Apple orchard 2011

Please forgive me for the zillions of photos. If I keep posting them in installments, I'll be posting Halloween pictures on Christmas!



Last week we did our yearly apple orchard outing. Last year it was unseasonably hot during our orchard outing. This year wasn't hot, but it was crisply beautiful! We have had two years in a row now of beautiful fall weather. I hope the trend continues! I do NOT hope the freezing cold winter trend continues.



Sammy seemed to enjoy his time at the orchard. Although, I have to say, he definitely assesses every situation before enjoying himself. If he is unfamiliar with a place (this applies to people, too), he will stand/sit in one spot and give his deadpan Sammy look around. Once he understands that we aren't going to leave him and that no one is going to abduct him, he lets his guard down a little.



Elijah is and has always been so different in this way. And look! He climbed up a huge pile of hay with no prompting or need for encouragement. His gross motor skills and confidence have improved so hugely. I get so proud of "little" things like this all the time. Me: LOOK! HE'S CLIMBING A PILE OF HAY! People in earshot: SO WHAT?!



I have been jotting down a few cute things that happen or are said in our family, so I'll write out some of those now. Sorry, they have absolutely nothing to do with apple orchards or giant piles of hay.



The other night we carved pumpkins (pics to come...hopefully before December), and I noticed that Elijah kept saying that we were "carmeling" pumpkins. I thought it was adorable, so I didn't correct him. I tend to not correct him when it comes to anything he says that is incorrect, by the way. He will get it eventually, and I want to enjoy the cuteness of learning a language for as long as I can! Anyway, after we had carmeled the pumpkins, we were chillin' in the living room. I asked Elijah if he liked the pumpkins we had carved. He said, "MOM. It's CARMEL, not CARVE." Got it.



The same night we carmeled pumpkins, we had a friend over for dinner. If you have ever been over to our house you know that Elijah immediately becomes your best friend and wants ALL of your love and attention (and most people give it to him because it's pretty hard to resist). Well, we had dinner and had been hanging out with our friend Casey. I brought Elijah into the bathroom to go potty before bed and he said, "Mom, do you think Casey loves me?" I said, "I'm sure he does! Why don't you ask him?" We went out to the living room and started getting pajamas on and Casey walked in the room. Elijah said, "Casey, DO YOU LOVE ME?" We all busted up with laughter. Thankfully, Casey replied with, "Heck yeah I do! I love you!"



Sam has been doing an extremely cute thing lately. He goes to Elijah and pats him on the top of the head and says, "YA-YA." Then he goes to Dan and pats him on the top of the head and says, "DADA." He won't come to me and do it for some reason. In fact, even though he understand that I'm Mama and can say MAMA, he doesn't ever call me Mama.



A funny little thing about Sammy.. First of all, the kid LOVES his sleep, and he loves comfort. When he is upset, he hides behind our footstool and sucks his thumb while lying on the ground. If his blankie happens to be downstairs, it will be included in that scene. So I noticed the other day that not only does he love to snuggle with his blanket when he sleeps (or wants comfort), but he likes to be holding one of the corners in one hand while using the other hand for thumb-sucking. Not just an edge, but a corner.



And while I'm on the Sam topic, he has found himself a little attitude! If we take something away from him that he shouldn't have (but that he wants), he will scream his little head off. Not only that, but he walks away from us and sits across the room. If we try to comfort him, he will run away from us. Looks like we have another strong-willed Porta boy!



My mom made two adorable little knitted dolls for the boys (pics to come...in January), and Elijah particularly has been loving them. They came with cute little names: Harry Hairy-Head and Vanessa Vinegar. The first few times Elijah attempted to say Vanessa Vinegar, it came out Buster Bigger. :) Again, no correction!



Here is Sammy assessing the situation at the orchard with apple in hand. He would not move from this spot on his own. He had to take it all in first! We eventually had to put him in the stroller.



I am running out of things to write, so you'll have to enjoy the rest of the photos sans words. We have a few fun things planned for this weekend while Dan wraps up skydiving for the season. We'll report back in a few days with corn maze pics! Thanks for checking in!

Installment 4: The Dirty Face Brothers

This is my last Dirty Face Bros post! I'm still very far behind with posting pics, which I guess is a good thing. It means I've been taking a lot of photos!



