Updated Pics

Kari requested more pictures of Kayden and Emilee concurred, so here are some updated pictures of both boys. :)

This is Kayden's fascinated face expression.

Love this smile!

Malakai having play dough for a snack. Note the blue face and hands.

Malakai dumped all his toys out of his "toy box" and sat in it for the entirety of his show.

Caught him eating uncooked sunburgers. Good thing it won't hurt him. He told me when I when I caught him "Mmmm, nummy sunburger!"

Other than Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, Kai has been pretty sick this past week. I have never seen him this sad before. He still has a cough, but is on the upside now.

Another picture of a happy Kayden.

Our boys :)

Mr Chubby Cheeks

Gluten Sensitivity

We recently had Tyler tested for gluten sensitivity, yesterday we received his results which were positive. The lab recommended that Tyler follow a strict gluten free diet permanently in order to improve and/or resolve a long list of problems. Which include neuropsychiatric, autoimmune, asthma, abdominal, glandular deficiencies/hyperactivity or skin diseases. Also to prevent small intestine damage, malnutrition, osteoperosis, and damage to other tissues (like nerves, brain, joints, muscles, thyroid, pancreas, skin, liver, spleen, among others). This explains why he gained 15 lbs in 4 months on his mission when he was in the Tagalog speaking area. where their main staples are chicken and rice and therefore gluten free.

They also said that as gluten sensitivity is a genetic syndrome, you may want to have your relatives tested as well. I have been reading some of the FAQ from their site, and as far as I understand it our kids have a 50% chance of having gluten sensitivity. We are planning on testing Malakai, because if he has a gluten sensitivity he will have a long list of potential problems (many of which are listed above). There is no point in testing Kayden yet because the way they test it is if there is damage to the small intestine in the cells. So if there is no small intestine damage yet, you will test negative to gluten sensitivity, even though you are really are sensitive to gluten. It is a little bit more complex than that, but kind of hard to explain.

In short, I will be learning how to cook gluten free. I had tried some things, but no baking as of yet. I plan to bake as much as I can in regards to bread, muffins, pancakes, and things like that, because the majority of store bought gluten free things that are already baked tend to be either disgusting or insanely expensive. An example would be Udi's gluten free bread, which is one of the best tasting, but it is half the size of regular bread and costs about $5 or $6 a loaf.

For anyone who is more interested in learning more specifics about gluten sensitivity I am including a link to some frequently asked questions.

http://www.enterolab.com/StaticPages/FaqResult.aspx

New Callings

For the first time in a long time Tyler and I have received callings. Both summers, the wards we were in for 4 months, the wards decided to not give any of the office callings. We were primary teachers for the short time we were in Arizona.

Tyler was called to be the Family History Indexer Supervisor. He will spend about a month training, and then other people will be called under him. Both Tyler and I think that he will love it!

The Bishop told me that he had "an interesting time with Heavenly Father" in regards to my calling. He said that my name kept on coming back to him for this calling. He then asked me if I would accept being the Ward Employment Specialist!! I think my jaw dropped open. I accepted, and then informed him that I have absolutely no qualifications for such a position. I think Heavenly Father must be trying to show me what he can do through me with his help, because I know I could not do an efficient job without him.

I am so glad that we have callings. Even though sometimes you may not enjoy your calling, it helps you feel as though you belong. I always felt more like I was visiting the wards we attended, instead of feeling like I was in that ward. I really think that it was a combination of the fact that we didn't have callings, visiting teachers/home teachers, or visiting assignments. Hooray for feeling like you belong!

Christmas Decorating

On Saturday we decorated the Christmas Tree and decorations. Kai had the privilege of putting the star on top of the Christmas tree.

Putting decorations on the tree.

Opening up the box(sorry, my pictures are always out of order.)
Kayden sleeping super cute!
Kai took the shelves off of his desk and made a train with them.
Malakai posing with his snow hat.

Malakai's newest funny thing is when you to say Peek a boo, it comes out as Picky goo!

Kayden is 2 months old already and growing very fast! He can hold his head up pretty good and is starting to sleep good the first half of the night. He continues to be very patient and happy. He loves his family very much already. When he first hears Kai's voice in the morning he grins, when I'm holding Kayden and Tyler comes nearby, Kayden starts grinning.

A smile, Halloween, And The Last Warm Day

Kayden smiled a while ago, but I finally got a picture of it. He loves it when you talk baby talk to him.

