Big Girls

It is hard to believe how fast time goes by this days. This weekend we had some pretty big milestones. First Izzie turned 10 months old yesterday. I can't believe she is that old. She is walking all over the place now. She is still working on her balance but she always starts out walking and if she falls then she tries to stand up and if she can't then she crawls. But she can walk from one end of the room to another. We took the girls to the park yesterday afternoon and we put some shoes on Izzie and let her go. She did very good, it is harder walking on the mulch. The only problem was that she kept trying to sit down and eat the mulch. But she was happy to be able to walk around and follow Natalie around. Natalie was very excited too to have Izzie walking and she kept trying to get Izzie to follow her on the play equipment.

Izzie is also done with baby food. For the past couple of weeks it has been harder and harder to feed her. She wants to eat people food and wants to feed herself. I ran out of the baby food veggies she likes so last night for dinner we only gave her our food. She had green beans and carrots and some ribs that Aaron made for us. She ate a bite of each. Of course she had a flour tortilla. She loves them, we buy them at the grocery store, they make them in the store. She also had some fruit. She is a very good eater and eats anything you put in her tray.

As far as Natalie goes we ran out of diapers ;-) We have been potty training for a while now and she does very well when we are home and she is naked. The problem is that she never wants to wear underwear. She wants to wear diapers. I think it's a comfort thing. But she has been telling me when she is going pee and if she is naked and playing around she goes to the potty without me even asking. So for a couple of weeks now I have been telling her how we are running out of diapers, and she will need to wear underwear. So on Friday I hid all of her diapers and when she went looking for them very matter of fact she said to me "diapers all done" . So I said, yep they are all done and she has been wearing underwear since. Now if we are home she pulls them off and remains naked but that's ok. Hopefully she will get used to them. I think she feels like something is missing or lose because she keeps pulling up her pants. She has had 3 accidents so far, all while wearing the panties. If she is naked she does not have an accident. Hopefully today will be a good day.

Now the novelty of the underwear is fading. I have pull ups for her to sleep on and I keep calling them her bed time underwear but she has figured out that they feel like diapers because this morning she kept trying to wear them. We will see how she does when she goes to school on Tuesday and has to be on underwear all day.

Here are some pictures taken yesterday.


Here is Natalie showing off her underwear. She wanted Mickey Mouse underwear but the Mickey underwear is for boys and the Minnie is for girls. She insisted on Mickey so she has some boys briefs on.



Here is Izzie walking around in the park trying to make sure she does not fall and looking at all the mulch that she wants to chew on.



The girls playing in the park.






Izzie eating last night. You can see Parker not too far behind...

PR Trip

We just got back from our trip to Puerto Rico. We drove to Dallas spent the night there at the hotel in the airport and on Thursday morning taking a direct flight to San Juan. We were off to a rocky start on Wed since apparently Izzie had a 24 hour stomach bug. She had diarrhea and after we got to the hotel while we were having dinner in the restaurant she threw up. We were expecting a fun trip the next day but thankfully it only lasted one day and she was fine while we were flying. The flight from Dallas to San Juan is almost 4 1/2 hours, which is the longest they have been on a plane for. Other times we had gone to PR we always stopped in Miami which was halfway from Raleigh, plus we had never flown to PR with Izzie.

They both did extremely well on the plane, I thought they would get bored but they did ok. It was harder for Izzie since she wanted to crawl around and walk. Natalie we could entertain with coloring books and stickers.

So we got to PR on time and my Mom picked us up. We got to my parents house and Natalie was fascinated with it. I guess she did not remember it from last time. She was looking at all the plants and just running around getting a feel for the house.

We did not do much, my parents have a pool so we swam almost every day in the pool and we visited my grandparents. Natalie was a scared of them, I guess she does not understand that they are a little sick. Izzie was having a lot of stranger anxiety so she pretty much was with Aaron or me. But after some time the girls opened up and were being less shy. Natalie liked my aunt a lot and kept hugging and kissing her.

On Saturday we went to Luquillo beach. It is about an hour drive from my parents house. It is near the rain forest and the beach there is awesome. We did not know how Natalie was going to do since she is not that fond of the beach. We have taken her there before and she did not like it. Izzie was very happy and wanted to stay in the water the whole time. Natalie was definitely more excited than before but she does not like being dirty so the did not want to play in the sand and she did not want any sand on her feet or hands. Kind of difficult to achieve since we are at the beach..... In the water she wanted to be held and would not even stand in the shallow. In the afternoon while Izzie slept I took Natalie back in the water and she was watching the other kids play so she decided she wanted to walk. From that moment on she was just crazy. Running around and jumping. She was not coming in and out of the water, she was just running along the shore but she was having fun. We saw fish and she had a great time. We were there pretty much all day and both kids were exhausted.

Monday it rained all day and by that point the kids had had enough. Yesterday was an interesting travel day. Unlike when we left we had to do the plane and the car ride on the same day. The car ride from Dallas is about 3 hours. Izzie was so tired in the car and ready to be out and free. Both kids were very happy when we got home and they could play with their toys.

