Catching Up...

I am sitting here in Utah at the in-laws trying to decide what to write about. I have so much to update everyone on I just can't decide where to start. I guess first off Jason found out today that he passed his part 4 board exams so that means he is officially a Doctor. We are so excited. We are spending the holidays in Utah before Jason starts working in Burley where we have moved to. It has been great here, but I am missing my friend Heather terribly. Our move back to Burley was a bit hectic because of the weather. The drive that normally takes 8 hours took us more like 15 and we had to stop half way there. Then trying to get to Utah was even worse because of closed roads. We had to go up through Pocatello which made the drive an hour longer than normal. So traveling has not been fun for us so far. Ryker is getting big so fast. He has almost got crawling down, we have started him on some solid foods, and he is getting quite the personality. He has started doing this really cute smile where he crinkles up his nose and sticks his chin in the air. Every time he does it I just have to laugh. I have a few pics of it that I will post.
Other than all that we are just looking forward to starting the New Year with a brand new chapter of our life. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and is looking forward to the New Year!

Graduation!

Jason did it. He graduated. We are so proud of him. Graduation was fantastic and the ceremony was wonderful. I can't believe it, my husband is a Doctor of Chiropractic. He has worked so hard and at long last that work has paid off. We are moving to Burley where he will start working in Rupert as part of Dr. Olson's practice. I will post pictures of the graduation here. Thanks to all of our family and friends for the love and support.

HO HO HO

We went to see Santa today! I know you might all think that I am crazy to stand in line with my 5 month old son just to get a few pics of him with Santa, but this was the best mall Santa I have ever seen. You will see from the photos. He has a real beard, and they put makeup on him so that he had the rosy cheeks and everything. We had a really fun day. Jason and I checked out of our apartment and then went to the mall to finish some Christmas shopping. Ryker got a new outfit to see Santa in and we got to spend an wonderful afternoon with our parents. On top of all that it really felt like Christmas time because it snowed here again today. This is the most unusual weather for Portland. Jason and I think that the city is crazy. They maybe have a max of 1 inch of snow and they have canceled school almost everyday this week.


Getting ready to see Santa.

Waiting in line with dad to see Santa.

Still waiting...

Finally!! On Santa's knee!

Crashed on Grandpa P's lap after all that excitement.

Loading the truck.

Today was the day that we loaded everything we own into a big truck and hauled to a new place to start a new chapter of our life and it was the most stressful day I think I have ever had. Moving was the most stressful event I have been through in a long time. We tried to have everything ready to go today, but earlier this week we spent the entire week trying to get our car fixed. We have had so many problems with the car lately that we didn't know if we were even going to be able to drive it home. On a good note though, Jason is graduating on Saturday and he will be a CHIROPRACTOR!! We are so excited about that. We are also excited to have our parents here for the event. We can't wait to be back in Idaho and we are looking forward to spending the Holidays at the DuBois'. If I don't get another post in...everyone have a safe holiday season and the best new year!

Nice or Creepy?

So we all know Ryker is really cute, or at least in our biased opinion. Anyway, while we were having dinner at "the old spaghetti factory" a man walked up to Ryker, who was in his car seat on the sling, and started staring at him. I happened to be facing the other way when the man walked up to him so I was startled a little when I turned around and there was a man basically in his car seat with him. I grabbed my fork just in the event that I needed to stab the man. He stood by our table talking to Ryker for probably 5 minutes. During which one of the man's sons came over and asked him to please sit down. I kind of laughed to myself knowing how the boy felt because my father is kind of the same way. He likes to intrude on strangers...just being friendly...but you always wonder what they are thinking. Now I know! They are thinking "who is this guy and why won't he leave?". They mean well but in this day and age it is hard to tell when someone is being nice or just creepy. I don't really have pictures to go with this story but I will post some more random pictures anyway. They are the best part of blogs. (I think anyway)

Moving!

Well it is finally here...we are getting ready to move. Jason graduates on the 20th and we will be back to Idaho on the 21st. We are trying to get packed and my house is a crazy mess. Ahhhh! On top of everything else Ryker came down with thrush on top of his persistent teething, and is very cranky. It has been so hard to get organized. I can't wait to get home for the holidays and see everyone. We are having mixed emotions though. As much as I complained about it here, I think that I am going to miss it just a little. Ryker is getting close to crawling and he is starting to show such a little personality. He is really funny when he gets frustrated. We have posted a few random pictures of Ryker while we were playing with him at home. Enjoy!

Teeth!

Ryker has teeth. His two front bottom teeth came in last week. I can't believe that he has teeth already, and neither can anyone else. I am so excited because he is getting to a stage where he is very interactive and fun. He has started laughing and has some of the cutest facial expressions. My favorite is one that I like to call the "bitter beer" face. I will post that picture for you to see.
Jason and I are getting really excited to be done with school. We only have about 10 days until we load all of our stuff into the truck to be moved. It is all coming so fast. I still have so much packing to do. We are excited to be moving. We had a good Thanksgiving, even though it was just the 2.5 of us. :) I will post a few of those pics also. Happy Holidays everyone.

