Emmy Update

Finally! We do have an answer for what has been bothering our Emmy for so long.
And thankfully, it's a managable thing.
Emmy has Celiac Disease . I'm still learning what this means for the baby girl, but in short, it means Emmy's diet will have to be gluten free. This will be a new way of thinking for our family as we plan meals etc, but we are so very thankful that it is something so fixable. Emmy has had quite a few tests in her short life, and some for some scary scary things. So, Celiac? We can do it. She will see a specialist in the next couple of weeks, so hopefully then we will have some more answers. What I am learning is that Celiac is much more common than ever thought before. And if truth be told, I think I have it too. I will be tested soon, but either way, our family is going gluten free. If any of you have any experience with this, especially for an infant, I would love to hear! We are bread and pasta lovers, so this will be a big change to the Dyer diets :)

The Weekend Wrap Up

First, you must look at my sweet baby girl. I love her. In case you didn't know.

 Backing up a bit. John went to Australia for work for 10 days. So this week, we have been catching up with daddy. He took Friday off, and we went and surprised Hope by picking her up from school. We went to the Dallas World Aquarium. Hope remembers lots of odd things from when we lived in the Dallas area when she was little. I just knew she would remember some of the aquarium. But, she didn't! Not a thing. However, she did love every minute. She just took it all in. She could have stayed all day.

 This is Noah telling me about the huge anaconda snake he just saw!

 Again with the trees. I like trees, what can I say.

 And we can go ahead and add this to the "Things that freak me out" file.

 Noah's very favorite part had to be the shark tank tunnel. So cool. It was John's favorite too.

 This? Very cool.

 And on Saturday, we took off the training wheels! I won't say it was totally successful, but, she is getting the hang of it. When she isn't trying to run into parked cars and mailboxes. And, I got Noah this balance bike for a steal on consignment. Don't worry, he has a helmet. Just posing for the picture.

 Tonight, John was putting the big kids to bed while I was doing some stuff for Hope's class. Emmy was (army) crawling around and playing in the living room. John came downstairs and found this...

 OUT!

 This cannot be comfortable!

 And, I looked through some old blog posts and found this picture of Hope on our first visit to the aquarium, before we even knew we would be moving to Midlothian a couple months later. I think she's about 17 months old here. And who would have ever guessed we would be back 5 years later with our 3 kids living in McKinney? Craziness.

John had just graduated from graduate school and wanted to come to a conference here in hopes of making some connections for a job. We stayed with our sweet friends, the Jessees, who lived in McKinney at the time. I loved their town then, and I love it even more now that we are here! Sadly, the Jessees left a few years ago. But, they definitely influenced our decision to choose McKinney when we were looking where to live in DFW!

That's about it! Have a great week!

At the park with some cuties!

Sometimes I really should just say no

Like when the school carnival falls on a night when John is not able to go. I love love love my Noah Red. That being said, he is not fun to take places. He screamed his adorable head off waiting to ride the train. When it was finally our turn, he had the snubs. So he would snub snub, and then let out a little "choo choo" before the snubs took over again.

Can you even believe he will be three in a couple of weeks? Me neither.

Emmy Love at 8 Months

Emmy, at 8 months old, you are just precious. I cannot get enough of you. You are smiley, social, nosey, sweet as sugar, and so much fun. In the past couple of weeks, you have learned some new tricks! Here are the highlights so far!

