Some of my favorite new pictures

Troy decided to pour his own cereal one day:

Grand Rapids Children's Museum had a day

for special needs kids. Below is a photo of Troy with

his teacher and one of his friends:

Troy kissing his baby sister as Papa holds her:


The 4 oldest kiddos at Christmas. About 20 days
before Mollie was born:

Brady had a chess tournament. One of the photos

of him deep in thought:

Ten on Tuesday

This is my first Ten on Tuesday attempt. From what I am understanding it's just a list of Ten things you want to blog about. So here I go:

#10: When my husband's ex-wife is nice to me, it makes me happy. The woman actually took a swing at the back of my head a few years ago (in front of all my children) and has been particularly nasty to me since Thom and I have been together. However, she has been pretty nice the past month of so. She called a few weeks ago to let us know that gas was going to be going up overnight and she "just wanted to let us know so we could fill up our tanks". Also, she emailed me today to let me know she is mailing me some coupons for diapers, baby items and allergy pills since she knows I have allergies. Weird....

#9: My sister and I have gotten a lot closer lately. I freakin love it!

#8: Troy has had bloody noses the past 2 mornings. Since the weather has been terrible with snow (yes, snow at the end of April) I am assuming it due to the air in our house being dry.

#7: Thom got a Keurig coffee maker from my parents for his birthday. I LOVE that thing. We just ordered a case of "chocolate glazed donut" flavor coffee. I can't wait until it arrives!!

#6: Dean got 20 out of 20 on his spelling pre-test this week, so now he has the challenge list - those words are HARD. My 3rd grader has to spell archaeologist (wait...did I spell that right??)

#5: Troy starts 2 year old soccer on Saturday - it's going to be soooooooooo cute! I explained to his coach last night about his processors and that I was going to be on the field signing to him, so if he needs to explain something to Troy that I could help.

#4: I just realized today that the outfit my friend gave me for Mollie to wear on Easter is waaaaaaaaaaaay to big (since Mollie is still only 10 lbs). This means I get to go shopping! Shopping for an Easter dress?!?!?! How much more excited could I get?? NONE!!

#3: I'm bummed that my next door neighbor is moving. I bought the house that I grew up in from my parents and she did the same thing - so we've known each other since we've been born. She only moved back in last spring, so we haven't had much time together. I love that her kids come and hang out with Troy and Dean and now they're leaving! To New Mexico they go...only good part is that I get a gently used dryer for relatively cheap.

#2: I'm annoyed with Thom because I want to go on a marriage retreat on October 7-9 (October 7 being my 31st birthday) and he says it's too far away and too much money. Whatever. I'm so annoyed. Check it out: http://www.winshaperetreat.org/index.php/come/programming/marriage_programming/romantic_adventure.php

#1: I am finally giving in and putting Mollie on a schedule. This eat every 1/2 hour from the time I get home to the time I go to bed is killing me. Someone suggested the "Babywise" book, so I am going to get it and start reading ASAP!


Okay...how did I do? Hopefully you didn't fall asleep at your computer. It felt like a mini "rant" session to me, so I feel better. PHEW!

Let's Try This AGAIN!

Well, I obviously fell off the wagon. What wagon you ask? The blog wagon.

I started this whole thing when Troy was born deaf. So much of our family is in Indiana that I started this to keep them updated on Troy and his progress. I was doing great for a while there - I loved writing this and sharing our family's story. However I started to notice that less and less people were reading it and I thought...what's the point.

So I'm starting again with 1 rule: that you let me know if you read (via email, comments on here, comments on facebook...I honestly don't care. The comments don't need to be each time, but it's nice to see that I'm not doing this with no readers). If no one reads, then I'm not going to waste my time. So let's try this again.

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In the past few months we welcomed the newest addition to our family: Mollie Elizabeth. She is currently 10lbs, 1 oz of pure baby love! Below is a picture of her this past week (12 weeks old) with one of my dearest friend's new baby "Ellie" (short for Eleanor - a name I absolutely LOVE).

Mollie is a GREAT baby! She only cries when she's hungry, which seems to be all the time between the hours of 6pm and 10pm. Last night she slept in her crib for the 3rd night in a row and slept for 9 1/2 hours - only waking up once!! S-C-O-R-E!

Baby Troy is not a baby anymore! My little deaf boy is now 2 1/2 years old. He has listed many words to his small vocabulary which includes: bye-bye, NO, MINE, and Mollie (both "no" and "mine" he tends to yell). Troy goes to his deaf/hard of hearing school each morning and 4 days a week is bused to Kindercare in the afternoon.