We attended Elijah's IEP meeting this morning, and it went very well. Elijah has made HUGE strides in every area of development: social, gross motor, speech, fine motor. His teachers had many positive things to say about his progress and about him as a student and person. He still has catching up to do in most areas, but not as noticeably as a year ago. They are going to spend this year preparing him for Kindergarten in hopes that he will be much more self-sufficient by this time next year. KINDERGARTEN?! How the heck did that happen?!



His teacher mentioned that he has started initiating interactions with other children, which is AWESOME. He still has his favorite little friend at school, Laura (Woe-yuh). She also said that he is a well-liked little guy, and that academically they have zero concerns. Apparently when they were asking him to count, he started counting backwards. :) I asked his teachers if they knew he was starting to read and they seemed surprised. His speech therapist mentioned that he seems to catch onto concepts a lot more quickly than the other students. So, yay for a great IEP meeting! We absolutely love his teachers and therapists to pieces.



Elijah earned enough potty quarters to get his Ken doll. Ken dolls aren't what they used to be! They are so fashionable these days, with the Justin Bieber hair and all. Elijah loves it, though. I hear him occasionally explaining things to Ken. "This is how you go potty, Ken. Pull down your pants and then you sit on the potty chair!" Ken is learning a lot! And he "sleeps" in a casket on our kitchen table every night. It's actually the plastic casing from the package he came in, but it looks like a casket. It's a little bit creepy to see that early in the morning.



My sweet Sammy and I have been having some special bed-time moments lately. He allows me to sing to him again. For a long stretch (the entire summer/fall), he just wanted to be put in bed. The boy loves his sleep. So it has been nice being able to hold him for a bit again and sing and snuggle before bed. When I put him into his crib, we play a form of peek-a-boo involving pig noises. He laughs so stinkin' hard. It's difficult to stop because he gets so sad when the game is over, but luckily he forgets quickly and goes to sleep.



Dan has TWO more weekends away from home and then we get him back! I cannot wait for an entire weekend with all of us together again.



That's about all for now. I have apple orchard and corn maze photos to share I'll try to catch up over the weekend.



Thanks for checking in on us! (This is Sammy's new favorite place to sit in our house.)

Installment 3: The Dirty Face Brothers

I didn't even make him do this! Elijah has been spontaneously being nice to Sammy on occasion, which is AWESOME!



A conversation that has occurred a handful of times in the past few days:

E: Mommy, are there four of us at home right now?
Me: Yes! Isn't it nice to have us all home at the same time?
E: Yes! Can there be five of us?
Me: You want five people in our family?
E: Yeah, I want a wittle sister!
Me: Oh. Hmmm.
E: Can I have a wittle sister, Mommy? We'll name her SUBMARINE.
Me: Oh, that's lovely. Um, why don't you ask Jesus what he thinks.
E: Ok. "Hi, Jesus? Can we have a wittle sister?" "Sure, ok, Elijah!"
Me: What did he say?
E: He said yes.
Me: Elijah, did Daddy just pass out? Check his pulse.



We took the boys to an apple orchard last night. It was a beautiful fall evening! Elijah had fun picking and testing apples and walking up and down the rows of trees. He also climbed a huge stack of hay, which was impressive! Sam just took it all in. Pics to come on that adventure..



I don't have much more to share at the moment, so I will let you enjoy photos of the cuties. Have a great weekend!!

My new favorite photo

I LOVE THESE BOYS!

Installment 2: The Dirty Face Brothers

Here is part 2 of my Dirty Face (and arms and legs) photo session with our boys the other night.



Our oldest beautiful-eyed boy has his first cavity! :( I was hoping we could dodge this bullet, but alas. He's following in him mama's footsteps. Actually, the cavity is super teeny, and we are going to take care of it right away so hopefully it won't be too traumatic. The dentist won't even need to use novocaine or needles, thanks to laser dentistry. Crazy!



Elijah's quarter jar has ONE quarter in it currently. Yep, that's it. Apparently Ken is not enough motivation to keep poop out of his pants. We'll keep trying.



