I'm Here

Here I go again with another two weeks in between blog posts. I do think about it and say I need to update it but then time just goes by and it doesn't get done! I've been definantly feeling overwhelmed lately with everything in my life. I have so much going on and sometimes it doesn't all seem to work out the way I had hoped but life goes on and I will just continue to focus on me and my family and hopefully the rest will work itself out. My kids are doing awesome. I've had the past week off of work so we've had a good time spending our days together. Taylor had her 9 month check up and everything is going along just as should be except her weight right now. I guess right now she is in the 5th percentile and my doctor is worried because at each appt her percentile has lowered and lowered. He wants to start her on iron supplements to help her gain weight but Asa and I need to discuss it more before I start doing that. She is crawling all over the place now and getting into everything! We had a wonderful relaxing Thanksgiving with our family. The weather was freezing cold but all in all it was a good day. I did a little bit of shopping the day after and got a few things for the kids. So now onto the pictures!!

The boys got some tattoos and so Taylor had to get one too!


Taylor hanging out on Thanksgiving day!


She loves to give kisses, espicially to her brother!


Standing tall! Connor loves to help her stand up and she loves all the attention he gives her!


Connor loves to get behind the camera and take pictures and for the most part he takes a good picture!

This and That

So here I am finally sitting down to write a blog. Things are as always crazy busy. I didn't even have to go to work today since it was a holiday so it gave me some time to clean up the house and now onto blogging before I go to bed! But in my absence Taylor has been growing bigger and bigger! She has three teeth now! Two on the bottom and then she just cut one through on the top so I can't wait to finally get a picture of her new teeth! And her biggest accomplishment is that this past weekend she learned how to crawl! It is so cute to watch her because she is not crawling in the conventional way but it is still crawling none the less! Connor was so excited to see that she learned how to crawl. He just got back from California Sunday morning. He has been gone since Halloween night! It's the longest I've ever been apart from him and I was worried about how much I'd miss him but honestly it wasn't too bad at all. I got to talk to him daily so I think that helped. My mom even took him to Disneyland which he was obviously very excited about! He came home with a ton of new stuff which means that today my boys were constantly at each other's throats arguing about the new toys. Yeah it was a fun day in my household ;-) Work is still going well for me. I get all next week off for Thanksgiving so I am looking foward to that. I think that my mom and I will be shopping the day after thanksgiving sales which I'm looking foward too! So now onto the pictures and video!



Taylor making one of her silly faces!

I finally got their christmas picture done! And suprisingly it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be!

Almost enough hair for barrettes!

Taylor's Video

Okay so Taylor has been cracking us up this week with the use of her vocal cords! She makes the silliest sounds and she gets so excited! I managed to capture a few on video so here they are!
We have been singing this song every night before bed since Taylor has been born and even longer than that so she is very familar with the words and has been getting so worked up when we start singing it!


Taylor being super crazy cute!


Taylor wore this dress last Sunday and I thought it was so adorable so I had to do a cute picture with it!

Pumpkin Patch 2007

As promised here are some pictures from the pumpkin patch and then at home with the pumpkins!
Our attempt at a family picture! Good gawd it is nearly impossible to get all these kids looking in the direction let alone all smiling!

The cousins all together and this is still super cute even though my kids aren't really looking or smiling!

It's a bird, it's a plane, oh wait it's Taylor in the sky!

The kids had a blast riding the hay ride back to pay for the pumpkins!

Okay so my attempt failed to get a cute picture of Taylor on a pumpkin!

The kiddos with their pumpkins!

Zachary having fun with the pumpkins!

Taylor somewhat having fun with the pumpkins!

Connor having fun with the pumpkins!

So there you have it so we just have to find the time to carve the pumpkins! We finally went and got Connor a halloween costume last night and he is super excited about it!

Hello, Anyone Home!?

