the masters...

the masters... also known as chris' favorite golf tournament of the year. the weeks leading up to the actual tournament chris gets excited and basically giddy everytime he hears the theme song on the commercials or he sees the famous green jackets.  this year was especially exciting as it was the first time in a couple years he didn't have to study for any test the whole weekend and we didn't make any big plans so he could watch the whole weekend.  he was also excited to share the experience with daniel...

they watched live feed together on our computer for a while on saturday until the tournament started showing on tv.  as you can tell daniel was very focused on the screen (like his daddy). i believe it is because the computer screen is bright and colorful... chris thinks he has a future famous golfer sitting on his lap... haha 

i am not much of a golfer myself (i'm pretty good at miniature golf but thats about it)  but i have gotten to know the sport more just from spending time with chris watching a few tournaments here and there.  chris' dream is to one day go to the masters with some buddies of his and spend the whole weekend eating food and watching good golf at the amazing Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia.  after watching the tournament for 3 days you can't help but get involved... even my mom was anxious to see who would win.  

chris and i can't help but make games or bet over everything and as per usual we picked different winners... i felt that Louis oosthuizen should have won since he had the amazing and historical double eagle on hole 2... and someone who makes a historical shot should win... chris was going for Bubba watson because he had never won a major tournament before and he really likes his pink driver (wishes he had one himself).  when it finally happened and bubba made the amazing 40 yard hook shot from the pine straw and then the putt right after... it was fascinating to see what kind of winner he was... a big blubber baby.. kinda like this

it actually made me like him so much more... he was so touched and overwhelmed and excited that he won he just bawled like a baby and every time he got interviewed he bawled... he was overwhelmed with emotion since he had just adopted his son two weeks before which was life changing and then he won the masters which was also life changing... and he just cried .. and really it looked more like this when he hugged his mom:

 it was a fun weekend and its always more fun to watch when chris is so excited the whole time.  i'm glad bubba won and i'm glad daniel apparently likes golf.. haha... 

2 months...

time really does fly!!! this month has felt really busy and yet i feel like i accomplished nothing.  here are some really neat things daniel is doing now:

- he is only waking up once in the night for a feeding!!! its so nice for me to get longer stretches of sleep!!! 

- he is starting to smile more and more.. we get open mouth smiles and a few little smirks and i even caught a glimpse of one of his dimples... which i usually only see at night when he sleep smiles.

- he is standing up really well and loves to play with his dad because he had him practice standing up the whole time.

- he is also a champ at holding up his head.. it is not nearly so floppy as it was in the beginning.

- he is just barely starting to coo and talk to us... barely

- he is still a really good eater and likes to eat for a long time... like 40 min each feeding. he just likes to take his time

- he loves to sleep on his side.  i always put him on his back when i put him down but when i go in to check on him he has lifted his legs up to tip over to his side.  

- he enjoys tummy time for the first 15 min and then he's done... unless daddy is lying on the floor with him.. then he goes much longer.

- he focuses on our faces and knows who mommy and daddy are

- he loves to stare at lights and fans... and the tv.

some not so fun things he does:

- the projectile poop... while we are changing him... 3 different times we lift up to wipe and it just shoots out so much that it covers his bed, which has since been moved out of the firing range.  it was too hard to keep taking all the bedding on and off to wash.

- he does this pig squeal when he's eating and it gets taken away too soon or for a brief pause... its cute but also crazy.

- he also does this mad eating when he's gassy or needs to go... and its not fun for me.. it hurts as he kinda thrashes around.

otherwise he is an awesome baby!!! such a pretty face and good little boy.  he has gotten a bunch of nicknames:

monkey man (cause he has black hair all over)

mr. blueberry (my sister gave him this one cause of a pair of blue stripped pajamas)

little stinker (mommy calls him when he poops while she's trying to feed him... cause its stinky)

buddy

bubba

little man

i'm excited for these next months when he really starts to wake up more and be more interactive. here are some fun pics i took today... it was fun until he was done and he let me know very loudly that he was done.

i also saw on pinterest where someone had taken a picture of their baby's feet and put it in the shape of a "v" and used it in the word "love" so i decided i wanted to try something like that... and daniel's middle name is vern... so here is my attempt... its kinda funky but i like it.

