Deployments, Goals, & Such

We had an appt. for Aili on March 13th & she weighed 9 lbs 4 ozs. So she is getting big : )!! The plan is to do her surgery between 4 & 6 months of age, but she needs to be over 10 lbs, which seems to be fast approaching! She will be 4 months old on March 25th! We also had her swallow study on March 6th. They said that she looked best drinking the 'nectar' thick fluid, so she is still drinking from a bottle. She is truly a very smart girl and she is growing so much. She coos & talks all the time. She smiles and giggles too. This last week she started to blow some bubbles. She has been drooling too and we think that maybe instead of being colic-y she has been etting some teeth, because Clay & I noticed some white bumps where her upper K9's would be. Only time will tell if they truly are teeth though. She has been grabbing things with her hands and loves to look at them. She even seems like she may roll over...she has gotten on her side but not all the way over.





Clay deployed last week and finally made it to Iraq safely. I was waiting to say anything till after he got there for everyones safety. Before Clay left, we video taped him reading stories to the kids. They seem to enjoy them. Connor watches his at night & Taryn watches hers a lot...every night and sometimes a few times a day too. Of course Aili is in the room so she gets to hear daddy's voice. We made a video for Clay to bring with him too, with the kids playing and stuff. We also got the kids some special things with Daddy's picture on them. We got them from hugahero.com. Connor picked a dog tag with Daddy's picture on it, Taryn got a Daddy doll & Aili got a Photo tag blanket. We are still waiting on those to show up though. We have been keeping busy and doing projects. Yesterday we played with playdoh & today we finger painted. Tealia stayed here for the week and it was nice to have someone to hang out with!! I have some goals for while Clay is gone.

1. Make our house clean & organized
2. Make the girls baby books
3. Sell stuff we don't need
4. Make a schedule

And I'm sure I will come up with more.

I also have some plans for us while Daddy is away. I'm thinking that every weekend or every other weekend, we will have a 'Daddy Day'. For Daddy day we will go eat lunch somewhere Daddy would like (i.e. McDonalds, Burger King, etc.), then we will go and pick up some small things to send to him and lastley we will come home and either write him letters, draw him something or make him something. Then on Monday I can send the package to him. I also thought of putting a dollar in a jar for each kid every day, then when Daddy comes home they can have a special day with Daddy with the money...like Chuckie Cheese, Pizza & a movie, etc. Anyways, I got these ideas and some others from the hugahero site.

Also we went bowling before CLay left. It was the kids' first time bowling and they loved it!! Connor, Clay & I all got a strike on the same frame and Taryn got a few spares!


And I have already learned something new since Clay has been gone!