September Overview

Looking back at our September, I don't feel like it was all that crazy. At least not our normal level of crazy. We spent a lot of the month finding our new normal with the three oldest in school. I, personally, am absolutely loving having them in school. Isabelle seems to be tolerating it a lot better now that he sisters aren't home having fun without her. Emery loves it all. She seems to be doing very well with the whole thing. Ella is having quite a bit of delayed anxiety about it all. She wakes up screaming and the morning routine is really horrible. She complains of headaches and stomach aches all morning and at school too. I've even had to go up to her in the nurses room once to talk to her and rub her belly. It's been pretty taxing. Emery and Ella were invited to a birthday party of someone in their Primary class. I took them but Ella refused to stay without me and Emery refused to stay without Ella. Tears were involved. I ended up just leaving with them because they were both pulling me out of the house. It wasn't the best experience. 

We've also been keeping up with weekly ECI appointments with Evalynn. We've finally seen some progress with her responding, or at least accepting, her therapists. To read more about that, go here. 

As far as everything else, here is a glance at what we did:

The month started off with Labor Day at Grandma's house. Since I don't take pictures much anymore, I don't have pictures. The kids played, the adults talked, Grandpa made brisket and the kids ate way too many sweets and came home sick. That pretty much sums up a lot of Whitworth get togethers. :) We left at the same time that Grandma was getting Great Grandma into the car to take her home. Ruger says "Bye Bye" for a long time when we leave people. I thought it was so cute to listen to him say, "Bye" to Grandma and "GiGi" over and over.

We made pudding a few times this month and we let Evalynn try it. She doesn't do well with smooth foods or using spoons. However, chocolate pudding will entice her to put her prejudices aside and eat a smooth food from a spoon. 

Curt works in the next town over so we often go and stop by and sometimes stay and visit or eat lunch together. When he works all day and all night pretty consistently, going to him at the office to spend lunch with his is sometimes the only quality time we can get together. There is a little stream behind his office/parking lot that Ruger finally noticed. He loves to go down there and throw rock in like he does at Papa's creek. 

In general, Ruger only plays with two toys. Bucky his pirate ship, with no action figures, just Bucky. Secondly, dinosaurs. That's it. He even has to have Bucky next to his bed to sleep. 

Isabelle had a lesson on bullying at school. She drew the following picture of a friend being bullied because she wasn't fast:

 I prefer to shop once every two weeks and just do a really big shopping trip. Usually I try with all my might to avoid taking my kids on this trip. We've had quite a history of meltdowns. Now that Emery, Ella and Isabelle are in school though, it is much easier. I wear Evalynn so she's totally fine with the whole thing. Ruger, for the most part is good with it too. He doesn't have to fight to sit in the extended family cart. He doesn't run after his sisters or try and talk me into buying things. It's really nice. He does insist on having a family cart though. As a mom to twin and young kids, I'm so self conscious walking around the store with only one kid in the family cart because it's beyond annoying when there are no family carts available and you see them being used around the store by moms with one 10 year old kid sitting in it. Oh well. At least he's only two, so I can justify it. Plus there are usually tons available in the middle of the school day. 

Ruger has really been very sweet to his little sister lately. He comes up to her and gives her kisses. He talks to her and interacts with her more and more. One day while she was sitting with me on the couch, he started "reading a book" and Evalynn started laughing at him. Then he continued on becuase he was making her laugh. 

One evening while laying on the floor with Evalynn, she started to try and pull herself up to her knees using him. She can't quite figure out how to not get her front leg trapped, but she's getting some air under her bum. 

Just about every spare moment we've had on a Saturday this month Curt and I have been in the garage getting it cleaned up and organized. We still aren't done. It's crazy out there because we are constantly out there filling Etsy orders or prepping for a craft fair or trying to get into the next sized box of clothes for Evalynn.  Months and months, maybe even last year, Ruger spilled a box of Curt's chainmaille links that we now use for our hanging signs. We've just let it get worse and worse and spread further and further becuase we knew it would be a huge task to pick them up and separate the colors out again. Well, we finally picked them up and dumped them into a bucket. We tried to bribe Ella and Isabelle with $5 to separate them out, but it didn't last long. Evalynn sure did like watching them when they did work and playing in them herself though.

More playing with his Bucky ship. This time in the garage while I'm working during Evie's nap time. 

 The other night we had asked the kids to clean up the living room. They ignored us...like usual. However Curt and I just decided to sit on the couch and watch. This really doesn't happen much at all. If ever. All five of them were sitting together playing/coloring. Ella and Isa are even sharing a book. Those two really don't get along much. Evalynn was happily playing on the floor with all the colors. That's pretty rare too. And, of course, Ruger had Bucky. It was truly enjoyable for about three whole minutes. 

Isabelle brought home a picture she drew at school in her folder:

At Evalynn's last ECI appointment, we tried working with her to encourage her to feed herself. Other than the fingers she sucks on, she has never put anything in her mouth before. She doesn't like smooth foods or cold foods so we started her on baby puffs two or three months ago. She's progressed to eating small bites of whatever we eat but we've had to feed her every bite. She's been doing more and more of that lately and I have been giving her bigger bites over the last week. We've also been practicing her biting off of a bigger item over the last two weeks. She's finally gotten ahold of that concept so, we let her try and eat a bigger item, like the graham cracker. I had one and ate in right in front of her very excitedly and made a big deal out of it. Then I gave her one to play with for a little bit and broke off a piece of it in front of her and fed it to her. After she tasted it, I started doing my hand over hers and bringing it to her mouth. She resists us trying to pull and push her hands to her mouth and she resisted like normal, but seemed to be distracted by liking the taste of it. So I got it in her mouth with both mine and her hand twice and she took bites, then I let go and she tried to do it on her own. She struggled for a while figuring out how to get it in her mouth or fit it in so she could take a bite. After she started to drool all over them and get them soft, she could get them in her mouth better and she started eating. After the first graham cracker, she got a lot better and started eating them dry. It was very exciting. It took patience to not help her but when she figured it out I was so so proud. Even a week later, this video makes me cry. I live a stressful life, so I'm used to being stressed. However, Evalynn's therapy and delays and her not being able to help herself has worn on me. It's hard to stay upbeat. We are very hopeful and not necessarily overly worried or dwell on fear or worry. However, it is a lot to handle in day to day activities and appointments stack up. Seeing her fed herself for the first time and a few time since in the last week has been very emotional at times to see my precious little girl winning. 

 We've already made it to the end of the first six weeks. Crazy how time just flies. Ella received a Top Hawk award in Music. When Curt and I received an email a week before from the music teacher that our child would be receiving an award and to invite us to come see her receive it, she didn't state which child she was referring to. We immediately knew it was Ella. She can sing and loves to do so. For as much as we struggle with her, I can continually list Ella's talents. She is very blessed.

