The Brodie Files

 September 23, 2013 Coraline Paige entered the world, 16 days early.  A year later it is hard to imagine our family without her!  She crawled at 5 1/2 months, walked at 10 months, and seems to answer us when we talk to her.  Damon says she is the smartest one in the family (although he has said that about each of the kids as babies!)  She is our snuggler and gives the best hugs, just throwing her arms around you and burying her head in.  Maybe someday she will start sleeping through the night.  We look forward to seeing what this little girl will be like at her next birthday, and what this year will bring!

Cora at five days old

Our climber.  She climbed up the back of the chair and started to bounce.  She has no fear!

Saturday we had some family over and celebrated her first year with us.   A few of her presents.  Her cupcake.  Most of it ended up on the floor, but she did like licking at the icing!  Happy Birthday Coraline!

Joseph probably put on his suit at least three times during the week leading up to Easter.  He said he "just loved it so much" he wanted to wear it all the time! Unfortunately, he did wear it most of the day and got dirt and glitter all over it.  Back to the cleaners! 
Elizabeth was not about to wear the headband in her hair, it was her necklace!  While Jonathan's vest and all of Joe's attire was hand-me-down clothing from the Morrison family, Elizabeth's dress was first worn by cousin Elaina for her Easter dress five years earlier. 

Cora didn't mind the hair band and kept it on most of the day.  She received her dress from Grandma Sandy for Christmas.  It still fit!

After dinner Elizabeth felt a little cold as she ran around the yard collecting eggs and got her sweater from the hook.  Aunt Vicki playfully put one egg in her zipped up jacket, and Elizabeth kept on filling it!


Before the age of 7 months, Cora can crawl, pull her self up on furniture and legs, and even start to walk along the couch a bit. 
Joe lost his first tooth before Spring break, and his second during break.  He received a quarter for his first tooth, but then lost the second.  Since the tooth fairy had to look for and find the tooth, he had to find his quarter.  When he found one on the fire place mantle, he claimed it!

Joe agreed to dye his hair for the Jog-A-Thon and crazy hair day.  We couldn't find any blue and he certainly did not like the green!  He insisted on washing it out before going to school. 
That weekend Jonathan wanted to try it as well, but also didn't like it. 

Monsters, dinosaurs, towers, robots, and all manner of other creatures have been built in this house lately with Mega Blocks.   Daddy helped with this T-Rex but the boys do pretty well on their own too. 
When the rain made mud, the kids jumped in it!  And had a great time, too!  It all washed out of the clothing, but the interiors of the boys' boots were ruined. 

Joe has his first loose tooth.  Which means that Jonathan, of course, also claims to have one.

Cora is 5.5 months old and is trying to crawl.  She gets up on her hands and knees and usually just rocks or moves inchworm style, but has been seen to actually move her hands and knees to achieve forward movement.

Elizabeth sliced her thumb pretty good yesterday with a razor.  It's a nasty deeper cut that makes her cry anytime the thumb is touched or bumped.

Jonathan will be four next week!  There aren't a lot of kids his age so it's hard to give him a birthday party with his friends.  Instead we're having a 'birthday get together' at the church parking lot this Saturday morning to ride bikes, scooters, skateboards, etc and have a cupcake afterwards.

Cora got hit in the head yesterday afternoon by a ball.  I was holding her while pitching balls to Joe to hit.  Jonathan picked one up to throw back to me but I didn't see it until just before it hit the back of her head.  Fortunately it is a light weight ball, not an actual baseball. It still left quite the red mark and caused lots of crying.

I made dinner-spanish rice with tomatoes& diced green chilies, chili powder, and cilantro.  Added in cooked chicken, pinto beans and a can of corn.  Turned out to be the hottest thing I've tasted all month.  No way were the kids going to eat it!  We forgot about healthy and went for speed--boxed macaroni and cheese.  The kids loved it!  Damon and I ate the rice with tortilla chips, which cut the heat enough for me to enjoy it.

  Wednesday night Jonathan took the nightlight out of the bathroom plug and stuck in a metal key.  He was shocked by the electricity, but other than a really hot hand that hurt, he seemed fine and went to bed.  The keys were left scorched and corroded though.  Thursday he was sorta out of it all day, even taking a very unusual mid-morning nap and not eating lunch.  That afternoon, while the other kids slept, he had a seizure.  Damon saw his eyes fixed to one side and he couldn't stop fluttering his feet.  He called 911 and an ambulance came.  The ambulance followed me down the street as I came home from Professional Development meetings.  After the paramedics assessed him, Damon carried him down to the ambulance, forgetting to even get his shoes.  I sent down clothes for Jonathan and shoes for Damon.  Too bad Johnny doesn't really remember the ambulance ride, he'd have loved it!  The ER doctor called me about an hour after they got to the hospital and asked for more information about his shock.  After that, I wasn't able to get in contact with Damon by phone again. 

 As this was all happening on Joe's 5th birthday, it changed our plans a bit.  Instead of having ribs with the missionaries, my parents brought pizza over to celebrate!  Joe and I compromised and said that he had wait to open gifts until everyone was done eating dinner, but he could open them before cake.  It took him an HOUR to finish his one piece of pizza because he kept asking to open his gifts!  Finally done, he opened his new Star Wars Naboo Starfighter and shirt.  We went to the park for a little bit of baseball and playing on the equipment.  Then the kids went over to spend the night and I went up to the hospital.


 Johnny and Damon had just been told he could be discharged when I got there and we just had to wait for the paperwork, so it was perfect timing!  They ate the pizza I brought them-it was 9:00 at night and they hadn't had any dinner and then we were home a bit before 10:00.  We picked up Elizabeth on the way since she wasn't going to sleep for Grandma. 


 Jonathan needs to follow up with a Neurologist, Cardiologist, and Pediatrician today and so will spend a bit of time at the doctors.  As long as he doesn't have other seizures in the future, the doctor's will attribute the seizure to the electric shock.  If he were to have more, then something else is going on.  He seems perfectly well today and is very eager to see Joe and the new space ship he got.  You'd never know what happened yesterday!

We don't know where, or exactly when, but sometime this summer we're moving.  We're looking to buy a house, but haven't found something in our price range (below $300,00) in a neighborhood we are willing to live in. Until we find it, we need a three bedroom apartment, as apparently our complex will only allow 5 people in a two bedroom apartment.  Yes, you read that right, and it does mean what you think it does.  Due October 9th.

In other news, today is Jonathan's 3rd birthday!  He's very excited about it, but wants to be 2 again. After some talking, we figured out that he wants to be 2 again so he can be 3 again and have another birthday.  He weighs 40 pounds (97%) and is 41" tall (off the charts at 97+).  He's still not talking much so the doctor gave us a referral to LBUSD to have his speech assessed.  He understands what you say to him, but most people would probably only be able to understand about 10 of his words.  He mostly only says the last syllable of each word, if it is intelligible at all.

Elizabeth's finger is getting much better after being smashed in the hinge side of a closet door two weeks ago.  It fractured and needed two stitches.  But, she's actually eating with that hand now, so it's getting better!

Joe has had a very hard time with the time change and getting enough sleep.  He's had a very grumpy/whiny/crying/etc. week. But, today was the first time he woke up without crying, so we're taking little steps to getting his back on schedule and happy again!