healthy babies

Today Hayden had her 6 month check-up and she's healthy as a horse! Well, a miniature horse. She's in the 25th percentile for weight and height, weighing 14 lb. 8 oz. and measuring 25.4 inches. She's petite but the doctor said she's growing just fine. Physically she and Liam are totally different babies! At 6 months Liam was in the 90th percentile, weighed 17 lb. 11 oz., and measured 26.5 inches! I went back and looked at some of Liam's pics when he was Hayden's age. Kinda cool to look at both of them both side by side. Here's a few:

Liam, newborn

Hayden, newborn

Liam, 3 mon.

Hayden, 3 mon.

Liam, 6 mon.

Hayden, 6 mon.

I love these babies! They favor each other but they are definitely their own little people.

I really like the new pediatrician that we saw today. Our pediatrician back in Little Rock was a younger woman so with her it was like talking from one mom to another. I really liked her and was so sad to have to leave her. Our new pediatrician here is an older man and talking with him feels more like father/daughter. He's very gentle and personable, and I feel great about taking the kids to him. I went by myself with both kids this afternoon and it was a little wild! Liam had his two-year-old check-up before we moved so only Hayden was actually seeing the doctor today. I went armed with trail mix, milk and toys for Liam and he did pretty good while Hayden was being seen. And you can't ask for better health care than at Mayo Clinic! It is a well-oiled machine! I feel so fortunate to have this kind of care for our family for the next several years.

God has blessed us with two healthy babies and I will continue to thank and praise him for that! Here are few pics that we took this past week:

yea!! daddy was home half of saturday and all day sunday! we were lovin' life!!

we went to saturday night church and afterwards there was dinner and games for the kids

Liam of course was not scared of the big honkin' slide!

Hayden was totally zoned out. She's not really into partying past bedtime yet.

when i took this pic Liam was saying "tall like Sansom"

a typical afternoon lately - popsicles and sidewalk chalk

sweet little 6 mon. old girl

cheese

Hayden looks like she's been captured by the Mad-Laughing Liam - Yah ha ha ha ha!

little baller

where did he get his mad skills?

precious profile

Tonight Will got off early and took our little fam to Culver's for dinner. Culver's is famous for butter burgers and frozen custard concretes...yes please. It was D-licious. Will set his coke next to Hayden and she knocked it over everywhere. Liam dissected his corn-dog to find the "sausage" that was "hiding" then dumped his melted ice-cream on Will's shoes. And I ate a butter burger in record time so we could get the kids home to bed. I always feel like I'm in one of those ESPN eating contests when I go out to eat with my kids - stuffing my face as fast as I can, food and drinks flying everywhere as we all cheer each other on to EAT! These are glorious days!! Now I need to roll myself to bed!

ladies lunch kicked my tail

We have been visiting a community church that is close to our house. A girl that I met there had a lunch at her house for several of the Mayo wives today. I think it was mainly an opportunity for me and another new girl to meet some other Mayo wives at the church. I really appreciated her reaching out to me, inviting me over, introducing me to some new people. But I have to say, once I got there I was ready for it to just be over!

It literally took me all morning long to prepare for the lunch. The lunch was at noon, right at Liam and Hayden's naptime, so I put Hayden down for her morning nap later in hopes that she would be able to take her noon nap later. Then I spent the morning making fruit dip and fruit kebabs for the lunch, getting myself showered and ready, getting the kids cleaned and dressed, packing a lunch for the kids, packing a diaper bag, writing down directions, nursing Hayden, and the constant task of occupying Liam while trying to do all of this. And even though I was working towards getting out the door on time all morning long I was still late.

So when I finally got there at 12:15 and hauled the kids, the diaper bag, the food and Hayden's bumbo in the door, I was drained. And I was the only one late! Someone told me that Minnesotans are on-time people. I'm at serious risk of having no friends if that is the case. There were a couple of older kids that were going to watch the younger kids while the moms ate. So I got Liam and Hayden settled eating lunch with the other kids and finally sat down with the other moms, who were already half way done with their lunch. Did I mention that I had worked up a major sweat from all the hard labor? Yep it was really cute.

Speaking of cute, I was slightly over-dressed. I was thinking, ok a ladies lunch, i will get out of my every-day mom clothes and try to look cute, not dressed up, but cute. I had on jeans, a cute shirt, heals, a little bit of jewelry. Pretty much everyone else was in capri pants and flip flops. Not that big of a deal I guess, but makes you a little self-conscious in a group of new people. And it was one of those days when I just felt off. I couldn't think of interesting things to make conversation about! I was going, come on alisa, talk about something besides the weather! I don't know, I just couldn't pull it together today.

