Oh my how we've grown

as unbelievable as it seems, Katelyn is three now. she is changing and growing before my very eyes. I can't believe how fast it's all happening.



this is Katelyn when we brought her home from the hospital at 3 days old. She really did have black hair with frosted tips that stuck straight up, she had the cutest chunkiest cheeks and long fingers and toes. unfortunately she was not a fan of nursing, which didn't affect her fingers and toes but did cause her cheeks to thin out.



This is Katelyn around her first birthday. Everyday she looked more and more like a little person and less and less like a baby. Although amazingly she still had cute little rolls on her legs, a pop belly and a slightly chubby round face. It’s amazing because she is also the skinniest little one-year-old I had ever seen. She didn't like eating much. Well she liked grapes and pears and cheerios but surprisingly she didn't gain much weight on that diet. Weird, I know. I did feed her more then that, she would just play with it, eat a little and then throw the rest on the floor. Lots of fun for everyone. She was so fun and loved to discover new things. She has such a great personality.



This is what she looked like the week she turned two, the month of her birthday we noticed a difference in her demeanor. “No” became her all time favorite word, (well if you don’t count “yellow bus” she loved saying “yellow bus”) and she couldn't just say it, she had to shout and scream it at the top of her lungs. Mostly she became a little grumpier in general. She still had her sweet moments though. She discovered Dallin in the car. For some reason I don’t think she ever noticed that he was there until this time, and she loved to make him laugh. She would pull funny faces and make funny sounds until they were both hysterical.



and this is Katelyn now. she loves to run, laugh and play around the house with Dallin. she is generally very polite and sweet. she loves movies, especially princess movies... really anything princessy. She enjoys coloring, painting, cooking, reading, singing and playing with her babies. overall she is a wonderful little girl.

You're how far along?

Apparently I don't get very big with my pregnancies... although you would have to convince my legs, back, and expanding sides of that. just this week 4 different people on 4 different occasions have expressed their surprise that I am due in a week, yes one week. Dallin's pediatrician was concerned about some things she heard while listening to his heart and wanted to set up a follow up appointment in a few week to check it out, so I informed her that I was due in a week and asked if I could do it at one of the new baby appointments, she looked at me in shock and said she didn't think I was more then 6 months along. and then at the grocery store the check out lady had to ask if I was pregnant because she didn't want to offend me if I wasn't, generally at 9 months people don't have to wonder about that anymore. You get the picture.

don't get me wrong, I am grateful that it only takes a bit more effort to bend over and clean the countless messes a three and one and a half year old can make, and that I'm only mostly out of breath lugging these two up and down three flights of stairs multiple times a day, I just hope that after I have this baby, who has not been named, that these people wont still be wondering if I'm 6 months pregnant.

stack-um-up

many people wonder what we are going to do about strollers, car seats and other transportation when the baby comes. This is us at our last hurrah at Busch Gardens before Katelyn turned three. and as you can see our philosophy has become stack-um-up. It has worked with the stroller and miraculously Cameron has found a way to make it work with the car seats in the back of my car... so no van... for the time being.

Labor Fears

I have spent several nights awake thinking about how I could plead my case for being induced with this baby. you see I've been induced with each baby, Katelyn because I was on heparin, a blood thinner (I had to give myself shots in the stomach twice a day for the entire pregnancy plus 6 weeks after... fun times) and Dallin because my labor was so fast with Katelyn... 4 hours from the time they started the Pitocin to when she was born. my labor with Dallin was 3 hours so now that we live 40ish minutes from the hospital I thought I had a good case. so at my appointment on Friday, I had the script planned out, the fast labor and long distance, unfortunately I'm still only dilated to 1.5 cm and so my doctor just reassured me that I would be fine and to just come in as soon as the contractions became at all regular.
as I was driving home replaying our conversation, wondering what went wrong I remembered that I had forgot to mention that Cameron's current rotation is a hour away so I would have to drive myself to the hospital, while in labor and that I had two kids I needed to get down 3 flights of stairs and then drop off at some one's house before I could come into the hospital... perhaps I will have to mention this at my next visit... that is of course if I don't go into labor before then...

so basically it looks like I will have to be like every other woman and wait for my body to decide to go into labor on it's own.

