A Family Is Us

conscientious shared an Instagram photo with you

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 17:48:00 +0000

Hi there,

conscientious just shared an Instagram photo with you:

view full image

"First pool day of the summer!"
(taken at Jack Carter Pool)

Thanks,
The Instagram Team

Little Sir and Small Fry Soccer

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Saturday was Little Sir's third week of Small Fry Soccer with the YMCA. It's only about a 6-week program, just an opportunity for very little ones to learn what soccer is and how it is played.

So far, he is doing pretty badly, to be honest.

The first week he just stared and refused to participate most of the time.

Last week, he actually spent some time passing the soccer ball back and forth to his friend Ben, who is also on his team.

This week he sat outside the field and cried and threw fits and screamed most of the time.

When we get home and throughout the week, he talks about soccer like he enjoys it, even though you would never guess that on the field. Very weird. And embarrassing.

Here are some pictures.

Week 1

Running with friend Ben

Week 2

Sitting next to friend Ben

This week (Week 3)

Here he is, on the left, standing outside the actual field while everyone else plays a mock game

And here he is actually sitting down while everyone plays on the opposite side of the field. Awesome.

2 year stats (late)

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 02:19:00 +0000

Little Lady's 2 year pediatric appointment was this week! It's true that she's actually been 2 years old for 2 months now, but we are in the midst of switching pediatricians and the new practice was moving to a new office, so we were waiting for them to be all set up and ready to accept insurance for her appointment.

I am just loving the new practice, Shine Pediatrics! They are a combination of holistic and traditional. I snapped these shots at their office of castille soap (instead of conventional antibacterials which use triclosan, a toxin), and essential oils in use. Love it!

They also utilize a virtually paper-free office, taking notes and keeping electronic patient records. My favorite is how they actually ANSWER when you email! I've never had a doctor's office actually do that!

Anyway, on to her stats:

Weight: 28 lbs - 50th percentile
Height: 35 inches - 75th percentile (she's on the tall side!)
Head: 18.5 - 30th percentile (small head, LOTS of hair to make up for it!)

She is acting very "2 years old" lately in attitude (and throwing fits!), but she is still very healthy. So far, at 2 years old, she has never had any antibiotics that I can recall (other than the ones given to me when I was in labor with her for Group B strep). Her body is strong!

We love you, Little Lady!

Eating her first queso

Eating (again) outside with Brother

With good friend Jonah, watching their older brothers play soccer

I forgot Easter 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:00:00 +0000

So I said that I was going to post about Easter and then I forgot. Here it is, for real.

We had a number of informal egg hunts with various friends. One was at our house with the community group kiddos.

Our second hunt was at our neighborhood park with some other friends (mommy's friends' kids, and some of their friends).

Finally, we went to church on Saturday night instead of Sunday morning so we could make room in childcare for the folks who would be coming on Sunday morning who don't usually attend church. We got some quick pictures by the pool out front.

And here are some outtakes that are actually cuter than the posed pics, I think!

Happy Easter!

March is gone, here are some pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 20:45:00 +0000

March is completely over and I don't think I ever really posted about what we did all month. Again. I might be inadvertently migrating to once-a-month recaps. Is anyone going to be upset about this?

We did so many fun things - the zoo, lots of Kidville, Little Sir's first preschool music show, Mommy participated in several Dallas Moms Blog meetups and a photo shoot, started our garden again, visited the new Monster Yogurt with indoor play area, got allergy testing for Little Sir (he's not technically "allergic" to anything but his stomach issues with some foods persist), added 2 goldfish to our family, had about 3 separate egg hunts with friends, and Easter. Whew! No wonder it is difficult for me to update sometimes. I'd like to do a quick photo dump of everything not-Easter and then I'll do a separate post of Easter events.

I know Aunt Janell will be proud to see this video of Little Sir's first preschool music program! They didn't actually sing, they really just did activities and hand motions to songs that played along. Or, they should have. As you can see, Little Sir just stood there like a statue:

Unfortunately, I think he had accidentally consumed something containing either dairy or soy shortly before the show and at one point he just laid down on the ground and wouldn't get up because he said his tummy hurt. Poor guy!

