Friday, September 4, 2015

Summer days, slipping away.

Sloane can't be stopped anymore. She is constantly begging to get down and get dirty. She loves her pink Cozy Coupe and runs up and down the sidewalk. I died over her first little jellies, even if her toes constantly slip out of them. It is still hot, but you can feel that fall is just around the corner.
// Sloane, 13 months old



Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Sloane // One Year Old

Whaaaaaaaa! That's me crying because our last baby is a big girl now. :( She was extra sleepy this morning and I tried for over an hour to get her to wake up so we could get the day started. She needed the sleep though.

My little lady. She has her moments of attitude sprinkled all throughout our days, but overall she is such a fun-loving, happy little girl. She has almost figured out this walking thing and is so proud of herself. Each day this week she has added on a few more steps. She can walk across the room if she wants, but it will take a few more days until she has it totally down. She knows she can crawl somewhere faster.
She's working on her 7th and 8th teeth on the bottom on each side of the center 2. That big toothy grin when she is excited is the cutest thing ever. She is still a tiny thing, but is getting bigger each day. We will see how much she's grown next week at the doctor.

We've had one more seizure scare this week, but I now know what is causing it. It is definitely coming from her getting upset and holding her breath. I can tell when she's doing that specific cry and have to immediately calm her down and bring her out of it. That will be a big topic of discussion with the doctor for sure. 

Then there's these two. I took the top photo of the 3 when she was 6 days old and just hung it in our living room this week. I told Carl I wanted to recreate it and am so happy I did! Her big brothers love her so much... I am always telling them to stop fighting over her, literally and figuratively. She gets right in there in the play and action with them and they are so good and keeping her company if I'm trying to accomplish a task. Their bonds with her is something I will always remember and try my best to encourage.

This is their favorite thing to do right now. She climbs right up in the Tonka truck and the three of them drive around the house, each taking turns to pay tolls at the cash register. She seriously played this with them for 2 hours on Monday!

We pushed it too close to nap time to do photos this morning though. She barely gave me that one with the bear after shooting with the boys and was SO done after that. She does this duck face when she's tired and grumpy with her little pouty cry. It's my favorite. It makes me want to kiss her which makes her even more mad. :)  We'll have to attempt birthday dress photos this weekend because I am in love with this dress!!! It's a keeper for sure.

Then we took off for Little Monkey Bizness. She is so playful and loves the crawler area. She tries to do most of the things that are a bit too big for her, but she makes it happen, whether her face takes the brunt of the fall or not. 

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Sloane // Eleven Months Old

Our little baby girl. We had some craziness with her this month so I'll describe below the photo.

This month she has been growing like a weed! I think we'll have to buy size 4 diapers before we use the rest of our size 3 stash. She is a mover and a shaker already too. She stands up in the middle of the room without holding onto something to help her out, all with the proudest look on her face. She'll walk around with our Mr. Lion toy or while holding the couch etc, but no steps on her own yet. We haven't been pushing her on that either though. Her sixth tooth is totally broken through and I don't think she's working on any others right now. 

Her little attitude makes its appearance many times per day. She hits, scratches, growls....and somehow it is adorable. She keeps her headband on about 50% of the time and wears it as a necklace to other 50%. For the most part she is a smiley, happy little lover and we all are smitten with her. 


On June 16th it was like any other bedtime routine. We are all getting upstairs a little later than normal now that it is summer and that pushes Sloane a bit longer out for bedtime than she would like.  We got the boys in bed and came in to get ourselves ready. Typically when she knows we're about to lie down together she screams at me until we are settled. I needed to pop my back on the floor first. When I set her down beside me she immediately started throwing a fit. I was laughing at her tantrum as she rolled away from me. Often she'll do a big cry where she is silent for a few seconds and then lets out a big scream. I thought that was what she was doing, but it was a little too long all of a sudden. I told her to let it out, mind you that this was all within only a handful of seconds total, and then jumped up to grab her because she wasn't crying yet.

She was on her belly and as I lifted her she felt limp. I flipped her in my arms and instantly could tell something was wrong. I screamed for Carl and told him to call 911 as he rushed in, before he even knew what was happening. The whole thing felt like an absolute eternity. We thought for a minute she could have been choking because it felt like she wasn't breathing, but we quickly decided she was having a seizure. As one point I tried giving her breaths, she was totally stiff from head to toe, her eyes went through different stages of rolling back and looking sideways and she made strange little whimpering noises. It was well over a minute from the time I picked her up to when she seemed to come out of it and start crying.

For about 10 minutes after this, the entire time waiting for the ambulance and fire truck, she was still going through something. She cried without being able to be consoled and wouldn't really make any eye contact. When rescue got here we all sat out on the porch and she then seemed to be aware of the action. She was still crying this whole time, but now it seemed like she was really tired with it already being bedtime and then going through such trauma. Everything checked out on her at that time, but they wanted us in the ER immediately. We threw our stuff together and assured the boys everything was ok as we jumped in the car. Luckily Grandma was here so the boys didn't have to come along too. That was quite a lot of action for them since they were still awake and especially Carson was really worried.

At the ER they tested her blood sugar, oxygen levels and overall health. Everything seemed ok there as well, but it was decided that she did have a focal seizure. These can be a one-time thing or could be the beginning of something larger. We saw the pediatrician the next morning and he is leaning toward it being a result of a breath-holding spell. It is common for kids to pass out after holding their breath like that, but the seizure is much less common and more worrisome. Having one seizure like this is the equivalent of a full day's worth of brain activity. It's no wonder she was exhausted.

