Katelyn, Conner and Caleb! » January 2007 Journal Entries » AboutMyBaby - online baby scrapbooks, photo albums, videos, birth and pregnancy announcements

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Wed, Jan 31, 2007 7:21 PM
The kids (the older two) are outside right now. I'm watching from the front window. I told them that if they finished their dinner (chicken and rice... yum!) that they could go out. They sure did finish quickly!

This is the longest that they've stayed out this winter. I think the boots that Eric bought them help with that.

Conner's coat is a little big in the arms so when he puts on his mittens, they fill up the sleeves but the sleeves are so long that you can only barely see the tops of his mittens peeking out. It's very cute. Conner decided to pick up handfulls of snow and then drop it. This entertained him for a good 15 minutes even with it being cold outside.

Katelyn's friend just came out. He brought his sled over and they just headed off on it (he was pulling) to make a trip to the "mountain". One of our neighbor's is really great - he plows the snow from the culdisac over into one great big pile. The kids in the neighborhood then spend all winter (or as long as it lasts) climbing all over the pile and sledding down it.

The kids just returned. Conner's hat is pulled over his eyes. :D He has to look up to see out from under it.

Ok... they're in now. They finally got cold. I'm impressed with how long they stayed out!

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Wed, Jan 31, 2007 12:20 PM
Eric hit his head this morning. Enough that it's a concussion. We went to the doctor. It's not enough to do anything for other then rest but I feel more comfortable having checked it out. And since I'm the one who usually has the "wait and see" attitude, you know it was enough to look into!

My mom came over and watched the kids so we could go to the appointment without them. That was really nice. We could have taken the kids but it was sooo much better without it. The rooms there were tiny and the hallways were narrow. Having had 3 kids walking along with us would have been quite the hassle.

The good thing about that though is that this way she was able to see Caleb moving around the living room. It's a combination of scooching and rolling but he can make his way to investigate various toys that I put out on the floor. He works hard at it. And so now he's collapsed on the floor and is completely asleep.

Sleeping... Caleb has started sleeping mostly through the night! I'm getting so much more rest now. That's nice. He's also starting to take more consistent and longer naps... not so much of the catnapping between nursing. But actual long naps. I like this!

Conner has started to potty train. He finally prefers underwear over diapers. To the point that he didn't want to put a diaper on last night to sleep. I waited until he fell asleep and then put it on him. He's been nearly dry for the last two days. Only one accident each day and that was right at the end. He likes the idea of getting candy when he goes potty and that's giving him some good incentive.

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Sat, Jan 27, 2007 11:07 PM
Yesterday and today was the Ladies' Overnight at church. That was good to go to. Not only a lot of fun but also just plain good to be there simply for the fellowship and the friendships made and deepened.

Eric had all three kids on Friday night. Then I came and picked up Caleb for the night. I ended up keeping Caleb there with me today while Eric had the kids. He got a taste of motherhood and did very well. I had to smile when I came home and there were toys on the floor. But that's because it means that the kids played and had fun.

Caleb charmed everybody again today. I kept being told how wonderful he was.

And everybody really enjoyed the gluten free caramel snack mix that I made! It was nice to have everybody commenting about how wonderful it was before the found out that it was gluten free. Best part of that is that Katelyn and Conner now get to eat up the leftovers.

Friday morning was also very fun. A friend volunteered to come over and play with the kids for a couple of hours so that I could get to the Y. I was (and am) so grateful! I like to go with all the kids too. Katelyn and Conner enjoy the tot spot and Caleb likes to ride in the sling as I walk around. But I just don't get the same level of exercise doing that compared to when I go by myself and really work out on the machines. I'm trying to get back into shape after being pregnant. I don't want to "diet" and risk my milk supply but I can certainly get my muscles toned back up. It felt good to be able to start to do that.