On the positive side, the kids did great. There were no meltdowns and we were able to stay for the whole lunch. We headed home around 1:30 (with my fruit kebabs that no one really ate). I got the kids in their beds and they both slept for 2 hours. And I sat on my new couch thinking...those ladies probably think that I'm a socially-awkward resident's wife with a sweat problem who shows up late to things because i'm too busy picking out what high heals to wear. Oh well, I guess. Just one of those days.

As much work as my two precious kiddos are, I love them more than I can describe, and I look forward to my days with them. Here's a sweet pic I took of Hayden today. I can't believe she's almost 6 months old!

Tomorrow I'm going over to a girl's house from my Tuesday Bible study for a playdate. She lives close by and has two boys that are 3 and 1. Should be a much easier morning!

Nini, Pa and a new couch

My parents have officially been introduced to Rochester, Minnesota! (remember, that's where i live.) We had such a great time with them here! We had a couple of days with temps in the 50s. Memo to Minnesota...it's JULY!

Mom and Dad standing in front of Mayo Clinic with the kids

Mom was here for the whole week, and Dad drove in on Thursday for a long weekend. Liam took full advantage of them both! "Nini read", "Nini play toys", "Nini popsicle". Then "Pa read", "Pa play toys", "Pa mow grass", etc., etc., etc. And that started about 5:45 every morning. I don't know what the deal was, but he was waking up so early while they were here! The guest room is downstairs near Liam's room so Mom would get up with him when she heard him hollering for her. Mom, very concerned, asked me "Oh, who's going to get him at 5:45 in the morning when I'm not here?" and I said, "uh, pretty much, no one." Tomorrow morning, I will get Liam at 7. It's back to the real world with his mean ol' momma! Here's some photos of our week together:

at the pool on one of the few warm days we had this week

Will was post-call and got to come with us!

sharing trail mix with daddy, Liam's not a fan of the peanuts

Yeah, Pa is here! Reading the story of Samson or "Sansom" for the 100th time

picnic at park on Pa's first day in town

Hayden sitting up so big! 5 1/2 months - officially mastered sitting up

Liam climbing the ladder all by himself

Pa loves this baby girl

beautiful day at the park

Thursdays on 1st, walking around downtown

family pic, waiting for the band to play

Liam bustin' a sweet dance move

a little sidewalk chalk action on our driveway

Liam showing me his chalky hands

Hayden trying to avoid the cold July winds...i think that's an oxymoron

mowing grass with Pa

Pa and Nini, we had so much fun! Mom, despite what you may think I was NOT worn out when you left! I loved cooking for you and spending my days with you...even if we didn't actually "accomplish" much! (We had plans to do great things on the house but did a lot more playing than accomplishing!) We miss you already and love you so much!

In other news, we bought a new couch and it was delivered on Friday! Woo hoo! It's awesome! It is our first big furniture purchase since we've been married. And it's actually a sectional with an ottoman.

Will looks like he's modeling his legs, but he's actually just studying

my cute new Pier One pillows...and my cute husband

And I have to show this picture, mostly for my mother-in-law. I know Sandy wants to picture what her doctor son looks like when he's at work everyday so here he is!

I told Will to pose. I guess this is his super doctor pose. You know he is an official doctor because he's wearing a LONG white coat. Medical students wear short white coats. Also, you know he's a first year resident because he has a neuro-surgery handbook in his right pocket. I tease him about telling his patients to hold on a minute while he looks up their symptoms in his handbook (he doesn't actually do that...i don't think). But I think he looks pretty official and definitely good-looking. Hands off nurses!!! Dr. Copeland is a one-woman man!!

I talked to my dear dear friend Lexia on the phone for a while today. I miss her so much! I told Will on our date last week that one of the hardest parts of moving away has been leaving her. We spent almost everyday together in LR! I don't know if I will find another friend like her here. And our boys loved each other too. Yesterday after dinner we went to get ice-cream and I asked Liam who he wanted to come with us. He said Gus. I wish he could have! We are planning to see them in Amarillo around Thanksgiving. Seems a long way off...

sleeping with a man

There's a man in my life. He's completely handsome and totally in love with me. He comes to my house late at night. We sleep together and he's gone in the morning before I wake up. Sounds mysteriously romantic doesn't it. Well...the man is Will. And this is a completely accurate description of our interaction with each other this week. He's working so hard and he actually got to do almost a whole brain surgery this week! It's so crazy that he's doing this! He made the incision, drilled through the bone, cut all the way through the tissue and brain down to the tumor. Then the other dr. with him actually removed the tumor and Will closed up the incision. I mean seriously?! Will is doing this!! I wish I could see him do it!

