Five Minute Friday

I don't have much to say this friday morning.  It's been a HOT and boring week.  I tried to keep our routine as much as possible.... going to the library, getting groceries at 8am and going to parks early in the morning.  The rest of day is spent indoors.  We got a nice break in the weather yesterday with some rain storms.  

Whitney saw her first rainbow!!!  I couldn't capture how big and bright it was with our small digital camera, but it was a good one!!  It was even a double rainbow that stuck around for a long time.  Whitney saw it and says, "it's not a sticker"

I let her out in the down pour last night, then decided it would be best to just let her be naked, then decided we would give her a redneck bath!!  Wade got the soap and washed her up, that is her washing her hair.

Recent Pictures of the Girls

Welcome Home Lee!!

Our brother in law is home from Afghanistan after a year long deployment.  He is one of the many Iowa National Guard soldier's returning home.  The ceremony was thursday afternoon in Boone. 

after the ceremony, combing Grandma Cathy's hair

Grant was so excited to have his Daddy home!!

Five Minute Friday

Okay, I'm going to type away for five minutes then later today I hope to get some photos up. 
I have been breastfeeding/pumping for 20+ weeks now, yay me!  I am a little less strict on my pumping schedule, going closer to 3 hrs than my previously rigid 2-2.5 hr schedule.  I don't mind if Ellie is no longer on exclusive bm like she had been just so she can keep the taste of formula in her mouth because it is super nice to have formula as a back up.  She still does not like the breast during the day, I gather she prefers the steady flow of a bottle.  In other Ellie news she learned to roll back to front!!!  I am elated that she is learning new tricks to gain a little more independence.  She is also sleeping a bit better at night.  She has done 6,7, and 8 hrs this week, with a few nights of waking up after a few hours.  I'll take it, I think we are on the right track!

Yesterday we had a welcome home ceremony for our BIL Lee whom had been deployed to Afghanistan for a year.  It is such an occasion of mixed emotions.  You are so happy to see Soldiers reunited with their loved ones, yet so saddened when you think they had to go without each other for a year.  That's some tough stuff.  With that said, we are so thankful Lee is home safely and is together with his wife and kids as a family unit.  Many others in Lee's Brigade were not so lucky, it was a tough deployment for the Iowa National Guard.

I agreed to let Wade buy some more land at Lake Sundown in southern Iowa, where we currently own 19.75 acres.  There is  a plot right next to us of 9.51 acres that opened up for sale and we were given a good deal being previous land owners, supposedly.  I get super nervous about debt, especially since Wade also got a new truck.  Some people buy nice clothes, houses and furnishings, and vehicles- we buy dirt.  And trees and grass.  Wade says "we are adding to our empire".   I say, "oh boy!"

Wade has his "man surgery" today.  Or rather his "un-man surgery" lol, I'm so funny!  Our decision to be done with two kids will be final in a matter of a few hours.  I think it will be a relief not to have to think about it any more.  Some times I hold Ellie a little longer than necessary and give her extra hugs and kisses knowing she will be our last baby.

Whitney is talking in paragraphs now.  Her vocabulary is expanding every day.  She can string together two 5-6 word sentences.  Sometimes she stutters and jumbles up the order of her words as she tries to piece everything together.  We are constantly laughing at the things she says!

TOT Collar

I had a moment of panic and ordered Ellie a TOT(tubular orthosis for torticollis) Collar.  She still holds her head crooked, or rather she lets it rest sideways.  For only $60 (don't ask me how plastic tubing costs $60) I figured it would be money well spent and I didn't want to wait around for a doc's scrip to get insurance to cover it.  It's a fight to get it on, but once she has it on she tolerates it really well.  Hopefully it will help out.  It surely is better than nothing now that she is getting less tolerant with her exercises and stretches.

this is her without it, and how she likes to rest her head.  Her back right neck muscle is long and stretched, and her left side muscle is short and tight.

Five Minute Friday

Okay, so it's saturday morning.  I've had it!  I've had it with lack of sleep and waking up every two hours to comfort Ellie back to bed.  Sleep training begins tonight!!  As I mentioned before, we all got colds three weeks ago.  I am still blowing my nose a few times a day because of it, but I am done making excuses for Ellie that that is the reason she is continuing to wake up.  I think the cold started the whole wake up routine and now she is just in a bad habit.  She was consistently sleeping for 8 hrs before this began, I know she can do longer than 3 hrs.  It can't be good for her either to be waking so often.  The other night in my sleep deprived craze I thought Ellie was in bed with us and I picked up my pillow, slung it over my shoulder and began burping my pillow.  It took a full minute for sure for my mind to fully process that I was not burping Ellie, but a pillow!    Last night I was up four times with her by 12:30, ridiculous!!  I pulled out the big guns for breakfast this morning, coffee and I have chocolate chip cookies in the oven.

We finally got some word as to what Wade may be doing when he is done with school in December.  He has been approved for an ILE course in Alabama from Jan 6- April 20.   Wade will kill me for sounding like an ignorant Army wife, but I'm not sure what ILE stands for, Intermediate Level Education??  There are so many acronyms in the Army that I just accept the acronym instead of asking what each one stands for.  The ILE course is something you have to complete when you are a Major.  Wade is not yet a Major, but should be promotable in the spring.  Usually the course is a year long course at Ft Leavenworth, KS, but the course is very backed up and it would be a good opportunity to get that completed while he is in between assignments.  Part of the package deal of him getting this masters degree is to work for the Corps of Engineers for two years when he is done, so again, it's kind of works to get that course out of the way.  This is a TDY (temporary duty) assignment, so we don't know if the girls and I will stay here in Iowa or try to go with to Alabama.  The dilemma to decide would be where would we live, what would we do with our stuff, would the Army accommodate us, and do we choose to be apart for  3 1/2 months when Wade could still deploy for a year at a time. This is not confirmed, nothing is until you have orders, but it is a likely scenario for us.

Five Minute Friday

Whitney got her first black eye.  Like, a real good shiner.  She hit her cheekbone on a fire place ledge and the next day the black eye came too.  I was worried we should xray her cheek, but Wade insisted it was fine, which I'm sure it is.

I have been battling sleep with Ellie these last two weeks.  I hope it is cold related and not bad habits that are starting.  It all started Father's day weekend and has gotten worse from there.  I am lucky if she will sleep four hours straight and 1-2 hrs after her first waking.  It is wearing me out.  It's like she is a newborn again.  I stopped nursing her for her first waking, I know the girl isn't hungry and she was just doing 8 hr stretches of sleep.  It was a battle the first two nights of not nursing her when she awoke, but last night when I picked her up she just laid her head on my shoulders and went right back to bed.   Hopefully she is learning.  She sleeps on her tummy and likes to roll to her side to sleep, but wakes up and freaks out if she falls to her back.  It instantly wakes her up.  That is also part of the battle.  I had to take blankets out of her bed too.  She tries to eat them and twice I have woken up to her sounding panicked and go to find her with a blanket over her face.   Whitney was an easy sleeper.  Put her down on her tummy and she stayed there all night, still does.  Ellie on the other hand is going to be a mover and going to be a challenge.

Wade got some new wheels today. A new Toyota Tundra.  I'm not talking new to us, it is brand new, new.  We just had some issues with his truck and he decided he was tired of buying used and didn't want to put another dime into that truck.

My sister had a boy on June 26.  Lawton is name and we are going to visit them this weekend.

Whitney's new favorite phrases.... yeah sure, that's my favorite, you're funny,