Finally walking!!!

Makayla started taking a few steps a month or so ago, and now for about 2 weeks, she is preferring to walk rather than the butt scoot that she's been doing for about 6 months. She's also talking a little more; you can hear some of her animal sounds in the video.



today is also a fun day for us because my sister Sandi and her boys are arriving. They will be spending Christmas with us. Sandi's husband is in the Air Force, stationed in Korea this year. We're excited to spend the holidays with her. We'll miss you Jeremy. Our thoughts and prayers are with you. God Bless.

fun photos

Here is the tree that Mark cut down. See the previous posting for details

This little kid loves her crib. Cracks me up when she sits in it like she is in prison.

Who knew that she would want to wear Lowe's kids safety goggles. She sported them for about 45 minutes one morning.

many girls

We found out last week that I'm pregnant with another girl. We are excited that she looks healthy on the ultrasound. I'm imagining a dark haired, dark eye'ed beauty. I'm very happy that I'm not throwing up and not needing the nausea medication like I did before. Today Mark told me that I'm looking pregnant. I still feel like I just look fat. Lovely. Now that I feel better, I'm eating well. Probably too well. Somedays I just feel really hungry. The weight is coming back on without any problems.

Makayla is doing very well. She has made so much progress in the last month, that it is fun to watch her. She is still strong willed about when and what she will do. We try to encourage her to do different "exercises" or practice skills, but she won't do them unless she's in the mood. This makes her physical therapy appointments a bit challenging. Anyway . . about the progress. For about a month now she has been pulling herself up to stand. She loves to pull up on anything and now can reach things that she didn't realize she could get into before. She is getting much better at cruising around the furniture. Last week she surprised us when she just stood up by herself in the middle of the room. She has done it a few times since then, but does like to say "no" when I try to encourage her to stand up. With a little help or a walking toy she will walk around the house. She is still probably about 6 months behind on these gross motor skills, but we are very pleased with the progress.

Her vocabulary is increasing. She even says "meow" and "ruff-ruff" for our pets. It's very cute, if I might say so.

Something must be said about Mark. He got very ambitious last week and cut down a tree trunk in our yard. The rest of the tree he took out months ago, but this trunk required a little more work. He used a combination of a chain saw, ax, and a wedge/sledge hammer to cut the trunk down close to the ground. Although it was a lot of work and took many hours over several days, he says it was fun. Poor guy, though, didn't wear protective gloves or shoes and ended up with some big blisters on his hands and a cut on his foot. When he tried to go to work yesterday with his hands all bandaged up, they sent him home to heal. Bummer. Saved money by doing the tree work himself, and then ended up not being able to earn money at his job.

the true and natural hCG diet

We're excited to announce that I'm pregnant. We're expecting the new baby Feb 21. The baby looks good. I've had a couple of ultrasounds and everything is measuring well, etc. We're of course, hoping for a boy, but Mark has convinced himself that we'll have all girls. I'm 13 weeks along, and I've been sick for 7 weeks and counting. Who knows how long the nausea will last. I have a whole slew of medications to help, and I still feel sick. Yuck. sorry I haven't been very social lately or done much emailing. I'm jealous of the women who breeze through pregnancy without much illness, and I admire the women who keep having babies although they do get sick!

I've lost about 10 pounds. I call it the true and natural hCG diet. Some people use the hCG drug to lose weight, but for me, it begins with pregnancy, then the natural hCG hormone surge causes nausea, vomiting, and thus weight loss. We're excited about another baby, but hoping that the sickness (and irritability, grumpiness, etc) passes soon.

Makayla is doing well. She has physical therapy every 2 weeks. She hates it. She cries, either because she is encouraged to do things she doesn't want to do, or because it's hard work. She is making slow progress, though. Although she prefers to scoot and to get up on her knees, she's been bearing weight for a couple of weeks now, which is a great accomplishment for her. The little stinker has to be in the right mood or have some motivation to stand up, but then she will. Her neurologist is concerned that she hasn't made more progress, so Makayla is scheduled for an MRI of her brain and spine as well as some muscle testing called EMG on Sept 17. She will be under anesthesia for this. I'm a little nervous. I used work on the other side of this picture, and now I'm the parent.


Makayla gets around, though, still scooting on her behind. She's smart, though, she's learned that it's easier to scoot on something smooth like a book. One day, she was playing in the kitchen cupboards and found a fry pan to be useful. Check out the video :)

Time for a few pictures :)

Here is Makayla a few months ago, when she only has 3 teeth. Cracks me up that she had only one upper tooth.

She fit great into this ottoman storage space.

Always teasing the dog. Offering food, then taking it back.

