Granny the Great!

We spent a few days of Thanksgiving week with Mark's Granny.  We had a great time!

We tried to get a good picture of all 3!

Tatem got lots of snuggles from her Great Granny and loved every minute!

I love visits with the girls' grandparents, because they get loved on and spoiled like crazy!  Landrie's using her Pon Pon's baby spoon that Granny has saved for all these years.  So sweet!

Landrie couldn't get enough of all Granny's Christmas trees around the house.  She remembered this musical one from last year, and was so gentle with it.

Tatem turned 12 weeks old the day before Thanksgiving.  So many of you encouraged me with the idea that colic ends around 3 months.  It did!  She's been crying less and less and starting about a week ago, she started grinning like crazy a lot more.  It's so precious!  I love her easy smile:)

Granny got Landrie a Dora toy.  She was SO EXCITED!!  When she saw this picture, she screamed, "DORA!" again and made the same face.  I love that expressive girl!

Landrie loves to do "cheers" with others' drinks.  Milk and wine...what a combo!

We are SO THANKFUL that we have such sweet family close by to love on our sweet girls.  Granny, we had a fantastic time with you and love you so much!!

Pre-Thanksgiving Feast!

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we celebrated with Mark's sister and her family!  His other sister and parents were out of state, so it was a small but fun gathering. :)

 Tatem was in LOVE with her Aunt Beth!!  When people see Tatem in person, they are amazed at how red her hair is getting.  Of course, the inevitable question is, "Where did that red hair come from?!"  Look no further than Mark's sister, mom and aunts to find a bunch of beautiful red heads!

 She wouldn't stop grinning for Beth!  SO sweet!

We noticed Tatem wasn't blinking much.  Jaxon is a professional at staring contests, so they had a little challenge.  Tatem thought it was hilarious, and she won!  Check out Jaxon's determined face. :)

 Uncle Rusty's pretty funny too!!

 Meanwhile, Gramm and Landrie were cooking up a storm!  

Gramm and Landrie served Uncle Rusty lots of tasty treats. :)

I love this sweet picture of Jaxon!  It seems like just yesterday when Beth and Rusty brought him home from the hospital.  Mark and I were just dating at that point, and it was our first up close experience with adoption!  We had no idea what God was preparing for our lives.  How precious for Landrie and Jaxon to each have a cousin who joined our family through adoption!  God just thinks of everything. :)

Adoption Party!

November is National Adoption Month, and our adoption agency had their annual party last weekend!  We took over a gymnastics place and had a great time visiting with lots of families who've adopted through Inheritance Adoptions!

Here's a picture of the whole crew (borrowed from Inheritance's fb page!).  Click on it to make it larger and check out all the beautiful families created through adoption!  (Tatem's in my other arm, hidden!)

You can see tons more pictures of the other families at the party by clicking here. 

Landrie got a big kick out of the trampoline!

This really cracked me up.  How did she know what to do with a hula hoop?  It's not like we walk around the  house hula hooping?!  

She was so brave on the rope swing...until they told her to let go and drop into the pit!  Look how proud she is of herself!

So big!

Oh, how I love my Landrie Grace!

This about sums it up.  

Adoption has completely turned our life upside down, and we are having a blast with every minute of it!!

Wordless Wednesday

Physical therapy for our baby girl!

When I went to our first physical therapy appointment last week, I had no idea what to expect!  Are you curious too?  What exactly are "baby exercises," right??

Hi, I'm Tatem, and I'm perfectly happy to lay on my back and look cute. :)

My physical therapist said I'm supposed to do a total of 2 HOURS of tummy time a day since I'm 2 months old.  That's a LOT, but I've been working hard to get it all in!

Sometimes I get a bit frazzled, so my big sister Landrie jumps in with me.

She's so crazy! :)

Whew!  Y'all have no idea how hard this is!  This head is so heavy!

My physical therapist said that I can lay on my mommy or daddy's chest to do tummy time too.  Landrie thought it would be fun to lay on her!  She loved it, but I was not a fan.  She just wiggles too much!

My favorite place to be is in my mommy or daddy's arms, on my back!

I go to PT each week.  Miss Morgan pulls my head to the side and presses my shoulder down.  Mommy does it 6-8 times a day too.  That's one exercise I have to do to lengthen my neck muscles.  I'm so good at it now I don't even cry or break a sweat!

Miss Morgan also wants me to turn my head side to side.  She put this tiny mirror up in front of me to try to trick me into turning to the side I don't like.  I fooled them all and found the enormous wall mirror so I could look at Mommy and Daddy's reflection instead!  Didn't have to turn my head the other way one bit!  haha!

I'm absolutely amazed at the progress Tatem has made in just one week!  It was time to quit treating her like a snuggly little newborn and start putting that sweet baby to work!

Squished little head!

While we think Miss Tatem Rose is absolutely perfect, her doctor says otherwise!  When she was first born, the on-call pediatrician at the hospital examined her.  Do you know the first thing he said?  "Well, her head, nose and ears are pretty asymmetrical, but they might even out over time.  If not, you can always get her a helmet."  What?!  We just laughed about his obvious lack of tact and went on with things.  Yes, her head was squished, but aren't most newborn's?

