Grant is 3! Warning: Photo dump.

So we have a fun birthday weekend for Grant. He is our big 3 year old and if definitely energetic, funny, creative, and loving. I planned a Diego party but just as I was finishing my ideas and plans he decided that he likes Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I have nothing against Mickey but I decided to continue with the Diego theme. We created a Jungle atmosphere and a great mexican lunch spread in honor of Diego's mexican heritage and a planned animal safari using their rescue pack objects like their field journals and flashlights to spot animals.  Actually as I'm typing this Grant is singing the Diego theme song. However just a couple days ago Grant said he doesn't want to watch Diego anymore and when he turns 1 he can watch again lol. So I basically did his party at the tail end of his liking for diego.

It was fun to have my parents and sister and brother in law in town. They helped decorate and I would have never had everything ready in time with out their help!! I pushed the party back a half hour. We wanted a smallish party and we already had so many adults as family there plus kids we decided to just invite one other family to join us. It was fun. The kids enjoyed it and the weekend turned out great too.

Thursday my family arrived super late, then Friday we went to DI and I have to mention that I found a wire wisk for my kitchenaid hiding in the toy aisle! Yay! I have been meaning to buy one but just havent gone to the mending shed to get it.  Later we hung around and also went to Pizza Pie Cafe (kind of tradition when my dad visits). We also did a couple errands as far as party food went. Then Saturday we set up for the party, had the party, and laid low the rest of the day. The weather was fantastic by the way. Then Sunday my family sadly left. Monday was a holiday and Grant's actual birthday and we went on a little shopping spree with Grand parent and Great Grandparent money, got some yummy lunch, played, had some ice cream cake, oh and a trip the doctor. Long story short Grant has weak elbow joints. Ironic twist is that one of the toys he picked out from the store was a doctor kit, and he got to visit the doctor the same day on his birthday. The staff had a good laugh and Grant now knows exactly what to do with each of his doctor things.

Oh and Carly learned a little more skill in how to sit up. Prior to this weekend she would fall every which direction. Now she can sit up pretty well and rests a little on the boppy behind her when she is tired and its so cute how she rests on her hand if she leans too far and she really enjoys this new vantage point.

So here are a bunch of pictures from the birthday day and party. We basically did a family party and let Grant decide which one of his family friends to invite. We would have loved to invite everyone but the party favors and every thing were the expensive part of the party.

Carly at 6 months

Carly just had her doctor's appointment. She weighs 12 lbs in the 1st percentile. She is 25 inches tall in the 21st percentile in height. She still has eczema and especially around her mouth because she drools so much and is starting solids and that causes irritation. She is no longer going to be swaddled so we will work on that just swaddling one arm and then none but maybe swaddling her torso. If her eczema doesn't improve she will need to see a dermatologist and an allergist. Also her weight is of concern, if I feel like she doesn't eat enough. I think she eats plenty. She loves food and loves to nurse. Other than that her motor development is normal and we are supposed to give her more opportunities to sit up and tummy. That will be easy because she loves to be sitting up with the boppy.

In other news, when its sunny I'm trying to go on walks with the kids and be outside for about a half hour. I want Carly to be used to a routine of a walk, and Grant needs to get some fresh air and tricycle around. He is still doing well at staying in his room until 8am and is completely potty trained. I just need to wean him off of the potty chart now. Grant and Carly took their first bath together. Carly loved it and kicked her legs and tried to reach for toys.

Scooping the snow.

She loves her feet!

Tummy time with Grant.

She's so beautiful!

Grant is being Howard the property manager. He does the yard work and such and Grant thinks Howard is so cool.

Grant traced his hands. I thought he did a good job!

Grant is really getting good at building things. This is a big snowplow he says.

This is also a snowplow. lol

Carly trying to roll on to her tummy.

Bath time!

Big Changes

So Grant is finally potty trained and is in a big boy bed. There are a few things that just kicked these things into gear for me. First of all he kept taking off his pull up and wishing he could go potty instead of in his pull up and therefore peed in his bed. And when he was sick a few weeks ago he kept asking to go to bed instead of making him. For a while I knew if I worked hard enough at it Grant would be potty trained and in a big boy bed. But I'm lazy sometimes and I didn't want to be woken up all night by Grant and Carly and clean up pee from all the accidents. Grant was definitely all the way ready for both events to change in his life. It was a rough start for potty training. He was in the groove of getting 1 small treat for peeing in the potty and 2 for pooing. Also he was wearing pull ups all day and night. So what I did is I found a potty chart I liked online and laminated it with my clear tape. Then made little velcro stickers so that we could just reuse them all the time. He was quite upset when I first didn't allow him a treat every time he went potty but just stickers and he had to wear his underwear no matter what. Every hour I made him sit on the potty. After a week of 2 stickers and after 5 he got a treat and a video to watch I went down to 1 sticker and I stopped telling him to go potty every hour. He has now gone when he needed to with out me helping him and he accepts the 1 sticker per any potty time. He hasn't had an accident in a few days now! Victory! The thing is he was poo potty trained but never went pee because he could tolerate pee in his pull up while playing, I guess just not in the night.