Little Lady had to learn to sit quietly while the show happened. This did not work at all and lasted only about 10 minutes before we had to take turns walking her up and down the halls for an hour.

Just another AMAZING day at Kidville!

Here are a few shots of a day at the Dallas Zoo with a few friends (only one friend in the shot) in the Children's zoo fountain area

Where Little Lady also started putting her hands on her hips, in a very bossy way!

We decided randomly one day to just convert Little Lady's crib to a big girl bed with the removeable side bar. She didn't bat an eye and just went to bed as usual. Now she does get out of bed when she wakes up in the morning, but none of the crazy difficulty that Little Sir STILL has (after 2 years) refusing to stay in bed and go to sleep at night. Here she is immediately after being put into her new big girl bed - fast asleep!

And another picture of Little Lady cuddling with Daddy. She's really starting to be quite the Daddy's Little Girl!

Our church campus is filled with river rocks that all of us write on with Sharpies about how God has changed us or little inspirational messages or scripture...Stones of Rememberance. Sometimes the kids and I pick them up and read them (which is what they are for!). The other day after bible study, Little Sir asked me to write the following message on a stone for him:

Here we are planting our garden. We started some seeds for flowers and they have already sprouted!

And so March slipped away! More tomorrow on Easter happenings...

Ear tubes surgery for Little Sir

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 14:00:00 +0000

After our long adventures with 2 ENT's and a chiropractor, we went ahead and scheduled ear tubes surgery for Little Sir. Since the surgery happens at 7am, we had to schedule it for a day that my mom could come very early to be with Little Lady when she woke up. Usually, this would mean her driving into down from East Texas and staying overnight, but the week of Little Lady's birthday she was going to be in town with my dad for a week, so it worked out that Little Sir's surgery was at 7am on Little Lady's birthday. Poor guy! Poor Little Lady! I was worried that her birthday would be upstaged by his surgery, but in the end no one seemed to mind.

Little Sir was a really brave and cooperative guy. They warned us that he might cry and fight and be upset, but he never was. He accepted the things he gave him like the "crazy juice" and the "spaceman mask" for the gas.

They also prepared us for the possibility that he might cry inconsolably and be completely freaked out when he awoke from the operation, but he just woke briefly, looked around, and went right back to sleep for almost an hour.

When he finally did wake up, he was calm and very happy to eat 2 popsicles.

He rode out of the hospital in a special wagon with his new basketball Get Well balloon from Mommy and Daddy.

He did insiste on staying in his pajamas all day, but he does that sometimes when he is perfectly well. I had to stop him from riding his tricycle with sister later that day, because I was afraid he would get overly exhausted. He never seemed to skip a beat!

We have had some weird episodes of waking screaming saying his "eye hurts", and he frequently says "his eye hurts" during the day as well. The ENT claims it is not related to the surgery, which is obviously not true because it started the day after the surgery. But, since he shows no more fluid in the ears and no infection at his followup visit, I guess everything is fine.

Way to hear better, Little Sir!

Happy 2nd birthday(s), Little Lady!

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:46:00 +0000

Wow, Little Lady is 2 years old! We can hardly believe how fast time went! And also how fast this last week went, since I never blogged about her birthday. Sorry about that!

In fact, she had an entire week of birthday celebrations. The weekend before her birthday, she celebrated with GrammE and GrampE, Uncle Josh and Aunt Christina, and cousins Natali and Micah in East Texas while Mommy and Daddy attended a marriage conference in Dallas!

Then, on her actual birthday, she had some fun cupcakes that Mommy made and opened her presents from GrammE and GrampE - a baby doll, a babydoll carrier, and some games, and her presents from Mommy and Dadddy - a new pink tricycle just like brother's and a "horsie"!

Here are a few super cute videos of her.
Blowing out candles:

Riding her new tricycle:

On Friday, she celebrated again with her little friends at the Dallas zoo - thank you Nanny and PawPaw for the zoo membership! Everyone had so much fun, I know we'll be back over and over!

On Saturday, cousin Mazzie visited from San Antonio with Aunt Meredith and Uncle Kelly, and the cousins played all day and opened more presents and had MORE cupcakes!

