Amelia - First 3 Months

Of course I did the bear in the chair pictures for Amelia, but have only been posting them to facebook (and of course her shutterfly page), so I thought I would just do 3 of each of her first 3 months.  Since I didnt blog I probably dont remember exactly what happened each month, but I'll try my best.

Month One (taken on 4/13/13)

• well she didnt go to the doctor at this date, but went at 2 weeks when she was almost back to her birth weight (so a tad under 9lbs) and had not grown any taller
• she didnt do much at this age, was kinda a potato (as her dad calls her)
• she liked baths, sleeping, eating, and pooping
• she was very very good at eating and pooping, by far her 2 most favorite things in life
• not a fan of tummy time
• when she had her hair washed it got super poufy (as you can see from the pics), I loved it!!!

 Month Two (taken on 5/13/13)

• this time she went to the doctor, woo hoo!!
• she was 11 lbs and 9 oz (56%), 22.75 inches (62%) and her head was 36 (3%), yes, she has a tiny head :)
• she still didnt do much at this age, but was looking around a bit more, started to babble (big fan of the O sound), loves to kick her feet and throw her arms around
• she liked baths (just not hair washing anymore), sleeping, eating, and pooping
• her pooping skills went down a bit (still knew how and mastered the blow out, but the frequency went down, I was ok with that)
• her sleeping skills just kept improving, will take 2 to 4 hour naps in her swing (we both love that swing) and was sleeping around 7 to 8 hours at night
• loved to eat, wanted to eat every 2 hours, not my favorite part about her, but I am getting a lot of reading done ;)
• still not a fan of tummy time
• starting losing some hair, plus it was thinning out and getting lighter, but still has hair that still gets poufy after a bath
• oh, and starting smiling, isnt she freakin adorable when she smiles!!!!

 Month Three (taken on 6/13/13)

• once again, no doctor visit, but she is growing, getting a tiny bit chubby, but not her head, its still small :)
• talking a bit more, starting to laugh a little, loves to watch her brother (not sure if its because she likes him or she has already figured out she needs to know where he is for her own safety)
• LOVES to sit up, little girl never wants to lean back or lay down, she is gonna have some super duper strong stomach and back muscles from constantly trying to pull herself up
• on that same subject, loves the bumbo, will just sit in it and watch the world go on around her
• started playing in the exercauser, is a big fan so far, but only for about 5 to 10 minutes at a time
• she likes baths (still not the hair washing), sleeping, eating, and pooping (but its going down the list of her likes right now)
• her sleeping skills just kept improving, will take 2 to 4 hour naps in her swing (we both love that swing) and was sleeping around 8 to 9 hours at night
• still loves to eat, would eat all day long if you let her, still not my favorite part about her, but I am getting a lot of reading done ;)
• has discovered her feet and her hands, loves those hands, she can fit both fists in her mouth, I am inclined to think she will get teeth early (like logan who had one already by 4 months old)
• started getting supplemental bottles of lisa's breast milk (or an auntie lisa milk shake as I like to call it), Im not making enough and Lisa is making a billion ounces a day, so she is nice and gives some to Amelia.  right now she is getting about 6 extra ounces a day from that.  but still wants to eat all the time.
• still not a fan of tummy time
• still losing some hair, still thinning out and getting lighter, but still has hair that still gets poufy after a bath.  by this point logan was almost bald so Im happy with her current hair status.  however I think we will need to cut it soon, she has a crazy spot on the top/back of her head that sticks straight up and her bangs are getting close to her eyebrows!!!

We just love her to pieces and cant wait to see what each new month brings!!!!

Logan's Rainbow Colored (and 3) Themed Golden Birthday Party!!!

