Noah's New Wheels

A few weeks ago, when we saw Noah's peds Dr we decided to order him a walker, in hopes that it would help him gain more balance and coorindation, so that one day, hopefully soon, he could walk independantly. I was so excited for Noah to be able to walk, even if it was with help. The walker came very quickly, and Tricare paid for it!! Even better. He had used one a few times in PT, so he knew exactly how to use it, and which was to face and everything. He was so excited!! And he actually very good at it already. I think that Isaac loves it just as much. He is always wanting to play with.

Since Isaac wants to play with the walker so much. And has even gone as far as to tell me he can't walk. If Noah is not using it, he takes it EVERYWHERE with him, even the bathroom. So I got some advice from Noah's Early Interventionist, that I play up the fact that he can ride a bike and Noah can't. So I told him yesterday before school that after school we would ride his bike down to the tot lot that our community has. He was so excited that the first thing he asked for when I picked him up, was not his juice like normal, it was his bike. LOL Problem being is that we had to decided to have a RS presidency mtg right after he was out of school. But we did go there right after. I learned a few things, Isaac needs a bigger bike (his birthday is soon), two mobile kids are hard, and I have happy and sad feelings about Noah's walker.

I think that 2 mobile kids would be easier if they both moved at the same speed, and I know that one day Noah will either get great at his walker and be just as fast as Isaac, or he will learn to walk and be just as fast, but until then it will be hard. I was happy that my 31 lb baby can walk, and me not have to kill my back anymore, happy that he is gaining a new skill, and that he is getting closer to being more independant. But it kinda hit again. That he will probably always need extra help. It also made me sad that I realized that when we went to the park, that I think that was the first time Noah could be a toddler and PLAY at the park, and he is almost 2!! Most of the time when we go to the park or play areas, Noah is confined to a blanket, the wagon or the stroller, or the swings. But this time he could walk over to whatever part he wanted to play with, climb the stairs, and go down the slide (with extra supervision), like a 20 month old would normally do.

As a happy side note, Isaac is really starting to play with Noah. Starting to interact and do things that I see other big brothers do. Up until about 2 months ago, Noah was just another THING that was in his way. That he ran over, into, or around. But the last few months I have really seen a change in Isaac. Wanting to help, confort, and play with Noah. I really need to get it on video or something. Cause he does such cute things. Like when we go to the Drs, and on the rare occasion that Isaac is with us, he holds Noah's legs, comforting him. Telling him it will be over soon, and that the Dr won't hurt him. (SO CUTE!!) Or like when we went to the tot lot, Isaac wanted to catch Noah at the bottom of the slide. It was so so funny. Noah was rush down the slide, about knock over Isaac and he would jump and in a soft voice say, "we need to try not to knock people over okay?" It about made me cry a happy cry!! And I so wish that someone else was at the park with me, so someone could of captured it on film in some form. But until I have a peramenant photographer I guess I will have to hold on tight to those memories!

What happens when...

I find over 500 pictures on my camera? You guys get to read 5 other posts that are under this one :)

Spring Break

During Spring Break at my sister's, Karen, we decided to go Ice Blocking. It was really fun. I had done it once or twice when I was a kid. But it was fun to go with my nieces and nephews. Isaac wanted nothing to do with it, but Noah loved to ride with everyone, and loved hitting the ice blocks.

The camera just so happened to be on the table when Noah decided he was going to play with his napkin. It was so cute, I could hardly resist taking tons of pictures.

We also decided to take the little kids to the Hemet Children's Musuem, called Fingerprints. My oldest niece, Brittany, was able to come with us to help me with the boys. Which always makes outings for me easier. Since the boys LOVE to go in two different directions when we get anywhere!!

Bubble Fun

The Easter bunny brought Noah a bubble maker, since he loves mommy, and the therapists to blow them so much. And it ended up being a hit with both boys.  So in between conferences, as my sister was at her church the boys and I headed out to enjoy the beautiful weather with the new bubble maker. The boys had so much fun. After our fun, I called John and told him that we need to sell our house and buy a house with a bigger yard. He was not appreicative that I woke him up to tell him something that wasn't going to happen. LOL

 

Easter 2010

Spring Break for Isaac, and for my sister's kids was the same week. So we headed down for Easter and for Spring Break. We had a blast decorating eggs, we had bought these spinning things to decorate the eggs, which the kids loved, and I had bought after Easter last year, this foil kit, which the older kids loved. I made a pig, and a chicken after my sister had printed the idea off the internet. The older kids painted pretty murals on their eggs.

