Left Overs...

I'm not usually one to eat left overs...

but I can't help but share these left over pictures from the month.

First semi-smile caught on camera...

 We moved one of our twin beds up to the playroom so the girls don't have to share a bed while Maddie has a broken arm. It has been a great source of entertainment ever since we brought it up...

 3 out of 4 sleeping are pretty good odds if you ask me...

 Our little buddy boy...

 My children are great at photo bombing don't you think?

 A sneak peak at Zack-a-roo's blessing outfit.

Do you know how hard it is to find clothes for little boys???

We had to search everywhere for this little guys outfit!

Aubrey loves her uncle Steve...

 Gotta love our littlest princess...

 This little guy isn't going to be little for long. He is growing like a weed these days. So different from what we are used to. At his 2 week appointment where they are supposed to be back to their birth weight (7 lbs 13 oz), Zachary was already up to 8 lbs 6 oz. He is so his Daddy's son.

It will be interesting to see what this next month has in store for us. Hopefully it won't be quite as crazy as our July has been but we could handle a bit more summer fun.

Neighborhood party...

Have I mentioned before how much I love our neighborhood?

Even if I have, I'm going to say it again.

I love our neighborhood.

We have the best neighbors.

I have never lived in a place where I feel so welcome and where there are so many friends for our kids. Anytime anything happens in our life, whether it be small (one of our kids is sick) to big (one our children is in the hospital) or whether I am having a bad day, without fail one of our neighbors will show up at our door with a meal, a treat or a kind note of encouragement. It seriously makes me want to be a better person... more aware of those around me and less consumed in my own life all the time.

Anyway, I love it.

Every year our neighbors host a neighborhood party where everyone brings treats and goodies and anyone who wants can donate money for a little firework show. Every year more and more people join the event and more money is donated.This year the show consisted of $3000 worth of fireworks. (The scored quite the deal on the fireworks by driving to Wyoming to buy the left over 4th of July fireworks) It was a pretty impressive show for a little neighborhood gathering.

Thanks to the Balling's for hosting such a fun event!

The First Meeting...

Zachary...

Meet Donovan...

Donovan, meet Zachary...

Well ok, maybe we will try that again when you two don't just sleep all the time! 

These cute little cousins were born just 11 days apart. We figure that they were just waiting to come to earth together. And we sure are grateful they did. Especially since up until they were born, we only had girl grandchildren in the Nielsen family. Can you imagine the poor boy who only had a bunch of girls to play with? :) I'm sure these two are going to be quite the trouble makers some day. But for now... they can sleep peacefully in their auntie Kate's arms together.

First grade already...

Maddie started 1st grade today.

I still can't get used to the fact that summer is already over for us...

  I got to go to school with Maddie for the first part of her day for parent orientation. This year Madison will have two different teachers (Madam Stone and Mrs. Smith) and will spend half of the day in each of their classrooms.  Madam Stone will only speak in French to the kids and will teach Math, Science and Social Studies and Mrs Smith will teach Reading, Writing, and any other subject that needs to be taught in English. 

I got a little taste of what it will be like for Madison in class today seeing as Mdm Stone did not even speak English while the parents were in the room. I was surprised though by how she was still able to make us understand what she was saying. She uses a lot of hand gestures and facial expressions to help you understand what she is talking about so even I wasn't too confused.

The only sad part of the day was when it was time for me to leave. After our 20 minutes of orientation the kids were supposed to go back outside and play for the next 40 minutes while the older grades took their turn inside with the teachers. (I think they did it this way so parents with multiple kids in the school were able to meet with every kids teacher...) Usually playing outside for 40 minutes would be a great thing. When your arm is in a cast and you can't play on the playground with the other kids... it's not so fun. It broke my heart when I had to leave to go home.

Remember this picture from last year on the first day of school that Brooklyn photo-bombed? You can see her peeking through the blinds behind Maddie...

Well, it happened again this year...

Happy first day of First Grade Miss Madison!

"I did something you told me not to!"

Did you know that I've been a mother for almost 6 years now? That thought almost blows my mind...

I have learned many things over the course of the last 6 years that I would say have made me a better mom, or at least a more knowledgeable mom.

One of those things I have learned is that when you tell a child not to do something because they could get hurt, chances are, at some point, said child will think they are invincible and will try it anyway.

We had one of those moments last week.

The girls had been outside playing in their new playhouse all day long. They were having the time of their life decorating and accessorizing the place. (They are so Grandma Jo's granddaughters...) Occasionally I had to yell out the window and remind them of those things they were not supposed to be doing, but for the most part they were doing great.

There was no screaming or fighting, just happy playing.

And then it happened... 

I heard the screaming and knew immediately that something was really wrong. Madison came running into the house screaming, "I was doing something you told me not to!" I took one look at her and knew immediately she had broken her elbow. 

And that's when things really started getting interesting.

Have I mentioned that I don't do great in emergency situations?

I kind of tend to panic.

I ended up calling our doctors office to ask them where I should take her. Our doctor was out of town so the nurse told me to take her to the Instacare.

Have I mentioned that I really need to just trust my instincts, skip the Instacare and go straight to Primary Children's Hospital? 

That's where we always end up anyway...

All they were able to do for us was confirm what I already knew. Maddie had in fact broken her elbow and would need surgery to put it back together again.

The red arrows show where the bone was once connected.