Wow, there were a lot of cupcakes this week.

Overall, nearly every day was "happy day!" for Little Lady.

First dentist visit

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000

I put it off for a while, but it was finally time to take Little Sir to his first dentist visit! We made an appointment for a family dentist that is widely recommended in our neighborhood, but when I asked about the cost (we have no insurance), I was told that it was so pricey "because of the x-rays". What?! This was his first, get-acquainted, this-is-what-a-dentist-is visit...do we really need to shoot x-rays at the 3 year old? I mean sure, if they find something of concern and need to explore it further, I'm not going to refuse x-rays. But just to automatically x-ray every 3 year old that comes in for the first time...I just wasn't that comfortable.

After talking to Facebook and some local friends, I found that many pediatric dentists don't require x-rays at the first visit and I booked an appointment at a different pediatric dentist, one that another mom in our community group had just taken her children to and loved. And, bonus -- it's a lot cheaper without x-rays!

Originally, the plan was to leave Little Lady with a friend and go to the appointment with Little Sir so that I could focus on comforting him and not have to corral the 2 year old and keep her from destroying the dentist's office while he was in the chair. However, those plans fell through at the last minute due to a sick playmate, so along we went with two toddlers. I even called ahead to warn them and ask if we should reschedule, but they said they were up for the challenge!

It went SO much better than I thought it would!

Little Sir was a perfect angel, let the hygenist brush and flouride his teeth and talked to the dentist about spitting toothpaste when he brushes.

I brought the iPad for Little Lady and let her watch Elmo Goes Potty on it, which is a real treat for her since she is normally not allowed to touch the iPad by herself (only Little Sir is old enough for that).

When he was all finished, the dentist let them BOTH pick out a prize and get toothbrushes, which totally made their day! Little Lady talked for DAYS about her penguin toothbrush and the little plastic dinosaur she got. She even took it to bed with her. Doesn't take much to impress her! Little Sir picked out a pencil, which he insists on using as a drumstick.

Overall, I was very impressed by this dentist and how kind and accommodating they were. She said his teeth look great. We can't wait to go back in 6 months!

About his ears

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 20:30:00 +0000

For a while, I have been concerned that Little Sir might not always hear so well. He speaks extremely clearly and articulately for 3 years old, you never have to wonder what he is saying, so that's fine. But I felt like I was disciplining him an awful lot for not listening. I remember my mother noticed the same thing about me when I was around his age. I tried her trick: I stood behind him one day while he was playing alone and said in a normal tone, "Would you like some ice cream?". And a few minutes later, I offered another treat. He didn't respond to either. If he would have heard me, you can BET he would have responded.

We took him to the pediatrician first, who was unable to get a reading on his ears with their hearing machine. This has always been a problem at their office -- at all his regular milestone checkups, the machine can never get a reading. They usually check his ears and find out "he has some fluid there" and attribute the machine's failing to register to the fluid buildup. Only it never goes away enough to ever get any reading. Which, if you think about it, is odd that he would have fluid that many times over the last 3 years, but...So, they referred us to an ENT in Plano. It took about 4 weeks to get in. Of course, right before we went, he got a cold. But it's not like we could wait another 4 weeks, so we went anyway. He took some auditory tests from a specialist. Those test found that, at least that particular day, he could basically not hear anything at normal conversation level. Something has to be louder than normal conversation for him to even hear it! What?! They did some test that bypassed the ear drum and went straight to the bones to confirm that yes, he has the ability to hear, it's just that the ear drum isn't vibrating.

Then the doctor took a look inside his ears with some kind of magical special ear scope (I wasn't there for that part, I was corralling Little Lady, Daddy was in there with Little Sir). The doctor said he has so much fluid in his ears that his ear drum does not vibrate. Which is odd because he does not have an infection and hasn't had any ear infections since he was 16 months old. He just has this fluid buildup that comes and goes. And apparently causes lack of hearing.

The doctor recommended tubes in his ears and having his adenoids removed. Since we have crappy/nonexistent/very little insurance (it's private insurance since Christian's job doesn't provide affordable policies), the estimates we got from the private pediatric surgery center that this doctor operates at were astronomical. As in, as much as purchasing a used minivan.

