Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Getting Bigger!

Yes, everyone is getting bigger--including me!! I'm now 16+ weeks pregnant and finally feeling human again. This pregnancy has been the hardest as far as the yucky feeling has gone. It usually hits at 8 weeks and ends around 12 weeks, but not this time. This time it hit around 6 weeks and lasted well into my 14th week. It was really hard to cook or even think of food. I'm so glad that part is past. I have my ultrasound scheduled now and I just cannot believe that it's already getting to be that time! Speaking of which, can you believe that my baby Ry-Ry is almost 1? His birthday is in a couple of days and I just cannot believe it. This has been the fastest year of my life! He is such a precious little guy. He's crawling like a maniac. He's ridiculously fast. He's mastered climbing up the stairs (and giving Mommy a heart attack each time he does it). He stands and cruises very well, but has not yet attempted to stand up on his own yet. My guess that he'll be like pretty much everyone else and wait a month or more longer. He still has no teeth, but he's acting like that is soon to change. He likes to babble, but doesn't really say anything yet. He waves and claps his hands though. He's been sleeping reasonably well, still taking 2 naps a day. He usually wakes up very happy, but sometimes he's a bit grumpy...but all it takes is for him to see one of his siblings come into the room and he gets all excited! He and Lilah play really well together and usually Aaron is pretty good with him. Lilah is talking more. Her language is still really hard to understand. I have a referral to have her hearing checked. I know she HEARS just fine, I'm just wondering if maybe she doesn't hear as clearly as she should. Either that or she needs some speech therapy or just a bit more time. She is definitely progressing, just slowly. She is absolute sugar. She is such a special little blessing. She decided to potty train herself and is what I would consider pretty much 100% potty trained. She doesn't even ask to go potty--she just runs to the bathroom and goes. Every once in a while she needs help getting her clothes back on, but usually you don't even know she's gone! She calls her undies "Nunnies". It's SO cute! She has been sleeping in pretty late--usually we wake her up at 8:30am and for the time being, she still naps well and goes to sleep at night easily. She's usually is a good mood and has a way of lighting up a room with her sweet smile, darling giggle and of course, her ADORABLE curls!! Aaron is also working on potty training. True to his nature, it's been a bit of a challenge, but we're getting there. He is fiercely independent and is often times an INCREDIBLE help! He is the child that challenges and exhausts me the most, but he also adds SO much dimension to our lives! I'm just going to go ahead and publish this...it never got finished, but oh well. '

Keeping Track

I've been REALLY bad with keeping up to date on this blog. I think I may be better off keeping a solid-state journal, or a scrapbook or something. I know I can't share that with the world, but I keep feeling so guilty about milestones passing and not keeping close track of them. So 2 big events have happened with Ryan. First, he got his first teeth at 1 year, 2 weeks and 1 day old. He got 3 of them at the same time, one middle bottom, one side bottom and top middle!! He now has 7 total--4 on top, 3 on the bottom. He is now officially a walker as well! :) True to Troyer form, right around 14 months he started! About 2-3 days ago we noticed that he's not really crawling anymore, but is walking everywhere! He's still a bit wobbly, but I just love when they start to walk...it sure saves the knees on their clothes too!! Luke is currently staying with Jeremy's parents and having the time of his life. It's been so quiet here, it's kinda nice! Luke isn't really a noise maker, but he tends to be a trouble instigator, so without him here there have been far less fights! Definitely not perfect though, so we'll still be happy to have him back! That's all I've got for now...this keyboard is missing a ton of keys and it's not really fun to type on!

Thursday, May 9, 2013

A Child's Thoughts

I just love the way a child's brain works. Today I went out for a walk with Luke and he asked me,

LUKE: "Mommy, how much money do we have?"

ME: "What do you mean, Luke?"

LUKE: "How much money do we have?"

ME: "You mean like in the bank?"

LUKE: "We OWN a bank???"

Hahahaha!! Children come up with the funniest things!

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Pretty, Pretty Princess


Lilah is such a precious little bundle of sunshine. She is almost always happy and smiles all the time. She adores babies and is always saying, "Hi Yi-Yi" as in "Hi Ry-Ry" to Ryan. She loves her baby brother. She is talking a bit more, but still doesn't talk a lot. This afternoon she said, "Hello Mama". How cute!

"Piggy"

Here is the new "pet" Savannah has named, "Piggy".

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

The Faith of a Child

We had a pet rat for over 2 years. His name was Thunder. He was a nice rat, very friendly and kind. I liked him well enough. I had fond memories of having pet rats from when I was a child, so I thought it would be a good pet for my children. Before we got Thunder, I posted about another rat we had bought that died shortly after from a respiratory infection. That was quite sad, so when we got Thunder and he started showing signs of the same thing, we took him in for their "no sickness" policy that says if your rat gets sick within the first 10 days, they'll pay the vet bill. He was in the "hospital" for a good few weeks before they declared him well and he came home. Once he had gone through that, he was fine. He did get a few yucky tumors on his back, but from what I've read, that's normal for rats. He'd just gnaw them off when they got annoying (yuck!), but they never seemed to be a problem. So last week I was cleaning around his cage and thinking of how yucky he had become...he was getting old and was no longer keeping his messes as contained as he had previously. I certainly didn't want to do anything to him or get rid of him, but I was kinda tired of him. A couple of days later I walked downstairs from putting Ryan to bed and my girls were all sad. "Thunder is dying" they told me. I'm amazed that they recognized the signs. Yes, he was moving less, but he was still responsive. Within 24 hours, he was gone. It showed me that they really did pay attention to him, even when it seemed like they didn't. It showed me that they truly have tender hearts for God's creation and I love that so much about my girls. I was awake before they were the morning he died. I got him out of the cage, put him in a box and cleaned the cage out before they were up. I didn't want them to see him dead. We had a little funeral--complete with harmonica music, hymns and a scripture reading. The girls made a cross for his grave and a stone that we printed his name on with a Sharpie marker. It was kinda sad, but I was glad he was gone...is that mean? I don't think it was mean. He lived a long rat's life. So in the past couple of days Savannah has been praying that Kyburz (our cat) would catch a bird for her. *sigh* I don't want any more critters to care for!!! She even took Thunder's cage and got it cleaned and prepped for a bird to inhabit it. So this morning as we said our morning prayer (just after I had put Kyburz outside), she prayed, "Please let Kyburz catch a bird for me". I kid you not, within 2 minutes I heard shouts and confusion...Savannah RAN outside...I ran after her. Kyburz did indeed have a bird. Not just any bird either...he had a big, fat PIGEON! Now, we don't really have pigeons around here. I saw one yesterday and remarked on how we NEVER see pigeons here. I don't know if this was the same one, or if they just happen to be migrating through here or what, but this was a bit weird. We finally got the bird from Kybruz clutches and put it in the (previously prepped) cage. Kyburz didn't hurt it, but he did a great job of quickly clipping it's primary flight feathers. So it looks like we have a pet bird...at least until it can fly again! At least it's a pretty interesting one. Life is NEVER dull in a house full of children!!

Photo Updates

Monday, April 8, 2013

Woah There!

Wow! I've taken breaks in the past, but I think this one takes the cake! It has been so incredibly long since I last blogged and so much has happened, I don't even know where to being. Thankfully it's too late tonight to begin anyway, so this will have to wait. I just wanted to update and say that yes, I will be blogging again. Soon.