Funny Kids

The boys have been so cute lately that I wanted to update you a bit on life. We'll start with Camden and do a little Xan casting update at the end.

Camden keeps us laughing!

So I was in the bedroom pumping the other night when down the hall comes Camden for a visit!

Then the next day, I was changing Xan's diaper in Xan's room while Camden was playing around with the swing. He loves to play with all the music features on the swing. Well, I went to put the diaper in the diaper pail in the bathroom and when I got back this is where I found Camden!

Oh, and as I was uploading some pictures from my phone, I found this little video of Camden singing Karaoke at Costco. It was a few days before we had Xan, Camden and I were at Costco shopping but mostly just trying to kill some time. There was a player piano and a karaoke machine set up on display and although you can't hear the piano music in this video, Camden just couldn't help but sing along! Gosh I love that kid!

Along with birthday fun for me, and Xan's baby blessing this weekend (post on that more later), a couple weeks ago we had a date night out with the kids and attended the BYU Dancesport. Camden loves to dance and so we figured he'd really enjoy it- and he did! It was pretty crowded though and so we had to sit upstairs and watch from the balcony. Still a good view and Camden jamming out to the music made it even better! (I did take a video of Camden dancing on my phone but it was such poor quality, I couldn't justify posting it.)

Xan has been so smiley of late too! I love it!

He has become the happiest little baby! It's so rewarding and makes the late night feeds and lack of sleep each day much more bearable!

Casting update!

So our last post talked about how Xan's cast fell off and we had to get a new one put on. Well that was only the beginning, that week. The cast ended up falling off again just a few days later! We got another put on, and that cast slid and got stuck in a bad position and ended up being really painful for Xan. It was a really hard night for Kelv, Xan, and me as we helped consul Xan through the night. Luckily we were able to get in to the Dr. early and got yet another cast put on the next morning. However the Dr. said we had lost some progress over the week due to so many slipped casts.

Feet angles at week 5

So as of today, we are about 3 weeks behind schedule, but that's ok! We were supposed to have the tendon release procedure this week but it looks like we won't be having it for at least 2 weeks now. The casts have remained on of late and Xan got his 12th cast on this week with at least 4+ to go. They now put a sticky ticture all over his leg to help keep the casts on and cast him with about a 90 degree knee angle in attempts to keep the casts on. It seems to be working... yeah!

Feet angles at week 6

Wups. (Casts Week 2-4)

Dialog between Kelv and Alene.

4am 11/17/10

Xan is crying and ready to eat again. Kelv is sweet enough to take this feeding so Alene can pump and go back to sleep. Kelv feeds Xan and after putting him back to bed says to Alene:

Kelv: "Alene..."

Alene: "Mmmm hmmm?"

Kelv: "Xan's cast fell off."

Alene: (Much more awake now) "What? REALLY?!"

Kelv: "Yup."

Xan's little cast on the floor after Kelv found it.

(Poor Kelv! He was so tired that he heard something fall to the ground when he got Xan up to feed him, but didn't realize it was his cast until he put him back to bed. Got to love sleep deprived parents!)

How Xan looked 12 hours prior.

Xan's casting progress is going great!

His right leg has taken to the casting so well that it gets a break from casting this week! He may get next week off too depending on how good his position is after the stretches we do with him all week.

His left foot still needs quite a bit of work however. Last week didn't adjust quite as much as they expected and since the casting process didn't go as smoothly as well, his heel is much more callused and sore. Plus, when they were taking off his cast this week, they accidentally "burned" him with the cast saw. He had about a 1.5 inch red burn mark on the inside of his left foot which was bleeding a bit as well. It was pretty sad to experience as his mom, and I hope it doesn't bother him as much as it did yesterday, the rest of the week.

Left foot is a little smaller than the right foot.

