Reflection on Genevieve turning one

When Genevieve was a newborn I would look at her and teasingly say, "Are you one yet?" Now that she is one I understand how I should have cherished the newborn stage a lot more. I vow to do so with baby number two. Gen really is growing up fast. Before I know it she'll be off to Kindergarten, driving a car and then off to college. I'm doing my best to be sure to truly value every moment I have with her. I can't get enough of her snuggles and giggles. She is a very happy, easy-going baby. I couldn't ask for more. I love you, Genevieve.

A few things I forgot to mention in the earlier blog. Janelle, Dayna, Dax and Jon are in town, but I think I talk to Janelle more when she is out of town. It is fun to see her pregnant again. Can't wait for number 3 to be born.

Genevieve is sleeping a good 14 hours at night. She is in bed by 7:00 pm and usually doesn't wake up until 9:30 ish. Loving it.

We are starting Little Gym classes this week.

This is the week of doctor's appointments. I'll be glad when it's over. Monday I had a doctor's appointment. Tuesday Gen had her Orthopedic appointment. Wednesday Gen has her digestive health specialist appointment. Tomorrow is Gen's one year check-up. At least next week will be a normal week.

We finally had Gen's pediatric orthopedic doctor's appointment. Her legs rotate outward from the knee down, the right more than the left. This is due to positioning in utero. The doctor is not concerned about it and are convinced she'll grow out of it on her own. Woo hoo!

Gen's congestion has cleared up 100% since we have taken her off of corn, wheat, beef, rice and oats. This week we are "challenging" wheat. So far so good. Next week we will take her off Prilosec and see how she does with that. Then we challenge, rice, oats and beef.

Chad left for Ohio this morning and won't be back until Monday. I miss him already.

Genevieve's official first word is "hi". We had a photography session for her on the 21st. We walked in. Gen looked right up at the photographer and said hi. The other day I met Chad at Red Robing and as soon as she saw Chad she smiled at him and said hi.

Gen's birthday / Little Gym / Roach Gym

Poppi, Gen, and TJ

Genevieve at little gym. Apparently we didn't take too many pictures, just videos.Gen's cake

Gen wasn't really into opening her gifts but once they were open she was all over them.

She also got books, puzzles, animal sound cubes, sensory bean bags, but she didn't pose well for these things.
We went to Roach Gymnastics for their end of the year celebration. Gen loved the foam pit. She would scoot up to the edge and just fall in. Very brave.

Gen's chair.

May 16th we had a mini BBQ at my parents. We were dropping off Genevieve to go to my 15 year "reunion". Really it was just a bunch of people from the class of '94 on Facebook that decided "Hey we should meet at a bar". It was much better than our ten year reunion which was non-existent.

TJ

Gen decided that her car seat is fun to play with as well as the dust pan. Woo hoo!


I took Genevieve to the park with the ECEAP class I work with. She loved the rock climbing wall. Couldn't get her off of it. I put her up there and when I tried to get her down she had a death grip on it. I tried to get her to play with other things at the park. She was only interested in the wall. This doesn't surprise me too much as she has really become a climber lately. She can climb up the stairs. The other day I saw her climbing her walker. She attempted to climb the stool. Chad was on the ladder yesterday and I joke about how Gen was going to climb up after him. Then I noticed she really was trying to get up the ladder and had her foot on the first rung!



Sebastian was born Tuesday May 19th.

Thierry was born the following Saturday. Babies galore. Click to see pictures of Thierry - Travis' family site
Jennifer and Eric with Sebastian.

We had another mini BBQ. We got to see Eddie and Maria. It has been so long since we have seen them. Too bad I didn't get any pictures of them. Just got pictures of the babies. Go figure.

Friday Gen had her appointment with the Pulmonologist/Allergy specialist. He gave her an allergy test. The result is that she had an allergic reaction to corn and a slight reaction to beef, wheat, oats and rice. It turns out corn is in all formula on the market. Gen has switched to cow's milk. We have to avoid corn, oats, wheat, beef and rice for a week. Wow, it was hard shopping for Gen's food this week. Do you know how difficult it is to find foods that don't have any of these things in them. Next week we will be able to start working in the things she had a lesser reaction to one week at a time. She has to be off corn for 6 weeks. I really hopes this works. Gen has been congested and coughing for too long.

We went out for pizza at the new Sunrise Village. They had a cute courtyard there.

Gen seems fascinated with eyes lately.



Gen's first big girl pony.

Genevieve actually had a pretty rough day that day. She was behind Chad and he didn't know it. He accidentally got her with his foot. Then later she was standing and fell on the wheel of the office chair and got a fat lip. She also has been struggling with the transition to milk. It seems like she is frustrated and just wants us to give her the good stuff. I think she might have a little bug on top of it all. She has been sleeping a lot (its' 9:00 am and she is still sleeping), has been fussy and is dealing with constipation as well. She sure looks happy though :)


We have a couple of swallows that have taken to hanging out on our porch. They are fun to watch.

We finally have our house on the market. We still aren't a hundred percent ready but away we go. We are having an open house this upcoming Saturday for Realtors and Sunday for buyers. We are also planning on celebrating my birthday on Saturday night. Busy weekend ahead. Here is the link to our website. It's not completely done yet. I'll let you know when it is updated.
Puyallup House for Sale

I forgot that she is learning the sign for "food" as well. I also forgot to mention that she mimics mama and dada verbally. She has been saying dada all morning!

