Christmas

One of my memories from my childhood is going to look at lights. It usually happened when we went to visit my grandparents out in Iowa. Everyone would pile into one car and we would drive around the small town of Boone Iowa looking at all the lights. There were some nice houses but after awhile it got too warm and our little drive got too long and I would become bored and ready to go back to Grandma and Grandpa's house. I have thought about taking drives with Davy to go look at lights, but in the previous years he hasn't been all that interested.

This year however things are changing. Wednesday night we went over to visit my parents, they were setting up their tree and wanted us to come over to help. After helping and then socializing for a bit we got ready to go home. Nana took Davy outside and walked down the sidewalk with him a bit to look at the neighbor's lights, Nana hasn't had a chance to get her lights up yet. Once we got everyone in the car and took off all Davy could talk about was the lights and the colors and how it was all "so pretty". So I decided to drive us around a bit before going home. We drove through my parent's subdivision and there were some pretty houses. Then I started on home. Davy was happy as long as there were lights to look at, but as we drove through town the houses got sparse and the businesses became more frequent. He was a bit upset by this by the time we got to our street. So I decided to explore our neighborhood a bit before going home. I drove down a few streets and then down one I saw a house that was flashing and bright. So I drove down the street and discovered it was a house with dancing lights. Dancing lights (as I like to call them) is where the homeowner has set up the lights on their house to flash or dance to songs. They usually have everything set to broadcast the songs to a radio station, so you pull up in front of their house, tune your radio to the station they have posted in their front yard and then watch the lights dance to the music. I don't remember how long we sat and watched and listened but Davy LOVED it! I foresee more light viewing drives in our future.

On Thursday we set up the tree. Davy helped us to decorate it, and now keeps trying to take ornaments off the tree. We have tried to erect a barrier around the tree, but it doesn't deter him much. He is excited by it all though. I have made a few paper ornaments this year, which are currently on the tree but may end up hanging from the ceiling. We will see.

Talking, reading, and cuteness

Lately Davy has begun to talk more and more and in complete sentences. The other day he walked up to Kevin and said, "Daddy, I want to watch Dinosaur Train." (his new favorite show) And just Monday we were in the car and Evangeline started to fuss and Davy reached over, took her hand and said, "Evangeline, what's wrong?" So cute!

Davy is also reading a lot now. Lately he will read me the books he chooses for our bedtime story, and I know he is reading and not reciting memorized words because he will come to a word he has a problem with and look to me for help with it. He now knows how to read over 100 words, knows his colors, shapes, can write his uppercase letters and lowercase letters and is now writing some of the words he knows. For example he will draw a sun and then write the word SUN. He can draw most of his shapes, he still has problems with stars and octagons and such, but he can draw squares, rectangles, ovals, hearts, and diamonds. We have been working with him on drawing "The Star of David" as an alternate to the 5 pointed star. Kind of ironic since it has been the first star he has been able draw.

The kids have been playing really well together lately. Evangeline has been getting around by butt scooting everywhere. And Davy seems to like the fact that she is much more mobile and can now play with him. He likes to share, and sometimes not share, his toys with her. She has her four front teeth all coming in right now. Only two have really broken through, one on the top and one on the bottom, but they are all pushing their way out. She has been saying Mama, Mom, Dada a lot lately. It is super cute. These past two weeks everyone has had a cold, but we are now almost all over it.

Eva Update

Evangeline has now had about 3 to 4 weeks of physical therapy and one week of developmental therapy. The physical therapist has been working with her on crawling, crossing mid-line, and her head tilt. We have been working with her on all of her exercises, mostly the kneeling exercise she is to be doing to help her crawl. But we have also been working with crossing mid-line. We need to do more work with some of her relaxing exercises. What we have found is that Eva tends to hold herself rather stiff, she likes to tense up whenever she is upset or frustrated. So we have been working with her on relaxing. Kevin has been a huge help with everything and gets a good amount of her therapy done while he is taking care of the kids in the morning. Eva is getting closer and closer to crawling and has finally gotten past sleeping with a swaddler. We are seeing progress!!

