Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

I can't believe my baby girl is one!!!  This year has just flown by even faster than Jason's first year.  I have been amazed by the differences between our kids.  Elizabeth is much cuddlier than Jason was at this age.  She also loves to eat almost everything we put in front of her, but her favorites are peas.  It was a battle to get Jason to eat anything slightly healthy.  Neither of the kids has walked by their first birthday.  When Elizabeth started crawling at 7 months we were sure she would be walking by now, but she is content to crawl around the house. 

We brought cupcakes to church with us on Sunday for the congregation to help us celebrate.  Monday was a pretty normal day while Daddy was at work and after we had dinner we needed to do a photo shoot with our pretty girl.  I made her a onesie that had a cupcake with a one on it and a tutu to wear.  She hated crawling in the tutu so it came off after a while.  After we came in and Jason helped Elizabeth open her gifts.  Elizabeth got a bunch of new clothes, but her favorite thing was the tea set that brother loves to help her play with.  After that we sang happy birthday and had the family favorite of chocolate cake!  Elizabeth dug in!

We have a tooth...or two!

So I've dropped the ball a bit and haven't updated since Jason's birthday, sorry!  Now we have Elizabeth's birthday coming up in just a few days!  I will be sure to update after that is over and let you know if I cried.  At the end of February we traveled to San Antonio to see the rodeo with Jeff's family.  We saw lots of animals and lots of shopping.  We even got to try a fried snickers.  While we were in San Antonio Elizabeth had her 11 month birthday.

It seems like March has all it's events packed into next week.  The only thing that we really had going on was a visit from Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Michael on their way to Missouri for Spring Break.  Unfortunatly it was a rainy weekend so we didn't get to go out and do much while they were here.  Next week will be a huge week with something planned almost every day.  Monday is Elizabeth's birthday and, although we aren't having a party we will be celebrating as a family and can't wait to spend this special day with her.  Tuesday Jason has speach therapy at the Elementary School.  He has been going since his birthday and I am so proud of his improvement.  I am also so proud that he goes off with the teacher by himself and behaves.  Wednesday we normally do story time at the library, but both Elizabeth and I have doctor appointments.  Thursday I am planning on cleaning up the house in anticipation of Grandma Salomon coming to visit.  On Friday we have Jason's surgery scheduled.

We had scheduled his hand surgery for the end of February, but about a week and a half before that Jason got a bad cough.  When I called up the nurse from the hand center she told me they didn't like to put children under general anesthesia when they have had a recent respiratory infection.  I hated doing it, but we had to postpone his surgery for the end of this month.  I really didn't want to go through the whole anticipation process again and I wanted him to be fully recovered before it was warm enough to get in the pool.  Maybe if we can hurry to schedule the second hand surgery we will be able to swim by Memorial Day.

Someone else was feeling pain this week.  Elizabeth has been a pretty good sleeper since we Ferbered her a couple of months ago.  A week ago she had a night where she woke up every half hour starting at 3 until I finally got up with her at 5:30!  It wasn't until St. Patrick's Day that we figured out the problem.  Our little girl finally got her first tooth!  Followed quickly by her second over this week!  She must have gotten her late teething from me.  Now the big milestone is walking and you never know for sure when that will come!

Yippy! Jason is Three!

Jason turned 3 on Sunday and we are so in love with our little boy!



We spent most of the day at home, but they did sing Jason happy birthday at church.  Jason loved all the trains and tracks and all the gifts he recieved.  We took him out to dinner at the resturant of his choice, McDonald's. 


Playing with Daddy




Playing trains with sister



Happy Birthday big boy!

Happy Valentine's Day!

So the other day I saw this on Pinterest:

Adorable, right?  And I thought I've got a cute boy and a sweet girl, I could totally do this!


Testing the light, not too bad, but maybe we need an outfit change.






Ya right, Mom!


This is the best I got, but they sure are cute!

