Just one more

Thursday, January 31, 2013

A disease called "Jack"

I am falling more and more in love with this boy everyday. He melts my heart and really any other person he comes in contact with. He has such a fun loving personality that it is hard not to love him from the minute he starts talking to you.

This month his vocabulary has just exploded. He is pretty much talking in full sentences and anyone can understand him. Most of the time the comments that I get from people are "How old is he? He talks so well!" There are not very many just barely 2-yr-olds that you can carry on a conversation with. He also doesn't look like he is 2-yrs old being the little guy that he is. I love that he can express himself well enough to tell me exactly what he is thinking. 2-yr-olds have the most funny thoughts. Most people call them the "terrible two's" but I call them the "terrific two's." I'm not saying that he is an angel all of the time, because he definitely has his fair share of blow ups and tantrums but his fun personality at this age totally makes up for any of the little "tiffs" he has. Quite often Shad and I have talked about how we wish that we could just freeze our kids at this age for just a little while longer because it is so much fun. This is why Shad has decided to paint portraits of all of our kids at this age to hang in our home. He did one of Haken at this age and now he is working on Jack's.

Everyday he just makes me happy. It's funny how happiness rubs off onto people. It must be contageous. If that is the case, this little boy is a terrible disease that spreads to everyone he meets.

Lest you think he is happy all of the time... He had a cold and pink-eye this month. He was pretty miserable for most of it. His dramatically happy nature also applies to the other extreme making him super dramatically sad when he doesn't feel good. It's pretty much the end of the world when Jack gets sick.

One day I hadn't heard from him in a while (which is not always a bad sign, but this time it was). I went up into my bathroom to find this:

I was surprised that he could actually get the mascara open and actually knew what to do with it. LUCKILY it wasn't waterproof, and LUCKILY it was after his pinkeye was completely gone, otherwise I would have had to be mad because it was a brand new tube of mascara. I love his little look of innocence in this picture. By the way, still digging in my makeup bag as I take this picture. Lots of fun little treasures in there.

I had to take a picture of this when I saw it. Shad had just gotten home from work and was enjoying a snack on the couch. Jack came and sat right next to him and crossed his little legs, just like daddy.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

SNOW!

Living in Utah you really never know what you are going to get when it comes to weather. Some winters we get tons of snow and others hardly any. We hadn't really had a lot of snow this year until last Sunday. This storm was quite the storm. It started snowing in the morning and by the early afternoon it was really starting to come down. We went to church anyway at 1:00 and braved the storm, however it was apparent by the end our our first meeting that we needed to go home and dig everyone out. The Bishop stood up after sacrament meeting to declare that last 2 hours of church would be canceled and I swear you could almost hear everyone give a big sigh of relief and silent cheers.

It is a good thing church was cancelled. In the hour that we were in Sacrament meeting we received 10 inches of new snow on our car. The parking lot had about 18 unplowed inches of snow in it. People were getting stuck left and right trying to get out of there. Our van actually does pretty well in the snow, so we were ok. Shad and Haken spent the rest of the afternoon shoveling our driveway and others around the neighborhood, Jack and Gracie got much needed naps, and I got to have the afternoon to myself. Turned out to not be such a bad Sunday at all.

My snow angel

These next pictures of Jack were taken 2 days after the first big storm. We had another one come in and this time it was my turn to shovel since it was a work day. This one wasn't quite as bad as far as snowfall is concerned, but the wind gusts were incredible. The pictures don't do it justice, but the snow dunes in my driveway were HUGE! At the tallest point it was 18 inches deep. I think shoveling those dunes was tons harder than doing a flat patch of snow. I had to take it in segments and worked on it most of the day. Our school district didn't declare a snow day (no surprise) so I decided to declare one for Haken that day anyway. It was really for selfish reasons I will admit. He was a fantastic babysitter while I cleared the driveway. I don't think he missed much (it's only Kindergarten, right?) but he told me he doesn't EVER want to do that again because he hates missing school unless he is SUPER sick. I'm glad he is passionate about school and loves it that much.