At the same time, we knew he had some sinus congestion when he went in, and we question the need for the adenoids to be removed. Is that really necessary? We talked to several of our local friends whose children have had tubes and very little insurance and they told us they paid anywhere from 1/3 to 1/10th of the cost that this private surgery center is quoting.

So we got a recommendation for another ENT who can give us a second opinion, one that operates at a local hospital and not a private surgery center. If he also recommends tubes, it should be more affordable and he has operated on the son of our close friend, so we know that he does a good job. Surprisingly, when I called their office they were able to get Little Sir in almost immediately, next week. While we are waiting for that appointment, we are taking him to our pediatric chiropractor who has worked on him for his stomach issues, she is doing adjustments that should help the ears drain a bit.

Our sweet Richardson Library children's librarians found a book about going to get tubes in your ears, and I'll be looking for more online if this ENT also recommends surgery. We'll keep you updated!

January Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 04:09:00 +0000

Well, here it is February already and I never blogged about all the things we did in January. We had a great month! I was even fairly good about taking pictures, I just never got around to blogging them. Here are a few fun highlights of our month.

In January, Little Lady started "preschool" at Kidville! They have a new program called KVU, Jr. which is 2 hour class without parents present. Previously, the Kidville classes she attended were "mommy and me" so we went together while Little Sir was in preschool on Tuesdays. Now, I actually drop her off for 2 hours! She just loves it because the class is taught by her teacher from the Mommy & Me class, Miss Morgan. Here she is with Miss Teresa and Miss Morgan.

We were SUPER EXCITED to see our new Children's Building open at Watermark, which also includes the giant indoor Tree Fort play area. The kids just love playing there before and after church, and it is now open during the week to play in the mornings when it's too cold to play outside. I just have this one picture of the tree fort, I didn't take pictures of the rest of the building.

Not related to the kids, but I dyed my hair pink...Which I did while the kids were at preschool/Mother's Day Out and forgot to tell them I was doing. Little Sir was a tad taken aback at first, but he has told me several times since then that he likes it and Little Lady asked me once if she could have pink hair too, haha!

Rainy day fun...

Creating artwork with stickers from GrammE and GrampE

At the park one Saturday...

Petting bunny rabbits at a Peter Rabbit storytelling event with Dallas Moms Blog.

And Little Sir FINALLY gets into a bounce house! His very first one! At 3 years old, this is the first time he has not been too scared. This was a little tiny bounce house that our friends had in their front yard, their daughter got it for Christmas, I think. Look how happy he looks, too!

January was a fun month full of good stuff, except kinda toward the end. I'll post more on that tomorrow!

Submerging in the bath

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 04:16:00 +0000

Little Lady has been doing this in the bath for WEEKS now: laying completely on her back, submerged past her ears with only her eyes, nose, and mouth above water. She looooves it and will squiggle and squirm underwater, or kick her chubby legs. It nearly gave me a heart attack the first time she did it, I thought she was going to drown!! But we actually can't stop her, she loves it so much. Funny girl!

Post-Christmas Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Bradford grandparents weren't able to make it before Christmas, but were traveling through on the 27th, so we are happy we got to see them! We also had a fun surprise of having sister Kerstin come with them, on her break from A&M, so that we all got to hang out with her too. I did a terrible job of taking pictures of them, I am so sorry! I got some while they were opening their gifts.

Opening their big gift together - a Duplo train set! This is why they each got so many Duplo on Christmas, because they all kind of go together.

Opening individual gifts...

It was a quick trip, but we were happy to see everyone! We had some delicious Woody B's BBQ. It was amazing, just as we had been told, and we'll definitely be going back there!

Christmas Day 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 04:30:00 +0000

We all woke up on Christmas Day to the toys we had already opened at GrammE and GrampE's the day before. The kids were more than happy to play with their new toys and have breakfast until Uncle Garrett came downstairs -- we love having him stay with us over Christmas!

Then, we opened gifts!