Torticollis and MRI

Evangeline has Torticollis, which is basically a head tilt. We can't really tell how long she has had it because it is rather slight and because of this we didn't notice it right away. My mom was the one who noticed it first. After she suggested that we bring it up to the doctor we scheduled an appointment with him and he told us to take her to a physical therapist. The physical therapist got us set up with a group that will send physical therapists, developmental therapists, and occupational therapists to our house to do therapy with her. They came by yesterday and did an evaluation of Evangeline. They are going to work with her on her torticollis, as well as on crawling, standing, cruising, and walking. They are also going to work with her on helping her sleep through the night. Yay!!

Last Thursday I took Evangeline in for her 9 month check up, the doctor decided that there was a small chance like 1% chance that the torticollis might be caused from some neurological issue, so he ordered a MRI for her. We took her in for that today. She was put under for the MRI so we were a good bit concerned for her. But as we don't like to chance things (seeing that it was a 10% chance that Kevin would get cancer again when he got it the second time) we decided it was better to check than to leave things to chance. We got the results back already and everything came back completely normal. I feel much better about that. Now we know that we just have to do her neck exercises with her and everything will be ok. Stressful week, but everything has turned out good so far.

Love

Davy loves baby Evangeline, and baby Evangeline loves Davy. How do I know? The little giggles when they see each other, the way she reaches out to him and smiles at him. The way he smiles at her and tries to feed her. The fact that he shares his toys with her. The fact that a toddler and a 7 month old baby seem to have inside jokes! What is up with that!? Seriously I am going to have to be careful with them, they are both very bright little kids and they have already started ganging up against me on things. One of them will do something sort of naughty and when I get after them they will look at each other and laugh. They are fun. And it is fun to see our children love each other as siblings. It is awesome to watch a child who is just barely talking and a baby who doesn't talk at all "get" each other so well. Children are awesome!

Potty!

On July 27th, last Saturday, Davy used the potty for the first time. He pooped in it! I know putting bodily functions on an online blog seems strange but we were thrilled! We cheered for him and clapped and made a big deal about it. And this morning after waking up with a dry diaper Davy peed in the potty as well! We are so proud of him and though I don't look forward to the stress of potty training, I do look forward to this next step in toddler-hood. Hurray for Davy!!

Sight words

Davy has started to learn his sight words we have been going over them with him for a while now. When I say that he's been learning his sight words I mean he's been learning to read them. He already has quite a few words down that he can read now such as cat, yellow, dog, milk. Sight words are words that you can't use phonics to sound out. Davy uses phonics for quite a few of the words that he reads but he has been learning to read his sight words as well. It has been a lot of fun lately to watch him learn, he has also started to try to write some of the words that he knows how to read. He really is an amazing little boy!

Tree

Yesterday at church we pulled out one of the books we bring to keep Davy busy, it is an 100 words book, and some of the things it covers is fruits and veggies. So Davy was looking through the book and trying to read some of the words. He got to the fruits and vegetables page and saw the broccoli and said, "Tree" Kevin, who was watching him, pointed at the broccoli and said, "broccoli" then he sounded out the word for Davy while running his finger beneath the word. Davy looked at the word, looked at the picture then ran his finger under the word and said, "Tree." Yep I am pretty sure I know what broccoli will be referred to for some time now. Davy is doing better and better at reading. He sounds out words and has been learning a lot. He really seems to like the fact that he can learn a word by sounding it out. He is such a fun little boy!

Reading

Lately we have been having Davy watch shows that teach reading as well as play with games on the tablet that also teach reading. He already knows all his letters and their sounds and can write pretty much all of them now. So today he was carrying around some of his letter flashcards and was saying the sound and the letters and I decided to see if he knew any small words. So I went and got his magnadoodle and wrote "BAT" and said, "What does that say?" And Davy looked at it, ran his finger under it and said, "Bat". Then I wrote CAT and he knew that, I tried him on DOG, HAT, SUN, and he knew all of them. I called Kevin in and told him about it and showed him Davy reading. Kevin got excited about it and pulled out Davy's Matchbox cars and began writing colors on the magnadoodle. Black Car, White Car, Orange Car, Red Car, Blue Car. Turns out Davy knows them all. So not only does he know how to read by sounding out words but he also knows words by sight. We made flashcards quite awhile ago with different colors and their names on them. This is where he learned those words from. Smart little boy! I can't wait to see what he learns next. I do find it awesome that at 2 years and 3 months old Davy has shown us that he has learned to read.

