Pictures of Raif's First Feeding

Raif got his first taste of "solid food" today. We gave him some watered down rice cereal. At first he rolled it around and most of it got on him instead of IN him. For a while it was a battle between the spoon and the "Price is Right" on TV. Finally he started paying attention and searching for the spoon. Toward the end we just gave him the spoon to naw on.
He's still working on the coordination for it.

Pepper the Wonder Dog

Here she is jumping on the trapoline with Dennis. He takes the soccer ball on the trapoline with him and she'll spend at least an hour (or as long as Dennis can last) playing tug-o-war and keepaway. We uploaded more photos onto the flickr account. Click on the right to follow the link.

Jumping Dogs and Sunday Sermons:)

I finally figuired out how to change the settings to allow anyone to place comments without being a member of blogger. Sorry for the hassel!
Time flies but I'll try to make up for it. Mom and Dad are getting check up calls from the mission center (more on this can be found on their blogger). Raif is sitting up better every day and we are looking to start him on solids soon. Pepper has discovered the trampoline and loves to jump with Dennis (we'll post pictures on this later). Dennis is getting job offers and is working though what to accept. All the positions so far are for teller positions but some are offering that as a start with strong possiblities for moving up (when the postitions become avaiable). The biggest thing seems to be timing for Dennis. They WANT him they just don't have the position open for him.
The bishopric has also found us and it looks like we get to talk on Sunday. Dennis has been assigned Memorial Day and I get to talk on reverance. I think that they remember me as a kid and are wondering what I may have learned since then:) Dennis is going to tell our dating story since he HATES the way that I tell it (who can blame him). I told him that he can have free rein with it. I imagine it will be along the lines of: she saw me in the distance and was drawn to me. She couldn't explain why or the animal attraction that she felt for me. I tried valantly to refuse her but she just wouldn't go away. I was hoping that the summer in Pinedale would cool her off but to no avail so after wearing me down I agreed to marry her:) Awww the love, ohhh the romance.
I have taken over most of the bookwork for the business and so far I think that I'll be able to handle it. Mom still worries over the money though. I guess it'll take a while to let go after doing them for sooo long. Mom's also been on a rampage cleaning and packing the house. I think that it is really good for her. As she has packed, she has started to throw more and more away not wanting it when she returns or not knowing why she kept it for so long. She's also cleaning like a mad woman wanting the house to be nice for us to move in. I'm just glad that she'll get to enjoy it a bit before she leaves. She's also got a new table (finally for those that know how much she loved the table she passed up) and so far both Dad and Mom love it.
I'm still working on getting out to the farm. The state has a new program to save water for the aquifer that I'm looking into. I'm also looking to start a compost pile for mom and rent a wood chipper to take care of all the branches left over from the wind storm last year. Well Dennis is waiting for me so we can watch the next stargate episode that we barrowed from Brenda. So long from Idaho and hope everyone is well.

Raif's Boxseat

Raif and Grandpa Buhler have started a morning tradition (when they are both up at the same time:) Grandpa plays the piano while Raif sits in his exclusive boxseat. He's the only one with tickets for it and he seems to really enjoy Grandpa playing the piano.
Dennis is still looking for jobs next week he has two interviews. The first one is with a company that sells something (they were a bit cryptic about it). He's interviewing with them so that he can get some practice interviewing before any REAL interviews. The second one is with First Federal bank. He had applied for a job with them a month ago but they had said they wanted someone before he got out of school. When he checked back they said that they still hadn't hired for the loan officer spot but they currently didn't have room for a new hire (we're not sure what exactly that means). They liked the application though and wanted him to come in so that they could interview him.

We're Heerreeee......

Goodbye Wyoming, Hello Idaho. Well we finally made it, after scrubbing and cleaning and repairing the house. The drive wasn't so bad after Dennis got the oxen attached and the wheels on the wagon, the pace was quite brisk. Raif and Pepper had sparatic moments of discontent but we worked though them. Dennis has decided to take today off to help move us in. Tomorrow he'll get out and start pounding the pavement.

