This is what you get when you try to capture a lovely family of four that includes a 4 year old and a squirmy 6 month old :) Gotta love them!

Connor's Feet :)

Abby's feet :)

Hello Tooth!!!

Abby has really loved chewing on my knuckle these days. Well I went in to her classroom today and got her out of her bed to change her diaper and she leaned forward to chew on my knuckle and OUCH!! her first tooth is breaking through!!!!! May baby girl has a tooth!! I couldn't really see it but I could sure feel it:) It's one of her bottom front ones. Can't remember if it's right or left, I jerked too fast to really feel;) She's going to be eating steak and corn on the cob before you know it!

(these are backwards, I loaded them straight off the computer instead of with Picasa so I didn't know they went in the other order, oops!)



So this is Connor "all dressed up" with his new presents! Spiderman hat and mittens, winter coat and BUMBLEBEE blanket!!!






this is the cool dino card he got:)



Man, I turned away for a second and Connor starts to giggle and say, "Hey moooom" I turn back around and he has bitten right into his cake!! The little stinker, I couldn't help but giggle myself. I love him so much. He is such a wonderful son and big brother. I can't even believe that my baby is four years old. I am just glad that he misses the cut off for school and I don't have to deal with sending him to kindergarten next year! That will be tough. I have had him with me everyday for the last four years, I know I complain about it sometimes. It would be nice to not be with my children 24/7 but I hate to think about the day that he will be at school all by himself too :( They really do grow up too fast!

School Birthday

Here are some pictures from Connor's School Birthday party :) We had cookies with Chocolate icing and we all wore hats and sang 'Happy Birthday!" Connor had a lot of fun today at school :)

C-O-N-N-O-R

Connor "learned" how to spell his name a few months ago but the last couple weeks he has really been able to do it consistently. He is really into counting, identifying numbers and spelling his name:) I can't believe he's FOUR already!!!!

Trick or Treat!

We had a lot of fun Trick or Treating last night. Connor was a King and Abby was a Lobster:) Connor wore the shirt that Aunt Rara made him and his sword and sheild that Auntie Erin got him and a crown that he made! It was a great costume and he really was excited to wear it. It was great weather and Connor even scored a BatMan HotWheels car!!

Pumpkin hunting

Needless to say, we didn't get a pumpkin to carve :(

Connor said, "aww man. but mom, there are apples!" We did get some apples, but we bought them from inside :)

It wasn't a wasted trip though, we got to swing and play and bought enough apples to make some WONDERFUL apple crisp!

Harvest Celebration

So as most of you know we don't celebrate holidays at Bright Horizons, BUT we did have a dress up day and a Harvest Celebration. Actually my center has been around for over 20 years and has been in the federal building the whole time. It has only been a BH center for about 4 years so the federal employees have been used to seeing all the children dressed up and Trick or Treating through the building so that is what we still do. It's really fun, and Connor AND Abby had full bags of candy when we were done! I also want Heather to notice the bib Abby has on. My friend Heather bought that for Connor when I was pregnant. My due date was Oct 25th but the stinker wasn't born until Nov 3rd. So I have a picture of that bib sitting on my big, 'ol pregnant tummy. This time around though it was used on a first Halloween :)

First Birthday presents!

Connor got some fun books and he LOVED the dinos too:)

Grandpa Clark and Oma came down this weekend for Halloween and an early Birthday celebration for Connor. It was great to get to see them and Connor told me in the bathroom of McDonalds that he loved Oma and was going to miss her, because she was going home now.....

ISU beat Nebraska!!!!!!
First time in Memorial Stadium since 1977, proud day to be a Cyclone. Too bad I live in Nebraska, I will have to keep my celebrating quite so I don't get hit ;)

5 months old!!

I love that smile

She loves to chew on everything!!

I can't believe that Abby is FIVE months old already!! She loves to roll over, drool, chew, laugh, squeal, and scream! She is working really hard on the whole sitting up thing but she is too squirmy. If she holds on to your fingers she will pull herself to a sitting position and then arch her back back down :) She loves to talk to people and be sung to. She is sleeping through the night, most nights. She goes down around 7:30 and will get up about 7:30!!!!! Sometimes she wakes up about an hour after she goes down and screams for awhile and/or sometimes she will wake up at 5/5:30 to eat. But considering Connor was still eating 2 times a night at 6 months we are loving the sleep that she is giving us. She has started cereal and loves it and this weekend had her first taste of Sweet Potatoes :) she really seemed to like those too!

Cutie Patootie :)

Trying to sit up

:)

My Favorite Things!

I was taking Abby's pictures and of course Connor wanted in on the action :) He loves his sister so much! Aren't they cute!!

It's coming, it's coming!

Ugh, men just don't understand!!!

