Judah – Page 8 – xangelle.com

Cousins (picture heavy)

My sister dropped Jack off a our house the other day. He’s such a sweet little boy with such a cute little disposition. He’s so darling.

Of course I got out my camera, because he just “needed” to have some pictures taken. Look at this cute little face…..

Then I sat the two cousins together to try and get a picture of them…but Jack wasn’t having any of it. He super quickly crawled away. He’s pretty quick and we’re hoping that he’ll give Judah a few tips or pointers on crawling – the proper way! But If you look at Judah’s face, he doesn’t really look that impressed, does he? He looks like he’s saying, “Show off!”

I figured that I’d take the opportunity to take a picture of Judah sitting, cause I had mentioned that I wanted to get a picture of him sitting to show you all. He’s sitting…..I can’t believe how fast the time is flying. Next thing I know, he’ll be in Kindergarten and then off to college. OH MAN!

Well, not to be outdone….Jack had to show us all that he was almost ready to stand. “See me balancing! All I have to do is push up, and VOILA! I’m standing!”

“Not only that…..Here’s my Blue Steel! You can’t do that one, Judah, can you? Just try to top that!!!”

The boys were headed right into a smackdown and so I distracted them with some food….

Hey Jack, man! You dropped some of those potato puffs on your shirt! It’s a bit embarrassing looking, but mostly I just wanna know if you’re gonna eat that. I’ll help ya out, if you’re not???

Hey! Lady, where did those treats go? We’re still hungry, eh?

Hey Judah! Slow down, don’t cram those in so fast! I wanted some!

Hey Lady! Are you still taking pictures of us? Haven’t you got enough already? Geesh!

Too Fast

My baby is growing up WAY TOO FAST.

Hey! Are you talking to ME?

There are aspects of my life that I wish would go much faster and yet typically, I try to just enjoy the moment that I’m in. But in all of the busyness of this season of our lives, I often feel that I’m missing out on “just enjoying” the time with my baby. I think that I know that once this time is gone, I’ll never get it back and so I’m trying to hold onto every moment that I can get. Often it feels like I just don’t have the opportunity to “just enjoy” and truth be told, sometimes I’m just way too tired to “enjoy” and we’re left with just holding on and surviving through “this moment”.

Ah well, It is what it is and I refuse to beat myself up (too badly) over it all.

I’m hiding

Judah is almost 7 months old. How is that even possible? Man!

Peek-A-Boo! I see you!

He’s right at 27 pounds….typing that out it seems so crazy! And I have no idea how long he is…long enough to look WAY older than almost 7 months old. He’s wearing 12-18 month clothes. He is such a happy baby, unless he’s upset, and then……THEN HE’S REALLY UPSET!

He knows how to let you know that he’s not happy about something. There are no worries that he might get lost in all of the day to day chaos. No Sir! That kid communicates quite loudly about his wants and needs.

And…..He is mobile! GAWK!

Up on all fours

He’s not crawling (normally) just yet, but I suspect that it’s any day now. He does get up on all fours and so I’m on the look out for when he starts to “crawl”. Right now he does this cute little army crawl and can get from one end of our dining/living room all the way to the other. We can’t just put him down on the floor and expect him to stay put. Nope! He is ALL OVER the place.

I need to get a video of him to show you. It’s SO cute!

I’m so cute, aren’t I?

He can even sit for brief periods of time now. Man! This time goes by so SO fast.

We are so thrilled to have this darling little man in our lives. He is such a blessing to us and brings such light and joy to our lives.

Shhhhh! Don’t tell anyone I can crawl or they might not pick me up as often!

Siah’s Super Clips

Siah gave the babies those cute little hardwood teethers, and yes, to those who have asked. I would definitely be interested in selling some so talk to me if you’re interested.

When it came to the rest of the siblings and cousins, we didn’t figure that wooden teethers would be very much appreciated and so we needed to come up with a different idea.

I had seen these wooden clips before and I wondered if we could replicate them as well. They are basically a large wooden clothes peg…..sorta?!?

They are perfect for creating tents and forts. The wooden clips are big enough that they attach to most furniture and the strength of the clasp can be adjusted using the elastics. I imagine that they could be useful for other things as well. We’ve already thought about adding a set of 4 or 8 to our camping gear as we figure they’d be really handy to keep the tablecloth ON the table and possibly useful for holding up wet towels or even tarps.

