Continued Update: December 25-27

Back for more Christmas break updates...

Thursday, December 25

Merry (belated) Christmas everyone!  Hope you all had a wonderful holiday and celebration with your loved ones, we sure did.

Our cute little Christmas boy

Hubs brought back a present from his best friend-a Richard Sherman jersey!

Hanging out while we open presents

Pop Pop & Aunt Thor watching hubs open his presents

Pop Pop received a 12th man flag and pole from the hubs

More Seahawk Christmas gear

Hubs got Nana a Seahawk snuggy!  It was definitely a Seahawk Christmas.

After opening presents, I rushed to get ready while other friends of the family visited and then we took off down south to Tacoma to hang out with my side of the family.

Cousin Sydney and Leif look a lot alike, right?!  

My niece/cousin Ari opening up one of our gifts for her

Cousin Ari helping Leif

Grandpa received a Seahawk snuggy too!

Our cutie loves to climb boxes

Grandpa makes Leif laugh all the time

When we came back to the in-laws, they were watching Princess Bride.  Leif really enjoyed the movie!

Friday, December 26

That night Leif woke up every couple hours per usual but he would cry/shout.  I was able to get him back to sleep most of the time, but then around 3am he just wouldn't stop crying.  He was miserable.  We finally climbed out of bed and decided it was time to get to the hospital as we didn't know what else to do.

The E.R. staff was friendly at Swedish Hospital at 3am.  We got in quick and the doc said it wasn't an ear infection even though he was pulling at his ear (we later figured that his ears probably were clogged/wouldn't pop since we experienced the same thing), and she sent him to get x-rays since his lungs didn't sound great.  Yay, first X-rays...he did great with the first one but the second one he had to sit sideways and I had to lift up his arms-he was not happy.  Finally they came back with news that it wasn't pneumonia thankfully but bronchitis, so they hooked up this contraction on the wall and put in liquid albuterol; it slowly came out as gas and I had to hold it up to his face for ten minutes.  He fought me a little at first but then promptly fell asleep.  When it was finished we waited for his albuterol prescription and then drove sleepily back home.  We were able to get him back to sleep quickly, but then a couple hours later he did the uncontrollable wake up cry again.  After panicking for a little bit, we got dressed and hubs headed downstairs with Leif and was able to get him back to sleep in the rocking chair.  I immediately called a couple pharmacies to see if they had the infant mask we needed and after a couple tries found a Walgreens down the road that had one...

NOPE.  They had the large kids mask but not infant mask.  So the pharmacist called another Walgreens which thankfully they had it, and I trekked to Everett.  I successfully got his inhaler, mask and a whole slew of meds for hubs and I since he was full blown sick and I was on my way.

I came home to hubs laying in bed with Leif, and I took over for him.

This was taken around 9:30am.

 He finally woke up right before the brunch my mother-in-law was putting on for her gal pals.  Leif was in much better spirits and we were able to hang out for a while.

Leif loooooves Aunt Missy.

We made it through dessert and that was when Leif started acting up.  We headed upstairs where I rocked him to sleep.

He woke up a couple times, repositioned, then fell back asleep.  You can't tell but he fell asleep with his finger in his mouth.

I slept with him for the first hour, but then I woke up, watched tv and texted everyone in the house since I couldn't move.  I decided then that we should move Leif's birthday party from the Seattle Center to the house since he wasn't feeling that great, and it would be easier to put him down for a nap if he needed it.  He finally woke up around 4pm (a three and a half hour nap!) and we left him with Nana to get decorations for his party.  I tried to go for a "Pacific Northwest" theme, but it was actually quite hard with the time limit we had.  We ended up getting a lot of Seahawk colored decorations, a paper moose head that mounted on the wall and a few little Evergreen trees.  Hey, for last minute, can't ask for much!

Saturday, December 27

Happy FIRST Birthday dear Leif!  I can't believe he's already one.  Time really does fly by when you have a baby!  By the way...try to decipher which is an iPhone photo and which photos were taken by hubs.  Bet you can probably guess right away...

Hubs putting up the large banner...I didn't know it was so big until we opened up the package...

selfie outside!  Leif looks a little out of it, but he was such a trooper all day.

Like the large moose-reindeer head?  Found it at Michaels for 70% off!

Like his outfit?  I figured it was as northwest as I could get him...the onesie underneath is a space needle!

Even Bella got festive

I thought this was a great photo of my friend Sara and Leif!

Good turn out for Leif!

Food spread!  These are the evergreen trees I found, again at Michaels for 70% off

Instead of a cake, Nana found cake balls (I'm obsessed with them still).  I thought this was better since it's a smaller portion!  And of course I ate about 50 of them throughout our stay...

He wasn't sure of them at first, but then he finally tried a couple bites

I thought he'd go all nuts about them since it's his first real taste of sugar overload, but he only nibbled.  Good boy!

Ari smiling big!

My brother John and his kids, Lance and Sydney

Opening presents-even though my folks bought Lance a few birthday gifts, they still got him Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore. He enjoyed them!

Nana & Pop Pop got him a Russell Wilson jersey!

Ari was sweet and wanted to show Leif all his presents and books.  She's a cutie pie!

Leif lasted all the way until the end of the party and then went down for a nap.  He was such a great little boy on his first birthday!!  AND during the party our aunt and uncle told us our cousins were in the hospital-she was in labor!!!  We thought it would be fun to celebrate our babies' birthday on the same day, but her baby ended up being born at 3am the next day.  But it's still neat, we have double birthdays to celebrate now!