Ok so this last couple of weeks has been really busy for us. Jason just finished his board exams yay! Ryker has started rolling over both ways and is well on his way to crawling. He is getting too big too fast :( He also pooped in the tub for the first time which I wasn't exactly ready for. That was a crazy day. We also had some family pictures taken by the lovely and wonderful Heather Ward. She is my greatest friend and a wonderful photographer. I will post a few of those pics today. Life is going good we are just waiting for Graduation which is on the 20th of December, and trying to get ready to move. I hate moving. Oh yeah, and Heather caught me being a little crazy...so that is that picture you see. I guess that is just me being myself. hahah.

Halloween and Beyond!

Hey everyone, I know that Halloween was a few weeks ago...but I don't get on this as much as I should. Anyway I wanted to post some pics of Rykers first Halloween. He was a puppy and so cute. Also, Jason and I have decided that we are moving to Burley. We look forward to seeing all of our family and friends there and starting the next chapter of our life.

Craziness...

So about a month and a half ago, we began to notice that Ryker had a really swollen lymph node in his left armpit. Upon further investigation, we discovered more in his neck. And he didn't present with any other symptoms. He didn't cry excessively, and he ate healthily. But we decided to get him checked out by a Pediatrician just to make sure. His medical history is pretty unremarkable seeing as he is only 11 weeks old. So the doctor decided to take some blood and run some tests. Everything came back negative so they decided to take some more blood for further testing. They found that his white blood cell count was on the low side but still inside the normal range. So they needed a THIRD blood sample. This time they found that he tested positive for the Ebstein-Barr virus and had mono. MONO!! How does an 11 week old child get mono?!?! I don't know but that is what he has. And the doctor said that we should treat him like a healthy infant and the mono would just go away on its own and the lymph nodes would get smaller over time. But we were quite shocked with the news of him having mono. So either Ryker is quite the ladies man or he picked it up from somewhere else. I like to believe the "ladies man" theory myself :) And here are some more amazing pictures by our friend Heather Ward.

Baby Ryker Has Arrived

So the child has finally arrived. We went to the hospital at midnight on Friday the 18th to be induced. When we arrived, they hooked me up with external monitors to keep track of my contractions and the baby's heart rate. Everything was normal as far as that was concerned and the doctors continued to monitor me for a couple of hours for any changes. After a few hours, they came in to actually deliver the drugs to induce labor. They began by using a pill to help with the dilation. Soon after we noticed that during a particular contraction, the baby's heart rate dropped into the 80's where before it was a steady 140-150. We were slightly puzzled and asked the nurse what that was about. She told us that sometimes the external monitors can skip a couple beats as the baby moves and it isn't anything to worry about. So we didn't think much of it. But as the contractions continued, his heart rate kept dropping. We tried changing positions to see if that helped. But what ended up happening was he went from a head-down position to a breach position. Why was he being so stubborn? It seemed like everything was taking a turn for the worse. And to add to all that, my water never broke. The nurse decided to call in the doctor. When the doctor arrived, she checked my cervix and said that I hadn't made any progress and that it would take another 24-48 hours to fully dilate. She didn't think the baby could take the stress for that length of time and recommended that we have a c-section while the baby was still healthy. I immediately became panicked. I didn’t want a c-section but decided that if that was the best thing to do for the baby, that was what I was going to do. It wasn’t an emergency c-section but the doctor sure acted like it was. They soon whisked me away into the operating room leaving Jason and my mom behind. Once on the operating table, they gave me a spinal block so that I was numb from the shoulders down to my toes. They then brought Jason into the operating room where he sat next to me and comforted me while they performed the c-section. When the baby emerged, all the difficulty we were having with inducing labor became clear. The umbilical cord was tightly wrapped around his neck and his shoulder. They untangled him and brought him to a table to clean him off. They wrapped him up and brought him over to Jason to hold while they sewed me up. They later inspected the placenta and made another discovery. The umbilical cord did not insert directly into the placenta as it normally should. It first entered into the bag of waters and then into the placenta. They told me that if the bag of waters had ruptured where the umbilical cord was located, there would have been devastating consequences. Looking back we know that the Lord did not intend for this baby to be delivered naturally and all the difficulties we were having was so that the baby’s life was spared. We are so blessed to have Ryker with us today. He was 7 lbs 9 oz and 21 inches long. Here are some pictures taken by our dear friend Heather Ward. Hope you enjoy them!

We had some maternity pictures taken today. Heather Ward is the best photographer ever. We love all the pics she did. I only have the one to post right now, but we had fun with her today. To update you on the baby...we are on the count down. We only have 10 weeks left and both Jason and I are getting a little nervous. The baby is doing fine and we have another ultrasound in 2 weeks. Let us know what you think of the pic we posted.