Eden: Eleven Months

-Personality really coming out more

-Makes kissy noises

-Starting actions to nursery rhymes

-Waves and high fives

-Getting more curious and close to cruising

-Caught her trying to fold her arms and blow kisses

-Dada might be her first word

-Loves to swim

-Likes to take things out and put them back

-Still doesn't sleep through the night

-Such a princess

*****

We are crazy close to her first birthday and I'm not ready for that! But then again, this is such a fun age. I love that she plays now and laughs and attempts to copy me. Her big thing this month is learning how to make a kissy noise and loves to make them and sometimes kisses me and Sam or tries to blow kisses. Oh my heart.

Although she still loves her mama she has warmed up to Sam quite a bit. He rocks her to sleep a lot of the nights, takes her from me when he gets home, and feeds her ice cream (quick way to this girl's heart). The other day she heard Sam come home from upstairs while I was folding laundry and she started saying "Dada" and headed straight for the stairs. It seemed purposeful so maybe she said her first meaningful word?

We will be in Chicago for her birthday and it will just be her and her mommy and daddy. We are excited for that, but I'm not ready for her to not be a baby anymore. Stay little girl!

Naps seems to be getting shorter and shorter, sadly.

Sam made a swing bed and Eden seems to like it.

I can't with these overalls!!

Picture from a Facebook Father's Day post.

New PJ's and she's modeling them nicely.

Her kisses.

ARVO 2019

Hello everyone! It's me, Sam. It's been a while since I've blogged, and I'm very grateful for Kiley in taking the lead to write about our lives. 

I was blessed to be accepted to present at this year's Annual Meeting for the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). Luckily, when I showed up to the conference on Monday, I ran into Grant Justin (a current 2^nd year resident who is a lot of fun to work with) and Hal Blegen (one of our Rockstar, up-and-coming first years). We decided to go on a bike ride around Vancouver, so we rented a couple bikes and went around Stanley Park. It was gorgeous! Here are some of the photos from our ride:

Grant and I then went to the aquarium and had a good time looking at all the animals. 

We ate poutine for lunch (French fries loaded with pulled pork and bacon), and then Grant and Hal presented in the evening. I had a good time networking with people, and I also found Dr. Das’ group presenting their research (the ones I worked with during medical school). So I got to catch up with them a bit! That was great.

Here are medals from the 2010 Olympics held in Vancouver, as well as the podium where the medal winners stood while their anthems played. How cool!

The following day, after going to a few lectures, I met up with an HPSP medical student who was also presenting at ARVO to talk to her about ophthalmology in the military. She’s currently rotating through our program and doing great. It’s tough to predict what will happen with military medicine in the future, with all the changes that are going on with the DHA and purplization of the military, but hopefully that won’t affect this year’s match. In fact, residency/fellowship results are supposedly being announced tomorrow, and I'm planning on applying for a retina fellowship if one is offered. Wish me luck!

            My presentation was on Tuesday evening. I was pretty stoked about my poster:

As you can probably tell, I decided to have fun with it this year. I presented a case series on patients with central retinal artery occlusion who were treated with hyperbaric oxygen, and since it wasn’t a super enticing research design (case series), I decided to make my poster as flashy as possible. It did the trick! About 80% of the people who passed by my poster stopped to read it, and I got to speak with about half of them about our findings. That is a huge contrast to the last time I was at ARVO and presented "real" research. I also got lots of great feedback from physicians from all over the world regarding management of patients and their views of hyperbaric oxygen. It was awesome!

I guess that's it for now. More to come later!

Joey's 6th Birthday

 Joey got his birthday off of school due to it being Good Friday. So that day I took him to get donuts, a photoshoot (that was featured in his birthday letter post), and open a couple presents. The next day we had a little party for him. We invited two boys from his primary class to have cake, ice cream, open presents, then go to SeaWorld for a behind the scenes shark tour!

Lego Spiderman kit.

Really proud of this cake I made! 

PokeBall kit courtesy of the Wengers.

Magic Tracks courtesy of the Harmons.

 It took a little fin-angling to get people into SeaWorld as cheaply as possible but it worked out!

Here we are looking down into the shark tank and learned about all the different types of sharks they had.

The best picture of all the boys I could get!

Petting a shark

Epaulette Shark! 

Shark poster inside the aquarium.