My big boy turned 3 on June 3rd, and you cant let a golden birthday slip by, so I decided we were gonna make it a 3 themed party.  Well as I started looking at things online and found some awesome candle holders in the store, I decided to make it rainbow colors too!!  Plus this party was mainly family members and I really didnt want to spend a whole bunch (especially since now that we have Amelia too I am gonna have to scale back on birthday party decor), so I decided I was gonna use all the old party supplies we had, and I did, I didnt have to buy any plates, napkins, cups, plastic silverware for this party at all!!!

 

his awesome invite from etsy (seller was kottage on 5th), she was great to work with and very fast.  i whited out my address and phone number on this one since im posting this to pinterest.

the birthday table!!!

i filled 3 jars with his favorite candy (jelly beans, m&ms, and red licorice pieces) and put a 3 candle in each one.  originally i saw this and it said to then put balloons on them, but i didnt mess with that.    i also got the 3 shaped candles at walmart, they had lots of colors and were covered in glitter and were only $0.97 each, score!!!

when looking for pretty 3 shaped candles at walmart I found these awesome rainbow candle holders that spelled out Happy Birthday and just had to have them, and again, since it was at walmart it was dirt cheap, I think it was only $2 or $3, cant remember exactly, but i loved them and the pick that goes in the cupcake is plastic so you can wash and reuse them.

i love jello, i know a lot of adults dont eat jello anymore, they should, and i do.  logan doesnt eat it, but he doesnt really eat much so if i only made things he would eat for his party we would have had only m&ms, goldfish, and cheese-its.  anyway, i had seen on pinterest where you can make little layered jello treats in the disposable chinet glasses.  i thought since it had 3 colors that would fit well into the 3 theme.  well I ended up using blue on the bottom and red on top (because i like those flavors) but wasnt sure what to use in the middle.  i ended up going with yellow (pineapple flavor, who knew) and i am so glad it did because it ended up looking like a rainbow since the yellow kinda merged with the other colors.  i started these 2 days before his party to make sure each layer had enough time to set before i poured the new layer on, and they took up quite a bit of fridge space, but so worth it!

for his 2nd birthday I made a banner for each month of his life, but I wanted pictures out somehow, so thanks to pinterest I made a giant 3 out of pictures.  It took far less photos than I thought (I think I printed around 50 or 60 and used around 35) and it was a good size 3, so now I have a bunch of extra printed photos laying around and have no clue what to do with them!!

to really play up the 3 theme (and the rainbow theme) I made a bunch of 3s out of construction paper.  i made 3 of each color, so I had a lot, i just put them all over the house but i made sure to put more right around the birthday table and the back door since that is where everyone would be (to eat or play outside in the water).  now i could have very easily made a fun rainbow banner but with a new baby i decided to just buy one this year, it was all the colors and each one had a different pattern, so it was great, and at $5 was honestly one of the most expensive items I got, but there was no way I was gonna get around to making one this year, and im sure ill use it again!

the birthday boy a little overwhelmed by all the snacks (or perhaps very hot from playing outside in the crazy texas heat in his new trampoline).  you can really see my table runner in this picture, yes, it is large (i mean large) yellow napkins that I got from IKEA, it added just the little bit of extra color the table needed without too much distraction.

this cake is perhaps what i was most excited about for the party.  i love to bake but havent made anything cake wise more complicated than a basic round layered cake.  but i really really really wanted a 3 shaped cake.  i found a lot of things (actually all of them) to make the 3 using a bundt cake, but once i decided to do it rainbow inside i knew that wasnt gonna work because it needed 4 small layers.  so i just made 2 round cakes and shaped them to look like a 3, which was super easy.  i was gonna try to make the icing either super smooth or cover it with candy, but in the end i decided it didnt need more color and that i just didnt have the patience for smooth icing, plus its for a 3 year old, so who really cares!!  Since I dont have a 3 shaped cake stand I covered a piece of cardboard in wrapping paper and then covered the entire front in clear packing tape, that way the paper stayed dry and i could wipe off icing as i iced the cake (seriously, how did i ever survive before all these helpful tips from pinterest)