Fast forward to Monday's 2 month appointment.  Tatem's head is still "squished," and it's causing our sweet baby some problems!  Remember how my uterus always measured small?  When I delivered at 40 weeks, it measured at 35 weeks.  Tatem didn't have the room she needed, so her little head grew while it was tilted over to the side.  There's a dent where her shoulder was in her ear.  She's not the only baby who experienced this, and it actually causes a unique set of problems.   We were on info overload this week as we got diagnosis 1,2 and 3!

1.  Tortocollis- Because her head was tilted while she grew in the womb, her muscles are short and tight on one side of her neck and weak on the other.  Her head tilts to one side.  We started physical therapy this week and have a few little exercises that we need to do 6-8 times each day.  She also needs a total of 2 HOURS of tummy time a day!  The good news is that this is correctable, and with the therapy, she should be fine by the time she's walking.

This picture shows what she must have looked like before she was born!  See her little shoulder pushed up there?

It's hard to see the dent now with her pudgy cheeks, but you can see it when she was still skinny!

Of course she can hold her head up now, but when she's relaxed it's always tilted to her right.  It doesn't go to her left side.

2.  Plagiocephaly- It simply means an asymmetrical skull.  Her whole skull (including her face) is shifted.  There are 2 treatments.  Since babies' skulls are not yet hardened, they can still change shape.  We are going to be very careful about not letting her lay one way too much.  Hopefully as her brain grows, it will press on her skull, and it will fix itself.  Our therapist said we are going to try that first, but she will most likely need a helmet to reshape her head.  If she does, you can put all your money on the fact that I'll be decorating it like these DocBand Calendar babies!  :)

Normal Head Shape Mild Plagiocephaly Moderate Plagiocephaly Severe Plagiocephaly

images from here

3.  Eyes that don't work together- Part of the plagiocephaly that she has means one side of her forehead sticks out more than the other.  So one eye is further forward, and they are actually looking at two different things!  We go to a pediatric ophthalmologist next week to see what treatment for that might be.  UPDATE: I am finally posting this today, and we just got back from the opthamologist.  THe good news is that it's a simple muscle problem that makes her eyelid droop, and it should correct itself!  Babies' eyes often don't work together, but the opthamologist said our doctor referred her because of the combination of things that were going on.  We are so thankful for this answer to prayers!!

While no parents want to hear that anything is wrong with their baby, I am thankful that everything is correctable since we caught it so early.

In other news...

Remember how we all prayed for Tatem to GROW before she was born?  At one point she was in the 7th% for weight.  After she was born, she was still in the 10th%.  Not anymore!  At her 2 month check up she weighed 10 lbs, 10oz and was in the 47th% for height and weight!  She's growing like a weed!  Other than the things above, Tatem is a picture of health!  Here are some things I want to remember about my precious 2 month old:
-You are finally wearing 0-3 month clothes!
-You grin and coo all the time.  Every time you coo, Landrie gasps and says, "Oh!!!  Her talked!!"  You love talking to your sister. :)
-You are a great eater and eat 20 min. every 3 hours during the day and every 3-4 hours at night.  Since you've turned two months, you've started stretching your night time feeds a few extra hours.  I am excited! :)
-You still LOVE to be held and snuggled.  You sleep on your tummy with an Angelcare Monitor (it sounds an alarm if you stop breathing) so Mommy and Daddy can get some sleep.  Some nights you sleep in a moving swing all night long!
-We have lots of fun things to put you in, but you really protest if you're in anything other than our arms or the swing. :)
-Your smiles and dimples light up the room and melt our hearts!

Happy Halloween!

Oh my goodness.  This Halloween was SO fun!  Last year we felt a bit ridiculous taking Landrie around, when it was pretty obvious that we were going to eat all of our non-walking baby's candy ourselves!  haha!  The girls looked TOO CUTE in their matching costumes.  Both were fairies, but Landrie called herself a butterfly because of her wings. :) 

Yup.  This is the best picture that I could get of both girls before we headed out!  Maybe when they are 4 and 6 they'll be easier to bribe into taking pictures together. :)

Tatem was NOT thrilled with my timing of the pictures.  She was ready to eat!

(Happy 2 months, Tatem!)

Landrie, on the other hand, was happy to prance around the yard and let me snap away!  She was so excited to get all dressed up and to have a star wand!

Daddy with his tiniest love!

I love this.  The girls look beautiful and Mark looks cute as usual, but I look like I just rolled out of bed!  I remember Halloween pictures from Landrie's first Halloween, and I look exhausted there too!  

See, Mom, I'm much happier after I eat!

(See that adorable little head tilt?  More on that later this week!)

We went trick or treating with some of Landrie's little friends.  She was so adorable!  She kind of just followed what the other kids were doing at the first house and was at the back of the group.  When it was her turn and the lady gave her candy, Landrie squealed with delight at the top of her lungs!!  She couldn't believe that people would just hand her candy for no reason.  She kept giggling and squealing as she got more.  She was so cute with her little "tank-oo!"

We brought the stroller, but Tatem wanted to be in on all the excitement.  Between a two-year-old and a two-month-old we were always at the back of the group!  Mark had to hang Landrie's bag around her neck because it was slowing her down!

Landrie was all smiles the whole night!  I was never a huge Halloween person until this year.  Seeing how much fun Landrie had makes me ready to do it all again next year.  Christmas is going to be outrageous!

I hope you had a great time and are enjoying lots of candy!