Christmas Summary

Christmas came and left now and today we're gonna take down the tree, the decoration, and wash some dirty diapers.

So how was Christmas in Houston? Well sorry, I can't really tell you the differences between Houston and Salt Lake because I didn't really pay attention. You see, Luke and Isaac kept us both very occupied. We had two days worth of Christmas dinners with different groups of friends. We got to be with our family through video internet. We got to drive around town showing Isaac the Christmas lights, and decorations. He especially loved the blowup lawn decorations. Sometimes he'd shout out "OH SANTA!" and we'd have no idea what he's looking at until Amy or I spot a picture of Santa posted up on some stores window far far away. Isaac has good eyes! Amy got to eat her mom's yummy meatballs and cheesy potatoes, and I got to eat fun Puerto Rican rice and beans. Many friends and neighbors dropped off candy, cookies, banana bread, and Christmas cards. Amy got to help a sister in our ward sew up a handmade apron for her mom.

In order to teach the true meaning of spirit, I went around the house gathering our old unused clothes, especially the clothes that we're all too fat to wear now, and Isaac and I jumped in the car with those and a loaf of bread. I told Isaac that we were going to give this all away as presents for Christmas. And then I explained to Isaac that there were some very sad and cold and hungry duckies and that they really needed us to bring them bread. So we drove over to the duck pond and about 13 ducks were there quacking at us, we fed them bread and the duckies said "quack quack thank you!" and then they said, "quack quack Merry Christmas quack quack!" Isaac really felt proud of himself and we talked about how Christmas is a good time to help the hungry duckies.

Poor Amy got sick on Christmas Eve. She got a fever, got cold, got hot, and got very weak. The next morning she still felt bad but the worst of it had passed. On Christmas morning Isaac woke up at 9am on the dot. He walked into the living room and found it full of presents! "Oh wow!" he said, "pasents! pasents! PASENTS!" It wasn't until 11am that we finally had Isaac open the last present there were so many! Isaac got his Spiderman toys including a spiderman airplane that he had been begging for. He got a digital camera, some jammies, and loads more toys. Amy and I got help paying for a year of internet and a year of cell phone bills thanks to generous parents who understand that bills paid is the most appreciated gift all year long! I really enjoyed getting a DVD of my mom's family home videos. It's really fun to compare the current me to my mom's dad when he was my age. Also Isaac is very similar to the 2 year old Uncle Gary, and Luke is fun to compare to the 7 month old version of me! Some fun things Amy got was a marble rolling pin, a garlic mincer (NO MORE GARLIC FINGERS) and some crackle nail polish. Santa got me a lovely "Fry daddy." Which opens up my cooking skill to a whole new world of delectable dishes! We all got a little spoiled!

Also, with some of the money that we got from the lovely Great Grandma's we finally purchased a hand held VACUUM! HOORAY hip hip HOORAY! Now we can finally vacuum our couch, the cracks in the carpet, and our car! We're totally moving up in the world!

We are so very very blessed materialistically. We don't make much, but we have it all. Amy's new cloth diapering is about to start saving us some money and she's doing great dealing with all the poo. Which reminds me, Isaac is still avoiding the toilet like a haunted monster. We decided to go back to completely supervising his diet so that he eat much much less dairy, much much less fat and candy and a whole lot more fiber. Oh and I thought I'd mention another strange thing about Isaac. He's an ice cube. I don't know what's up with his internal thermostat but Isaac loves being cold. He'll kick off his blankets at night and sleep beautifully with his toes freezing off. When he takes a bath he'll scream at you if you add one drop too much of warm water. Amy doesn't understand this preference as she prefers to only have the hottest water imaginable all the time. I remember that when Isaac was Luke's age we took him camping in late fall. It became incredibly freezing at night, so cold all of us grown ups buried our head under our sleeping bags. But there was Isaac, head out, no hat, and all of his limbs were freezing to the touch. By the time we realized it, half the night was over and he hadn't cried once. So either we broke something in Isaac that night, or he's just naturally designed to live in the cold tundra of the Canadian wilderness on top of some barren snow capped mountain.