Easter 2019

I'm slowly getting up to date on this blog and I'm close! I'll do a quick post about our Easter this year. Here is my "mantel" decor above our couch:

Grandma Hobbs sent an Easter package full of awesome goodies for the kids. One of them was a frog the boys could paint. Believe it or not this is Eli's! I was so proud of him.

We spent an evening dyeing eggs as tradition. Nothing fancy but the boys enjoyed themselves. The trickiest part is figuring out what to do with 12 hard-boiled eggs after the activity!

A girl in my ward planned a little easter egg hunt so Eli and I had fun while Joey was at school.

 On Easter Day I hid the boy's Easter baskets. We went to church dressed in our Easter best (pictured below) then we went home to read the Easter Story a la Easter Egg Mode. Then we hid several eggs in our backyard for the boys to find. Overall it was a beautiful, traditional Easter Day. I love my family and I'm grateful for the Savior and the opportunity to reflect on the beautiful blessing of the resurrection.

Eden: Ten Months

-Started crawling

-Pulls up to things

-Has two teeth

-More content now that she's mobile

-Loves water and ice cream

-Gets up from a laying position

-Sleeping through the night here and there

-Trying to feed herself more

-Getting more and more beautiful

*****

This was her month! She has made big leaps in development, the biggest is becoming mobile. She now is a lot more curious and mischievous. Eden also has started teething, along with getting a cold so it was hard to know why she has been so cranky. Poor thing! But now she has two teeth, and I definitely feel it when she nurses! I love this girl so much!

Loves walks.

Enjoying her naps while I can!

First merry-go-round.

Smile!

Eli's such a good big brother in sneaking her an oreo!

Spring Break 2019

In addition to a full month "off" in February to study, Sam got Spring Break approved. My family came down and we had Spring Break in San Antonio.

Before they came down, we decided to go camping at Canyon Lake. The military has cabins, lofts, and other camping spots open and we were offered a bungalow. So right before we went down we loaded our van with junk food and bought some fishing gear. The lake is beautiful...and I didn't get photos of it. But here are the photos I did get of our two night camping trip.

Eating a hot dog dinner.

See all the bungalows behind us?

Expectation

What taking photos with our boys is really like

The bungalow had a queen bed and a bunk bed.

 We went fishing a lot. We also went on a little hike, went to church (in our camping best), and ate a lot of junk. We were hoping to catch a fish to eat, but we didn't get even a nibble. At least a fishing permit is free for military members and children.

Joey ready to catch fish.

Daddy with our supplies.

The river nearby was quite beautiful. We didn't know how to hike down the banks
 where we saw more people fishing.

My parents came Monday night and the next day helped me plant a garden on the side of our house. It was a lot of work pulling out all the weeds and old mulch, but it looks 100% better! We also laid down landscaping fabric.

Me with the first thing I planted at our house: a rose bush.

While my mom and I planted a garden, Sam took a spur-of-the-moment task of ripping out our little fences in our backyard, painting them white, and use them to fence in our patio. It looks so much nicer! And makes it easier to mow and do yard work when your yard isn't so divided. We also took those bricks pictured and made a path in the front yard instead (maybe I'll post a photo, maybe not).

 We also had fun visiting. Here's Eden with her Grandpa.

My sisters Kristy and Heidi came in on Wednesday night. Kristy had really, really bad luck with her car on the way over as it broke down and costed $600 to tow it back and had a heck of a time finding a rental nearby. The only blessing in the ordeal was that Heidi was there with her (they couldn't fit everyone in Heidi's car). 

As fun as it was to have family visit, I realized having the same Spring Break meant awful crowds. Sea World was the busiest I have ever seen it and that's saying something! Kristy and Heidi took their kids to Six Flags while I took my parents and younger ones to said aquatic park. We had fun, but the crowds made it awful at the same time. I also felt bad for Kristy and Heidi with the ridiculous lines they faced.

My dad waiting in line with the three young boys.

My mom, Eden and I saved seats at the Shamu Stadium to see some killer action.

 To accommodate everyone we pulled our kiddos into our room. This is the best time:

Even though I recently went to Ikea in the Houston area, I couldn't help taking my sisters and mom to the brand new Ikea built 35 minutes away from me. Selfie time!

Lastly, we took advantage of this beautiful little field right by my house to take some Blue Bonnet shots. The boys weren't terribly cooperative, but they still turned out cute!

I was surprised how well Eden did while being passed around.

We had a great time! Thank you family for visiting us! And thank you Sam for being a good sport about it!