He wanted to play, not do pictures

One of the nice things about them is that they are just made from regular lumber and can use up the offcuts that might be laying around; and even if the elastic breaks….you can just get another one and wind it around a bunch of times.

Jon made these up and once again, Siah helped to play with them and then wrap them up. We gave Siah a break this year……well, we gave ourselves a break, too. This year it was just easier to do it ourselves and to give his gifts to him to give, as opposed to recruiting his help….which wouldn’t have been very helpful at all. I’ll definitely be keeping my eye out for something that he can actually “do” mostly by himself for next year.

I find them laying around my house all over the place, and while I dislike them laying around my house….I love that it means that my kids are playing with them.

Enough already! I just want to play and finish whatever snack I have in my mouth!

Can you think of any other ideas that we could use these clips for?

In other non related news – Judah woke up early this morning with a fever. I believe that it’s just a virus, but I was particularly stressed because of the issues relating to his bowels. He had no other symptoms initially, but now he is quite stuffed up. His temperature is hovering in between 37.5 and 38 degrees Celsius and so it’s a low grade fever. He is nursing and eating and playing, but is definitely “off” and wants to be held and is quite clingy. I’ve been mostly awake since 3am this morning and hove done well up until now. Now…..the lack of sleep has caught up with me and I’m exhausted. He’s finally gone down in his own bed for a nap and has been sleeping for about 20 minutes. The longest he’s napped all day today.

I’m not sure what’s going on as Siah also has a runny nose, but no other symptoms. The stress of my family’s health wears on my heavy and so if you could pray that we’d be healthy and that I’d not stress so much, I’d greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

An Almost, Not Quite, Sort Of Normal Day

The baby is upstairs sleeping and seeing as he slept for a grand total of 10 minutes this morning as opposed to the hour he has been doing – I’m really REALLY hoping that he sleeps for a while….I’d love 2 hours to make up for the hour that he missed this morning, but even an hour would be AWESOME.

Josiah is quietly watching a movie while he snacks on his lunch.

Geli has actually gone to school. I was really nervous about that this morning, so I’ve done lots of praying for her. Her counts were just above the border of her being allowed to go to school and it’s so important that she believe that she “BELONGS” at school that we told her she needed to go. She is finally feeling better. The effects of the steroid have mostly worn off and aside from being tired because we’ve recently had a few too many late nights in a row…she’s doing pretty good.

My house is tidy and mostly clean, thanks to the help of an AMAZING woman.

I’m eating the MOST delicious oatmeal cookie and needing to write out a list of things that I absolutely MUST get done this week. That sounds all big and important, but really I need to write out a grocery list and a list of things that I can do to clean the house while holding the baby (in the sling)….ya know things like wiping the window sills or washing the windows, folding laundry….just easy stuff!

Okay back to those DELICIOUS cookies that I was talking about.

I had a craving for Oatmeal Cookies a while ago and while most Oats are “contaminated” (I dislike that word, it’s so “evil” sounding) with wheat, you can buy guaranteed gluten-free oats and so I did.

I googled Gluten-Free Oatmeal Cookie Recipes and read through many MANY links and decided to go with this recipe. (If you read my last few posts, I google quite a bit, if you haven’t noticed. It’s how I come up with the “base” of most of my recipes and get patterns and most of my other useless information. HA!)

I used the All Purpose Gluten-Free Flour Mix from Gluten-free Girl and the Chef and then I started altering the recipe to suit me and my tastes. I only used 2 cups of old fashioned rolled oats and added in 1 cup of unsweetened coconut to make up the 3 cups. In place of the 1 cup of raisins, I substituted 1/2 a cup of cranberries and 1/2 a cup of these chocolate chips. I used Earth Balance Soy free Spread instead of the butter. I did use an egg because I put cranberries in them and that means and NO CHILD in my house will eat these because they have “raisin type food” in them. It was so very clever of me. I made the MOST DELICIOUS COOKIES and they are mine…..ALL MINE!

