Holiday Festivities

The Bunch family has had a lot of fun these past few weeks with holiday festivities. I didn't realize how many traditions and activities there are in December until we were able to share them all with Hayden.

At the beginning of the month Hayden turned 5 months old. I can't tell you how unbelievably fast time is passing and how my little boy is growing up in front of my eyes. I have been taking pictures of Hayden with Tucker every month so that you can see how big he is getting compared to his 80 lb best friend. This month's picture made me realize that we have gotten out of he infant stage and that Hayden is finally growing up (in all aspects, he is a totally different happy baby...yea!!!)

Chris was excited that he can finally fit into his Carharts...what Alaskan kid doesn't have a set!!! Hayden loves to mock you, so we were sticking our tongues out at each other in this picture!

Chris took Hayden skating for the first time at the outdoor rink down the road from our house while it was really warm outside. Hayden had a blast skating around with his dad and I can foresee skating in his future!

My parents have always taken my sister and I Christmas tree shopping at the local Kiwanis club, and this year wasn't any different. I love stepping into the building and smelling the fresh pine, and then bringing home the tree and having it smell up the house. We all had fun picking out trees for our houses and my parents loved toting Hayden around to have him "pick out" their tree!

Hayden tried to help us decorate the tree when we brought it home. He had a lot more fun eating the ornaments and the tree rather than hanging them!

And the holiday festivities would not be complete without seeing Santa Claus! Chris had his union Christmas party (one that I went to from Hayden's age until I was 10), and luckily Hayden got to catch Santa! He did great sitting on his lap, and even smiled really big for his picture :)

THANKSgiving

Chris and I have a lot to be thankful these days and I would like to share a few things important to us. We are very thankful that we were blessed with a healthy baby this year and we are also thankful for our health and our families as well. Speaking of family, we are thankful for our families, we have wonderful supportive families full of love. I am thankful that I am able to stay at home with Hayden, but also thankful that I can work a little from home! I am thankful for my husband and everything that he does. Oh the list can go on and on but I just wanted to touch on the big items, health and family!

We had a wonderful thanksgiving day full of activities. I got up early and spent half the day cooking bread, pies, and Hayden's first solids! It was really nice to be able to work away in the kitchen while Chris played with the boys. If you know me then you know that I am by far a cook, but hey I keep trying!! Every single Thanksgiving that I have cooked for, I have undercooked something. Our very good family friends, the Landermans, share Thanksgiving with us and can attest to my cooking. I have undercooked a turkey twice, and this year I didn't cook the white bread all the way through. Thank goodness I made wheat bread as a back-up!

We normally eat an early Thanksgiving at the Bunch's, but they went down to Anchorage for Tyler's hockey tournament, so we just headed over to my parents. They did an amazing job of cooking a huge beautiful spread of really good food. Before dinner I tried to give Hayden his sweet potatoes, but there was too much going on and he was way too distracted. So during dinner he felt a little left out in his activity center, so of course his dad held him in his lap (he is a big sucker), and Hayden was very interested in everything on the table. So, Chris fed him his sweet potatoes and he ate them right up! Chris also managed to sneak in a few bites of my mom's scrumptious cranberry salad that Hayden of course loved. We had a great dinner with wonderful company! After a big day of playing with dad and eating a TON of food, Hayden literally just passed out in Skip's arms. It was the cutest thing, Skip held him for a good hour and he was out cold :)

In addition to the sweet potatoes, Hayden has been getting some oatmeal for breakfast as well. He does a good job of eating, that is when he isn't occupied looking at something else more interesting. He gets distracted very easily, so it is a bit challenging!!

We are having a major heat wave up here, it is 35 degrees out today! So the other night Chris took Hayden out on his first snowmachine ride. Chris was on cloud nine, snowmachining with his son and dog, his favorite things in the world (I think I am a distant 4th!) Hayden did great, but got a little tired of the wind in his face, so I hopped on back and held him between Chris and I and he loved it! I think Chris is going to take him skating tonight, we will see how he likes that!

4 Months

We are passing milestones as fast as Hayden is growing!! We had his 4 month appointment last week and he measured 25 and 1/2 inches and weighed 13 lbs 12 ounces. He is in the 25th percentile as far as weight but in the 75th percentile for height!

I had to do our monthly Tucker picture to show how big Hayden is getting. Tucker is being a really good pal to Hayden lately although he won't stop licking him. Hayden is really into touching everything (and tasting it), and so he likes to grab at Tucker, especially his lips. Tucker just sits there and takes it and his only defense seems to be to lick him because then Hayden closes his eyes and can't see him any longer to grab at him.

