Gemma at 8 months old

Weight: Right around 19 lbs. Still our smallest baby.
 
Height: Around 28 inches
 
Clothing Size: 6-9 month clothes

Daily Schedule: I was really excited for daylight savings with Gemma because I thought it would bump up her bedtime. Nope. She adjusted just fine and didn't seem to notice a difference. She still wakes up between 7 and 8am. She really prefers three naps a day and squeezes in her third nap around 6pm. No matter what time her third nap happens, she is almost always ready to go down for the night around 9/9:30pm. I wish it would bump up a little so I could get more work done but it is nice to put the big kids to bed first and then Gemma.

She has also slept through the night again quite often over the past few weeks. I'm hopeful it keeps progressing. I can't really sleep train her with her heart condition so I just keep hoping she "gets" it eventually.

Special Outings: Wisconsin! She did AWESOME with traveling by plane and car and sleeping someplace else. Gemma is the easiest baby traveler so far. She was very clingy while visiting but still smiled at everyone.

Firsts: More foods that she doesn't like. She likes to gnaw on food and then spits it out rather than swallowing it. I keep hoping one day she'll suddenly wake up and love food.

Heart Update: We had a heart check up finally! Waiting three months was rough. Here's the update as best as I can explain it. Gemma's main number that signifies if intervention is necessary rose a little bit. In August, she was upper 40s/low 50s. This time, she was at about 55. This number is slightly flexible as Gemma moves around during the ECHO and such. Typically, doctors use 60 as the line for surgery or not. Some doctors use 50. It varies a little bit from doctor to doctor or practice to practice. We're grateful the increase was at least a slower increase than the past three visits. However, living right on that fine line is worrisome. The other issue that presented itself at this appointment is her artery coming off of that valve is showing distress. Sometimes, the artery can thicken or dilate due to the blood flow hitting it harder in one spot rather than flowing freely. This is the first time we've seen issues with that artery. This signifies that her blood flow is not flowing properly and could lead to bigger problems later on.

When our cardiologist is telling me this, I kept thinking that we'd just go get a second opinion. We'd discussed doing this as a safety precaution to ensure measurements and opinions matched between doctors. I trust our doctor but would still want to have another opinion before pursuing further treatment. However, our doctor said she wanted to take our case to a cardiology panel in Houston that meets every 6 weeks. There, many local cardiologists meet to discuss certain cases and decide together what would be best recommended. I loved this idea but was not looking forward to waiting a few more weeks.

Well, fast forward a few more days and our cardiologist calls me. She was able to talk to the panel early and discuss Gemma more. They all agreed that the surgery has better outcomes if we wait for Gemma to get bigger. The biggest the baby, the bigger the heart. This allows the doctors to do different interventions, which have better results/outcomes. So, unless Gemma starts showing symptoms associated with this defect, we are having another check up in February. At this point, we are fairly certain she will have surgery. What kind and how invasive will depend on how her heart looks in February.

Monthly Pictures:

Gemma is 7 months old

Weight: I'd guess around 19 lbs.
 
Height: Around 27-28 inches
 
Clothing Size: 6-9 month clothes for the most part.

Daily Schedule: Wakes up between 7 and 8:30am. She's working on transitioning between two and three naps a day, so that changes the schedule each day. Aside from that, she's pretty predictable. Awake for 2.5-3.5 hours between naps. Goes to bed between 8 and 9 depending on how many naps she took that day. She's then up about once a night.

She has successfully dropped her swaddle and is doing better with naps and nighttime sleeping.

Special Outings: I can't recall anything specific. But I'm sure she did something cool.

Firsts: Tried lots of foods this past month but still isn't very interested. She sucks on food but then spits it out once she's done mushing it around in her mouth. She does like straw cups with water.

Heart Update: Check up is next month. Can't wait to find out more.

Monthly Pictures:

She's a good sport when the big kids want to help.

Her favorite play activity is to dump the toys out of the clear bin and then play with the bin.

Gnawing on tortillas at the grocery store.

Enjoys sitting in the grass watching the big kids ride bikes.

She gets to her hands and knees and then just hangs out there.

