Werth Family OnlineThis is the area dedicated to our grand experiment of raising children. Check here for grand adventures, trials, and wonderful mistakes.
After a smooth birth and plenty of visitors, it was time for all the Werth’s to go home. The boys (Jacob and Henry) returned to daycare, while William enjoyed the days with both of his parents at home. Unfortunately, Elise’s health took a turn for the worse and it was back to the hospital. With some rest and some powerful antibiotics, she was thankfully feeling better in a few days.
Upon returning once more to home, the next two weeks allowed her and all the boys to settle in to summer.
Soon after saying goodbye to Fred and Cathy, Elise and I decided to head to bed. It was Friday, May 22nd around 11:30 pm. Within a few minutes, Elise’s water broke. We gathered our things, and placed two sleeping boys into the van. At one point, Jacob woke up and asked, “Where are we going?” I replied, “To Nonni and Grandpa’s house.” Quietly Jacob stated, “Yay!” before falling back asleep.
We drove to Eden Prairie and transferred the boys to the waiting arms of Elise’s parents, before driving to the hospital in Waconia. We checked in at 1:30 am, and were ushered to a birthing suite. Things progressed nicely and on May 23rd at 9:08 AM, William Michael Werth became the newest addition to our family. He measured 20 inches and weighed 8 lbs, 15.5 oz, which rounded to an official weight of 9 lbs.
Throughout the day, both Elise and William recovered beautifully. Several hours later, after waking from their afternoon nap, Jacob and Henry came to visit their new baby brother, eager to see their little brother and their mama (now with a much smaller tummy!). On Monday everyone will be reunited at home.
Welcome to the family, William!
In the middle of September, Henry celebrated his first birthday. It was an exciting Saturday morning filled with family, gifts, and plenty of messy cake eating. Jacob enjoyed helping Henry open his gifts and Elise tested her culinary art by crafting a delicious lion cake.
The past few weeks have been an exciting time for the Werth family. We have closed on our house in Iowa City and have taken up residence with Mary and Larry in Eden Prairie, MN. Elise has started her new position at Rockford Middle School, while Jon is working for the University of Iowa remotely. While there have been a lot of life changes, the boys have also continued to grow.
Henry is developing quite the personality, discovering how to make his needs known without the use of words. He has begun to climb up stairs, but is not yet too successful at going down. Also, his balance has continued to increase to the point where he can now stand on his own and is ‘cruising’ (pushing items around while walking).
Meanwhile, Jacob has enjoyed making new friends at his daycare, coming home daily with one or two new sign language words. He potty training has also been going very well, culminating in the purchase of big boy undies today!
It’s been a great few weeks of change and growth in many facets of our family’s life. To top it off, we are in the process of purchasing a home in Delano after our offer was accepted a week ago! Stay tuned for additional updates as we celebrate Henry’s 1st birthday soon and start to create our new home in Minnesota.
One of my favorite moments each day is story time with Jacob. Generally, this is a time just for Jacob and Mommy to cuddle up and read a good story together. I snapped this photo tonight and thought it captured the moment perfectly. Hopefully you like it as much as I do.
As we continue to search for a house and prepare for the move to Minnesota, Jacob and Henry continue to grow and develop at a quick pace. Henry is now mobile, being fully able to crawl where he pleases. As a result, our house has become a bit of a disaster zone as Henry enjoys exploring everything: pulling things off of shelves and tipping over baskets of toys and laundry.
All of this has had an impact on Jacob who now has to defend his toys from the invading brother. It’s a hard lesson in sharing and one that is not coming easily, but we’re working on it.
Jacob’s vocabulary continues to grow, repeating nearly any word he hears. We’ve also reached the hilarious and embarrassing stage of child observation. For example, when Jacob saw a larger man in the grocery store he proceeded to say, “Whoa, he’s got a biiiig tummy!”
Meanwhile, Henry now has three teeth (one on the top and two on the bottom) and enjoys standing while holding on to something.
Enjoy these photos from our weekend!
