Lots has been happening in the Lance house! We did some remodeling in our kitchen, had a laundry room put in on the second floor, added a fence, painted the family room, removed flooring in the family room, had carpet put in to the family room, and bought some new furniture. We have SO much more to do, but at least the kitchen and family room are almost done. We still have to lay the rest of the kitchen floor (had to take it up after removing half the island) and paint the cabinets (we're painting them a vintage white/cream, and pairing them with some black/bronze fixtures). We also need to get a new fixture to go over the island and also pick out a kitchen table. But for those curious, here is the before and after so far...
Before
After
Last week we finally replaced our family room floor with some amazingly soft carpet, and the kids are loving it. After the installer left and Elias came into the room, the first thing he did was throw himself on the floor and roll around. Before we had some wood laminate that extended all the way from the kitchen through the family room. Call me crazy, but I'm probably one of the only people out there that would prefer carpet in my family room than wood. Its just better for us right now. It was impossible for Gavin to move on that floor.
Speaking of Gavin, that little chunk is now 7 1/2 months old and SO darn heavy!! He's over 20 lbs now, and is just one solid little boy! He went through a couple weeks of just whining a lot (pretty sure it was all teething related), but he's yet to pop a tooth, and they don't feel right at the edge of his gums yet either. But ever since we got the carpet and he's figured out how to move around to where he wants to go, he's back to his pleasent, cheerful self. He's eating a jar of baby food every day now, and still taking 6oz of formula every 4-5 hours or so. He's sleeping like a champ, from 9pm-8:30am. He is such a smiley kiddo its almost unreal! No kidding, every where we go, I'm stopped by people who want to talk and smile with Gavin, because he just busts out the biggest smile whenever anyone smiles and talks to him. We can already tell he's gonna be a hit with the ladies...
In January we had an appointment at Shriners for both Gavin and Elias. Lets start with Gavin...
Gavin's checkup for his feet went fantastic! His feet at still corrected and holding steady! He got a new pair of ponsetti boots to wear at night to ensure they stay corrected, but other than that, his feet are done! Dr. Z looked at his hands again, and see's a lot of improvement since his last visit in September! The splints that were made for his hands back in September just didn't work for him. He kept finding ways to slide out of them, plus the fact that for September and October he was still being swaddled, and when we'd wrap him up, the splints would dig into his belly. So he never wore them. I wasn't too worried about it thought because he exercised his hands on his own all the time. He was constantly opening and closing them to grab something, and we could see his fingers were continually getting looser and looser. So Dr. Z said his on his right hand, his fingers are pretty loose and with therapy, they should loosen up even more, and at this point it doesn't look like he'll need any corrective surgery for that hand. Hooray! Then on the left hand, his fingers are also looking much better, but there's still some tightness in the tendons on his thumb and middle finger. He thinks he'll probably need some sort of fusion near his thumb to bring it out to the correct position (similar to Elias' situation), but that wouldn't happen for probably another year. Despite hit setback with his fingers though, he's adapting very well and learning how to grab and hold onto things better and better. Its just a matter of spreading his fingers open wide enough somethings to hold onto bigger objects, such as a ball or a bottle. But even just in the past few days, he's realized if he keeps his hands steady and together while holding something, he won't drop it. Its amazing how kids adapt!
First time in a high chair.
Elias' appointment at Shriner's was a little more difficult. Like I've written before, his left foot is just really stubborn and resistant to correction. He has no plantar flexion (can't flex his foot downwards). And the inside of his foot just really wants to turn upwards (causing him to walk on the outside of his foot). So, it was determined that he needed another series of castings to try and get the foot flat and down. Over the past 4 weeks, he's had 3 casts. Each time he gets one its an absolutely terrifying experience for him. He is SO scared of the saw that cuts it off, he cries so hard that he breaks a ton of capillaries on his face. At least he looks cute with freckles :)
Daddy drawing drums so Elias can drum with his pencils in the waiting room.
Going about life as usual...climbing on everything!
Patiently waiting and play in the waiting room.
But this past Monday when we went for a cast change, Dr. VB looked at his foot and gave us the best news...
His foot is corrected!!!!!
We were so thrilled. We were sent over to O&P for Elias to be measured for 2 new braces, and then back to the doctor for another cast. Even though his foot is corrected, he has to stay in a cast until his braces come in, that way we don't lose any progress. BUT that's okay, because the equally awesome news we got was that he can now wear a walking cast!!! Thank you Lord! He learned to walk on his old casts, but it he couldn't walk like that for very long beacause it was such an awkward angle and it sure looked uncomfortable to us! Here's a video of him walking on his non-walking cast...