Jack was only outside for a few minutes and consumed about a whole shovel full of snow. I hope it was clean...

check out the snow dunes behind Jack.
No way I was going anywhere that day.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Gracie 7 Months

I was just going to post Gracie's milestones every 2 months on the blog, but so much has happened this month that I thought I should also do one for 7 months.

Here are some highlights from this month:

Found her toes and LOVES them. I love that they are a toy that she can't throw on the floor and I have to pick up over and over again.

Got new boots! Compliments of my friend Shari. Aren't they adorable?! I does help that she is pretty adorable herself! Doesn't she look like a big girl! That 0-3 month sweater is finally looking too small.

Sits up and plays with toys with a little help from the "Boppy." This is a huge improvement since I usually can't even get her to bend in half to sit down! She is still so stiff. When I would set her down she would immediately fall backward.

Finally eating solids! She wouldn't ever take rice cereal (or any kind of cereal for that matter). This month I buckled down and decided she needed to take something! She is just so tiny! So I started with all of the usual veggies (sweet potatoes, squash, carrots) She took them a little at first but then they would end up all over me. I really didn't have any success until we went to fruit. On my! Does she like fruit?! She pretty much lives on pears mixed with oatmeal and breastmilk. I was very grateful that she liked them because I canned a whole bunch of pearsauce last fall. I'm sure she will go through every last drop in the next 2 months. I try and do at least one meal of veggies a day. Usually it is in the afternoon when I have Jack napping and Haken at school. That way I can have a little more patience with her and try some new combinations. I have found that if I mix just a little bit of applesauce with some veggies she will tolerate them for a few bites. It is always a guessing game for sure. I am pretty tired of being sprayed with various veggies. I think I do more of my laundry than ever.

Had her first really bad sickness this month. I'm not sure if she got the pinkeye from Jack or if they both just got the same cold and then both rubbed snot in their eyes. It wouldn't have been so bad if it was just the pinkeye, but the cold with it was pretty miserable. I got really tired of cleaning out the goopey eyes every morning. I'm sure she was tired of me doing it too. It lasted about a week from start to finish. She looked SO sad! Looking at these pictures still breaks my heart! She felt so miserable that she even fell asleep in the bathtub.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Siblings

Can you tell this girl loves her brothers? Oh, and they kind of like her too! I love how sweet they are to each other! I honestly never worry about Jack "attacking" Gracie. The only time that he has actually hurt her it was because he was trying to give her a toy back and smacked her in the face with it (he's not always super coordinated but tries to be helpful). I just love how she is always studying them and you can tell how much she looks up to them already. Being a girl myself with two older brothers that I look up to, I know she will. No one can get her laughing like these two boys. She loves how silly they are.

This first picture is my favorite because you can just tell that she is just in love with Haken. He is the best big brother anyone could ever ask for and so helpful to me. I don't know what I would do without him somedays!

She is always watching them, even when they don't realize it. Good thing they are such good boys!

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Gracie is 6 months!

SIX months old! Seriously?! I can't believe she is already halfway to a year! Time has flown by with this little girl, but at the same time I still feel like she is a tiny baby (because she really is).

Here are her stats from her 6 month appointment:

11 lbs 12 oz (1%)

23.5 Inches (1%)

Head Circumference 16.3 in (20%)

-Wearing 3-6 month clothes, although most of those are a bit big and some 0-3 month still fit!

She is just one tiny little girl holding up a quite large head for her body. At least she is on the charts and we are happy about that! The Dr. said that she looks good. Although she is small, she is still eating and happy and that is what is important. I suspect she will be a little girl with a fiery but sweet personality her whole life.

For Christmas Gracie got this adorable little Kewpie doll from Grandma. As babies my mom and I both looked like Kewpie dolls so she is following suit. Following tradition Gracie had to have a Kewpie doll of her own.

Some milestones from this month are:

Starting solid foods- Not a fan at all. She wouldn't ever take cereal but I thought veggies would be different. I was wrong. I basically have to shove the spoon into her mouth and push down her tongue. If I actually do get it in there she ends up spitting it all back at me...all over my clothes. It's pretty awesome. I'm hoping she gets over this soon.

