mural room

so I showed you a pic of the mural room before, but when we went to unload a few boxes yesterday I took a bunch more photos and stitched them together (via the "stitch" button in windows live photo gallery - I didn't take the time to do it myself!). it's a little funky looking because it's the whole room, but looking flat... and there's one part that didn't stitch well, but you still get the idea. I didn't include the ceiling in the stitch, but it's painted with clouds and has glow in the dark stars on it too.

pretty cool, eh?

you can click on the photo to see it a little larger.

peek-a-boo

Apologies for the fact that I am laughing right into the camera and it's obnoxious. but the video is pretty cute...

ethan's first step

Ethan just took his first step! just one, but he stood there for awhile, and then while blake and I were both watching him, he took one step with his right foot, stood there for another second, and then sat down and raced (crawling) across the room.

besides the "yay first step"-ness of it all, this is also pretty funny. my friend audria (who has b/g twins 2 months older, both of who have been walking for about 2 months) was saying that they prob just needed to see her kids walk and then they'd start walking. well, we went over there yesterday, after not having seen her for awhile, and what happened? her kids saw mine and started crawling again! hahahaha. but apparently ethan retained a little bit! we'll see if it was an isolated incident or real progress, but it was ethan's first step that didn't result in him on his face on the floor. :)

in other news, we bought a house yesterday. there were lots of back and forths and this last week or two we didn't think we'd close on time, but in the end our lender did pull through and we closed yesterday! more on that later probably. but yay for first steps and new houses!

Ev & Alyssa's wedding

Evan and Alyssa's photographer has shared a few of the pics she took at their wedding on her blog, so I thought I'd share with you! Check 'em out: http://maijakarinphotography.com/blog/alyssa-evan-8611-sneak-peek/

eggs

we met with an allergist on monday and had ethan tested for an egg allergy. sure enough, he's allergic! you could consider that bad news, but I put it in the good news category. if he weren't, then we would have no idea what caused his reaction last week. so I think it's much better to know, avoid eggs, and have epi-pens on hand in case. in fact, I think we got only good news from the allergist. they covered his back in maybe 30 different allergy mixes and poked each one, but ethan was far more curious about what was happening on his back than he was in any sort of pain or distress. anyway, here's what we learned:

• egg allergies are one of the most common in kids
• egg allergies are usually grown out of
• kids with egg allergies often have eczema. the eczema isn't necessarily a reaction to the eggs, it's just a weird correlation. the nurse that walked us back looked at his cheeks and said, "are you here for an egg allergy?" we were like, um, yes, how did you know that, did you read his chart? and he said he could tell by his cheeks. so that was interesting.
• we will get him tested every year. previously we'd heard we wouldn't get him tested until he was 5, which meant 4 more years of no eggs. now at least if he outgrows it at 3 we'll know and start feeding him omelets!
• he's not allergic to anything else (including peanuts which we haven't fed him up to this point). he showed a slight reaction to citrus, so maybe when we have a choice of apple versus orange we'll feed him an apple, but the reaction was much much less than the egg reaction (as in I was like, "where? oh, that counts?") and we've fed him some citrus before, so we're mostly ignoring this. a reaction on an allergy test doesn't necessarily mean the person is allergic anyways.
• there is research on both sides of every allergy topic it seems. foods w/ high egg concentrations like omelets, quiche, french toast etc are obviously out. but the doc said we could try baked goods w/ eggs in them and watch him closely. sometimes exposing him to small concentrations like that will help his system get used to eggs. other times, once a major reaction has happened any small exposure will cause the major reaction too. so we gave him two pieces of bow-tie pasta on monday night and watched him super super carefully. he was 100% fine. we've since given him other pasta / baked goods items w/ eggs in the ingredients and he's fine. so that is FANTASTIC. it means we don't have to be crazy paranoid parents. when we took him to the Child Care Center at church last week they wiped down everything in the room before he came in in case some kid before had had a baked good w/ eggs in it before him in that room. I am very happy to not have to lead that kind of lifestyle.
• the only semi-downside is that the flu shot vaccine has eggs in it. apparently each year's vaccine has different concentrations so we'll wait to see if he can have this year's vaccine or not. while that's a bummer, I never had flu shots when I was a kid so I just don't think it's that horrible. probably blake, kaylee, and I will get our flu shots and hope that ethan doesn't get the flu from someone else. and if he does, well... that's a bummer, but it's only the flu.

