Summer Fun!

Blake and Lysee in Mom's Radio Flyer wagon

YAY! Summer is here and it's time for big fun! We are enjoying our days playing in the pool and spending time with cousin Blake. Lysee is getting used to the water in the pool but doesn't like for it to be too cold. She and Blake have a ball together and they are so cute to watch. We are looking forward to our fun summer. Next month is Disney World! Yes, that will be Lysee's second trip there. Can you tell my family loves Disney??!! This will be my mom's big retirement vacation so it will be a special trip. Other than that, we plan to relax and enjoy our girl all summer. No new doctor updates... we go see Dr. Cottrill at the end of the month. I thank God everyday for the good health he has given to Elyse. We are so blessed by her! She has finally reached 15 lbs but still refuses baby food. She wants to feed herself so she has moved on to table food. Her favorites are green beans and mac and cheese. She loves to walk holding our fingers but still lacks the balance to do it herself. And that is ok, because we struggle enough keeping up with her now. She is everywhere! :=)

Blake and Lysee in matching overalls

Getting cuter by the day

I know I'm biased, but isn't she a doll baby? Our little Lysee is growing (slowly but surely) and is developing in so many wonderful ways every day. She turned 9 months old yesterday and wants to walk in the worst way and does a great job when holding our fingers. She is SO active, we're convinced that's why she can't gain weight easily. She has been stuck on 14 lbs. for a couple of months. It doesn't help that she just really isn't a good eater.

We are ready for summer and I'm so thankful Ryan is a teacher too and we all get to have time off together. And it's the first summer in years that neither Ryan or I will be taking graduate classes. Hooray for being done with our Masters! 9 more school days for Ryan and 14 for me!

Good doctor visit!

Another huge praise... Elyse's cardiologist appointment went well. I was really worried that Dr. Cottrill would be concerned that she had not gained much weight, but she wasn't! She said that Elyse had doubled her birth weight by six months and on her way to tripling her birth weight by one year so she wasn't concerned. She and the nurse agreed they didn't think Elyse's low weight was due to her heart, rather to small parents. :-) She is stuck on about 14 lbs right now but has just now started eating the baby food well so we're hoping that weight will start increasing. She is a baby on the move, definitely crawling around the house and trying to pull up on everything in sight. We need to babyproof the house quick! We're just sure that she'll be walking in under 2 months, she wants to so bad. It's amazing! Dr. Cottrill was so impressed with where she is developmentally. It's so amazing that you would never know there is something wrong with her heart. She is so incredibly strong. God is taking such good care of her and blessing us all unbelievably!

Fun times in Disney World!

The spring break trip was a success! Let me first say that I would have never have done it without my parents' help. My sister and Blake (who is one month older than Elyse) decided at the last minute to go with us. We had a blast! They were good on the plane and loved playing together the whole trip. We managed to go to the theme parks one day, which was plenty. The other days were spent at the pool, shopping, and eating out!

Our little girl is a week shy of 8 months old and has made big developmental jumps in the past two weeks. She is pretty much crawling, it's just a little sloppy right now. :-) She is trying to talk and said "da da" yesterday. She is finally opening her mouth to eat her baby food! Yay... bring on the calories! And she is super close to sleeping through the night, thanks to her daddy who has been doing sleep training with her the past few nights. She is only really waking up once during the night and Ryan is able to "pat" her a few times and she goes back to sleep on her own. We are so excited to be close to getting a good night's sleep consistently.

She really just gets more precious everyday, doesn't she? :-) We will go see Dr. Cottrill in a couple of weeks and I will update the blog and let everyone know how that goes. Please keep praying for her heart to stay as strong as it has. We are so blessed by her good health.

Our first sickness :-(

We survived it! It started with a fever of 102 and with Elyse not eating hardly at all. Then she started sleeping bad. Yes, it was an ear infection. I guess I have to be happy though that she lasted almost 8 months without one. We got our amoxicillin quickly and it is mostly gone a week later.

Now the scary part, we are off on a plane ride to Florida soon... Wish us luck! Anyone had success with an 8 month old going on vacation?? :-) Thank goodness for grandparents who are going with us to help!

Good doctor report!

We saw Dr. Cottrill on Monday. She said everything looked good with Elyse's heart, but that she wanted to see her gain more weight. Right now she is 6 mths old and weighs 12 lbs. So we have started really pushing the baby foods and the cereal and she is doing much better with that. Dr. Cottrill suggested we let her play with a spoon as a toy to help with the eating. When she is not gagging herself, she loves this new "toy." We are enjoying our snow day together today, although I can't stand the thought of going to school until June 5. Oh well... at least I get to spend the day with my Lysee!

i am a bad blogger

ok, for some reason, mycomputer is not letting me use caps or my shift key... hmmm
anyway, i am feeling so bad because i have not posted sooner. life gets crazy with a little one. but i love it. things are going fabulous with us. lysee is getting so big.she is six months old now and trying her best to crawl. she's got the back part down but has no clue what to do with her front part. she is finally eating cereal well so we're hoping to start real baby foods soon. she is even sleeping in her own room finally. this is was very hard for me to do but she is sleeping ten thousand times better in there, so it's definitely a good thing. she had a very big girl moment at her babysitter's house today. aunt cole was letting lysee chew with a particular toy and when her daughter took it away from lysee, she screamed and cried. nicole thought her daughter had hurt lysee because she would not stop crying for about 3 minutes. finally, she tried giving lysee her toy back and she stopped crying instantly, smiled, and started chewing on it again. she is so rotten and it's... well... very precious.

i will try to make time to post more often. as for health issues, we have not seen dr. cottrill, our cardiologist since december. at that time, she said she absolutely did not need to see lysee until feb, which was hard for me. but praise god, we haven't needed to see her and all is wonderful. we go see her on president's day. thanks for remembering to keep her in your prayers, always. as i always say, she is such a normal baby, it is so easy to forget the true miracle she is. god has blessed us beyone belief.