Six Months Old!

Today Owen is six months old! What a wonderful half year this has been. And we only have 6 more months of the infant stage. Currently, Owen weighs 18 lbs and 13 oz and is 25 1/2 inches long. What a big boy!

We have had a lot of changes in the last couple weeks. Owen moved from his infant car seat to a larger car seat that he'll stay in until he's a least 3 years old. Also, he has started trying to sit up. Yesterday, we went out for lunch after church and he sat in a highchair for the first time. He did great!! He also ate a bunch of my mashed potatoes and got tons of ohhhs and ahhhs from the surrounding diners. Savannah is starting to really notice that Owen is getting the attention that she used to get and is really going out of her way to redirect it to her...it usually goes something like this, "Oh, what a cute little baby! How old?" and then Savannah talks over me, "Hi! I am three and I have curly hair. My name is Savannah and I have a dog named Hogan." It's kind of cute and kind of pathetic :( Poor Vannie.

Owen spends a lot more time awake now and is even bearing weight on his legs. He also is really getting into the toys and I think he is beginning to teeth. He puts everything in his mouths and loves to have his bottom gums rubbed. Hopefully we'll be seeing some teeth soon! This month is also going to be a hard one for Owen because he is scheduled to have a hormone injection, regular six month shots, and surgery at the end of February. Poor baby!

The Next 29 Days

The month of February is going to be a busy one at the Oliver House! Owen has 3 scheduled doctor's appointments, one surgery appointment, and an appointment to get his 6 months pictures taken. Kaitlyn has a blood work appointment, an orthodontist consultation, and a doctor's appointment. Savannah only has one doctor's appointment scheduled so far. That's 9 appointments in 29 days!!! And that is counting on them all being healthy this month :) It's no wonder I sleep good at night!

They are definitely a lot of work, but they are so worth it!!!

Owen Urology Update

Owen saw his urologist yesterday for his 6 month recheck. For those of you that don't know, Owen has hypospadias. All this basically means is that his urethra is not positioned where it should be. Thankfully everything functions fine, we just have to repair the location so it doesn't interfere with his potty training. The doctor said that he is growing wonderfully (we definitely knew that already!) and that he is big enough now to plan the surgery. He has to get one hormone injection and then 4 weeks later he'll go in for surgery. It should be an easy fix with him being able to go home the same day, but there is always a chance he may need to stay overnight and there is a chance that he may require it to be done in stages meaning 2 surgeries 6 months apart. We won't know anything for sure until they finish the first surgery. Poor baby!!! Although I am looking forward to him being all better, I am definitely not looking forward to him recovering from surgery - I have firsthand knowledge of that and it's not fun!!! Hopefully we'll hear from the dr.'s office this week to set a date.

****I just heard from the dr. office and we are getting the hormone injection on Mon. the 31st and his surgery is now set for Mon. Feb 28th...yikes but yay!!! The sooner the better I guess :) 

Owen's First Bath (in the big tub)

Owen will be 6 months old in about a week and in our house that is a big milestone! We are about halfway done with the infant stage!!! Yay!!!! This weekend we moved him into his big car seat and tonight he got his first bath in the tub with his new bath seat.

I think he enjoyed it and I know Savannah is excited to have company in the tub again :)

What's funny is I have the picture from Savannah's first bath in the tub! How cute is that!!!

It's hard to believe that this picture was over three years ago!

Project Saturday!

Today was the first Saturday in a while that Mike hasn't been working or we haven't had plans. So we decided that today would be project Saturday.

Project Saturday started off great for me because my mom treated me to a wonderful pedicure while Mike stayed home with the kids...how did I get that lucky?

She even talked me into getting little designs on my toes! My girls were totally jealous :)

After I got home, we got all of Owen's baby stuff that he has outgrown organized and ready to go to Goodwill and the consignment shop. We got Owen all situated in his new big baby boy car seat. It gives him so much more room and he looks little again...too cute!

After dropping the stuff off at the various locations and ridding our house of little baby things, we were off to Home Depot and Lowe's to look at ceiling fans and grill parts. Our living room ceiling fan broke this fall and we have finally decided to replace it.

We chose a fan and as soon as we arrived home, Mike decided to get right to work! Here he is - a man with a fan and a plan!!! :) That's a Mike quote by the way...

Here is the new fan that Mike successfully installed!

Binkies!!!!

If you know my son Owen, you know that he is never far from one of his beloved binkies. I have never had a baby who relied so much on them! It is currently making me a little crazy!! Because Owen has had thrush three times, I have to make sure I sanitize his binkie each day. So naturally, I developed a system to keep track and clean the binkies because they are pretty expensive to replace. Mike's system goes something like this, when a binkie is not in Owen's mouth and he's making noise, he goes and gets another one! Since Mike was home from Winter Break and this past three day weekend we have lost 4 of them! It's not exactly his fault, they just seem to disappear. And after two days and hunting for them, I finally gave up and bought more!! You are looking at roughly $12 worth of binkies. Ouch!