Anyways. I got side tracked. Next holiday coming up is a Happy New Year! Next Year Curtis and Marcie will be getting married and we're so excited for them! Also, Chelsea and Quynn's baby will be born around the same time! Jessica will be graduating from High School! Brittany and Bagi are doing great as newly weds, and we'll have to keep an eye on Christelle and Stephie to see what kinda trouble they get in this year! It's going to be a great year.

I just wanna say that Luke is getting so big. Amy and I were hit with the surprising truth yesterday that we no longer have an infant baby. We have a pre-toddler who's interactive, giggly, thick and rolly-polly. He's so much fun to feed apple sauce to! And as every day passes Isaac begins to be more and more entertained by Luke. They really are starting to interact more! It's so much fun to see them play. Isaac is very much a cutie pie with Luke, he's very loving and caring and teaching.

PS Amy's still a little sick. She's acting like she's pregnant, but she's not. Just wanna get that cleared up before the rumors start! We love you all and hope to enjoy this spectacular upcoming year.

Isaac is singing "Spiderman" all day long now. When we took him home from the hospital as a newborn we dressed him in a Spiderman outfit that Jake had given us. I guess it really affected him. I'm loving it!

Here's the ONLY Christmas pics that we took. We took lots of video though. We tried to post a video but it doesn't work right now. So maybe we'll try facebook. ENJOY

We went and saw Santa!

It's 12:55 am on Dec 25th 2011

woke up to get Amy some cough medicine and look at our living room. SANTA CAME!!!!

Now it's 8:18am and Isaac hasn't woken up yet. I can't wait! I had trouble sleeping I was so excited!

Here you guys can see what Grandma Udell got for Luke and Isaac and ALSO what Grandma Larson got for them! (The Matching jackets from the Larsons and the capability of seeing them through the INTERNET is thanks to the Udells!!!)

Christmas Spirit

No, Our children get along very well. They're never mean, pushy, or jealous at all!

The video above was supposed to be Luke's first crawl, but Isaac caused some technical difficulties.

Anyways, as a fair parent I decided to add this picture of Isaac sleeping.

Merry Christmas, remember to put OTHERS first during this Christmas season!

The Cloth Diaper Revolution

In this video, Luke describes the trendy new feelings of wearing a brand new very soft cloth diaper. He's really excited to try them out. He does explain however, how they are a little bit bigger and fluffier than normal. Can you get all that from him talking?

Oh and at the end he burps, but that's not about the diapers, it's just from rolling onto his tummy.

So YES. Here we are. Embarking on the newest crazy craze. Cloth diapers. I told Amy, don't do it. Don't invest in fancy pants that you poop on. "you'll hate scraping out the poo!" I told her. But nope, she was one step ahead of me. Last week I came home from school to Amy dragging me over to the bathroom with an excited look on her face. I was half expecting to see the latest biggest Isaac poop (which is a good thing seeing as how it's a sign that we're heading out of the constipation famine) But to my surprise Amy had installed a high pressure hose to the plumbing behind the toilet! It squirts off the poo for you! Wow.

So in case you've ever heard me say something about, "we're so poor cause we have to buy diapers.." well now you can have a break from that. We no longer will be spending our 40 bucks a month or whatever it was on diapers. We just got a little bit richer! (of course this means that we can finally afford to go to the dentist. hip hip hooray :-( we're so over joyed)

But anyways now that schools out for the Christmas break, I get to see my kids! Isaac has grown 1.5 inches and Luke 2 inches more! Luke can play with his toys sitting up against the corner of his play pen. He's so BIG! He is eating real human food now too and his poo poo has changed into human feces. Luke's new diapers are larger than his normal diapers which makes his butt just a little too big for his car seat. So you know what that means? We've got him sitting in a bigger car seat! WOW I just can't believe he's growing so fast. Isaac is just so obsessed with Spiderman. He's been begging to watch "pide a man" cartoons. He's convinced that Santa is getting him a "spiderman airplane." Who knows what that means, hopefully Santa knows.