Instead of carving pumpkins this year, we decided we would just let Malakai color his and put his hand prints on his. I was able to get most of the ink off of his hands, but you could still see black on his fingertips and a little on his palms.
Decorating his pumpkin.
Trick or Treating with Kenzi, Camdyn, Grandpa, Trisha, and Jared. I'm going to try and get the video of him Trick or Treating that my sister-in-law took. It is hilarious. He loved Trick or Treating and would run at full speed to the next house. Mommy and Daddy got to have a break from Malakai, and stay at Grandpa and Grandma's house with a sleeping Kayden while the kiddos went Trick or Treating.
Just before Halloween Malakai and Sophy were invited to Kenzi and Cam's ward Halloween party, and got to participate in a bunch of fun games, including a cake walk, donut eating from a string, and decorating cookies. Sophy, and Malakai walked all around the church holding hands, it was adorable!
We spent the last warm day, before cold set in playing at Rotary Park. We played on the slides, swings, went hiking, and visited the ducks at the pond.

Kayden's Preferred Sleeping Position

Kayden, as you may or may not have heard, hates to be swaddled! I had never heard of that until him, and since mentioning it, a couple of people have said their baby was the same way. It makes putting him to sleep hard because his startle reflex often wakes him up. But when his arms are swaddled he gets very angry! So I wrap him up under his arms and hope he sleeps better. He is starting to at least sleep on his own for some of the time. When he was very first born he would not sleep for more than 10 minutes if he was not held. Now he usually sleeps about half the night in the bassinet(with waking up of course) and the other half he sleeps in our bed, because it means that he will actually go back to sleep. This is the position he likes to be in when he is sleeping. I put him down with his head straight and every time he wakes me up he has moved his head far back like this. It looks very uncomfortable, and I don't want him to hurt his neck, so I always move his head back straight. He never fails to continually put it back though. He is so funny. :)

Malakai's First Tractor Ride

Grandma and Grandpa Gerber just finished building their new house and needed to start landscaping their yard. So Grandpa rented a small tractor and Tyler used it to move the big rocks into place. We decided to bring Grandpa and Tyler lunch the first day. Malakai was very excited to see the tractor and immediately wanted to ride it. So after lunch Tyler put Kai on his lap and buckled the seatbelt over the 2 of them and they went to work. I figured he would want to ride for a minute or two and than want to get out. Instead he stayed their "helping" Daddy for at least an hour, moving rocks into place. He would have loved to stay longer, but attempting to use the controls himself became too much of a temptation for him so we had to go.

Kayden Jay Gerber

Kayden Jay Gerber arrived Wednesday September 28, 2011 at 12:18pm. Everything went well and his birth was beautiful. It was so nice to not have to drive anywhere while in labor, and with how fast the little guy came I'm not sure we would have made it anyway. He was 7lbs 8 oz, and 20 inches long. He has brown hair, and I honestly can't decide if he has dark blue or green eyes. Here are some pictures from his first day of life.

Grandma Gerber with Kayden
Malakai meeting Kayden for the first time.
Aunt Sharyn and Kayden
Grandma Newman and Kayden

Hat Edition

Malakai's 12 year old cousin Kenzi dressed him up in some of her clothes to entertain him, when we went to visit. He spent a large portion of the evening dressed up this way.

The baby got some clothes in the mail and Kai really wanted to wear them. I tried to explain that it was too little and he really didn't seem to get it, so I put them on his head. He thought it was really cool and wanted a picture. This first pair is so small that it is squishing his head, but he didn't seem to mind.


This is Malakai throwing one of his quiet fits. Sometimes he throws a temper tantrum, other times when it is time to go somewhere and he doesn't want to he lays on his stomach on the ground where ever you are (and yes he does do it in the middle of the parking lot).

Dinosaur Museum And Jumping At The Mall

Malakai was playing at the play place in the Mall and Tyler and I were noticing the cool trampoline and agreeing that someday Kai would love to jump on it. Well, along came a tiny little girl who got strapped up and did just fine. So we asked the attendant if he could go, and he said as long as he was 2. So this lucky little boy got to jump on the trampoline and he loved it! I can never get the pictures to go in the right order, so I have these pictures here and the videos of him jumping at the end.

Getting strapped up.
My brilliant sister informed me that the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point had $2 Tuesdays during the month of August. So we got to go with Katie, Melissa, and Hannah on their last chance before school started. Amazingly Kai sat for long enough to get a picture with his cousins sitting down. Most of the time he was so excited that it was all we could do to keep up with him. Luckily we were smart enough to bring his monkey or we probably would have lost him in the crowd.
Kai decided he didn't like wet sand on his hands, so he played with it a little bit, but he mostly ran around and liked to wash his hands off. Melissa, Hannah, and Katie however, loved this section of the Museum.
Katie was an especially good builder in the sand.