Bentley's Surgery

Our sweet Bentley went in for her surgery on Friday. This is before the surgery...
And this is after. Poor thing. :(
But even by the next day she was feeling better and SMILING! Her first real smiles were the day after her surgery. It's hard to imagine anyone smiling after all she went through, but I think she still just felt so much better without all the pressure in her head.

She wasn't able to keep her food down well so we were in there 4 days and 3 nights. Long and tiring nights sharing a room with a sad 2-year-old.

But now, a week post surgery, she's feeling so much better. She's much more aware, her eyes are no longer wonky, and you can just tell she's healthier. Who would have guessed a surgery would have changed so much in our little one.

Cyrus loves trying to make her smile now.

Here's our happy girl! We are so blessed.

Here's a bit about her surgery for those who want to keep reading...

The surgery lasted about 2 times as long as we had anticipated. Luckily I had my parents, and Trav and his mom to try and keep me distracted. They cut out the bone from the bridge of her nose to the crown of her head. There was so much pressure that the derma of the brain was pinched in her skull so they had to stitch it together (sounds like the neurologist did an awesome job) and her bone was so thick there it took awhile to shave it down so it will grow correctly. Her hemoglobin was low so she did have to have a transfusion, but we were expecting that. But the surgeons did an amazing job and we were lucky they were able to do it endoscopically so she has a smaller scar and can heal better. I was so happy when I was finally able to go into recovery and see her, and we definitely spoiled her while in the hospital. I don't think she was in her bed except to sleep at night.

We are so thankful for everyone's thoughts and prayers and glad the surgery is over and she can start healing. :)

Our Latest Addition... and the blessing

Yep that's right. The boys ganged up on me and decided they needed a puppy. We named her Clover and she's an English setter. She's a really good puppy and I have to admit she is fun to have in our family.

This was the morning we surprised Cyrus and brought her home. He was so excited! She was his favorite puppy of the litter, and she absolutely adores Cyrus.

Bentley was blessed this last Sunday, and she looked absolutely adorable. I had so much fun dressing her up and putting her outfit together.

Here is the Hobbs family...

The Hobbs kids...

The Kunzler girls...

And our little family...

And I just had to stick this picture in. I love Cyrus's evil face while she's screaming. It's probably a good thing he doesn't want to hold her all the time. :)

Halloween at the Hobbs

Halloween was fun this year, it's so much better when you have kids to dress up and take trick-or-treating! Cyrus was a spider and Bentley was little miss muffet.

We carved pumpkins for the first time together this year and it was lots of fun. I think it will become one of our new family traditions! Travis and Tom's favorite was definitely blowing them up afterward. :)

And as always, this is how our big nights seem to end with Cyrus zonked out in his carseat. He loved halloween this year!

The Babe's Surgery

Just for a quick update...

Bentley's surgery will be on November 19th. What she has is called metopic synostosis where the plates in her head fused together before she was born. We're lucky she only had along 1 seam which is pretty uncommon, although its also uncommon to have it in a girl and the second child.

Here's how her surgery will go. She'll have a pretty small incision just inside her hairline. The plastic surgeon and neurologist will go in and cut out the seam of bone so that her head can grow normally. The surgery will last about 2 hours and she should only have to be in the hospital for a few days. After that, she'll need a helmet for awhile, but it's a relatively simple surgery (it's hard for me to say that because she is so small and it involves her head and brain, but we're getting used to the idea.) It sounds like the docs we have are the best down there which is really saying something at Primary Children's! Now that we know the day of her surgery we're planning on blessing her the first Sunday in November. We're so thankful for all of your help and prayers in our behalf and will keep you updated as the day gets closer.

Bentley Update

Here are some newer pictures of our sweet baby girl! She's 3 weeks old now and has grown an inch and weighs 7 lbs 11 ounces. She still doesn't love to eat, but it sounds like she might be developing a milk allergy and as soon as we get that figured out maybe it will change.


She's already much more high maintenance than Cyrus was, but she's such a good baby. She sleeps between 6 and 9 hours a night and rarely cries (she's a snorter!). So no drama there, but we've been to quite a few doc appointments in the last few weeks. Here's what is going on:

It's hard to tell in most of the pictures, but she has a bump on her forehead that we found out is because the plates fused prematurely. So, we have an appointment with a neurosurgeon down at Primaries next week to check it out and schedule her surgery. Hard to imagine giving up such a little one for surgery, but we know it's for the best. Without it her brain and head will grow abnormally causing developmental problems. We're also going in to the audiologist to check her hearing again. Her ears are so tiny no one is surprised she's failed the hearing tests so far, and at this point we're just hoping her ear problems are because nothing can drain out of her tiny ear canals!