We're staying home for the holidays and really enjoying the time to relax but we also have so much to do! Lots of errands to run and things that we've put off doing until now that I'm out of school.

I'm pretty sure I passed all my classes this semester... So that means only 7 semesters left!!!!!!

Life is really good for us now. (like always) Thanks to our precious 2 boys no matter how hard life gets we're always surrounded by smiley crazy happy loving faces!

Merry Christmas!

A Scary Moment

So Isaac has truly been trying my patience lately. He has been on a rebelion. It's mostly been little annoying things, like if I tell him to stop, he won't. Then I'll look at him and say, "mommy says no!". And he say, "Me says yes!". He basically just tries to do the opposite of what I say. I've had to take the space heater out of his room because he couldn't handle not playing with the buttons, and not trying to plug it in. So we've also had the talk about how dangerous wall outlets are. He's spent mucho time in time out, had more spankins then I'd like to give. And he'll feel bad and say sorry, then just turn around and go back to doing whatever he can think of to be naughty. I always swore I wouldn't allow such behavior from MY children. But I just don't know what else you can do apart from abuse. At the same time he is the sweetest little boy in the world. Many people think he is perfect, they just haven't seen his secret rebelious side. Sometimes when I've had especially frustrating days with him, I just have to sit back and look at how precious and beautiful he is. So anyways, there's some background to today's story.

This morning I had to iron something, which is a rare occasion. So I pulled out the iron, which we have kept in Isaac's closet for a long time. As I ironed I told Isaac that the Iron is a big no no. And if he touches it, it will burn him. And it will hurt for a long long time. After I was done, I put it away, and closed the closet doors. A couple hours later, I put him down for his nap. He FINALLY fell asleep easily today (another thing he hasn't been doing too great at lately). A couple hours later, I hear a horrified scream from his room. So I walk in with Luke and see a HOT plugged in iron on the ground with Isaac crying next to it! It was sitting face down on the rug. So I hurry and put Luke down, pick the Iron up, then take Isaac to the bathroom with his burned finger. As we held it under cold water, I couldn't see any signs of a burn, so I think he was lucky to not get burned too bad. As time has gone on, I can see a slight burn on his finger though- so I'm sure it hurts. So Isaac is experiencing his first burn of his life. Every few minutes he'll start screaming and crying, but he is fast learning the the baggie with ice in it brings relief. Although it is sad to see him hurt and sad- at the same time it is probably a bit of a blessing that he got burned. If he hadn't of gotten burned, I wouldn't have known he was playing with the iron, and it could have easily started a fire. Instead we just have a melted spot on his cheap rug. So we are even blessed it was on his rug and not carpet. And maybe the burn on his finger will hopefully be a reminder to mind his mommy?

You know, we could also apply this story to our lives. Heavenly Father has given us commandments to protect us. Just as Isaac's young mind couldn't comprehend the consequences to plugging in and playing with a hot iron, we won't always know the "why's". We should trust in our Father in Heaven, and do what he says. Whether we understand or not, we do know that Heavenly Father wants what's best for us, and knows the outcome of all. Isaac's never had a burn before, and hasn't had much experience with being around an iron. We don't have much experience with this thing called Life. This is our first, one and only time here on this earth. We need our Father to tell us what will burn us. If we ignore his warnings, we will end up crying with ice on our wounds.

Manic Monday

So yesterday was Luke's 6 month doctor's appointment. He's getting big too fast! Since we are a 1 car family, we had to drop Brad off at the bus stop at 6am. Of course Isaac isn't going to go back to sleep after that either. So I figured he'd nap good later. Our appointment was at 10, so there wasn't time for a nap beforehand. (Except at least Luke took his usual morning nap).

