Megan's actual 4th birthday

Our little 1st born daughter is 4!!!

So, many moons ago, I posted about Megan's frozen birthday party that we had for her on staycation at my parents house.  On her actual birthday though, we had two of her little friends join us for lunch at Chick fil a.

They had fun!  Its so fun watching Megan interract with girls her own age. Her and Tyler have a super sweet relationship, but its just not the same as her with a girl friend. :)

Later in the day, I gotta be honest, I put her to work!  You can't call it work, though, when she absolutely loved it! 

And, she did a really good job actually!

That night we had pizza in the park, which was a favorite event last year for the kids as well. 

They love the idea of a picnic and getting to feed ducks when we were done was a favorite!

After feeding ducks, we made our way over to Oinkadoodlemoo for some yummy ice cream, Megan's favorite!

We had such a fun day celebrating our girl!  I so love our sweet, full of life Megan and am so proud of the little girl she is becoming! At her welcheck, she was 40.5 inches (66%), and 34 pounds (41%). She had to retake her hearing and vision test and now has an audiology referral (maybe she has an excuse for saying she can't hear me afterall!) but other than that, was given a clean bill of health!  I can't hope but post this picture from her welcheck...she was NOT a fan of the paper gown they made her put on!  Can't blame her, it was kind of ridiculous!

A couple days after her birthday (I think...really don't remember how long it was...) I took her and Morgan to Target to let them spend their birthday money...that.was.torturous...

Just like they have done for the other two, Jay and Nancy had us come down and had their own birthday celebration with Megan since she didn't have a party here for them to attend. 

 

 They could have crumpled up newspaper and she would have been thrilled...so easy to please. :)

So, just a couple months late, but Happy 4th Birthday, Megan!  We love you to pieces!

Random iphone pictures

There will be more posts like this...random pictures found on my phone over the past couple months...I'm so behind in blogging!  MUST get caught up before Tim leaves! More on that and our Air Force journey coming soon!  I actually already have that post started. ;)

Back when we could contain him still. :P

I told Tyler to lay out his clothes for the next day and this is what he did.  You do not understand how proud this makes me!!  Attention to detail, organized, and a planner...just like his Mom!! :)

Meet Moody, I mean, Morgan :) Our expressive little two year old who is not shy to share her opinion.

I ADORE this picture of Megan, doing what she does best in front of her mirror while her adoring baby brother admires her from bellow. <3 p="">

Megan's friend Sylvia from preschool last year had a birthday party at a local outdoor waterpark.  Tyler got to come along and they had a blast!

 

Megan's class was full of little blond haired girls last year...its a shame that they had to split up this year! :(

 Megan, our little bike ridin' fool :) 

 Yep, Ryan crawled over to Tyler in the cozy coupe, stood up and proceeded to push him over. :) Yes, Tyler exaggerated it, but seriously, not that much...Ryan is a beast.

Already dreaded the snow coming all too soon...we so enjoyed our summer!!

The Ryan Saga

It's no secret to those closest to Ryan that he has allergies. Most of his infancy involved him being covered with some sort of rash or having stomach issues.  As long as he got only his special milk and nothing else, his skin was soft and flawless. At around 11 months, he went back to the allergist to see if he had grown out of any of his allergies.  It was after that appointment that we were going to start encouraging him to have more solids.  We were scared to try before hand for fear that he would just become allergic to something else and decided to wait to let his gut and immune system mature a bit. The pediatrician didn't like the fact that he was taking 40oz of milk a day but he was healthy and growing perfectly and so he couldn't yell at us too much. :P  

The appointment with the allergist with anything but encouraging. Not only had his peanut allergy gotten worse, he had developed an egg allergy as well. Also, even though the allergist said that he had outgrown his dairy allergy, it took all of a couple days of giving him dairy for us to realize that in fact, he had not outgrown the allergy/sensitivity. So, much to our dismay, starting Ryan on solids was going to be more challenging. To make a long story short though, waiting until 11 months to start him on solids was pretty much the best thing ever. Not only did we totally skip the baby food stage, which neither Tim or I like at all, he has an absolute LOVE for food that none of the others have that I am pretty sure is directly a result of the delayed start. He is eating healthier than anyone else in the family (basically a paleo diet minus eggs) and continues to grow and develop so much! 

To give you an idea on how bad that peanut allergy is though, check out that hive on the center of his back!

The bottom left is the Egg and the top left is the control test. 

This is what happens when he is simply in the same room as peanut butter...

Still our happy boy and despite his issues, we'd do it all again in a heartbeat! 

We are being as strict as possible with his diet and giving him probiotics and bone broth and just doing the best we can to try to heal his gut so that he can hopefully grow out of these allergies!  That peanut allergy is a little too scary for Mommy's liking!

In other news, Ryan also had a urinary tract infection a couple months ago which is really abnormal for circumsized boys. Because of the abnormality, he had to have a kidney ultrasound.  The ultrasound revealed that one of his kidneys is smaller than the other (some variance is normal, but his is more than the average) and he also has bladder diverticulum (pouches in the wall of the bladder).  Both of his issues may be congenital (born with it) but they also could have been a result of urinary reflux so he had to go for more testing.  To put it lightly, that testing was NOT fun, though, Ryan did really well. The good news is, he does not have urinary reflux. We have yet to get in to the urologist (he actually has an appointment this week) to ask about the diverticulum and whether or not that is anything concerning and as far as the kidney goes, he will just have to have follow up ultrasounds to ensure that the smaller kidney is growing and functioning properly as he grows. 

I could continue on and on with the issues Ryan has had, including not walking until after we took him to the chiropractor where we found out that his hip was "out", but basically, the Ryan saga continues. We are so loving being his Mommy and Daddy though and watching him fill his spot as baby of the family. We do look forward to the day when we can say that all of this is behind us, but for now, we are embracing him for all that he is!