Milestones vs set backs

I haven't really given an update on Emmett since turning the big boy 1. He truly has done some amazing things. We have experienced tender mercies from the Lord. Emmett was trying to roll at Thanksgiving and truly mastered it a couple weeks into December. When Jill our therapist was evaluating him, he still was only doing things of a 7 month old. I guess that offended Emmett because within the month of December to a little after New Years, Emmett has mastered pushing himself up off the floor to a sitting position and crawling. He is funny to watch when we crawls. He bounces with both knees and his bum goes in the air and then he takes off like a flash, almost in a run. It's the cutest thing. Now that he has figured out that he can travel, he is all over the place and into everything.

The truly amazing thing to me is the way he maneuvers his arms to be able to do the different tasks. I thought he might struggle with crawling due to putting pressure on his arms, but he doesn't. I find myself watching him as he sits and watches himself move his arms back and forth. It's hard to explain, but its almost like he is trying to figure out how to move his shoulders in different manners to manipulate his arms and wrists to move in different directions. It is so fascinating to me.

The Lord has truly blessed us. We are slowing our pace some to take in the most amazing developments of our children. Little things that would have passed us by, we are now paying attention to not with just Emmett, but Garhett, Trent, and Paige.

Along with great milestones comes little set backs. At Emmett's one year well check, we found that he had only gained 2 ounces from his last appointment. That pains me - I so wanted him to be 20 pounds and moving up the growth chart. But he didn't make it, he was 18 pounds 9 ounces; which puts him in the 3rd% for weight. At first our pediatrician wasn't concerned about his weight gain (or lack of), but then she could see how concerned I was (or maybe hear it in my tone of questioning):O). So she decided to send us to a nutritionist. We see her this week, it will be interesting to see what she has to say. Increase his food intake, which is good thought, but kind of hard to practice. Why? Because Emmett chokes on everything. His mouth is so tight that his tongue doesn't move side to side very well to pass the food around. Instead, Emmett prefers to bite and swallow. Hence the second physical therapist that we see weekly. She works solely on Emmett's head, neck, and mouth.

After talking with our service coordinator about Emmett seeing a nutritionist, she informed me that we got approval for a developmental and a feeding therapist. YEA!!! Really???? That means we are up to 5 therapists a week, some come to our home and some we travel to see. How blessed we are to have been put in touch with such a great program that offers all different types of therapists for our son. These people have done miraculous work with Emmett, and I am truly grateful for each of them. So I am expecting some great things from Emmett within the next month or so - more milestones met.

We kind of settled into a routine the past month with Emmett bi-passing one surgery for the moment. It was nice to not feel like I was running as much as I was. But that was short lived, Emmett has some big doctor appointments coming up. From now until mid-April he will be seeing several different specialists and having surgery. Then to wrap it up, we'll make another drive to Utah for his second sleep study which will determine if bi-passing the surgery will happen again or if it will be inevitable. Emmett will be fine and will continue to be a strong boy who meets his milestones at his own pace. He wouldn't be a Morgan if it was any other way!!!

Because every post should have a picture, here is a picture of Emmett experimenting with crawling.

The Princess Party

HEAR YE! HEAR YE!

Her Majesty, Princess Paige
Of the house of Morgan
Requires your presence
At the celebration
Of the 4th year of her birth
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(The Palace)














Her Majesty Princess Paige and the Queen!



The Royal Court arriving:
Aubrey T. and Abby H.











Zoey F.


Alayna R.











The Royal Court:










Gowns, Crowns, Wands and Mirrors too,
Nothing short of a Royal celebration will do!!













A special thanks goes to my mom for all the help with decorating the house for the party. I couldn't have pulled off such a well decorated party without you! Your the best grandma and mom a PRINCESS could ask for! A great big THANKYOU to my awesome hubby for taking all the pictures (even though there were a lot of eye rolling at your type A wife as she decorated). A huge thanks to my great friend Deidra for helping keep the girls entertained through each station and painting their nails. Today was a great day for Paige and it gave me great joy to see our daughter so happy.

Paige received a Princess beauty set as one of her gifts and both she and her dad were excited. Why? Well because Scott loves to have Paige comb through his hair, like his grandma did when he was a child. Paige loves to "style" dad's hair. So tonight she pulled out the round brush and hair dryer that was in her set and while Scott sat on the couch Paige combed through his hair.

January 7th - Happy Birthday Paige!

Today is Paige's birthday. Paige is 4!! She was the line leader at preschool, and that means she gets to bring snack and do share day. When she stepped into the preschool room this afternoon, she flung her arms out and in her own Paige way she announced, "It's my BIRTHDAY!!" Her teacher came running up to her and said, "I know! Happy Birthday Paige!".

