Dinner With Amber

Since I can't seem to get my videos up and working on here, I'm inviting you all to a photo journey of Amber's dinner time.

Tonight's Menu: Oatmeal and Applesauce (1st time!)

Patiently waiting for dinner. She gets very excited! Although tonight she seems a bit more interested in the camera phone than what she's about to eat.

Her first time trying applesauce! She's not too sure about it. I was hoping for a better reaction but it has the same consistency as pears so I guess I'm not too surprised.

Tonight she was more interested in Daddy than eating.

So Daddy took a turn feeding her!

She was all smiles for him!

This is her new squinty smile, its very silly!

But even Daddy couldn't get her interested in eating tonight.

She decided her bib was far more interesting.

All done!! (time to eat fingers now)

It was a lot of work but she did end up eating everything.

We have two more days of applesauce. It will be interesting to see if she warms up to it or throws it up like pears. Then its on to BANANAS! We've been dying to try it!

The good news is we've been getting a lot more sleep lately! The bad news is it's because we all have a horrible cold :( (that could be why dinner didn't go over very well)

Tomorrow we have an early morning endocrinology appointment. This is the appointment we had to cancel back in......some month I can't remember right now but it was when our water pump died. My brain is a complete fog so I'm not quite sure what this appointment is for but I think its blood levels we had taken ages ago.

Playing Catch Up

Sorry about the lack of posting going on lately! I think all the lack of sleep is catching up with me. I've been a zombie lately! Monday night was good she only got up once but every other night has been pretty bad. There has been stuff going on...well more like piling up, I've been having issues motivating myself. I've done some cleaning, judged for a homeschooling event and worked on getting favors ready for our women ministry event.

I woke up the other morning to Amber eating her blankets. I think she's finally really teething she's been chewing on everything....and I mean everything!

The fruits have been going pretty good. She loves peaches and prunes! She's not too sure about pears, I think its a texture thing. The fruits are really tart. She makes the cutes sour face when she first starts to eat them. I have a video of it but I still can't make videos work on here.

The solids are catching up with her though and she's been horribly constipated for a week now. We've been trying everything, it seems to finally be working. I think we'll hold off on trying apples and bananas because they're on the list that constipates :( On top of it the poor thing has awful diaper rash, so we're switching back to pampers.

The hubs worked his magic and now we get Netflix through our Wii.

It's a wonderful but dangerous thing.

I must admit I've been having a Fraggle Rock marathon this week.

I think a certain little someone must be getting hair styling tips from them :)

She's a bit crazy just like her mommy :)

We're going to load up on our coffee now!

I've got two dozen cookies to bake for the event tomorrow and a bunch of other things I need to catch up on! You can expect a new baking recipe to show up and maybe some nice meals the hubby has been trying out!

A Milestone

This always happens. I have days when I think Amber will never be like other babies; never roll over, sit up or walk. She always picks these days to amaze us. For a while now she's been getting her legs in the right position to roll onto her tummy. She tries really really hard but she can't figure out how to get her top half over.

So I gave her some help. And to my complete surprise she liked it! Usually she screams but she actually wants to be on her tummy now. She only stays there for about 5 mins or so. She still can't turn or lift her head but she tries. She can get up on her toes and she will lift up her hips and belly!

She is a cutie!

There is a new baby store near us that has the coolest toys! She loves her new snail (thanks grammy!) She hardly has to touch it to make it roll, light up or sing!

And She loves looking at that cute baby in the mirror.

The mirror is all gooey because she was rubbing her binky on it.

I can't believe she's almost 7 months! She is suddenly growing up so fast. She tried peas and they gave her horrible gas. Not just stinky like green beans but the hard tummy, upset baby gas. So they are a no go! She loves sweet potatoes :) We're trying a new brand of oatmeal that does not contain wheat so hopefully constipation is a thing of the past! We try peaches tomorrow!!

Our other big news is Amber is sleeping in her own room!! I know I can't believe it either....well you're all probably thinking finally hee hee! It's weird but the first night went well she only woke up to eat twice and put herself to sleep (without me) a bunch of times. I'm looking forward to getting some good sleep!

It's ironic almost everyday I can't wait for her to be able to do more and grow up but when I start to think about it (or put outgrown clothes away) I just want her to stay a snugly little baby forever. I think its the worst and best part about being a parent.

Easter

Happy Easter!

Yes, I know I'm really late but we've had some gorgeous weather so I haven't been on and we've been having Internet issues on top of it all! I'm not going to lie for some reason it just didn't feel like Easter this year. We hard boiled eggs but never got around to coloring them and we didn't really do baskets. We did do a family dinner. It was really nice except my cousin's daughter threw up in the middle of it (literally!). I know its not all about the traditions! I missed Palm Sunday :( We had a wonderful cantata for the Good Friday service. A great Easter Sunday sermon and communion fell on Easter Sunday so that was really cool. I feel horrible but my heart just wasn't in the Easter spirit this year.