On the last day of the month, Curt and I took the kids camping at Ray Roberts Lake. It's about 50 minutes from us and it was truly a very enjoyable evening and day. Curt's dad tagged along with us and it was very nice to have a third adult there. There were not perfect moments. A couple skinned knees, a bonked head, lots of trips to the bathroom, some whining here and there...but it was such a great trip. We had no sleeping issues. Even with Ruger and Evalynn. We had yummy food. Even though I have never packed for a camping trip before, we had few things that we wished we had brought. The weather was perfect. Not hot, not cold...just perfect. It left us wanting to go back a few times a year. 

Some things not pictured are the Fall Festival we attended at the girls' school, going to dinner at Dan and Lindsays, our silverware basket in the dishwasher breaking, vacuum breaking and needing fixed and our computer dying. With the death of our computer, I had to take lots of nights off of working preparing for my Fall craft fairs coming up. It's been very hard to just sit at night knowing as much as I've needed to get done to be prepared for my shows. It's been strange to not work at night for sure. 

Evalynn at 1 Year

I think the fastest way to have a year go by is to have a baby. I feel like it just flew by and I really am in shock that Evalynn is now a year. We have continued forward with her ECI therapy and have also met with her pediatrician post ECI evaluation. I don't really feel like we have any answers as to why she is slow to develop...and in someways that's great. If we knew why, that would mean we would know for sure that something is not right with her. Between her therapists, pediatrician and Curt and I, we feel like the next medical step we should take is getting her vision tested. There are a couple signs that she may not have the best sight. She can for sure see, but she doesn't hold eye contact well. She also seems to loose sight or interest if an item she is looking at goes too far into her peripheral vision. The biggest concern is if she had a vision problem, it may be why she is so insecure about the world around her. She just seems so unsure of the world, being out of Mom or Dad's arms or not feeling securely held by her parents or in an unknown seat. Between the pediatrician and the therapists, this month we have heard all sorts of terms such as special needs, Aspergers, autistic, vision problems, neurological problems, and the terms we we've heard for several months now of cerebral palsy and chromosomal abnormalities. It's been an emotionally hard month to hear these terms used to give explanations for your kid. Ultimately though, I feel pretty confident it isn't autism or Aspergers. I still just hold to the hope and my intuition that everything is just a result of being in the NICU for two weeks. I still think that it is a pretty good chance of that too. The pediatrician is ready to move towards getting her to a neurologist, but isn't pushing at all. I'm not quite ready to go yet. If something were actually wrong, I do think it is better to know. However, if nothing is wrong, I'd really hate to subject her to tests and lots of doctors. She just hates people so much, so that makes it extra hard. As far as therapy, she is doing slightly better. She now allows her two therapists to get on the floor with her. She still gets nervous if they touch her or if they get to close but she is acknowledging them with smiles and is curious enough at their computers that she is okay getting near them to touch their computer screens. At her appointment last week, we played ball with her and she did so well. She even got super talkative, happy and animated. We do a lot of strength training and make her stand assisted on her legs bearing her own weight. Lately I've started to feel like she has a desire to move even though she just can't seem to figure it out.

Here is a more complete list of what she's doing at one year:

1. She is trying to get up on her knees when holding onto something. While she can get some air under her bum and get some weight on her knees, she cannot get one of her legs out from under her.
2. She loves books. They are probably her favorite "toy." 
3. She can sit and in the sitting position she can turn herself in circles on purpose. She does tend to scoot herself backwards some while sitting, but she doesn't do it on purpose or realize she's doing it. 
4. She loves hair. She laughs when I shake mine. She loves when she gets a chunk of it in her hands. She loves running her hands through my bangs. She will even play with one strand of hair stuck in her hands. 
5. Her favorite non-book toy is probably a ball. She really likes rolling the big soccer ball back and forth. She will also pat it.
6. She is more talkative this month than in previous months. I would still describe her a pretty quiet though comparatively.
7. She is more and more tolerant of being tickled. 
8. She loves to cuddle with Mom and Dad.
9. She lights up when Dad gets home. She loves when he comes and picks her up.
10. I feel like her tolerance for not being in Mom or Dad's arms is worse this month than previous. It just seems to get worse and worse. She starts screaming at even the motion of being put down. 
11. She side sits like a pro and changes which leg is tucked in and which leg is to the side easily. 
12. She's doing much better with a spoon and even better with a fork. 
13. She loves all table food. We don't even attempt baby foods anymore and rarely any smooth foods. 
14. At the beginning of the month she started to travel by rolling. After three or four days of doing really really well and giving me hope of her enjoying being on the floor more, she stopped. She hasn't rolled to travel around the room in probably three weeks now. 
15. She uses her big toe to slowly inch her way forward when she is on her belly. If she wants something that isn't too far out of her grasp, she will reach for it and slowly get there so she can grab it.
16. She still has yet to put anything in her mouth at all.
17. She has slowed down on how much she sucks her fingers. Consistently, she really only always does it in the car seat. Even in her sleep to sooth herself, she's cut way way back. 
18. She still grinds her teeth.
19. She grabs her toes now on purpose.
20. She is more tolerant of Ruger and is starting to be more interested in him and happy to have him around. 
21. She doesn't respond much to pain. If she does start to cry after being hurt, the instant I pick her up, she's over it. 
22. She cannot sit herself up. She can't pull herself up. She can't crawl. The only thing on that list that I feel like she's making any effort to learn is pulling herself up on to her knees...not her feet. 
23. She is happy to just watch people as long as she's being held by Curt or I. 
24. She likes when we click our tongue at her. 
25. At her well child appointment two weeks ago these were her stats:
1. Weight: 20 pounds 10.2 ounces          68th percentile
2. Length: 29.25 inches                           64th percentile
3. Head Circumference: 17.75 inches     60th percentile

August in Review

Our month of August was pretty full. We had lots of stuff to fit in and not a full month to do it in as school was starting. We started off the month with Evalynn's first ECI appointment. You can read more about that here. 

All summer long we tried to get together with the Whitworth cousins on Thursday mornings to go swimming somewhere. A lot of the time it was at Great-grandma's apartment pool. It was a perfect pool for little kids and great grandmas alike. It wasn't too deep, had ramps to get in and out, beach entry/play place for Ruger and lots of shaded seating. While it was great to get to swim with cousins, it was even more wonderful that Great-grandma Francis got to be in the pool with all the kids. We had a great time going over there and spending time with her. After swimming, we always had a picnic at her apartment too and sometimes she would try and tell stories from her childhood. 

The girls had an amazing first weekend of the month. The three of them got to go over to Grammie's house on Friday afternoon. They got to go school supply shopping, first day of school outfit shopping, tennis shoe shopping and had dinner out. Then they got to have a sleep over at Grammie's for the first time ever. They have been asking for about a year or more and they finally were invited to stay. They were so excited. The following day, my mom took them to seethe play The Little Mermaid at the local theatre. It was a very full weekend of being spoiled. They loved it. 