I made 4 layers: blue, green, yellow, red.  I got gel food colors to try and get a really vibrant color but they were all still kinda pastel like.  I probably need to just keep adding more color but I was afraid (since I had already added a bit) so I left it lighter than I wanted.  To get the 4 layers in the entire 3 i made 2 round cakes (just used a box mix and added some stuff, since a box mix makes 2 round layers) and then before baking it I separated it into 4 round pans, so each layer was pretty small, especially after i went and leveled it off, but we like icing in this family so there were no complaints about the icing to cake ratio.  I stacked all 4 layers (so ended up with 2 rounds of 4 layers) and then cut it into the 3 shape.  I found that the best way to see if it really looked like a 3 was to take a picture and then look at it, it was hard to look at it in person and decide.

My friend Rachel back in Indiana (who often makes cakes) was helping me via text with the cake.  So after I shaped it I froze it for a bit and then did my crumb coat (i hadnt cleaned the board off yet).  It was also hard to clean the icing off the board in the inside circles of the 3, then my mom said to use a q-tip, such a smart lady.

the final product, turned out pretty and yummy!!!

Logans 3rd Birthday - Family Edition

Logan had a great birthday!!  It was mainly all family, plus Dave, Renee, Grandma and Sara were in town for Eric's HS graduation so we had more family than normal.  He also had 2 friends come over (it was at 2pm on a Monday so lots of people were at work).  Caleb from next door came over for a bit and Eloise (I used to work with her mom) came over too.  He did great with them and enjoyed the day!! 

**im going to do a whole other post on the decor and stuff, this is just the pics of the party fun**

he got this awesome trampoline from me & ian, but he wasnt 100% sure about it yet

we finally got him in by putting Nora in, he was showing off for her :)

Eric & Sara

Kristen & Eloise meeting Amelia.  Eloise will get a new baby brother or sister in October!!

the dogs were desperate to come in and join the fun (or steal food or get out of the heat, im sure they each had their own reason)

this was some crazy worm that had all this stuff on top of him (I suppose for camo) and was crawling along the top of Logan's slide, it freaked me out, I made Ian take the picture!

he was actually trying to blow in this picture!!!!  that is a skill we have been working on with him.

pointing to the R, he loves the letter R

blowing out candles is hard work!!

Jaska was ready to get anything that was dropped from the table

Logan decided the B and the R needed to be together :)

He also felt that Lighting and Mater were being left out, so they got to hang out with the cupcakes

Lion and Elephant!!!

Checking out this funky looking stuffed animal from his abuelita

eating the toy food from Eloise

Of course the babies needed to have a photo shoot!!!

OH NO - he is coming to bother us :(

he loves "mo ah"

this one of nora just makes me smile each time i see it

he decided later that night (after all the non-family guests had left) to walk around in his birthday suit!!!

he was exhausted by the end of the night, it was a fun day!!!

Logan's Therapy

Logan is 3, he should be saying a lot.  He doesnt.  He is vocal, do not get me wrong on that, and he most certainly has his own ways of communicating, but verbal communication is most certainly not a great skill of his :)  

In April of 2012 (a few months before he turned 2) we decided to get him in speech therapy.  I spoke quite late and we just kept thinking maybe he would too, but I also was in speech therapy throughout elementary school and still have some sounds I really have to focus on to not mess up, so I got a referral to get him started.  Many people told me to wait, Lisa (and her co-workers) told me not to, Lisa likes to remind me of this often (just figured I would put it in here otherwise she would remind me again!)  So we found a therapist that came to the house on my day off to meet with Logan, after awhile we had her meet with him at daycare.  We were on a high deductible plan, it was getting expensive, and while she was nice and he really liked her, it was a lot of money and we didnt see any progress really.  He was still making animal noises (which he had been doing before) but still wasnt saying any words.  He still didnt say ma, or da, or really any word.  He did start to say ball for a bit but has since stopped (still doesnt say it).  Anyway, Lisa had told me about a government program called Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) and told me to check it out since she knew I was getting frustrated and it was getting pricy and this was a great option that was based on income.  So I called them, they had to come do an evaluation (he had to qualify to be part of the program), they tested his communication skills, gross and fine motor skills, basically everything and surprisingly (massive sarcasm here) he did qualify.  His verbal skills were super low (since they are nonexistent) and was behind on a few other skills but also significantly ahead on some others.