As you can see, Hayden is starting to master sitting up even better each week! Another milestone is that he has almost overcome his lactose intolerance. He only has to take his medicine once a day, yea! The pediatrician recommended to start rice cereal to give him a few more calories and to see if the myth of rice cereal at night will really help him sleep through the night. I say myth because that is totally not the case with this kid, he is still only sleeping 4 hours at a time. His newest sleeping habit is to get up with dad in the morning (at 5:45am) no matter what time he just went to sleep at, and then he wants to play. So instead of fighting him back to sleep (because he has horrible new tantrums that leave me with a wicked headache), we play for a while and then finally get to sleep again. I would always think that I wouldn't do this or that with my kid, but lately I have realized that sometimes you just have to do a few things to get by and some fights are just not worth fighting!!

Family Addition

For those of you who know my husband, you know that he has been wanting a boat forever. When we were getting married, on the day of our wedding my dad and Vern (our good family friend who officiated the wedding) tried to convince Chris to draw up a marriage contract that stated he got to buy a boat. This of course is because I am cheap and it just wasn't a good time to buy one. So he looked almost every day on Craigslist for the past two years for a great deal that would fall into my stipulations. When he got home from work he would look under Alaska, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho's listings. Well....all of his hard work paid off and he found a beautiful boat for an amazing deal. The only catch was that it was in California. We got a full blown appraisal done on the boat and then decided that even with the trip down south, it would still be a great deal to get the boat. So we spontaneously got tickets and headed to Seattle to visit my sister for a few days (for those of you who know me will realize that this was a really hard decision because I don't do spontaneous!!!)

Hayden did amazing on the plane ride down. We had to get him up at 5:00 and the catch a plane at 7:00am, so by the time we were ready to take off he was already snoozing away. The guy at the airport was kind enough to move our seats in a row that didn't have the 3rd seat filled, so we had the entire row to ourselves to stretch out and take naps as well. Hayden is such a happy baby in the morning so he woke up smiling and played the rest of the time! Of course the happiness ended quickly once we got in the car and it was a long drive to Gig Harbor.

We had a great couple of days with my sister, it was wonderful to see her and for her to get to spend time with Hayden. She was kind enough to let us stay at her beautiful house and catered to our every wishes...including spending a long afternoon at the mall!! I wish she lived closer, we had a great time together and Hayden loved playing with his Auntie :)

On Halloween we handed out candy to the kids that visited my sister's house. It was fun to see the kids in their actual costumes running around the neighborhoods....quite different from being bundled up in snowsuits with costumes on top and running from the car to a house then to the car again!!

Hayden had a great time eating his costume, which made Chris and I hungry so we headed down the road to an awesome Italian restaurant that sat right next to the Ocean. This was the first time we took Hayden out to dinner and he did wonderful. He is a big flirt, and smiled at all of the waitstaff and he actually sat in his carseat and played with his toys. The little monster, I mean dinosaur, had a long day of shopping and playing and passed out in daddy's arms!

Like I mentioned earlier, Hayden hasn't gotten over the carseat thing, so my sister was kind enough to take the day off of work and watch him while we made the long journey to Oregon to pick up the boat. The guy that sold us the boat agreed to save us time and meet us half-way from California in Grants Pass, Oregon. It took us about 6 hours to get down there, it went quickly because it was the first time Chris and I had time alone and the scenery was beautiful. I thought that Alaska had beautiful falls, that is until I got to see the gorgeous deep red leaves throughout Seattle and Oregon.

The boat turned out to be as perfect as we imagined. The guy kept it in pristine condition and had a ton of extras added to it when he ordered it. It is a 21' Boice Jet Boat,which are very hard to find because they are a custom boat and the manufacturer went out of business in 2004, the one we purchased was one of the last boats made. This boat was actually bought from the father who owned the company. Anyways, it was a gem and was the gentleman's baby. They have been hit really hard by the recent economic turmoil and he had a really hard time selling his boat....this was actually the last thing he sold (we are talking he sold his house before his boat). After having a wonderful afternoon with him and learning all about the boat we had to get back on the road to our little munchkin that we were missing. It was a long drive back and took about 7 hours on the dark busy freeways. But we made it, and Hayden did pretty good for my sister while we were gone. He only had 1 meltdown, but she is a wonderful pediatric nurse and knew exactly how to handle his shenanigans!