Glasses

Cameron informed me the other day that medical students don't wear shorts, a little surprising coming from a guy who owns more shorts then i do clothes... but medical students do wear glasses. and so do their kids apparently. Katelyn and Dallin thought it was so cool trying on Daddy's glasses.. once they started fighting over who got the wear them and trying to run off with them we decided to pull out some glasses of their own... a smart move.

and in case you were wondering, Cameron doesn't have very bad eyesight but the glasses do help as he sits at stares at the computer screen trying to infiltrate his mind with knowledge that will hopefully help him do well on his tests.

also, if you were dying to ask but too shy, no he hasn't decided what kind of doctor he would like to be yet... he still has a bit over a year before he has to commit to anything.... I'm voting for something that makes enough money to pay off this crazy dept we have acquired and something where we can hang out with him every once in a while... perhaps ophthalmology?

September update

We like our new place, since moving here our kids have forgotten how to walk, they run constantly, if they aren’t running they are dancing, jumping and “falling,” activities which have not gone unnoticed by those who live underneath us. I have tried to keep it under control but it’s impossible to reason with a one and a half year old and slightly less impossible to reason with an excited three year old.





We are getting use to the “neighborhood.” Everyone in our building seems to be nice. We did have a run in with some kids at the playground though, a brother and sister who looked to be ages 3 and 6 decided to pick on us, swearing, calling us names and throwing mulch at our car. Thankfully we have only run into them once and we haven’t had any encounter with their parents. There is a little black girl who lives downstairs who is fascinated by Katelyn, she loves her hair especially. The other day she somehow managed to get a firm grip on her ponytail and while her older brother and I tried to wrestle Katelyn free, he was surprised at how soft her hair was. I’m sure he hasn’t had much contact with white people based on the dynamics of our apartment complex.

I spend my “spare” time trying to finish all the millions of projects started since becoming a mother…. Yeah, that means three years of projects….all to be finished before the baby arrives in two weeks. Currently I am making family home evening lessons, file folder games, and other quite activities for those times when kids are kids and don’t realize that everyone else is sitting quietly. My scrap booking buddy has moved to Texas so that has been put on hold for the time being. In its place I have started blogging. I find myself wondering about some of my parenting choices, like the time I decided to let Katelyn and Dallin use stamps with non-washable ink, or when I try to do any of my various projects while the kids are watching a movie hoping they won’t notice, or the times I have let Dallin run around diaperless after taking a bath... when will I learn?

Cameron has just begun his psychiatry rotation. He has finished OBGYN, ER, and Surgery…which means that so far he has delivered a couple babies, drained a handful of juicy abscesses, and stapled up a lot of incisions this year. What will he be able to add to his list in the next couple months? School takes up most of his day but he still finds time to play with the kids when he is home.





Katelyn turned three last Sunday and is the funniest girl we know. She loves anything remotely related to princesses and refuses to wear anything but dresses. She is getting more imaginative and has very dramatic scenes with her dolls, animals, beads, or anything that she can move around, even our TV connector cord… which unfortunately didn’t survive the experience. She gets very upset when one of her characters is calling for their mommy and I happen to respond. She loves to cook and insists on being involved in any cooking activity happening in the house. Grandma wisely chose a cooking kit as a birthday gift and she gleefully uses it to help mommy in the kitchen.

Dallin is just about the happiest little guy we know. He loves doing anything Katelyn is doing, including dressing up in her new princess clothes and putting on her purple princess high heals… he looks adorable but we should probably invest in some boy dress up clothes so he doesn’t develop a complex. He loves Elmo. He runs around the house saying “Elmo, watch” and in case he thought you didn’t hear him the first time he repeats it over and over getting louder and louder until you say, “Dallin, would you like to watch an Elmo Movie?” at which point he grins up at you with a huge cheeser smile. That’s how he says yes, he hasn’t actually said yes, ever, he just grins. However, he has perfected the word NO. He likes to play hide and seek and he is good, he doesn’t make a peep and he waits patiently until he is discovered which can take a while. So far we haven’t had fear of him hiding anyplace other then the apartment because our door doesn’t stay shut unless it’s locked and there are three flights of stairs that deter him. Last Sunday Dallin went to nursery for the first time. He loved playing with the toys. He was a little bit in shock being around so many other kids who wanted to play with all the toys as well. So far Dallin is the cleaner of the family. Katelyn makes the mess and Dallin cleans it up….ok Dallin loves to make really big messes but he will help clean up unlike certain princesses who think they are too good for cleaning.



