A Year in Pictures

Wow! Has it really been almost a full year since I posted?? I guess as a mom of 3 now I don't feel like I have much to say besides "Fed the kids breakfast - Changed a diaper - Picked up toys - Changed another diaper - Fed the kids again - Changed ANOTHER diaper - FINALLY the kids are in bed and I get a feaking second to myself".

Now that we finally moved the baby out of our room (Ok, ok, we actually put him in my closet so he's not really out of our room, but I'm getting a lot more sleep!) and dealing with my health (more on that in another post) I'm finally feeling more like myself and like I can update on what we're up to. PLUS, we got a new camera! My big Sony Cybershot SLR wasn't holding a charge anymore so besides our smartphones we'd been camera-less for a while. I was looking for something smaller that could fit in my pocket and work with just one hand since I'm quite often carrying a kid or two plus diaperbag and food and sweaters......you get the idea. So I got this pretty little number:

So here we go: A year in pictures

DECEMBER

Starbucks in Reno while Driving to Grandma's

Cousins

JANUARY

Babywearing Daddies are Hot!

Bumps and Bruises

FEBRUARY

Learning to eat the "Baby Led Weaning" Style

Naps with Daddy

MARCH

Sibling Fun

Naps on Mommy

APRIL

We love Chick-Fil-A - This was Family Night

Up close and personal at Earth Day

MAY

Ezekiah got his turn with the nebulizer

Pioneer Days Train

JUNE

We got to ride on Daddy's plane!

Family vacation in Telluride

JULY

Renaissance Festival

AUGUST

In the airport flying home from Grandma's

Facepainting

Mama's big helper in the kitchen

SEPTEMBER

Astronauts at the Denver Museum of Science and History

Getting to ride on our first school bus (just from a parking lot to a Patriots Day Festival)

Better late than never!

So, my muddled brain thought that I had no Halloween pictures from this year. I was right that I didn't get any from Boo at the Zoo, Treat Street or the Harvest Fest. BUT - when I turned on my camera to take a couple pictures this last weekend (I know, I really need to step up the pictre taking, lol) I found a bunch of cute pictures of the kids at Shanna's work! They had a little "trick or treat" time the friday before Halloween for their workers kids, and Shanna invited us. So here are my "better late than never" Halloween Pictures!

Night Night, Baby, Night Night

Zarik's li'l Mini-Me is getting so big!! He's officially 7 months old now!



I still carry him in his sling and beco most of the time, but when Mika decides to walk, sometimes I'll give myself a break and pop him into the stroller.

As much as we like to get out and walk, we haven't been able to much lately. Urijah had another bout of bronchiolitis. The pediatrician we saw when I took him back in echoed our normal pediatrician that this is probably caused by RSV. She said that unfortunately because of that, most likely every time in the next year or so that Urijah gets sick he'll relapse into the hacking, wheezing baby boy we've come to know. We have his (late) 6 month appointment in two weeks here, so I'm going to talk to the pediatrician about what we can do to prevent it from getting too bad.

Urijah's been sleeping a lot because of being sick. Twice in the last 3 days I've set him down to play only to find him like this 10 minutes later:



Rest well, baby boy!

He Takes After His Daddy

Urijah has been coughing since Monday. It started just as a mild chest cold with a small temperature (never above 101.3). But as the week wore on, no matter what we did, his cough kept getting worse. Even though his temperature was gone by Wednesday night, by Thursday night he was having a tough time breathing and everything was making him cough. Thankfully he slept OK at night (I would get up once or twice and give him a dropper of water when he would cough really bad). By Thursday afternoon even Zarik was saying we should take him into the Dr. So today (Friday) we did.

Turns out our poor baby has Bronchiolitis and an Ear Infection. I was actually kind of surprised.

You see, with Mika it seemed like every time she got kinda bad we'd take her in and be told "It's just a virus. She'll be over it soon." We did get close to taking her to the hospital for an illness once but she that was a flu-like virus. She has never had an Ear Infection or actually needed an inhaler/nebulizer. (She was given an inhaler once, but it turned out to be the wrong treatment for what was going on).

All that to say, I was kinda surprised that Urijah actually had something more than "just a virus" and needs actual treatment for it. Since the Ear Infection isn't really that bad, we aren't doing antibiotics yet, but have a script for them if it comes to that. We did get ear drops to help with the pain, though. And for the bronchiolitis, we were given a nebulizer.

As for the title of my post: Zarik is thrilled about the nebulizer because now he can use it when he gets sick! You see, whenever Zarik gets sick, it goes straight to his lungs and he ends up coughing for like 3 weeks. So it seems that Urijah takes after his dad.

Big People Food!

Well, seeing as Urijah is almost 6 months old (the 31st is his *half* birthday!), we decided to go ahead and try big people food! Going along with our semi-crunchy lifestyle, I decided not to start with rice cereal - it's not really very nutritious, usually just sits like a brick in baby's tummy making them feel full when they aren't getting much nutrients, and can constipate. So we're starting with Sweet Potatoes!! I did make my own, thanks to the help of a homemade baby food website that I used for Mika too. After a few days of this, we're going to do avocado.

More Medical Mumbo-Jumbo

Today consisted of two different Dr. appointments.

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First was Mika's Orthopedic, Dr. Siegel (finally!). It was waaaaaay back in January when our pediatrician, Dr. Cunningham, told us we should probably go see her because Mika was looking pigeon-toed. To refresh your memory, we also needed to make another appointment for her hips to be checked at about 21 months because of her hip dysplasia so we just lumped it all in now.

So, should I give you the bad news or the bad news first?

OK, I'll start with the bad news.

