Friday, April 27, 2012

Karina walks!


K walks a video by josiegut on Flickr.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Easter 2012

We spent Easter with my cousins who live only a couple of miles from us. It was nice to celebrate with family. The girls broke cascarones, a pinata, and Karina practiced her standing skills. She is awfully close to walking soon.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Monday, April 9, 2012

Friday, April 6, 2012

We have visitors!



In early winter Omar planted two Butterfly weed plants in hopes of attracting Monarch butterflies. He wasn't sure if he would be successful, but earlier this week he was pleasantly surprised to see 8 Monarch caterpillars on the plants!

I was so excited to see them because I experienced seeing the entire life cycle previously when the school I taught at in Sonoma ordered butterfly kits each year. It was beautiful and amazing! My favorite part was seeing the shiniest golden dots on the chrysalis. It was just amazing that there could be such beauty in nature. Anyway, we have taken precautionary measures to protect our pets from predators by placing a tomato cage over the plants and surrounding them in mosquito netting (much like the butterfly kit) and hope to post pictures of each stage here. They will be caterpillars for two weeks and chrysalises for 10 days. I'm so excited that the girls will get to experience this! Want to learn cool facts about Monarch butterflies? Check out this site.

Spring Break part 2



Omar took the last part of Spring Break off and we planned a trip to Sea World with Elena's Godparents whom we had not seen in a while. We enjoyed having them over and catching up. The kids played so well together. It was as if time had not elapsed since they last saw each other. We can't wait to hang out again!






Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Karina update


Last month Karina started asthma medication. After 2 wheezing episodes on different occassions caused after a typical cold and cough, her pediatrician prescribed steroids through a nebulizer. Last weekend she got another cold and started having trouble breathing. The albuterol didn't seem to help so per the Doctor's instructions we headed to the ER. The picture above was taken about two hours after her treatment at home (notice her hospital gown). I guess it took that long to finally kick in. But, I was relieved she had livened up since previously she had been lethargic. After finally seeing a Doctor around midnight Karina finally fell asleep. (below)

The bad news is that I have to give her 2 treatments of steroids through the nebulizer twice a day (the process probably takes ~20 minutes) until summer! The good news is that summer is almost here, and she could out grow this meaning she may not have asthma forever.
Notice Marisa in the background. The girls are so good about cheering her on. They try to distract Karina through the treatment by showing her books and singing her songs.

Karina is now 15 months. She reminds me a little of Elena when Elena was this age. Karina is not walking but cruising around quite a bit. She started really cruising about two weeks ago and now loves getting around with her walker push toy. I have seen her stand on her own unassisted twice now so maybe she'll walk sometime this month instead of at 16 months like her sister Elena did. I'm actually anxious for her to walk already so she can join her sisters in the backyard. Since she's the third child, I occassionally let her crawl around in the backyard which she does not seem to mind even on bare knees. When it's time to come in she is filthy and most definitely needs an immediate bath! I'm ready for her to start walking if only just to have less laundry to wash! ha!

Karina has already had some toddler tantrums, which have shocked me because I didn't deal with these kinds of tantrums with the other girls and surely not this early. She seems to be extra sensitive when she's sick and some of her tantrums have come as a result of having to sit on my lap for the asthma treatments. I can't say I blame her, twice a day of those treatments is hard enough for me.

She still loves to eat. She eats a ton!!! I thought that by now she would have slowed down or become picky as toddlers seem to do around this age, but instead she eats everything I serve and then some. Again, because she is the third she's already eaten a lot more variety than her sisters ever did at this age. She has had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, pizza, ice cream, and anything I can get on her tray quickly.

Some recent pictures below.







Wordless Wednesday