Well child checks

Katya is about 42 lbs, and 42.5 inches, 70th percentile for weight and 50th for height.  Elsie is 21 lbs 12 oz, and 32 inches long.  She is in the 60th percentile for weight and 99th for height.  Katya passed her eye exam and small motor skills.  She was unable to hear the really low tones on the hearing exam and they want to re-check her in a few months.  Not sure what this will mean.  Elsie checked out fine and got a few shots.  Katya got her last (I think) DtaP and it was rough.  I had to drag her out of the cubby under the exam table where she was screaming crying, all while Elsie was crying from her shots.  Katya was very upset after the shot but was able to take deep breaths and calm herself down to pick a prize and stickers.  I let the big girls eat Fun Dips on the drive home that we got at a birthday party the day before.  One of my favorite all time candy's as a kid, I am pretty sure it blew their minds.  This morning Katya is running a mild fever and her arm is pretty sore.  She slept for almost 13hr last night.

Miss Elsie is starting to get herself down from standing, but mostly she just stands up and cries for help.  She is crawling up the stairs as of a few days ago which means the baby gate is in full use now.  I am just getting use to having to put it at the bottom of the stairs (I have been using it at the top for a while) and today I spaced it, and raced over to find Elsie on the second to the top step.  Yickes!  I am pretty sure that happened twice with Reagan before I got it through my head.  Elsie is saying "Mama" more and "Hi."  She LOVES dogs and "howls" when she see or hears one.  She has signed "milk," "more," "all done," and even "change diaper" (neither Katay or Reagan ever did that one) but has been inconsistent.

Still Creek Camping

We camped at Still creek last weekend, just outside of Government Camp.  It is a really nice, quiet campground with great sites spaced far apart.  Very different than Ft Steven's!  Three neighboring campsites were filled with our friends: Suzanne & Nate, Hannah and Alex; Melanie, Rich, & Cindy, Tommy and his daughter Amelia (a new friend to the group, Tommy is Portland PD, works with Cindy and knows Ralph.  He is pretty awesome); The Godfrey crew, Angie, Moira, Patrick and for the first night Patti came up, the second night Ralph.  We had so much fun camping with this gang!

  Watch out!

Saturday morning was COLD and our little was pretty unhappy for a while until we warmed her up.  Elsie slept great though, and stayed cozy in the van.  Craig bought an adapter that let us plug in the baby monitor but even then, I worried about her and I slept pretty bad.  She had a lot of fun crawling around in the dirt. 

More pictures to come, blogspot isn't letting me load any more right now.

Print stuff

I am so annoyed and ready to be done with my printing issues.  Costco prints came back with similar problems as Mpix.  Too dark, too much contrast.  I fooled around with my monitor screen calibration and contacted my local favorite photographer (the awesome and talented Erin Tole Photography, check her out!) who thought my problem is unreliable printing source.  I am not so sure since once upon a time I had great results with Kodak Gallery, a non-professional site.  But she recommended White House Custom Color and I have gotten an account set up with them.  They do some test prints when you get started and I am hopeful that they will be able to guide me though any issues.  I am also excited to be using a professional grade printing source.  So it will be a little while before I get updated pictures out to the family, but they will come.  My Costco canvas turned out okay but I am going to try someone else for Katya's. 

We have been having a really fun summer.  Berry picking at Sauvie Island, parks, camping, dance class, swim lessons start in August and more.  I have been taking pictures but getting around to processing them always takes a while.  Boy, if I was a film photographer the rolls would really be piling up!  I feel fortunate to be learning the craft in this digital age, though sitting in front of the computer processing my RAW files into nice looking JPEGS sometimes feels like a darkroom. 

Much love, Brenda

"Lymphangi-o-na!"

As Reagan says it:-)  Her lymphangioma was measured today via ultrasound.  Craig and Reagan went to Dormbecher's this morning for the ultrasound and the other girls and I met them there later for the follow up with Dr. Hayden.  The test showed a few millimeters of growth, consistent with her own growth.  Dr Hayden was not at all concerned and is still on board with leaving it alone.  We are SO relieved.  It has been worrying us lately and the thought of my baby in surgery puts knots in my stomach.  We will go back in another year to have it measured.

Our camping trip at Mt Hood was a lot of fun!  More about our weekend later. 

Just a few things..

The tell-tale Roseola rash showed up on Elsie yesterday and I am really hoping the other kids don't get sick before camping this weekend.  Baby girl is still feeling under the weather but she is handling it okay. 

I am excited to get the canvas print I ordered of this favorite birthday image:

I hope it prints well.  This is my second Coscto canvas order, the first one of Reagan turned out pretty good.  I know there is better quality canvas out there but for the price, I was happy with it.  I am trying Costco's "luster" finish prints on a few other E pictures.  Hopefully they will turn out okay and I will send one out to the grandparent and siblings.   I have been really frustrated with printing lately, which is why I have not sent out and updated pic of Reagan.  Ever since Kodak Gallery sold out to crappy 'ol Shutterfly, I just don't know who to print with.  Mpix has great quality and is recommended by the pros for us armatures, but I have not been happy with the color representation; they print darker than my intended edit.  Kodak's high quality prints worked so well for me and were so accurate, it is annoying to have to find another decent print source with out spending over a hundred dollars on monitor calibration software. 

Elsie things

Our babe's one year check up isn't til the end of the month (combined withe her big sister's), I will post her stats then:-)  But in the mean time here is a little run down on our 12 month old!

• One 2-3 hr nap
• Bedtime 6pm, up between 7-7:30am
• Signing "more" and "milk"
• Saying, "dada" "no" "wow" and babbling (I very rarely get her to repeat "mom")
• Crawling proficiently on hands and knees.
• 3 meals a day, eats anything we put in front of her (like our other girls did!)
• Still 3 bottles...I need to work on getting her down to 2 with sippy cup at lunch.  We are not in to pulling the bottle at a year.
• Drinking 2% milk per Pediatricians instruction.  She LOVES it.  And we love that we are done buying formula!
• Loves being outside, bath time, playing in her new baby pool. 

Elsie was sick the past few days but is feeling better.  She wanted to be held all day long which was both nice, and challenging.  I thoroughly enjoyed lots of snuggle time on the couch.  Little Miss will be going on her second camping trip this weekend.  Woo-hoo!

Love to all, Brenda

Elsie Ryan, 1 year old

Phew, I have been working hard on these photos and I am so happy to have them done and posted in less than a week! I may be the meanest mommy ever to wake up my baby at 4:50 am on her first birthday to head out for a sunrise photo shoot:-) But since there is no way I can keep her up for the hour before sunset, I figured this was the best way to shoot during the "golden hour." Thank you Elsie for being such a sport! She had a fun birthday and really enjoyed the attention. I swear she woke up on the 9th of July a different kid. Of course not really, but she is really a 1 year old now in size and development. Her personality is really coming out and she is so much fun. Get ready for a ton of pictures! PS, you may prefer to view these gallery style by double clicking on the first image and then flipping through.  That may be better for laptop people with smaller screens:-) 

Ballet class

The girls are taking a little dance class through Portland Parks and Rec.  Nice and causal.  They loved their first class!  This video is so telling of our girls and their personalities.  Right down to Reagan being the only girl in black:-)

Nuts-o-busy

I am feeling really overwhelmed right now with the size of my to do list. I am taking a little break right now to drink a Red Bull slushy (I left it in the freezer a bit long, yum) and to post a favorite picture of Pagie that I took a few weeks ago. I could just eat up those cheeks! So cute! Love to all, B