Goodbye, Sweet Baby James

It will be fun to take a similar picture when James is 8 and Carver is 16.

Christmas Morning

Christmas Game Playing

Blast from the past

Spending Thanksgiving with old friends was wonderful. Isn't it great how you can immediately pick up where you left off 5 years ago?

Yep, asking for a raise after this one...

It took me about 2 hours to notice, and only then it was because I couldn't figure out why there was hair all over the upstairs.
Sorry for the poor picture--but all of a sudden she looks like me!

Ellie didn't want to be left out of the hair chopping action, so we took a few inches off hers, too.


I figured as long as I had the scissors out and there was hair all over the bathroom, I might as well trim the little girls up as well.

Hope pics

I'm cleaning off my camera's flash card before Thanksgiving, and I found some good ones to show you! They're all out of order, but I'm sure you guys can figure that out :)
This is Miss Nancy working with Hope this week. Can you believe she's on her hands and knees? She did not like it. Otherwise, she's doing so well. Every week she makes noticeable progress, and her sitting up is getting so much better.







Isn't this a nice picture? If only I'd given her a haircut first...

When you're the fifth child, you have to put up with a lot of shenanigans.

Look who's sitting up! (kind of)

We have been doing PT with Hope for about a month now. I have to admit, I was not convinced that they knew anything I didn't, but it has been such a huge help! Two different women come, once a week each. Miss Kim works with Hope on fine motor skills, and Miss Nancy works more on gross motor stuff. Hope will now reach for a toy and grab it, with either hand. She's not putting them in her mouth yet, but that's what we're working on next.
And as for gross motor, look at this!
This was about 2 weeks ago--her first few days in the Bumbo. She gets tired quickly, and her body position isn't quite how Miss Nancy would like it (she's curled over a little too much in the bumbo, not have to use her back muscles), so we don't use it too much anymore.


This was last week, transitioning to the high chair. It turns out our high chair is ideally suited to her--it curves around her sides, giving her floppy arms the support they need. In the high chair, she can play with toys while having her arms supported by the tray. This gives her longer eye- and hand- interaction with the toys. If she drops one, she can still see it to pick it up. Getting her eyes involved is key--we want her to learn the connection between hands and eyes. In the high chair, she doesn't have to work so hard and sitting up, and can concentrate on hand movements with toys.


And here's sitting in a tripod position this weekend! This is so huge!! When we're working on posture, we give her toys that aren't quite to interactive so that she can concentrate on holding her back straight and head up.


Isn't she cute? I like these pictures because her eyes are straight. She really doesn't cross all that often--mostly when she's tired, and it seems, for the camera. But here you can see her looking at you!

Her weakest muscles are across her upper back and shoulders. She tires quickly lying on her back and holding toys in the air. Her neck is also very weak, and she hates tummy time. She will tolerate it for about a minute. My mission this week is to get her doing more tummy time, even if it's only for a moment at a time to try to build up some more of those muscles. The therapist and I also worked on carrying her facing out in the Moby wrap. While facing out is not ideal for most babies (it encourages a reverse curve in the back), Hope needs to strengthen those muscles. So we will be doing it for short spurts to encourage her to get her head up and off her chest, and to be looking around and compensating for my movements.

Her progress in the past months with the PT has been huge. It is a very good indicator for her future development. When we started PT, she was so wobbly that she couldn't grab a toy, and she couldn't really hold her head up without wobbling. Now she can do both those toys without wobbling. Just imagine what the next month will bring? Maybe rolling over, maybe sitting up all by herself!

Happy Halloween!

We got about 6 inches of snow. Our power was out for about 12 hours, which is much better than a lot of the people around us, some of whom still don't have power, including the hospital where Hope was supposed to have a head ultrasound today. We have a dead tree in our front yard, which survived earthquake and hurricane, to finally succumb to heavy snow. About 1/3 of the tree came down--one of the main branches. It feel into the yard and street, though, not getting close to our house. How God has sheltered us through natural disasters this year!