Weekend Gardening

Weekend Goal: Spend as much time outside with the girls as possible.

The weather is so nice here this time of year John and I try to spend as much of it outdoors as we can before the heat really starts. Of course, the girls also love to be outside. So we started our weekend with a trip to a couple of nurseries to buy some shrubs, which then turned into buying some herbs and vegetables. I have wanted to have a garden for a couple of years but we never seemed to find the time.

Last year for our anniversary John bought me a miter saw (which I love). Our first and only project so far was to build an herb box. We started it in March of last year and never got back to it. So when I decided to buy some plants this weekend, we decided we better get it finished. To my and I think John's amazement we finished it. We finished assembling most of it on Saturday and then John stained it on Sunday. Sunday afternoon Zoe helped me put the dirt in it and figure out where to put the plants. She has done some small planting projects in preschool so she knew what to do and was extremely careful putting the dirt around the plants. We had so much fun.

The cucumber plant seems to be her favorite. She checked on it several times yesterday to see if it was ready and then would come tell me "it isn't." She has already asked twice this morning to go check on it.

It is great to see her enthusiasm for planting and watching things grow. Sophie also had a good time. She really liked putting her hands in the dirt and playing with the containers the plants came in.

Another chip

This afternoon Zoe and Sophie were sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me to get their afternap snack when all of a sudden Zoe started crying. Zoe (I have no idea) somehow managed to hit her front tooth on the edge of the kitchen chair and take another small chip out of it. Same tooth as when she was 18 months old so the chip is now larger. I have really come to love the chipped tooth but really didn't need her to enlarge the missing area. Oh well. Thankfully the was only a small amount of blood and both front teeth seem fine.

Extended Family Fun and Pictures

My Aunt Trish and her husband Scott who live in Wisconsin were in town visiting my grandma and rest of the family this February. My Aunt Barb from Denver also came to visit during part of that time.

Brusch/Graves/Broom/Crowley/Canavan/Robar Family

 While they were all here we had a get together with them and rest of my family that lives here. My cousins cooked an amazing Mexican fare lunch for all of us at my grandma's. We spent some time catching up with each other while all the kids ran around the yard and played catch. We also managed to get some photos of the family.

What a great day and visit with family!

The first generation cousins (only those in AZ)
Lupe, Shane, Chris, Kelly, Jennifer

The second generation cousins (only those in AZ)
Too many to list

The siblings...
Barb Robar
Mike Brusch
Trish Gaves
Carolyn Crowley

Grandma with her children

Grandpa Crowley with the Crowley boys

Sleepy baby

It doesn't seem all that long ago that I was writing about how Zoe was no longer my baby and started to sleep in her toddler bed. That was only about 6 months ago.

Well, this morning I was putting Sophie down for an early nap and she crawled up into Zoe's bed. Without really thinking things through, I decided to let her try to sleep in Zoe's bed instead of putting her in her crib. To my amazement she never tried to get out of the bed and within 5 minutes she was a sleeping baby. I guess this may mean she isn't my baby anymore either. Its funny how some things my children do all of a sudden help me realize how big they are getting.

I don't think we are ready to make this a habit yet, at least not until we come back from our trip to Tennessee. We will also have to move Zoe into a bigger bed so Sophie can have the toddler bed. My girls are growing so much. Love them!

Sharing a room

In preparation for our trip in February to visit John's mom and grandfather, we moved Sophie and her crib into Zoe's room so they could get used to sleeping in the same room. Since John's mom's house doesn't have much space, it will be easier if they are able to sleep together in the same room. Little did I know moving them into the same room would have been one of the best things we could have done. They love being together. Their naps are a little shorter now but they sleep great at night. In the mornings we can hear them laughing and playing together when they wake up.

Sophie loves climbing in Zoe's bed and lying down with her. In the morning when we get her out of her crib she almost always goes over to Zoe's bed and climbs in. Sometimes I give Zoe a choice now of sleeping in her room with Sophie or in my bed for her nap. Most times she picks to sleep in her room with Sophie.

My bedtime prayer by Zoe

Tonight when John and I were putting Zoe to bed we followed our typical routine of brush teeth, read a book or two, say prayers, and finish with singing a song (almost always Jesus Loves Me). Zoe surprised us by wanting to say her prayers by herself. She has never wanted to do that before. Her first prayer went something like this.

Jesus loves me
Jesus loves me
Bible
Thank you for Grandma
Thank you for Uncle Mike
Thank you for Nana
Thank you for Papa
Amen

I was surprised at how well she did, and that John and I didn't make the list.

Sophie's Progress

Sophie has made a lot of progress in the last 3 months since doctors figured out what was causing her to not want to eat or drink.

She has reflux, which was diagnosed when she was 3 days old. She is on Prevacid and Zantac to treat it. A couple of weeks ago the doctor had us try to take her off her morning dose of Zantac. After 4 days of fitful naps and crankiness, we put her back on it. Since she still visibly refluxes almost every day she will stay on both her medications for now. The doctor still thinks she will grow out of it and not require surgery. She is in the 4% of children that don't grow out of it by 1yr.

She had her first Barium Swallow test in August to help figure out why she stopped wanting to eat very much and drink at all when she was 10 months. The test showed she is silently aspirating when she drinks or eats thin, half-nectar, and even sometimes nectar consistency liquids and solids. She had some penetration of the airway, but did not aspirate with honey consistency. The outcome of the test was that we have had to thicken all her liquids and solids to at least nectar consistency.

She had her second Barium Swallow test yesterday morning at Cardon Children's Medical Center. She didn't tolerate this test as well as the last one, but they were able to get her to drink (from a spoon) enough to determine she has had a small improvement in her swallow but still silently aspirates with thin and half-nectar consistencies. She didn't have as much penetration with the nectar consistency as last time. So until we repeat the test in 3-4 months she has to continue to have everything thickened to nectar.

She has increased her drinking over the last 3 months but still does not drink nearly the quantity recommended to gain the weight she needed to make up and continue to grow. In a typical day she will drink 8 oz of milk. Some days are less. We have found ways to supplement, such as making her oatmeal with half-n-half to get extra calories in her.

When she was in to see her Ped GI a couple of weeks ago she was up to 19 lbs 11oz (14 months old). The doctor and I were very happy with her weight gain and she moved from the 5th percentile to the 10th in weight. She is back up to the normal range for height which explained why she grew out of almost all her clothes. I will count that as a blessing!

She was cleared from speech and physical therapy about a month ago. She took her first steps just before 13 months and is walking well now. She walks everywhere instead of crawling. She has also started to talk - more than just dada. She actually said Mama before Zoe (who talked really early). Her new word is "up". She is also doing better at her sign language at meal time. It is a wonderful thing when they can begin to communicate.