Yikes! It’s been quite the summer. If you haven’t talked to us recently, this post will get you caught up on some major changes. Here it goes…
We just spent the past three weekends travelling: a week and a half on the east coast and a weekend in Omaha (see previous posts). Not wanting to have a relaxing summer, Elise had (after applying) received two offers for job interviews in Minnesota; one in Prior Lake and the other in Rockford. As a result, her and the boys headed up Thursday night (after spending the past two days at a work conference). While the boys hung out with Mary, Elise interviewed and by the end of the day had not one, but two, job offers. So.. now what? I (Jon) hop in the truck and head up to Eden Prairie late Friday night.
Elise and I decided to spend Saturday checking out the two towns and deciding what would be the best fit for our family. Coming to a decision that night, we decide that Rockford would be the best fit for Elise’s job (middle school science at an Environmental Studies magnet school) and for the family (small town).
After having made this decision, I get a call from my parents… Glencoe received a major dousing Saturday night and their house was filled with three feet of water. So…
While Larry heads to Laura’s house (out of power for 3 days and some water in her basement) and Elise calls the schools to finalize the decision, I head out to Glencoe to aid in the disaster recovery. Needless to say, after three feet of water, it was a very emotionally and physically draining time. We pumped out the remaining water, saved what we could, and started to clean up the mess, mud, and ruined belongings. It was quite the experience of digging through your history and tossing a lot of it into the trash. I took Monday off of work to stay one more day before heading back to Iowa City with Elise and the boys.
To keep this giant narrative moving along, I came up the next weekend to help finalize the gutting of mom and dad’s house, who are now living temporarily with Grandma A until they can get a new house. The next weekend, Fred, Cathy, and Teresa came down for a four day weekend over the fourth of July. Why? To finish up the basement remodeling of my house in order to get it on the market! Meanwhile, Elise traveled to Minnesota with the boys for the annual Mouse party and to allow us more construction hours in the day.
So… It’s currently Sunday, July 14th. I have been in a different state 5 out of the past 6 weeks (not including this one). Elise starts a new position Aug 19th, at which point I will continue to work for UIowa, albeit remotely. We’ve started to look (tentatively) at houses in Delano, MN and have arrangements for daycare. Our house is going to be listed tomorrow (Monday). Fred and Cathy have an accepted offer on their new house, and Teresa just took possession of hers. And while I write this, I am at 35,000 feet over New York headed to Boston for a work conference.
Needless to say, it’s been one hell of a summer. Hopefully, my next post will be from Minnesota 🙂
Best wishes, – Jon
After the last post we had one more bout of sickness. Jacob was running a very high fever and ended up having an ear infection. It has since been two weeks and he is off his antibiotics. Happily I can say that we’ve been sickness free for one week! 🙂
In the meantime, we continue to hang out, play, and watch the two boys grow. Henry is now eating solid foods (rice cereal) and quite the little smiler. The big moment this morning occurred when Henry rolled from his back to his stomach (previously he had only done the opposite). Pretty soon he’ll be rolling around! Jacob continues to build his vocabulary, loves finding the goldbug in his Richard Scarry book, and is starting to use the big porcelain bowl.
As I write, it’s a dull, rainy day outside which is helping all of the snowmen melt away. The whole family will be eager to get outside once the weather warms up! Until then, Elise has been busy indoctrinating the boys into our alma mater:
The past month has been a harder time at the Werth household. There’s been a variety of sickness going around and unfortunately we’ve experienced most of it – which is probably why I haven’t written anything lately!
As I write, Jacob is battling a stomach bug with a slightly elevated fever. About a week ago, and he was getting over an ear infection that came after a cold. Henry is on the tail end of a lung infection that had one scary trip to the emergency room (due to shortness of breath). Elise and I managed to dodge most of the sickness, except for one or two days each.
Despite the variety of illnesses, it’s been a decent month filled with family visits and birthdays. Jacob has continued to develop his vocabulary and speech at an astounding rate and Henry is becoming quite the little personality. He is now five months old and, upon a doctor visit last week, weighed in at 18 lbs and 26 inches.
Here are some of my favorite pictures from the last few days. Enjoy!
Enjoy this short video of Henry starting to find his voice. I know we definitely enjoy it!