A lot can happen in 2 ½ months, and it
is always that way for us during the fall.
In early September, we were able to get
up to Altoona to see everyone. There never seems like enough time to
do everything and see everyone. But at least this time we were able
to stay over for two nights. It was nice to see Polly, Richard,
Jessica and Nicole. Since they stayed in the same motel as we did,
we got to hang out at night. We timed it just right that we caught
Debbie dropping them off Saturday night, so she stopped up to visit
us too. Luckily Lauren didn't seem to care that sleeping in the
pack-n-play was a little different than the bassinet she was used to.
Jonathan, Anna, and Lydia always seem to be excited to be somewhere
different, so the first night they always seem wired and just don't
calm down and go to sleep right away. Friday night Grandma, Pappy,
and Brenda volunteered to watch the kids so we could get a night out
by ourselves. The kids always like playing with someone that is not
mommy and daddy. On Saturday Donna met us and Bryan, Theresa and
Noah at Del Grosso Park. The kids are pretty good at deciding which
rides they do an don't like. On Sunday, Sue and Dave had her Jeep at
Grandma and Pappy's. Jonathan has been obsessed with “Jeep Trucks”
for some time now. The term Jeep Truck came from the first one he
saw he called a truck. When it was explained that it was a Jeep, he
started calling them Jeep Trucks from that time on. Well, Dave
opened the Jeep up and the kids had fun crawling all over it. We
actually strapped them in with the seat belts, and Daddy took them
for a short ride through the parking lot. They enjoyed it, and
really like the horn.
Come October, we went to Ocean City,
MD. Sue and Dave were there too. This year the kids were old enough
to discover the game room on the boardwalk. Lydia loved the game
where you smack the crabs with a mallet. Anna liked riding the
motorcycle. And Jonathan found a bowling game he liked. On the
beach, all three of them seemed to think they could catch a sea gull.
With the heavy equipment they use on the beach to clean it up and
comb the sand, there are tracks left in the sand from the tractors.
Dave led them on a march following the trails in the sand. We stayed
at Park Place on 3rd street, and it was a pretty decent
room. This trip was much better than the last two times. The first
time when the kids were 17 months old, Anna refused to sleep for most
of the first night and the apartment itself is a place we'll NEVER
stay again. The year following that, the weather was cold and windy.
So although it originally looked like the weather wasn't going to
cooperate, it turned out fairly good. The kids always like going
places, and Lauren loves watching everything not matter where she is.
After the trip to the beach, we had the
Halloween Skating Party from Daddy's workplace. We debated whether
to go or not, since there weren't any planned kids activities there
and we didn't know if they'd try to skate or not. Luckily the kids
decided they would try it. And even though they didn't really catch
on, they had a lot of fun trying.
Then Kayleigh, one of there preschool
classmates, had a Halloween Party at her house. They had several
games they played with the kids. There were plenty of snacks and a
cake too. They all had fun. What was concerning was that after the
party we had them scheduled to go have their pictures taken in their
costumes. We were concerned that they would get too tired/cranky and
not cooperate for the picture session. To our surprise, they
actually kept a decent attitude and did good for the shoot.
And this year Jonathan, Anna, and Lydia
really knew what they were doing for trick-or-treating. Lauren
stayed home with Grandma Johnson while Daddy took the around. Mommy
was schedule to work, so she had to just enjoy what pictures Daddy
took from the evening. And they seemed to keep interest in their
candy for several days afterwards too (they didn't last year).
Little Ms. Lauren had her 6 month
doctors appointment recently. She now weights 15 lbs, 7 oz. And is
27 ¾ inches tall (she is in the 99th percentile for
height, average for weight). She is doing fine, and will start on
vitamins now. She has tried some spoon-fed cereal but doesn't fully
get it yet. She watches everything that goes on, and gets upset when
the other kids leave the room. We're still waiting for her to sit
upright on her own from laying down or the first tooth to show up.
Mommy had an accident one night coming
home from work. She and the other driver were not injured. She was
on the way home from work, and the other driver just changed lanes
without looking and smashed into the front drivers side of the Grand
Prix. The fender, hood, and headlight are all toast. Being a 2000
car with 164,000 miles we were concerned that the cost to repair
might be more than the car is worth and it would get totaled.
