Every Girl Needs A Tutu

Every little girl needs a tutu. Thanks Evan and Twiss for Lily's tutu. She loves it!!

Texas Rangers Game

Papa and Ollie went to a Texas Rangers baseball game for a date. They had a lot of fun. Ollie's attention span was not long enough for the whole game so they left before it was over. They got to get "jumbo hotdogs, peanuts, and lemonaide". Ollie loves Spencer so much. He always calls him his hero.
We told Ollie about the game a few weeks ahead of time (when we bought the tickets). Ollie talked about it non-stop. The night before the game when we put him to bed we told him that the game would be the next day. That next morning (game day) Ollie woke up and started singing the "Take me out to the ball game" song. He had learned all the words and sang is perfectly. He was so excited to go. He kept telling us he was going to get a "jumbo hotdog". He is sure a cute kid. We love him very much.
Just for the record--- Spencer was very excited about it too. He loves to take Ollie places and he had never been to a major league game before.

Lily's eyes

So everytime I write something about Lily's eyes I think of that song from The Secret Garden. Lily had an eye appointment yesterday. It was a lot of fun, just like always. It's the first time I've ever been there so I got directions from mapquest. Problem- the exit I needed was closed... so I was hopelessly lost. I asked directions at a gas station and finally found the place. The doctor was super busy so we were in his office for about THREE hours. That's a lot of fun with a three year old and a baby. The long and short of it is her prescription has changed again, so she is getting another contact. She still has poor eye movement in her left eye and has a lot of problems with going cross-eyed. Now for the best part of our visit--- We get to increase her eye patching time from 1 hour to half of the day. Instead of having to hold her or sit right next to her (to prevent her from getting her patch off, which she is very good at) for one hour, I get to do that for half of the day. The doctor said that if I have a hard time getting her to keep the patch on I can put socks on her hands or they have these special arm restraints that prevent her from bending her arms. As he said that, I could just picture my little Lily laying on the ground not able to move her legs because of the cast, not able to move her arms because of the restaints, with her patch on her eye for hours each day. I declined the arm restraints. We will try patching her eye for longer each day to see if we can help it... if not, she gets to have another surgery to fix the problem.
So we left. I got in the car and started crying, then found a park and took the kids to play. I was depressed about the whole thing last night but since I can't change anything I will just have to deal with it. So this morning we did our first day of a longer patch time. We lasted three hours (not half the day but three times as much as we are used to). Ollie (who didn't seem to be listening yesterday) wanted to know if Lily needed socks to put on her hands. I explained to him that we just need to try to keep Lily happy and give her toys so she doesn't take the patch off. I just can't bear to not let her use her hands.
Well nap time is over and I can hear two little kids wanting their mommy. :)

Funny Quotes

So Ollie's new thing to say to avoid trouble--- He says "Sorry, does that help?" He's learned that he has to say sorry so he just says sorry and tries to avoid any talking or punishment. Kids sure learn fast! He's also started asking me if he can drive the car. I thought that wasn't supposed to happen for another 12 years or so!?!
Here's my funny quote (as remembered by Spencer)-- Sunday morning I was washing Ollie's hair for church. He hates to have his hair washed because he doesn't want to get water in his eyes. I didn't want to spend time arguing with him about washing his hair or trying to convince him to look up. So I just said, "I'm fixin' to pour this water on your hair so you'd best be lookin' up." Spencer laughed about that one. I guess I've lived in the south for too long. :)

Diaper Changes

I've had several people ask about how I change Lily's diaper while she is in her spica cast. Seeing as the pictures of her little bottom are not going to be posted, this will be an explanation without any pictures except this one that shows the opening. :)
In the cast there is an opening around her diaper area. First, I take out the old diaper and clean it all. If she has an EXPLOSION then it takes Spencer to hold her upside down by her ankles, while I use a wipe wrapped around a popsicle stick to clean it out. As you can imagine, she loves that part (not really). Once she is all clean then I blow dry her bottom on a cool setting. Last I use a popsicle stick to shove the diaper under her bottom, put 1/2 of a feminine napkin in, and then tuck the top part into her cast. (the pad helps to absorb urine seeing as a 10 month old is much too big for size 1 diapers) The diaper is not secured by the straps and I actually cut them off before starting because they get in the way.
At first it took forever to just change her diaper but now Spencer and I are both really fast at it. Hopefully, we only have three more weeks of this. :)
I hope this explains things a little better.

Hair Versus Silly Putty

Spencer and Ollie were in the car the other day. While Spencer was driving Oliver was playing with silly putty. He put silly putty in his hair.



He put a little here and there.



And a great big chunk right on the top.



We tried to use peanut butter to get it out. Ollie enjoyed that part because he got to have spoonfulls while we worked. The peanut butter got out some but...



Here's half a haircut.



And here's the end result, while Ollie pretends he doesn't want his picture taken. New rule at our house-- NO silly putty in the car. :)

Playtime

Our kids love to play together! They love to lay on the ground by each other and play. Lily loves to grab Ollie's hair and he just laughs and thinks it's fun. They also enjoy playing in Lily's crib. When Ollie hears Lily wake up crying he loves to run and climb into her crib and play with her until I come and get them out. The newest thing that they like to do is play the piano together. Ollie and Lily have adored each other since day one. I never realized that siblings love each other so much from the very beginning.

Ready For Church

Last Sunday Ollie went into his room and picked out his own church clothes and got dressed by himself. This is the end result; a nice t-shirt that says "Hulk Rage".

The compromise was to put a shirt over the hulk shirt and you get the end result; a little more church appropriate.

Food!!

Lily loves to "help" feed herself. I get one spoon and she gets one spoon. Once she realizes that nothing is coming off of her spoon she wants my spoon, so we trade. Then when nothing comes off the new spoon she wants to trade again, and again, and again. We end up with a beautiful mess. She has also started wanting to eat everything that we are eating but she has no teeth yet. We have discovered that she is truely part Beck, she loves ice cream.

Mommy Date

Spencer and I take turns having "dates" with Ollie. I was planning a date with him and I asked him what he wanted to do. I left it totally open. He picked that he wanted to plant flowers. So these are his flowers that he picked out. (Not much selection in HOT August time.) He gets to water them everyday. He is very proud of them.

Ta Da

Ollie cleaned his room all by himself. This is a picture of him standing by his bed saying "Ta Da".

Pretty in Purple

Lily got a new cast this week. Ollie gets to pick the color. He has decided that Lily's favorite color is pink so the first cast was pink. His favorite color is purple so the second cast is purple. This new cast is much less smelly than the last one but she is working on getting it back to its smelly stage. There is one problem with this new cast... it has no signatures. So we are going to start a virtual cast. You send us a message and we will write it on the cast.