We left off right before Christmas. That was right around the time that our house exploded. Well... it didn't really explode, but it kind of seemed like it.
Tuesday before Christmas we took miss L to the doctor because she just sounded bad. She was coughing and had a fever. It just wasn't good. We took sweet little man in at the same time for his well visit. Miss L was diagnosed with Pneumonia and sweet little man did great weighing in at over 12 pounds (you can tell that he's my fourth child because I have no idea what the actual number was). Miss L got a prescription for antibiotics and nebulizer treatments and we went home. The rest of the week was just the same game with a different kid. I took them in pairs and eventually we ended up with miss L and mister W with pnuemonia and sweet little man with RSV. We stayed in the house for a couple of weeks after that. Everyone was pretty pitiful needing lots of loves. We took our meds and kept getting ready for the big day!
This year we started early. We knew that there would be a lot of prep work and the elves started their work in the evenings after the kids were in bed.
Though there was never a kid very far away...
We spent most of that week sleeping, actually. Poor sweet little man sounded so pitiful. If it wasn't coughing then it was stuffed nose.
The big kids started feeling better just in time for Christmas morning. It gets a little more exciting every year as the kids get older and understand more of what is going on. It's hard to believe that mister W was just starting to crawl this time last year. This year he's so big!
Miss L makes the funniest faces and tells the best stories lately. This is her telling us something.
I love the cowboy boots and the dollhouse.
Even sick sweet little man got in on the action.
I took a bunch of photos of all three of them, but this was seriously the best one. It's hard to get three excited kids to sit and look at the camera in the middle of PRESENTS!
We spent the rest of the week playing with our new things and enjoying some time with Daddy. Thank goodness he was able to be there while we were all recovering. Grandma was also able to join us for Christmas and we all enjoyed visiting and playing with her as well.
Miss L got some mustaches in her stocking. We decided to try them one morning. My camera flash was pointing the wrong way (I was trying to move super fast because I knew that it wouldn't last).
We finally got it going the right direction.
Mister W took his mustache off and I said, "Put it back on for the picture!" Being a good boy, he did just that, but it ended up on his nose.
Finally, miss L decided to take a picture of us with our mustaches. I love the look on sweet little man's face in this photo.
I took this photo randomly one morning. This is what my house looks like most of the time.
We celebrated new year's eve with our annual tradition of counting down to six o clock. We ate some pigs in a blanket and drank soda. It was fun!
The following weekend I went on a trip by myself (with sweet little man, of course). It was really refreshing. This was the first time I'd been away from mister W except the hospital stay for sweet little man, and it was one of only a handful of times I'd been away from miss L. It was so much fun. I missed the kids, of course, but I got to see my best friend. We ate out. We went to the mall. We went to ikea. We even went to a used book store. We puttered around and we had so much fun. The best thing about best friends is how even when it's been a while since you last saw one another you can just start again like it hasn't been any time at all. I just love Wendy and I know I'll be going back to see her!
A bonus of seeing Wendy was seeing her new baby J. He's amazingly sweet which makes sense considering how wonderful his parents are!
That weekend was much too short and then we were back in action. The following week we had our mid-season show at the gym where the kids take gymnastics classes. It's something we look forward to each week. Mister W just started this fall and he loves it!
Miss L continues to do well there. She amazes me so often while I watch her in class.
They did an olympic style walk in.
So proud of my girl!
Miss L LOVES the uneven bars. She's completely unafraid and does a great job staying straight!
She did well waiting her turn too.
They are just starting to practice and learn handsprings.
So much fun for miss L to do and so much fun for us to see!
So... we sort of did a terrible job with the two month giraffe photos. In fact, we did so bad that we didn't get them taken at all. So we were right on time with our three month giraffe photos and hopefully we won't miss any more.
At three months sweet little man can smile and laugh. He loves watching his big brother and sister and smiles more for them than for anyone. He loves his fingers and sucks on his thumb or his fingers when he can find them. He loves nursing and has started liking to sleep in his swing during the day.
Life just seems to happen so much faster around here these days. There's a bit more laundry and going places definitely takes longer.