Welcome to the world Isabel Mari!

Life Update: December 20-24, 2014

Since there is so much I want to share with all of you, and not enough time in one day, I'm going to give you updates a few days at a time...in photo format of course!

First, hubs and I had our Christmas present exchange on Friday, December 19 evening.  We decided to open a present...then stockings...then it turned into all of our presents.  :)  We thought it would be nice to dedicate all day Saturday to Leif since he had so many Christmas/birthday presents to go through.  :)

December 20

Before presents, we must have a good breakfast.  First time having eggs: he liked them!

What a goofy kid, he loves climbing into everything now!

My Christmas haul from the hubs-he's too good to me.

Leif's mountain of gifts

He took to a Christmas present I got him quickly-a drum full of percussion instruments!  We may have a future drummer on our hands...

That afternoon we decided to go out to Griffith Park and take a mini hike.  We got there a little late but at least were able to get in a mile and a half of hiking!

Sunday, December 21

Hubs had to take an online quiz for his History class...since we have no internet, we hit up a Starbucks in Thousand Oaks.  Leif tried a blueberry muffin, didn't like it and stuck to his spinach/apple/kale teething wafer.  Healthy boy!

That night I did my routine of hearing Leif cry from his crib, slowly shambled to get him, brought him to bed and started nursing him back to sleep.  Suddenly, there is baby vomit all over me.  I'm seriously covered.  He throws up again.  Poor little guy.  We get him stripped down, I strip down, take off all the covers, replace them, and then he throws up all over hubs.  He had a fever of 102 that night.  We somehow got him back to sleep after cleaning up...

Monday, December 22

...and he proceeded to throw up a couple more times the next morning.  :(  We were worried since we had to fly out the next morning.  I had to cancel my last day of work before break and we made an appointment with our pediatrician to make sure it was okay to fly.  We drove over and Leif seemed to be doing much better.  The wait room was a zoo and we figured it would take way too long to wait to see the pediatrician, especially since we talked to another mom who said this happens all the time, recommended meds, and we took off.  

Can you tell he started feeling better?  Mr. Climber

Tuesday, December 23

We woke up to the tune of 4am and headed to the airport.  Leif was feeling much better, but of course he had the sniffles.  Poor guy was getting a cold.  

We managed to get a whole row to ourselves.  No, he did not sit in his own seat...he played for a while and then...

...he fell asleep on us.  This is towards the end of the flight!

Pa picked us up and we made our way to the Alderwood Mall for an early lunch.  Leif really loves his Grandpa!

We made it to my In-Laws home and Leif met Bella for the first time!  He loves dogs.  We left him with Nana and Aunt Thor/Missy while we finished up our Christmas shopping.

Wednesday, December 24

I met my pa in Tacoma for the Metro Parks Jingle Bell 5K-it was cold!  

Such a festive run!  They had costume competitions going on too.

Afterwards I made my way back north and got ready for the traditional Christmas Eve family get together with my hubs' family.

So proud of my sick little boy-still smiles and acts normal even though his nose was constantly running and he was coughing/sneezing lots.  Selfie!

Nana got Leif an "Ugly Christmas Sweater" onesie!

Selfie with Leif & Bella!

He's too cute.

Since our cousin was pregnant and due in January, we had her baby shower before Christmas shenanigans.

In the past everyone would get presents for everyone, but this year they changed it to a White Elephant Exchange!

More family

Towards the end of the evening, relaxing with a bottle.

Christmas Eve tradition for hubs is to get together with his old high school (some go back to grade school!) friends at a bar or two.  This year his best friend threw a get together at his house, and I had planned on going but I was exhausted and didn't want to leave Leif sick.  So I went to bed early.  :)

Happy New Year, quick hello

Hi everyone-

Sorry it's been weeks, but Happy New Year!  Between our "vacation" (I quoted it because most of it didn't feel like a vacation) and no internet at home, I really had no time to update the blog.  But here's a few highlights since I have approximately two minutes before I'm out of the office:

Sunday, December 21 evening: Leif threw up all over us.  I don't know how he had so much in his stomach, but let's say I was covered and he still managed to puke all over hubs.

Monday, December 22: Stayed home from work to take care of Leif-he threw up a couple more times in the morning, but seemed to recover okay.

Tuesday, December 23: Woke up at 4am, Leif had the sniffles.  Ugh.  Flew out of Burbank at 7am.

Wednesday, December 24: Merry Christmas Eve!  Had a big Hovland party.  Leif was full-blown sick at this point.

Thursday, December 25: Merry Christmas!  Had two Christmases.  Then that night we took Leif to his first E.R. visit...he was crying uncontrollably, and wouldn't fall back asleep.  Turns out he had bronchitis.

Friday, December 26: Sleepy family-got back from the hospital and Leif was still crying uncontrollably.  Hubs was able to get him back to sleep, I took a fun trip to two different Walgreens to pick up his inhaler and mask.

Saturday, December 27: Happy birthday Leif!  We changed the location of his birthday from the Seattle Center to the Hovland home.  Much better idea.  We were able to decorate and he could crawl around.  He was such a trooper for being sick.

Time is up, but I'll go into more detail with photos and what not tomorrow.  By the way, Leif got everyone sick.  That was fun.  I'm on the mend, but still have the sniffles.  Hubs has a cough.  Will write more tomorrow!