Yesterday Patrick legally adopted Gyven! The kids had been woken up early and we waited at the courthouse for an hour before our case came up, so everyone was worn out at the point this picture was taken! Also Kyra was brewing an infection, which she is now on a course of penicillin for. Today Maryanna goes home to her mom's, Monday Patrick goes back to work, which means we hit the real build up to when the unit deploys! Things are going to be quite messy around here the next few weeks!

Kyra is Three!

On Monday Kyra turned three! She's growing up so fast, it's hard to believe it sometimes. As you can see she very much enjoyed her raspberry frosted chocolate cupcakes. She got to spend the morning making a Hello Kitty at Build-a-Bear, with lunch at McDonald's and then she and her siblings ran around the mall play place for a while. After the mall we came home for those yummy cupcakes and then we spent the rest of the afternoon at the park. All in all she had a pretty good day! She definitely approved of her new twirly skirt (made the night before at 11pm, because this mom always does everything at the last minute!).

Today the kids are out front with their dad pulling the weeds in half the flower bed (we found a bird nest in the other half so we're leaving it be for now). Tomorrow if the weather is nice we plan to take the kids to a spraygrounds at one of the Tacoma metro parks. Gyven and Kyra loved it last year.

Vacation!

This past week we went on vacation! This picture was taken overlooking Crater Lake, in Oregon, which stands at 7,000 feet and is the deepest natural lake in the US! We were obviously not dressed for the weather. We drove down to visit Patrick's family in Medford and to pick up Maryanna for her summer visit with her dad, and stopped at Crater Lake on our way home. We had planned on camping at least one night, but the weather stacked against us, and the closest we got to camping was a night in a lodge at Union Creek!

Sidney has made some strides toward crawling this week! He's also more and more interested in food, but he's much more interested in biter biscuits and steamed veggies than he is in purees. All the kids are sharing a nasty cold and cough, but seem to be on the mend. Today we plan to visit a Rhododendron Garden just north of Tacoma. We're trying to pack a lot in to Maryanna's visit, as this year we've shortened it to accommodate Patrick's deployment and a trip Maryanna's mother wants to take.

A bunch of appointments!

Today the kids all saw various doctors, here's the rundown:

Sidney's heart looks great! His cardiologist is very pleased. We'll see him again in 6 months, but Sidney's heart couldn't look better right now. The biggest fear was that now that the narrowing of the valve was fixed that some leakage would result and need to be fixed later on. There is no leak at all and Sidney will not need another cardiology follow-up until he is 12 months old, and probably in another year he'd only need to see a cardiologist once each year.

Gyven is being referred to speech therapy and developmental for evals and possible therapy and to re-evaluate his prior autism diagnosis. He's a good candidate for preschool, however, and his pediatrician thinks his long-term outlook is great. He's been given a clean bill of health otherwise. He was very polite and cooperative.

Kyra was her usual shy and buttheaded self (that's my girl!), so it was difficult to get a clear idea of where she stands, but we've been referred to have her speech evaluated as well. While she is mostly on track her level of intelligibility is about half what they want for her age group, so we're going to re-check her hearing and speech to see what help, if any, she may need.

And now I need to go make some dinner.

Sidney is a big baby!

Sidney had his 6 months well baby visit today. He did just fine, and is a whopping 22lbs (roughly 10 kgs) and 26.75 (67.5 cms) tall! He's doing so well! We have to schedule a separate visit to see his cardiologist and get his vaccines, as the office did not want to do these vaccines even just the 3 days early. Okay by me, if I can do both the same day, all the better.

Gyven and Kyra are scheduled for their well child visits next week.

The picture is from Friday, Sidney's first time in a swing. He was very impressed!

Patrick and Gyven are off on another hike today, while Kyra, Sidney and I hold the fort here at the house. After the last 2 mile adventure I have a feeling I'll keep Kyra home unless it's all flat trails or she suddenly becomes less accident prone. She's about as graceful as me, and that's really not beneficial to long tramps over hilly wooded trails. She fell pretty hard on the hike and needed to be carried a good portion of the remaining hike and being at least 35 pounds she's just too heavy for that!

So while they are hiking Kyra has made me some very pretty scribbles and Sidney is reminding me that since he is now awake from his nap he needs my 100% undivided attention. We'll see how well that goes.

I know what to do!

My dad kind of hinted that he wanted to read my blog. Since I'm not sure I'm okay with that, since my other blog is more like my diary, meet the new and improved, Daddy friendly faerieflings!

So, to start, this is what the kids are up to:

Gyven is getting more communicative, but still struggles with some concepts. He can count to 20 well, and we recently started teaching him 21-30 and we've tested the waters of reading. He's starting to recognize that when the letters line up in the same order it always means the same thing.

Kyra is dressing herself! Her combinations are sometimes wacky (jeans with a frilly dress and winter boots, don't worry, we make her change if it isn't weather or venue appropriate), but she loves to do it and is always very proud of herself. She's working on toilet training, too (I expect her to be 100% out of diapers by midsummer including overnight).

Sidney has cut his first two teeth and is working very hard on crawling and sitting up. He has had his first tastes of solid food and is not dismissive, but not exactly excited. He likes his biter biscuits, as things to chew on are best.

See, daddy? I can totally write a blog for you to read. :D I even included a picture.