Monday, February 27, 2012
taking steps! (videos!)
Our little Sawyer Boy is taking steps all over the place! He is definitely not walking yet but he is taking steps here and there. We have learned he is not a performer! All day long he walks from this to that, or across the living room (only takes about 5 steps at most though) but the moment we try to stand him up and have him walk his legs turn into little wet noodles! It's hilarious! He absolutely refuses to bare any weight and just collapses! We have been trying to capture his steps on camera for a few weeks now to no avail! Finally tonight we got a few steps here and there! You can see in the video he is not thrilled about it and would rather just be left alone to play with his toys but Mommy would not give up! I kept trying and trying hahaha poor kid! Enjoy the video of our little ham! (ps, please excuse his totally dorky outfit he's wearing! He is wearing his baby legs but then we put a pair of shoes on him right before we started taping so he looks totally goofy! He was doing pretty good in his new shoes though! haha)
Saturday, January 21, 2012
recap on life...
We fell off the blogging bandwagon. Life got crazy! A quick recap...
In October we drove out for my grandma's 80th birthday party thinking we would be in CA for a few days then return back to Vegas for a fun Halloween party with our church friends. We were supposed to drive out on Friday but decided VERY last minute to just throw some stuff in a suit case and hop in the car that night. I don't know why on earth we decided to do that, other than the fact that it was from the Lord. We called Mom and Dad from the road when we were 1/2 way there to give them the heads up we would be arriving at about midnight (this was Wednesday night). We got in late that night and Sawyer reached out for my mom who was sitting on the couch. He laid cradled in her arms for over 30 minutes, he just sat there perfectly still smiling at her and patting her chest. For those of you that know Sawyer, you know he does NOT sit still for more than 3 seconds, no matter how tired he is. It was the sweetest moment and I'm so grateful to have that sweet memory.
The next day my mom was at work (as usual) but when she walked through the front door at the end of the night I could tell something was wrong. She was walking kind of funny, she was slumping over some, and she just looked disheveled. She went straight upstairs to get changed and I looked at David and said "something is not right with Mom" I just had this feeling in my gut that made me sick. I left the baby with David and went to talk with Mom. I had just been with my mom 2 weeks before this and she was complaining of headaches but she was still busy, full of energy, doing a million things Mom. For a few years she has been mixing up her words and forgetting words but we all assumed it was just stress and exhaustion from working SO hard at her business. I was shocked at how much she had deteriorated in just 2 weeks of seeing her. I went up to talk with Mom and said "something is going on, we are not ignoring this any more and we need to go to the hospital RIGHT NOW." She was having NONE of it. She said she had a Dr's appointment in 2 weeks and she will be fine until then. I begged her, I cried to her, I tried everything to get her to go to the ER now and not wait. She and my dad thought she was OK though and it could wait until her appointment in 2 weeks. I went to bed and called my older sister Laura and my Aunt Karen and filled them both in. They both left me with the instructions of my one and only job the next day was to get mom to the Dr. For those of you who have not met my mom and dad, they are 2 of THE most stubborn people you have ever met (no wonder they bred 4 type A, extremely stubborn children!) I spent the better 1/2 of the next day convincing my mom and dad that we needed to get Mom into the ER asap. I thought she had maybe had a stroke or something, by this point she wasn't making much sense, her words were all jumbled, her hair was all messed up (SO not like my extremely stylish mom!) she could hardly walk straight. Finally after much convincing, we headed to the ER around 1:00pm on Thursday (my parents 38th wedding anniversary by the way). From the moment we walked in those front doors time sped up and everything changed. The Drs could tell right away something was wrong and got her into an MRI quickly. They came out and said she had brain tumor the size of a tennis ball and she had 6 weeks tops to live. We were devastated. There is not enough time or room to go into details of the few days and emotions that followed. It was the worst weekend of our lives. All the family was flying in for my Grandma's birthday so praise God EVERYONE was there. My poor sister Laura and her family live in CO and had to switch their flight by a few hours because Mom was deteriorating so quickly, we were worried she wasn't going to live through the night and that Laura wouldn't get to say goodbye (This was Friday, just 1 day after the diagnoses). Laura and her family made an earlier flight and were able to be at the hospital with us for what we thought was our last family time with Mom. Mom was only lucid for about an hour and I still feel so horrible for my sister that she was not able to process any of this with my Mom before everything changed. She literally flew in, sang some songs, said goodbye