Christmas in Pictures

I want this chair over here mom, but I cant pick it up!

mmmmhuh i love Elmo

Ohh there are my plates!

Putting a pan in my new oven....

Life with a One Year Old

First off let me apologize for the delay in updating the blog, as we had computer issues and spent most of the month of October and November computer less. However that should now be fixed as we ended up having to make an unexpected purchase of a new cpu.


On Thanksgiving Day this year Allyson turned one. We delayed a party for a few days so we could enjoy cake and ice cream and we all had fun. Allyson knew very well that she was the star of the day and basked in all the attention that she was given.

The Birthday Girl at her birthday party

Allyson relaxing with daddy.

On Oct 27th we were given the Ok to no longer go to Mary Freebed. However, depending upon how she progress from now until march will determine if we need to go back for a follow up appointment.



Allyson loves to ask "Wat ts" (whats this) while point to an object. Sometimes it feels likes shes pointing to everything in the room.



A week prior to her birthday Allyson went from open mouthed kisses to closed mouth kiss. It really is very cute and we are going to have to get a video of it. We have been working with blowing kisses and she has the idea of what to do for them. She loves to run to a corner on the apposite of the room you're in and blow you a kiss.



She also loves to gives hugs and she will either say one of two things when a hug is being given. You will either get a Hi, which is said about 15 different times each time said in a different tone no matter what you respond to it with, or you will here a little voice say awe.



Right now we are in love with butters tail and she does not understand why he wont stay still long enough for her to grab it! She will also give him hugs but she has to sneak up from behind so he cant ran away so his rear end is on the receiving end and she will lay her head down the middle of his back.

Updates

Our baby is just shy by a week of being 11 months old and she is walking all of the time! It seems so strange and yet amazing to see this little body walking around our home holding onto absolutely nothing. Right now though she has been super grumpy as we are working on more teeth coming through...I think it's more than two but were not sure yet as she really wont let us feel around in her mouth. We are kind of excited to see how many are going to be added to the two bottom ones that she already has.

Mary Freebed Update
Next week we start our therapy 2 times a week at Mary FreeBed. I hope it goes by quickly!

Allyson is walking!

Questions Answered...

Today was a long day for Allyson, however she was remarkable during her appointment which began during her normal nap time and lasted an hour and half. Allyson was not to have a big breakfast before her appointment and very little food if possible. We were fortunate enough to have Allyson sleep until 8:15 this morning. I had her diaper bag filled of food and ready to walk out the door by 8:30. We arrived at Mary Freebed at 9:05 (we cannot wait until all this construction is down with downtown) we checked in and our 9:30 appointment began at 9:50. I waited as long as I could to not give Allyson very much and it was time for her to drink her milk. Miss. Ellen could not have come at a better time to take us back. It did not take long for Miss. Ellen to figure out what Allyson is doing. Miss. Ellen (whom I hope is Allyson therapist all the time) confirmed our thoughts and also identified another issue that needs to be addressed. L Allyson’s tongue is not working the way it should at all which was our thoughts upon taking her in. However she is also not drinking the way she should either. However our ped did not ask for a videography swallow and she was going to recommend to the ped that this particular evaluation should be done. When Allyson is drinking she is gulping and the milk is splashing in the back of her throat against her wind pipe. This can cause issues much later (age 3) for her throat and wind pie. Allyson when eating is not swallowing properly or handing solid food textures properly. If you swallow think about each step your tongue takes. It curls, pulls to the side a bit and touches the top by the little rough part. Allyson’s tongue does not do this at all it flounders around in her mouth kind of like a wave…now try and make your tongue do that! Hard to do huh!! Her tongue does not know that it needs to go to the side of her cheek to reach food and to begin to gum it. So with that being said we have been officially referred for Oral Mouth Therapy 2x’s a week for up to 12 weeks! We were given homework to complete between now and our first appointment while we wait for our insurance approval to schedule the visits.

There is nothing we could have done to prevent this from occurring, and looking back it all makes sense from the time she was born and we had difficulty breastfeeding.

