RAAAR!

Happy Halloween!! I couldn't resist using today as an excuse to dress up my real life doll. :-) Here's our little lion cub!

DOC Band coming soon!

First off, to update everyone, Kaylee IS going to be getting a DOC Band. I am doing fine with it and her Daddy is the strongest man I know. The people at Cranial Tech are wonderful. They took us through a variety of different scenarios that included the life with the band and also life without. My favorite part of the appointment came afterwards when we received copies of her "mug shots." Seriously, that's what they are. I feel like all we need to do is photoshop in a little black box with a random number on it and we've got America's first baby criminal. :-) We went in on Friday for her DSI (digital surface imaging) appointment. Kaylee say like a little angel while 25 different cameras take pictures of her head. Did I mention that in order to get accurate images, she wore a sock-like head piece that made her look like a bank robber? Perhaps the crime occurs after the mug shots for babies. Hee hee. Bad Mommy moment-I forgot the camera! Ugh. I would have loved to post the picture of her as the masked bandit. I was amazed at how calm she remained while the stocking mask was on her face. Not a whimper out of this girl! On November 5th we go back in to have the band placed and fit onto Kaylee's head. Then it's just a waiting game! 8-10 weeks is what they say for Kaylee in the helmet. Not bad in the grand scheme of things. We are praying that her head grows quickly so that she does not have to wear it longer than that. Selfishly, I would like it to be 6-8 weeks, but I know that even 10-12 weeks will feel like a blink of an eye later on. I think that's about it...so enjoy a quick giggle...because I sure did. Here are her mug shots. When you look at them, I think that the top right picture best shows her "a-symmetry" in her ears. See how the left side is so much lower than the right? Poor little baby...her expression in this picture gets me every time! :-)

WANTED: Kaylee Marie Grewe

If you have seen this baby, please call for reward.

Pumpkins and Pastizzis

Over the past few weeks, since I last wrote on this blog, many things have taken place. I will save the DOC Band update for later, because Nick has to fix our scanner. I want to post pictures with it.

SO...that leaves us with this past weekend. We were blessed to have Kaylee's Nana (Nick's Mom) come down from Santa Clara to visit for the weekend. Something I have been hearing about since before we were married was how amazing these things called pastizzis were. That's right - say it out loud - PAH-stit-sees! They are a maltese tradition that Lynn passed down to us this weekend. Homemade phyllo dough, ricotta cheese filling, another batch of homemade phyllo dough with spinach & ground sirloin filling. All I can say is that they were delicious and well worth the time that it took to make them. Kaylee had a blast hanging out with her Nana and learned so many new things. She got a bath from Nana (and didn't cry at all!), she hung out with her while I went and got my nails done (compliments of Nana), she went shopping and got the most adorable outfit ever! But the biggest deal (to me) is that she took her "big girl" pacifier from Nana for the first time! We are slowly transitioning out of the big blue hospital pacifier into the more traditional look. :-) With me, she would just gag everytime I tried to give it to her. Not with Nana! She took it like a pro. Here are just a few pictures from her visit.

Nana teaches Kaylee how to make Pastizzi

Teaching us how to roll the dough

Our first batch all by ourselves!

The next big thing was Kaylee's first trip to the Pumpkin Patch! I just LOVE pumpkin seeds and I couldn't wait any longer. So Garyn, Nate, the Kraus House and the Grewe Crew all went to find some pumpkins. Lucky for us, there was a really adorable baby pumpkin just waiting for us! Anne Geddes, eat you heart out!

And they let us take this little pumpkin home for free! :-)

DOC Bands?

Well, I'm here to let you know Kaylee is still tall and skinny! We had her 4 month check up on Monday and everything is going great. She is a whopping 11.8 pounds (1.8lbs in two months) and 25 1/4 inches tall! Dr. Sanford told us that she should be ready for her modeling career soon. On a different note, we also got the reccomendation to go get her head shape evaluated at a place called Cranial Tech, Inc. It seems that because of the torticollis (her head always looking left), she has developed a flat head on the left side. It would be purely cosmetic at this point to get a DOC Band aka Baby Helmet IF it were just her head. Unfortunately, her face is not symetrical either. This means that the flat head is a little more serious than cosmetic. So...next Thursday we are going to get her evaluated and possibly fitted for a cute little helmet. :-/

I (JM) have mixed emotions. Obviously, we are going to do what's best for Kaylee and I would much rather deal with her in a helmet now than resenting me at 16 when she finds out we could have fixed it. It's just hard to...well...it's just hard. So please pray for our appointment on Thursday. That the severity of her head shape is not too bad and that we would only have to have her wear a helmet (if at all) for 2 months vs. 6-9 months. And for me, just pray that God would continue to work on me as a Mommy, and that the sneaky fleshly vanity that I have for Kaylee would be eliminated.

Most recent shot of our little angel...