The Adventures of Flat Stanley

Flat Stanley came to visit us in February. He arrived on a very cold day in Dallas (about 30 degrees). In fact, he was lucky he made it to our house that day because the roads were icy. When Flat Stanley arrived, he was very tired because he had traveled 770 miles to get to our house.

While Flat Stanley was with us, he traveled to many other cities, including Houston, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Galveston, Phoenix, Glendale, Las Vegas, Denver, and Cheyenne. Here are some pictures of his adventures!

Flat Stanley at Hayley's 1st birthday party

Flat Stanley got stuck in a cactus in Phoenix

Flat Stanley riding the train at DFW Airport

Flat Stanley rode in First Class from Phoenix to Dallas

Flat Stanley at the Alamo in San Antonio

Flat Stanley at the Alamo in San Antonio

Flat Stanley in Cheyenne, Wyoming

Flat Stanley celebrates Easter with the Iveys

Flat Stanley's new favorite food - crepe with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce

Flat Stanley in Denver, Colorado

Good bye, Flat Stanley! We will miss you! Safe travels back to Georgia!

Easter at the Iveys'

Yes, we're still here. And still busy. The boys are growing like weeds and talking up a storm now. We still don't understand most of what they say but are recognizing more of their words everyday. Henry's favorite word/phrase seems to be "thank you." He says it any time you do anything for him. But I can't get him to say "please" at all. Oh well.

A couple of weeks before Easter, Andy and I went to Houston for my cousin Reagan's wedding. It was a great to see so many of my family there. We had a great time hanging out with my cousins.


On Easter weekend, Jordan and her friend Jessica came to stay with us. They had tickets to see Nickelback in concert and wanted to shop in Dallas for Jordan's prom dress. I got to help Jordan pick out her dress, which was a lot of fun.

On Easter Sunday, we had all of Andy's family over to our house for burgers. Fortunately it turned out to be a warm day and the rain had stopped so we were able to play outside all afternoon. We had an Easter egg hunt for all of the kids, with the boys getting a head start since they are the youngest. I helped Henry hunt for eggs, holding his basket and helping him find more eggs. He did great until he found one that had coins in it. When he heard the sound it made when he shook the egg, he lost all interest in the hunt for more eggs and just stood there shaking that egg.



Ben found a few eggs, put them in his basket, and then flipped his basket upside-down and watched the eggs fall out. He thought this was a lot of fun so he did it again and again. Lucky for him, his cousins decided to help him get more eggs.




We took the boys to the developmental pediatrician last week and were amazed at their progress in the last few months. They are both ahead of schedule when it comes to their motor skills. And although they are still behind on language skills, they have definitely made up some ground since their last appointment. They are now caught up to their adjusted age. Maybe when we go back in July, they will have caught up to their actual age.

On Thursday morning I received a call from the school that Ben had an "accident." He fell on his face on the concrete when they were playing outside. His teacher was concerned that he might have damaged his front teeth. So I left work and drove to the school to see if I needed to take him to the doctor. When I got there, he looked pretty bad - his forehead and nose were all scraped up and he had a busted upper lip. I tried to look inside his mouth, but he didn't want me to touch so all I could see was that his gums were bleeding. I decided to call the pediatrician's office to see if I needed to take him in. I talked to a nurse who told me to take him to a pediatric dentist. I decided to check his teeth again before calling them though and was happy to find that both his front teeth were still firmly in place. So no trip to the dentist, but he looks pitiful.

Guilty!

Life in the Ivey house has been pretty boring lately. I've was working long hours and finally about to have a break. I didn't have much on my calendar for last week except I had to report for jury duty on Monday. After the previous work week, I was actually looking forward to being somewhere other than the office and having a good excuse to not answer my phone or email. I also looked forward to picking up the boys once I was dismissed and getting home early. It didn't quite work out that way.

One thing I learned is that the county is probably the most inefficient organization I have ever experienced. I had a book with me and actually read the whole thing, start to finish, while I was there waiting. Another thing I learned is that there are a lot of stupid people out there, and the voir dire process is great for exposing this stupidity. When I had had just about all I could take (it was almost 7:00 pm), they finally picked the jury, and I was one of the lucky 12.

It took 3 days to present the evidence, make closing arguments, and deliver a verdict. The defendant was charged with aggravated robbery. The most interesting witness was the defendant's accomplice who claimed that his handwritten signed confession was all a lie and that he had been sexually coerced into testifying by the female prosecutor. We also got to watch the video from the surveillance camera at least 20 times. After about 8 hours of deliberation over 2 days, we the jury found the defendant guilty of aggravated robbery. While we were deliberating, the attorneys had negotiated a sentence in the event that we came back with a guilty verdict so the judge sentenced the defendant to 5 years in prison, and we were dismissed.