On another side not Miss. Ellen kept complimenting on how well Allyson was behaved and how easy going she was. She was not scared at all and was very willing to work with her. She was astounded at how Allyson is learning very quickly on how to balance her self and was quite impressed with her limited walking skills are when she has the support or an object. :)

Mary Freebed

We go next Tuesday to Mary Freebed. I am impressed we got in so fast. We will be there an hour and half while they do what they call an Oral Mouth Evaluation. Hopefully they will be able to tell us how to resolve the issue of her tongue thrust issue with food. Hopefully we will be able to catch it before it continues to cause issues with her speech. We have noticed a time or two this weekend that her tongue thrust can sometimes cause a problem when she tries to say a word or babble. The tongue thrust should have gone away on its own by the time she was 7 months or so so based on reading I have done though her doctor said it should have ended around 6 months. I'm glad we will have caught this issue before it causes more problems.

9 Month Appointment

Allyson had her 9 month appointment today (which was really more like a 10 months)

Her stats

21 lbs 9 oz
28 1/4 inches tall
46.4 cm head circumference

All seemed to be good overall. She refilled the prescription for Allyson so we are on more antibiotics for another week. She was concerned that Allyson really isn't progressing much in terms of eating table food and the reflex action we see when she eats. So we are being refereed to specialists over at Mary Freebed for that. Hopefully it wont be a long wait to get in there.

It's Official - Allyson is a Spartan!!!!

It wasn't a pretty game today, but that didn't matter to me. Saturday mornings are Daddy's favorite. Why? Well because I have a new fan to watch Michigan State football with. Every Saturday morning (or game days), we hang our MSU flag out in the front yard. We put the MSU football jersey on our doggy (see picture). We sing the MSU fight song (Victory for MSU will soon be a favorite phrase). We sit and cheer for the green and white. When MSU scores a touchdown, Daddy yells touchdown and throws his hands in the air. Well today, Allyson did the same! She threw up her arms as well and then immediately started clapping after Daddy said yeeeaaaaaa! Even Grandpa & Grandma T. got to witness the event.

Now if we can only get the stinkin' Lions to score touchdowns.

sicky land with personality.

We have entered the icky sicky land for the fall 08 season. On monday Allyson woke up with a fevor of 103 so I stayed home from work to tend to her. She was not her normal self at all. She was full of cuddles and wanted to just lay on you. On tuesday at 5:30 am we saw she still had a fevor so Michael called in so I could go to work. By mid day she appeared to be fine. She acted normal and played with her toys but not much cuddling and no fevor..my thought was maybe its teeth...but i didnt feel anything that made me think yeah there are teeth there. Wed she went to daycare and was fine. Today she was fine before I took her to daycare and headed to work. I picked her up at normal time and put her down for her afternoon nap...Brody and his mom Erin came over for a visit to do my hair and while Erin made a run to store Allyson woke up...and then threw up. So i cleaned up allyson and kept the kiddos seperate and waited for Erin to return only to have to cancel due to allyson suddenly being sick again. I waited abit..called the doctor...gave medicine...it didnt stay down very long and landed on my rug in the living room...then michael came home. He changed his clothes and then came to take ally so that I could finish taking care of her bed and making it again. It wasnt but a matter of 60 sec before michael called me into the room "I dont know what to do shes throwing up come here! its all over...me.!!".She has taken 3 sips of gatorade. Im a bit worried about hydration...she is sooo picky about what she drinks. She hates juice, she hates water...she loves her milk...She doesnt hate all juice..she loves pear juice..but we dont give her that due to the diaper explosions that are subsequent there after. They say this year is supposed to be a bad year of the flu as its already started in full force and its early. So wash your hands.