I've been on a search for a decent pediatrician since we moved here 16 months ago. Being on Medicaid, our options are limited. And it seemed as if ALL doctor's that accepted Medicaid were awful in one way or another. I'd stuck with the same doctor since Luke was born, but his 4 month appointment was the last straw. We waited in the waiting room forevvvver! In fact after we'd been there awhile, Aladdin came on. (they had the disney channel playing). It started, had commercials, and ended, and yes we were still in the waiting room. This doctor obviously just packs as many patients into the day as want to come, and it had been bad in the past but not this bad. Besides waiting, she had a super strong accent, where I could barely understand her. And I usually had to repeat things a few times before she understood what I was talking about. So basically not the best for communication. There were other things as well, and enough was enough. I got online, and found a doctor that is a bit farther away, but not bad. Just an extra 7 or 8 minutes, and the reviews were good. So I went yesterday hoping the 4th doc would be the charm. And YES, it was SUCH a better experience. They brought me back before I could even get the paperwork filled out. The nurses were awesome, the place seemed much more organized. And I liked the doctor much more. Luke was his usual happy self, and LOVED crinkling up and ripping the paper they had him sit on. It was basically demolished when we left. When it came time for shots, he was happily sucking on Tigger's nose. First came the oral Rotavirus. He thought that tasted weird. Then came 4 shots. 2 in each leg. Poor baby, my heart aches whenever my kids have to get shots :( Luke didn't care about Tigger anymore, he was just sad. The sadness only lasted a moment though. He recovered within a few minutes. But the worst was yet to come. The doctor wanted his blood to test his hemoglobin. So we went to the lab, and held Luke on my lap, as the Doctor pricked his finger. Luke didn't have a reaction for about a full 5 seconds, then it came. A sad sad cry. Meanwhile, Isaac was standing next to me, very happy it was Luke not him this time. Isaac would give Luke a kiss and say it's ok. After the finger prick, they had to fill up a tiny vial. So she sat and squeezed blood out for what seemed like forever, with Luke getting more and more upset. By the end he was the saddest I'd ever seen him. :( But at least we were finally done!

Right after, I had something at Walmart I needed to pick up. By this time Isaac was SO ready for a nap. And the more tired Isaac gets, the more naughty he gets, and the easier a meltdown comes on. So basically it wasn't the most pleasant trip in the world. I think he had a total of 2 screaming tantrums while in the store, and 1 in the parking lot.We were finally in the checkout line, and I was paying for everything, when I look over to see Luke gagging. Within miliseconds, I noticed 2 baby band-aids at the back of his throat. Luckily not sucked down cutting off his air supply, just sitting perfectly to make him gag. He'd sucked his band-aids right off his finger! I can't believe I forgot to take those off. I swooped them out of his mouth and all was well. So note to self, never leave band-aids on your baby's finger.

By the time we got home, Isaac had got his second wind, and decided he wasn't going to nap. Grrr. I REALLY wanted a nap too. Plus Luke, who is usually a GREAT sleeper, was feeling not so great. Even with Tylenol, he wasn't able to sleep. So we were all a bit tired and grumpy :)

You wouldn't know it by this happy face, but this was right after he got his blood drawn. Cute little guy can be happy even right after being tortured.

He enjoyed getting Tigger back after it was all over :)

Tired Tired Isaac

Moving on to a happier note, now that Luke is 6 months, we are trying to teach him how to eat solids, Yay! Our first attempt didn't go too great. He spit everything out that I put in. Yesterday I tried again, and he did a little better.

He still spit about half of it out, but I put it back in. I think I ended up getting more in his stomach then on his shirt at least! I tried again this morning, and he acted like it tasted nasty...and wouldn't eat it again. So maybe we'll branch out to some veggies and see what he thinks of those.

To finish off, I'd like to just take a look at the differences in Isaac and Luke.

At 6 months Luke is 18 lbs 2 oz. (61.28%), 27" tall (70.34%), with a head circumference of 43.2 cm (33.12%).

At 6 months Isaac was 18 lbs 14 oz, 27in high, and 44.5 cm HC.

So Isaac was actually a little bit more chunky, but they are the same height! What's funny is Luke seemed to get bigger faster then Isaac. He zipped through his clothes sizes like no other. Stuff Isaac wore at 5 months, Luke wore at 3. Yet here at 6 months they are so similar, and Isaac was actually bigger. I think it also goes to show how babies come in such different shapes and sizes. :) It's so fun to watch these 2 boys grow and develop!

