Today

Man, it's been too long since I have blogged. I have pictures to share and stories to tell, but alas, today is not the day for it. Soon, I promise.

Today has been a hard day for me. February 16th is the anniversary of my dad's death. It has now been 7 years since I last got to hug him or talk to him. And it's hitting me. Most years, I notice the date and go "Man, this sucks. Oh well," and move on with my day. But this year, it's been very present in my thoughts all day. :-(

I think the hardest part of my grief is for my children. My dad was made to be a grandfather. He had so much fun with little kids. Babies instinctively loved him. They would relax, snuggle and sleep for hours on his chest. I remember one time when my twin cousins were super little, I think like 2 months old, they came to visit. All of us went out for something, including their parents, but we left the babies at home with my dad. (In hindsight, I'm impressed- being left alone with newborn TWINS?! Duuuuude.) When we got home, Dad was in his recliner, with both boys snoozing on him. A-dor-able.

But my kids don't get to experience that. I don't get to see him make Jilly giggle or cuddle with Jason while watching sports. He lived in the same ward that we live in now, and he would go to Church with us, if he was still around. But instead of getting to see Grandpa all the time, they get to visit his grave and see a headstone. Instead of getting hugs and wrestling with him, they get to hear stories secondhand. It makes me really sad, because I just KNOW that they all would have been the bestest of buddies.

I have only been to my dad's grave a couple of times since his funeral. I just didn't see the point in going. He's not there, not in any real sense. That may be where his body was laid to rest, but his spirit is off on important errands. Today I just knew that I needed to go. It was pouring rain and by the time I got around to finally dragging us all out the door it was getting dark. We got there and had to wander for awhile until I found his spot. We only spent a few minutes there, but I'm glad we did.



I don't know how I'm going to tell my kids enough about their Grandpa Brad. I probably can't. But, I will tell them as much as I can. I will tell them how much my dad loved to watch sports. I will tell them how he rooted for college teams (1. BYU, 2. UW, 3. USC, 4. UCLA, 5. The rest of the Pac-10). I will tell them that he used to do theater tech as a high school and college kid. I will tell them that he loved to wrestle with me and my sister and always let us cuddle with him. I will them how many hours he spent patiently sitting on the couch, while I was perched on the top behind him, sprinkling my plastic salt and pepper shaker toys into his hair and combing it all around. I will tell them about Saturday afternoons when I was little, when he would spend a couple hours doing all the ironing while watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. I will tell them about Sunday nights when I was a teenager, watching Alias with him, how I would make sure I was home from whatever fun events that might be going on. I will tell them about his crazy cats, and how Tiger only liked him. I will tell them that he called me Laimee, and loved to tease me (on second thought, maybe I'll forget the whole Laimee thing.) I will tell Jilly about how when she was a baby, she would stare at a wall or a doorway, purposely avoiding me, and giggle and talk, as if she saw someone there. I will tell her it was her Grandpa Brad, making silly faces and telling her jokes. I will tell Jason about how he has beautiful deep brown eyes just like his Grandpa.

I will tell them how much I love my dad and how much he loves me. I will tell them how much he loves them too. I will tell them that they knew him before they came to our home and they will get to see him again.

(This is from my 1st birthday. Sorry for the poor quality, it's a picture of a picture.)

I miss my dad. A lot.

All About The J-Man

Here are some updates on our little dude.

Jason's first tooth broke through on December 7th, and the next on December 18th. So now he has two adorable little teeth in the middle of his bottom gum. I'm pretty sure he has at least one, if not two, more coming in as well.

December 28th he started rolling from back to tummy easily and often. He prefers his tummy and will flip himself over all the time, sometimes to our chagrin.

December 25th he tried rice cereal for the first time. He wasn't really that impressed. He ate some of it, but got bored quickly. We tried it again several days later with the same results. So last week we have it a shot with bananas and he ate them better, but still not overall that interested in eating solids. Which is pretty much fine with me. I love nursing him and I'm happy to nurse as much as possible. The solids would be nice because then he can eat them instead of pumped milk/formula while I'm at work. But he's only 6 months now. The recommendation from the AAP is that they don't start until 6 months. Breastmilk is all he needs for the first year anyway, so we've got plenty of time to get him interested.

