Halloween pics-so soo late!

Spider-Sean, Butterfly-Sian, and Bumblebee-Claire
We discovered Claire's true family in our ward. We love your costumes LuAnn and Jeff. (Killer Bees, get it?)

Claire's first time trick-or-treating. Our first stop was our next door neighbor Shirley's. She was so kind to us. Claire loved her plump Pomeranian Rosey. We then went to at least a half a dozen more homes, including an inflated Haunted House down the street. She was very brave, no biggie.

Claire's candy stash. (she even got Mardi gras beads, way to go Claire!)

We've moved to Utah

Moving day, car was jam packed with the rest of our things.

The last month or so has been hectic. I am now feeling like we are getting our heads on straight. Before moving to Utah we had to say goodbye to a lot of amazing people, places, and our beloved Buster and Lucy. We were unable to take our cats with us, but were fortunate to give them away to a loving family. We are so grateful for all of the kindness offered to us in the hardest times in our lives.

We moved on Nov. 13th and were able to make it to Utah on the 15th. We had an ABF truck drive our things out. That was a huge lifesaver! We planned on arriving the night before on the 14th, but I-80 closed due to black ice. So we holed up at a Little America. As much as we wanted to just get the trip over with, we enjoyed just relaxing and not worrying about getting to Utah quickly.

We were very busy looking for a place to live. We tried to find an inexpensive place. We got so sick of looking at ghetto/dirty apartments and rentals. We saw a lot of horribly dated apartments with awful carpet and disgusting toilets. Ya think you can rent the place out with brown in the toilet? We even saw an apartment with the closet shelf held up with a jimmy-rigged hangar suspended from the ceiling. Really? So we upped the rent another $50/month. Amazing. We found a place that had almost new carpet, granite countertops, and new fixtures. We are pretty pleased.

The only problem we've run into is our neighbors above the "Stompies." (I don't think they have any cushioning on the bottoms of their feet.) Also, two days ago they had a toilet flood that leaked into our bathroom, that Sean helped unclog. Disgusting. The bowl-like light fixture was completely filled with yellowish liquid. F.Y.I. Don't flush feminine products!

Being in Utah has been pretty fabulous. (aside from the lack of available jobs) We have really enjoyed being with family and friends. It has been three years since we've been able to spend Thanksgiving with Sean's family.(they have some of the best food) Plus we never would have gone swimming on Thanksgiving in St. Louis. That was really fun to do with my family. We also got to go the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert last weekend. It was a very memorable experience. (plus how often do you get to sit right behind Elder Holland and former Gov. Leavitt? right? It was interesting to see them in person, it felt normal to see them. They are faces I grew up with.

Another great thing about being around family is that Claire has actually been interacting with kids. She has finally started walking, mostly. She also is getting in her top teeth including a canine. She probably realized that she needs more than two teeth.

We have felt a lot of emotions these last two months. Bittersweet emotions really. Gratitude towards friends in St. Louis, sadness to say goodbye, and humility in our circumstance. We had so much help from ward members, neighbors, and Claire's Audiologists. We were blessed so much to live there and to meet so many wonderful people, and experience such a great city.

Lone Elk Park and such

I've been to Lone Elk Park twice before, and each time I've been intrigued by this "watchtower" that looms near the entrance. It seemed so mysterious and exciting. Well, I guess any other time it may have been the view of a lifetime.
Sean wasn't interested in going, so Claire and I made the journey together. It didn't take too long to realize that Ladybugs were everywhere. I tried not to let it phase me. As I trekked up the the spiral staircase, I realized it wasn't raindrops falling on my head. I can be very stubborn, so I continued. I noticed somebody had clearly been there before us as I ascended the squashed-bug stairway. I made it to the top to find even more Ladybugs and a Wasp. I was done. I turned tail only to be blocked halfway down as Sean began to ascend. Needless to say, I didn't get back to the car without having a small mental-breakdown.
Due to this encounter, I will not feel so inclined to smile when I see a ladybug. They really creep me out.
BTW: Throughout the drive in the park we continually had to open the window to flick a ladybug out.
Click on the photo below to get a better idea of the hoards of creep Ladybugs. Yuck.

