Alice Turns 3!

Alice loves the color purple. She will wear a purple shirt and purple pants and be as happy as can be! She also likes pink.

Alice loves goldfish ("golpin"). "I gike momee" (I like macaroni.), "I gike ea i-ceam" (I like eat ice cream.)

She loves playing baby dolls with her sisters. She loves to rock them.

Until this week she used to call Anthony "My baby boy". She now has learned to say his name "Anthy". She "loves him toe muct" ( . . .so much) and hugs him as she says this. It's truly adorable. She is very loving and affectionate with all the family and gives us lots of hugs, kisses and tells us how much she loves us.

How she says other family names:

Papi - Pop
Mommy - Mommy
Macie - Maymi (just learned to say Macie)
Dominic - Nom or Nomic
Tessa- Tessie  or Tetta
Claire - Cul

Alice loves to jump and dance and run. She's hilarious as she does it because she is so stinking tiny and she can really get some air when she jumps! She just turned 3 and is only maybe 25 pounds. She is light as a feather which makes her super easy to carry. She has endless energy and can ride her "car" forever as she tries to keep up with her siblings as they ride bikes.

She has always had so so much hair. She was born with a ton and never lost any of it. I don't even remember her having a bald spot in the back. My favorite was putting her hair in a bun on top of her head. We always get lots of comments about how much hair she has. She's so tiny that it almost dwarfed her a bit when it was down. Her hair was just about reaching her bottom and was difficult to brush so we cut off about 4 inches in May. Still long, but much easier to brush.

Alice started Speech therapy at age 18months. At that time she didn't even say ba-ba, ma-ma. She was just a happy smiley baby but didn't say any sounds. She was tested for overall development and passed in everything but expressive communication. I knew she was smart and that she could understand and do all the things that I asked. Bev, the speech pathologist, would come to our home 2 times a month to work with her. It  took a while but she fianlly started saying some sounds. I don't think she said "Mommy" until she was 2 and didn't say "Papi" until she was about 2.5. She was just retested and is still behind in her speech, but really has improved so much. She will say sentences and is now finally saying speaking in the 1st person instead of the 3rd ("Me hungy" "Me thisty).

More to come . . . .

2013 Year in Review

Macie is now 10 years old and a smart, helpful and independent one. She is in 5th grade and involved in student council, plays the piano, flute, and ukulele. She did soccer in the fall and will be starting basketball season here soon too. She's growing up way to fast (in the good way) and has even started babysitting her siblings a little. Such a blessing to have her as our oldest child!

Dominic is 7 and in 2nd grade. He's doing great in school and so enjoys time with his friends. He was the quarterback again this year on his tackle football team.   He had a great season and it was fun to see him be the leader of the team. Basketball starts in January. He's the comedian in the family and always keeps us laughing! He will be baptized in February!

Tessa is 6 and in Kindergarten. She LOVES school and is reading like crazy! She was on her first soccer team and she scored a ton of goals each game. True to herself she was always pretty serious about it but would shyly turn and smile after she scored to see if we saw. She loved it!

Claire is 4 and we are doing a little preschool co-op with some moms at church. She enjoys that and it is so good for her shy nature to get out of the house away from me. She is our little girl who loves lipgloss, nail polish and making sure she looks just right in her oddly matched clothing and skirts.

Alice is 2.5. She has had quite the year of speech therapy, wearing eye patches and wearing the cutest lavender glasses you've ever seen. She started out the year not saying any words or sounds and is now saying her own mixed up sentences. She is still behind for her age but she has progressed so much and loves when her speech therapist comes a few times a month. We've spent the past 1.5 years trying to correct her crossed eyes but not enough progress was made so two weeks ago she had eye muscle repair surgery. She's healing up great! Alice is a happy, teeny tiny little girl who keeps us laughing and washing pen, pencil, crayon and markers off the wall all the time!

