A Little Late, But, "Happy Birthday Tyler"

Yesterday, Jesse and I were talking about how fast time seems to fly.  Next month we will have been a couple for 15 years and in October, married for ten.  Jesse commented that as we are moving through time, the future seems so far away, but looking back, the years past seem to have passed so quickly.  This is so true.  It doesn't feel like it has been 15 years since I have graduated from high school.  It doesn't feel like I have been married for 10 years.  And 33 doesn't really feel all that much different to me (aside from a few more aches and pains when I first get up in the morning) than 23 did.

Another reminder of just how fast time flies, recently, my nephew Tyler turned four.  I cannot believe he is four already!  It feels like he was born just yesterday.  This means that in just a few short months, my first baby will be four too.  Amazing how much small children accomplish in such a short period of time.  I have watched as these children have grown from helpless infants to independent, funfilled, adventurous, learning machines.   Tyler and Eli both start preschool this year.  My neice Kaylee starts Kindergarten.  So Happy Fourth Year Tyler and many great adventures to you, Eli, and Kaylee as you all start new school adventures!

Here are some pics from Tyler's birthday party and from a family gathering at my parent's home the next day:

Tyler Opening Presents

Bubble Party Fun

Tyler Checking Out his Thomas Birthday Cake

  Eli on the Tire Swing

Kaylee on the Tire Swing

The Horr Family

Dalaney

Moving on Up

Yesterday, Iris and Esme had to give up the baby bucket car seats and move to big girl seats. I have truly mixed emotions about the move. First, I am glad that we won't have the bucket seats taking up space in our house any longer. It seems that they are always in the way. But, neither girl is really sitting up very well, so it makes it very difficult to bring them into a store. I have to take a stroller, which means I cannot push a cart, which makes it a struggle to get more than one or two things at a time. But the girls had exceeded the weight limits of their infant seats, so we had to make the move.

It is hard to believe that this month the girls will be eight months old! Hard to believe that they have now been out of the womb longer than they were in it. The last eight months have certainly gone by so much faster than the eight preceeding them! The girls are now rolling over regularly. You can no longer set them down and leave the room for a moment and expect them to be where you left them. Both also really love the exersaucer and the jumperoo. They have started to play with toys. And recently, Iris figured out how to play Peak-A-Boo. Both girls are now huge! For girls who were born six weeks early, they have caught up and then some. At their last doctor's appointment both had reached 27 inches long and are now 23+ lbs. Whew, they are big babies! Eli, who is 3.5 years old is only 10 lbs heavier than his not quite eight month old sisters!

To get the car seats, we went to the Falmouth Fire Department's car seat program day. Falmouth does free inspections the first Thursday of each month to ensure that car seats are installed correctly and that parents know how to properly install them. All you have to do is show up and they will inspect your seats installation and double check that there have been no recalls. Additionally, they have car seats that can be purchased at wholesale prices, which is much less expensive than purchasing the seats at a store. However, because the girls had actually exceeded the weight limits of their infant seats, we were given car seats for free. That's right, FREE! They also checked Eli's seat to ensure that it had not be recalled. Had it, or had he no longer fit into it correctly, they would have also provided him with a free seat as well. Their main goal is to make sure that all kids are safely secured in the car, not to sell seats. They do not want any child to be in an unsafe seat because their parents cannot afford to purchase a seat at the time of inspection. These inspections are done in many local towns, not just Falmouth, and if you are a resident of Southern Maine, you may want to call around to your local fire departments to see if a program is being held near you.

We made a donation to the program to say thanks for the car seats! And thankful we are! When you are buying for two babies, the costs so quickly add up. Two copays at the doctors, double the amount of baby formula every week, twice as many diapers, etc., etc., etc. The list goes on and on. I am very thankful that this service is offered to the people of Southern Maine (and maybe other parts as well) and so are my baby girls, who now have comfy, new, safe, big girl car seats to ride in!

Big Girl Esme

Big Girl Iris

Eli's Latest Project

We were up pretty early this morning and were ready to get the day started by 9:00.  But, the battery in our van (our only vehicle that will fit all 5 of us) died and wont be fixed until Monday, so we were looking for something fun to do at home.  So, we asked Eli what he wanted to do today.  After telling us a 5 minute story that I could not even begin to repeat and which made absolutely no sense at all (conversation with a three year old is always an adventure), I stopped him, asked him to listen to my question, and once again asked him what he wanted to do today.  Hearing the question, the second time, he immediately answered that he wanted to do "a project!"  Now, I am a pretty good mom, but one of my more obvious flaws is that I do not keep a lot of project stuff in the house and we have used up most of what we have.  I need to hit the Dollar Store and restock, but honestly, who has the time?  So Eli and I went off to the craft store and picked up the stuff to paint a bird house.  I thought about getting a kit to make a birdhouse, but it would have required a lot of nails and hammering and I figured his attention span was not that long.  He had a great time painting the already-assembled birdhouse that we bought.

Here are some pics of his completed project.  It turned out to be quite beautiful. 

The Finished Product

Back to Camping - A weekend at Coos Canyon

Jesse and I were avid campers and hikers before we had children. We have hiked many of New England's tallest mountains, including Katahdin and Washington. We have backpacked into campsites several miles into trails. We had mastered car camping and were on our way to becomming skilled backpackers. Then we had kids. We swore, when we became pregnant with Eli, that just because we were having a baby, we were not going to give up the things we loved the most. And, for the most part, that was true. We still do most of the things we loved to do in our "before kids" life. But camping was one of the few things that fell by the wayside.