We really enjoyed seeing the various colors of autumn on the trees.

Before leaving we were able to get out and stand about twenty feet away from a buck elk and a half a dozen cow elk.

Sean and I have a deal with Claire after her afternoon nap. She gets to watch one of her favorite shows for a half an hour while we cook dinner together. It works out pretty well, except when "Miffy" cuts in-and-out of reception.(we get really bad reception on our basic channels, especially PBS)
Anyway, she has mastered the couch-potato posture. She has also mastered the squish-face smile.

Magic House

Last weekend we were able to visit The Magic House here in St. Louis. You probably can't tell from these pictures, but it is so much fun for all ages.

Our next-door- neighbor made this hat for Claire recently. She is so sweet to us, and Claire loves her obese Pomeranian Rosey.

Claire really loves water, she especially loves to take baths.

Claire had fun with this display about air pressure.

I was very surprised at Claire's squeal of delight when she saw this Curious George walking around.


I felt really lame after taking these last two pictures. I'm not always very fond of Anne Geddes' style, and these pictures definitely lean toward that style. Lameness aside, I really like these obviously staged pictures.(ignore the hand holding her up) You can't deny the delight of a toddler in construction garb and a Judge's robe.

Nice job Dan

http://utahvalleybusinessq.com/features/tips-for-sale/

Claire's Birthday and such

Being far away from family has been hard on us at times. The idea of Claire not having family for her first birthday was very sad to me. Fortunately my Dad was able to come celebrate with us. We had a great time.

Claire was particularly squirmy during out meal out. Her high-chair, however, had wheels. So, her and Grandpa took a few laps around the restaurant. Claire was intrigued.(I think it's an odd picture, because we usually don't see a neck on her. She is usually head and shoulders. She looks so regal)

Claire had a Wiggles theme for her party. If there is one thing we have a hard time peeling Claire away from, it is the Wiggles on our computer.

We had quite a few families from our ward come and really enjoyed their company. Hot Potato, with one of Claire's favorite toys at the time. (Minnie Mouse)

Claire really enjoyed her cake, but still had room for paper.......

.......and more paper.

Trying to save money, we took our own One year old photos at Forest Park.The second after the photo above was taken, Claire of course, was curious about the taste of dirt.
In case any of you are wondering, Claire didn't get her ears pierced. Our sister-in-law, Kari, gave us the idea to use nail stickers. It works pretty well.

Drama

So, as I mentioned before, the last few months have been pretty dramatic. Sean got laid-off, our car broke down and we had to pay $320,(not the most ideal time to spend that money), and Claire had a surgical procedure.

I'll start with the latter, and work backwards. At the beginning of June we noticed Claire's breathing get progressively worse . It sounded like her throat was narrowing at times, at other times she sounded perfectly normal. I figured it was maybe allergies to the cats. I took her in to the doctor, and of course her blood-oxygen levels were 100% and she was breathing normally. I pretty much paid a $20 co-pay to say "Hi" to the doctor.

Two weeks later, the Stridor (wheezing) was worse, and she was snoring most of the time while sleeping. So, another visit to the doctor, this time I pre-recorded a video of Claire snoring and wheezing. I needed hard evidence, in case I "cried sick baby." That time the Doctor was able to hear and witness the wheezing and snoring. She wasn't sure, so we were referred to an ENT.

We saw an ENT. A nurse held Claire in her lap as the doctor stuck a tube down her nose to figure out the wheezing problem. He couldn't see anything. It makes me sad to think about. I can still picture her face. Her face was bright red as tears filled her eyes. She gave me a look that said, "Why aren't you helping me?" I felt so awful.

Since the doctor couldn't diagnose Claire's problem, and did see it as a potential problem, he decided to have Claire come in for an exploratory surgical procedure. Doing an exploratory procedure, also meant that there was the possibility of a follow up surgery to fix the problem.

Claire went in for surgery on July 7th. We were really nervous about Claire being traumatized during this experience. St. John's Mercy hospital did a fabulous job. The surgeon found three cysts under Claire's vocal chords. They were most likely caused by an intubation that occurred earlier in her life. One cyst was ruptured and the other two we will have to keep an eye on.

