Sunday, November 9, 2008
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
For Anyone Who Hasn't Given Up on Checking This Blog...
Hello! Sorry it has been so long! Just as we all got settled in, school started and I was back to planning lessons, grading papers, attending school events as well as all the extracurricular activities the boys are in and helping them with their own homework and tests-I just haven't sat down to type! So....
Jill is doing great! She started school the Tuesday after Labor Day. I peeked in on her a lot the first day. It was funny when I heard the teachers say, "If you are a boy, I want you to line up behind Miss Carol; if you are a girl, I want you to line up behind Miss Connie." She had no clue. I was afraid she'd get teased for not knowing if she was a boy or a girl. But, the teachers helped her out! They say she follows along well. She is always proud of her projects. Her first one was two handprints with a poem underneath. When I pulled it out of her bag she got SO excited and kept saying, "Mama-Hand-Push!" over and over demonstrating what she did to make it. We do the sign language sign for I love you with her and one day another preschool mom came in and told the teachers that her son had come home and showed her that sign. He told his mom that Jill had fixed his hand like that for him, but he didn't know what it meant. They told her it meant "I love you." How sweet. She really likes that little boy, and his mom says he likes her too.
She was baptized on September 7th. It was so special for so many reasons. It was Wade's birthday, it was also my brothers baptismal birthday and he is her Godfather, my mom made her dress, and it was the day of the All Church Fair, so we had a big celebration afterwards. She just stepped up onto the stepstool and didn't flinch or anything as the pastor baptized her. She looked so sweet, and so did the boys as they watched on. At the fair she played a few "duck pond" type games, but then she went in the 'bounce house'. I was a little nervous about it, but she LOVED it! Afterwards she kept pointing to it and asking, "Jill jump?" So we let her back in it three more times!
Her birthday was September 15th, so now she is four! We had a small party with mostly adults. Because they also celebrated her birthday in preschool, she can sing happy birthday pretty well, she also picked up on how blow out the candles very quickly. We had Elmo plates, napkins and an Elmo cake which she loved; especially the Elmo and Big Bird characters that came off the cake to play with! She got lots of baby doll things. This was also the day she said her first three word phrase, "Jill like baby". She's gone from saying words, to two word phrases and now sneaks in a three word phrase every once in awhile!
She had a cold a few weeks ago and was wheezing. Luckily we have a nebulizer for the boys' asthma, so I got it out and filled it with the capsule of albuterol. I was prepared for a lot of screaming and fighting to keep the mask on her face, but instead she helped me put it on and started breathing in an exaggerated way like she knew that is what it was for! I flipped on the switch and the noisy machine didn't bother her one bit. She just sat there and breathed it all in (while watching Sesame Street). Then, when I turned it off, she took the mask off, held it out to me and said "Thank You!" So, I'm pretty sure she must have used one of these over there-but they didn't tell me that! What if I wasn't experienced in wheezing and/or didn't have albuterol or a nebulizer? I would have been in a panic!
We ordered an Abby Cadabby costume, the fairy that's friends with Elmo, off the internet for her to be for Halloween, so I'll post pictures of her wearing it after Halloween! It's her favorite character now, she likes her even more than Elmo!
That's about all for now! I'll try to update and post pictures after Halloween!
Jill is doing great! She started school the Tuesday after Labor Day. I peeked in on her a lot the first day. It was funny when I heard the teachers say, "If you are a boy, I want you to line up behind Miss Carol; if you are a girl, I want you to line up behind Miss Connie." She had no clue. I was afraid she'd get teased for not knowing if she was a boy or a girl. But, the teachers helped her out! They say she follows along well. She is always proud of her projects. Her first one was two handprints with a poem underneath. When I pulled it out of her bag she got SO excited and kept saying, "Mama-Hand-Push!" over and over demonstrating what she did to make it. We do the sign language sign for I love you with her and one day another preschool mom came in and told the teachers that her son had come home and showed her that sign. He told his mom that Jill had fixed his hand like that for him, but he didn't know what it meant. They told her it meant "I love you." How sweet. She really likes that little boy, and his mom says he likes her too.
