Simply Wonderful Christmas Time

Where do I even start? We had a great Christmas this year. We went to both of our parent's Christmas Eve parties. My favorite part was a story called Christmas Eve. It is the nativity story intermixed with Christmas songs. It was fun just to hear our whole family attempting to sing a cappela, but also the story itself I really enjoyed. Corbin got his new pajamas from Grandma Jenkins. Doesn't he look handsome? He's not one for comotion, so he has a funny expression on his face, there was definitely a lot going on at both houses.

Christmas morning Matt and I were up a while before Corbin. We decided to do our own gifts while we were waiting, since he wouldn't know what was going on anyways. It was a low-key gift exchange, but I thought it was perfect.

We had just started exchanging our gifts when Corbin woke up. I was too impatient and gave him his presents right away. He was still a little tired, and very overwhelmed. He had fun, but it was a little too much right when he woke up.

The presents he opened at his Grandparents houses were much more exciting because he wasn't tired. It was a great day with lots of family. So long Christmas, come again next year!

Away He Goes!

Seriously, Corbin is everywhere! He has been scooting and doing an army crawl for about a month now, but this last week he took off crawling.

He can crawl without breaks when he doesn't have pants on, he kind of gets caught on them. He is all over the place though, it is so cute! Too bad he can only go a total of like five feet until he hits the next wall.

I took Corbin to his six month appointment last week. He is no longer short and fat! He was 18 lbs 4 oz, the 63 % and 27 in., 67% for height. I can't believe he is already six months old, crazy!

Party #3

My Grandpa Davis has a party with my dad's whole family. Santa pays us a visit every year. This is the first time Corbin has ever seen Santa, and he did great. Matt put a Cheerio on the present so Corbin was very interested. After the Cheerio was gone, Santa's beard was the next best thing. I don't think he enjoyed it as much as he expected though.

This may be the only time Corbin enjoys Santa for a while. The other kids weren't too fond of him, especially Grace.

Beau would only get close enough to give knuckles and get his present. Santa was satisfied with that though.We all had a great time singing Christmas carols waiting for Santa to come join us.

Party #2

The Jenkins' have a fun tradition of a 'bird tree'. We string popcorn, cranberries, crackers, and other food on a little Christmas tree. Everyone drives out to the cemetery and sings a Christmas carol as they place the tree by his grave for the birds (his Grandpa worked with wildlife.)

It's not necessarily the prettiest tree, but I love the tradition.

This was Matt's attempt of a picture with all the kids. Makenna slept through the whole thing.

I missed out on going to the cemetery because Corbin was hungry. As you can see, he wasn't exactly happy.

Christmas Party #1

The Davis Party was our first of the Christmas parties this year. We had Steph's cute tree for some great family pictures.

I love this picture! All three of us smiling at the same time, perfect.

We played the clothes game, but it was slightly different with eight children running around. They had a blast with all the clothes though. Jed would try to hold the bag as long as he could in order for the music to stop on him.

Corbin loved pulling off the wrapping paper so he could see how it tasted. I think he really liked it.

Then we just hung out for a few minutes with some very tired children. Seriously, Corbin is into everything right now. He sucks on anything he can get his hands on. The other day I was getting ready and I went out to pick Corbin up, I couldn't see him and he had crawled into the kitchen. Which in my house, isn't the best place for him to be. I can't leave him alone at all any more.

Temple Square

My family went to temple square on Sunday after dinner. It was insane! I could not believe how many people were there. It is usually busy, but I never remember it being like that. Every place we went we got separated. Matt and I just wandered on our own because it was too hard to stay together. It was way fun though, the weather was perfect. Corbin slept for most of it, which worked out pretty good, but he did wake up in time to enjoy at least some of the lights. This was only Matt's third time going to the lights. That is so crazy to me, his second time was with me too. I love them.

Christmas Village

It is seriously so hard for me to find the time to post anymore. Our computer is in Corbin's bedroom and he is a terrible sleeper, like really really terrible. So the last thing I want to do when he finally is asleep at 11:30 pm is go into his room and risk waking him by using the computer.

Last week my family all went to Christmas village. I didn't get to stay very long because I left Corbin's formula at home. He wasn't having very much fun anyway though. He wouldn't sit in his stroller because his coat covered almost his entire face. I had to carry him, and he gets heavy very quickly. It was fun to see the houses, even if it was short lived.