Examining the broccoli

Ashton's Birthday

We celebrated Ashton's birthday over the course of a weekend. Her birthday was on a Thursday but we tricked her and told her it was really on Friday. I wanted her to be surprised on her birthday. This was the last year that she won't know how to follow the calendar and know what day is what. So we did it and I loved it! I surprised her with balloons and everything that morning. She got to plan the entire day from start to finish.

Her breakfast request was to go to IHOP but with three kids (one being Tanner) that's a no-go. So we made sprinkle pancakes at home. Much easier for everyone. Tanner and Ashton loved them. I have a feeling that will become a new birthday tradition.

For the morning, we went to an open gym at a gymnastics place in town. I wanted to do this in Lake Jackson but the gymnastics places didn't offer it. I'd rather pay $10 every few months for Ashton to practice gymnastics than $75/month for classes. The kids loved it and I know we'll be back every few months. They ran around a lot and they had two instructors helping teach basic skills. Ashton worked with one for a while on cartwheels. That's her newest goal in life.

Lunch was at Sam's Club (her pick) because it's cheap and I let them get ice cream and walk around for samples. We spent nap time working on crafts and then had beef stroganoff for dinner. We opened gifts and had butterfly cake that evening once Joseph got home.

They got the little square scooter things like I had in gym class growing up. I love them. I imagine we'll have some pinched fingers along the way but I like active toys like this.

This describes their relationship so well. Always telling him what's what.

Stamping supplies from my parents. That's been keeping her busy most days now.

And this describes Tanner so well. Always jealous of what sister gets. Her birthday was rough for him as he has a better understanding of birthdays now. I look forward to his birthday and what he wants to do next year.

Then, on Saturday, we drove back to Lake Jackson for a birthday party. We weren't sure if we would do this but Ashton hasn't made a ton of friends in Clear Lake yet. The few that she has made go to school now so she can't have playdates with them. So we invited some close friends and had a party at the church building (the bugs/rain made it impossible to have it at the splash pad as planned). The party's theme was all of Ashton's favorite things. So she picked the cake on Pinterest, picked a Little Mermaid pinata, picked the games, food, etc. I enjoyed letting her plan the details so she would love it. All our friends were able to make it and I enjoyed seeing them too.

Best friends together again.

The Spanish branch was hosting an activity later that day so kindly let us use the gym. Plus they're the best at pinatas so helped us set it up and play music for us.

Ashton cried the night of her birthday because she was sad it was over. When I asked her what her favorite part of the day was, she said, "spending so much time with my family." I'm grateful we don't do formal gifts for our kids for birthdays and rather just spend extra time with them on their favorite activities.

August Events

August was busy with our vacation in the middle of it plus Joseph starting his new position at Dow. School also started for Ashton.

Our new furniture arrived and I really love it. I spent a lot of time (probably too much time) planning this room. I finished painting it and now I'm working on the open shelves.

Since moving so close to NASA, the kids have really taken a liking to rockets and space. We read books after books on rockets and we visited part of NASA that is free. It has an old space shuttle/replica thing in a warehouse building plus some smaller ones outside to walk around. We now follow NASA on social media to keep track of ISS space walks and launches so we can watch them live on NASA TV.

 Ashton started preschool at a new school. It was a rough start for her but she's doing much better. It's three half days a week (that's the only option at the few schools I looked at) so that's more than we both anticipated. Tanner loves the one-on-one time since Gemma naps during this time. Ashton's school has Spanish class every week, which is fun to see what she learns. Most of the kids in her class have been together since 2 or 3 years old so she has felt like the new kid. But that's faded now.

Tanner wanted a first day of school picture too. He is really sad he can't go this year.

We hosted a neighborhood BBQ for our street to meet our new neighbors. Partly so they would like us rather than hate us (I always worry about people getting annoyed with three little (and sometimes loud) kids on a new street). We're definitely the youngest family on the street as the next oldest kids are 8 or older. That's different than our old house with younger families all around us. But it's nice because the older ones watch out for my kids. I'm happy to have older families around so I can ask questions about our school and teachers, etc. We had about 30 people come, which was a surprise to me. Gemma won everyone over and the kids behaved for the most part. One neighbor gave the kids silly string as a housewarming gift, which was perfect. They had a blast spraying each other.