Parker & Abi stayed home, we had a girl from the neighborhood come 4 times a day to feed them and put them out. They were happy when we got home but they did very well. Parker did not eat or destroy anything.....

Well here are some pictures from our trip.


Here is Izzie helping me pack before we left.




It was very hot and humid. Very different from the Texas summer. We missed the dry air from Texas. But we found out that Izzie's hair gets curly with the humidity. I loved her curls, I wish she had them all the time.




Here is a picture of Luquillo. It is hard to see in the picture but Natalie is walking around in the water and I am laying down in the water following her.




Swimming at my parents house.

"ma ma ma ma"

Izzie has started saying "ma ma ma ma". It is very exciting to hear. She does not necessarily say it to me, just as she is babbling around she will say it. I don't remember Natalie saying it so early. It seems like Izzie is doing everything much faster than Natalie was. She is growing up so fast. She is definitely not a little baby anymore.

She is getting much better at walking. She can take about 20 steps without falling over. It is so funny watching her because she concentrates so hard and she stops if she starts losing her balance to avoid falling over. She always walks with her hands up in the air too to help with the balance.

We are getting ready to go on our Puerto Rico trip. Should be interesting flying with both of them. I don't think it will be as bad as when we came to Texas since now they are older but it is a longer flight.

Natalie & Izzie's new tricks

Natalie loves to be thrown up in the air. I guess Aaron created a monster since he started throwing her up a while ago. Now the problem is that she wants to go higher and she does not let him rest. He was throwing her up on Friday and he hurt his back, but she had a great time.

Check out the pictures....










Izzie is trying to walk all the time now. She tries to practice but sometimes it's too impatient and starts walking before she gets her balance and falls. But over the weekend she walked about 10 steps and then sat down.
Here is a picture showing her new trick

Izzie's walking

Izzie has started taking some steps today. She took about 2 steps a week ago trying to get to me.
Today she is doing much better, taking about 4 steps and trying to walk to get to her toys. Natalie
saw her and got very excited and said "Izzie walk". She still needs to practice on her balance but she is getting better at it every day. She is almost standing up by herself without holding on to anything. Hopefully she will be walking good soon. She really wants to go after Natalie.

Vet trip

Yesterday afternoon I noticed that our bathroom had a funny smell. Before going to pick up Natalie from daycare I went into her room and found little traces of blood on the carpet. Abi had been in Natalie's room earlier so I figured it was from her. Then I realized that the smell in our bathroom was that Abi had peed on the floor. When Aaron got home from work he found more bloody traces in our closet. This morning we found a little bit more so I figured she needed to go the vet as soon as possible. I was concerned she had a kidney or bladder infection so we needed to have it checked out so we could start her on antibiotics.

Aaron normally takes Abi to the vet since she is so scared and needs to be carried in. He is in meetings all day and the earlier he could take her was tomorrow. I did not want to wait so I braved the trip with Abi and the two girls.

Abi would not go in, so I had to bring her back to the car and have someone from the office carry her in for me. Natalie was very concerned about Abi and kept saying that they were going to check Abi's ears (all trips to doctors for Natalie means ear check since pretty much that is the only thing they checked on her). So we go in the room and everything is going good. They had to take Abi in the back to get a urine sample. Natalie wanted to go back with them and was very upset while Abi was gone. Abi was too nervous and they could not get enough so we had to do it the old fashion way. We had to get her walking and see if she peed. So outside we all go. We left Izzie in the stroller watching us and I was walking Abi with Natalie next to us and a girl from the office behind us with a ladle waiting for Abi to pee so she could catch it. Thank goodness she was quick. Now we have to all go back inside and wait 10 minutes until the results came back. At this point Izzie is pretty much done with the stroller and Natalie is opening all the cabinets and drawers in the room. Abi is shaking non stop.

So I got the girls out of the room, Natalie wanted to she the office kitty cat which was hiding (he must have heard her coming). They have a nice little room full of toys so Natalie went in there to play which was fantastic. She was very entertained in the room. I left Abi by herself in the little room. I don't think she minded since now she was not being harassed by Natalie.

So the doctor comes back and says that there is some inflammation and the most probable cause is a urinary tract infection. It could also be stones but usually it is a UTI. So he recommended antibiotics and some pain medication. They are going to send the sample in for a more detailed analysis to confirm the infection. Hopefully that will be the case, otherwise they would have to do x-rays to see if its stones and if not an ultrasound to see if it's a tumor in the bladder. We should have the results early next week.

While I went to get Abi and pay I put Izzie in the play room with Natalie. It was cute seeing them together. There is no way Izzie would have stayed there by herself if Natalie would not have been there. We were at the vet for almost an hour and a half. The girls did great, much better than I thought I would have gone. Natalie had a great time and did not want to leave the playroom. I have a feeling she will want to go back to the vet really soon.