Happy Leap Day!

Things are going well in our household, hence the lack of updates. ;c) Elijah's shunt is still working well. He continues to impress us with how well he is doing. We met with the early intervention team on Tuesday to assess where he is developmentally. He is hitting the milestones of a 4 month old for cognitive and social development. He is hitting the milestones up to 2 months for motor skills and is spotty up to 3 months. This isn't really a delay, but since he is ahead in the other areas and because he has a greater risk of delays, this is a bit of a concern. Elijah will meet with a physical therapist starting at once a month to stay on top of his development. His first PT visit is this Wednesday, the 5th. Most of the stitches on the back of his head have been removed. There is one left that my dad is coming to check out. It doesn't seem to want to come out, but I'm sure he'll know what to do with it. After that, Elijah will be stitch-free for the first time in his little life!

Elijah gets fussy pretty often. We keep a close watch of him to make sure his shunt is working. Usually we can't find any explanation for the fussiness. He's just 10 weeks old, so perhaps it's just a baby thing and not related to his shunt.

The rest of the gang is happy and healthy. The girls are doing well in school. Katelee just participated in Jump Rope for Heart and had a great time. Sheri lost her second tooth last week. Grace is reading well and has recently found the love of books/stories on CD. Sometimes it seems the earphones are actually a part of her head. ;c) Spencer is gearing up to turn 3 at the end of March. He's a wonderful big brother.

We're ready for spring weather. There are so many things I want to get to outside, but there is no way I'm doing any of it while it is so cold and windy! We heard from the power company that they aren't going to cut down our pine trees in the back yard. Those huge trees are quite a nuisance. We'll have to figure out a way to deal with them.

Kirk is planning another trip to Texas mid-March. I'd love to go with him, but the logistics of that are impossible. :cD I'll stay home and work on getting Elijah onto a good nap schedule. Perhaps I should say onto *any* nap schedule.

There are some new pictures in our SmugMug gallery. I have a lot more I need to edit and upload. Hopefully I will be caught up soon.

Sleep Deprived Surfing

It's neat what you stumble upon in the middle of the night when the baby won't sleep. Last night while Elijah sat in the sling and stared at me for a couple hours instead of sleeping, I found a neat website called The Hinckley Challenge. As a way to honor President Hinckley and celebrate his life, people are going to read the Book of Mormon in 97 days(his age at death) starting today. If you sign up for an account, it will track your progress for you. The finish date is May 11, 2008. I'm fairly certain that our kids won't sit still to read 5.5 pages each day, but this is something I am going to try to do. If I can figure it out, I'll even add the graph that tracks my progress to the sidebar of the blog.

Every Sunday night is pancake night at our house. I'm not sure when we started this tradition, but it's been at least a year, perhaps two. Yes, pancakes for dinner once a week can begin to get boring, at least for the adults, so I try to mix it up a bit. Every now and then we'll have waffles. Sometimes I just try out different flavors of pancakes. This summer we added some of our fresh picked blueberries to the mix. Last night I went out on a limb and made nutty orange pancakes. I basically just used OJ instead of milk then added cinnamon and finely chopped walnuts to the batter. It was a hit! The kids said they tasted like dessert. It was a battle to save some for Kirk, who has had long Sundays at the church lately. Nutty Orange Pancakes - definitely one to file in the "keep" section.