Our car broke down on me while I was driving, but I was barely able to pull into a Ford dealership, just as the power steering gave out. This was the day before Claire's surgery. Fortunately the dealership fixed the car within a few hours.

Sean was laid-off on June 26. Not a good day for that matter. I heard recently that when someone loses their job they go through a grieving process similar to when losing a loved one. First denial, then anger, depression, and acceptance. The day Sean lost his job, we went through some denial. (mostly avoidance) We actually had a fairly decent time together as a family, despite. We drove out to Lone Elk park and Wild Bird Sanctuary, less than a half hour away. Claire and I had been there before, and wanted to show Sean around. We saw several bison, and elk. It was really neat. We enjoyed seeing the birds. We passed by a white-necked raven that said "hi." Ravens are really great at mimicking. We also really enjoyed passing by a very uppity turkey. The moment we got too close to the cage, it puffed up with a very distinct poof sound, and stalked the edge of the cage menacingly. We made a few visits over to that area. Very entertaining.

What a Goof!

Claire's new thing is to crawl over to the giant window in the living room, pull herself up and look out. I believe she was trying to be productive while she was there, and decided to clean the window. We love how she gets distracted by a dog walking by, loses sight for a moment, then goes back to business. She really cracks us up.

I need to do an update of the past month, we have had a very stressful and eventful time. I will explain soon.

More pictures to jazz up this blog

We love the "Chub cheek" face.It makes Claire's eyes look beady.

Sean and Sian at an "80's rock" costume Birthday party for a good friend in our ward.

Claire with her Speech Therapist named Claire.

I left Claire in the room on this blanket laid out flat for probably two minutes.

Buster loves it here.
He gets a great view of all the juicy birds, squirrels, and rabbits.

The end

April

It is such a nice and fun place to live.

We moved on April 4 to our new rental home. Up until recently I've felt completely disorganized physically and mentally. I have a good system of paying bills and mostly keeping up on things at our apartment, but here I've had a rough time. We had a very very high phone bill. Lets say around $472 worth. Yeeeeaaah. That was a big oops.

We just started with a new phone company and had the same exact plan as with T-Mobile, but cheaper. The problem is that I must have been talking with a lot of T-Mobile users, plus I talked a lot around my birthday. Fortunately I was able to get Sprint to drop the overage charges. Woo hoo. I am very careful about talking during peak hours now. Lesson learned.

Back to, us moving. We really love living in a house. We have lots of extra room to spread out, a garage, and a yard. We are so grateful to the Holmans for letting us stay in their house.

It's great to not deal with loud noises, cigarette smoke, dents in our car, three flights of stairs, and irresponsible neighbors. Example of irresponsible neighbors: We got three dents in our car while living at our apartment, which really sucks. One of the dents we figure someone kicked in, because there isn't a scratch.

(I am really going off on tangents.) Speaking of dents, Sean got rear ended on his way back from the store on my birthday. That was really not fun to deal with for him, but the person at fault's insurance is great. I've been tempted to switch to American Family Insurance, because they are so easy to work with. (I should get paid for these endorsements for Sprint and American Family)

So, the new place is great. The owners put a lot of hard work into the home, and have put some really nice things in. Like: new windows, really nice looking sinks and cupboards in the bathrooms, really nice ceiling fans, and fresh paint. Our dark wood furniture looks a lot nicer here, because they play off of the wood floors. We love, having a yard. We started a garden with a lot herbs and a few zucchini plants. Mmm, I really love zucchini bread. I gobble it up.

Living in a home is quite a bit more work and money, but it is really rewarding. We will be trying to save like crazy to be able to buy a home when lease is up, because I really really don't want to live in an apartment again.

So a few weeks back we had thought our cat Lucy had accidently gotten spooked and ran away while a door was open. It was ten at night when we noticed. We searched high and low, rechecking the same places. We looked outside and called for her. Nothing.