He's basically been confined to the family room and our house the past month since he was so restricted, but now that he can walk, you better believe we're taking lots of trips to those indoor playgrounds at the mall. He deserves it :) Here's a few snapshots from the past month and a half. Some pre-cast and some while he was casted.
He LOVES drums.
We should start saving for sound proofing the basement....
Elias is running away. Callie wants what Elias has. Kevin knows what Callie is about to do.
Our next seminarian?! Maybe we should conquer preschool first :)
They like each other...most of the time. Unless Gavin wants Elias' goldfish.
Bedtime fun with daddy is a highlight of our day.
In other news, Kevin's job is going great. He's been keeping busy with lots of fundraisers and retreats. Callie completed a 6 week obedience course and passed! She did really well, and we learned some really great strategies to help us with her. We're looking at signing her up for another course, and we're hoping that once shes listening really well, Kevin can maybe take some agility classes with her.
We've been enjoying seeing our family so much more, and the kids getting to know all their grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. One of the best things was the other night when saying prayers with Elias, we said "And thank you for..." and he listed every single family member. All of them.
Celebrating Pap-Pap's birthday!
Gavin Richard is named after his Great-Pap, Donald Richard.
December has been a very busy month for the Lance Party of 4. At the end of November and into December, Elias had walking pneumonia. The doctor said it was the best (meaning worst) combo of crackling and wheezing she'd ever heard in lungs. Even though it sounded pretty bad, he at not point had trouble breathing, so that was good. We've been pretty fortunate in that he's good at taking medication, but the nebulizer was a whole other ball game. We'd have to hold him down as he just screamed for 5 minutes. After a couple days he came around and understood that its medicine and wouldn't hurt him. Plus, he got to watch Disney Junior on the IPad, so that helped :)
Kevin is loving his new job here in York as the Youth Pastor at Zion UMC. The church is large congregation, and they have really big outreach programs. One of them is the annual Breakfast with Santa. Gavin loved Santa! So much in fact that he tried to eat his beard. Elias, on the other hand, only wanted to give Santa a high five. He was not a fan.
We got Gavin a new bath seat so he could take baths with his big brother. As you can see, Gavin loves bath time now that he can sit up and see what's going on.
Elias being sick through off my plan for getting our family photos taken, which in turn meant delaying my Christmas cards. We finally went and hard some pictures taken though, and we're just happy we got a few good shots of the kids. Elias was great for the first 10 minutes, but then all he wanted to do was play with the candy canes on the Christmas tree. Fortunately the photographer was great and caught all his happy moments. I literally teared up when she showed us the pictures because I thought they all were going to turn out terrible. Next Spring/Summer we're going to get some really nice outdoor family portraits, but until then, Picture People will do.
Then we made the biggest purchase of our lives thus far...we bought our house! We settled on Friday December 21st, and moved that same day thanks to our amazing family and friends. My sister in law Abby and Grandma were a huge help and blessing with watching the kids while we were at settlement and taking the first trip with the truck down to the house. We thought it would take 2 days to move, but we had SO much help from people from our church that both truck loads were unloaded and placed into the correct room in the house by that night! My family came the next day and helped unpack the kitchen and kids bedrooms.
That night, we went out to find a Christmas tree. We went to two places that were already closed, and in a last ditch effort, drove by Walmart to see if they had any. We didn't see any but Kevin insisted on running in. Here there literally were 5 trees left out front, and after smacking a couple against the ground and watching the needless fall like crazy, one tree didn't look to shabby. We strapped that sucker on, and went to target for some lights. Of course, all the have left are those LED lights that we really don't like. We wanted just plain white lights. Target was sold out. I called 4 different places and finally ACMoore said they had a handful left. They were closing in 15 minutes, so we had to get there quick. I got on the highway and stepped on it, only to then hear screeching on the roof...the Christmas tree! I totally forgot it was up there, look in my mirror, and its dangling off the back of the car. Whoops. A few quick adjustments and off we were to get the lights. We set it all up that night, aside from the decorations. Then of course I realized I never got Gavin a stocking so the next day I made a mad dash to Target. They had some stocking holders that matched ours too, so we made out pretty well for being so last minute with all our decorating!
Christmas was filled with lots of family time, starting on Sunday afternoon. We had lunch at Grandma and PapPaps, with Grandma's yummy shrimp and Andrews delicious French Onion soup. Then Christmas eve morning we spent with Kevin's dad's family, and Christmas day my family came over. We opened presents and then made a big dinner. In all the choas of moving I didn't have the camera for most of it, but I managed to few shots. The first 4 are of Elias trying to wink. Such a goofball.