My life is crazy busy right now! I've been thinking that I need to blog for a week now but just haven't had the time to sit down and go through what I want to go through to do a blog! I've now been at my new job for two weeks and I like it. It's definantly a different expierence with a Montessori school versus regular school but it's amazing and eye opening to see what these kids are capable of and able to handle. The kids have adjusted well to daycare. Zachary was having accidents daily the first week and I kinda expected that since he didn't really know the daycare provider so he didn't really want to tell her that he has to use the bathroom. Connor of course has had an awesome time and everyone loved Taylor and everytime I picked her up it seemed like some new parent was ooing and aaing over how cute she was! But my time at that day care has ended because I thought that I would be able to qualify for child care assistance through the state but it turns out they say we make too much money so therefore if I was to stay at this same daycare all of my income plus an additional couple hundred dollars would go to daycare and that just is an impossible situation. I did get lucky and my mom's coworkers daughter who I went to high school with has two kids and stays home with them so she agreed to watch them for a third of the price so starting tomorrow they will go over to her house. I hope this adjustment goes as well as the other daycare but we'll see! The kids are getting excited for Halloween although I do not have halloween costumes yet so I need to get on that! Connor is leaving on a vacation with my parent's in two weeks and he gets to go to Disneyland so he is just over the moon about his upcoming events! Taylor seems to be doing just fine. She is wanting to crawl so bad but just can't figure out how! When she's sitting she'll put her hands in front of her and lift her butt off of the floor but just can't seem to figure out the rest of it! I'm staying busy between working and exercising but am happy to say that I am only four pounds away from my pre pregnancy weight and twenty pounds away from my goal weight! I get to go out with my friends next weekend for the first time since Taylor was six weeks old and I am so ready for it! It shall be a blast! We went to the pumpkin patch today with Asa's brother and his family and I hope to upload those pics this week! We got the kids pumpkins and I look foward to taking cute pictures with the kids and their pumpkins! But for now I will leave you with a few pictures from Taylor's flickr project!

Taylor and Connor sharing a moment! Connor can make her laugh harder than even I can do! I love watching them interact together!

Taylor enjoying her mirror time! She has all of the sudden enjoyed looking at herself in the mirror

Just a cute pic of Taylor! The boys stayed the night this night at their uncle's house so I tried to take some cute pics of Taylor that night.

My little gangsta baby! She looked soo cute in this outfit! The weather was so cold last week so this looked like something warm for her!

Pictures and stuff

Tommorow I start work, and I am honestly dreading tomorrow. I am so nervous about every aspect of it. But mainly I'm nervous about putting my kids in daycare all day long. As the day gets closer I get more and more scared. I just hope that they do okay. I also have to work at my other job Monday and Tuesday so the beginning of the week is going to be a long one for me so I might not be around much on the computer! This week I managed to spend a lot of time with the kids and even did a couple photo shoots. I absolutely adore these pictures and get wait to get copies made of them! But I do have to say it is so freakin' difficult to get all three kids looking at me and smiling! I am dreading doing their christmas pictures, I think I need to start practicing more of my photoshop skills!

Seriously how cute is this!? I am so in love with this photo!

I think this is the only shot I got of all three of them looking in my direction and smiling!

Now this is what a normal shot in my household looks like! Connor generally always smiling at the camera, Zachary being uber crazy as usual, and Taylor looking at me less than thrilled that I am not holding as she would like me to do all day long if I would let her!

I am getting so involved in this photography with my kids, it has been so fun for the most part! I think it's time for a new camera for me espicially with christmas right around the corner!

Color Selection

I learned a new trick with my Adobe photoshop and it's been fun to play with! All of the family that I've shown so far as seemed less than happy about it but I love how these turned out and think that they are absolutely adorable!! Also a little FYI for those of you who having been following my Project 365 for Taylor over at Flickr I am going to be changing all my pictures of the kids to be viewable by friends and family only so you would need to sign up for a flickr acct and add me as a friend to see the pictures. I guess some people over at another website are stealing pictures of our kids on flickr and using them to set up their own profiles and I have seen quite a few of my friends kids from flickr on there and I don't want to chance it. So sorry for the hassle about it but you know... Have a good day!!

Taylor is having so much fun standing up on her own now with minimal support from the couch! It's her new favorite thing to do until of course she face plants, then it's not so fun!

Standing tall nowadays!

Her first swimsuit when she was six weeks old! Hard to believe how tiny she was then!

All American in her red, white, and blue!

Interview

So I told my friend Christy that I'd be up for an interview from her which I thought would be fun so I got my questions this weekend and here they are!

1. What is the worst and best parts of motherhood?
Okay so for me I feel the best part of motherhood is the fact that everyday for the rest of my life I have three faces looking at me daily so full of love. They love me so unconditionally and I love them the exact same way. I would say the worst part of motherhood is the fact that I don't have the freedom that I once had. I don't get to wake up in the morning when I want to and I have three children who seem to constantly have a need for something from me.

2. What is your biggest fear about raising a child with NF1?
My biggest fear about raising a child with NF1 is actually two fears. Since everything is seemingly unknown about this disease I fear that if she does develop tumors on her body that she will grow up being made fun of by her peers and that it will affect her self esteem. My other fear is that when she does decide to have children or not that if she does have children that the child that she carries does not have NF1 that is a severe case. There is a 50/50 chance of her passing this disease on and it tends to be a more dominant gene.

