Introducing Tanner Young Thomas

Tanner was born February 10th at 8:28 p.m. Tanner and Jess are both doing great! Tanner is 6 lbs 13 oz and 20 inches long. This is the only photo I have for now - but I promise that a lifetime of pics is to follow!

I am in Wendell hanging out with Tyler and Bryce while Jess is in the hospital. We are having a lot of fun riding bikes, eating cookies (shhh... don't tell) and watching Curious George. We went to visit Tanner at the hospital this morning. We stopped at Walmart yesterday (yes, Walmart - Jerome doesn't have a Target) and the boys got to pick out a present for their new baby brother. Tyler picked a teddy bear and Bryce picked a Sesame Street plate. Which means Tyler ended up with a teddy bear and an Elmo plate and Bryce got a teddy bear and a Sesame Street plate. They were both excited to give their presents to Tanner this morning.

So far "the babysitter" is doing great. Don't tell Ty and Jess... but I was pretty sure I had locked us out of the apartment at one point. Thank goodness I found the key. Then late last night, I decided to run the dishwasher. Unfortunately, the dish soap I grabbed was REGULAR dish soap, not dishwasher detergent. Turned into a little bit of a bubbly mess in the kitchen. I panicked for a minute, but all's well that ends well. In case anyone ever makes such a mistake, the solution I found online (and one I can now vouch for) was to scoop out as much water as possible, then pour a cup of cooking oil into the dishwasher with a handful of table salt layered on top to dissolve the bubbles. Run the dishwasher for a minute with the cooking oil... then rewash the whole load using dishwasher detergent. In the future, I think I'll just start with the right detergent in the first place and skip the scooping and salting steps. But live and learn! As a side note, I was more than a little nervous to run the washing machine last night after the dishwasher disaster! But I really needed to wash the towels I'd used to mop out the dishwasher and eliminate the evidence of the dumb thing I'd done.

At least Tanner has arrived safe and well. And Tyler and Bryce are still in one piece. That's what's important, right?