A Monumental Day

No more lugging around a huge car seat with a heavy baby inside. Luke can officially sit up in the cart! The worst part of grocery shopping lately has been carrying that heavy car seat from the car to the store, and trying to hoist it up on the cart. All the while trying to hold Isaac's hand in the parking lot to ensure he wouldn't run off in front of cars. Half the time I'd have random strangers asking if I need help lifting the heavy seat onto the cart, so I must have looked awkward. Those days are no more :) And Luke did a magnificent job, he didn't try to fall over once. And I only had to stop him from trying to suck on the nasty metal twice.

O Christmas Tree

Ha ha, yeah, that's a super close up picture of our fake Christmas tree above :) Anyways, we had an AWESOME Thanksgiving, and now we can officially get into the Christmas spirit! ( ok, I admit it, we did put everything up the day BEFORE Thanksgiving). A few days ago I started by making some fun Christmas ornaments, that smell super good for the tree. The recipe basically just said mix 3 cups of Cinnamon with 3 cups of applesauce. Roll it out on the counter, and cut with a cookie cutter, then let dry for a few days. In the reviews there were many people saying the dough was too moist, so I thought I'd better add the applesauce carefully. I ended up accidently just pouring the whole pound of cinnamon in (close to 3 cups anyways). Then put applesauce in until I liked the consistency. After making these, my hands and house had the wonderful aroma of cinnamon for a couple days!
Instead of drying on the counter, I read you could also bake them. So I baked them at 250 degrees for a couple hours. After about an hour I transfered them straight on the rack so all of the sides could get some air.
I'm going to have Isaac paint a couple of them for fun, but haven't gotten around to that yet. For now it's probably good for them to hang and get fully dried out.

Meanwhile this cute little boy really wanted to grab that table! He's getting so fun! With a pants-less Isaac standing in the background.

I think this is the first time in my life I've had Christmas stuff up this early, so we'll see if I get sick of it before Christmas comes or not! This is our first year with our own full size Christmas tree, so I was just too excited to get it up and decorated :)

Scared

So, first off- we officially have the internet at our house!!! This is thanks to an early Christmas present from my parents- thanks Mom and Dad! It's amazing how wonderful it is. Living without something brings on a whole new level of appreciation when you get it back again. I can also say that I appreciate having a dishwasher, washer and dryer more then I ever would have had I not had those my first 2 years of marriage. And one day, I know that I will be grateful and appreciative of having a car in the same way as well. This time of year brings on thoughts and feelings of gratitude, and we truly have so much to be grateful for. It can be so easy at times to focus on things that we don't have- but having this attitude only brings sadness. The lord has blessed us with SO much! Focusing on that is the way to bring love and happiness into your life. Sometimes I am amazed at what we DO have with how poor we are. It is a testament that Heavenly Father is truly watching out for us. I could name off a million things that I am grateful for, and blessings that we have- but that's not what I even came here to blog about. I got a little sidetracked :)

