Syd Smiles

So our baby girl has started smiling for the past couple of weeks. It is quite infectious! G & K still run to her every time she wakes up and smother her with loves. We LOVE her!

check another

Quarter 8 (split 1) is officially over! YAHOO!

We got to go celebrate at my all time fav restaurant, Claim Jumper. Check out Lance's delish chocolate shake--and that whipped cream--YUM! But more importantly we, I mean he made it. Ok, I really mean I made it. I made it without strangling one of my children, or something like that. I am really proud of Lance, don't get me wrong, but we survived Portland during finals week, without a Dad. I think we are going to make it. whew!

Great Job, Babe!

Now two full weeks of both of us at home! LOVE IT and can't wait!

Results of Bilateral Myringotomy with Tubes and Adenoidectomy

Thanks for all of the prayers! Gracie is recovering well. She had a previous tube with a polyp and nasty stuff behind it. That was replaced as well as the tube that had fallen out. The adenoids were HUGE and so it was necessary for her to get and IV and intubation so she could get those (adenoids) removed. She was pretty funny after she got the Versed she was hallucinating a bit, telling me that there was an ant crawling on her hand and such. The worst for me was the waking up from recovery. It's the part I dread the most for myself (for my own surgeries) so I was dreading it for her. She was very brave and settled down as soon as I got to her. Thanks to my dear friend, Kristine, I didn't have to worry about Sydney. She (K) brought the baby to me when she was hungry and then stayed with us until we went home. Thank goodness for friends! We stopped for a milkshake on the way home, and then pulled over just as we left the parking lot for a puke clean-up break. After we got home she asked for pancakes with peanut butter and asked for a second and third, we only obliged to the second for fear of puking again. Then had a million Popsicles followed by dinner of a bowl of rice krispies, 2 slices of pizza, and 2 slices of cheese. Where did this appetite come from? After a dose of the tylenol with codeine elixir we are ready for bed!

Ready to go with the cute hospital jammies

Trying to wake up...

The first of many, MANY popsicles

Surgery

My (first) baby is going in for surgery tomorrow to replace tubes in her ears and possibly remove her adenoids. Although this is a fairly routine procedure, it is still surgery and she does have to go under general anesthesia. Keep her in your prayers!

Just because

I love her

Thrush and Chunk

First of all, I hate thrush! Second, I love chunky babies!

Sydney has gained a bit of weight in her short little life thus far...

August 3 (birth) 8 lbs 1 oz.

August 11 (8 days old) 8lbs 4 oz.

August 26 (3 weeks, 2 days) 9 lb 7 oz

August 31 (4 weeks) 10 lb 4 oz

There you have it! And you also have a promise of more pics of my chunk-ier baby!

Sydney's Blessing

August 31, 2009

Sydney Kay Mollenhauer was blessed in our home in Portland, OR.

We were blessed to have "Grumpa" in town and thought we would take the opportunity to bless Sydney. I am so grateful to have the Priesthood in my home. What a sweet blessing it was. She is such a special girl and we are so happy to have her in our family!

43 days later

This made my day:

Seeing this:

And not this:

Total cost of rental car: $1859.32

Total cost of repair: $3893.23

Pain and Suffering: Not sure yet, but dang it, it better be worth my 43 days!

Note to stupid drivers: Please don't back up into someone passing you in a parking lot! PLEASE!!

Another Gracie Makeover

still alive... just busy

So I realized that we have not been present in the blogging world for quite some time...almost four weeks now? wow, time is flying. We are still alive, just busy in our lives and dealing with our kids. Sydney is doing really well, she slept from 12 to 6ish A.M. straight-through last night, so we are really grateful and happy about that. Thank you Babywise! She is spending more time with her eyes open lately, checking out this wild world in which we live, and is starting to follow the sounds of our voices. She especially loves to hear Em's, and has smiled at her a couple times in response to Em talking to her. I have not been the beneficiary of any smiles in response to my voice, but I like to count the ones where she is smiling at the fan and because of gas as mine.

The older girls are still very sweet to her, except that I think that Kami wants to start playing with her, so she has been bringing toys to Sydney, hanging out with her at mealtimes (which is fun for Em), and removing her socks for her (Kami has a thing with shoes and socks, I'll talk about it some other time). Gracie has been nothing but sweet to her and likes to imaging that when Sydney is crying, that she is the Mommy and says comforting things like, " Oh, Honey, What's the matter?" and "It's OK, sweetie". Cracks me up every time!

Funny story about Gracie, today as we arrived for church we devised a game plan for getting the kids out of the car and chauffeuring them into the capilla. I said that I would take number three and Em volunteered for number two, which left Brittany (my sister who is staying with us for a couple months, we had space, she wanted a change) taking "number one" (Gracie). When Gracie heard that she was number one, she broke down in tears, saying that she is not number one, she is three, and that she could only be three and not two or one, that she is a big girl, ....and so on. She obviously meant her age needed to be three, and that we couldn't relegate her to being one just by saying so. I just laughed as I tried to explain to her that she was our first child and that that was special,and that she was still a big girl and could be three years old and still be our first child...needless to say I was laughing whilst I explained and she thought I was laughing at her, not with her...and she eventually understood, but I was again reminded of a number of things that I should not forget. 1. Cardinal numbers are not an easily understood topic by three year-olds (get working on that Disney) 2. I have a house full of girls and need to remember that most of the time it is not what I say but how I say it that matters 3. these kids are paying close attention to everything we do, and so when I am not speaking at their level, I probably need to talk in code so as not to upset them. I

Well, this was just a short blurb that will hopefully allow Em to guilt-free post some pictures of our cutie pies without writing a whole lot. so tune in shortly for the good stuff in our next post.

Lance