On a Happy Hill-top

I love this kid! He is so bright and shiny! He is learning tons and changing like crazy. We started his pre-toddler classes today. He wasn't sure how he felt about the 3 other pre-tods and parents. He has started to get a little shy in large groups but he loves children and was so excited to see them. The pre-toddler class is put on by the early education program to help children catch up in a group environment while learning from other children and new activities. I'ts every Friday for a little over an hour. Today was our first class. We started with hands on learning time. This is where they can play with pretty much any of the toys. It helps with sensory and social skills. We first played with the static electricity toy that you touch (hit) and it lights up and spins. (I have to admit it was pretty cool) Luke was a big fan of this but it was away from all the other kids and I wanted him to have an opportunity to be more social so we moved on to the standing sand box. This could be summed up simply. Luke does not like sand! So our teacher Mrs. Jensen was nice enough to bring us something new to play in, fake snow. Luke liked this a lot. The only problem was he wanted to eat it. And since it was made from soap, that didn't seem like a great idea. So once again we moved on. To the boats. We went and stood in front of the standing tub and this was a huge success. He loves water and liked the Elmo on the boats and was able to splash as much as he wanted! After this we moved on to singing time.
This was a little difficult for me. Luke is 14 months and the youngest in the class. The next closest in age was 15 months and this little boy was already walking and signing. He was the only child in the class who was not working on his motor skills. And the other two were between 20 an 22 month. Both weren't walking but one can talk and the other is probably closer to Luke's skill level only a bit more advanced. However in this activity we were working on mimicking and Luke just in not quite as developed in his mimicking and communication skill. You always hear people talk about things they have learned "from" their children but I think I have learned a lot of things simple because of him. Its humbling not to be the best, it is humbling to need help. And sitting there I was just very humbled. But I had to take a step back. And I thought for a minute no one else there was judging us. I was the one doing the comparing. I had to let it go, this has always been a difficult thing for me. It's amazing how we can let little internal thoughts cloud what externally could be a wonderful and beautiful experience. I didn't want to let that happen today. I had to let it go. Focus on the purpose. So after my retrospection during chorus of Twinkle Twinkle I felt new excitement for the entire experience. And we turned our attention to snack time. One of the really cool things about this class is they focus on choices. So they always give a child two things to choose from i.e. truck or a car, star or a monkey. And my favorite cottage cheese on a ritz or a craft single on a saltine, mmmm! Luke was a little timid at this table and was the only one not yet able to drink out of a cup, but hey he can sure eat:-) Then the last part of our class we went to the motor skills room. Its like an obstacle course for babies. Very fun, it even had a ball pit. Luke was not a fan! But he climbed up the ramp and had a great first day. I was so proud of him!
But I had a fun time and I think he did too


I have attached a bunch of photos of the past few weeks. Some are from home and some are from Luke's cousin Bronco's first Birthday Party.

Feeling Yucky but going strong.

I am so sorry it has been a couple of weeks since the last time we posted. We haven't had a lot of updates. We are still in Provo doing a nationwide job search for Andrew. We haven't had many bites but we are positive and feel something will turn up soon. But in the meantime we are staying at our home in Provo, Andrew is serving at Red Robin and I have been holding down the fort here at home. My new mission in life is to clean the kitchen linoleum. It is the textured kind that makes it near to impossible to get out 30 some years of dirt out of the little indentations. But I am determined. If anyone has any tips on how to clean it please let me know. Oh to explain this picture we don't have a bathtub so Luke baths in our Kitchen sink. He is almost out growing it, but I have to admit I have found it most convenient. I don't know what I am going t0 do when I get a bathtub and have to give him real baths:-)

Luke is wonderful. He is getting to be quite the escape artist, escaping from the many barricades we put up around the house. However, the past couple of days have been particularly interesting. Luke has got the stomach flu. Oh it has been so sad. It is hard being sick as a grown up but I think it is harder being sick as a little one. He just doesn't feel good and I don't know what to do to help him feel better. He started with some diarrhea on Friday and was having a hard time keeping stuff down Saturday and all through the night the following days. Andrew and I had to kind of laugh that after so many baths, loads of laundry and changing sheets we didn't have any other option so we ended up sleeping with Luke on the living room floor. This is the picture of one of those late nights.It was like a big funny family sleepover. Except Luke was not having fun and in turn mommy and daddy have been a little sleep deprived. Well we took him to the doctor on Tuesday and he had gastro interitis. (stomach virus) So we pumped him full of pedia-light and her started feeling better. Well next day we got a whole new surprise he seemed to be in pain and we opened his diaper and saw a very red, swollen and inflamed genitals. So we brought him in and he has an infection down there. So we have him on an antibiotic to help his infection and a probiatic so it doesn't further inflame the diarrhea. Poor little guy, its been a rough week. But his appetite is starting to come back and that makes us happy. And as long as he has a book to look through he is content. I love his new fascination with books it doesn't seem to matter what book as long as he can turn the pages he is happy.

We hope every one is doing well and will post again soon!!!

Happy Christmas!!