As a family we are looking for a van…or three really skinny car seats…Cameron is leaning towards the skinny car seats idea. I am looking for one of those really nice vans with entertainment systems for the kids, automatic door openers and closers, lots of cargo space for strollers, good safety rankings, sound barrier glass, shiatsu massage seats, deodorizing air conditioning, decomposing food under the seats alarm system, conveniently located hand sanitizer dispensers, trash compactor, GPS system…or at least cardinal directions… ok something that has left and right written out, and Katelyn would like it all to be pink. Dallin would like blue but that’s ok because we think that just means a color in general. Unfortunately, due to the lack of pink vans out there, we are probably going to just buy something to cut the sides of the car seats down a bit. We can't afford a van right now so the skinny car seats is looking like the way we will go, or I guess I could just leave one of the children home whenever I want to go out during the day... so many options...

I'm Three!

Katelyn has finally admitted that she is now three, I think part of the problem was "I'm two" was her answer to every question, "What is your name?", "I'm two" (as she holds up her thumb and index finger) How are you doing? "I'm two" you get the picture... then she went into the "I'm almost three stage" where that became a sure answer to every question. now she proudly admits her age.

For a whole year up until a few weeks ago, Katelyn has wanted a pink pony birthday. she wanted Cameron to have a blue pony birthday and when that didn't pan out like she thought it should she decided she would rather have a princess birthday party, which of course translates to mean, any sort of party with a princess cake. So that's what we did. we invited a few friends and their families to come to a near by park and play in the water and have a picnic/BBQ with birthday cake. Katelyn was in heaven!

This party was voted "the best birthday party ever" by one of Katelyn's older friends... what a compliment.

Dallin decided he would rather eat mulch then play in the water with the other kids... so he sat there watching me to see if I was watching him... I think he was tired... I mean it was only a few hours past his nap time... Katelyn has fun with her friends filling up cups, buckets and other things with water then dumping them out.

Katelyn was thrilled when we found a cake with 4 princesses on it, she couldn't decide which princess she liked the best so this was perfect. The boys insisted on having a blue piece of cake. Katelyn was excited to open her presents, I think it was an unexpected surprise for her.

I found this house at Target months ago for a super good deal, I wanted to put it together to make sure all the parts were there and then hide it for her birthday so I waited until nap time, unfortunately her nap was unexpectedly short so she saw it as I was taking it down, I quickly hid it away and hoped she would forget all about it by the time her birthday rolled around, well earlier this week she asked me about it, "mommy, I want to play in that pink house. You a-member that pink house?" this girl has quite the memory. Thankfully she was still thrilled when she opened this gift and even more excited when she got to help mommy set it up.

Grandma Louise and Grandpa Bill came up later that afternoon to give us some of their old furniture (thank you!) and they had a few gifts for Katelyn, she got some dress up shoes and clothes, which she and Dallin have loved tromping around the house in, and she got a jewelry making kit, perfect for her age, and a cooking kit, she LOVES to cook with anyone who will let her. so of course not long after grandma and grandpa left she insisted we make something, so we both put on our aprons and got to work. It was Great!

The Chase

my kids were on the verge of being put up for adoption this morning, we went to the library for story time and to get some new movies... I wish I could say they just got book but the truth is they never want to check out books, just movies. and while I was in line waiting to check out they started running around inching closer to the doors that would lead them outside. They do this thing where they chase each other, Dallin thinks it's all fun and games, Katelyn knows better but gets caught up in the moment and loses all self control. so they run outside and of course into the street, at this point I am chasing them... yes two weeks before my due date. I catch Dallin and run with him in my arms after Katelyn who is loving it. I am not at all pleased so I tell her she can't check out the princess movie she had wanted to check out.. a huge disappointment because for the past 3 weeks there hasn't been a princess movie to speak of and today she finally found one... she is crushed, Dallin doesn't get his Elmo movie either but he doesn't seem too bothered, Katelyn was so mad at me I thought she just might hate me forever, it was tempting to have her calm down and then give in and get the movie but I hate it when she makes me chase her, it doesn't happen much, three times since we moved, but it makes me so upset, probably because I am huge and she was suppose to go through this stage at Dallin's age and somehow is a late bloomer in this category. unfortunately she is much faster then she was a year and a half ago.