here are the bloopers from trying to take his month photo... i love the one of him smirking... but he wasn't looking at the camera.

our little man is getting so big already!!!

first road trip...

beaver, utah... my grandpa vern built a cabin here when i was little and we have been making several trips a year ever since.  we twice a year to getaway from the city to watch LDS General Conference on tv away from the distractions of home.  this year we went with my mom, grandpa, sam, meesha, gig, jack, laura, and will.  i was a little nervous to take the baby in the car and worried about needing to stop and feed him half way there.  the trip is only 3 hours, but thats how often he eats.  we worked it out and he slept otherwise.  he loves the car and amazingly sleeps the whole time.

friday night we had dinner and then sat around talking till way too late at night, but it was fun to just hang out with my brothers and get into these crazy philosophical conversations about who knows what.  the next day we woke up to meesha and sam making steak and egg sandwiches for breakfast and then we sat around pretty much all day and watched both sessions of conference.  gigi and will played with toys and masks that my mom brought to decorate and then gigi decided it would be a good idea to put them all over mommy.  quite hilarious.  i mostly fed the baby, put him to sleep, and then napped myelf.  i did manage to catch a smile in his sleep on camera...

at some point (i took a nap and missed it) my mom did an easter egg hunt with the kids and they had a blast looking for the eggs.  they had to rehide them a couple times.  my mom also made hamburgers for lunch... yum! after the men got back from the priesthood session we did our traditional run to dairy queen for blizzards.  at one point chris and i also took a ride in the gator around the cabin.  at the same time jack was teaching laura to drive stick o we had some racing and crazy driving (by me) and crazy photo taking (by chris)

here is a little tour of the cabin... 

and here are some neat things grandpa has collected that surround the cabin

the weekend ended with snow!!!! i love watching it snow and cover the mountains surrounding us.  it also makes for a much more interesting drive home.  daniel amazingly sleep the entire way home not waking till we took him out of the car... and then he was STARVING. haha  it was a great weekend and i'm really going to miss our quick trips to the cabin when we move to north carolina this summer.

first real bath...

daniel didn't lose his cord until we were at the hospital... at almost 6 weeks old so he had only been getting washcloth baths before that.

 we were excited to go home and use our little baby tub and give him a real bath.  he loved it! he sat so content in the warm water while i scrubbed him down... the only part he really hated was the end when we pulled him out of the cozy water and cover him in cold lotion.  sorry babe!

he and i also went to church for the first time (his first time, my first time in almost 2 months).  he looked super cute in his little church clothes.  and he was the perfect baby all through church and never cried.

he also randomly fell asleep on his tummy time/play time blanket the other day... it was too cute with his arms up by his head.  i love sleeping babies.. they are so sweet!

first hike...

chris was on spring break last week so we decided to take a day and go out to red rock and do a little hike.  it had to be fairly little and super easy considering i'm still recovering from surgery.  but we loaded up little man and drove up there and decided to just do a short hike around willow springs.  it was a beautiful day for weather and hiking.  the sun wasn't too hot which is good since i was carrying the baby in our bjorne.  he did super good and just slept the whole time and even slept the whole drive home which is awesome since it was time to eat.

we even found a little spring... and a waterfall... but we didn't take pics of the water fall..

daniel really likes to ride in the car and just look at everything around him.

we are really glad we went up there and will probably go again before we leave las vegas in july.

all a precautionary measure...

on thursday morning a couple weeks ago the baby woke up to eat, and when i picked him up i noticed he was kinda hot.  so i fed him and he was not very interested in eating... i took his temp and it was 101.  i called the pediatrician on call (cause that is what they told me to do with this newborn) and she had me give him tylenol and  come into the office when it opened.  we got to the office and see one of our pediatricians partners and after he checked him out he sends us next door to the summerlin hospital pediatric er  to do some testing and then observe him for a couple days, the fear being meningitis or the flu or something else that could be really harmful to a baby who is only 5 weeks old.