Other than jury duty, we have been pretty low-key. The boys are talking more and more, which is fun to hear. And they are exploring everything. They have figured out how to open the drawers of my dresser so we have discovered my clothes all over the place. Once they have emptied the drawers of all clothing, they like to climb in. They also love to try on our shoes. I put one of my tall boots on each of them and got some pictures of them walking around the house. And they are fascinated with my suitcases and love to drag them around.

Hayley Turns 1!

Happy Birthday to cousin Hayley! She turned 1 this month and had her first birthday party on Valentine's Day. We drove down late Friday night again and didn't arrive until almost 11:00. But the boys slept most of the way so it wasn't too bad. They had a really good turnout at the party, lots of little kids running around. And Hayley got lots of presents. She seemed to love being the center of attention and had a great time eating cake and opening presents.

After dinner, the boys and Hayley took a bath. I got some great pictures of them all in the bathtub together. The boys had a great time with their cousin and it will be so much fun to watch them all play together when Hayley starts walking.

Sunday morning we got an early start back to Dallas. It was nice to get back early that afternoon and have some time to unwind before the week started. The boys and I took advantage of the beautiful day to go on a walk. They love their new jogging stroller and the opportunity to be outside.

On the way back to Dallas we stopped at McDonald’s to eat lunch. This was the boys’ first trip inside a McDonald’s. We got them each a Happy Meal, one with chicken nuggets and the other with a cheeseburger. We also got one with french fries and one with apple slices. They boys have recently discovered the joy of dipping chicken in ketchup so Andy gave Ben a little tub of ketchup. He had lots of fun dipping everything in it, including his apple slices. We got some fun pictures to document this momentous first.

On Monday night we had our friends Jon and Kristina over for dinner. They just recently moved back to Dallas from McKinney. It will be great to have them so close. We look forward to seeing them more often. On Friday, we had dinner with Ray and Courtney to celebrate their engagement! They are getting married in Lake Tahoe in September. We can’t wait to go – what a wonderful time of the year to go to Tahoe. It should be a gorgeous wedding.

Snow Day!

I guess a more accurate description would be "Ice Day." The boys have stayed home from school the past two days thanks to the winter weather. I was in Phoenix Monday and Tuesday so Andy stayed home with them yesterday. I was lucky enough to make it home last night before the ice got too bad, but we woke up to find the driveway, streets, and Andy's truck covered with ice. School was closed again, as well as the doctor's office (the boys had an appointment scheduled for this morning), so I stayed home with them today while Andy braved the cold to go into the office for a few hours.

We headed down to Houston this past weekend to see Dave Ramsey with Christi and Bryan. Andy and I recently completed his Financial Peace University class so we were excited at the opportunity to see him live. We got Christi and Bryan tickets for Christmas and then Christi called into the show to get his advice and he gave her two more tickets. So Andy and I got to tag along. Thanks to Gee and Sally for watching all of the kids all day!

The boys had their 18-month check-up a couple of weeks ago. I can't believe they are 18 months old! The time has flown by and before I know it, they'll be in kindergarten. Andy has been encouraging me to post some trips down memory lane so be prepared for us to rewind a bit. I had considered starting a blog when I was pregnant but didn't think I would keep up with it. Now I wish I had so I would have some sort of documentation of that time. So I will just have to try to do it now while I can still remember everything.

Other than that, here are a few pictures of the boys with one of their favorite (and most annoying) toys. It is a cat piano with a microphone, which they have discovered and love to talk into. One of the particularly annoying features is the "Meow" sound. You know the Meow Mix commercial with the song "Meow, meow, meow, meow,...?" You can play that on this piano! I'll try to record it and post it one day so everyone can experience it.

239 Days Until...

Texas Longhorn football resumes. As far as I'm concerned, the college football season is officially over, even though I am sitting here watching the "National Championship" game. What a joke.

So what have the Iveys been up to in the last 13 days? A lot. We've had 1 surgery, 2 haircuts, 1 busted lip, 1 bowl game, 2 trips to the pediatrician's office, 1 play date, and 1 going-away party. Did I miss anything? Probably.