One of my friends has a little guy with one club foot, and she mentioned how his casted foot is smaller than the non-casted foot now that he's moved onto the braces phase. So I checked it out today. And I think due to the angles they've had to cast his left foot, Xan's foot growth has been slowed a bit compared to the more "normal" angles the right foot has been allotted. We'll have to see how it changes.

Xan's first tub bath!

While waiting to hear back from the orthopedic surgeon, we decided to take advantage of the fact that Xan didn't have any casts on... meaning.... a much needed BATH! He did so well with it too! Such a sweet heart!

Casts- Week 4 (take 1) He'll get recasted tomorrow!

Casts- Week 3

Casts- Week 2

Taking off his first set of casts, with the crazy cast saw. He was so good that week! Sadly this is the same saw that burned and cut him two weeks later. :-(

Big Brother Camden looks on during the casting.

(It was sort of a long appointment, so you'll notice the sucker in his mouth... we had to start bribing him to stay out of all the oh, so tempting medical equipment cupboards!)

Feet angles after 1 week of casts

Feet angles after 3 weeks of casting!

The right foot has almost entirely normal range already! Left foot has some work, but is doing better each week!

Life with Xan

Xan is such a joy! We all love having him as a part of our family! Camden is doing so well with him too!

Xan's club foot needs have obviously added some extra effort to parenting a newborn, but Xan's more mild temperament has helped this process as well.

We do find ourselves at the doctor's office much more frequently though.

Xan's 1st week of life: 4 doctor's visits

2nd week: 2 visits

3rd week: 1 visit

This week: 3 visits

With all this attention for Xan, we've had to do some extra special activities here and there to help distract Camden a little more, but overall, we're getting into the swing of things well enough that Camden is used to the routine.

Here's Camden playing with shaving cream on his tray. It was a desperate attempt by mommy to give him something "new and fun" to do and yet, educational as we practiced identifying shapes and letters. Camden has been fascinated with letters of late and can identify about 10 letters consistently!

We've also been playing and digging in our new "rice and noodle box". Thanks for the rice and the idea grandma!

Camden LOVES this penguin! Few people may know that penguins are my favorite animal, so we have a few about the house. Anyway, Camden has decided this is his baby! He'll put it to bed, sing to it, give it kisses, put it in the baby swing and bouncer, we even changed penguins diaper today! It's so cute!

We've been doing the growth changes with Xan too! Camden just isn't into that game anymore however.

Week 1 growth for Xan... Camden's saying, "Ack! The baby is touching me!"

Week 2, Xan still wants to touch his brother, and Camden doesn't seem to mind the touching quite as much.

We love our boys!

Sleep... where are you?

Sleep.

Something I'm finding myself observing more and more and participating in less and less.

Can you get any deep REM if you're never asleep longer than 2 hours at a time?

Xan LOVES to be held. Especially when it comes to bed/naptime. Maybe I should adopt Kelv's method of getting more sleep. If you can't beat him... join em!

Halloween!

Some may frown upon me for saying this, but Halloween just isn't one of my favorite holidays. There are some parts to the holiday that I enjoy. For instance, I love how it starts off the holiday season and I love how much many of my family members get into it. I also truly enjoy all the cute and happy parts of Halloween-- kids dressing up, silly carnival-style games, pumpkin carving, chili for dinner, etc-- but I'm not a fan of any of the scary, creepy, or gory. Period.

Needless to say I didn't have any guilty feelings toning down our celebrations this year. I was mostly excited just to dress the boys up, Camden as a tiger, Xan as a giraffe, and Kelv as the zoo keeper!

I also made Camden a Super Camden cape just to wear around the house for fun. He's still getting used to wearing it, and wears it only when I make him. It was just one of those things I knew he just HAD to have and would LOVE! Haha, maybe someday huh?!