3. What career did you want to pursue when you were a kid?
I always wanted to be a dolphin trainer at Sea World growing up. I have always loved dolphins but never been a good swimmer and I came to find out that that is very important for dolphin trainers! I did get the opportunity to swim with dolphins when I was 14 in Hawaii and it was so incredibly awesome and I want to do it again! I still love dolphins and actually got a dolphin tattoo on my 18th birthday!

4. What is your favorite junk food, and how often do you indulge?
Lately my favorite junk food has been a Snickers bar. I usually eat them when I get to work so I have about three a week and I usually pair it was a Mountain Dew! Perfection to me!

5. If you won $100,000, how would you spend it?
If I won the money I would pay off my current debt, buy a new car (Nissan Armada!) and put some into savings to purchase a house!

Well that's my interview so if anybody is up for an interview just let me know and I'll see what I can come up with!

Life = Busy

The days just seem to get busier and busier for me! I never feel like I have any free time and now my life is about to get 100% busier. Why you ask? Well I accepeted a full time job position at a preschool here in town! While I am excited as to what this job can offer us it's still a little daunting for me. I haven't worked full time in almost six years! It's going to be incredibly hard to leave my kids in the hands of a daycare provider for the first time ever. I have never handed my pride and joy over to someone I didn't know and honestly I'm scared. Not so much for the boys as they seemed to care less if I stayed or went when we met with the daycare provider. But scared for Taylor. She is such a momma's girl and still so young. I'm not looking foward to being apart from her all day long :-( I know it will all be an adjusting period and life will go on. I just wish financially I could stay home all day with my kids but that is not the case. I was hoping that Connor would be able to go to school there with me but it is a Montessori Center and the lady told me it is a three year program that starts at age 3 so the fact that Connor is almost 5 he's missed out on almost all of the program, but next July when Zachary is three he'll get to come to school with me so that's exciting! I start work on October 1st so this next week I'm just trying to be around the kids as much as I can playing and laughing with them! In other news Taylor has started her monthly visits with the physical therapist and we just had one last week. She said that Taylor is progressing very normally right now and her only concern was that she seemed to have a slight head tilt to the right so she gave me some exercises to do with Taylor to help stretch out her neck and back. A few weeks back my mom had a dermatologist appt so she took Taylor along with her to get a doctor's opinion on Taylor's hand because it looked like she might already have a tumor and low and behold the doctor confirmed that it was a fibroma tumor. He said that as of right now we should just leave it as is and as she gets older if it starts to seem to effect her or bother her then we can remove it. It was sad to get this news because now there is no denying that she does in fact have neurofibromatosis. I was enjoying living on the hope that possibly she doesn't have it! Taylor is a growing girl though, we had her check up last week and she is 14lbs 8 ounces! Still on the small side but so were the boys so no worries there!

Cuteness Overload

So my parent's got a new camera which means I have taken over using it whenever we are at their house! I want a new camera now! The picture quality is so much better than mine! For the past few weeks when we go out to my parent's on Sundays for dinner I've been having photo shoots with the kids and it's been fun..... for the most part! Zachary didn't enjoy one aspect of it as you can see!

Taylor was really enjoying the red licorice!!

Holy cuteness! As soon as I put this outfit on her I wanted to start taking pictures! She looked so adorable! It's actually a shirt that is a size 3 but it fit her as a dress so she will wearing that for a long time!

Daddy took this picture and him and Connor were being silly together! I love how it turned out!

Zachary being silly!

Taylor in another one of her super cute shirts!

Connor playing a little peek a boo

She loves sitting outside watching all the kids and dogs run around!

Okay so my dad has this ski mask that he has had forever and Zachary absolutely despises it. As soon as he sees that someone is wearing it he instantly freaks out but Connor got such a kick out of wearing it! So here is Connor wearing the hat.

And here is Zachary's reaction to seeing someone in the hat, priceless if you ask me!

Have I told you my son is Crazy!?

