Johnny'sThree Year Portraits

My baby is just 4 days away from being three years old. It has been the best three years of my life!

Every day he amazes me more and more!

Even while sitting in the smoking lounge

And giving out meaningful advice on what kind of juice is best

This year his favorite toy are his hot wheels and their case. He can play with them for hours on end!



As a special treat Lily wanted to show her brother how excited she is about his birthday! Mommy and her friend Jennie made this dress.

And a tie for the birthday boy to match.


They touch my heart by loving each other as much as they do.

This picture is my favorite picture that ever was taken, it made me cry.

She Pulled Herself Up!!

She has been trying for weeks! Getting one leg and then the knee stuck and falling over! But she did it!


She was so excited, and let our triumph yells and giggles!

Nine Months

As usual I have no idea how this milestone stuck up on me! My tinnie tiny baby who could barely life her own head is now crawling all over the place and trying to pull herself on everything in sight! Nine months have flown by in the blink of an eye!


Lily Bean remains the Happiest Baby EVER! She gets winny when she doesn't feel good, but she always has a smile for anyone who looks in her general direction. One evening we where on a trip through the craft store and every person who we walked by stopped and commented to her and made her giggle!

She is at a wonderful playful stage, and cannot be contained. She gets around by scooting, low crawling and hand and knees crawling. Nothing gets in her way and she spends her day following Johnny or Mommy around the downstairs.

She hasn't managed to pull all the way up on her feet, but she does regularly get up on one foot and one knee and then rocks in place as she tries to get that other foot out from under her. Last week she was trying to hard to get up that she fell right into the table and bit her lip with her two tiny teeth. Poor baby looked like she was in a fight. But she healed quickly and is not afraid to keep trying!
She is pretty stable when we put her holding onto the table, she likes it better standing.

Along with her two little teeth on the bottom front, her hair has been sprouting out! Still a medium blond that looks red in certain light and is so fine and soft! I can't wait to put it in pig tails!
Oh so happy! I just love that face! She has my father's eyes! Those smile lines that make your eyes so big and happy!!! She also has her father's checks! Those chipmuck checks, that constantly look like she is smuggling acorns!


Lily is babbling more and has a solid "Dadada" though a "mamamama" comes out some times too.
I love this picture because you can see her mouse cons and her "L" bow, not to mention she is giving a hint at her abilities. She goes from crawling to sitting to turning herself around and anything your mind can imagine to get herself into trouble. She loves chasing the broom, no matter where I store it, and she loves crawling down the hallway just to have me chase her. When she hears me coming she throws her legs and arms around like she is swimming and giggles hysterically!

The more I write about my little Cupcake the more I smile. She is such a joy and we can't imagine life without her! Though we have tons of memories from before she was born, my entire life seems like both of these kids are at every event! I can't picture anything without them in it!


She started proteins recently, eggs! And she loves them, she is eating a lot more solid foods and mostly less formula and mushes, just whatever we are eating gets cut up smaller and put in front of her. She has three bottles a day and one a night, but she never finishes them and prefers solids. She has also started juie, heavily watered down, and using a sippy cup. Though the one we use is shaped a lot like a bottle, she just loves to chew on the top.

I just love her!

Finally a Family Day in DC

It has been a rough few months, with illness after illness, we have been canceling play dates and outings every time some one comes up with a fever. Finally on Saturday no one had a fever so we headed off to DC.

We didn't tell Johnny we where headed to the Smithsonian to see dinosaurs, we told him it was a Mystery Ride on the train. That made the train ride itself an exciting event. Every time we stopped he would ask why and get excited whenever we went into a tunnel!

Lily handed it just fine, no fussing or yelling, though it wasn't as entertaining for her.

Once we walked toward the building Johnny remembered where we were and got really excited! I regret that we waited so long to bring him back. Here he is teaching Daddy about the Triceratops.

Again Lily Bean was just a great little girl, hanging out in her stroller and smiling at everyone who passed her! Here she is faking a smile for the Momma with the camera.
It was like Johnny had been coming to the museum everyday! He wanted to climb the stairs just so he could see EVERYTHING at once!

Moving on from the dinosaurs, we headed into the Ocean Hall. Real tropical fish could have kept his attention for hours.

There she is, she is eventually released from the stroller, but not yet.

Johnny started to get a little tired, so he was given the keys to the Daddymobile (hehehe) He would point to where he wanted to go and then tell Daddy when to stop. I am not surprised that he went right for the giant tortoise shell. It also didn't take long for him to start asking "What's that?" and telling us when he knew what something was!

