Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The 18th of every month in our house is a time for me to celebrate and to be sad.  It means that each of my children are another month older.  A month taller? smarter? more mature? more independent? more gentle and loving? (Ha!  Not always the case here!)  Isaac is now 10 months old and Kai and Julia are 32 months old.  While I will always love the baby stage, I'm sure there will be many new adventures and excitement as they get months and years older!

Kai has slowly been transitioning from being, "my baby boy," to being "all boy!"  His motor skills have made huge improvements and he uses them for wrestling his daddy and siblings.  One of his favorite things to do is to playfully bump into Julia until he gets a girly reaction from her.  (Squealing or yelling)  He often wants to rough house when the other subject is not in the mood!
As for the update on his doctors' appointments at the Spina Bifida Clinic, we are very thankful.  His MRI came back fine (which means his shunt must be working), and his kidney ultrasound came back good (which means that there is no sign of kidney/bladder damange since stopping catheterizing him last June).  Praise the Lord!  The doctors and therapists were very happy to see a patient who is walking and developing as well as Kai is.  Although they mention that he may have to use a wheelchair to walk long distances as an adult, we know that there are no limits for the plans that God has for Kai!  We pray that he continues to surprise the medical community by his abilities and determination!  Our main concern right now is his speech delay.  He has difficulty vocalizing the second syllable of words.  We will have an evaluation with a private speech therapist soon, besides the therapy he receives through the ECI program.

Dancing


Julia also is changing daily.  She loves to talk, especially for her brothers!  Some of her favorite phrases are, "What's that sound?" "I yuck this! (at the dinner table)",  "I love you ____ (mommy, daddy, train, etc)."  She is very busy and loves reading books, painting, coloring, pretending to go shopping, and playing with her brothers.  We've been seperating her and Kai for naps since she talks to herself so loudly and often gets Kai all hyper.  We plan on signing them up for a group swimming lesson (indoors) in February, which I am sure she will love.  Although she can be strong-willed at times, she is still a joy!



Isaac is ten months old going on three years old!  He thinks he is Kai and Julia's triplet and wants to do everything that they are doing!  At nine months he started standing up in the middle of the floor and taking a few steps.  I believe that he will be running soon.  This guy loves to eat and will often stay in his high chair eating a meal for over 30 minutes or as long as mom continues to offer it!  He also loves to crawl under the kitchen table and eat any scraps that were dropped by the other kids and himself.  Who needs a dog!  I just need to be very quick with the broom!  Isaac is very playful and will cover his eyes to play peek-a-boo and will raise his hands to "so big!"  His laugh is contagious as he lives up to his name (Isaac: He will laugh).  



Jared has been motivated by the nice weather to finish clearing out the yard.  When we moved into the house just over a year ago, our yard was more of a forest than a yard.  While the trees are nice, there was a lot of dead plants, weeds, and leaves to remove.  He estimates that he has spent over 80 hours outside working on the yard since August.  I'll have to get some before and after pictures posted.
Although I don't have a lot of free time right now, I have been wanting to start a new hobby.  I ended up buying a used camera from a friend here in Texas (early birthday gift from Jared).  I am still learning how to use it and hope to get some inspiration and lessons from my brother, Zach.  Here are a few more shots that I took while practicing the past few weeks.
Kai tickling/tackling Julia 
At the park






 My other hobby has been trying to prepare healthier meals for my family.  My goal is to get more fiber in their diets, especially to help with Kai's bowel issues.  The kids and Jared were brave and tried Green Smoothies with Spinach, Flax Carrot Apple Muffins, and Taco Soup with extra beans and hidden veggies.  I haven't noticed a difference with Kai yet, but Julia and Isaac's diapers have been epic!  This may make our potty training attempts with Julia almost impossible, but we'll give it a try!