Grandma took the kids to get a couple of outfits for school during tax-free weekend. Ruger found this hat and immediately became very attached. He's still pretty attached. He really likes it. 

Our washing machine broke and one night we went over to Curt's parent's house to do some laundry, and the kids went swimming in the kiddie pool. It didn't go over all that well because the pool was just too small after spending all summer in large swimming pools. Too many kids and not enough space. This cracked me up though:

Miraculously we had some pretty awesome weather in mid-August. We had several thunderstorms and the weather cooled off some. My kids don't handle extreme temperatures well and won't tough through it and play outside. I can't say I really blame them. Curt made them a rock box at the end of May, but they've only ever played in it a few times because it's just too hot. However they did get some get time in it during the cooler mornings. You know the 90 degree weather instead of the 100+ degree weather. Since Evalynn doesn't put anything in her mouth, I put her in the box too. She definitely like it. I'm excited for the nice Fall weather when I can take Ruger and Evie out there to play. 

We had one last back to school cousin swim bash and invited the Whitworth cousins over to my parent's backyard. Our backyard has a large hill down to a mostly flat creek bed. We put a slide on the iron fence, a very large sheet of plastic down the hill and let the kids go slip n sliding down. It's a lot of fun, albeit, very grassy and you're guaranteed a lot of scrapes and some bruises throughout the day. They also have a zip line and the kids also loved doing that. Once again, I didn't take any pictures, but it was a fun time to get together before school started. 

The girls were excited to finally get to go to Meet the Teacher night. Emery and Ella were both put in Isabelle's kindergarten teacher's class, Mrs. Smith. I love Mrs. Smith and the number one reason to have Emery and Ella put together, was to be in her class, but I really felt that it would be for the best if we separated them. Ella really wanted Mrs. Harwell, so I chose to have Ella removed from Mrs. Smith's class. Unfortunately, Ella didn't get Mrs. Harwell, but the only other English speaking kinder teacher Mrs. Tooke. She said she was okay to go in her class but I was really nervous about her having the one kinder teacher we didn't know of the three of them. It's all worked out, but that day, I was really panicked if I'd made the right choice. Everyone was so happy at Meet the Teacher. It was very exciting for Emery and Ella. They've been ready for Kindergarten for a year. Isabelle has a new primary friend that moved about three houses down from us. She and Isa are in the same class and we were very excited about that. Now they are in Primary, school and the bus together. I am very very excited about them being friends. She also had two or her three best friends from her class last year in her class this year. Academically we don't worry much about Isabelle, but she has had some rough days/weeks/months socially. We have our fingers crossed that this year will be great for her socially since she already has so many friends. 

 Mrs. Smith and Emery

 Mrs. Tooke and Ella

 Mrs. Whorton and Isabelle

The last few nights before school started, each of the girls got to go on a date with either Curt or I. Emery went first because she has been really improving with being good and helpful. I forgot my phone though, so we didn't get any pictures. Isabelle went the next night. She talked my ear off. Ella went with Curt. Everyone went to Dairy Queen because where we live there are not many options. 

Curt and I have been working to get our garage cleaned out. It is a constant state of disarray because we have a lot of stuff to store and a lot of projects going on out there. We also have a lot of tools and wood because that's were we run my business from. It had gotten pretty bad during the hot months and with us needing to start preparing for Holiday craft fairs, we really needed to get somethings cleaned up. Once again, since the rain was making the weather tolerable, we spent the day getting all of our scrap wood together and some of the bigger pieces of wood left over from projects cut down to size and we burned it in our backyard. We had quite the bonfire going for most of the day. Ruger loves when we are out in the garage. Both because he wants to be in the garage and because he wants to be out in the front yard on his tricycle. He's hilarious to watch as he Flintstones it up and down the side walk. He is very intense sometimes in his focus. Excuse our dormant grass that we can't afford to water cause our water in the country is outrageously expensive. 

The first day of school finally came. To say we were ready for it is quite the understatement. Everyone loves their teacher and Ella wanted to go back about an hour after being home. Isabelle isn't constantly telling us how 2nd grade is dumb, so that's a good sign. I think it's going to be a good year. 

About an hour and a half into the day, Ruger started crying and asking for "Imbelle and Ella." We are having to find a new normal with only the three of us home during the day. I for one and absolutely loving it though. Ruger is always so excited when the girls get home. He has huge hugs for all three of them and is so happy to see them. 

We spend a lot of the time in Isabelle and Ruger's room because that is also where the toys are. I am trying really hard to get Evalynn okay with being on the ground, so we go in there and I lay on the floor beside her while she plays. She has always preferred books to any toys, and it hasn't changed. I specifically took these pictures because she's holding the book with both hands at the same time. She hasn't really done that before now. 

Ruger's learning to play on his own a little more. I snuck into the room to take this picture the other day. He's really loved dinosaurs for probably almost a year now. Lately, he's become more attached after taking a break to love The Lion Guard and Jake and the Neverland Pirates figurines this summer. 

It was a fun and busy month. Not included as a highlight is getting our washing machine fixed, getting ten Etsy orders, doing a small craft booth, getting some holiday sign prototypes ready, Ella's stitches and trip to the ER that you can read about here and a random inpromptu sleepover at Grandma's house because Ella had to go to the chiropractor for the first time after a slip n slide accident. I'm very excited for September!

Ella's Stitches

Last Thursday night, we had a little bit of an incident in our house. Ella and I were in the kitchen talking about dinner and I left the room to go ask Curt a question. Right as I was done talking to Curt I went to turn to go back to the kitchen when I heard a bang and Ella started screaming. I didn't see it happen, but I saw her laid out on the floor immediately after. She hit our laminate floor, full steam ahead, but didn't hit any wall or item on the floor...just the floor. She had run to catch up with me in her socks that she kept on after school and totally ate it. After picking herself up, she ran into the room to her dad and jumped into his arms. I was trying to figure out what happened and what she hurt but I was standing and Curt was sitting so Ella was below me. She moved her head and a big blood mark was on Curt's shirt. She was freaking out and considering how much and dark the blood was on his shirt, I knew it was pretty bad. I finally got a look at her face and realized she hurt her chin. I pulled her into the living room to inspect it and immediately knew she needed stitches. When I told Curt, Ella flipped out. Her cousin had stitches a couple of months ago, so she knew what they were and she's definitely my most anxiety ridden child, so the thought alone was very traumatizing to her. 

 We have a limited health insurance plan as to where we can go/who will take our small provider. We also currently have urgent care insurance, so initially we thought to go there. After Curt left, I decided to try and go ahead and figure out where we could go and use our insurance. Of course, it was the opposite direction as Curt was already traveling so it took a while for him to get to Cook Children's Urgent Care in Southlake. Once he got there, they got in very quickly. The doctor looked at Ella's wound and quickly assessed that the cut was a lot deeper and worse than we thought. The skin was of course cut open, but the muscle had been torn too. Therefore she needed internal stitches in addition to external stitches. She would need a wound care technician to stitch her up and the urgent care facility didn't have one. So, they were referred downtown to the full children's hospital. Back in the car they went. By this time, it was about 7:30. 

