The months keep ticking by...9, 10...

Little Olivia has been busy...busy growing, learning and getting into all sorts of trouble. She turned 9 months old on Thanksgiving Day and celebrated with her first ear infection. To this very day she is still on antibiotics, over a month later, trying to kill the same bug and again seems to be a mini-Belle and is off to meet the ENT next week. Even still, she is very good natured and smiley and loves anything loud and wild. Olivia has started eating many table foods and is always happy to eat pancakes, toast, yogurt, or noodles. She is very vocal already saying Ba Ba for Bye Bye and her version of Belle too! Her latest word is HI and she is quite friendly as she says it and waves hello to everyone all day long. I am often greeted by her when she wakes with a HI as I enter her bedroom. Olivia is also completely out of her mind to stand and walk by herself and can think of not much else. She has mastered pulling herself up and walking while pushing her toy or while holding onto furniture and is moments from walking unassisted as well. She often doesn't realize it and lets go while playing and stands on her own briefly until she notices she is doing it all by herself and then carefully sits back down.



With all of these new skills comes a whole new stage of exploration as well. Olivia has quickly reminded us what it means to "baby proof" as she is immediately on the stairs, in the garbage, pulling cords out of sockets, and so on. She stands rather than sits in the bath and she climbs up and over everything that seems to get in her way every where she goes. She actually refuses to sit down while in her high chair and we cannot even step away long enough to grab something out of the refrigerator before she is standing up and hanging over the edge. Part of the problem is that she is so tiny that even seat belts cinched to their tightest marks are baggy and let her roam free. At her 9 month well-check she weighed in at just a wee 16lbs which placed her in the 10th percentile for her age group, but she certainly has not let her small size slow her down. Unfortunately with all of this constant and not always so safe activity, Olivia has had her share of bloody lips and bruises already. One night we spent some time in the ER while she had a CAT Scan, but thankfully everything came back okay and our little adventurer just suffered a bad contusion.

Now it has been Christmas Day already too and Olivia turned 10 months old while she celebrated her first visit from Santa Claus. She is finally cutting her first tooth and we are continually surprised by her vast growth every single day. We are trying to savor each milestone as we know that she will be 1 year old in just a few more short months and the development will only double. For now I will just enjoy every little HI and spend all of my time following her as she explores this ever changing world.

Turkey for you, turkey for me

Thanksgiving is all about being with those whom you are thankful for so we were counting down the days until we could pack the car for a few days in Houston. Everybody was coming this year and Isabelle could hardly wait to get to Grammies! The visit didn't disappoint any of us either as we kept busy from morning till night with too much fun! We ran in the Annual Coles Crossing Turkey Trot, had family pictures, ate way too much yummy food, branded a Sigh-Bar sign, went bowling, celebrated Max's birthday, played at the park, performed Thanksgiving puppet shows, and so on. Isabelle was literally besides herself with joy to spend every waking minute playing with Max and Olivia loved all of the extra attention and being pushed outside in either the swing or her "car."

As important, if not more so, was the Black Friday shopping we waited for all year long! Alee, Tara, my mom and I all headed to Target just before 4:00am and spent lots of money in not a lot of time! Once Olivia woke up around 5:15am and needed her mama, I ran home and fed her and got her back to sleep for Ben and then won major Mother-Of-The-Year points when I woke Isabelle up at 5:30am and took her to meet the rest of the crew in her PJ's for some more shopping! Belle was so excited to buy something for her little sister for Christmas that she saw on the Black Friday Ad the night before and to be shopping in the middle of the night with the big girls! The competitive shopper gene is alive and well in the Christensen offspring!

As usual the holiday ended too soon and once again we were on the road but this time heading for home. We are so grateful for our two healthy and energetic little girls and each member of our extended family and for this time of year that encourages us to count our many blessings!

Eyes, ears mouth and nose!

Isabelle has had more ear infections in her short four years than we can count! The trouble all began on her very first Thanksgiving and after months of antibiotics and sleepless nights, she had her first set of ear-tubes placed into both ears by the wonderful Dr. Charles Biediger! The ear infections didn't end there, but they were different. Her ears drained constantly and we treated them with antibiotics in her ears rather than orally and we were all much happier! Isabelle wore plugs in her ears to bathe or swim from the time she could remember and visiting Dr. Biediger every few months was just a way of life.