After exhausting all effort, I set about writing a lost cat flyer in our computer room. Amidst tears, I hear a meow. It sounded like a Lucy meow. Sean had heard it too, he thought. So, I raced around again trying to figure out if somehow she had gotten in the heating vents. I kept worrying that we were going to have a cooked kitty. Then I heard it again. Meow. I couldn't tell where it was coming from so I went into the kitchen to turn off the dishwasher. Meow. Turns out that Lucy found a loose metal plate in the crook of the bottom of the cabinets, and squeezed herself in and went behind the dishwasher somehow, then squeezed again under a four inch rise. So we set about trying to figure out how to get her out. Finally we pulled out the dishwasher and I grabbed her by the noggin to pull her out. This happened two times more before Sean remedied the problem. Even though we love our Buster and Lucy, I think we can all learn a valuable lesson, don't get cats.

Can you believe she fit under there? I did the dishes earlier that night, not a peep. What a little turkey.

Other updates:

Ms. Claire has been better. She has gotten sick three or four times in the last month and a half. Once with a flu, another with a diaper fungus. We had to put athlete's foot creme on to cure it. I think Claire has been sneaking out to sit diaperless in gym lockerrooms.) She has had two colds, and just recently her first ear infection treated with amoxicilan, which gave her the baby runs. She is still having that problem. I wonder if she has developed an allergy to milk? I don't know.

A sorta smile at the Dr.'s for ear infection. She looks like H.I. Junior in that jacket.("Raising Arizona" the movie)

Hearing Aides

So, to continue on my catching upness. (No, upness isn't a word) Claire went in to her school, Central Institute for the Deaf, on March 16 and received some loaner hearing aides. They set the aides to a fairly low setting just to test things out.

First day of hearing aides

Claire had previously been tested at her school several weeks before and the staff concluded that on that day Claire only had minor to moderate hearing loss. Which was different to the previous diagnosis of moderate to severe hearing loss. Now, this news may or may not mean anything, but it is a glimmer of hope that Claire won't have to work so hard to be able to speak clearly. The reason why is that she is diagnosed as having Auditory Neuropathy. This broadly means that the nerves that connect her ears to her brain don't fire correctly. Sometimes they can fire extremely well, other times not at all, and anything in between. So, with all the knowledge of her condition, the second diagnoses may have been on a good hearing day.

During the first few days that she had her hearing aides, Claire was a huge crab. I wasn't sure if it was due to teething, or if it was the hearing aides. I talked with Claire's Speech Therapist, also a Claire, and she said to limit the hearing aides to a few hours a day. She also arranged to pick the hearing aides up that Sunday on her way home from her church, so that they could set them to an ever lower setting. Adult Claire thought that maybe with being able to hear so well, when Claire was unable to for so long, it was overwhelming for her brain.

The rest of that first week was pretty rough. I got some sort of extremely horrible flu for a day and a half, and Claire got sick shortly after for about three days. Yeah, that didn't help her crabbiness either. I got sick on a Wednesday night and was up throughout the whole night, sicking it up. Oh man, to my recollection, I've only been that sick once before and that was when I spent the night at Utah State with my friends from high school during conference weekend. I spent the night sleeping on the ground in the dorm hallway. Fortunately for me this time Sean, my sweets, stayed home from work on Thursday to take care of us. This was despite the fact that he went in the hole for time off.

Back to hearing aides. Adult Claire brought the hearing aides back to us the next day when she came over for weekly Speech Therapy. Since then, chubby cheeks Claire has been fairly content. To us the hearing aides seem to be working and help with picking up sounds that she may not have heard before. The thing is though, that deep down, Sean and I wish/feel like Claire doesn't have a hearing problem. It's just so hard to tell either way if an infant can hear. I'll be saying her name and she doesn't look up, and I wonder if it's because she's ignoring me. We still feel like things are up in the air with nailing down how well she is hearing. I'm thinking about calling up a different Audiologist to get a third, but extensive opinion.

Random pics.

Claire earning her keep.
Claire wanted to be held and I needed to dust. So, I combined the two.
Claire kept grabbing at the duster so I just let her have it. She did a great job dusting. With a little guidance.

My brother and sister-in-law, Court and Kari, gave this little piano a while back and Claire loves to play on it now.
Very surprising because the first time I turned it on when she was about two months old, she cried.