• You mastered sitting up while on Spring Break. You had been getting better, but during Spring Break, you were finally solid!
• You babble. A lot. You started with lots and lots of BABABABABABABAs, but now you have added DADADADADADADA, which Daddy likes a lot. I will say to you, "Say Mommy!" and you reply, "DADADADADADA!" You think you are pretty funny ;) Daddy loves it.
• Ummm, out of NOWHERE, you decided it was time to move. You aren't crawling. You are wiggling like a snake. And it works for you. Your favorite spot to wiggle to is the TV stand. Where you pull out all the movies from the bottom shelf. I see those disappearing very soon.
• You like food. You are kind of getting picky about which baby foods you will actually swallow, but, you will eat just about anything you can put in your hand. And, you like to snatch food from your brother. He does not like this, as you can imagine.
• Speaking of snatching from Brother, we have rearranged car seats, which put him right next to you in the car. You get your little hands on everything he has. He gets so so upset. To comfort him, I try to explain that you just want to play with him, but you and I both know you are doing it for the reaction it gets from him.
• Those size 2 diapers are getting small! My next amazon order, I am moving you to 3s.
• You weigh 16.2 pounds! Putting you only 10 pounds behind brother, and about 21 pounds from sister.
• You had your very first ear infection. If it weren't for your fever and goopy eyes, I wouldn't have known you were sick. You stayed smiley the whole time. In the doctor's office, the nurse and dr got the biggest laugh out of "how very sick" you were as you were with all your giggling and flirting with everyone who would look at you! Had you not been running a temp of 102, they might have thought I was crazy for bringing you in to the after hours clinic.
• You have a new favorite toy. I lost your beloved wire ball sometime over spring break. I am still very sad about that. But, thanks to your buddy, Palmer, I knew you would love a Sophie giraffe. You really do love her. She is a perfect teething toy for your age. You bite her all day long (Sophie, not Palmer.)
• Knock on wood, but the time change has served you well. You were waking up at 5 every morning, and now you wake up at 6 ish. So, you still haven't figured out that we are a sleep late kind of family (Your siblings will sleep til 9 or so if we don't wake them!) but, I will take 6 over 5 any day. And the fact that you sleep solidly through the night earns you many bonus points.
• I love you. A lot.

Video of Noah riding Thomas

A short little video of Noah riding Thomas. My favorite part is towards the end when he yells out "Island of Sodor!" He really thought that was where Thomas was taking us. I'll never tell.

Our Day Out With Thomas!

John and I searched a few months ago to look at the Day Out With Thomas tour schedule and found he was going to be about 40 minutes away from us. We were in! I was worried because Noah had been sick for a solid week by the time it rolled around, but he did great. He was truly in awe. We had such a great day together.

She did it!

Ear piercing is kind of a touchy subject, right? And everyone has an opinion of when to do it. I understand why some people choose to have their babies' ears pierced, and even why some make their daughters wait till 13, or 18, or whatever. As parents, you just have to make your own rule about this. Our rule? You have to be old enough to understand that it hurts and you want to do it any way! Ha! I just didn't want to take her in there and her have no idea what was going on while two people put holes in her body. So, we have talked about it from time to time, but she had no interest in voluntarily signing up for pain. Well, something happened to change her mind, and she was ready! We have talked about it for several week, with us reminding her that it does hurt, and also how much responsibility it is to take care of them for 6 weeks and yada yada. She never backed down. I was 6 years old as well when I had mine pierced, so I am liking that. We had planned on doing it during spring break, but brother got sick, and it just didn't happen. So, Saturday, we went to the Grapevine Mills mall to do it! Of course my baby picked the most sparkly pair. Pink flowers. She just took it like a champ. Never flinched, never shed a tear, she really is crazy brave (she hasn't cried over having a shot in YEARS.) She is so good (too good?) at reminding me to clean them, and to wash my hands before I do, and she also will not touch them without washing her own hands first. I am pretty proud at how big she has been about it. It was no problem at all to get her out of bed Monday morning. She was ready to show her friends the fabulousness!

Knock Knock

Knock Knock jokes are big here in our house. Hope is just started to get them, and loves a good round of knock knock jokes. Noah, wanting to be a part of the fun, tries to participate as well. He says this knock knock joke no less than 20 times a day. And it cracks himself up every single time.

Noah: Knock Knock
Us: Who's there?
Noah: 'nana popsicle
Us: 'nana popsicle who?
Noah: 'nana popsicle!!!