Mika's x-ray on her hips show that they are not progressing as we would like. I don't fully understand all the angles and such, but I know that at 1 year we wanted the angles to be less that 30% and at 2 years they want them to be less than 20%. At 1year they measured 28% and 27%. Well, now 8 months later they still measure 28% and 27%. Not good.

As far as the other bad news goes, Dr. Siegel explained that when a kid is pigeon-toed they look to see what joint/bone is causing it: is it the hips, tibia, or feet themselves? We already know Mika's hips aren't perfect, so that is a little bit of our problem. Most of it is her tibia's, however. Her right isn't as bad as her left, but they both still turn in.

So, here is what comes next: We are going to first deal with the feet. Dr. Siegel has prescribed what is called a Denis Browne Splint for Mika. I believe she wants to be this aggressive because a) we need to deal with the hips as well, and b) Mika's getting to an age where she can get out of/take off braces and splints. She will only wear this at night. We have an evaluation with the prosthetic/orthopedic people tomorrow to get Mika fitted and find out more about her wearing it.

At this point here next appointment is in 6 months, when she'll be 26 months old (2 years and 2 months for those of you who need it broken down). Looking back on that I'm not sure if it was a mistake, or if she really doesn't need to be seen with the Denis Browne Splint for 6 months. If the people tomorrow don't have any insight into this I'll call Dr. Siegel's office back and ask them.

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As for Urijah, he had his weight check today. He is a whopping 13lbs10.5oz!!! Eat boy, eat!!! I can't tell you exactly how much he's gained 'cause I can't find my record right now, but if I do, I'll update this post. The only bad thing is that I've had to completely stop nursing him because I just completely dried up. :-( I'm bummed about that, but happy my boy is getting fed.

His reflux is still going strong, unfortunately. So we'll just keep him on the Previcid until his 6 month appointment (which will be when he's 7 months, thanx to me not knowing I need to schedual his appointments 4 months in advance), then wean him off and see how he does.

Urijah did get 2 shots today - PC and HIB. He's a little grumpy so far but not bad, poor boy.

Busy Bees

Wow! It's almost been a month since I last posted! Bad me! I'll try to update most everything, so this may end up kinda long.

I'll start with Mika. Her rash has been completely healed! Praise God! We took the pediatrition's advice of just using plain ol' vaseline on it, and it worked. Who woulda thunk? I also had a Physical Therepy evaluation done on her through Early Intervention just to see what they thought about her being pigeon toed. Basically, because of being pigeon toed, she is a little behind developmentally, but not enough that PT is a must for us. So when we see the orthapedic next month we are most likely getting special shoes for her, and we'll ask the Dr what she thinks about PT.

On to Urijah. Sigh. The problem here is actually more me than him, but it doesn't make it any easier. Basically, my milk supply is a bit low. Which means Ri Ri isn't gaining weight. Not good for a bitty baby. So I am now taking feenugreek, drinking Mother's Milk Tea, pumping a LOT and suplementing Urijah after each feeding. Not fun. But nessesary. And now that he's full, he's my happy baby again! (He'd been getting really grumpy since he was so hungry)

Now for Zarik: He actually got a line this month!! (for those who don't know airline "speak", that means he actually got a schedual where he has to go to work) He's been on reserve (or on call, if you will) for over a year now, so this is huge. However, his schedual looks like this this month:

2 days off, 6 days on
3 days off, 4 days on
3 days off, 6 days on
3 days off, 2 days on
2 days off

That's 13 days off, and 18 days on. And by on I mean he is not home at all (except for maybe 8 hours at night, one of those nights)

We've already gone through the first 6 day stretch and it was hard. But God is good and we got through it with a lot of hard work and a little separation anxiety (on all our parts, lol)

Ok, I guess it's my turn now. As I posted about last month, I have started my own Pampered Chef business (again). God is totally blessing it! I will be closing my second show tomorrow and I got enough commissionable sales with just these two shows to qualify! (Meaning I'm a real consultant now and will have a website and other benefits) However, between that, taking over church nursery, no husband 18 days this month, and a 4 month old and 19 month old, I am definately tired. God is definately teaching me that my only means of survival is to trust in Him and the only way any of my endevers are going to succeed is because of Him. But He is definately faithful.

So now to close with the words of Tiny Tim:

"God Bless us, every one."

Pictures

Urijah's 2 month Dr Appointment

I've totally been slacking in posting this, since the appointment was Monday, and it's now Thursday, but such is my brain and my life. :)

The appointment went great! Our big guy is now 10lbs, 9oz (25%) and 22 3/4" long! That is 4lbs, 4oz and 2 3/4" bigger than when born. Way to go big guy! Besides a li'l diaper rash he looks completely healthy and happy. (The diaper rash is gone already, BTW. It was gone by Tuesday night.) He got 2 vaccines: the DTaP shot, and Rotovirus by mouth. He cried just for a second, then was all better. I talked to the pediatrition about him possibly having reflux (he spits up every time after he eats, and does a "spit up face" then "chews" and swallows it back down [gross!]). She agrees that he does have it, but for now we're just going to watch it and pray he grows out of it with none of the weirdness Mika had.

Speaking of Mika, the pediatrition saw her walking down the hall, and noticed that her feet go in when she walks. I had noticed it too, and was going to bring it up at her 18 month appointment next month, so I was glad the pediatrition noticed this time and mentioned it. She wanted us to make an appointment with the orthapedic to have it looked at, which works perfectly because we needed to make an appointment for when she is about 21 months to get another check up x-ray on her hips. So we're doing the whole shabang in 3 months (April) when she's 20 months.

Baby Feet, Mommy Feet

"I'm SO bored"

Urijah the Corpse

Urijah fell asleep on my dad Saturday night, and my dad joked that he looked like a corpse, then started posing him! Lol! Morbid, but funny!

November Pictures