Boise Break 1.0!

Day 1, roll on floor (recovery). Did you think I crawled through the stool? no..... just managed to roll my legs under it. Now I'm smiling at Grandma!

Day 2, Fair! Having a blast at the first fair which I can go on rides at! Went on a train ride, through a fun house (kind with moving stairs, made me carry him out), kangaroo 'cars', and cars. Mmm, gyro, felt too guilty about my diet of late to get loaded fries :(. Went through the Expo and the petting zoo ('its kind of a little goat').
Grandma has baby duty, nothing like a water bottle for entertainment.
We finished off the day with a ride on the ferris wheel, nothing says 'lets calm down before bedtime ' like an hour wait in line followed by a lengthy walk back to the car in a stroller. Both fell asleep on the ride then thought it was their naptime and stayed up til midnight. Jetlag!

Who me? Surely you mean this guy... Grandpa's beard making yet another baby wary.

Pretty Toes

I love Cocok's! Sadly the first time wasn't documented, but it was pretty too! The ladies here can paint just about anything on your nails, they have huge books full of images to choose from and its a full pedicure with oil massage and foot care. The rest are in chronological order, just wait and see what I'll get for Christmas!

Okuma

Okuma is one of the military resorts available for service members, and its not a bad place to spend a couple nights...
Coryn hated putting on the life jacket, thought we were trying to kill him or something, but as soon as we got on the boat and started looking at the fish through the glass bottom he had a great time.
And well, most of you know how Jackson is with water.
There are some interesting creatures on this island, and we have no idea what these buggers are but the crabs hid from the camera so its what you get.

Happy Easter!

We held our spring/easter party today, and Coryn got to meet a puppy, color eggs, hunt for eggs, and smash eggs together!

Torii Beach

Playing in the sand.
Apprehension.
Fear. (brrr)

Some guys doing what I think is called kite-boarding, I don't remember what he said exactly, before I heard him say it I called it para-surfing. It looks like fun.

Jackson's Home! (for a little while anyway)

So, Jackson has been home since Friday the 19th, and we've been keeping busy. First, Jackson had to get used to the baby again, so they had a few good wrestling sessions. I think Coryn won.
Here you can see just how alike they are even though dad's been gone for a while.
Then on Monday Coryn had an EEG, his doctor wanted to check and make sure everything was working right upstairs, it was quite the ordeal. We were up at 5am so that he would be super tired come test time. He slept through the whole thing.
Afterwards, his hair was still full of sticky gunk and was pretty cute. He still looks so tired too.

Thursday we went to the zoo, here's Coryn's first ride on a slide. Wooo!
We hung out with the turtles for a bit, Coryn is saying hello.

Pretty tiger! Such a big kitty. His favorites were the turtles and the monkeys, though he did stare at the tiger and bighorn sheep for a while.

Friday we left Coryn with Grandma while we went jetskiing on Lucky Peak Lake. Coryn cut his first tooth while we were gone, and now he has a sharp bump in his mouth. We're hoping he doesn't start biting now...

Family Photo

I forgot to mention that we got family pictures taken before Jackson left. Here's the one we went with, I'll probably post the rest later.

Pool time

his first visit to the pool was mostly a success... aside from cold water and gulps of chlorine he enjoyed it immensely.

4 Months and Counting

Last Friday was Coryn's 4th month birthday. It's hard to believe he's so old! In celebration of this day we went to the doctor and had his 4-month shots. He did pretty good considering that he was pricked three times. Just a little bit of crying and I didn't even have to pick him up before he stopped. It also doesn't seem to have bothered his leg as much either, he had some tummy time the next day. Of course, he also didn't sleep through the night either. Darn.

I've been putting together some photos that I will be posting in a 'comparisons' fashion. After all, its hard for me to tell how much he's grown without looking back at pictures.

Everything else around here is basically still the same. Still no word on Jackson's orders. This weekend is the annual military ball for the Army ROTC, and I'm sure we'll put up a picture from that.

Its Been a While

It's been about a week since the last post to the blog, mostly because we've been a little busy since Jackson started school up again. Yes, his final semester at BSU has begun (this is his first full week), and between that and both of us working, there's not much time that one of us is hands free (not feeding, playing with, or rocking Coryn) long enough to get around to this. However, here's the update, and my first blog on the family site.
For the most part we've been able to watch Coryn between the two of us, but there are a few days during the week where both of his Grandma's and his Great Grandma Carpenter watch him for a few hours. We're still working out the bugs in this system, but it's going well so far.
As for Coryn's developement, Thursday evening he finally laughed out loud and while awake for the first time! I was tickling him in just the right way, and he put out a throaty giggle. He doesn't have it perfected yet, and he has to be in just the right mood for it to work, but he can laugh now. He has also started to figure out his hands, and will hit and grab my hand and fingers when I hold out my hand to him. He also reaches for certain toys, a teddy rattle (which he also enjoys getting a hug from) that Great Grandma Carpenter got him when he was born, and a cow with a bell inside that hangs from his carrier he loves to hear tinkling.
He still doesn't sleep through the night, but he's started eating less often and now only wakes up every 4 or 5 hours instead of 3. That's all for now, but I hope to contribute again soon.

Black & White

I thought I'd include an "artsy" B&W shot with the now growing Irish Messinger collection.

A Husband's Point of View

By Jackson

On the morning of Thursday, 10 Nov 2005, I awoke to my alarm at 0730, ready to face another day down at Boise State University. As I got out of bed I heard my lovely wife Lisa talking on the phone in the bathroom with the door closed. Assuming that someone had called and she had gone into the bathroom (the room closet to the bedroom) so she could talk without waking me up, I went into the kitchen and poured myself a bowl of cereal. As I sat down to eat, I turned on the news and started thinking about the presentation I had that afternoon in my History of Anthropology class.

About the time I finished eating breakfast, Lisa came into the living room and wasn't quite looking like herself. In a half joking manner I looked at her and asked, "What? Are you in labor or something?" Her response was, "Yeah, I think I am."

I went in to my computer, shot off an e-mail to my professors to let them know I wasn't going to be on campus the next few days, and got Lisa down to the car for the trip to St. Alphonsus. From the car she called her mom (whom she had been on the phone with in the bathroom) to let her know we had left the house and I called my mom to let her know what was going on. While on the phone with my mom she asked how Lisa's contractions were. Just as she asked, Lisa had one and moaned in pain loud enough for mom to hear her through the phone. In an empathetic voice mom said something to the affect of, "Poor dear, that sounds like a big one."

Before I continue I would like to point out that while I woke up at 0730, Lisa had been in labor since 0600. Instead of waking me up, she called her mom. At this time I would like to apologize to Sheryl for the sleep I deprived her of and at the same time thank her for the addition hour and a half of sleep that she afforded to me!

We arrived at the hospital a little after 0800 and when the nurse checked Lisa out it was determined that she was already dilated to 6 cm. We were immediately given a room and when asked if she'd like anything for the pain, she said she'd like to do it naturally, at least at first. We were then left to play the waiting game for a while.

Lisa progressed quite nicely and before long she was at 10 cm and just about ready to go. The nurse told her that generally for a first child it took about an hour o initial pushing before the baby was ready to be delivered, but just in case she was going to take a peak and see how things were. After the inspection she came back up and the first words out of her mouth were, "Well, I think it's time to call the doctor." After a few pushes, a great effort by his mother, and her desire to get some pain killers now (but knowing she couldn't) Coryn James came into the world at 1105 weighing in at 7 lbs. 13 oz. Three weeks later he is well over 8 lbs. and doing just great!