So here are our upcoming big dates in the next few weeks:
Oct 25th: IEP meeting
Nov 3rd: Dentist
Nov 7th: Cardiology appt



I haven't mentioned this in a while, but Elijah is still in weekly physical therapy. He loves to go "pway" at Vicki's "house." We are glad he finally sees it as "playing," as that has not always been the case. I remember the months and months of TEARS that occurred before he realized that we weren't trying to torture him. He also gets some PT and speech attention through his school that we believe hugely benefits him. His teachers and therapists are truly awesome! I just saw a note on Elijah's daily report the other day that said they were teaching him to get up from sitting on the ground using a kneeling transition (as opposed to using just feet and hands with butt up in the air). I love knowing that the people caring for him are keeping THAT close of an eye on the details. I know I always say this, but he is in the best hands!



Let's see, what else. Elijah still begs us to be tickled constantly. He loves saying goofy nonsense words and giggling his head off. He is still into knock-knock jokes (please tell us some new ones!). He and I have a new thing where we go lay in the grass after Sam is in bed and find pictures in the clouds. As much as this little boy pushes my buttons and tests his boundaries, I love him (and his cute, snuggly little brother) to pieces!

Installment 1: The Dirty Face Brothers

This first photo is an exception to the title. Elijah and I went to his cousin Kaleigh's birthday party last weekend. That boy was in HEAVEN, getting all kinds of love from his cousins and aunties. He had tons of fun in the bounce-house, too!



I have about 50 Dirty Face Brothers photos to share, so I will start with this first batch of Sam. Who is his Mother, anyway, and why doesn't she wash off his face?!



I'll start with sharing some words Sam is saying...
up (UMP)
Yo Gabba Gabba (oo-GLLAHLLA-GLLAHLLA...still with tongue sticking out of mouth)
Elijah (uh-ya-ya or uh-da-da)
magnet (da-de)
raisins, blueberries and cereal (BRRrr...???)
cheese (deez)
shoes and hat (iss...add a cute lisp to the "s")
airplane and car (brrrm brrrrm)
puppy (uff uff)
cow (booooo)
Dada
Mama
go (GGgooooooo)
play (bay...and he simultaneously does the sign for it, which is so stinkin' cute because he just wiggles his fingers all around)
eat (he says this when he is hungry OR thirsty)
all done (ah-duh)
peek-a-boo (uh-boo)



Sam started doing a funny dance the other day. He leans his head over to touch his right shoulder, and then smiles. That's it. It's simple, but hilarious.



And Elijah...oh, our strong-willed little Elijah. Some weeks it seems like we are making Potty progress. Other weeks, we regress. He knows when to go and what needs to be done. He just doesn't do it. But he's great at telling me, "Mom, I pooped mine pants!" It is sooo hard not to get frustrated, especially when I KNOW that he knows. Ever since Kaleigh's birthday party on Saturday, Elijah has been obsessed with the idea of having a Barbie doll. He asked me a thousand times on the way home if he could get a Ken doll. So we are using that as incentive. If he goes pee in the potty, he gets one quarter. If he goes poop in the potty, he gets two quarters. If he has an accident in his pants, one quarter gets taken away. If he gets TEN quarters, we will go shopping for a Ken doll.



School is going really well for Elijah so far this year. He has made many leaps with social skills. The other day his teacher wrote that he spontaneously was asking other kids questions, which is just huge for him. I noticed at Kaleigh's birthday party that he was doing the same. I heard him ask her, "Kiwi, what's your teacher's name?" and then, "Kiwi, what's your favorite color?"



The other night I was in the kitchen making cookies and Elijah was helping. I was having him put M&M's on a few of the cookies. I heard him say, "One pwus one equals two! One pwus two equals fwee!" I said, "Elijah, are you doing MATH?! What is one plus three?" He said, "Four!" I called over to Dan and said, "DO YOU HEAR THIS? Our four-year-old is doing math!" What the heck!



Skydiving season is getting slower and slower with each passing week. Things for me have been, well, nutty. I won't get into that or my brain will explode.



Elijah has an IEP meeting next week and a cardiology appointment coming up in early November. All will go great, we pray!



Installment 2: The Dirty Face Brothers coming soon!

Croup: Season 4, Round 3 (Elijah)

Not kidding, Elijah had another croup episode last night. For the third night in a row! Dan got up with him and had to give him half of an epi neb, and after that everything was fine. We had to get a refill for racemic epinephrine today since we had depleted our stash!

