Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy 1st Birthday Melanie Grace

****Warning, this is a VERY long video. We created this video as a way to remember Melanie's first year of life. We thought we'd share it with those that are interested. If you choose to watch it, scroll to the bottom of our blog to turn off the music on the playlist first.

Monday, October 25, 2010

A little Catch-up



(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!!

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Pre-school


Going back a few weeks-here is a picture of Miya's fist day of preschool!! She was so excited to go (I was not). I woke her up in the morning to get ready and she started SCREAMING, "i get to go to preschool today, I get to go to preschool today!" Of course that woke up Jayden and she joined in too. Jayds and Mel went with my mom to the fair and I went with Miya to a shortened day of preschool. She was all chatter in the van. Once we got to Hudsonville the van became very quiet. After parking the van, I told her we had to go quick because we were running late. I couldn't get her to move her buns any faster. I've never seen her take so long to go down a flight of stairs. Once I looked at her face I saw the reason for the extreme pokeyness, she was NERVOUS!! Once we got into the room she was much better and then it was just a matter of time before she was VERY comfortable in her new surroundings. She absolutely LOVES preschool! Mom's still not so sure!!

Dad brought her on day two-the first day to leave her there. She did wonderful! Jeff said goodbye and started walking up the stairs and decided he wasn't ready....he walked back down into the room and asked Miya if she had to go potty. Of course her answer was no. So then he asked for another hug and said goodbye to our 4 year old!! (you can see she's nervous)

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Computer Glitch

Yay!! We are back on-line. Our monitor went out. It has been warning us for a couple months; we would just smack it and it would come back on. Then we would have to smack it several times before it would turn back on. Then one day it didn't matter how many times I hit it, it wasn't coming back on. Sooo, Jeff tried to fix it. The girls and I were at the kitchen table, Jeff took the back off the monitor and was poking around at it with a screwdriver....I heard a zap and then I heard a girl scream....from the computer room. It was Jeff. I ran to check on him, trying not to laugh. Thankfully he had a little smile on his face, I BUSTED out laughing. After being electrocuted he decided to find a different monitor. :) I'll try to post Miya's preschool pictures Wednesday. We love you dear-Thankful you didn't get hurt...and that you were okay with me laughing right away-sorry about that. Thanks for getting us another monitor too!!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

WOWzers!

WOWzers, has things been busy over here. They say every year your kids grow, you get more busy....I'm beginning to see this! I'll try to catch everyone up with some bog posts.

Last week we were blessed to be able to spend some much needed family time out at Baseline lake with the girls and Dad!! What a wonderful week we had. The weather was on the chilly side, but we created lots of memories anyway. Dad's favorite I would guess would be fishing. The fish didn't really want to be caught like they did last year. Could it be the noise from two little girls playing "babies" on the boat instead of fishing....I don't know? The girls LOVED going fishing because one of Dad's rules -you have to take snacks and drinks when you go fishing. Mom enjoyed some QUIET moments with Melanie while Dad took the older two on the boat. It was wonderful to have time together playing, eating, and playing some more. For the record, I thoroughly whooped Jeff at Baggo and he squeaked out a win against me with the girls crochet set (they played for about 30 seconds and ran off to play babies on the boat). I'll try to upload some videos today. Early morning fishing with dad.
Actually caught her holding her fishing pole :)
Enjoying a boat ride.
Miya and Jaydes playing babies on the boat!! Their favorite activity of the week!!!
Yaaay, finally caught some fish.

Monday, August 30, 2010

My Montage 8/30/10 at OneTrueMedia.com

I really think Jayden should have a "titty" at home to play with; how about you????

Before I could get the camera out she actually was holding the kitty by it's tail, by it's neck, and fell down pulling the kitty down with her!!