Okay Zachary is my special child. I believe he is going to be the one to give me hell through all childhood! He is extrmeley stubborn, extremely opinionated, and an extreme annoyance to his older brother! Zachary is also extremely prone to hurting himself. He likes to do this cry where he doesn't breathe and then he passes out because he didn't breathe. Yeah great fun in my house when he does that! I've actually called 911 on him back in September for that because he honestly scares the s**t out of me when he does that! I can think of at least five incidents in the past 6 months where he has gotten hurt, started crying, and passes out. I've decided already that this kid will not play football when he gets older! Anyways moving on to last Saturday night. I was on the computer editing pictures for Taylor's 365 project, Asa was outside, and the boys were jumping on my bed. Zachary somehow manages to fall off the bed and instantly starts his cry where he is about to pass out. I drop the computer on the floor run over there and pick him up so that I can blow in his face to get him breathing again. When I pick him up he won't stand on his legs at all. I got scared picked him up got him somewhat calmed down and then took him outside to Asa. Asa looked over his leg said that nothing appeared broken so I took him back inside and set him down on the couch to watch TV. After 20 minutes or so I tried to stand him up to walk and his legs were all wobbly and he would instantly start crying. I decided I should take him to the emergency room. So 8 o'clock saturday night I take off to take him over to the hospital. Three and a half hours later, multiple x-rays later, I was informed that there were no broken bones and he more than likely tore some ligaments on his foot and basically sprained his ankle. They wanted him in a splint for 2-3 days and then let him slowly get used to putting weight back on his feet. So this is what he's looked like for the past few days, wobbling around the house! This morning I took it off and he appears to be walking normally and everything looks good! On a side note I would say as of right now he is 99% potty trained!! He goes without a diaper all day and will tell me each time he has to go pee and we've only had one accident in the last week! Yay!!

A Year Passed

It's amazing what a difference one year can make when you work hard! The thing that sticks out most to me in this picture is how big my arms look back then! I was just going through some pictures tonight and came across this so I thought I'd share!

I'm Back!

Okay I'm back and hopefully in action! I had a completely hellish week last week but now we are moving foward so now I have a tad bit more motivation to blog! In my absence Taylor learned how to sit! I worked with her hard for over a week because I'm neurotic and right when she turned six months and she wasn't sitting up and I know that with neurofibromatosis there can be developmental delays I went full force into wanting her to sit! I was constantly propping her help and slowly but surely a week later she got the hang of it which makes me happy! I am staying busy trying to keep up with my Project 365 for Taylor over at flickr! I'm trying to work on my photoshop skills so some of these pictures are edited not the greatest cuz I lose my patience after working on a photo for so long! The boys are doing good, I'm working on potty training Zachary right now. He went pee in the potty once yesterday and once today. I had him without a diaper for four hours this morning and finally he went pee in the potty! I knew he was holding it in so Asa and I are going to try to go full force in this potty training thing and hopefully he'll start to get the hang of it quickly! One less diaper to change would be nice! Taylor had her genetics tele medicine appt last week and while it went good the doctor didn't tell us much that we didn't already know from all the sites we've been to on the internet. He did take a look at quite a few of her spots and he said that we are going to need to come see him in person in a year over at OHSU and he wants to do a full exam and have one of his genetics opthamologist do a vision test on her then as well. And Asa and I are still discussing about the gene testing. I thought it was agreed upon that we would do it but now he is saying that he doesn't want to so him and I need to discuss that more in depth. So for now with Taylor we will just continue to do her monthly visits with the early intervention center and go from there!
Okay so I totally stole this idea from another photographer but it was so cute and I think it's absolutely adorable! Gotta love baby butts!

Taylor's first tattoo! She actually got one on each arm. She could care less about it as seen by her expression but Connor sure got a kick out of seeing her with a tattoo!

It's amazing what fixing my hair and putting on some makeup will do to my mood! I've been feeling all sluggish and in mommy mode so I decided to jazz it up a little!

My boys being super cute!

Gotta love the big cheeks! I love when I take her picture and her cheeks pop out like that! Zachary has those same cheeks and I remember when he was first learning how to eat real food I couldn't tell if he had food in his mouth or not cuz his cheeks were so big! Obviously I'll have that same problem with Taylor :-)

Because I'm Insane

Day 1 of 365, originally uploaded by amberdean.

Okay so I've been working myself up to this for about 7 months. But I've finally decided to participate in a group on Flickr It is called Project 365 Kids and you take a picture of your child daily for an entire year. While the task seems daunting to me it's something that I know I will love to look back on when it's over. So join me if you'd like! I'd love the comments to keep me motivated! To start the day off I wanted to use some of the boys body paint soap in the bath tub but it didn't work out the way I wanted it too so I settled for this instead!

Neuro-What!?