Lately Allyson has shown quite the little personality that she had been hiding the last 9 months. She loves to tease. Her favorite way to greet you is to head butt with your forehead meeting. Michael thinks she will never have a first kiss with a boy (she will be ancient when this happens) but it instead will be a head butt. She will sometimes lean forward and act like she wants to head but you and as you lean forward and in she quickly pulls her head back smiles, and ocasionally laughs and has a very coy look on her face. Since she hasnt been feeling well we have been allowing the blanket that she sleeps with out of the crib when shes not napping/sleeping so she can suggle with it . She has come up with the funny look that she will give you...giggle and grab the blanket and put it ontop of her head to play peak aboo. She thinks its so funny. In other news she can also push her push and ride toy across our living room standing up taking steps, so I doubt it will be long before she can walk. Oh and she loves the fridge..she will crawl at lightning fast speed if she hears someone in the kitchen opening up the door and crawl around you to take a peek inside. Tonight she discovered we have a long fridge door handle and was attempting to open it..oh dear...are we in for trouble or what once shes really walking..

Let us remember...

My vote is no longer my own but it is for Allyson and is her tiny voice until she is 18. Its for her future as she gets older. Of course there are other things to remember and consider when it comes to this very decisive decision I have to make every four years on polices that I feel strongly about due to various reasons, and even perhaps consider my sister and a possible future brother in law who's in the Navy whos life will be dictated by some of these polices.

So as you think and process the next 67 days until November 4th, remember the person in the picture below is who's future is at stake, and who's life your voting for.

Allyson 8 months

Allyson at 8 months

The Jumperoo...some old videos

Crazy Crawling Fool

Its True! Its True! We have a crawler. At 7 months and 2 weeks Allyson is crawling. I would have pictures for you but our digital camera isn't functioning at the moment. So hopefully we can upload a video to suffice the need to see this great big news. On Friday Allyson looked liked she took a crawl on our bed, but we didn't count it. Sat. Allyson got up on all fours and rocked 2 times and didn't want anything to do with being on all 4's after rocking. We went down to Kalamazoo after I got out of work on Sat. We attempted to get her to crawl but had no real success's. Grandmas toys weren't to enticing. However she did get to play in her walker her grandpa bought for her and she loved it. Sunday morning we were all in the living room and Grandpa was in his chair reading the newspaper and setting down the section on the floor he was through with in what was a nice neat pile. I was on the floor sitting with Allyson talking to my mom. The next thing I know Allyson is up on all 4's and crawling...one step..two steps, 3 steps, 4 steps, 5 steps...ahh there is this shiny newspaper and I can reach it now, she stretches out grasp it and the proceeds to sit up and play with it. We would move her back away from the pile and she would crawl right back to it and make a very neat area a disaster zone. It wasn't long before newspaper was all over the place. As the afternoon went on Allyson continued to crawl 4 or 5 steps. Then we went for a visit to the Tanksley grandparent side. She crawled all over the place in the living room and everytime she moved she would get faster and faster, with each step she took. She is growing up too fast...now if only we can get her to take a sippy cup...

My Aunt loves me....I think....

I think my Aunt Melissa loves me...but she does crazy things to me..She laughs so hard she cries when snot bubbles appear. It took her a good two minutes before she wiped my nose for me before she could stop laughing. She laughs when we have to use the bugger snot thing she says I make funny faces. Then she does things like this to me...

Of course I waived bye bye to her for the very first time ever to anyone. So I guess she isn't too bad of an Aunt.

PS. I am tired of wearing Orange...can you please tell my mom to stop buying your favorite color just for me to wear.

The new way to sleep....Hiney up and in the air...

It does not matter how we lay her down to sleep anymore. She rolls directly onto her tummy almost the minute you lay her down and the hiney goes up into the air. I found her sleeping like this for her nap time on Thursday afternoon. She moves a ton at night. However this blanket never seams to be anywhere but in her hand at all times.

My new fav. toy, my Grandpa's watch. Im a pro at rolling over and playing with it.

