Happy Halloween 2012

I’m a little delayed in posting this but Happy Halloween from us to you!

These are some pics Casey took of us girls in front of the garage before we walked around the neighborhood.

Lesson learned for next year – Colby may look small but wear a carrier or bring a stroller/wagon.  She gets heavy.  Fast.

And bring a flashlight or glow sticks so cars can see us when it gets dark.

Brady really did love trick-or-treating this year and was much more into it than last year.  Three is definitely the age where they start enjoying holidays more.  She had so much fun with the whole experience – dressing up, getting candy, and walking door to door saying trick or treat and Happy Halloween!

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Preschool Fall Festival 2012

Brady’s Fall Festival at preschool was today and she got to dress up in costume.  She was super excited about wearing her pirate costume again (sans sword and eye patch) and has a really fun day ahead of her!   They skipped chapel today (which is usually right after drop off) so all the kids could do a little parade around the parking lot for the parents to see.

 Brady and her best buddy, Cole, were stuck to each other the entire time I was there.  It was adorable to see!  Cole kept telling Brady to smile at his daddy and say, “Arrr!” when he took a picture.  I didn’t have the battery in my DSLR so I only have iPhone pics (and truth be told, I’m not very impressed with the camera on the 5 yet – so unless the one time I dropped it messed things up…).  I’m hoping that Cole’s dad will email me some of his because he got some really great ones of Brady and Cole playing.

Cole’s mom commented that she was surprised that Cole and Brady were glued together at the hip because Cole is into all things boy.  I told her that Brady loves playing with boys and is much happier playing with diggers or super heroes than dolls at this stage.

I don’t know how their schedule will be today but I do know there’s going to be lots of fun activities and isn’t their typical routine.  The preschool is rotating the classes through to play themed games in the gym, there’s pizza for lunch, pumpkins, treat bags, and dessert!  Cole’s mom brought in cake pops decorated like pumpkins and I made cupcakes.  I was hoping to find some inspiration on Pinterest but ended up going the easy route and just doing triple fudge cupcakes and just piping on some orange icing I made (surprisingly difficult to achieve a deep orange without copious amounts of food coloring).  I’m sure Brady is going to be on a sugar high when she gets home so when she crashes I’m hoping she takes a nap and rests up because she has Rolly Pollies and trick-or-treating tomorrow!

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Gone Shootin

Finally took the XDMs to the range. It’s going to take some getting used to the triggers on these, we both were shooting to the left.

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There is a photo of a full clip of .45. I’m going to take it back an adjust my grip and see if I can get it under control.

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Brady’s First Day of Preschool

Brady started her day of preschool today at a local Christian church.  She went to a couple of three day camps there this summer and she finally moved off the waiting list a few weeks ago and is officially in.

This is such a bittersweet day for me.  Brady has been so excited about going when we talk about preschool, her teacher, friends, and the things she’ll do there but when I dropped her off she got so sad and started crying.  I feel so bad for her that she feels so scared and such apprehension.  She did so well at her first camp that I took her to there but after taking her to a different camp in between (and getting sick there and asking to go home) she had a much more difficult time for the second camp.

I’m hopeful that once she gets comfortable and sees this is going to be a permanent part of our routine that she’ll be happier and more secure.  Thankfully she was placed with the same teacher, in the same room, and with her best buddy (Cash).  I’m optimistic that by having that consistency she’ll be much more excited and happy to go to preschool.  Unless something changes, she’ll be going to preschool every Tuesday and Thursday from 9a-1p and then we’ll probably put her in everyday preschool next year to prep her for kindergarten.

This pic is from before we got to school this morning.  She was so happy to be wearing her backpack again and going to preschool.  So much so she’d didn’t want me to say the word preschool and she told me, “Don’t say that, I need to say preschool.”  My dad went to a conference last week in California and brought her back some swag – two of her favorites are a monkey she named Millard and a frog she named Fillmore.  She took Fillmore to school to keep her company so hopefully that’ll give her a little more security too since this is the first time I’ve allowed her to take a toy to school.

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Colby 4 Months

Colby’s now 4 months old and I don’t know where time is going.  How is she already so big?!  I swear she’s growing faster and time is going by faster than it did with Brady.

Colby had her 4 month well child check appointment last Wednesday and the doctor was really pleased with how she’s doing.  She’s hit all of her milestones so far and continues to impress the doctors with her feats of strength.  Before turning 4 months old she mastered rolling over from her back to tummy and I’m just waiting for her to start crawling because of how she pushes off when doing tummy time.  Super strong, this one.

