They told us to get some saline solution, squirt it in his nose and suck it out with a bulb syringe. It isn't very fun and it makes Brody scream like crazy but we're hoping that through doing this he will be able to breathe and make it easier to nurse. Last night he was so stuffed up that he wouldn't stay latched on for very long and I had to keep putting him back on after he'd get a breath. This morning he started throwing up so we did what the pediatrician told us to do. We went and bought some pedialyte to keep him hydrated. The first time we fed it to Brody he got a confused look on his face and spit the bottle out. All he's supposed to eat is breastmilk or formula so this was quite different from anything he'd ever tasted (besides cherry flavored tylanol). He took the bottle again and he likes it now. After feeding him a bottle of that (3 feedings) I tried nursing him again and he didn't throw up (Yay!). Hopefully this last visit will be his last doctor visit (except well visits) for quite a while. Luckily we've had my parents around to help out since they know more what they're doing than us right now.

Mid-night Scare

Last night was the scariest night so far in my role as a mother. It resulted in us dashing off to the Emergency Room because Brody was having a hard time breathing. We called the Pediatrician 24 hour number and they told us to go to ER. When we got there they couldn't hear anything in his lungs so they ran some tests. Poor little guy got tortured or so you would think with the amount of and decibel levels he was crying at. They took a rectal temperature (97.1), a snot sample for RSV (saline and tube up the nose), and x-rays of his lungs (kicked me out into the hall because of nursing). It is so hard being forced to stand outside of a room listening to your baby cry while you can't do a thing about it to comfort him. While we were waiting for the results the doctor gave him some asthma medicine using oxygen and a little breather contraption. It was like a humidifier but the moisture was medicine. We then waited almost 45 minutes for the results. The RSV came out negative and the x-rays looked fine so they let us go. They told us it was a cold or a URI (upper respiratory illness) and if it got worse to take him to his doctor. He slept pretty good but he keeps throwing up when I feed him. Now we get to figure out where to go from here. We'll keep you posted as we get more info.

Caught Slobbery Handed

First of all I just wanted to put something on here that I've been working on. I wanted to print these off and send them out but I didn't have the resources to do so until after he was blessed and most everyone had already seen him. I decided I wanted to show off some of my handy work at Photoshop anyways. I learned a lot about Photoshop in one of my photography classes but forgot a lot of it since I didn't have the program to work with on my own. I'm still working on trying to remember it all. Anyways here it is.

Now for the reason I wanted to write this post. Brody is really good at sucking on his hands. He knows that there is something on there he's supposed to suck on but he can't quite figure out what it is and how to get it. One night we left him on the floor to kick and squirm for a little bit. We were all just in the room but when my mom went to check on him she discovered this.

Brody had found his thumb. I wasn't able to get a good picture before he took it out but here is proof that he found it. Since this picture was taken (a couple of weeks ago) he has only found his thumb one other time that we all know of. It's cute but i'm worried about him becoming an avid thumb sucker and it leading to lots of orthidontic work later on. Also since our last post he has managed to laugh out loud once. Shane was playing with him and I was in the room when he did it. I almost couldn't believe my ears when it happened. I had to ask Shane if it had really happened because it caught me off guard. He does have his moments where he's Mr. Not-So-Cute (like we suspect he's teething already) but over all he is quite fun and we really enjoy him. I'm excited to see what he does next!

Bryce Canyon And More

Today we went for a drive up to Bryce Canyon. It was nice to get out of town for a while. It was either that or go to St. George. We opted to go for a quiet drive rather than get dragged through random stores looking at tiles, granite, and who knows what else. Before we left we stopped off at Quiznos for some yummy subs.

In this one Brody isn't very happy because he wants his food.

He started out laying with his head under Shane's chin but slowly moved himself down to this position while he was sleeping. I wanted a picture from this angle because of his feet.

He just looked so cute laying here so I had to take a picture of him. Sleeping pictures are always cute.

My sister Alisha took this one. It is one of my favorites because it shows him so alert. He was smiling and making noises.

Alisha also took this one. Its quite blown out because of the flash but the look on his face is priceless. It is one of the few pictures we have of him smiling so far. I will have to play with it in Photoshop and see what I can do with it.

Baby Blessing

I just want to thank everyone that made it over for Brody's blessing. Because we forgot to take pictures, the only person that has pictures of him in his tux is one of Shane's awesome photographer cousin Emily. She took some at the luncheon after the blessing. If you want to see any you can go to her blog at http://winkfotos.typepad.com and the blog entry is titled "ladies man". Out of the pictures I've seen so far the only one she didn't post is the one of the back of his jacket with me holding him.

The first image is of Emily taking pictures of Brody. The second one is of Shane and my sister-in-law Brittany. The last one is me and my mother-in-law Effie.

What Was I THINKING?