Daniella, Brady and Dean are all so big! Daniella is now in 6th grade. That's right...I said 6th grade. And as of last Sunday, Daniella is now 12 years old. Only 360 days until we offically have a TEENAGER! UGH!!! Brady is awesome! Still the strongest kid I know...he is now skateboarding. It's awesome to see how much he loves it. Dean is still awesome and this summer is going to have another new sibling on his dad's side of the family. All three kids love to be together and love their younger siblings.

I am hoping to get some pictures of the kiddos up soon! They will all be here this weekend so hopefully I can remember!!

This Pregnancy

Holy cow this pregnancy is FLYING by! I can't believe I'm starting my 25th week today! Maybe it's because I'm not having a massive baby boy who started kicking at 14 weeks. This time I seem to be having a smaller, gentler girl who kicks like a lady :D

My in-laws just scheduled a baby shower in Indiana for December 11th. It's hard because it's right around the holidays, but it gives us a great excuse to get down there and visit. It's also nice because my house is overrun by boys that I have NO little girl things.

This picture of me is at 19 weeks. In the past 6 weeks I haven't grown a lot - which is amazing to me. I've only gained about 14 lbs altogether which is also amazing to me because with pregnancy #1 I gained 80 and with pregnancy #2 I gained 40!

I suck...

Well...I suck.

Yup...I do.

Why? BECAUSE IT'S BEEN 9 MONTHS SINCE I POSTED!

That's why.

So let's start updating:

Troy:

Troy turned 2 on Saturday! 2 years old already! How the time flies. He has been attending his special D/HH school for 2 1/2 weeks and LOVES every morning. In the afternoons he is bussed to Kindercare. He loves it there too! He loves the bus. He loves his teachers at both school and daycare.

Troy can now say Mama, Dada, Owwww, and Uh-oh!

**Big news: Troy has his 2nd cochlear implant surgery next Thursday. Yup...he will be bilateral! I'm scared to death for his surgery, but am very excited that his world of sound will be increasing!**

Dean:

Dean is in 3rd grade this year! Yikes! He is excited to learn cursive and do math at a harder level. His reading is still several levels behind, but we are working on getting him "level appropriate" books to help him. Dean is attending after-school care this year. He absolutely loves being able to go there after school, eat a health snack and play games. He even promised he would make me something to hang on my rearview mirror out of fuse beads.

Brady & Daniella:

Brady is in 4th grade and Daniella is now in 6th. Both kids seem to really be loving their school (the little they want to talk about it on the weekends we see them). They are being bombarded with loads of fundraisers that we are trying our best to stay clear of :)

Thom & I:

Thom and I are doing really well! Both working 40 hour weeks and enjoying our jobs. On top of our normal day jobs, Thom teaches 1 night a week and attends school for his master's program 1 night a week. I run a kitchen for a churched based recovery program 1 night a week and attend choir 1 night a week (additonal nights are needed if I'm on praise/worship team that week). Thom feels like his life is lived with his nose in his book and I feel as if I live at church.

On top of all that we are also re-doing our basement. We are in the beginning stages of changing our very large family room into 2 more bedrooms. So far we have torn down the original walls, pulled up the carpet and bought the 2x4s. We have also gotten 2 egress windows installed to make them legal bedrooms.

So...why are we increasing our space? Oh yeah...I'm 22 weeks pregnant! That's right! In approx 16 week we will be welcoming a little GIRL to our family! We are so thrilled!

Time to play catch up!

Sorry it's been so long since I've written. I get so busy with everyday things that I forget there are my friends out in cyber-world waiting for my important updates (yeah right!)

Anyways...we had a WONDERFUL Christmas here in the Stambaugh household. We were able to have all 4 of our children which was the best present possible. My in-laws came up and visited overnight which was a huge surprise. Thom and I had vacation PAID from Christmas day until January 4th. Here are some of our pictures:

Dean very excited to get a new DS!

All 3 of my older children playing on their electronics and Troy deciding to terrorize them all!

Troy playing with a new toy from Paumee.

One of my favorite presents!

Troy got a new Curious George hockey stick. Posing here with Uncle Ryan.

Me...very excited about an over the toilet stand.

Troy beating Brady with one of Dean's new presents.

Troy very excited about Uncle Nate's new golf club.

Kids opening gifts at our house Christmas morning.

Thom got a new drill!

My son's processor won't stay on!

Okay CI mom's...I need your help. We went with Cochlear's baby worn system for my son and everything is going...well honestly it sucks. The behind the ear processors will N-O-T stay on!! As you can see by the picture, it just hangs there!

We have tried toupe tape and regular 2 sided tape (from Home Depot) and neither sticks to skin very well. He won't wear his aviator cap anymore.

I'm out of ideas! I need your help!!