Today is our 2nd wedding anniversary! I am making a special dinner for Jeff tonight and we are exchanging gifts. On Saturday evening we have a "date night" planned for our anniversary. My mom and dad gave us a gift certificate to Cinetopia so we plan on having dinner and watching a movie there. We are both looking forward to some one-on-one time together.
Yesterday afternoon a high school/college friend of mine, Jenelle, came over with her baby, Justin. Justin was born near the end of July, so he's still ity bitty and he's the cutest baby ever! (Other than Nicholas, of course)! It was nice to visit after not seeing each other for several months. Nicholas was happy to meet Justin and very gentle when he touched him. Justin smiled at Nicholas and kicked his legs when they were laying next to one another on the floor. They were both a couple of cuties!
Thanks for visiting Jenelle & Justin. Come see us again soon!
Last night Nicholas and I ventured into Portland for his sleep study with Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU). The sleep study didn't take place at the hospital, it was at the Marriott Hotel in a huge suite! We got there at 8:00pm for check -in and the sleep technician, Zach, spent about 45 minutes hooking Nicholas up to all the electrodes you see in these photos. Nicholas was relaxed and patient the whole time and enjoyed watching the premiere of Dancing with the Stars with mommy.
The sleep study was conducted to see if Nicholas is having any sleep apnea episodes at night, which will determine if he needs a BiPap machine for breathing while he sleeps.
Our lovely, comfortable suite that had a kitchenette, a lounge area, a luxurious bathroom, and a king size bed. What a nice place for a sleep study!
After Nicholas was all hooked up to the numerous monitors, it was after 9:00pm and he was tired. None of the monitors seemed to bother him, except for the one in front of his nostrils that monitored his CO2 intake/output. He kept trying to pull it off before he fell asleep.
Both Nicholas and I ended up sleeping wonderfully. We feel asleep around 9:30pm and woke up every so often when the sleep technician came in to adjust monitors that had moved while Nicholas was sleeping. Nicholas only semi-woke-up a total of 3 times just to move from side to back or vice versa or to have his binky placed back in his mouth. I felt relieved in the morning when we awoke that we each got a good 8 hours of sleep!
Today Nicholas is 16 months! Jeff adjusted his stander so he stands fully upright and he is loving it! It has complete head control and can reach and play with the toys on his tray much better than before when he was at an incline. We are amazed by how much he is moving lately. He is wiggling his body, swaying his legs from side-to-side, and reaching a grabbing for things all the time. We are thrilled that he is demonstrating a lot of independent movement.
Jeff's Aunt Stacy bought these squishy, squeaky blocks for him and he loves them! We stack them up on his tray and he pushes them off one by one. He spent an hour doing that last night and nearly two hours pushing them off today.
I made tacos for dinner and Nicholas had his first "olive finger" experience. I put four olives on his fingers and he enjoyed biting each one off. Although, he must not have really liked the taste of them because he kept spitting each one out.
We are slowly easing into our new fall routine. I started my new office hours this week, which allows me to spend more time with Nicholas during the day. He only goes to my mom's house once a week now instead of twice a week like he did during the summer months. 
Nicholas can now easily spend 1.5 hours in his stander. He plays with his favorite toys and watches either Baby Einstein videos or his favorite cartoons on television. We have more time for the stander now because Nicholas is opting out of an afternoon nap on most days. He usually takes a 3 hour nap from 11:00am to 2:00pm and is not wanting to sleep at all in the early evening. It's been harder for me to adjust to no afternoon nap than it is for him! He's also getting two cough assist treatments per day: one in the morning and one in the early evening. He still is not fond of them, but fusses less and less with each treatment.
Another adjustment to our routine is the foods Nicholas is eating. Because he has not gained much weight in the last several months, we are adding butter to almost everything he eats. He is also drinking Pedia Sure in the morning instead of Next Step formula. We have also been adding yummy fattening foods like: Jello pudding cups, cheese, Tollhouse Club crackers, chocolate chip cookies, and Tillamook yogurt.
Now that fall is (officially) only a few days away, we are starting to look forward to all the fun holidays and activities the fall season brings! 
Brett's last day in Washougal was on Tuesday and he came over and spent the whole afternoon with Nicholas and me. Nicholas loves spending time with his godfather since he rarely gets to see him. Brett has no problem getting Nicholas to make goofy faces like the one below. Also, Brett and I were talking about Unite for the Cure and all of the fundraising we have been doing and Brett generously offered to donate a Ronix wakeboard with bindings that will be signed by one of the pros for us to auction off to raise money toward our goal...so stay tuned into the coming weeks and we will tell you how to possibly win a brand-new autographed wakeboard! We miss you already Brett...we're counting down the days until you return in December!