We celebrated her birthday "belated" when her sisters were here. She is actually 14 months old, but she enjoyed the party just as well.

We went swimming with the cousins for the party. Here she is with her sister Ashlyn.

Presents were fun for everyone. Makayla had lots of help opening the presents.

Here's the cousins, chillin' after swimming. (Kaitlyn, Madeline, Ashlyn, Cale, and Bosco)

Somebody discovered how fun it is to eat watermelon off the rind.

This may not look like much of an accomplishment to you, but we are very pleased and impressed that she is pulling herself up on her knees now. :) What a good job for Pappy.

Here's Makayla with her wonderful Aunt Martha.

We went on a Caribbean cruise with nearly all of my immediate family. We had a great time. I'm third from the left, and Mark is hiding behind me.

This is us at dinner

Our ship is the one on the left. We had fun checking out the one on the right.

This is us with my sister Kammi (she's the young blond on the left). We went on an adventure together on St. Thomas (kayaking, snorkeling,"hiking", hermit crabs). It was fun.

summer activities

Time to update the blog. Summer is here. Hannah and Ashlyn are with us for the summer. They love being around Makayla and to help with the baby. They laugh at the funny things that the baby does. Makayla is really starting to shake her head no, and doing it appropriately. I offer something to eat or drink, she shakes her head "no". I say it's time to go nuh-night, and she shakes her head "no." The one that kills me is when I'm leaving for work and say buh-bye, and she shakes her head "no.". That one deserves another hug and kiss. She is still such a happy little thing. I was pleased the other night when we were reading a book that has a squeak toy integrated. She wasn't able to make it squeak by herself, but she was smart enough to grab my hand and push it on the squeaker. That made me very proud.

We took her to see a neurologist, Dr Jarrar, last week. Dr Jarrar is not worried about her, given that she is making some progress with the physical therapy. She did order hip xrays and some blood work to check her hips (obviously) and her muscles. Those tests came back normal. Our pediatrician has been thinking, and wanted to add a few more tests as well. We will get those drawn soon. I'm a little nervous because I think of what would happen if some of those did come back abnormal. I just keep hoping that one day, she will just catch up developmentally.

I know, I know, each kid develops at their own pace, but the professional in me sees an underweight 14 month old baby who refuses to bear weight and has skinny little arms and legs.

I think it's very cute, though how she says "dada." She will see him in the distance or hear him singing in the other room, and smiles to say dada. We were at Wendy's the other day. I was sitting at the table with the kids, and Mark was in line to buy the food. When Makayla spotted him, she called out "dada" and got very excited when he responded to her. It was fun to see them interacting across the restaurant.

Mark's mother was very kind to come and watch the kids for us earlier this month while we went on vacation. Apparently, Makayla didn't say dada much while we were gone, but started up again once we got back.

We had a great trip on a Caribbean cruise with nearly all of the adults in my family. The weather was lovely, and the sea life was fun. Mark's trip was complete when we saw a small shark.

star-gazing, progress on the floor

We had an interesting experience this morning. We went out to breakfast at Mimi's cafe in a nice area of Phoenix called Ahwatukee. As we were sitting down in our booth, I was telling Mark something, and it seemed like he was totally ignoring me. He was looking elsewhere. Then he calls out across a couple of tables, and says, "Thanks for being a Cardinal". This handsome black man replies, "thanks." So . . .what the heck was that? Who is that other man? Apparently he's a linebacker for the Arizona Cardinals football team, I think his last name is Porter. How Mark recognizes him, I don't know. Mark claims that if you watch encough ESPN that they show the guys without all their gear and helmets, so he recognized him. Mark then proceeds to tell me which team he tranferred from, and that Porter wanted to come to Arizona because of the coach here, blah, blah, blah. Of course, as nerdy as we are, we were curious to see what he drives . . . It was an Escalade.

Makayla still does her bootie scoot, now getting all around the house. I took another video of her this week. Check it out. She was evaluated by an early intervention physical therapist today. She qualifies for early intervention with PT visits about every 2 weeks. She showed us some exercises we can work on to first start building some upper body strength.

the good and the bad

Let's start with the positives.

Mark has been doing well at work. He's learning lots of things that he didn't learn at CNA school. He got braces this week, which he's been asking for.

Makayla had her 1 year check up. She is doing very well in fine motor and speech; she says "dada" very well. She is about the 25th percentile for height. She had no major reactions to her vaccines. She is doing her bootie scoot more and more to get around the room. She discovered the tupperware cupboard tonight and enjoyed looking through it.

The struggles.

