TGPD Softball Team

We've talked about this for many years, but this is the first time we have actually done it - we joined a softball league! It's all us girls at work and our spouses - don't we look like an official team with our matching shirts? We had our first game last week and actually won! Great times on the softball field!

Delta trip

Last weekend we took a trip to Delta for Justin and Caleb's softball tournament. We stayed with Grandma Losee and played pinochle, ate at Leo's and let grandma have some one on one time with Rhen.

Rhen got some new shoes while we were there - little big still.

It was perfect weather - not too hot or cold. But somehow by the end of the day we all ended up with sunburned faces. Grandma was good to keep Rhen covered up.

Me and my cute sis Hayley - who by the way just got engaged! Wahoo!

Kind of random pics but it's always good to visit Delta!

Kidney update

Rease had her renal ultrasound and VCUG update last week at Primary Children's. It wasn't any easier getting her to cooperate this time than it was when the first one was done when she was 6 months old - it was probably even harder for the nurses because she was able to fight back this time. They got it done anyway after having the catheder kicked out 3 different times and finally tying her legs together to get it to stay in. After all that, the good news is that the reflux is gone with no surgery needed. Kidneys are officially healthy and we are happy about that!

It's obvious by the splotchy face that there was lots of crying going on in this room. Lucky for Rease we had a great nurse and she let her keep these books to take home. Now whenever we read them she remembers the "doctor."

Rhen's Blessing Day

Yesterday was a special day as we blessed Rhen. What a fabulous time to spend with family and friends and most of all with our two precious girls.

We are lucky to have this girl in our life.

Waiting for Wicked...

So Wicked is in town. Josh and I have never seen it and thought it might be fun to go and wait in the "lottery" line one night before the show. It was a Tuesday night and was also raining, so we thought we may have good odds of having our names drawn. Well, it turns out that a lot of other people thought it was a good night to go too because there were about 300 people waiting in line for the tickets - and only 10 names are drawn each night. Well, of course we didn't get tickets, but it was fun trying and we made a date out of the night and stayed downtown for a few hours.

This is the line of people behind us and there were at least that many in front of us. Oh well...maybe next time!

Easter 2009

Happy Easter!

Our Easter weekend was spent at the cabin like most every year. And of course the highlight of the time spent together is the annual easter egg hunt. Rease helped grandpa fill the eggs with money before he hid them.

Here we are lined up youngest to oldest, ready for the hunt. Josh and I had a gameplan and we were ready to win. Grand prize this year - $20 egg. There were also 2 $10 eggs, 4 $5 eggs and 10 $1 eggs along with a bunch of quarters and dimes.

Rease got to start first...

and once she found an egg with candy in it, that was all she needed. She settled down in the wet dirt to eat before mommy stopped her from eating the whole basketful.

It gets ugly sometimes, but in the end Josh and I came out winners. We got the $20 egg one of the $10 eggs and 2 $5 eggs. Our grand total - $49.90! That's three years in a row for us!

We spent Easter Sunday at Grandpa and Grandma Beutlers and had another egg hunt. Rease once again settled for the chocolate. She did find a couple of hard boiled eggs and then when she realized there was nothing inside, threw them back down and headed for the next egg. Can you say easter egg snob?

Sleepyheads

We had a few sleeping "firsts" happen in the Beutler home this week. First, Rease is now able to open her bedroom door and come and go from her room as she pleases. Well, up until now she has never gotten up and left her room during her naps or at nighttime - that all changed Thursday night. About 4:00 a.m. we woke up to the sweet sound of Rease's voice - "mommy." She came into our room carrying her favorite blanket and jumped in bed with us. I was too tired to deal with taking her back down to her room and trying to make her stay there the rest of the night, so we let her fall asleep in our bed with strict instructions to be very quiet because we were still sleeping. She followed that pretty good except for a few whispered words letting us know what was going on - one in particular, she whispered "toot" just to let us know she had just tooted. She ended up falling back asleep and this is what we woke up to. What a sweet girl. That is the first and last time she will sleep with us. From that night on - until we figure out how to lock her in her room (since her doorknob doesn't even have a lock so turning the knob around isn't an option) we came up with the brilliant plan to bungi cord her doorknob to the bathroom doorknob so she can't open the door. So far it's worked out great.

Next - Rhen slept through the night last night! Wahoo!!! We woke up this morning at 5:30 when Rhen woke up and we looked at each other and asked "did you get up with her last night?" Neither of us had and what a wonderful thing it is to know that your newborn can sleep through the night! We're hoping it continues from here on out. This is a picture of how we usually see her in the morning. We have a swaddling blanket (which is awesome by the way) but somehow she manages to get at least one of her limbs free during the night - most of the time it's one of her long lanky legs.

Fun times!