In August 2012 we started with ECI.  His therapist, Emily, was great and he just loved her.  She would come to the house 3 times a month to meet with him but also give lots of tips of things to do when she was gone.  She also tried to help with his eating problem (he doesnt eat anything good for him at all).  When I would say Emily was coming he would sit in his play room and look out the window waiting for her car.  He was slow to make progress but he did eventually.  If anything it was saving us tons of money.  We had started paying $70 a visit, then it went up to $140 a visit, then with ECI it went to $115 a month (regardless of the number of visits), to $85 a month (when I lost my job) to $20 a month once we had Amelia and our family size increased.  Plus at the end we were having about 5 visits a month, so that was great!!!  

Once he started getting close to his 3rd birthday Emily started helping us get new options since you can only stay in ECI until you are 3.  She got us hooked up with the school district and he once again qualified for a program that I think will be amazing for him. It a 5 day a week 3 hour a day preschool program at his local elementary school.  The program is called PPCD (preschool program for children with disabilities) and since its from the school district it is 100% free!!  He will be in a small class with other children with disabilities or developmental delays, I do not know who he will be with at this point, they still need to get a teacher for the class he will attend, but I think it will be great.  He will get a meal there (so hopefully he will eat it, he used to eat at daycare so I am hopeful), and he will have 5 hours a week of 1 on 1 with a speech therapist and the other 10 hours focusing on speech and some other skills he is a bit behind on (some motor skills, self care skills, and social skills).

By the end of his time with ECI he was meeting with Emily (focusing on speech with help on eating), Becky (focusing on fine and gross motor skills to possibly help speech) and he meet with an OT (occupational therapist) to discuss some concerns we had about sensory issues.  The subject of autism came up quite a bit, as he has some issues with things that go along with it, but he also does many things that are not typical in austistic children.  The OT agreed that he has some sensory processing problems and gave me some tips of way to cope with it.  She was familiar with the PPCP program and said that when he starts in the fall (he had to wait since school let out for summer 2 days after his birthday) that she thinks the program will be great for him.

our thank you card and cookies for Emily, she got him a Thomas the Train birthday balloon!

So thats where we are at, he is still making progress (and with his current love of the alphabet has been making huge strides with sounds these past two weeks) so we are just playing up the ABCs as much as we can in hopes it will keep the new sounds coming.

I know one day I will forget all this, so I am going to sum up his sounds and issues below (plus you might be wondering yourself):

Eating:

- this is all he eats and how often he will actually eat it when presented with it, he doesnt eat anything that gets his hands dirty and tries to not use a fork or spoon (though he does know how)

• hot dogs - 20%
• cheese - 75%
• m&ms - 100%
• peanuts - 80%
• cheese-its - 90%
• goldfish - 100%
• red licorice - 100%
• fruit snacks - 100%
• french fries - 80%

- he used to eat the following foods (in the past 2 years) but no longer does

• rice
• beans (black and baked)
• fruit (all berries, cantaloupe)
•  fruit bars (like nutri-grain)
• jelly beans

Yes, he somehow survives off this food, he does drink a pediasure every day and loves to drink whole chocolate milk (still on whole since he could use the fat), all sorts of juice (which we water down), and water from Ian's camelback!

