The Isom Journey

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Elli swimsuit ideas

Some of you saw my Facebook about having a hard time finding a new suit for Elli. Here are the links for my favorites so far. I'm hoping that once we get closer to summer they have some more to choose from. Any input would be appreciated! :)

Cute but expensive

Cute one piece

I have a stripe obsession

This reminds me of Erica

Itsy busty teeny weenie yellow polka-dot bikini

Love this style top

More stripes

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

I'm sitting here on the couch at 8:15p, still not feeling too great, and enjoying the quiet! What better time to finally type up an update? Elli has been exceptionally, shall we say, strong-willed the last few days. After throwing a completely embarrassing fit in the street for Ray, we said no TV or iPad the rest of the night. We usually always always always have the TV on in the house, just as some background noise and after having it off part of the afternoon and all evening I really enjoyed it! We will be doing this more often. Now we get to book our anniversary trip to Vegas while enjoying some delicious homemade ice cream.

Madi had her echo and cardiology appointment a few weeks ago and her doctor was so pleased with her weight gain. She was at 19 pounds (8.66 kilos), which is where they wanted her for surgery. Well after meeting with Dr. Yung they have decided that since she is doing so well to put the surgery off again. Now they want to wait until she is at least 10 kilos (22 pounds) to perform the surgery. Although this is great news to hear how we'll they think she is doing, it also means I have this huge thing just looming over me. At this point I just want to have the surgery done so we can move forward, right now it feels like a waiting game. She is also doing so well in her therapies! Both her physical therapist and feeding therapist are so pleased with her progress. She is eating food 3 times a day and can still drink up to 35 ounces of formula! We are hoping to get her to eat more so we can stop giving her formula. She is taking steps with help, moving from couch to chair, crawling to the other end of the house and pulling up on everything. It is so fun to watch her learn new things. She is clapping all the time right now also.

Elli has been taking swim lessons for a few months now and she is doing amazing! Some weeks she performs better than others but I am so impressed with how well she can swim! She can dive down to the bottom to pick up toys, swim the width of the pool by herself and swim the length with a small float in her back. She loves the water and has made a few new friends in the process. We are hoping
to check out a few preschools next week to get her enrolled for the fall. Ray also signed her up for
soccer with the Issaquah Highlands Soccer Club. She will have practice/games on Sunday afternoons. Family, go ahead and tell me how wrong I was to not want her in soccer! I still don't like it but I agree it will be good exercise once her swimming stops.

That is all I can think of for now, have a great day!

The above photos were just taken this morning.

Ready to go swimming!

She loves to pose now!

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!

Usually every holiday is spent us driving from house to house and stressing what days we spend with what family. This year Thanksgiving was a little stressful at first but actually turned out perfect with the Apple Cup happening the Friday after Thanksgiving! That gave us the chance to spend Thanksgiving with my family and the Friday after with Ray’s family. (Sorry for the serious lack of photos!)

My mom hosted Thanksgiving at her house for the first time and it was wonderful! She saw a cute idea to make place tags for each person and on the back of the card that person has to write what they are thankful for, then they were hung on a tree and it became the ‘Thankful Tree’. Our plan was to start a tradition of this each year and the following year see what everyone had been thankful for the year before. My parents cooked 2 turkeys and made 10 pounds of potatoes for all 24 of us. The potatoes were gone by the end of the night! We had a lot of Grandma’s recipes and pies and my mom even got to borrow some placemats that were Grandma’s. Madi got to sit in her high chair and make a mess with mashed potatoes and stuffing, we learned then that this girl LOVES mashed potatoes! (Sorry no photo of the mess after.) It was so nice to have Grandpa there, he wasn’t feeling too great but I think he just enjoyed being with the family. My family loves to play games together – pretty much my favorite part of our family get-togethers! It is usually the women playing games while the men watch some sort of ball game on TV and this holiday was no different. At one point I went out to the family room and every inch of the huge couch was covered – half of the people napping!

On Friday I got myself and Madi up early to go out shopping with my family at Southcenter mall. I got there about 9am and left at noon. I think I got there at the perfect time because I had missed the crazy people there for opening but the afternoon crowd hadn’t shown up yet. None of the lines were crazy and there was still product available. When I left the mall at noon it was CRAZY! Like took me 30 minutes to get out of the parking garage crazy! Do not ever plan to get to the mall at noon on Black Friday! I mostly spent the time with Nancy, Erica and Tara, trying to find a dress for Tara’s Homecoming dance. We didn’t buy a dress but found a couple maybes. It was nice to get to spend time with those girls! As I walked through Nordstrom though I saw the perfect TOMS for Elli and now I’m just dying to buy them for her!!

That afternoon we went over to Rhonda’s house to eat more and watch the Apple Cup! We watch the game together every year so this worked out perfect to join Thanksgiving and Apple Cup! Randy had to work so Rhonda called DirecTV and ordered a DVR to get there before Friday in order to record the game and watch it when Randy got off work. Rhonda is the only Husky fan in the family – us kids are all Cougar fans. You could say the house was a little loud during the last quarter/OT with us kids getting excited! It was a wonderful game and a lovely night as always spending time with family. Elli adores her auntie & uncle and has super energy with them!

