Oh my gosh, my baby started KINDERGARTEN!!!

We requested school for the two kids in early July and both of then were put on the wait list because we registered with our out of district address. After we closed on the house, the first thing I did was call to change the address. They had me refill out the request form and Maddox got a letter right away saying that he got in. Faye, on the other hand, did not.

School started for Maddox on Monday, August 26th and for Kindergarten on Wednesday, August 28th. I was really bummed about Faye missing her "first day of school" experience.

School was canceled due to the hot weather for Thursday and Friday and all kids resumed on Tuesday, September 3rd. On the morning of Thursday, Sept 5th, I got a call from the front office saying that Faelyn has been assigned and I can come in and register her! I wasn't able to until after 2pm and it was pure chaos at the end of the day, but we left with her mostly registered and instructions to send her to school on the bus in the morning!

I did just that and then I followed her to school! I'm glad I did or it could have been a very crazy start to her school career. But we got her all situated and she had an amazing first day of kindergarten!

Holy Crap! We Bought a House!

Yep! That's right! We bought a house!!! As of July 22nd, we are homeowners!!!

And our sweet and amazing realtor bought us this adorable birdhouse!

Keri

Murphy's First Words

"Thank You!"

Of course it sounds like "duh doo", but he uses it appropriately and uses the correct inflections.

Happy Birthday, Murphy!!!

Murphy you are finally ONE! It seems like it took forever and at the same time, it feels like yesterday you were just a tiny little squish!

We are so blessed to have you here with us!

Happy Fathers Day!

I just realized that I did not get any pictures of Clayton with the kids. Just one with Clayton and Murphy...

We had an exciting day today! We were going to stay home, but we decided to go down to Minnehaha Falls to Sea Salt Eatery. While standing in the ungodly line, we got the news that the offer that we put on a house was accepted!!!

After we ate, we went down to the "wading pool" and let the kids swim. It was beautiful out. The water was chilly at first, but you got used to it fast.

At one point, I looked over at Faye and was watching her as she swam in the water. She was down further than normal and further than my comfort zone, but I watched and then she was being swept away in the current. I freaked out. I grabbed Murphy, who was playing in the water, and took off running and yelling her name. With Murphy in my arm and absolutely no place to put him, I never would have made it down to her. Fortunately, a woman further down grabbed her and I was there seconds later.

If you thought those rocks hurt while walking slowly and carefully, try running on them! Oh. Em. Gee!

Later, Faye told me that she was blowing bubbles, trying to ask for help. What she was doing in the first place, trying to swim in the current! She said she was holding onto the rocks. I asked if that was working and she said no. I told her I was terrified that she was going to be swept down the river and mommy ran as fast as I could with Murphy in my arm, but I wasn't going to make it in time. I asked her if she was scared and she said she was a little scared.

I hope this was a lesson learned, and not a "better luck next time" experience...

I decided to write this at 2:14 AM, so clearly it was a traumatizing experience for me!

Somebody's got a tooth!

Officially, Murphy's tooth has broken the surface and is now white and visible!

He's also started pointing to things that he wants. Just yesterday, really. Unfortunately, he cannot have juice boxes and, well, most of what he points to, so he gets pretty mad. :)

It's still cute though!

Murphy's Shutterfly Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Turn your favorite photos into a photo book at Shutterfly.com.

God Bless AJ B.

Most nights I'm laying here thinking "Is this kid EVER going to let me out of bed?!" But after an acquaintance of mine posted about having to go to a 5 month olds visitation on Friday, I spent the last hour in bed reading his CaringBridge and snuggling with Murphy and feeling very blessed. 

I don't know how I deserve to have this amazing little guy, but I am feeling incredibly blessed for him and so heartbroken for this family and for so many others that would give anything to be snuggling in bed with their little ones right now. 

Changed HA Battery

4/16/2013

Keri

Learning to walk

Murphy has been letting go and trying to walk since around Easter (3/31/13). He's been really trying for about a week. He was up to 5 steps a couple days ago. Yesterday, I stood up next to me and walked a couple steps to his activity cube. He's constantly standing up in the middle of the floor and just balancing. Then he tries to take a couple steps. He normally gets excited and drops down and crawls away. Any week now, he'll be walking!

