Woah boy...

Wow! It has been a while, yes? YIKES! The whole purposed of this blog was to keep family updated on how our family is doing and I have failed!

Well, I return!

My last post was early July, when we were headed to my Dad's house in Washington. It was really a relaxing and wonderful trip, while we were there. Car rides... well, extended car rides weren't so fun! Poor Maddie hates her carseat! Anyways, we had a lot of family time, sunshine, good food, LOTS of food and got to visit with everyone. Notably, we got to get a 4 generations photo with Grandma Birch. We also got some great pictures of the girls in all of their ever-changing, endless energy! I promise... I will post them... I promise! :)

The ride home from that mini-vacation was anything but good. I think Madelyn screamed the last 3 hours or so? A normally 9 hour drive was turned into a 12 hour drive. I think in the future, when we all travel up that way it will be split into a two day trip! But we made it home safely, obviously.

Beyond the min-vacation to my Dad's, July was a bunch of work, girls and attempts at sleep. Mid July, Madelyn's reflex really reared it's ugly head. Up until then Maddie had been doing what we call froggie crawling (getting on all fours and catapolting herself forward, yet... not using her front arms but to pick herself back up and do it all over again). Around mid-month, Maddie started getting the hang of actually crawling. And once she got the hang of it, she was off... at lightning speed, no joke! But with that new positioning, the reflux really started acting up again.

We were refered to a specialist at Doernbecher's Children Hospital in Portland and thus began testing! Her first test was several blood test to check for allergies, a poop test to see if her body is processing foods properly/allergies, a swallow test X2, and more medication. We found that she has all the pieces and at this point no surgery is required, but the small valve at the top of her stomache doesn't close all the way like it should. So, stomache bile and food are easily able to come right back up and cause issues. :( My poor babe! So, as of right now we have to thicken her breastmilk with baby puree or this weird gel called Thick It/Simply Thick. This is partically due to her not being able to swallow fluids without coughing/choking/aspirating it. We really aren't satisfied with the results we got and the wait and see attitude, things have been tough the last 8 months with Maddie. And to see her in pain (the arching, spitting up, hoarse voice, etc) and not being able to comfort her, kills. :( As of right now, we have another appointment come January to re-check everything (more tests... yea.).

So far, not much has changed. She is still waking every 1.5-2 hours at night... and I don't want to jinx things BUT the past two nights in a row, she has only woken up ONCE between 8pm-730am! OMG! We have gotten a couple nights of decent sleep! Although, Robert has allowed me several nights of decent sleep... gotta love him! Bless his heart!

Madelyn is now standing. She has been standing for a good month now. Pulling up on things and crusing around. Something new is she pulls herself up and is getting brave and letting go! YIKES! But even more YIKES!!! is that she has attempted to take steps within the last couple of days. No joke. She will pull herself to a standing position, let go and attempt to take a step. She is generally successful in at least one step but then promptly falls on her butt. :) Very proud of herself though. And I think she will be another stubborn one... she REFUSES to let us hold her hand and help her walk. She wants to do it on her own! hehehe And last night, after work when I went to pick the girls up, I walked into Rick and Pattie's house and there she was, holding onto a toy shopping cart... pushing it... walking around the room holding onto it!!!! OH MAN! Look out, another early walker on our hands!!

Alyssa continues to amaze us on a daily bases. She is learning and growing and changing and becoming such a wonderful little person to be around. She can get over excited and manic at times, but hey... she provides such astounding entertainment! :) In a couple of months she has grown a good inch or so in height, still a skinny lil minnie, but independant and intelligent. You can have a full conversation with her adn she sometimes pulls out some realyl big words that I am not even sure where she learned them!

Her most recent cuteness is when she tells me she loves me. She always says "I love you more than chocolate, Mommy!" or "I love you more than Elmo, Big Bird AND Cookie Monster, Mommy!" Melts my heart. She gives the most amazing hugs! And demands group hugs from everyone, all the time! Very social and can make anyone melt with her manners.

She is recently showing a clear interest in My Little Pony and Hello Kitty. In fact, her birthday party will be Hello Kitty themed, but shhhhh don't tell her that! OH and she officially has a BIG GIRL bed... not just a Toddler bed. Now, we didn't tell her it was a ploy to get her out of our bed, no! (lol) We told her we had a big suprise for her... we had purchased Hello Kitty bedding for her and she helped set her bed up, make the bed and put A.L.L of her stuft animals on her bed. Yes, she loves it. And even better... our ploy worked like a charm! :) She is sleeping in her BIG GIRL bed without problem!!!

Oh, adn my goodness... potty training has gone so smoothly!! She has an accident MAYBE once a week, but other than that... she has her big girl panties on (most are Disney Princesses, Elmo or Hello Kitty ones... lol). She likes picking them out in the morning. And she can get up onto the big toilet all by herself and go! We still have to ask/prompt on occassion but most of the time she tells us she has to go. I am thankful that she is interested in potty training and washing her hands for that matter, now to work on how to wipe properly. hehehe

This "two kid" thing is working out well for us. Alyssa is an amazing big sister and is always commenting on how she wants to be able to teach Madelyn stuff as she grows up. And I think Alyssa is even more of an amazing big sister... because I think she is the only one that calls Madelyn by her name. lol We call her Maddie, while Alyssa calls her Madelyn. They play together, we are working on how to share, but Alyssa is attentive and always wants to love on Madelyn. It really warms my heart to know they get along... because I know once we reach the teen years, watch out hormones! lol

So there is all the good... if I missed something, smack me? Yea?

Onto the tough stuff.

On July 28th, my mother passed away. She and I were not close, especially over the last handful of years, but it still hit me hard. I think I still struggle with it every so often. I think one of the hardest things about it was her youth, she was young. And that she never met Robert or my girls. Grandma Lee said that she knew of my girls... but she had never met them. We had planned to go see her next spring. I wanted to make things right between her and I, but now, I don't have that opportunity. She made some choices in her life that distanced her from her family and made ehr family distance themselves from her, but she was my mother, she was the girls' grandmother... and it does hurt. August 30th we took her ashes to a cliff on the Oregon Coast and spread them. I have a small vile of her ashes that I kept. I am not totally sure why, but I did. I don't know if it will cause more grief as I see them, or offer some type of odd comfort. We'll have to see.

And then on October 1st, Grandma Birch passed away. She was young as well. I am strugling with her passing as well. I was on my way to say good bye, we knew that she probably didn't have long, when I reached the half way point... she passed. I had to pull over. I was so sad. She was an amazing woman, wonderful grandma, smiling great-grandmother and a beautiful spirit. She will be missed.

Alyssa and I leave tomorrow to head up to Oroville to attend her funeral and to be there for my Dad. Robert and Madelyn would go too, but Madelyn can't go more than maybe an hour in the car before all hell breaks loose. Eep! So Alyssa and I will make the trek and spend some time with family.

With that, here is the blog... updated! I will post pictures probably tonight or after I arrive at Dad's. Seeing as I have to still finish packing... lol Yes, my procrastinating hasn't changed. ;)