We got a much needed family picture taken :)

Amber looked adorable!

There is a funny story behind our dresses. Mine is the dress for all occasions. I got my dress in Easter 08, the Easter Luke and I got engaged, wore it last summer when I was hugely (ok hugely for me!) expecting little beans and wore it again this Easter!

(thank you Target for you're wonderful quality)

Amber's dress is about 26 years old! My grandmother bought it for my Aunt when she was expecting baby number 3. They thought it was going to be a girl but it was boy!

It's a beautiful dress!

We opted not to do baskets for each other this year but we did do one for Amber. We kept it simple. She loves the little chicken it's light weight so she can hold onto the wing and well.... wing it around.

Instead of traditional baskets I made basket cupcakes this year! They came out pretty well. I don't really have it down to a science yet so I'm going to hold off on posting instructions for now.

I think it was very fitting that Amber got to try carrots at Easter time! She loves them to the point where she eats them off of her bib, its too cute! Thankfully she hasn't turned orange yet! She'll be trying sweet potatoes and pees next and then its on to fruit!

Hope you all had a great Easter!

Isn't it wonderful to know He Is RISEN! and we have no fear in death!! I think its a wonderful way to start spring. As we wonder at the new birth/growth He has given us to enjoy on this earth we can also celebrate the new life He has freely given us through Salvation! Amen!

I had a lot of time to think about such things as I was trying to clean out our poor ignored garden. I am so grateful He does not give up on us when we become entangled in earthly things and overrun with the weeds of sin! There are a lot of great parallels between our Christian lives and gardens but I think I'll save the rest for another day.

We're Baack!

We had a great trip to PA. It was way to short but nice to be able to see everyone again! We went down on Monday and it was rainy for most of the trip.

This is a view of the Hudson River.

Usually you can see a long way down the river but it was super foggy that day.

Everyone Loves A Slinky!

Amber had a lot of fun visiting (and being spoiled!)

I think she really misses being the center of attention she's refused to play by herself since we got home, that's why it's taking me so long to update!

It's Spring Time!!

Well it is in PA. Their grass is green, things are in bloom and looking gorgeous! It was very hard to come home to brown and gloomy. (But things are picking up here finally!)

Our ride home was beautiful.

Nothing better to do on a long ride that cloud watch, this one was pretty interesting.

The next day (Thursday) we had to get up early for Amber's Dr appointments. The geneticists and the Orthopedic Dr do appointments together only once a month. This makes for very long waits in the waiting rooms and in the examination room. We got there before 10:30 and didn't leave until almost 2. The sad thing is the orthopedic saw us for maybe 15 min (he's rather frustrating) and the geneticist didn't see us for very long either (we've seen/talked to her a lot lately)

We do lots of playing and silly things in the room to keep Amber happy.

It seemed to work that day!

They really didn't have much to tell us.

The orthopedic said her right hip is better but her left is still not good (not really sure if he meant worse or not). He means her left hip is not quite in the socket right. Her left hip socket is also positioned more towards the front than the left. That's pretty much all he said he was really vague, everything is going to be monitored to see if it corrects itself or progressively gets worse. We see him again in three months

The geneticist didn't have much to tell us either. We weren't really surprised because like I said we've been talking to her a lot lately. She said one of the tests they did in Boston came back (this one tested her glucose, lipids and some other body chemicals) normal. The others will probably not come back for a month or longer because they are more in-depth. The report of the skeletal survey finally came back and we got a copy!! This is amazing because they hate to give out copies of anything and I didn't even have to ask this time!!! It doesn't make much sense to me (I'm trying to remember all the terms I learned in anatomy!) She did explain some of it. I'm hoping that we'll understand more once our developmental nurse looks at it and can explain all of it. What I can understand right now is that; bone mineralization is better (bones not as thin/brittle, chest is progressively getting worse, thigh bones are still ossifying (not good) and now some parts of her feet are ossifying too (ossification signifies the end or beginning of the end of growth in a bone). It says that the findings support Juene Syndrome, it's not a definite diagnosis but it looks like we're headed that way. Once I understand more I'll do a post just of the skeletal survey report and explain what they found in each area....or maybe do an area a day so its not overwhelming.

Its a beautiful day and it looks like the next couple of days are going to be nice too!

Amber is enjoying the fact that she can wear less clothing, she is too funny!

I'm going to color eggs today and hopefully get back to walking!