By the time they got downtown and parked, it was about 8:20. They got back to a room quickly since they had referral paperwork. They immediately put a numbing gel all in her wound. That was a huge relief for me as I was super super worried about her having to get a shot. That would not have gone over well at all. Plenty of people came in to talk to her and ask her what happened. She had the numbing gel on her for about an hour and then the wound care technician came and stitched her up. At the promise of a popsicle, she was a total champ. She laid back, tucked her hands under her, laid perfectly still and didn't fuss at all. Curt wasn't sure how many stitches she received inside, but she got seven on the outside. 

She was rewarded with her popsicle...her only dinner of the night.

They finally got to leave the hospital a little after 11, and by the time they found the car and got gas, Ella fell asleep before Curt could get her dinner. She was totally wiped out.  

I tried to get her up the next day for school, but she was totally out. She slept in till 9:00 and really just laid around the whole day. She was totally exhausted. She was pretty sore too, but not enough to complain or need any Tylenol. 

I ended up taking her stitches out on Tuesday night. It definitely was an ordeal. After the first two, I was regretting not taking her into the pediatrician. She had a hard time staying still. I had a hard time getting the stitches out because they were so scabbed over. But we got through it and now is looking so much better. She's very happy to not have to have a bandaid on anymore...especially at school. 

In the end our second ER visit turned out okay and not too traumatizing, which I am so grateful for. 

Evalynn at 11 Months

Evalynn has done really well this month meeting some new developmental goals. At the beginning of August we had Early Childhood Intervention out to our home. I should probably back up and explain Evalynn has never been strong. When we brought her home from the hospital after two weeks in the NICU, Evalynn was the weakest baby I'd ever held. She was so flimsy. There was no strength to her at all. It took her months to learn to hold her head up well. It took weeks and weeks for her to even try and move her head on her own. As time as marched on, she's still stayed very baby like and hasn't hit her milestones. While I wasn't overly worried, and neither was her pediatrician, at almost 9 months we took her in for her 6 month well child (we went without insurance for a few months) and at that time, her doctor said it was now time to have her evaluated. The pediatrician said that if something is wrong, such as cerebral palsy or chromosomal abnormalities, we needed to know. If there wasn't anything technically wrong and she just had a rough start, it was also time to get some therapy and get her muscles to strengthen. She still wasn't bearing any weight on her legs, wasn't rolling over on hard surfaces or to travel, struggling to use eating utensils and not liking baby food, not baby talking much at all. When you are close up with her, she will look you in the eyes, but then she won't hold eye contact after the initial eye lock although she continues to interact with you. She is very very strongly opposed to anyone other than Mom and Dad. She tolerates strangers better than familiar faces. Probably because they haven't tried to take her from her parents yet. She won't help get dress, won't put anything in her mouth except the two fingers she sucks, she won't hold anything with both her hands at the same time. She is no where near crawling, sitting herself up or any of the more age appropriate milestones she "should" be accomplishing. That is why she was referred to ECI. It took a bit of waiting, both on my procrastination and waiting for an available appointment. Which leads us to her first appointment at the beginning of the month...
Evie was evaluated over the course of two hours in six different categories. Self Help (eating, dressing, etc), Social, Communication, Gross Motor, Fine Motor and Cognitive. At the end of the evaluation, the two workers told me that in two of the categories, Evalynn ranked as a newborn. In another category, she ranked at 6 months and another 6.5 months. I couldn't remember the other two rankings and I couldn't remember what categories went with which ranking. However, on their second time out, they told me different numbers. In self help, she ranked 6 months. In social, she ranked 5 months. In communication, she ranked 2 months. In gross motor, she ranked 5 months and in fine motor, she ranked 6 months. Lastly, in cognitive, she was 6.5 months. To be clear, the rankings were done when she was 10 months and 11 days....so just about 10.5 months old. She was very behind and qualified for services. At her initial appointment, the two technicians who came out put my not so worried mind at rest by saying that a lot of what they suspect is going on is sensory issues because of being a NICU baby. However on her second appointment, which she was 11 months, 1 day old for, the technicians seemed more concerned after consulting with their fellow ECI technicians. All of her issues do not fall into sensory issues, and for that matter, don't fall all nice and neat into any category. Evalynn was described as "quite the anomaly" and her second appointment was not really even an official evaluation or therapy. New technicians were sent out just to watch her and get a feel for her and her personality and delays. They wanted to know what her pediatrician had said about her evaluation, but we haven't been in to see her yet as all the well child visits have been booked with the back to school busy season. So, that small worry in the back of my mind is still there a little bit, but for the most part, I'm still just sticking to her rough start being the underlying problem.
Since her initial eval, she has developed some. Here is a list of more of the things she is doing at 11 months.

1. She know grabs our features on our face. 
2. She is "talking" a little more. 
3. She did eat one whole container of baby food in one sitting. There was still a bit of wrestling with her to do so. Mostly, I've just given up on baby food though and moved to table food. She is much happier and loving eating food she can chew. 
4. She's also started to push up on her arms when she's on her tummy. I didn't mention that above, but while she had no problem with tummy time...even preferred it, she never bore any weight on her arms. She has since started and now props herself up on her forearms and elbows. 
5. She just cut her 8th tooth. It's the first one she's cut in 4 months. She was much more miserable this time around.
6. She isn't sleeping quite as much. She is hovering between 1 and 2 naps a day. It just depends on how long and early the first one was. Her first nap has settled into a pretty consistent 2-2.5 hour nap. The second is about 45 minutes-1 hour.
7. She rolls in her sleep now. She is not used to it and this combined with the teething, means she rarely sleeps through the night now. 
8. She prefers Mom and Dad still. It's actually gotten much worse. If we put her on the ground with her sisters, she usually freaks out immediately. If we put her down and get down on the ground with her, she is much more likely to stay. 
9. She loves toys.
10. She still loves to suck her two middle fingers on her right hand. 
11. She's grown to love Daddy even more lately. She gets so excited when he gets home.
12. She doesn't reach for people in a traditional way of holding her arms out, extended towards the person she wants, but she does hold her arms up slightly and leans towards the person slightly. It's enough that Curt and I can tell, and since we are the only people holding her or being requested by her, that's all that matters, I guess. 
13. She loves when her sisters show her videos on my phone. She also likes the TV being on.
14. She hates screaming kids/parents. 
15. She's getting more and more ticklish and more and more tolerant of being tickled. 
16. She's a pro at grabbing everything in arms reach...small or large. She still has yet to put a single thing in her mouth though. 