And the stats…

  • Weight: 13 pounds 13 ounces (50th percentile, down from 75th at 2 months)
  • Length: 23.5 inches (25th percentile, same as 2 months)
  • Head Circumference: 40.7 centimeters (50th percentile, up from 25th at 2 months)

Of course a well child check also means shots.  Colby took the Rotavirus vaccine really well this time and swallowed it all down with the bare minimum coming out of her mouth.  Anything was an improvement over her 2 month appointment where she projectile vomited her Rotavirus vaccine and the contents of her stomach all over the poor nurse.  The first shot she recovered from well but the second took a bit of soothing before she calmed down completely.  Brady said, “Uh oh, Colby’s crying again.”   Yes, but with good reason this time.

Colby’s next well child check isn’t until 6 months (end of August) so hopefully we can avoid any other visits until then.  After trying and not tolerating Prevacid, she’s been on Prilosec since her 4 month appointment and it seems to be working much better than before.  I’m sure part of it is she’s growing and maturing but the medication just seems to agree with her more as well.  I can only thing of one time in the last month that she’s had a projectile episode and those were happening 1-3 times a day between 2 weeks and 4 months, so definite marked improvement.

Since she was so fussy and miserable (with diapers that resembled those having a milk protein intolerance), the doctor suggested I go off dairy and I was off of the main forms of dairy for 3 months and even hidden forms (like in processed foods – chips, etc) for 2.5 months.  After being on the Prilosec for a month and her vomiting episodes decreasing, I decide to start slowly adding dairy into my diet again and see what happened.  Since she had been off of it for so long, the effects should have been seen immediately.  Surprisingly, we didn’t really notice a change so now I’m not entirely sure, but I’m leaning towards her not ever having had a milk protein intolerance.

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Colby 3 Months

More than a month overdue, here’s Colby’s 3 month picture!

Colby says, “Oh, hey.  Yeah, I try to sit up like a big girl whenever I can.  I have great head control and would rather be sitting up or standing now.  My mama tells me to slow down and keeps reminding me I’m the baby.  The last baby and I don’t have to rush things.  I don’t want to listen.”

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Colby’s 2 Months Old!

Colby had her 2 month well child check today.  At this point she’s not a very proportionate girl, but looking at her you can’t tell.

  • Weight: 11 pounds 6 ounces (75th percentile)
  • Height: 21 inches (25th percentile)
  • Head circumference: 37.7 centimeters (25th percentile)

Colby received three vaccinations today by shot (one of the shots is for three different things) and an oral vaccination.  She’s been pretty sleepy since her shots and when she’s awake she’s fussy.  For the last couple of hours she’s  beem running a low grade fever which is normal but still makes me worry a little bit.  She’s finally asleep now but I’ll update more when I can.  Or at 3 months since you never can tell with me.

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Colby – 1 Month Old

Today was Colby’s 1 month birthday.  As it happens, her one month birthday is only five days past her original due date and if I had gone to term and maybe a little overdue she could have still been baking.  She’s changing so much, so fast, and I’m trying to enjoy everything about this time.

Here’s a camera phone pic I took today.  I didn’t end up taking pictures of her in her onesie until later in the day and haven’t had time to rotate/edit them so this is the best of what I have.

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Colby Pictures

I don’t have the time or the energy for a proper post right now.  Tomorrow’s Wednesday and after missing three Rolly Pollies classes, I’m hoping I can get Brady out the door and to class tomorrow.  I’m also hoping that the owner will credit my account for us not being able to attend but we’ll see how that goes.  This will be another Brady/Mama date since my mom is going to be watching Colby while we’re at the class.  This class should be more fun for Brady since it’s the first one I’ll be able to actually do stuff with her at – like jump on the trampoline.  Jumping on the trampoline at 36 weeks pregnant didn’t seem like such a good idea.

I have lots more pictures that I need to resize and/or upload but until then, here’s some more pics of the girls.

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Update on Birth Story

So while discussing the birth story I posted with someone I realized I left out some of the biggest details.  I blame it on sleep deprivation and composing the post in another program but anyway.  The big point that I omitted from my birth story and that I have now fixed is that not long after getting my epidural, my blood pressure got really low and Colby’s heart rate went down a lot (it’s called a brady and made the monitors go off) so the nurses came in and put me on oxygen and when Colby’s heart rate still wasn’t rebounding they gave me a shot of epinephrine which burned off my epidural.  My epidural probably only lasted maybe 15 minutes and I most definitely felt everything and it was natural childbirth – even the nurse told me that I could tell people it was natural childbirth.  And it hurt.  A lot.  I thought I wanted to try it natural with Brady and it got to be too painful.  This time I knew I wanted an epidural and it was unfortunate it didn’t happen.  All that matters now is that I have a beautiful, healthy, baby girl.  But just so it’s out there – I felt it all.

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