Update!!

Brody turned one Sept 26th- this is before he got his cupcake, which he did not eat. He is the only child that I know that does not like frosting and he would not eat it after he had some. Chocolate is whole different ball game- if only I had known.

This is post surgery a month after his birthday. This is a picture of his antenas that he has for his jaw. We are all done moving it thank goodness and now we wait. Moving his jaw was the hardest thing we have had to do yet. Talk about torture, it made me and him cry. It is hard to do something to your child that you know hurts them so much.

The pictures are in the wrong order, but this is after Brody's haircut. We did not want to give him one but his hair was too long and kept getting wrapped around his antena's. But he looks so grown up. This is the day after we brought him home from the hospital.

This is the day that we brought Brody home from the hospital. He was super chubby! And the swelling has gone down considerably in this picture. He was a trooper though. He did so well for what he had to go through. We have one tough baby!!

This is cute Brody on his birthday prehair cut. We loved his little curls in the back. It was so long and soft. But we love his hair now too.

Well sorry my blogging is so sporadic. It really seems like I should be able to do it more often but every time I get on I always look at everyone else's and I don't get to mine. Plus half the time I get online it is through my phone and I am not savy enough to do it on there. Anyways, we are doing well. Ryan has a few more weeks of school and he is ready for a break. He is doing all his last tests before the finals. Clayton is loving preschool and is doing really well. He is starting to read a few things and is getting the letters and sounds down well. Brody is doing good. He is now to the point that he is over the pain, now we just have to teach him that he can play by himself on the floor once in a while. He always wants to be part of what is going on and always wants to be held. He loves his grandma and grandpa and will pick them over me and Ryan any chance he gets. He learned to go up the stairs on his own because he knew grandpa was upstairs playing on the computer. He is starting to walk if he has a push toy. He loves to sing and dance, and he knows the sound that a dog makes, which is the only animal sound that he will do. He does not talk really but he is starting move his mouth in the same way as us and he does his best. He also learned the word kiss and what to do and now we all get kisses all the time. Very slobbery kisses!!

Pictures!!

Clayton fishing with Grandpa! He loves fishing and he loves to eat the fish he catches.
Brody and his wonderful smile. Playing with toys. This is pre heart surgery about 6 months old.
Post heart surgery at the hospital. From right to left: Grandma Kelly, Grandpa Blake, Clayton, Grandpa Purdy, me, Brody and Grandma Sylvie.
We went down in the hollow for a picnic. Clayton likes to wear his hat any way but the way you are supposed to. Its pretty cute.
Claytons sand box. We got this in anticipation for the one that is going to be permanent. Clay spends a ton of his time here it is wonderful!
Cute Brody with no tube and nice combed hair. We say that he has man hair. It is long and soft and combs perfectly, and it is now getting curly. It is sooo cute.
Brody's scrunchy face. He does this to make people laugh. When he is doing it he also breath hard and sounds like a pug. It is pretty funny and does make us laugh so he does it constantly. He is a little entertainer.

Hello again!