This year I am thankful for many things – see next post with copies of my 30 days of Thanks from FB. But mostly this year I am thankful for my family. With losing my Grandma in October we all came together and supported each other. We all understood each other’s pain and spent those sad days together. I am also so very thankful for my girls who even though test my patience daily, give me the most joy, the biggest smiles and a heart just bursting with love. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and would love to know what you were especially thankful for this year.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Madi's Photos

Before Madi was born we had planned to get newborn photos of her. I had pregnancy photos with Elli and thought it would be fun to do something different with Madi. I was so disappointed to have to cancel Madi's photo shoot when she was born. She was in the hospital for 2 weeks and we didn't want photos done there. I have been so bad about getting her photos done every 3 months like I did with her sister (we only went once) so I thought it was right to get 1st birthday photos done for her. We haven't ordered prints yet but so far the extra investment of going to a professional is worth it!

We chose to go to Kayla J Photography in Monroe, we had originally planned with her for Madi's NB shoot. She was recommended by two friends and had very reasonable prices. I was so happy to finally meet Kayla and see her amazing studio! She was great with the girls, loved on Madi and seemed to understand my being late. We are already looking forward to going back next year!

I was so embarrassed though the day of because I had been thinking all week our appointment was at 10:30 only to look at my message to her on the way there that I had said 10! So we were running a half an hour late...which wouldn't have been so bad if I had known about 522 closing daily from 10:15-11:15. We were seriously at Echo Lake intersection at 10:17 when we realized this. We then had to go to highway 9 to highway 2, an extra half an hour! Now our 90 minute appt was cut to 45 minutes all because I didn't double check myself before leaving the house!

I am so very pleased with the photos we were able to get in that time and am currently having a hard time deciding what to order! You are more than welcome to check out our album here until they expire on December 1st.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Happy Halloween!

I've never been a huge fan of Halloween, although I did some dressing up in my early twenties with my besties! I've always enjoyed the trick or treat aspect and the beautiful fall weather we usually have, I just hate the darkness of this holiday. But while we have little ones I will enjoy the fun of trick or treating!

About a week before Halloween we went to Rhonda's house to carve pumpkins and celebrate Halloween with her, Randy and Shawna. Elli had fun carving pumpkins, decorating cupcakes and goofing off with uncle!

This year Elli wanted to be Cinderella which is great since we already had almost everything for her costume! Great choice Elli! She loved getting to put makeup on and wearing her crown.

I recently pulled out all the 9 month clothes from Elli for Madi to start wearing and we found Elli's first Halloween costume! Here is Elli at 3.5 months and Madi at 10.5 months old in the same pumpkin costume. So fun for them to share that first! And the pumpkin was a perfect addition to Cinderella!

Before dropping off Elli at Cubbies we decided to get Red Robin so I didn't have to cook. Unfortunately we had the worst service ever! After dropping Elli off at church Ray and I took out pumpkin to Target and she got to sit up in the cart for the first time! So much fun.

After Cubbies they had a little festival for the kids with games, face painting and hay rides. Elli had a blast and got lots of little prizes.

We thought we would be home too late to trick or treat in our neighborhood so we decided to stop at my parents neighborhood on the way home. They don't get trick or treaters up there so the few houses we stopped at Elli got a ton of candy! She loved looking at the moon while walkng around. It was a nice night together as a family!

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Madi's Monkeys 2012

Sunday the 7th we participated in the Puget Sound Buddy Walk. Our team was Madi's Monkeys and we had a wonderful turn out! It was an absolutely gorgeous day, sunny and 70! Since the walk is in October I planned for cold weather and designed team sweatshirts. I guess I needed to remind myself how unpredictable our weather is here. Next year will be 3/4 sleeve t-shirts!

We had a team page to raise money for the Buddy Walk and the Down Syndrome community and we were so blessed! I was amazed at the support we got for our first year! My mother in law alone brought in $150 from her co-workers, friends and customers! My original goal of $250 was more than tripled! $850 will bless so many in this community! After seeing what we can accomplish in our first year supporting/attending the Buddy Walk my goal is to double that $850 next year!

I think I was a little overwhelmed at the actual event and didn't participate as much as I should have. I'm always worried about others enjoying themselves that I forget to take time for myself. We had a large group walk with us and we are so thankful for all of their love and support. It made my heart smile so big to see everyone there for our girl! I made a point to get a photo of Madi with everyone that came to walk in our team to one day show Madi how much she love she has surrounding her since she was born! (Some of you may notice that my side of our family other than Ryan, Tara and Jesse are absent but I know they would've been there if they could have, but many of them spent the day with my Grandma, and that was right where they needed to be.)

I was truly amazed out how many people were there to help show awareness of Down Syndrome. To hear others stories and to be reminded that we are not alone in our daily struggles was inspiring. It is wonderful to see how the view of DS is changing in our world. I am thankful that our daughter was born at this time when she is loved just for being her. She is a quiet, happy, cuddle-bug, mama's girl. I hope that the society we live in will continue to embrace her and not use her DS as a way to describe her but see DS as the little extra piece God gave her to make her extra special.

Here are the photos of everyone that came (I somehow missed Juli from Ray's work though - sorry!) There are more photos online here if you want to see the rest. :)