Emerging from the Deep Freeze!

bbbbbbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Poor little dude is not used to these temps, but doesn't seem to mind unless he touches snow!




We've spent most of the last few days freezing in below 0 temps here in I-O-W-A. But an Orange Bowl victory warmed us up a little bit, and I wanted to kiss the weatherman today as he forecast temperatures over 25 degrees this week! Things are lookin' up!

Here is what we Grimey Grimeses were up to this past week.

Elly was sent home with her Preschool's "classroom pet." She named her Lisa.

Eden continued to inspire us with her outfits :)

And Elly threw up at Fareway. Yes, just a normal week here at the Grimes Home!

Love Little Man in a hat!




This is Esias with "his precious." He acts just like that nasty little scrawny guy on Lord of the Rings whenever you come near him with Yoplait Whips!

I Took This As a Compliment.

Today I made chicken and rice for supper and the kids were eating away and everyone was very quiet. Of course, before it was served there was some grumbling about what I was making...anyway, so I said, "Wow, Dan look at how quietly everyone is eating." Elly piped up, "Yeah, I'm going to have more after I'm done with this load!"

Bed Sharing...*sigh*

Co-sleeping, bedsharing, pulling a little foot out of your crack at 3am...whatever you call it, it's controversial among doctors and parents to say the least. With Eden, we rarely co-slept, believing it to be the first step in our demise as parents. Surely she would grow up to be a mass murderer if we didn't get things under control by her 2 week birthday. We occasionally fell asleep together after an early morning feeding...thus this adorable picture above. Now I read this is not recommended due to an increased SIDS risk. Had I known that, I would have lain fearfully awake every second Eden was in my bed. I spent most of the time raising my first child in a state of panic and terror :)

Now, enter child numero dos. My precious Elly Lyn. She has always marched to the beat of a different, um, parade of sheep. You know the ones you're suppose to count to fall asleep. Ok, bad metaphor, but you get the idea.

Elly started sleeping through the night at 6 months, which we thought was a little late, but no biggie. She slept blissfully through the night, going to sleep on her own from the age of 6 months to 18 months. Then, she decided she was lonely. She began creeping out of her bed and into ours in the middle of the night and has been ever since. Now, this post is not a plea for help and advice, because we've tried different things (gate, rewards, threats, I mean, consequences) and to be honest, we're just not committed. And I know why. There is something sort of special about it. She wants to be near us (read: me). She is a light sleeper and hears everything going on in our small living space, so when someone moves or snores or breathes, she hears it and comes a-calling. We call her our "heat seeking missle" because she finds you wherever you may be. She is a toucher, a hugger, a lovey-type. She comes into our room and snuggles up to me as close as she can. Sometimes I notice (when her foot literally goes down my pants) and sometimes I don't (when I wake up and see her smiling face right there in mine). If I fall asleep on the couch, she finds me. When Dan is gone on business trips, she knows she will be welcomed into the bed even earlier than on a regular night. She loves sleeping with us.

There are many, many reasons why we shouldn't co-sleep with Elly...it doesn't teach her how to sleep alone, it interrupts our sleep, yadda yadda yadda. But this morning, I realized why we let it continue (and continue, and continue...). This morning, I was still sleeping rather hard and I rolled over and turned toward Elly, but with my eyes still closed. Elly said to me in the most adorable and sweet voice ever, "You look so beautiful!" I mean, seriously. Isn't that so worth it? Her childhood will be over in a blink. So I'm choosing my instincts over good sleep :)

BIG STEP

The last two days, we've noticed Esias watching our mouths more and trying to talk to us. Well, today I am officially calling his first word: more. He says it muh but we know what it means, and he uses it mainly for food! Way to go Buddy! Just two months into this tube feeding and we are 100% sure that this was the right decision as we've seen major breathing and communicating progress! Yay!

Back to normal!

It felt good (even at -3 degrees) to pack the kids up this morning and get Eden to school and Elly to preschool. Zi and I came home and cleaned up, put away scads of laundry (OH MY WORD) and then he took a nap! I am suppose to be exercising right now...oops. I guess I'm eating Reese's Pieces instead. How did that happen?

Darn you Kinsey Mazunik for leaving them here!