Favorite Things

Corbin's favorite things include eating, sitting up, playing peek-a-boo, and wrinkling paper, among many other things. But if I had to choose just one? I think his favorite thing is playing with dad.

Playing in the leaves

Beau came up to my house the other day to play in the leaves. We had so much fun! It totally reminded me of when I was little. Everything is so much more fun when you are young.

Corbin didn't get to play in the leaves, but I did have him pose for a cute picture. It was freezing outside. His poor little cheeks were ice cold when we came back in.

4 1/2 months

Corbin had four month pictures taken, but I just went to a studio so I don't have a disk to share any. They turned out great, I was very happy with them. Anyway, I just snapped these yesterday so I could share some.

Halloween

Halloween is so much more fun with Corbin. He was an alligator and he did surprisingly well with his outfit. I didn't keep it on him very long because of the tail and the fact my child sweats like crazy, but he sure looked cute! I never did get him to smile and have his eyes showing in the same picture.Our ward had a chili cookoff and trunk-or-treat Saturday night. I wanted to dress up for it so I made Matt dress up with me. We were the dead prom queen and football star. There was pretty much no one dressed up at our party, but I still enjoyed it.
Buzz Lightyear and my little alligator

We just missed Erin's kids for this picture, but we all met down at my Grandpa Thompsons. There was Snow White, Indiana Jones, and a Fox rider.

Honestly, I am not entirely sure what everyone is in this picture, but it was quite the tast getting it taken. Halloween is a crazy holiday.

Rice Cereal

I went to Corbin's four month appointment last week. He is in the 89% for weight, 28% for height, and 18% for his head. My doctor told me if I wanted to try feeding Corbin, some babies are ready. I was content waiting, but I knew that wouldn't go over well with Matt. I don't think I have seen anyone as excited as Matt to feed their child. So last Friday, Corbin had his first taste of rice cereal. Matt fed him the first bite. He wasn't quite sure what to think.

He wasn't too interested. He really just wanted to play with the spoon. Matt was convinced he didn't want to eat because he wanted to feed himself. Whatever it was, I think we'll wait a bit before we feed him consistently.

Play Group

Corbin and I went to play group at a park in North Ogden today. They have the little kid swings, and Corbin loved them! He was smiling the entire time.

I love play group. It is such a great reason to get out of the house for adult conversation. I like being home with Corbin, but we both get so bored. He loves attention, the longest he will play alone is maybe ten minutes and his naps hardly last for more than an hour. I can't just sit home for the fifteen hours Matt is gone every day, it doesn't work for me.

Side note: Corbin loves tv - Studio 5, in particular. Well he doesn't necessarily love Studio 5, but that is the only show that I ever watch and he is glued to the tv. I shouldn't really show off that my child loves to watch tv - and I let him, but I thought this picture was so cute.I always put him in his Bumbo chair when I fold laundry, but this day the tv was more exciting than watching clothes being folded.

Lots of Laughs

This one is short, but I just can't get enough of this kids laugh. Matt gets him laughing so hard, I love it!

Harvest Party

Saturday was the Parry's annual Harvest Party. I was so glad Corbin was well enough to go. We go to Parry's land in Huntsville for chili and scones, hayrides, pumpkin carving, and a fire. I love this party, and Corbin obviously did to.

There is always time for stories when Matt is around. I told the kids it was time to carve pumpkins and they all wanted to wait until after the story was finished. Matt had to wrap it up quickly.Copper pipe fire
The spider pumpkin the kids carved. (Matt might have helped just a little.)

The worst two nights ever!

Tuesday night Corbin felt a little hot so I took his temperature at 103.4. He had seemed fine all day so I was a little surprised. I called the KidsCare clinic at the hospital and they told me to bring him in. It was pure torture for Corbin and myself. They had to draw blood, but he is a little too chunky to find any veins, so they had a really hard time. They then had to get a urine sample by using a catheter. While doing that they told me he had to be calm or it wouldn't work, um . . . try calming a three month old getting a tube stuck in him, yeah right. I was a wreck by this time. My poor baby was screaming hysterically and I couldn't keep the tears from coming to me either. Thank goodness Matt was there. They also had to suck out his nose to run more tests. We had to wait around for over an hour for test results. The blood work came back negative, but the mucous test would take 24 hours. The doctor decided to give him an antibiotic, so a shot. Needless to say, I took home a very unhappy boy.

