Happy Birthday Izzie

My baby turned 1 today! Hard to believe she is already 1. We had a very good day today. Aaron went to work and Natalie went to school. Izzie is still recovering from her cold and ear infection so she actually spent most of her day sleeping, but we had a good quality day. In the afternoon we had presents and then dinner and then we had cake. Natalie was very excited about the presents. She kept thinking they were her presents. Izzie had fun with the balloons. She tried to open one present and then gave up. Natalie opened all of them and wanted to play with the toys immediately. Natalie sang happy birthday to Izzie. It was so cute hearing her sing to Izzie. We had chocolate cake which Natalie took a bite and said "yummy". Izzie had one bit and moved on to strawberries. I have weird kids. Natalie is just starting to like cake and she did not even finish the slice.

On a funny story yesterday I was telling Natalie that today was Izzie's birthday. But she does not really understand what that means so she was quiet. I was trying to explain it to her and told her that it was the day that Izzie came out of mommy's belly. So then I asked her if she came out of mommy's belly too and she said "no, Daddy's belly". So apparently she thinks she came out of Aaron's belly.

Here are some pictures.


Izzie and the big balloons


Her favorite gift were the balloons



Opening presents and Izzie trying to grab the balloons



While Natalie played with her new toys she took the opportunity to play with Natalie's car (and of course bring the balloons with her)


Natalie playing with the new toys. She keeps saying "mine". Should be a fun day tomorrow



Izzie driving the car, she moves the wheel and hits the horn. Her feet barely reach the bottom but she loves it.








Natalie singing Happy Birthday to Izzie


Family picture


Natalie blew the candle out for Izzie


Yummy cake, I mean yummy strawberries


Yummy cake :-)

Fun Tuesday

We had a pretty busy day today. Izzie has had a cold for the last couple of days but yesterday afternoon and evening it got worse. She had a little fever in the afternoon and at night she was having trouble sleeping. She kept crying like something was bothering her. We figured it was either her ears or her throat. Natalie had a field trip from school today. They were going to go to a pumpkin patch in the morning and I was planning on going too with Izzie. Well since Izzie was not feeling well I made an early appointment at the pediatrician so that we could go to the pumpkin patch afterwards. Natalie for some reason wanted to go to the doctor too. I guess she wanted to see Izzie get checked out. So by 8:30 am we were out the door. The girls did very well at the pediatrician, Izzie did not even cry. It was a little crazy since a lot of people are sick so they were very busy. I was running out of ways to entertain them in the little room since we had to wait about 20 min for the doctor to come in. For some of you it may not seem like a lot of time but with the two of them it seemed like forever.

Turns out Izzie has an ear infection. I don't think it's that bad, it's just in one ear. Here we go with ear infections. This is Izzie's first. Hopefully she will not start the cycle Natalie was of ear infections every 3 weeks. Time will tell.

After the doctor we went to the pumpkin patch and then we dropped Natalie off at school. Izzie and I came come and had lunch and Izzie took a nice long nap. When she woke up we went to vote. Early voting is great. No lines and we were in and out in less than 10 minutes.

While I voted Izzie sat on the floor and played with my purse.

Here are some pictures from the pumpkin farm.









Natalie & her friend Carson




Natalie & her friend Dylan & Dylan's dog

Sharing

Izzie has started sharing early..... only problem is that she is sharing her food. Not with Natalie but with Parker & Abi. As you can imagine they are in heaven! As soon as they hear the highchair they come running and they lay by each side of her. She takes turns going from side to side feeding them.


In this picture you can see her top tooth.
She likes to snort

Busy Weekend

Well we had a pretty busy weekend. Aaron took Friday off and we went to Sea World for the day. We got there right after lunch time and we were concerned how the girls will do given that it was their nap time. Natalie which used to be scared of everything in Sea World had a great time. She even wanted to feed the dolphins! She had a great time looking at all the fish, dolphins, sea lions and the Clydesdale horses they have. We bought her a little stuffed Clydesdale which she named "Ocho". Ocho is the name of the little baby goat they have in the little farm that is next to her school. Apparently to her the horse looked like the goat, not sure what she was thinking. But Ocho has been with her ever since.....