In fact, we didn't end up going around trick-or-treating because when Halloween hit the scene:

1. Xan was barely a week old
2. There was a heavy downpour during trick-or-treating time
3. Mommy was still healing from delivery
4. Camden was just as happy (if not more) to answer the door to trick-or-treaters as he was to go himself

We did however attend a couple ward Halloween parties. (Xan and I only incredibly briefly at one, since he was only 6 days old at the first and I did not like having him out around people.)

My beautiful sister Ruth enjoying Xan the giraffe

My dad in his AWESOME "Hole in One" costume. He won 2, 1st place awards at NuSkin for this costume. He's a retired golfer, and it's hard to tell in this picture but you can "see" straight through him! There's just a golf ball in between! He used some piping and mirrors to create the illusion. It was so great!

We also had a wonderful get together with the Provo half of Kelv's siblings. We enjoyed the traditional chili, corn bread, and apple cider Halloween meal that both Kelv and I grew up enjoying, and just catching up. Thanks for coming guys!

Here's a picture of Jase and Brittni holding Xan for the first time!

Casts and Braces

Monday was a hard day for little Xan. We scheduled his circumcision for 11, and our pediatrician scheduled an orthopedic visit for him at 9:30. Turns out they wasted no time getting the first set of casts on, so he ended up with a double whammy that morning.

Here are his feet before the casting:

While his club feet are not a blessing, the fact that the technology to fix club feet is a wonderful blessing. The standard technique used is the Ponseti Method. That is what our doctor will be using. He says he gets 5-7 babies with club feet a year. Not all that much, but not all that rare either.

Xan will have his left leg in casts for 8 weeks total, getting a new cast each week. Each new cast allows them to move and mold the ankle a little at a time. At week 6, they will do very minor surgery to release the tendon, allowing them to move everything to its final position.

The right leg isn't quite as severe and so will only need 6 weeks of casting, with a couple weeks mixed in without a cast until the left leg catches up.

Now the big question... How many people does it take to put a plaster cast on a newborn?

Apparently 4. The doctor, his two techs, and me! (He needed 5 at the beginning when Alene was feeding him a bottle at to keep him calm!)

Happy that we're done getting them on!

Xan certainly wasn't himself with so many traumatic things happening to him that day, so we decided to show him and his cast a little love:

Once both legs are done with theirs casts, both legs will be stuck in boots on a board 23/7 (yes, that's one hour shy of 24/7) for 3 months! The braces looking like:

Once the 3 months of nearly constant boot wearing are over, for the next 3 years, he'll only have to wear the boots at bedtime and nap time. Pretty strict, but definitely do-able and worth a brighter future!

Xan!!!

Alexander (Xan) is here!

AND We are sooo happy!

Born 10/20/2010 @ 11:41 AM

7 lbs 14 oz
19 inches long
3 hours of active labor
Small amount of light brown hair
Gray eyes (we'll just have to wait to see the final color later!)
Bilateral club feet but still adorable! (left foot more severe)
Kissable chubby cheeks
Adorable round face
Sweet little man

Xan!

I'll try and do a more detailed post about the labor experience later, but for now here are some flicks... ENJOY!

Are you ready?

Are you ready for Halloween? Camden is!

First time in his tiger costume... he loved it!

PS We're also ready for baby #2! Come on out Xan!

First Hair Cut!

Hey all you Camden Fans!

This is Camden! I just wanted to tell you about my first hair cut! My mommy is really tired because she is due with my baby brother in 3 week so I'm going to do a post for her.

(Me with my new hair cut!)

Because I didn't have very much hair as a baby, I have not needed to get my hair cut until now, even though I am 1 and a half years old! But my hair was getting to be a little long so my mommy cut it.

I was a good boy during the whole thing. My daddy put on one of my favorite movies and since I had my binky in my mouth, I didn't mind the loud noise of the buzzer. My mommy put a towel over me so the hair wouldn't make me itchy.

It's hard to see the difference in the pictures but my mommy cut off 2 inches of hair from some parts of my head. Now I have a big boy hair cut just like daddy!

Before Shot and.... After Shots

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