Saturday, December 31, 2011

Merry Chirstmas and Happy New Year!

Well, here is a late Merry Christmas to everyone but also Happy New Year! It is hard to believe that another year has come and gone. I am sad that the Christmas season is coming to a close, especially since it took me until December 24th to really get in the Christmas spirit. I don't know what my next adventure will be, but whatever it is, I am not doing something that makes me become a Grinch over the holidays and makes me count down the days for the wrong reasons.

Yes, I have quit UPS. My last day was December 23rd. It wasn't until I gave my two weeks that I started receiving massive amounts of compliments about how hard of a worker I was and how good I did my job. All the supervisors kept trying to butter me up so that I would stay and told me that I had a job if I ever needed one. One supervisor told me to make sure I tell my husband how hard I work and that not many people make it in this job. Apparently they have had grown men come in to do this and they quit a break because it's so hard. The guy that works next to me just laughed when the supervisor said this and he said, "tell you husband whatever you want but make sure to tell him it's not worth it." Not that it would have made me stay, but it would have been nice to hear compliments throughout my working period there and not just in the last two weeks. Oh, well, time to move on. I did a little calculation and by the 23rd we were running 36 trucks, each truck had an average of 234 packages daily, so our little center was doing almost 8,500 packages a day! I can't imagine working in a bigger hub.

Tony is now done at Sears and soccer season is in full swing. A few nights before Christmas, Tony had an interesting experience, there was a man arrested at Sears for shop lifting, the sad part is though, he had his four year old son with him! Tony said the boy was sobbing when his dad was arrested and that when Tony left at 11:30 no one had still come to get the little boy. That made me so sad to hear that and so mad at how stupid people are or desperate, maybe a combination of the two. We did learn recently, that this Sears store will not be closing, so it Tony's goes back, it will still be there. He has enjoyed his long break and will be going back on Monday, not too excited about that. Sadie won't like it either, she's been pretty spoiled having both of us around. She has really missed her daddy and I do believe she enjoyed seeing Tony more over the break.

Sadie had a doctor's visit on Tuesday, she is 23.5 lbs and 31.5 inches long. She has dropped from the 90th percentile to the 75th. The doctor wasn't worried though and each time we go in he comments about how good Sadie's eyes look, so we continue to head in the right direction. She had a lot of doctor anxiety though so that made the visit more pleasant. She screamed the whole time, even before we got to the shots! Of course she stopped as soon as she got a sucker.

Sadie's new trick is the act of taking of her clothes, she prefers to be naked and now runs from me when I try to dress her and after I finally do, she loves to take her clothes off. Several times I have gone to get her from a nap, and there is little Sadie, naked with a big smile! She hates clothes so much that she has even figured out how to get out of her fully zipped and footed pajamas without unzipping them! She just crawls out the neck. She definitely keeps us busy. She is turning into a good helper though, now when she empties out drawers or cupboards, she puts the stuff back, not always neatly but at least she is learning. One of her favorite books in the Llama Llama books, Llama Llama misses mama, Llama Llama holiday drama etc, except she can't say her l's so she calls them her mama mama books. It's funny and cute.

Since it was so beautiful today, we took Sadie to the park and for the first 10 minutes she just stood there and watched everyone, she wouldn't move. She was afraid to walk but after she got warmed up, she was all over the place! Putting dirt in her mouth, throwing in on the slide, I guess we know who she didn't take after.

I forgot to mention this in the last blog and it happened a while ago, but we got a possible diagnosis for why Sadie looks so much like me and where the Nystagmus may have come from. The geneticist we have been seeing diagnosed both Sadie and I with Robinow Syndrome. There is a serious kind and not so serious kind, we have the not so serious kind. But this what gives both Sadie and I our wide features, like the nose and forehead and also why the ends of our mouths point up instead of down like most people's. This also accounts for our short toes and fingers. The geneticist also said that she thinks I had a case of Nystagmus when I was little which is where Sadie probably got it since she inherited the Robinow Syndrome from me. She said that Sadie should be perfectly fine since I am sitting here today perfectly fine. So now the mystery is solved as to why Sadie looks like me and why all our children have a 50% chance of looking exactly like me. It is an odd feeling to go 24 years and not know you have a syndrome and then get told you have something you can pass to your kids. Wasn't expecting that that day. The geneticist did try and reassure me though that there is no cause for concern, she said you never would have known there was anything different unless you had come in for the Nystagmus. The only thing we need to watch for is Sadie may be short in stature. Which we don't want so she can play sports!!! :-)

We hope this new year will bring some fun, good, and exciting things for us! We are really hoping to be in a house this year, that is our main goal. We have quickly outgrown the space we are in and we are both exhausted of apartment living and throwing away money on renting. Not to mention the 3 flights of stairs!! Other than that we don't know what this year has in store, but when we get a house you are all welcome to come and visit! We are taking volunteers to come help us move! :-)
We hope you all have a very happy and prosperous new year!

