Thanksgiving

We had a wonderfully relaxing weekend. My little sister, Becky, came in from Long Beach, CA. It was a little cold here for her, but we all had a wonderful time. It is a tradition that we love. Each year we do some old favorite traditions and each year there is something new. As always, Becky and I tackled Potato Scurv (potato sausage) and Lefse (potato tortillas). They were delicious as always, but we will spare you the pictures. Aubrey took 4 hour naps every day, so she missed quite a few activities, but she was a lot happier for those naps.

The girls watched the Macy's Day Parade (they love musicals) and then set up their own parade/musical in the drive way. The "Rockettes" made a big impression on them.

We had lots of dress up. Each girl has a "Mulan" outfit from Grandma Smith.

Here is Ella with her fan.

Alice as "Mulan".

Kate as "Mulan".

There was picking of the last tomatoes and then getting the garden ready for the winter.

We trimmed the tree.

We had hot chocolate and sat by the fire. (No not really cold enough for a fire, but it the feeling and something we usually do on the winter weekends for the kids:)

Aubrey wasn't sure what to make of the fire. She would rather chew on the Christmas Bells.

We always do the cut out Christmas cookies Thanksgiving weekend and this year was no exception.

Ella REALLY wanted to go on the airplane with Becky last night.

This was her proof that yes she did fit into Becky's bag, so she could go, right?:)

And all too soon it was time to say goodbye. We had a lovely weekend and Becky got her fingerprints pressed onto Aubrey, so she would be remembered.

We are all going to miss her, but it is just a short month til Christmas, when we will get to see her for a couple more days.

We Love You, Becky! Thanks for the great Thanksgiving Weekend!

Ears

Aubrey had an ear appointment today. We were supposed to just see her every 4-6 months to have the ear wax cleaned out of her tiny ears and to keep tabs on her hearing. She has such tiny ears that they fill with wax fast and she has had some fluid in her ears. But that will be changing...

Dr. Champion said that she looked tremendous today! Lots of wax, which she cleaned out, but there was no fluid in her ears at all. They look great and are better than average for kids with Ds she said. She didn't know how, with such small ear tubes, Aubrey was keeping so healthy. It is a testament to the extra care that we are taking to keep her well and is the little pat on the back that we need to keep going through this cold/flu season.

Then we had to go for the hearing portion of it. In July they did not do this because she had so much fluid in her ears and they couldn't get any readings on the ear drum either. They put us in a booth. Either side of the booth had speakers that she made sounds into or talked and they waited for Aubrey to turn and look towards the sound. As her mom, I wanted to help and it was hard not to. She has some mild loss or was just not interested in listening, it was hard to say. The scale is 0-20 is normal and Aubrey was a 25. Then she did a test where they stick a little instrument in her ear to see if the ear drum is moving. Aubrey's ears are so little that she doesn't have any "thingees" that are small enough to really fit and create a good seal. She tried though and Aubrey was so patient with her. They got a little movement on the left and none on the right. In July they had troubles too, so it is a waiting game.

A good visit, but they are going to keep tabs on her more closely, every 2 months to keep the wax from building up and to keep an eye on the hearing. She is pretty behind in her speech, so they want to keep tabs on it and we will talk to our speech therapist next week about it.

Happy Appointment=Happy Baby!

Hip Helpers...Toothbrush...Thank You...

So yesterday Aubrey had OT and I'm happy to say that I think the crying is behind us. She did very well and spent a lot of time on her hands and knees. She didn't go anywhere, but she stayed up and that is such improvement for her. Nicole thinks that she is close to crawling, even by Christmas, but I don't buy that and would be surprised if she was. We will continue to encourage her though.

She also suggested Hip Helpers for Miss Aubrey. They are basically shorts that are sewed together in the middle to help her keep her hips in. She needs to do this more to help her move to the next stage of mobility. They are a little expensive, so in my craftiness, I'm gonna try and make some myself. LOL:) I'm sure there will be a picture of how ridiculous Aubrey looks and I'm sure she will hate them and cry, but all in the name of crawling.

