Sweet little monkey learns to stand

Look who I caught in action yesterday...


A certain little monkey attempting to get up those stairs!


The same little monkey who one month ago had just learned to crawl...


Has amazed us once again and is now pulling herself up to standing!


She knows that her brothers and all of their fun stuff are just up those stairs. She is determined!


Uh oh- mom caught me!


Yep, in the past few weeks Elliana has made HUGE progress. Amazingly huge and I really do believe that it is due to our prayers for her and getting her the help she needs. Obviously we love our little sweetie no matter where she is at developmentally, but WOW what a difference it makes to see her coming out of her shell and progressing SO WELL!



She is 14 1/2 months old now and is curious about everything. She crawls around with more confidence, although most of the time she still won't let mommy out of her sight so if she gets a little too far- she'll turn around and come back by me.
She is eating much more than she used to and has been better lately about trying different foods. Textures are still a bit of an issue for her, but I am so proud of the progress she's making. At the moment her favorite non-baby foods are avocados, rice, pasta, and cooked broccoli- oh and of course crackers! She has 3 (almost 4) teeth on the bottom and two on top- so she is starting to learn how to use them to chew her food.

Speaking of eating, Elliana went to back to the GI dr. for a check up a few days ago. She said that the x-ray of her stomach showed that she had been very blocked up and no wonder she was sooo constipated. The Dr said it was mega-colon for sure and that it will take her colon probably another 6-8 months to shrink back to its normal size. We will continue to give her the Miralax but slowly lower the dosage and hopefully in about 8 months she will not need it anymore. Everything else looked pretty good. She tested negative for all of the allergy tests but needs to get another blood test done to rule out Celiac Disease because the one they did showed raised levels of something but I can't remember what? So it is still a mystery WHY she has mega-colon in the first place and the dr said it could be stress related or a bunch of other things. The important thing is that we are taking care of it and our little peanut is getting better!



Speaking of our little peanut- after she had lost almost 2 pounds in the first few months home, we were anxiously awaiting this last appointment to see if she had gained some weight. She certainly has been eating enough to put on a few pounds!
Well, at the end of September she weighed 15.9 and now she weighs 16.9 lbs! She has gained exactly one pound! She is still not even where she was at when she came home, but we are thrilled that whatever was causing the weight loss seems to be gone for now. This is still so tiny for a 14 month old. Our boys were her size at 6 months! The weirdest part is that she feels heavier to us than she did in July when we got her- but she is actually lighter. And the clothes thing has been a bit of a problem too- she doesn't have a lot of winter clothes and what she does have it is 12-18 months- which makes sense because she fits in that age range. And I have eben bought some clothes big thinking that she'll "grow into them" soon. But she is EXACTLY the same size as she was 3 months ago- still wearing 6-9 month clothes! She would be swimming in the bigger sizes! I am thankful for the hand-me-downs that we have!
So, darn I am having to make a few extra trips to a few of my favorite stores like Crazy 8, Old Navy and of course Target! :-)

So there you go- a little update on our little monkey. Next time I turn around she might be climbing on the table! Oh you think I'm joking?! Just look at that little face- I wouldn't put it past her!



PS-
In case you are wondering why you haven't seen her with her glasses on lately, well... after almost 6 weeks of wearing them for a good chunk of each day, the little stinker decided she was miss independent and has refused the glasses completely! She yanks them off as soon as I get them on and has scratched the lenses quite a bit as well! Ooh we have a little firecracker on our hands! I still try everyday, but I am not sure what we're going to do about that. Just in case you were wondering! :-)

This is her "I am NOT going to cooperate" face!

Best school portraits around

Where we live we are blessed to know a lot of other like-minded homeschooling families. It has been wonderful over the years to be part of different groups and get to know so many different families. This year we are part of a newly formed group and have had a lot of fun just hanging out each Thursday at the park while the kids play and the moms chat. One of these days I'm going to pull myself away from chatting long enough to take a few pictures of the kids having fun. One of these days.

Anyway, one of the families who has recently begun homeschooling and has joined our group has 3 beautiful kiddos and her husband just happens to have a photography business as well. An amazing photography business. As in AMAZING photography.
And what does that have to do with this blog you wonder?

Well this family was generous enough to offer school portrait sessions for a great price to our entire homeschooling group. Awesome! And yes of course I can take pictures of my kids with my own camera, but I was not about to let this opportunity pass us by- someone else to take my children's pictures who has a waaay better camera and a great location choice! What a blessing!
Thanks Mariano!


Oh aren't they such handsome boys?!!




And Elliana even got her picture taken as well!


These were a bonus!





Sure beats the old blue-backround standard school portraits doesn't it? :-)





~Mariano Friginal Photography~

He's 13 today...

(9 years ago)

(5 years ago)

Now at age 13...

(recent photos courtesy of Mariano Friginal)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Austin! We love our sweet, hard-working, inventive, humerous, strong, and sometimes wild and crazy first-born son! We pray that you would continue to grow into a young man after God's own heart and would live passionately for Him.

~I cannot believe that 13 years have gone by since Randy and I first became parents. We were so young and scared and had absolutely no idea what lay ahead of us. But what a gift God gave to us that day as we held our Austin William for the first time. The Lord has taught us many things through all of our children but most of all through our first-born son. And we are slow learners- as we still have SO much more to learn. Praise Him that His mercies are new EVERY morning!