and within an a few hours my mom was unable to speak any more. She spent the night with her that night at the hospital. The next day (Saturday) we brought Mom home, she was so miserable and uncomfortable at the hospital. We knew we were not going to treat her there, we wanted her to be treated at City of Hope but they could not take her until Monday so we just had to get her through the weekend. They sent us home with all these medicines but she was comatose by the time she came home and it was clear within hours that she was dying and we could not treat this. The next 48 hours the 5 of us laid in bed with my mom (my 2 sisters, brother, me, and my dad). We never left her side. Our hubbies brought babies to us to nurse and brought food up to us to "eat" (though no one had an appetite...we all lost over 10 pounds that week). We just laid next to Mom and sang her favorite hymns, laughed about old memories, cried about future memories she wouldn't be there for. It was exhausting, horribly sad, yet comforting to all be together. It just happened so fast. There was no time to wrap our heads around what was happening. Sunday the hospice nurse came and said she has minutes to hours at most. We all just hugged her and cried and kept checking periodically to see if she was still breathing. Finally sometime in the wee hours of the night Dad sent us all to bed. He wanted one last night of he and Mom snuggling in bed together. He said when she dies he would make sure we were all there. So we all slept on the couches, in the hall, in our rooms...no one wanted to leave so we all just packed in. In the morning someone pounded on my door and said come quick. I jumped up and said to David "Mom's dying can you take care of Sawyer" I ran down the hall, I didn't have time to put my pants on! HA! I jumped in the bed expecting to hold my Mom's hand as she took her final breaths but instead was greeted with her saying "I love you". I looked around at one of my sisters (who was also pantsless...we have gotten a good laugh about that since then...) and I said "what? She is talking?" I was so confused. We all cried and smiled and hugged her. Her eyes were still closed but she was squeezing each of our hands saying I love you. It was such a blessing from God to hear her voice. She then mumbled that she wanted to go to City of Hope. The husbands put the seats down in our car, laid 2 of Osita's dog beds in the bag and covered it with blankets. My dad carried my mom down the stairs and laid her in the back of the car with my brother holding her. He drove to City of Hope that way. We still cannot believe it. She stayed overnight at City of Hope and almost died several times throughout the night. The surgeon almost called emergency surgery in the middle of the night because she was registering as almost no brain function. She made it to morning and had her brain surgery at 7am on Tuesday (just 5 days after her diagnoses). All of us kids were there with our new babies, those kiddos were troopers! Mom was awake within an hour of her surgery and DEMANDING to see all 4 of her kids at the same time (the hospital staff has a strict 2 visitors only policy but of course 4 ft 11 in Mom once again demanded her way and won. She still had the breathing tube down her throat so she demanded this all through hand motions.Quite impressive! HA!) Since the surgery she has had a roller coaster of a recovery. She just finished Chemo/Radiation and we are hopeful her brain and body can start recovering from this traumatic ordeal. We are so grateful for each day we have with my Mom. We were no ready to say goodbye!
David stepped in the 2nd day of all this and started doing Mom's job at her company. He worked for her for a few years in college so he knew enough about the business to keep things running until we figured out the next step. He drove home that weekend to our Vegas house and was met by about 25 of our new friends from church and my MOPS group and my mom's play group. They and their families ALL came to pack, clean and load our entire house. I am still in shock and in awe of their generosity and help. I cannot even begin to thank them enough. That is the true body of Christ right there. We had just met most of these people and they gave up their Saturday to help our family. It was the biggest blessing ever! We have since been living with my Mom and Dad in CA while David is running the business and I'm helping Dad with Mom. Life has been CRAZY, sad, hard, happy, and everything in between. None of us have had time to even process this traumatic few months but we are all slowly coming to terms with our new normal. I have no idea what the future will hold but for the time we are grateful for each healthy person in our family, we are grateful our precious Mom is still with us and grateful for the amazing people that have been helping with meals, groceries, babysitting, encouragement, moving and everything else in between. So the above story is why I have fallen off the blogging bandwagon! I hope as life settles in to get back to our little routine! If you have made it this far, I am sorry for my rambling! It's the first time I have written it all our and processed a lot of this. I will add a post soon packed full of videos of our sweet 10 month old! He is still the joy of our lives! He has been such a joy and blessing through all this sadness and I am SO thankful we have him!