Mark didn't realize how much the braces will hurt. Mark also realized that pushing it too much and staying up too long after working all night really doesn't feel well.

Makayla is below the 5th percentile on weight. We are working on beefing up her caloric intake. She doesn't say mama, but will look right at me and say dada. Apparently dada works for both of us.

Her pediatrician and I are a little nervous about how she doesn't even want to bear weight much, if at all. We are going to get her some physical therapy help with this, and also get her checked by a neurologist just to make sure everything is ok. I'm hoping that it's more of a "I don't want to" thing, rather than a "I can't do it" thing.

accomplishments

I just have to toot my own horn . . . My baby will be turning 1 on April 12. I was able to breastfeed her throughout her first year. I am proud to say that I pumped breast milk every day that I worked for the 10.5 months that I worked of her first year. Yeah! I am very glad to be done, that's for sure, but I'm also very pleased. It's not like I was able to support her exclusively throughout, as my supply dropped off in the last three months. But I still stuck with it :)

Mark starts his first shift at work tonight "on the floor" actually working with patients. He's both excited and nervous. He had some orientation and computer training this week.

Makayla is doing great with eating, talking, fine motor skills, but she still has no interest in pulling herself to stand or crawling. She is getting a little better at scooting across the floor on her butt, though (see video). It takes her a while, and there may be some whining and fussing to go along with it, but she's moving a little. Such a happy little thing. When I say "Say Mama" she very clearly says "dada". nice.

employment

Big news!!! Our most exciting news is that MARK GOT A JOB!!! We feels so blessed with this opportunity. To bring everyone up to speed, Mark went to school last year to work on the powerlines, but there were few job openings and no job offers for him. He decided to change his career path, and follow my good example (as well as his sister and aunt) and go into nursing. In January, he took a CNA class and was so excited to get into a line of work where he could help others. The process to get a CNA license takes 4-6 weeks, but as soon as the license came through, he was applying to nursing homes and hospitals in the area. He was willing to take pretty much anything. He interviewed at a hospital, and was called back about an hour after arriving home, with a job offer. He is thrilled. I am very excited for him and proud of him. He'll be working 3 - 12 hour shifts per week, all nights. (He prefers nights.) He is still taking classes towards nursing school.

The last couple of months have really flown by for me. Things have been busy at work, as the winter season is winding down. I have a Family Nurse Practitioner student with me for this semester. I enjoy teaching, but it slows me down to have to explain things, answer questions, and do double checks on the patients. I have a lot of work to catch up on these days, and seem to always feel tired.

Luckily, Makayla has been sleeping all night long this week. She was sleeping about 8 hours before, waking at 4 am, and then back to sleep. She continues to be a sweet baby, catching the attention and love of her sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins. Hannah and Ashlyn came to visit for spring break and were so excited to take care of her: feed, dress, hold, put to bed, and even change her diapers :) Makayla was quite entertained by them.

Although Makayla is sitting up well, she still could care less about crawling or pulling herself to stand. Here she is 11 months old, and she is happy as can be to lay on her back and kick her feet. She is able to spin or pivot herself around when she is on her back, but as soon as I put her on her belly, she immediately rolls to her back. I try to help her by putting her on all 4s, but she fusses.

My sister Kristin got married in February. It was fun to have all of my siblings in town. We were able to host several family members, thanks to our new house. It was a little rainy the day they got married, but it made for a beautiful rainbow when they were taking their pictures.

catching up

time to catch up with lots of news and pictures. I finally just pulled my pictures off the camera, and so I'll share a few to help tell our story.

Here's Makayla's first Halloween.Cute blue eyes with bathtime

This is when you know you should have put the seat belt on the baby . . . (she's sleeping, laying sideways in the swing)

Thanksgiving at Aspen Grove in Provo Canyon, Utah, with my entire family. We had about 40 people for Thanksgiving dinner

Christmas in Phoenix.

Saw the lights at the LDS Mesa temple grounds

Acted out the Nativity on Chrismas EveAshlyn went rollerblading with the neighbor's cat, and her sisterRandomly, the day after Christmas, we went to the park and rescued stray puppy. She was so cute. Probably a cocker spaniel and dachshund mix. Even more randomly, less than a week later, Mark gave her away to a plumber who had come to check some thing at the house. Here'a cute picture of the pup we rescued and help find a good home.

We bought a house in Tempe, AZ. We closed on 12/30/09. It needs some work (flooring, painting, new doors, windows, etc). I'm trying to keep a photo journal of the before and after's. here's a couple.

Mark is getting up the old tile. Notice the sunken family room, which we have since had filled with concrete. Also notice the 2 dogs watching from a safe distance in the back yard.