Valentines of 2012

Here are just a few of the things I "hearted" this year around Valentine's Day, in no particular order...

Getting a Valentine in Spanish from Lydia

Worth every penny for the after-preschool Spanish class.

This guy and eating heart-shaped grilled cheese for lunch.

(I kind of went crazy with heart shapes this year. See below.)

Making my own scratch-off cards for mi familia.

Tyler and Lydia were fans. Luke scratched off two and said, "here, you do the rest." :)

Again, heart shapes...Rice Krispy treats (with red sprinkles of course) and more scratch off cards for Lydia's ballet class.

Yes, I have a problem with scratch-off cards. Good thing I don't play the lottery.

These two handsome devils.

This little beauty...

And my mom, who came up last weekend and took Lydia and me to see the Broadway show "Beauty and the Beast." Lydia loved it and did pretty well sitting through it, even though it was late at night. She was telling her friends all about it at preschool today. "It was magical."

And my sister-in-law, who came to visit us even though she worked the night before, stayed up all day the next day, played with my kids a ton, and went on the carousel at Seaside with Lydia just because Lydia wanted to and they make me sick.

And my brother, who also went on the carousel even when he didn't really want to (as you can see :) and taught Luke to "fist pump." Ask Luke for a demo next time you see him.

Of course, this list is not complete in the least. I have many, many people and things I love that I just didn't happen to have pictures of from the last month. Like my dad and our trip to Pendleton and Ty's family, for example. So, now you know, if you want to make it on my Valentine's Day blog post next year you better come visit in February and bring your own camera (or steal mine and take pictures with it) because I need photographic proof to post. Also, our house will be empty this weekend for the first time in a few weeks....we need more visitors.

Happy Birthday Ian!

Now it's time for Ian's birthday post, early as well but I wanted to do it before we leave town. This little man is a joy to have in our home. Here are a few things you should know about Ian.

He loves to swing.

He's already into playing with cars, and he loves stuffed animals. He's not doing it in this picture but he particularly loves to try to eat the faces off of stuffed animals.

The boy puts anything and everything in his mouth. Here, the milk cap from an empty gallon he dug out of the recycling bin. He also likes to try to dig around in the trash can, but luckily it has a lock on it so I can literally keep him from eating trash.

He needs no coaching when it comes to getting food in his mouth either. (Not his actual birthday cake, but a practice run a few weeks ago.)

He's already showing strong right-handed dominance. Look at the pictures above and below. Right hand=nasty. Left hand=totally clean.

And a short video of a happy walking Ian, just because I feel the need to redeem myself from the last video of him attempting to walk. Apparently we need to buy a new camera that shoots HD video, because the quality of ours stinks!

I sure love this little man of mine. I know I'm biased but I think he's the most adorable thing in the world. I couldn't have asked for a more accommodating third child either. He just rolls with the punches and keeps on smiling. Happy first birthday baby boy!

Happy Birthday Lydia!

Due to scheduling conflicts, we celebrated Lydia's birthday today instead of Saturday. And, to her great joy, she got to have a "real" party this year. I told her she could invite three friends, but of course I neglected to get a picture of them all together. Here's the rundown of the much anticipated day!

#1--The Girl

Happy as all get-out as you can see. The child had been planning this "birthday celebration" for three weeks, I kid you not. She's her mother's daughter, planning things out in advance! :)

#2--The Cake.

She wanted a heart themed birthday party, which I thought was fabulous being that her birthday is so close to Valentines day. I went to the dollar store and went crazy with stuff for the goody bags :) She dictated colors of frosting and chose the star sprinkles...not hearts...go figure. She helped me sprinkle them on her cake and loved it.

(Side note: I tried this frosting. It tastes superb. Give it a try, especially if you don't particularly like frosting.)

She was also particularly insistent that she have a checkerboard cake once she saw it in the JoAnn's flyer. The cake picture is actually what got her planning her birthday party three weeks in advance. The cake is supposed to come out looking like this:

Mine came out looking like this:

So much for using three colors and trying to be tricky. However, Lydia told me "It's lovely Momma. It has the checkers just the way I like them. And it tastes so yummy." What better endorsement could you get?

After having lunch, cake, and opening presents at our house, I took the five kids (I left Ian with a friend) to Pump It Up Jr. to jump around for an hour and a half. We had the place to ourselves when we arrived and only a few extra people showed up partway through. If you're ever heading there, I recommend going at 12:30 on Wednesday afternoon!

The tour:

The party attendees in order of appearance: Erica (already at the bottom), Katelyn, Lydia, Ryan, and, finally, Luke. (My friend Megan and her daughter Piper were there too, but we were chatting so much I didn't get any pictures when they were there!) Of course, they scorned my motherly and ER nurse advice to not start down the slide until the child in front of you gets off. What fun would that be?

It was a fun, low-key birthday party and the best part was seeing the perma-smile on Lydia's face the entire day. I can't believe five years has passed since I first held my beautiful baby girl. She came out with her eyes open and hasn't stopped observing and learning since. I love her imagination and her spunk, and she certainly knows what she wants out of life and isn't afraid to push for it. Happy early birthday my dearest Lydia Jannon!

Future Luke

I foresee a similar scene occurring in our home in five or six years.

