She can't catch a break

Well the last 2 weeks have been hard on Hannah to say the least. After the strep throat on Wed. she broke out in a red rash all over her hands, feet, and diaper area last night. Since we are not at home by our doctor we called him to get his opinion. He thinks she has a little Scarletina to go along with the strep. Lovely!

She is feeling better today and her rash has gone down quite a bit. I think we will be keeping her close to home for the rest of the summer since she seems to need some healing time.

Here are some random pictures from the week here.

Here are all the siblings and babies. We went to this great water park in Atlanta and we were in the water long enough to take this picture and then there was a big clap of thunder and they made everyone get out (no joke, we were there about 40 seconds). They never reopened it that day, so it was kind of sad for us. Trust me, the adults were much more bummed than the kids...they had no idea. We ended up going to the indoor pool and playing in there for awhile which was fun though.
Auntie Laura gave Kate and Hannah a bath and I caught the coolest picture of her pouring the water over Hannah's head.
Family picture at the Birmingham zoo.
Pop and the girls at the zoo.

Strep throat!!!

Our sweet baby has strep throat! We could tell on Tuesday that she was not feeling great and by that night she had a 102.7 fever. So, we headed off to the doctor here in Birmingham yesterday morning and she had a fever of 104.2! I was a bit worried to say the least. But, the doctor was wonderful and very reassuring about her condition. They said her strep test was "very positive" so we are on some antibiotics to hopefully knock it out. Anyway, we are here for another day and hopefully by the time we are ready to leave tomorrow night she will be feeling back to herself.
See the fun blog post below if you have not already.

Sips n Strokes

Well, last night we had a "girls night out" and it was great! Sherry, Laura and I went to a place in Birmingham called Sips n Strokes. You begin with a blank canvas and by the end of the 2 hours you have a painting. It is for beginners and it was super easy and FUN! They paint a different painting each night and we chose a night where they were painting a red vase with flowers. The class had about 25 people in it and it was such a fun experience.

We started with a blank canvas and a palette of paint. It was a bit stressful thinking of painting this beautiful painting, but the teacher made it simple.

We began by painting the background and the vase.

Then we added the flowers and leaves.

Finally, we did some outlining and accents. And WALLA, you have beautiful masterpieces. It will be great to each have our own paintings hanging in our houses. What a personal touch. Anyway, I highly recommend this to anyone. It was great!

Weekend in Atlanta

We spent the weekend in Atlanta with the whole family celebrating Bryce's first birthday. We had a blast together and it was great to have all the kids together again too. We did alot of fun stuff together and here are some pictures of the memorable events. The most memorable event was Bryce's birthday party, but unfortunately I do not have any pics from it.

After the birthday party Sat. night we took a family walk around the neighborhood in a red wagon. I am sure the neighbors thought we were a little wierd taking everyone out like this, but it was such a nice little walk...that was for everyone except Ralph who pulled 3 kids in the wagon around the block...it was a bit exhausting for him and his back! Thanks Pop, I know the kids enjoyed it! After our family walk we put the kids in the bathtub and had a nice relaxing bath time....YAH RIGHT! It went downhill quickly and crying soon erupted. Needless to say, we but bathtime short.

We went to a park on Sunday afternoon and played in a stream and at a little park. It was great fun...until Bryce went face first off the tire swing into the dirt below. He was fine, but was "a bit" upset by the whole episode.

Such fun times! We have a great night planned tonight (for the grownups at least) so I will tell you all about it tomorrow.

Splashes

Well, we made it to Alabama safely (and without any major caffiene doses) and are having a great time here with family. We celebrated Bryce's birthday this weekend in Atlanta and enjoyed some great play time with all the cousins. We even went swimming today and Hannah really enjoyed it! She has not been to crazy about swimming before, so I was glad to see her enjoy the water more.
Here is a video of her playing with Kelly in the pool a while back.

A pickle

Sometimes I tease Hannah by telling her she is being a pickle (when she is acting up). I know, I know, you probably can't believe that our sweet Hannah can act up...but let me tell you that our little one can have a streak when she wants to! Anyway, she was not acting like a pickle when we went to lunch the other day with friends, but she was eating one. And for some reason pickles often make kids have the same funny faces as with lemons. Which, by the way, Hannah loves. She doesn't make funny faces with lemons either, she just sucks on them like they are any other normal food...silly girl!

But, here she was with her various faces enjoying a pickle at lunch.

Well, we are off to Alabama tonight to see family for a week. YAY! We will be driving through the night again and hopefully we will not have another episode like we did last time with Jason drinking Rock Star. See this post to refresh your memory. We bought 2 Monster Energy drinks instead and he will be sipping them throughout the night and NOT downing 2 of them back to back. I will let you know how it goes.

Little fishes

We went swimming last week with CJ, Crystal, and Kelly and had a great time in the pool. It was CJ's first time to go swimming and he LOVED it! Hannah on the other hand is not such a huge fan of the pool. She has been swimming a few times before but she is not crazy about it. She must be like her daddy, he doesn't like swimming either.