Mister W really started having bad diaper rash and terrible eczema. We found earlier that he was allergic to wheat, dairy, egg whites and bananas so we completely eliminated those things from his diet. He continued to react to something so he visited the allergist again. He's had more blood testing and we're awaiting our follow up to see those results. In the meantime we're making a lot of stuff from scratch. I'm so happy there's so much information out there for gluten free eating!
Our weekend days are precious. Those are the days when Daddy is home to play. Many mornings start just like this.
Legos are the favorite toy right now in our house. They seem to breed in the basket though. We have TONS. We love them though and just the other day it occurred to me that part of my job is hanging out and building stuff with legos. It's not a bad life!
Here are some more random photos from the last couple of months.
Sweet little man continues to grow. A few weeks ago he started really enjoying his exersaucer even playing with the toys a bit!
We love our pancakes on Sunday mornings. Here's miss L's pancake "smile."
Here's mister W's real smile.
...and sweet little man's smile too!
This is what happens when you leave an open bottle of acai juice on the table.
Eventually we wound our way around to February. This is the time every year when we start to really think about all of the things that happened with our Sweet Baby Ben. It's impossible to celebrate mister W's birthday without also missing Ben terribly and thinking about what life would be like if he were here. It's a bittersweet day and there is definitely some heartache.
It's made a bit easier by the fact that mister W is so very excited about his big day this year! He woke up asking for presents (that's what you get with a big sister who fills you in on all the details of birthdays) so we let him open one up.
He was very excited.
He had a special breakfast with gluten free carrot bread, eggs and homemade sausage. He got to use the special red plate too! (we got this as a wedding gift, but forget to use it, but I'm hoping to start this as a tradition!)
He also got to lick the spatula from making his birthday cupcakes!
After dinner we opened some gifts.
...and had some cake! YUM!
This winter has been really mild. I've been trying to get the kids outside as much as possible, especially during that post school part of the day. We just need some time to unwind. We've enjoyed playing with the neighborhood kids and meeting some new people. We've also seen ticks already! UGH!
I promised the kids a trip to the zoo one Saturday morning. Everyone was so very excited to go, but there was a bit of a cold snap that day. Brad and I tried to convince everyone that nobody wants to go to the zoo in the cold, but we were too excited and ended up going anyway. In the end, everyone was glad that we did. We had an awesome time!
The lions were out and playing that day. They put on quite a show! They were wrestling and running around. It was easy for mister W to see and everyone enjoyed watching them!
Mister W watching the lions wrestle.
Then we moved on and found the orangutans.
Eventually we found the elephants.
We had a snack by the elephant pin and one came right down to where we were.
We took mister W and sweet little man to the cardiologist for a follow up. They both had fetal echos but needed one to confirm that everything is fine. We found that mister W is indeed fine but that sweet little man has a bicuspid aortic valve (BAV). Basically the aortic valve is supposed to have three leaflets and sweet little man's only has two. Over time this will likely weaken causing his aorta to compress and for blood to flow back into the heart. It will likely require surgery to correct. The good news is that it's a minor problem compared to what we've been through. We just so wanted to be finished with all of this!
Last weekend we had mister W's birthday party. We skipped the party for his first birthday, but spaced this one out a bit from his birthday to give us some space. It was a really fantastic time!
Sweet little man wore his fire chief outfit for the occasion.
We had cupcakes!
We love playing with our friends!
Mister W does not particularly like having happy birthday sung to him. I think he's a little bit shy underneath it all.
He does like blowing out his candles though!
Yay!
Such a good time!
Since then we've had a big week! Mister W woke up Sunday morning proclaiming that he was done with diapers. I've never been one to turn down an opportunity like that so we put on the underwear and we haven't looked back. He's had four accidents since then, but none in the last couple of days. I have to say that I'm loving the laundry with only one in diapers!
We also had the stomach flu. I was worried about the underwear situation during mister W's time with the 24 hour bug, but he made it through and I was happy not to have to deal with the diapers and so impressed that he made it to the toilet on time! I kind of can't believe that he's big enough to do this!
We're finally all better and feeling good. I can't wait to see what this weekend brings! See you soon!
