Thursday, August 29, 2013

P.S.



Anyone else see a resemblance? 






And Inhale...

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She was having a little trouble getting the shirt on correctly this time. Lol.
 
Each morning I have the pleasure of being surprised by what I see when I open her door.  With potty training getting more serious I now keep a little potty chair in her room.  Hollyn uses it every morning and nap time.  The good news is that I don't have to change messy diapers anymore. But it also opened the window of opportunity for her.  She's always either naked or wearing her own unique creation, and unloads her entire dresser every day in the process.  So much fun.  Or something.


 Kieran LOVES his brother Brenny!  And the feeling is mutual.  Brennan is that sweet kid who plays with babies - any and all of 'em.  Today Kieran did his 2nd laughing-type sound, the first time being a couple of weeks ago.  And both times was when Brennan was playing with him.


 Totally rockin' that black eye.  It's almost gone now, actually.  Aah, the hazards of trying to keep up with bigger brothers.

Don't you just love his one dimple?

 
Just some Hollyn footage.  In the first clip, you get to see a rare face of hers.  I hardly ever get to see it.  Definitely not several times a day, that's for darn tootin'. ;-)  The second clip shows, near the end, an interesting thing she's been doing lately - talking while breathing in.  When we read to her, for example, she likes to repeat everything.  And lately she's been doing all her repeats in that voice.  She does it throughout the day with regular talking as well.  I think it's usually split - the first half of a sentence regular, then finishes while inhaling.  Weirdo.



This one's of Kieran.  Probably a little long to anyone else since it's just watching him lay on the floor.  But hey, you don't have to watch it.  It's mainly for my enjoyment anyway :-)

Sad experience with poor baby K today though.  I was letting him sleep on the bed like I usually do, and somehow he pushed himself head first right off.  And even worse, I heard the thump, but didn't hear any crying so I figured it must have been something else and finished what I was doing and didn't hear him for another 10 minutes!  When I went to him, I found him on his tummy with his head partially under the bed and a foot caught in a backpack strap.  Ooooooh, my baby!  He wasn't a bit injured - not even a red spot - but he didn't like the experience.  As soon as I picked him up and brought him to my chest he immediately stopped crying, with a deep breath of relief.  He didn't even whimper or anything as I held him.  I could *feel* his comfort of being held like it was tangible.  I feel just awful about it happening though. #momguilt :-(

I guess I should say something about Asher since I commented about everyone else.  Asher is excited to begin kindergarten in a few weeks.  Brennan (1st grade+) starts on Wednesday, but kindergarten starts later.  I don't really know when.  I guess I'll have to dig out the ol' info papers at some point.  Ugh.  I don't really want school to start.  I'm looking forward to getting back into a routine - the summer one is very loose - but c'mon, summer break is SWEEEEET, right?  It's always sad when summer ends and I realize we didn't really take advantage of those activities that can only really be done during summer.  Sigh.  Anyway, Asher is good. :-)

Monday, August 26, 2013

Asherisms

Brennan made a joke about Asher and Hollyn being engaged ('cause I said they love each other) and Asher remarked,  "well, I already know who I want to marry"
"You do?  Who?" I asked
"Someone from church" he answered
"Who is it?" I inquired again
"Well, I don't remember her name."
Nice start

Holding up a jar of salsa, "Look Mom!  Cowboy sauce!"


Friday, August 23, 2013

Moving Week and Updates

Sure is busy these days!  We’re in the middle of moving down the street.  I’ve learned a lot about moving – such as moving a family of 6 (while you have a toddler and a 2 month old esp.) is WAY more work than moving a family of 3.  Why do we have so much stuff?!?!?!  I’d like to get rid of most of it, but realistically, it’s almost all things we use.  I don’t collect decorations or knick knacks very much.  I dunno.  We got the keys a week ago.  In my naiveté I was like, “yeah, so the kids and I will move a bunch of stuff all day Friday, then you and I, Brian, we’ll move the furniture and everything that’s left on Saturday.”  Hahahahahahaha.  HAHAHAHAHA!  Oh Hez, you’re too funny.  A week later we STILL have a bunch of stuff that needs to be moved over.  The old house is SO dirty.  I had no idea how many smudges were covering the walls!  The fourth bedroom in our new house is stuffed halfway up to the ceiling with boxes.  Unfortunately, my cloth diaper stash is in the middle of that too.  I’ve been trying to work on things at the other house during odd minutes here and there, but that’s hard to do with littles.  Plus laundry, dishes, eating, grocery shopping, etc still needs to go on as usual over here.  Adding to the fun is that Brian’s been sick during this.  Wonderful.