What I originally started this post for was to write about our experiences last night. Last night we put Isaac to bed as usual- and he fell asleep good and easy as usual. After about an hour, we hear Isaac screaming and totally freaked out in his room. Brad walked in to find him huddled in the corner of his bed, trying to get away from his blankets. After calming him down, we finally got out of him that he thought there was a kitty cat in his blankets. And there was NO way he was going to sleep in them. So Brad tried changing to different blankets. At first Isaac thought this was a good idea, until we left him alone in his room. Pretty soon we hear the panicked screaming again. When I went in there, he was acting like he needed to go to the bathroom as he screamed, so I asked him if he needed to go potty. After I helped him go pee, he insisted that he wanted to sit on the toilet and poop. By this time I was exhausted and said, fine, just let me know when you are done, and I left him on the toilet while I crawled back in bed. After about a 15 minutes I could hear him in there still, so I got up. He was still just sitting on the toilet, no poop in the toilet, just hanging out. I knew he was just trying to stall going to bed, and he really didn't need to poop, so I told him that he's all done, and its time to go to sleep. At this he truly started to FREAK out. I had to tear him off the toilet, hold him down to get his clothes back on, and pick him up to take him back to his room. All this time he was screaming yelling in a devilish voice "ME POOO POOO ME POOO POO". (keep in mind he never poops in the toilet. he still prefers his diaper) I don't know how Luke slept through it all. So I took him to his room and tried to calm him down by rocking him in his rocking chair like a baby, and singing to him. He kept on crying, but finally relaxed his body. After a few songs, when the crying had all but stopped, I said it's time to go to sleep. (It was like 11:00 pm by this point) He convinced me that if I read him one story he'd go to sleep. So I did. When the story was over, he still was scared to death of his bed. So I asked him if he'd sleep on Mommy's floor. He said he wanted to sleep on his floor. So I made a little bed on the floor for him and that's how he slept. I really wonder what in the world kind of nightmare he had to be SO scared of his bed. I just put him down for a nap, and he still refuses to get in his bed to sleep. I showed him that there is nothing in his bed, and told him all the kitty cats are outside. They don't come in. But he still insists on a floor bed. Hopefully this doesn't last too long! We'll see how many nights he'll spend on the floor until he gets over it. Does anybody have any suggestions on how to deal with nightmares?

MARRIAGE!!

HOORAY! Brad's sister Brittany got married to Bagi Dash Tu Dev. It was an awesome wedding, the ceremony was super cool, thanks to Bagi's family being from Mongolian. They brought their culture and performed a beautiful tradition we got to witness. I totally want to learn Mongolian now. Too bad I have to learn about antidepressants instead back at school. And what could be better than having the wedding end with a beautiful light snowfall. So I got my snow for the year, and now it's already time to go back to Texas.

Brittany creamed his face with cake. Here you can almost see his neck being dislocated!

And here we see Luke getting snowed on. I think he's very ready to back to Houston.

We love you Utah! It was good seeing you. Hope you all miss us immensely until the next time you see us!

27

Brad is now older. He's 27. Only three more years until youth completely dies away and all that's left will be oldness.
Amy wins with the best birthday present. She made a treasure hunt complete with riddles (some I couldn't solve!) and rhymes even! The treasure turned out to be birthday cards from parents and grandparents, and presents galore! Luke gave me a smile, that was the second best present. Isaac ate chinese food for me, that was the 3rd best present. I really appreciated the wonderful birthday cards and books sent from both my grandparents and parents and siblings. My optometry class was AMAZING and making me feel awesome, I got like 100 sincere "happy birthday brad!!!"'s I felt great all day (even though I was dilated and had hours and hours of class)
Life is Good.

Happy Halloween!

We did some AWESOME Pumpkin carving right after Church on Sunday. It was the only time we really spent together. Even though it's a sacrifice, I've LOVED being strict in keeping homework away from the Sabbath day. My grades might suffer sometimes, but since my family suffers Monday-Saturday, it's good to have me home to help out at least one day a week!

I (BRAD) did the Rango Chemilion face pumpkin, and Amy did the happy face one. And then On the back of my I wrote the name of the dreadful Test that I took on Halloween morning.. Pharmacology! Ew.

Isaac was a Train Conductor, thanks to the Smiths who donated the costume to us!!!!!

Luke was a cute 'lil Pumpkin! It was Isaac's costume from 2 years ago. LUKE DIDN'T FIT INTO IT! He's 1 month younger than Isaac was when he wore it too. Luke is our Big Baby!

Isaac didn't like how the Witch's Brew burned his mouth... He didn't realize that it was just "bubble juice." what we call normal carbonated root beer.


Oh and I asked Amy what she was... She said, "A Mexican!" I told her that if anyone asks, she should refer to herself as a Mariachi Girl... ya know, it's a little less politically incorrect.

We went to a triple ward's Fall Festival where tons of kids dressed up. Isaac LOVED seeing the Princesses and the Snow Whites, and there was even a Simba there! However there was one werewolf kid that really scared Isaac and tried to chase him.




Since my halloween weekend was spent studying for Pharm, I didn't have any time to make a costume better than Jim Halpert. A Character from "The Office" who dressed up as Facebook.