Cyrus still loves his baby sister most of the time. We're so blessed to have such a good boy and beautiful girl! All of this just really makes us realize what a miracle these little babes are! There are so many things that we could be dealing with that could be worse. We'll update again as soon as we are able to speak with the neurologist and have the tests done next week.

The Newest Arrival...

BEFORE: On our way to the hospital...

AFTER: 6 hours later...

And here she is! Travis picked her name.
Bentley Nola Hobbs
7 lbs 6 oz, 19.5 inches with light hair, long skinny feet and a big head. :)

Cyrus' first look at his baby sister "Bentwey." He only asked to have her put back in mommy's belly one time. Then he spent the rest of the visit trying to feed her chips.

On our way home. Miranda made her a sweet little bracelet to wear home and grandma made her a blanket to match with her coming home outfit.

Cyrus has been so good with is baby sister, much better than I expected. He still won't hold her, but he loves to try to help her if she's crying and asks her to watch him play. He's also started giving her kisses which is really cute. She's so sweet we love having her in our family! I'll update again soon after some much needed sleep.

Summer Update!

At our last appointment, the doc let Cyrus listen to his heart, and he thought it was so awesome. He was a little disappointed there wasn't a baby in his belly, but is now even more excited for his little sister.


This was at the fireworks with his favorite cousin Jodi. He loved the fireworks, but was even more excited to play with Jodi. He still begs to go play with her every day. :)

Dr. Hess had a party at his hangar and gave everyone rides in his little plane. Cyrus loved all of it including going up and down like a rollercoaster over Willard Bay. He was a little freaked when we turned and he could see down the wing. He was convinced the airplane was "falling."



One of the days we were in Salt Lake we decided to stop at the zoo and play. Always a good time!

We also stopped at Gateway to visit Rach and went into Barnes and Noble for awhile. Cyrus found all the stuffed animals and lined them up so he could read them stories.

And this is the reason I can't keep the house clean. While I was cleaning the rest of the house, Cyrus found all of his toys and lined them up in the living room. I had to sneak to get the picture with the bucket on his head. He told me it was his hat. :)

Fun at the Hospital

Well, after 8 ear infections in just over a year we decided it would be best to get Cyrus tubes. He had so much fun with all the nurses and was so excited to spend the morning with grandma. He got his medicine a little early so got to spend a lot of time in the wagon riding around the hospital seeing all his friends because he was too out of it to walk. Then grandma took him to the OR, and everything went good until he woke up and realized I wasn't there and it took ages and lots of stickers and juice and cookies for us to calm him down, but now he's doing really well. He had a lot of fluid in his ears and the doc expected he would be able to hear a lot of different noises. The entire next day he kept saying to me, "Mommy I can hear a lion!" He also thinks everything is "too loud." We're just glad he's doing well and hope the tubes fix the problem so we can stay out of the doctors office for a while. Well, at least Cyrus.

We're getting closer and closer to getting our little one here. Only a little over 2 months left. How time flies. Cyrus is getting excited. He likes to try to feed her and give her drinks from his sippy because he knows she must be so hungry in there. He'll be a good little helper. We hope. :)

So Cute!

Grandma: Cyrus you're having a baby sister! Are you excited?

Cyrus: "Ya."

Grandma: What are you going to name her?

Cyrus looked up at her with his big blue eyes and said, "Jesus Christ."

Not a name we had been considering but apparently it's on his list. I love having a 2-year-old! :)

Also we had our target ultrasound and got a really good profile of the baby. And guess what... she looks exactly like a Hobbs. I was hoping for a little more of me in this one... maybe she can have some of my calm, but lucky for her she has such a cute daddy!

Our Future...

We are finally back online after having our computer gone being fixed for a bit. I feel like I have so much to catch everyone up on, but I'll keep it short.

We've been seeing a lot more of this again...

Definitely more of this...

And since we already have such a cute one of these...

We thought we'd try one of these...

Yep that's right! Baby girl Hobbs will be here in September! :)

Cyrus and Kyah

Cyrus has his first girlfriend. Doesn't it look like a prom picture? :)

It's a New Year.

Well, it's a new year which means new goals. We let Cyrus demonstrate a few of our basic family goals for us.

Eat at home more, and eat more healthy foods. We learned eating with chopsticks makes you eat slower and less, and we let Cyrus try it with us. He couldn't get it to work with his food, so...

Try new things. If that means reading your book while sitting in a laundry basket then so be it.

Read more books. Cyrus doesn't think daddy reads his books correctly (he doesn't, he likes to make up his own words) so he gets a little confused and annoyed. :)

Be more helpful.


Make more time to play and have some fun!

Stay positive and keep smiling (even when its freezing outside and your mom bundles you up so much you can barely walk!)

We're looking forward to 2010 and all the great things that are going to come with it!