Eat!

We just realized that Natalie is finally saying her first real word (Eat), not just making sounds. She says Dada all the time, but hasn't yet made the association between that word and her Daddy. Now, when ever she sees someone eating or when I am getting her food ready, she excitedly says Eat! We are very excited by this progress.

This pair of overalls is made of fleece and also has buttonholes, but no snap tape. I adjusted the pattern to made the width S and the length XL because most baby patterns are just too wide for my tastes. Isn't this fleece just too cute? 

These very cute overalls are made of flannel and include my very first attempt at a buttonhole on an outfit. I have always used snaps to avoid having to make any buttonholes. They were not as bad as I thought, but I think I made them a little too big. There is also snap tape on the inseam, that I have done before. 

Mom's night off?

Right now, Tuesday night is my one night a week when we usually have no outside the house activities. Tonight, I got home from work around 5:15 after picking up Bailey at preschool and Joseph and Natalie at the babysitter's house. I browned ground beef and got chili started then made corn bread. As soon as I put it in the oven, Taylor and I rushed off to the grocery store (run one out of the house) to get missing ingredients for sweet potato pie that she needs to make tonight for a school project due tomarrow. Come home, eat chili for dinner, yum! Help Taylor make sweet potatoe pie. Make cupcakes for Bailey to take to preschool tomarrow to celebrate her birthday (belated). Just realized that the preschool no longer allows outside food, so may not be able to leave the cupcakes at school. Oh well, more for us. Assembled a 2 shelf plastic cabinet for Rachel's room. Finally settled down to doing what I had planned on doing: reading email and cutting out 2 pairs of overalls for Natalie. Got a call from Mallory to come pick her up (run two out of the house). Had Mallory frost the cupcakes. Settled down to update blog, nurse Natalie and watch Dragon Tales with Bailey. Hopefully I will get to bed before midnight.

We have water again!

The greatest sound we heard today was the sound of water trickling out of the faucets. It started slowly and took about 15 minutes to come on full, but we were very excited to have water again. Drinking water is much easier to come by, then pumping water out of the pool to flush the toilets.

Belated Update for Last Weekend

Last weekend, we had a very busy Friday night for the Stratton family. We had three kids with something going on that night. Mallory had her last HS swim meet from 6:00 - 10:00, Taylor had a gymnastics meet from 6:30 - 9:00 and Joseph had his Pinewood Derby for Cub Scouts from 6:30 - 8:30. I went to see Mallory because I had already volunteered to work the meet. I got a friend to take Taylor to her meet and fix her hair. Joe took Joseph to the Pinewood Derby first, then got to watch Taylor in a couple events because they we running late when he went to pick her up.

Mallory swam in three events; the 50M freestyle, the 200M freestyle relay and the 400M freestyle relay. She has really improved sine the beginning of the year. She wasn't sure after a couple of weeks, if she liked swimming or not, but I think she has decided that she does like it. The only thing she doesn't like is that being in the water so much made her face break out very bad, so she doesn't know if she'll swim again next year.

Taylor had a good time at the meet and was very excited when she saw that her her Dad was there to get to see her perform.

Joseph had fun at the Derby. Joe had to make some weight adjustments to the car as we hadn't gotten around to weighing it before the race. He also had to work on the wheels as 2 of them didn't turn very well. The first 2 times down the track, the car didn't even make it to the bottom. But after a few adjustments, the next race he came in first. Joseph missed his car win the first time as his turn came up while he was in the bathroom and Joe has to race his car that time around. Joe and Joseph already have some ideas for making a better car next year.

Joseph was very proud of his Pinewood Derby Car. See a close up of the car below. 

Cub Scout Pinewood Derby Car build by Joseph with help from Joe. After some adjustments because the car didn't make it to the end of the track, Joseph's car won three times, but mostly came in 2nd or 3rd. 

Gig and Jive, look who's Five

Five years ago yesterday, we had to postpone Joe's 45th birthday dinner for a couple of days because we ended up at the birth center to have Bailey. Joe joked with me as we drove to the birth center that I had to wait to have her until the next day so they would each have their own birthday. I told him she would just get here when she was ready.