If my diet weren’t strict enough, I think that I’ve figured out which foods are bothering Judah and I believe……hopefully…..that he is now, actually, on a forward moving, positive trend. We’ve eliminated Gluten, Dairy and Soy….which basically leaves me with nothing left to eat. Okay, so that’s not true at all, but some days it feels like that and so I’ve consoled myself by having little treats like this around the house. I could totally make these cookies dairy, gluten, soy and egg free just by using Ener-G Egg Replacer, but for this batch, it wasn’t necessary – thanks to those pesky little cranberries. But, it’s worth giving up all those foods for my child’s health and if I’m being completely honest….I feel way better eating like this too. The soy is a bit difficult because I use it as flavor in my cooking and I LOVE miso soup, but I don’t believe that it will be gone forever….just until Judah is a bit healthier and his guts become a bit stronger.

Anyway, I made these one evening after the kids had all gone to bed and as soon as they came out of the oven, I tasted one and YUM!!!!! Then I sat down at the kitchen table and ate WAY TOO MANY. I dunked the warm cookies into a cold glass of Almond Milk! These are amazing and I’d serve these to anyone and they’d have no clue they were so altered.

These are not cookie substitutes….these are cookies…real, honest to goodness, chewy and crispy, delicious cookies.

If you have some food “issues”, these could be your next favorite cookie (if you like oatmeal cookies, that is) and if you don’t like raisins or cranberries…just increase the chocolate chips or the oatmeal or the coconut by half a cup.

Alright, I’m off to make my lists….

Christmas is Coming & other updates…

Well, the baby is playing on the floor, the boys are watching Despicable Me; and the girls (and Jon) are in town to get Geli’s third dose of chemo for this round.

We went and got her blood work done yesterday and her numbers are quite low. Not “freaky scary hole up in the house for a week or two” low, but “avoid mostly everyone and stick to just family members” low. We should hit the “wrap her in Purell coated bubble wrap” low by New Years Day; and really, we are praying to avoid any trips to Children’s between today and January 11th…which is the next scheduled chemo dose. If you are the praying type, we’ve love some prayer that she (and we) stay healthy and protected between now and then. We are really looking forward to some nice quiet, calm peaceful days and nights between now and then.

When Angelica went for her 2nd dose of chemo last Thursday her white blood count was on the extreme high end of normal. This was a bit unnerving for us as the last time they were anywhere close to high was when we found out that she had Leukemia, BUT….this time, it was only an indicator that she had a virus and that she was fighting it off. This was FABULOUS news because her body is trying so hard to do what it was created to do and in the middle of all of this assault of her body – that is wonderful.

She successfully fought off that virus (after it tried quite ridiculously hard to kick her butt – she did have a rough couple of days and we weren’t sure if it was the chemo or the virus or both) and only has the slightest bit of a cough right now. The rest of us are steadily taking our vitamins, avoiding the throngs of people out there and trying to do everything that we can to boost our immune systems so that we don’t get anything, and so far it seems to be working.

With everyday that passes uneventfully, I can feel my family starting to breath a bit deeper, starting to relax, starting to act less strung out and this is such a good thing. Josiah is starting to go to bed more calmly (he was screaming hysterically for more than half an hour at bedtime regardless of what we did to encourage, console or help him to sleep) and he’s actually been sleeping through the nights (as opposed to waking every hour or 2). The not sleeping was just making EVERYTHING worse and so to have that not be as HUGE of an issue is so nice.

We are hopefully working through the issues with Judah. <>

We’ve not seen a lot of blood in his poop recently and so we are hoping that things for him are on the upswing. We’ve gone from 15+ bloody diarrhea diapers in a day to about 4 or 5 more normal-ish looking jobs. He’s throwing up WAY less and seems less like he’s in pain and is waking less in the night.

It might take some time for his intestinal tract to heal but I believe that he’s on the mend. I still feel quite a bit of stress about him, but it’s less now that he seems to be getting better as opposed to getting worse.

I feel like we are definitely headed in a more relaxed, peaceful direction, and yet I feel a bit like I’m holding my breath. I would desperately love for things to carry on as they are and for nothing to upset this delicate balance that we’ve got going on. It’s a reality that I have to be prepared for that Angelica could end up in the hospital between now and the New Year. It’s not a certainty, nor is it even “likely” but I cannot ignorantly walk around with my head in the clouds thinking that nothing like that could possibly happen to our family. For who I am, I need to at least be a little bit “prepared” that it might happen and then I can be ever so pleasantly delighted when it does not happen (positive speaking, right?). Having that thought in the back of my head, does bring it’s own level of stress and I hate that. I hate that I feel like an elastic that is wound too tight, but as long as I can hold steady everything is okay. If there is one more twist, then I might snap.