Gemma is 6 months old

Weight: 18 lbs. She's our smallest kid at 6 months but yet the largest at birth. People say she's huge but to us, she's definitely small.
 
Height: 27 inches
 
Clothing Size: 6-9 month clothes for the most part. If she's in disposables diapers, she can still fit 6 month onesies but cloth really adds extra bulk.

Daily Schedule: Fairly similar to last month. Wakes up between 7 and 8. Three naps a day that vary in length from 45 minutes to 2 hours. I'm working on dropping her swaddle so that's disrupting her naps a little bit. I know she'll go back to sleeping more in a few months when we can drop the third nap. She's a night owl too. She prefers to go to bed between 8:30 and 10. Every time I put her down before that and she treats it like a nap and is up even later. She's been waking up more at night (hence the swaddle change and minor sleep training) but I know it's just a phase.

Gemma is almost always happy. She fusses a little when she is tired and that's it. But that's also because I'm trying to get her to fall asleep on her own. I've said it before but Joseph and I still fight over who gets to take Gemma vs the older kids. Thankfully since I am her food source, I almost always win and get Gemma. She's so nice and calm. Also, Gemma has a clear preference for me. We're seeing some behaviors of stranger danger/separation anxiety already, which I wasn't quite ready for. Once again, I know it's a phase.

Special Outings: Not too much special this past month that I can recall.

Firsts: Definitely sitting up now and I can rely on her not falling over. We started solids right after the 6 month mark and she doesn't love it. She just holds the food in her hands and doesn't eat it. Oh well... One day, she'll enjoy eating real food.

Heart Update: Same as last month. We'll have another check in November. Praying her numbers plateau quickly or else we're looking at surgery early next year.

Monthly Pictures:

Birthday Interview with Ashton

Here's Ashton's responses to our birthday interview with her this year.

How old are you? Five

What is your favorite color? Pink

What is your favorite animal? Rabbits. Last year, she said bunnies. I was surprised this was the same.

What is your favorite book? Cinderella

 What is your favorite show? Barbie. Ugh...

 What do you like to eat? Strawberries

What is your favorite game? Chutes and Ladders

What is your favorite thing to do? Play games with Mom

Who is your best friend? Bree from Lake Jackson

What do you like to do with Daddy? Go shopping

What do you like to do with Mommy? pend time together

What is your favorite restaurant? Chick-fil-a

Where do you want to go for vacation? Disney World

What do you want to be when you grow up? Vet

What is your favorite song? Baptism (I Like to Look for Rainbows)

What is the best time of day? Going to school

What makes you happy? Telling silly jokes

Family Vacation 2018

Back before we we decided to move, we set our minds on taking a family vacation. Then our summer became super busy with buying and selling our home and moving. Thankfully, Joe's new boss was just fine with us taking our vacation as planned. We started small by heading to San Antonio for a week. We rented a house from AirBnB and were happy with it. We've had good luck doing that versus paying the same price for a small hotel room. We had four bedrooms to spread out in and plenty of space to run around and relax.

We decided rather than doing something different each day and driving a bunch around San Antonio, we'd stick to SeaWorld/Aquatica. This was also due to money. Ashton gets in free to SeaWorld as they have a Preschool card for all Texas children ages 3-5. Then, kids two and under are free. So that meant we just had to pay for Joseph and I. I found a great groupon for three day passes, which was perfect.

We drove over on a Monday afternoon and our treat for the kids was that they could pick out one treat and one drink at Bucee's (a famous gas station chain in Texas) on the way there. Tanner took this very seriously and spent a good ten minutes debating his options. He chose Cool Ranch Doritos, which shocked me. I thought he'd pick something sugary and messy. We beat San Antonio traffic that afternoon. After getting unpacked, we headed out to Chick Fil A for dinner and a quick stop at the grocery store for ice cream.

Playing in the big tub at the house.

Tuesday was our first day at SeaWorld. We spent the day watching the animal shows with the kids but they didn't really care for them too much. That surprised me. We quickly learned that our kids prefer the rides and seeing the animals in their exhibits. We visited the dolphins, saw the sharks and whales, and then spent the rest of the day riding rides. Tanner loved all the rides he could go on and showed no fear about them. Ashton was tall enough to ride some of the big rides with Joseph and loved them too. We anticipated Tanner napping at the park but that didn't happen at all. He was too happy and excited.