Friday, October 28, 2011

Fell Off the Wagon

Well we kinda fell off of the wagon for a while and haven't bothered to update the blog. Sorry about that. Things have been busy for us. Tony is working two jobs and I am still working early mornings and then spend the rest of my day chasing Sadie and cleaning up her messes. Baby proofing in an apartment doesn't work out very well. Not to mention any time I sit down Sadie thinks that means she can come on over and beg me to read her a book. She doesn't self entertain very well so our house is very messy right now and is driving me bananas.

Sadie had a birthday since our last post. We were very excited to have both grandparents there. It was very fun to have family around. It gets very lonely here sometimes. I can't believe a year has gone by already. It was the fastest year of my life. Sadie is still growing like crazy and is a walking machine now. About a month or more ago, Sadie reacted badly to the MMR vaccine and suffered from a mild case of the measles. She broke out in this awful rash. I thought it was a food allergy at first but no, the measles. I'm glad it wasn't a food allergy though. Sadie was a trooper through it all, a little, well a lot more cranky than usual and wouldn't eat and then had diarrhea, so yes, it was a long week. But everyone is healthy now. Sadie is working on talking but she still pretty much just says "mama." We have a fun game now where I say Sadie, "who is your momma?" and she puts her finger to my chest and says "mama." I love it.

Well, I got a "promotion" at work. One of the workers is being promoted to driver at Christmas and I took over his car. These cars handle about 1,000 packages a day and I load 4 cars now instead of 3. I have only been doing it for 4 days and I am so exhausted, and have multiple bruises. I just wished this promotion came with a pay raise. It is nice not to be with the drivers that complain all the time though. That will help with the mental part of the job. Although, one of the drivers that complained everyday asked me the other day why they have me over here now and I said "I am taking Matt's spot." Then he said, "They always gotta be screwing things up around here." So I guess in the end I was appreciated after all and didn't do that bad of a job. He was just a negative Nate. :-) The peak season is now in full swing and I am going in at 3 am now. We went from loading 24 trucks to loading 32 trucks in a matter of days. It is crazy. I will be so glad when this is all over. It is freezing in the mornings and I bundle up to go to work. You would think that I would get warm doing what I do but not enough to shed too many layers. On Monday it was the coldest day so far, 26 degrees and they didn't turn the heater on! My hands were ice cold and when I went to wash them at break time I ran cold water over them and it felt as if I had put burning hot water on them, that is how frozen they were. Not very fun. Did I mention that I can't wait until this over?

We have finally gotten some rain but we are still far from being out of the drought. I hope we have a very wet fall. Tony is still keeping very busy with both school and working at Sears. Soccer started this last week for him and he has 50 kids. Isn't that a little ridiculous? He doesn't have much help either, they are still working on that. Of course, he is hoping that he will have another good year.

We are hoping that the new year will bring some good, new, and exciting changes for our family. We are especially hoping to have more time to spend together. Tony, although jokingly said but very true, mom needs a few hours away from Sadie and dad needs a few hours with her. Sadie is getting very spoiled with mom time and she misses her daddy. Hopefully over Christmas break they will get to spend some quality time together. I think that is all the updates for now. We love and miss you all so much and are sad we don't get to spend the holidays together.



Saturday, September 3, 2011

Sears Link

I forgot to put this in the last blog. Here is a link to the rest of Sadie's pictures we took at Sears if you are interested in seeing them. We have the CD and with that the right's to print them. You can order them from the site, or you can let us know what ones you want. If you want anymore than what we already gave you.
The heat wave is finally over!! Can I get a Hallelujah!!! The only bad thing is that the cold front coming through has cause the tropical storm to take a Northeast turn and miss Texas completely. So we still need lot's of prayers that we get some rain. Fires are happening everywhere and most of Texas is either in a moderate or exceptional drought. We are in an exceptional drought. To top is off, Lake Texoma, the lake that we live by, has been contaiminated with blue algae and is closed. Hopefully things will turn around here soon. At least it won't be 90 when I go to work and 106 or more during the day!!

