Newest Happenings

Well I think I'm finally getting back into our normal routine...maybe. I plan on changing some things up around here because with the move and getting settled we fell back into lazy stay at home all the time and watch movie people. I hate that. I mean don't get me wrong I love those kinds of days just not when there every day. Plus I know my kids don't like it either. I've been inspired by a friend of mine to become more active and to make a summer schedule of sorts. I think what I've decided will work best for our family is to have themed days. Savannah does really well with having structure so I'm planning on having a specific activity we do each week on a specific day. I need to get my plan done like tonight so we can actually start but today we went to the park and had a picnic.

I was really impressed that Savannah actually went down this slide, its really high. For a reference point you can see like 3/4ths of the slide behind Olivia in her picture (as a side note she's gnawing on a carrot). It was a fun outing, Olivia had a blast on the swings. She seriously started going with her belly laugh as soon as I put her in the thing and didn't stop till I took her out. Savannah made a friend and just followed her around and tried to do everything she was. The girl didn't seem to be annoyed by her and was actually excited to see if Savannah could do the things she was able to.
I've also done a few projects, first we made paper chains again because two of our most favorite people are coming to visit in July.
Yup, my mom is coming for Olivia's first birthday at the end of July and my youngest brother Mark is coming on the 4th of July for a week. Savannah LOVES paper chains so it was kind of an easy project to decide to make to get ready for these visits. I got the idea though to put pictures of my mom and brother at the end of their chains so Savannah could understand a bit more why we have them. Our new favorite morning activity is taking a chain off, I have to admit too I like having the visual reminder of how many more days I have to wait till they get here too. For this next project I copied a friend.
These are prayer sticks. I think my friends turned out so much cuter so I might redo mine but I am in love with the idea. I made a stick with each persons name on it so now we just pull out a stick when we need to say a prayer. The person's name that is pulled says it, you also keep the named pulled till each person has had a turn and then you put them all back in again. I love this idea. Have I already said that? Savannah goes through phases where she loves to pray and then refuses to pray. I think and hope that this will make it fun for her and will just be a fun thing to add to our routine. My last project I made was a new shirt for Savannah.

So I know its a tie shirt and girls don't wear ties but I think they're so stinkin cute and she's my kid so I'll put her in whatever I darn well please. I love it. I included the 4 steps it took for me to make the shirt. I'll be honest and say that Savannah's only worn the shirt once, in the summer it is almost impossible to get her to wear anything besides a dress. This girl is infatuated with dresses and she pouts if you try to put her in anything else.
Well there you have it, we're going on outings, making projects, and getting ready for two visitors. My life is crazy sometimes but I usually do it to myself and I really wouldn't have it any other way.

Update on Olivia

Well we met with the neurologist today to talk about Olivia. It went as well as could be expected which was a relief. Olivia did in fact have a stroke while I was pregnant with her. There is a fancy medical term for what she is diagnosed with but I forgot it as soon as I was told what it was. I know I'm a great mom right?! The good news about this is she has a very mild case and has pretty good usage of her right side all things considered. We'll get her set up with a physical therapy evaluation to see how intensive her therapy will be but her doctor said it might even be a case where we could do exercises with her at home and just check in monthly to evaluate her progress and get new exercises when we need too. We'll have to wait though to see what she'll need. As far as why she had a stroke we really don't know why it happens we just know it does. Olivia is expected to walk and to be able to run as long as her therapy goes well. Her right ankle is pretty stiff so if she doesn't improve then she could loose the use of it. She also might have to have some sort of leg brace to assist her in walking. Olivia has just started pulling herself up onto things and Jacob and I have already noticed a huge improvement with how she uses her right hand. We're assuming that this will also be the case with her foot once we start doing exercises with it. Another piece of good news is that our doctor said that in every case he's had like this the child has never had another stroke. Also once Olivia is older she'll need an MRI to see how much brain damage she has, because her case is so mild her doctor is assuming that she has a fairly small brain tissue scar. What really made me happy was that he was so impressed with her progress and all the things she was already able to do. There are still a few things we have to keep our eye on like her limb development to make sure one of her legs isn't shorter then the other because that could lead to other problems down the road. Overall we really did get the best news for the situation. I loved that the neurologist said that she has no idea there is anything wrong with her and that's how Jacob and I plan on treating her. Olivia has already shown us how well she can adapt and do the same things any other kid her age can do. We feel so blessed to have Olivia in our family. She is just such a joy, she is one of the happiest babies I've ever seen, and we just love her more then words can express.

"We're Hooommmme!"

This is what Savannah says every time we get close to the new house. I love that she remembers the way and knows when we're almost home. Now our new home is new to us but its technically not our home. Like I've said before we moved into Jacob's parents house and will be living here for the next 14months while his parents are in Zimbabwe. We've made a lot of changes to make the house even more child friendly and to help save my nerves. By that I mean we've used a lot of our stuff so if my kids do something to it I don't freak out as bad as if they did something to my in-laws stuff. The three biggest changes are that I repainted both the girls rooms and the girls bathroom. We also turned their formal living room into an extra storage room for furniture that we weren't going to use like our kitchen table and their dresser. That's the second entry way picture with the table in front of the door, I was pretty happy with how that turned out. My most favorite thing in this house is the bench I made for Olivia's room, I think it turned out way cute. I've done tons of little projects to make the house look like ours and to function for our little family. We're so grateful to Jacob's parents for letting us live here and we're still sometimes amazed that they trust us to take care of their house. We've been here a week now and we all LOVE it! I told Jacob yesterday in the car that this is the happiest I've been yet in Idaho. I never thought I'd like living out here, we went from a city with 80,000 people to one with 3,000. But I'm already in love and I hope the next 14 months go by kind of slow so I can enjoy the time we have here. I of course miss our old house and having our friends so close by but it hasn't been as hard for me to leave as I thought it would. I think its because I am so happy here already and I know that this is what's best for our family. The girls have transitioned VERY well, Olivia has only had a few problems with sleeping but they're already starting to work themselves out. Our new ward seems really nice too and Savannah didn't have any problems going to her new class. She just walked right in and fell into her usual routine and didn't even look back to see if Jacob or I was there. When we went to pick her up they said she was great so we were very pleased with how well she did. It seems the only negative which isn't really a big deal is the extra time it takes to get some places but soon enough I know that won't even matter. Overall we're all really happy with this move and are excited to see all the new adventures that it brings for us. Here are some pictures of the new house, if you put your mouse over the picture it will tell you what your looking at.

On a different note, on facebook I posted that Olivia is being scheduled to see a neurologist because of some issues we've noticed with her right side. As she's getting bigger and becoming more active Jacob and I have just noticed that she really doesn't ever use her right side. She'll push things over to her left side so she can use her left hand and she won't eat with her right hand at all. Her right foot is also almost always balled up and rarely relaxed. I mentioned this at her doctors appointment on the 3rd and after some basic tests her doctor decided to refer us to a neurologist. He suspects Olivia may have had a stroke sometime and that's why she doesn't really use that side. She's progressing along really well and you really wouldn't even notice there was anything wrong just by looking at her. She has her appointment on Tuesday and we're not really sure what we'll be doing at this visit but I'll keep you all updated. So far I don't really have any prodominent emotion regarding this. I think I'm just taking it one step at a time and I'm waiting to see what we find out. There is a chance that it could be something more serious but I'm really not even entertaining that idea. We'll most likely have Olivia go to physical therapy to have her work on using her right side more. Anyway, there you have it so I'll write more about it when I know more.