My kids take parenting to new heights

Both of my kids are climbers. When Grace was one, she would climb up on chairs,tables, toys, and swan dive, head first onto our tile floors. Multiple urgent care trips later, I was left wondering what in the world she was thinking. I can now spot a possible concussion from a mile away. I hoped, that because Noah and Grace have such different personalities, that maybe this particular trait had passed him by. However, the past week or so he has been on a climbing kick. ANYTHING he can get his little chubby leg up on top of, he will. This is how he now plays in their room:


In addition to climbing, Noah enjoys throwing things from whereever he is. Grace's dollhouse gets the brunt of the abuse (glad we went with the sturdy one mema!) but his damage also extends to books, purses, and yesterday when I ran to the neighbors to borrow some butter, the lamp in our living room. (one of those "I am a terrible mother" moments!)And apparently they don't grow out of it!

(She climbs in and still swan dives out, head first!) At least us Hallams have thick skulls :)

Noah Update

We took Noah to the ear nose and throat doctor today, as a follow up from his trip to the hosiptal back in November. They feel that there is possibly something structural that is causing problems with Noah's breathing, making any added stresses (allergies, reflux, colds) the straw that broke the camels back. So here is the plan. We are going to take Noah in early in the morning on the 9th of Feb. to have a pH probe Hopefully this will tell us the extent to the damage from his reflux. Then, that night they are doing a sleep study. He has been waking up coughing and the docs think that he might be experiencing a bit of apnea from floppy tissue (perhaps due to laryngomalacia) The next morning they will do a bronchoscopy and both the ENT doc and the Pulmonologist will be there to do their scopes. At the same time they will do some blood tests for allergies. By combining all of these he will only have to be put to sleep once instead of multiple times. If they find something (scar tissue or floppy tissue) that needs to be removed they will also do it while he is still under. If they don't find anything then we should be able to go home on Tuesday. If they end up operating then we will probably stay until Wed. All of this will be done at UCSF. I have been really impressed with the doctors there so far. It will be a long two or three days, but we should get a lot of answers, and hopefully know how to best take care of Noah from here on out. Most of the issues that have been mentioned above are issues that are not very serious, and that Noah should eventually grow out of, it is simply the combination of all of them that is causing us problems. Hopefully very soon this will all be taken care of!

Beach Bums

The weather here has been gorgeous the past couple of days, so we decided to take the kids to the beach this afternoon (Steve works Saturdays and has Mondays off). It was beautiful and the kids had a lot of fun. Noah loved playing with the shovel and bucket. He put one scoop in the bucket, and then one in his mouth, one in the bucket, one in his mouth. Nothing like a bunch of pebbles for the ole digestive system!

Our Cinderella

The times they are a changing. I remember (before having kids, and specifically, a daughter) when I used to hear cheesy songs like "butterfly kisses" played (usually for the father-daughter dance at weddings) and I would think "why are all of these people crying? Musically, this song is not even that good." Well, this morning on our way to church we were listening to the radio and one of these kinds of songs came on. I was reaching to change the station when I started to listen to the words. And then, darn it, I started crying! By the time Steve got to the car (he was grabbing Graces shoes, somehow she made it to the car without them) I was blubbering away. He kind of rolled his eyes, and then he heard the chorus and although he will deny it with his dying breath, I saw him tear up too! Man! So there we were, driving along, listening to this song that talked about a father dancing with his "Cinderella" (who grace dresses like, sings the songs of and watches daily.) Anyways, I guess my point is, the next time you see me sobbing at some random wedding when the father daughter dance begins, you can judge me after you have a daughter of your own. :)
Here is the song if you want to hear it

A day at the museum

I couldn't take one more day inside. I love living here in the bay area, but the downside is that for a few months, it is pretty grey and gloomy. Add to this the fact that we live in such a tiny place (as my seminary friends understand), the kids and I got stir crazy. Usually this presents a challenge as most of the indoor things to do in the area are pretty pricey, but as I was perusing my options this morning I noticed that the Discovery Museum (children's museum in Sausalito) was having a free day today, so I packed up the kiddos and off we went. They loved it! It was so fun to watch the two of them interact with each other and the other kids. This is the first trip to a museum or park where Noah has really got to get just as much out of it as Grace. He was crawling all over the place (he finally learned how to crawl without looking like an army ranger) and laughing and pointing. One of his favorite things to do was to climb inside the jungle gym and stick his chubby hand out the hole and wave at anyone and everyone. He was cracking all the moms up! Grace showed him around like a little tour guide, even though she had never been there before either :) It is an amazing place if you ever have the opportunity to go (first wed. of every month is free!)

Waiting for Dad to get home

Dada was running late today so Grace watched out the window for him...









And of course one of sweet Noah:

Christmas 2008

We had a wonderful, relaxing Christmas this year here in Mill Valley. Steve's parents and his Grandma Maxine came out from Az and were able to stay in our friend's apt (which was SO nice!) We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day in Sonoma with Chandra's family (INCREDIBLE food!). It was so much fun to watch Grace and Noah. This was the first year that Grace really understood what was happening. Let's just say, now when she gets in trouble she cries "I want Santa!!!" We were that family at church...when they asked the kids who gave the greatest gift of all and all the little voices chimed in "Jesus!" there was one not so quiet voice that yelled "SANTA!!!" Thats our daughter for ya. I can't find the charger to our video camera, so unfortunately we only have a short video taken on my digital camera, but lots of photos! I hope you all had as good of a holiday as we did!