Another Tooth!

Yesterday Alli was showing me a very wiggly tooth.  I asked her if she was going to try to pull it and she responded "not yet".  So they day went on...  By dinner, I looked at her mouth and it just seemed different.  So I asked her if her tooth fell out.  She said she didn't think so.  I made her open her mouth and sure enough, her tooth was gone.  She has no clue when it happened, but she was guessing during snack time with daddy since they had apples.  So....poor thing may have swallowed her tooth.  :) 

We left a note for the tooth fairy and sure enough, the tooth fairy came and left her $1.  What a nice fairy.  :)

Berkley!!!

I've been wanting another dog.  I miss the furry, unrelenting love that comes with a dog.  But Kim and Alli didn't want a puppy because they didn't want to go through the potty training or the chewing phases.  So I've been scouring rescue sites to try to find a dog that might fit into our family.

The other night, I think I had found one, so I inquired about the dog.  That was Thursday night around 9pm.  By Saturday at 3:00, we had a beautiful, female, 9 month old, black lab / pointer mix bounding into our home and our lives.  The rescue place she came from requires a "trial" period of at least 3 days before the adoption actually happens.  We've had Berkley in our home for all of 18 hours, and I can't imagine we will let her leave.

Here are some photos of the girls with Berkley.

Alli and Berkley "hiking" in the back yard.

Natalie and Berkley hanging out.

Night Night Bed

A while ago, Natalie was awake in the crib when we put Alli to bed.  Natalie noticed that I stayed in bed with Alli and rubbed her back.  Well, that smart little cookie decided that going straight to the crib to fall asleep by herself was not very fun, so she started asking if she could go night night bed.  Oh sure, why not.

The first few times, after 40 minutes of laying with her, she either fell asleep or was still awake.  Either way, she wound up back in the crib for the night.  Then we got into a routine where after laying with her for about 5 minutes, we would just move her to the crib and she would go to sleep from there.  And then we got into a routine where she would lay super still and basically demand to stay in the bed, so if she stayed super still, we would keep giving her more time to fall asleep.  Eventually, she was sharing the twin bed with Alli.  Alli *loved* having her sister in bed with her, so no issue there.

Well, then we hit a few nights where Natalie woke up in the middle of the night, screaming and crying, and would not stop if we put her back to bed in the crib.  She wanted mommy to lay with her in bed.  A twin bed, and Alli was also in it.  3 girls.  1 twin bed.  Are you nuts child?  Well, yes.  But of course mommy obliged and spent quite a few very sleepless nights crammed in the twin bed with the girls.

One weekend after cramming in the bed for a good portion of the night, I told Kim we were heading to the mattress store to get Natalie a bed.  We walked out of the store with a new twin size bed, and out of Target with a set of sheets.  We set up the bed right next to Alli's bed, so voila!  Instant king size bed for two very little girls.  Now the whole family could sleep there comfortably and mommy is very happy.  Alli actually is too.  She confessed that she was cramped sharing the twin with her sister.


We took some shots of the girls sleeping:

Sharing the twin:

Sleeping arrangement with beds pushed together:

Yes, notice that room so everyone can sleep sideways?  :)

Two Year Old Stats

The Dr's visit is over.  We have a healthy 2 year old.  Here are her stats:

Height:  35.75" (91%)
Weight:  24.4 lbs (17%)


If the old wives tail is true, that you grow to double your height from when you are two, Natalie will be just shy of 6' tall.  I'm guessing that old wives tail really isn't true...

Sleeping beauties

Natalie Turned 2!!

Natalie had a great 2-year old birthday party.  We had the Jackson family and most of the Belt family over to visit.  The theme of the party was Clifford.  Everyone had a good time.

And since turning 2, Natalie has decided naps are unnecessary.  Of course, she is quite a handful by late afternoon, so we are kinda disagreeing with her on that one.  But when you leave her in a crib for over an hour and all she does is play quietly and not sleep, then it's hard to argue the point (or to change it).  So, we are quite a fun family come about 4:00!  ;)

Here are some cute pics from her party.

Teeth, Beds, Toilets...

Hooray!  Alli lost her first tooth tonight!  It was really loose, and two big teeth are already growing in behind her two bottom teeth.  Only one was really loose, the other just slightly.  She said tonight after brushing teeth that it was bothering her.  I told her to just pull it out.  Well, the family all went separate ways - I went to put Nat to bed, Kim to do the dishes, Alli to play.  I came out about 5 minutes later and Alli was showing Kim her tooth!!!  I guess she took my words very seriously.  :)

Natalie will be two on Sunday.  She has started this thing about sleeping in Alli's bed.  She always wants to go night night in the bed now.  While I don't mind her sleeping in a bed, it makes putting her to bed much more difficult.  She doesn't stay in it!  And when we lay down with her, she wiggles for 30-40 minutes before settling down.  It's a bit frustrating on us parents.  So I think for her birthday, or soon after, we will get her a twin size bed.  I mean, it's really crowded in the middle of the night with Alli, Natalie, and mommy all on one twin bed!!  :)  (Yes, the bed is really for mommy!!)


