Livi's new words and sparkly purple molds

Olivia's new purple molds came this week and I have to say that I trimmed the tubing just right on the first try! Usually it takes me a few attempts but this time... ta da! If they are too long they will fall off her ears and if they are too short.. well we won't go there because then I would need new tubing!

I like the purple molds but they are very 'eye catching'. I've been used to pink and they blend in with the skin a little better than the purple. It's okay though because we aren't ashamed of our hearing computers.. they are super cool.

Olivia has added new words this week!
-bottle
-out
-up
-down
-ut oh


Isn't that AMAZING! We are up to 17 and she isn't even ONE!

Our "Little Lady" as Eli like to call her graduated to a big girl seat this week. Her infant carrier only goes up to 20 lbs and she has met the mark, so I went ahead and turned her around. I know... the recommendations are to leave them rear facing until TWO... but this sweet baby HATES to ride. We can't leave her hearing aids in on our car rides because she pulls them out and eats them and so the child is facing backwards with nothing to look and doesn't have stellar hearing. I wouldn't like being in that isolation either. She's a much happier camper now that she can watch the family.

Love those leg rolls

New little shoes.. I got these handmade from Groopdealz for $10.00 They are super cute and the bottoms are leather. 

New purple molds

Bodily fluids-read at your own risk

Well.. I just thought Eli was better. On Wednesday it started at both ends and on Friday night and he was sick again THREE times. I was so proud of Josh's quick-like-ninja skills at dinner on Friday. As we were eating dinner at 'Poles, (the Mexican restaurant-- I know probably not the restaurant of choice when the family has had a stomach bug) Eli started to get sick so Josh grabbed him up and ran out the front door where Eli then puked all over the sidewalk. Yea, not such a good idea to go out to eat...we had them box up our dinner to go.

Poor Olivia also caught the dreaded bug.. right after she finished a huge bowl of spaghetti on Wednesday night. I was up all night with her and then Eli got sick as well. I've never been good with throw up.. I can do poop all day but throw up gets me. I faced my fears though and made it through because there was no other option!

Josh started feeling bad Friday morning as well and stayed home. I bought stock in crackers and pedalyte. Thankfully we are all healthy right now. I somehow evaded the bug with my super power mommy immunity and Isaac didn't catch it either!

When this one lays on the couch or falls asleep you know he's sick!

Little girl feeling better. She can climb all the way to the top!

Bathroom conversations

Mom, "God made our eyes so we could see, our nose so we could smell, our ears so we could hear."

Eli, (pause and puzzled look) "Why did God make our forehead?"

Mom, (pause) "ummm for our eyebrows?"

Yea, I didn't really know what to say to that one.


Mr. Pitiful had a stomach virus today and that was no fun. Milk is not a pleasant thing to clean up on the second go around. Thankfully he started feeling better after his nap. He's started calling Olivia and I "little lady". Olivia was putting her foot on the keyboard as he typed and he said, "quit it wittle wady". He cracks me up daily...even when he's puny.

What we've done this week...

Life has been busy! We've had baseball games, practice, therapy, and kindermusik class. We've exercised a bit, tilled and planted a garden, had a puppy checkup and taken silly bath photos. Josh has been building us a chicken coop when he gets home from work in the evenings. Eli calls it a 'chicken kook". These chickens are vacating my garage as soon as he gets that thing built because for 1. they have out grown their rubbermaid container and 2. they stink!  Tuesday we went to Enka to watch Isaac's Battle of the Books competition. Isaac and his team won the regional competition out of 11 counties! He read 28 novels to be tested on.. there are 7 kids on his team and he was in every round. Thursday, Isaac and Eli had dentist appointments and Livi went with us.. no cavities and Eli was very cooperative. Eli actually went back to get his teeth cleaned without me. This is my last week as a 31 year old because I turn 32 on Saturday. Eeeekkk!

Boys and ball

Isaac is playing baseball and Eli is playing soccer. On Thursday, Eli had a soccer game at 6:00 and Isaac had a baseball game at 7:30. Schedules are crazy right now because Isaac has two games per week and practice 1x week. Thankfully Eli only has one game per week and no practice. Eli gets so excited about going but then when he gets out there he won't go out on the field. I  even tried bribery with marshmallows!

My sweet boys!

Olivia is 11 months!

Okay so you've seen my posts where I have interchanged "Livi" and "Livie" and it's because I'm trying to figure out how I like it spelled better. Suggestions??

So Olivia is 11 months... I'm guessing she is about 20 lbs right now. I don't know for sure because she hasn't been weighed lately. She wears size 12 month clothes, size 3 diapers and size 3 shoes. My friend Amber, who is a mommy of two girls, told me that when her girls outgrew their dresses she would use them as a shirt. Today Olivia wore one of her 3 month size dresses from last summer as a shirt with a pair of leggings! I'm going to try and see if we can re-cycle any other cute outfits from last summer as well.