Fast forward a few years and about 9 months post ear tube removal and once again we were plagued with sleepless nights and little Isabelle's head warm with fever, time and time again. Dr. Biediger didn't wait long this time around after knowing her history and scheduled her for yet another set of ear tubes and an adenoidectomy (removal of her adenoids) at the same time.

The surgery date was scheduled for the first day of November and Isabelle knew the plan from the get-go. She was so brave and never once questioned the need or said she was too afraid. In fact, the morning of the surgery when Ben and I woke our sweet girl up way too early and made the trek to the hospital, we were caught off guard when Isabelle said in the car How in the world is Dr. Biediger going to fit his whole hand down my throat to get my adenoid out? She was obviously aware of what was just moments from happening and was still ready to go! When we arrived at the hospital we were quickly met by Isabelle's surgery nurse and the anesthesiologist and after they gave Jelly a "cocktail" Dr. Biediger found us and offered to carry Isabelle back to the surgery table himself.

The surgery took longer than I thought and the 90 minutes I waited seemed like too long but we were so confident in our doctor that we knew everything was going as planned. (Ben spent the whole wait time on a conference call with NYC making deals and talking money...obviously Isabelle gets her nerves from him!) I was glad when Dr. Biediger poked his head out into the waiting room and asked us to follow him back to find Jelly in recovery. The staff had prepped us already warning us that children coming off serious drugs are often quite challenging but seeing our little girl laying there and crying and moaning but not yet awake was tough. She had a difficult time coming off of the anesthesia and couldn't keep anything down long after we left the hospital but continued to be in good spirits and smiled for the camera even when she wasn't sure who we were or what we were doing. Once Isabelle had slept the drugs off and could keep a little something in her tummy she made a speedy recovery. She missed a week of school taking it easy and couldn't drink from a straw for a while but the benefits greatly outweighed the costs.

So now we are back to ear plugs for the bath and wiping her ears rather than her nose, but wow, what a difference it makes to Jelly's life! Thank goodness for medical technology and for wonderful doctors! We've gotten to know Dr. Biediger so well over the last few years and think so much of him, he's actually on our Christmas card list! Here's to a new set of ear tubes and hopes that Isabelle's eustachian tubes grow before the tubes are ready to come out again!

Killer Bees

When Isabelle told us she wanted to sign up for basketball we were not only surprised, we were a bit amused as well. How in the world would she dribble the basketball? Would she be aggressive enough to actually touch the ball? And although basketball was the sport of both mom and dad's choice growing up, we figured a season of co-ed soccer in the fall may be an easier beginning to the wide world of sports...where all you really have to do is run and maybe occasionally kick the soccer ball.

Luckily Jelly's great little friend Madeline was planning to sign up for her first season as well so we joined forces and became members of the YMCA Killer Bees! At first we were bummed when we learned we had the Friday evening practice slot, but quickly realized this was a blessing since it is the only day of the week we can almost rely on Ben being in town! So for 10 Fall weeks, Friday evenings became a soccer date night for Jelly and Ben!

To our surprise, little Jelly LOVED every minute of the 2010 soccer season. She looked forward to her practices and worked on her skills at home too! And she was thrilled each Saturday for her games. We never had to encourage her to participate and when Coach Welborn yelled to her to "go in" she put on her game face and charged the field. Of course she was not even close to one of the more aggressive players and she was gracious and waited her turn to kick the ball most of the time, but she got better and better as the season went on and near the end enjoyed the victory of her 1st and 2nd Killer Bee goals! One funny thing to watch was how hard Jelly tried to listen to both her dad and coach yelling from the sidelines, guiding her on what to do. She would often miss the play because she was so focused on listening to her instructions!

Olivia was Isabelle's biggest cheerleader and loved being outside at the games. Grammie, Grandpa and Tara were able to make it to one of her games as well and the extra cheering gave Belle even more incentive to run and play her best. We then all enjoyed Smashburger for lunch with Belle's "Player of the Week" free kids meal!

And although the Killer Bee's were not so deadly after all, the greatest moment came at the end of the season when her coach called her name at the ceremonial dinner and presented her with a medal and a certificate. She was so proud and announced as soon as she got home That's it, I'm getting a hook to hang my medal!

Isabelle had such a positive experience that she has convinced her parents and starts YMCA basketball in January! And guess who her coach is...Ben!