She was baptized on September 7th. It was so special for so many reasons. It was Wade's birthday, it was also my brothers baptismal birthday and he is her Godfather, my mom made her dress, and it was the day of the All Church Fair, so we had a big celebration afterwards. She just stepped up onto the stepstool and didn't flinch or anything as the pastor baptized her. She looked so sweet, and so did the boys as they watched on. At the fair she played a few "duck pond" type games, but then she went in the 'bounce house'. I was a little nervous about it, but she LOVED it! Afterwards she kept pointing to it and asking, "Jill jump?" So we let her back in it three more times!
Her birthday was September 15th, so now she is four! We had a small party with mostly adults. Because they also celebrated her birthday in preschool, she can sing happy birthday pretty well, she also picked up on how blow out the candles very quickly. We had Elmo plates, napkins and an Elmo cake which she loved; especially the Elmo and Big Bird characters that came off the cake to play with! She got lots of baby doll things. This was also the day she said her first three word phrase, "Jill like baby". She's gone from saying words, to two word phrases and now sneaks in a three word phrase every once in awhile!
She had a cold a few weeks ago and was wheezing. Luckily we have a nebulizer for the boys' asthma, so I got it out and filled it with the capsule of albuterol. I was prepared for a lot of screaming and fighting to keep the mask on her face, but instead she helped me put it on and started breathing in an exaggerated way like she knew that is what it was for! I flipped on the switch and the noisy machine didn't bother her one bit. She just sat there and breathed it all in (while watching Sesame Street). Then, when I turned it off, she took the mask off, held it out to me and said "Thank You!" So, I'm pretty sure she must have used one of these over there-but they didn't tell me that! What if I wasn't experienced in wheezing and/or didn't have albuterol or a nebulizer? I would have been in a panic!
We ordered an Abby Cadabby costume, the fairy that's friends with Elmo, off the internet for her to be for Halloween, so I'll post pictures of her wearing it after Halloween! It's her favorite character now, she likes her even more than Elmo!
That's about all for now! I'll try to update and post pictures after Halloween!
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Family Photos!
We went to a great place called Portrait Innovations to have family photos taken last Friday. All together we had 88 pictures snapped! We ordered quite a few and were given a CD of all 88 shots. I asked if it was legal to post them on the blog and they said yes!!! So here's a sampling of how they turned out!
Monday, August 11, 2008
Lots and Lots and Lots and Lots of Photos
Wearing her cool sunglasses holding her cell phone at Ty's baseball game.
Jill played her very first 'board game', Cootie, with Ty, Jake, and Mommy, and SHE WON!
The winner gets hugs and kisses!
Jake and Ty both love to spin her around until she's dizzy. She falls down, gets back up and wants to do it again, and again, and again, and again!!!
Story time in the laundry basket. Good thing Jake was willing to read because Mommy doesn't fit in the laundry basket very well.
All of her Band-aids from her shots and blood work. At least they matched her dress!
We don't have a baby stroller, so she uses her shopping cart. She loads up every baby doll she has and then walks around and around the house.
This was her first day playing in the yard. She ran, chased bubbles, and played on the swings and the slide!
Her first swimming experience in our friends' in-ground pool! She loved it! She called it a 'patsa' which is the word for bath in Russian.
She also loved the Drumstick our friends gave her after swimming!
She loves the play food and little kitchen. She fills up plates for us and for her dolls.
No More Snoring!
Well, what a week. Two Tuesdays ago Jill had her CT scan. It went well. They were hoping to not have to give her anesthesia to do it by just giving her something "like drinking two margaritas" to make her relaxed enough to lay still for it, but they said she kept moving at the last second, so they ended up giving her the anesthesia. Luckily she came to quickly and felt fine, eating Cheerios and drinking apple juice right away, so they let us go home more quickly than we expected.
The CT scan showed that the hemangioma is not anything to be concerned about!