Ian is learning to walk....sort of

My little Ian has started taking his first steps. This video looks like torture but we had a few attempts at capturing a happy Ian where we thought it was recording but wasn't, etc. You're getting the third or fourth take. However, it's proof that he is figuring out that his legs are good for something other than crawling. I sure love this little guy. I can't believe he's turning one soon!

Some pictures I like

I think I need a swing set and an insanely unsafe-looking merry-go-round in my back yard. And Aunt Shelly to orchestrate more reindeer-cupcake-making extravaganzas for Lydia.

I'm Scared

We were looking at pictures and watching videos from our photo library tonight, and when we got to this portion of the library:

(This is Ian, if for some weird reason you can't tell my children's newborn pictures apart)

it made me really want to have another baby. And that scares me.

Thanksgiving 2011

For Thanksgiving we held the annual Smith Family Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. It was amazing. The weather was perfect, 70s, sunny, slight breeze....heaven. My parents rented a big house and my four siblings and I, our families, and my parents all partied together day and night. The kids were in heaven playing with their cousins all day long. We went to Sea World (thanks Grandpa Dave!) on Wednesday and it was great--we loved the shows, Tyler and I went on a fun and very high water roller coaster ride, we fed and petted dolphins, saw Bert and Ernie and Elmo, etc. We went to a kids' science museum, had an awesome Thanksgiving dinner (despite the oven breaking Thursday morning) and had a plethora of lovely desserts, went downtown and saw the Alamo, the Riverwalk, and the kids got to chase some pigeons to boot. Luke asks and prays to go back to Texas daily. Enjoy a slideshow of some pictures from the trip, courtesy of Aunt Jessica.

Lydia's Throat Saga

Miss Lydia has had a rough time eating and swallowing since September 21st. She was eating a sandwich at a friend's house and felt like a piece of it got stuck in her throat. She drank some water and it passed, she got up and started playing like normal. However, although she could drink with no problem she refused to eat anything else that day, and thus began our month-long drama surrounding food and meal times.

At first Tyler and I thought it was just her being dramatic or anxious about feeling that "stuck" feeling again, but when it persisted for weeks and she was refusing to eat most things (applesauce included) because her throat "felt bad, like something is stuck in it" or that food was going down the wrong tube, I took her to the doctor. She got diagnosed with constipation and maybe reflux, put on acid reflux medication, and called it good. When there was no improvement we took her to a gastroenterologist, who wanted to do an endoscopy to look in her throat and do some biopsies to check for an allergic-type reaction that he thought could be causing her symptoms.

Tuesday morning we went to Legacy Emmanuel Children's Hospital to check in for the procedure. I knew we were off to a great start when we got there at 6 am and all the outside doors were locked and guarded because there was a "Code Silver threat level 2" (which I know from work means someone had a weapon on the campus and was trying to get in the hospital.) They weren't supposed to let any non-staff in the hospital, but after deciding that I didn't look like a monster and that I'd be much safer with my small child inside the hospital, the door guard let us in. We were grateful to be inside, safe and warm.

We had some time to kill before the start time, so Lydia checked out the playroom in the day surgery unit.

Then we went back to our room, watched some PBS kids and braided her hair while we waited until it was time for her to get some oral Versed to make her sleepy so she'd be out of it when they put the IV in. This is her just a few minutes after getting the oral Versed.

This is her about 25 minutes after the Versed.

She tolerated the procedure well, although I admit I felt a little teary leaving her in the procedure room even though I put other people's kids to sleep all the time at work. I will have more empathy for those parents in the future.

The doctor came to talk to me and said aside from three small white spots at the top of the esophagus and three more small ones at the bottom, everything else looked normal but he still took biopsies to test for the allergic reaction condition.

Lydia came out of the sedation obviously groggy but she ate a red popsicle and was doing pretty well, until she quickly said "my tummy hurts!" and vomited red popsicle all over me and the floor. It was awesome. This is her post-puking.

And again after some Zofran, which perked her up. She also loved her teddy bear, which she got when we checked in and stayed with her every step of the way. She named her Carmel or Ellie, depending on when you asked her during the hospital stay. We hope she really likes that bear for a long time, because it ended up being the most expensive stuffed animal we own.

The pathology report came back and it wasn't the food allergy condition--those white spots were yeast. How she managed to get a yeast infection in her throat, I don't know. It's possible that when she got the food stuck in September she scratched or damaged her throat and the yeast (which is always in our bodies, just kept in check by normal body bacteria) was somehow able to take hold. Or it was just some freak illness, who knows. At least now we know why her throat has been bothering her, and hopefully after she finishes her medication and takes probiotics she'll be back to normal. I sure hope so; I'm sick of fighting about food!

We sure love this little lady and are glad to at least know why she's been having such a rough time lately. Of course, I'm sure that I'm not going to hear any complaints about her throat tomorrow when she's digging through her Halloween candy bucket!

Stoddard health report #1

Tonight I was trying to slice the last chunk of onion into two little slices. Instead I almost sliced a chunk of my pinkie off.

I can feel my heartbeat in my pinkie right now. Weird.

Stay tuned for more pictures and video of Lydia's hospital visit this week. I should have results tomorrow so I can give you all the full scoop.