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Why did the armadillo cross the road?

I know all of you will be so pleased to hear this, but I finally saw an armadillo! This may not seem so exciting to you but Tony and I kept seeing them dead along side the road and weren't convinced that they really exsisted alive. Well early one morning, on my way to work of course, I saw something moving across the road, I put my high beams on and there he was. He stopped looked at me, then continued on his way. They sure are ugly. After that, I was watching Steel Magnolias, and when Shelby gets married, the groom's cake is an armadillo with gray frosting and red velvet cake for the center. That thing looked so nasty, probably because of all the ones I see that are dead it just looked to much like road kill!
Well, the big news around here is that after a very long month of swollen gums, diaper rash, crankiness etc. Sadie's top teeth have finally broken through! She has 5 teeth now. She is getting so big. She now pushes her music table around the room and walks behind it. Won't be too long now before she is walking. She absolutely loves books too. She hardly touches her toys anymore. All she wants to do is read. Tony and I pretty much have all her books memorized already. So if any of you are wanting to know what Sadie needs for her birthday, new books!! Or new toys that will give some stimulation. She still plays with the toys that play music and have lights but doesn't touch anything else.
Sadie is adjusting to the babysitter and the new schedule that we are on. I think she has adjusted better than any of us actually. Tony has gone back to school and is still working at Sears. This week was very hard and next week will be worse. This week he worked Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday. Sadie and I didn't see him until Thursday this week and next week, he works Mon, Tues, Wed, Fri, and Sat. So we will only be seeing Tony again really one day next week. So yeah, things are really busy for us and a little crazy. We are hoping this schedule won't be necessary for too much longer but there are no change of plans in the near future. :-(
It is still extremely hot and dry here. The other day at work I got so dehydrated that I got sick. Working like that in 90 degree weather isn't so great. If most of the drivers weren't jerks and complainers I might feel sorry for them! It is amazes me how much they complain. Sometimes I just want to say, you make $100,000 can't you shut up and be happy? One of my drivers finds something to complain about every single day and it is really annoying. It is my goal every day to get out of there before he gets there so I don't have to listen to it. I learned the other day that for partime at UPS, anything over 5 hours in a day is overtime, and for overtime, they pay double! So some days I am making pretty good money and when it picks up for the holidays I'll be doing very well. So I'll try to limit my complaining during that time......

Tony and I went to a baseball game for my birthday and that was a lot of fun. That is what the pictures are of below and we also took Sadie to the zoo. There is a smaller zoo about 30 minutes away that we took her too. She's not quite ready for the larger zoos in Dallas. Well, I think that is all for now. Sadie's birthday is coming up and we are excited for that. We all made it a year!!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

A little bit of work, FIFA, and a lot of Sadie!

It's been a while since our last post but things have been busy as we have all been adjusting to a new schedule. I've been working at UPS now for over a month and it is going pretty well. I am getting very strong and not suffering too much from early mornings. We are very understaffed so that makes the job even more exhausting and less desirable to go to every morning but it is a good job to have for our situation so I can't complain.....too much. :-)

Tony has been working at sears and doing well there. If you ever get in a conversation with him he might and try and sell you something so choose your topics wisely!! His most exciting event would be the women's FIFA World Cup match against Brazil. If you didn't watch it, you sure missed out. I don't particulary care to watch soccer but even I'll admit, that was a good game to watch.

Although it was never officially said, we are pretty certain Tony's job is safe for next year. He was in a training session for school and the principal came in a made a comment about the classes he would be teaching next year. We are so happy and grateful. We have 3 jobs among our family in this recession when many don't have even one. So even though I complain about the job, I can't deny it is a huge blessing.