Ok, so I figured Natalie is two.  She wants to do everything her big sister does.  So I decided we should start potty training.  Well, she is stubborn just like Alli, but in different ways.  She figured things out pretty quickly the first day I had her run around bottomless.  She peed once.  I wisked her to the toilet.  She graciously then went every 30 minutes just like I wanted, but never once did a drop leave her.  Until nap time.  I put a diaper on her.  Holy cow was it full - I had to change it before she even fell asleep!  And the stinker just kept doing that.  So no accidents while naked, but no success on the toilet either.  Grrr....  I went out and bought some underwear and training pants.  We'll see if those will help, although it's going to take a little time before I have another good weekend to devote to potty training, so we'll see if we can do it at mommy's convenience...

Eyes and Pig Latin

Natalie:

What a cutie.  She uses the term "eyes" for lots of things:  Sunglasses, lights in the ceiling, hand-held mirrors, actual eyes...  You have to interpret when she asks for "eyes" what she means.  It's really cute, and neat to see her associate the word "eyes" with all things that make you see/see better.


Alli:

Alli has gotten so good at spelling and reading that Kim and I used Pig Latin at the dinner table this evening.  I wonder how long *that* will last!  And let me tell you how rusty I am on hearing pig latin and then being able to figure out what is said.  Good thing we only have to use it for a few words here and there!!

4th of July - 2014 Style

This year was the first time in about a decade that Fountain Hills put on its own fireworks display.  We decided to spend the afternoon at the Belt's house so the kids could play and swim, and since they live closer to the Fountain than we do, watch the fireworks from their house.

The kids had a blast playing all day together.  Alli, Gage, and Reegan were in the pool until we made them get out (at almost 9pm) to change so we could watch the fireworks.  What Marcie didn't tell me was that the plan was to sit on their roof to watch!!  They have a small, flat roof at the front of their house, and so they popped out the screen of one of the front windows from an upstairs bedroom and we all climbed through to watch.  All adults made sure kids got out there and sat down immediately - there wasn't much of a barrier at the edge, and we didn't want anyone to accidentally fall over!

All the bigger girls watched the fireworks through their phones, videotaping it.  We thought that was strange - it was LIVE!  Watch it live we kept saying!  Whatever.  And then the little ones kept saying "that's it?"  It was past their bedtime, and they were tired, and I guess the repetitive fireworks exploding just wasn't exciting enough for them.  :)

Natalie slept through that part of the visit, but I'm pretty sure she had fun with all the kids and swimming before that!

Here's Alli, all decked out and showing off her 4th of July spirit.

Pumpkin Patch

As much as I would like a garden, it seems like too big a task to tackle at this point in time.  We have to clear room in the back of the yard, level it out, raise the beds (preferable for critter control), add irrigation, and then finally, we get to plan a garden.  Oh, and figure out what other critter control is needed.

But we heard pumpkins grow quickly and decided to try to at least grow our own pumpkins for carving this October.  To help in all the above-mentioned problems, we decided to put them at the side of the house, near a tree whose irrigation lines we had plugged, and in pots.  So we now have 3 pots, with irrigation, and pumpkin seeds in them.  Fingers crossed - we hopefully will have a pumpkin patch!

Road Trip

Our family usually flies to our far-away destinations.  But this year, we were presented with a circumstance that led us to drive, 16+ hours, to Houston.  We are not a family that does road trips.  We are not a family that seems to be happy when taken away from our "comfort zones".  So this was quite a challenge for us.

Kim and I asked many people how they travel with kids.  Everyone had different ways, but all were great suggestions.  We decided to venture off by leaving at 3/4am and seeing how far we could go in one day.  So, the night before we left, we packed everything in the car except the food (snacks and sandwiches, fruits, veggies, and milk).  Kim was determined to spend the 18 hours in his "ultimate driving machine" (aka, the BMW).  And sure enough, he got it all to fit.  Pack-n-play, travel high chair, stroller, and all our clothes, toys, and food.

