Welcome to my blog!

Thank you for taking the time to stop by and visit! We hope to share with you our journey of raising a child with Achondroplasia, the most common type of dwarfism. If this is your first time here, please start by reading Caitlyn's Story. It will share the beginning of her life with you. Enjoy!

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Mommy vs Hanna

Who’s who is the pictures?  (okay, so you can obviously tell from the look of the picture, but it’s still fun to compare)

Hanna and my dad (November 2009 – Hanna – almost 6  months)

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Me and my dad (1977 – me – about 7 months)

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Hanna – almost 8 months

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Me – June 1977 – 7 months

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And here’s a picture comparing Caty and myself – both of us right around 1 year of age

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Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Dancing Girl and Puppy Playtime

Just wanted to share a few videos of the girls – ENJOY!

Caty putting on a show.

Notice how Caty doesn’t stop talking, EVER, during this video, even when I’m not videotaping her. 

I just love this puppy that Hanna got from Santa on Christmas.  Violet – I highly recommend it for young kids. 

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

New Blog App Info

For those of you that asked, the blog app is called BlogPress. I got the lite version didn't want to pay for the full one - although I might seeing how this seems to be working out pretty well.

Yes you can post pictures in the blog, as you can see from my post Smiley Girl. Seeing as how I only have an iPod touch I have to obviously use pictures saved on it. Not sure how an iPhone would work.

It's a pretty cool app! I highly recommend it. I'm going to have to see what the difference is between my lite version and the $2.99 one.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Smiley Girl

We have such a smiley girl on our hands.








Monday, January 18, 2010

Trying Something New

I found an app for my iPod touch that allows me to post blogs. Just wanted to test it out and see how it's going to work.

Hopefully it all works out.


Thursday, January 14, 2010

7 Months Already

Goodness – where does the time go?  It feels like just yesterday I was at Kaiser in the labor and delivery, Facebooking while waiting for Hanna to arrive.  

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And today…

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Hanna is sitting up on her own, giving kisses, chatting up a storm (which Caty says she understand everything that Hanna says – she even so much as says “Thank You”!), trying to wave, eating plenty of solids – these are just a few things our little sweetpea is doing. 

Friday, January 8, 2010

Visiting Nana and Papa’s

Caty got to spend a few days with Nana and Papa.  She headed down to Redwood City on Wednesday for some quality time with my parents.  My mom took her to Coyote Point Museum on Thursday where they spent some time looking around. 

Hanna and I headed down on Friday for a couple of days with my parents. 

Hanna and Nana

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Caty was helping Papa with some sweeping then decided that she wanted to rake the leaves on the ground.  That’s when she discovered that there were 3 leaves left on the tree, which she HAD to get. 

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Sunday morning we were up early and dropped my parents off at the San Francisco airport as they were heading to their condo in Maui.  Such a bummer to drop them off and drive ourselves into the fog.  We’ll be traveling with them to Maui soon enough though. 

Christmas – Part 2 & 3

On the day following Christmas, Scott’s mom – Tutu as the girls call her (Tutu is grandma in Hawaiian), her husband – Grandpa Mark, Scott’s sister, Auntie Christine and her husband, Uncle Cliff drove up from Southern Ca.  They didn’t get into town until around 6:00.  The girls opened their presents, or I guess I should say, Caty opened their presents.  She flew through them so quickly I didn’t get many pictures of the actual “opening” part. 

Caty got a charm bracelet and a Minnie Mouse charm.

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YAY an Etch-A-Sketch

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A few new games – Honey Bee Tree – super cute, Hungry Hungry Hippos – as annoying as ever, but still fun and Old MacDonald

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Playing Hungry Hungry Hippos

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I guess I didn’t get any pictures of Caty opening Hanna’s gifts, but Hanna got, unfortunately, a few repeats.  She got Scout, which is Violets cousin or something like that.  She also got the same pink phone and also a Vtech Nursery Rhymes Books that she got from my brother and family back at Thanksgiving.  OOPS!!  So far I’ve returned one of the items and got her this, which she absolutely goes nuts over -

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Here are Auntie Christine, Tutu and the girls

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Uncle Cliff getting some Hanna time

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On Sunday we headed up to spend some time with more of Scott’s family in Orland. 

The girls smiling at each other on the ride up.

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We stopped in Chico to lunch – oh how I miss that town!  Sure wish that we could have stayed there after college but there just weren’t any teaching jobs for Scott.  Maybe we can retire there.  As we got into town we stopped at the World Famous Sierra Nevada Brewery.  Just checked out their gift shop – Scott found a new beanie. 