Followed by a pause until someone laughs, and then he cracks up.

Yeah, we don't get it either. :) But, he sure is cute.

Happy Emmy! 8 months

I know I have told you Emmy is a happy baby, but maybe you haven't seen her to know. This was Emmy just hanging out this morning. Keep in mind, she is sick right now. She has a fever of 101 while I filmed this video today. So, really, I am claiming the title of world's happiest, easiest baby for her.

Spring break!

We have been enjoying Hope's Spring Break this week! My sweet friends Deni and Shauna (and the precious Baby Palmer!) came to see us last weekend in Texas. It was so fun to catch up with some of my favorite people. The kids and I loaded up in Shauna's van and rode back to Arkansas with them. Which was very brave of Shauna and Deni to allow us to do, because they know how awful my kids are in the car! We all survived!

Monday we went to the CDC where Noah was reunited with the wonderful Meesha, his old teacher. He ran to her and hugged her for a solid 5 minutes! He even made her cry! She said we will need to make custody arrangements before we leave. ;) When he hugged her so tight I felt like he was wanting to tell her, "Oh Meesha, no one else understands me!" They have a very special bond. He has spent lots of time with her this week, which has been a much appreciated break for the mommy.

This week, I have tried to let Hope do some of the things I always say no to. Like jumping on the the trampoline/ bungee things at the mall, Build a Bear, eating where she picks, etc. She has enjoyed every second.

Hope had a project this weekend where she had to take a penguin (Paul the Penguin) with her on Spring Break and write about his adventures. We decided we needed to take Paul to the new Penguin exhibit at the Little Rock Zoo! I will upload those pics soon. It was a fun day!

Party like a Rock Star

This weekend, Hope went to a Rock Star Birthday Party for a friend-boy in her class. (Interestingly enough, there were actually 2 Rock Star Birthday Parties this weekend, but we only made it to one. I'm guessing that's the hot theme for BDay parties right now?) I pulled out several items that I felt were Rock Star worthy. She is wearing none of them. This is totally all her doing, from the single cinderella glove to the pink cowgirl boots...

I did enjoy doing her hair though! She did not enjoy getting the rats nest out that night though! She made Bo about 10 different birthday cards, and this was the winner. At the party she handed him the card first and gave him a few minutes to appreciate her card before she would hand them the present. I'm not kidding, she was not going to give him that present until he checked that card all the way out!

Hope is cracking me up right now. She is using some big words, some correctly, some not. This morning after I changed a stinky diaper of Emmy's, she came downstairs and said, "Oh, something in this room smells very un-delightful."

She also has been fighting me on her clothes. Daily. As in she likes nothing I pick out. I knew this day would come, but seriously. I am not ready to give in yet. Have you seen what happens when you go from buying 5T clothing at Target, to buying size 6 at Target? It is insane. Target is no longer my friend. There is a book that I love called Stop Dressing Your 6 Year Old Like a Skank by Celia Rivenbark. I promise I think of that book every time I look at the clothes in Target. It's just gross. And don't get me started on the underwe@r . Why would my child need bikini briefs? Or hipsters? No. Anyway, back to my story. She said to me the other day something like, " Mommy, I've been thinking that it's time for me to start dressing like the high school girls." Ummm. No. So a few days later she asked if she could pick out her clothes so she could dress like a high schooler. I told her I had to see her outfit first, but yes. She picked out her "Big Sister" t-shirt, a too small jacket, jeans with patches, and to top it off, one of Emmy's flower headbands. Which made me giggle to think about a high school girl showing up in a "Big Sister" T-Shirt and infant headband! Ha! I let her wear it, and I think her teacher got a giggle out of it as well.

She is finishing up her cheerleading days with Upward. She has loved it. It has been so great for her to be able to get to know some friends from school better, as well as some new friends. She is going to be so sad when it is over.

A little worn out.