We loaded the girls in the car in hopes it would be early enough in the morning that they would just keep sleeping.  Nope!  Natalie stayed awake the whole time.  Alli slept a tiny bit in the morning, and took a nap later in the day.  The girls played iPad games most of the way.  When we hit San Antonio, about 13+ hours in, we decided that another 3-4 hours wasn't do-able for us.  So we crashed at one of Kim's co-workers houses for the night.  I was amazed by how wonderful the family had done on such a long trip in the car, and it made the 3+ hours to Houston seem so short!

Houston was nice for visiting everyone and we got to see Jonathan (my nephew) graduate from high school!  Holy cow!!  Alli unfortunately got sick, so the rest of the trip was laying around the house the entire time.  Bummer.  But we still enjoyed the company.

Then we all took off back to San Antonio for Ben's Bar Mitzvah.  We travelled one day and got settled in to our hotel rooms.  The next day our whole family (ours, Andy's, and Mom) went to SeaWorld.  It was a lot of fun!!  And hot!!  Alli was totally amazed at the tricks the animals could do!

The Bar Mitzvah service was early the next morning, and it was a bit of a struggle to get the whole family ready for it.  But we did it!  And for the full 1.5 hour service, Alli was sooo mature.  She tried to follow along in the book.  Thought Hebrew was Chinese.  :)  But was a wonderful example of a well-behaved young lady.  Natalie on the other hand....  :)

After the service the kids got to run around, and then our family went back to Uncle Irwin's for some swimming with cousin Addison.   The girls again put on their best behavior.  Natalie even went to sleep by herself while there!  Woo Hoo!!  No laying with her to get her to fall asleep.

The next day was the long trek home.  What I noticed was a big change in Natalie.  Over the course of the trip, the bottle became less necessary.  And a bottle before bed or nap was completely unnecessary.  She suddenly started refusing the high chairs in the restaurants, and instead preferred just sitting in a chair, just like her big sister.

The ride home was a little more stressful as I didn't have as much food, and we had started out tired.  But we made it.  And the first thing the girls did when they got home was run into the green room and start pulling out toys and playing with them.  (Alli used to do that every time we went out of town, but this was prompted by Natalie.  Pretty funny.)

What we learned:  I learned how to pack good snacks for a car ride.  I learned that riding so long in a nice riding vehicle is a good thing (hence, I might look at a different 4WD vehicle when I'm ready to switch vehicles).  And, our family is concentrating on saying all positive things when things don't go the way we want.

So, I think that means more road trips in the future!  haha

Catching Up - N&Q, The Slide, Purple, and Bagheera

See, this is the problem when you don't blog very much.  You have a lot of catching up to do.  So here goes:

N & Q:  Years ago, Andy and Wendy got us a wooden alphabet puzzle.  It was for Alli, but she didn't do much with it.  Natalie however just LOVES the alphabet, so she plays with it all the time.  Molly uses the letters to quiz her, and yes, at 19 months, Natalie knows most of the letters and their sounds.  But for some reason, N & Q are very special to her.  She walks around with them, cries if she can't find them, you name it.  If we put the puzzle back together, she will always go and grab out N & Q.  Not sure why.  It's really funny though!  And she never picks other letters, just N & Q!!


The Slide:  When Alli was little, I got a hand-me-down plastic slide/climbing thing from a lady at work.  Hard to describe, but it stands about 3 feet tall, has a small slide down it, and has lots of different holes and stuff so kids can climb all over it.  It also has a space in the bottom for a little "club house".  Anyway, it's outside on our patch of grass.  But all summer long, it just sits there and is never used because it's just too hot.  Idea!!!  With our pool project, we kept many flagstone pieces and created a path to a flat area where the infloor cleaner pump is.  We built up that area by stacking extra flagstone pieces and then moved the slide over to it.  Now Alli has a path around the pool to the slide, and she can slide right into the deeper end of the pool.  We broke it in last weekend.  (Sorry, no pictures - we were just enjoying the moment and we were already wet.)  It has been a big hit with Alli!


Purple:  Natalie has 4 pacifiers.  Only one is purple, the rest are pink.  She now calls all pacifiers "purple", but if given the choice, she always chooses the purple one.  So, we really only use 1 pacifier, unless we can't find the purple one, and then she settles for the pink.  Anyway, I recently decided that she doesn't think about the pacifier until she sees it, so I thought taking it away might be a good idea.  I decided she could still have it for nap times and bed.  So the first day we tried it, we just told her we put it away, and Molly put all the pacifiers in a container in a drawer and didn't show Nat where they were.  She's been very easy about it.  We just tell her it's put away and she's good.  Of course now she's chewing on her hand and the drool is horrible.  But I think we are doing the right thing.  She only chews on her hand with teething.  I'm guessing her 2 year molars are on the move.  Poor kid.  She hasn't had a break from teeth since she was 2 months old!


