Just to match his eyes

Well the helmet is finally here and you can tell that Gage doesn't think very much of it. I think the close up of him puts the whole thing together without even using words. He's actually taking it better than I thought he would and so far I think he's adjusting better than I am. It's weird to go from snuggling your baby all the time to having a helmet in the way. I'll go in for a kiss and if Gage turns I get a helmet to the side of the face. Perhaps he does it on purpose as pay back. He's slowly working into the helmet with one hour on one hour off yesterday and two hours on and one hour off today. He doesn't have to wear it over night for a couple of more days so at least there's that. The general consensus is that he is actually cuter because of the helmet. It frames his face and really shows off his eyes so I agree with everyone. The doctor is really concerned about us taking him camping in St. George next week because if he gets too hot he can get heat rash or become dehydrated, so I'm suppose to watch him very closely. Motel 6, here I come, if he's not handling it well! We were suppose to be staying on a house boat like we do every year but the people who share the time share sank it up to the top deck and now it's totaled. They blame the sinking on a huge storm that popped up but no other boats on the Lake sunk so we think it was the intoxication of the inhabitants more than anything. I'm actually relieved because I was nervous to do that kind of a trip with a 4 month old. Not many ways to escape a loud, full house boat.
It's been so fun to watch Gage develop and do things that he couldn't do the day before. For instance, a few days ago Cody came into the room all excited because Gage had rolled on his side (a feat which he repeated all day and then hasn't done since so that's odd). Also he has begun to open his hand and grab objects when he feels them brush up against them. Additionally, he has rolled from his belly to his back a couple of times. Bottle feeding has become really tough cause Gage wants to hold his own bottle but ends up swatting it away most of the time.




























Also my friend Kristen had her baby and she is so beautiful. It was so fun to hold her cause she's only 6 pounds and Gage was never that small. We're already planning the dating future. We think they'll be a nice match some day. Well that's about all I have for this post. Love you all!

Oh helmeted one

Well I'm glad that we went to Salt Lake to have this looked at! Turns out that Gage was well on his way to having a permeately mis-shapen head. There are some facts about his head treatment that are really interesting. So apparently if the flat spot is just on the back of the head and is symmetrical then there really isn't a problem. Unfortunately for Gage his flat spot has moved off to the left and is throwing off the symmetry of his head. They measured his head from the front left of his head to the back right and then again from the front right to the back left and there was an 8 mm difference- giving him a score of 8. Above 10 is severe and below five isn't cause for concern so he was in between but still needs a helmet at least a few months. So we left the first appointment and went to the second appointment where they scanned his head for images to make a custom helmet for him. As you can tell he screamed the whole time. Poor kid. If only he knew what was coming! It was really interesting. They placed a sock like fabric on his head and attached a transmitter base to the top as a reference point. They then used something that looked like a price scanner to run up and down his head. He was inconsolable about having to hold his head still. My favorite is that you can see his super chubby cheeks on the digital rendition of his head. What a darling! So we picked out a light blue color for the helmet (sorry to all those camo lovers out there- it was a close second---yeah right) and his helmet will be ready to be fitted next Friday right before Lake Powell. He has to wear it 23 hours a day and I know the poor thing is going to roast at Powell but some day he'll thank us. Looks like Medicaid will probably cover it but chances are also there that we might be getting the $2,000 dollar bill for this one which would be fine. Who knows if he's every going to grow hair so we just can't chance it.Above is a picture example of what his helmet will look like except in light blue. So lucky for Regan and Pete we'll be in Salt Lake every other week for the next 3 months or so before we head to Denver. Expect to see us a lot! I'm just so relieved that we went and did it even though the family doctor said to not worry. The specialist said that we came at the best time cause he still has so much growing to do and once you hit a year the bones in your skull cement together and there really isn't anything you can do to change it. So I think the internet deserves a big hand in this for helping us research what his condition was and what we could do to fix it.

Ahhh summer time!

Once the bike is out I like to think that summer has officially started. I spent the entire day scrubing away at it and I'm happy to report that it shines like the day it was chromed. It's an 1100 v-star so this bike really has some power. Ironic because it is the only bike I've ever driven (aside from the little one that we used for the motorcycle test). Sadly there are sooooo many repairs that need to be done. At least $1,500 on the chrome alone and body tune ups. Turns out the salted road of winter do not agree with Chrome, paint or leather. But the bike has still got it. I think people are always surprised to see me driving it cause it's so heavy but they don't understand that it's only heavy when you're stopped. When it's moving it drives like a breeze. I'm wearing my new bathing suit that I got for my birthday and it felt so good to get some sun while I washed the bike.





























In some Gage news we finally booked an appointment for him to get his head looked at and possibly get a helmet for him. His doctor said that we're starting young enough that the head should have enough growth left to change. The reason he's gonna need one is that he has a flat spot on the back right of his head and it keeps getting more and more flat and shifting further right. It's next week on Wed in Salt Lake so I'll keep everyone posted on the details.
Also for a sewage update... there is no carpet in half of our living room and the washer and dryer have been acting up because of the water damage. I just want to get my home back! I hate having things out of my control. The landlords are being pretty good about trying to fix things but they just had a baby and they live in Utah so... there you go.
But nothing else matters- I think my baby is darling and my life is pretty good. Too bad work is a necessary evil. But I have a wonderful husband who not only keeps house but also helps me with my work. What a sweetheart! Also Gage sleeps 7 hours a night straight and he cries himself to sleep now. Sigh- it was hard teaching him to do it but I'm so glad we took the time. It helped that Cody was around to stop me from rushing to him every time he squeaked.
Gage- you're the best!