We were walking to the check out when this lept off the shelf and into my arms. Paul just looked at me and said, "you are not getting that," in a very annoyed/"just don't understand my love for this saga" tone. How can I NOT get it, I HAVE to have it. I can't believe that he thinks that the two of us can exists and not be together. UGH, men just don't understand..............

Connor's Appointment

Friday we spent all morning with the Cleft Palate Clinic at Boys Town National Research Hospital. It was a long day for everyone. Granted my mom did point out that they had some really fun things for the kids so I am sure that helped Connor. They didn't have anything fun for the parents though :( there was a fun "children's waiting room" but the parents weren't allowed in there. There was a slide and books and puzzles and games and just a really neat place. The whole reason that we ended up at the BTNRH Cleft Palate Clinic was because Dr. Denman the ENT we went to see a few weeks ago said that there was a notch on Connor's hard palate (the roof of his mouth). He said that it could be a Submucous Cleft Palate. Now I know what a cleft palate is and I would have never thought that Connor had one. The genetics counselor said that having a heart shaped uvula was the slightest form of a cleft palate so we went to have it checked out. We started off with a bunch of paper work and then we went to get his hearing tested. The ladies said that his ear drums weren't moving as much as they would have like to see. Which meant that there was some fluid behind them. He has had a cough so they were hoping that was all that was. His hearing tested out to be great, phew! One down. Next was the speech pathologist. I have always thought and still hoped that all he needed was some speech therapy so this was the session I was most excited to go to. She had Connor say a ton of words and then showed him how to make some of the sounds and he could do most of them. She had a fun alligator that he could push the teeth on when he said the words and then sometimes the alligator's mouth would snap shut :) She wanted to put a mask on his nose to see if air was coming out but he wasn't going to have anything to do with that. She said that she would recommend aggressive speech therapy for him and she would like to see him again in 6-9 months. So that is kind of what I was thinking and besides the time we are going to have to put in, easy. Phew! She also let me know that before anyone would talk surgery they would want to see at least 3 months of speech therapy. That made me feel better too. It really seemed like all the doctors yesterday wanted to find the best and least invasive way to help Connor. Then we saw orthodontics and he said he saw zero issues, phew! Then it was plastic surgeon, ENT and pediatrician. The plastic surgeon said that nothing looked out of the norm and so he didn't have anything unless it went to surgery and then he said that after some speech therapy they would do a couple more tests to make sure that surgery was the best thing, phew! then the ENT he basically said the same thing, oh and that Connor had a sinus infection ;) I guess I have to make an appointment with his pediatrician :) then the pediatrician came in and said the same thing. He said that they will all meet after the clinic was done and all talk about their findings and the best route for Connor then I will get a letter in the mail 2-3 weeks that will have their recommendations and findings. They are going to send them off to Connor's pediatrician and Dr. Denman and the Papillion/LaVista Schools so everyone is on the same page. Phew! Then we saw the genetics counselor. She said that she wanted to meet with us last because she wanted to see what everyone else found. So she talked about the submucus cleft which they ruled out and said that what we are dealing with now is either Velopharyngeal Insufficiency (VPI) and/or 22q11 deletion syndrome (deletion on chromosome 22). UGH, there it is. Really couldn't they have just let us stay at speech therapy? So the test for the 22q11 thing is $500 just for the blood test alone, not including the lab and processing and everything. On the upside the genetic counselor said that they would give us the codes and words to use to talk with our insurance to get it covered. She also said that she is pretty sure that it will come back negative but not sure enough to not check. So now we wait for the findings and the letter that will contain everything that we need to take to our insurance to see if we can get the test covered. When reading the links I attached it's clear that if it's the 22q11 thing that he has a VERY mild case of it because he hasn't really had any of those symptoms. Granted as most of you know he did have an unexplained seizure when he was much younger. So I don't know how I feel. I feel glad that we went to the clinic because I feel that the multidisciplinary team is what we needed and they all sound like they will be wonderful resources if I need help advocating for any services but I also feel like this has been a longer, more stressful road then it needed to be. I feel that in the efforts to be thorough we have gone to the extremes of what this "could" be and it stresses me out. I know that as my mom would say, "don't borrow sorrow from tomorrow." But it's so hard to hear all of this and not think "what if" He's still my perfect little boy but it tears me up that maybe he's not. I just keep thinking that part of him may be missing and that it could really affect him some day. I just keep trying to go back to my gut and realize that he can make a lot of the sounds that he's missing if he is directed and focuses and that I do truly feel that all he will need is some speech therapy and by the time he goes off to kindergarten things will be so much better for him. But they still put that darn, "what if" in my head...............

The Zoo

Here are some pictures of our most recent trip to the zoo.
I love the pictures of Paul w/ Abby in the sling :)

I love this picture of Paul and Abby looking at the fish. It's a little blurry w/o the flash but they were just so cute looking at the water :)