Ella's 3 year checkup

Today Ella and I made a visit to Oldham County Pediatrics to see Dr. Bindner for her 3 year checkup. It seems we've been at the doctor a lot lately, with all of Kendall's well baby visits, but the first thing Dr. Bindner said was that Ella hadn't been to the doctor for a sick visit since last February! Yay! Though I feel like we kind of cheat. If Ronnie weren't a doctor she would have probably been 2-3 times since then. He gives me reassurance when she's sick..."Kelly, she's fine. It's just an upper respiratory infection. It's viral so she doesn't need meds. It will just be the waste of a copay." He really comes in handy sometimes! ;)

The first thing the nurse did was weigh and measure her. She is 27 lbs 6 oz (30th percentile!!!!!) and 35 3/4 inches (25th percentile). I couldn't believe she was in the 30th percentile for weight! She has been eating like crazy lately so I thought it was probably higher than at her 2 year checkup (around 8th percentile), but I never expected that much of a jump. Way to go big eater!!

Everything else looked great. We talked a lot about her allergies, which have been completely out of control lately. She's always had allergy problems and has been on medicine regularly since she was 15 months old, but the last month has been especially difficult. Aside with taking Claritin everyday, she has been having lots of bad allergy attacks and it seems like it's every other day that I have to give her Benadryl and allergy eye drops. Today Dr. Bindner wrote her prescriptions for both Singulair and Nasonex and encouraged us to schedule an appointment with an allergist and have her tested. We've been putting this off for awhile, but we can't any longer. She is miserable. Last spring/summer/fall we basically couldn't go outside at all because her eyes would swell up and her nose would start pouring. We can't go to anyone's house who has a cat because within seconds of walking in the door her eyes swell up. And all of our friends and most of our family have dogs and she usually has an attack at their houses, too. Lately she has been having really bad attacks when we aren't around any animals...and I'm fairly certain that she is allergic to almonds. She needs to be tested so we can know for sure what she is allergic to and make adjustments to help her. Dr. Bindner recommended an allergist at Kentuckiana Allergy and I'm excited to meet with him. She mentioned that he is very conservative and won't put her on allergy shots unless he feels it is necessary. That's exactly what we're looking for. In the meantime, hopefully these prescriptions will start to help. They'd better...it cost $58 for both of them. Ouch.

Ella had to get 1 vaccine today. She seemed prepared, but when the nurse walked in with the shot she kept saying, "But I really don't need a shot. I don't need one..." She refused to lay down, so I held her arms while she sat up and watched. I could tell the nurse didn't want me to let her do this, but Ella is so interested in medical stuff that I thought she might as well watch. She screamed as soon as she was injected and then for 5-10 seconds, then she was fine. When we got home she was excited to show Daddy, Ross & Kendall her shot. She said, "Ross, I got a shot. I got it in this leg, NOT this leg. It's on my left leg. Don't touch it."

Kendall is 9 months!

I feel like I just wrote about Kendall being 8 months old, and now she is 9 months old! I can't believe she will be one year in just three short months. Before you have kids you hear people talking about how their "kids just grow up so fast" and "they'll be grown before you know it" and you just kind of think "ok whatever" but it is soooo true and has been especially true the second time around. I wish I could just freeze my kids right now. I don't know if anyone else watches Parenthood, but it's one of my favorite shows. The last episode really got me thinking. One of the couples on the show has a daughter who I believe is around 8. A bird flew into their window and they sort of took care of it, and then it died. They had to have the death conversation with their daughter and were so upset because they knew it would change her entire outlook on life. When we get to that point our converstaion will go a little differently than theirs, because their beliefs in the afterlife aren't exactly in line with ours, but it's still difficult to think about talking to our kids about those things. I love that they can just play and have fun and be so innocent with no worries. Ella's most frustrating times right now are when I won't let her watch another episode of Dora or eat another package of fruit snacks. I don't even want to think about the things that our girls will face as they reaches adolescence. Ok so I totally didn't mean to have that rant. Back to Kendall's 9 month birthday!