These are a few photos I took the other night when we went over to the Darling's house, who are our neighbors and good friends. They made a yummy taco dinner and we enjoyed spending time with them and the Cox family.
After dinner Mason and Nicholas got into their PJ's and Mason brought out a fishing game for them to play, which Nicholas loved! Mommy helped him hold the fishing pole and catch fish as they swam 'round and 'round. You can see the game in the photo below.
I used to baby-sit Mason every Friday afternoon, however, this year because of the arrival of Bella, his new sister, Erin (his mom) is just working part-time so he doesn't come over once a week anymore and Nicholas misses seeing him all the time.
Mason always plays with Nicholas really nicely and can make him laugh and smile with his silly faces. Mason also likes to bring out his big trucks and lets Nicholas push them on the ground. He's going to be a great big brother to Bella!
Also, today I visited a good friend of mine who owns a beauty salon in town and she is going to put together baskets of salon and local vendor goodies to raffle off with 100% of the proceeds going toward Unite for the Cure! She will take $1.00 donations for the raffle in the next 3 months. If you're interested in making a cheap donation and possibly winning some goodies, stop by Beauty Temptations in Washougal!
Don't forget about our Photography Fundraiser on Sunday, September 13th. To sign-up for a time slot contact Jenifer at jenifer@polkadotphotography.net
We are so blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives!
My brother, Brett, flew into town from Florida yesterday for a week long visit! Nicholas was so excited to see him since he hasn't been here since Christmas 2008...about 9 months ago! Brett and Nicholas hung out for a couple of hours during the day while I went into the office. Later in the evening the whole family gathered for a yummy dinner at mom and dad's house.
Gramme and Grandpa just love their grandson. No one can make Nicholas laugh like my dad can!
Gramme is teaching Nicholas all sorts of new tricks. One of his favorites is the clicking sound he loves to make with his tongue.
Meet Mr. Teddy, Nicholas's new bear friend given to him by an orthopedic technician at Shriner's Children's Hospital. Nicholas had to have his TKO (body brace) trimmed so it gives him more tummy space to breathe while he wears it. The nice man named Don who fixed it gave him this bear, that is almost the same size as him, I might add. It's his new little buddy!
Nicholas skipped physical therapy at Shriner's a couple weeks back beacuse he was teething and since we only go there twice a month, he was itching to get back on the power chair again. He did really well this time. He kept his hand on the joystick a bit longer than previous sessions and he loves driving to the sticker room to pick out a new sticker!
Here's another of Nicholas's new buddies. Her name is Julie and she is Nicholas's home teacher who works for the ESD. He absolutely adores her because she's so sweet and brings lots of fun new toys to play with! Today he had fun putting these little pegs into the holes on the peg board and enjoyed sticking his fingers in the holes, too.
He loved this big book Julie brought. It was full of fun, bright pictures of different things: animals, flowers, shapes, and colors with the word printed under the picture. Julie was impressed that Nicholas knew how to turn the page and complimented him on this skill. What can I say, we love to read together!
Nicholas has been feeling great for the past week and a half now. No more teething pain! We are so glad that's over (for now) because it is not only tough on Nicholas, but tough on us when we don't know exactly how to make our baby boy feel better. 
Also, our little guy has become quite the squirmy worm lately. If he's sitting on my lap, he will throw himself off to the side, often flipping his entire body over...so we always have to make sure soft surfaces are nearby. He also enjoys these new couch stretches while he's wearing his KAFO's. He is starting to like standing more and will often want to stand upright (in his KAFO's) between mommy's legs for support. He also enjoys throwing toys on the floor and trying to reach to grab them. He's been grabbing and holding my hands when he cuddling with me which I think is adorable and makes me smile every time. He is starting to eat a substantial amount of food. Lately he likes chicken nuggets, yogurt, Goldfish crackers, veggie burgers, cheese, waffles with maple syrup and bananas.
Also yesterday we became the proud renters of this cough assist machine. This machine will help Nicholas to inhale and exhale and will cause him to cough when he has mucus built up. The technician who brought the equipment out showed us how to use it and even let me try it using an adult size mask. Nicholas was kind of freaked out by it because it's noisy, so we let him touch it and listen to it before we actually tried it on him. But, unfortunately, he hated it anyway. So we are planning on using it a couple times a day to start with to help him get used to it and keep it from being too scary for him. Any suggestions on how other parents make it fun/less scary would be appreciated! 
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