Family Update

I went back and forth with what to title this blog post because I haven't updated since December and I feel there is so much I want to document with both family, Marley and Noah, etc.. so I decided that isn't enough about one of those categories to do an entire blog post, so i'll just cram jam it into one. 

We've all been surviving winter over here. I swear this winter has lasted longer, been colder, and more ugly than any other winter, but I'm really trying to see more of the beauty in life -- so i'll call this winter a 50 footer; beautiful from afar, but uglier the closer you get. I'd like to just look at a beautiful mountain range full of snow, but I don't want to walk in it, drive in it, or do anything with it, really. I'm really at the phase in life where I am ready to go on a new adventure a move out of state. Not only for the blasted air quality, but the snow. Really can't handle the snow. We've been loving our life in Daybreak. We've made so many good friends and I just can't get over the girls i've met here either. I love them all and we do so many things together. It has been a joy for me to get to this place in life where i've made these deep friendships with girls I've just met a few months ago. Relationships here up in Daybreak move real fast -- if you blink, you may just miss the opportunity :). jk jk. But in all seriousness, we've made some good friends and i'm grateful for our stage of life we are in right now. Travis and I are both working full-time; I would be lying if I didn't admit that I am struggling pretty bad with it. I'm not sure what I can call it, but i'm chalking it up to mental sanity and i'm just not quite sure if I have my full sanity at the moment. I just feel flustered and that each day i'm just crossing things off to get to the next. I'm so worried that I will one day wake up and my kids will be in high school and I will have missed them being little. I don't want to miss that. While I'm lucky enough to say that I work because I want to, not because we need the second income at all, I feel somedays I should just reduce the amount of hours I work. I think that eventually if I can, I will. I love my job, but I love being a mom more. I'm finding a hard time with the balance and while I am a very organized person, this just isn't making sense to me and maybe that is my answer. Anyway, that's where really we are at. Trying to find our normal and how we can get this two full time working parent thing down and juggling being great and involved parents to our two littles. It is a weird stage of life. So grateful to be in it, but also feeling a bit overwhelmed at all there is to do/what we want to do. This year came with a lot of goals and aspirations; one of those was to be more intentional with my time. When I'm with my kids or my husband, I want to really be with them. I've been trying to only spend 15 min on my phone a day. This has helped. Sometimes I cave and spend more, but I am trying and I do feel it is helping.

Our little Noah has had quite the hard few months. In December, he got ear tubes and an adenoidectomy. We were so thrilled that we felt this would clear up a lot of his sinus infections, pneumonia, ear infections, etc.. a while it did, there were still underlying issues that weren't being resolved that started to reappear in January (yay, just in time for our $8,000 deductible to restart, which we have met every single year since Noah has been born). Noah started to cough so bad in his sleep that he couldn't breath, he would scream in the middle of the night and tell us he needed air. It was so scary to me, so more tests came. He would get pneumonia often and had it three times within a two month period. This merited a visit to the pulmonologist, who wanted to see his lung to see what the potential problem could be. To make a really long story short, we were sent to primary children's to get a few tests done; swallow test to determine if he had a laryngeal cleft, if he has any holes or aspirations while swallowing in his esophogus, etc.. they thankfully didn't find anything worrisome. They then recommended for us to go take a sweat test which would test for cystic fibrosis. Now the news that they recommended this tortured me. I was an emotional mess. I think, like most humans, we jump to the worst case scenario when we think our child might have something wrong with them. The thought of him being diagnosed with CF shriveled up anything living inside of me. I was done. At this point in Noah's life I was exhausted for him. Being tired of going to the doctor, being tested, being on medication -- it was the last straw. Travis and I originally decided we were done and we weren't going to put him through testing anymore, but the guilt crept in and I kept thinking "what if." What if he does have it and I could have known about it and got him the help he needed sooner than later. So we tested. That 24 hour period of me waiting for results was torture. I could hardly sleep and I didn't eat much. I prayed so hard. Everything came back normal. NORMAL. I cried. It was such a relief. We have literally tested Noah so much. I promised myself that we weren't going to do anymore testing and putting him through this stuff. He bawls and it is absolutely torture every time we go to the doctor because he only associates it with pain. It breaks my heart. He has gone under anesthesia and has had more surgeries than I have in my entire 28 years of life. Please bless we are clear for at least a year. I cannot handle one more thing. We are still doing Flovent steroid through his inhaler two times a day and we do think it is helping him breathe better (he does have asthma and hoping it is just childhood asthma). He has been through so much. I love him more than I could ever express to him. Sometimes I lose my patience with him. Well, I lose my patience a lot. No matter how I treat him in a day, I always lay down at night wishing I was a better mom to him. I have a lot of guilt with how his life has gone so far and the one thing I can control is my attitude and even then, I feel out of control with his two-year-old self. I'm working on me. I need to be better. He deserves better sometimes. But I love him to the dang moon and back 100 times. Our favorite things of his lately:

