Asher birth-1month

August 23-September 22

Kylee likes holding him as long as he is not going to burp, spit up, or poop his diaper.
Brayden is scared to hold him.  He is afraid he is going to accidentally drop or hurt him.  He always says he is so cute.  He will say "you are doing it again. You are being so cute"  He also says his feet are so soft and is always asking to feel them.
Julia likes to check on the baby.  She likes to watch him and is always willing to do anything to help him.
Blake covers his eyes when we are changing his diaper, and he says, "sh sh sh" when he is crying because he is trying to get him to be happy.

My Mom stayed from Thursday morning August 22nd to the next Thursday the 29th.  She helped with making meals, doing laundry, and took the baby so I could take naps.

Matt's Mom came the next  week. She came on Sunday the 1st of September and left on Saturday the 7th.   She helped stay with me on Monday while Matt went to Six Flags with the kids.  She also helped all week with getting the kids up and ready for school and after school helped them get their homework done.  She was able to drive me on Wednesday to Wilford Hall to see the Lactation Consultant and then again on Friday for Asher's 2 week appointment. At his two week appointment he had already grown, he was 9 lbs. 9 oz.  and 21 in.  It was so nice to have family here for 2 weeks to help out with  the adjustment of a new baby in the house.

Early on Asher did pretty well with sleeping.  A little after  he was a week old he would do a 5 or 6 hour stretch between feedings at night.  I felt OK with letting him go that long because he would nurse a lot right before bed.  He had a  little bit of difficulty latching on and nursing on the right side in the hospital.  I had some nurses give advice and try to help him out.  He was doing pretty well until he decided to be picky and only started nursing on the left side when he was a week old.  He didn't want to latch on so I went to the Lactation consultant for help.  She gave some advice and was very encouraging, but he still didn't latch on well on the right side until the Sunday.  It was a total of a week that I had to pump to keep the milk up while trying to get him to nurse on that side.  I was so happy when he finally started again.  It made nursing him a lot easier.

Asher had his first  bath  on Sep 9th.  He was not happy at all and let us know because he screamed and screamed.  Subsequent baths got better.  He fussed only a little bit the next one and the following he enjoyed and hung out.

A few more fun facts about Asher
*Asher is a grunter, he makes lots of noises as he sleeps.

*Asher tracks well with his eyes (Matt tests him).  He usually has a concerned look, or looks like he is concentrating  or stressed out.
*Asher has lots of toe jam.  He also keeps his fists closed and has lots of lint in his fingers.
*He calms down on the diaper changer.

Matt was really sick coughing and sneezing when Asher was born.  He wore a surgical mask in the hospital room, but we were worried Asher would get sick.  He never did, but we did have him sleep in his car seat or bouncer the 1st month to make sure he could breathe fine.

Kylee's Birthday

Kylee turned 13 so Matt decided to do a cake based on a Caldwell family joke from his childhood.  When he was 10 his family lived in Seoul, Korea in a military neighborhood with a playground between the apartment buildings.   He and his siblings would talk about the mean older teenagers on the playground, which his 4 year-old brother, Ben, would hear.  One day his mother came downstairs to find Benjamin huddled on top of the kitchen table crying.  When she asked him what was the matter, he sobbed, "There's a TEENAGER under the table!"  In his mind a "teenager" was some kind of monster. 

Kylee was about to become one of these monsters, so he decided to make a "teenager under the table".  As Kylee tried to figure out what the cake was, she was initially offended thinking she was being called a monster.  But when she figured it out she was pretty happy with it.  We celebrated with the cousins and our friends the Speirs who live up the street happened to stop by just in time to sing happy birthday to Kylee.  

Labor Day weekend six flags

A little over a week after Asher was born, Matt took the kids to Six Flags with the Herreras and Uncle Carlos to have some fun.  They went on both Saturday and Monday.  Grandma Mindy stayed home with me to help with Asher.

New school year with new schools 2013-2014

After moving to Helotes last February the kids finished the school year at their old schools, so this year was new schools for everyone.  It was a little crazy start to the year because Asher was born on Friday, August 23rd and school started on Monday, August 26th.

The Kuentz Elementary Meet the Teacher was scheduled the Friday evening we went into the hospital, so Cynthia and Mamaquel took the kids with Cynthia's kids to meet their teachers.  I had bought and packed up school supplies earlier in the summer so they were able to take them in to their classes that night.

Luckily things went pretty well with the c-section and Asher and I were able to go home two days later on Sunday.  That meant we were there the night before the first day of school.  Matt was able to be there to take them for the first day of school.