_____________________________________________________________________________________

A few pictures from the weekend...

Austin chose to have a friend-party this year, so he invited a few friends to come climbing with him over at Yosemite fitness. He loves climbing and this seemed like the perfect idea for a party!

Afterwards I and the rest of our crew met them for pizza across the street. Yum!

You don't have to have a ton of people to have fun- Austin chose his 3 best friends and of course the brothers were there.

We didn't plan a big family party this year because we already had the other plans, but on Saturday when we celebrated cousin Noah's birthday, Auntie was sweet enough to put 13 candles on the cake and let Austin join in on the celebration.

Noah wasn't quite sure about it.

Seriously though, these two are quite the pair. They seem a lot alike to me. Austin loves his little cousin Noah and is usually a good helper and friend to him. And Noah is always wanting Austin to play with him as well. Most of the time when we get together with the cousins these two end up together. They are hillarious. They crack me up...

A few more just for fun

Cousin Lauren is super good with Elliana. She was giggling-not crying- in this picture.

We are thankful for family to celebrate fun memories with!

Come and listen! Let me tell you what HE has done!!!

"Come and listen, all you who fear God;
let me tell you what he has done for me.
I cried out to him with my mouth;
his praise was on my tongue.
If I had cherished sin in my heart, the LORD would not have listened;
But God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer.

Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!"

Psalm 66:16-20

Truly this is my anthem today! I want to shout from the rooftops how GREAT our GOD is!!! He alone answers prayer and can preform miracles beyond what we even ask or imagine! And He has done just that in our little Elliana this weekend...

So what is all the fuss about, you ask?

Well, the same baby who just days ago would not bring anything to her mouth, especially food, has had a dramatic change and is now feeding herself all kinds of things! And waving bye-bye AND clapping AND playing peek-a-boo AND trying to pull herself up AND saying more in sign language!!! WHAT HAPPENED?

Well, in a short answer: GOD.

But a few of the details are as follows.

It all started at the Holt Picnic on Sunday afternoon.


Elliana got to hang out with some pretty cute kids while we were there.



And she LOVED it.


And as she sat back and watched her friend Rose devour a yummy cupcake...


I think she started to feel a bit left out :-)


So she started putting things in her mouth. (not sure what that is in the picture, but it's clear that she is putting whatever it is into her mouth!)

As the afternoon went on, another mom noticed her trying to eat some bark that she had found. I was seriously in shock! So this sweet mom grabs a graham cracker and trades her for the bark. She immediately put it straight to her mouth and started chomping down!

Of course I just happened to have the pictures to prove it! :-)


I was so thrilled I could just kiss her! Well, actually I did. As well as this other sweet girl!



Now I know that to most anyone this is soooo not a big deal. I mean duh, of course a baby is going to want to feed herself graham crackers right?! What is the big deal?

I'll tell you what the big deal is! In the almost 3 months since Elliana has been with us, she has not eaten ANYTHING by herself. Not one cracker or cheerio- NOTHING. I feed her everything. She never puts anything to her mouth- which is one of the reasons she was assesed at a 5-6 month developmental level.

This is HUGE.

Just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, we came home and tried again and over the past two days I have been giving her all sorts of things to try and eat by herself. Wow- she amazes us! She is eating crackers, cookies, pasta, eggs, and fruit bars. And the best part about it... she is sooooo happy!

Yesterday morning:

And today while we were doing school, instead of her usual fussiness while I try to teach the boys- she was just sitting there chomping down on her crackers just content as can be! Oh yes- you'd better believe this is a big deal! I even got a bit on video just because I was so excited for her!
Check out her cute little noises- like she is saying mmm mmm good! ANd look at how she switches from hand to hand!

So not only is she eating a ton more and happy about it, her tummy problems have seem to almost dissappeared, and in the past two days she has done things she could never do before. She now can say "more" in sign language, plays peek a boo by putting the blanket on her head and taking it off, pulls herself to her knees and can almost get to standing, if you stand her up to the coffee table she can balance by herself, she can clap, says mama and dada almost consistently and has begun to explore more of the house as she crawls around.

Again, I must repeat: she could not do any of these things before.

And last week by the end of the week, I felt so very discouraged about a lot of things. It had been a rough week and I had been praying and honestly felt like I had nothing left. I was done and no idea how I was going to make it through one more week like the one we had just had.
And then Sunday came.
Randy was gracious enough to stay out with Elliana so I could sit in the service that morning. I did not realize it had been over 3 MONTHS since I had sat in church and listened to a message! And I had forgotten how much my weary soul needed the encouragement and fellowship of being in the Word with other believers. As our pastor preached about drinking from the Living Water, I had to finally recognize my thirst and utter dependence on Him to sustain me. I had been relying on my own strength to just make it through the days last week and I was left empty and parched dry. I was ready to be filled with the Spirit again and let Christ live through me.
And I prayed that no matter what this next week would bring, I would trust Him to carry the burden for me. And He has done just that.
And of course it has been much more than that.


Just when we think that there is no way to go on...

He does infinitely abundantly MORE than all we could ask or imagine.


Will you join me in giving Him all the glory and praise for what He has done?!