Christmas is coming....

We've had a fun couple of weeks preparing for Christmas. Like everyone, we've been busy hanging out with family, buying presents, watching Christmas movies and decorating the house. Dylan was a big helper with the tree and he loves to look at the lights.
















We went to the festival of trees last week and got to take pictures with Santa. We were a bit nervous that he wouldn't like him very much, but as soon as we put him in Santa's lap Dylan started smiling, grabbed hand fulls of his beard and tried to put it in his mouth.














We are very excited for Christmas!

My Baby is Growing Up

So I am a little late posting Dylan's 9 month stats. He finally grew...a little!!!! He weighs 12 lbs 1 oz and is 24.5 inches tall. Big boy! Yesterday was a big day for him. He rolled over from his back to his stomach. He has been going from his stomach to back for months now and hasn't cared one bit to try the other way. Yeah buddy. He also CUT A TOOTH. Crazy. Its on the bottom and its a sharp little thing. He also had another development check and he is right on track and a little ahead. As far as his fine motor skills he is right on with his adjusted age which is 6 months. With all of his Social skills he is ahead in the 9-12 month category. He is such a social little man it cracks me up. He doesn't like to miss out on anything. I pretty much love him to a gazillion pieces.

These are some of my favorite things about my baby boy
~ How he loves to snuggle
~ He is so excited/surprised to see me in the morning when he wakes up
~ That he makes me a mommy. That's what I wanted to be when I grew up.
~ The huge grins he gives Daddy when he gets home from work
~ His shy little smile where he turns his head to the side and scrunches up his shoulders...used mostly to flirt with girls
~His "kick kick kicks" He gets his little legs going sooo fast
~ When I change his dressing around his tube he holds up his hands and waits for each piece of paper off the new tape so that he can crinkle and chew on it. Then he drops it and waits for the next. Yes it takes a little bit longer but what can I say...Mom's a sucker
~He looks just like his Daddy. My two handsome boys.
~ He thinks I'm funny!
~ He is so ticklish
~ His irresistibly contagious laugh
~ He loves to hear himself babble
~ I'm not sure how I lived before without his smiles
~ The sweet moments in the night when he wants to be held, rocked and sung to. He snuggles, pats me, and touches my face. Although sometimes it doesn't seem so sweet when it is all night long!
~ He is so fascinated by his hands. He holds them up in front of his face and turns them and wiggles his fingers. It is so funny.
~ That he makes Jeff a Daddy. He is such a good Dad and they love each other so much
~ When he winds down at night he lays on Dad's chest. He gets so relaxed and just lays there with his eyes open.
~ when he lays between me and Jeff he has to have one hand on Jeff's face and one on mine
~ I love his big blue eyes with long eyelashes and his perfect eyebrows that are so expressive
~ How he has helped me to grow and strenghten my patience, love, and faith in the Lord. He has taught me compassion for those that are going through trials . He has strengthened my testimony of prayer and fasting. He has taught me and Jeff to love, lean on each other, and support each other more than I ever thought possible. He has helped us grow so close as a family. He has taught me to be thankful for his eating problems. It has been the hardest trial of my life, and its easy to get angry and frustrated and then feel guilty about having those feelings... but there could have been so many other things wrong with him. I'm so grateful for my two boys.

To my sweet baby~ These are only some of the things that I love about you. I'm thankful every day to have you. I love you more than you'll ever know.

Love Mommy

It has been a long year....

So we have had an rough month (and year) to say the least. Everytime something bad happens this year we keep telling each other...It can only get better right?! Wrong! So a week ago Jeff was in a car accident and yes...it was a "total loss". Luckily Jeff is okay although he got beat up pretty good. If he hadn't been wearing his seat belt it would have been much much worse. The airbag deployed and knocked him out for a minute or two and left him with a shinner. He also got severe whiplash and landed his arm in a sling.

The Dr. made him stay home from work for a week and they put him on pain pills and muscle relaxers. Thank goodness for those little beauties because he was pretty miserable. He kept telling me "I'm OK as long as I don't move at all." He is done with physical therapy now and for the most part doing good. So now we are car shopping. Thank you Mom for letting me borrow your car!

Brynlee Rebecca Peck

We finally got another girl in this family! My sister Denise had this adorable little girl on the 10th. It is so fun to see a baby in pink. In one year we have had 4 kids born in my fam... Cooper, Dylan, Briggs and now Bryn! They did not find out if she was a boy or girl so this was such a fun surprise!

Happy Halloween

We were tigers for Halloween and spent the evening hanging out with both sets of Grandparents.





Thanks to an extra costume we also had a cute little devil on our hands.

Pumpkin Carving Party

Dylan and FOOD

Dylan is finally starting to make some progress with oral feeding. He definitely doesn't always love the whole process, but hopefully with time it will get better. We started with small tastes off my finger and in the last week he has finally decided to accept the spoon. This is a huge hurdle for Dylan. Before this, if he even saw the spoon he would start gagging at the sight. Now he actually opens his mouth for it! It is fascinating to watch because you can tell that he is trying really hard not to gag. He starts to, but he is learning to control it. He likes really strong tastes. Nothing boring or bland for this little man. This feeding business is a lot of work, but it makes us soooo happy to see him eat even just a few bites!