Today she had her 9 month checkup with Dr. Bindner. Last night I told Ella that we were taking Kendall to the doctor this morning and she said, "I'm not going, Mommy." I told her that she had to go, because Daddy would be at work and she would have to come with me. I was confused because normally she loves going to the doctor's office. Then she told me that she didn't want to get a shot. At Kendall's 6 month checkup Ella ended up getting a flu shot. It was a very last minute thing so she had no preparation, so she wasn't too thrilled! It took several conversations last night and this morning for me to convince her that she would NOT be getting a shot! This morning she finally said, "ok Mommy, I'll go."

Unfortunately Kendall did have to get a Hep B vaccine...her last, I believe! She also had to have a small amount of blood drawn to check her iron levels and a few other things. They pricked her big toe and squeezed blood into a small vial for this. I hate that. I would rather hold her down for 3 shots than hold her down while they squeeze her little toe. :( Thankfully she handled it pretty well or I might have been in tears! The rest of her checkup went well. Here are her stats: 18 lbs 12 oz (50th percentile), 29 inches (90th percentile), and her head circumference is 100th percentile. She is still our long, watermelon headed girl! :) Less chunky, though. Her weight percentile has actually dropped quite a bit. It took me by surprise when they plotted her weight at the 50th percentile, because at the last visit it was around 90th. Her doctor asked about her eating habits but she wasn't concerned. Kendall is eating well and satisfied after feedings. She is extremely active and started crawling since her last checkup, so she is definitely burning some calories! If you look at her she clearly is thriving and still has her pudgy little muffin top and chunky monkey thighs. In the beginning she was also taking in A LOT of milk but that has leveled off so I think now she is getting what she needs, rather than a whole lot extra. This also explains the terrible reflux she had up until 6 months. The collarbone that fractured when Kendall was born has completely healed. In fact, when she was feeling of it Dr. Bindner said she couldn't even tell which one it was! We're always thankful for a healthy checkup and look forward to the next one in 3 months!

Next up - Ella's 3rd birthday is in 9 days!!

Merry Belated Christmas!

Hey everyone! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We have been extremely busy the last few weeks so I will do a Christmas catch-up! We had 4 Christmas celebrations, so here is a little about each one!

Christmas #1 - Christmas at Mema's

Each year on the Saturday before Christmas we gather at my Mema's house with my family and my mom's two brother's families. We are all scattered in Scottsville, Louisville and Lexington, but this is usually the only time we all get together each year. Though this past year we were fortunate and celebrated Mema's 90th birthday party in June and most everyone was also able to come to Jamie's going away party in October. We had a great time, like always. Ella had a blast playing with her two older cousins, Sam and Bennet. This was her first experience opening presents since her birthday and after one or two presents she had the hang of it and wanted to open everyone's presents! The girls came away with new Christmas jammies for Christmas morning and lots of cute clothes and some nice toys. My cousin Jill's husband Jim is an amazing artist and graphic designer and he gave Mema a beautiful photo book he made full of pictures from her 90th birthday party. It was a wonderful present and we all enjoyed looking through it. Right after we finished opening presents we received a surprise phone call from Jamie in Tonga! Actually it wasn't a surprise to me...I happened to catch her on Facebook the night before and reminded her when we would be at Mema's...she woke up extra early just to give us a call! We all passed the phone around so everyone could say hi and Merry Christmas.