On December 29, Henry had surgery to put tubes in his ears. Everything went smoothly until we were about to leave. As I was putting his clothes back on, he threw up. So our departure was delayed another 30 minutes or so. Other than that, it was a pretty simple procedure. Henry might disagree, but since he still doesn't speak English, his opinion doesn't count. Now we just have a follow-up appointment later this month to check his hearing and the placement of the tubes. And Ben gets to go get his hearing and ears checked, too. So we might get to go through this all over again.


After a rather uneventful New Year's, Andy and I went to the Cotton Bowl with our friends Garett and Melissa. We met Andy's friend Jerimy and his stepdad there for very brief tailgating (thanks to a late departure from the house after taking Ben to the pediatrician's office and the worst traffic control I have ever seen at Fair Park) and then made the trek to our seats. Although we were able to see everything from our seats, it was a definite workout to get up there. And even though Andy's Red Raiders did not win the game, we had a great time.


On Saturday, we took the boys to get haircuts. This was Ben's second haircut (his hair grows really fast!) and Henry's first. Henry was not really sure what was going on back there. He kept trying to turn around to see. The haircuts look great, but it is a little sad to see my babies look like little boys. I can't believe they are 18 months old now!



Later that afternoon, we went over to the Pattersons' house for our first "play date." The Pattersons' twin sons, Luke and Jacob, are one day younger than Ben and Henry. They have also been in our Little Gym class each Saturday morning. It was fun to watch the 4 boys play with one another. And the Ivey boys loved playing with the Pattersons' very cool toys. We may have to get a couple of cars for Ben and Henry. The convertible was a big hit. So was the trampoline. Birthday ideas? Thanks again, Jack and Suzanne! We had a great time.





On Sunday night, I was making dinner when Andy yelled from the living room that Ben had busted his lip. Now this is not the first busted lip we have seen, but it was absolutely the bloodiest! Andy carried Ben into the kitchen and all I could see was blood. I was sure he had lost one of his "practice teeth." I didn't even know where to begin to clean him up. Warning - here's a picture of his lip a couple of days later. It is pretty gross (requiring the second trip to the pediatrician's office to check it for infection).

Monday marked the end of the college football season when my beloved Longhorns beat Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona. I travel to Glendale often for work and usually stay across the street from the stadium. It was very tempting to try to find a reason to be in Glendale this week, but the hotels were requiring a 4-night minimum stay at $200+ per night. So I watched the game from my living room. Guess I'll just have to plan on Pasadena next year!

We hosted a mini farewell for our friend Garett on Tuesday night. Garett is moving to El Paso so the guys came over for burgers, Syracuse sausages, and college basketball. Goodbye, Garett! We will miss you!

December

Since I haven't blogged since November, I thought it appropriate to title this blog "December" and catch everyone up on what we have been doing this month. As you can imagine, we have been very busy. December is full of birthdays in the Ivey family - happy birthday to Ellie, Mamo, Steve, and John! We celebrated Mamo's birthday early in the month at our favorite BBQ restaurant, Peggy Sue's in Snider Plaza. I highly recommend the fried pies. And I guess this is an appropriate time to point out that Andy has started his own blog (see link to the right). He now eats barbecue about 4 times per week and blogs about it. So if you are in the mood for good barbecue, you can check out his blog to see what he recommends.

I have officially accepted that we are going to be crammed into this tiny house for what seems like forever. We took the house off the market at the beginning of the month and will reevaluate later in the spring whether or not to try again. Hopefully the market will pick up soon. But for now, I have to get organized or I will go crazy. So I took off a couple of days and my mom came to help me clean out all of our storage and organize what I decided to keep into bins. We ended up with so much stuff in the "give away" pile that I decided to have a garage sale. I have never had a garage sale before, but I thought I would give it a try. I posted an ad in the Dallas Morning News and we put up signs at the end of the street. The morning of the garage sale was FREEZING! We had a couple of people as soon as we opened but traffic was pretty slow. Around 10:00, it was getting warmer and all of a sudden the garage was packed. We sold almost everything and made nearly $600. I consider that a huge success although Andy is still very skeptical about garage sales and thinks I just got lucky. I still have my double stroller to sell so hopefully we will get more money for that.