Sweep, sweep, sweep

Wearing his bathrobe and a feeding tube (and that's it) Esias decided it was just as good a time as any to help me with the chores. He is quite a sweeper!

Under the table...

under the dishwasher...

under daddy's feet...

He finally took a break from his hard work to give us some of his famous smiles.

Don't you love this Cars bathrobe I found him at the consignment store? It's super soft, he looks adorable in it, and now all the kids have warm robes to wear around the house. We bought Eden's new years ago, but Elly's we got at Goodwill for like $2 (nevermind it has the name Sophie embroidered on it) and Esias' was a couple of bucks at Stuff, Etc. Love it!

Post-Christmas Madness

The kids were so excited to be home after being gone for several days for Christmas. Esias and Eden had a hayday with the Busy Ball Popper we got for Esias. Wow, that toy is totally worth the 15 bucks! All ages love it, including thirty-somethings!

Esias' hair was SO long! We just got it cut finally.

And, finally, my three precious kiddos! They are adorable if I do say so myself.

Christmas Wrap Up

I have yet to post pics from Christmas! Here they are! We forgot our camera at a few of the events, so this is just a snippet of our adventures.

Esias in front of his first Christmas tree! This was not technically his "first" Christmas since he was alive for Christmas last year in Ethiopia, but it was his first tree, and his first with us! Ethiopians celebrate Christmas on January 7th, which just happens to be Dan's birthday!

The above pic is the girls' nativity scene. They created this using all horses. The blue baby pony is Jesus, if you couldn't tell :) The small ones in the front are the wise men. Mary is the unicorn and Joseph is the appy, top left.

The girls get bundled up for some outdoor time.

Zi wants to go with them but HATES the snow!

Christmas at the Ponderoosa...

Esias with Papa. Before this visit, Esias really had yet to take a liking to my mom or dad. This trip changed everything when Papa showed him his big picture book of horses! The above pic shows Esias signing- he had just said "more" and then is pointing over to the wall where my dad hid his book. Esias basically crawled on his lap anytime he sat down and signed "more book" to him. It was adorable!

On Christmas Eve, we let the kids open one present. Elly got shoes, Eden got a sketch pad...I can't remember what Marcus got. Esias didn't open one, I think he was already in bed.

Christmas Morn...the kids slept well, oh except for Eden, who ran out to the living room at 12:30am and came back into our room and said, "THERE'S a GIANT present out there! Santa came!" She had a hard time getting back to sleep, but once asleep they all slept until 7:30am! We posed them on the stairs per my dad request. He is a sucker for traditions, and we always used to do this growing up--- except that it was a different house and we slept upstairs. Oh well. We missed Nia and Tiel and Claude who spent Christmas with the Howards in Michigan.

Love Eden's look of frantic energy as she tried to pass out gifts.

The opening begins!

Elly loved her lip gloss (didn't I just throw away the last one that ended up all over?)

Marcus and Brynn. He was also the birthday boy the day after Christmas! He turned three!

It Takes A Village

The week before Christmas, Eden's grade had an open house for us to view her gingerbread village they had been creating all month long. It was a large project that encompassed all four first grade classes and all of the subjects. They mixed and baked little dough people and got to design and build their homes and workplaces. They learned about the different jobs they picked to do. Eden was a nurse at the hospital. She was very excited to share everything they had learned and gave us a nice tour when we arrived. Dan was able to take his lunch late so he could come too!





We were finally able to connect with some of the other parents too, which was great. Eden's teacher this year is Mrs. Schroeder--we adore her! She's a fantastic teacher. We're very blessed with this school district as a whole. And in August, Eden will go to the new school being built right acroos the road from our house! No more driving kids to school! Woot woot!

Good News at the Otolaryngologist!

Esias had his follow-up oto. appt. this past week and the great news is that he does not need to be seen in clinic anymore for his laryngomalacia! His breathing is great and everything seems normal. The feeding tube has done its job for sure. We will continue to go see Radiology and Speech Pathology for swallow studies and also Gastroenterology for his tube and reflux. I am just glad we have one less appointment and mostly that his breathing is awesome!

First Quotes of the New Year

Eden: If I could turn into a mermaid, that would be sweeeet!

Elly (in her sweetest voice ever): If I could turn into a bear, that would be sweet. A black bear, so I could tear people's eyes out.