Arden Adding and Signing

Arden gave Brian and I a big scare this past month.  She had a very high fever about 6 weeks ago (105.)  After this she became very hard of hearing.  We were constantly having to repeat ourselves, and she couldn't hear us when we were calling her.  We weren't sure if she was just going through a phase of "selective hearing," if she had an ear infection, or if the high fever/infection had done some permanent hearing damage.  I took her to the pediatrician and the doctor couldn't find anything wrong with her.  He said her ears looked fine and recommended that we see an audiologist and ENT.  After going through an extensive hearing test (which she failed by the way,) and seeing the ENT, it turns out that she had fluid and a lot of pressure behind her ear drums.  Ugh, I was so frustrated that the pediatrician didn't notice the fluid at her appointment, but relieved that it was something easily treatable. 

Anyway, I'm now getting to my point of this post.  I joked with Arden that we were going to have to teach her sign language and began to show her how to sign the letters of the alphabet.  She took to that really fast and learned the alphabet very quickly.  Here she is doing the alphabet. 

 

 

Halle also loves to teach Arden. She has taught her how to count backwards, count by twos, by fives, and even a little addition.  Then at the end of the video you do see she has "selective hearing" after all.  Ha!

 

 

 

Quotes

A couple of my favorite quotes from my girls recently....

Me- "Arden, what did you learn at Bible Study today?"
Arden- "about Jesus." (no, really?)
Me- "What else?"
Arden- "Cookies are yummy and boogers are yucky."
TRUE.

Me- "Did you know that Aunt Sarah's last name is Vowell?"
Arden- laughing hysterically because that's so funny to her.  "A,E,I,O,U, and sometimes Y!!!"

Halle- "I'm so sorry Daddy for not calling you when I got home.  I just got so carried away with my homework." 
uh-huh, sure. 

Halle looking at my stomach- "Mommy, you're finally getting your six pack back."
She then proceeds to poke my abs, "Oh nevermind, it's just fat."

Six Months +

Jack has had quite a few firsts recently.



First time in a playground swing 9/23



First time to hold his bottle 9/25

First time in a jumper 10/1



First time to sit in a high chair and first time to taste ice cream.  He attacked this poor cone. 10/4

First time to eat finger foods 10/13

First time to sit like a big boy in the shopping cart 10/14

And just a few more pictures because he's so cute.

Headbandz

So we have a game called Headbandz.  Each player puts a plastic headband on his head with a card that has a word on it.  The purpose of putting it on your head is so that everyone knows what the cards says but you.  The player has a minute each round to ask yes/no questions to figure out what the word is.  
Arden can't read.  Arden doesn't understand the rules.  Yet....Arden insists on playing, so here is Arden playing her version of Headbandz.

This girl constantly has me rolling.  At this rate she'll get her word, hmmmmmm, never.  Lol.

Castaways

We took an impromptu camping trip this weekend.  We camped on Lake Conroe very close to the water.  This particular campground was small, but had great ammenities.  It had canoeing, fishing, a pool, gameroom, volleyball net, pancake breakfast on Saturday, among other things.  The bathrooms were also better than any other camping facility that I've been to.  The weather was clear so the starry sky was gorgeous.

 Brian and the girls went swimming and got sunburned during the day. That night a cold front blew in and the temperature dropped to 52 degrees.  With the cold front came very strong winds. 

We camped on a promotional rate at this members-only RV park. The catch was having to endure an hour long presentation on becoming members of the Castaways RV park and other nationwide parks. They put the pressure on us to purchase a membership, but Brian and I didn't budge.



I decided to document the Funny and Memorable Moments from this camping trip. (no real particular order, just thought it would be fun to count them down) 

#11  Everyone was prepared for the cold front.... except my husband. He packed only T shirts, sandals, and shorts.

#10 S'mores in the microwave are not as good as over a campfire.

#9 I almost knocked myself unconscious on the doorframe of the truck. I now have a big goose egg on my head, and a killer headache. In a completely different situation I also got knocked in the face by the metal canopy pole. I'm a bit banged up.

#8 The sales manager called Brian stubborn.

#7  Our heater works in our camper! Too bad we all froze in the middle of the night because none of us were smart enough to turn it on until 6 am.

#6 Once we arrived back home Arden went straight to the backyard grass to potty. I guess it takes her a bit to transition back from camping mode.   

#5 Our camper can withstand 25 mph winds. So can our canopies.... once they are up and not knocking people in the head.
 
 #4 We are pretty sure we witnessed a non-member guy use the hot tub to take a bath.

#3  Brian asked our seven month old at dinner time if he was hungry.  Jack responded by opening his mouth like he was about to take a bite.  Pretty sure his love language is food.

#2 Our fan blew on high...... and wasn't plugged in.

#1 Brian rolled through one of those "optional" stop signs as we were leaving the campground.  Arden said in a stern authoritative voice, "Daddy, that's a stop sign.  You are supposed to STOP!  Es, Tee, Oh, Pee.  That spells stop, Daddy!"  Nothing like being called out by a three year old.




 

First time for Jack to wear a jacket

 

Grrrrr

        

Arden running scared and screaming all the way from the swing to tell me about a little bitty spider

We enjoyed our promo stay.  Too bad we can't go back without a membership, but for $5K I can make my own pancakes :)