Christmas #2 - Christmas morning

The night before Christmas Ella and I continued in our tradition (which started last year) of making homemade cookies for Santa. It's a lot of work (mostly the dishes afterwards!) but we have fun using the cookie cutters and painting icing on the cookies. The funny part is that Ella has a blast with this, but doesn't care a thing about eating cookies! In fact, she paused halfway through for a snack...a slice of swiss cheese! After we were finished with cookies and Ella picked out which ones she wanted to leave for Santa, we read stories. Unfortunately Kendall had already conked out, so we only read with Ella. I read her "The Christmas Story". We had read it the past several nights and by Christmas she could "read" it to us. She especially liked saying "and suddenly an angel appeared!" and "and baby Jesus was lying in a manger" and "glory to God in the highest!" It was so cute! Then Ronnie read her "Twas the Night Before Christmas". My dad always read it to me, Jamie and Travis every Christmas Eve night. I remember one Christmas Eve when I was a senior in high school and arrived home late on Christmas Eve. Jamie and Travis had already gone to sleep but I, at 17, curled up with Dad and made him read it to me. In fact, Jamie called him from Tonga on Christmas Eve and she asked him to read it over the phone to her! :) Christmas morning didn't start out quite as we expected. I expected Ella to come flying into the living room attacking presents, but she actually woke up in a grumpy mood! She wasn't feeling well, and it took her awhile to get going, but once she did she became very excited! The present she first chose to open was her present from Aunt Jamie...Beauty and the Beast! As she ripped off the paper she said, "I think it's a movie!!" Her big Santa gift, a doll house, was actually the 3rd or 4th present she opened, but she was pretty excited about it! Kendall's big gift was a new carseat, and she also received some toys, her first Bible, a book and a few clothes. Ronnie's big gift was a new razor (thank goodness, his last one was loud enough to wake up our entire neighborhood) and I received a new jacket and some workout clothes. On Christmas morning I decided to do something I'd never done before - I made homemade cinnamon rolls, completely from scratch. They were delicious but it took FOREVER. It wasn't all that difficult, it just took so long waiting for them to rise, then doing something else to them, then waiting for them to rise some more. We didn't have "breakfast" until almost 1 p.m.! But it was definitely worth the wait!

Christmas #3 - To Mammaw's House we go!
On Christmas afternoon we headed to Glasgow to Ronnie's mom's house. Thankfully the girls were exhausted from a busy Christmas morning and slept most of the way down. We were excited to be with all of Ronnie's family and enjoyed a yummy Christmas dinner of Mexican food! Well, Pa wasn't too happy about Mexican food on Christmas, but the rest of us sure enjoyed it! We had a great time playing a new game on the Wii - Just Dance 2. If you are my friend on Facebook, please watch the video I posted of Ronnie and Rocky enthusiastically dancing. If you don't have Facebook let me know and I'll send it to you. If I can figure out how to post it on here I will. We did something new this year as far as presents go. It got pretty expensive buying for everyone in Ronnie's family so last year we drew names. This year we decided to play Dirty Santa instead with $30 gifts. We were a little skeptical about how it would go over but it went great and everyone seemed to leave with an appropriate present they were happy with! I think I got the best present, or at least the best one for me! It was a "date night" in a basket - complete with candy, popcorn, a movie, and a promise from Ross to babysit!! Sweet!! Ella had a great time opening presents, of course! She received a "Baby Alive" doll from Rocky and Rachel that came with a doctor's kit. She is a little Ronnie in the making, so she enjoyed playing doctor to her baby. Mammaw gave her a VReader, which I think is an awesome, educational tool and she has enjoyed playing with it. She also got her Dora's Backpack. As soon as she started peeling the paper away she said, "It looks like Dora!!" Tara and Daniel hooked the girls up with all kinds of stuff, cute monogrammed buckets, homemade blankets, matching outfits, and they gave Ella a Dora chest full of dress up clothes. After she opened that she had a different outfit on every time I saw her! Oh and Ronnie and I came away with some restaurant gift cards, so we need some babysitters! ;)

Christmas #4 - We're off to Grandma and Grandpa's!
Christmas night we got to mom and dad's house really late so the girls went straight to bed. When they woke up Sunday morning we did Christmas morning all over again with them. Mom and Dad had ordered the girls new monogrammed suitcases. They are soooo cute! They surprised us with a new storage ottoman for our living room, to take the place of our falling apart coffee table. We love it and it matches our couch perfectly! After church Laura, Tim, Charlie & Peyton came down and we all opened presents and stuffed ourselves silly with dinner and desserts. Ella received new accessories for her doll house and Kendall got a really cool Noah's Ark toy. We all tried to watch the movie "Inception" that night but I think Mom, Travis, Ronnie & Charlie were the only ones who finished it. Everyone else was too exhausted!