Oh what a night

Every new parents dream is that their little one will begin to sleep though the night. Last night we had some friends over so we were a little late getting Raif to bed (8 pm, usually it is 7-7:30). Our friends left at 10:30 and we gave Raif his dreamfeed (we give him a bottle with milk and formula trying not to wake him up) then headed to bed ourselves at 11-11:30. Now usually Raif is hungry again at around 3-4. But last night At 3 he stirred but went back to sleep and I thought that tonight might be the night. At 3:30 Pepper began barking because our new upstairs neighbors had just arrived with their dogs. Now Pepper hadn't meet these dogs yet and wanted to let them know that she could hear them running around upstairs and would not be left out of the fun. It took until 4 to get her to only bark in small woofs. Between 4 and 4:30 we would have to get up and quiet her when her woofs would get loud again. Finally around 4:30 she calmed down. At 4:45 Raif was hungry and ready to eat. We got him back down at around 5-5:15. Again had to tell Pepper to stop barking. By 5:30 everything quieted down for a bit until Pepper heard the dogs stirring at 6. We took another 15 min. to quiet her down and by 6:20 Dennis' alarm went off for work. Hitting snooze he attempted another 9 mins for rest but had to calm Pepper again. Giving up he decided to get dressed and go to work. Surprisingly everything calmed down after he left at 6:40 until Raif got up at 8 to start the day. Now my mama said there'd be days like this but I still keep praying that tomorrow night will be the night that both the "kids" sleep through the night.

Our Dog Pepper

Last summer Dennis and I adopted a stray puppy. Dennis has always had an inside dog and always wanted a puppy soooo we ended up with Pepper. For the most part she is a good dog. She LOVES people and animals. Energetic and happy. She is also the reason that we are currently repairing 4 ft. of the side of our landlady's house, a hole she chewed in the concert wall of our apt., 4 separate corners in the apt., multiple holes in the back lawn, and replacing our landlady's grill cover. Some might think that this is because she gets bored. I think it is because she has an attention span of 5 seconds. To solve this problem we have gotten her MANY chew toys, most of which she seems to think are beneath her. The best is when I bought her a two foot rawhide bone to chew on. The next day I walked around the back yard to find it. Yep, no bone, not even a scrap. I have a suspion that she may have baried it but that means I would have go though the several different holes that she has dug. Of course, if she sees me doing this she has to dig each of the holes deep to find what I was looking for (plus a couple more just in case I hid something somewhere else. I'm hoping with the additional space of the farm she will be too entertained to be so distructive but what would be the fun in that.

Update on Raif

At Raif's last Doctor's appt. he weighted in below the average 3% range (it's like dropping off the chart) So the doctor says that we should give him a bottle a day with formula+ milk and that I should wait until 6 months to start him on solids, breastfeeding as long as I could. Personally I started experimenting with my diet. I cut all products that normally cause problems out of my diet and still had some fussy feedings SO I tried eating normally and didn't have a fussy feeding that entire day. One fussy feeding the next, anyway I starting to think that it may not be anything that I'm eating, except chocolate.
I have been doing some research and there is something called dysphagia that has similar symptoms to reflux. Basically with dysphagia the baby doesn't swallow right and some liquid gets down their windpipe. (this could be why he's chronically cogested). They can do a MBS (modified barium swallow to see if that is what it is but we would do anything until we get to Idaho. Another reason I think this may be it is that some of the symptoms sounds like Dennis as a kid: refusal of the breast or bottle and untreated it can lead to ear infections . His uncle (a Dentist) also noticed that Dennis didn't swallow correctly. So we'll see.
Still working on packing and again I am glad that we started early so that we have time to clean and repair (why Pepper desided to chew on the side of the house we still haven't figuired out but we now have 4 ft. of it to replace) and visit with family while they are here. Hope to see everyone soon!!!

Moving

We starting packing today to get some of the "nonessential" stuff out of the way. Just a jump on it all. Little did we know that packing the bookcase alone would take an hour and a half. I'm beginning to realise that starting to pack a week early REALLY isn't that early. I guess sorting out what you WANT to take with you is probably the most time consuming. But onward we plug away. Luckly Dennis only has one final this week and we can do most of the packing together. (I did marry him to carry all large and heavy boxes for me, pectorals and all that stuff:)