Today, January 13th Jason had his 6 month appt. It was a much better experience this time. The PA-C was much more engaged and interactive with Jason. My little man was a trooper through the whole thing and very calm for all of it. He weighs 16 lbs 8.5 oz (25th percentile), is 28 inches tall (90th percentile) and his head is 18 inches around (90th percentile). He is a long, skinny, big headed boy. I know, we're all shocked. There's NO WAY that would happen with us for parents. ;-) While we were waiting for the medical assistant to come back in with the shots, Jason was hungry, so I nursed him and he fell asleep. I felt pretty bad waking him up, just so that we could stab him with needles, but I figured it was better to wake him first, than to wake him BY stabbing him. But dude, my baby is a freaking soldier! She didn't even have time to wipe off the injection site after the 3rd shot, before he was done crying! Tough guy, for sure. The couple hours after the appointment he was doing fine. We'll see how tonight goes.

And here's a pic of my little guy, all conked out in bed, with his monkey Jimmy's foot on his head. ;-)

Christmas

Sure, it's January 13th and I haven't posted about Christmas at all. Right now it's just too daunting to me, so here's the rundown: Christmas Eve was at our house, Mexican food a-plenty, ornaments given out, fun times had. Christmas Day we did stockings and whatever presents we had there at home, then took our time getting ready before going to my parents' house. Spent the afternoon and evening there, opening presents, eating food, relaxing. It was a wonderful Christmas. Kids got TONS of awesome stuff, as did Steve and me. Loved it.

Here are the pictures!

You've come a LONG way, baby!

This is Jilly on her 1st birthday. Check out the intense lack of hair. Or rather, lack of length. It was ridiculous. Such a bald baby.


And here she is today, 3 years old and gorgeous long dark blonde hair with beautiful curls on the end. I can't stop raving about and appreciating her hair.


I'm not cutting it. EVER.

Jilly's Evaluation

For a few months now, we've had some concerns about Jilly's development. Her speech didn't grow like it should have between 2 and 3 years old. We didn't notice it until after Jason was born, because she is very good at mimicking and repeating phrases and words, as well as non-verbal communication. But she doesn't initiate conversations on her own, or out right ask for something, unless we say it first. For example, if she's thirsty she won't ask for juice, she'll grab our hands, drag us into the kitchen, turn and push our bodies to the fridge, then we'll say "Do you want juice?" and she'll say "Juice!" The situation doesn't seem to be getting worse and the older she gets, the bigger the gap between her and other kids her age. Especially now that she is in Sunbeams, we felt we had to figure it out. So I got in touch with the school district a couple months ago about getting her evaluated. This all started right at the time Steve was laid off, so you can imagine how that didn't add to my stress at all. -_-

I filled out some paperwork that was then reviewed by a team at one of the elementary schools (school psychologist, special ed teacher, speech therapist, and motor therapist). They decided what areas they wanted to evaluate Jilly in. Today was our first appointment. We met with the school psychologist Debbie who explained the process to us. Based on the information I provided Jilly falls into the "Delayed" or "At-Risk" categories for a few different areas. The questionnaire asks some things that are a bit weird, so it's not the most accurate tool but it gave them an idea of where she is at. She will be evaluated in Cognition, Communication (and Social Skills), and Motor Skills. After the evaluations (each is a separate appointment), we will all meet together to discuss the results. If she does qualify for Special Ed, then there will be another meeting where we'll make plans for her treatment. If she is only delayed on speech and it's not severe, she'll probably just do speech therapy once a week at the school. If it is severe and/or there are other delays, she'll most likely got to the developmental preschool, 4 days a week (half-days). She'd even get to ride the bus there and back. All of this has to take place within 35 school days (about 7 weeks), by state law. They usually try to get it done faster, it just depends on how many kids they are dealing with at a time (there are many right now).