The following Monday, this same day she turned 11 months, we had an EEG at Children's Hospital. That ended up being a crazy experience that she was NOT happy about. We had to go in at 2:15pm with her being sleep deprived. I had to have Christy come with us so she could keep her awake on the drive over. She was so tired by the time we got in the room that she totally melted down when the guy put the sensors on her head. There were 25 of them and each one had to be measured out, the head had to be cleaned and it had to be glued on, all while she was held down on her back. All she wanted was for me to hold her and let her go to sleep.

Then they did some tests with strobe lights and she and I lied down for a 30-minute nap.


It was just long enough for her to finally get DEEP asleep and then we had to fully wake her up for more tests. He had to get the brain activity monitored while falling asleep and waking up. Let's just say this poor girl was pretty upset. She calmed down after we got all the stuff off of her and I was able to hold her again.

Luckily all the results came back normal with no seizure activity observed during the EEG. This is a good thing, but also doesn't give us any answers. If she has another seizure we would have something to base a pattern on and this EEG at least serves as a baseline measurement now. We basically are terrified to let her cry too hard and I watch her like a hawk all the time, even more than ever. I'm so thankful that I was right next to her when it happened, but scared that it could happen when I don't have eyes on her. She is so mobile now that before you know it she is out of your line of sight!

This was definitely the scariest parenting moment so far. The broken arms on the boys have been heartbreaking, but they were very cut and dry. This stuff is scary for much different reasons and sure doesn't help the parenting anxiety!!!

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Easter, 2015

The Easter Bunny was practical with baskets this year and got totes we can reuse for toys. :) Baby girl got her first basket with her first sippy cup, a cold teether, Stella the doll and a night light giraffe. The boys got a movie, book, new crocks for the backyard and some random stuff. They each got a different color of eggs and did a little hunt around the house for eggs instead of hunting for their baskets.
I am so in love with Sloane's Easter romper. It was so pink and girlie and felt like spring.
Carson didn't wait around for a photo. 
Baby sister didn't like the wind, but still humored us for a couple quick shots.





Monday, May 25, 2015

Sloane // Ten Months Old

My baby girl. She looks so insanely big in this photo! I can just feel toddlerhood right around the corner. This last month has brought so many changes and advancements for her. She had been army crawling to slowly get around for quite a while. All of a sudden last month she got her knees under her and took off. From that day on we couldn't keep her in any room. She is attacking everything in the pantry, going up the stairs, pulling up on anything she can reach, using us to get up and then lets go to stand alone for a few seconds at a time....

Her personality is exploding too. If I had to give her one adjective I'd say she's spunky. She squeals at any and all animals she sees, whether it is a cat, dog or fish. She laughs hard, hits hard, pulls my hair out in chunks, has growling back-and-forths with you, arches her back and melts down if she isn't happy, stares at you and yells until you share any food she thinks you are eating, rolls over and powers her way to a sitting position as soon as her diaper comes off for changing, and is starting to give some sloppy kisses...to her doll. I could kiss her squishy little face all day long and sometimes do whether she likes it or not.

She is an amazing eater so far. She loves food and will drop anything she's doing to eat. She LOVES her bath time too. She stands up, sits down, stands up, dives forward, stands up, splashes, and repeats. She crawls at super speed anytime a gate or door opens, especially the shower door. While we're washing Max (or helping Carson since he's had a cast the last 7 weeks...) in the shower she will crawl between our legs and splash the water on the shower floor. She comes out all wet and doesn't even seem to notice.

She's still a tiny girl. These pants are 9-12 months and she's drowning in them! She's still comfortable in size 3 diapers and is about totally out of 9 month pajamas because of her length and foot size, just like her brothers did. She has 5 teeth and her 6th on top is about to poke through any day. She still loves to be worn and we reconnect every day for a late afternoon nap this way even if we didn't get out in the sling another time.

She just woke up from her morning nap before I took these photos and was mega grumpy. I let her hold a big bottle of hairspray I got yesterday that she carried around the store for a good half hour. She had a grip on it while I got her undress and then dressed and wouldn't let it go for the photos. I had to trade her for my camera lens cap so that's why we have an addition to the photo. And I have no idea where the boys put the stuffed bear I always use so this is the first time he hasn't been in one of our monthly photos. :(




Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Sloane // Nine Months Old

Soooooo.... Sloane will be ten months old in 3 days and I haven't posted her nine month photo. This photo was on April 22, 2015. She has literally taken off so much in the last month that I can't even remember what happened at nine months and what happened after. I'll give a big recap in a few days for her ten month post.

At her 9 month appt she was 16lb 3oz at 18% and 27 1/4 inches long at 37%. We giggled at the fact that Max was 17lb 2oz at his FOUR MONTH appt! haha

She is so much fun to dress up though. I got her this adorable jean shirt in the boy's dept and I call it her art teacher outfit. She had her serious face on this day.


Carl had to go out of town for the weekend of Carson's birthday (April 21) so Carl already planned to have this day off. We went to the museum like a normal Wednesday for me and Max, but got to bring Daddy and Grandma along. It was Grandma's birthday too. We were on a green screen and Max's face here made me laugh so hard. He didn't understand why we were doing the arms so he's looking directly into the camera all confused. hahaha!

Sloane and her biggest fan, Carson.


These two are such little besties. These photos are from March 25, 2015. Carson always says things about being her biggest protector. She thinks he's the coolest, always giving him huge smiles and giggles. They are pretty darn cute together. She is still in love with any remote or phone. He little hairs are starting to fill in, but are still thin and goofy in that little mohawk.

And you can see Carson's state of the mouth. These teeth are crazy! They are mostly in now, two months later, but he's had quite the silly looking grill for a while now.


And this is later on in the day when Sloane was supposed to be taking a nap. She wanted to play instead so Max thought he'd pile a bunch of toys on her. I have almost the same photo of when Carson did it to Max as a baby. :)