Bagheera:  Well, our beautiful old man finally got too old.  He had degenerative nerve damage down his spine due to old age.  What happened was he didn't alway know where his back legs/feet were.  Eventually, he couldn't always get up.  And sometimes he couldn't feel bowel movements come.  And then for a couple of weeks he barely was able to get up by himself, and even when we helped him, he would take a couple of steps and fall.  It was horrible to watch.  So we decided to talk to the vet because we figured it was time.  And we made the decision.  And then he did great for the whole week while we waited for his appointment.  Stubborn dog!  But the vet said it was still the right decision.  And we put him to sleep on Thursday, May 29.  :(  He was a good dog and we miss him.

Pool Safety / Usability Project 2014

Being carved out of a hillside, our backyard has never been extremely kid-friendly.  And really, neither was the pool we added.  With Alli, we figured 2-on-1, or even 1-on-1 were good odds to keep her safe.  And based on the fact that she is still alive, I think we did okay.  But with two kids, we weren't liking our odds as well, and the pool seemed to get more and more dangerous with different aspects.  So, we embarked on a little pool project this year:  Re-flagstone the patio, re-work the steps to the patio and to the hot tub, and add a railing at the edge.  (We also fixed some pool issues and gave it a good scrubbing so we could really showcase the whole area.)  Here are some pictures of our project.

Steps Before:

Steps After:

Patio Deck Before:

Patio Deck After:

Hot Tub Steps Before:

Hot Tub Steps After:

Cliff Before:

Cliff After:

Natalie at 18 months

Ready for these stats?

Height:  33.25" (89th percentile)

Weight:  19.15 lbs (2nd percentile)

Ok, skinny minnie.  Thanks for not gaining any weight.  That actually bought us an additional weight check!!  

I don't know where this height is coming from, but I'm guessing this little cutie has my genes where you just eat and don't gain weight, which I'm not all that upset about, but still!!!  All these additional weight checks.  Ugh.  And every visit we have to go over what she eats, and what she drinks, and how we proportion it.  I SWEAR I am not starving my child!!  :)

Kim and I have decided, she's just going to be a super-smart model.  ;)

Update on the Girls - Alli's Reading and Natalie's Clothes

We have noticed that Fountain Hills school district doesn't always do well for kids with special needs, whether they be advanced or behind.  The class that Alli is in seems to have quite a few kids that don't listen and need special attention, which leaves the learning of advanced kids a little lacking.  The kids do have a reading program on the computer and the kids can advance at their own pace.  Alli is a whole grade level above her class...  So this last parent-teacher conference we asked again what we can do to keep Alli challenged.  Apparently, the school offers an "Advanced Reading" program, where the kids check out a book from the library and then take a comprehension quiz on the computer after they have read the book.  This program is available for first graders and older, but Alli's teacher said she was ready, and responsible enough to be able to handle it.  Her first book came home over the weekend.  Sunday night we read it and Monday she took her computer quiz.  A print out came home - 100%.  Woohoo!  So Monday night we read her next book.  I'm looking forward to seeing how she does.  What did shock me was the level of books she is bringing home - way farther advanced than I thought she could read.  And even though she struggles with words sometimes, she is reading VERY well.

Natalie is fast approaching her 1-1/2 year birthday, and with that all her changes - vocabulary, personality.  It's all so cute.  She is such a cuddly little girl and loves to give hugs!!  And of course, we love getting them!  The weather is warming up so we started putting on the shorts that are still in her drawer.  They are 12 month old size.  And they are falling off her waist (or lack-there-of).  She is so tall and skinny that her clothes don't fit.  Even some of her stretchy things fall off because she is just that small.  But she's so tall!!!  It's really crazy.  I thought we had problems with Alli, but Alli was pretty well proportioned, just really tiny.  Natalie is tall and very thin, and we can't seem to find very good clothes to fit her.  Fortunately, she's just so cute in anything we put on her that it just doesn't matter.

Terrible Twos!

I know Natalie is only 16 months old, but I swear she is entering the terrible two's!  She gets so upset about everything that we misunderstand, or if we tell her no, or anything.  Of course, so does Alli so maybe it's just inherent of my children!

We may be in for an interesting year with all the temper tantrums occurring in our house!  Crazy kids!

Smart Little Cookie

Since Natalie still isn't clearly speaking many words, I always think she's still the baby blob of old.  But she's really smart and knows what's going on.

The other day when we were changing her diaper, she wanted to look at her number poster.  So I asked her where the butterflies were.  And she put her hands on the butterflies and said "bu.."  Then I asked where the frogs were and she pointed to the frogs and laughed.  Asked about kitty cats, turtles, dog, bunnies.  She knew them all!  I was pretty impressed.