Paige wore this darling outfit that Grammy (Scott's mom) gave to her. A cute skirt and an adorable red sweater. Tonight we opened presents before we took the family out to Paige's birthday dinner. Paige got a Sleeping Beauty dress up dress, a Sleeping Beauty Barbie, and a shiny new pink and purple Barbie bike with a matching helmet. She was so excited to get all of her gifts. After presents we went to McGrath's Fish House for dinner. Paige was thrilled to put the fish hat on and have us sing happy birthday to her. On Saturday, Paige will have her friend party.

Santa Cruz and Hollister, California

So another day on our quick nostalgic vacation to California. Today we are heading over to the beach, Santa Cruz to be exact. But before we get to the boardwalk, we stop in Capitola. This is a special place to Scott and I for many reason, but the most important one is; this is the place where Scott proposed to me almost 14 years ago. We didn't follow the normal dating time frame to marriage. We dated 2 1/2 years before getting engaged and then were only engaged for 7 weeks before getting married.














After Capitola, we drove over to the boardwalk in Santa Cruz. We let the kids choose which coasters they wanted to ride. Garhett and Scott rode The Giant Dipper, which is one of the last wood roller coasters. I was surprised that Garhett wanted to ride this coaster because he isn't usually our fear seeker (or coaster lover). He had a blast on it, even though he rode the ride with his eyes closed the whole time, he says. When the kids were done riding coasters they were begging to go out to the beach. So away we went. We collected shells as we walked along the beach. The boys chased the seagulls. I thought it would be fun to write our name in the sand and then have a family picture taken. So I wrote our name and Scott found this nice couple to come and take our picture. One picture is showing our name and a great back drop of the boardwalk and the other picture was edited to show our family a little closer. We had a great day at the beach. There is something about the ocean air and walking on the beach. Oh how I miss it!! When Scott and I were first married (well probably up until we moved out of CA 6 years ago), we would spend the weekend or at least Sunday afternoon walking on the beach or sitting listening to the waves crash.











As we wrapped up our time at beach and headed to our next stop, we drove through Watsonville (not an exciting town), but a place where the best strawberries are grown - Driscol Strawberries.

Our next stop was Hollister, CA. Again, not an exciting town, but this is the place where Scott and I bought our first home. We received the keys to our first 1600 sq foot home on our 2nd year anniversary. We put a pool in the backyard and had the most beautiful palm trees lining the fence around the pool. We had a cactus garden in the front yard. We loved this home. We drove the kids by our home and told Garhett that he lived in this house until he was 3 years old. Scott and I would get up at 4:30am to leave the house at 5:30am, drop Scott off at the office at 6:50am, drop Garhett off at daycare at 7:00am, and then I would get to the office by 7:30am. I would get off at 4:00pm and make the rounds to pick up Garhett and Scott and then we would join the traffic on our 2 hour commute home. Oh the days. We talk about it today wondering how the heck we did it, but you do what you gotta do to get by.














We finished our nostalgic tour and headed back to Scott's parents to sleep. Today was new years eve and I think the kids and I were in bed asleep by 9:30pm. Oh well - Happy New Year! Scott kept an eye on the weather for our travel back to Idaho and decided that we needed to head home a day earlier than planned because a big storm was coming. So the next morning we left and a good thing we did cause the day after the freeway over the pass closed due to snow. Phew!

We are back in Boise and getting everyone ready to get back to school and work. Even though this track break was one of the longer ones, we spent a lot of "family" time together and made lots of memories. I enjoyed this break with my kids, but am going to enjoy getting back to schedule and a routine.

San Francisco

We spent the day in San Francisco. I love the city, I have spent a lot of time here shopping at the great stores and eating at the fantastic restaurants. So it was fun driving and walking around again, it's been awhile.




First, we took the kids to Pier 39 and went to the Aquarium at the Bay. After the aquarium we walked around the Pier and down the wharf.



















We stopped at a shop that had a lot of crazy hats. Everyone picked out their favorite hat to try on. We didn't realize that Garhett's first choice was a "beer hat"

















Second, we took the kids to the Exploritorium(http://www.exploratorium.edu/). The kids had such a great time going from station to station creating bubbles, making static electricity, making shadows, etc. My favorite station as a kid and I have to say even as an adult is the shadow wall. I was so excited to see that they still had the wall after all these years. How it works, everyone stands by this wall that has different colors shining on it, a timer starts counting down, then everyone strikes a pose, a flash goes off, and then your shadow is on the wall in the pose that you struck. It's so much fun! The flash goes off every 30 seconds. We spent 3 or so hours in the exploratorium.























Before leaving the city, Scott some amazing pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.














It was a long day in the city and we still had a 2 hour drive south to get to Scott's childhood best friend's house. We spent an hour or so visiting with friends before we got in the car and drove another hour south to our hotel. Next post will be another day, another city, and more fun!!!