At the hospital we were told that they rate their breaks on a scale of 1 to 3. 1 being the best and 3 being the worst. 

They rated her break at a 2.9.

We knew they had to do surgery on her arm, but what we didn't know is that we had to wait at least 6 hours from the time she had last eaten to do the surgery. Since she fell right after lunch, we had quite a while to wait. At least they were able to give her some morphine and an iPad to help with the pain while we waited...

I was really impressed with how brave Madison was through all this. I was especially surprised at how seemingly painless she made it seem when they put the IV into her hand. Having done the same thing only two weeks earlier, the memory of how painful it can be to have a needle inserted in your hand was all too familiar for my liking. Seriously, that was one of the worst parts of labor and delivery for me. I hate needles.

We waited around for what seemed like forever before the surgery was able to be done. After about an hour this girl came back with 3 pins holding her arm together and a bright pink, full arm cast.

Did I mention yet that this little guy got to hang out with us the whole time too? Great place to hang out when you're a baby, don't you think?

Originally we were told Madison was going to have to spend the night in the hospital so they could keep an eye on the swelling.

She was actually quite excited about the prospect of spending the night in the hospital. She thought it was pretty neat that she could order any food she wanted and that she was getting so much attention. Her parents on the other hand, were quite glad the doctor told us we did not need to spend the night.

Since Madison wasn't allowed to eat all day, she didn't hold back when it came time to order her dinner (at 8:00 at night). She ordered Mac and Cheese, pancakes, eggs and a milkshake. Sounds delish doesn't it?

So in case you are wondering what that "something" Madison was doing I had told her not to do was...

She was climbing on the window of the playhouse so she could see over our back fence. She was standing on the open window when the window decided to break off. I think it kind of caught her off guard since she didn't know the window would fall off when she put all of her weight on it...

Maybe, just maybe, next time she will believe me about the getting hurt thing?

Yearly Review

Every year we have to do a yearly review for Aubrey with the Early Intervention program. The way it works is the service coordinator for the program, Jean, comes to our house with our usual nurse, Joan. Jean sits and asks me questions about Aubrey's development as we watch Aubrey "play" with Joan. 

By asking these questions and watching Aubrey play, Jean is able to determine what age level of development Aubrey is at.

She asks questions such as...

Can Aubrey turn one page at a time in a normal paper book?

Can Aubrey imitate a crayon stroke on a piece of paper?

Can she push and pull large objects around?

Can she walk backwards without falling down?

Can she point to or recognize a specific object?

Can she follow simple instructions?

Can she help dress or undress herself?

Does she claim and defend ownership of her things?

Can she pick up and put away toys on request?

These are just a few of the many, many questions we are asked during our review. After Jean feels as though she has enough information, she is able to determine at what age level her gross motor skills, fine motor skills, cognitive skills, receptive communication skills, expressive communication skills, social and emotional skills, and adaptive skills she is at.  

This week both Joan and Jean came back to our house to give us the results of our review and to set new goals for us to work on this coming year. We were quite pleased with the results.

The way the results are read is at 24 months Aubrey's social or emotional skills are that of a __ month old child.

Out of the 7 categories, Aubrey was only below age level expectations on 3 of these categories.

Her communication skills were that of a 21 month old child.

Her fine motor skills were that of a 22 month old child.

Her cognitive skills were that of a 23 month old child.

We also have to take into consideration that some of the areas Aubrey scored lower in, may have just been due to the fact that we really didn't know how to answer the questions. We have this problem with Aubrey that when you want her to do something... she doesn't usually want to do it- whether she can or not. I said if they had warned me in advance what questions they would be asking me, I could have watched Aubrey for a few days to see if she really can do some of these things.

But all things considered, these are great scores and I was happy with the results. I think the best news of all though, for me at least, was when Jean told me that with these scores alone Aubrey would not qualify for the Early Intervention program because she is not far enough behind. With her having Down Syndrome though, she automatically qualifies for the program.

Jean also informed me that she has never scored a child with Down Syndrome as high as she did with Aubrey. She and Joan both believe Aubrey is doing extremely well and that her motivation is going to take her far in life. As a mother, there is nothing sweeter than to hear these kinds of things from others... especially when they are coming from someone who really knows what they are talking about. 

So what does this mean for our future?

We set new goals as to what we want to see Aubrey improve on in these next couple of months. Obviously our biggest focus will be on getting her to use more words (either speaking or signs) to better communicate her needs and wants and we will continue to work on helping her improve her fine motor and cognitive skills.

And the best part of needing to improve her fine motor and cognitive skills is that we get to continue to have Joan come visit us every month as well as having her speech therapist, Nicole. We've gotten kind of attached to Joan over the course of the last 2 years...

Now in closing I want to say thank you to all of you! Seriously I don't think we would be where we are today without the help of all of you. They say it takes a village to raise a child... and in our case, I really do believe this. You have all helped motivate and encouraged her to do more than we ever knew was possible.

Thank you for being a part of our lives!

Swim swim...

One of the many joys of summer is playing at our pool.

We haven't been swimming nearly as much this summer as we would have liked but we sure love it when we do.

Since I couldn't exactly get in the pool 4 days after having a baby, we made my sister Katie come with us. 

Zacky and I enjoyed watching from the side of the pool...

Well maybe I enjoyed watching, while he enjoyed sleeping. :)

 Yay for fun summer days!

We've got to enjoy them while we can...

School starts back up in one more week.