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We got sandwiches at one of our favorite places in town – Kona’s.  From here we headed out to Orland.  Wait until you hear how many people were in the house on this given Sunday.  Okay, so the house belongs to Scott's Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Tim.  They have 4 kids – April (mid 20’s), Brian (early 20’s), Sara (13) and Tommy (11).  Scott’s grandma also lives with them.  So to this number of 7 you add the 4 of us, Scott’s mom, Mark, sis and brother-in-law, another 4.  Then Brian’s girlfriend was there +1.  Another one of Scott’s aunts, Pauline came along with her boyfriend, Chuck, her daughter, Priscilla and granddaughter, Mylee (+4).  So if you’ve added correctly this equals 20.  Caitlyn thought it was CRAZY that there were this many in one house.  We had a great afternoon and Charlotte cooked a great dinner of baked macaroni for us.  After dinner we got a few pictures of the 4 generations – Great Grandma, Grandma, Daddy and girls

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Mylee trying to give Hanna hugs – at least Hanna was happy about it!

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Getting smothered by the girls!

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Another long day, but another great one!

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Christmas Day – it’s a LONG one!

 

Our morning started bright and earlier as Hanna was up around 6:45, which was good so we were able to be up and ready for Caty when she woke up. Around 7:15 we heard her door open and out she came.  She first headed over the the little table we set up for Santa’s milk and cookies and Rudolph’s carrots.  She was so excited to find a note from Santa – Santa’s handwriting might need to change by next year or Caty might get suspicious. 

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Caty showing Hanna Violet – this is the coolest puppy.  Santa’s eves programmed it on the Leapfrog website and it now says Hanna’s name, sings songs about her favorite things and spells her name for her. 

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Caty was super excited to see that Santa brought her a BFC Ink doll names Kaitlin.  Caty saw a commercial for her quite awhile ago and luckily Santa shopped when it was on sale. 

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Checking out her stocking – she was thrilled to find a new toothbrush inside – YAY for clean teeth!

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Some new colored pencils and crayons – as much as she colors, I’m surprised we don’t have to buy them more often. 

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“I’ve got my thumb, I’m happy!”

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Caty giving Hanna the present that she bought with her own money and wrapped “almost” all by herself.

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Some stacking toys – Hanna loved them – went right to chewing on them

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My girls

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Hanna’s first Christmas

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Playing with her toys

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This opening presents is FUN!!

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Caty got a new Princess book, actually 2 of them.

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Caty’s gift that she made in her preschool class for us. 

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Helping open Hanna’s presents

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Checking this this out – it’s a Move and Crawl ball – hopefully Hanna will get the idea of it and move and crawl like it says. 

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Checking out her toys

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Mmm, this one tastes good!

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Fabric books from Great Aunt Barbara and Great Uncle Bill

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She’s somewhat got the idea – except that when it was rolling it kept getting closer and closer to her face and eventually bopped her in the nose.  Thankfully she didn’t cry, but now she flinches when it comes near her face. 

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So, all of this happened before about 9:30.  My parents showed up around 10:00 and we were all surprised that Caty didn’t ask for her presents right away.  She wanted to show Nana and Papa everything and then go in her room and play with her Little People Garage – still one of her favorite toys. 

Here she is in Sept of 2006 playing with her.

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And again in May of 2009

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They finally came out of the room around 10:45 and got to open the presents that my parents brought.  Did my parents fail in the present department?  NEVER!!  They are incredibly generous and of course love spoiling the girls.

Caty got a bright pink Lil Quad that she is just LOVING driving around.  It’s the perfect size and is controlled by a button on the handlebars.  Caty’s got the driving thing down pat.

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She also got a Play-doh Kitchen set

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“If You Take A Mouse To the Movies” book and mouse – I just love these books

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Some diapers for her dolls – yippee!  More diapers to change!

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A new Princess shirt that is way too big and could possibly fit her when she’s 10

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A new Strawberry Shortcake movie – A Berry Merry Christmas

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Then she got to help open Hanna’s presents – we let her know that this was a one time thing, because next Christmas Hanna will be able to open her own gifts. 

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Hanna playing with her Fisher Price Stack n Surprise Blocks Songs n Smiles Sillytown.

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Her “BORN TO LOVE NANA” onesies

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Just what Hanna wanted – a cover for restaurant high chairs!  YAY!!

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She loves her VTech Discovery Nursery Farm

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So this was just the first half of the day.  Scott’s dad came down from Reno to join us later in the day.

Caty got a new Strawberry Shortcake playset

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And this only shows her opening the gift, but it was a new outfit for Kaitlin the BFC Ink doll to wear.

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Hanna was super thrilled, as you can tell, to get a pink phone – although she does enjoy playing with it now.

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Here’s what happened after opening presents

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But we woke up from dinner and enjoyed a lovely (yeah right!) biter biscuit. 

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Some of you might remember this CRAZY house from a post last year.  This year, it was actually featured on TLC’s “Invasion of the Christmas Lights.”

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Hanna and Grandpa

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Grandpa and the girls

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Nana, Papa and the girls

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WHEW!!  What a day!