Anyway we had a great time in Sea World. Some of the rides are closed for the summer. Natalie wanted to go on a little ride, we tried but she was still to short. We tried to explained that to her but she did not understand so she kept saying "ride" over and over. I can do the little rides with her now but when she is older not sure what we are going to do. Neither me or Aaron are big fans of roller coasters.

They have this playground that is like a pirate ship with rope tunnels. Natalie saw all the kids and wanted to go with them. So I went with her. She had so much fun. We were very surprised that she wanted to do this, given how shy she is but she kept on going. Aaron stayed below with Izzie which apparently was mad that she could not come with us. Maybe next time Izzie can come.

We saw a sea lion show and Natalie was fascinated with the sea lions how the jumped in and out of the water and how they "danced" and followed whatever the instructors told them to do. She did not want to get wet but she enjoyed it. Izzie would not sit still so Aaron had to take her out and she spent her time collecting rocks.

We also saw penguins and alligators (or aberbators like Natalie calls them). It was a fun day but we were all very tired when we finally got home.

On Saturday we took the girls to a pumpkin farm nearby. It was more a farm than a pumpkin farm, but they had all this fun stuff do to. They had all sorts of farm animals and you could even ride a pony. We tried to get Natalie to ride the pony, given her new love for horses but she wouldn't. Ocho came with us to the farm. They also had a hay maze and a hay ride. Natalie really enjoyed the hay ride. Then we got to pick some pumpkins. The weather was really nice so the girls had fun being outside.

This morning we went to the big park (as Natalie calls it) in Georgetown. Natalie loves all the cool stuff they have to play with. She is getting very good at climbing stuff. Izzie had fun in the swings and trying to eat mulch.

We took it easy this afternoon but the girls are still very tired from all of the weekend adventures. Izzie did have a little incident this afternoon. We were in the backyard when I looked down and noticed something dark on Izzie and realized she had fire ants all over her legs. She was not crying yet but I picked her up and got them off but I got bit in the process too. Poor Izzie had bites on her thighs, knees, legs and even some on her arms. She did not seem to mind that much.

Oh I almost forgot... to continue on the doggy updates.... Abi is doing much better on her ear. It is healing nicely and hopefully she will not need surgery again. She still has to have the stitches for another week. Now Parker on the other hand apparently felt left out and decided to get an illness. On Thursday I noticed this ugly looking lump on his tail. So we go get it checked out. I was really afraid they were going to tell me it was cancer. She lump was the size of a golf ball and it was red and oozing. I had to put a bandage and it was bleeding a little bit. Well the vet checked it out and said it was actually an infected cyst from an ingrown follicle hair in the tail. He actually has 2 lumps just one that is infected and apparently he licked and made worse. So now Parker & Abi both have collars on to prevent them from picking at their wounds. For Parker the vet said he may need surgery but then on Friday night the cyst ruptured. So Saturday morning Aaron took him back to the vet and they said that since it ruptured he would not need surgery and that this was normal. So at least no surgery for Parker but the poor dog was in a lot of pain.

Here are some pictures taken this weekend

Here are the girls with the Clydesdale's


Izzie looking at the dolpins








Natalie and Izzie at the pumpkin farm. They also sell Christmas trees in the winter. You can see their trees in the background. Natalie is holding Ocho.





Natalie petting the donkey








Natalie & Izzie at the park




Natalie enjoyed walking on the tight rope

Interesting Week

This past week was a little on the crazy side. It all started with Abi on Monday. As you may remember Abi had surgery not even 2 weeks ago to fix the hematoma she had on her ear. Well Monday morning I noticed that the ear had swollen up again. So I called the vet and we had to bring her in. So another trip to the vet with both girls. Turns out that Abi messed up her ear and needed to have surgery. Again!