The next day we had to run the boat over to get shrink wrapped and then take it to a shipping company to barge it up to Alaska. Yikes easier said then done, my sister had to work so Chris and I tried to figure out the stinking roads in Tacoma and it was crazy. We got lost and then had a hard time trying to get back to the right freeway in the right direction to get back on track again. Let's just say it was a really long 4 hours of driving and that Hayden pretty much screamed the entire time. It was very trying on all of us, but we made it through okay and got the boat all ready to make it's journey home! We made a quick stop into my sister hospital because she saved us two H1N1 vaccines and then we headed to the airport. We made it with about 10 minutes to spare, and were beat by the time we sat down. But our trip wasn't quite over yet. The flight left in the evening, which isn't Hayden's happy time, and it was packed as well. So of course we had a little bit of fussiness, which was hard to deal with because we were exhausted and tried to keep him quiet to avoid the evil glares from people. He finally went to sleep and then slept the entire way home. It will all be worth it in about 7 months when we finally get to use our boat :)

Pumpkin Fun

Although we knew it was coming, we are never really prepared for it....snow! It finally started snowing this week, and hasn't really stopped. It seems like it snows later and later each year. But for as long as I remember there is always snow on the ground on Halloween! It is still pretty warm outside so the snow is sticky and the roads are really icy. Which leads to the inevitable, really bad drivers. It happens every single year, people seem to forget how to drive on icy roads. That doesn't really work well with me because I am always running late, and with people driving 30mph on the highway I am now even more late!

My dad came over and we did our traditional pumpkin carving with Hayden (he is like Chris and hates getting his picture taken, so you get side shots of them both, two peas in a pod!) Chris is glad that we finally have the excuse of a kid because I used to make him do all of the holiday traditions. It was a lot of fun this year, Hayden was amazed at grandpa and what he was doing to that yummy looking orange thing (my dad gave him the top of the pumpkin and of course he tried to eat it!)

He helped his dad carve his pumpkin which was a little monster, i.e. Hayden!

It was a really fun evening and all of the pumpkins turned out great. Hopefully they will lure in the kids that are brave enough to go trick or treating, it is supposed to be -4 degrees out that night.

We are all getting ready for a big adventure this weekend. It is going to be a jam packed weekend of visiting with Auntie Amy and picking up Chris's new boat. I will fill you in once we get back, for now it is off to bed because we have to catch a plane in a few hours.

Mommy's Little Monster

It is amazing how much changes in just a few weeks, actually in just a few days. Hayden is almost to the point of sitting up on his own, although he thinks it is funner to lean forward and eat his feet!!

I think we had our last bit of fall this past weekend. We finished up our outside projects, including putting a wire fence in the ground for Tucker. He has been feeling left out lately and has decided to try and find other people to pay attention to him! So hopefully this will give him a little reminder of where his home his!!

We took Hayden to his first Nanook hockey game and he did amazing. He sat through both games and stared at all of the action. He enjoyed sitting on our good friend Skip's lap the first night and the next night he sat on Grandpa's lap! I had to quickly sneak a picture of the boys as we were walking out the door (because I am a lame mom and someone might have seen us!!!) Going to the game threw him off schedule because the game didn't get over until past 9 o'clock, it made him overly tired and he actually slept 8 hours that night....don't get too excited because the next night he was back to 4 to 5 hours of sleep!

Hayden actually enjoys tummy time now and has mastered head control finally. It is kind of weird to be able to hold him in one arm and multi-task without worry about his bobble head!! He loves to sit up and check out the world, but mostly he stares at his crazy puppy that likes to drop toys on his head.

We had a cardiologist appointment today to check on his heart murmur and it is still there, but the doctor said that he looked healthy and it wasn't affecting him. We have an appointment in 6 months to see if his duct has closed and if it hasn't then he will have to have a non-invasive surgery to block it. We were able to see how much he has grown in 5 weeks and he is now 25" long and 12.12 ounces.

Chris and I are doing well, Chris's jobs are wrapping up and things are slowing down for him. Soon he will be working 40 hours and week and will be able to enjoy playing with Hayden a lot more and his favorite season! I foresee a lot of trips up to the cabin snowmachining with Hayden bundled up with us!!

Chris bought Hayden a remote control snowmachine that looks identical to Chris's actual snowmachine. I have to point out the shirt he has on, it is Chris's favorite "Alaska Boys Got The Berries!" Sorry about the cleavage, I can't keep the girls under control :) Hayden loves to watch it zoom around the living room and when he can finally get his hands on it, he of course tries to eat it. He loves to put everything in his mouth, especially the ball below.

We hope everyone enjoys fall and the last bit of warm weather...soon we will have to bundle up!

Oh Happy Days!

It seems like every day Hayden grows up just a little bit more...time is flying by so fast. With time Hayden is slowly growing out of his colic and is crying less and less. He is becoming quite a happy baby, which makes for a happy momma!

The picture above is Hayden at 12 weeks, he loves to sit in his Bumbo chair when I am cooking in the kitchen and keeps me company.