I know I had more that I'd thought of writing... but I'm too tired after staying up so late last night! Caleb is too. He didn't take his normal naps because he was so interested in sleeping. Of course, that's nice to have because it means that he's sleeping now and he let me finish my Bible Study tonight. Normally he's so busy nursing that I don't write so well.

I'm blabbering... I'm definitely tired.

Good night.

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Mon, Jan 22, 2007 2:11 PM
Yesterday when we were driving home from church we asked Katelyn and Conner about their sunday school story. Katelyn told me it was about a man who took money away from people and then gave it all back. Further questioning revealed that it she was talking about Zacchaeus. Eric and I sang the song to them and when we got to the part where Jesus tells him to come down, Conner (who had been quiet for the conversation up to that point) very loudly said, "You come down!" I guess he was listening!

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Tue, Jan 16, 2007 10:25 PM
Lots of good things to type about tonight!

Caleb is crawling. Or at least doing the Army crawl. He's definitely moving forward in a purposful manner. He gets up on his knees and then pushes the rest of himself forward. It's not all the time but when he gets enough of a reason to do it, then he's off. Usually only a foot or two at a time but each push with his legs can get him 3 or 4 inches of distance.

Wow.

When he figures out the full crawl, I'm really going to be in trouble!

He's also grabbing with a purpose. With both Katelyn and Conner it was as though a switch flipped... they weren't grabbing with purpose and then suddenly they were. With Caleb it's been more gradual. It's definetly there now even though he still struggles with getting the thumb around things. Most of the grab occurs with the fingers.

Those fine motor skills will really improve once he starts solids and has a reason to pick things up efficiently.

Katelyn is just talking up a storm. I have to attribute it to being gluten free since she started to improve when we first took her off. Then when we put her back on, she went down some. And now that she's back off, she is improving again. So much so that her speech teacher/therapist is just amazed. Today during therapy Katelyn apparently just wouldn't stop talking. And it was all well pronounced too. It's hard to believe that just over a year ago when we started therapy, Katelyn was barely using 2 words together with the occasional 3 word sentence thrown in.

On that note, the kids' test results all came back negative. Both for food allergies and celiacs. That could have been thrown off because we took both off of gluten for a few weeks before they were tested. We did put them back on before the test but it might not have been enough. Apparently gluten issues are hard to detect even without going off gluten for a while before hand.

After seeing such dramatic changes in Katelyn though, we've decided to continue to keep her off gluten. If she wants to when she is older she can do what is called a "gluten challenge". She would have to eat as much gluten as she could for 3 months and then get her blood tested again. For now, I'm so happy to have this new, energetic, bubbly, giggly, enthusiastic Katelyn that I don't want to put her on 3 months of heavy gluten just to take more bloodwork. Especially not in a child as young as she is and with so much brain development going on at this age.

That leads to our next fun stuff... the kids and I went to a support group called "Celiac Kids" today. This is a group that my Aunt connected me with and it was really fun. Eric will be taking the kids for future meetings but this time I took them with me. Katelyn was thrilled because she was able to eat some corn muffins, some banana bread and some zuchinni bread. All gluten free. She was so excited about this that one of the ladies gave her the leftover bread from one loaf to bring home. Katelyn hugged it and didn't want to give it to me to carry. It was very cute.

I was given a lot of recipes tonight including a cake that worked out really well for one family. We'll be taste testing that this week for Katelyn's birthday. We tried another cake from a store bought mix and it wasn't bad. It just wasn't great. It seemed as though it was missing something... it was rich and moist but it was just missing... I don't know what it was missing. The kids loved it though. Especially Conner. He would do nearly anything for a piece of that cake. They ate up the last of it today.

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Fri, Jan 12, 2007 8:27 PM
Caleb just rolled over back to front! Yay!

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Sun, Jan 7, 2007 10:02 PM
See that picture I just put on the homepage? The one of Caleb with his thumb in his mouth?

