New Blog!

Ok, I have created a new blog.  This one ran out of image space.  Plus, I think I just needed a fresh start.  Here's the link: Livin' the Lewis Life
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Big Owie!

Anabelle jumped off of our bed Sunday night "toward" the chair sitting at our computer desk.  It did not end well.  Her feet landed on the ground but her mouth landed on the edge of the seat of the chair.  The poor girl :(  She cried a lot, and for a long time, but we didn't see any blood aside from a teeny tiny cut on her lip, so we thought everything was okay.  She was still sore though and every few minutes would start whining again and say, "Mommy, it still really hurts".  So I gave her lots of cuddles but didn't think anything else was wrong.  All her teeth were still there and still felt like they were staying put.  She went to bed fine that night.  This morning when she walked downstairs, I looked at her and felt so sad.  Her poor mouth was so swollen.  Her entire upper lip was huge and the swelling had spread into her cheek.  I looked into her mouth and her gums were totally blue, purple, and bright red.  She was in good spirits though and didn't realize her lip was ginormous and made her talk with a lisp.  I got her the cereal she wanted for breakfast, but when she tried to eat it, she was reminded of the pain and couldn't.  That made her pretty sad.  A few minutes later, I took Declan upstairs to lay him down for a nap.  After a couple minutes of being upstairs, I came downstairs to find that Anabelle had begun bandaging herself up. "I'm trying to put a band-aid on my owie so it can feel better."

 I'm not sure what she was doing with the medical tape, but it is pretty cute.

The bruising got worse throughout the day.  I called the Dentist this morning and took her in to see if any damage was done.  It looks like her gums took the brunt of the fall, but her front teeth have been pushed back a bit, which damaged the bone at their roots.  We're crossing our fingers that this heals up well and that there was no lasting damage to the nerves.  We go back in 3 weeks for more x-rays.  But for now, we rest her mouth (no hard foods for those front teeth) and give her tylenol for pain (which she hasn't needed so far--what a trooper!) I want to cry for her.  I feel so bad, because I'm sure I could have prevented this from happening.  I was sitting right by her.  If only I had known she was jumping that closely to the chair.  I'm a sad Mama for my baby girl.  

And for my other baby too.  Declan has been running high fevers (high 102-103's since Saturday night).  Hopefully the fever will break soon and he will return to normal.  I think it will.  We took him to the Doc today and she was optimistic.  He has no other symptoms.  Our poor kids.  When it rains, it pours.

In other news, we are getting soooooo excited to have my sister Laura's family come and visit us this weekend!!!  We'll have lots of fun enjoying Charleston with them and letting all of the kiddos play. Just a few more days...  :)

Hawaii!!

Yes, for those who may not know already, we just got orders to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii!  We will be stationed there for 3 years.  We are getting pretty excited and have already started lining up a few things for the move.  We have to report there in November.  I still can hardly believe it!  I didn't know if I would ever even get the chance to visit HI, but now I get to live there!!!  Hawaii was the state I chose to do my report on in elementary school when we had to choose a State.  I still remember making their flag.  I gathered pebbles from the playground and glued them all onto a piece of cardboard about 8x10.  Then I painted them to look like the Hawaiian flag.  It was pretty awesome!

Anyway, it will all be a huge adjustment, with all sorts of learning involved.  This transition will also mark the beginning of Mike's deployments.  Can't say I'm really looking forward to those, but I am excited for him to truly experience his job and life on a submarine.

But, this should be pretty comforting: 

It's a good thing our kiddos love water so much.  Seriously, this kid does not stop splashing when he's put in water :)

 Anabelle loves when I put Declan in the bath with her. These two love each other so much and it just warms my heart so much. 

 Loving his bathtime :)

 Anabelle wanted to take pictures of us smiling and looking like we were sleeping one day, so here they are.

I love this sweet girl and her silly personality!!!