And this morning, she woke up early and wanted to watch TV.  (That is communicated by pointing to the TV and saying "T?"  I said no, it was too early and I didn't want to wake up her sister.  So I said "Natalie, why don't we read a book instead.  Go get a book."  She toddled over to the stake of books in the living room, picked one out, and brought it back to me.  We sat on the couch and read together.

It's really impressive how much she understands.  Her vocabulary is sorta there - beginning sounds of a lot of words.  Too bad almost all of them start with "b"!

Ow! My Aching Ribs!

Over the Christmas break, we were all pretty sick.  My plans for the break quickly went out the door, and TV, couch time, bed time, and lots of nasal rinses occurred.  There was also alot of coughing, especially for me who would cough so hard my stomach and side muscles would hurt.  Once I started feeling better, I decided to jump straight into work-outs with Kim (since I hadn't been been able to run).  Well, apparently working out and coughing had some side effects.  I wound up with strained muscles in my back, right under my shoulder blade.  I tried ice, relaxing, etc.  After 2 weeks, I gave up and called my Myopractics guy (he's the best healer I have!)  As he was working on me, he said that coughing sometimes can move a rib and you feel the pain at the connection points.  I felt pain all over, but apparently that was because my hips had moved into a very funky position - my left hip was tilted backwards, my right hip was tilted forward.  So he worked on those first (as he always does).  And then he worked up my back trying to loosen the muscles.  He said there was a lot of inflammation.  Once the hips and the back muscles were better, he worked through other parts - the attachment points around the ribs, my diaphragm muscles, etc.  While working through all those, he found that I probably fractured (or ripped or tore whatever the term may be) some cartilage by my sternum.  He said that's not uncommon and it will heal.

So, I walked away, still in pain (because apparently when it comes to ribs, the pain doesn't go away for a couple of days), and with the knowledge that I coughed myself into a broken rib (sorta).  Is this a sign of old age?  This is horrible!!  We'll see how well I heal.  I may have to go back for another visit, but we'll see come Monday.

Natalie's 15 Month Update

Natalie just had her 15th month checkup and all is good.  She has a whole mouthful of teeth (it's crazy) and is now changing her growing curve.  Instead of being in the 80th plus percentile in height and weight, she has dropped significantly and is down to 66th percentile in hight, but 3rd percentile in weight!  We have discussed her weight on several visits now, but the pediatrician has finally said she is not concerned because of all the foods she eats and the fact that she is still growing in height.  (1" in the last 3 months).  She does eat a ton.  She can eat an entire chicken & apple sausage (skin included) and cry for more.  If we let her, she would probably eat 5 bananas in a sitting.  (We limit her to 1 a day).  She has eaten and entire container of blueberries in one sitting before.  The girls eats full meals 6-8 times a day.  Calorie intake is definitely not a problem!

We are also closely watching her words.  She has a lot of words, but they are very unclear.  Our family and Molly understand her words, based on context and her beginning word sounds (which is typically the whole word for her).  But other people probably wouldn't understand.  The pediatrician said she should clearly have a handful of words in the next three months or we will be doing some hearing tests.  Of course, Natalie understands a great deal, so I question whether there is a hearing issue, but I'm fine with conducting tests if there are indications of a problem.  We can tell her "Go find sissy in the green room" and she will take off across the house to the green room and look for Alli.

Of course, one day after the doctor visit and she started saying "Ma" clear as day.  Not Mama, but Ma.  I'm good with Ma.  And then Molly said she swears she said "iPad" clear as day yesterday.  I told her Kim would be thrilled, but there is no way "iPad" is going down as her first clear word.  So I say "Ma".  And of course Kim says "iPad", even though none of us have heard it yet except Molly.  And of course Alli, Ms. non-biased 5 year old, corrects all of us and tells us that Natalie's first clear word was "No", which is probably the most accurate account.

So here are her stats:

Height:  31"  (66th percentile)
Weight:  19.2 lbs (3rd percentil)
Head Circum:  45-1/2 cm (37th percentile)

Yes, still not quite at 20 lbs, so we are keeping her rear facing in the car seats.  She doesn't seem to mind, and she doesn't look too uncomfortable.  I know we kept Alli rear facing until about 18months when we noticed she was craning her neck to look out the window and we figured that would do more damage than turning her around.  We are waiting for Nat to start doing the same and then she will be flipped right away.  We'll see what happens.  Natalie is typically entertained by her sister, not things outside the window.

Beautiful weather for outdoor play