This morning she had Speech. Not much has changed from two weeks ago. We kind of feel stuck in the same place as far as eating and speech go. Aubrey did make a couple "N" sounds yesterday and today, and I heard one "M", but still not much. As far as eating, I think we all agree that she just needs to get some teeth already! I am heading to the dentist tomorrow with all the girls, so am going to have a "professional" take a look and see if he feels anything coming any time soon!

This week I did come across these "toothbrushes" that they used when she had heart surgery to kind of clean her mouth out every day. They are these green foamy things, but she absolutely LOVES to brush her gums and tongue and roll it back and forth in her mouth. Too bad I only have a couple left and they don't sell these in the store! Isn't that how it always is, you find something that you love and then they don't make it anymore, or they don't sell it in your store anymore. Anyway...

As Melissa (speech) was leaving this morning I said "Thank you" and then Aubrey signed it (her own version of course) and Melissa saw it and was so excited. I think that Aubrey probably signs more than we think, she just has her own way of doing it and we haven't caught on to everything yet. So we will be more vigilant on looking for her creative ways of saying and doing things:)

Ella and the Alley

I just had to laugh at Ella this weekend. Our driveway and garages are in the back down here and there is an alley. Ours is odd in that the alley comes out between two houses on each end instead of behind the corner houses. Anyway...we are on the U curve of the alley. It is not a really busy alley, but still has cars coming and going frequently. The girls are allowed to play in the driveway, but CANNOT be in the alley. There is kind of a "line" that is a good marker for them not to cross. I even park the car at the end of the "J" shaped driveway to keep them in.

So I was checking on them and found Ella here.

She saw me coming and quickly said, "But Mom, I am NOT in the alley." Me, "Technically you aren't, but don't you think that is still too close?" Her, without pause, "Nope!" She definitely pushes her limits:)

Statistics!

The nutritionist was here yesterday. I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it myself. Aubrey weighed 14lbs 14oz (a 15oz gain from last month) and measured 26 inches (a 1 inch gain from last month) Her head stayed the same! I knew she was growing, but man! *In case you were wondering, that still doesn't get her on the charts:) I don't know what you other moms are feeding your 14 month old's but man, I really thought that she would make a big gain on the charts this month!

We are staying the course with everything that we are doing. She did suggest doing yogurt everyday. Since Aubrey appears to dislike cheese and any other dairy product, it will be good to keep her liking yogurt so that once I ween her, she will have diary and calcium already in her diet if she decides that she won't drink enough milk.

Developmental Therapy was here this morning and I am so glad to say that she did not scream at the top of her lungs for an hour this week. It was a really good session and we are finding that once we get something to be the right size for her, then she excels. She is just the right height for the baby wipes box or bathroom stool to be used as a seat. So she sits on it, then stands up at her table and then back down again.

Unfortunately as soon as we got her down on her hands and knees she starts screaming so we are going to have to get creative. I think that she could probably crawl is she weren't so stubborn. I have seen some of our "friends" online using a cloth "swing" at therapy, so we might get creative with bed sheets this weekend and see where it gets us. I'm sure that we will post pictures of how silly that all goes, but it might be just what she needs given that she loves the swing. The other thing is to just let her sit more, on her knees to get her more comfortable with that position.

That's if for today I guess. Back to Christmas sewing projects...

Wordless Wednesday

Swimming and Stuff

Monday we went to the Pulminologist's office for her synagis shot. She was 14lbs 6oz. Hard to tell where that puts her since she isn't weighed there very often. Will have a better update this week when she is weighed by the nutritionist, but that's where she is at. Everything looked good except that she is still having some trouble with her lungs. She has a cold again. So we are doing breathing treatments again and once we get her to a "healthy" point, we will probably just keep doing them once a day as "maintenance" throughout the cold and flu season.

I also got her Part One of the H1N1. I have been putting it off, and since no one had it, been offering that as an excuse, but when it came down to it, they talked me into it. With Alice and Kate at school collecting germs all the time, I would hate for Aubrey to get sick. They said that if she did get sick, she WOULD be admitted to the hospital...so as long as she was getting one shot, why not:(

After that, we headed down to school to have the annual Thanksgiving lunch with the school girls. The kindergarten class made hats for the event. Here is Kate and her friends Matthew and Jake.