Picture: 3/30/13

Faye's Hearing Aid

Today was Faelyn's appointment for her hearing aid fitting. On March 11, she had a consultation, where they made an ear mold and let her pick out the kind and color of her hearing aid, plus what color she wanted her ear piece to be. She chose a pink hearing aid with a clear ear piece that has pink glitter inside if it. It wasn't really the bed one for finding if it got lost... But that's what she really wanted!

Today, her hearing aid was in and we got a bag full of stuff to go with it, including a stuffed Otter named Otto, who has two hearing aids!

She was VERY excited to go this morning. She has been waiting for her hearing aid! We learned how to put it in, take it out, clean it, change the batteries, etc. They fine tuned it and got rid of most of the whistling. Now it only whistles when Faye touches it, which she wants to do a lot because she is enjoying being able to make it whistle. She was afraid it was going to fall out, so she was holding it a lot. Then she thought the wind would blow it away, so she was holding it. Now she's over that, it just sounds cool.

They did another hearing test on her. No significant changes. We had hoped there would be, after seeing the Chiro 3 times. She has profound hearing loss with low frequencies and moderate, up to the lower end of mild, the higher the frequency. The Dr put up a sound chart and her hearing was below all of the sounds, which means she cannot hear any of them.

She will have another hearing test later this month. That time, they'll test her hearing with the hearing aid. I'm sure they probably do it all in one day for older kids, but she was pretty burnt out by the end of her test. She did an amazing job the whole entire time.

Happy Birthday!

Preschools the best place to go on your birthday!

And that's exactly where I went on mine! It's a good thing to. It was a bad birthday. First crummy birthday I've had in years. But the 2.5 hours that I spent at school with Faye were wonderful!

Several of her friends got together with her to make me a birthday crown. Several of them made me birthday cards at the creative cupboard during choice time.

Crawling

Murphy is doing a real crawl these days. He's been doing it off and on for a couple weeks and just within the past couple days, he's deciding that its an OK form of transportation.

A sure fire way to get him to crawl, like daddy says, stick him naked on the carpet and there's no chance he'll be dragging his little body around!

Keri

Snow!

It dumped a pile of snow on us on Sunday and Faelyn decided she wanted to make a snowman on Monday evening. Maddox did not want to go out and Murphy and I stayed in so she built it all by herself.

She had me come out for a minute to lift the middle ball onto the bottom ball because it was too heavy for her. I came in and got a hat and put on at her request. Everything else she did on her own, with no direction or tips on how to carry it out.

You're in a hole.
You're there for years, stuck.
You are constantly trying to climb out,
but you're only making it wider and wider.
Pretty soon everything outside of your hole is out of reach.
Out of sight.
You're completely alone.

Updates

On Tuesday, Faye had appointments with audiology and the ENT. They determined that she has the maximum amount of conductive hearing loss and that her ear drum is floppy, but her inner ear, hearing organ, nerve is perfectly fine. They do not know why she has hearing loss so they wanted to start with a CT Scan and if that doesn't show anything, they'll want to do an exploratory surgery. I do not want her to have surgery, but if they find something with the CT Scan that can be fixed, they may need to do surgery anyways. If they do not find anything or it is something that cannot be fixed, she'll have a hearing aid in that ear. She had her CT Scan yesterday and we should get results back on Monday.

Murphy also had an appointment on Tuesday. His 6mo check up, at 7mo. We're a month off! He is perfect. At an 8-9mo level, developmentally. He got his DTaP and he is 17lbs 1oz and 28". Big little guy!

Maddox is currently at a sleepover! He attempted one about two weeks ago and lasted about 45min. This time it was a birthday party. I talked to his friends mom before hand and planned to play it by ear. They went to McD for dinner and back to his friends house for cake and to play. We told him he could call at anytime if he wanted to be picked up and it's 11pm and we haven't heard from him. It's probably safe to say he is spending the night!

Vegan Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies!

1 1/4 Cup Unbleached Flour
3/4 Cup Ground Rolled Oats (or instant or minute oats)
1 tsp Cream of Tartar & 1/2 tsp Baking Soda (or 2 tsp Baking Powder)
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2-1 Cup Enjoy Life vegan Mini Chocolate Chips

1/2 Cup Earth Balance vegan Butter (or any kind of oil)
1 Cup Raw Turbinado Sugar

1/4 Cup Water
1 tsp Vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix top dry ingredients.
Blend sugar and butter.
Add water and vanilla to sugar and butter.
Mix wet and dry together.