Killing time in the splash pad while Ashton and Joe ride the big kid rides.

She was so happy to ride the big rides.

Tanner found a squirrel who would eat from his hand. Tanner loves squirrels so this was perfect for him,

Another big kid ride.

I was definitely holding tighter to Tanner. He could care less.

They had some dancing show with Sesame St. characters. Tanner now asks to watch Elmo.

Watching the dolphins under water.

The penguin exhibit. Tanner cared more about riding the moving sidewalk than the penguins so we spent a lot of time here.

The bottom of the one of the rides Ashton rode.

Watching the otter show. We didn't spend much time here as they wanted to move on to more exciting things I guess. I was bummed as the shows are really cool. I guess they don't keep the attention span of a 2 year old, though.

I felt like such a silly mom for buying her a fan but Gemma sweats so much! Most everyone else had a stroller fan too so I guess it wasn't just me. She ended up sleeping in the ring sling most of the time but every now and then, she'd sleep in the stroller.

The ferris wheel. Tanner was a huge fan and keeps asking about going back to the Ferris wheel ride.

We spent the day at Aquatica on Wednesday. Aquatica is the waterpark inside SeaWorld. Once again, the kids had a blast. They really love water and I liked that I could let them play with little worry. There were tons of lifeguards and the kid pools weren't that deep. Ashton did lose her goggles and had a great natural consequence of what happens when you leave your things behind. Tanner surprised me by waiting in line for 45 minutes to ride this one specific ride that he was tall enough for. Ashton loved going down the water slides with us. We went "swimming" with sting rays that morning as our special treat for the trip. Tanner cared more about eating his snack than being in the water. The employee was really nice to Ashton and spent some time with her individually. It was cool.

She got more adventurous as the employee helped her.

The "boat ride" that Tanner could ride on. This line was super long and took about 45 minutes.

The water slide that Ashton could ride on. She didn't fit in the tube very well but she met the height requirement.

They had several slides for kids under 48 inches, which was nice as we could let the kids go freely. Tanner loves having no limitations so this was perfect for him.

What happens when you play too hard during the day. Nap at 6:30 and he refused to wake up. I finally offered ice cream and that did the trick.

On Thursday, we went back to the park and did the best parts of each park again. We spent the morning riding rides at SeaWorld and hanging out there. Then, after lunch, we wandered back to Aquatica. I was shocked that the kids made it from open to close each day. Gemma got a pretty bad sunburn so I spent more time with her in the nursing stations or under what little shade I could find. I was so worried about her sweating that I didn't want to overdress her but I think the sweat also washed the sunscreen off faster than I anticipated. She didn't seem to mind much.

Didn't take many pictures this day as we just repeated a bunch of stuff. But Ashton was excited to ride this ride again.

Her poor blister broke open on one cheek and took a little to heal but the other side healed up just fine.

On Friday, we packed up and headed out to Morgan's Wonderland. This park was built in 2010 and was made to accommodate people of all abilities. Everything is wheelchair accessible and they also ensure no bright lights, etc for those individuals who need calmer environments. What I like about this place is 1) My kids saw people of all abilities enjoying the park and 2) Since everything is built with disabilities in mind, my kids could also do everything at the park. There were no height restrictions for the rides. We spent most of the day there and left around 4 to head home.

They had little jeeps that you could "drive" on a track for the families. The kids loved driving the car around.

Riding the bigger Ferris Wheel.

This was, by far, the most relaxing vacation we've taken with kids. I think it worked out well to have the same "base camp" every day and we weren't driving around a bunch in the city. By being able to go to SeaWorld three days in a row, we didn't feel rushed or anything. And the kids slept well. Typically, some kid decides to wake up all night long on a vacation but this time, they all did great. Tanner even slept on an air mattress instead of a crib and didn't come out at night. I also focused a lot on how I could make the little things exciting. I brought a book for me to read. We had a treat every night after dinner. I brought super easy meals for dinner and breakfast. We brought paper plates and stuff so I didn't have to do a ton of dishes. The kids watched a movie each night. We did little things to make the vacation fun as well. Now on to planning next year's trip to Gatlinburg.