Tickle Tickle

The other day I was tickling Davy with my ponytail and was saying, "Tickle, tickle, tickle." Davy was giggling and giggling and then he looked up at me and said, "Tickle tickle little star?" It was so cute! Lately he has been saying more and more of songs that he likes. And very often he will talk along with shows that he likes and has watched multiple times. It is a lot of fun to watch him pick up more and more words.

I also discovered recently that Evangeline is super ticklish and that I can get her squealing and giggling pretty easily because of it. It has been a lot of fun tickling her and getting to know her sweet little personality. She and Davy get along pretty well. She loves to watch him and he likes to pet her and try to give her things.They are cute to watch together.

Visitors

Recently we had visitors! Kevin's sister Kathi and her family came out and visited us for their Spring Break. Even though it was a surprise visit for us it was a lot of fun and the kids had a great time with Kathi and her kids. Kayleigh, Thomas and EV all took turns holding Evangeline and all mastered "The Walk of Love" which was the way to get Evangeline to stop crying. All of them got really good at keeping little Evangeline happy, which was a great help for me! Evangeline even fell asleep on them a few times. We got to take Kathi and her family to church with us, and also got to have them hang out with us quite a bit. The dogs loved the walks they got taken on, and Kevin and I loved the company. But I think the one who loved it the most was Davy! He got to play with his cousins all day long for about a week! It was great fun for him and he was quite sad when they were gone. We really enjoyed the visit and can't wait till we get to see them again!

Shapes

As I've mentioned before Davy loves to learn. He loves colors, numbers, letters and lately shapes. We got a book for him that goes through different shapes and helps and learn them and he's got most of the shapes down. So far he knows circle, square, triangle, heart, died (diamond) and rectriangle (rectangle), he still working on octagon but eventually I know he will get that one too.

Sharing is fun! Except when deadly...

Recently I brought home a Bumbo that my parents have for the grandkids. A Bumbo, if you are not familiar with them, is a little seat thing that you can put babies in that helps them to sit before they develop the muscles for it. I started putting Evangeline in it and because she is such a strong little baby she has been doing great with it. Lately I have been using it when I need to do something where I can't hold her but need her not to start crying. Often I put her in it when I am feeding Davy or something similar.

Today I needed to give her a bath, she has been spitting up a bunch the last few days and today she had a bout of spitting up a bunch on Kevin and myself so she was super stinky today. So while I looked for the clothes I wanted to put her in I placed her in the Bumbo and sat on the ground to go through some of the hampers of newly washed clothes. While I dug through the hampers Davy came over and kept sitting on my lap. Because Evangeline was sitting right in front of me I had to be careful with Davy and her, I didn't want Davy to accidentally kick her and hurt her, so I tried to make sure that I was careful with how Davy was sitting on my lap. Davy did really great and brought over some shapes he was playing with. He had a triangle and square and he was showing them to Evangeline. He even tried to put them in her hands, which didn't work too well because she isn't quite to the point where she will hold things you give her, but she was able to hold the triangle for a bit. I was really proud of how Davy was sharing with her. Then he got up and got some goldfish crackers. He came back over and ate a few and then took one and tried to give it to Evangeline. Super cute, and I figured it wasn't bad unless he put one in her mouth, which he wasn't able to at his first try. Then he tried again and popped the goldfish cracker right in her mouth!

I must admit that I kind of freaked out a bit. I said, "Oh no!" and did a finger swipe and got the cracker out of her mouth right away. This caused Evangeline to start crying, and then Davy started to cry. So I had to reassure both of them that everything was alright. I made sure to tell Davy that the baby was ok, and that it was very nice of him to share with her, but that she was too little to eat crackers. Thankfully everything turned out ok, but I will have to make sure to watch them when they are together to ensure that Davy doesn't share something that could hurt little Evangeline.

