9 Months

Alyvia is nine months now. I feel like her personality is really starting to come alive. She is a strong willed girl (not like her sister at all!) She loves to tease and laugh at her girls. She is cautious about trying new things but then goes at them full steam when she has the confidence. She knows what she wants! She weighs 15 pounds exactly (up from her 14.1 when she was really sick last week). She is about 28 inches long. She has started getting around really good on the floor. She scoots and stretches everywhere, she gets down on one knee and both hands but wont quite crawl yet. She has figured out how to monkey crawl like that and can get just about anything within six feet of her, anymore than that and she gives up! She LOVES to stand, she has started to really pull herself up on things and has taken a few spills. She is doing really well with her reflux, the medicine is working great, and she had put on just over two pounds before getting sick. I think her favorite things to eat are waffles and pancakes. She loves to feed herself and I love that she can and will eat what we are having now. She is down to about 2 1/2 bottles a day, I am working on getting down to 2. I am pretty sure I will have her off by her first birthday. She has started clapping at everything. She also is finding sneakier ways to get into stuff in her walker, her newest thing is to "help" unload the dishwasher! She has figured out how to point and will point at everything, including poking your eye! She is still an awesome sleeper with her big afternoon nap and at least 11 hours at night (uninterrupted). Lyvi does very well with a schedule and it really throws her off when we aren't home but she is adjusting better all the time. She loves to say "uh-oh" at everything. She has opted for more verbal communication and has dropped some of the signing. Her favorite toy is the little piano with the hammer, she can bang all day long, but she has always loved music. She has been a lot more cuddly since getting sick, I hope that she stays that way, otherwise she is just too busy to cuddle. She understands what "no" means and is starting to obey it (when we are watching). She is just my tiny baby, the way I pictured all of them, even her feet are still tiny! It amazes me that it has been nine months already.

Lyvi is doing very well with her RSV she has had a few set-back days but is mostly progressing to getting better. She now just seems like she has a bad cold, her cough is mostly gone and she seems to be returning back to herself. She definitely has her appetite back! The picture above is from this morning, she looks really good for having RSV!

RSV

Lyvi tested positive for RSV. These are all her meds she is on (pictured above). On Monday she woke up with a nasty cough and by the afternoon she was running a high fever, from there she just got worse. Lyvi is a busy body and not a cuddly baby at all, you know she is sick when all she wants to do is cuddle. She was so miserable. I finally got her into the doc on Thursday and yep she tested positive for RSV, she also had a bad ear infection and a touch of bronchitis. He put her on steroids and antibiotics. He said her sats are fine right now( 92%) and she is older, that is the good news. The bad news she is contagious for 10 more days and is now on 5 different prescription meds. We have to keep a close eye on her but she is doing so much better now. I am glad I got her in before she got worse and had to get admitted to the hospital. RSV can be so scary, she still has a nasty cough but hopefully the steroids will do the trick. Also, she lost those 2 pounds she put on and is back down to 14.1 pounds but she is eating better now so hopefully she will put it back on soon.

Valentine's Day Weekend

 These are the girls I got to spend Valentine's day with, it was AWESOME!
(yeah this was before we did hair)

 

Chantelle went to a sewing thing and Chelsea spent the whole day with us. Kami and Chelsea had so much fun playing together. They spent most of the day playing dress-up. I was worried they might get sick of each other but they did great.

We spent the morning with our traditional pink heart-shaped pancakes. Lyvi LOVES pancakes she eats at least two. Because it was a school day, Chelsea was coming over plus the fog we had a hectic morning.

After a nice visit with Chantelle we had a heart-shaped pizza for dinner, the goofy looking side is Kami's no cheese.

Valentine's Day was low key, we had plans to celebrate Saturday with it being a school night and all. We did have a good day though!

Friday Kami had her V-day party with her friends. Here is her cookie she made. I love the face!

Saturday I woke up feeling like crap. I hurt all over and had a massive headache, but I drugged up and we headed for the dog derby, big mistake. Turns out they started everything early and we completely missed the snowshoe races, the girls were bummed.They still enjoyed seeing all the dogs and the kid pull. Lyvi slept through the whole thing!

Here is a pic of one of the junior racers getting ready to head out. She is 11.

I spent the day on the couch and Ky tiled the fireplace.We completely missed our V-day date unless you count a movie on the couch while Ky rubbed my sore muscles! We were suppose to go dancing, I was really bummed!

After two days on the couch I am feeling better but still exhausted. I am glad we have a 3 day weekend, I am going to need it to recover! The girls are excited to go to the museum tomorrow and I am excited that we are going to finish the slate, yay! Even though V-day wasn't how we expected it turned out great, I was with my favorite people who could ask for more!

Normal?

Things just don't seem to slow down around here. I keep waiting for things to get back to "normal" but then I wonder if this is my "new normal", ugh I really hope not. Here are a few things we have been up to.

We finally got around to making some cake pops. They were so fun and yummy, can't wait to do more!

Kami passed off a bunch of her skills and earned her blue and black ribbons. They have been wanting to move her up to level one for awhile but the class I wanted was full...until recently. Now she goes the same time as Kaite and with her friend London. She is super excited!

I love to see this! The girls asked me if we could finish a movie we started the other night, but when I walked into the living room this is what I found. Everyone had their nose in a book and the TV was off! Every since we cancelled our dish I have found we don't miss it and the TV is hardly ever on, result: more books checked out from the library.

Also, me and Jen have been trying to get the costumes done for the Operetta, I think she thought I was kidding when I told her about my sewing skills! Nope, but I can cut stuff out! I can't wait until that project is done! They will looks so cute and Kaite is so excited.

