Happy May Day!

Hello all -

Yes, we are back. Took a long break from blogging, not for any particular reason other than struggling to find time to do it. Lots of updates for you though!!

New things Kale is doing:
-Eating baby food 3 times/day and also eating Puffs
-Sitting up on his own
-Drinking out of a sippy cup...errr trying to
-Getting on all 4's and rocking...so close to crawling!
-Standing up while holding onto the couch
-Making sounds, bababa and mamama are his favorite
-Being much more interactive and inquisitive
-Noticing family, friends and strangers
-Jumping all the time
-Pooping on his own (I know this sounds small but it's really nice not having to give him suppositories every 3 days)...thank God for Miralax :)
-Touching faces
-Being more mobile, standing up, rolling around, crawling on top of us
-Playing peek-a-boo
-Walking towards us while holding on to our hands

Health wise he is doing well too. He is seeing Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy each once/week. The PT helps with gross motor skills, helping with the development for more physical steps like crawling, rolling over. The OT helps more with fine motor skills, for example right now they are working with him to try and have him grab individual puffs with his 'pincher' fingers and feed himself. He seems to enjoy both and each week we can see improvement.

We have his 1 year checkup tomorrow, excited to see how he checks out! We think he is about 18 pounds and he is definitely longer as well. He is breathing well on his own, he hasn't had any episodes where he struggles or anything. His heart continues to slow down as far as beats/minute. His appointment in February had his low at 42 beats/min and average at 60 beats/minute. If his average gets between 50-55 then that's when we have to start considering pacemaker.

This summer we're excited to have weekends free and have more time to spend with each other. I'm constantly surfing the internet for fun things to do in Des Moines so if you have any suggestions, let us know!

We're making our first out of state family trip to Phoenix next week to see some of my family. We are going with Sarah, Justin and Jordan too. It will be Kale's first time on a plane...we're getting a little nervous for how it's going to go. If you have tips on taking a baby on plane the please let us know :)

Derc and I are still enjoying our jobs. I'm finally getting the hang of my new job after a few months in position now. Derc is spending a lot of his free time in Southern Iowa at his friend's land. They are developing the land and also hunting it when possible. He created a website to track the progress if you want to check it out it's pretty cool! The address is www.spursandsheds.com, it's got some good stuff for hunting if that's up your ally.

Well, I'll do my best to keep the blog updated, but obviously I'm pretty terrible at it now so I'm not making any promises :)

Finally.....new pictures!