A little Catch-up

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

(The pictures in the rest of this post are from an outing to Post Family Farm on Saturday with some of our dearest friends. We had a blast despite the weather!!)

Things are busy, but everything is going great! Miya loves preschool and is bummed when she doesn't have it. Her favorite thing to play at home is still babies, however there's a twist now. They ask if Melanie can play to, guess who Mel gets to be? Yup, she's the baby. Miya will carry her from one room to the next. One time she was actually in the baby highchair. While I was posting pictures today Miya quickly got Melanie up into our bed to play babies in bed. I couldn't help but laugh!! Then we discussed how careful we have to be with Melanie since she's not a pretend baby and can fall and get hurt, not sure she understood :)Foot zip-line we couldn't get the girls to say goodbye to last Saturday. Jayden was the smallest kid up there but absolutely LOVED it!
Ridding horses. Thankful it was one time around the pen (for $2!!!!)and the girls couldn't get too attached :)

Jayden is officially potty trained, YAAAAAAAAY!!!!! After a couple disastrous attempts earlier in the year when I think I was borderline insane, she pretty much trained herself...once she figured out how to actually 'let go' in the potty. She pouts every night because I won't let her wear underwear to bed at night. She is still our CRAZY kid, although Melanie is going to give her a run for that title. She does not like Miya going to preschool. When Miya gets out of the van in the morning she encourages her "have a good day in preschool My". She then asks me all morning if it's time to pick My up yet. When Miya gets back in the van Jayden greets her the same every time "how was preschool today My? Did you have fun?" Jayden is still struggling with ear-infections (arrrgh) even though she does not have the cold symptoms. Thankful Dr. Green referred her to an ENT, not because he wants tubes, but because he wants to make sure her hearing is normal. So we'll meet with the ENT Dr. and then with an audiologist. I can't say I've noticed her hearing below par, but all of the bloody drainage from ruptures really concerns me. So we will see what they have to say next Tuesday. Aside from that she's one happy kiddo that loves to play with her big sister!!Jaydes thought these bikes ROCKED!! She kept going and going and going and going with the same look on her face. Pretty sure we could have left her there all day!
Jayden has a thing lately for kissing goats. GROSS!!

Little Melanie will be one on Sunday!!! Yuppers, Sunday!!! I can't believe it's almost been a year. Her health is fantastic. Insurance declined her synagis so we will have to be extra careful this cold/flu season. She will not be in nurseries, around sick children, and no indoor playlands. Hmmmm, I sure did enjoy the freedom of summer! Melanie is officially crawling as of this weekend. She is much faster at army crawling but will get up on all fours and crawl, of course after rocking in place for awhile first. Her newest progression is going from sitting to crawling. This was one of her goals from her last physical therapy appointment. On to the next goal- tummy to sitting position. Her personality is really starting to show. For a two week period I couldn't get the girl to eat her food, by boycotting her meals she was telling me she no longer liked the baby food and wanted big girl food like her sisters instead. Since we figured that out she's been eating what we eat (unless were on the go or in a hurry-then she'll eat her babyfood). She can hold her own bottle now and will drink a 6oz bottle of formula.
Melanie pulled the cutest faces while getting her face painted!

*******Note to the nurses reading this******It was a sad, sad, day when the freezer no longer held any of Melanie's 'special milk'. I am soooooooooo thankful to ALL the nurses at DeVos that encouraged me to pump. There were times; 1am, 3am, and 6am for 4straight months that I wanted to throw my alarm clock at you, but when I pulled out that last bottle I cried wishing I had gone longer. It brought back lots of memories of our little peanut and the long days and nights in the hospital. So keep up the great work ladies. Karen, without you I don't think I would have made it past month 1-you ROCK!

Back to Melanie, we love her to pieces and are so thankful that we can celebrate her first year of life; there were days we never thought we'd be able to stay that. We praise God he has blessed our lives with her. We'll try to post on or around her b-day with more updates.I want to paint her face to look like a kitty everyday!!