In October we drove out for my grandma's 80th birthday party thinking we would be in CA for a few days then return back to Vegas for a fun Halloween party with our church friends. We were supposed to drive out on Friday but decided VERY last minute to just throw some stuff in a suit case and hop in the car that night. I don't know why on earth we decided to do that, other than the fact that it was from the Lord. We called Mom and Dad from the road when we were 1/2 way there to give them the heads up we would be arriving at about midnight (this was Wednesday night). We got in late that night and Sawyer reached out for my mom who was sitting on the couch. He laid cradled in her arms for over 30 minutes, he just sat there perfectly still smiling at her and patting her chest. For those of you that know Sawyer, you know he does NOT sit still for more than 3 seconds, no matter how tired he is. It was the sweetest moment and I'm so grateful to have that sweet memory.
The next day my mom was at work (as usual) but when she walked through the front door at the end of the night I could tell something was wrong. She was walking kind of funny, she was slumping over some, and she just looked disheveled. She went straight upstairs to get changed and I looked at David and said "something is not right with Mom" I just had this feeling in my gut that made me sick. I left the baby with David and went to talk with Mom. I had just been with my mom 2 weeks before this and she was complaining of headaches but she was still busy, full of energy, doing a million things Mom. For a few years she has been mixing up her words and forgetting words but we all assumed it was just stress and exhaustion from working SO hard at her business. I was shocked at how much she had deteriorated in just 2 weeks of seeing her. I went up to talk with Mom and said "something is going on, we are not ignoring this any more and we need to go to the hospital RIGHT NOW." She was having NONE of it. She said she had a Dr's appointment in 2 weeks and she will be fine until then. I begged her, I cried to her, I tried everything to get her to go to the ER now and not wait. She and my dad thought she was OK though and it could wait until her appointment in 2 weeks. I went to bed and called my older sister Laura and my Aunt Karen and filled them both in. They both left me with the instructions of my one and only job the next day was to get mom to the Dr. For those of you who have not met my mom and dad, they are 2 of THE most stubborn people you have ever met (no wonder they bred 4 type A, extremely stubborn children!) I spent the better 1/2 of the next day convincing my mom and dad that we needed to get Mom into the ER asap. I thought she had maybe had a stroke or something, by this point she wasn't making much sense, her words were all jumbled, her hair was all messed up (SO not like my extremely stylish mom!) she could hardly walk straight. Finally after much convincing, we headed to the ER around 1:00pm on Thursday (my parents 38th wedding anniversary by the way). From the moment we walked in those front doors time sped up and everything changed. The Drs could tell right away something was wrong and got her into an MRI quickly. They came out and said she had brain tumor the size of a tennis ball and she had 6 weeks tops to live. We were devastated. There is not enough time or room to go into details of the few days and emotions that followed. It was the worst weekend of our lives. All the family was flying in for my Grandma's birthday so praise God EVERYONE was there. My poor sister Laura and her family live in CO and had to switch their flight by a few hours because Mom was deteriorating so quickly, we were worried she wasn't going to live through the night and that Laura wouldn't get to say goodbye (This was Friday, just 1 day after the diagnoses). Laura and her family made an earlier flight and were able to be at the hospital with us for what we thought was our last family time with Mom. Mom was only lucid for about an hour and I still feel so horrible for my sister that she was not able to process any of this with my Mom before everything changed. She literally flew in, sang some songs, said goodbye and within an a few hours my mom was unable to speak any more. She spent the night with her that night at the hospital. The next day (Saturday) we brought Mom home, she was so miserable and uncomfortable at the hospital. We knew we were not going to treat her there, we wanted her to be treated at City of Hope but they could not take her until Monday so we just had to get her through the weekend. They sent us home with all these medicines but she was comatose by the time she came home and it was clear within hours that she was dying and we could not treat this. The next 48 hours the 5 of us laid in bed with my mom (my 2 sisters, brother, me, and my dad). We never left her side. Our hubbies brought babies to us to nurse and brought food up to us to "eat" (though no one had an appetite...we all lost over 10 pounds that week). We just laid next to Mom and sang her favorite hymns, laughed about old memories, cried about future memories she wouldn't be there for. It was exhausting, horribly sad, yet comforting to all be together. It just happened so fast. There