My friend Lindsey (check out her blog, it is pretty sweet) had this on her blog and I figured, why not join in the fun? So I will be paying it forward too!

Here it is:

I promise to send something handmade to the first 3 people who leave a comment on this post saying that they will also participate in Pay It Forward – 2011.

Those 3 commenters must fulfill the following requirements:

1. You must also participate in Pay It Forward on your blog, making this same offer to 3 other people.

2. The rules are that it must be handmade by you and it must be sent to your 3 people *sometime* in 2011.

I’m sure what I will make yet. It will probably depend on who responds and what I think they will like. I have seen this several times and thought it was a fun idea, and now I am joining in! Be one of my first three commenters and get something handmade by ME! Doesn’t that sound exciting?! Please post this to your blog first : )

I will be in contact with the lucky three commenters!

Last week I was driving and so badly wanted to pull over and take pictures because the sunset was remarkable, I should have. The sunset this evening was also remarkable. As I looked out our back window this evening I thought about the uniqueness of this sunset-each sunrise and sunset is different. God is so cool.

The girls and I went to Columbus to visit Joe yesterday. He is there for VMWare training (If you want to know about that, ask Joe, I cannot explain much IT stuff).  Our trip down was good, only a short patch of stop-and-go, we arrived safely. The girls were happy to see their daddy, and I of course was happy to see my hubby : ). We had a fun dinner, ordered pizza and wings, watched some crazy cake making shows and 19 Kids and Counting on TLC, took a walk around the hotel, and then it was time for bed. Bedtime did not go over very well at all. Lynnsey screamed and screamed, and finally feel asleep. Jillian also feel asleep after watching some Shaun the Sheep. All was well until Jillian fussed a bit and woke Lynnsey up and the screaming started again, but this time it was 2:30AM. At this point I was fed up and just wanted the girls to sleep, I of course wanted to sleep, and we didn’t want to wake anyone else up. Since Lynnsey was not letting up one bit, we decided to head home and quickly packed our things. Oh yes, I drove home from Columbus in the middle of the night, oh what fun! We arrived home just before 5AM. Needless to say, I am exhausted today, but our trip to see Joe was worth it- the girls got a few precious hours with their daddy.

             Hanging out at the hotel                                               Checking stuff out

                                                       Getting read to leave Columbus

          Asleep on the drive home                                                 Little Miss Crabby

January seemed like a long month. Some of that had to do with Joe being on call for two weeks-yikes! And he is on call again soon-just part of the job, not a fun part, but part of it nonetheless. We stayed busy last month, but also much of the same day to day activities.

Now on to February! This month our little girl turns two! TWO! Wow, time flies. I am excited to experience all the fun this month. We had our good friends, Luke, Hannah and Leah, over today to watch the Super Bowl. They are great! Jilli and Leah are becoming good friends.

I took some photos of the girls today. Here are a few of my favs:

Lynnsey is so smiley and such a good baby. She is getting around more and more these days. This month she is 7 months old, it goes by fast! She is starting to get up on her knees,  and really wants to get moving! She is also rolling quickly, turn your head for a minute and she is across the room. I already have my hands pretty full, but before too long I think they are going to be more full.

Jillian is such a good big sister! She likes to take care of Lynnsey, though we are working on sharing and not taking. It is hard for a almost 2 year old to share everything!

Jillian calls Lynnsey, “baby siser,” the ‘t’ in sister is missing in Jillian’s version : ) Too cute!

It is so evident how much they love each other. Lynnsey’s little face lights up when Jillian is near. All the little happy squeals from Lynnsey when she sees Jillian just melt my heart. The other night, Jillian slept over at Pa and Grandma’s house. When she arrived home the next afternoon she immediately wanted to see Lynnsey. “Where is she?” “Where my baby siser?” “I want to see her.”Lynnsey was taking a nap. Jillian wanted to see her sister that instant and kept asking. It was rather endearing. I think they are going to be best friends, and I like that.

Lynnsey has had her helmet for about 6 weeks now. There is some improvement already, which is very exciting. For the most part, Lynnsey does not seemed bothered by her helmet. She looks totally adorable and I think the extra attention helps a little : ). We have had to make a few adjustments along the way so that it fits better, but the process has been fairly easy so far.