We finally have a schedule down put so there is a little less chaos in our lives! Hayden loves to takes baths at night as part of our bedtime routine...which in turn leads to less crying in the evenings (we still have about an hour of fussiness, but I am not complaining).

As you can tell Tucker was really enjoying me torturing him with picture time!

This is my favorite face ever, it is Hayden giving me a giant shit eating grin! I need those big grins lately because it has been a busy couple of weeks. I have had to train a lady at work for about 6 hours a day. Because Hayden is on a schedule, it hasn't been too hard because he takes a solid 2 hour nap in the afternoon. It has been hard for me to train because a) I don't like to give up control of things, b) not everyone is a perfectionist like me so they don't do everything as perfectly as I want them too, c) I want to give Hayden as much of my attention as I can so I only want to give directions once, and d) if I am training then I can't get my work done which means I have to work twice as hard. But it is a good reminder that I am very fortunate that I don't have to go back to work full time and I need to work smarter not harder! Chris has been home these past few weeks and has had a good glimpse into what my life has been like for the past few months. He would never admit to how much work it is to take care of a "fussy" baby, but he gets exhausted after a few hours with Hayden; I can't help but laugh and think geez try all day and night, I don't think we get enough credit for what we do as moms!

Fall Fun!

We finally had Hayden's 2 month appointment today (only a few weeks late!), and he weighed in at 12lbs 2oz (50th percentile) and 24in long (75th percentile). The doctor said he was happy and healthy and was quite a flirt. He kept smiling and cooing at her, I'm glad that someone likes going to the doctors! And of course we couldn't go to the doctor without finding something wrong, it just wouldn't be Hayden's style!! He has eczema, so we have to bath him with special soap and use special lotion, geez. I think I have mentioned before that he screams bloody murder whenever you put him in the car seat as well as at night for a few hours and the doctor just thinks he is a little colicky and gassy from his medicine...and it will get better before he turns 1. Ugh, I think I will be admitted to the loony bin if I have 10 more months of screaming car rides. I have to throw in the picture below, it is classic Hayden giving me attitude!

Chris and I went to the cabin last weekend and had an amazing time. It was so nice to get out of town and it was a beautiful weekend. Hayden did wonderful and had a great time. The boat was a mini heaven for him, it had lots of shadows, made a loud noise, and vibrated (if only life was that simple for us!) I was trying to take a picture of him and Chris driving the boat, and Chris kept talking to him and trying to get his attention, and as you can tell he was amazed by his dad.

We took him on lots of 4 wheeler rides down on the river banks so that Tucker could go swimming. Tucker had a blast chasing sticks for two days straight, and got quite a workout. By the way I love Alaska falls and the beautiful colors, I just wished they lasted longer.

Chris finally wore the baby Bjorn (which he claimed he would never wear in public), but he said it was okay because they were 4 wheeling! Boys and their egos :) As you can tell it was a good opportunity for Hayden to nap!

Despite all of our bumps in the road, there is nothing like the love and happiness a child brings to your life. I could be having the worst day in the world and when Hayden looks up at me and smiles, I seem to forget everything and remember what's important in life.

Milestones

This is Hayden at 8 weeks, he has almost mastered holding his head up. We have actually reached a few milestones that have made life a lot easier! He sleeps over 5 hours a night, hey I will take what I get and it is a heck of a lot better than every 3 hours. He was sick last week and was waking up every 2 hours with a stuffy nose and let me tell you....I was exhausted. I bought white noise Cd's and put them on during the day when he is napping and he will sleep for hours in his crib. This is a huge step for Hayden because he would normally wake right up the minute you put him in his crib and not go back down.

We are enjoying are days at home and I feel very fortunate that I am able to spend all day with him. Although I still work, just from home whenever he naps, we still get to play and enjoy this peaceful stage of life.

Hayden is getting big really fast, I will be interested to see how much he has grown; we have his 2 month appointment next Friday (although he will be over 10 weeks). He has already grown out of his 3 month clothes so we have had to move onto 3-6 month outfits. He fits them length wise but is skinny and can't quite fill them out!

It is fall time in Fairbanks and the leaves are changing already. We have had a few freezes already but lately the weather has decided to cooperate and stay in the 60's. I am trying to sneak in as many walks as I can with my boys before it starts to get cold. We have to keep our first baby happy as well has Hayden! Tucker's new thing is to act like a jealous big brother and instead of getting in your face when you play with Hayden he likes to put the attention on Hayden so that you'll play with him as well!!

It's hunting season in Alaska, although the warm weather makes it difficult because the moose don't get around much when it's hot out. Chris went hunting during the Labor day weekend, but didn't bring back anything...thank goodness because I am not a fan of moose meat. I think that we are going to take advantage of the nice weather and let Hayden experience the river and cabin this upcoming weekend.