Well I am officially horrible at blogging. I think about it all the time but never get to it. And when I should be blogging I end up looking at everyone else. However, tonight I am going to do it. I unfortunately only have a few pictures to put on because my phone has become my new camera and I do not know how to get them from the phone to the computer. Ryan does though so I am using his pics.
Anyways, we have had a very normal summer. The 4th was awesome. Brody was a champ and slept through the parade, and fireworks. Clayton loved the whole day and asked if we could do it all again for at least a week after.
We had one camping trip up in the Uintahs, just below Mirror Lake. It was very beautiful up there because of all the rain it was very green for this time of year. But there were a ton of misquitoes, and I mean a ton!!! Brody did not like sleeping in the tent. He likes to spread out and roll around and he couldn't. It was also too cold to not have a blanket on him and he does not like that either, needless to say me and him did not get alot of sleep. We also finished a room in the basement. Well two actually. My dad moved his medical workroom to his old wood working room. Ryan and him finished that room and then we redid the bedroom. We were only going to paint it but it just so happened that a pipe coming from the kitchen was leaking and had been for some time. So we had to remove half the wall and replace it then paint and replace the carpet. However, because I have an awesome husband he made it awesome. Clayton got a bunk bed for the room and we finally have a living room and our own room down here. It is great!!
The latest news is that Brody had his palate surgery on the 8th of Aug. He did really well and is recovering well also. He is a trooper. Right now it has been 5 days. His only problem is getting used to breathing. He doesn't have his big hole linking his nose and mouth so it has been difficult. Night times are the hardest, he gets really stuffy and really upset. They sent us home with oxygen, for while he sleeps, but he hates it. We are back to sleeping on the couch because he can't breath laying down. He sits up on us or against us all night. Poor little guy cries half the night because he stops breathing and is makes him angry. Cute things though is that he sounds like he is constantly sucking on something because he is playing with the top of his mouth with his tongue. He has also started sucking his thumb because he does not like his pacifier in there. We are trying some new ones but we will see what happens because technically they are not supposed to put their fingers in their mouth.
Clayton and Brody are such wonderful boys. Clayton has been quite good through this whole ordeal. He is very excited about his birthday this month. He has been talking about it for months now and we are having a Star Wars birthday. I am pretty excited. I found an awesome website with some great games and ideas for it. I think it will turn out well if I can get everything done in time.
We have a few trips that we are going on. Clayton and Ryan are going to Lake Powell- which is Ryans favorite place to go. And while they are there I am going to take Brody to Ft Lauderdale and play on the beaches there.
So this is getting long. And I am not sure how many of you are still reading because I myself prefer pictures with the talking but I posted those above. Anyways, I have a tired and hungry baby. Thanks everyone for your support, prayers and love.

Update on Life!

I wanted to have a copy of some of the cute things that Clayton and Brody do so you all get to have the update as well.
Clayton's preschool class has finished learning the alphabet and Clayton all of the sudden knows most of it. For the last two years I have been trying to get him to tell me letters or sounds of letters and he is not interested. He has never let me teach him them. Now he loves it. He can almost say all of the alphabet and knows most of them. Thanks Miss Georgia!!!
He is also getting better at counting and can recognize 1-8. We are working on that now too.
He says the funniest things all the time. Here are a few but mind you only a few because he is full of them.
One day he had a secret for me and while he was telling me he reached around and was plugging my other ear. When I told him to take his finger out he said "I don't want any one else to hear the secret and it might get out."
He loves to call everyone sweet cheeks. I don't know where he learned it but he says it all the time now.

Brody is in the stage of grabbing everything and is getting very good at it. He is also at the stage where he would rather play with the lid he just saw you holding over the exciting toy that you are trying to give him. He is a joy, and always has smiles for everyone. He sat up for the first time by himself the other day and just today did it for about a minute. He is progressing better that we could have imagined. He got one of those exersaucers for Christmas and we have started to put him in it. He loves it. He squeals at all of his toys before he attacks them. He has started to squeak and squeal and growl to get our attention any time he feels like we are ignoring him, or when he is excited by something. He has started to realize that there is a lot to look at in the house and does not always want to be bothered by people, but if you walk past him without saying anything he will holler at you.

On the more serious side, we had the echo and the EKG the other day and he will be having his heart surgery within the next 3-4 weeks for sure. They want to do it as soon as they can fit him in the schedule. And then we will progress from there. I will post again what day it will be. We should know by the end of this week for sure.

I wanted to post a thank you to everyone that has helped us especially my parents. I do not think that we would be able to do it with out them. Clayton gets all the help and attention that he needs with Grandma and Grandpa here. He would not be as happy if it weren't for them. We love you very much mom and dad!!

Fun Times!

Some new pictures of our growing boys. They are both doing great. Clayton loves to entertain Brody, and we keep telling him that he is Brody's favorite and it makes him want to do it more. Brody really does love it and watches everything Clayton does. Here are a few pictures.