The hunt on Sunday was great and Noah even found an egg all by himself that the Isaac and Hannah didn't find.

My brother Aaron, his wife Suzanne, and their son Caleb (who is 6 weeks younger than Isaac) came as well as Tommy's family for Easter Dinner, and other activities. It was great to see them, since I don't see them as much as I would like. They were also there when the earth began to shake, rattle and roll. Yes, we did feel the earthquakes on Easter Sunday, that hit in Mexicali.

Isaac (DOB June '06) Caleb (DOB July'06) Noah (DOB Aug '08) Hannah (Feb'07)

The reason I mention the births is cause I wanted to point out that Caleb, or Tank as we lovingly call him, and Isaac are only 6 weeks apart, but Caleb is so much larger. He already wears 6T. Hannah was born eight months later, and even she weighs more than Isaac. Only cause Isaac is only 27 lbs, so so skinny!!

This is the cake we made. My sister printed the idea off the internet, and I baked, and frosted the cake. She put the basket part together, and the ribbon. Our joint effort cake was a success!!

Egg Hunt

So we were told that there was going to be an Egg Hunt on base, so I asked Barb, our friend's mom who has moved here to take care of her son's house and dog as he is depolyed, if she wanted to go, packed up the kids and headed over. When we got there, we found out that it was really for people that live in housing on base, but we saw plenty of people that live there, and they helped us "get in". I was a slighly chilly day, but the kids just had fun play and running around. And I am so so grateful that Barb was willing to come with me, cause it would have been such a stressful activity if it weren't for her. Thanks Barb!! Cause Isaac was running all over the place. I did nothing but chase him. The grossly under estimated the number of people that were going to attend. There were no where enough eggs for everyone to have one, let alone a few. Isaac was able to get one, but someone took it out of his basket!! So he was given some door prize type toys, which he loved. Someone later gave him an empty egg, which he also loved.

Noah mainly hung out with Barb and he totally had fun with his basket. Since he doesn't walk yet, and his walker has not arrived yet, he just played on the grass. But he had just as much fun, if not more. I love, love, love the picture in the middle of him. It is he happiest face, and it makes me smile ever time!

Grammie Comes to Visit for Noah's 2nd MRI

When we found out on Feb 2, 2010 that Noah had a cyst pressing on his brainstem that was probably causing his symptoms . Understandably I was very upset for a few reasons:

1. Something on my baby's brain

2. John had already been deployed to Afganistan for only a month,

meaning no real hope that he could be here in person to support me.

3. I was scared to death!!

 But our family and friends all pulled together for us. Within 1.5 hrs 6 people were at our home from our ward. The next few hours, days and maybe even weeks were a blur. Finally the blurriness cleared and the MRI was scheduled and Grammie had bought her ticket to come be with me during the MRI.

By the time it was time for the MRI, I had done as I always do, research, process, research, process, and research some more, than plan, and hope for the best. Grammie flew in the afternoon on Monday Mar 22, 2010. Tuesday we went to the zoo, which I forgot to take my camera, but we had a blast. Wednesday was a chill day. And the day that my sister, Sheila, has schedule for my D-lious support to arrive. It was YUMMY!! Thanks again Sheila!! Wednesday afternoon UCLA called to see if we could have the MRI at 8am instead of 2pm. After arranging with the sitter to come earlier than we had plan. We got ready to head to the Cheesecake Factory with some friends. Also YUMMY support!