My friend, Amanda sent me this picture earlier. This is pretty much how I feel right about now! I am having a tough time with Noah. Maybe Noah is going through a rough time? I don't know, but yesterday, was probably the most frustrating Mommy days I have ever had. Everything that happened, by itself, totally sounds like nothing, but put together in succession made for just a bad day. The only thing I can even think of to mention is the colossal meltdown he had in Target. Oh, you know the ones. Screaming, jerking, mess of a boy. The one where you get 2 looks, either the, "OMG! You are the worst mother ever! Take him out of this store!" Or, you get the, "Oh, dear, I have been there before" looks. Thankfully, in store fit throwing is a rare occurrence around here, but yesterday's fit, well, it probably made up for some we've missed. Anyway, I headed to the check out to just leave with what I had, not getting through the list of what we needed. I was holding his head as I unloaded groceries (with Emmy riding in her Baby Bjorn on front of me...I was a sight, I tell ya) so that he wouldn't bang it against something. You get me now? It was a FUN time. So anyway, I headed to my car, and when I got there, a mom with her two small children had followed me out to load my groceries into the car for me so I could deal with Noah. It was so sweet, and something I definitely plan on doing for someone else in the future. Because everyone has those days, right? Please say yes.

John suggested we just go to dinner since the house smelled like smoke and burnt plastic. Oh wait, I didn't mention that, did I? While the dishwasher was on the heated dry cycle, a plastic lid fell onto the heating thingy and it burned and melted right through it. Anyway, our house smelled like smoke and burnt plastic. (Can we just gloss over that?) So, we met him for dinner where John vowed to be on "Noah Duty" the whole time. Which was nice. But, even nicer was when after dinner, he said he would take all three home and put them to bed while I walked around some stores all by myself. It was good. He is good.

I don't know what Noah's deal is right now. He cries and fusses a lot. He is really pretty mean to most everyone. He is not sleeping well. Not  napping at all. And he is having a really hard time falling asleep at night. I don't know if it is part of getting closer to three, or what. We were potty training, but we just completely stopped. He is not ready. Could that have triggered this? I actually feel like I can pinpoint when all this started as when he punctured his eardrum a few weeks ago. But, shouldn't that have healed? And he doesn't say his ear hurts or anything. I just don't know. I just want my sweet, happy Noah back.

Emmy Love is 6 Months old!

Ok, actually, she is almost 7, but, she is STILL officially 6 months old. Hey, take the updates when you can get them, ok?

 Emmy, You are the easiest baby my world has ever known. As long as I am holding you. You do not ever cry. As long as I am holding you. You are never hard to figure out. As long as I am holding you. You love everything! As long as I am holding you. :) Sometimes, you make it just a little hard for Mommy to get other things done, or for Mommy to help take care of your brother and sister. But, on the other hand, it is just pretty awesome to be loved like that. To be able to make everything in your world ok just by holding you? I think I can handle that. I wish I could always make your troubles go away just by being near.

But really, you are such a happy girl. When you get oh so excited, your legs kick, and you turn and bury your head in my shoulder, hiding your big, open mouth grin. It is my favorite thing.

You can sit up for a few seconds, but I certainly cannot walk away from you just yet. You are getting strong, though, and I know you are about to get it.

You have no teeth. Which is right on track with my babies. BUT, you have had these little teeth buds since you were born. Everytime I have taken you to the doctor (No, really, EVERY time) the doctor says, "Oh, and her bottom teeth are about to break through." I just smile and say, "Oh really?" They haven't broken through. But, they still look like they could at any second.

You can eat! You love baby food, of course, but you also want your own food to hold and chew. Your current favs are Baby Mum Mums and Gerber Wagon Wheels.

We left you. This month I have left you in the care of others. Which is hard. For me. You have visited a drop off day care (I did this once before, but you cried until they called me to pick you up...) and you were perfect! You also started staying with your little friends at MOPS. I have always taken you with me to the meeting, but it was time for you to go and play. Again, you were perfect. Then we got really brave and left you at Parents' Night Out at church. They say you were perfect. You went to sleep at your normal bedtime (7ish) until we picked you up. I gave you extra snuggles when we got home because I missed you so much. You also went to the nursery at church for the first time. You worked the system this time, because they said you wanted to be held the whole time. Way to go, sister.

