One of Us

Two years ago today, Max became part of our family. At the time, I have to admit I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had only had one dog in my lifetime which was a completely different experience.

I think Max is doing well with Canaan. He is definitely curious about her and likes to sniff and lick her. When I give her a bath each night, he stands by the tub and tries to lick water out of it. 99.4% of the time I am feeding Canaan in the nursery, Max follows us in there and lays there while I feed her. He goes into her room at night after she's in bed or in the morning while she's still in bed to check on her. He has been really good about leaving her toys alone. He will not know what to do when she starts crawling and chasing him around. I hope he will learn soon not to be afraid. I keep telling him that one day he and Canaan will be the best of friends.

Since Canaan's arrival, he has not gotten as much exercise as before. It is more difficult to get to the park or pond now days, and frankly, it just hasn't been a priority for us. He still gets a lot of attention and love; however, he knows something is different.

One strange thing he's been doing (other than bringing the wood pile one log at a time into the yard) is spending time laying in our closet. We have no idea why he's doing this.

Max still thinks he's a lap dog. He loves to lay on Matthew and this week alone he has sat on my lap twice when I've been sitting on the floor.

You can see from at least one of these pictures that this dog knows how to relax. He is allowed on our bed and generally has his head on a pillow. While we would both like to be rid of the dog hair on the bed, we both enjoy Max's cuddling...especially when it's cold outside. On a sad note, I just realized tonight I've only taken a handful of pictures of Max since Canaan came along. Poor Max.

5 Months

Canaan had a good week. She stayed with two new people this week while Matthew had appointments. One of the mentor ladies from Sunday School kept her for a bit one day and a friend who has a 5 week old baby kept her during another appointment. I think she did well with both of them.

She's still wearing Pampers Swaddlers size 1 although she'll be in size 2 very soon.

Matthew says she discovered her feet this week and started playing with them. I haven't seen this yet.

She has started putting her hand out to touch Max. He won't let her touch him though because he wants to lick her hand. I am certain that one of these days she will win.

Yesterday we were at some friends' house. Their 8 1/2 month old started doing his fake cough. Canaan thought this was funny. They went back and forth several times - S doing his cough and Canaan laughing at him. He got her to laugh more than we have in the past 5 months. It was really sweet. I wish we had a video of the interaction.

We went with these same friends to Whole Foods to get pictures of the babies with pumpkins. We wanted to go to a pumpkin patch but got a late start. All we really wanted were the pictures anyway.

Matthew was prescribed 6 weeks of physical therapy for his shoulder. He was supposed to go two times each week. He went for his third appointment this week. The guy told him he didn't need to come back. Yeah! He will have to go back in a couple of weeks for an evaluation but doesn't have to go two times each week between now and then. I told you he's a quick healer!

Birthday Celebration

I don't have any pictures to prove it, but we did celebrate Matthew's birthday on Friday. He and I went to dinner at Carrabas which is one of our favorite restaurants. (I will have to go back once I am completely off the elimination diet so I can have a few of the goodies I had to stay away from this time.)

A former co-worker of Matthew watched Canaan for us so we could have a dinner for two. It was really nice and special. Marc and Lindsay had their hands full with their own 4 kiddos and Canaan. Canaan was crying when we left her at their house, but they said that didn't last long.

I had the camera in my purse but forgot to ask someone to take our picture. I have got to stop doing that!

I finally got Matthew's red velvet cake made Saturday night. He finished frosting it on Sunday. We tried substituting the shortening with butter as someone suggested this might keep it from being so dry. According to Matthew, it is more moist, but there is also something that tastes weird about it. I can't try it so I guess next year we may need to try something else. I also have got to figure out a better way to get the individual layers out of the pans without making a mess. If you have any suggestions for me, I'd love to hear them. Thank goodness I doubled the icing recipe. Icing covers a multitude of errors!

21 Weeks

There is a lot going on with Canaan these days. It is really fun to see how much she is changing.

She is grasping onto objects tightly.

She purposefully touched our faces for the first time this week and has been taking Matthew's glasses off his face.

She is trying really hard to sit up when she's laying down. If you hold her hands, she will pull herself up.

When I am nursing her, she does puts her hands all over her face.

She is focusing more and is really alert.

If she is on your lap while you are eating, she will follow your utensil/food from the plate to your mouth.

If someone is behind Canaan, she will turn to see that person.

She generally wakes up happy and talking rather than crying.

She is starting to bang on the table or whatever is in front of her and is starting to splash the water during her bath.

Happy Birthday Matthew!

Here are some of my favorite recent pictures of Matthew with Canaan.









And here are 35 things I love/appreciate about Matthew today.

1|he can make me laugh even when I don't want to 2|he has a big vocabulary and I often have to ask him what he's saying 3|he loves and cares about people 4|he has secret rules that I can't figure out 5|he wants to have an adventurous life 6|he is passionate about his relationship with God 7|he wants to celebrate special occasions 8|he tries to encourage me to do things that are good for me 9|he is a good dad 10|he lets me go get Canaan out of bed even though he wants to do the same thing 11|he can make Canaan laugh/smile sooner than anyone else 12|he wants to be working but appreciates the time he gets to spend with Canaan 13|he is willing to work anywhere or nowhere so Canaan can be at home 14|he is FINALLY coming around to the idea that playing hard may not be a good idea 15|he believes it is important to be at church each week and to be involved with our Sunday School class 16|he recently told me he's ready for some yummy Mindy cooking (as I've somehow taken a hiatus from cooking) 17|he continues to request a red velvet cake for his birthday despite the fact that they don't often turn out right 18|he continues to challenge me even when I don't respond well 19|he recovers from injury/surgery pretty quickly 20|he can laugh at himself 21|he is ALWAYS the one we wait on while playing board games 22|he supports my goals/dreams 23|he's willing to help those in need 24|kids are generally drawn to him 25|he thinks about/plans for the future 26|his laugh is LOUD and infectious 27|while he doesn't like to be wrong, he can admit when he is 28|he is a good friend 29|he is very generous 30|he makes me want to know the Bible better and to be more obedient 31|he made it a priority to get us out of debt 32|he loves to have people over 33|he is really good and helpful at cleaning the house 34|he will kill any spider I find without me asking 35|he's a hard worker

Happy Birthday!!