The kids and I have had a really good week! I joined a Bible study for residents' wives that are new to Rochester, and it started this week. It's Tuesday mornings and there is childcare - oh yes. I'm really excited about it and I think there are definitely some girls in there that I can be friends with. On Wednesday we met a resident's wife and her little girl at a toy store that has weekly story time. The important thing to Liam is that they hand out balloons at the end of story time - can't beat that! Then we went with them to McDonalds for lunch. It was a fun morning. On Thursday we packed a picnic and went downtown to Kutzky park to meet up with a play group that meets every Thursday called Toddler Time. It's a bunch of resident spouses and their kids. I think we are going to try to meet up with them weekly. So I feel like we're starting to get things on our calendar that will give us a rhythm to our week, things to get up and get ready for and get us out of the house. Hallelujah thank you Jesus! Here's some pics of the kiddos hanging around the house:

just a normal day - wearing floaties, singing a song

This weed eater is Liam's prize 2nd b-day gift. Lucy chewed it up shortly after we moved (see how it's broken in half...can't stand that dog) but he still drags it around and cuts the weeds. Nothing will keep him from his precious weed eater.

big girl standing up

don't have a pic of it, but this week Hayden has been rocking back and forth on her hands and knees. Liam crawled at 5 1/2 months and I think she may keep up with him!

Then finally Thursday evening the time had come...MY MOM ARRIVED !!!! We were so excited to pick her up from the airport! On our way home we swung by Chipotle and got big honkin' burritos for dinner. Yes please. Love me some Chipotle. Then we put the kids to bed and sat on the couch and visited. We had a few windows open and Mom couldn't believe how cool it was in July! The evenings really are nice and cool here right now.

Friday morning we just hung out with Nini at home, showing her all the things we like to do around the house - read books, watched Clifford, played with daddy's golf balls, mowed the grass - the usual. Then in the afternoon we met up with a new friend of mine, Mary Beth Hoover, and her son at a park. Mary Beth's husband is a resident with Will and we've hung out with them a few times. Friday night mom and I took the kids out for ice cream at Culver's - an awesome frozen custard place entirely too close to my house. Will and I have been hooked since we got here and I think Mom has joined the club.

Saturday morning, Mom and I packed a picnic lunch and took the kids out to a park. There are so many great parks here and I'm trying to take Mom to several of them. Saturday night Mom kept the kids and Will and I had a hot date. It had been too long! It was so great. We had dinner at a restaurant on a lake, walked around the mall, had coffee and dessert, went to Wal-Mart. The main thing was that we spent time together and just talked! We talked about his job and my days at home with the kids and how we're feeling about Rochester and our house and looking for a church. The consensus is that we're happy here and this is going to be a great 7 years for our family! We love our house, Will is feeling more and more confident at work, my days with the kids are getting better and better and the hunt for a church home continues.

Will was home all day today! WOO HOO! We went to church, took naps, grilled chicken and pineapple for dinner, and played outside with the neighbor kids before bedtime. Will is at the hospital all night taking call for the first time. I guess I won't be sleeping with a man tonight...

fog

Let me preface this post by saying...I'm not going to make a habit of throwing myself a pity party on my blog. But I do want to document my thoughts from this week so that 7 years from now I can look back on this and see how far we've come.

I survived. My first full week by myself with Will at work...I survived it. After Monday, my first day, I thought, "These are going to be 7 of the hardest years of my life!" I feel like I'm in a fog. The best way I can describe it...you know the feeling you have after you've had your first baby? You bring him home and your whole world changes. You're exhausted, overwhelmed, not really sure what you're doing. Your days start to run together, you can never seem to get out of your pajamas and you feel like you're in a fog. That's exactly how I feel! And I'm trying to remind myself that this will be my new norm. I will get used to it and get a system down, just like I did when my world was changed by my first baby.

On Monday Will went to work at 5 am. The kids and I spent the day at home because it was grand central station at our house. The deck guy, the garage door guy, the water heater guy and the bug man were all scheduled to come by. Liam loved having all the handymen in and out of the house and watched closely everything they were doing. The garage door guy came in the morning and, in true Rochester fashion, was very chit chatty and friendly. He asked me what brought us to Rochester and I told him Mayo. Then he asked me if my husband was a doctor. I looked at him for a second and almost said no but then realized, yes my husband is a doctor! It was kind of a cool feeling to say that for the first time. And I felt proud because I knew the hard work that Will put in to earn the title. And I'm beginning to see the harder work that he has ahead of him. That evening I made a new mexican chicken recipe and dressed the kids in Mayo Clinic t-shirts to welcome daddy home from his first big day in the OR.

mayo babies

But Will didn't come home until 10 pm. A 17 hour day! The crazy thing is he walked in the door tired from being on his feet, but totally energized by what he had been doing all day. He said his day had gone by quickly and definitely didn't seem like 17 hours. I really am SO glad that he loves his job! And I love my job too, however I would not describe myself as 'energized' at the end of the day. Wake-up to bedtime by myself is a lot of work. Hayden is big time teething right now and has had a couple of rough patches, Monday night being one of them. She usually goes to bed at the same time as Liam, around 7, but didn't settle until 9:45 that night. But this morning I discovered her second tooth! Hopefully she'll have a few days of relief now that it's broken through. A few more pics:

when Liam wears his Mayo shirt he points at it and says "daddy works"

Hayden giving Liam a taste of his own medicine

Liam's new crocs for his extra wide foot. aren't they cool? size 8-9!

