Pretty sure I couldn't be more proud of my sister than I am at this moment. She has finally taken the advice of MANY people and is going to try her hand at writing. She has been accepted to write for the St. Paul Examiner. Please make sure to visit her column to see what interesting things she has to write about.

http://www.examiner.com/x-33356-St-Paul-Best-Friends-Examiner

Oh yeah, her first article hasn't been published yet so there may not be anything but her picture and a link to her bio when you click, but I was so excited about it I wanted to brag in advance. Keep checking it out as I'm sure she will be very entertaining.

Saturday we loaded up the family and headed over to Target Portrait Studios for Rory's 3 month pictures and also for a family picture. Of course, it never goes according to plans. First off, Max burnt his hand grabbing my curling iron. We also didn't have as much time as I had hoped for and in our rush out the doors I forgot to put any jewelery on which means no wedding rings for Dusty or I in our family photos. Also, Rory needed to eat the minute we got to the studio so if you look closely, you will see a bottle between Dusty and I in the family photo as we spot fed between shots. But the pictures turned out great in spite of it all! Here's my little sweetheart...
Don't forget a cute shot of both my babies. Don't they look so angelic here? I don't know how they pulled that one off!

And lastly, one of the best looking families around, if I do say so myself!
I'm looking forward to getting my pictures up on the walls of our house. I mean, who doesn't like to show off their kids?

Since returning to work we've been very fortunate that both my sister and my mother-in-law have been able to help watch the kids when Dusty is working. While getting ready to leave I decided to get a picture of Grandma playing on the floor with her grand babies. They love when she comes over!

Max naturally has to run over to the camera so we took a picture together. (I can turn the screen out so he can see himself as we take the picture.) Yeah, he is pretty dang cute!

Dusty surprised us on Saturday by bringing home a Christmas tree. Naturally he insisted on screwing it into the ground so it couldn't tip over like a past Christmas, that was really upsetting! I had Max help me decorate the tree and showed him how the ornaments go on. The next time I looked, I found this big heap of ornaments on the tree; maybe he'll get it next year.

After Max went to bed I restrung the lights and hung all the ornaments so they were out of his reach. He was having too much fun pulling them off and on. Good thing Dusty screwed it into the ground because it would have tipped over that day with all the time Max spent pulling on the ornaments. The tree looks a bit funny decorated only on the top half, but at least we have a decorated tree. Plus, it is a useful visual point to have Rory look at while doing her neck exercises!

The Petersons were kind enough to lend us their Bumbo so Rory can work on strengthening her neck muscles. You can tell she still favors her left side but she is getting a lot better at turning to the right, and making her use all her neck muscles will help out with that. Thank you Petersons!

Also, as I stated in my previous post, I was able to take Rory to her second physical therapy appointment and I learned a lot while I was there. For starters, I was disappointed to hear that we could have started therapy at 2 weeks when we first told our pediatrician about our concerns. I understand that some babies may just grow out of the problem, but it is frustrating to know we could have been helping her weeks earlier.

The therapist also informed me that I should expect Rory to go back to favoring her left side with major milestones like crawling and sitting up. When she starts using new muscle groups she'll stop focusing on the neck muscles. This is just like how a talking child may stop talking as they start to walk, basically they are focused on just the one activity. It makes sense, but I didn't know to expect that so I'm glad I found out beforehand.

While therapy will eventually drop down to once a month, we should expect to do the exercises with Rory through her first year as major milestones will bring set backs and we'll have to make sure she gets back on track to using her neck to its full potential. After that we shouldn't have to worry about it. I really wasn't expecting all of this so it was a bit overwhelming at first, but I'm glad to know it all now and am thankful that she shared this with me in advance. It is a joy watching Rory as she is changing so much and the exercises just mean we'll be even more focused on her so we shouldn't miss anything!

What a horrible start of a week! Sunday I was up at 4am waiting for Rory to wake up as she usually gets up between 1 and 4am. Max woke up first, at 6am, which was really exciting but would have been better had I slept. Later that day, I had a little bleach incident which resulted in getting both bleach on Max's sleeve and also on the bathroom rug. Luckily both were small spots and not very noticeable but that all happened by 11am! The rest of the day was at least uneventful.

Sunday night Rory was up at 2am, Max was crying at 4am, and then Rory was up again at 5:30am! Thankfully Grandma came over to our house to watch the kids as I was far to exhausted to try to get them dressed and out of the house in time for me to get to work. After work I had to jet home and grab Rory to go to her physical therapy appointment. By the time I got home, ate dinner, got the kids into bed and finished up with chores around the house it was 9pm and time for me to get to bed. (I know, early, but did I not mention the recent sleeping schedule?!)

We had another terrible night with Max up screaming at midnight, Rory up at 2am, then Max was up for the day at 5am (much to our dismay) and all his jabbering got Rory up for the day at 5:30am. I had to be out the door early to get to a doctor's appointment before work this morning and after work I'll be taking Rory to the chiropractor. (This is in hopes to prevent any more ear infections as one was more than enough for me!)

