Happy Halloween

Here is a little Halloween cuteness from our house to yours...

Claranna was the cutest little lamb!

She was sound asleep by the end of trick or treating!We saw cousins Bryce and Brennen at the farm.

Hope everyone had a safe and Happy Halloween!

Six Months Old Already

Claranna turned six months old on Monday. It is so hard to believe that half a year has already passed us by! This also means I haven't slept through the night for more than half a year. Mark and I reminisce often about how Isabella slept through the night at the age of six weeks...

Here's a quick update on our baby girl. At the age of six months she:

• Sits up all by herself! She is pretty steady now.
• Picks up her own sucker (that's a pacifier at our house) and puts it in her mouth.
• Says "ma ma ma ma, ba ba ba and da da da da" and lots of other sounds. Mark claims that she was calling for him this morning when she woke up saying "da da da." I don't know if I believe him. Though twice I really think she has said "Oh, Ma ma!"
• Loves to get the attention of her brother and sister with smiles and coos and babbles.
• Loves to be held close by mom or dad.
• Has a huge smile and also a big cry.
• Can get just about any person in a store or at church to interact with her by smiling so brightly at them.
• Would rather be danced around the house instead of rocked when her tummy hurts.
• Loves rice cereal.
• Has a huge attraction cans and bottles (like daddy's beer bottles) and not much of an attraction for her sippy cup.
• Can still amaze us with her volumes of spit up. Ella and James are terrified that she will spit up on their things...or worse, on them!
• Is starting to give kisses.
• Fills our whole house with love!!

At her Tuesday well baby appointment, Claranna weighed in at about 12.5 pounds and is 24.4 inches long. She is a peanut compared to other babies her age. Developmentally she is right on track, though. Since her reflux has been so persistent, her weight gain has diminished and her diapers continue to be so foul, she'll be visiting a pediatric GI doctor tomorrow morning. The doctor felt it was necessary to take this next step and hopefully we'll get some answers to keep her tummy comfortable all of the time.

Here's a little video starring six month old Claranna and almost four James. Enjoy!!

Our Little Jack-o'-Lantern

Isabella lost her third tooth a week ago Saturday and she lost her fourth tooth today at school! She's all about losing a tooth at school because then she earns a cute little treasure chest to keep her tooth in. She has decided not to put her tooth out for the Tooth Fairy tonight. I guess she just wants to admire it more and is not ready to part with it yet...

We think her new smile is very festive given the season! : )

Snow, snow go away, come again some other day!

On Friday afternoon there was a chance for a few snow flurries in our area. When the "flurries" was done, there were four inches of snow at our house. It was enough for the first snowman and sledding of the season. Although this wasn't our first snowfall of the year (I think it was our third already--yuck!), it was the first time we took Claranna out in it. She seemed to like her brief encounter with snow. Hopefully, the kids got their snow fix for a bit and the weather will be warmer again. We would rather enjoy falling leaves a bit longer...stay away snow!

Our poor little tree really struggled under the weight of the snow! Above is our tree when the snow started and below is our tree after a few inches fell. So cute!

Recovering...

We've been keeping pretty busy around here. How does the social calendar of a 1st grader fill up so fast? Yesterday, James had school and Ella got to stay home with me because of "MEA" break. Ella, Claranna and I had a relaxing morning, then we had a former teacher collegue over to visit in the late morning and Ella had a play date in the afternoon. As soon as Mark was home from work, we started out for St. Paul with Ella, her friend Sierra and her mom. We took the girls to see Little House on the Prairie the Musical at the Ordway. The musical stars Melissa Gilbert as "Ma". It was Ella's first big show and she seemed to like it, though she quickly fell asleep on the drive home. I really enjoyed the musical, as I knew I would. I love musicals and loved the Little House T.V. series when I was younger. It was a great night, though we nearly hit a deer on the way home!

