Goodbye to Petra

I think I have mentioned before that we had a lady come once a week and work with Georgia on communication skills and at age six Georgia aged out of the program.  We are sure gonna miss Petra and all that she taught us about hearing loss, IEPs, working on listening, and the Deaf community.

The Many Faces of Darby Rae

Almost four to five time a day, with no warning, we go from this:

To this:

Darby's 4th Birthday

We had a great time with Darby's birthday party this year.  We invited all of her friends from her school at class, rented a bouncy house, and turned them loose.

One of the favorite things was the Beast rides around the yard. 

Aunt Bob came and helped both with the party and with the kids. 

Darby insisted on a purple poodle cake so I made her one and then did some cupcakes for ease of serving.

Of course the bouncy house was really fun and the weather held out just long enough go the party.

Most importantly Darby had a great time.  By the end of the party we found her sitting in the sand box alone trying to bury herself.  It is possible she had a little too much stimulation.

March 2012

So it goes without saying that it has been a little busy around here. Birthday season hit us head on and I am just now pulling out of it and ready to play catch up.  So I am going to start with some random pictures from the last half of March.

Here we have Darby eating breakfast as a dinosaur/dragon.

The kids broke a picture but had a great time playing with the frame. 

Nanue cam to town and we celebrated both of our birthdays since we were not together on them.  

Both girls have been getting very good at puzzles and will spend lots of time working on them both alone and together

Mera is quite the fashionista.

She also loves her Naune and talks about her all the time.

 Every other spring or so we have to re-fill our sandboxes. This year the girls went with me to the sand lot to watch them fill the truck. It freaked Mera out a lot in her rear-facing car seat.

 And we have already had several days of painting ourselves. 

Finally, the first turtle day came very early this year.  I found these three on the way to the grocery store one morning.

Mama's Little Swimmer

These were too funny and sweet not to share.

Snow Day 2012

We've only had one so we made it count!

We all Fall Down...Or Maybe Just Darby

Amarillo Comes to Visit

Uncle Pete and Aunt Pam came to visit and we had such a good time with them. Darby was a lover to all.

And Pam was a big fan of the dogs, and the kids as well.

We hope they come back soon!

The next weekend Nanue was here to spend some time with her girls.

We hope she comes back soon as well! (And bring Big Papa)

It's Cadbury Time

It is that time of year when my favorite vise shows up in most grocery and drug stores. I love Cadbury Eggs and look forward to them all year long. I had a special moment with Mera where I initiated her into the club and let her eat her first Cadbury Egg. She ate the whole thing and loved it all.

Mera's Head

I feel like I owe a bit of a Mera update to the blog since she is over 18-months now and her development has not gotten much attention. I feel like I have expressed how sweet she is and not only that but she is content. It is so nice to finally have a content baby. I feel like I deserve it after the first two. She is content to play by herself and content to sit in her car seat for long periods and content to feed herself alone at the table (I still have to sit with Darby most meals and sometimes physically feed her to get her to eat). What I have not mentioned is how smart she is. It is funny because while I was running today I was thinking how happy I am that my blog has not become one big brag about my children. I think it is more a good illustration of the fun we have as a family and now here I am talking about how smart Mera is.

Alas, I digress. At this point Mera has surpassed a 50-word vocabulary and is combining two words into little phrases. "My water" My bite" "Dog treat" "Hi Georgia" are a few examples. She responds to one and two step commands and understands everything I say. She love her sisters and Georgia has a real novelty about her (probably because she is at school most days). We finally took down the crib from her room since she has never slept in it and the mattress on her floor will remain her bed for the future. This is weird for me since both the other girls were in a crib until the age of 3 and G until 4 (I know, weird). I am not used to laying in bad and having a little person come and climb in with me but this is what she does. My favorite part of it is when she wakes up from naps, she flings her door open, stumbles down the hall, and then looks at me and says, "Hi." Too cute.

She knows exactly what she want and will get it at all costs. I have a hard time saying no to her and she has eaten way more sugar in her life than either of the other two had at this point. She loves to climb and her favorite activity as of late is climbing on her stool and falling off. She enjoys giving the dogs treats and loves being outside. and most importantly she love to put things on her head and body. She has a pair of shorts she consistently wants to put on over her PJs and ends up sleeping that way. If she finds underwear laying around, straight on her they go.

Peek-A.....

BOO!

Allergy Testing

We had Darby allergy tested this last week because I have a mother instinct about her and feel like something is going on that needs to be addressed. I have been saying for a while that I am worried she has a citrus intolerance and I just wanted to get it checked out. They tested her for 30 foods and the only one she had a reaction to was lemon. Granted it was a very mild little reaction but it is interesting that that was the one. I have not spoken with the Dr. since but hope to hear from her this week to see what this means.

For those who have never had a "scratch test" the name is a little misleading. It's really a poke test and Darby was a real trooper. The lady doing it said she was being really brave an that it does hurt. The lady stuck her about 32 time and Darby sat there and let her do it. Here is a picture of her little arm afterwards. You can only see 2 rows but there are actually 3 and them some more sticks on the other arm.

January...Really?

Last weekend was so mild the kids were able to go out in the yard in their swim suits and play. I wouldn't let them get full-on wet but they made mud pies and taught Mera how to get dirty.

Darby loves dirty play adn would be dirty 24/7 if I would let her. The way it stands, I let her be dirty about 20/7.

Mera had her first taste (not literally) of mud and I would like to caption the following pictures now (note, I though it was a little too cold for a baby to be in a swim suit so she wore hers over her clothes):

"My sisters are doing this so I guess I should try it out."

"What the...it stuck to my hands. I don't know about all this."

"Let me just take a look at this, maybe it's not so bad."

"Hey mom look, it's not so bad. I can do this like my sisters."

"I can do it but I am not so sure I really like it."

"Okay, yea, can we get this stuff off my hands now."

Georgia is not afraid.