Evalynn at 10 Months

Oh boy. I've been slacking on keeping up with Evalynn's monthly stats. Rats. So mad at myself. Anyway, our little ten month old is still going slow on meeting mile stones, but I feel like she is in fact making some strides in the past four weeks. Here are some things about Evalynn at ten months:

1. She's started to grab her toes.
2. She's now started to be ticklish...and she's okay with it too. Before, even if she was somewhat tickled she didn't know if she liked it and half cried, half started to giggle. Now she belly laughs when you tickle her belly button and smiles when you tickle her toes.
3. As far as her sleeping schedule goes, she wakes up somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00. She's usually ready for her first nap at about 9:30-10:00. Her first nap is usually about four hours long. Then she usually takes about a 30-45 minute nap some time in the 4 o'clock hour. She is usually ready for bed by 7:30-8:00 and nine times out of ten sleeps through the night.
4. I've noticed that she doesn't hold eye contact very long. She'll look at you, smile, look away/past you, but continue to interact with you. It's almost like she is using her peripheral vision.
5. She's started to use her legs to push up against my belly when I'm holding her. She still doesn't bare weight on her legs though.
6. She's really started to interact and laugh at her siblings. She loves them to talk to her face to face and jump for her.
7. Evalynn's been really easy to put to sleep. She's slept on her tummy for a long time now. She will nurse and then I lay her on her belly and she puts her right middle two fingers in her mouth and soothe herself to sleep. Lately she's been fighting it though. She digs her legs in the bed and tries to roll over. She has to find her fingers several times. She's also picked up that she likes to have her left hand at the base of her head and her fingers in her hair.
8. She sits really well now. She does fall backwards every once in a while, but not often and very rarely hurts herself when she does fall backwards.
9. She reaches for stuff in front of her and can pick up pretty much anything. Including flat things off of the hard floors.
10. When she sits, she bends herself all the way forward and folds herself in half to get stuff. For the most part, she can pull herself back up. She does so without using her arms. She does this to the sides too, but isn't as successful in sitting up again.
11. When I'm holding her, she pats me a lot. Almost constantly.
12. She rocks herself when she's sitting.
13. She loves loves loves puffs. She doesn't like baby food. She is doing slightly better with level three baby food, as it is chunkier, but still not great.
14. She doesn't like being placed in the car seat, but once she's in, she's generally fine.
15. When she's napping, she is awoken several times by her very loud siblings. She will pop her head up and if she doesn't see anyone or if the noise calms down, she puts herself back to sleep. If she's woken up while she's initially going to sleep by her siblings, she will wake up and stay up for another 30 minutes or so and then go to sleep. Her sibling's screams/fighting, opening of the bedroom door for requests for TV shows or apple juice and/or Ruger's loud footsteps on our hard floors are usually the things that wake her up.
16. When she is laying on her back, she likes to lift her legs up in the air, usually one at a time. 
17. She loves books and loves for Isabelle to read her favorite board books to her. 
18. She hates having her diaper changed.
19. She likes being in pools. She's even fallen asleep while we are in the pool. 
20. She only likes her parents to hold her. And strangers at church. It seems the more people try with her, the more she dislikes them. She does smile at people, but doesn't have a lot of smiles for those that try with her.

Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day I wanted to start a new tradition. Every November we do the Thankful Tree and now on Valentine's I want to do hearts with reasons we love each other. Lately, I feel like we are struggling to love one another and fill our home with love instead of contention. Especially between Isabelle and Ella. Sheesh. Those two. Anyway...I didn't take any pictures, but we had hearts taped up all over our kitchen/dining room wall with reasons we loved each other. Here is a list from the hearts that survived through the month...which is most of them.

Isabelle: I love Emery because she helps me.
Emery: I love that Isabelle plays with me.
Isabelle: I love Mommy because she makes me dinner.
Isabelle: I love about me is eating icicles.
Ella: I love Isabelle because she helps me write my letters and numbers.
Isabelle: I love Ruger because he jumps with me on the trampoline.
Ella: I love that Daddy takes us outside.
Ella: I love Evalynn because she lets me lay with her.
Mom: I love Ruger because he smiles and loves to cuddle with me. I love to watch him run and interact with his sisters.
Emery: I love that Daddy reads me stories.
Emery: I love Evalynn because she smiles at me.
Isabelle: I love Isabelle because she teaches her sisters and loves Ruger so much.
Ella: I love Ruger because I like his smile.
Isabelle: I love Daddy because he takes me to the park.
Emery: I love Mom because she hugs me.
Mom: I love Ella because she wants to include everyone in whatever she does.
Mom: I love Emery because when she is happy she is so silly and makes us all laugh. Sh'e also a big helper.
Emery: I love that Ella makes me laugh.
Emery: I love that I love snow.
Ella: I love that Emery helps me draw.
Mom: I love Daddy because he works hard to provide for us so that we can have nice things.
Daddy: I love Ella because she has so much energy and she likes to cuddle.
Daddy: I love Emery because she is so sweet and she is the best at sharing.
Daddy: I love Evalynn because she has the prettiest little smile and she warms my heart.
Daddy: I love Mommy because she keeps me sane and laughing.
Emery: I love Ruger cause he runs around with me.
Isabelle: I love Evalynn because she makes cute smiles.
Daddy: I love Ruger because he is awesome.
Daddy: I love Isabelle because her laugh makes me laugh and she tries so hard to do her best at school.
Ella: I love that Mom makes me dinner.

Evalynn 8.5 Month Stats

We went without health insurance for three months so we didn't take Evalynn in for her well child check ups for a few months. Once we had insurance again, we took Evie in for lots of reasons. Obviously to be weighed and measured, get caught up on some vaccines and just checked out in general. However we also went to talk about of major developmental delays she has. She doesn't bear weight at all on her legs. She just started sitting, which is later than normal. She doesn't eat from a spoon without me forcing it in. She barely "talks." These are some of the reasons we know have to move to getting her evaluated to see if she's just slow to develop and needs some pushing via physical therapy or if there is actually something going on such as cerebral palsy or chromosome abnormalities. I'm not really worried. I think it is just a symptom of her rough start in the NICU. Anyways, here are her measurements: 

Weight: 17.1 lbs       36th %tile
Length:  27.75"        65th %tile
Head:   17.5"            73rd %tile

Seven Year Interview

I did a little interview with Isabelle now that she is seven.

