Introducing Alexis Jade Beutler

We had an early Christmas present this year! Alexis Jade Beutler was born on December 22nd, 2012, at 10:09pm. She weighed 7lb 4 oz and is 20.5 inches long. Both mom and baby are doing well. She is a perfect little angel and a blessing to our growing family.

 

 

Merry Christmas!

Our Whirlwind Life

This past month has been a bit of a whirlwind for us. Cole is a whirlwind all in himself, but add on to that Dave's crazy work schedule, Thanksgiving, getting ready for Christmas, Aubrey's choir concerts, and getting ready for our little girl to come, we've had our plates full!

 

My feet have really been hurting with this pregnancy so I have a pair of tennis shoes that I only wear inside (normally we all take off our shoes in the garage). Cole does not understand the concept of "inside shoes" vs. "outside shoes" though, and every time he sees me wearing shoes inside he insists on me taking them off and putting them in the garage. If he finds them on the floor he will either pick them up and put them by the garage door or try and walk around them. He was so proud of himself here for putting both of them on by himself. :)

Santa dropped off this bean bag for Cole early, and he has been loving it! Here he's just chilling with his snack loving watching football with Dave...I guess boys really do come that way.

Another recent favorite has been his lawn mower. He's had it for quite some time, but the weather is finally nice enough where we can go outside again and he wants to bring it everywhere. We go on "walks" wandering the neighborhood for at least an hour everyday, looking for airplanes, birds and bunnies to chase, and neighbors' dogs and cats to play with, and he insists on bringing it along. As you can see, he loads it up with all of the cool rocks and sticks he finds along the way too. Not much grass here to actually mow though.

 

After Thanksgiving we broke out the Christmas tree and decorations and Cole thought it was so cool that he got to help Daddy put the tree up and hang the decorations. I'm sure he doesn't understand why we have a tree in our living room or why there are "boots" (stockings) hanging under our shelf, but I think he'll get it on Christmas morning.

We have also made a ton of progress with Cole and his eating. We have been taking him to food therapy for the past five months, and we're finally to the point where we don't have to feed him baby food anymore - Yay!!! His most recent progress has been with different kinds of noodles and he will even eat Mac and Cheese now! He's still extremely stubborn when it comes to meal time though, and on this particular occasion he would only wear his bib if Daddy was wearing one too. He also insists on saying the prayer on the food at least three times during the meal - I don't mind if he wants to pray all the time. It's a good missionary moment during our food therapy sessions as well. :)

Yes, Cole still loves to reorganize my pantry and insists on doing it regularly. Here he was delighted to find our stash of "noodles and cheese". What you don't see is the entire box of pasta that he dumped out following this picture and the snow angels he was making in it all over my kitchen. The funny thing is I think he enjoyed helping me sweep it up more than playing in it.

And what would the holidays be like with out a few emergency visits to the hospital? Before Thanksgiving Dave was having awful pain in his abdomen and had me take him into the hospital in the middle of the night - turns out he had appendicitis and had surgery that morning to have his appendix removed. The crazy man was back at work in a few days though and didn't miss a beat.

 

About a week ago I had a scare as well. Post a very busy weekend where I probably overdid things a bit, I started going into labor and we thought we were going to have our baby at 35 weeks. Fortunately the shots they gave me were enough to stop the labor and she's still cooking away. I wouldn't mind if she came early, but another week or two for her to develop would be good. Cole was such a trooper at the hospital at 5am though - look how happy he is with his monkey and blanket!

October Fun

This month has been full of fun times from the beginning to the end. In early October Cole and I made one last visit to Albuquerque to see my family before the baby comes. We were there with my Uncle Wally and Aunt Lisa and their family, and my Grandparents on my Dad's side, which was really nice. We hiked a cool place called Tent city, went up the Sandia Tram, and attempted to see the International Balloon Fiesta (none of the balloons went up the morning we went because of bad weather, but we still had fun walking around). We also spent lots of time outside in the beautiful weather and playing with cousins and Grandma and Grandpa.

 

One of Cole's absolute favorite things to do recently has been driving his cars and trucks up and down my prego belly, parking some on top. I can't tell you how adamant he is that I sit on the couch and be his race track while he plays with his cars - it's pretty hilarious!

 

Another one of Cole's favorite activities is helping to clean up - anything and everything. We got him a new dresser and he absolutely insisted on helping Dave clean up after we put it together. What you can't tell from this still photo is that he literally picked up every speck of paper and dirt on the floor and would not stop until it was all clean. He was one focused puppy!