The girls have been spending time with friends. Shae and Kenadee have both been over and Ash spent the Super Bowl with Kenadee at their party, those two are inseparable! Really they even go to the bathroom together at church! I love Kenadee though she is such a sweetheart! Ash was so worried about her the other day when they rolled their truck. I called the school to make sure she was okay (I think her teacher thought I was crazy or a helicopter mom), I found out later Ash cried when she heard about Kenadee. But we did go over that night and visit and make sure they were really okay, (they kept hugging each other), even though Shilo sent me a ton of messages reassuring us they were! Those girls are so silly and I am glad they have each other, and we are super glad they are all okay!

Lyvi has been so active. She won't hold still when I change her, the phase of trying to roll away with her diaper off! She is all over the house and already into everything she can get her hands on! And she eats everything in sight! She has started waving and saying "bye bye dada" it is so cute. Also, she is standing and pulling herself up on stuff. She is growing up so fast! Also, she has figured out how to clamp her mouth shut so I can't give her her medicine, but if I do get it in she spits it back at me! Oh her personality already! We are really enjoying her!

The rest of my week is totally crazy! I just wish the girls would stop growing up so fast.....

One of those days

It has been one of those days. You know the kind when you haven't slept well for the past two nights, even though you spent yesterday running around town and trying to find costume stuff (including a trip to winco) while trying to make it to the orthodontist on time! When you are on the phone with the doctors office telling them that Lyvi's dosage is just right and she pukes everywhere even out her nose, nope going to need to up her dosage. You have to go to the store twice (once during nap time) because you forgot to get everything the first time! You have to deal with the library and their ridiculous fees ($5 for a book one day late) because they "only check the drop box in the morning". And almost getting stuck in your driveway because you didn't realize it was blowing and were going to slow and had it in 2wd. But the best part is the older two aren't even home yet!!!!
Thank goodness for crock-pot at least dinner is done!

Kaite's Gymnastics Meet

A couple of weeks ago Kaite had her first gymnastics competition. This was the real thing with six other gyms coming in from around the area, there were so many kids! They split the meet up into two days and then into 5 different divisions. Kaite had 76 other girls competing in her time slot, it was a long meet but fun. She was so nervous but did great for her first one. She was miffed at me for forgetting to put glitter on her face....

Showing me her judges salute.

Since I videoed everything these are the snapshots of the video and are a little blurry.

She was up on bars first, she completed all her skills and didn't fall off once (a lot of other girls fell).

Then she was up on beam, she keeps her lines very clean and always has her toes pointed. She didn't fall off here either and most of the girls were, but you could tell she was super nervous.

Then floor, these pics didn't turn out as well, but this is her walk-over, toes still pointed. She completed her floor routine with her hair bow bouncing around and eventually falling out but she didn't let it distract her, stupid bow she doesn't have enough hair to keep it in but wanted to look like the other girls.

Since there were too many people and judges in the way I didn't get a clear shot of her vault. It really amazes me how much power she has for an eight year old. Her vaults were amazing and she scored an 8.5 on them, the average was in the 7's. I can't remember the rest of her scores, but nothing below a 7 on the other apparatuses.

Goofing around waiting for scores to come in.

She received her trophy and got three white ribbons and a red (for her vaults), way to go Kaite! I was watching her scores and she scored pretty high even higher than the older girls (they had them broke down by age too).

Posing with some teammates, ignore the place numbers they were just shooting a pic.

She loves her trophy and I am so proud of her. Next year when she jumps up to the real team she gets the long sleeve leo and the matching warm-up suit with her name on it. I thought these leos were so cute though! She did awesome and I am really impressed with how she is progressing, and check out her muscles on her arms!

 

After the meet we went to Costa Vida for some of their awesome nachos, Kaite LOVED them! Me and Ky found out it was nice to be out with just the older two, it was a big change.

8 Months

Lyvi is 8 months old today, I really can't believe it! She is getting just so cute! I love this picture of her above, she has the cutest face. Lyvi is up to 15.8 pounds, this is such an improvement. Lyvi has always been on the smaller side. She was in the 10th percentile at her six month visit, but when I took her in for another visit she had dropped down to the 2nd percentile and lost a pound. She is a huge eater she has progressed very quickly. Lyvi loves real food and is at the point that she is eating everything from the table, woohoo no more baby food. Thursday she had chicken pot pie, pears, and stuffing mix with us. Her dexterity has really improved and she can pick up food off her tray or out of my fingers with her thumb and pointer finger. She loves to eat what we are eating, she loves banana muffins and green beans (real ones not baby food from a jar). So she has a very healthy appetite, but she has had problems keeping it down. I took her in two weeks ago, I was just so sick of all the vomiting. He said she had reflux which is something we already knew but hoped she would grow out of. He put her on some zantac and reglan and the first three days we didn't have any vomiting it was so nice! Since then we have had to increase her dosages but it seems to be working since she has put on almost two pounds! She is starting to look so chunky I love it.

She is also talking up a storm. She waves and says hi. She says "more", "baba" for bottle, "dada", and finally "mama". She also signs drink and food. She is just so stinkin cute and loves her family. Her separation anxiety has gotten really bad, she cries when I leave the room. She still loves to be in her walker and is getting into stuff. She grabbed my vase and threw it on the floor one day, it didn't break. She will also watch us over her shoulder and when we aren't looking she goes for my plant, she likes to eat it. We have had to fashion a blockade so she can't get to it. Now that she isn't vomiting when she leans over she loves to be on the floor now and is starting to think about crawling, I give her a couple of weeks. She is the best sleeper, she takes a 3 1/2 to 4 hour nap during the day and sleeps 11-13 hours at night! I think she is getting her top teeth although she acts like she is getting molars the way she chews on everything. I can't believe she is already eight months old, she is growing up fast. We love her so much!!!

Check out her cute teeth below.