I had left work early that day to get my ear looked at because it was killing me. I was given an antibotic for an ear infection and told I would feel better in a couple of days. I would not wish an ear infection on my worst enemy, that pain was worse then my labor pains up until the last hour. I truly believe that my labor was stalled for about 12 hours due to the pain I had in my ear. I could not relax to have a baby because my ear hurt so much. Eventually nature took over and I went from 6-10 cms in less than 5 minutes and Bailey was born in 2 pushes. She crowned with the first push and flew out entirely with the second one, there was no stopping with just her head out. Bailey Denise Stratton was born 2.5 weeks early at 10:18am on January 29th. She weighed in at 8 lbs. 1 oz. and was 20.5" long.

Today she weighs 50.5 lbs and is 47" tall. She is a very vibrant, very smart, very talkative 5 year old. In fact, I think that she has stolen the most talkative Stratton award from Taylor and that requires a lot of talking and the asking of thousands of questions. I cannot believe that she is 5 years old already.

Bailey - at 5 years old 

Bailey - the day she was born 

Nifty, Nifty, looks who's Fifty

Today was Joe's 50th birthday. We have been giving him a present a day for the past 12 days, like the 12 days of Christmas. For his big gift, I gave him a NASCAR Driving Experience where he gets to drive an actual Stock Car at Richmond Speedway in April.

We started our day at my Dad's in Northern VA and left there early since I wanted to put in half a day at my office down here. So, Joe took the kids in the Suburban and drove home and I took his car and enjoyed the peace and quite and drove to work.

Joe called after he got home to tell me that we had no water. Then he called the city, who came out and told Joe that the pipes were frozen. We've never had a problem in the past with pipes freezing so I wasn't even thinking that was a possibility when I left Wednesday night. Joe was told that the pipes froze because we were gone and the water was just sitting in the pipes and not flowing in them. He was told to turn in the heat in the house and open the cabinets to help the pipes thaw out. As of 11:25pm, we still don't have any running water in the house.

The worst part about having no water, is the toilets. By the time I got home, every toilet in the house has been flushed dry. So, in order to get enough water to flush the toilets, I used a shovel to chop through the ice in the pool and have been pumping water in to a 5 gallon bucket to fill the toilets. Did I mention yet that it's cold outside here?

Natalie's Eyes

We took Natalie to Johns Hopkins today to see an eye specialist. The doctor looked at her and dialated her eyes and said that while the optic nerves do look abnormal, she has no other symptoms of a real problem with her optic nerves, so the anomility is probably normal for her. He also said that children with DS have a higher incident of abnormal looking nerves. He recommends that she been seen every 3 months by her doctor at home for a while to look for any changes. Also, if she is sedated again for any reason, they we should get pictures of her optic nerves, so we have a baseline of what they look like now, to compare later if a problem should arise.

Off to Johns Hopkins

We are off to Northern VA tomorrow night to stay with my Dad for a couple of days because Natalie has an appt at the Johns Hopkins Eye Institute on Thursday afternoon. The local pediatric eye specialist discovered that her optic nerves look very swollen, but he has ruled out both main causes and would like us to get a second opinion to help determine whether there is a real problem or if her optic nerves are just genetically larger then normal. As of the last check, her vision was perfect, but if her optic nerves really are swollen and it goes untreated, it could start to affect her vision. But since both main causes have already been ruled out, I'm leaning towards feeling like that's just they way she is. I will report back sometime this weekend.

Measurements

We started the day eating a great breakfast of pancakes and sasuage made by Daddy. While cleaning up after breakfast, we noticed that Rachel was now almost as tall as Mallory. So we put everyone up against the wall and took measurements. The last time I measured the kids, about a year or more ago, they had been all 6 inches apart, except Bailey. Bailey had been 42", Joseph was 50", Taylor was 56", Rachel was 62" and Mallory had been 68". Now, Bailey is 47", Joseph is 54", Taylor is 58", Rachel is 67" and Mallory tops them off at 69". But, I don't think that Mallory is going to be the tallest for very long.

Where else but Chuck E Cheese do you take a gaggle of kids like this?  

Last week's sewing

Last week I made 2 items: a fleece bag for Natalie and a fleece pullover for Joseph. See pictures below. This week I need to make 2 more fleece pullovers, one for Taylor and one for Bailey.

I made this hooded fleece bag for Natalie to wear in the morning to the babysitter's house because it will be easy to get on without waking her. 

Joseph loves the Scooby Doo hooded fleece pullover I made him. The hood is lined with red cotton Scooby Doo print too. 

Rachel made this Navy Chief puppy at Build-a-Bear as a birthday present for Joe. I let her give it to him early. His birthday isn't until the end of the month.