Biking in Style
Here is our most recent purchase. They seem to really enjoy the ride!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNY!!!!

And now... for something COMPLETELY different... Sing with me...

Happy Happy Happy Birthday
Happy Happy Happy Birthday
Happy Happy Happy Birthday
To You, To You, To You
OLE!

Help me wish my lovely bride, Jenny, a happy FIRST 29th Birthday today!

I love you! XOXO

--DW

To the Doctor
So Jacob still has been having some yucky diapers recently so I took him to the doctor's yesterday. Turns out he has a little ear infection in one ear. I am not sure if that is causing all of the other, but he is on some medication now. He got weighed as well and now is a hefty 18 pounds, 7 ounces. That was with his diaper on, so it is probably a little less than that, but at 9 months he only weighed 17 pounds, 2 ounces. I am glad he seems to be getting bigger now.

We got sent home from the YMCA today because Nathan had 2 yucky diapers, so it is another day at home tomorrow. If he isn't better tomorrow, I'll take him to the doctor. Ugh!

Visitors
Last weekend we had our friends, Chris and Angie, come in town for a visit. We went to Purdue with them and then we went to Seminary with them and then Chris and Daryl worked at LifeChurch.tv together. So, we have known them for a while. They have a son who is a few weeks older than Nathan. The boys had fun playing together and we enjoyed visiting as well.


FUN Week
We had an interesting last week. I have figured out that I have cleaned up every sort of body liquid possible. Here are the gory details...

1. pee - Nathan had some wardrobe malfunctions this week. Several mornings when he woke up one of the tabs on his diaper was broken so he peed all over the bed and himself. Pretty gross in itself, but it gets quite worse.

2. spit up - Of course Jacob is a pro at this and it required some cleaning on my part.

3. blood - We went to the park when our friends were in town and Nathan ended up taking a tumble and his lip and the step became friends. He bled all over his shirt.

4. vomit - All of us in the house, except for Nathan, have had a bug this past week which resulted in vomiting. The worse was probably when Jacob got sick in bed. I went in to get him and he was swimming in a lake of poo and vomit. Ugh!

5. poo - Jacob has had a good case of diarrhea along with the vomit.

6. snot - Jacob and Nathan have a runny nose now.

Needless to say, my washing machine has been running overtime this past week. I am hoping that all of our bodily fluids will stay where they belong for a while. I am sure you didn't come to read the blog to hear about all of this, but that is what is new with us. I was out of work for 4 days last week with it.

New Jacob Milestone
Today Jacob went from a lying down position to sitting up. He did it twice. We'll see if he got lucky or if this is a new skill for him. He is getting a lot better at getting up on his knees as well. He'll get up and rock from time to time. He is trying to pull up, too!

Well, we are doing well. Not too much new happening. Jacob has been honing his crawling skills and is pretty good now. He still does the army crawl. He loves to crawl over to where Nathan is and mess with what he is up to. I guess it will be that way for a long time now. Nathan does pretty well with it and thinks he is pretty funny. At least so far.

This past weekend we went to a community festival and Nathan and Jacob experienced their first parade. The firetrucks were his favorite... and the candy.

Here is a fun picture of the boys tonight in the bath together...

Reunion
This past weekend we were able to visit with a lot of family from my dad's side at the Weir family reunion. Daryl played golf on Saturday morning and his team won, Jacob and I went to a BBQ on Saturday evening, and then today (Sunday) we had the actual reunion. There was a good turnout this year and it was great to see everyone. Most people there we get to see just once a year. Nathan and Jacob both did very well. There were lots of boys for Nathan to play with. They definitely outnumber the girls.

Funny....
So I found this video tonight and I think it sums up life with kids pretty well.

A, B, C...

Here is Nathan's version of the alphabet.

Nathan's Evaluation
The lady came today to see how Nathan is doing with speech and such. She had some puzzles and little toys for him to play with. He loved that. She also asked me some questions and observed Nathan. She thought that Nathan is doing very well with things. She said his speech will come along with time. That is good to know.

I think his frustration issues are a lot better now. My theory is that he got a little touch of the sickness that Jacob had and that made him tired and cranky. That is what I am hoping anyway... I don't want that Nathan to return!

Jacob is mobile!
So Jacob is now officially army crawling! Here is a video of him doing it. It is funny to see him doing this because Nathan never did this. It is so cute.

Nathan Talking
So his speech evaluation is tomorrow after I get off work. That should be very interesting to see what the speech therapist thinks. She is coming to our house for the evaluation, so that will be nice. I'll update to let you know how that goes. On a good note, today he said mommy consistently for the first time. Before this he would either say momma or bobby. Yay!

Visitors!
This past weekend we got to visit with Daryl's sister and her family. They came to visit us. It was good to see them and their 5 kids. It was an adventure trying to get all 7 of our kids checked in and to their correct Sunday School class.

Jacob
He went in yesterday for his 9 month checkup. The doctor thought things were looking good with him. He is still little, weighing 17 pounds and 2 ounces, but she thought that was fine. Nathan at this age weighed 20 pounds, 11 ounces. He was 27.25 inches long. That is just a little shorter than Nathan. Also, measuring a squirmy baby is not an exact science! :) He didn't have to have any shots this appointment and he will return at one year old.

Nathan
Now for Nathan... he has been SUPER fussy and whiney these past few weeks. He is a little better here at the house, but whenever anyone comes over or we go out to someone's house, he turns into crazy child. I don't know what is up with him, but Daryl and I are praying it passes quickly! We think he may have a touch of what Jacob had last week. He got sick one morning last weekend and has been kind of clingy and tired recently and also his appetite has been coming and going. Even the teachers at his class at the YMCA have commented the last two days that he is not himself.