I don’t actually believe that I’ll snap, but to have things go chaotic again seems like it would very much upset this fragile balancing act that I’ve got going on. I do feel a bit more grounded with every day that passes, but I still feel like I’m trying to get back to a position of strength, not like I’m working or operating from that position of strength.

Being that kind of person that I am……it sucks to be in this place.

Other than my stress level – things are carrying on as usual. We are almost ready for Christmas. Siah is SO excited. I forgot how much fun it is to have a 3 year old for Christmas. I think 3 is the perfect age. He can’t wait for Christmas to come and his Holiday Cheer is so infectious.

We are doing well, over all, and I am so thankful that we are all together as a family this Christmas and that Geli’s prognosis is so good. We are looking forward to 2011 being an amazing year.

Pixies and Dimples

So, this post is the equivalent of me sticking my fingers in my ears and singing, “la la la la la la la” really loud. Things are not really great, but they’re not really horrible, and right now I don’t want to talk about it so…..yah….anyhoooooo……

I said that I had some things that I had been working on to show you, and here is the first of them….

(mostly, this is just a post with a lot of adorable pictures of Judah.
I wish I could bottle up his giggles, they make everything disappear for one moment.)

This little hat knits up really quickly and requires only that you know how to knit and to purl. I managed to knit this up over 2 days and I am NOT the worlds fastest knitter. I think I used size 7 needles and this is a wool that I picked up from Michaels….none of that is very exciting at all, is it?

I like to have a fun, simple, not time critical, knitting project that I can just work on whenever, because I can take it with me in the car and knit while we drive….well, while Jon drives. Although, I’ve not been out a lot recently and man, has that ever cut into my knitting time.

Do you not want to just eat those dimples up?

If you are interested in knitting this hat, just google “Pixie Hat Pattern” and there are TONS of links for this hat. Oh, and Judah is HUGE and is typically wearing between 12-24 month sizes and I used 62 stitches instead of the 50 that the pattern calls for.

I added a brim to the bottom edge which is amazing because it comes down and keeps his neck nice and snugly warm even if there is a gap between his shirt and his coat. I also used a snap closure because I didn’t want to be dealing with any strings.

This would make a great gift for a cute baby in your life, don’t you think? And, it is super stretchy and Josiah can fit this, and well, honestly Geli can get it on her head, but it’s a bit too short and doesn’t cover up to her face like it should…..I do have another one on the go, in pink, and I’m using around 100 stitches. If it works out size wise, then I plan to add a really LOOOONG braid to the bottom with tassles at the end. It should look darling on Geli or Xani….I may even end up having to make 2, because they’ve both expressed an interest in having one of their own.

Oh, LOOK! Judah is waving bye to you all.

Just for fun, what is one of your favorite memories of Christmas?

The Ups and Downs

It’s been a bit of a rough weekend, which spilled over into the start of a rough week and really – I’m still feeling a bit shaky, but I’m hoping that I can pull it together and climb up and out of the funk that I was/am in.

Judah had a pretty rough weekend health-wise and where he had seemed like he was getting better – he seemed to be even worse and it scared and stressed me out. He was grouchy and upset and wanted to be held. 25lbs of dead weight is a bit much to carry around 18 hours of the day especially when you’re trying to clean and cook and herd children and carry on with the daily grind of it all.

As a result, I was one seriously stressed out ball of massive hurt…..I still hurt. My back, shoulders and neck have not recovered from 2 days of that, and they involuntarily recoil when I reach to take him from Jon or one of the girls. It’s not been fun!

Geli’s been feeling “off”. She has been having some nasty headaches – which I can totally relate too – and her emotions are right on edge. She has one more day “on” the steroid and then a week off followed by one more week on and then we have a 3 month break from the steroids. So far, her sugar levels have been totally perfect and we’re praying that they stay that way.

Between stressing about Judah’s health and Geli’s whole situation, and throwing in me feeling so useless and inadequate……I just had the worst weekend. Any one thing, is way too much stress for us to handle, but everything together is overwhelming. And I hate feeling like I’m not accomplishing things.

I hate that my baby is having stomach problems. By the way, my dr thinks that he picked up a bug and that he is on the upswing, and just ended up with a virus, which only makes things seem worse, when they are in fact, getting better. I should know in a day or two, if this is the case, but the whole situation feels very wearing on me.

And, for whatever reason, he just woke up….and so with that – I’m done for the night.