My All Weather Girl!

It is quite rainy out today and when I told Savannah that we had to venture out to go the doctor, she prepared herself accordingly!

Getting A Little Big...

Here is Owen is his car seat at one week old...

Here he is today at nearly six months old...

I think he will be upgrading to his big boy car seat soon...I have bruises on my arm from carrying him in that seat!!!

The flu for two!!!

This week started with me kind of feeling off kilter. I was just grumpy the first couple days of the week and then Wednesday started feeling a little congestion. I chalked it up to a little cold but by Friday I was slammed with body aches, chills, and then a temp. I called Mike home from work because I was worried I might have the flu. Both my girls have had the flu mist but Owen was too little so my concern was for him. Mike took over the feedings and the snuggling but it was too late!

Friday evening, Owen slept for over 4 hours through a feeding and then barely ate his last feeding. He woke up miserable a few times in the night as if his body hurt. Sat he slept a lot and didn't eat well. But about 6:00 Saturday evening he was running a temp and refusing to eat. So for the second time in two weeks we made our way to the ER. His temp was 103.9 when we checked in!!! The dr confirmed that we had the flu and he was given tylenol and a prescription for Tamiflu.

Here he is getting his second dose of Tamiflu.This should lessen his symptoms and hopefully shorten his sick time!

Hopefully we will both get to feeling better soon and we are very much hoping not to infect the rest of the family!!!

Ferberizing!!!

So for the past week or so Owen has been a real stinker when it comes to sleeping. He is not napping the way he normally does and is waking up repeatedly during the night. He is 5 months old and a hearty 18+ lbs so I know he's not starving. He is on a special formula that is more broken down than most so I started to wonder if that was causing him to still need that one night feeding. Mike and I are definitely not used to this!!! Of all the foster children we had and our own two older girls, we haven't dealt with a sleep issue that lasted this long! Savannah was sleeping through the night at about 8 weeks.

So after a particularly bad night on Thursday, I decided enough was enough! I researched sleep training for babies and purchased some normal baby formula. The Ferber method basically says that babies need to learn to fall asleep on their own. It advocates putting babies in their bed awake but sleepy so they learn to fall asleep and soothe themselves. It also recommends a transitional object for the baby to have only when he or she is in bed so the baby associates that object with sleeping and possibly using music or a sleep machine. I decided to throw in my own little step of using the normal formula just in his night bottle to see if it would keep him full longer.

Here is Owen with his froggy (transitional object) and his sleep sheep that makes ocean sounds sleeping like a good baby should!!! :)

I am not sure what the key step here was, but I know that my little man slept 9 straight hours last night which means I did too!!! Victory for Mama!!!

Kate's New Cut

As a reward for her having such a great winter break and for all the help she is around the house, Mike decided Kate could go get her hair cut by a professional. I usually cut her hair and although it is usually straight, I don't do anything fancy :) This is her new cut - super cute and sassy!!!

Savannah's First Day of Pre-School

Today Savannah started going to a three day a week preschool at a local church. She was so excited!! She showed no hesitation when I dropped her off and when I went to pick her up, she yelled, "NO...I don't want to leave!" That's a great sign :)

Toys, toys, and more toys!!!!

As we were putting away our Christmas tree this year, I decided to go ahead and put together a little play area in our living room for Owen. He got a bunch of new toys for Christmas and we saved all of Savannah's baby toys for him too. His is getting a lot of play time in these days!! :)

Cute but a little scary!

So this fall, I went into the attic to see what clothes I had that would fit Savannah. I pulled out all the winter clothes from Kaitlyn's first winter with us and had Savannah try some things on. What was crazy is that everything fit! Kaitlyn was almost 5 years old when she moved in with us and Savannah is now only 3 1/2. Check these pics out!

Same dresses!!! It's adorable, but a little scary as to just how little Kate was when she came!!! Mike and I have both said it's a little weird seeing clothes that we remember so fondly on Kate now on Savannah.

A Hard Head

Yesterday we were all getting ready for church. Everyone was scurrying about doing their own thing when Savannah decided she wanted to come downstairs to check on me. What followed was one of those noises a parent never ever wants to hear. We heard a loud crash followed by screaming...Savannah fell down the stairs from about the halfway point! If you have ever seen our staircase, you know that a fall down them is terrifying! She came up with a welt on her head bigger than one I have ever seen and it immediately turned blue! Mike decided we needed to take her to a walk in to get it checked out. She ended up being just fine...turns out she must have a really hard head. All the damage was external thankfully.

Here is here battle wound after we made it home from the ER.

So the doctor said that she was fine to sleep and everything but that she needed to be checked on every 2 hours or so during the night just to be sure everything was alright. We decided to have her sleep downstairs with me so that I could check on her as I was getting up with Owen. Turns out I didn't have to wake her up at all, she had me up every 2 hours talking in her sleep or flailing about!!!