Now for news about the boys. I took Henry to the pediatrician to check his ears following his third ear infection. I had been out of town for two days before this appointment and when I returned, Henry was wheezing and had a cough. So I was glad that we already had this appointment. Sure enough, when the doctor heard his breathing, he was more concerned about that than his ears. They swabbed his nose and tested it - he had RSV! I never thought I would miss the Synagis injections, but now I actually miss torturing them every month. They gave him two breathing treatments at the pediatrician's office and his breathing got somewhat better so we were sent home with a nebulizer and a prescription so we could continue the breathing treatments at home and return to the pediatrician's office the next morning. If his breathing had not improved, we would have been sent to the hospital so I was very relieved to avoid another hospital stay. And of course, RSV is extremely contagious so Ben got it a couple of days later, but fortunately, not as bad. We just gave him some breathing treatments at home and he was better in a few days. Here's a picture of Ben enjoying a breathing treatment.

So what about Henry's ears? When I took him to see the pediatrician, the ear infection was gone, but there was still fluid behind his eardrums. Since the fluid has been there for several months, the pediatrician felt it was time to talk about tubes. He referred us to a pediatric ENT whose office was downstairs. So Henry and I went downstairs and were seen right away. The ENT agreed that he was a good candidate for tubes so we scheduled him for surgery on December 22 in an attempt to get it down before the end of the year since we have already met our deductible for Henry (thanks to our stay at Children's in June). However, the anesthesiologist cancelled the surgery the Friday before because it was too soon after he had RSV. So now he is scheduled to get ear tubes this Monday, December 29. Hopefully this will go smoothly and put an end to his ear infections. When I picked the boys up from school last Friday (the same day the anesthesiologist cancelled the surgery), their teacher told me that Henry had a fever all day. It was too late to call the pediatrician's office so I took him in Saturday morning. Sure enough, he has ear infection #4! Poor guy!

In addition to the numerous visits to the pediatrician and ENT, we took the boys to the developmental pediatrician for their follow-up to check their development. Since they were born 9 weeks too early, their "adjusted age" is 15-1/2 months instead of 17-1/2 months, their actual age. On average, it takes preemies about 2 years for their development to catch up to their actual age. Their motor skills are great - both boys are pretty much caught up to their actual age. However, their language skills are behind, as we expected. They are just now using a few words - "ba" for "bath", "da" for "dad", "a" or "ca" for "cat", and an occasional "mama". We know that they understand a lot more because we can ask them to go get the ball or their sippy cup and they will do it. They also wave, blow kisses, clap, etc. But they just don't talk, at least not to us in a language that we understand. They definitely talk to one another. So anyway, the developmental pediatrician suggested that we take the next step and get their language skills assessed by a group that will come to your home to do the assessment and any therapy that is recommended. Another item for my to-do list. At the developmental pediatrician appointment, the boys' growth is also measured and tracked according to their actual age and their adjusted age. Here are their stats:

Ben - 24 lb, 0 oz (25th percentile for actual age/almost 50th percentile for adjusted age) and 31.3" (25%/50%)

Henry - 25 lb, 12 oz (50%/50-75%) and 32" (50%/75%)

Okay, now for the fun part of the month - Christmas! We celebrated Christmas with Andy's family last weekend. The boys got soft floor tiles to play on, musical instruments, bath toys, big boy towels, books, and more. Here are some pictures, thanks to Aunt Kellie (it is not really possible to take pictures with your two toddlers opening presents).

On Christmas Eve, we packed up the car and drove to Waco for Christmas with the Ratcliffs. We went to church with Gee and Pops, Aunt Christi, Uncle Bryan, and cousin Hayley. Mass was at 5:30, which is dinnertime for the boys and Hayley. Gee was smart enough to pack sandwiches, Teddy Grahams, and Nilla Wafers so they were all very good during the service. When we got home, we put on their Christmas PJs and put them to bed. The next morning, Santa showed up with presents for Ben, Henry, and Hayley! The boys got a jogging stroller (probably the last Christmas that Santa can get away with that kind of gift), a stuffed elephant and a stuffed horse, and a couple of talking toys. They were not really sure about Santa though. Maybe next year?

After breakfast, we opened the rest of the packages. I could barely keep up with all of their presents. They got lots of new toys, including a basketball goal, Sit'n'Spin, and piano. The boys also got to taste lots of new foods. They both LOVE Christmas cookies. Maybe next year I'll be brave enough to bake cookies and let the boys decorate them. They also LOVE fresh pears. And cannelloni, the traditional Ratcliff Christmas meal. I was really surprised that they liked the cannelloni, especially the filling, but they did. And Henry enjoyed the dried cherries that Mamo and Papo sent to Gee and Pops. But Ben was not too sure about them.


Merry Christmas to all of our family and friends! I will make an effort to blog more frequently next year. Hopefully the new camera I got for Christmas will help.