6 month Appointment

Allyson had her six month appointment yesterday afternoon. It was supposed to be today. However due to the swollen eyes that she has been waking up with the last couple of days they wanted to see her asap. It turns out they think the swollen eyes are due some sort of Allergies. They are thinking its pollen as that's what is really high right now. We are just to keep an eye on it and see how it goes and bring her in if it gets worse. She also checked out her finger that she burnt this last weekend while trying to grab a carrot out of my hot stew on Sunday, that resulted in a blister that later got poped on accident that same day. She dismissed our concern that its infected and said that its healing nicely and that it might just take awhile to heal. The doctor thinks Allyson is a head of the curve by a little bit and thinks by 8 months she will be partly off of the purees and on to things, like grapes and such cut up for her to eat and she said she thinks by then Ally will be very mobile..ahh we got lots of work to do if that's the case! Oh and we can add water to her diet right now as well.

She is 19 lbs 6 oz., 95%
She is 27 1/2 inches long 85%
I don't remember her head measurement, but its still in the 95%.

The nurses loved her and she was such a ham for their attention. She kept leaning out to Dr. Stutzman to hold her and that was rather funny. I think she was intrigued by her skirt and she wanted to grab it. She got 3 shots and an oral vac. She didn't notice the first two shots and found the third shot and cried for only 10 second and was then her happy normal giggling self!

Dada, Dadee, Dada, dada, Dadeee da da

So we talk, and now its just a matter of time before we crawling.

Allyson is changing so fast. There are moments of time where I wish I could stop all time from passing by. Today was a long day. I arrived at daycare to pick Ally up and ended up having an unexpected conversation with our daycare lady about what Allyson has been doing. I say unexpected as I had asked to not be told about any milestones that may occur while in her care. Needless to say I found out today that she had said dada, and dadee for well over an hour today. I wanted to cry. Not because mama wasn't her first word but because I wasn't there to hear it for the first time. A few minutes later we were in the Jeep to head home. As I was putting Allyson in her car seat and having this talk about talking with her the phone rings and its Michael. Allyson looks up at me, smiles and says dada...dada, while I am trying to find my phone and answer it. Michael's phone totally cut out and I have no idea what he said. Then the jeep would not start so we waited for a fellow church friend to come and jump the jeep after nearly an hour and a half and the jeep started. On the drive back to the house all I could hear Allyson talking up a storm saying Dada along with a few other noisy sounds.

As I was trying to put an overtired baby to bed, she would scream dada, dada and start crying. This went on for roughly 15 minutes. It was the worst heart wrenching sound I have ever heard from my child. I don't know if she can put the name with the face yet or not but there is no doubt that she has been missing her special time with Daddy. Needless to say tomorrow will be a hard day to have her in daycare all day long.

Times are changing...

Allyson is growing up sooo fast. She is exploring the world in all sorts of new and different ways. Diaper changing has now become a unhappy crying fest as she doesn't like to be touched and turns to move away from you. So a pink multi-colored lighted blinking rubber ducky seams to work for distraction leaving us a happy baby. It wont be long until she can sit up totally on her own. She does require minor assistance right now. Her current favorite objects are the real cell phones (note to self to find a good toy version) and the computer keyboard. She loves to act like she is typing away and scrams if you need to use the keyboard for something. After all we all know she wants to make a post to all her friends on the GRBabyboard.

If there is one sound you could bottle up and hold onto forever its that sound of a happy baby just waking up and talking. Every mourning she is always happy to be awake unless we have woken her up then shes a grump! Too much like her daddy.

For those of you who don't know, Michael left the company he worked for in Holland and now works for K RESA in Kalamazoo. He stays at his parents house several nights a week to save on the gas money so there are night during the week when its just Allyson and I which can be fun at times. However I think I most prefer to see the nights when Michael is walking in the door from being at work all day. Allyson gets all excited and smiles and screams with happiness even when shes been a cranky baby all day long. She is slowly starting to recognize his voice on the phone (or so I think) but these times just don't seam to be as enjoyable as when she sees him in person.

Hopefully we can figure out whats going to workout for us as we feel a bit trapped into our house here in GR as far as the housing market goes. It would be nice for it to be the 3 of us and Butters every night.

This Sunday is going to be very interesting with all emotions, memories from a year ago and at the same time we will be meeting the current sisters boyfriends parents and his sister and her two children one which is a few days younger then Ally.