On the 10th (Mother's day) we saw the play Frost/Nixon. I really wasn't looking forward to it, but I'm glad we went. I'm looking forward to the movie now. On Tuesday the 12th we saw Grease. Great show! Loved it. We were supposed to have our realtor's open house today, but the carpet has delayed us. We are having flooring done in almost the entire house. The master bedroom and bathroom as well as the other bathrooms will have the same flooring. Everything else will be new. We decided to carpet the dining area. I'm a little nervous about this but I think it will come out looking good. The carpet gets installed the 26th through the 28th. We plan on having a realtor's open on the 30 and an buyer open on the 6th.

As for Genevieve, wow she is learning to sign!! She signs "milk" consistently. She is starting to sign "more", "water", "daddy" and "mommy". I feel like it has taken forever to get here but I love watching my daughter sign. Fun stuff.

We are still awaiting the arrivals of my niece and nephew. Looks like my nephew will be born on the 19th. Wow that's coming up quick!!! As for my niece? We have to play the waiting game for her.

Yeah!!! It only took a year and a half,

but Chad is finally done building the dresser.

Love it.

We are loving this new snuggle phase of Gen's. Hope it lasts forever.

One for dad.

And one for mom too!
Lately Gen loves putting thing on her head or behind her head.

Putting the box on her head.

Gen's toothy grin. Look at all those teeth!

We were shocked when Genevieve actually kept these sunglasses on for a while.
Too cute.
Ready for the beach
Here she is putting her sunglasses behind her head.

Here she is watching daddy mow the grass.
Last weekend we went to The Old Cannery. She loves riding in the backpack.

They have animated figures there.

She wasn't quite sure what to make of them.

Finally Genevieve loves to read books with us.

Her favorite right now is The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Picking out books to read.

I got sick of my hair. I saw my stylist and said I want it funky and easy to take care of. Actually at first I told her I want to look young and skinny. :) This is the result. I like it. It'll take some getting used to, but I like it.

It has been a very long time since I blogged. I have been busy, mostly with packing up the house. We are packing up so we can stage the house so we have half a chance of actually selling it. Our goal right now is to sell the house and move into a rental. Our long term goal is to build a house. One reason we want to move is to get Chad a little closer to work and the other reason is to save for the house we want to build. Here is what has happened since April 6th (I'll try my best to remember).

Genevieve has started crawling all over the place. She is also cruising. She can pull up on just about anything now. She has 4 teeth on top and 2 on bottom. She is eating chunkier foods and right now her favorite thing to eat is toast. Toast is like candy to her. She is also able to drink water out of a sippy cup!

The weekend of Jennifer's baby shower and Easter Genevieve got sick. I think she has a thing about holidays. We thought she had whooping cough for Christmas and Easter she had the flu. Poor thing, she was vomiting, had a fever and diarrhea. She would attempt to play, make it to her destination and just lay on the object she wanted to play with. I have never seen her so tired. At least I got some good snuggle time in. We were really concerned with dehydration since for a while there she wasn't eating or drinking. She can't stand pedilyte! All turned out well and she is much better

The day I discovered Gen was sick she had gotten sick all over her carseat just before a doctor's appointment. I had to clean her and her carseat up as good as I can in a room at the doctor's. While we waited for her appointment she was just in her diaper on a cold rainy day. Before we left I took my shirt off and put it on her and zipped up my coat.

On the 16th Genevieve saw a pediatric digestive health specialist. She took Gen off Flovent, Zantac and Reglan and put her on Prilosec. It's so nice one med, once a day. A couple days after her appointment we noticed her getting congested again. I waited a week more than talked to the specialist and she advised putting her back on the Flovent, but that if she is reacting that way to being on and off Flovent that is not caused by GERD. Last week I spoke with a Physical Therapist I work with at school about Genevieve's right foot (it turns out when she walks). She suggested it was best to get it checked out. I had an appointment with her general doctor. He suggested she get a x-ray of her hips and referred her to an orthopedic doctor at Mary Bridge. He also referred her to an allergy specialist / Pulmonologist. So many doctor's for such a tiny little thing. Hopefully we'll get to the bottom of what's causing her congestion and her foot thing isn't a big deal.


We got Genevieve's head shots so she is all ready for modeling. No calls yet though. I'm not expecting much.

The dog we thought might be a good match for me, Gracie, turned out not to be such a good match for me. We continue the waiting game for a hearing dog. Genevieve seems to be really drawn to dogs. It'll be fun when we get one. I still have an obsession with petfinder.com and continue to send potential dogs to Summit. This helps them at least with the first part. I have decided not to do the interviews anymore, I get too attached and thinking "Oh this is the perfect dog".

We saw "Cats" and "Sunday in the Park with George". It was nice to get out for both shows. Travis and Sarah and Mom and Dad watched Genny for Cats. It was a great show. We both enjoyed it. Much better live than on video. For Sunday in the park with George we actually got a babysitter. She sat for us from noon to midnight. It was nice to have time to work on the house. It was also nice to not have to add in additional time to drop off Genevieve and pick her up as well as not having to wake her up in the middle of the night to transition her to her crib.

We are getting sitters again this weekend from 10-5 on Saturday and Sunday. Gotta get this house done! Also this weekend we are having our bed set delivered. We got a great price on it. It was just like something that Chad was going to build so it was nice to have one less thing for Chad to build. It looks like it won't fit in our bedroom now so it'll have to wait until we move into the house we build.

Genevieve is amazes me daily. She has just discover putting things in a on. Like she has this stacker with rings. She used to take them off and play with them. Now she has discovered the joys of putting the rings on. She puts the ring on ever so carefully and then gets excited that she did it.

She's in the army now with her Green Eggs and Ham bib.

I'm Popeye the sailor man!


She is still always pointing.