Today there were seven children playing in our home--thankfully, not all at the same time! Ella and James had a chance to play with all their little cousins from my side of the family. Bryce and Brennen stopped by in the a.m. and then Trenton and Trista spent a few hours here over lunchtime and for most of the afternoon. Now, James, Claranna and I are hanging out at home waiting for an old college friend to arrive for a visit and Mark and Ella are off at the movies with some of Ella's classmates and her teachers. They went to see Where the Wild Things Are. Hope they like it! Ella also has two friend's birthday parties to attend this weekend. She is a busy girl...and we seem to be busy driving her around. Can't imagine what it will be like when all three of the kids have loaded social calendars!

James and I are still recovering from his surgery last week--James from the actual procedure and myself from embarrassment... We have one more week to keep doing the post surgery care. We'll all be so excited when we are done with that. James still has some pain, mostly when he is in the bathroom, but sometimes there seems to be pain when has done a lot of walking. This was illustrated to me very clearly this week when we were near the end of our errands at Target. Let's just say that James stopped walking abruptly and loudly shared that a specific and very private area of his body was hurting when we were in the very populated cereal aisle at Target! My cart was full with groceries and with Claranna, and I can't carry him on my hip because of his surgery. But, I did manage to pick him up and get all of us to the checkout and out the door very quickly after his very dramatic display.

Claranna and I have been trying something new this week and it is called a completely dairy free diet. It has been extremely hard for this dairy farm girl and former dairy princess to cut out all forms of dairy (including by products) from her diet. Since it means I am getting more sleep at night though, it has definitely been worth it so far. Claranna's weight was up to 12 lbs., 1 ounce last week, so she's growing but is now very tiny for a baby her age--now in the less than 3rd percentile. James and Ella were also small babies; but, they maintained their percentiles. Claranna's percentiles have been steadily dropping since birth. Claranna has a beautiful smile and has her happy moments, but she also has moments when she is very upset and seems to have a lot of stomach distress. Based on this, her slow weight gain and other symptoms, our doctor is thinking that Claranna may have a milk protein allergy. The best way to find out for sure is to elimiate all forms of dairy from her diet for two to four weeks and see if there are improvements. Since I am nursing, that means I have to keep dairy out of my diet, too. I have not had any form of dairy for eight long days. I am really missing chocolate, cheese and ice-cream. Since dairy hides in everything, our doctor has suggested a special formula for Claranna and we are in the process of trying to switch to that, but with Claranna's sensitive tummy it will be slow going. Until then, I will be busy dreaming of lots of dairy rich meals in my head. Hope I am eating them again soon!!!

Lots of smiles...and pumpkins

Claranna is just getting so big... And she's getting more hair!

We love all her various smiles...

It was such a beautiful day outside, though a bit on the chilly side. We decided it was a great day to gather all the pumpkins from our garden. James was very proud of his pumpkin crop. He choose the seeds this year when he was looking for those elusive jelly bean seeds. He picked great seeds because his pumpkins turned out perfect He is doing much better, by the way. He still has some pain and dislikes having his post care done, but I think we are through the worst of it. : ) Here's our harvest of little pumpkins:

Super Goofy James

Taking your child in for surgery is not fun. You have to look for silver linings and sneak in a little laughter wherever you can to survive the day, and we tried to do just that. I mentioned earlier that prior to James going into the OR he was given some premedication. When Ella had her previous surgeries she was also medicated this way. They gave her medicine and told her it was a special "princess potion" and it would make her act like a princess. They didn't have a fancy name for what they gave James and it didn't really make him act like a litte prince. Instead, it made him happy, goofy, relaxed and pretty drunk acting. The medicine provided us with about a half hour of silly entertainment while we were waiting. Since we are kind of seasoned OR parents we brought our camera along this time to capture some of the fun. This short video clip was taken about five minutes after James had his medicine. It appeared to take affect quickly. James was so silly one of the nurses later brought him a sticker of Goofy! Enjoy the show...

We tried to get a pic of James and me before the surgery, and this is the best we got. He really liked his upside down view! You'll have to excuse the circles under my eyes... Claranna thought it might be helpful to stay up until midnight last night and then wake up at two, four, and six a.m. We are hoping that tonight is more restful for everyone, but it could be a long night. James' good painkillers have all worn off and he had a pretty sad ending to his evening. I bet he is wishing he could have more of the happy medicine he was given this morning. Here's hoping everyone sleeps well tonight!!