Dylan's favorites:

Yo-Baby yogurt
Sweet potatoes
Pears
Gerber yogurt melts (broken into tiny pieces)
Cheese puffs and gerber spicy tomato puffs(sucks the flavor off)
milk flavored with strawberry ice cream syrup (from a syringe)

Today has been his best day so far! In one sitting he ate...

-3/4 tsp yogurt
-3/4 tsp sweet potatoes
and 3 tastes strawberry flavored rice cereal

It looks like textures are going to be a challenge. He won't swallow anything that isn't smooth yet. Although, he is learning to move it from the back of his tongue to the front of his mouth to spit it out without gagging continually until he throws up!!!!

We're so proud of our little guy. This is such hard work for him and he is doing so well. I thought that I was pretty patient before, but through Dylan I'm pretty sure that I am mastering it! He is such a blessing to us. I can't wait until he is a teenager and "eating us out of house and home" and I can look back and see how far we've come.

Dylan and his Pumpkin Patch

We grew pumpkins again in our garden and they really took off. We had 35 average to big pumpkins and a whole bunch of smaller ones. Dylan was a very big helper and took a little ride in the wheel barrel. Dylan is really excited for Halloween.






We only had one casualty during the transfer from the garden to the front porch.

Davis Family Pictures

While we were in St. George we got our family pictures done. It was fun and Dylan looked like a cute little gentlemen in his sweater.






Dylan was such a crack up. We sat him on a near by bench and he just settled right in and put his little arm up. We couldn't get enough of it and the photographer took tons of great pictures.

St. George

We just got back from a fun weekend in St. George! Brad, Michelle, and Nate ran in the marathon. I still cannot figure out why you would do that to yourself. What is even more crazy is that they think it's fun! They enjoyed themselves as usual and as usual could not walk afterwards. Dylan did good traveling. It was quite the process packing all of his stuff. He's not your usual pack some clothes, formula, and diapers kind of a kid. We always have fun in St. George with all of the fam. I don't think that Dylan was ever put down the entire 4 days. This little man is spoiled rotten! While we were there we got to see our Dodger sweep the Cubs! The Davis family is very excited. We also had family pictures done. I'm excited to get them back. Dylan looked like such a little gentleman in his sweater vest! It was really cute to see his reaction when we got home. He was looking all around and just grinning. We think he was really happy to see familiar things...especially his bed.

Briggs Bryce Cutler

Congrats to my brother Bryce and his wife Christy. They just adopted a beautiful baby boy!! He is so cute. He was born Sept 25th at 4:51 pm. He weighs 2 lbs 13 oz and is 15 inches long. He is in the NICU at Mckay Dee Hospital and doing very well. He is off all IV's, Oxygen and is doing well with his feedings. He is just a small little dude. I was able to go up and hold him last night. He is so cute. He has lots of strawberry blond hair. We are so happy for them!

G-Tube Surgery

Dylan had his G-Tube placed on Wednesday and we were able to come home on Thursday. He is doing well. He was having a lot of pain so they kept him pretty drugged for the first 24 hrs. We are now trying to get used to and figure out how the whole system works. We are LOVING seeing his cute face with out the Nose Hose. This morning I cleaned out his dresser and packed away all of his Newborn size clothes. It made me a little bit sad. I know...I realize my baby is 7 months and it is about time he grew out of Newborn size! I love that he is growing and getting bigger, but I know it is going to go by too fast.

Tic Tac Toe

Nothing like a little game of Tic Tac Toe to pass some time!


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We've been busy....

This month has been a busy one for us. Dylan turned 7 months (4 months). He weighs 11 lbs 6 oz and is 22.5 inches long. He's really starting to look older and is so much fun. He is laughing a lot now and we find ourselves doing strange things just to get him to laugh. Now that the Football season is underway our Saturdays are consumed by BYU football! Dylan has an entire BYU wardrobe and if his dad had his way he would be dressed in it everyday of the week.



We have spent some time at Primary Children's having some tests done on Dylan's digestive system. Everything is normal which is great...So basically he's just a stinker and refusing to eat! He will be having surgery on Wednesday to have a G-Tube placed. It is a feeding tube that goes directly into his stomach. We are very anxious to get the tube out of his throat so that the gagging and choking can improve. The G tube is a semi-permanent fix for his eating. The Dr's think another 6 months to a year and he should be eating normally and we can take the tube out. The consensus from the doctors and occupational therapists that work with him think that once he gets to solid foods he'll take off and start eating. That will be an awesome day! Although I spend my days counting calories, every mL, and factoring in spit ups to make sure I get enough nutrition into him, we really are so lucky that this is our only problem.

Here is Dylan at his overnight stay in the hospital. He did not think that it was cool to have 2 tubes shoved down one nostril.



Daddy made sure to tickle and play with Dylan while he was in the hospital


Dylan just had his 4 month corrected age visit to the Neonatal Clinic. He scored a 97% in his development. We are so grateful that everything is normal.

Dylan's Uncle Mark came home from his mission on the 11th and they were able to finally meet. Michelle came into town for a few days and we were able to spend a lot of time with the Davis fam. It has been fun to have him home. Jeff's parents went to pick him up from Mexico and they had a great time.

Fun with Family

Here are a few pics hanging with family over the last couple months