One Year Later!

Morgan, I can't believe you've been in our lives for over a year now! You are so special to us and we wouldn't trade you for anything. God truly blessed us when He sent you our way!The first six months of life were hard on you (and me) with you being so colicky and upset. You screamed from 8pm to 3am every night for nearly 3 months. It made us so sad to see you in such pain, and once we finally got you on some medicine the screaming got toned down a bit.

You have just grown so quickly and have a sweet ornery streak! You can climb up anything, figure out how to get into the strangest places, and are super smart when it comes to figuring out how things work!! You learned to walk over a month ago and there has been no stopping you!
You can say "Caaa" when you see Brody, "Dah" when you see Brinkley, and can say Dada and Mama really clearly when you want something! You LOVE LOVE LOVE to drink out of cups and are thirsty all the time!

You love to cuddle and will sit and look through books, just like you know what they say. Your a great dancer and can dunk a mean basketball!!

We love you so much!!

Yummmmm!

Here's my big boy, now over 7 months old!! My little calf loves his sweet potatoes, prunes, and squash! Peas-not so much!

Morgan's Room

Before

After

To Poop or Not To Poop......

Well, at the Howard House, bowel movements seem to be the hot topic. Don't feel like you have to read this entire post, most of it is just for my personal documentation, but you can join me if you like!

It has been another 7 days with nothing from Morgan. The doctor wanted us to give a teaspoon of prune juice with a teaspoon of rice cereal three times a day in the hope that this would bulk up his stool so it would really feel like he had something in there to push out but hopefully prune juice would make it easier to go. Well no go! So Monday I have to call and report and we are on to the next step and more tests. Hopefully they can figure something out.

Then in happy pooping news, Grant went on the big boy potty this evening and went big boy poopy all by himself!!! Hoorrray! He finally got it! We went to the store last week and got some big boy underwear, of course he picked Car undies!

So first he would go in his diaper, then say "Potty Mommy." And then he would ask for his big boy underwear. Then later in the week he would ask for his undies, then put them on and then go in them and then take them off and hand them to me. I tried to explain that they weren't for going in, but that we wore them until we had to go and then would go on the big potty. He looked at me like, huh?

So finally tonight, he was kinda grunting, crying, and his face was all red so I said lets go on the potty. I guess it was really uncomfy tonight but after about 10 minutes on the potty, I ran into the living room to stick the paci back in the scream baby's mouth and told Grant, "Sit down and wait for Mommy". Much to my surprise, when I got back he had gone in the potty!!!!! (well some was in the potty, some on the seat, and some on his step stool, but HOOOORAY he did it!!!

So we had a brownie and some M&M's to celebrate and even called Daddy who's on call tonight! He was very proud of himself but was ready for bed, so he kissed me goodnight, said " Night night Mommy" and shut the door in my face. He's getting so big. Big boy bed, going to the potty, and no whining at bedtime, he puts himself to bed now. I miss my baby but am sooo proud of him!

POOP!!

I just have to say that we are ecstatic over here at the Howard House! After weeks of suppositories and 5 days with no unassisted bowel movements.....we have poop!!!! Hooray for Morgan! Hopefully now his bowels will kick in on their own. This is a step in the right direction but we aren't out of the woods yet. They are still concerned that he might have Hirschspung's Disease, so hopefully that isn't the case, but at least it is something that can be fixed with surgery if it does come down to it. I'm praying we never have to take the little guy to surgery, so hopefully all our prayers have been answered and he is on his way to being a normal little booger bear!

Sorry for the potty mouth, hehe!

Overwhelmed

I wrote this on my other blog today, I know a lot of us are settling in to a new life and having some difficulties in the process. I hope that these scriptures and what was on my heart today will help some of you get through these trying days easier. You are all in my prayers and I hope you will keep our family in your prayers.

http://devotioninmotion.blogspot.com/2009/07/leaning-on-everlasting-arms.html

Alive and Kicking!

I just wanted to take a second to thank everyone for keeping us in their thoughts and prayers over the last couple of weeks!

We are trying to get the first level of our new home livable and still are living out of boxes and eating picnic style on our beautiful wood floors that my sexy hubby just finished installing! Hehe I'm so happy to be back online to pay some bills and see how everyone is doing, but I have to admit, I really enjoyed the cyber break. It's amazing how much time this sucks out of our days.

Morgan is getting big, I can't believe he is now over a month old, where has the time gone. He has been very colic-y but we just got some new medicine yesterday and I am already seeing a huge change in his attitude and pain level, so hopefully my possessed child will get his voice back soon and will stop screaming. JK, but it really does hurt me to see him in so much pain, I'm hoping this phase will be ending and he can rest.

Grant is loving his park down the block, likes his new yard, big boy bed, and helping daddy paint, mud, and fix things. So many adjustments at once, but he has been a big boy and we haven't had any big problems, (thank goodness for living on the road for so long......this craziness just seems normal to him).

Tom is getting settleind in with residency and tonight is his first night on call, we will see how I do. The residents are great and all the husbands are very friendly. I am the only wife besides a much older couple than all the rest of us, so it's kinda weird that it's me and some stay at home (can't find employment) husbands. Only one other resident has a little boy so we are the only ones with kids besides them too, guess we are weird! That's OK.

I am really looking forward to getting to know more people around the city and get involved in some clubs and organizations, but that will come in time. After the house is put together more it will just be nice to sit and enjoy each other. I am slowing down on painting and other things on the house as I really want to enjoy this season with Morgan and Grant and don't want to look back and have no memories of our new little guy....materialistic things can wait for some other day.

I will be reading up on your blogs to see what I've missed lately, can't wait to hear from all of you! Take care!

Baby Morgan!

Here are some more pictures from the birth of Morgan!

Before

After

With Papa!

Life has been awesome with a new little bear around and having Tommy home has made the transition with Grant so easy. He loves to pet his baby and hold him, not to mention feed him! That's right- Grant has shared his pizza, a pepperoni, an M&M, and some cinnamon roll with Morgan! (Don't worry, it never made it past Morgan's lips, but we do have to watch him carefully) So glad we can all share!

Introducing James Morgan Howard!

Hello all! We are proud to introduce to you James Morgan Howard, born on June 11th at 5:20AM, weighing 7 lbs 4oz and with a length of 20 inches. Momma and baby are both doing great and big brother Grant loves to hold his little bubby. God has blessed our family and we are so grateful to have a healthy little boy!

It's been a couple of exciting days! The same morning that Morgan arrived, we received news that we are finally ready to close on our house in Muskegon. We are so excited! Then on Saturday while we were resting, Tom decided to head out to storage and retrieve our baby swing. On the way back, he was sideswiped by a truck and then spun out of control and was hit by 2 other cars. Very scary! Thankfully everyone was ok but our car is completely totaled! So now we have to go car shopping with less than 2 weeks before we move.

Hope everyone is having a great week and I am looking forward to catching up on your posts!