And then Gavin turned 6 months! I forgot to post his 5 month picture, so here's both. He's so close to sitting on his own. It took him a while to figure out how to eat oatmeal, so he's getting the swing of it now. We'll introduce veggies and fruits in the next couple weeks.
We're having a few things done to the house in the next couple weeks, and once they're done and I can unpack a little more, we'll post some pictures of the house! New kitchen, new laundry room, new fence...pretty exciting things for us :)
Every time I sit down to type up a post, something happens and I can never get anything out! So I'm gonna keep this short and sweet, because I think a little boy playing on the floor on his playmat might need a diaper change...here we go!
Gavin is 5 months now, and I missed posting his 4 month picture as well as his "stats". At his check up, he was 15lbs 2oz and 24 1/4 in. long! He's a chunker for sure! He's almost grown out of his 3-6mo clothes, and is fitting more snuggly every day into 6mo clothes. He is SO alert and active, not to mention happy 95% of time! He's rolling from his tummy to back pretty seamlessly now, and has rolled from back to tummy once or twice. Here's our little butterball's 4 month photos!
I haven't had a chance to upload his 5 month photo, but I do have a little video! As far as his stats go, since he doesn't have another doctors appointment until 6 months, I really think he's probably almost 16lbs. He's eating 10-12 oz before bed now, which I'm sure contributes to his (generally) blissful 10 hours of sleep every night. He's sitting up on his own for a good 20 seconds on his own, so I'm thinking maybe by Christmas he'll be able to sit up pretty well. He's starting to eat some baby cereal, although just like his brother did, he only likes it when flavored with some fruit.
In other news, we made an offer on a house we love and they accepted! It was a nerve-wracking few days while we waited to hear back because there was another offer we were up against, but ours was stronger, so they accepted our offer! We've submitted all the paperwork and documentation needed, and now we're just waiting for the underwriters approval to move forward with settlement!
The house is perfect for us. Its about 2400 sq feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, master bathroom with jacuazzi tub, huge master closet, finished basement, perfectly square backyard, generous sized kitchen with lots of counter space, an office, dining room, and nice big family room with a beautiful brick fireplace. There's space above the family room on the second floor that at the moment is basically a huge unfinished storage room, but if we end up needing another bedroom, it would pretty easily be made into a 4th bedroom, so there's definitely space to grow in this house! The kitchen cabinets are nice and new, but we need to replace the laminate countertops so over Thanksgiving weekend we went to a granite showroom and picked out a beautiful slab that is now all ours and will be installed once we have the keys to the house! As soon we get the keys, we're going to get someone to come in and move the laundry from our basement to our big closet in our bedroom. The other thing we have to do right away is put in a fence, so we've been getting a few quotes from difference companies to get the best rate. We'll do some changes to the landscaping in the spring (ie: move the rose bush and take out those two bushy bright green bushes on either side of the office window and replace with some different scrubs) Our mortgage agent is pretty confident we can settle and move in by Christmas. The home inspection went superbly well, with only a few minor things needing attention, like the lock on the electrical box and a piece of siding up near the roof that blew off during the hurricane. Other than that, the house is really great shape as far as everyone can tell. The appraisal went really well as well. It appraised for a lot more than we're paying for, so that;s instant equity for us! The current owner never actually lived in this house. They bought it from a foreclosure auction and did some updating and then put it back on the market 4 months later, so its really in great shape.
Elias had a cough that turned into pneumonia over Thanksgiving, so that wasn't much fun for him. We ended up in urgent care black Friday for a few hours, then were back to our pediatrician a few days later to listen to his chest to see if he was getting any better. He didn't sound good at all, so she sent us home with a nebulizer to use 3-4 times a day. For the first day or two, Elias really fought us and screamed for the whole treatment, but then he was totally calm as long as he had his new favorite show, Imagination Movers, on the IPad to watch.
Gavin rolled over back on September 16th, but he hadn't done it again since, so I didn't really count it. Last night he rolled 3 times in a row, and more today, so I think its safe to say its official...he's rolling over!
One of the best things about living where we do is our kids beings able to play on a regular basis with their cousins. I didn't get to see my cousins much at all growing up, but when I did I never wanted to go home! Elias loves his cousin Zion, and asks for him daily, although it sounds like "Shannon" more than Zion :)
...But Mom, finger painting means dirty hands. Wipe, please?
We didn't have any paintbrushes, so we improvised with pencils.
Boys, did you miss the memo that boys=messy? Not that I'm complaining or anything...
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