1. Who is your favorite princess? Rapunzel
2. What is your favorite color? Purple
3. What's your favorite toy? My cheetah stuffed animal from Grammie
4. What's your favorite subject at school? Math
5. What's your favorite thing to do at school? Math and science 
6. What's your favorite thing to do? My favorite thing is to have a sleep over.
7. What do you dream about in your sleep? I dream about going to Disney World and seeing lots of characters. The characters I want to see the most is Elsa and Anna. 
8. What's your favorite animal? Cheetah!
9. What's your favorite thing to do outside? Jump on the trampoline.
10. Who's your best friend? Mary 
11. What are you afraid of? Nothing. A ghost. 
12. What's your favorite thing to draw? Cheetahs.
13. Where's your favorite place to go? The store. Walmart.
14. What's your favorite restaurant? Chick fil a
15. What's your favorite food? Cheesy Beefy Rice

Isabelle at Seven

Here we are...parents of a seven year old. One more year till she's accountable. Pressure is on! :) Here are some things about Isabelle at seven:

1. She's an excellent student. Every time I talk to her teacher, she tells me what a joy Isabelle is to have in her class. On her most recent progress report, she had straight 100s. 
2. Her favorite subject is math. She loves doing math homework...well most of the time. 
3. She loves to draw. She would draw all day long if she had access to writing utensils and paper all the time. (We have to keep them up and away because her sisters and brother STILL color all over the walls, doors, dressers and beds.)
4. She does well with reading and for a few months now has reached the 1st grade reading level goals. However, I can rarely get her to read at home. I think that she just likes playing and drawing and having fun with her sisters so much and works so hard at school that she just doesn't want to read at home. 
5. She is a big helper as long as she is in a good mood. She will clean, but she definitely prefers to do the rare jobs like cleaning walls, helping with the dishes, cleaning windows, vacuuming, etc as opposed to picking up or doing her chores. Getting her to pick up is a fight...but sometimes I really understand her frustrations. She hates that she goes to school all day while the other kids make messes. Then clean up time comes and she is the one who cleans up 60% of the mess while Em and Ella each do 20%. 
6. She's definitely the oldest. She wants to do everything first. She wants to be in charge of every game they play. She wants to tell her sisters everything to make their dolls say. She wants to do the most of everything. She wants all the privileges and delegate all the work. She want to boss boss boss...
7. She whines a lot still. She nags a lot still. She is never happy with an answer of no and she lets you know it. 
8. She hangs on to stuff and pouts for a really really long time.
9. She is very very stubborn. You cannot make her do something she doesn't want to. 
10. She's very picky about her clothes. I cannot go shopping for her clothes anymore. She's passed this picky-ness down to her sisters too.
11. She loves to do her own hair. Getting her to let me do it nowadays is pretty impossible. She is getting better, but she looks like an orphan child most days.
12. She has friends, but often forgets or tells us she doesn't have friends and everyone hates her.
13. She is really really good with Ruger. He does test her patience, but she has always taken him under her wing.
14. She will hold Evalynn when I make her so I can get things done, but she doesn't like it when Evalynn starts crying. As far as Evalynn goes, Isa really hasn't taken a liking to her like she did with Ruger. 
15. She often puts her name as Izzy on her school papers.
16. She cares what people think of her and her clothes A LOT. Some kids, mainly boys I believe, have made comments about her ugly clothes and she will never wear them again. Oh the fights and struggles that have been born out of some dumb kid's comments. 
17. She still will not wear clothing with buttons.
18. She doesn't like to wear any pants or shorts that have any gap in the back when she sits down. At all. I can't say I blame her, but it is really annoying that she won't wear much of anything unless it has an elastic waist.
19. Her favorite color is still purple. 
20. More times than not she comes home from school with food on her face from lunch! She has never started to eat normal again from when she lost her first tooth just over a year ago. She puts her food in her mouth from the side to bite it without using her front teeth, so she gets food on her face all the time. She's getting slightly better about cleaning her face after eating, but oh man. Not good enough.
21. We have a lot of dinner time struggles. She likes everything I make. Everything. Yet, if I make something she didn't want or if I prepare her plate incorrectly or whatever she deems not worth of her, she will not eat it and pout and complain all of dinner. When Curt and I leave the table, she will then eat it all. Or if I make something new and she doesn't want to try it...same thing. Complains all of dinner time, but will eat it when we are not looking. That stubborn streak. I tell you. We cannot make her do anything.
22. She is incapable of putting away her shoes until we ask her at least three times. Every day. 
23. She loves Primary. 
24. She knows the scripture stories pretty well. We go over scripture stories daily and she is able to answer a lot of questions we ask. She's gotten confident enough that she's started answering them in Primary too.
25. She wants to learn how to bake and cook well because she loves watching the Kid's Baking Championship.
26. She loves loves loves to play with her cousins. Nothing is better to her. There is no one she would rather be around that Abby. She would always pick to be with Abby over anyone. However, if Abby isn't around, she's starting to favor hanging out where the adults are. This is totally how I was as a kid. She isn't as bad as me, but she's still only seven. 
27. Out of her sisters, she would pick to play with Emery over the others 100% off the time. She's even admitted and told me lately that she doesn't like Ella. It's a very real problem in our house. Within seconds of her arriving home from school, all calm has disappeared and contention fills our house because the fighting and exclusions gets so bad.
28. We have yet to figure out a punishment that she truly cares about. 
29. When she is happy, she is such a joy. During those happy times, she will talk your ear off and tell you all about her day, the people in her class, her life from her perspective, etc etc. I love those times. However, if she is not happy, she makes everyone in our house miserable. And there is not a thing we can do to pull her out of it. At least not that I know of.
30. She loves to help make dinner.
31. She likes to write stories and illustrate them.
32. She is quite proud that I've started asking her to go to the car and get things. She loves when I give her that assignment.
33. She loves Star Wars.
34. Her favorite toys are Barbies and Princesses.
35. She struggles with our small house. She already is showing signs of wanting her own room and her own space. I think she likes the companionship of her sisters at bed time because she would actually be scared in her own room, but she really hates that there isn't really anywhere in our house she can go to be alone and draw or read or play by herself. Her sisters always find her. It doesn't matter if she hides in a closet or in my bed or where ever.
36. Speaking of hiding...she is is hide and go seek champ. Her cousins even know, she is the best at the game. A lot of the time, she's never found. They either give up or it's been so long, she gives up and comes out.