This last one is Brody's awesome hair. We did not do anything to get it to stand straight up. He has the funniest hair after he wakes up from a nap. This was one of the best and we got a good picture of it.

Whats New

Well I figured that it has been a while and I should post some pictures. Here are a few new pics of our ever growing baby. Not much of interest has been happening here. We mostly stay home and hang out since it is RSV season we have been cautioned to stay home. That and the fact that Brody does poorly in his car seat has set our mode to home life. But we do have a few things. Clayton is still in preschool and loving every minute although the mornings are still hard for him. He really is a night person like his parents, though we are trying to break him of it. Brody will have his heart EKG and Echo on March 15th and we will be able to move forward and hopefully within the next month or so he will have his surgery. For now he is gaining weight and is above the weight that they were hoping he would be. He is 14 lbs. He loves to get attention and unless he is tired almost always has a smile for you. His new thing is to squeal when he is excited and he growls all the time. When he is tired, angry, or just wants to make noise- the only way you can tell what mood he is in is by looking at facial expressions. We feel really blessed to have so much help with him and that he is such a good natured boy. I really feel like I got some of the best kids you could ask for. Clayton is wonderful with Brody, earlier today I was trying to wash some things and Brody did not want to be laying down. Clayton saw that he was upset, brought him a toy and started to talk to him to entertain him. Brody loves to watch his older brother and smiles every time Clayton talks to him. He is such a big helper and likes to point out that he can take care of his baby brother.

Brody Pictures

Here are some of the cute pictures that our professional family photographers took of Brody. We was very good for us and slept the entire time. Thanks to Nette and Jon for the wonderful pics.






We went to the doctor today and Brody is doing good. He is 13 lbs. and in the 25th percentile which is good for our family. He is our trooper.

Family Pictures

So my sister Lynette and her husband Jon are doing photography and they are wonderful at it. We had limited places that we could take pictures since we did not want to leave the house with Brody. But they turned out great. These were a few of my favorites.

New Pics

So I got my moms sd card and she had some way cute pictures of all of the cousins and of my boys so I stole it and here are the cute pics.

Brody smiling for grandma and grandpa. He pulls his feeding tube out a lot and any time he does we like to get pictures. This time he did it for grandma and they of course took advantage of it.

Brody with grandma and Bensen with grandpa. Our two newest additions to the grandkids lot. They are a week and a half apart.

Grandpa with Vanessa and Macey. Two of the cutest girls ever.

Clayton, Cody and Macey got to go to Kangaroo Zoo. They love it and this is one of the many pictures. This is the only one that had all of them. I imagine they were going a million miles an hour. I am impressed that my mom got this one.

Grandma with Brody snuggling in. He loves to snuggle and is a very sweet boy.

Clayton

Clayton has been very busy this year. He started preschool with Miss Georgia. He loves it and is learning a ton. He got to go Trick-or-treating with his cousin Micah and he was a monkey this year. He has gotten used to his new brother and loves him very much. He is a very good older brother in everything except being quiet. That word is not really in his vocabulary. He is a wonderful boy and is really quite good. He loves to hang out with Grandma and has learned that if he goes shopping with her he will get a treat and always wants to go with.( this is impressive if anyone has been shopping with my mom they know why- she is a marathon shopper not a sprint shopper). He is also our little entertainer and always has the funniest things to say. For instance he announced the other day "When I grow up I want to have pokies (a beard) like my dad, and a big belly like Grandpa." He is a wonderful boy and is very lovable and always keeps us busy.

Brody

Here are a few pictures of Brody. He is getting pretty big and is gaining weight like a champ. He is almost 12 lbs now. He is a very happy baby and is doing great. He is very aware of what is going on and always wants to be able to see people. He loves his dad, grandpa, and brother the most and watches them anytime they are in the room. He is doing the power nap thing and it is hard to get anything done but you cant be upset with him because he always wakes up with a huge smile. He is a very good baby and we all love him tons.