Kelly is WONDERFUL with the kids! She loves both of these kids like they are her own. She is an amazing auntie to them both. Thanks for loving Hannah Kelly...we love you!!!! CJ is seriously the cutest kid around! Isn't that the most adorable little face?!
Hannah was fascinated by the waterfall in the pool. She loves to hold her hand under the faucet in the bathtub too.

We were all a bit wrinkly when we got out, but it was great fun.

Sometimes you have to get creative...

I have learned that you sometimes have to get creative with play during the day. Especially since we only have 1 car, Hannah and I do not always have the option of going anywhere, so we have to get creative at home. Well, since Hannah enjoys water and playing with cooking utensils, we just combined the 2 for a fun afternoon (well really just 20 minutes...she still has a short attention span).
She loved it! I guess we can pull this out on rainy days.
FYI - I still have pics of swimming and from the hospital to put up. Hopefully I can get those up later.

An overnight at the hospital

Well, we are home from an overnight stay in the hospital for our sweet baby. She got a stomach virus Friday afternoon/evening but by Sat. afternoon is was quite apparent she was very dehydrated and in need of some doctor's care. So, we headed to the ER where we sat for 3.5 hours before being taken back to a room. The doctor's quickly gave her some IV fluids and determined by blood counts that she needed more fluids. So, we were off to the pediatric floor for a night of IV fluids. Thankfully today she is much more like herself and we were discharged about 4pm tonight.

We were familiar with the pediatric floor at the hospital since Hannah spend 4 days there after she was born with jaunice. Remember these pictures?

So, thankfully it was familiar to us and we had a comfortable 24 hours there with Hannah. We are glad to be home though and Molly was definitely glad to see us. Hannah was beside herself when she saw Molly, she giggled uncontrollably! Anyway, we are glad that our baby is back to her chipper self. Lesson learned...force fluids down when your baby has a stomach bug so you can avoid the hospital stay! I did take some pictures of Hannah while we were there, but they are on my phone (I didn't have my camera) and I will have to figure out how to get them over to the computer. There is a really cute one with Hannah in her tiny hospital gown with the back open and her diaper showing...adorable!

She loves a good soda

Kidding, just kidding! She does love soda bottles though. She loves to pretend like she is actually drinking from them and she loves to try and put the bottle tops back on. She is very mechanically minded like that. She likes to explore how things work and go together. It is really cool to watch her try and figure out how everything works.
So, here she is "guzzling" a 2 liter.

It really does look like she is drinking it doesn't it? She's a thirsty girl.

Here she was when she was 8 months old playing with another 2 liter. Gosh, look how different she looks with such short hair. No wonder people called her a little fella. Wait, people still call her that today...oh, well. One day she will no longer be mistaken for a little boy.

Geez, she really has grown taller and thinner since this picture too. It's crazy how fast they change. Now she is almost 13 months old!
We are going swimming later today with our friend Caleb (and Kelly and Crystal of course) so I will hopefully have some fun video of that.

Clearly I spoke to soon when I mentioned how long Hannah's naps have been lately. Today each of her naps were only 45 min long. No more 1.5-2.5 hr. naps! Bummer! Remind me not to speak so soon next time!

Baby steps

I promised a video of Hannah walking a few days ago, so here she is. She struggles to get going here, but eventually she is on her way. She is walking everywhere now and seems to really enjoy it. She is still pretty slow but she will get the hang of it soon enough. I am in NO rush to have her running around!
Jason calls her "Frankenstein" when she walks because she walks stiffly with her arms outstretched...it is cute though.

Pros and Cons of teething

Hannah is getting her eye teeth (is this what they are called?) and it has been less than fun for her. I actually got a glimpse of both of them this morning. I can see the little white bumps as they are about to pop through. This will make for tooth #8 and #9! Now, besides the obvious cons to teething like fussiness, fever, diaper rash, and general puniness, there have actually been some pros (well, at least one).
Hannah sleeps a TON while teething. She is still asleep for her morning nap and it has been over 2 hours! She had been taking 45min-1hr naps at our apartment, but the past 5 days and teething has brought about 1.5-2.5 hr naps twice a day! I guess it is all a bit tiring for her. Maybe all the walking she is doing has contributed to this as well. Whatever it is I am not complaining!

Hannah discovered that she loves to sit and play in her toy buckets. She climbed in one the othe day and has loved being in them ever since. I guess it gets her as close to her toys as she can possibly be.

She's figuring things out

Hannah is beginning to figure out many new things in the house. She has doorknobs figured out, althought she can't reach them yet. That is a good thing too, since I am not ready for that. She has also figured out how to release the latch on the baby gates...YIKES! Thankfully she is not skilled enough to open the latch and pull up on the gate at the same time. I can assure you though that each and every time that we go through the gates she is watching intently.

That is one thing that I absolutely love about our baby. She is super observant and loves to figure things out. Like the other day I put the baby thermometer in her ear to check her temp (she didn't have one) and she grabbed the thermometer about 20 minutes later and put it in her own ear. I just love the fact that her little personality is coming out and she is really blossoming.

I promise you her pants are not sagging on purpose...she really has no backside to keep them up. Her little 12 month pants just fall right off. Sigh. Do they make belts for little babies?
Her hair is growing, she is walking EVERYWHERE, and she is our growing little girl! Man we love this little one so much!!!