Ruger at Two Years

Our little boy is two years old! He is such a perfect addition to our family. I am thankful everyday that the Lord blessed us with a little boy. I'm so very glad to have his sweet albeit destructive force in our family. His personality is so strong and fun right now. Here are some things about him at two years:

1. He LOVES dinosaurs. Most of all his clothes, toys and bedding are dinosaurs. He also really loves trucks and 90% of the time is either playing with dinosaurs or cars.
2. He yells "TRUCK!" most of the time while we are driving around. He gets so excited to see trucks on the road.
3. He drinks all day, every day. I swear he would drink one sippy after another if I'd let him. 
4. His vocabulary is really taking off. He's doesn't really well. He's starting to combine words to make short sentences. While he is doing well, he still struggles to voice what he wants unless it is juice. He has juice down. 
5. He is so loud. He has a booming voice and very loud cry. That combined with him liking to talk and yell and scream and make roaring noises all the time...well he definitely adds to the continuous loud volume in this house.
6. He's learned to open doors. It's a sad day for me.
7. He loves to be outside. He cannot accept anyone being outside without him. 
8. If he is in the front yard, his first instinct is to run into the street. Having full arms or when the girls let him out of the house before me is my worst nightmare. That's often, people. Thankfully, we haven't had any close calls with cars, but I'm constantly terrified.
9. He willingly gives me lots of hugs and kisses. He will crawl into my arms and say, "Hug. Hug. Hug. Hug." over and over as we hug. Melts.my.heart. This is probably my most favorite thing about him right now. Or even thus far. Or even about being a mom currently. Brings tears to my eyes a lot of the time. I don't ever want this to stop.
10. He willingly takes medicine but not eye drops. 
11. He loves to play in the dirt/water/grass/mud whatever. 
12. He likes to have his teeth brushed.
13. We've sleep trained him to put himself to sleep. Every night we put him in his room, say a prayer with him, give him kisses and leave him and close the door. Most of the time, he won't cry longer than a minute. Now that he knows how to open the door, we are struggling a little bit, but not too much. He rarely has a nap anymore, so by the time bed time rolls around, he's exhausted and usually very tired and very ready to go to bed even if he doesn't realize it. Therefore even if he wants to put up a fight, it doesn't last long.
14. He sleeps through the night about once every blue moon. 
15. You can always hear him walking around our house. He's barefoot most of the time and we only have carpet in the rooms...so when he's walking around on the hard floor, you can hear each footstep because he slaps his feet on the floor as he walks. It's another of his little things about him at this age I know I'll miss someday.
16. He loves to look at books. His current favorites are the Golden books we have. Especially the three Jake and the Neverland Pirates.
17. He loves to watch Jake and the Neverland Pirates. If the TV is turned on, he immediately starts yelling for Jake. He also likes Sheriff Callie. He hasn't watch Backyardigans in a long time, but still loves to play with his Pablo figurine whenever it randomly surfaces around the house. 
18. He is really skittish around dogs. If they come too close he will start to cry. However, he loves to see them from afar.
19. He loves to climb onto things...couches, nightstands, end tables...and jump off. 
20. He loves to try on any shoes that are left around the house. 
21. His favorite people are his two grandpas and his daddy. 
22. His favorite place to be is in the garage with daddy playing with all the tools.
23. He is a destructive force like Ella. Those two play quite a bit.
24. He is a hitter. Bad. He hits everyone a lot. 
25. He considers himself an excellent disciplinarian. If the girls are getting in trouble or throwing a fit or being naughty, he will hit them, he will tell them, "Ella! Night night!" and he has even thrown stuff at them. He recently threw something at Ella because she was throwing a fit and it caught her right beside her eye and gave her a nasty black eye. 
26. He can't and won't even try to say Emery or Ruger. Evalynn is baby but he's said Evie a few times. Ella used to be his word for all girls but now it is just for Ella. He pronounces Isabelle as Imbelle. So adorable!
27. He loves to say "bye bye" to people. He says it for a good minute after we drive away. And by "says it" I actually mean "yell it."
28. Within a day or two he learned how to do matching ABC puzzle games on my phone to spell words in the Endless ABCs app. He's a pro. He sounds out the letter A over and over to ask to play it. It's the first game on my phone I've had in his lifetime and it's only been around for two weeks or so. I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad that I downloaded it yet. 
29. He prefers shorts to pants. He doesn't really like pants because they slip under his feet when he doesn't have shoes on and he hates that.
30. He loves to jump on the trampoline. Especially close to the edges. He's fallen off a lot. Five or more times in the last month or two. I cannot watch him on there because it makes me a nervous wreck. 
31. He loves to climb on top of the dining room table. If he gets away with it, he will reach for my glass chandelier and clang the jars together.
32. He makes hilarious faces. Especially when he is surprised or has found a stick to use as a sword. 
33. He loves to play with balls. He throws everything, but especially balls. 
34. He throws a decent amount of tantrums but they don't last too long.
35. He has no patience. At all.
36. If he wants me to be somewhere or get him something, he will come get me and push me to where he wants me to be so he can point to it.
37. He loves when Isabelle puts him on the small tricycle with her and takes him on a ride. He can get himself around on the tricycle by just using his feet to push himself, but he can't steer it at all. 

This little boy is so fun right now. Yes, he's a two year old, but I think because he's learning to speak so much later than the girls, the fun age of learning how to talk is balancing out the terrible twos. He is so fun to have around. I love having a little boy in our house. I feel so blessed that Heavenly Father gave us a little guy to blend in with our four girls. I just wish I could bottle up his personality and this age so much. Man we love him. 

Evalynn at Six Months

We've already had our sweet sweet baby girl for half a year. Time has just flown by, for sure. We sure are glad we decided to have one more baby, as during Ruger's pregnancy and first few months, we thought we were done. We often talk about how glad we are that we decided to have one more baby...even if she completed the trashing of my body. :) Here are some things about her at six whole months:

1. She is still super mellow and calm. 
2. She almost always sleeps through the night. I can't recall a time she didn't sleep at least nine hours straight. Most of the time she is goes down for the night right around 8 and won't wake up until around 6. She eats and goes back to sleep until at least 10.
3. She's started to coo more. It's quiet, but so sweet.
4. It is still pretty hard to get her to laugh much, but she is laughing more as she gets older.
5. She still sleeps a lot during the day. Sometimes she'll only take one nap a day...but that nap will be four hours. Sometimes even longer. Other days she'll take two naps and they'll be shorter, but still decently long.
6. She is not rolling over yet, but it trying and getting close.
7. She still only has two teeth.
8. She is back to hating the car seat and cries just about 100% off the time she's in it. Sadly, any place we go requires at least a 40 minute round trip. Poor baby. She makes herself sick crying to much that she's often covered in puke and spit bubbles when I go to get her out of the car. Breaks my heart.
9. She loves to look at my phone screen and the TV.
10. She's started to try and use her hands at reaching for things, but isn't very good at getting her hands to whatever it is she's reaching for.
11. She's not shown any interest in reaching for our food. I'm not even tempted to start baby foods with her. I don't feel like she's ready at all. 
12. She's getting stronger with her neck. She can now sit in the Bumbo with much more strength than a month ago. That being said, she only lasts for about 5 minutes.
13. She is so happy in the mornings. She sleeps on her belly and when she wakes up, I usually just turn her onto her back. Often times, she will lay there content to look around for a while before she realizes she is starving.
14. Finger sucking is starting to be favored over the pacifier. She can't seem to hold the paci in her mouth for more than a second and her fingers tend to work better. While I defintely prefer the paci, I'm really just happy she has a way to sooth herself. I still wish Ruger did.
15. She still will not bare any weight at all, for even a second, on her legs. She cries when we try to get her too.
16. She doesn't like to be jumped in our laps. Ruger was obsessed...Evie hate it and cries.
17. She doesn't like baths at all.
18. We moved her crib to Ruger's room and she's doing awesome. It's worked out really well.
19. She still doesn't really like being outside. Mostly cause she doesn't like the wind and we live in a very windy place. She hates the sun in her eyes too.
20. She needs a hair cut. She has random parts of her hair that are two inches longer than the rest.  