So Tuesday morning Aaron takes Abi to the vet and then takes Natalie to school. Right after on his way in to work he got hit by a Direct TV van. Neither car was going too fast and Aaron was not hurt but you can imagine van vs jetta. Needless to say the jetta is not looking too great. The damage is not that bad but it pretty much covers the entire passenger side of the car. So now Aaron needs to deal with the insurance people and we are trying to figure out if we should get the car fixed or not. The car runs fine but we are debating fixing the car given that it is 9 years old. We will see what we decide to do.

Ok so now we are on to Wednesday. Natalie had an ENT appt in the morning. It was her 6 month check up on the ear tubes. I thought it was going to be a nice quick visit. I had the appt first thing in the morning so Aaron stayed home while Izzie took her morning nap. Well turns out both ear tubes had fallen out. We were hoping they will at least last through this upcoming winter (if it ever gets cold here). Natalie screamed the whole time and it was horrible. Then they had to do a test to see if she has fluid in her ears. Again screaming non stop. It was almost impossible to do the test. The test showed that she has fluid in one ear, the other one not sure since she was screaming and kicking. She has no infection but could possibly get one if she gets sick. The doctor said to wait and see what happens. But if she starts having ear infections then it's tubes again (for the 3rd time). He said that we may consider putting "T tubes" which I guess last longer.

After the ENT Natalie & I stopped at the vet and picked up Abi. We went home and Aaron went to work. At 1:30 I noticed that Abi had taken her bandage off. So I called the vet and they tell me I have to bring her back in. Both kids are asleep so I have to wait until they wake up and then head over to the vet, again! They put the bandage again and luckily she did not pull any stitches out. Now Abi has to be on that E-collar (or hat like Natalie calls it).

Thursday was pretty uneventful. Well I had a little incident with a roach but I survived and the roach didn't so everything was good in the end ;-)

Friday was going to be another crazy day. I had scheduled for Natalie to get her flu shot and given how well she did on Wed at the doctor I was dreading it. Plus this time I was going to have to bring Izzie along for the ride. Well thankfully Aaron volunteered to meet me at the pediatrician. I took the opportunity to schedule flu shots for all of us, that way Natalie could see that we were getting them too. Natalie was very excited to meet Aaron and was very happy when we told her we were having lunch together. She did ok with the shot, it was quick so that was good. It was actually faster than we had thought so we had some extra time before lunch. Natalie wanted to be with Aaron so he took her to work with him for about 1/2 hour. She apparently walked in with her backpack and had fun looking at everyone. Aaron had her coloring on the dry erase board. Then we had lunch and Natalie had a nice long nap. At least the week ended much better than it started.

Oh I almost forgot, through all this Izzie has been extremely cranky. She is getting her top front teeth and she has been miserable. Crying and not eating. The left one finally broke through the gum yesterday. She is even having some problems sleeping because I guess hurts so bad. Can't wait for the other one to cut through and hopefully she will start feeling better.

Yesterday we went to a doggy festival. They had it to benefit the ASPCA. There was a little walk and some music and a bouncy house. They had other stuff scheduled like a doggy costume contest but we had to come home and put the kids down for their nap. The girls had lots of fun looking at all the doggies. We bumped into one of Natalie's friend's from school named Dylan and they had fun playing in the playground and in the bouncy house. Natalie was a little scared at first but she followed Dylan and then we could not get her out.

Today Natalie got invited to a b-day party from twin boys from her school. She is starting to really play with the other kids so I can't wait to see her playing. She of course is excited because of cake!

Well that has been our exciting week. Abi is doing ok, although she is miserable in her cone. But given how much we have paid on the 2 surgeries she is wearing the cone all the time!

Hopefully next week will be nice and quiet :-)

Here are some pictures taken this week.

Here is Izzie having some fun in the chair.


Abi after her surgery before she pulled her bandage off



At the doggy festival



Natalie & Dylan jumping around


Natalie had so much fun


We put Izzie in but she just sat. She was smiling the whole time though. Natalie wanted Izzie to be with her.


Our little helper....


Helping Aaron put bricks around the tree