Cypress Gardens

I took the kiddos to Cypress Gardens a few weeks ago on a Saturday when Mike had to be home sleeping all day after working the night shift.  Every 3rd Saturday of each month, Berkeley County residents get in for free! I love free stuff! And this is something I've been wanting to do.  Cypress gardens has a Butterfly house, walking trails, a swamparium (basically a small aquarium), and swamp boat rides.  It's a pretty cool place. So, here goes...
Anabelle showing her "terror" of the enormous alligator.

 They did have 2 huge live alligators here, too.

Declan, chillin' in the stroller.

 So many lily pads.  It's very pretty.

 I love this cute girl! (and yes, Mom, I did take this picture myself)

 Cute little duck in the butterfly house

 If you look closely, you can see a couple of butterflies

 They had some gorgeous flowers!

 Woohoo! Proof of our adventures at Cypress Gardens!

 You can see people taking their boat tour in the background

 Anabelle fell in love with this "Princess Castle". She didn't want to leave it.

 Ginormous tree trunk, and Anabelle giving it a big hug :)

As we were ready to load into the car to leave, I remembered we had to have a photo of all 3 of us, so I set the timer and propped it up on the stroller.  Not too shabby, eh?

Gymnastics

Anabelle had a gymnastics expo a few weeks ago.  She's been taking classes since about October, and loves it!  The event was pretty crowded and crazy, but fun, too.  Here are some photos.  I took video, but apparently they don't work on blogger, so, sorry.

Stretching.

Anabelle is in the black leotard with her back to us.

Half of the gym.

The 3rd one in the line on the left.

I don't know why she decided to pull her underwear down so low, but there they are, bright and blue.

On the bars :)

Wahoo!  Look at my trophy!  She loves this trophy.  The first 2 days after getting it, she'd walk around holding its hand and dancing with it.  So much fun!

Playing Catch-up

So much to post about, not enough time...

Anabelle loves to play at the splash pad at Wannamaker Park!  We have so much fun here and at the playground for playgroup each week.  

 Love this face!  Declan is wearing one of Mike's baby outfits.  It has a truck on it with "Michael" stitched into it.  It's such a cute outfit.

 Big boy! And this was taken a few weeks ago, so yes, he is quite a bit bigger now.  He's quite a bit thicker since starting his cereal.

 ...which he loves!  Look at him, just eyeing it...

Yum, yum, yum

 We went to Sullivan's Island last Friday.  The beach was okay.  It was completely overcast all morning, so not very warm, and the sand wasn't as nice as at IoP.  We had fun though.  One of the neatest parts was how there were so many jellyfish, dead crabs, and neat shells washed up all along the shore.  I'd never seen a real jellyfish before (ok, besides at an aquarium).

 Look at the shell I found.

After we got home from the beach and showered (leaving all of our swimsuits on the bathroom floor for a while), Anabelle came out wearing these :)  

 We set up our camera to take pics of us the other morning because I realized we basically have zero with all of us together.  So, here they are.  I think they're pretty cute.

We went to the Submarine Ball a few weekends ago. It was fun to get all dressed up.  Mike actually switched shirts and wore his long sleeved choker (looks SO much nicer!)  But nope, no more photos of us.  We had a good time with a bunch of good friends.

  Such a silly girl! She has been getting very excited every time she sees my breastpump lately.  She wants to assemble it "like a puzzle", which she does, but then she wants to use it :)  "Mommy, I want to pump".  Ere go...
She proceeded to explain to me how to use it to "pump the milk."  The last few days, she has even gotten all excited whenever I feed Declan, saying, "Mom, I wanna pump your milk" and going to try to find the pump. I have to explain to her than Declan is trying to eat and I can't pump right now.  She just makes me laugh.

 She has also been a little obsessed with wearing my skirts and shirts as dresses lately.  She even got into my shoes this time :)

 And this last one is for you, Katie!  I told you I had some cute baby crying pics.  You know, the more I look at these, the more precious they become.  Picture that tell a story are so memorable.  Declan had had enough of the picture taking!  But isn't he so cute? And Anabelle is so sweet trying to calm him down. Thanks again Alysia for ALL of the great photos.  I seriously love all of them!

The end.