The past little bit

Here are some randoms from a few weeks past till now that I thought showed what we've been up to the past little bit. First off was our kite flying day that was a lot of fun. If nothing else can be said of Rexburg it's that we have some crazy wind. Usually it's not a good thing but once it's tamed and beaten it can be used for good. We bought the kite for a dollar and when we finished we passed it off to a father/ daughter combo who seemed pretty happy to have it.

In other news we got back from our concert weekend and had so much fun! We saw 30 seconds to Mars live and even though Jared Leto (the lead singer) was sick he still put on a great performance. There was a moment when he snuck to the back of the center and did a little acoustic performance and then had the audience crowd surf him back to the stage. I was so glad to have Cody there cause I wanted to get to the front to see the band, so Cody bulldozed his way through- no small task if you've ever been to a crazy concert- and got us right up front. The crowd is so crazy that he had to put me in front and brace against the crowd. I thought I was going to suffocate but I'd totally do it again. It's funny how animalistic people can get in those kind of situations with the fighting and cussing and shoving. It pays to have a huge husband! I glad there weren't any fights that broke out, mostly because Cody can put the meanest scowl on his face so people don't even try. I'd like to thank my sisters-in-law Kaiann and Kaylee and my brother-in-law Kevin for watching Gage for us. It was so fun to pretend to be young again. It wasn't hard with the whole audience being 17 years old!

Also in other news we came home last night to a bit of a disaster. The sewage pipe had disconnected while we were gone so we came home, flushed the toilet once and sewage exploded into our kitchen and dining room. The picture above was taken for the landlords as proof that it wasn't our fault. The last plumber secured the pipe to the opening with duct tape. I know... duct tape! The guy this morning couldn't believe the last plumber was so stupid and lazy. Every drop of water shakes that pipe on the way down so it was just a matter of time before the tape wore off. The house smelled sooooooo bad so we brought Gage into our room last night and shut the door, opened the window, and turned on the heater. I think we're going to a friends house for the next couple of days while the pipes are fixed and the carpets cleaned. Our landlords are being really great about it which is nice. They are even thinking about taking out the carpet from the kitchen and replacing it with tile which would be awesome! Also below are some pictures from the birthday dinner and play with Cody and also my happy birthday haircut I gifted to myself. I also got to talk to my little sister this weekend who is serving a Mormon mission in Korea. She gets to talk to us twice a year (mother's day and Christmas) and I was so happy to hear that she is doing so well and also learning the "ropes" of the mission. It made me really miss being out on mine till I noticed the exhausted note in her voice and I was a little less sad. I'm so proud of her!

Denver Colorado

This first picture I forgot to include with the last post and I can't do without it. We saw Cody's brother on our way to Colorado and while we were out with the horses he came into the room and found his 14 month son trying to feed Gage honey grams. He managed to snap this picture and then quickly pulled the cracker out of Gage's mouth. Looks like Gage likes it :)





The rest of these picture are from the DU campus in Denver. As a BYU-I attendee all my life, the beauty of this campus blew me away! All the buildings were made of gorgeous brick and everything was green and in bloom. The building Cody is standing in front of is the law building that just was built in 2003 so the interior had all new laptop hook-ups at each desk and, true to a green conscious state, the building was green certified which meant that a certain amount of plant life in the building had to be seen and also it had to reach percentage specifications of the percentage of natural sunlight so the whole building is full of beautiful full windows. And a whole 5 story building just for law? How do you beat that? We also tried to look around at some housing but the car's oil light came on so we had to spend about 2 hours at the Walmart auto center. On of the neat things about DU is that there is a electric rail that runs around the city and out into the suburbs and all DU students get a pass to ride it that's included in their tuition. So if we could find a place next to one of the rail stations he could ride in everyday and be able to study on the train. If we end up deciding to go there we'll be planning another trip to look into some housing options. So many things to think about! My heart has been telling me that I would do very well in Denver so we're going to the temple tonight to ask the Lord if he thinks we would do well there. I'll let everyone know what we figure out. Plus I'll have to do another post soon just to show more recent pictures of Gage smiling and giggling. Love you all and happy mothers day to all!

At Last!

So the pictures here are from our trip to Cody's parents place to help clear the irrigation ditches for the upcoming summer. It was pretty grueling work! And I went on a couple of horse back rides to top it off so- talk about a sore body! Chilly came up to ride horses with me and Cody and we had a blast. I don't know when the last 4 hour ride I went on but I forgot how much fun it can be to just pick a mountain peak and figure a way up to it. We had a couple of scares while riding. Chelsea got pinned into a huge grove of trees/ bushes and it was also a snow drift pile so the horse was having a hard time getting out of the snow. Luckily we had her on the 31 year old best horse in the herd so the horse kept calm and no one got hurt. The tricky part was that there were tons of branches and downed trees under the snow that popped up under her when the snow was brushed off so at one point the snow was half way up her belly and there were 5 branches criss-crossing her legs. Then my horse, which is still just green broke (so not very reliable) kept breaking in to a gallop for no reason out of the blue. And I mean a fully out gallop with the occasional buck. The worst was his galloping across this huge stretch of rocks. Glad I was able to stay on. Gage met the horses for the first time and I could tell that it was the beginning of legends. He also laughed for the first time that day and we got it on film. He doesn't do it till the 4th time of Cody tickling him so be sure to watch the whole thing. It is so cute to watch Gage become a real kid and I've got to say that I love his smile. He'll smile at me whenever I look at him now and I love it!