I am trying to remember what all they got...as you can see, Little Lady got her first Barbie doll. Just don't tell my green blogger friends, I realize that she is made completely out of plastic. She also got a babydoll crib (she's been putting her babydoll to bed in a cardboard box for months because I didn't realize she would want to do that and need a crib), and a babydoll stroller. The babydoll stroller was a HUGE hit and she spent most of the day and every day after pushing it around and around and around the house!

For Little Sir, we got a series of Duplo play sets, including a firehouse set, a cargo airplane set, and some other delivery trucks. He also got a flashlight and some books. I asked him several times if he wanted a babydoll too, but he said that he did not. Fortunately, the firetruck had lights and made sounds so his wish to Santa was fulfilled! He also got a strap and some picks for his birthday guitar, and he went around playing for a while.

Little Lady also got her very own Duplo set for her room.

They stayed in their Christmas PJ's all morning. Before they ate some lunch, we all decorated Jesus' birthday cake and sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus!

When the kids went up for their nap, the adults had our Christmas dinner.

As we were eating, a Christmas snow was falling outside the window!

After the kids woke up, we all went outside in the snow for a little while - WHITE CHRISTMAS IN TEXAS!

It was such a fun day, relaxed and altogether unplanned. Despite the fact that the kids kept asking "where are we going in the car?", we enjoyed being at home together for the day! We hope your Christmas was just as great!

Christmas Eve 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Merry Christmas...Eve! I made a real effort to actually TAKE PICTURES this holiday, so I'll have to split the posts into our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations.

We realized last minute that due to after-Christmas holiday plans with the Bradfords and everyone's schedules, we weren't going to be able to see the Edingers unless we did a day trip to East Texas, and the only day that would work was Christmas Eve! This worked pretty well, actually, because Little Sir had been asking for several weeks to go to GrammE and GrampE's house to swing on their swings and play their piano.

When we go there, they had a great time playing outside until lunch.

Big swing ride! Little Sir gave it a try but got a little scared after a few swings

Little Lady became really scared of the doggies (Cindy and Buffy) even though they are very sweet and they were tied up. She has been labeling things "scary" lately and being a little bashful about toys that make noise or animals.

Lunch time!

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of them opening their presents because I had to help a lot. LIttle Lady got a doll house, which I am totally excited about because I love playing with it. Here they both are playing with it on Christmas morning before opening their gifts from us:

I didn't get a picture of Little Sir's firehouse toys, but he loves them too! It was a really fun trip and the cousins had so much fun playing together. Just love seeing them have fun together!

December Holiday in review

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 18:00:00 +0000

We did a lot of fun holiday things this December that I actually took pictures of!

Little Sir's Pre-Mohawk playgroup had a little party at Palio's and then went to the Santa's Village at the Richardson Civic Center/Library one Saturday evening. When we went inside City Hall to go to the potty, I snapped a picture of them both in front of the Christmas tree!

The rest of the Santa's Village:

Our HOA's annual Christmas carriage rides and holiday fun in the park:

This year our entire community group lives in The Reservation or J.J. Pearce neighborhood so we all got to ride together on one carriage. The ride made a BIG impression on Little Lady, she has been talking about "horsies" for a week now. Every night after that when we say our prayers, she asks me to thank God for horsies and for riding on a horsie. So amazing what she can remember!

She also met Santa Claus (one of the HOA board members dressed up) and at first she kept saying "scary!" and cowering but then he gave her a candy cane. After that, every time she heard someone mention Santa Claus she said "cannee!!". Now she associates Santa Claus with candy. She kept repeating that idea all the way to A Real Bookstore in Allen where we got our annual Santa pictures:

Santa Claus only reinforced her ideas about candy by giving her a lollipop! So nice of him, they were his last 2 lollipops! Little Sir told Santa that he wanted "a truck that has lights and makes sounds". Little Lady told him that she wanted "cannee" (hence the lollipop)!

Another day the kids and I attempted to decorate gingerbread houses. One was made of cardboard and the other of plastic. They had fun, I think, but Little Lady was definitely putting almost everything directly into her mouth. Little Sir really got the idea and did a good job!

There are some other pictures that I attempted to take with our old Pentax DSLR that didn't come out so great...but overall, we had a great and very busy December Christmas month!