Takes a bottle- This was probably one of my favorite milestones form this month although one of the most frustrating. Gracie took a bottle when she was a few weeks old really easy so I didn't worry about keeping up on giving her one because it was just easier to nurse her. Turns out I really should have given it to her more because when I wanted to start giving her an extra bottle before bed with rice cereal in it she completely detested it, even if it was just breast milk. In desperation to get her to sleep better I decided to buckle down and go through a day of awfulness to get her to finally give in. I didn't nurse her all day and just tried a whole bunch of different bottles to see which one she would take. It was funny because I totally expected the worst and it really wasn't that bad. Even though she only took whatever came out of the bottle from chewing on the nipple every feeding she still slept through her naps and acted happy all day. This girl apparently doesn't need food to be happy and content. However, at 3:00 in the afternoon I guess she decided she was hungry enough to give in. I borrowed a "MAM" brand bottle from a friend and it was the winner. I can't believe how many different types of bottles and nipples there are! Glad we found one that worked. Unfortunately it didn't help much with the sleeping...

Sleep- Goes to bed around 8:00 pm then wakes up somewhere between 1:00 am-4:00 am. This is getting really old but I hate having her cry it out since I she is such a little girl and probably needs the extra feeding. Hoping this stage will be over soon because I'm pretty sure she can go longer than she does. Also, still doesn't like to be held and snuggled to sleep. She much prefers her bed or car seat. Thus why we take pictures whenever she falls asleep else where.

Exploring her world- This month she found her toes and has been really into putting everything into her mouth to figure out what it is. She is a constant drooler and very often goes through 2-3 outfits a day if I forget to put on her waterproof bibs.

Muscles- I swear this little girl is going to be a gymnast someday. Don't underestimate her petiteness. This girl is STRONG! She locks in those legs and can be as stiff as a board. You can lift her up and hold her out horizontal and she will stick straight out. She loves to stand so her exersaucer and jumparoo are her two favorite places, although she does love being a part of it all when she is hanging out with me in the kitchen. I would not be surprised if she went straight to walking with these tough legs. I can't get her to stay on her tummy long so crawling may be out of the question.

Shaping her head- I mentioned in Gracie's 4 month post that she most likely had something called torticolis that was causing her to have a flat head on one side. I started doing exercises with her on my own and then made an appointment with the physical therapist to see how bad it really was. It turned out that she had limited mobility with her neck on one side and most definitely had a lopsided head and her ears were uneven as a result. There was a 14mm difference between one side of her head from the other. Most people opt to get a corrective helmet for their babies when there is a 10mm or more difference. About 3mm difference is normal since most of us don't have completely perfect shaped heads. When I heard this I was SO glad that I decided to bring her in despite my Dr. telling us that it wasn't that bad and nothing to worry about. Although it doesn't cause any kind of brain damage it definitely is something that will stick with her for the rest of her life and can easily be corrected if caught early.
Because she is growing so slowly the physical therapist was pretty convinced that we could make it better by positioning. If that didn't work we would have to look into getting a corrective helmet. They gave me long tube socks filled with rice and showed me how to position her to be on the side that she was not used to sleeping on to even out her head. Seemed easy enough and I wasn't so sure it was going to work, but I was surprised a month later when I took her in and she had made so much progress! She went from a 14mm difference to a 9mm difference in just one month! She still looked lopsided but I could tell there was a lot of progress. We will continue to go position her whenever she is laying down and have monthly appointments with the physical therapist to see her progress. At least until we know that it is going to continue to progress in the direction we are hoping. I'm so glad we don't have to look into getting a super expensive corrective helmet. I'm glad that she is such a little girl making this an easy fix with positioning. They also said that it will get better as she starts to sit up a little bit more and not be on her back so much. She still can not sit up on her own.

We love this little girl to pieces and although things are slow moving with her I can't help but be a little bit grateful because it allows me to enjoy her being tiny just a little bit longer. It goes way too quickly!