MMMmmmmmm

Things have been busy over here in so many different areas.

I keep thinking that I’ll have a moment to update what going on and instead I’ve ended up with a backlog of things to write about and new things just keep on happening. That’s life isn’t it? It just keeps moving forward at a steady, predictable rate; even if you desperately want it to slow down and especially if you want it to speed up.

In case things weren’t already crazy enough, I’ve recently needed to remove gluten from my diet. I mentioned a while ago that Judah was having some gastro-intestinal issues. Removing dairy seemed to help a little and yet it really didn’t help like I thought it would. When I went to the doctor, it seems that his issues are dairy, gluten and yeast related and we are trying to figure out if this is a short term deal or a much more serious situation.

It’s been just over a week since I removed the gluten and while things are not great, they do seem to be a little bit better. Judah seems to be in less pain and that’s a huge deal for me.

I found this recipe for gluten-free Oreo cookies and figured that I’d attempt to alter it to make it dairy-free and egg-free. I baked up a batch tonight and it’s amazing.

Jon figures that they are good enough that you’d never know that they were dairy, egg and gluten-free. They are sooooo yummy and I know the kids are going to flip when they wake up in the morning.

Angelica is starting the 4th stage of the chemotherapy tomorrow morning. She went and got blood work done this morning and when her counts came back this afternoon….they were FABULOUS!

We were hoping that they would be high for the start of this round and they are, especially compared to how low they were last week. They are low for normal, but high for Geli.

Xani has been quite sick over the past week. It was almost like the flu but with no barfing or fever…….she’s had a headache, sore muscles, an all over achy feeling, runny nose, cough, and I think that she’s finally, slowly, on the mend.

Jeremy turned 10 years old yesterday and I’ve got a bunch of stuff to update on him.

Siah has not been sleeping very well and as a result, he’s been a bit of a goofball during the day. Lots of tears and whining and fussing and moaning and screaming….it’s a bit wearing. And I’d love to say that I have some great ideas and plans of what to do with him to work through this rough patch, but….ya…..nope! Nothing! I’m not sure if I’m too tired to come up with something or maybe I need to be just a little bit tired before “it” comes to me. I dunno, but I’m sure we’ll figure something out or maybe he’ll grow out of it all before I have to come up with something.

Christmas is coming and I’ve been baking (gluten-free, of course) and we’re trying to get things ready so that things will be peaceful and calm. I can at least hope for peace and calm, right?

I’m hoping to find a few moments to be able to get a few things caught up on here (and in real life). Should we take bets on whether it will actually happen or not????

Ah well. Life keeps moving along and I keep on moving with it, whether I like it or not.

Cousins

Back at the beginning of the month, MY cousin came over to help around the house. She brought her daughter with her.

Charlotte is, quite literally, one of the most beautiful babies I’ve seen.

Her smile is amazing and her eyes sparkle like…..like……..well, they sparkle…..A LOT!

She’s older than Judah, roughly the same size, no where close to his weight, and so obviously 7 months older in actions and abilities. She is just so stinkin’ cute!

She was quite enamored with Judah and when we put him down on the floor for some tummy time, she was so adorably curious.

There were lots and lots and LOTS of kisses and taps. She was so SO gentle with Judah.

I love that our family and extended family are so close and that our kids get to grow up together. Family is AWESOME! I remember when I was younger and all us cousins would get together. We have some fabulous memories, and I’m looking forward to being able to watch this next generation make their own amazing memories.

Rockin’ and Rollin’

He’s looking at his froggy, that you can’t see in this picture.

Guess who has learned to roll over?

Yup, my baby is rolling over. I think that his weight gives him an edge and a disadvantage. If he gets started rolling over, then as long as he can swing his massive thighs over, the rest of him follows. But……his huge head and chubby cheeks are too heavy for his little neck and he can’t hold his head up for very long.

But isn’t he cute?

This video is from October 1st on his third attempt at rolling over (He did it once the day before). You even get to hear me sounding goofy and talking in a high squeeky baby voice…..oh come on…it’s not like you’ve never done it either…and you’d think that I would have known that it wouldn’t be a good idea to “cluck” within inches of the camera….but nope…..that’s in there too and I didn’t even bother to try again. This is the real deal, baby!

ps. please excuse the abrupt ending. I’m, quite obviously, am not an expert videographer.

He’s so SO sweet, isn’t he?

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