Sea World

We thought it would be fun to go back to Sea World with my brother and his family again, so we coordinated with their schedule and met there on Tuesday.

Monday at about noon I was diagnosed with strep for the third time this year. I was pretty miserable on the drive over Monday, but the doc gave me some awesome drugs and I felt almost normal on Tuesday.

We got there first and went straight to the dolphin cove and bought some fish to feed to the dolphins.




Once we met up with Robert, we headed to the dolphin/beluga whale show. Danielle was a fan.








After that, we hit up the kiddie coaster ("Shamu Express") which all the kiddos enjoyed. This shot has Doug & Bradley in the first seat, Gracie & Grace in the second and Jennifer & Robbie in the third.


Robert and I watched and took pics with Sophie and the babies. Sophie was giving lots of love to her daddy.

G & G coined themselves "Best Cousins" this week. :)

"The Shamu Show"

Sleeping Phillip.

Sleeping Danielle. She slept for about 2 hours!

B, G & G were all tall enough for this ride, so Doug took them on it.

They got to ride it three times in a row without getting off. G said "Mom, We're SOAKED!" (Luckily, it was quite warm and they weren't uncomfortable with wet clothes.)

Alligators!

Grace decided she wanted to ride the Steel Eel, so Robert and I went on it with her. The others hung out at the bottom of the dip to watch us.

We're in the second car. Robert and Grace in the front seat and me in the second (with my hands up!). You can't see Grace in any of the pictures b/c she was laying on Robert in fear. After riding she said "I'll never ride that again!".

Posing with the whale on the way out.

Believe it or not, this was the best shot of all 5 kiddos. ;)

We had a great time. Our family bought a season pass, so we plan to go back again later this year.

Home Improvement

I have lots to blog about, including Christmas and Sea World, but wanted to do a quick post to show our recent home improvement project. On Thurs morning, while I was in the shower and Doug was eating breakfast, Danielle crawled all the way upstairs and into the gameroom. So Thurs afternoon we bought a gate for the bottom of the stairs and we installed it tonight. It works a little too well. Not only can Danielle no longer climb the stairs but Bradley is unable to open the gate so he is at the mercy of the rest of us to allow him freedom to go up and down.
We're hoping he'll figure it out soon.

And we're glad there will be no more baby escapes to the upstairs unattended for a while.

Check-ups

On Nov 30th, Danielle had her 9 month checkup. (I'm a little late blogging about it.) She weighed 18 lbs, 10 oz (25-50%) and was 28.5 inches long (75-90%). The doctor mentioned how little weight she put on since her 6 month checkup (when she weighed 18 lbs, 6 oz), but wasn't overly concerned while we talked. She said D looked great and was hitting her milestones, just encouraged me to make sure she breastfeeds as much as she used to since babies this age tend to be highly distractable. So I wasn't worried about her weight. Then the nurse came in to give her flu shot and told me the doc wants to see us back in a month for a weight check. Fantastic. So now I'm worried. And since the doc was already gone, I don't know what will be considered ok at the next appt. Does she need to gain a certain amount? What happens if she doesn't? I don't know. So I've been feeding this girl as much as she'll eat since then and trying to do less table food and more breastmilk for now, since the doc stressed the importance of the calories in the milk. Fingers crossed that we 'pass' the follow-up appt.

Just for fun, here are the big kids' 9 month stats:
G: 20 lbs; 29 3/4 inches
B: 26 lbs; 30 1/2 inches
D continues to be our littlest babe.

Today was Bradley's 5 year checkup, almost a month late. I'm nothing if not consistent when it comes to procrastination. HA! He weighs 44.5 lbs (about 75%) and is 45 inches tall (about 90%). My BIG baby boy isn't a baby anymore and is no longer 95%+ on weight! Yay B! The big news from his appt is that he might have asthma. He has had a cough for a lot of the year and we had seen a different doctor about it over the summer who said it was a habit and to ignore it. This doc thinks it could be a sign of asthma and prescribed medicine to determine if it is the case. If the medicine makes him stop coughing, we'll go back in to the doc to discuss preventative measures. If the medicine doesn't work, we'll try an antibiotic to make sure there isn't something wrong. If that doesn't clear it up, he will agree with the previous doctor's assessment that it is just a habit. B had breathing issues as a baby, both at birth and later, so this is not a shocking possibility to me. But I had really hoped he had outgrown it since he went so long without problems. Calgary was good for him and we had no issues the entire time we lived there. Maybe we need to move back if this does turn out to be asthma?

Bradley's Camping Birthday

As promised, here are pics from Bradley's birthday.

Blowing out the candle on his cupcake.


Opening presents


Holding up the Luigi toy that was his favorite gift.


On the Saturday after his birthday, my parents and Doug's parents came over and we had dinner, opened gifts and had cake.

We opened gifts in the tent.

Getting ready to blow out the candle. B was sitting next to "the Grandpas". He loves his Grandma and Grammy, but he really loves his Grandpas.

Eating the chocolate cake with homemade chocolate icing he requested. (Don't even talk about him eating cake with his hands when he is five. I'm well aware of the need to get that boy using utensils.)

