happy birthday ethan!

happy birthday my son. you used to be my little snuggler - you loved to be held and would fall asleep in my arms and just snuggle into my chest so perfectly. now you are already getting to be a "big boy" and you are my little mover. your face, which used to have so much baby in it, is turning into a little toddler face. I miss my baby, but love my big boy too, and I can't wait for all the future will bring. I love you ethan; happy birthday.

--mommy

happy birthday kaylee

happy birthday kaylee. I love you so much. All day I've been thinking about my silly labor with you and everything I was thinking and hoping last year at this time. Right about now a year ago you were my only child and I was nursing you. You were so good at nursing, it was so easy and I'd never felt more amazingly bonded to someone before. I love the wonderful little personality you've developed and can't wait for many many many more years of getting to know you. I love you.

kaylee dress

while looking for another pic I just foudn this one of kaylee trying on her flower girl dress. she didn't wear that headband but she did have a sash and bow in the same color and fabric, so just imagine it...

wedding

I've been mildly chastised that not everyone was at the wedding and/or bday party, so here is a wedding post. but I still don't have any pictures... except this one that my cousin posted on her blog.

the wedding colors were actually blueberry-blue and a lime green accent, so for the ceremony my kiddos (who were the flower girl and boy) had fancy white outfits w/ blue accents. they looked pretty darn cute I have to say. blake pulled them down the aisle in this wagon. however white outfits were not going to last for the reception, so here they are with my cousin's kiddo riley (who is a month and a half older).
mildly amusing side note: evan and alyssa were engaged and had their colors chosen for awhile - these reception outfits were actually part of last year's gymboree / janie and jack lines. but when we saw the colors (kaylee's also wearing a sparkly blue tutu and ethan's hat and shorts are blue, white, and lime) my mom and I just purchased them! which meant guessing sizes and ethan's shorts were defiantly too large and fell off several times :). his hat (and his onesie) was/were not too large. :)

adrenaline pumping

my last post was about milk pumping, this post is about why my adrenaline is still pumping as I type this...

I mostly think allergies are silly. overrated. one doctor tells you not to feed your baby this or that until they're this age, another says, eh, whatever. we have heard things all across the board, but most people agree there's research on both sides. so my theory has been, if there's research on both sides, let's go with the easy route. but blake has been more on the side of our current doc who says no nuts or eggs until they're 1 and no honey until 2. so fine. we have tried to avoid those three things, but I have been looking forward to their birthdays and giving them nuts and eggs.

today is their bday party, so as we were making ourselves omelets this morning, I said, oh, let's give them some. blake said okay, a couple days doesn't make a difference (they are 3 and 4 days away from their actual bdays). so we fed them some of our omelets.

about 15 minutes later blake said, look at ethan's face. (yes, of course ethan, our kid who seems to react to everything - obvious in retrospect, right?) the skin above and below his eye was all red, like his cheek rash had spread up there. so we called the consulting nurse. since it wasn't that bad and he was acting normally, and it was going away as we talked to her, etc etc, she said to wash his face, that it might be a skin/contact allergy to the eggs (like he rubbed them on the skin near his eyes, which is likely) and to not give him eggs for a couple months.

great.

but you know, that's not the end of the world, so we washed his face and then gave him a whole all-over bath, and then put him and kaylee down for their naps.

about 20-30 minutes later, ethan woke up from his nap, which is way too early. we let him fuss for a bit, then we got him up. he was cranky, but his nap wasn't long enough so that wasn't a surprise. at one point blake handed him to me and I thought he was pretty hot, but neither of us was sure if he was actually hot or just worked up and fussy. blake put him in the carrier and tried to get him to calm down (which usually works) and was going to take him to the grocery store for distraction and errand-running. but then one of us decided we should just call the consulting nurse again. just to be safe, you know? so I tried to give him a bottle while blake called and while he was on hold ethan seemed to have trouble breathing. so we hung up, had a super fast discussion about calling 911 instead, decided taking him to the ER ourselves would be faster, so blake took him and ran him across the street (on foot) to Evergreen Hospital. I am going to love our new house, but I am so thankful that today we're still in our current house as Evergreen is SO close. I bet blake was out our door and into their doors in 3 minutes. it would have taken longer to explain our situation over the phone or to put him in and out of his carseat.

I don't know the play-by-play after that, but I called a few minutes later and blake said they'd given Ethan some shots and he was breathing normally again and would be fine (and he weighs 20 lbs today). Now they're just hanging out there, waiting for ethan to turn normal colored again (he was all red), and then they'll dismiss him. kaylee and I are at home playing peek-a-boo (and blogging).

allergy doc appts and modified diets await us, but all is well.

other also important updates:

• Evan and Alyssa are married! their wedding was fantastic, but since most of you blog readers were there and I don't have any pics, I prob won't blog about it. but I am so happy for them and thrilled to have gained another sister. :)
• I have the best friends ever. they have helped SO much with all the wedding-related things and now they're going to help today w/ the bday party (which is still happening at this point). they are just the best. the best the best the best. I'm so grateful for them.

pumping

I am done pumping. as of a few minutes ago. done.

after I dropped to 2x day it was clear that my body was done with this game. There was no going back so I gave up and after a week dropped to 1x day for a week, then 1x every other day, and today I'm done.

While I had hoped to make it longer, I have plenty of other ways to spend my time. Like tonight i'm going camping. sibling bonding camping. me, Ev, Darren, Alyssa, and Aron (Alyssa's bro). It's going to be awesome, and awesome that I don't care that there won't be electrical outlets for me to plug my pump into. :) That is a pretty darn thick silver lining.

birthday party!!

A fair number of people haven't RSVPed to the kiddos' bday party. This is fine, i've just taken a guess at who's coming and already ordered the food (there will be a "light lunch" btw - think half sandwiches). But then today, a coworker of mine told me that she just got her invitation in yesterday's mail! I mailed them in June and she said she noticed that the postmark said June too. So I don't know what's up with that, but it made me think, oh, what if people haven't gotten their invitations for some reason? My cousin's just came back undeliverable last week too. So honestly, if you read this blog and haven't been invited... consider yourself invited. Perhaps your invitation has been hanging out with my coworker's and cousin's invitations in some forgotten corner of the post office. :/

House things are going well. We had our inspection, only found a few small things, and the seller said they'd fix everything we asked for. Our loan's coming along too, so it looks like we'll be "house-owners" soon. crazy. crazy. crazy.

even crazier: evan and alyssa will be married in 9 days!!!!!!!!!!!