Since we last updated, many of you know we took a vacation to Ocean City, New Jersey. Sadie did a wonderful job traveling again and we all had a lot of fun. We wish that we could be closer to family so there wasn't so much time in between visits, but alas, we are not and probably won't be anytime soon.
Texas is very very hot right now. We have been over 100 everyday for the last week or so and are back in a very bad drought. I know many of you are probably thinking that it is in the 90s where you are so it's not that different, however, 100 degrees in Texas is much warmer than anywhere else I have been. We don't go outside very often and when we do, it is for very short increments. I really miss the summers in Eastern Oregon and Washington, mainly the dry heat!!! When I am at work in the morning it is 85 degrees and 70% percent humidity, in a building that is not air conditioned. Joyous times are had by all. :-)

As for Sadie, a couple of weeks ago she went to the doctor for her 9 month well check up. She is 29 inches long and 21.15 lbs, still in the 90th percentile! The doctor said she is the happiest 9 month old he has ever seen and would take her home if he could. He also said that if he had a sticker for good patient of the day, he would put it on her forehead. Next time we go, will be her 12 month check!! 12 months, 1 year old! I can't believe it. It has gone so fast. Which by the way, we will be having a party and you are all invited!! :-)

Sadie is crawling all over the place now. She follows me from room to room. She gets quite the workout though, when she finally gets into the room I am in, I am done and leave. So once she gets there, she has to turn around and head the other direction. She also insists to eat when I am eating regardless if she just finished a meal. So yesterday I shared my spaghetti with her. She has also tried watermelon, which she likes so we can take her to Hermiston!! (my hometown famous for watermelons for those who don't know.) But she is starting to eat table food, slowing getting the hang of feeding herself.

Speaking of eating, Sadie, hates her bibs. Yesterday during lunch she kept taking it off, I would tell her no, put it back on and she would cry. This continued all through lunch. She is such a character. She tries to crawl through spaces that are too small and constantly gets stuck. She cries and I just laugh, I don't think she appreciates that. She is pulling herself up now and ever so cautiously sits back down. We really enjoy her and she is our entertainment.













Monday, May 23, 2011

The Working Girl

Well, as many of you know I have started working again. I am a package handler at UPS from 4:30 am to 9:00 am. Is it my dream job? No. But this decision wasn't made over night and as much as I would love to get a job in my field or to even go back to school, now is not the time for that. Tony and I both feel strongly that I need to be with Sadie right now and working 40+ hours won't provide that. This job lets me be with Sadie so that is a blessing. Since I go in so early, I would ask that unless it is an emergency or the weekend, don't text or call me past 8:00. I will be in bed and ignore you!! haha

There are some pros and cons to this job. My working day ends at 9:00 which I suppose can be both a pro and con! lol. I don't have to look nice for work, I wear tennis shoes and workout clothes and have no need to apply makeup, so I get to roll out of bed and go! I will develop some strong muscles and hopefully lose a few extra pounds before our beach vacation. We don't have to spend a lot of money on child care. The best pro is that I get to spend the day with Sadie which is the most important thing right now. It's only been a week but the job has been good so far. It is a nice change from my last job. I'm not really being mentally stimulated all that much, but I am physically active and not sitting at a desk for 8 hours. So that is a very nice change.

This morning on my way to work I saw a little bunny and a possum. The possums I usually find dead along the road but this one was still alive. I may have run over his tail but he is still alive! I'm hoping to see an armadillo one of these mornings. Those are usually found dead along the road as well. If I see an armadillo in the road though, he may not make it since armadillos jump in the air when they get scared and jump right into the car. Otherwise you could just drive right over the top of them!

Tony will be starting at Sears hopefully soon. Because of his shady background the background check is taking forever!! haha School is almost out and we are both glad for that. Still not sure what will happen next year though.

Sadie is still growing so fast. On Friday I took her to the geneticist and thanks to Maegan, I had the perfect onsie to put her in!! The geneticist loved it and asked where she could find one for future baby shower gifts. We had good news at the geneticist, she said that she doesn't feel like she needs to do any testing right now. Sadie's development is on track and her eyes seem to be getting better and not worse. We will go back around Sadie's first birthday for a followup checkup. Sadie goes to the Opthamalogist on Thursday. I had to resechedule due to my new schedule.

Sadie is still working with ECI. They show my how to help her get into new positions to learn to sit up on her own, get out of the sitting position and to learn how to crawl. All of these are coming along. Sadie gets into the crawl position and you can tell she is thinking really hard about how she is going to move her body. Right now she has moved a little bit. She moves her hands but can't figure out how to coordinate her hands and legs. She is almost there though. She will be glad to crawl though and get to explore more. I think she is starting to get a little bored with the toys she has been playing with for the that 8 months, she is ready for something new!!