This was a great surprise that Mommy loved! Seven cases of crocheted sea coral! Over 4000 pieces all donated by crafty people from all over the nation! It was breath taking and very beautiful!

They even had one woman who had done some of the work there with pieces for the kids to touch.

Johnny was excited too!
It was in the Hall of Mammals that Johnny discovered the information boards and the buttons that made the noises that the animals made, he was amazed and ran to each one.

Yes it looks like he is learning about our history and cave paintings, but really he was playing shadow animals with some other kids :) he does a great shadow duck...qwak qwak. That is my creative boy!

Johnny is having some stomach problems again, so after these things, he started to get really tired and ask about going home, so we thought it was time for his first IMAX....3D Dinosaurs! Daddy went in with him, while Lily took a nap with Mommy. Daddy says that Johnny talked through all of it, explaining what was going on. He got a little scared when the dinosaurs attached, but it was 3D who can blame him!

I had Lily wrapped to me while she slept so we went to see the National Collection of Gems. I love seeing the many different gem stones in all the different states. Here is the Hope Diamond. It is in a new setting since the last time I saw it, and I like the old one better, when there where diamonds in a circle around it. But it is still very beautiful!

Lily woke up and finally got a chance to see a few things herself. Shee was very interested by the amethyst, right at her level! But mostly she was nearly part of the display, since while she was sitting there everyone stopped and ooooed and awwwed at how adorable she was!

While the boys saw their movie, Mommy got a special souvenir for Johnny. His very own fossil! A Trilobite, more then 520 million years old.

He was excited, though he can't really understand this yet he knew it was a dinosaur. He really is a very appreciative kid, even gets excited for new cloths! For now it goes on his dresser and one day it will be the greatest gift ever.

He stayed as long as we could, then got back on the train to head home. Some how Lily lost 3 binkies in the museum and train station, so she had to chew on her sippy cup on the way home. It was all less dramatic then I expected.

All in all another great day with our wonderful little family. Knock on wood everyone stays fever free!!

Vesicoureteral Reflux

Lily Bean has fully recovered from her urinary track infection, but it is not normal for a 7 month old baby to have a UTI. Her provider at KIRK thought we needed to do some tests to make sure there wasn't a reason for the infection, so she put in for a renal ultrasound and a VCUG (voiding cystourethrogram.) It was very scary taking my tiny baby to have invasive tests and the thought that something could be wrong with her was a little over whelming. As we walked through the hospital every person who saw her smiled at her and stopped to talk to her tell me how beautiful she was. She was such a big girl!

We did the ultrasound first, but the technician couldn't tell me anything about what it looked like. I took that as a good sign, if her kidneys looked bad wouldn't the tech freak out and get a doctor? The VCUG was the test we where scared of, she would need to be catheterized and have some contrasting liquid put into her bladder and then have X-rays taken as the liquid flows through her bladder and the tubes that connect everything. It went as smoothly as it could have, she cried a while, then fell asleep, then fussed a while.

The big news came when the technician saw something on her pictures and got a doctor. After he looked at them and took a few more he came back to tell me Lily had reflux. It took me back a minute, reflux? she stopped spitting up months ago. But that was just me breathing out after the stress of the tests.
Lily has grade 0 vesicoureteral reflux on one side. Basically a small amount of urine is flowing back up the tube from her bladder to her kidneys. It is not happening all the time or when she pees, but every once in a while and low pressure, so it is not flowing hard or far, but some urine is refluxing. If we don't treat this, or had not caught it she could keep getting infections and/or cause damage to her kidneys. The good news is, now we can go see a urologist and she will most likely out grow the problem when her urethra grows and fixes whatever defect she has, which she was born with. The most common way to treat this is to give her a low level of antibiotics every day and do another VCUG until the reflux problem is gone. Giving her antibiotics everyday comes along with it's own set or risks for Lily Bean, but constant UTIs can cause permanent kidney damage, and well she can't live without those.

So this is where we stand. Monday we will get the official report from the hospital and get our referral for the urologist to set up Lily's treatment plan and get more information. I am trying to gather information on our own, on her new situation, and start the praying for this to be simple and not cause any further problems for my precious little Lily Bean.

Interestingly when I was a toddler I had similar problems. My mother said I was always damp, leaking even I didn't need to pee. This is a congenital defect (more common in red heads for some strange reason) giving siblings a 37% to also have it. I had an outpatient procedure done when I was 3 and I never had any problems outside of that. So smooth I don't even remember the problem, except that I got a candy bar after the procedure.

Hey there big brother! Just got this cute picture of Johnny today and wanted to share it.