First, pregnancy made me very very ill. So we did not camp at all the summer I was pregnant with Eli. Logistically, it seemed impossible. I needed to get to a safe place to vomit in a very short amount of time, usually without any warning at all. The several zippers that must be undone in order to exit a tent seemed like a formidable barrier. And after Eli was born, it all still seemed too complicated. Serious hiking was out - too dangerous with a baby on your back. Even short hikes seemed overwhelming. Backpacking, for even a short trip, too became an impossibility. We could not bring enough stuff if one of us were carrying the baby. Even car camping seemed too hard to plan. Where would the baby sleep? Would he sleep in a tent by himself without becoming scared? Would we all have to go to bed at 7:00? The overwhelming sense of the unknown got the better of us, and we just gave up trying. By the time Eli finally seemed old enough to have fun on a camping trip, I was pregnant with the girls, and once again was sick sick sick...the circle started again.

But this last weekend we finally took the plunge and jumped back in again. And, we had a BLAST! It makes me wonder what we were so afraid of. It was not as easy as it used to be, and, it is a good thing that we went with others because we forgot SO many things, but overall it was a great success.

We borrowed a tent (thank you Wiers Family!) big enough to put the pack-n-plays in, so the girls had cribs to sleep in. We have been reading books to Eli about camping, so he was all psyched to sleep in a sleeping bag in the tent. We went with my parents, my sister's family, and my brother's family joined us the second night. There were plenty of kids around to keep each other entertained. And, there was plenty of time, after kids went to bed, for the grown-ups to sit around the fire, drink a few beers and make smores. It was a busy few days, with a trip to Santa's Village thrown in, but, it was so fun to share with Eli and the girls something Jesse and I so love to do. It may be awhile yet before there are any big backpacking adventures (at least, with our children) but I think another car camping trip may be in order soon.

Connor and Tyler Boone

Eli Checking Out the Reindeer

Me, Eli, and Iris on the Sky Tram

My Parents

The Stenbak Family

Kaylee, Connor, Me, Eli

Eli

Kaylee

Dalaney

Iris and Esme

Crystal and Ben

Weekends at the Cabin

Some of my best memories as a kid are the days we spent at our family camp.  There were always tons of us crammed into the one small building.  My parents, sister, brother, friends, my uncles, aunts, cousins.  All of us slept up in a loft on mattresses on the floor.  There was swimming, fishing, boating, tubing, marshmallows toasted on a campfire, walks down the dirt road.  The memories are so crystal clear.  I even remember the long car rides to the camp like I just took one yesterday.

Jesse's parents, Jan and Roger, have a cabin on Northeast Pond in Milton, NH.  Even though our lives are endlessly busy, especially in the summer, we try to spend as much time there during the summer as possible.  Being there brings back all those childhood memories for me.  I am thrilled that we have a place to bring our kids so they can have those same experiences.  

Here are some pics from a few weekends this summer.

Eli heading up to the Cabin from the Water

The View from the Lower Porch

Eli and I on the Dock

Jesse

Jesse and Eli on a Canoe Ride

Jesse and Eli Checking Out a Snail

Iris and Esme Napping on a Walk

Eli - So Proud of the Rock that He Found

A Day Trip to a Nearby Strawberry Farm

Esme and I

Giggling Girls

So, its been a little while since I have blogged.  It has been busy times here in the Stenbak household as we are enjoying every little bit of summer.  Hope that you all are enjoying yours as well.  Here is a little video of the girls laughing and smiling.

An Update on Iris

We had our 1st appointment in Boston at the Children's Hospital. We were able to get in a few weeks earlier than the original July 2nd appointment. Last Friday we met with Dr. Arin Greene, who is a pediatric plastic surgeon and the go-to guy for hemangiomas at the Children's Hospital.
What a relief it was to talk to someone who knew what he was talking about. He met with us for about a half an hour, answering all of our questions, not rushing us along at all. As I mentioned previously, all of the options for treating a hemangioma are less than desirable on such a small child. But, as it would turn out, we do not need to treat it at all right now. This was wonderful news. We do not have to pump our baby full of risky medications or have surgery while she is so young.

Dr. Greene told us that the growth period of the hemangioma has finished. Now, it starts to slowly recede. He did say, because of its size, that it will leave some fatty tissue and a knot behind when it does recede, which he expects to happen by age three. Also, it is pushing her earlobe forward and that will eventually need to be corrected. So, eventually she will need surgery, but not until she is older. He believes we should have the surgery done when she is around three years old but before she is three and a half. At three and a half, long term memory begins to form as well as self esteem. Therefore, we want to time the surgery such that she is likely to have no long term memory of it and before her self esteem can be effected by the growth itself and the slight deformity in her ear. Both the fixing of the ear and the removal of the remainder of the hemagioma will be done at the same time.

In the meantime, we are just to apply Aquifer to the hemangioma several times a day to keep the skin smooth and prevent further ulceration, which is what caused the sore that is currently present. He also suggested that she wear a light cotton hat when she sleeps to prevent rubbing against the sheets. These are really easy enough recommendations to follow and much more palatable than the choices I thought we were facing. We see him again in 6 months, and then again when she turns two, at which time we will develop the further course of treatment.