Yesterday we went to St. George because Shane had to take the life insurance test again. We decided to take Brody and that is where things started to get interesting. When we got there I needed to feed him so Shane parked in the parking garage to give me a little more shelter to hide me from the public. It was hot so I had the air conditioner running. Well, the battery started to die and I realized that I hadn't actually started the car. I hurried and turned it off but it was too late. The car wouldn't start. We went inside the building and hung out in the lobby of the building until Shane got done. It wasn't very fun considering the alternative which was shopping. Sadly I had messed that one up. While we were sitting there I said a quick prayer that we would be able to find someone that could help us and I wasn't too worried and stayed pretty calm because I knew Shane would know what to do. He came out and I said, "Guess what I did. Have you ever had a moment where you think Oh My Gosh What Was I Thinking? Well I had one while you were in Taking the test." He thought I got into a fender bender but then he thought that I wouldn't be there if that was the case. I asked, "Your Aunt lives in St. George right?" Luckily she did so we called her and she sent Shane's cousin over with his truck to jump start our car. The bad thing was that our car was in the parking garage where we had parked next to a pillar and had cars on both sides of us. They just put the car in neutral and backed it into the empty space behind us. We got our car started just fine and the rest of the trip went great. Shane knew it wasn't a big deal and he was really patient with me. I'm very thankful for that. I feel like for having a baby just barely over 4 weeks ago and my hormones still making me crazy, I handled things pretty well. When someone saw us pushing the car back they made a comment of, "Looks like a Pontiac." That was the one comment that bothered me because this is the only problem I've had with my car and it was totally my fault. I was more embarrassed than anything that I let something so stupid happen.

ONE Of The Moments We've Been Waiting For

We now have a roof on the carport and the new part of the kitchen. Also today they officially busted out the wall! I said it's one of the moments because the day it's finished is the moment we're really waiting for. Things have been going quite fast the last 2 weeks. We're happy to see the progress. Here are some updated photos.

Brody's First Vacation

This last weekend Brody got to go on his first vacation. We went to Lyman for a family reunion and to celebrate Shane's grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. We left here on Friday and made it in time for the 50th party. Here Brody met lots of new relatives. He was passed around and held so much that he doesn't know what to do with himself now when we try to put him down. The only times I got to see him were when he was hungry or needed a diaper change. Other than that as long as I could see him I was okay. All I pretty much had to do was look for his Aunt Kara and I knew where he was. She was dying to see him so bad being stuck up in Logan that when she finally got her hands on him it was hard for anyone else to get to hold him. It was her bonding time with him. Saturday we had the Chappell family reunion. It was held at a park. We had food and visited with people that came. Well actually I sat there with Brody while Shane played basketball with his cousins. Once the food was ready though I had lots of people offering to take Brody so that I could eat. Shane's mom won out and we didn't see him again until he'd peed though his diaper and needed a change. It was so hot at the park we ended up back at the house ready for naps. Sunday we went to sacrament meeting where Brody threw a fit during the sacrament because he was hungry. I had some milk in the diaper bag that I had previously pumped so after he had that he was good the rest of the time. It was his first time going to church. After church we had a big dinner with a lot of family there and we were soon on the road back home after that.

Here is Brody being held by his Great-Grandma Chappell. She was one of the many that showered him with love over the weekend. This was at their 50th Anniversary party.

This was also taken at the 50th party. This is Grandma Chappell holding her 2 grandkids Keziah and Brody. Keziah is quite the character. She is at the busy stage where she doesn't slow down very much.

One quick story: Shane and I needed to go to the store one evening so we left him home with his Grandma Bezanson for a little while. They were sitting on her bed and Brody caught sight of the picture of Jesus on the wall. He stared at and studied that picture for 20 minutes. He had a look of recognition on his face. It was like he was looking at it thinking, "I know him." We just thought it was really neat. For as young as he is we've really enjoyed watching him develop and start to figure things out. He's started to realize that when he puts his hands in his mouth he's sucking on himself. He'll put his hand in his mouth and get kind of startled then he'll put it back in his mouth. I really love being a parent.

Randomness

Now for the post I really want to write. I have some new pictures that I wanted to post of our favorite little guy, Brody. I have managed to get some pictures where he is awake.

Here he's in his bouncy chair. I'm annoyed that I can't get some of my pictures to face the right way. It corrects some but there are a lot that I'd like to be turned another direction. This is one of them.

He likes to run the show. Shane was holding him and he had to move around to find the perfect spot to lay. When he found it (right by Shane's heart) he would cry or throw a fit if anyone tried to move him. He doesn't look very comfy here but he sure liked it. He does look cute though.

I wish the lighting was better on his face, but with the flash it totally over exposed the picture. He loves his pacifier and I'm thankful for that. He's a good fit thrower at feeding time. He nurses fine sometimes, but other times he throws huge fits and demands me to pump and feed it to him in a bottle because he's too tired or lazy to latch on.

Shane doing what he knows best... Letting Brody sleep on his chest and play football. This is an every day activity. I absolutely loathe football right now, but I guess it's alright as long as he's doing something productive also.

Here he was being Mommy's little sidekick while I was working on the computer. When he's not set on being in someone's arms you will usually find him in his bouncy chair right along side whoever is watching him. He was actually awake and being really interactive here.

