So here are the pictures from the photo session. I think they turned out great considering that Gage was miserable most of the time. And for 25$ I think they totally worked out! My favorite was the little farmer outfit we put him in. I just had to have an Idaho themed one. Sadly none of the ones with us as a family turned out great but that's ok cause we were really there for Gage anyway. We're going to attempt to head to church for the first time this morning so we'll see how that goes. His blessing is going to be on March 7th at 11:30 here in Rexburg I think. We have to check with the ward still but I don't think they often turn people down. Anyway let me know if any of you want a specific copy of one of these pictures and I'll print one up and send it to you. Love you all!

A much needed update

Sorry it's taken forever for me to get a new post together. Unfortunately the pictures are about a week old but that just means that you'll get to see the full development of little Gage Lynn when I post some more and he looks a bunch older. He's had several complications in the last couple of weeks and Cody and I are finally pretty sure that we've worked out all of his problems. He had to go through some thrush treatment and is now pretty much over that. Luckily he's been eating from the bottle so I didn't get infected. I thought that was the reason for his fussiness but it wasn't getting better. He would have horrible gas that would leaving him thrashing in pain and crying for hours. Turns out that he is infant lactose intolerant. His tummy can't break down the lactose which makes it ferment in his stomach and really hurts him. It was always especially bad after the first hour or so after eating. He would also have diarrhea all day and we would be changing diapers about every half an hour or so which also lead to a horrible diaper rash. After some research we decided to try and switch him to lactose free formula and ta da! He's been a completely different baby. No more crying, no more painful hours of grunting and passing gas. But that means that I'll probably stop feeding him breast milk and move him to formula. Breast milk has an even higher concentration of lactose than normal formula. There is a medicine that exists that helps a baby break down lactose that you can add to breast milk but even then there is only about a 50% chance that it will work. So I know it's not what I wanted and unfortunate that it hasn't worked out but I'm going to move him to full time formula. I'm just so relieved that he is doing so much better. A mom never wants to see her baby in constant pain.

Sadly we didn't figure out what was wrong until after we tried to take his newborn pictures so we pretty much got a lot of pictures of his sweet little crying boo face. I made the wrong move and tried to calm him with lots of breast milk, which I'm sure was just hurting him more. Poor little guy. I just can't wait to get some of my sleep back. One of the pictures below is Cody on the floor with Gage. We pretty much fall asleep everywhere and anywhere when we get the chance. Cody is such a sweetheart and takes Gage for most of the night so I'm able to get some much needed sleep. It's a good move on his part cause he does great on little sleep whereas I am a total grump and not fun to be around without sleep. Gage keeps getting more and more cute each day! I love my little boy! His eyes are really beginning to take on a beautiful blue and he is looking more like Cody with every day that passes. We've also discovered that he loves coming into the shower with us. As long as we are holding him he enjoys the streams of water and licks the water off his lips. He's getting chubby and is developing quite the double chin. I think he was being overfed for a bit because one symptom of Lactose intolerance is that babies will over eat to try and get comfort from the pain which just makes it worse cause more milk blocks up in his stomach. No more feedings every hour or two! Good thing! I can't wait to get the newborn pictures back next week. I'll be sure to post them the day I get them.

Law school wise here's a list of the schools Cody has gotten into. University of Idaho, University of Denver, Dayton University in Ohio, a school on Long Island in New York, two different law schools in Minasotta, and I think he's on a waiting list for one in Illinois. So we are still waiting to hear from some Cali schools and also university of Utah. Cody applied to 19 all together so hopefully we'll have some options open. We don't really know where we'd like to go so if anyone has a preference speak out now! I'll keep everyone updated when we find out more. Love you all!

1 week and 5 days old already! I can't believe how much he's changed just in this short time! His face is starting to get chubbier and he has begun to eat more and more with each feeding. He was a real pill for a couple of nights but I am now happy to report that he is sleeping a little bit better. There are several things that have happened to this point that I wish I could go back and re-do these first couple of weeks. First I would always, and I mean ALWAYS, remember to point his little penis down when I put a diaper on him. When it points up his pee totally misses the diaper and ends up soaking his clothes instead. You'd think that after a few times of this I would remember... but I don't. Second I would buy the gas relief drops much sooner to save my son some of the agony of an upset stomach. Third, I would have somehow convinced my mom to stay an extra week. Fourth I would have never fed him with a "rapid" or "fast" bottle nipple. Turns out that there is a "slow" bottle nipple that enables him to eat a lot slower. He was downing 2 oz in 30 seconds- which I thought was a little fast. Fifth, I would have avoided a nipple shield since I think that has been a huge hindrance in getting him to breastfeed. Although without the shield he wasn't eating at all so it's hard to say. All in all I'm totally in love with my son and I can't wait for him to keep growing so I get to see what a handsome little man he's going to make.

Bath time for baby! This is a video of Gage's very first bath. He didn't seem to think much of it but I might have had the water too cool. He screamed quite a but but he was so happy and clean when it was all done. We went to the doctor yesterday and Gage weighted in at 7.1 so he's back to birth weight after only a week so he's doing really great. He's been sleeping poorly the last couple of nights so Cody and I haven't gotten much sleep. I think he's had gas so we bought some gas treatment and I think he's been getting a little better. He smiles randomly sometimes and I'd love to get it on camera but I'm always just too late. His smile is a darling little side grin and it reminds me so much of Cody's side smile. So the vote is still out whether he looks like Cody or like me. I think we'll all just have to wait and see. Sorry this isn't very long but I figure people mostly want to see the pictures more than anything.