Life is well...sorta busy.....

Lots has happened sense I have last updated the Blog. I have been meaning to put up her new stats from her 4 month appointment that was on 4/4.

She weighed 15 lbs 6 oz (which is up 4 lbs!) 90%
She was 26 1/2 inches tall (up 3 inches!) 95%
Her head grew to 43.2 cm which is up 3.2 cm again off the % chart!

Ally has been getting solid food once a day. So far she likes avocado's, and green beans and she does not like sweet potatoes. We have been having lots of fun watching her eat. She gets excited once we put her in the highchair. She will even pull on my hands to bring the spoon to her mouth sometimes when its her favorite which appears to be the avocados.

For the last week Allyson would randomly roll and her daddy never believed me! That was until this past Friday night when Allyson rolled over and over and over, I think for 40 min straight after we had come home from dinner. Then on Sunday afternoon after a long 3 hour nap she figured out how to roll from her tummy back onto her back.





I went to go make her bottle this morning and found her almost trapped underneath the couch she had rolled over so much.
What I'm not supposed to roll underneath the couch mom?

Just for Great-Grandma Tanksley :)

Oh the fun in our house.

Oh the fun in our house has begun. Thank you daycare. Allyson is sick. Thursday Allyson woke up with a temp of 99.9 and was not happy. Then as the morning went on it got higher 102.3. So off to the doctor we went. We came home with a girl that has ear infections in both ears, and has RSV. Last night we could tell her ears were really begining to bother her as she wasnt eating as well. She would sleep for close to 40 min at bed time and then wake up crying. Thankfully this only happend 3 times and then to sleep she went...That was until 4 am which seams to be the time as of late for her to think its time to get up and play. I have been having a horrible time getting her to go back to sleep so I put her in the swing and ran downstairs to type this post hoping she will be back asleep when I go back upstairs. The two older boys at her daycare had colds and ear infections as well. Michael has had a cold now for a week.

On another side note I think we are close to rolling over at some point in time. I placed her in her gym yesterday and she want to play with her hippo who has rings that she likes to hold on to, to shake and pull on them. It was too far away so she rolled over onto her right side grabed the hippo with both hands and pulled her self closer to it and then rolled back onto her back.

While Mommy is away, Daddy will play.........

Dear Mommy,

Please don't leave me home alone with Daddy anymore. Look what he did! He put me in a Yoda costume. Please hide the camcorder.

Love Ally

p.s. - the gas is strong in this one

Well time has really flown by too quickly. I have gone back to work and I miss spending time with Ally and really look forward to my Tuesday's with her. Its been hard due to the fact that I come home from work by 6:30 and shes sleeping and in bed by 8:30. Several weeks ago I took her to see the doctor. I thought she might be teething, however my mom thought it sounded more like an ear infection so I took her in to be on the safe side. Her ears were perfect, however she is working on cutting 4 teeth on the bottom and two on top. We can feel the teeth on top quite well and expect to see them any time. She is super long and is looking so much older. On Sunday a new young family our age have started attending church and they have a little girl who is just 5 months old. Allyson wanted to sit up and not be held, so I held her sitting up and she just staired at the little girl who sat on the other end of the pew. It was so neat to watch.

Enjoy these pictures of our little sweet pea.

Allyson sleeping.

HI!

I love to talk and laugh at you!

I love this picture. We were on our way to the diaper shower my mom and sister put together for us. This was how she slept on the way to the chruch building in her carseat. She had pulled the blanket up aginst her cheek.

Bathtime is lots of fun. She loves it. She gets so excited when we take her into the bathroom and start to strip her down..Its funny.

Ally Working Out

Current Stats

Well the Dr. Stutzman seams to think Allyson will be tall like her daddy. Here are her current stats as of her appointment on 01/03/08.

weight: 10.3 lbs 75%
height: 22 1/4 90%
head 39.3 98%

Look for a video of her coming soon for the Great-Grandparents whom are out of state as they havent been able to see her yet in person. :)