You are a snatcher. You have much better hand control now, and you will snatch things right out of my hand. i.e., the sandwich I was eating last week.

Your favorite place to be (other than attached to me!) is on your play mat. You don't roll much, but you can get to the little toys on the mat and play play play.

You also love your bed. I love you for this. I just put you down awake. You stare at your mobile and kick and giggle until I turn it on. I walk away, and you go to sleep! It is seriously the greatest thing ever.

Emmy Love, I love you my baby girl. I never knew how much I needed you.

Getting Ready for Valentine's Day

I have talked about our Valentine's Day tradition on here before, but it's been a few years, so I am telling it again! Sorry.

John and I met while we were in college. When our first Valentine's Day rolled around, John was employed as a Youth Ministry intern, and I was living with a family that I provided child care for in exchange for room and board. So, we were basically completely and totally broke (but happy! :) So, we decided to make each other's Valentines. There were no rules given, just that you had to make it yourself. John's first Valentine to me is my favorite. It kind of looks like a first grader made it :) It is heart shaped and has glitter and buttons on it! He still remembers the other folks in the Youth Ministry department giving him a hard time about making his Valentine. The next year, we decided to do the same thing, and it's been our tradition ever since! I like to decorate our mantle with some of our creations. There are so many now, we don't have room for all! (Plus, I cannot find the ones we made last year, anywhere! This is causing me some anxiety...) We make them for the kids too now, and they make ours as well. Hope is very into it this year. She has been super secretive about what she is working on. I do know that she has used a TON of glue, so I am a bit nervous to see what exactly she has been gluing! In Target today she "Some people don't know you can just make a Valentine. You don't have to buy them." Although she did let me know that she does like heart shaped chocolate ;)

Remember The Time Our Parents Thought it Would Be a Good Idea to go see Life-Sized Dinosaurs? What Were They Thinking?!

I can picture Noah and Hope having this very conversation one day. Possibly while sitting on a couch together talking to a therapist. We heard that a local museum here had and exhibit called Dinosaurs Alive. They advertised life-sized dinosaurs being outside along their nature trails. Two weekends ago, it was 70 something degrees outside, so we thought it would be a great time to go see what it was about.

This first dinosaur was tame enough. He didn't move. The kids oohed and ahhhed for a bit.

 As we headed on down the trail, we came upon the next one, who was animated. Meaning, he growled a little bit. We let Noah out of the stroller to check it out.

 Enjoy this moment, because it was pretty much the last moment on the rest of our adventure where he was not screaming, "NO DINOSAURS!!! I WANNA GO HOME!"

 Emmy was happy, though. As she was attached to me for the whole hike.

 This is a very old tree. I love big old trees. A sign near the tree said it was over 250 years old and that it was sprouting at the same time the Declaration of Independence was being signed. Very cool.

 The dinosaurs kept getting a little bigger, a little scarier, and a little more animated as we kept going. Hope even started getting a bit scared, and she completely understood they weren't real.

 She was still her silly, old self, though.

 Does it look like Noah is loving the dinos? No? Hmmm.

 He is absolutely screaming in his Daddy's ear right here.

 Standing as far away as they could.

 Ahhh, a break in animated dinos for one to sit on. We liked that.

 And, of course, the trail ended with the big dog T-Rex. Noah was loooooosing his mind right about here. Hope did not want to stand in front of it, but I was all like, "Oh, honey, you will stand in front of this huge scary thing if I have to hold you upside down by your ankles." Or something. She really was scared. Poor girl. At least we took the picture while his head was way up there, because his head also came down close enough to touch as well. See, we are such good parents. Okay, okay, I will put away some more money for their therapy jars.