Kieran had a 2 month checkup last week.  He’s doing well.  He’s 2.5 months now, but as of his checkup he was 12.5 lbs.  Good sized baby.  I know I can tell he’s older and bigger than he used to be.  Kieran is a happy little guy, always ready to give a smile and a coo.  He’s starting to go to bed earlier (so, before 1am), which helps.  And lately he’s putting in 4-6 hour sleeping spurts, particularly at night.  Yay!  Things are going really well with him.

Hollyn also had an appointment with the Dr last week.  She was seen for her eyes.  Last May she started displaying some lazy-eye tendencies.  Some weeks it was almost constant, then for several days or a week it would appear to be resolved.  One of those phases was during her appointment.  Dr. R was offering subtle thoughts, like “sometimes the lights hit in certain ways that make it seem like the eyes aren’t looking at you the same…” or things like that.  He had to just take my word for it as he watched her and considered.  I mentioned her seeing the orthodontist about her asymmetrical oral palate (her teeth aren’t growing in evenly – mouth is uneven) and that I wondered if it was related, since it’s the same side of her face.  Finally at the VERY end, Hollyn looked up and Dr. R exclaimed, “I saw it!  She did it!  Yeah, they definitely didn’t track together.”  Hollyn’s been referred to the facial/cranial department up at OHSU (Oregon Health Sciences University) in Portland.  She’ll see an optomologist in early November.  It will be interesting to see where this leads.

The other night Brennan got up crying about his ear hurting, so made a visit to the Dr.’s office again.  Does anyone else have to hit up the Dr.’s office in spurts like this?  We go months with nothing, then all of a sudden Asher will have an asthma thing, Brennan will get an ear infection, etc, etc.  I don’t know why these things always happen like this.  Anyway, yes, his 2nd set of ear tubes have also failed.  He has fluid in both ears, once of them looking infected.  We didn’t do antibiotics this time in hopes it would self-heal so that he doesn’t have them too much.  5 days later he seems to be fine, so it must be working.  His hearing is very poor though.  It’s frustrating, though you can’t get upset at him about it since it’s not his fault, but having to repeat everything a million times gets old really, really fast.  And of course this is right before school starts.  Again.  His hearing has suffered just before every school year.  Something about August fills his ears with fluid I guess.  Poor Brenny.

But yeah, things are good.  The move is exciting despite how much work it is and how desperately I want to just be done with the old house.  We love our new place!  There are possibly come other big changes in the works too.  And school starts in less than 2 weeks!  Yikes!  Lots of summer to squeeze into next week.  Somehow.  It’s a fun time to be a Stevenson Smile

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K's first tummy time - just last night!  He's been in propped tummy position, but not flat on the floor.  I've been putting it off because Hollyn was an early roller, and started sleeping on her tummy.  Which I suspect is what led to her crawling at 5 months before she even knew how to sit.  I want a baby who SITS, just once!
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He likes it!
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Then all his siblings had to join him.
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Hollyn helped move using a friend's wagon.  I didn't get pictures of it, but on Friday Brenny and Asher also each had a dolly/cart and we'd all walk down the sidewalk in a row loaded up with boxes. SO cute!
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Daddy is so comfy.
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Asher's faces are always priceless
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Asher’s packing contribution was this pantry.  The whole thing!  I did the one on the left, he tackled this one.  Great helper!
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Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Blessing Weekend


Kieran was blessed at church on August 4th, 2013.  It was performed by Brian.  In attendance were Grana and Grandpa Stevenson, Grandma and Grandpa Templeman, Robison family, and Aunt Devon.  He was awake but completely quiet and content for the whole thing.  Such a good baby. Smile
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Grana found this darling outfit for Kieran to be blessed in.  I just love it!  I wish I had any sort of photography skills – he really looked so cute!
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After church we went to the Templeman home for lunch.  Brennan got a hold of the camera and there are about a million pictures and lots of video found on it now.  Hahaha.  Most of his shots are blurry, which is a particular shame for pictures that otherwise would have been great, like the family shots. 
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Asher with Grana’s camera, the boys had a “photo war”.  So there’s a bunch of pictures of Asher with a camera in his face.
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He also took some nice pictures like these. Smile
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Backtracking… The day before, (Saturday), we went to the coast with Grana and Grandpa.  Had a fun time playing at the beach and visiting the Sea Lion Caves.
Here’s a view from the caves
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Grandpa got some crab with his order at McGrath’s – which happened to be the food that Brennan had wanted to order.  Grandpa kindly shared though with his young grandsons and it was a huge hit!
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She loved sitting on her grandpa’s lap. ♥
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We did some pics with my Mom and Dad too, but not on my camera.  Hopefully some day Dad will send them along.  In the mean time, I stole some from Judi’s facebook page. Smile

And finally, just some hangin’ at home pics
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Asher got a big kick out of his straight hair-do.  He wanted a picture of it.
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And then Hollyn had to join him sitting on the couch
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