Test Week is OVER! I can now come home and see my kids for half an hour before they go to sleep. I think that for the last 2 and a half weeks I've been leaving the house at 5:50 am and not coming home from school till 10pm. If anyone's considering Optometry school... think again. It's not any easier than Med School I'm sorry!

Life is good now. We can eat Isaac's candy. He got TONS of it. On Halloween night, I stayed home giving candy to trick or treaters (It's against our religion to turn off the porch lights and deny children candy. Look it up, it's in the Bible.) That was fun, especially the part about me sitting down and not studying and casually watching a halloween movie. Amy went with her friend Joneal and the kids to go trick or treating around the best neighborhoods. Apparently the old bishop of the ward has a really fun halloween tradition that Amy got to watch. He dumps gasoline all over the street and lights it on FIRE!!!! That's So Awesome. I'm going to do that too! Maybe for my birthday! (Which is in a week or so!)

Love you all BYE

Day At The Park

And Lately Luke has taken to yelling. I think he just likes to listen to his own voice...

Science Center

A few days ago, we were introduced to the Science Center. A friend that had grown up in Houston had gone there as a child, and thought it'd be fun to go back with our kids. The best part about it is its FREE! :) It mostly consisted of animals that have been taxidermed (I don't think that's a real word). We had the whole place to ourselves, so I don't think many people know about it. It seems to mostly exist for schools to visit.

It was really fun to see so many animals up close and personal though. When you go to the zoo, you have to fight crowds of people, and hope that the animal is by the front of the cage. Here, they were just right there for you to look at. The coolest animals they had was a buffalo, and polar bear, a black bear, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, and a lion. There were many more as well. I took just a couple pictures....

Isaac with the crocodile

When Isaac saw this one he said, "lion get bambi?"

The first animal we saw was a wolverine

Oh, and as far as an update on our poo post. Isaac is improving! He still is not completely normal I'd say, but he's getting there. I broke down and went and got some Miralax from Walmart, and I think that seems to help a lot. I gave it to him 3 days in a row a week ago, and he seems to be semi-normal since then.

We also have had the opportunity to come visit Utah! Wee Wee (Stephanie) came and visited us in Houston, and it's been a blast. She's been so much help with the kids, and keeping me company while Brad's been busy doing his test week at school. We then got some buddy passes to go home with her. Things didn't work out perfectly, but we got here. We were going to leave on Friday and get in Utah on time for my grandpa's memorial, but the flight was delayed enough that we would've missed our connection. So the next day we planned on driving to Austin, and flying through Long Beach instead. All of a sudden people bought lots of tickets, and it looked like we might not be able to get on that flight either. Thanks to Tracy and Valerie for spending all of Saturday flying out and getting us. Since Valerie has a higher priority, we were able to get on ahead of the other buddy passes, and we made it! We got here late Saturday night. We did miss the memorial, but at least got to see a little bit of family before they left. We'll be here a week maybe 2, so if anyone is looking for something to do, you should come visit us! :) Sadly we had to leave Brad behind to go to school and take some icky tests. It's hard not to have him with us, but it is fun to see family and friends some more.

The Poo.

Sept 10, 2011

Lots has happened. I should record the story of Isaac's poop before we forget what really happened. Right before Luke was born we decided to try to start potty training Isaac. After about 2 weeks Isaac started peeing in the toilet really really well. He only pooped maybe twice though. He was mostly motivated by us cheering him on and the potty candy (skittles and reeses pieces.) We started putting him in panties and twice he had an accident and peed in his panties and he learned very quickly that you can't pee in them without making a huge wet puddle. So we easily cut our diaper use in half. We loved it! We started planning on getting rid of our extra boxes of his diapers. We would put a diaper on him at night or if we went out just in case he had to poop or we didn't have a toilet near. But then another week went bye without any progress with the poo. He seemed to not have the patience to sit and poop. He wanted off as soon as his pee was done. My parents bought him a toddler toilet and also a new toilet seat to put on top of our big toilet. We started telling isaac no no poo poo in your diaper, poo poo in the toilet! We got after him and he would poop a little in the toilet but mostly still in his diaper. And then something changed. Isaac started to hold in his poops. We think that he thought we meant that poo poo was bad. He really didn't want to poop on the toilet and we wouldn't want him pooping in his diaper and so he just tried to hold it in. He became constipated. He started back tracking and peeing in his diaper again, but we yelled at him for that and he went back to peeing in the toilet. So we had to start buying him more diapers again. When we were in Salt Lake in August Isaac was holding his poops for so long that they stunk so bad when they came out. They were so rotten that I remember walking through the room as my mom and Amy changed his diaper, there was only a poop about as big as a penny in his diaper and I just walked through and jumped in the car and went to do a session at the salt lake Temple. I got out of the car and walked through the conference center parking lot and I could still smell the stench of that little poo on me! It was worse than any poo that anyone you know has ever done!

