#3 Coming Soon

Around June 20, 2009!

Dear Dr. Crawford,

I remember very well when Olivia was just four months old.

She came out of "surgery" and was a different baby. She wasn't flexible and easy to nurse anymore. She couldn't be diapered like a normal baby. She was traumatized. I was traumatized! She required size 1 diapers again. Huggies Supreme diapers with the tabs cut off so that I could more easily stuff a clean one inside her cast every two hours. She weighed three times as much as she did before the cast. She was PINK.

She didn't require a bathtub. Just a bottle of alcohol and long handled cotton swabs so I could swab down the inside of her cast really good.

A special car seat, stroller, high chair and our own adaptations to baby equipment so she could still play like a normal baby. Because inside the PINK she was still a normal seven month old.

At nine months old, an exciting day came. Traumatic for Olivia though. They "sawed" her cast off and she was so floppy. No longer stiff like a board. It was so fun to see her in pants.


Still wide through the knee area, but learned to do all the 10 month old stuff.




A dress could easily cover up the brace.



It seems to have all paid off! Thank you for the watchful eye and expertise!

Olivia had her yearly check-up for her hip dysplasia with Dr. Crawford yesterday. We won't be seeing Dr. Crawford again (because he's retiring within the next year). But the great news is that we don't have to see a doctor again for this until Olivia is 10 years old! Lots of prayers were offered before hand and when the doctor left the exam room, Olivia quickly let me know that our prayers worked. I got a little bump in my throat.

It's all been worth it!



Now...I hate to turn this post once again to Carter, but let's admit it, he always steals the show somehow. While in the exam room and waiting for Dr. Crawford, Olivia and Carter were staying entertained with the spinny chair. Until Carter got spun off and hit the hard floor head first. Not good. He was so upset and vomitted a bit too. After Olivia's exam, the Dr. strongly suggested to us that we stay there for an hour and an incident report had to be done.
Everything turned out fine, but Carter had us worried until about 6pm that night. He definitely wasn't himself. That is until we gave him some Motrin and (what we guess) relieved his massive headache.
So...it all turned out good ;)

Mr. Independent

Carter never ceases to amaze me with all he can come up with in his working, ever-working mind.

I never thought I would have a problem with Carter getting into the "goodies" (scotch tape, chapstick, glue stick, stapler, gum, etc.) when I put moved them from the very accesible drawer to the high cupboard...WRONG!
I should have known it wouldn't be long for him to figure out the "push a kitchen chair to it and anything is possible" tactic.



Mr. Independent has learned the art of putting on his own underwear. What an art it is! I tried to help, but I didn't want to make him too mad and so I quickly gave up.
(ps, I know I will someday pay dearly for posting this pic...it's a price that I'm willing to pay for now.)
(pps, Putting on his own underwear does not equal potty trained...yet.)

We're off to see the Wizard!

What a great month October was. We not only got to visit family for half of it, we had lots of fun upon returning to our home in Ohio.

A few weeks back we went to a local farm. What a gorgeous day it turned out to be!

They had a fun little corn maze that Olivia loved telling us which direction to go in...don't think she could have ever gotten us out on her own though.



This farm also had lots of fun animals to check out.



Can hardly belive that Carter stood still by himself for a picture.




Oh the lovely moments when Carter and Olivia can sit this close together and get along at the same time.



When it came time to carve the pumpkin that we got at the farm (Aaron picked out a 27 pounder), Carter wanted nothing to do with the goopy inside of it.

Olivia has grown to love it though. She even planted the seeds in our backyard. I wasn't there to help and so she planted them in the middle of our backyard where the lawn is a bit scarce. Should I be surprised if they really grow next year?

Carter was really only interested in carving a pumpkin and since the carving knives really aren't too sharp, we let him have at his own pumpkin (yes, he had painted it before hand).

Aaron working his pumpkin carving skills.

AAAANNNNDDDD, We're off to see the Wizard. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz!

I feel so bad...no picture of Olivia's ruby red slippers that polished off her costume. They were down there, promise.

Carter as the Cowardly Lion and Olivia as Dorothy.

I know, I know, what kind of a pathetic Lion costume is that? Right?

Well...I nearly went over the moon to find Carter a Lion costume that he would wear (because he really was SO excited to be a Lion), but at last, Carter was a lion on his own terms. His pathetic whiskers were even drawn while holding his squirmy body down.

And in the end, his ears couldn't even hold up a little foam crown. At least he was a happy lion.