Thankfully the repair bill came in low enough that it will be fixed
using used parts. We may have it back in the next week or two. |
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| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
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| The "general" October 2010 photos are available. We took over 1100 photos in October, so there will be a couple more galleries posted in the next day or two. There will be an Ocean City and Halloween gallery to be added yet. |
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| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
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| 299 photos from September are available via the link on the Photos page. |
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| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
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| Approximately 200 photos from August have been posted. Enjoy. |
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| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
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| There seems to be some virus going around here. Lydia had it about two weeks ago where she threw up several times. Lydia had been fine for several days when Anna started acting sick last Sunday (when she stops eating what little food she does like, you know she's sick). She started throwing up. And when she throws up, she gets scared latter even if she is not really too bad where she thinks she definitely will throw up again. She'll even try to make herself do it! So after about 48 hours, she stopped eating and drinking much of anything. So on Tuesday, Lisa took her and the rest of the troops into the doctors office. They said we could try pedialite if we wanted too, but that she would probably do better to go into the hospital to have an IV to get fluids in her. As she was being stubborn about drinking anything she normally drinks, we just felt that the IV would bring her back quicker. So she went into the hospital around 1:00 PM on Tuesday.
The plan was that if she responded well she would most likely come home the next day. When she got there, there was a mommy and baby Peter Cotton Tail stuffed animal set on the bed waiting for her. At first she only seemed mildly interested in them. Lisa and I decided that I would be the one to stay the night with Anna and Lisa would stay home with the other kids. So around 5:00 PM I went home with Jonathan and Lydia to gather what I needed for the night. When I got back, Anna spent most of the evening sleeping. But she did drink several rounds of apple juice throughout the night. She tried a pop-cicle but didn't really eat too much of it. Of course Jonathan and Lydia had to have one too, and they did finish theirs.
Around 4:00 AM, Anna woke up and was scared. Although she normally cries out for Daddy, she also sometimes asks for things she cannot have. And she asked for Mommy and told me she wanted me to go away. I talked to her for awhile and got her to calm down, and even go to the potty while she was awake. Only once did she ask for her Yucky Bunny.
Wednesday morning a volunteer stopped by with some coloring books and stickers for Anna. They also let us know there is a playroom for kids just around the corner. So after Anna watched several shows on Nickelodeon, we decided to go play. Always the little helper, Anna even wanted to help pull her own IV cart down the hall. She really perked up in the playroom. But towards the end, she was playing with a toy on the floor. When she got up, she had some diarea on the floor and her shoe. We took her back to her room and got her cleaned up. She didn't have any more diarea after that one time. By around 4:00 PM, the doctors decided she was ok to go home. She was actually drinking better Tuesday night, but we figured she would drink better at home.
Anna hasn't gotten back to normal yet, but she is at least drinking and eating some toast. She did eat some ABC tater tots Thursday night. But last night she didn't want any mac-n-cheese. She also threw up again in her bed last night, but she seems fine again this morning.
Little "lefty" Lauren is growing like a weed! She almost does not fit into her bassinet anymore, so she'll soon transition to her crib in the other room. She can grab or bat at the toys hanging down from her tummy-time mat now, and she really likes that. I called her "lefty" because she seems to favor her left hand. And be careful if you get a chance to hold her, as she grabbed Lisa's earring the other day and almost could not get Lauren to let go! Lauren babbles a lot now and can hold her head up when you hold her sitting up right. She sometimes lifts her head and shoulders up on the tummy-time mat and looks around (instead of crying). She has a scheduled doctors appointment this coming Tuesday, so we'll know how much she weighs and how tall she is then.
The pictures from August will be posted sometime this weekend including Anna's hospital stay. |
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| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
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| Over 200 photos from July have been posted, including from Dutch Wonderland. |
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| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
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| It's been a very busy summer so far. At the end of June, we went to Hershey Park for free due to Daddy's companies annual company picnic. It was very hot, but the humidity was not too high that day. Lauren was a pretty good girl for most of the day. She just laid in her stroller and slept of just looked around most of the time. Jonathan, Anna, and Lydia had a good time on all of the rides. It was surprising that Lydia said she wanted to ride in the sleigh on the big merry-go-round instead of a horse. So once we went to get on, Jonathan and Anna decided to sit with her instead of getting on horses too. Thankfully, the picnic meal was scheduled for 3:00 - 5:30 PM, so we didn't have to rush to get there. So we arrived around 1:00 and took our time making our way back to the food. Of course the kids didn't eat any of the sandwiches, but they had potato chips and other snacks they munched on. Towards the end of the day, it got where at least one of them would decide to not ride a ride with the rest of the group. Especially Jonathan. We told them before they rode their last ride that it was the last, and we would go into a store or two once that was over. Thankfully once they got of the last ride, Lydia sounded excited and said "we go in store now?".
The very next weekend, Bryan, Theresa, and Noah came out to visit. We ended up going to Dutch Wonderland with them on that Saturday. Since Daddy stood in line or rode on a lot of rides with the kids at Hershey, he let Mommy ride more rides with them at Dutch Wonderland.