Our trip to Idaho was fun. Sadie was really good on the plane and I just hope she will be that good again when we fly in a few weeks. She is also sleeping night through the regularly now which was kinda perfect timing. We are all happy and doing well here, working hard! Enjoy the new pictures of Sadie!

t

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

It was Only a Matter of Time

Well, Sadie learned to do something new. It resulted in a very wet mother, floor and countertops. Take a look!


Friday, April 22, 2011

ECI and Other News


A few weeks ago ECI came out and evaluated Sadie. As far as her development is concerned, everything is on track and she is doing fine. However, they said that she is a very content baby, meaning she is happy with whatever toy we give her, happy to be on the floor playing on her back for long periods of time, and doesn't fuss a whole lot. Apparently for a 6 month old baby this isn't normal, so this qualifies her for ECI service. If she had been a little bit older, then Sadie wouldn't have qualified, being content is an older trait I guess. They will come back out on the 28th and we will outline a plan and come up with goals that we want Sadie to reach. They will still work on her development and push her to do new things like roll over more than she does, crawl, scoot, stand, etc. As we work with ECI we will have to watch to see if any of her development is affected by her eye sight, for instance, when she starts to crawl, does she run into things more than usual, and when she can eat finger foods, does she pick it up with her fingers and how is her accuracy? I am pretty optimistic at this point, Sadie shows some very good signs that her vision is still good. In the nighttime she is able to find her pacifier in the dark and put it in her mouth, she is accurate right now when reaching for toys. So right now, the vision specialist with ECI isn't too concerned but she told me to look out for certain things and to notify her if anything comes up. The therapy won't start for a few more weeks so we'll keep you updated as that progresses.


Sadie is doing well though, still growing. She has been on solid food for about a month now. She has tried pretty much everything, well, in stage one, and her favorites include, squash, oatmeal, and pears. But she prefers the squash. We are really not sure where she gets that from since we don't really do the squash thing. Oh well, it's a very healthy choice so I won't complain!! Her teeth are almost completely all the way through. She is also saying, "da,da,da" and "ba,ba,ba." I told Tony it's hardly fair that dad's get two consonants, d and p that could mean dad, "da and pa" and we mothers only have "m" and it's very hard to say! When I try to get her to do the m she just stares at me and sometimes will mimic my mouth movements.
Sometimes Sadie will try and hold her own bottle now but her favorite thing to do is to hold my thumb (away from the bottle) and she also tries to grab my other fingers on occasion. This makes it particular difficult to feed her sometimes. But the thumb is an every time thing and when she loses it she gets a little frantic until she finds it again. It probably won't be long before she is holding her bottle though.... :-(


I forgot to relate a story in the last blog post about one of our trips to the doctor. Sadie and I were in the neurologists office and she was sitting on my lap, the neurologist and I were looking at a paper with his notes on it and he was explaining things to me and Sadie kept looking at the paper and then at me with the look that said, "What is going on mom?" It was very cute and also kinda sad that she just didn't understand what was going on. She is such a trooper though!


We are finally getting some much needed rain. The fires have been all around us, so we have missed them, thank goodness!


As for news with Tony and I. I know some of you know that Tony had to become certified to be a composite teacher. He took that test last Saturday. We don't know the results yet. We also still don't know about cuts but they did say that they will be adding another period next year. I guess this will cut costs somehow. So Tony will be picking up another class probably. As for me, many of you know that I have been looking for a part time job. I have experienced a rainbow of emotions over this, excitement, anger, resentment, sadness etc. But it's just the way it is and sometimes you gotta do what you have to do even if you don't like it. On a different less depressing note, Tony and I will be singing at church on Sunday. Well, at first Tony was asked to sing in a men's quartet, but they couldn't find a fourth guy so I am singing alto with 3 men. We are singing This is the Christ. Other news is, after 7 months I have finally received a church calling again. I haven't been sustained yet so you will all have to sit on pins and needles for a little while. You can take some guesses at what you think it might be!! Well Sadie is helping me type this and as you can imagine she isn't much help and right now she is trying to pull everything off of the desk so this post is going to end here! The picture is of her eating her favorite food and the video is her eating her favorite toy, enjoy!
Love,
Rachel

Friday, March 25, 2011

News

It's been while since I've posted. Things got a little busy. I was running Sadie down to Dallas to doctor's appointments what seemed like everyday. But we are done with that for a little while now thank goodness.