As some of you know and some of you don't know my life in this past month has been a mixture of ups and downs. I have been knocked down from my pedestal of thinking everything is fine and I have healthy children. By this I mean that we had Taylor's 4 month checkup about 6 weeks ago. Two days before her appt I was in the gym working out reading a Parent's magazine. There was an article about certain birthmarks on babies and what they mean. Well I came across these café-au-lait spots and realized that these look a lot like some that Taylor has on her back and on her chest. At the appt I talked with my doctor about it thinking that it wouldn't be a big deal but it turns out I'm wrong. These café-au-lait spots are a symptom of neurofibromatosis which Asa's uncle has. When we realized that Taylor is having symptoms of something that is in Asa's family I have started to worry constantly. I have been seeing the kids pediatrician for almost five years now and I have never once seen that concerned look on his face that he had that day. Right now we are busy reading all information that we can about this disease and getting appts set up for Taylor. Once a year she will have to go in and have her vision checked and this last Friday she had her first eye appt. Everything checked out good that day but the doctor also said that he wasn't necessarily expecting to see anything. He said that the Lisch nodules in the eye (extra pigment in the eye) that are associated with neurofibromatosis don't generally show up until a child is between 5-7 so while it was a little comforting to hear that so far she has no problems with her vision at her age but he wasn't expecting to see a problem. Then this past tuesday we had an appt with the early intervention center because people with NF1 tend to have developmental delays. At that appt we were informed that she is behind in certain areas that other children her age do. But there is no way to link these delays she's having to having NF1. They gave me a list of activites that I need to be doing with her to help strengthen her body. They say that she needs to build up her core muscles more and she tends to be a bit lazy and I need to work on more tummy time with her and getting her to put weight on her forearms which she hates doing! With this early intervention center they want to see Taylor once a month for a minimum of 1 hr till she is 3 years old! And today I got the long awaited phone call from the genetics dept at OHSU We are going to be set up with telemedicing through them meaning that Asa and I will go over to the local health dept and we will be able to communicate with the genetics doctor via web cam and talk with him about our concerns and where we should go with all this. I'm hoping that he will want to do some genetic testing because as of right now with NF1 there is no certain test that says yes this is what you have or no this isn't what you have but if she goes in for genetic testing and they find out that she does in fact have the gene for NF1 then it is a more likely scenario that she does in fact have NF1 so that appt is in about 3 weeks.
So there you have it, I'm still a little shell shocked that something could be wrong with my daughter, my little girl. And I find myself thinking about the future, her future. If she does have NF1 if she chooses to have kids she will have a 50% chance of passing this disease on and if she does in fact pass it on her children might not have a mild case like she seems to be having. While I know that I need to focus on the present and not so much about the future I can't help it when my minds wonders sometimes.

Video time

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately, I seem to be so freakin' busy nowadays! But I did manage to take a few pictures and videos this week since I know that's what you all want to see is more pictures/videos of my kids ;-) Next week I shall have a more interesting/sad/hopeful/nervous/a lot of emotions blog post because it's been something that I've wanted to talk about for quite some time but haven't but next week I shall so stay tuned.... On a side note here a few videos of Taylor and the first one she is totally Asa's child. All of my kids (including Asa!) have an obbession with hair and nobody's hair is as good as mommy's hair. While it constantly annoys me if the boys try and run their fingers through my hair with taylor she is just a baby and I love how excited she gets so it's okay for now! The second video is just her talking a little in the bathtub. I was hoping for more talk from her that's the most I got! Enjoy :-)

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

Zachary's Birthday Party!!

My little guy turned two on Saturday!! Where have the years gone!? We decided to do a party at the pool for him like we did last year and it was awesome! Everyone was there for over three hours playing in the water and eating good food! Got some awesome pictures and we actually bought an underwater disposable camera that I'm going to get developed this week and I will post those pics when I get them. So without further adieu pictures from the party

Zachary was not in the mood for anything when we first got to the pool, he was very clingy to me and wouldn't talk to anyone or even look at him. So during presents this was the best attempt at a smile I could get! After he ate some food though he was good to go and enjoyed himself!

He was doing good at opening the present not so good about sharing the presents with his brother later!

Connor and Daddy having fun in the pool

Connor was so happy that his best friend Makayla was able to come to his party and they had such a good time playing together that after three hours there both of them still didn't want to leave! In this picture I was trying to get the three kids to jump in the pool at the same time but Corbin decided to jump a little early so that is Corbin in the water right next to them!

Most of the family enjoying the water together!

Ready, Set, Catch!! My kids love to be thrown into the air!

Connor getting thrown by Gregg!

Connor being cute :-)

Zachary riding on mommy's shoulders

Zachary's new bike!! His feet are just a little bit too short for the pedals but hopefully soon!