On two cookies sheets, form 1 inch dough balls. I like to press them down like patties, that way they spread out and look like flat cookies and now cookie hills.

Put both cookie sheets in oven for 6 minutes.

Switch racks (bottom sheet to top rack, top sheet to bottom rack) and bake 5 more minutes.

Faelyn's Artwork

Last year, the extent of Faye's art was markers or paint scribbled on paper. Just swirling circles or back and forth scribbling. What you'd expect from a two year old and I always grumbled about it. Why does this child not know how to make a single picture?! Why does she insist on making scribbles and thinking her scribbles are lovely pictures?! Of course I always commented on her great use of colors and asked her to explain what was going on in her pictures, but I always thought what the heck is going on in her head?!

This year, every single time she brings home a new piece of free time artwork, she bowls me away. She usually sticks with a weekly trend and these are from the past couple weeks.

Pictures are going to be at the top, because that's how they post for some reason (posting via iPhone!)

First, at home, she drew a couple pictures of me with a flower. This was the first one. The flower had roots, I had a heart in my chest.

The second, she came home with this beautiful picture of me. She made two that week. Me, with brown hair and eyes (like I have), a bright red heart in my chest, and long, lovely eyelashes!

The third, and this one completely blew me out of the water... Yellow mountains and hills, a bird flying in the sky, and a yellow sun with red in it, because it was getting hotter!

And last, the drawing she brought home for me today (all folded up and in an envelope). This is a mommy whale. There is a baby whale on the mommies back (she's carrying her baby) and the baby has a spout coming up from her blowhole!

I worry about her academics ALL. THE. TIME. but I think her art work is brilliant! She will be going to Kindergarten Prep this next school year instead of Kindergarten. She is no where near being ready for Kindergarten, academically...

I'm still not convinced its just her age or a lack of interest, but we'll see what happens with the rest of this school year and this summer.

Keri

Can't. Stop. Laughing.

Faye to Maddox:  Freeze your arms, freeze your legs, freeze your mouth, freeze your arms, freeze your vagina. Freeze all of your body. 

Keri

Two Things

Faelyn wants to invite her extended family over for a party. With cake and lots of punch. 

Faelyn wants to have a slumber party. A spa day slumber party. She asked her daddy to get pickle slices because that's what you put on your eyes for a spa day. 

Keri

01.16.2013

Maddox doing a ton better. He'll be ready for school tomorrow. He's almost 100% better feeling, still a little tired, a little worn done, still has a decreased appetite. His eye looks a ton better. Still puffy and red, but not anywhere near what it was.

I was talking to one of Faye's preschool friends mom. I said around Madd's eye was infected and she said "oh yeah, did it get all red and puffy?" Yeah, how'd you know?! Apparently she's an ER nurse! I had no idea! Her husband is a EMS and I knew that, but had no clue she worked at the hospital too!

Keri

Eye Infection

Maddox had a lot of cheek pain on Sunday night, was up most of the night and woke up on Monday with a swollen eye (bottom lid and up around the inside corner) and a 102 fever.

He stayed home and laid on the couch all day, sleeping on and off. This morning his eye did not look any better so I had Clayton bring him into the minute clinic. They were clueless and said to go to urgent care. I'm not a big fan, so I called our pediatrician and got an appointment for this evening.

He has an infection around his eye. Not in his eye or in the socket, fortunately. He started antibiotics tonight and hopefully he'll be better by Thursday or he'll have to go in for IV antibiotics.

More to Blog , Less to Facebook

I keep thinking about how I copied and pasted Facebook statuses of the kids saying a few years back and that I need to do that again to catch up. It's so easy to lose everything on Facebook, but why didn't I think to post a blog a day? It doesn't need to be long and in depth. I take at least one picture on my phone a day (I also was going to take a picture a day on my DSLR, what happened to that?!), so why not post at least one thing a day?

Maddox is sick today. He had pain in his right cheek all last night. A little today, but he's got a moderate fever and has been feeling miserable all day. Poor kid. No school today, no school tomorrow. Hopefully he'll be feeling better tomorrow.

Pictures are last night with his rosey cheeks, asleep on dads lap after not being able to get to bed. And then today, with his puffy eye. Not sure what that's about. It's on the same side as the cheek that hurt...

Keri