So that brings to update everyone on the latest that I haven't talked to recently. Sadie had an MRI done to check her brain and it was normal, so for that we are grateful. It was very sad having to take Sadie to get an MRI. I am to hold her while they sedated her, wasn't so much fun. When they brought her out it was so sad too, she was starving and so cold her lips were blue! Glad that is over. Sadie also saw a neurologist and was diagnosed with Congenital Nystagmus. Unfortunately we don't know a definite prognosis but all the doctors have pretty much told me to accept that she will probably have this the rest of her life. The pediatrician said "I know no mom wants to heat that their child is a special needs child, and she won't have any mental problems, but she will have special needs when it comes to her vision." He is right no mom wants to hear that. He then begged me to not start crying there in his office. I was sick at the time and was on some cold medicine so apparently my eyes looks a little glossy. :-)

We still haven't seen the geneticist. They are waiting to get records from the ophthalmologist and the neurologist. So I am just waiting to hear back from them. The pediatrician also told me to have Sadie examined by ECI which is Early Child Intervention. They work with kids with disabilities and check their development to make sure it is all on track and if it isn't they work with the child to develop the necessary skills they need. They will come into our home and evaluate her within the next couple of weeks. This is a free service which is a blessing!

Tony and I are doing okay. Trying to take everything in stride and hoping and praying that the small chance of Sadie out growing this is on our side. It seems over the last couple of weeks she has been fixating on things pretty well and has even looked at me without moving her eyes at all! So I am hoping that is something significant.

Other than all this Sadie is doing great. I am pretty sure she is teething now. I felt her gums yesterday and felt something sharp poking through. Our little baby is growing so fast!! She goes for her 6 month well on Tuesday so we'll know her new weight and length.

Well, now what's new with Tony and I, soccer is finally over!!! This makes me happy because it means I can have my husband back. Spring is here in Texas, we've been enjoying beautiful weather and people have been out at the pool for several weeks now. This is when I wish Sadie were a little bit older so I could be at the pool enjoying the sun! We really need rain though, unfortunately we are in a drought. No rain in the forecast though for quite sometime, so until then I'll try and find the time to work on my tan! A couple of weeks ago, Tony's parents came to visit and we had a lot of fun. It's always nice to have people come visit, especially when we are so far from family and friends. We are unsure of what will happen with education in Texas. Like everywhere else they will be cutting and Sherman has to submit cuts for certain percentage cuts. The unfortunate thing is that 85% percent of the budget is in personnel, so we are sure what will be happening. It seems we are playing that waiting game with a lot of things.

I think that is all the updates. Now that things have slowed down a little, maybe the blog will be updated more! The pictures I put in this time, are Sadie sleeping a funny position that we found her in yesterday and of her playing with her new favorite toy. Hope all is well you guys!

Love,
Rachel

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Once Upon a Time.....

Sadie really wanted to tell everyone a story. Hope you enjoy it! The picture I attached we entitled, Sadie the Destroyer.



I know everyone was real worried about our cold weather, but don't worry, it's been in the 70s all week. I even had to turn on the a.c. a couple of times to cool it down.


We go to the pediatrician again on Monday to decide whether or not we need to do something for Sadie's eyes. I will keep you posted!



The video I really wanted to upload was too large so here is another one, it isn't as good, but we'll work on getting another video of her talking.







Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Winter Storm

I know most of you have been very jealous of the weather we've been having. 70 degree weather just ins't fair in January. Well, don't worry, winter finally caught up with us and Tony has been on a snow day for the last two days.


We finally got Sadie to start sleeping, however, the pounding of ice against our windows kept us up all night anyway! We received about 3 inches of snow and ice and we live in a place where it doesn't get cleaned off very quickly. We have had chilly temperatures as well and winds that take us below zero. So Texas isn't a happy place to be right now.




The pictures below are pictures of ice inside, yes, inside of our windows! Our apartment isn't insulated very well so we are all quite cold. The manager of the complex will most likely receive a complaint. Thank goodness it's supposed to be in the 50s by Sunday, so just a few more days of this bitter cold!

























Thursday, January 27, 2011

Sadie's Checkup

On Monday I took Sadie to the pediatrician for her 4 month well. She received her immunizations and as you can imagine, didn't like it very much. I am happy to report that Sadie is a very healthy baby and is definitely not a starved child. In two months she went from being in 75th percentile for weight to the 90th percentile! She now weighs 15 lbs and 8.5 oz and is 25" long. In two months she gained 4 pounds and grew 2.5 inches. As you all know, Tony is getting his wish for a fat baby.

