What she knows

She might not be the most talkative baby (at least not in English) but she can say a few things:

Cool down

Yesterday was another hot one. Since we had our sitter yesterday, the big kids and I headed to the splash pad to cool down:

3 handsome fellas

Not quite sure what he's doing??

Silly faces

This was his "nice" face!

Check up

Ellie had her 18month check up today and Zach had his 9month check up. Most of it was uneventful.

Zach is 18.2lbs (10th%) and 28" (25th%). Overall he is perfect. His tear duct is still blocked, but since its not life threatening, we are going to hold off a little longer before we take him to an eye doctor. At this point, she doesn't feel it will open on its own. She is happy with his neck so we don't need to worry about physical therapy. We (I) need to work on actually putting him down once and a while and letting him work on his core muscles. He can sit up, but probably not as well as he should by now. We also got a reality check about his sleeping habits. Zach wakes up every 2hrs. Every 2 hours, every night except for the nights he wakes up every hour. He doesn't always eat every 2hrs, but he cries. If I put my hand on him he will grab it, roll over and fall asleep. Right now, he should be sleeping pretty much through the night. The doctor feels that part of it is probably because he's being cuddled so much during the day. He wakes up, no one is holding him or smiling at him and he cries. I wont make him go cold turkey, but he's in for a rude awakening tonight!

Ellie is 19.4lbs which is no longer on the chart since she has actually lost .3lbs since her last appointment. She is 30.5" (5th %). Obviously her weight is something to pay attention to, but she's on the move a lot more these days so a small drop isn't something we're going to panic over. She is right where she needs to be in every area except her speech. At 18months she should be saying 10 words. Ellie says 4. Since we really don't know the full story of her birth parents and the pregnancy, the doctor has recommended we call Help Me Grow for a speech evaluation just to be on the safe side. She understands and follows commands, but she can't tell us what she needs and it is driving her (and us) crazy. She is already having tantrums. The doctor told us the longer this goes on and the more frustrated she gets, the more behavioral problems we could be facing. I worried with Ben and he wont stop talking. I'm trying not to worry with Ellie especially since she just learned to say 'up' this weekend. We'll get an appointment with Help Me Grow and I'm hoping by the time that appointment comes around, it wont be needed any more!

Wordless Wednesday: Pretty dress

Craft

I finally gave in and joined Pinterest not too long ago. One more site to spend way too much time on when I could be doing something productive! I've gathered a few craft ideas for the kids and we tried one out last week. We made some prayer sticks. The kids painted popsicle sticks then I wrote the names of our family and friends on them. Each night after the boys say prayers, they each pick out a stick and say an extra prayer for who ever is on the stick. They are good about praying for who ever has a tummy ache or who we might have just spent the day with, but I love that they are praying for (remembering) people they might not see for months at a time or people they might not know as well, like their doctor or people at church that don't have kids. They've been very excited to pick out a stick each night and I'm very excited to hear them growing.

Done

I finally got my Ellie tattoo finished last night. I don't think the pictures do it justice. Its amazing!

Ellie has already poked, explored and slapped my arm. I think she likes it!

Corrie

We were driving home the other day and Sam asked if Corrie was coming over for lunch. I tried to explain she was in a different state, but he couldn't understand why she couldn't just go back to the other state after lunch.

These are for you Corrie:

Wordless Wednesday: Love

Tantrum

Many of you know Ellie has been all about the tantrums lately. I think she is extremely frustrated she can't communicate with us yet and the result are many, many (many) meltdowns. She is spitting, throwing things, hitting and doing a lot of screaming. On days when she has a significant amount of tantrums, she's started doing something new. She will get so upset that she does a big build up to her cry (you know when you look at your kid and say, "breathe Ellie") so big that her lips turn blue. Then every now and then she gives an added bonus of just falling over. She just falls, she doesn't put her arms out to brake her fall, she just falls over. I was talking to a friend last night, who informed me her kid did the same thing when he was little. Turns out she's not just falling, she's passing out. I looked it up on line and its totally Ellie. They call them breath holding spells. Its not intentional (for the most part), it only lasts a few seconds and I can't do anything about it. She should grow out of this between age 4-6. I feel bad I thought she was just being difficult. Although, if she didn't get so worked up about absolutely everything, this really wouldn't be happening. I feel the need to blame Corrie for her temper--yet one more thing she's passed down to Ellie. You're really lucky we love you so much!

Wordless Wednesday: Reading

I love that Sam loves what Ben loves...most of the time!

Bummed

You might recall, I was supposed to be posting pictures of my finished tattoo tonight. After getting to the shop, my guy told me the outline wasn't healed enough yet to finish it up. If he were to go over a tattoo that wasn't completely healed, it could cause some scaring. As much as I wanted to finish it tonight, its safer to wait. So I will go back on the 20th and finally get some color for my Ellie flowers.

Idaho

Only 7 weeks (and 1 day) till you come home!

P.S. why didn't anyone tell me I had a big puff ball coming out of the back of my head??

Bowling

Ben woke up Thursday asking when we could go bowling. Since we had a sitter that afternoon, we headed to the bowling alley. We had the whole place to ourselves which was good since we had some run away balls! We all had a good time and Ben even kept score the second game. We ended with a win for each boy: 58, 53 and 58, 52.

Dud

We had a hot 4th of July. We started the day at the parade. After a very hot walk down, we actually found a good spot to check things out. The babies and I were in the shade, but Jon and the boys were in the sun. Even with candy being thrown at their feet, they were covered in sweat and ready to leave after an hour.

Zach just wasn't interested.

Ben wanted to hold Zach and told me I could take his picture if I wanted to!

They spent the afternoon cooling down in the sprinklers and drinking lemon aid. After a cook out, we kept with tradition and headed to the Calaways for fireworks. The kids played with sparklers and worked up another sweat while the adults had some goodies and tried to keep the babies happy while we waited for the show. We counted down till 9:45--show time. A firework shot up into the sky then another then.....nothing. A couple random ones went off and more nothing. A friend was getting random texts from her sister who was at the park and actually got hit and burned from a piece of fireworks. They were having technical difficulties and were working on it. After working on it for over an hour, crowds were heading home and we decided that was a good idea. Surprisingly, the boys weren't that disappointed. They had fun with their friends and the sparklers and aunt Corrie made sure they saw fireworks one way or another:

She pulled up last years show on her phone. It started with Sam and ended with a few replays for all the kids, while she held the phone up in the air to get the full effect. Thats why we love her so much!

The babies lasted longer than Sam!

We found out later that a wire malfunctioned and prevented the fireworks from going off. They were going to attempt the show tonight, but they had some weather and safety concerns so they decided to cancel the show all together. Zach will just have to wait another year for his first real 4th.

Wordless Wednesday: Fort

Fort building with Daddy.

Book time

Ellie wanted to read a book and Ben was happy to step up and read it to her. Ben is so good with the babies. Why does he torment Sam so much?