Here we go a visiting...

We finally took a trip to Dodge City, KS to visit JB, Amanda and little Blain. We left at 5pm on Friday after Tony got off of work and we drove 7 1/2 hours. It was 12:30am by the time we got there and needless to say we were VERY anxious to get out of the car, or I should say I was since the rest of my family was fast asleep and I was trying very hard to keep myself awake!

We ended up staying up until about 2:30am hanging out and talking until we all felt sick we were so tired! Off to bed.

Saturday we got up and ate breakfast and hung out all day. Tony, JB and the older two boys went to JB's school and ran errands and hung out, while Amanda, Blain, Judd and I milled around the house. I tried to persuade Amanda to let me watch Blain so she could take a nap or something because she had only ended up with about 2 1/2 hours sleep Friday night after Blain had many wakings, but she is very protective and watchful I think because of his first few weeks of life and illness, so she kept declining my offers. I felt bad for her because Blain ended up sleeping for about 6 hours straight, and she could have easily taken a 6 hour nap!

He is very cute and as of Friday weighed 8 lbs. 13 oz. He is definitely going through a growth spurt because he had just gained a lb. in one week and was still guzzling the milk more than usual they said.

The boys really liked him and Raymond said that he liked Blain's little head, while Owen liked his little feet. Owen tells me that Judd likes his little hands. It's unusual for me though that Blain has such a little head, because all three of my boys had bigger heads. He is definitely cute and cuddly. We got lots of good pictures, of which I will post for your viewing enjoyment. I have to say that in my opinion he is all Amanda. He definitely takes after more of her side at the moment. Whereas my boys are ALL Coffey, no me. :(

Amanda is very dedicated to pumping breast milk and feeding him from a bottle, which I have to tell you is very time consuming and takes a lot of effort, but she says she can't bring herself to just nurse him again after his turning blue that one time. So she does an awesome job at staying on top of it along with JB. Way more dedication than I could muster with the time it takes to do it all. I'm just glad she is committed to the breast milk cause. I am SO Pro-breast milk. I can't say that I blame her, but I am always one to opt for the more convenient route and would give in and try nursing again! :) I wish there was something I could do to help her not relive those images over and over and keep worrying that he will be sick with every little thing, but nothing I say will change her of that. That's being a mom I suppose. I would just like to make it easier for her.

Anyways...we left Sunday around 11am and got home at 6:30pm on the dot. The ride home was much easier and quicker, but still a very long drive!

So without further ado, I present my family and Blain, the newest addition!

Summer Vacation!!!

So sad... last Friday was Owen's very last day of preschool EVER! Thursday was Raymond's last day for this year. I did well however at Owen's program. I did not cry and only once got a little moist eyes! Not too bad. I guess I'm saving it all up for his first day of Kindergarten! Oh no. That might not be a good day for me! :)

Anyways...both of the boys' end of year programs involved them singing songs from the year, reciting a bible verse that they had to memorize and eating cupcakes and receiveing a diploma. So I simply wanted to share some photos with you and maybe a little video clip of each. Hopefully those will load more quickly than they usually do! So enjoy! It's now officially SUMMER VACATION!

Early Birthday Present!

So about a month ago I was able to buy two tickets to the Jason Mraz concert that was coming to Omaha/Council Bluffs this last week. I wanted to tell Tony so bad because we both LOVE Jason Mraz, but I really wanted it to be a surprise!

A little bit of background information....Jason Mraz's song, "I'm Your's" is kind of like our family theme song. If it comes on the radio Owen and Raymond start singing it at the top of their lungs and dancing around, while Judd will come running to the radio and start dancing and snapping his fingers, and Tony and I of course sing and dance around too. It's been like that since the very first time we heard it, so it has some sentimental value to our family!

So back to the original story. Despite my desire to tell Tony, I held out for over a month! I even had the whole thing planned out. I cancelled my night kid that I normally watch on Tuesday nights, I had all of the daycare kids picked up by 4pm so they'd be gone before Tony got home, I had Holly lined up to babysit, and I had the car all loaded up and ready to go when he got home from work. I even watched the weather so closely because it was an outdoor concert, that when I saw that the only rain for the week was on the night of the concert, I took the boys to Wal-Mart and bought two rain ponchos! (Luckily it did not rain and we did not need them)

The ONLY downfall of the night was that I forgot to tell Tony to get a sweatshirt and he about froze sitting on the grass in the chilly damp air for almost four hours! Oops.

The concert opened with some random new female singer touring with Jason. She sang two or three songs and then the Plain White Tees came out and sang for an hour! They could have been a concert all on their own. Then Jason came out and sang for 1 1/2 hours, then an encore. It was awesome. You know how sometimes you love an artist and then you get the chance to see or hear them live and you are gravely disappointed because they just weren't as good as in the studio? Jason is BETTER live! I think he's awesome on the radio, but his performance was SOOOO smooth, his voice was awesome and his songs are so fun! I love how he mixes different genres of music like caribbean, folk, jazz, funk, rock, rap, big band with his brass section, to make such awesome sounding music! He is a very talented singer.

Overall it was a very fun night just the two of us. We had dinner at Chili's before the concert and and we got to stay out until midnight, which NEVER happens with three little boys around! :) I have a couple of pictures to post (the ones of him singing are not very good. Our digital camera sucks at night!) and a little video clip of our "family song". The clip was mostly for the benefit of the boys because we knew they'd love it, but on our digital camera we don't have a lot of space to record an entire song! So enjoy. It was Tony's birthday surprise, and he had NO idea!! I'm so proud of myself because I usually can't contain myself and give all surprises away! :)

Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers out there!