Tonight when I get home for the chiropractor Dusty will be making tacos for dinner which is one of my favorite dinners to have so here's to a more positive rest of the week! I'll post more about Rory's therapy later, that was a very informative visit.

Wednesday we headed out to Jeff and Cyd's for our monthly dinner. Chris and Jill have finally brought Brayden John into the world so we decided it would be cute to get a picture of Jeff and Cyd with their "farm babies" as I like to refer to them. From left to right we have Lyla (15 months), Max (18 months), Jeff holding Brayden (2 weeks), and Cyd holding Lorelei (2 months). Needless to say these kids are going to be growing up together and getting into lots of trouble if we continue the farm dinner tradition for years to come!

Rory and I visited with our pediatrician Thursday to check her ears now that she is off all medication and believe it or not, they were clear! Unfortunately this week Rory has become a bit crabbier so I was worried things weren't going to go well. Now I know I can associate the crabbiness not to illness but just to the fact that she is still adjusting to sleeping flat on her back in the crib instead of in her carseat or swing. It is a relief, although I wish she would adjust quicker. I really don't enjoy being up for hours in the middle of the night, especially since I've returned to working full time! Of course, she does seem to enjoy falling asleep whenever Daddy rocks her.


Max has become a toddler in just a few weeks time! He really enjoys saying "no", even when that isn't an answer to a question. Like this morning Suzanne was over to watch the kids and asked Max what type of clothes he wanted to wear today and his response, "no". It was pretty funny. He also enjoys waking up in the morning and then finding the first naughty thing he can. I'm learning to be on top of him the minute I let him out of his crib. He also is still enjoying his new trick, "the hulk", as Daddy taught him. He tenses up all his muscles and it is really funny. I snapped this great picture of him doing it after a spaghetti dinner so he is especially cute with out his shirt, a very blotchy face and drool down his front.

As I stated above, I returned to working full time this week. Since Dusty's work schedule has been so unreliable these past few months it made sense for me to move up my return date. I very much enjoy when Dusty has to be Mr. Mom so this isn't a very hard transition for me. We also are very lucky in having both my sister, Andrea, and Dusty's mom, Suzanne, to help watch the kids when Dusty does work and the kids love spending time with both of them. It's been a tough first week as there was a lot going on for us and I'm still adjusting to moving things around my work schedule, but I know it will get better as time moves on just like it did when I returned to work after Max's birth. I'm also very fortunate in having a family oriented employer which makes the transition a lot smoother!

Rory had her physical therapy evaluation on Monday. Dusty took her since I have returned to working full time so I don't have a lot of information regarding the actual visit. I wanted to offer this WebMD link for all of you that are curious about Torticollis. I think it gives helpful information in explaining the issue and why we need to stay on top of treating Rory:

http://children.webmd.com/tc/congenital-torticollis-topic-overview

I haven't actually asked our pediatrician, and I won't meet with the physical therapist until next week when I take Rory to her appointment, but I don't believe Rory has a severe case of this. She is able to turn her head to look at her right side, she just doesn't do it often or for very long.

She seems to be adjusting to the stretches. She didn't like them while Dusty was showing me what to do, but I was learning it and jerking her around so I don't blame her for being upset. Later in the evening I tried them on my own and she did just fine. I don't think they hurt her, it seems like she is more bothered by the fact that she is being pinned into one position for 30 seconds at a time. We will continue with the physical therapy (or PT for those in the know) once a week for 4 more weeks and then every other week for 4 more visits. If she adjusts well to her exercises it could drop down to once a month, so we'll continue in hopes she gets better fast!

Thank you to everyone for all your support and advice with this! It is especially nice to have a couple of you to talk to about this as you have or are also going through this with your children. I didn't even realize it was so common - its been amazing to have your advice and encouragement!

It was another beautiful stay up at my parent's lake house. Look at this sunset! I love when the clouds turn purple. Mom met me and the kids Tuesday night and we all headed up to spend the rest of the week together and to celebrate Thanksgiving. Dad and Dusty met us for Thanksgiving but then left to continue their pursuit for the big buck. (As noted in my previous post, my grandpa got said buck, but both Dusty and Dad left empty handed.) I got this very funny picture of Grandma with all her grandbabies. Don't you love how she has Rory over her shoulder and then on her lap are Max and Peanut fighting over a stuffed animal with their mouths! Max is a special little guy.

We also were able to get lots of "dimple smiles" from Rory. She has my dimples and I'm very pleased about that. I didn't get a good picture of the dimple smiles, but here she is smiling at Grandma while enjoying her bath in the kitchen sink.

We had a very nice time up there. We got to play a lot of Wii, visit with the Gazdik's on Thanksgiving, and most importantly, I got to get some extra sleep! Dusty is already busy trying to figure out the next weekend we can go back up there. Of course, he's hoping for a little ice to squeeze some fishing in too.