Then last Thursday she had her tonsils and adenoids taken out and her ears cleaned out. There was so much wax and dried blood in her ears that the doctor couldn't see her eardrum! It's amazing to hear (or should I say not hear) her breathe now! She can close her mouth and breathe through her nose!!! She doesn't snore any more-at all!!! She does have to be reminded to close her mouth because it's such a habit. She's breathed through her mouth her whole life! She has her ups and downs recuperating. She's cranky, then we give her pain medicine, then she's great, then she's tired and either cranky again or falls asleep, then wakes up cranky again, then we give her pain medicine, etc.... The biggest problem is getting her to drink water! They told us she should drink a liter a day to keep the packing stuff in her throat from drying out, but bare minimum she must drink 500 ml. This really didn't look like much, but it's almost impossible to get her to drink it! At first I thought it was because it hurts, but now I think she's just being stubborn because she eats fine, but won't drink! The first day home (Friday, because we spent the night in the hospital eating only broth and orange jello)she ate oatmeal and yogurt, then Saturday she ate oatmeal, yogurt, applesauce and banana, Sunday she ate oatmeal, yogurt, banana, flaked salmon, canned peas, and macaroni and cheese. Yet, she screamed, whined, cried, etc. when we wanted her to take a drink. Today (Monday) she was to the point where she would spit it out at me when I made her drink! The other reason I think she's just being stubborn is because when my mom tells her to drink, she does! My dad was over and I was trying to get her to drink and she wouldn't, but when I gave it to my dad and said, "Here, tell her to drink this." she did! Wade had a little better luck than I do in making her drink, but it's still not easy. So, that's our biggest frustration right now.
We don't have any new English words to report because her speech is tons worse now from the surgery. I do think this is temporary, her mouth and cheeks are kind of swollen and she's got a big excess saliva problem (and doesn't want to swallow it) so she sounds really funny when she talks. She also kind of holds her head down a little all the time now and all this makes her voice sound different. So, hopefully a week from Thursday we'll move forward with words and language some more as we were told this surgery had a two week recovery period.
Hey, the school secretary told me this week that a new girl just enrolled in Jill's preschool class and she was also adopted from Russia! they're only a month apart in age, but the new girl was adopted at about a year and a half. Still, I can't wait to meet them!
Bye for now!
The CT scan showed that the hemangioma is not anything to be concerned about!
Then last Thursday she had her tonsils and adenoids taken out and her ears cleaned out. There was so much wax and dried blood in her ears that the doctor couldn't see her eardrum! It's amazing to hear (or should I say not hear) her breathe now! She can close her mouth and breathe through her nose!!! She doesn't snore any more-at all!!! She does have to be reminded to close her mouth because it's such a habit. She's breathed through her mouth her whole life! She has her ups and downs recuperating. She's cranky, then we give her pain medicine, then she's great, then she's tired and either cranky again or falls asleep, then wakes up cranky again, then we give her pain medicine, etc.... The biggest problem is getting her to drink water! They told us she should drink a liter a day to keep the packing stuff in her throat from drying out, but bare minimum she must drink 500 ml. This really didn't look like much, but it's almost impossible to get her to drink it! At first I thought it was because it hurts, but now I think she's just being stubborn because she eats fine, but won't drink! The first day home (Friday, because we spent the night in the hospital eating only broth and orange jello)she ate oatmeal and yogurt, then Saturday she ate oatmeal, yogurt, applesauce and banana, Sunday she ate oatmeal, yogurt, banana, flaked salmon, canned peas, and macaroni and cheese. Yet, she screamed, whined, cried, etc. when we wanted her to take a drink. Today (Monday) she was to the point where she would spit it out at me when I made her drink! The other reason I think she's just being stubborn is because when my mom tells her to drink, she does! My dad was over and I was trying to get her to drink and she wouldn't, but when I gave it to my dad and said, "Here, tell her to drink this." she did! Wade had a little better luck than I do in making her drink, but it's still not easy. So, that's our biggest frustration right now.
We don't have any new English words to report because her speech is tons worse now from the surgery. I do think this is temporary, her mouth and cheeks are kind of swollen and she's got a big excess saliva problem (and doesn't want to swallow it) so she sounds really funny when she talks. She also kind of holds her head down a little all the time now and all this makes her voice sound different. So, hopefully a week from Thursday we'll move forward with words and language some more as we were told this surgery had a two week recovery period.
Hey, the school secretary told me this week that a new girl just enrolled in Jill's preschool class and she was also adopted from Russia! they're only a month apart in age, but the new girl was adopted at about a year and a half. Still, I can't wait to meet them!
Bye for now!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