Evacuate the dance floor

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 01:10:00 +0000

Video of our dance party tonight!

YouTube Video

Richardson Christmas Parade 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Yesterday morning we attended the Richardson Christmas Parade which took place just down the street from our house, so we walked in our wagon. The kids didn't make it to Santa at the end, and had to be dragged away, crying over "no more candy!". Still, it was a fun time and I just love being part of a town small enough to do this kind of small parade. Richardson is the best!

Thanksgiving Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 22:37:00 +0000

Pre-Thanksgiving, Little Sir had a Thanksgiving Feast Day at his preschool which we got to attend. Each child brought one uncooked vegetable to add to the soup, and they made a vegetable soup! Then they all went into the Fireplace Room and had feast. Some of the kids were Native Americans and some were Pilgrims. Little Sir was a Native American. Even GrammE got to come!

Little Lady came along too, and stood behind him while he passed crackers to her from the table...

Then, on Thanksgiving Day, we took the long car trip to San Antonio to see our family there. Little Sir had been talking about it for WEEKS!

We got up at 5am and put the kids into the car straight from their beds, still wearing pajamas, by 6:30am in an attempt to make it there before 1:30pm. We made it in record time at a little under 6 hours! I brought this vegetable tray in the shape of a turkey, which I am very proud of :-) I actually copied a picture that Meredith sent to me.

Honestly, I didn't get a lot of pictures of the actual time there because I spent most of it corralling the kids and stopping them from fighting. I was also exhausted, which I found out later was the start of getting some respiratory illness. But here are some random shots of the kids at the table and later with their cousin Mazzie!

Mazzie is very into geckos right now and she caught one outside the house. Here she is holding it while everyone looks on!

We had a great time seeing everyone and even got to have a night out with the Williams on Saturday! The trip back took closer to 7 hours and was more tumultuous. Little Lady still isn't old enough to maintain her focus on the iPad for more than 20 minutes at a time, and she tends to kick it. I am now getting carsick every time we travel in the car, even though this time I was wearing sea bands. But we have SO much to be thankful for, and I hope that you all continue to have a blessed holiday season!

First Parent-Teacher evaluation

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:09:00 +0000

Last week we had Little Sir's first parent-teacher meeting for preschool! As you can see from the picture, he got all "U's", which in this case is the BEST they can get, meaning "Usually" (not "Unacceptable"!).

Halloween 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 03:47:00 +0000

Yes, I am blogging about Halloween in the second week of November. Little Sir is still asking every night if it is Halloween again, if that helps.

This year Little Sir asked to be a racecar driver, and Little Lady was a flower in a flower costume from Costco.

The day before, Little Sir's preschool had a program and parade for all the kids. The pictures are blurry, but here he is.

The night of Halloween, we got together with our friends from Community Group who all live in our neighborhood and had some dinner early at Quinn & Bennett's house. Here are Bennett and Little Lady eating dinner together. They love each other!

We set out all together with Little Sir riding his tricycle and Little Lady alternately walking and riding in the stroller. Sometimes she just wanted to push her own stroller. Very independent!

They were both very good at saying "Thank you" when prompted. Little Lady did attempt multiple times to go INTO the houses, I had to lunge forward and grab her. She's fast!

Eventually we lost the other families and broke out on our own to go down our own street and see our neighbors, then we headed home. The kids had candy while we waited for the last trick-or-treaters.

They had a great time and we did too!

3 year stats and salmonella

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 21:21:00 +0000

I totally forgot to blog about Little Sir's 3 year doctor appointment, here are his stats:

Height: 37 inches (25-50th percentile)
Weight: 30 lb (40th percentile)

At the time, everything looked normal except that we suspected he was having stomach issues which might be influencing why, after around 6 months, he still won't poop on the potty even though he is fully pee trained.

