Our Lil' Guy

Much to Shawn's relief, our little boy is still a little boy. Everyone kept telling us horror stories of the gender changing due to ultrasound tech errors. But our ladies had the gender pinned down 6 weeks ago. We had a 3-D ultrasound for the first time ever. Here is how it turned out.
He is very healthy and seems to be the right size.
Aviel turned one last Thursday! She was a little tired by the time we got around to her party, but she did pretty well. We sure are proud of how well she is doing. She crawls everywhere and gets into everything. She will climb the first step or two of a set of stairs and wait for me to notice before trying to climb all the way up before I can catch her. It has become her favorite game, and I love making her giggle all the way up by making loud sounds and calling her name. This is a pic a friend took after Shawn had landed in the Stearman. Aviel was at the airport to watch him land and taxi.

How to Gain Weight

Aviel is doing very well. She crawls around and gets into everything. We introduced her to grass and now she wants to play outside all day. Her first word was "Dadda" followed by "Uh-oh!".
My teenage sister lives in our basement. I yell down the stairs to tell her when breakfast is ready or when she needs to leave for school. I was doing so one morning when I noticed Aviel copying me. She was standing up holding onto the railings and yelling gibberish down the stairs at Veronica. It was pretty funny. It is weird what she picks up on. Now she yells at poor Veronica all the time. She is going to be a great mother some day.
Her occupational therapist is excited by how fast she is developing. His only concern was how slowly she seems to be gaining weight. She is a year next week and weighs under 15 lbs. I think they like to see them at about 22 lbs. He asked us to start feeding her whip cream to try and help her put on some weight. She loves eating the nasty stuff, so it works pretty nicely.

"HI, DADA"

I may be a little biased, but, Avi is not only saying her first word here, but also her first sentence. She has babbled Dadadada for some time now, but the recent development of her adding a subtle "hi" beginning the word gives her a few sentences.

A few of these sentences are:

"Hi, Da"

"Hi, Dada"

and "Hi, Dadphth"

Just one more reason I have the best daughter ever.

Shawn

Aviel in her stunna shades...

Here is Aviel with her newest accessory. Pretty freakin' cute.

Aviel's Tooth

Now that I have time, I want to tell you more about Aviel's first teeth. As you can see, she is just starting to break a second tooth next to the first. The first tooth has been very elusive to pictures until this one. She liked to cover it up with her tongue. When we give her apples you can hear her tooth scraping the apple. We are very proud of our daughter, who is actually ahead in her solid eating milestones.

Avi's WWII Experience (And First Solo)

Yesterday (Saturday February 19, 2011) was Aviel's 9 month birthday. As her gift of reaching that pinnacle, we took her to the Legacy Flight Museum to try her hand at a few of the planes and jeeps.


First Chantal and I put her in the Mormon Mustang, to get her revved up for this year's airshow season. I was impressed that as soon as she hopped in the Mustang, she immediately familiarized herself with the plane. As you can see, she got a feel for the throttle and the stick.
She insisted we take up the plane, so we let her. Here's some in-flight pictures of Aviel flying the Mormon Mustang.
In the Picture above, Aviel is taxiing for take-off. Note that the canopy is open and she is looking to the side, as she S-turns to see over the long nose.This is Aviel pulling out of a loop. The strain in her face is due to the high G-loading.

At the end of her flight, we thought it appropriate to take a nostalgic fighter-pilot picture at the side of her plane.
We thought she looked rather heroic in this picture.
When she was done flying, she told us she was hungry, so to top off the WWII experience she drove the WWII Willies Jeep to get some food.

Blood clots and a new job...

My poor mother noticed her leg was a little tight about a month ago. She decided to take it easy and only run 3 miles a day instead of her regular 7. And then her right shoulder began to hurt very badly. Mom had a hard time sleeping because of the pain. She thought it was a pinched nerve, and, having no insurance, tried to tough it out. Last Tuesday I called her about getting Veronica on some kind of state insurance and my poor Mother Dearest could barely talk. She claimed it felt like her lungs were always tired. She couldn't bend down to kneel and pray. She could barely stand up once she had sat in a chair. And yet she refused to go in and see what was happening. I talked to her about it being a problem that she could barely breathe. Breathing is a big part of my life. She finally went in Tuesday afternoon. She saw a regular doctor, but was quickly rushed to the ER. They did x-rays and found that her lungs were almost completely full of blood clots. Her shoulder hurt because there were blood clots lined up in her arteries trying to make it into her lungs. Her left leg was completely full of clots. She had to have a line ran into her veins from her hip into her calf. The line whipped up the blood clots and got the blood thinners directly into the middle of all the mess. 5 days in the ICU and she was discharged; feeling much better and being able to breath pretty well. She still has a filter in her chest to prevent clots from getting into her heart. I love my mommy and I am glad she is ok.
And Shawn got a new job that he absolutely loves. We are a very blessed family.