Anthony is our little miracle baby (now 5.5 months)! Truly he is here on this earth because many prayers, blessings, fasting, modern day medicine and the loving and guiding hands of our Heavenly Father!! In January were surprised with the news that we were having identical twin boys. We were thrilled and beyond amazed to be having 2 boys! We got the heart breaking news at an ultrasound in February (at 16 weeks) that one of our sweet little boys has passed away and the other was severely anemic and was fighting for his life. Identical twins carry so much risk and we were faced with the trials that this brought. Just a few days after we found out this news we went to OHSU in Portland where they performed a fetal blood transfusion to save our baby. It was a very serious, stressful and complicated procedure that ultimately saved our baby's life. I had probably 25-30 ultrasounds during this pregnancy to do everything to keep track of his quality if life in the womb and create the greatest possible outcome for him. Anthony was born on July 3rd at 11:57pm. He was a healthy baby but was born without skin on both sides of his stomach and scar on his head, arms, neck and knees. None of the doctors here in Salem knew what it was so they sent pictures to OHSU and they new just what it was. A rare condition that is a result of losing an identical twin between the gestational age of 15-17 weeks. We treated his skin like you would a burn and within 4 weeks it was completely healed. Another miracle! He's got some fabulous scars that will forever remind him of his twin brother and the miracles that Heavenly Father provided in his life. Anthony is such a good happy baby and is getting so chubby and cute. We love him so much!

Cole and I are doing great. It was a busy year with a complicated pregnancy and the demands of owning your own business but we have truly been blessed! We've been married 11 years now and started dating over 15 years ago . . . crazy how much has happened in all those years!

We hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!!

Baby Anthony

Stationery Card

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We recently welcomed our 6th child to our family. This little man has been through quite the journey in his short life, in the womb and in his first 5 weeks. He is truly a little miracle baby. I look forward to telling you his story.

Halloween!

Trunk or Treat at the Church! Fun and quick and the kids got tons of candy. Claire was a very shy Dora but did get some candy. Alice was an adorable Dorothy and LOVED carrying around her basket.

Macie and her new BFF Celia, who got bit by a snappy little dog later when we were in the neighborhoods.

Tessa and her friend McKenna. These two are only 3 months apart, yeah Tessa is still small. Dominic with Griffin. They are in the same class at school and he loves it!

Nani and Papa invited us for a fun day of cupcakes and costumes. Macie was so super sweet to Claire and helped her decorate. Claire loved the attention.

Crystal and George had a Halloween party. They had a haunted house, games and food. Super fun!

Pumpkins

Our 5 Year Old, Tessa

Our "Little Tess" is all grown up! I can't believe she is 5 now. That just seems old. Tessa is a joy to have around. She still has her stubborn moments when she wants things done "right now" and just a certain way but she is maturing. She is quite the little ham and loves to make us laugh by talking in funny voices, making funny faces and our favorite, saying "oh my goodney, oh my goodney."

She is a fabulous little singer. She stays right on pitch and memorizes lyrics crazy fast. She is starting to read and is excited to learn. She is such a great helper with Alice. She loves to get her out of her crib each time she wakes up, gets her down from her high chair, plays with her and keeps her entertained. Tessa loves to play "Sally Game" (which is house) with Claire each day. Tessa loves to draw, cut and tape things together.  I'm always finding random little projects she's made. If you lift up her pillow there is a stash of trinkets, papers and anything else she wants to hide from her siblings.

She has memorized the first 3 Articles of Faith and almost has the 4th one down too. She is thoughtful in her prayers and always remember to bless "JFO to get more patients." We our little Tessa so much! Life sure if great with her around.

Here are a few questions I asked her today:
What school do you go to and who are your friends - Pringle Preschool & I only have Addie as a friend.
Favorite Food - Sausage
Favorite Thing to Play - Sally Game (House) with Claire
Friends at Church - Bradleigh, McKenna, Tessa Maughan
Favorite  Shows - Full House, Bubble Guppies
Favorite Color - Purple and Pink, every color of the rainbow
Lunch Favorite - chicken nuggets
Fav. Drink- juice
Fav. Animal- all of them
Fav. Game to play - Hullabaloo
What I want to be when I grow up - a teacher
Favorite thing to do with your family - dance parties

Proud of my Macie

It was a proud mom moment today when Macie told me she moved to a new desk. "Cool" was my response until she told me it was because she offered to move so the new girl in class could sit next to girls and not the boys. I just hugged her and kissed her after that and got all teary eyed.

My shy Macie was kind and sweet enough to tell her teacher (without any suggestion or asking from the teacher) that she would move and sit next to Trevor so Heather, the new girl, would be able to sit next to some girls as the only open seats were next to boys. So proud of my girl and who she is becoming!