Polysyndactyly

Jason's hands

Both Jason and Elizabeth have it.  It means that they have joined fingers and on top of that they have extra ones. We knew even before Jason was born that all of our children have a 50% chance of having it.  We could even see on Jason's ultrasound that some of his fingers were going to be joined.  You should have seen the look on the nurses faces when they noticed when he was born and dreaded telling me.


Elizabeth's hands
On Thursday we went to Dallas to the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.  There they have a couple of pediatric orthopedic surgeons that have seen this congenital issues like this.  We drove up and saw a huge playground in front of the hospital and knew we had the right place.  Everyone there was so helpful finding the right place to check in and what we needed to do.  Right off the bat they offered Jason and Elizabeth a new toy each.  The waiting area was like one big playground and Jason had an excellent time waiting and playing with the other kids there.  We met two families that noticed the kids hands and asked who our doctor was.  When we told them it was our first time here they assure us here the staff was excellent. 



We got into the exam room and chatted with the doctor who promptly sent us down to get x-rays.  Jason HATED this part.  Jeff had to hold him down to get any good pictures, but they finally did get some.  When that was finished we went back in with the doctor who was great about looking at Jason's hands.  He had some toys for Jason to play with so he could watch how Jason manipulated his fingers.  Then while I was entertaining the kids Jeff discussed the game plan with the doctor.  We are going to do a surgery to separate the fingers on the right hand on February 29th.  I can't believe it will be so soon!  I'm very anxious about the surgery and the recovery afterwards.  Every mother hates her child to be in pain and I feel so bad that we are causing him this pain. 


Left hand
I feel so bad for him because I know Jason can sense something is going on.  He keeps saying Dallas, hands, all done.  We have to remind him that yes we are all done for right now, but after we go and see the rodeo with Grandma and Grandpa we are going back to see the doctors again.  We haven't said anything to him about what will be happening at that next visit and I am not sure how much to say with out worrying him.  So here we sit waiting for the 29th and hoping it is worse than we are imagining.


Right hand

Ten Months

Yesterday Elizabeth turned 10 months old and celebrated with her very first pony tail.  There isn't much hair to put up yet, but there is one long piece that always tries to fall into her face.  It is funny to look at the stickers I use to mark her monthly birthdays.  The 1, 2, and 3 month ones are pretty pristine and undamaged, but as the months progress and Elizabeth got more mobil the stickers and her clothes got more wear.  The 10 month photo shoot was quite a battle.  It was a beautiful day outside so I decided to take the kids outside to do the photos.  I imagined that Jason would blow bubbles (his latest love) and I would capture a few beautiful pictures of Elizabeth and we would all have a great afternoon.  You know that isn't the way it worked.  Elizabeth was way more interested in trying to get the bubble solution than being a model and while I was trying to prevent that Jason decided to go play in some sand.  Except it wasn't just sand it was an ant hill...a red ant hill.  The poor boy has bites all over one hand and a couple on his body.  Now he goes around the house saying "ants...ouchy"

Finally a good one!

sweet siblings

I'm sorry I have to keep this short, but there is an attack baby who wants to nibble on my laptop.  Recently I have had a few friends who have shared concerns about having two babies close together.  Although ours aren't as close as others (Karen, you're my hero) 25 months between the two can make life a battle at times.  I just had to share this supper cute story from this morning.

I was cleaning the kitchen, which desperately needed it.  I had Elizabeth in with me, but Jason was playing trains in his room.  He came in and the next thing I know I find him crawling around the island.  He is playing chase and entertaining his sister.  They are both giggling away and I wish I had gotten a video.  He can be so sweet to her sometimes and I love to see them hug on each other.  Also Jason has started this habit of when Elizabeth wakes up and cries out he wants to be the first one in her room to rescue her. 

I knew when we had a second child that Jason would teach her things, but I had no clue that she would be teaching him things.  Elizabeth, like most babies, likes to put everything into her mouth.  Jason never really got into this so I am treading through uncharted territory.  I should say that he never got into it until he saw Elizabeth doing it.  I have wondered if him exploring the world with his mouth lead to his recent speech development.  Now I just hope he will copy sister's love of veggies!

"hehe ya right Mommy!"