Hoping for no more of the croup crap, as I call it!

A quick funny..
I think I mentioned that Elijah is going to be Superman for Halloween. He looks ADORABLE in his costume, and can frequently be found zooming around the house with it on. He has been asking me what the rest of us are going to be, and I keep saying I don't know. I asked him what he thought we should all be. Here were his thoughts..
Mommy = Spiderman (we could be superheroes together!)
Daddy = SuperDan! (love it)
Sammy = A ball
So apparently we are all destined for superherodom except for Sammy the Ball. :) I found a cute bumble bee costume for Sam to wear, and I could tell Elijah was a little bit disappointed that I didn't find a ball costume. That is, until we all saw Sammy wearing his costume and could hardly stand how cute he looked! Even Elijah was gushing.

Hope you are all healthy! Enjoy the weekend!

Croup: Season 4, Round 2 and Round 2.1 (Elijah)

Elijah was up at 9:30 with croup again last night. And then again at midnight. We gave him a neb each time. This morning he still had stridor, although it was sounding better. Sammy still has a bit of stridor, too.

These boys!

Croup: Season 4, Round 1 (Elijah) and Season 2, Round 1 (Samson)

How did we get so lucky to get two boys whose bodies love to get croup? Elijah had his first round for the season last night, but it was extremely mild. An epi neb wasn't even needed, and this morning he seemed just fine. He did do a bit of coughing in the middle of the night, but not the typical scary coughing we normally hear.



Sammy, on the other hand, has had croup since Saturday. There is quite a difference in the boys' varieties. Elijah's croup is usually intense and scary, but it lasts a short time (with the help of medication and cold air). Sam's croup is not as serious, but nothing we do gets rid of it! It's not serious enough for epi nebs, so we have tried cool air, steamy bathrooms and regular nebs. None of those things help one bit. I took him to the doctor yesterday because I wasn't comfortable with the stridor I was hearing still after three days. He got a shot of steroids that has seemed to relax his airway a bit.

I'm hoping it's a promising sign that Elijah's croup was so mild and that he waited until mid-October to get his first episode! Usually we've seen three rounds by this point in the year.

Catchin' up...again

I'm behind! Waaaayyy behind! On everything! I'll attempt an update in between some recent photos (Sammy was in bed, so forgive me).



This past week has been an odd one. My Grandma Ruth passed away, which has been a sad thing to understand. She lived a long, great life, which we are all thankful for. It is still strange to contemplate the end of a life. I have such fond memories of my grandma from when I was a kid. I spent some time with her at her (then) cabin in Northern Minnesota, and I will never forget the smells that emanated from her kitchen. She made the BEST brownies and cinnamon rolls. She was an awesome lady and she will be missed! Heaven was lucky to receive her!



In addition to that, we have just been plain busy. Dan is trying to work as much as possible as the skydiving season winds down. I'm trying to do about 5,000 things at any given time. The boys are busy and curious and exploring and inquisitive and sassy and sick.



Well, Elijah is finally healthy, but now Sam has croup. He handles it with much more grace than Elijah (less drama), thankfully.



Elijah is getting excited for Halloween. He wanted to be a "scary witch," but we have talked him into Superman instead. I got him a cheapy little Superman costume today and he fell IN LOVE with it. He put his costume on and watched his reflection in the tv as he zoomed by. It was super cute. I'm not sure yet what Sammy will be for Halloween this year. Nothing in the Target aisles screamed to me.



I keep forgetting to mention that Elijah's bald patch has started growing back! About a month ago, I noticed some hair growth on the spot on his head that had grown bald after his recent heart surgery. Since then, the circle has completely filled in. THANK GOD.



Some more exciting news is that Elijah can basically read! He needs help with the bigger words, but can read most little words on his own. The other day he said, "Mama, this says, 'little!'" That's when I knew that he was serious about his reading.



Sammy is still obsessed with balls and airplanes. He tries to say "Elijah" now, which comes out "uh-DAH-DAH." He also does the "How big is Sammy?" "SOOooo BIG!" Which sounds like, "DAAAHHHHh! DA!" Our sweet Sammy. He is such a sweet, snuggly little guy.



Thanks for checking in on us! I will try to do a better job of posting on here. Thanks for being patient..