While we were at Jacob's appointment, the doctor asked how Nathan was doing and we got on the subject of his slow talking. She suggested I call and get him a speech evaluation to see if he would benefit from some speech therapy. I called a program in KY called Project First Step. I guess they come to the house and will test him to see. Hopefully some of the behavior issues are the result of him not being able to communicate his needs and desires. We'll see. I'll keep you updated about this.

Training Our Troops!

So, last night I got the coolest opportunity to help train our American soldiers for combat.

Down by Fort Knox, they have a place where civilians can participate. It's called the Zussman Urban Combat Training Center and I got be a terrorist.

Yeah, I know what you're saying... "but DW, you have a red goatee and I'm pretty sure that terrorists don't look like that. You're too white!"

But, see below... are you sure about that? Some of us got guns! At least the guy on the far right (Maxim) looks like a terrorist! Crazy Ukranians :)



We got to participate (about 20 civilians total) on two different training exercises. I've never been to bootcamp, nor seen anything like this. It felt very very real when you see explosions, helicoptors, tanks and hear gunfire and troops yelling "get down get down get down." We had normal paintball guns. The troops had super-mega "military" paintball guns. Instead of the normal round paintballs, they were 9mm "pill size" paintballs. It was pretty cool.

I personally played more of the lookey-loo "random citizen on the street who sometimes gets to close to the troops" both times. I wasn't arrested and was generally left alone. If I got too close the troops, they yelled at me until I figured out what they were saying (I couldn't speak english of course) and ran away.

I look forward to going back.

--DW

Sick Baby :(

So Jacob has been sick for the last few days. It started last Thursday morning when he threw up at the YMCA. We had to leave early. It seems when he gets too much food, it all comes back up. So today I have been feeding him just a few ounces every few hours and that seems to be helping him. He is pretty pitiful though. He is sleeping a lot and gets pretty droopy like the above picture.

Boys Everywhere!
This past weekend Daryl invited two coworkers and their families over for a cookout. With all of the kids it turned out to be 8 boys, the ages were 6, 4, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, and 0. It was pretty funny to see them running around and that there were no girls. Nathan freaked out a little in the beginning when they started touching HIS stuff, but he was fine after a few minutes.

Counting...
Nathan is doing better with talking. We are really starting to try and make him talk instead of whine for everything. The whining really drives Daryl and me crazy. He can now count to 10. He loves to tell us the time and point out letters on signs and in the store.

Almost There
Jacob is not crawling yet, but he is really wanting to get up on his knees. If I help him he can get up for a little bit. He can rotate around in a circle pretty well. He has 4 teeth now and his hair is getting pretty long. It is so blonde which is pretty interesting. He goes back to the doctor in 2 weeks, so that will be good to see how much he weighs now. He is a skinny-minny.

Just for fun
Nathan with a goatie and Jacob with a mohawk!

My Dad (Dan Hunter)
Some of you may know, my Dad went into the Hospital last Sunday with chest pains and an irregular heartbeat. He's been there ever since getting a lot of tests and procedures done.

Turns out, that he was pretty close to two bad things - stroke and heart attack.

When his heart started freaking out, it was causing blood to not circulate properly through the heart and that could easily lead to stroke. So, they did all sorts of fun complicated medial stuff, and got that working again. During the process, they found out he's diabetic, so now he gets the joys of a new diet and lifestyle.

When his heart got back in rhythm, they had scheduled a heart cath to see if there was anything to be worried about. When they did THAT procedure, they saw he was over 90% blocked in one area of the heart and had to put a stint in. Wow. 90%. So, that was a heart-attack ready to happen. They put in two stints and he had to lay flat on his back last night.

But, the GREAT NEWS is that I just talked with him and he gets to go home tonight. Praise God!

Anyway, please pray for my Dad, Dan. He's doing well, but I know this was a small shake up.

Please pray for my mom, Delores, too as she deals with an aging... no.. old... no... MORE EXPERIENCED Hubby... yeah... that's it. More experienced is a better word.

--DW

Random Stuff
Here is cute photo I took a few days ago of the boys...

A few weekends ago we got to stop in and see our friends, Chris and Angie. They have moved back to Indiana and live between Daryl's parents house and our house. It was great to visit with them and see their son. He is just 2 weeks older than Nathan. They had a good time playing together. Here is a picture of them. Daryl had to be behind them to keep them still for 2 seconds while we took the pictures...

6 YEARS

Another year to create
precious memories together.
Another year to discover new things
to enjoy about each other.
Another year to build a life
rich in love and laughter.
Another year to strengthen a marriage
that defines "forever."

-I love you Daryl!

Long Time No Post
Sorry to not update the blog in so long! In an effort to fix this, I have created some new posts and dated them in the past so that it doesn't get too confusing. You'll have to go through and read some of the older entries to get caught up.

Things are well here. The YMCA job is going very well. I enjoy it and the kids are enjoying playing with others as well. My class has about 12-14 kids right now. I am getting to know them pretty well. When school begins in a month or so we will have 22 kids. I work with another lady and she is the lead teacher for the room.

Our garden is coming along. The tomatoes are going crazy! They are very tall and have tons of tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen now. It will be a little while longer for the others. I have gotten several cucumbers, zucchini, and yellow squash as well. Here is a picture of some twins we had a little while back...

Nathan vs. The Dentist
We just got back from the dentist for Nathan's first appointment. It went okay overall, but we basically had to hold him down. He didn't think it was a very good idea to look at his teeth. All looked well to the dentist except for the fact that he does have an underbite. We'll see how things go when his adult teeth come in. If it continues at that point, we'll have to go to an orthodontist to see what to do to get that corrected.