Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Picture Update

The week with my sister and her boys was great! Here are some pics of what we did.




Here is my little girl who looks even less little than before. We picked up her glasses this morning and thankfully she loves them. I was expecting a fight from the beginning, but she looked in the mirror and said, "Cute!". What a blessing! Amidst some chaos going on in our lives right now, this is one tender mercy for which we are so grateful.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Eye Update

Carli had her appointment this morning. It actually went pretty well as far as her behavior. She is a stubborn little one though. Once she knew they kept trying to look at her left eye, she put her hand over it the whole time. The doctors were all really great with her and you can tell they love kids. It was a fun clinic with tons of great toys, things to do in the waiting room, great ways to get a little one to do what they want her to do, and plenty of kids with glasses on - of which Carli will now be one.

So, after several tests and eye drops, the ophthamologist determined that Carli's left eye is extremely far-sighted while her right eye is perfectly normal. He believes this has caused her left eye to become lazy as well as crossed. So, we are getting her glasses immediately. In a few months we will begin patching her right eye (the good one) to force her left eye to work (fixing the laziness) and to focus (fixing the cross). Hopefully, it will also improve the vision in that eye. We will now be at the ophthamologist around once a month where he will determine how the patch is improving the left eye and if it is affecting the right eye negatively and we will adjust from there. Down the road, if the glasses and patch have not cured the crossed-eye, we will consider surgery.

Now, this is all pretty much what I anticipated. But, I hadn't taken the time to really think about what it means. First, I have to figure out ways to get my 18-month-old to keep her glasses on. ??? How am I going to do that? Then I have to make her keep a patch on all day everyday for who knows how long - could be years. And she'll have to wear glasses/contacts for the rest of her life. I realize that's the way it is for anyone who wears glasses, but I didn't think about it starting now for my 18-month-old daughter. :( It just makes me kind of sad.

So, any words of advice? I'm sure I'll have plenty to say about this over the coming months.

Monday, June 08, 2009

Do Re Mi


Here's Carli singing her new favorite. OK, it's mostly me singing her new favorite, but try to ignore that part and focus on her. Also, please excuse the poor camera work, it's tough to keep up with an 18-month old.

In many ways we're looking forward to Carli's eye appointment this week. We're really hoping the ophthalmologist will be able to find out what's wrong and find a solution. We are nervous about the appointment itself - it's two hours long and Carli's not fond of being poked and prodded - who is? We're also nervous about what the solution might be. We'll update once we know what's going on.

I'm looking forward to my week with Callie and her family. It will be so much fun to get together and for Carli to have playmates.

Also, I am in the process of trying to become a piano and cello teacher. I have printed off some flyers which I have already sent to the local school music teachers and which I plan on passing out in our neighborhood, putting up at the library and giving to other friends. I was feeling like this is a great time for me to do this (partly since my other job is no longer convenient) and so I got on Craigslist to look for beginner piano books to use in my teaching. Wouldn't you know it that someone who works at Logan's company was selling the entire Alfred's library for $20. Coincidence? I think not. Anyway, anyone have any suggestions how to build clientele? I'd love your advice if you have it.

Well, I hope you're all enjoying summer!

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Lovin' Life

You know, I never thought summer would be nearly as exciting once I was no longer a student or a teacher. I was wrong. We've been having fun the last couple of weeks and are looking forward to quite a few fun things over the next few months.

Here is our first swimming excursion of the year in our friend's backyard. Carli was in heaven. And I have never seen a cuter girl in a swimsuit! I meant to get a picture of her in her swimsuit, but I guess we'll just have to go again.

We got together with Ben and Rachel and the girls and had fun hanging out outside and playing at the park. Our neighbors gave us their "old" porch swing, so the girls had fun swinging together. Haven loved getting Carli to mimic her. My new favorites of Carli's words are "I love you too", "up, up and away" and "bless you". She is getting so good at singing and sings all the words of "Happy Birthday", - we're not really sure where she picked it up, but I guess it's a pretty easy one to remember - "Hello, Hello" and a song called "Bouncy Ball", to which she even adds the "whoa's".


Bedtime has been a little crazy lately. I blame it on summer since Carli doesn't seem to want to sleep when it's still light, even though she's really tired. So, most nights she lays in her crib singing and wiggling until she finally falls asleep. The picture doesn't really capture it all that well, but she's upside down on top of her blankets. Yes, she still needs to be in a fuzzy sleeper with blankets. We still have to heat our house at night, if you can believe it. But, you can't ask for better weather during the day - highs of low 70s and sunny. I love this time of year!Here are the flowers in my front yard. We didn't plant any of these, but we've been happy to see them come up the last couple of years. According to our friend the squiggly looking plant is called a contorted ficus (I think) and could be worth money. It's actually dead, that's a vine growing around it, so I'm pretty sure we couldn't get anything for it. Anyway, I'd love to get into gardening, so give me your suggestions!
Next week Carli has a 2-hour appointment with a pediatric opthamologist. You may have noticed in some of her pictures that her left eye has a "tracking issue". According to the pediatrician it is probably also accompanied by a vision problem. Hopefully they can figure everything out next week and hopefully the solution does not involve a patch because I don't see that working very well.

The next week I'm off to visit my sister and her family for a week. I'm excited for that, especially for Carli to get to play with her cousins. I am sad to leave Logan though - a week is a long time without him.

The week after that is our Stake Youth Conference (for which I finally got the service figured out). So, June is pretty full, and I'm happy about that. After winters full of not much but cold and snow, it's great to fill up the summers with lots of fun activities.