Vocabulary:

• ma (mom)
• da (dad)
• ah (stands for either amelia or for baby, we arent 100% sure yet)
• mo ah (stands for either nora or more baby, again, we are still trying to figure it out)
• dink (drink)
• mo (more)
• go
• bird (always goes along with him flapping his arms like wings)
• ousi (outside)
• bye
• a woo (marcie moo, lisa's dog - either trying to say moo or its his attempt at woof)
• right there (cant begin to type it how it sounds, you wouldnt understand it if you heard it, but I do and its consistent)
• vroom (the car sound)
• lots of animal sounds (moo, neigh, baa, roar, sound of a pig snorting, quack, monkey noises)
• letters sounds (again, these are all new) - a, b, c, d, e, f, i, l, m, n, o, p, s, t, u, v, x, y, z (so as you can see most of them, the ones he doesnt say he knows the letter and knows the order, he just doesnt produce the sound)

he loves his letters, but not so much the U as you see its still in the box.  the missing letters were taken upstairs to our bed with him the night before :)

 he probably says a few more than this but these are the ones he says more often, if i think of more ill add them later

Sensory Processing Issues:

• hates to get his hands dirty, refuses to finger paint, get paint on his hands (he must wipe it off), might let some get on but after a good 20 or 30 minutes of playing, doesnt like food residue, crumbs, soap, etc on his hands.  However, he LOVES to play in the water and doesnt mind if dirt gets on his hands, although he will wash it off as soon as he can (which is fast since his water table is always out and full)
• doesnt mind when his diaper is wet or dirty, this is one that is surprising since he doesnt like otherwise being dirty.  but HATES getting his diaper changed, he kicks and bucks and swiggles horribly
• really dislikes getting his face wet, i know no child likes it, but he reacts a bit worse than most
• HATES HATES HATES getting his hair cut, again, I know no child likes this, but he is horrible.  We have to buckle him into a chair and have 2 adults holding him down as he is screaming bloody murder and trying to break free as lisa cuts his hair.  I took him to get it done but he was so bad, so we just got some clippers and Lisa (god bless her soul) cuts it as Shawn and I hold him down (god bless shawn's soul too).  after we are ready with candy and then he gets to play in the tub, so he forgets pretty quickly
• most days refuses to let me brush his teeth, he will let me if he is in the tub or in the shower with me, but no longer if is he just standing at the sink, its a complete melt down.  he likes to brush his own teeth (really just chomp the brush), and when he lets me I dont get much time
• he is always biting down, luckily he doesnt bite hard enough to hurt his tongue, but always biting.  he DESTROYS straws, even hard plastic ones! 
• I also think he sometimes doesnt realize the force he is using when he touches people or animals.  sometimes he is super gentle and other times he hits very hard.  Maybe he does, maybe he is just mean :)
• he has very specific routines (too many to list) and if you dont follow them be prepared for a full breakdown.  again, i thought it was typical toddler stuff but the OT agreed that his reactions are just a tad bit worse than they should be and that with how often Ian has tried to piss him off by not doing what he wants, he still reacts and hasnt adapted 
• REFUSES to wear a jacket or hat or shoes other than slip on ones.  Thank goodness its not cold here that long or that bad because he would not put on a jacket, hat or gloves all winter and luckily he seems to tan and not burn because he will not wear a hat in the summer either.
• is very afraid of new places and situations, you often times have to drag him through doors or pick him up because he wont move past them.  he also is not a social butterfly and tends to shy away from most kids but since the dont understand why he isnt talking to them (cant tell you how many kids have asked me at the park what is wrong with him!) and I am sure to him they are very loud, it makes sense. (maybe not a sensory thing, but one of his many quirks)

loves to play in the sinks, he pours water from one cup to the next

 

using his new found love of letters, i got some letter cookie cutters and we are using them with playdough.  that is another item he will not touch until it is in a perfect ball or in the shape of the letter, but we keep working on it.

But he is a smart little boy and can do many things.  He is always trying to figure out something new, is always making noises (just gibberish ones) and is a joy (even with him many tantrums and now constant whining sounds).  We will keep working on these and I think once the program starts he will make great strides!!!