They scheduled a follow-up appointment Wednesday night to get another antibiotic shot. Corbin was really fussy and sad all day Wednesday, I could tell he didn't feel good. I went in to KidsCare and another doctor was on that night. She thought we needed to admit Corbin to the hospital to be safe. Corbin and I walked up to the 5th floor to the pediatric unit where more torture awaited us. Once again, a little too chunky for any veins to show through - I have a 17 pound 3 1/2 month old - so the IV went into his head. Luckily they were able to get enough blood from putting the IV in they didn't have to draw any somewhere else. This was the saddest part. He was screaming inconsolably for hours. There was nothing I could do. Matt kept calling, he was hurrying home from work, but I couldn't even tell him what was going on because Corbin was screaming so loud. The nurses stopped working on him so I could calm him down. They said his heart rate was one of the highest they had ever seen because he was so hysterical. I was a wreck, what do you do when you can't do anything to sooth your baby? You cry and cry some more, that's all you can do. When Matt got there we continued to do everything we could and Corbin still wouldn't stop. The only thing that helped was a blessing. Thank goodness for the Priesthood! It was amazing, not even five minutes afterwards he was calm.

Once he was calm he had to go downstairs for a chest x-ray to check for pneumonia. They put him in a clear plastic tube with his arms straight up in the air so he couldn't move at all. Horrible, it looked like it was an invention from the 1900's, I thought it would be a little more high tech. So he screamed again - I would too if I was trapped in a tube. Once that was done we just had to wait.

Matt held Corbin from about 11:00 pm to 3:00 am because we didn't dare disturb him at all. Even the nurses put off some of the things they needed because they didn't dare disrupt him. His x-ray looked like it had a trace of viral pneumonia so they began telling us that was what was wrong. But when the mucous samples came back, they were positive for two viruses, the rhinovirus and the adenovirus. Rhino is really common right now, but they said the adenovirus is much more aggressive and probably most of the reason his is uncomfortable. Because of these results the ruled out the pneumonia. With viruses there really isn't anything you can do, but we had to stay at the hospital because Corbin wasn't eating. They didn't want him to get dehydrated. He was only eating about two ounces instead of six. They did give him another antibiotic and it seemed to do something. These pictures are the second day. I didn't dare take any the first day. He didn't feel good, but I think he was happy not to have the nurses torturing him.

His hospital gown was so adorable. It showed off his wonderful rolls and I just loved it. Late Thursday morning they unplugged all the cords because Corbin was too wiggly they weren't getting accurate readings. He was so glad to be free.

I think he was ready to go home long before we got discharged. I am glad the nurses and doctors are so cautious, but he was doing great and we just wanted to get out of there, all three of us.
The nurse left the IV in all day so she could give him more antibiotics right before we went home. Then she started to give it to him and the IV had been pulled out and wouldn't work. He had to keep it taped to his head all day just to get two shots, one in each leg, minutes before going home. They never even had him on fluids, well after they took it out the first night because he was screaming so hard. So really he had an IV in his head for nothing. It's not there fault, it's just sad it didn't work and he had to endure more pain. He did great though. He didn't cry at all all night last night. I was way worried about his sleeping schedule because it was so out of wack, but he slept for almost ten hours last night. Thank goodness too, because Matt and I definitely needed the sleep. We go back to the doctor on Saturday just to make sure he is doing good.

So it was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life and not fun at all for Matt and Corbin either. But we have our happy little man home and feeling much better.

Fall Picnic

Matt and I always go for a drive on Conference Sunday. This time we decided to go up Ogden Canyon for a picnic. It was a pretty drive, but the campsite we stopped at wasn't the best. I think it looked more like dead leaves than pretty fall colors. It was still really fun though.We stopped at Magpie Campground near the river. The trees near the river had a little more color. This was Corbin's first time being in the mountains. Our little boy LOVES being outside so he was super happy.
As of yesterday, he has this new fetish with his tongue. It was out all day. The only times he wasn't sticking his tongue out was while he was asleep with his binki in his mouth. You would think it would get tired or dry or something.
We went for a little walk and he had had enough. He was gone within seconds.

One of the best Conference drives yet!