Birthday! Birthday!

Today is a wonderful day full of reasons to celebrate!

Today is Channing's 2-week birthday. WOOOOOOT! Happy 2 week birthday to youuuu, happy 2 week birthday to youuuu!

I cant believe its only and already been 2 weeks. On the one hand, MY BABY IS GROWING UP!! I cried about this every day for the first week (lovely hormones), but now I seem to be okay with this. Maybe it's mostly because I'm excited for the two kiddos to wear matching outfits.

On the other hand, I feel like this sweet boy has been a part of our family for much, much longer than 2 weeks. It just seems so natural and so right to have him here in our family. I had quite a bit of apprehension in my ability to love another child as intensely as I love Christian, but no longer. I now know the meaning of the saying that you don't have a limited amount of love, but that your heart and the love it contains just continues to expand.

Christian is our Angel Boy. There have been a couple of instances now where we have truly witnessed the hand of the Lord in protecting him. He has some special mission here on earth I am certain. His obsession with balls is greater than ever and he seems to have found his mischievous streak now he has a little brother to teach. He has a very large vocabulary--of first syllables.

We love our boys so ridiculously much!

We went to a WIC appointment today where both boys got weighed and measured.
Christian: 24lbs 13 oz, 33.5 in? (this one we don't remember exactly)
He's in the 75th for height and now almost 50th percentile for weight. Woot! :)

Channing: TEN RIDICULOUS POUNDS. TEN. The boy is 2 weeks old. He has gained 1lb 5 oz in 2 weeks. He is 1lb 5 oz over what they 'like to see' by two weeks. Babies need to gain back to their birth weight by 2 weeks. This kid was at 9lbs by 4 days. I tell you people, he EATS.
-21.75ish in. (bah! I cant remember!)
He hits between 75th and 90th for weight and head is in the 50th. (compared to big brother's 10th percentile head at that age...)

Okay, this post is CLEARLY more for our records than for any reader's personal enjoyment. :) Too bad I didn't mention that before you started reading all this! :P

Now for some Ridiculously cute pictures documenting the day. (Apparently 'ridiculous' is the word of the day)
-There are a LOT of pictures--given their cuteness, who can blame us?
We have fun in our house. (the loveliness of my hair is due to our playing hide-mama's-head-under-the-blanket-then-yank-off-said-blanket earlier.)









What Handsome Guys!! What a lucky woman I am. :)

Patrick's Post: Happy Father's Day to Me!

First off, let me thank all of you family and friends who continue supporting us with your prayers. We are grateful for your faith expressed on Channing's behalf. Also, thanks to our friends and family of the 29th ward who make us feel like someone is always at our beck and call.

Today was a great Father's day. Let me be honest in saying that it was not the typical mirror image of Mother's day where mom gets roses and breakfast in bed. I spent the day working to keep Tawna off her feet and from lifting anything (especially Christian) at all costs. This meant that it was a day of work, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I even found some measure of satisfaction from doing the chore I hate the most: dishes. Knowing that I was serving my Babes and helping her recover made me feel good.

Besides making sure Tawna didn't overdo it, I spent the day loving my boys and cherishing the moments of the two of them getting acquainted. We managed to capture some pretty stellar pictures.




Tawna was in no position to get me a gift this past week, but she did something that is more typical behavior of me than of her--she planned ahead. :) She bought me the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings on DVD! WOOOT! On top of that Christian made me a card and Tawna wrote me a loving letter. What more could a father ask for.

An update on Channing: After 48 hours on antibiotics via IV, and numerous blood cultures and chest x-rays, the only thing the doctors could find was a small opening in Channing's heart that is very common among newborns. It should close on its own in the next couple of weeks. They will continue to pay close attention to that at his wellness check-ups in the coming weeks.

As an appendage to the health issues with Channing, when he was first born, I noticed his tongue was connected with the underside of his mouth pretty close to the tip. We took Channing to the doctor on Monday and he checked out okay (it was a follow up to all of this mess to make sure he made it through the weekend okay). While we were there, we mentioned his tongue to Dr. Hafen (great man, that Dr. Hafen) and he decided to give it a little snip. The procedure is pretty painless and the skin is so thin that it didn't even bleed. Now he will hopefully be able to eat better (he didn't have much problem before surprisingly) and to gag and spit up less.

Channing, Cont.

An update on our newest sweetie-

Wednesday afternoon the nurses noted that Channing's breathing was super fast, which was a concern. We thought things had improved, but later than night we noticed his breathing was still super fast, so we notified the nurses. They took Channing out to be monitored. About 2 am the nurse and the on-call pediatrician updated us on the situation. Channing's breathing was a major concern--it indicated his body was having to work hard elsewhere, likely trying to fight off an infection. He is hooked up to an IV in NICU, receiving antibiotics for at least 48 hours. They took a chest X-ray, which the nurse frankly told us looked bad. On top of everything, this morning they heard a heart murmur.

Patrick and Dad Summerhays gave Channing a blessing Thursday morning just before the second Echo (heart ultrasound)- I watched the whole Echo and the technician guy said everything looked terrific- nothing to indicate any reason for a murmur. Later this afternoon there was another chest x-ray which looked much, much better. We've been witnessing all sorts of little miracles today.

Channing's breathing is still a cause of concern- the cultures come back tomorrow so we'll know more then.

Introducing...

The newest and highly anticipated member of the Summerhays family:

CHANNING BECKHAM SUMMERHAYS!

(crowd cheers)

Born:

June 11, 2008 

2:31 am

8lbs 11 oz

20.5 in

His hair ranks 11 out of 10. :) 

We are so excited and in love with this sweet little guy!

More pictures coming soon :D

Here's just a short post so we can put a picture of Christian up. :)

Grandma and Grandpa Hadfield came into town for a week for the glorious occasion of Muffin's arrival.

Grandpa and Grandpa Hadfield left this morning.

No Muffin.

but Anyways. That's not what this post is about. (or I might start crying...)

We finally got to visit Uncle Carl and Blanchette! We stopped by with mom and dad just hoping they were there (its hard (impossible) to reach them on the phone). Turns out it was Carl's 71st birthday, and all his kids/grandkids were there to celebrate.

It was SO GOOD to see Carl and Blanchette! They've never met Christian, which is a tragedy all in itself. ;)

Dad showed my the tractor that his dad bought 50+ years ago. Carl used it that very morning to work his garden. It was pretty incredible. Blanchette took us on a tour of her INCREDIBLE quilt/fabric shop (which used to big carl's big tool-man shop). Amazing. She gave us an awesome blanket to celebrate the new baby, and Christian fell in love with a dancing duck she insisted he take. We a video of him dancing with it I'll post later.

Okay. So here's the pictures.
If this isn't a baby magazine model shot, I dont know what is.