We'd been going to the chiropractor and doing some food sensitivity testing for about 2 months and had finally settled on the possibility that he has a sensitivity to dairy and soy. Specifically cow's milk, goat seems fine. And with the soy, it seems to be anything containing any aspect of soy, including soy lecithin (which is in everything) and anything cooked in soybean oil. We went to the craft store together and made this fun bracelet for him to wear to church and preschool to remind them not to give him goldfish (dairy):

Bracelet says "No Dairy No Soy". He knows that if someone offers him Goldfish, he has to show them his bracelet

On top of those sensitivities, he went through a bout of diarrhea that lasted almost 2 weeks. We seem to be on the up side of it starting today. Of course, with diarrhea he had a lot of trouble knowing when the poop was going to happen so there were a lot of accidents.

Embarrassingly, we suspect that the diarrhea might actually have been salmonella from our chickens when Finn got it too but neither of them showed any other signs of stomach virus (no fever, they didn't feel sick otherwise). We took him to the doctor and she did mention the similarity to salmonella but discounted it since he doesn't handle frogs or turtles. Then later, someone mentioned chicken poop also carrying salmonella. Seriously, our stupid chickens poop A TON. Very aggressively. They seem to target areas where the kids play. I wash the kids' hands and don't let them wear their outside shoes in the house, but then I realized that they take their sippy cups out there when they play. They were setting the sippys down and touching them with dirty hands and then touching them later inside....salmonella!!

When I realized that the problem might be bacterial, I was able to do some essential oil treatments with Thieves and Purification blends that really seemed to jumpstart the healing for him. I wasn't as consistent with Little Lady so hers has held on longer.

As of last weekend, we have locked the chickens in the coop and are not going to allow them free range anymore. We are in the process of constructing an enclosure around the coop that will allow them limited ranging and sunlight and access to bugs, etc. Right after we locked the chickens up, I power washed everything in our backyard -- all the outdoor furniture, the toys, and the concrete surfaces. So much poop.

This week we've been playing outside a lot in the beautiful weather and it has been SO GREAT not to have to deal with chicken poop everywhere!

Also, now that the salmonella has cleared Little Sir is really pooping in the potty a lot! He mostly does it right when he is supposed to be going down for a nap. We put the little green potty in his room and he'll just go right over and poop in it. Then he'll call for us to come see and we make a big deal about it and give him prizes!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Little Sir!

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 16:30:00 +0000

Little Sir had a great birthday this Saturday! He got to hang out with Nanny and PawPaw the night before his birthday, where he got a bunch of soccer gear that he had asked for.

Here he is, all dressed to go play with his new soccer ball and wearing his shin guards.

He had specifically asked for a "racecar" birthday, so that is what we had. Our friend Stephanie and her son Sam were kind enough to loan us the cardboard racecars that she made (BY HAND!!) for his party last month. She also donated the flag banner above the back door.

This was my favorite snack because it was so cute and really pretty easy to make. I think it only took me about 30 minutes to make 19 of these. Of course, my sister-in-law had already prepped everything for me, so I bet it really SHOULD have taken over an hour! Thanks, Aunt Meredith!

Finally, the cupcakes: racecars with Asher's name (from Etsy)

All our friends were there. They painted porcelain racecar magnets and put on racecar temporary tattoes.

Then, of course, we sang and had cupcakes! Which I did not get pictures of because I was holding the cupcake with the paper insert and open flame.

I'll see if I can find any of the cupcake and post them later!

Happy birthday, Little Sir! We love you!!

The day Big Tex burned down at the Texas State Fair

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 21:00:00 +0000

This is going to be a back-dated post to October 19, which was the day we ended up going to the Texas State Fair (thank you, Maytag, for sending Dallas Moms Blog contributors to the Fair!).

We entered the Fair from Gate 5 and went straight to Big Tex, who had just said something about Kelly Pickler (?) performing that night. I stopped to run into the appliance building for a potty break. As I left the kids and Christian, we were looking up at Big Tex, who had just stopped talking, and there was a little bit of smoke coming from his neck. Little Sir said, "Big Tex is on fire!". We told him noooo, surely not! But...

By the time I got back from the bathroom, we had started to see flames!

We were looking around for security when the smoke first started and couldn't find anyone. When the flames appeared, there were several security and police around but they didn't really do much...

It wasn't until most of Big Tex was completely gone that the fire department showed up.

I was so sad! I took pictures of the kids' faces as they watched. I think Little Sir knew what was going on.