The pediactrician did say we need to keep watch on her eye movement. She was moving them around quite a bit in the office and he was concerned that she may have wandering eyes which could lead to a lazy eye and monocular vision. He said if caught early it is treatable. So I am currently on the look out for that. We certainly hope this is not the case. We started Sadie on rice cereal. Down below are some pictures and some videos we have taken over the last month.

As for the sleeping thing, we are making a little progress. I have found a way to put her down for naps and she sleeps for 2 hours! Which is a huge step considering she only slept previously for 30 minutes at a time. My trick is to bounce her while I sit on my exercise ball. It knocks her out in half the time and lulls her into a deeper sleep quicker. We are still working on the nighttime sleeping. Our doctor explained that babies have a sleep cycle of deep sleep for 2-3 hours and then a light sleep, when they are in the light sleep cycle they have the potential to wake up easily. This is what is happening with Sadie and she has forgotten how to put herself to sleep. The doctor gave us a few ideas but said it is really hard to give sleep advice because all babies are different and need different things. He said they had to do something different with each of their babies. So, I guess we will be experiementing over the next little while. It's a good thing I like experiements! Although I could really use some sleep!!

Those are the updates for now. Hope all is well with you!

Love,
Rachel









Sunday, January 16, 2011

We're Back

I know it has been a while since this has been updated. I left it to Tony since it was his project in the beginning but he has become quite busy so I decided to take the reigns.


We are almost recovered from our Christmas trip. Sadie is having a hard time adjusting back to her regular schedule and is being extremely stubborn when it comes to taking naps and bedtime. I know, many of you are probably thinking that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, in reference to the stubborn part. That part of her personality is coming through in spades! She really didn't stand a chance though considering both her parents are pretty stubborn. Yes, I can admit it.


Christmas was wonderful and it was fun to see some of our friends again and of course to be with family. We love and miss you all! Sometimes I wish we didn't live so far from one another although the distance has made me come to appreciate family and good friends a lot more and the relationship we have. Sadie was completely spoiled this Christmas and as Tony would say she has so much stuff that one of us is going to have move out! We are quickly out growing our apartment and may have to look at other options this summer.


The trip to Idaho was long but good. I learned that there is never a changing station in the public restroom when you need one most and how to be creative in making your own chaning station in the over crowded car. I wish we would have thought to take pictures of some of the ways we came up with. Sadie was a good sport and only gave us glaring looks occasionally. :-) Now I am working endlessly to get her back on her routine. I find this to be more exhausting and hard than it was to put on a routine to begin with.


Much to my dismay, Sadie is still sucking her thumb! I have put mittens on her but she just puts the mitten in her mouth and sucks on that until it is so soaked I am forced to remove it leaving her thumb free to suck. Sometimes the sucking is so good that she'll stick both thumbs in her mouth or switch back and forth between thumbs unable to choose which one is best. Even though I don't like this habit she has picked up, she looks so cute doing it, and it is very helpful in the night as she can soothe herself back to sleep! Sadie is changing and getting bigger each and everyday. I sometimes wish I can have my tiny little baby back that I brought home from the hospital. There are certain times in my life that I wish I could just freeze the moment, and that would be one of them. She is becoming very aware of her vocal chords. Tony thinks she sounds like a cat. She is noticing her surroundings a lot more too and is more active with her toys. Sadie is also getting stronger and is trying really hard to roll over. She's not quite there yet but she sure tries. Sadie has also become very good at blowing spit bubbles. Tony and I are loving every minute of her and being parents, even when she wakes up at 2 am. You can't resist the big smile she greets you with!


Tony's soccer season is underway and he is very busy with that. This leaves a lot of time for Sadie and I to bond. We enjoy watching the chick flicks that dad doesn't approve of. :-) Tony and I will be celebrating our three year anniversary tomorrow. Unfortunately Tony is very sick so there won't be much activity going on. The last three years have gone by fast which is a good thing that it isn't going slowly! :-) A lot has happened and our family is quickly changing. But we all still happy and well which means we are succeeding. I've attached some pictures from Christmas for you to see. I hope everyone is doing well, we love you and miss you all!
Until next time,
Rachel