They were all nervous to start in new schools.
Blake - Kuentz Elementary, Kindergarten with Mrs. Bruns.
Julia - Kuentz Elementary, 2nd Grade with Mrs. Trenz.
Brayden - Kuentz Elementary, 5th Grade with Mrs. Rodriguez
Kylee - Jefferson Middle School, 7th Grade.

Baby Asher

The c-section was scheduled but we had to call BAMC in the morning at 5:00 to make sure there was a bed available.  They said to come on in and be there at 6:30.  I had to take a shower and so we were there around 7.  We hung out in a room while people came and prepared me.

I had to walk to the operating room.  It took a while for the epidural to numb all the way up.  I think Matt waited about an hour outside of the operating room before being called in.  They said that it would take awhile to get the baby out because it was a 5th c-section.  It seemed like it took a long time.  I could feel the pressure of the cutting across my stomach  and the smell of the cauterizing knife.  There was lots of tugging and pushing.  I wanted Matt to talk to me to distract me so that I could keep my blood pressure down and not stress out about what was happening.  He was born at 10:08 a.m.  When he came out he was screaming and kept screaming and screaming.  They checked him out and cleaned him up and Matt brought him over so that I could see him as they were finishing up with me.  He weighed 8 lbs. and 15 oz. and was 20 1/4 inches long.

The kids didn't get to come and see the baby until the next day because they had Meet the Teacher that night, so there wasn't going to be enough time.  They came the next day on Saturday afternoon. Matt went home and picked up my Mom and the kids and brought them to the hospital.  It was cute to see them see the baby for the first time.  They all had a turn holding the baby.

Since my Mom was staying with the kids, Matt was able to stay with me both nights to help with the baby. Things went well, so we only had to stay for 2 nights in the hospital.  We got to go home on Sunday soon after they came home from church.

Before having the baby every time Carlos would come over, he would ask what the name was going to be.  I always told him we didn't know, so he was determined to help us figure it out.  One day he was going through a long list of names and I was telling him if I liked it or not.  After a huge long list of names there were only 2 that I said sounded OK.  Asher and Reed.  The kids said they really liked the name Asher and started referring to him that way.  Brayden would frequently call the baby Asher.  After hearing it, I didn't know if I really liked it.  When it got closer to the scheduled c-section I looked up the meaning of some of the names we had been considering.  Asher, one of the twelve sons of Jacob in the Old Testiment, had the meaning "fortunate, blessed, and happy one", which I really liked.   I let Matt know the meaning and that changed his mind as he previously felt like it sounded too trendy.

When we went into the hospital we hadn't decided on a name yet.  After the baby was born everyone asked what the name was.  Our nurse asked what we were considering and we mentioned Asher.  She got so excited because that was the name of her son and she said she loved the name.  Neither of us had ever met an Asher, so that was a pretty neat coincidence that the name at the top of our list was the name of our nurse's son.  After talking about possible middle names to go with them we decided Asher Jay would be the name.  We didn't come to this conclusion until the day we were going home from the hospital.

The kids were excited when we came home, and they watched him sleep.

Summer goings on

This summer we had the opportunity to appreciate some of Brayden's very impressive bed head mohawks.

Julia is starting to spend money like Brayden and has been adding to her collection of Lego Friends.

June 15th - The kids watched Planet of the Apes on Netflix after hearing about it from Matt.  The movie really impacted them and remained a topic of conversation for weeks.  They are still somewhat concerned about Apes taking over. 

July 28th - Grandma Mindy came for a short visit when she had some training near San Antonio.

Aug 8-We enjoyed having Carlos with us in San Antonio for the past 3 years.  It was sad to say goodbye.

Blake enjoyed some cherries at the pool.

He continues to be self sufficient, and whipped up this fancy peanut butter sandwich with peanut butter inside and on top.

Blake's swimming lessons

To be on the Hurricane swim team kids need to be able to swim across the pool.  Blake was old enough to be on the swim team this past summer, but he didn't know how to swim by himself.  I realized that if I wanted him to be ready to be on the swim team next year we need to start working with him now. Towards the middle of the summer I had Riley Gruwell (a YW from our ward) teach him 8 - 30 minute lessons.  He improved a lot throughout his lessons. He learned freestyle and backstroke.  He also learned how to float on his back. After he started doing his lessons he didn't want to use his speedo vest anymore whenever we went swimming.   He was motivated to practice his swimming, but it meant I had to be by him all the time in the pool and I couldn't hang out on the chairs. Blake told me he was motivated to swim because he wanted to get the same "presents" (trophies and ribbons) that he saw the 6 and under kids get at the end of the swim season.