Anyways, Isaac's foul poop was constantly draining out his butt now and it was giving him a permanent rash. So I went to the pharmacy and they suggested glycerine suppositories. So we did that and it helped getting his backed up problems out. We came back to Houston and we fixed his diet to be very poopy fiber oriented with lots of fruits and vegitables. We stopped yelling at him about pooping and now we just want him to be like Luke and poop it all out in his diaper. He's had about 3 more weeks of constipation but his mood has changed. He now tries to poop, but his body is broken. He tries and tries to poop all the time but only a little ever comes out. It's like the large intestine isn't advancing the poop like it does naturally. But the doctor said he'll grow out of it. So with time he has done better. We've put the toddler toilet in his room and he's tried to poop in it a little. Amy lets him watch movies while he's on the potty. Isaac has had so many rashes that he's come to hate hate hate rash ointment and suppositories. He freaks out so bad, worse than anything in his life. He half fainted once cause he thought Amy was doing a suppository when really she just had desitin. He hates poop cause it makes rashes, and we keep telling him to do a big poo poo cause there's no owie's with those. So he really tries hard, but every time that he gets poo on his butt, he's so afraid of rashes that he stops trying to poop and he asks us to wipe his butt clean. After we do that he goes back to pooping. It's poo a little wipe, poo a little, wipe etc... Doing this is one way to use 8 diapers in one hour. So we stopped that by letting him poop in his panties and since each panty only has a stain of poo we wash it instead of pay for diapers. Some days are really hard on amy cause Isaac will spend 4 hours pooping and asking to be wiped every 20 minutes or more. Our house smells like poop. We really have learned to appreciate Luke as he grunts and fills up his diaper in one big push and then he's good for another 3 hours. Finally about a week ago while talking to my grandma geddes about Isaac's poop problems isaac came up to me saying he pooped and that I had to wash his bum. I checked his bum and said, no poo poo, it was clean and I sent him back to try to poop more. He didn't poo more so we put in in the bath cause he had smelled like poop from about 2 hours of staining his butt with little poops. After I got off the phone with my grandma I went to clean out his toilet and voila! In there was a log about half a foot long and rather wide! Yay! he budged!

Hooray for you! Hooray for me!

Hooray, hooray, The Pooh will soon be free!

Now the time has come for proving

What the diet did for Pooh.

And since we pledged He'd be unwedged,

That's what we're going to do.

He'll be pulled and he'll be tugged,

and eventually unplugged.

We'll have a tug of war

To open Isaac's door.

Think heavage,

think towage

And out the Pooh will goage.

For mind over matter

Has made the Pooh unfatter.

Heave ho! Heave ho!

Heave heave heave heave heave!

Plop!

So since then it's been better. He is probably another 2 months from pooping like a normal boy but at least one poop is a sign that his GI system is working a little. He doesn't have as many rashes and he doesn't stain so much. He still will squat somewhere and only get a tiny out, but it hasn't been an all day 10 times in a row experience any more, and Amy's getting him to do more on the toilet. I'll get another update about it this week cause I'm never home to know the progress. but at least there's a ray of hope.

thanks for reading. I hope that those of you who poop without much problem every day will be a little bit more appreciative of the wonderful gift you've been given.