The big boy bed. He has one, I mentioned in the summer, that we got one for him.  Its a race car. He loves it. But there were some other things I had to put in place first. I got a digital plug in timer at Lowe's for $10 and plugged his lamp into it. And that now serves as his alarm clock. So the bed time rule is he can leave his room to go potty anytime he wants but for anything else he has to wait until his lamp turns on at 8am. So he basically comes out to go potty right after putting him to bed and then like clockwork, every morning at like 7:45am he goes pee and poo and back to his room until his lamp turns on. The first two nights of that he came out of his room early to play and had a fit about going back but since then he goes potty by himself unless he doesn't feel confident in wiping and we don't wake up in the night for him unless he wakes up crying from a dream or not being able to find his water. Conveniently it has only happened at the exact time Carly wakes up to be fed and Perry has been awesome enough to take care of him.

Carly is growing chunky and we have her 6 month appointment  in a couple weeks. We have learned she loves sweet potato, carrots, avocados, bananas, oatmeal, prunes,  and does not like rice cereal or squash. She has an allergic reaction to sweet potato unfortunately. And gets constipated so easily. We are still waiting for her constipation to go away, hence the prunes she loves. She learned to roll from her back to her belly a few days ago and Grant is so proud of her when she rolls over. She still would rather be held or played with rather than watching me do house work but it has to be done. Currently she is fighting the flu. She puked a bunch yesterday and I'm hoping that part is over. And I'm hoping she sleeps a lot today as well to fight it off. She has a regular napping schedule, one nap between 9-10 for 45 min to 2 and a half hours, one that starts between 12-2 and one that is between 3-5 depending on the length of the naps and what times she wakes up. The length of the nap depends on if the neighbors dog barks and wakes her or if she gets un-swaddled and scratches herself. She just loves to be swaddled. I'm not sure when I will kick the habit. Some babies need a pacifier, she just needs to be swaddled. I suppose I will swaddle her until about 9 months, when they say to stop indefinitely. After she naps she moves around so much she gets un-swaddled anyway so I don't think it limits her motor development at all. Plus it takes some muscles to get loose from that strait jacket! She is still very happy and loves to smile and gurgle.

Stranger Anxiety

At church yesterday, Carly showed me that she is growing up fast. She now has the developmental capabilities to get stranger anxiety. It was really funny to me because she has never acted this way before. I gave her to a Young Women in my ward and said that she might get hungry soon. Ten seconds later she was crying and the girl quickly gave her back to me. That's odd for my smiley little girl who loves everyone and everything.  I just commented that she was probably hungry. Then later after being fed I laid her on a blanket on the floor. She was staring at my friend and sucking on her own fingers. My friend noticed the gaze and started to talk and smile at her. As soon as Carly noticed the girl was talking to her she put on her most sad face and began to cry. My goodness! lol. She is now scared of people I guess and will grow out of it soon but may need some time to warm up now instead of just instant friends.

Eczema

Poor sweet Carly is cursed with most likely genetic eczema. I don't know who had eczema before me but I have had eczema my whole life. Grant got eczema starting at 4 months. It has slowly faded for him but it comes back if I don't lotion him after a very bubbly bath and he only takes those when he is really really dirty, like poop all over dirty. Anyway, back to Carly. Since she was born she has had severe eczema. I didn't know it was eczema and I waited until her 4 week appointment to do anything about it. Then I learned what it was and started lotioning her every morning and evening with aveeno baby eczema cream. It made it better but we had flare ups almost every other day. Her chin and cheeks would get so raw and reddish yellow from oozing skin. It looked painful and she seemed very uncomfortable. She would have mild flare ups on the rest of her body but the most irritated spots were on her cheeks and chin. We use dye free perfume free detergent. We use 100 % cotton clothing. My mom started to think it was a dietary problem. She thought maybe it was a dairy allergy seeing as my dairy problems got so bad during my pregnancy. I discussed it with her healthcare provider telling her the creams and steroids kept the problem at bay but never really eliminated the problem, other than her face; which always seemed bad. I asked about a dietary issue. We decided to start with the dairy thing.  But then I decided I wanted to wait until after the holidays to eliminate all dairy including whey. Then I realized that Carly was given and has been using bibs and burp cloths, since birth, made by my very thoughtful cat loving cousin. We loved the cloths, bibs, nursing cover, and blanket and we love and want cats someday. We have used them since birth. But I thought that I should experiment since I was postponing the dairy experiment. Well after about 2 weeks of not using the bibs and burp cloths Carly has had no eczema on her face. So we can safely assume that although cats cannot cause eczema it can very well cause a flare up in a person who already has eczema so I think Carly is mildly allergic to cats. I'm really sad that we won't be able to use the bibs any more. They are way cute and we have the perfect number of bibs for our daily life. We won't rule out altogether a dairy problem. In fact I will probably still experiment for mine and Carly's sake whether or not dairy causes flare ups in both our eczemas. So it is bitter sweet, we have discovered something that will make Carly's life easier but will sadden us to not use the great gifts my cousin gave her.