Helmet No. 3

We are on to Audrey's 3rd and final helmet. Once she outgrows this one (approximately 5-6 months), she no longer has to wear one. The time has actually gone by pretty quickly, but I am ready to be done with it and I'm sure she is too. Once again, Clarisse did a marvelous job decorating. It took a while to get used to the purple color since her last two have been pink, but I really love it.

Happy Birthday Audrey!!!

Now we all know that turning 1 is a huge milestone so we thought we'd celebrate with 2 birthday parties!

Audrey's first party took place while we were in San Antonio one week before her real birthday. The theme was ladybugs. We had cupcakes decorated like ladybugs, and red balloons with a black one thrown in here and there for the spots, and Audrey wore a dress that had ladybugs all over it. I even had a banner made that said 'Happy Birthday Audrey' with a ladybug on it. Unfortunately the ladybug gift bags didn't arrive in time, so the kiddos got those later in the week. Audrey of course got her own cake to eat and for the most part kept her table manners in tact. She also tried her first Cheetos and loved it! Overall the party was a success. Lots of our friends and family were able to make it and we had a great time.

Audrey's second party took place on her actual birthday, March 22nd. This one was back in South Dakota at Grandpa and Grandma Wynia's. Baby's First Birthday was the theme of this soiree. We had birthday balloons and a banner that said 'Happy 1st Birthday.' The house looked very festive. This was her family birthday party and we were happy that lots of family could make it. Audrey got to take another stab at her birthday cake and became a little less dainty with this one. By the time she was done she had frosting all over her hands, elbows and nose.

Thank you to everyone who could join Audrey on her special day(s) and all the wonderful presents!!

Trip to San Antonio

This past week we headed down to San Antonio as Audrey was scheduled to get a new helmet and see her surgeon. We were excited to get away from the cold, snowy weather and see our friends and family. We had lots of things planned including a birthday party for Audrey (see separate post); however nothing goes as planned does it.

Problem number one...flight delayed for 2 hours in Chicago. I know, big surprise having a flight delayed out of Chicago. Then when we finally got to Texas, it was warmer in South Dakota!!! (Luckily only for the first day.) The birthday party was fantastic, but then one disaster after another started.

On Monday we went to the hospital to get Audrey's head measured for her new helmet. Her surgeon started using a new place for helmets for convenience as it is located in the hospital, but it is definitely not practical. Imagine trying to get a one year old to lay perfectly still in a big scary black box while someone is holding down her arms and legs so that they can get a scan of her head. Pretty sure that's not gonna work. After an hour of Audrey screaming, I finally was able to convince the technician that it wasn't going to happen. So we left only to come back a few hours later and try it again. Of course it didn't work and he was finally convinced to do it the old way with a hand scanner. Ta da!!! If only he'd had listened to me in the first place we wouldn't have spent all of Monday in the hospital!

There were no plans for Tuesday except to get Audrey's one year pictures taken at Portrait Innovations. I love this place because they can always get her to smile so good and we end up getting a ton of great pictures. Unfortunately Audrey was just not going to cooperate this time though. So I didn't end up with the type of pictures I was hoping for, but good enough.

Wednesday, was the day Audrey got her new helmet. Her appointment was at 9 in the morning; guess what time we finally walked away with it? 12:15!!! Now again I question this convenience thing, because it certainly wasn't convenient for me to sit in a hospital all morning. But wait, we weren't able to leave yet because her appointment with her surgeon is at 1:00. And you know how it is when you go see a doctor, you sit and wait and wait and wait. At 3:00 we left his office only to head back up to the helmet place because the helmet didn't fit right. Let's just say that we didn't leave the hospital until 5:30. Audrey hadn't taken a nap all day and we were all exhausted.

Thursday was picture day again with Photography by Jena. These are the more expensive pictures that we started before Audrey was born and are absolutely precious. Thankfully, these pictures went better than the Tuesday pictures. Maybe our luck was turning!?

Friday we were headed home and boy were we ready!! So much for a vacation! Finally things were looking up. The return flight went off without a hitch and the disasterous trip was over. We feel really bad that we had to cancel plans to hang out with our friends when we were down, but what can you do. Next time hopefully everything will go better. See y'all in 6 months!

Audrey Update

Since I’m really behind on my blogging, I thought I would throw all of Audrey’s new things into one post, so I apologize if this one is a bit long. I’ll try and time table it out and make it as brief as possible.