On another note, later in the night I was nursing Evangeline and Davy was playing on my tablet, one of the games he was playing with froze up and he got frustrated by it. I had to turn the tablet off and then on again to fix it, but in the meantime while he waited for the tablet to turn back on he began to cry. When he began to cry Evangeline stopped nursing, looked up at me with big eyes, stuck out her little lower lip and then began to cry too. So I calmed Davy and calmed Evangeline and got her nursing again. Then Davy started crying again and she popped off, pouted and started crying again as well. I thought it was cute that Davy being sad made Evangeline feel sad too. It has been really fun to watch the children interact with each other and watch their relationship as siblings develop.

Toddler Bed

Monday night Davy did something that I was not expecting. It was bed time and we were getting him ready for bed. I went to get a book to read to him and he was running free in his bedroom. Before I could scoop him up and sit in the rocking chair with him he had run over and climbed up on his toddler bed. He had never taken an interest in sleeping in his toddler bed before. He had climbed up on it and played on it and sat on it and stood on it but never had he acted like he wanted to sleep in it. Kevin and I have been working on getting the room toddler-proofed in preparation for him to start sleeping in it, and so far the room is basically there. There are a few things I would like to have set up, but they are not absolute necessities. So Monday night we decided that we would let him try out sleeping in his toddler bed. We read him his book on the bed and then tucked him in, turned off the light and closed the door. Before going to bed we checked on him, he was asleep on the floor beside his bed, so we picked him up and put him back in bed. In the morning I heard him fall out of the bed and went to get him. But overall he did pretty good. I gave him the "big boy blanket" that I had made out of his crib bumpers, we made up the bed with the blanket and tucked it in under the mattress to make it more secure.

Last night I decided to let him sleep in his toddler bed again. We went through his bedtime routine and I tucked him in and put him to bed. He cried this time and I was worried that he would crawl out of bed and I would have to put him back in it. But when I checked on him later in the night he had fallen asleep in his bed under his new blanket. I tucked him in a little better since he had moved a bit while he slept. In the morning when he woke up and Kevin went to get him he was still in his bed playing.

This is a rather exciting development for us! I knew that we needed to get Davy into a toddler bed soon. The baby will be able to sleep just so long in her bassinet before she grows out of it and will need to move to the crib. I wanted to get Davy moved into his toddler bed before that happened and get him settled and used to sleeping in it. The fact that he took the initiative to start sleeping in it makes everything much easier. The fact that he is staying in his bed even when he doesn't want to go to bed make me feel better about the whole thing. Now I just need to get Kevin to finish the last few changes to the room and I will be happy with everything. It is strange to realize that my little boy is growing up and has moved out of his crib and into a big boy bed finally.

Colors and Shapes

In case I haven't mentioned it before, Davy's favorite color is yellow. Growing up most of the members of my family liked the color blue, in fact it was my Dad's favorite color, my Mom's favorite color, and I think my brother's favorite color as well as my own favorite color. My sister's favorite color was neon orange. When I married Kevin I discovered that his favorite color was red, which worked out just fine for me because he could have red things and I could have blue things. When Davy was born I clothed him in a lot of blue, which was fitting because he was a boy, and as he grew older I found that I began to wonder what his favorite color was. He has this dog toy, Scout, who talks to him, I think I have written about it before. Anyway when setting it up I had to choose a favorite color for Davy, I figured that he probably liked blue so I set that as his favorite color. Lately we have been working with Davy on shapes and colors, and what I have learned from it is this. Davy likes Yellow. He likes to say the word, he likes to find yellow things, he just plain likes yellow. He also likes circles, hearts, and triangles. He can say most of his colors (the basic ones not fancy colors like magenta and such), he can also say most of his basic shapes. He loves working with flashcards and will bring us the bag they are in just so he can go through them. And if we are busy he will go through the bag on his own and name the flashcards off to himself. He has down a good amount of the words that go with each flashcard. He is also learning what letters each word starts with. As this year goes on I wonder just how much he is going to learn, I am excited to see what he learns to do and say.

