One Year Doctor Appointment

Falyn had her one year appointment yesterday. She is now 29″ long and weights 20 lbs 14 oz. She didn’t gain much weight in the last two months due to being so sick with the rotavirus and barely eating for over a week. Dr. Chang said that Falyn is doing great. She recommended that we get her eating the same food we are eating. Falyn, however, has other ideas and doesn’t much like the texture the regular food. We’ll keep working on it and keep giving her baby food too till she starts eating enough of the regular food. Falyn is up to about 3 steps at a time now and starting to do the steps on her own to get between short spaces. Dr. Chang said she wil likely be walking all the time in the next month or so. Falyn got two immunizations, one for chicken pox and the other for MMR. She ended up with a high fever yesterday after the shots and still has one today. Hopefully she will be feeling better tomorrow.

Building Plans Approved!

I just got a call from the city planning department letting us know that our builing plans have been approved and that we could come down and pick them up. The next step will be to get the permits and start demo. I have to call the contractor and see how his wife’s recovery from knee replacement surgery is coming so we can set a date to start the demo.

Happy Birthday Falyn!

It’s hard to believe that you are already a year old! The past year has gone by so quickly and you have grown so much. You are such a blessing to our family and are adored and loved by all.

Since I never wrote up your birth story, I think now would be a good time to do that. Your birth was scheduled for 2:30 pm on Tuesday February 21, 2006. We had to call the hospital earlier to make sure that they weren’t too busy and we were still going to be on for that time. After a bit of a delay, we found out that it was on and headed off to the hospital. Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Ron came over to watch your brothers and sisters. We got to the hospital and got checked in. The nursed got me ready for surgery and then we headed off to the operating room. You were delivered by Dr. Illeck at 2:36 pm. You weighed 8 lbs 7 oz and was 19 3/4″ long. You would have been born earlier, but they had to wait for a pediatric doctor to arrive before delivering you. Here’s a picture of me holding you in the operating room right after you were born.

Soon after that, they moved you to the recovery room. Daddy went with you while the doctors finished the surgery on me. After that I joined you in the recovery room. Here’s a picture of you in the recovery room.

Once you and I were stable, they moved us up to our room. Look at the great view we had.

A few hours later, you had your first bath.

We found out that you had A+ blood type, which meant that you were at a high risk of ABO blood incompatibility jaundice. You did get jaundice and be treated with phototherapy. You were placed in this isolate under the lights when you were a day old.

We were discharged from the hospital when you were four days old. This was your first car ride.

The first week at home, you still had to be on the billirubin lights.

Falyn’s First Birthday Party


We had Falyn’s first birthday party yesterday. Since we call Falyn our little princess, we had a fairy princess theme for the party. We set up a crown/tiara craft for the kids. They all had a lot of fun doing it. For the most party, Falyn had a fun at her party. She was a bit over whelmed at times with all the attention and people. She was not at all into her cake. She tasted the icing a bit then got upset with it being all over her hands. She fell asleep around present time, so we let the other kids at the party take turns opening her presents. She woke up right afterwards and fun playing with her new toys. Overall the party was a great success with everyone having a nice time.

February Cotillion


Kayli had her February cotillion last night. They learned a new dance – the waltz. It was really funny to watch the boys try this dance. They have to put their hands in the middle of the girls back. It was clear that they didn’t really want to be doing touching the girls backs. They did get used to the new dance position pretty quickly though. After the cotillion, we went out to dinner at Ruby’s with Kayli’s friend Dana, her mom and her brother. A nice time was had by all.

First Steps

I’ve been trying for a while to get Falyn to take steps on her own. She will walk if you are holding on to her hands or pushing her walking toy, but won’t do it on her own. I finally got her to take one step to me today. I got her to do it a few times and once she even did two. She can stand really well and even get herself to a standing position on her own in the middle of the floor. But she is very cautious when it comes to walking. She could do it if she tried, but she just doesn’t want to do it.

Whale Watching Cruise


This morning we went on a whale watching cruise. Dan and I took Talia and Kayli with us on the cruise and left the rest of the children at home with Dan’s parents. We all had a great time! We left out of a harbor in Long Beach. We went on a Harbor Breeze Cruise. The cruise was scheduled to last 2 to 2 1/2 hours. When we hit the 2 hour mark and still hadn’t sighted any whales, I thought that we wouldn’t be seeing any on this cruise. But thanks to a very determined captain, we ended up seeing two grey whales.

It was so interesting to watch them. The would come up to the surface and clear out their blow holes. Like this:

Then stay at the surface for a few minutes. Then they would dive back down and if you were lucky, you got to see their tale.

We also saw dolphins

Sea lions

and Pelicans.

Closed on the loan!

We closed today on the loan for our addition/remodel project. We should have the check sometime next week. We got an awesome rate thanks to Quicken Loans. They gave us a rate a 1% less than the next closes quote and over 2% less than the rates some of the other places were quoting. If you need a 2nd mortgage, I highly recommend going with them!