After the grandparents left, the five of us got ready to sleep in the tent for the night.

The kids were in such a hurry, they were ready to carry everything they could to help us get out there sooner.

We played one of Bradley's new games a few times.

Danielle was exploring the tent the whole time.

Then G read B a bedtime story by lantern light.

And eventually everyone slept. Not well. But we slept.

And we were up for the day a little after 6. It was not the best night of sleep any of us have had, but we survived. And B was so excited he got his wish to camp in the backyard. I'm sure we'll do it again.

Danielle at 9 months

Danielle turned 9 months on Thanksgiving. Here is some info about her lately:

• She is crawling and is constantly on the move. It is truly exhausting.
• She pulls up on everything, this includes brother, sister, parents, etc.
• She also falls over a lot and always has at least one bruise on her face.
• She is learning to fall more gracefully though and lands on her bum most of the time now.
• She loves to play with whatever she isn't supposed to have. She has a built in radar to find things she isn't supposed to have.
• Everything goes in her mouth.
• She has three teeth now: one on bottom and two on top. Teething sucks.
• The last week or so she has decided she will not go down for the night before 10. Many days it has been closer to midnight. Not sure what that is about.
• She naps much better now than she used to, but is still very inconsistent. Some days, she snoozes in the car and that is it. Other days she naps for 2+ hours in her crib.
• Her crib is still in our room. I am way too lazy to go up and down the stairs that many times.
• She is definitely our daughter: she loves to sleep in. While the big kids were off of school last week, she slept until 9 or later half the time. Come to think of it, maybe that is part of why she was up so late last week?
• Danielle has tried many foods, both baby food and table food. She loves cheerios and the little puffs for babies and that is it. She had been eating some spoon food (mostly fruits) but has rejected them too over the last several weeks. I'm trying to give her banana and other soft foods now, since she doesn't like anything off a spoon.
• She got to try ice cream for the first time and loved it. She couldn't get it enough. She kept pulling my hand to her mouth so she could get more. She has only had it that one time though.
• That will have to be it for now as she just woke up from her (very short) nap.
  

Teeth and Falls and Bruises, Oh My!

Alternate title: Mobility is overrated.

Danielle got her first tooth on Sept 12th (literally at the Astros game) and just had that one tooth for over a month. A couple weeks ago, Doug noticed she had a new tooth, on the top. This week, she cut a second top tooth. Teething sucks. These two top teeth have been horrible. Danielle hasn't been napping well or going down well at night and last night she woke up screaming in the middle of the night with her fingers in her mouth. Poor baby. I've been giving a nightly dose of Tylenol for a while now.

She has been pretty mobile for a while now, though she doesn't do a real hands/knees crawl. She does this weird modified crawl where she pushes up and then forward. I'm sure it's quite an upper body workout. She's pretty quick though. And she started pulling up on everything a week or so ago. So now she falls at least 3 times daily. Not little soft falls, but big nasty screaming falls. She currently has bruises on her chin, forehead and cheek. I'm sure her nine month pictures will be lovely.

And her increased mobility is the reason for my infrequent blog posts. I barely have time to do much of anything anymore. I spend all day chasing after her.

I can't keep up

I'm so behind on updating the blog.

Today was Bradley's 5th birthday. I can't believe it has been five years. We took pics. Hopefully I'll post them soon. (Along with all the others that I've taken with the intention of blogging.) He had a great day. I think this year he really got the whole concept of a birthday. And he milked it for all he could. We had dinner at Olive Garden, per his request. (He loves the salad there. He had two plates of it.) After dinner, he and Gracie had cupcakes leftover from taking them to school today. Then came the presents. We only gave him the ones from us and he will open the rest at his campout party this weekend. He loved everything he got, but anyone who knows him won't be surprised to hear that his favorite gift was a Luigi figure. Our little man is sure obsessed with Mario Bros...

Halloween

Last year, we carved our pumpkin way too early. So this year we waited until Halloween day to carve them. We also had to have two this year, as each big kid wanted to do their own.

Doug did all the knife work.


Bradley cleaning out his pumpkin.

Gracie cleaning out her pumpkin.

Bradley tired of cleaning his pumpkin out after about 5 minutes, so it became my job to finish.

Bradley supervising Doug drawing on the face he wanted.

Bradley with his finished pumpkin.

Gracie with her finished pumpkin.

Cleopatra and Luigi.

Cleopatra

Luigi

All three kiddos

Danielle the monkey.

The jack-o-lanterns on the porch all lit up. They turned out really well.

Our friend R and his son J went trick-or-treating with us.

The big kids at a door.

We were lucky for the second year in a row to have Doug's parents and my parents over on Halloween. This is what we missed when we were in Calgary and we're happy the kids and their grandparents get to enjoy special ocassions like this together.

Blech

Danielle has now had rice cereal, oatmeal, carrots, peas and prunes. She doesn't like any of it.

In these pictures she is eating peas, but she has the same reaction to everything. She doesn't like it and I'm lucky if I get more than 5 bites in her. She closes her eyes and shudders whenever she swallows.