Hands

Dallin has decided he likes holding Katelyn's hand when we go anywhere... Katelyn isn't always so keen on the idea but she puts up with it mostly. At times she tries to walk fast to get away from him and he chase after her saying "hans hans hans" until she has pity on him and grabs his hand.

They are walking to a park near our house that has a fun water play area.

Katleyn is gently guiding Dallin back to where he is suppose to be playing.

Our new Hangout

We are celebrating the one week anniversary of moving into our new apartment. We love it here! It's in a great location, close to lots of parks, beaches and shopping and a 10 to 15 minute drive along the beach to the hospital Cameron hangs out at. Our apartment is beautiful. We have thee bedrooms, 2 bathrooms a laundry room a hallway and a walk in closet yippee! We live on the third floor, a built in exercise program… right? Thankfully we had lots of people come and help us haul our things up 3 flights of stairs. Thank you!

The kids love it here. They run everywhere chasing each other around the house, copying each other as they "fall" in the kitchen and riding Katelyn's bike together up and down the hallway. They love having all this space. I'm sure our down stairs neighbors love it too...



Our apartment is brand new, which surprisingly has a few disadvantages... our fridge which is also brand new isn't working properly so all the food went bad 3 days after restocking it. Not to worry though, our freezer mostly works so we have a ready supply of frozen chicken, vegetables and slightly melted ice cream.

we are also having some issues with our washing machine apparently there is a hole where you are suppose to put a drain pipe thing down so all the water used during the wash doesn't end up on the floor. well the hole has a plastic cover on it that needs to be removed, they keep telling us it just needs to be popped off but for some reason no one has been able to figure out how that is done exactly. so last night as we were getting the kids ready for bed Cameron came up with this great idea of letting the water drain into this tall kitchen trash can we aren't using anymore and then dumping into the bath tub when it fills up. so he placed the hose into the trash can and started the wash. as we were reading books I heard the spin cycle start and told Cameron... poor guy was basically asleep as he was trying to read a book to Dallin. He got up to check how things where going and found the hose whipping around the laundry room spraying water everywhere. apparently there is too much water pressure to just lay the hose in the trash can. so after securing the hose and using all of our dirty clothes and clean towels to soak up the mess his system worked out quite nicely. Hopefully we wont have to do this every time we do laundry though.


We love our apartment and can't believe how blessed we are to finally be here.

Sharing

We told the kids they could have some ice cream after dinner as long as they finished eating their food... naturally after they heard ice cream all thoughts of finishing their food was out the window. Katelyn who has become much more reasonable as she approaches 3 decided that we were serious and she finished eating her food and as a reward got ice cream, Dallin on the other hand needed "i-heam" and was very upset when instead of giving him some we kept indicating to the food on his plate and telling him to eat that first.

Katelyn hates seeing Dallin upset so she decided to share her ice cream with him. Dallin of course willing accepted the offer. generally Katelyn's idea of sharing is Dallin giving her whatever it is he has that she wants.. so the fact that she was truly sharing, (and ice cream no less) was very sweet.

we were still in the unpacking stage, which generally involves a lot of mess before it becomes clean, hence the disaster in the background.

We're in...