I'm rather proud of that picture. :D I took it. We put it in a frame and both Eric and I keep looking at it and thinking that we need to put a picture into this frame... it looks like a stock photo that often comes in new frames. I like that I am improving my skills at picture taking that much. I would really like to take a class and learn more.

Look closely though. At first glance it looks like he's sucking his thumb. Look more closely. He's chewing his thumb.

I've just spent the last hour letting him gnaw on my hand. This kid is teething. The funny part about it is that he puts his thumb onto the side of his mouth like he's trying to get some molars through. Is he going to push through molars before he gets any front teeth? I won't complain if he does - it'll make nursing a lot nicer. But it sure does sound strange.

I need to go dig out all the kids' teething toys that were put away last spring.

Something traumatic happened to Katelyn yesterday. We went to Red Robin and at the end of the meal she was given a balloon. She refused to allow it to be tied to her wrist though. Right at the end of the conversation about what would happen to it if she let go of it, she accidently let go and up it went. POP!

Tired child + popped ballon = Major Trauma (in her eyes)

After I snuggled her for a little bit, our server brought her another balloon. Katelyn did not let this one out of her sight all night and even went to bed with it tied to her wrist.

This morning when I tried to wake her up for church, she was not at all interested in it. She pulled the covers over her head and hid. This was after I'd already let her sleep in longer then I really should have for her to be able to make it to church at all. Since Eric wasn't feeling very well, he stayed home with her and I took the boys to church.

When I got home and asked her when she'd decided to get up, she paused, thought for a little while and then said, "Around eleven." What a goof.

Conner has a new trick. He now does jumping jacks. Just ask him to demonstrate! He'll carefully position his legs out and then claps. Then he pulls one leg in and puts his hands to his side. He's very proud of his accomplishment.

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Mon, Jan 1, 2007 2:09 AM
Happy New Year!

Yes, the time is correct. :D I'm still up. I'm about to go to bed though but I'm getting my brain ready to fall asleep.

This New Year's has been a lot of fun. Eric is currently helping out with the youth group. I'd rather be spending the beginning of the new year with him but this has still been unexpectedly fun.

The kids and I were hanging out at home watching movies on my laptop. I bought a new knitting pattern and was excited to try it out so I was knitting while we watched. I'm supposed to be knitting my mom's bathmat (a Christmas gift) but my hands get a little sore with that so it's nice to take a break from it every other day or so. So there we were enjoying the evening when I got a phone call.

It was my sister. Her electricity went out so she asked if she could come over with her kids.

Remember how atoms that collide release a bunch of energy? That apparently happens when cousins collide. There weren't very many collisions (though there were a few) but there was a huge release of energy from the kids.

We finally got them down to sleep about half an hour ago.

Sandi and the kids are in my kids' room and my kids are all lined up asleep in my room. I'm not sure what technique Sandi uses to get her kids to bed but I talked with my kids about Pennsic. For those who weren't reading this back when we went there, this is a medieval camping event every August. I didn't get to go this past August but the kids and I went the August before that. We camped out and did the whole dressing up thing. I'm hoping to go again this coming August.

Katelyn remembered going. And Conner claimed to remember. I told them that we'd be sleeping just like this (all lined up next to each other) in our tent when we went next time so tonight was practice for that. They liked that idea. I told them that to practice they needed to hold their sippy cups in their arms, close their eyes and try not to move. The trying not to move was hard for Conner. :D But they did it and were out surprisingly quickly.

I probably shouldn't have been surprised at how quick it was considering how late it was. But Conner usually has trouble just staying still in bed long enough to fall asleep. So this took a lot of effort for him. I'm rather proud of him for how well he did.

The new snowflake design on these pages right now is in honor of the weather I'd prefer to be having. This is insane for Michigan weather. I did some after Christmas shopping today (yesterday) and didn't even take a coat with me. It was that warm. We had rain in the evening too.

To my friends out in Colorado... send some of that snow our way! We can average out the snow and all be happy.

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