Lauren had her two month doctor's visit on July 6. She now weighs 10 lbs, 14 oz; is 23.5" tall. Everything is going good for her with no issues. She is now sleeping through the night most nights. We'll feed her anytime between 9:30 - 11:30 pm, and she lasts until at least 5:00 am, and usually much later.
We FINALLY have some small success with trying to potty-train the triplets. We usually have at least one of two of them have dry diapers in the mornings. We bought a bunch of small toys and have some M&M's on hand as rewards for going, and the bribery seems to be working. Anna is pretty good now at going almost every morning and evening, and if you catch her in the middle of the day at the right time she'll go then too. She doesn't yet tell you herself when she needs to pee, but it's good progress. Jonathan started this whole process one night at bed time, but he hasn't been as interested as the girls. Lydia is good at sitting on the potty, but sometimes you catch her after she has already went in her diaper. She did poop in the potty the other night though. Hopefully the bribery will continue to work with them. Target always has some good stuff in their dollar bins, and that money spent will be worth it to stop spending as much on diapers. |
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| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
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| The June 2010 photos are posted. Hopefully we can add another writeup later tonight. |
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| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
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| During the final stages of Lisa's pregnancy, one of the things we worried about was whether Lauren would cooperate by staying in the womb until the scheduled c-section date. We had Aunt Donna scheduled to come down on the scheduled day to watch Jonathan, Anna, and Lydia while Lisa and I went to the hospital. If Lauren would have decided to come early, especially in the middle of the night, it would have been a tricky situation. If Jonathan, Anna, and Lydia had to come to the hospital, I would not have been able to be in the room with Lisa for the delivery. One of Lisa's coworkers and one of my former coworkers did volunteer to be "on-call" if anything should happen. But thankfully Lauren decided to be a good little girl and wait for the scheduled day.
They made Lisa drink some gunk that is supposed to make sure your stomach is calm for the procedure, but unfortunately it did not stay down for her. One of the nurses afterwards said that a high percentage of people don't manage to keep the stuff down. As York Hospital is a teaching hospital, there were several people that were residents or otherwise in training also involved in the process. Once Lauren was born, I could see the examination area where the NICU doctor was evaluating her. After a minute or two, I could hear him asking the girl with him several questions about various scenarios that could happen with a newborn. So I felt good that if the doctor had time to quiz his student, then there must not have been anything urgently wrong with Lauren. It did turn out that Lauren did get a little bit of fluid in her lungs as part of the process. But that is common, and they sent Lauren to the NICU to be monitored until the lungs cleared up. After just a couple hours, the NICU nurse said she seemed to be breathing fine and there was no reason to keep her in the NICU any longer. So they sent her up to the maternity ward shortly thereafter. Once Lisa was settled into her room for awhile, I returned home to check in on the Aunt Donna and the kids. Jonathan and Anna were sacked out after playing hard all day long with Aunt Donna. I made supper for the kids and finished up the normal bedtime routine with them, and the headed back to the hospital to Lisa for a few more hours.
The next day Aunt Donna and I took the kids in to the hospital to see Lisa and Lauren. The kids were a little apprehensive in the hospital environment at first. Eventually Jonathan and Anna both wanted to hold Lauren. Lydia seemed scared and didn't want to. The whole time Lisa was in the hospital, Lydia didn't seem too interested in Lauren. We were not sure if we'd have trouble with Lydia once Lauren came home. But once Lauren did come home, Lydia showed interest in helping us with Lauren too. So I think Lydia was just really intimidated by the hospital environment. After a month now, I think Jonathan is the one the likes Lauren the most. Jonathan is the one that likes to touch Lauren's head or give her a kiss or help put a binky in her mouth for us.
Lauren has gained some weight in her first month. She weighed 7 lbs, 10.5 oz. when she was born. At her 1 month doctors appointment, she weighed 9 lbs, 6 oz. But she only gained weight, and did not grow any taller. But at birth she was in the 99th percentile for height, and dropped to the 70th at one month. So no concerns there. We've switched formulas twice now, as the first two seemed to make Lauren really gassy. The formula she gets now seems to help a lot. Unlike the triplets, Lauren has already been out with us to a bunch of places just in her first month. In addition the the mall and Target, we even made a trip to the Maryland Zoo last weekend with her. Unfortunately Lauren seems to be like the triplets were, where she does not seem to like being strapped into the car seat. She usually cries the entire time she's in the car seat. Most kids seem to calm down once the car is moving, but even that doesn't help. She just doesn't like it. |
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| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
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| 234 photos from May are available. Hopefully I'll have time to do a long write-up later today or tomorrow. |
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| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
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