Evalynn at Five Months

Here are some things about our Evie at five months: 

1. She is taking 2-3 good naps a day. Is is easy to put to sleep. If you give her a pack and tuck her face into your neck she'll will be out in minutes. She definitely likes her paci when sleeping and to keep her asleep. If she wakes in the middle of a nap, she'll often go back to sleep if you get her the paci fast enough.
2. She likes to suck on her fingers. I've never seen her suck on her thumb. She's not a proficient finger sucker. She often gags herself and doesn't quite have it worked out on how to get her fingers to her mouth on purpose. She will settle for her fingers while sleeping if she doesn't have the paci.
3. She's noticing her hands and can bring them together. 
4. She's started to laugh. Not a lot or for long but you can hope to get a giggle or two out of her.
5. She loves to be talked to. She always has a smile for you if you talk to her. 
6. She is chunky! She's got some rolls.
7. She doesn't like the wind or sun.
8. She tolerates her car seat a little more this month. 
9. She sleeps at night really well. She does have some not only great nights but even those she does better than most babies her age, I'm sure. 
10. She is often awoken from sleep to take kids to school and she tolerates it wonderfully. Often after a 45 minute car ride round trip, she'll come home, eat and take an awesome nap.

January Post

There is a part of me that just dies whenever I think about the state of our very neglected blog. Most of the reason is I just don't have much time. Between five kids, my craft business, Curt's night school, my calling, keeping house and doing a scrapbook page a week to stay a "Babe" (creative team member) for my favorite scrapbooking site, I am busy! Plus I stopped paying to be able to upload pictures to blogger quite some time ago, so that discourages me quite a bit too. Oh and I can't be on the computer when Ruger's awake because he insists on "helping" me if I'm sitting at the computer. But I hate hate hate that I don't record Ruger and Evalynn as well as I did the older three girls when they were their age. And I hate that I don't record the older three girls as I once did. So, I'm going to attempt to do monthly posts now.

January was mostly spent being sick. Evalynn caught RSV early in the month and a day later Ruger also had symptoms. It definitely struck Evalynn down much harder than it did Ruger. He took naps and hated that his nose and eyes were runny, but he didn't let it slow him down much. He still played a lot and got into everything and tried to destroy as much as he could. He did however want more mom cuddle time and struggled that I was taking care of Evalynn so much. Having both of them sick at the same time was really rough. Ruger also struggled to sleep much at all during the night because of his cough and stuffy nose. Evalynn was barely out of my arms from day 3-10. She slept a ton but struggled to breathe and would have 10-20 second long coughing fits where she wouldn't be able to breathe at all. She would start to writhe around from lack of oxygen and start to faintly turn blue. It was so so so heart breaking and bad. So very bad. I'm so glad we are over that. It took a solid three weeks though. We went so stir crazy! Also during this time I continued to heal from my mid-December umbilical hernia surgery. It took way way longer to recover from that surgery that I predicted. I still had my belly band that I wore after the c-section and I could not go without wearing it for almost any time at all. It wasn't until the five week mark that I could finally take it off and not be in a lot of pain.

Other than that, our January consisted of few other things. Curt started his last semester of school. He's been waiting on the stars to align class-wise since we moved back to Fort Worth. He has four classes to take but we couldn't afford to take them one at a time and he has to either take them online or at night. One of the four is a major related class and has to be taken on campus, but it hasn't been offered at night since we moved back. It finally happened, so to school he goes. All of his non commute/work time is spent doing homework or working with wood for our business.

We spent a large amount of time designing and painting and staging new non-holiday products for our Etsy business. We applied to a really big craft fair and got in. To get in though we had to spend a lot of time coming up with non-holiday products and getting them photographed so we had examples of what we were planning on selling at the show. It's a juried event, meaning a lot more people apply than there is room for, so you have to be selected based on the quality of your stuff to get in and a group of people vote you in. We are thrilled to be accepted, but the stress with only having four and a half more weeks left to turn a huge investment into product to sell is really starting to make me have panic attacks. I love doing it and I work best under deadlines but I'm starting to panic with all I have to do and how little time I have to do it.

After almost a year and a half of having paint chips on my front door, I finally got my door painted. I wanted a blue door for a long time and I have quite the love for shutters and window flower boxes too. Curt's brother gave us a load of left over fence wood, so we jumped at the chance to get some free projects done. They were started right after Christmas, but since they didn't get done till January, I think they fit in our January post. The projects got done the day before Evalynn got sick, and I'm so glad as they make me happy each and every time I drive up to my house. We also pulled out the random two bushes that didn't match and weren't placed well and replaced them with five bushes symmetrically placed. Our HOA requires four-five bushes. We plan on keeping them short and letting our flowers in our window box be the prominent feature. We still have a lot of work we want to do to our front yard but time is severely lacking and the weather isn't the best either. We still have some of the free wood left and have plans for it and can't wait to see it all come together. I'm sure since the week after our craft fair is Spring Break, we'll probably get some of that done.

Isabelle received a Top Hawk award at the end of the third six-weeks in mid-January. She didn't know she was getting it and she was so surprised to see me at her Hawk Huddle. We are so proud of her and that she is such a good student, a great example to her classmates and a friend to everyone.

Each of the girls got to go with Grandma (Whitworth) at some point to the Stock Show. They look forward to going all year long and hate that every time isn't their turn. They don't seem to love it all that much when they are there, but they love that they get to go on a date with Grandma, eat lunch out, get to buy a souvenir and go back to Grandma's house to get in the hot tub and then play. They're spoiled. :)

We have been struggling quite a bit as parents with Isabelle. She seems to be entering a new phase in childhood where she is consumed with what people say and think of her. Choosing her clothes is completely dependent on what the other kids at school will think or have said about them. I get the feeling it is mostly boys or even older kids comments that have made her this way. We have about an hour long fight several nights about picking out her clothes for the next school day. Let's just say her clothes are not up to par and she only has a few things she will wear still. I'm struggling in my relationship with her because of this and a handful of other things such as her attitude, how everything she sees as wrong or hard with her life is my fault, her mean-ness and physically hurting her siblings and the way she talks to everyone. We are really trying to adjust our own attitudes, ways we handle her and striving to encourage the spirit to be in our home more. It isn't going all that well, but we are trying. We have a couple ideas that we are trying to incorporate. I've spent a lot more time than normal in prayer and looking for inspiration on how to handle and change some of the bad habits that have formed in our family and have contributed, I'm sure.

Our hard 2015 has spilled into January and I was really hoping our luck would change. Our February has already brought on even more hardships...but I'll write about that next month.