Our girls

The other night we were messing around trying to get some pictures of all four of us. What a project it is to get everyone looking good at the same time and actually getting it on camera. Here are a few of the best ones...

Isn't this just the sweetest thing - Rhen held this smile for a few seconds and I managed to take the picture at the right time.

This is our family now. We sure love our girls!

I've been working on the railroad...

"See ya later mom! I'm all ready for work with my hat, my coat and my lunchbox."

"I'll tell Dinah you said Hi."

Celebrate!

Hooray! I'm one month old today!

A few things we've learned about Rhen:

- She does this funny thing with her tongue when she eats. She keeps it at the top of her mouth and tries to suck on the bottle at the same time. Obviously it doesn't work and milk squirts all over her face in the meantime. It sometimes takes her 10 minutes to figure out that she needs to put her tongue down to be able to really eat - and most of the time this is in the middle of the night when we're as tired as she is and get frustrated right along with her. Otherwise she is a great eater.

- She gets the hiccups at least 3 times a day. (I guess I shouldn't be surprised because she had them all the time while I was pregnant with her.)

- Rhen looks so much like Josh to me. She has my chubby cheeks but other than that she is a total Beutler.

- She is very long and skinny - opposite of Rease when she was this age.

- Rhen has a little fiesty side to her. When she wants to cry, she really can. And when she doesn't want me to do something - like give her a bath or change her diaper - she does her best to not let me.

- One of the cutest things about her is explained in this picture. She doesn't relax when she's eating - instead she sticks her legs straight out and keeps them there most of the meal. Not that she's not a cuddler because she is - she just waits until after she eats to snuggle with us.

We love our Rhen. What a fun month we've had with her!

Living the day-to-day

Lately our daily routine has been this:

4:45 - Daddy is up and leaves for the gym

6:00 - Rhen wakes up - therefore mommy is up

7:00 - Rease wakes up - breakfast time

7:00-7:30 - Hang out with daddy who just got home from the gym

7:30 - Mommy, Rhen and Rease leave for the mall

8:00-9:00 - Us three girls spend some quality time together walking around the mall

This is not a daily shopping trip (though I wish it was.) This is our semi-exercising time since I am technically not supposed to do any exercising for another 2 weeks. I started to go almost crazy though not being able to do any type of work out, so this is our compromise - we walk for an hour at the mall. You would not believe how many people do it too! Lots of moms with their strollers and lots of cute older couples - we joined the group last week and now we're like family. We see pretty much the same people everyday so we're all friends. If the weather was warm we'd for sure be outside, but it's actually really fun to be at the mall and see all the cute things that I could buy. Luckily we're there early enough that the stores aren't open yet so I'm not tempted to make any major purchases. We're strictly there for the walk and that's it.

Rease takes her bucket of toys and her baby and she is entertained. Rhen sleeps. And I take my ipod.

Today we stopped in the little photo booth and tried to take some pictures. This is the best I could do with the 2 girls. Rease was not very into it and notice she didn't make it through the last picture. She was out of there and down the hall by time the pictures were done. We did our best.

Headband woes

I love headbands for babies - especially for those like Rhen who don't have much hair. They add a nice little touch don't you think?

Along with that though comes the trouble of keeping the darn headband where it should be. Rhen has been struggling with this lately.

Somehow she still manages to sleep peacefully!

What can I say?

Our own little Squirt

Sometimes I think our Rhen looks a bit like a turtle - maybe it's the eyes. Any resemblance there? (This is no insult to our girl - I think Squirt is actually darling!)

Viva Las Vegas!

This past weekend I took a trip to Las Vegas with my dad and sister for a dental conference. It was crazy timing having to leave Rhen home at 2 weeks old - but I left the girls in good hands with grandma and my cousin Lisa while Josh was working. We all survived without each other and we had a good time in the meantime.

This is the only picture we have from the conference we were in - which actually took up 90% of our time there.

But of course we took some time for sightseeing!

The gardens at the Bellagio are amazing!

And we love this chocolate fountain. We tried to get a picture of us looking like we're drinking the chocolate. It took us about 500 tries and even then, this is the best we got. Dad was hilarious trying to get us in just the right position and blocking the line into the store. We looked like idiots but who cares - we're not the only crazy people in that town.

The craziest thing about our trip is that we ended up being there during "earth hour." We walked out onto the strip to see this - no lights! For one hour all the lights on the hotels were off and it was a crazy crazy sight. These pictures don't show much because it's dark but I guess that's the point - how often do you see the strip dark? Not too often - we were there on a historical day!

You can't really tell where we're at but the Bellagio is right behind us and the Planet Hollywood and Paris are right in front of us. There were hippies all over passing out earth day cards and holding signs that said things like "free hugs." We had a fun trip together just dad, Hayley and me. But I sure was glad to come home and see my girls and Josh. He did a great job with them the whole weekend and even took them to the ward party and to church! What a great husband I have.