We have a tooth!

Over the last few days I have been able to feel a little sharp tooth popping through Grace's gums. She is finally getting a tooth. She hasn't seemed terribly fussy considering how sharp that little tooth is. I have been trying to get a picture, but she likes to stick her tongue out when I try to, so I keep trying to catch a "toothy" grin. I will get one one of these days!

She is now 16 pounds 6.5 oz per our visit last week to the doctor for a follow up ear check after her ear infection. Her ears looked good and she is healthy. We go back next month for her 9 month check up.

Last night I gave her some avocado. She seemed to like it. She is usually pretty funny about green food - she will eat at daycare, but not usually at home, but she ate it up. She is eating more and more different foods and I am slowly getting braver about giving her food that isn't pureed. She has now had banana, noodles, puffs and soon cheerios.

Otherwise life in the Olson house is pretty quiet and normal. I will try and post some new pictures soon and a video or two as soon as I get them loaded to the computer.

The rest of this week is pretty quiet and then we will head to Fort Collins for Easter to be with Grandma G. I have Grace's dress and tights all ready. I just need to put together her basket. Happy early Easter!

Happy 8 month birthday!

Busy, busy.

It has been a busy couple of weeks around here. Grace has gotten to do and experience a lot of new things lately.  She has tried some banana pieces. They are a bit hard to pick up due to how slippery they are, so she prefers a big junk she can hold on too now.

She used Winnie the Pooh as a pillow.

Grace wore her new sun hat for the first time.

Tried out her new duck tub.

I'm ready mom! 

Celebrated St. Patrick's Day by falling asleep in her car seat for the first time and visited White Fence Farm with Uncle Mark and his family. Grace had fun checking out the animals, riding on a John Deere Tractor with daddy and trying out a little chicken.

Who is this guy?

One of Grace's new favorite things to do is to watch the digital picture frame. She loves it and will strain to see them if you are holding her on the couch.

And look how long her hair is when wet. I am pretty sure if it were a bit thicker I could do a pony tail.

And finally just some general cuteness.

And rockin the baby Uggs after our  most recent big snowfall.

We Jinxed It...

While we had 4 wonderful, blissful nights of uninterrupted sleep, the streak ended and Grace has only slept through the night once since then. Not sure why she went from sleeping to not, but we hope she starts up again. I have a feeling it is teething due to the little white teeth we can see through her gums. Hopefully these teeth will pop through soon.

Brian put together Grace's new highchair last week and she seems to like it. Here she is enjoying her new comfy chair.

Tomorrow we will be installing Grace's new car seat. Here she is trying it out.

Today it was nice and warm out so we took Grace over to the park for her first ride in a swing. She seemed to enjoy it, but frankly I think she had more fun watching the other kids and hanging out in her stroller watching the world go by as we walked.

 

And with baseball season upon us, we put Grace in her Cubs sweat suit today. She is saying GO CUBS GO with Daddy.

Grace is sitting really well and while she does fall forward, backward and to the side, it usually doesn't phase her much.

Excuse the mess. I'm hoping to find some toy bins tomorrow around town or order some. It is amazing how many toys she has already! We will also be getting her a bigger brimmed sunhat tomorrow. With the new drops she has to have in her eye, she is more sensitive to the bright light. If there is one thing I love to do is buy little clothes for Grace which is the last thing she needs! I must refrain and buy her just a hat - lol.

And one final picture of Grace's cuteness in an outfit that I just love.

Sleeping through the night...

I am sure I will now jinx us, but Grace has slept through the night the last two nights. Last night the best by far sleeping from about 10-7. I woke up a couple of times worried about her and went and checked on her and made sure she was breathing and she was fine. The last time she did this she was only two months old and that didn't last long. We are hoping she continues to sleep so well because it was nice for us too! Maybe it is the new pajamas, maybe she is just growing up and knowing that mommy needs sleep too. Either way I love it. I found her on Thursday morning sleeping away with her butt in the air.

Last week we got a book from Aunty K - Berenstein Bears - Aunty K's favorite books while growing up. While reading to Grace she thought it was more fun to eat the book. Any and everything goes in her mouth these days. Those teeth ought to pop up anyday now.

We have been working on Grace learning how to use a cup. She loves to drink water and is somewhat getting the hang of it. Of course in the end she mostly just likes to bang the cup on her tray.

And here is just some general cuteness.

And finally I loaded the videos onto our compter. Grace's new favorite thing to do is blow raspberries - while she is eating dinner of course. I am starting to think we should wear bibs too! Hopefully this works.

Otherwise life in our world is pretty normal. We stared her eye drops and she has gotten smart already and fights me tooth and nail in the morning when I try to put the drop in. No sign that it is working yet, but hopefully it will soon and that she won't fight me so much to get it in!

This week we will work on building her highchair that Grandma G got her - thank you mom - and getting her new car seat installed in my car - hopefully it isn't to difficult.

Have a great weekend!

Eye Checkup Update

Grace saw Dr. Braverman yesterday to check on how her glasses are working out. It looks like her prescription is about right now for where it needs to be for her to see out of her right eye. Unfortunately the patching we have been doing isn't working very well mostly because Grace won't tolerate for it long. We now have to "medically patch" her. This basically means we have to put eye drops into her good eye to blur her vision to make her use (and get her brain used to) bad eye. If this doesn't work after 3 months we are looking at another surgery to move the muscle to bring her eye more center which would make her eye look more normal, but also have it be a bit easier for her brain to know to use that eye and that it can see now. After 7 months of not using it, I am not surprised that we now have to endure this adventure.

The pharmacy didn't have the drops yesterday so we will probably start this treatment either tomorrow or Saturday. Here is hoping she does okay with it and doesn't lose it too much. And that is works! I would love to not have her endure another surgery. Sadly, my mother intuition tells me this surgery will happen anyway for some reason.

Otherwise we get a break from this doctor for 3 months. I would love one whole month where she doesn't have to see any doctor, but it appears that might not happen until April since we have an appointment next month with the retina specialist again to have him check her too. Oh well - it might happen someday!

A time to be grateful.

A local radio station (Alice 105,9) we listen to does a charity event called 36 hours for kids every year.  This event benefits the Children's Hospital here in Denver - where Grace had her 5 surgeries and we still go to for clinic visits. Last year we decided to donate as hopefully gaining good karma that our child would never have to go there - unfortunately she has.  Brian & I feel very grateful to have a place that is as renowned as the Children's Hospital to take Grace too for treatment to get sight out of her right eye. Her treatment there has been phenomenal. Even when we had to spend the night with her at the hospital after the first surgery it was amazing to see the care she was getting and the concern they had for us as parents making sure we were doing okay.

For these 36 hours they are sharing different stories of children who have had care at the hospital. Many of these stories are about heart defects and cancer. It really makes you take a step back and realize that we should be thankful for our healthy child and that thankfully Grace hasn't been there for anything life threatening.

If you have some spare money or want to make a tax deductible donation we would love it. You can even do it in honor of Grace. This is one non-profit we will stand behind for a long time. We joke that we donate all the time with our monthly payment plan check, but really we happily donated some money this year and are grateful we can due to both of us still having our jobs.

Learn why this is a great organization. Why give?

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