Brain Fuzziness and Some Photos

My friend Katie calls it the baby haze. The first year with a new baby. The year when sleepless nights, and learning schedules, and adjusting to new family dynamics makes everything else seem a bit of a blur. Every day tasks like brushing teeth and getting dressed become not so necessary, or at least less  necessary than protecting your infant from her two-year-old brother. And at the end of the day (8:30pm) you're so tired and mentally exhausted that you can't speak a coherent sentence and you go to bed only pretty certain that all 6 of you made it through alive.

Well, folks, that's where we are around here. Crazy and fuzzy-brained and exhausted and playing a constant game of catch-up.  Lucky for us, our kids don't seem negatively effected by their mentally-challenged parents! Quite the contrary, actually. They are loving having a baby, doing their different activities, creating and exploring. Each of our kids has SUCH a zest for life! Even little Stella lights up when something exciting is happening! I am so thankful to whoever invented cameras so that we can capture something from this season of our lives. And someday (like in 20 years) we can look at our pictures and discover what was really going on back during the baby haze!

At the end of January, we went to our friends' ranch for the weekend. SO FUN! Landon of course really liked climbing into the Jeep and Tractors and trying to drive them!

 Dylan got the kids their first rockets. Perhaps not the safest activity for a 6, 4, and 2-year-old to do, but they thought that launching them was pretty much the coolest thing ever.

 Stella got to meet Stella :)

Emma wrote her first book, Emma the Rainbow Fairy based on the books in her favorite series, Rainbow Magic. Getting my little type-A, literally minded child to write a non-literal, fictional story was quite a feat, and it turned out great!

 I'm pretty sure she only did it because she knew she was going to get a medal for it! Grady wanted a medal too, so he made his own!

Each week we do an art class with my nephew Elijah and niece Arielle. We've been learning about some Impressionist artists and this month we've been looking at Edgar Degas. He has a famous sculpture of a 14-year-old dancer. Emma made her impression of it...

 

...complete with LOTS of sparkly details!

I had the opportunity to take a digital photography class taught by some super cool sisters, Rachel and Becky. The class was great and it has been really exciting for me to learn how to actually use our dSLR camera. I mean, what's the point of having a fancy camera if you don't know how to use it! I'm not quite a professional yet, but I have been loving being able to better capture some of life around here! I hesitate to show some of my favorites because they aren't amazing. But these do capture my kids doing what they do and I got my fancy pants camera to cooperate in fully manual mode :) ...

I still haven't figured out how to take a decent picture when my subjects are actually moving so if any of you have tips for that, let me know ;) 

So there you have it. The last month in a nut shell. Maybe next month I'll be able to recall funny things and be able to tell good stories again. Then again, Stella is only 4-months so I may have another 8 months or so of fuzzy-brain before I can find humor in life again!

Four Month Stats

Emma

13 lb, 25in

 

Grady

14lb 8oz, 26in

 

Landon

15lb 4oz, 26.5in

 

And Stella, dear Stella, measures in at a whopping

16lb 7oz,  27.75in!

 (seen here looking very concerned, showing her battle wounds from Landon)

Weekend Warrior

Years ago when Dylan's grandma moved in with us, we boxed up all of our books (lots and lots- I was an English major, after all), ripped out the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall bookcases that the previous owner had installed in our spare bedroom, and made a room for Grandma. And since then, we've pretty much lived without the majority of our books because we had nowhere to put them. A crime, really.

So last weekend, in order to clean out his garage of my books, my rockstar husband built some custom bookcases to flank our fireplace. They look AMAZING. So amazing in fact, that I had to rearrange the furniture so that they can be gazed upon and appreciated by all. And now our living room whose awkward layout has been plaguing me since the day we moved in suddenly makes sense. And our furniture no longer feels disproportionate, and the rug that I thought was too small fits just fine, and I no longer have to kink my neck or rearrange furniture to comfortably watch tv, and it's cozy and inviting and more open and, well, it's just great. Can you tell I'm just a wee bit excited?

Don't they look great?

I think that the best part of this whole project is that now I know what my husband is capable of and I may just have one or two or six hundred more projects in mind for him to do! Yes!!!!!!

He's not my baby anymore

This little guy had the most awesome hair.... when it was professionally cut. But when I tried to cut it, people kept mentioning that it looked like I placed a bowl on his head and cut around it. And since it's not the 90's anymore, bowl cuts are no longer cool. Oh well. Neither are the moon boots that he's rockin' in this picture :)

So, the other day when I was cutting Grady's hair, poor Landon became my next victim. And now he doesn't look like my sweet little baby anymore. He looks like the two-year-old that he really is. Oh well, maybe he'll grow out of his two-ness right along with his buzz cut and he'll have a wonderful disposition and long, beautiful hair once again.

Hellooooooo Fat Kid

Emma at 2 months: 10lb 5oz, 24"
Grady at 2 months: 12lb 7 oz, 25"
Landon at 2 months: 12lb 11oz, 25"
Stella at 2 months: 14lb, 25.75"
Wow!

deep thoughts from a 6 year old

"Nachos are good for poor people because you know how poor people don't have enough money for forks and spoons? Well, they could just use the chips to scoop up the food and they won't need to buy any silverware."

hmmmm....
speaking of being poor (not really), emma made herself some new hair clips this week...

A Special Request

We begin this new year with burdened hearts. Our good friends' twin one year olds have been in the ICU since Christmas with pneumonia. One of them was released after a week and is greatly improved, but the other one is still battling for his life and undergoing some gnarly treatments in hopes to send this illness into remission. They lost a baby girl to pneumonia when she was one, just a few years ago, so as you can imagine (or maybe you can't!) this is even more traumatic to the family than it may seem.

Here is an update from Ginger (the mother) from this morning:

Ian is continuing to improve, Praise God! He still has a very low heartrate and some other heart issues, they will be doing another echocardiogram to determine function. They also will be doing, probably tomorrow, an MRI and spinal tap to look for any Central Nervous System evidence of HLH. They will be sending blood samples today for the genetic test, but it takes several weeks to receive the results. He gets his second round of chemotherapy today and another higher dose of steroids. They have begun some weaning of the drugs, but he is still very sedated since he is still on the ventilator. He is still very sick, but is no longer the sickest kid in the PICU!

Treatment for Ian that we are getting right now is only to to suppress the life threatening inflammatory process that HLH triggers in response to the virus he caught. Remission is always temporary and the only way for him to be cured is to receive a bone marrow transplant. Please pray fervently for this. From information that the hospital library provided to me on HLH, I read this morning that even with treatment, only 21-26% of patients with (the genetic) HLH survive 5 years. The only hope for a cure is a successful bone marrow transplant.

Joey and Caid went home to LA yesterday and will go back to work and school tomorrow. Please pray for Caid, since I think the family separation will be hardest on him. Please also pray that Henry will continue to get better and stay well. Additionally, please pray that Caid and Henry do not have HLH. They will likely be tested after we get Ian's results, but right now doctors don't know all of the genes that can carry the mutation, so the test really only carries weight if it is positive on the genes that they know about."

So friends, if you read this blog, we as that you would please, please pray for this family. Pray that Ian would be able to receive the treatments that he needs and that his tiny body would respond favorably to any treatments. Pray that Joey and Ginger (the parents) would know peace in their hearts as they make critical decisions regarding their son. Pray that their 6 year old son Caid would be able to deal with all of the turmoil in his life right now.

"I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; From where shall my help come? My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber." Psalm 121:1-3