i walk over with my little guy and they take us back and immediately start doing a work up.  this was the worst part of the whole experience watching the baby get poked and prodded and squeezed.  he was a trooper but ended up with lots of bruises.  they did a little catheter to get some urine and they tried several times to do an IV for fluids and to get blood for blood cultures and what not.  daniel has sadly inherited my tiny non exsistant veins so they poked him 4 times before finally getting it in his arm.  they also had to do a spinal tap.  the curled him into a tiny fetal ball... and he hardly cried he was so wiped out by this point.

while waiting to be admitted upstairs he started getting really fussy, and when i opened up his blanket i panicked because his tiny little hand was swollen and huge and purple!  i ran out and got a nurse... after they did the IV the taped his arm to a splint to keep it straight and they did the tape too tight and it was cutting off circulation.  totally freaky.

they then took us upstairs.  this is where we spent the next couple days.   i originally thought it was only going to be one night, but when the pediatrician came by the next evening they said it would be a couple days till we got all test results back.  daniel only had the fever for the one day, so they were keeping us just to be sure it was something more serious than the virus they figured it was.  

they had him on iv antibiotics and one night the nurse was worried because little man was crying really hard as they went in, and she was like... thats not right.  so she took the tape off and looked at his arm... the left arm was twice the size of the right... the IV had not been in right the whole time and was just pumping fluid into his arm... so she took it out...  the next morning she tired to put one back in and another nurse tried and after that once more wanted to try and i said no!  we wanted to wait for the NICU nurse to come down and do it.. we heard he was the best and he does it on tiny 3 pound babies... so we would wait.  he finally came down and had no problem putting it back in.  after that it was never a problem again... but they wrapped it up real good so it wouldn't get pulled out or anything, looked like a giant club on his tiny arm.

this whole experience would have been more miserable if i hadn't had so much support from my mom and chris coming and spending time with me as much as they could!  and bringing me things from home.  my mom even stayed for a bit so i could run home and take a shower.  it was all bad timing since chris had his big licensing exam the same weekend we were in the hospital.  he did buy daniel a little get better gift.  super sweet little bear that says get well beary soon.

all tests came back negative and he was fine... just a long weekend with not a lot of sleep for me since people come in and out of the room every other second... not fun!  our room did have an awesome panoramic view of the city!!

one month...

that's right! daniel is now one month old.... does it feel like its been a month? nope! it has gone by so fast and it feels like so much has happened when nothing is really happening. we had his 6 week check up and here are his stats from the doctors today:

height: 22.75 inches (70th percentile)

weight: 9.5 pounds (20th percentile)

 he has gained 3 pounds since our first visit

yep... he's tall and skinny!! haha

this has definitely been the month for firsts.... obviously since it was the first month. ha!  but seriously here are some things that happened for the first time:

everyday consists of eating for about 40 min every three hours, being awake for a little bit and then napping for an hour and a half sometimes more and then starting the cycle over. eating is going really well and he's a hungry little guy. he's been gaining lots of good weight even though he's as long and skinny as can be! when he's awake there is a little tummy time, cuddle time, bath time, singing time, and mommy and daddy time.  when he's not awake or eating there is a ton of this going on:

and when i try to wake him to eat he does this for at least 15 min:  

he is the stretching king!  he grunts and cries and yawns and squeals the whole time!!

at night he's been waking every 4 hours to eat... hopefully that will stretch as he gets older.  i haven't been able to try crying it out yet.  one day we did it for a nap and i only last 5 min.  he still seems so little to let cry it out... but i'm going to keep trying till it works and he falls asleep on his own.  at night i'm so tempted to rock him to sleep cause he falls asleep so much faster and i don't have to keep getting up when cries after 10 min trying to fall asleep on his own.  i never thought i would be such a wuss... but i totally am!! 

some of my favorite things that he does:

- hiccups all the time!! he did in the womb almost every night so its no surprise me that he gets them almost once a day. 

- sneezes! it is the cutest face that he makes! and he usually sneezes more than once... and it looks like this:

- he also makes the poutyiest faces! anytime he's getting his diaper changed he puts on the poutyiest face.

- since he is such a newborn and really doesn't do a whole lot its easy to get excited about these few little things.  i also love his face right after he fully fed and he's wide awake... its a very alert and content face. 

here are a few more pics from when i was trying to take his one month pic.... its tough to get him to stay and not twitch or flop over and just scream cause he does not like it!  haha