If you love chocolate,

then you need to make this cake. I tried the recipe while my parents were here last week. Mom, Dad, and Matthew all enjoyed it. They all commented on how rich it was. They think they could have split it 3 ways.

I made a different version for me - using a powder egg substitute, rice milk, and no chocolate chips. Mine did not rise the same and was over-cooked. It still had some good flavor though.

Maybe I shouldn't encourage you to try this right away because you will now be able to eat a yummy chocolate cake within minutes.

20 Weeks

Grandma and Grandpa were here for the week since Matthew had surgery. They were very helpful. My mom practically cleaned the house and prepared breakfast and dinner each day. Matthew sent them home on Monday because he was able to take care of Canaan. He found out today at his first physical therapy appointment that he is not supposed to even be lifting a gallon of milk with his left shoulder. Oops!

We left Canaan with G & G Saturday night while we went to a Sunday School dinner. I told Canaan not to do anything new while we were gone. According to the grandparents, she rolled from her tummy to her back a couple of times. I still haven't seen it.

Early in the week, Canaan had a runny nose and did not sleep well. We put a humidifier in her room and a book under the head of her mattress. One or both of those did the trick. I'm not certain that she didn't feel well. Even though she didn't sleep or eat much, she wasn't terribly fussy. We now think she may be starting to teethe.

She has started squealing when she talks.

We got ready for church on Sunday morning and left the house with the temperature around 17 degrees. We made it maybe a fourth or fifth of the way to church before I decided to turn around and go home. The roads were really slick, and I just felt uncomfortable continuing on, especially after I thought about a few hills we would have to go down. I had to get a picture of Canaan all bundled up though.

My Theory

You might want to hold on to your seat for this one. I will just give you the disclaimer now. I know that many people have studied and hypothesized about Stonehenge for many years now...many people smarter than I. I do, however, have my own theory about how Stonehenge came into existence.

Are you ready?

Are you sure you're ready?

Ahem...

After much thought and research, I believe either dinosaurs or really large dogs must have been playing with those stones and just left them in that formation once they came across something more entertaining. Please see the research/evidence below.

What do you think?

19 Weeks

I am behind a week, but I will post this anyway so I'll have the record for my scrapbook (in case I ever get around to starting and working on that). Here are my favorite pictures from the week...cute sleepy Canaan, Canaan and her friend S both wearing giraffes, some of the family, Canaan and Daddy, and Canaan and me because I thought we matched a bit (and I just like pictures of Canaan and me...and this is my blog!).

We spent Saturday with Matthew's aunt, uncle, 2 cousins, and their 3 children a couple of hours from home. We had a great time visiting, eating, seeing the new house, and watching the kiddos play (some of the adults also played on the tandem bicycle). It has been fun to get to know this part of Matthew's family since we moved out to Colorado.

I was able to reintroduce wheat to my diet this week. I could finally eat bread as long as it didn't have egg or dairy in it. Thankfully, Whole Foods has a lot of bread without egg or dairy so I was able to find some easily. While I have really enjoyed eating bread, I have to say it wasn't as great as I was expecting it to be. We're pretty sure Canaan is fine with my wheat eating as she hasn't had any kind of reaction to it. I hope the results will be the same as I add other items later on. When she is 5 months old, I will get to try nuts. I hope that goes well. Just think...a yummy peanut butter sandwich. Yum!

Canaan is starting to get distracted while she's nursing. If she hears something in another room, she'll look up at me and smile. Or if someone is in the same room as us and starts talking, she will turn her head to see that person. It's pretty cute but also frustrating when I just want her to eat. When we were visiting the family last Saturday, she heard the other kiddos laughing in another room while I was nursing her. She stopped eating, looked up at me, and had the CUTEST smile on her face. It was really sweet!

She is starting to talk more. Some days she is so quiet and other days she has a lot to say. We enjoy listening to her many noises and all her inflection.

One down and one to go

After looking at my blog recently, Matthew mentioned that he does not have his own tag/label for my posts. After unsuccessfully telling him that all the posts are really about him, I told him the "ER Visit" tag is really like a Matthew tag. He didn't appreciate that much.


After I found out I was pregnant with Canaan last year, I told Matthew that he could not have any ER visits because it was my turn to be in the hospital in 2009. Well, he hasn't had any ER visits, but he will have two surgeries before the year is up. Next time, I guess I should be more specific. This will be the first time we have reached the maximum out of pocket for our insurance (at least I expect that to be the case). I hope several years can go by before that happens again.


Matthew had surgery on his left shoulder Tuesday afternoon. It has been hurt since the beginning of the year and was continuing to feel worse. Neither of us was looking forward to the surgery, although it's safe to say that Matthew has been looking forward to it less than I have. He is doing remarkably well for someone who had surgery two days ago. He didn't even take any pain medication today. My parents came into town to help out with Canaan so I didn't have to take a lot of time off work. Boy, are they helpful!


Next up, Matthew has to have surgery on his left knee to repair a torn ACL. Surgery will be scheduled once his shoulder is healed so that he can use crutches. Doesn't that sound like fun?