After lunch Aubrey went to play with her friends. Here she is with Tae. She is 9 months old. Her sister Ava and Aubrey's biggest sister Alice are in second grade together and were excited to see their little sisters being friends too. Tea kept "touching" Aubrey's shoes and Aubrey was fascinated with her hair and hair clip:)
Today was swimming day. I got tired of waiting for the swim school to email me the video of her, so brought my own camera today to capture the moments myself! She did awesome today and did some much kicking and splashing. They float in these tubes "chasing" plastic balls to get them to kick their legs. Aubrey doesn't care about the balls, she just likes to kick and move all over the pool.
They have this little PVC pipe "island" in the middle where the kids can play independently. She loves it on out there and would stand on that thing forever. We also use this as a starting point to swim. I gently pull her off of it and today she swam for 10 seconds total and kicked her legs the whole time! She is continually amazing me in the pool.
I am hoping that her enjoyment of the pool will gives us different opportunities to strengthen her muscles and get her crawling and moving around on her hands and knees more. The therapists have given me some ideas of things that we can work on in the pool when time allows.
Nutritionist tomorrow and therapy on Thursday. Busy week:)

BUSY WEEKEND

Hey everybody! The end of the week was so busy, that I realized we haven't posted since Wednesday! Friday was a day in the stroller. She did great! This pictures was halfway through the day...not too happy...but not unhappy yet either:)

Kate and Alice had a half day and then a special reading program at school that night, so I went down at lunch to pick them up, meet with Alice's teacher and then play for the afternoon. In the nursery at their school (it's a church school) they had this little boat. I had never seen one before, but it looked to be just the right size for Aubrey, so I put her in it. She immediately took to "driving" and "shifting". She looks to be a natural boater:)
But better than that was that the seat was at just the right height that her feet touched the floor and she pulled herself up to standing. (She was soooooooo proud:)
And then she could sit back again. I realize now that I"m looking at the pictures that she looks kind of pudgy in these overalls! She does have a little belly, but not THIS big.
She loved that thing so much, that of course, as soon as I got home, I looked for one and apparently Little Tykes doesn't make them anymore, but good old EBAY had plenty of them:) We are hoping to get one for Christmas for her.

The theme for the Reading Night was: Founding Fathers. Each class traveled as a group, and went to different stations. They had craft time (make your own flag) and two separate reading sessions about some of the founding fathers and a station with colonial games! Ella loved the hoop game here. We also played jacks.

The final station was a game. The kids had to talk to all these founding fathers and then get their names into the clues on their paper. Funny how much Daddy resembles George Washington:)

Saturday, I stayed home with two sleeping girls and cleaned for 3 hours, UNINTERRUPTED! It was great:) Dad took Alice and Kate to two birthday parties. Kate's was at a horse farm. It was her first time on a horse and she loved it.
Alice had done it 3 years ago and so of course she was an "expert" and could show off a little.
By far her big highlight was the goat that she wanted to keep. "But Mom, he was so cute and soft and cuddly and I just loved him."
There was a playground there to use while they were taking turns. We decided that Kate really makes a good Cowgirl.
They got to feed apples and carrots to the horses.
The second party was gymnastics, but the battery died on Woody:) (He must have taken too many texture shots at the horse farm! But I'll spare you THOSE pictures:)

Aubrey has lots of appointments and therapy this week, so we will have lots to share I"m sure. Off to get things set up for tomorrow.

Rachel

Wordless Wednesday--Mirrors:)

Swinging

This weekend Woody so lovingly replaced most of the equipment on the playground at church. (for those who don't know, I am the church secretary and the girls go with me when I work.) Today we spent some time at the end playing out on the playground. She has been on swings before, but not lately. SHE LOVED IT TODAY!!! Aubrey was laughing soooooooo much. She never laughs and she was laughing on the swings. It was so great. I'll have to do a video of it this week to share. (By the way, it is really hard to push a swing and take pictures of a moving target, but I think I did ok:) In case you were wondering, it was also about 75 today, thus the short sleeves and bare feet.