Our sweet girl is not yet walking... really she is showing no interest in walking. She will crawl, pull up and cruise around on the furniture. Occasionally she will walk if you hold her hands but usually she just  collapses in a pile on the floor. I suppose she will walk when she is ready.. I'm really in no hurry.

She is eating mostly table food, and some baby food. She still likes the squeezie packages that you squirt in your mouth...they are so handy for going out to dinner as well. She is nursing in the morning and before bed.. I am supplementing with a bottle or two of formula.  She isn't getting much breast-milk  because my nursing days are about over. That last stomach bug sucked every bit of milk out for two days and though my milk returned, my supply has been pretty low. I really wanted to keep nursing until she was 18 months, but I just don't think it's going to happen.

Most of the time Olivia sleeps great. I usually rock her for a few minutes and then lay her down with her pink silky blanket and paci and she goes right to sleep in her crib. She goes down around 8pm and sleeps until 7:30 am. She takes a morning nap and and afternoon nap as well. This mama is such a happier person with sleep!

Super cute things Olivia can do: When you say "How big is Olivia?" she will raise her arms and approximate "so big". When you tell her to blow kisses she will say "mmm wahh" and blow you a kiss.  She knows where her bows go and will try to put them in her hair. She loves to pull her hearing aids out and will hand them to me. One day she tried to stuff one back towards her ear.. I really think she was trying to put it back in. She is doing great with her speech and language and is making all sorts of sounds, babbling and saying WORDS!! Here is a list of the words she can say.. I'm so proud of her!

She says:
dada
mama
bye bye
papa
hey
dog
woof woof
bite bite
hello
thank you
diaper
ball

Livie's Audiologist appointment

Sunday evening Josh, Olivia and I made the trek down to Chapel Hill again for Olivia's audiologist appointment on Monday. We had dinner at the Melting Pot near our hotel. I've not been in forever and after seeing my friend Misty's pics, I had the urge to go. It also helped that we were down 2 kids! My favorite was the chocolate peanut butter fondue... The graham coated marshmallows dipped in chocolate were amazing! Olivia loved the fruit, without chocolate of course. We headed to our hotel afterwards and went swimming. Livie just laughed, splashed and kicked. Even though we are making the trip for medical necessity, it's fun spending time with just her. She gets Mommy and Daddy's undivided attention and loves it.

Today we stayed at the hotel for a while and then went to the mall to shop around and eat before her appointment. We kept hoping she would take a nap in her stroller but that wasn't happening. As soon as she got in the car she passed out and luckily squeezed in a 30 minute nap.

When we arrived, we were taken back to the sound booth. I stayed in the sound booth with Olivia while Josh went into the testing area with our audiologist. Ms. Hannah that works with Olivia through the REACH program met us as well! It was great to see her in person. I would recommend Chapel Hill to anyone dealing with pediatric hearing loss. It's worth the drive and hotel stay to know that we are in the best hands!

I have been worried that Olivia's hearing had changed because for about 2 weeks I couldn't get her to respond to /s/ and /sh/ when doing Ling sound testing. I didn't voice my fears to Josh for awhile because I didn't want to alarm him or contemplate that her loss had progressed. I even tried to take her one of our local schools to run tympanometry to see if she had fluid in her middle ear to no avail. So I've been a bit anxious about today's appointment.

Olivia was a champ during testing. Her ear drums looked great and she had good movement on her tympanogram testing; indicating no fluid in her middle ear. During booth testing our audiologist was able to get 7 different frequencies in BOTH ears, as well as bone conduction testing. She was very happy to get all this information because often they may only get a couple frequencies in one ear; it depends on how well the child conditions to the testing and cooperates.

Olivia's hearing hasn't changed...which is wonderful news! We had her hearing aids reprogrammed for the new frequency information and had new ear molds made as well. Thankfully her ears are starting to slow down with the rapid growth and her molds are lasting much longer. We ordered purple sparkly molds this time :)

Saturday

I love to go, go, go... but sometimes it's hard to beat a warm, sunny Saturday at home. Isaac pulled an all-nighter at a youth lock-in so he slept in until 330 pm this afternoon. The littles, Josh and I played/worked outside. I cleaned the chicken cage, cleaned Sampson's cage, and mopped the garage with Clorox. We let Brenda, Edith, and Georgie ( our chicks) out to do a little free roaming and bug eating. Sampson tried to nip at them but after he got in trouble twice he decided to follow them around and lick them. We also planted some heirloom seeds in a starter greenhouse. Josh is going to till us a garden spot when the ground dries out. I'm going to learn how to garden, and hopefully we will have some yummy organic fruits and vegetables this summer. I just keep adding work to my plate but that's okay!

Oh we bought a juicer and I love it! We got this one. Tonight we juiced fresh papaya, kiwi, and melon. It was a bit thick but good. I've been reading a book on juicing and it's really interesting. I bought some kale and carrots to try to add some veggies into our juice as well. I'm hoping that I squeeze in a few different veggies into our juice that I can't get my 3 year old to typically eat.

This is ... Georgie. 

Eli and look who else is going for a ride in the back of the blue truck!