We just got a message last night from the apartment complex we have been trying to get into the past 3 months and they said everything has been approved and we can come sign contracts and pick up our key today.... yippee. Many of you don't know but it has been drama for the past few months. Back in June we decided with a new baby coming we needed to get a three bedroom, It was mostly me insisting, Cameron thought we would be fine with 3 kids in our 2 bedroom apartment but now that Katelyn’s been sleeping on the floor in our room for 4 months because she and Dallin can’t seem to sleep in the same room without waking each other up I think he's changes his mind.
We were hoping to stay in our current area but Cameron is spending most of his time now in a hospital down town, 30 minutes away so we decided to look into that area too. We found a nice area with cheep apartments that looked great so we thought sure, why not? When we went in to see if they had any 3 bedroom apartments available she said no they were a brand new apartment complex built September 2006 and their leases wouldn't be up until October or so... but if you qualify for section 8 housing we do have that available... well being in medical school with no income, it just so happened that we did. She said the application process was kind of involved and would take up to a month to move in. That was fine because our contract with our current apartment wouldn't expire until the end of July. The next time we came in with all of our paper work we were sent to work with Al. That's where the problems started. He told us it would take about 2 weeks before we would be able to move in, and that we didn't need this paper or that paper... we believed him and a few days later we got a call saying we needed this paper or that paper and we couldn't fax them they had to be hand delivered. It was one thing after another, our student loan information wasn't complete enough... They needed to verify that we didn't owe money to anyone… It seemed we were constantly waiting for "the Housing office" for approval. It was awful! The worse part was they weren’t in their office when they said they would be, they didn't answer their phone and they don't return phone calls when we left a message. In the beginning of July we were told to turn in our 30 day notice, perfect because we only had about 30 days left before our contract expired. More miscommunication and waiting ensued and 10 days before we were to move we got a call saying they didn't have any section 8 housing available but we could move into their regular housing or we could wait until something became available around September 10th and to call back in a month to get the application going, oh and by the way our application would expire after 90 days which was September 2, if it expires before we get in we will have to reapply.
We scrambled to work out arrangements so we could stay here until that time, extended our contract paid $100 more than what we were paying for rent and waited. Two weeks later I decided to call and just see how things were going. It turns out they do have section 8 housing available and all they need to do it the final verification of if we owe money to our current apartment complex and go ahead and turn in your 30 day notice. So we did… again. Why they didn’t call as soon as apartments became available is yet to be discovered.
as September 2nd approached and we still heard nothing, every time I called I was told we were waiting to hear back from the housing office and no I couldn’t contact them myself I started worrying that things wouldn’t actually work out and we found out someone was already lined up to move into our current apartment and come Sept 10th we would be homeless. In one of my desperate calls a week ago I was told we were to be scheduled for an appointment with the government housing department and they would contact me on Monday to let me know when my appointment was, of course I stayed home all day Monday waiting for this elusive call, when Cameron called during his afternoon break I asked him to call the apartment complex and find out what was going on. He called back saying I need to drive to the apartment complex and pick up a paper that would get us in to talk to the housing department. So I went, Al wasn’t there and the lady who was seemed to be so much more knowledgeable.
we went to talk to the Housing Authority on Wednesday, we were a bit concerned when she asked us about our income and we explained we were living on student loans and a scholarship, she stated bluntly, "we Can't count either of those as an income.... so basically you have no income" which is true but I was worried that it would keep us from qualifying for assistance.. Which really doesn't make sense if you think about it. why would you not give help to someone because they are worse off then the normal people you give help to... anyways after Cameron showed her the student loan information and she reviewed our bank statements she decided we were capable of paying our bills and we would be OK... thank goodness! so we had a few minor things to do and then we would be set to move in the next weekend. And we just had to wait for the final verification which thankfully came last night… sooner actually then I expected or feared. So now I get to go sign contracts and pick up the keys… we are so thankful this whole thing is working out, as fun as it would be to be homeless with 2 kids, 8ish months pregnant I think I’ll pass.

The Aquarium

We just came home form the Aquarium. During the month of September our Zoo passes get us into the Aquarium and MOSI (museum of science and industry) Last night we decided it would be fun to go to the Aquarium. We spent as much of the morning as we could, packing and cleaning, but that didn't last too long before Katelyn started being our personal reminders. "humm, Shall we go a aquium?" "I had an idea, maybe we a go a aquium." it didn't take long before her "gental suggestions" became rather insistent. so we encouraged her to clean her toys so we could go faster... it worked... mostly.








The kids loved the Aquarium, they ran from one fish tank to the next until it was time to go outside and play in the water area. Then They had a blast running in the fountains, pushing their way through to go down the slide and getting soaked.






the reason we have more pictures of Dallin then Katelyn is not because we like Dallin more, it's simply because Katelyn is very difficult to get a picture of these days, when she notices me pulling out the camera she turns and runs if she decides she is in the mood for a picture she looks at the Camera for a millisecond and then she tries to see the picture we are in the process of taking. not super conducive to good photography.