So all in all, a very successful appt I would say. We can totally handle this. :)

teeth

ethan has 11 teeth! 4 bottom center, 4 top center, 2 bottom in the back, and 1 top in the back! Since they're harder to see in the back I'm not sure exactly when these last 3 came in. I know he had one of the lower ones prior to his bday, and I know the other lower one he didn't have prior to his bday because it was this giant swollen spot in his mouth but no tooth had come through yet. the top one we just discovered yesterday - who knows how long it's been there! So... at 12 months he had 9 or 10 teeth, and now he has 11.

kaylee has... 4 teeth. :) two top center, two bottom center. she's working hard on getting more, and working her lungs hard telling us about it. :)

white onesie pics

Every month my excellent friend Danielle has come over and taken pics of my kiddos in white onesies against a colored fabric background. We took their final, 12 month photos on their birthdays last week (first try Wednesday, second try thurs... i'm guessing we'll end up using the thursday pics, but sorta funny that we did actually do the photoshoot on both their birthdays). It is sad to see this "tradition" come to a close, but now that they're mobile it has gotten lots harder each month, and it must end sometime (none of you want me to be blogging about their 473rd month pics) so... their 12 month pics will be their last.

to celebrate this little tradition, we took the fabric that we would be using in their 12 month photos and strung them up at their bday party. I got a bunch of $2 white t-shirts and asked people to put on the t-shirts press the camera button (which was set up in timer-mode on a tripod) and smile for their own white-onesie pic. extra thanks to Grandpa (blake's dad) for letting us use his camera when Dave's broke the day before!

anyways, without further ado... the white onesie pics!

danielle and kaylee

my coworker elizabeth and her daughter maggie

 the daw family. this is alyssa's parents and brother and I guess now alyssa's a caulley, so that's all the daws (well, you know, except for all the other daw relatives and whatnot)

uncle brian, aunt kate, cousins ryan, kristin, and tommy!

 dave and caleb!

tracey and uncle mike 

bruno and grandma 

caleb and his ice cream...

my boss' boss kendy and her daughter maddie

 cousin/aunt/uncle etc... mark, riley, mimi, risa, george

grandpa bruce, aunt annemarie, grandma heidi 

gramps, uncle darren, nana

there were lots more people at the party (prob 40+) but those were the fine folks that indulged my white onesie plan. thanks guys! these pics are pretty fun!! :D

happy birthday ethan!

happy birthday my son. you used to be my little snuggler - you loved to be held and would fall asleep in my arms and just snuggle into my chest so perfectly. now you are already getting to be a "big boy" and you are my little mover. your face, which used to have so much baby in it, is turning into a little toddler face. I miss my baby, but love my big boy too, and I can't wait for all the future will bring. I love you ethan; happy birthday.

--mommy

happy birthday kaylee

happy birthday kaylee. I love you so much. All day I've been thinking about my silly labor with you and everything I was thinking and hoping last year at this time. Right about now a year ago you were my only child and I was nursing you. You were so good at nursing, it was so easy and I'd never felt more amazingly bonded to someone before. I love the wonderful little personality you've developed and can't wait for many many many more years of getting to know you. I love you.

kaylee dress

while looking for another pic I just foudn this one of kaylee trying on her flower girl dress. she didn't wear that headband but she did have a sash and bow in the same color and fabric, so just imagine it...

wedding

I've been mildly chastised that not everyone was at the wedding and/or bday party, so here is a wedding post. but I still don't have any pictures... except this one that my cousin posted on her blog.