By the way, Elijah wakes me up in the middle of the night to tell me that it is pink frog's birthday. My response? "HAPPY birthday, frog. Now go to sleep!"

A day of parenting that I will not forget

Friday I photographed a wedding for a friend while Dan worked, so Dan's mom picked the boys up from daycare and kept them overnight. Saturday morning I picked them up, feeling quite exhausted and a little bit sick myself. When I got there Elijah started grabbing his ear and saying, "What's that sound, Mama??" Elijah never complains about sounds (unless it's his brother), so I knew something was up. I loaded up the boys and went straight to urgent care. The story that follows is something that will be forever etched in my mind..

The line at urgent care was long. 'Tis the season for sickness! I kept Sam in my arms because I knew that setting him down would be like opening up a lion's cage. Twenty minutes later, I had to set him down. My arms were killing me. Sammy immediately ran down and around the hallway where I couldn't see him. Ugh! I told Elijah to stay in line and I ran and got Sam, who kicked and screamed about being in my arms.

We got sent back to a room pretty quickly when the lady at the front saw how much pain Elijah was in. But then we waited for the doctor for 25 minutes. By this time, Sam had explored every part of the room and had grown bored. Elijah was having a hard time staying upright and kept asking me, "Mommy, pwease take care of me!" He wanted me to be holding him and he kept pressing my hand over his ear, but I couldn't do that consistently when I was also making sure Sam wasn't trying to crawl into the trash cupboard again.

The doctor came in and took a look in Elijah's ear and said, "Sooo, he must have been up all night crying?" I said, "No, I don't think so!" Dan's mom had said that he had slept great the night before. The doctor said it was a bad ear infection and that he was surprised he hadn't complained about it until now. Poor guy. Elijah kept asking the doctor to make "that sound" go away. The pressure inside his ear was causing it to ring.

We went out to the pharmacy to pick up the prescription and before we got to the counter I looked down and saw Elijah's "puke face." I didn't act quickly enough and suddenly vomit was everywhere. All down Elijah's coat, and on the floor of the pharmacy. I tried to clean it up with Sam in my arms, but just couldn't do it so I set him down. I grabbed some Starbucks napkins from the counter and wiped the carpet and removed Elijah's coat. As I was wiping Elijah down, I saw Sam run by like the wind with a box in each hand. I scooped him up, took away the boxes (one of which had already been chewed on) and grabbed Elijah's hand. I went to the counter, Sam wailing, Elijah asking me to "pwease take care of him" and a pukey jacket tucked under my arm. I asked for paper towels, a plastic bag and to please fill our prescription quickly.

We went back to the waiting room to wait for the prescription to be filled. I sat Elijah on a chair, where he wobbled back and forth. I set squirmy Sam down and he ran around the room in circles until he got bored, 3 minutes later. At that point, he kept arching his back and falling onto the floor and writhing and crying. Nothing I did made him calm down. So I held Elijah and we, along with a handful of other people, watched the Sammy Circus.

I saw Elijah's puke face again, and this time I picked him up and ran to the bathroom. Luckily, at this point Sam happened to be writhing on the floor near the bathroom so I ushered him in, as well. Elijah made it to the toilet just in time. I washed his face and hands and we headed out to the waiting room for more of the same.

When our pager went off, we went to the pharmacy to pick up the medication. Again, I had to set Sam down because I couldn't juggle everything. In the time it took for me to pay, Sam had found two Carmex containers and was finding great joy in banging them together while cruising up and down the aisles. I removed the Carmex from his happy little hands, which quickly turned unhappy. I got the three of us to the car as quickly as possible.

The car ride home was quiet. Either Elijah was enduring his pain in quiet, or some sort of miracle had happened. I hadn't dared give him his medication since he had vomited twice. When we got home, I got him situated on the couch with a "frow-up bowl." I did some unpacking and cleaning and looked over to find that I had not explained the throw-up bowl very well. Items dirtied in Throw-Up Episode #3: all articles of clothing on Elijah, all articles of clothing on myself, three separate blankets, the couch, the carpet, the rug and the foot stool. The throw-up bowl remained sparkling clean.

After this, I figured he was done throwing up for a while, so I put him down for a nice long nap. When he woke up, he was ready to eat toast and drink water and take medicine. He has been feeling fine ever since!

See? A day I will never forget!