The 3 little chicks. Edith is a Rhode Island Red, Brenda is a Wyandotte, and Georgie is the Black Australorp.

Josh and Eli planting our seeds

The juicer

Puppy post

Okay.. I know dogs have belly buttons because they have an umbilical cord when they are born.. but I've never really examined one up close. Here is Sampson's belly button.. it's kinda cute.  Eli keeps calling the dog a girl so I had to show him this picture to convince him that the dog is a boy. He knows boys have weenies and girls don't, because I hear that conversation several times a week. I think he's convinced now. Sampson is settling in nicely. He is still having a few accidents and likes to bite ankles.

The belly button

Sampson and Si (Si is my mom's pup- they are brothers)

Sampson after he stole Olivia's bunny

Eli and his new playmate

He likes tractors too

Isaac and the pups

Sweet little Sampson

Spontaneity!

I am not a very scheduled person. A lot of time I fly by the seat of my pants and wait until the last minute to get things done. When Eli was one we decided 2 days before to fly out West and take a road trip to the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and other such stops. It was one my favorite trips. In college, my mom, 3 year old Isaac, my grandmother and I  sporadically took a cruise to the bahamas. I love unplanned trips like this.

We decided at 7pm Tuesday night to drive to Asheboro, get a hotel, and go to the zoo on Wednesday morning. Josh's brother and his family decided to go too! We were eating dinner at 7:30 pm when we made the call to do it,  drove 30 minutes home, packed up and left the house before 9pm. The kiddos slept in the car and we arrived in Asheboro at 12am. We didn't think it would be a problem to find  a hotel but I started getting concerned after we called 4 different hotels and there was no vaccancy. Luckly we found a Marriott and booked the last two rooms available.

Wednesday, we ate at I-hop and made a day of the zoo. It was perfect weather.. sunny and around 60 degrees. It was a bit crowded but not too bad. Olivia took a hour or so snooze in her stroller and Eli ran around like a monkey. Isaac, Bryce, and Braedon had fun being together and Josh loved taunting the male chimp. We got home around 9:30 Wednesday night and crashed. It was a fun family day!

Eli's Mickey party

There was no question on what theme of party to have for Eli's 3rd birthday because he loves some Mickey Mouse! Last year I was hugely pregnant and we moved into our new house on his birthday weekend so he didn't have a party. I made up for it this year! I had all sorts of grandiose ideas, thanks to Pinterest, but only a few materialized. Here are a few things we did:

I ordered a Mickey mascot costume several months ago and Isaac graciously agreed to play the part. On some purchases it was necessary not to tell the hubs about it until they arrived, and this is one of those! Mickey was a hit and Isaac did a great job. The kids, especially Eli thought Mickey was great.  Eli was more enthralled with Mickey than the presents. He rubbed Mickey's head and said "I love you Mickey Mouse!" Sidebar.. If anyone needs a Mickey costume for rent send them my way!

Most of the decorations were homemade. I made a homemade wreath...and I'm not crafty. I wrapped a green foam circle with yellow polka dot ribbon, and used two black paper birthday plates to cover the foam circles for ears. I finished it with coordinating ribbon as a hanger. The black paper lanterns and tissue paper flowers came from Amazon and I used wrapping paper and scrapbook paper as a table runner. The banners by created by cutting scrapbook paper into triangles and then hot gluing ribbon on. My sweet sister-in-law, Sonja and niece, Allie helped with one as well. My other sister in law, Jan helped me clean house and my mom kept the kids on Friday so we could get ready. It was a family effort!

All the printables were made on my computer. I downloaded free Mickey images and a Disney font to make the food signs, treat tags, and welcome sign and printed them on card stock. I found a 4$ frame at Walmart to frame Eli's welcome sign.

Eli and Olivia's Mickey shirts came from ETSY and we will reuse them this summer when we head to Disney World for a week. 

We had to have a hot dog bar to go with Mickey's theme song. The old fashioned hotdog roller came from Walmart and I ordered the hot dog holders, ketchup, and mustard servers from Amazon. I found red buckets from the dollar store and glued white circles on to hold the plasticware. The Le-Minnie-Aid idea came from Pinterest and was easy to make out of card stock.

Eli's cake idea came from Pinterest and was made by My Local Bakery in Morganton. The flavor was cookies and creme with chocolate icing....yum! I had a few extra cupcakes made at our local grocery store with black and white icing and then bought candy chips to use as ears.

I ordered the balloons from Amazon.. they were super cute... red, white, and black with white polka dots. The Mickey air walker balloon was taller than Eli and the kids had fun dancing and punching Mickey.

Isaac helped me make the treat bags.. he cut out the white circles. We used brown paper bags and added the card stock and tags. I filled the bags with bubbles, Mickey Ears, Mickey cups and then after the kids broke the piñata we added candy and small toys as well. 

Thankfully it didn't rain and we put up our inflatable outside near the play yard. Of course inflatables are always a kid favorite. We've had our inflatable since Eli's 1st birthday and it's seen a lot of use. Josh's new play-yard was up just in time as well