After the explanation, she gave me some more questionnaires to fill out and started playing with Jilly. She would put different toys in front of her and observe how she played with them. There were pretty much two reactions. Either she started playing with the toy immediately and appropriately (this happened most of the time) or she'd right away ignore it and try to climb out her chair to get to another toy. There was very little gray area. It was interesting watching her with puzzles, because she would put all the pieces out and then put them back in. She was really good at them and would figure them all out, even some of the harder ones. She can clearly match colors, but we're not sure if she just recognizes that the colors match or if she knows both things are 'blue'.

Debbie played with her with lots of different toys and things, shapes, colors, blocks to stack, balls, etc. She would put out three objects (cup, doll shoe, and ball) and ask Jilly questions like, "Which one do you drink out of?" Even though Jilly was not super into the task and wanted to play with them, once she got her attention, Jilly would grab the appropriate object. Debbie also showed her a tiny figurine of a baby, then would hide it under a cup. She'd put another cup next to it and have Jilly find the baby. They did this a few times, sometimes moving around the cups. As long as Jilly was focused on the task, she'd get it right. It was just hard to keep her attention.

In the end, Debbie told us things we already assumed. Jilly is way behind on where her speech should be at 3 years old. Cognitively, she has good problem solving skills but it's hard to know just how much she understands, because she doesn't respond verbally. Debbie said she wasn't sure if she would qualify her or not, because of that. She wanted to wait and talk to the speech therapist first. She was leaning toward not qualifying at this point. Debbie thinks that it's probably just the lack of language holding Jilly back right now, and once that starts improving there probably won't be any cause for concern cognitively. If it turns out that she truly is behind cognitively, then we can go back and get her that support.

Now we are waiting to hear from the speech therapist to set up the next evaluation. That should happen in the next couple weeks. So the ball is rolling!!! We are making strides toward getting Jilly the help that she needs. It is going to take some time to get it all sorted out, but it is happening. We both feel much more relieved now that things are going and we're figuring it out. I have confidence in those that are evaluating her and I know that we will get this worked out. By the end of February we should have a plan in place for getting her treatment. Hooray!

Jason's first solids

On Christmas night, Jason got to have his first taste of solid food. He had a little rice cereal, and in all honesty, he wasn't that impressed. But we got the normal video of the experience. :-) And Jilly wanted to help feed him too. Sorry there's no sound. Not sure how that happened, but oh well. Enjoy!

The Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas to you all!

We hope that this holiday season is finding you with health and happiness. We have been spotty about sending out Christmas letters, and figured this was an easier way to do it. You'll find links to previous blogs with more details throughout this one.

This past year has been quite the interesting and life-changing one for our family. Last fall, we found out we were expecting our second baby. We were absolutely thrilled! However, the horrible morning sickness I suffered with Jilly, returned just as intense and soul-draining. Jillian turned 2 last Thanksgiving Day, and with that birthday came all the attitudes, tantrums, and destruction you'd expect from a two-year-old. The holidays were spent mostly with me being very sick and getting dumped on by tons of snow, but they were nice anyway. With the new year, I felt renewed and was finally able to get really excited about our new baby. Jilly has definitely kept us on our toes with her appetite for destruction. Who knew we had such a crazy girl on our hands? Oh right, we did. ;-)


In March, Steve and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. We are in love a little more each day. ;-) Come April, we started seeing the midwife. For this birth, I had a much different plan. I was seeing a midwife and planned a natural (unmedicated, eek!) home birth. We loved the midwife we saw and would highly recommend her to anyone. We also had the ultrasound and found out Wildcat was a handsome little boy! Once we knew he was a boy, things got very real, very fast. We had so many preparations to make!


May found Jilly and myself, along with my family, traveling to Pullman, WA for my sister's graduation from a college which shall not be named. It was quite the trip, with a 2 1/2 year old and a 7 months pregnant mama, but my family took awesome care of us since Steve had to work at the last minute and couldn't come. The spring was quite nice and we got to spend lots of time outside. As we got ready for Wildcat's arrival, Jilly kept surprising us, and not always in a pleasant way! Soon enough, it was time for Wildcat to come! He faked us out on a Friday morning, and we ended up going to bed that night rather disappointed. But it was not to last! After a crazy, fast, intense, and short labor, our baby boy Jason Emmanuel Hall was born in his grandparents' bathtub on June 27th. It was a beautiful birth!