We had a wonderful Christmas and were so happy that Ronnie was off work the 24th through the 27th so we were able to spend quality time with all of our family. While we had a blast giving and opening presents, we tried to always remember the reason for celebrating. We are so thankful that God sent his son to die for our sins and that we have been saved by his grace. I know it is difficult for children to look past Santa and the presents, and we absolutely want our children to enjoy all of that, but we hope that they will always see the deeper meaning. Our biggest prayer is that, as they grow older and have a greater understanding, that they will always remember the true reason we celebrate Christmas and come to know Jesus Christ personally. We pray that you all have been blessed this Christmas season as we have! May 2011 be your best year so far!

8 months!

So yesterday our little chunky monkey turned 8 months old. 8 months!! I feel like we just brought her home from the hospital and now she is crawling all over the house! On that note, 7 months brought a lot of milestones for Kendall.
Three days before her 7 month birthday she pulled up for the first time, then the day after her 7 month birthday she started saying "ma ma". Yay! I won I won! :) She had actually been saying "ma ma" for a few days, but it was on this day that we were certain that she was intentionally directing it at me. Ronnie agreed, so I'm not imagining it. Though in her limited vocabulary she still prefers to say "ba ba ba ba". On November 23, at 7 months and 2 weeks, she started crawling. We had just arrived in Scottsville for Thanksgiving. Mom and I were in her bedroom looking at Christmas presents and Dad was in the living room with Kendall. I came back into the room and he said, "Wow, she just crawled 3 or 4 feet." I said, "What?!" His eyes got really big as he said, "She hasn't been doing that?!" Needless to say Grandpa was really excited that he got to witness Kendall crawl for the first time, especially since I'd spent weeks on my hand and knees coaxing her with toys to crawl as she rocked back and forth on her hands and knees trying so hard to figure out how to move. She enjoyed her visit in Scottsville and Glasgow and appropriately enjoyed yummy sweet potato baby food for Thanksgiving.
Unfortunately she turned 8 months old sick with croup. On Sunday morning she started feeling really warm during church. We went out to eat lunch with some friends and she literally layed on me the entire meal. While everyone knows that Kendall always wants Mommy holding her, she never just lays on me. This is a child who won't even let me rock her. She wants to be held, but she is busy while held, always making sure she doesn't miss anything. When we got home her temperature was 102 and the croupy cough soon followed. She is doing better now, but is still kinda snotty and not sleeping too great. Hopefully it will pass soon. We're all becoming tired and cranky!
I weighed Kendall yesterday for the occasion - 18 lbs 6 oz. For comparison's sake, Ella weight 18 lbs 3 oz at 15 months. Wow! I've been going through Ella's 12 months clothes and Kendall can wear all of them. I keep saying to Ronnie, "Wow Ella was a lot older when she wore these clothes." Ha ha.

Kendall at 8 months

Overdue Jamie Update!

It’s been awhile since I posted a Jamie update. We have spoken with her several times since I last posted an update, and I’m sorry it’s taken so long. We’ve been really, really busy!
Dad spoke with her yesterday, which was the last day with her host family in Ha’apai. When she talked to dad she said that she was sitting in the back of a truck waiting to go back to the main island. She has a couple more weeks of training and will then be sworn in on December 15. She is very excited to get started.

She did find out that she will be spending her two years of service at an all boy’s school on the main island. Someone with the Peace Corps told her that she is one of nine women who work there, and the only unmarried woman. She was told she will be the “princess” of the school. We think she said that she will primarily be with 11 and 12 year olds. She will be teaching English, but one of the reasons they wanted to place her at this school is because of her background in sports and music. So she may have responsibilities in those areas as well. She will be living by herself in a house and the Peace Corps will give her some money to use to furnish her house. I’m hoping she will be able to get her hands on a TV and a DVD player so I can send her the seasons of her favorite shows. The last time I talked to her was the day after Thanksgiving. This was the first time we’d spoken that she seemed a little sad. I think being away during the holidays for the first time was kind of hard on her. Plus, she had an ear infection so that didn’t help things. She made several calls within those couple of days, to me, mom and dad, and Travis. She mentioned that she was nervous about being lonely since she is going to be living by herself. A couple of other volunteers are on the island, but won’t be close enough for them to see each other regularly. She said that in Tonga they have an excellent system for pirating DVD's, so maybe she can get her hands on some good movies to keep her somewhat occupied.