Valentines and growing babies

Today is Valentines day, and for the first time Davy is old enough for it to be fun. So yesterday I made a few heart shaped cards and supervised Davy while he colored them. He decorated them with scribbles, quite a few letters and numbers as well as some smilie faces. After he went to bed I finished the decorations by making a snowflake heart to stick on the front and also wrote a little message to the person/people the card was for. We made two cards, one for Daddy and one for Nana and Grandpapa (my mom and dad). Today we delivered the cards to them. Davy gave Daddy his card, and then later in the day we visited Nana and Grandpapa and Davy was able to give them their card. He even signed each card, granted the letters weren't all in a line or even necessarily close to each other but the letters DAVY were all on the card in some place. For a Valentines present from Nana and Grandpapa, Davy got some magnetic numbers, which he loved. All in all it has been a fun day. Kevin got me flowers and some chocolates which I shared with Davy and Kevin, they were Lindt petite desserts which are chocolates designed to taste like popular desserts. The other part of his present to me will come later this year, I asked him to take me to the Japanese gardens up in Rockford at some point later this year.

For his present I am going to take him out to eat up in Rockford on Monday, it will be our first date since we had the baby. And our first date so far this year. Needless to say we are looking forward to it. I have saved up some frozen milk for my parents in preparation for babysitting.

In other news Evangeline has been spitting up a lot lately. So I took her to the doctor, he suggested that I eat less dairy for a week and see how things went. So I stopped eating dairy and she began to throw up more. So I said "to heck with it all" and went back to eating dairy and she is not throwing up as much anymore. Crazy. While at the doctor I found out her weight, she is now 7 lbs 5 oz, which is less than what Davy was when he was born. She will be two months old next Tuesday. It seems pretty crazy that she is still so tiny. She is just beginning to grow out of her Newborn clothes.  

Busy busy

It has been a busy week. Last week Kevin's parents came out to visit for Evangeline's blessing and Davy's birthday. We had a really good time with them! Kevin's dad took Kevin and me to see Lincoln. Kevin's mom took me shopping for clothes for Evangeline. Now she is set with clothes up to 24 months old.

Sunday we blessed Evangeline. Kevin gave her a beautiful blessing and she looked lovely in her little dress. I was called as the Relief Society First Counselor. My sister Sariah and her family came out to see the blessing, Kevin's cousin Carolyn also came out. After church we went to my parents house for a super tasty dinner.

Davy's birthday was also on Sunday. It is crazy to think that he is now 2 years old. We held a birthday party for him on Monday. I made a donut shaped ice cream birthday cake. I then put letters and numbers all over it. It turned out pretty tasty. Davy's favorite part of the cake was eating the letters off his cake. He did great with blowing out his candles. Grandma and Grandpa Sampson got him a rug with roads and houses on it and also got him some cars to play with on it. It is super fun! They also got him some learning apps on our phones and on my tablet. He loves playing with them, especially since they are letter based apps. Nana and Grandpa Springer got him magnetic letters, a box for them to go into as well as a magnetic board for him to use them on. They also got him a leapfrog tracing and drawing toy that teaches him how to draw his letters. He loves practicing with it and can now write A, H, P, O and I am sure a few letters I don't know about yet. We got him a bunch of matchbox/hotwheel cars as well as a truck, and a child's laptop toy that he can learn things on. He loves all his toys and plays with them regularly.

We really enjoyed Mom and Dad Sampson visiting, it was a lot of fun and we got to spend some good quality time with them. We also started reading scriptures with them while they were out and have now gotten ourselves started on scripture reading together. All in all it has been a busy but great week!

Still Sick

So much has happened over the last week or so. First Davy got sick and had to stay with my parents to keep Evangeline from getting sick too. Then Evangeline and I got sick as well. Thankfully Evangeline did not get sick enough to land her in the hospital. According to her doctor we would need to take her to the hospital if she had a fever of 100.4 or more or if she started wheezing when she breathed. Thankfully neither happened and other than some scary coughing fits she has been ok. I think today she is finally beginning to get better. Davy stayed with my parents until yesterday. He ended up getting an ear infection and is on antibiotics. He seems to be feeling a lot better now. It has been so good to have our little boy back home with us again!

After a lot of crying and worry and stress over everything I finally went in to my doctor and asked for some anti-depressants, I must say that I feel a good deal better now that I have started them. I am no longer constantly on the verge of tears, and I seem to feel a lot more on top of everything. I have been sick with the same cold that Davy and Eva have and have been miserable because of it. I have been trying to get sleep when I can and have been gradually getting better as well. This whole week has been filled with temperature takings, coughing, sneezing, lots of doctor visits and some helpful medicine. I will be so happy when we are all feeling better again.