Hayden (5 mon.) if you look really close you can see her little first tooth nub

So Will got home Monday night, went straight to bed and was gone again in the morning before we woke up. Tuesday and Wednesday night he didn't make it home for dinner either, but was home around 6:30 to see the kids before bedtime. However, Wednesday night he said that he felt like he'd been rushing his patient notes at the end of the day in an effort to be home before bedtime, and he can't keep doing that. I understand that, and I want him to do his best work.

I took this picture on Wednesday, July 1st:

Why are my kids wearing long sleeves in July you ask? Because in Minnesota there are cold days in July!!! It makes me a little crazy. I feel like there's a monster named Winter that's chasing me. It's inevitable that it will catch up to me and in a few short months it will swallow me whole.

During the summertime in downtown Rochester they have "Thursdays on 1st". First Street is one of the main streets downtown and every Thursday they block it off and a bunch of vendors set up booths with food and things to buy. There is also usually a stage set up for a local band. So on Thursday I called one of the other resident's wives that's new to Rochester, and we went downtown together with the kids to check it out. It just so happened that both of our husbands got off work a little early because of the holiday weekend coming up. They met us for dinner and we sat and listened to the band that was playing that night. So fun!

hanging out on 1st St.

new friends, Grant and Kristin Mallory

There are 4 residents in Will's class: Will, Josiah, Grant and Wendy. Grant is the only other resident that's married and his wife, Kristin, and I are becoming friends. She's really sweet and I enjoy hanging out with her. They just moved from Washington D.C.

Friday Will thought he would have most of the day off because of the holiday weekend. I was SO excited to have some extra time with him. He went to the hospital in the morning and we were expecting him back in the afternoon. But I'm learning not to expect him back at a certain time, even if he gives me a time. He thought it'd be around 2. So around 2 the kids and I went to Kutzky park down close to the hospital to play until he got off. (While we were there we met a girl with a little boy named Liam and her husband's name was Will. How crazy!) After a couple hours of playing we gave up on Will meeting us and went home for supper. I'm not gonna lie...it's very frustrating...to look forward to having some family time and then he can't come! It's funny though, when Will called me to say that he didn't know when he'd be off he said, "I've got to stay. We've got a patient that's really sick." I thought, what? really sick? isn't everyone you see really sick? i'm thinking that anyone who has to see a neurosurgeon is pretty sick. Anyway, Will ended up coming home at 5:30. I went to my friend Shea's house to watch a movie and Will did bedtime with the kiddos - a nice little breather. Thank you husband! Here's a few pics from around the house:

Liam trying to be the baby

I was trying to get Hayden to show me her teeth

Liam willingly showed me his teeth

Hayden REALLY sitting up for the first time! Yeah Hayden!

We were all able to catch our breath over the weekend and Will was off Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. Yeah!! For July 4th we went over to B.J. and Shea Deimel's house for bbq and smores. There was another resident's wife there with her 3 kids. The youngest was a little boy Liam's age named Diego. They had fun playing together. Liam of course showed Diego how to wrestle and took him down in the grass. He tried to show Diego's sister Ava how to wrestle too but she was NOT going for it - Liam's first time being rejected by a girl. It was also Liam's first experience with fire works. Oh, and he loved it. I don't know but I'm not totally sure that Liam and fire is a very good combo...

playing with new friends...notice Liam doesn't really "sit and play" like the other kids :)

first sparkler!

does this look safe?

Liam, Madison, Ava, and Diego

Today we went to the neuro surgery chairman's house for a pool party. Everyone actually swam too, not just the kids. It's kind of awkward shmoozing in your swimsuit with a bunch of brainy neuro people. But we had a good time and met some more people. I have a playdate with one of the resident's wives and her kids on Wednesday.

Mom will be here in 4 days!! Woo hoo!!! I'm thinking about potty training Liam while she's here. I was thinking it might be a good time to potty train while I have help. Mom could take care of Hayden and I could totally focus my attention on Liam. I am getting a little weary of double diaper duty. I'm not 100% sure that either of us is ready for potty training though. And these babies are pretty cute in their diapers!

Another week awaits me. Bring it on!