One problem we have experienced is that her helmet has rubbed above her cheek a couple of times, and most recently it rubbed quite a bit, leaving a red mark that didn’t resolve for a couple of days. Thus, some more adjustments need to be made, we are going in next week. Hopefully, we can get the helmet fitting even better and can complete the full three months of wearing.

She sure is stylin’

At Hanger Prosthetics and Orthotics getting helmet adjustments

Lookin’ more round

Well, it is 2011, a new year. I had this great plan of posting a review of 2010, but now it is almost half way through January. I could still do that, and maybe I will. But for now, check out our snow day!

Joe got to work from home. He was busy all day with computer stuff. The girls and I played upstairs, made lunch, they took a nap, played some more, and then we got ready to venture to our backyard. Jillian has never played in the snow before. Last year she didn’t seem interested at all and we just never took her out to “play.” But this year is a different story. Jillian now tells us that it is snowing and that it is cold outside. Wow, the difference one year makes in the life of a little one! I knew that getting ready to go outside was probably going to take longer than the time actually spent outside, I was correct. It was well worth the effort and we had a fun time, though it was short lived (approximately 7 minutes). Perhaps we will go outside and enjoy all this snow more often. At least I know I won’t be out there very long .

                                                              …Just a few newer photos of the girlies…

Our journey with plagiocephaly has begun, Little Miss Lynnsey is now wearing a helmet. Here is our story (so far):

At her two month check-up I first mentioned it to our pediatrician. I was advised to put the “fun” toys on her right side to help encourage her to look more to the right, as she was favoring her left, and to give more tummy time. It was the hope that these techniques would help with the flatness. We had done both of these things, but still the flattened spot persisted. At her four month check-up I discussed with our pediatrician that the flat spot on the left side of the back of her head had gotten worse since her two month check-up. At this point we were referred to a cranio-facial specialist to decide what actions, if any, to take.

Prior to Lynnsey’s four month check-up, Joe and I were fairly certain Lynnsey would be getting a helmet. We had researched plagiocephaly and it appeared that Lynnsey had a very classic case. First, I found an extremely helpful blog post from a mom whose daughter had to wear a helmet. She gave so much helpful information and encouragement. And then we found several youtube videos posted by parents whose children also had to wear a helmet. We were not surprised that on November 4, 2010, that the cranio-facial specialist suggested that Lynnsey be fitted for a helmet to correct her plagiocephaly. I think it was good that we had done some research ahead of time because we were not at all surprised by the specialists diagnosis.

The reasons we chose to get Lynnsey a helmet are (1) there is no guarantee the plagiocephaly would be corrected on its own. Many cases fix themselves as the child grows, but Lynnsey’s seemed pretty severe and she favors her left side which lead us to believe it would be more difficult to be corrected without an orthotic (i.e. her helmet), (2) we did not want Lynnsey to grow up and one day ask us why we didn’t do something when we could have-this is assuming that it would not correct its self, (3) it is only a three month process. We figured, three months now is really no big deal compared to all the years she might have a noticeably flat spot if we did nothing, and (4) thankfully we have good insurance and almost all, if not all, of it is covered, so there was not a financial burden affecting our decision.

Here are some photos of the process we have gone through:

First, Lynnsey had to get her head scanned for the helmet to be made. She slept through the first scan, which was pretty funny and surprising, but then we had to get another scan because the helmet needs made within two weeks of the scan being done and our insurance was a little slow on giving authorization. The scanning process was simple- thankfully they no longer have to do a plaster mold!

Scan-take 2. She did SO WELL both times

Helmet day 11-30-10!

Before-left side is flatter than right side                                      Pretty pink helmet!

She was a little dramatic for literally a minute, and then perfectly fine!

I will continue to post about our journey with plagiocephaly and show how way super cute Miss Lynnsey is in her helmet. She is AWESOME! Go girl!

I do hope this post and future posts about plagiocephaly help other families who are just beginning down the path of handling plagio.