We spent the summer settling in as a family of four, learning a new family dynamic, and enjoying all our friends and family and the awesomely warm weather! Jilly had an extra special trip, when her grandparents took her to Lake Chelan for the first time. It luckily coincided with the record breaking temperatures here in Seattle (it hit 103*!!!). While it was still hot over in Chelan, she was able to play in the lake lots and get tons of attention, instead of being trapped in a sweltering 3rd floor apartment (like me and Jason!) while Daddy was at work. In August, Steve and I had our birthdays (Steve turned 30 and I turned 25) which were great! We did so much fun stuff before I had to start going to back to work. We hit the zoo, got late night Blizzards, and discovered our love of coloring.

At the end of August, Jason was blessed by Steve at church. It was a wonderful day with lots of family and friends there to share with us. We are so grateful for all of the amazing people in our lives! Our friend Will came for a visit over Labor Day and we had tons of fun with him. Soon, it was time for Jilly to sleep in a toddler bed! Crazy times, I tell you. I swear, she was just born, and before I knew what happened, she was sleeping in a big girl bed! The nursery turned out awesome!

Halloween brought us lots of parties and fun times, but also a big change. Steve was laid off from his job at the end of October. It was a shock and very scary for us. We have been blessed beyond measure by amazing family members and friends who drop by or send gift cards, notes of encouragement and anything else they think we might need. It has been a very humbling experience to watch the hand of God working through others. We are being taken care of for sure! It may not be the path we planned on or imagined for ourselves, but we have faith it is the right path for us and will lead us to bigger and better things.

November held even more exciting events! My friend Sariah and her girls came to visit for Veteran's Day, and even though it was short, we jampacked it full of fun! :-) I took on a challenge to blog about something I was grateful for everyday of November. It was no struggle to list my amazing blessings. I have so much to be grateful for! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with my family, followed the next day by Jilly's 3rd birthday! What a special and fun day that was.


Now in December we are just having fun playing around and getting ready for Christmas. I am still working at Kenmore Air part time (evenings and weekends). I love my job and am lucky to have it! I am also still serving in our ward's Primary (the children's organization at Church) while Steve serves in the High Priest group leadership. We've joined the ward choir as well. So between our meetings, activities, job/job-searching, playgroups, and parenting two small kids, we are quite busy!

Jason is a cuddly, smiley, giggly little boy of almost 6 months now. He is adorable! He lately really loves watching his big sister walk around and do silly things. You'll see him just staring at her and following her every movement and then dissolving into giggles. It's pretty hysterical to watch. He is sleeping pretty well at night, most of the time, and still nursing mostly. He wants to eat solids SO BAD but I am waiting until 6 months old, because it's safer and I want to keep him nursing as much as possible. So I made him a deal, that he can have rice cereal for Christmas dinner. ;-)

Jilly is an eccentric, silly, goofy, sweet, dramatic Birdie Girl who always keeps us guessing. She still has her delicious cheeks to you just want to munch all the time. (Go ahead and do it, I do! ;-)) We've had some concerns about her speech and language development, and will be having her evaluated in January. She understands what we say to her and can pronounce words well, but tends to just repeat back to us, like a parrot. But we do feel that whatever it is, once we find the key, it will unlock and we'll never get her to stop talking! ;-) Jilly is very musical! She has always had a great sense of pitch and can sing along. We're finding now she learns best through music and can sing much more complex phrases than she can speak. And she has such a cute little girl voice! She'll be starting Sunbeams in a couple weeks, which should be pretty exciting.

We've had quite the life-changing year for 2009!! And we have loved it! We are very blessed in so many ways. We hope this season finds you in good health and happiness. Please keep in touch all year long here on our blog, via email or Facebook! We love you!