the wedding colors were actually blueberry-blue and a lime green accent, so for the ceremony my kiddos (who were the flower girl and boy) had fancy white outfits w/ blue accents. they looked pretty darn cute I have to say. blake pulled them down the aisle in this wagon. however white outfits were not going to last for the reception, so here they are with my cousin's kiddo riley (who is a month and a half older).
mildly amusing side note: evan and alyssa were engaged and had their colors chosen for awhile - these reception outfits were actually part of last year's gymboree / janie and jack lines. but when we saw the colors (kaylee's also wearing a sparkly blue tutu and ethan's hat and shorts are blue, white, and lime) my mom and I just purchased them! which meant guessing sizes and ethan's shorts were defiantly too large and fell off several times :). his hat (and his onesie) was/were not too large. :)

adrenaline pumping

my last post was about milk pumping, this post is about why my adrenaline is still pumping as I type this...

I mostly think allergies are silly. overrated. one doctor tells you not to feed your baby this or that until they're this age, another says, eh, whatever. we have heard things all across the board, but most people agree there's research on both sides. so my theory has been, if there's research on both sides, let's go with the easy route. but blake has been more on the side of our current doc who says no nuts or eggs until they're 1 and no honey until 2. so fine. we have tried to avoid those three things, but I have been looking forward to their birthdays and giving them nuts and eggs.

today is their bday party, so as we were making ourselves omelets this morning, I said, oh, let's give them some. blake said okay, a couple days doesn't make a difference (they are 3 and 4 days away from their actual bdays). so we fed them some of our omelets.

about 15 minutes later blake said, look at ethan's face. (yes, of course ethan, our kid who seems to react to everything - obvious in retrospect, right?) the skin above and below his eye was all red, like his cheek rash had spread up there. so we called the consulting nurse. since it wasn't that bad and he was acting normally, and it was going away as we talked to her, etc etc, she said to wash his face, that it might be a skin/contact allergy to the eggs (like he rubbed them on the skin near his eyes, which is likely) and to not give him eggs for a couple months.

great.

but you know, that's not the end of the world, so we washed his face and then gave him a whole all-over bath, and then put him and kaylee down for their naps.

about 20-30 minutes later, ethan woke up from his nap, which is way too early. we let him fuss for a bit, then we got him up. he was cranky, but his nap wasn't long enough so that wasn't a surprise. at one point blake handed him to me and I thought he was pretty hot, but neither of us was sure if he was actually hot or just worked up and fussy. blake put him in the carrier and tried to get him to calm down (which usually works) and was going to take him to the grocery store for distraction and errand-running. but then one of us decided we should just call the consulting nurse again. just to be safe, you know? so I tried to give him a bottle while blake called and while he was on hold ethan seemed to have trouble breathing. so we hung up, had a super fast discussion about calling 911 instead, decided taking him to the ER ourselves would be faster, so blake took him and ran him across the street (on foot) to Evergreen Hospital. I am going to love our new house, but I am so thankful that today we're still in our current house as Evergreen is SO close. I bet blake was out our door and into their doors in 3 minutes. it would have taken longer to explain our situation over the phone or to put him in and out of his carseat.

I don't know the play-by-play after that, but I called a few minutes later and blake said they'd given Ethan some shots and he was breathing normally again and would be fine (and he weighs 20 lbs today). Now they're just hanging out there, waiting for ethan to turn normal colored again (he was all red), and then they'll dismiss him. kaylee and I are at home playing peek-a-boo (and blogging).

allergy doc appts and modified diets await us, but all is well.

other also important updates:

• Evan and Alyssa are married! their wedding was fantastic, but since most of you blog readers were there and I don't have any pics, I prob won't blog about it. but I am so happy for them and thrilled to have gained another sister. :)
• I have the best friends ever. they have helped SO much with all the wedding-related things and now they're going to help today w/ the bday party (which is still happening at this point). they are just the best. the best the best the best. I'm so grateful for them.