Fin.

Champaign

I'm trying to play catch up with blogging, and I should have posted this weeks ago. Oh well.

Three weeks ago all three of us were able to visit our old city Champaign, Il. Sean's was asked by his firm to represent them at the U of I Architectural career fair. We were there from late Wednesday night to mid-day Friday.

We stayed at the I hotel, which is a new addition to the campus. It is a pretty fancy/modern hotel. We were fairly happy with the accommodations. The staff at the front desk when we checked in wasn't too helpful. I felt like they should have at least opened the door for Sean when he was trying for a little bit to push the luggage cart out the door. Some of the decor was dizzying, like the carpet in the hallways. Looking down the hallways made me imagine a little "redrumming" boy on a trike.

Ahhhhh!

We all slept very well throughout our stay. Claire's pack 'n play just barely fit in the bathroom, so her strict baby sleep schedule was left intact. I personally believe I'm a Nazi of sorts with her "sleep schedule." But, she is very consistent with sleep and goes down very easily. We haven't really had to try and let her cry it out.

We felt kind of guilty for our midnight bathroom breaks.

Claire chilling out on the bed with her bird toy.

Thursday was a very busy day for Sean. He didn't get to sit for about six hours and missed lunch, because they were so busy. I was able to go to a baby shower for a friend in the old ward and I got to see a lot of great friends. I really enjoyed that visit, and I wish we could have been there a little longer to see some more friends.



Friday was a lot less hectic for Sean, and there was a good theory as to why. It was "unofficial" day in Champaign. Every year on the first Friday in March, there is a horrible tradition among students at the U of I to celebrate St. Patrick's day twice. Unofficial is the worst of the two. Students dress up in green and get plastered all day long. There are usually a lot of injuries and accidents that happen as a result. Despite that, it carries on year after year. We just happened to be lucky enough to be in town that weekend. So from all this we surmised, quite easily, that everyone came on Thursday, and skipped out Friday. Nice.

Aside from that, our trip was pretty good, and Claire slept the 3 and a half hours drive both ways. Oh yeah!

Tricked out yo!

The more I add to my blog the more I want to add. I added a new background, music playlist, and an age counter for Claire. I feel like eventually my blog is going to be so busy, that frail ones might seize up at first glimpse.

I can't believe 6 1/2 months has passed

Man! Time really passes by in a funny way. It seems like forever ago that Claire was born. Yet at the same time I feel as though time is passing by so quickly with the monotony of daily life.

Lately, Claire has been through some sort of growth spurt and is doing new things.

A week after she turned six months she started eating food, and has been binging on milk since. I wonder if the baby oatmeal is making her thirsty. She is also eating food. She'll eat baby oatmeal and carrots. I tried peas and she gagged twice. I should have stopped at the first gag, I suppose.





She's some kind of eating savant.



She has also started to sit on her own. Well, at least with minimal support. If I plop her on the bed sitting and leave the room for just a moment, I'll come back in and she'll usually be stuck head down on her shoulder.

She has also decided to mess up her sleeping schedule. I think she's feeling like she doesn't need as much sleep.

We've been hermit crabs for the past while, but last week we had a bout of warm weather. Claire and I (mostly I) decided to go to the park near us. It was pretty muddy, but still enjoyable. I got Claire out of her stroller and showed her the ducks that were grazing near the pond. She started marching. (translation: she liked seeing them)


Sean and I have been addicted to a wii game we bought last week called "World of Goo." I'm not into video games very often, but this one has a tight grip on my ability to do other things. I feel an urgency to keep playing. When I first started playing it my feelings were, "meh." Now I feel like a junkie. I have no sense of moderation for playing it when Claire is down for naps.

Sean has been working overtime lately and it sucks for all of us. I'd say mostly for him, probably.

We will be moving soon enough into a rental home of a family in our ward. It is going to be very nice to live in a house and not deal with cigarette smoke permeating our clothes. It's also pretty great, because Sean's bus is getting cut on March 29. Most buses going out here are getting cut, but new rental house's bus line isn't fortunately.