For Christmas we went up to Idaho to spend time with my family. We had a wonderful time. Luke especially loved all the attention by his grandparents. We played the first couple of days and had a beautiful dinner on Christmas Eve. Luke loved dinner. He is very fond of mashed potatoes and vegies. At one point he lost a mouthful and it stuck to his chin for the rest of the meal. We thought it was so funny we had to take a picture. He was confused at what we were laughing at. But he was so good. That night we read the Christmas story and open our family gifts Luke got this rocker form his grandparents. But we also added something new this Christmas. Grandma and Kim bought Luke a very cute Santa suit we had a lot of fun with that on Christmas Eve. It was so funny. I have probably 50 or 60 pictures of him in his little suit. Fun Fun Fun. Then we had a lovely Christmas morning, luke got mad crazy fun presents, I got my apron and Andrew and I got snow tires. That was a blessing because we had a rather terrifying ride home the next day with really bad roads:-) But we are home safe! And excited to enjoy the rest of the holidays here in Provo. Andrew is officially graduated. We are still looking for a job so if anyone hears of any openings in PR let us know.

My Amazing Little Man

Special Thank You to Kevin
who provided the Peruvian hats

Yea for Luke!!!He is pretty much my Little Super Hero! Friday Luke had both of his Peep (Provo Early education Program) appointments. Both his OT and PT came and worked with him and it was really great. Luke had been staying about two months behind developmentally until a couple of months ago when he started to fall farther behind, at one point his gross motor skills were almost 4 months behind. That was really discouraging, crawling just didn't come naturally to our little guy and he had some sensory issues that we were working on. It's been interesting to watch his progress and how discouraging and sad it had been for me at the beginning. I am so grateful that those feelings begin to go away and over time you see it how it really is. That we are so Lucky to have him, every child is different, and he is amazing and doing amazing things. Like I said, He is pretty much My Super Hero:-)

But while I had my surgery my little man did almost a whole month of catching up both in sensory and in gross and fine motor skills. He is crawling, waving, pulling up to kneeling and eating mashed table food. All of which he had not been doing at our last apt. But he seems to do most things this way. Take it easy for a while and then learn a whole bunch of things all at once. It was a really great day, they told me that they didn't think they needed his OT anymore and she would just come on a need basis. So the PT will still come to work with us on his low muscle tone and gave me some great new exercises to help him learn to stand ad increase his sensory.
Yea!!
Oh he also got his first little battle wound. He was trying to pull himself from crawling to kneeling and caught the edge of his eye on the table. This is when it was red but it turned into a great bruise later!

Christmas Cousins

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Getting all better!

I am now tonsil and adenoid-less. It has been a little over a week and all is going well. I have to admit it has been a little bumpier road than I anticipated but I think it has all gone really well. My mom came into town on the 3rd and we went out that evening with my brother Kevin for (what the nurse later joked as) "my final meal" and I went in to surgery at 7 on Thursday.

We had only planned on taking my tonsils out but when they got into my surgery my adenoid tissue was also badly infected so they decided to take that out too. We went to an outpatient surgical center owned by a group of doctors, that way we were able to avoid the overhead costs of a hospital. I really liked it there. It was very low-key but very efficient. In and out and very informative. But it was my first time going under all the way and I had some very interesting reactions after. We couldn't talk about it because it would make me laugh and trying to laugh hurt so much. But apparently I woke up crying, very hard and saying "Thank You" to everyone I saw. I kept trying to get out of bed and thank every random person that passed my door. I believe my exact quote to my nurse was "Thank you, Thank you so much for being nice. And mean people aren't nice and you are nice. I bet your children are nice" This was followed by many other humorous quotes which I won't go into now but I am sure my mother will share with you if you would like to hear about it. It was really funny:-)

I had heard all these horror stories about how much it hurt and how miserable the recovery was suppose to be. I think I was very blessed my pain didn't seem that bad (thanks to my wonderful narcotic) and I was so lucky to have so much help. But I understand what they mean by 4-7 days after is the worst part of the recovery. The scabs begin to fall off and you start getting some really powerful inner ear pain. But the worst part for me was the nausea that accompanied this. I had had the stomach flu the day before I went into surgery and I already have a week stomach so I think I was just set up for it. It also didn't help that both medications cause nausea. It was Ok for the first 3 or 4 days, I through up only a few times. But from Sunday afternoon on I was unable to keep anything down, even water. It was wretched. I was starting to get dehydrated and it was a blessed hour when we were finally able to get the anti-nausea medication on Monday morning. So from then on its been looking up.

My mom left to return to Idaho yesterday and Luke and I are kickin' it here by ourselves. I am doing good. My face is still really swollen, and I still can't talk. But I am pretty much up and about and doing most things. I still get really tired and have to take it easy and sleep lots. I can't tell if that is because of the medication or because I just don't have the energy. Eating is the worst. Nothing sounds good and everything hurts. I eat a frozen Ensure in the mornings, lots of water and I suck on saltines for most of the rest of the day. But hey, at least I am not even tempted to eat all the Christmas sweets in my kitchen.

Thanks for all the help and phone calls. We really appreciate it. Andrew is done!!! Yea!!! he takes his last test on Monday and it is so good to see so much of the stress off his shoulders. Well for now we are staying in Provo and continuing the job hunt. Andrew is working at Red Robin in the mean time and we hope to be moving to our new job sometime in January.

I love smiling! Smiling's my favorite!

Ho ho ho everyone. Tis the season and all that... Alright, so Kristi does most of the posting around here, but I felt it was time I contributed a little and shared the seasons greetings with you all. (A special thanks to Amy Shreeve, whose blog gave me the idea in the first place.)

So, without further ado, please allow your friends the Hills to be the first to wish you a Merry Christmas this year.

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