Thursday morning, March 25, 2010 bright and early (330am) I got up to go get the sitter, and by 430 we were headed out the door. Not sure how long it would take us in traffic heading to LA. We only arrived 45 mins early.(Below are some pictures of us hanging out in the car, wating for the MRI) So we did good. Noah had a cold, and the beginning of an ear infection, which he had been put on antibotics for, so they were not sure even if they were going to be able to do the MRI. So they nurses examined him and found him fit for the MRI. They started the MRI on time, it wasn't as scary this time. I knew what was going to happen, I knew that he would go limp in my arms, I knew that he would be attached to all the those wires, and monitors. So I wasn't so scared. After he was asleep Grammie and I took a nap. I don't know what woke me, maybe just the feeling that my baby was back. But when I woke Noah was sleeping in recovery. This is when it got a bit nerve racking for me. When he had his MRI last Aug he was awake before they even brought him back to the recovery room, he had came out of sedation like champ last time. This time, not so much, he took about 30 mins to begin to become consious, but the next hour and 20 mins was a nightmare. He cried and threw himself around. Flopping and flinging around almost like a fish out of water. Nothing could calm him, NOTHING!! For those of you that have spent anytime with Noah you know that as long as you feed him, he is the HAPPIEST baby around. Problem being he had not eaten since 8pm the night before and it was not 1130, 15 hours of no food is along time for anyone!! The nurses told me I could feed him once he stopped crying, finally around 70 mins I stopped listening to them. Everytime he opened his mouth to scream I shoved a fish cracker in his mouth, within 10 mins he was he calm, happy self again. And we were able to head home. Then Friday we took Grammie to the airport for her to fly home :( We had a alot of fun just hanging out with Grammie. The kids loved the extra attention, and I loved the extra set of hands. I need a live in Grammie ;-)! Thanks again Sue, it really meant alot to me.

Since then we have gotten the results to the MRI. It showed that there was no permanent damage done so far. But they were unable to determine much else from the MRI. They can't tell us if it is causing the symptoms, or if it is causing pressure or really anything else. All they can tell us is it is there, it hasn't gotten any bigger, and it has not cause damage. So they are not going to do anything at this point. John and I are looking into getting second opinion. I would LOVE to go to Boston's Children Hospital, since the have the BEST pediatric neurology department. But I think I have to move there, so that Tricare will pay for it.

Kicking it at the Beach

So after days of it being like 90*here, and us being too busy to hit the beach. Finally Friday came, our unbusy day, and I decided to try and go to the beach. I called my friend Barb to see if she wanted to go too. So I packed the kids, lunch, and the beach gear up in the wagon and headed to the beach. Well we should of gone early in the week when it was warm cause it was COLD!! The sun did come out and kinda warm things up for about 10 mins. But we decided to leave when the clouds came back. So all that work and we were only there about an hour. Either way it was a nice time. Isaac was being very cute and LOVING the sand. And with Barb to help with Noah I was able to spend some time with him. That doesn't happen very much since Noah does require alot of extra attention.

Our New Haven

So today our bedroom was painted by some great people in our ward. So today I finished some of the final touches and took some pictures. And I LOVE IT!!! ALL I want to do is hang out in it. And I can't wait for John to see it. I think he is going to love it too!

Ok so we do have this beautiful duvet for the bed, that works perfect in the room, but I thought that I would be painting the room by myself, therefore it taking a few days longer, so I sent the bedspread to the dry cleaners. But below is a picture of the pillowcase that goes with the duvet. It looks kinda matte in the picture, but it is really shiny and shimmery.

I am so grateful to the people that came and did all the hard work. I know that they had other things to do on a Saturday afternoon, but I truly apprieciate what I am now calling my birthday present. (They didn't it was my birthday tomorrow until I told me today)

New Curtains...

 ***Just so you know, there is 2 other posts under this one***

So John has been asking since we moved in if I could do something about the sliding glass door, with vertical blinds. And it just wasn't a task I was ready to under take. The yesterday I was at Walmart and they were having a massive clearance on all sorts of things and I saw these valances for $7. So I picked them up. And put them up and loved the color that it bought the room. And was prepared to leave it at that for now. But when I showed John via webcam, he asked when I was going to take down the blinds and put up curtains in the place of the vertical blinds. So I thought and thought and came up with the idea to hang the curtains from the hooks of the vertical blinds saving me time and $$. Below is what I did. So I went back to Walmart today and bought the panels for $7 each as well.

The before picture (Actually taken half through the removing of the vertical blinds hence the section picture)

So I took of all the vertical blinds...

I bought these hooks at Walmart and decided to alter them. Bought 2 packages for $5 each

to look like this to make them possible to fit in the tab things on the vertical blind track.

I understand that its hard to see in this picture and the next one but between the two I hope that you can see and understand what I did. I fed the loop through the plastic tab and the rectangle thing at the bottom of the brown thing is a clip so I can hook the curtain up to it.

Since the window is 8 feet tall the curtains I bought for $7 were a little short so I took curtains I had bought in Hawaii, took the sewn on valance off and sewed it to the bottom making it long enough.

The curtain in the middle was the one I bought a few years ago in Hawaii and the bottom of the red curtains was sewn on the top of it. I should of take a picture. Sorry.

I am pretty proud of my revamped room all for $30, plus whatever I spent in Hawaii.