- He loves "hugs and kisses." He is very vulnerable with his stuffed animals and always makes sure they know they are loved. Just the sweetest most tender thing to see.

-he hates brushing his teeth with mint toothpaste. Cries. Hates it.

-loves showering with a squirt bottle and pretending he is cleaning the shower.

-he loves watching tv shows that consist of people playing with real toys/playdough/unwrapping gifts. He is so funny.

-he loves saying "faster now." We will be walking somewhere and he will say "noah run again? noah run faster now?" or we will be driving and he will say "faster now." haha It could mean trouble in the future with driving, but he loves going hyperspeed with everything he does. 

-when he gets really excited, he pounds on his chest like a gorilla. Hilarious.

-when he doesn't want to do something, more particularly, stay in bed -- he will say "i'm sick." and just sick there. haha

-after Travis and I are done explaining something to him, he will just say "oh." or "oh!"

-if we say, okay, Noah?? he will acknowledge and say "okay mama" or "okay dada." He is very obedient.

-he loves taking a bath to "go swimming." 

-loves to play hide and seek. Will hide in his blankies in plain sight and ask for one of us to find him.

-loves to eat Marleys baby cereal bites. He will ask politely if he can have something, but if we do say no he gets upset. Almost like he thinks he asked nicely, he deserves to get the thing he is asking for.

-fully potty trained and if he has to go poop he will always tell us to "go away" so he can poop. 

-loves to put potato head accessories on his own face. He will often say "look at me mama" and he will have the mouth to a potato head in his mouth and holding the eyes to his eyes. So funny!

-loves going to the aquarium and seeing all of the fish. My mom got us an annual pass this year, so we are trying to get there when we can.

Our Marley girl. The baby who just handles our craziness with stride and always has a smile on her face. I'm waiting for her "bad period" and it hasn't hit yet. Fun fact, this week has been her first full week she has slept through the night. I've needed it too because i've been sick, but it has been heaven sent. What i'm getting to is that even though she hasn't slept through the night in 9 months, I somehow didn't care and didn't complain. I would go feed her and she would go right back down. Noah never did that. When he woke up it was and hour+ fight to get him back down. She has just been an angel and we appreciate her spirit in our home so much. Things we have loved seeing her do lately:

-she is crawling and loves gravitating towards the fireplace.

-loves to snuggle into her blankeys and even bite them (Noah does this too and we think it is so funny!)

-when she is on all fours, she will put her head through her legs upside down and just stay there in downward dog for ages. Hilarious.

-if Travis will growl at her she will try to growl back.

-when she wants to be picked up she will lay on her belly and bring up both arms and legs. We call it "surfboard." 

-she will wake up to play for an hour sometimes and then go back to sleep.

-she says "dada" all the time, although i'm not sure she really knows she is saying "dada" or what it means.

-she looks like an old woman when she eats. Scrunches up her faces and has the funniest facial expressions.

-she is so delicate with her one finger and will use the pinser grasp to pick up her food very carefully. Her  facial expressions when she is concentrating is so hilarious too. Just the sweetest.

-wants to have everything we are eating when eating in front of her. She cannot miss out on the action.

-loves to bounce her feet in the air, or stomp them on the ground. Her feet are always moving.

-she loves the jolly jumper.

-quickly outgrowing her carseat.

-eating solids, bits and pieces of our food, and loves loves loves her bottle.

9 month update: weight 17lbs 5oz (17%), height 28'' (56%), head 17.2'' (34%)

we are living and surviving here in the Siebenhaar household. It's been a good few months. We have some exciting things coming up; we are going to europe with a few of our friends (adult trip only!) at the end of April and it will be the first time we've spent any time away from our kids in almost 3 years. It is needed and well deserved in my opinion. Travis and I need a break after all of this medical stuff we've had to go through with Noah. I'm dreading leaving them, but really excited for new adventures!

Until next time... enjoy all of our pictures!