Bath time! This is the first bath we've given him where he's actually not cried. I guess he's deciding that it's really not that bad. Just wait until his cord stump falls off he actually gets to have a bath and not a sponge bath.

We were trying to get him to grin and this is the closest we got. He grins a lot for being so young. A lot of people say their early grins are just gas but I don't believe them because the way Brody acts when he grins doesn't say, "I have gas."

He was just loving having the warm water splashed on his head. The look on his face when we do it is priceless and this isn't even his best reaction. These are all the pictures I have for now. I will continue to find new things to take pictures of. Oh yeah... Another cool thing we've discovered is that he's trying to roll over already. We know he has strong neck muscles. He's really good at trying to hold his head up. I can't wait for his cord to fall off so we can start putting him on his stomach more when he's awake.

A Week Of Good Work

After last week's fiasco with the rain a lot was done to the house. Here are some pictures of the progress.

We now have more new roof than we did old roof. It's kind of funny but we will have one awesome car port and kitchen when all is said and done. We should have a bid on the cabinets for the kitchen Monday.

Happy Anniversary #1

This was actually taken the night before our anniversary but it is the new updated picture of our little family. We were watching Mary Poppins together and my mom decided we needed a picture of us all cuddled on the couch. Brody thinks he needs to be part of the action no matter whether he's awake or asleep. That's okay because we quite enjoy having him around.

Last night I was trying to get him to wake up so I could feed him. He's really good at sleeping through feedings so I took him into the bedroom and was getting ready to lay him in bed (he usually wakes up then). As soon as I unwrapped him from his blanket he immediately stretched out like this. It made me laugh so I had to take a picture of him.

This is just a close up of him. He ended up waking up before I got him to bed so It was good since his milk was all pumped and waiting for him. That is what I usually have to do when he wont wake up. When we took him in for his newborn check up he had gone from 7lb 8oz to 6lb 6oz which was about 15% of his body weight gone. I had to reschedule a weight check and it resulted in scheduling another one because he weighed the same 2 days after the first one. Yesterday was his other weight check and in 6 days he had gone from 6lb 6oz to 7lb 2oz. He had gained about 2oz a day. If he keeps it up he'll be at his birth weight just in time for his 2 week check up. There was a thought that I would have to suppliment him on formula. I actually did suppliment him a little but it was less than 10 oz. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with formula. That stuff stinks horribly. Overall things are looking up and he's a healthy happy baby!

Shane and I celebrated our 1st anniversary on the 11th. It turned out to be a really fun day. I made a scrapbook on Shutterfly of our wedding first year together. It went over really well and it will be fun to have so we can look back and remember all the good times we had just getting started. After I gave Shane the book he got showered and dressed up. He made some excuse up that he needed to go into the office for a little bit and would be back soon. a while later there was a knock on the door and when I opened it these flowers were on the porch. He tried to closely match them to the flowers used at the wedding. He got the big pink gerber dasies and some kind of lilly in there. The lilly wasn't the one we used but it was close enough. He must have spent a lot on just the flowers alone. He also got me a willow tree figurine of a couple that was titled "Together". He knows I love willow tree figurines so he can't go wrong there. When he got home I found out that he made up the excuse of going into the office just so he could get out of the house without any questions. Later that night he took me to the Garden House for dinner. They put us up in the loft all by ourselves. It was really neat because there was a stained glass window by the table and it was dimly lit. I ordered filet mignon and shrimp. Shane got chicken and shrimp. Usually when we eat there the main dish is good but the veggies and other stuff is a little boring and tasteless, but everything was delicious this last time. To top everything off we ended dinner with a brownie sundae that was really good. After that we tried to give Brody a bath but all it resulted in was a big fit because he was hungry and we didn't want to feed him before a bath. We ended up bathing him yesterday instead.

So Cute!

Brody is so cute! Everyday I find more and more reasons to love him. Here are a few daily activities of his.

This one I had to show off his feet. Some people love to have professional naked pictures taken of their kids but I don't really like them. Instead I'm more of a hands and feet kind of person. He has Shane's hands and feet I think. His hands are big and have long fingers. It's also amazing how big his big toes are. My mom commented on the big toes the first time she saw his feet.

Here is Grandma playing with him. He tends to try and sleep through the times when he should be eating so here she was trying to wake him up so he would eat for me. Unfortunately it didn't do the job. Instead we had to give him a bath... actually we were going to give him a bath anyways it just worked out better to bathe and then feed him.

Shane didn't comb his hair out after his bath so he had a curly mess. It was still sticking up the next day. I don't think it will lay down until after we wet it again and brush it out. You can kind of see it sticking up in the picture shown above.

As you can tell he sleeps a lot. Most of the pictures we have of him involve him sleeping. Here he is asleep in his bouncy chair. He is a really good baby and doesn't cry when you set him down. He is content with pretty much anywhere he is set down as long as he is comfortable. I had just unwrapped him to change his clothes for the day and saw how cute he is. This resulted in me taking pictures. I hope you enjoy. I will try to keep taking pictures and posting them.