was no time to wrap our heads around what was happening. Sunday the hospice nurse came and said she has minutes to hours at most. We all just hugged her and cried and kept checking periodically to see if she was still breathing. Finally sometime in the wee hours of the night Dad sent us all to bed. He wanted one last night of he and Mom snuggling in bed together. He said when she dies he would make sure we were all there. So we all slept on the couches, in the hall, in our rooms...no one wanted to leave so we all just packed in. In the morning someone pounded on my door and said come quick. I jumped up and said to David "Mom's dying can you take care of Sawyer" I ran down the hall, I didn't have time to put my pants on! HA! I jumped in the bed expecting to hold my Mom's hand as she took her final breaths but instead was greeted with her saying "I love you". I looked around at one of my sisters (who was also pantsless...we have gotten a good laugh about that since then...) and I said "what? She is talking?" I was so confused. We all cried and smiled and hugged her. Her eyes were still closed but she was squeezing each of our hands saying I love you. It was such a blessing from God to hear her voice. She then mumbled that she wanted to go to City of Hope. The husbands put the seats down in our car, laid 2 of Osita's dog beds in the bag and covered it with blankets. My dad carried my mom down the stairs and laid her in the back of the car with my brother holding her. He drove to City of Hope that way. We still cannot believe it. She stayed overnight at City of Hope and almost died several times throughout the night. The surgeon almost called emergency surgery in the middle of the night because she was registering as almost no brain function. She made it to morning and had her brain surgery at 7am on Tuesday (just 5 days after her diagnoses). All of us kids were there with our new babies, those kiddos were troopers! Mom was awake within an hour of her surgery and DEMANDING to see all 4 of her kids at the same time (the hospital staff has a strict 2 visitors only policy but of course 4 ft 11 in Mom once again demanded her way and won. She still had the breathing tube down her throat so she demanded this all through hand motions.Quite impressive! HA!) Since the surgery she has had a roller coaster of a recovery. She just finished Chemo/Radiation and we are hopeful her brain and body can start recovering from this traumatic ordeal. We are so grateful for each day we have with my Mom. We were no ready to say goodbye!
David stepped in the 2nd day of all this and started doing Mom's job at her company. He worked for her for a few years in college so he knew enough about the business to keep things running until we figured out the next step. He drove home that weekend to our Vegas house and was met by about 25 of our new friends from church and my MOPS group and my mom's play group. They and their families ALL came to pack, clean and load our entire house. I am still in shock and in awe of their generosity and help. I cannot even begin to thank them enough. That is the true body of Christ right there. We had just met most of these people and they gave up their Saturday to help our family. It was the biggest blessing ever! We have since been living with my Mom and Dad in CA while David is running the business and I'm helping Dad with Mom. Life has been CRAZY, sad, hard, happy, and everything in between. None of us have had time to even process this traumatic few months but we are all slowly coming to terms with our new normal. I have no idea what the future will hold but for the time we are grateful for each healthy person in our family, we are grateful our precious Mom is still with us and grateful for the amazing people that have been helping with meals, groceries, babysitting, encouragement, moving and everything else in between. So the above story is why I have fallen off the blogging bandwagon! I hope as life settles in to get back to our little routine! If you have made it this far, I am sorry for my rambling! It's the first time I have written it all our and processed a lot of this. I will add a post soon packed full of videos of our sweet 10 month old! He is still the joy of our lives! He has been such a joy and blessing through all this sadness and I am SO thankful we have him!
Friday, October 21, 2011
So proud of my hubby!
David was quoted in the Washington Times today! I'm so proud of him, and really admire his passion for politics. I honestly don't understand a thing about politics and government but David has always done such a good job of taking complicated political issues and "dumbing them down" for lack of a better term for me. We are so thankful for our hard working David! He works just as hard at home being a Daddy and Hubby as he does at his job day in and day out. We love you hun!
(click link below to see David's quotes)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/21/cain-tops-field-again-nevada-gop-straw-poll/
(click link below to see David's quotes)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/21/cain-tops-field-again-nevada-gop-straw-poll/
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| We Love you Daddy! |
crawling, standing, cruising, climbing and 1st tooth...