Cole also insists on helping me in the kitchen with whatever I'm making. He pulls up a chair to the counter, climbs up, and starts chanting "Help Mommy! Help Mommy!". It makes getting dinner ready exhausting (his help isn't exactly very helpful at this point), but we sure are making lots of fun memories in the process. Hopefully he'll keep this up when he's actually able to be helpful!

This is my at 30 weeks and counting! Only a couple more months before our little girl gets here! :)



Happy Halloween! I really wanted Cole to be this cute little furry blue monster for Halloween, but when he saw the costume he literally ran around the corner screaming and crying because he was so scared. Sad! When he saw the giraffe costume he started talking to it, petting it, and cuddling with it, so that was settled - Cole was the cutest giraffe in town! It took both Dave and I and some pre-party bribe candy to actually get Cole into the costume for our ward trunk-or-treat. Once he realized he got candy when he wore his costume we couldn't get him out of it. He practically jumped into it as we were getting him ready to go trick-or-treating on Halloween night, and he had a blast with his daddy going around to all the neighbors.

 



 

Cole's 1st Camping Trip

This past weekend we decided to brave our ward camping trip with Cole - a first for us camping with our little guy. He did all right around the fire and was a little scared of the dark, but overall did pretty well until it was time to go to sleep. We had him in three pairs of warm PJ's and tried to bundle him up in a warm sleeping bag, but he doesn't exactly cooperate in his sleep when you try and keep him under a blanket. He woke up several times during the night with night terrors and then we were up at the crack of dawn (like normal), but nothing that we weren't expecting. He loved exploring the mountains, playing with his bucket and shovel in the dirt, and helping us put away the tent in the morning though. What a little trooper! Needless to say we all took a really long nap that afternoon when we got home.

 

September Sewing

This pregnancy I have been feeling a lot better than I ever did when I was pregnant with Cole. I still have my good days and my bad days, but the good days are outweighing the bad at the moment. I'm crossing my fingers it stays that way! I've actually had time to do a little sewing during Cole's nap time recently, and below are some of my accomplishments. I had a lot of fun getting cute girly fabrics for burp cloths and I made a new nursing cover as well. I also made some other baby shower presents for friends and a few skirts for our ward road show this week. It's great to feel like I'm being productive instead of just surviving!

 

Cole is learning new words like crazy, a few of which are flower, bird, and owl. There were quite a few of those on the fabrics I chose for the burp cloths and Cole couldn't help but jump in and point out every flower and bird to me. He was so excited to use his new words!

 

We also had a new neighbor move in this month, and when their big moving truck pulled up Cole was ecstatic. He loves pointing out all of the trucks on the road to me every time we get in the car and he could barely contain himself when one pulled up in front of our house. Needless to say we spent quite a long time out front that morning watching the movers. The driver of the truck noticed how excited Cole was and even let him sit in the driver's seat for a bit! Cole was so mesmerized that he hardly moved a muscle, but I know he loved every second of it.

 

Fun Times in August

At the beginning of August we had my friend Nadia and her son Moroni stay with us for a little while. Cole and I both enjoyed having them, and Moroni (who is 3) was especially loving with Cole. It was a little taste of what it will be like to have two kids in the house...crazy but fun!

 

 

Cole and I also had the chance to visit my family in Albuquerque for a little Blacker reunion. He absolutely LOVED every minute of it. Between picking and eating raspberries with Grandpa, playing in the sand with his cousins, feeding the dogs treats with Grandma, chasing the bunny in the grass and running through the sprinkler he was in heaven. With the absolutely beautiful weather I think he spent 95% of our time there outside. Too bad we spend 99% of our time in Phoenix during this part of the year inside!

 

 

 

 

Grandpa Blacker found a hawk stuck on the inside of his netting in his Garden (it's supposed to keep the birds out, but I guess he found his way in and then couldn't get out). After flying around inside the garden for quite a while it finally just gave up and my dad was able to catch it with his bare hands! The grand kids were so excited to see such a big bird up close!

 

Cole also really enjoyed climbing up on Grandma's step-stool and "helping" her with the dishes and cooking as well as building towers with her out of giant legos.

 

Cole and Katie loved sharing their food at meal times. Here Cole is giving Katie a bit of his yogurt, and surprisingly he was very careful and actually able to get most of it in her mouth. :-)

 

We had a lot of fun with the family, but we really missed not having Dave there with us. One of the nights we actually called Dave on Skype and the whole family played "Settlers of Catan" with him over a video call. I don't know how it happened, but he even won!