One of the last times I talked to her she mentioned that she had lost some weight. She said she noticed that her clothes were fitting more loosely, but didn’t really think much about it, but then several people mentioned that she looked like she had lost weight. She was excited about this because she was really afraid of going to Tonga and gaining weight, because Tongans are pretty large people. I didn’t think this would happen, since she would have a lot of dietary adjustments to make, but it was definitely something she was concerned about.

Dad remembered to tell her about our high school football team going to the 4A State Championship game. She was very excited to hear about that.

I will post her address again. I’m sure she would love a note or a Christmas card! Oh I will mention that it is taking a long time for her to receive mail. Mom mailed her a package the week she left and she just received it this past week. Laura sent her a Halloween card shortly after she left and she received it just a week or two ago. I haven’t mailed her Christmas gift yet, but maybe she will get it by Valentine’s Day! Better late than never!

Jamie Ogles
Peace Corps
P.O. Box 147
Nuku'Alofa, Tonga

Jamie Update!

I apologize that it has taken me this long for a Jamie update. I last spoke with her on Sunday, October 24, and mom and dad spoke with her a few days later. Unfortunately it's been a little over a week since she has called anyone, but as soon as she does I will post another update!
When she called me on the 24th I was at a wedding - after the wedding we got back to the car and I had 3 missed calls...one from "unknown." I knew it was Jamie and was so disappointed that I had missed her call. Fortunately she called again about an hour later and we were able to talk for awhile.
When we last spoke she was a few days from finding out what part of Tonga she would do her 2 years of service, which begins mid-December. She had just met with the Peace Corps people - they were meeting with all of the volunteers individually to find out how things were going and to get an idea of where each volunteer would be a good fit. She is still on the island of Ha'apai with the host family. She told them that she was doing well there and thought she would be ok if she were moved to an even more secluded island. That is what she expected would happen, but then a couple of days later she called mom and dad and told them that the PC had met with her again and were interested in placing her at a boy's military school on the main island Nuku'alofa. I believe the boys are 10-12 year olds and she would be teaching them English. They were interested in placing her at this school because of her background in sports and music - they thought it would also be good for the kids. If she went to this school she would be able to live in a dorm-type setting. It sounds like a great place to be, however we are slightly concerned about the all-boys aspect of it. Hopefully there will be other female employees or volunteers there. She should know by now where she will be, she was supposed to find out last Thursday, but we haven't spoken with her since.
I asked her more about the food she has been eating. It sounds more similar to our diet than I would have thought. The meats are similar, they eat beef and chicken. They also eat pork but the host family she is staying with is Seventh Day Adventists and they don't eat pork. She did say that a lot of people there eat dog and horse meat, but as far as she knows she hasn't consumed either! I thought this was pretty cool - most of the restaurants there have a meal called "Kentucky" - can anyone guess what this meal might be? Fried Chicken!! So at least we know she always can find some good Kentucky food if she needs to! Pineapple and mango season is approaching in Tonga and she is excited about that. She was also telling me about the bananas they have there...they are huge. They are as long as her forearm and as thick as her wrist. That would be awesome, except she doesn't like bananas, ha ha.
She is still enjoying her host family and they have been extremely accomodating to her. Her host mom is interested in learning new American receipes, so one of the last times Jamie talked to mom she asked her to send some recipes the next time she sends a package. Mom also sent a book and information about Kentucky, so they can learn a little about where she is from. And she is still spending time with the boy from Ohio. :)
I think the funniest thing that happened while we were on the phone was that she asked me to hold on for just a second, then started talking to someone in Tongan. It was really cool, but also strange to hear her speaking another language! She is doing a great job learning the language so I'm sure she will have no problems passing her language test before she begins her service.

This is one of the better maps I've found to give a better idea of where Tonga is.

Get ready!!

So today I watched Kendall get into this position:

I'm about to have a crawler on my hands! I went back and looked at Ella's baby calendar, and she started crawling at 7 months, 3 days. Kendall will be 7 months on Sunday. So far all of their milestones have been literally days apart, so I don't think it will be long! Time to get out the baby gates!