Crawling – Audrey started the army crawl the second week of January. It’s been way fun to watch her wiggle around on the floor like a little worm. She’s pretty darn fast too! This past week she finally started to crawl regularly 100% of the time. Now she's even faster!!

Real food – yup she is starting to eat some “real people” food. So far she's had bananas, cheerios, grapes, carrots, green beans, and peas. It's getting a little more complicatated feeding her now because now she doesn't really want baby food anymore.

First word – Momma! As well it should be with all that I’ve endured. I think Dave was a little sad that it wasn’t Dadda, but he hasn’t had a baby attached to him 24/7 for the last 10 months either! It is very cute when she says it because she says it with a little growl. She is now also saying book...of course since that's her favorite thing to do.

Pulling up - she can now pull herself up onto furniture. She started doing this on my weekend off of course when Dave took her to the grandparents house for the weekend. I hate missing those things. She'll be off walking soon I'm sure.

Teeth - she has 5 1/2 teeth now. She almost has 4 on top and then her 2 bottom ones.

Patty Cake - it's amazing how she knows that that's the song that she is supposed to clap with. Everytime it plays or we sing it to her she starts clapping. Very adorable!

She's definitely keeping us busy, but we are getting a little more freedom as she plays by herself a bit better now. She also stopped wanting us to rock her to sleep. Now as soon as she starts rubbing her eyes and sucking her thumb, it's bedtime and off she goes to her crib where she doesn't even put up a fuss. We just turn her mobile on and off to dreamland she goes. A part of me misses the snuggling, but I also enjoy the extra time at night that this gives me. I suppose I'll just have to get used to things changing as she gets older as I don't think I can stop it!

So I guess that about sums up the new things that Audrey's been doing. I'll try to do better at posting more frequently in the future.

Helmet Update

August 2008 November 2008


January 2009

Audrey has had her helmet for 6 months now and I thought I would post a little update as to how she is doing. She is on her 2nd helmet and is scheduled to get her 3rd and last one the week of March 15th. I have to say that the time has gone by a lot faster than I had expected. She is still doing really well with it and for the most part doesn’t know it is there. I have noticed that since she’s getting older, she has a tendency to pick at the Velcro straps a bit, but only occasionally.

We are on a reference list for Dr. Jimenez who performed Audrey’s surgery and we randomly receive calls from families whose child has been diagnosed with craniosynostosis and are exploring their options. In a recent conversation with a lady I told her that I would email her some pictures of Audrey so she could see exactly what the helmet looked like. As I was going through all our pictures I decided to send her a before the surgery picture and a current one along with a couple of Audrey in her helmet. Now I’m not sure why I had not done this previously, but it was shocking to see the before and current pictures! I guess when you see her every day, you don’t recall how it used to be. Granted I never thought Audrey’s head shape was real bad, but the pictures tell a different story. The transformation is amazing and she still has 6 more months to make her head even more perfect!!!

Contract!!!

I realize I haven't posted in an extremely long time and I promise I'll make them up soon, but I had to spread the good news!!! After 4 long months, we finally have an offer on our house in San Antonio!!!! The option period starts tomorrow so everyone cross your fingers that everything goes well. If it does, we'll be closing March 13th. Somewhat ironic that we will be in San Antonio on the 14th, but very exciting nonetheless!

Mommies Night Out

I know can you believe it!! Four of us mommies decided to hit the big city of Brookings Friday night for a Mommies Night Out. The evening started with dinner at Bravos, a great little local place for steaks and wine. Some of us really lived it up with a filet while others kept to their roots with chopped steak…yes Dawn, I know you can’t help how much you just love it! Where’s the ketchup?? We could tell it was going to be a good night based on how well the wine for us more sophisticated mommies and Michelob for the one wearing a jean jacket was going down. After Bravos we decided to relive our college days and have a mini bar crawl on Main Street. We started off low key just sitting around chatting and having an all around good time when that little dancing bug started whispering in our ear. All of a sudden we were off to join the ‘Shadow Dancer!!! I have to say we were the best dancers out there….could be because we were the only dancers out there….but who’s to judge. Us mommies still have some moves!!! We ended the night with a little “Rollin’ on the River” and some good ole karaoke. The night was a success and well deserved!!