That was the last picture we got of Big Tex on fire before we moved out of the area, concerned that the frame might fall. We went straight to the animal petting area!

We took a family pic at the end.

And found a fun little area called Little Farm Hands where the kids got to do farm-like things.

Little Lady was not available for pictures much in this particular event because she was running around like a crazy person trying to physically disassemble everything. She spent most of the time being dragged, screaming, away from something she was climbing that wasn't meant to bear weight at all.

We did get to try the Fried Red Velvet Cupcake!

What a Texas State Fair experience this year!

First pigtails & other Big Girl things

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 20:07:00 +0000

This week I posted the following picture on Facebook from Instagram and it got 39 "Like"s. Considering I only have 200-ish friends, that's a lot! I have to agree that it's pretty cute.

It was the first time I could get Little Lady to sit still long enough to put pigtails in her hair. It's been long enough for pigtails for a while but she hates me touching her hair!

Later that day, we went to Kidville and then Chik-Fil-A and the kids looked so big sitting at Chik-Fil-A at the table!

Don't worry, they won't eat most of the food. They will only eat the fries and sometimes Little Lady eats a bit of chicken.

Little Lady can talk pretty well for a 19-month-old already. Her favorite phrases are "I want it!" and "I too!" (meaning "me too" whenever I am doing something with/for Little Sir). She will also use "I want" in front of any number of words like: sippy, milk, "na-na" (her lovey blanket), and "eat".

In other new developments, she finally seems mildly interested in baby dolls since her brother helped me pick out fabric to make cloth diapers for his best friend's birthday. We have since been diapering Little Sir's stuffed dog, which made her interested in diapering her baby doll. It's a tiny baby doll, not really big enough for diapers. This made me realize that we do not own any "real" baby dolls capable of wearing diapers. So I have been researching eco-friendly baby dolls that do not contain phthalates or other yucky plastic chemicals. I have even created a Green Baby Dolls board on Pinterest.

Since we are sadly lacking in baby doll beds, bottles, or anything else a baby doll needs, we resorted to tucking the stuffed dog and the tiny baby doll into a cardboard box with a blanket, as seen here, when she requested that the baby doll "go night-night".

When she requested milk for the baby doll, I had to resort to giving her the ketchup and mustard bottles from our play kitchen. Doh. I guess I'll be looking for baby doll bottles too!

California 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Bradford) — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 14:30:00 +0000

I am so sorry I didn't post this sooner, but yes we did go to California to see the Wilsons in mid-August. It was 2 weeks after I traveled to NYC for the annual BlogHer conference, and I've just been so overwhelmed that I haven't posted about the California trip.

It was a good time seeing family, although the kids definitely make traveling challenging. Honestly, I don't think I will have the time or energy to go over the whole trip here, but I have created a Flickr set of our California 2012 trip here (click here). Please do visit that for all the pictures.

I'll just cover the high-level highlights here...

Plane trips, not many pictures because they were both constantly in motion. No one slept at all despite the fact that the return trip there was during nap time and the return trip was 6pm-10pm. This makes a new record of 4 airplane rides per kid in their lives so far and neither of them have ever fallen asleep. Not awesome because they are typically very mad to be cooped up that long.

She looks so peaceful between complete meltdown tantrums!

One of their favorite things to do with Gramma Wilson was ride on her push walker. They would hop on together and go up and down the halls saying "hi" to everyone!

Another favorite activity - playing in Uncle Stan and Aunt Laura's back yard where they picked lemons with cousin Mazzie from which we made fresh lemonade!

We took family pictures one day (I have not seen any of them and don't know where they are or I would post them...) and we let Little Sir take the camera for a while. He actually took some REALLY GOOD pictures, I was amazed! I will have Christian show me how to upload them at some point so I can post them here.

On the way to the airport the day we left, we went to lunch in Japantown, which is now a tradition when we're in San Francisco!

Here's the first lunch in Japantown when Little Sir was 10 months old, the last time we were in San Francisco!

Right before heading to the airport, we stopped at a cool little park so the kids could play and took this picture by the flowers!

It was a good trip, I can tell that the kids are almost to the point where traveling with them will not be excruciating anymore. Maybe next time?