October has been a busy month in the Mansdoerfer household! We started the month out in CA for my beautiful roommate Christina's wedding then decided to just stay an extra week and visit with friends and family. One of the major perks of my awesome hubby working from home! While we were in CA Sawyer stopped doing his inch worm crawl and started doing a real, get anywhere I want fast, crawl! He quickly became bored with crawling and mastered pulling himself up and standing, then moved on to cruising the furniture. Poor kid has more bumps on his head from this stage. I think he has finally learned he can't just let go when he's done but he has to sit down on his bottom instead (this important lesson has significantly cut down on the amounts of bumps and bruises he was getting!) He is now trying to master the art of climbing...oh joy! He also sprouted his first tooth! I told you, October was a busy month! Lots of new first for our little guy. Sawyer is officially into EVERYTHING...and by everything I mean everything. This kid never stops moving, I think that's why he's such a good sleeper, he wears himself out from his constant moving during the day! David and I are so surprised at how active and mobile he is, as a little baby he was THE most mellow baby. He would literally just lay there and hang out wide awake watching his little world. He was the most content baby to just hang out and do nothing...until about 5 1/2 months! Suddenly he is frustrated all the time because he wants to do more than his little body will let him do, he is constantly moving and trying to figure out the next thing. Gone are the days of just sitting around and hanging out happily! Silly little guy. He is still such a happy little thing and such a joy to us. David and I end each night laughing about funny things the little guy did that day, we are so in love with our little boy!
I took this video a few weeks ago when he first started pulling himself up to a standing position
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| Stinker is climbing this to get to higher things. I turned around and found him like this, trying to climb onto his changing table! |
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| Eating sand at the beach...yuuuummmm! |
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| I got this Mom |
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| Spa time with Cousin Naomi! Soy LOVES the water! |
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| Playing with Nana |
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| pumpkin boy! |
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
6 months already!
Our peanut is 6 months old already. I cried the night before as I was boxing up more clothes he has outgrown. I know everyone says it goes so fast but man they are not kidding. I felt like I was pregnant FOREVER but since the day our little Sawyer was born the days are just flying by. Our little man is sitting up, crawling, giving the sweetest kisses, eating solids, saying "mama" and "dada" (he only says Dada in the crib, it's so cute. David thinks Sawyer is begging him to come rescue him out of his crib! haha), smiling at anything and everything, and FINALLY laughing! He used to never laugh but recently he laughs at everything, it's so fun and the best sound in the world. We fall more and more in love with our little guy each day. We feel so blessed that God gave us our sweet Soy Bean!
B-A-N-A-N-A-S! (& carrots, peaches, green beans...)
This post is so so late, but better late than never right?!
We started solids a few weeks ago when we were in AZ visiting Grammie and Opa (David's parents!) Sawyer was one hungry baby to say the least. From the moment we started he hasn't looked back! He grabbed the spoon out of my hand and started shoveling it in on his own...apparently I wasn't moving fast enough. We started with Bananas and have since conquered many other fruits and veggies. David is just dying to give the kid meat but I'm just not quite ready for that! I don't know why but I feel like once he starts eating meat he is officially a big kid (I'm desperately trying to hold onto my baby days).
Below are some pics of his first foods and our sweet visit with David's family!
We started solids a few weeks ago when we were in AZ visiting Grammie and Opa (David's parents!) Sawyer was one hungry baby to say the least. From the moment we started he hasn't looked back! He grabbed the spoon out of my hand and started shoveling it in on his own...apparently I wasn't moving fast enough. We started with Bananas and have since conquered many other fruits and veggies. David is just dying to give the kid meat but I'm just not quite ready for that! I don't know why but I feel like once he starts eating meat he is officially a big kid (I'm desperately trying to hold onto my baby days).
Below are some pics of his first foods and our sweet visit with David's family!
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| I got this Mom |
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| Are you serious? I really get to have this? |
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| He loved their little dog Lily, every time she barked he would just laugh and laugh |
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| Giving Grammie kisses. He loves grabbing your face and giving big kisses! |
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Trying to crawl...
Sawyer is 5 months and 3 weeks old and is trying SO hard to crawl! I fear my life is going to get much busier in the very near future. He is hilarious now, for a while he has been getting up on his hands and knees but he has just been hanging out stuck in that position. Tonight he started really trying to move all around. He gets so frustrated because he just wants to go but doesn't know how yet! My sweet girlfriend Natalie was here visiting tonight and she got to see Soy in action! She got some great video clips of him really moving around, hopefully I can get those up here soon! Here is a video of him trying to figure it out. He is not crawling yet but he is definitely moving all over! Go Soy Go! You are almost there buddy!
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