Hannah Turns 3!

Today Hannah turned 3 years old (insert gasp)! She is turning into such a little lady and has such a kind and gentle personality (when she is not tired or hungry....but who doesn't get cranky when that happens??) We just love being around her and talking with her and hearing the funny things she has to say. Often times her narration during a movie is more comical then the movie itself. Recently we were watching Cinderella as family and it got to the part where the evil step sisters tear off Cinderellas dress and she said "Uh no! Her dress is broken, she needs a Mouseketool dada." Apparently the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show can be educational: a Mouseketool can solve any dilemna. Thanks Mickey.

Speaking of education, Hannah started preschool! Here she is excited for her first day of class:

Some friends in our complex mentioned that they were doing a preschool co op and invited us to join. Once a week we take turns hosting the children at our home and teach a lesson. Right now our lesson plans are based on a letter of the alphabet. She has loved it! The moms do such a good job of entertaining the children with a craft, writing, books, snacks, and games all based on the given letter.

She attended a creative dance class that I taught in November. I will do another post about it but I had so much fun teaching it! It was a free class for preschoolers and there were between 10 and 20 kids there every week. It was a great turn out and the children and their parents are requesting that I teach the class again, so it looks like Hannah will be attending a dance class in January too. Hannah loved going to dance class and interacting with her friends. Here she is in her tutu all dressed and ready for dance class:

Hannah is turning into quite the social butterfly. She loves to find children to play with and automatically refers to them as her friend, even if they just met. I love that about her. She is such a tender hearted girl and enjoys being around other children. She especially loves her little brother and is growing into an incredible big sister.Her vocabulary and grammar are growing daily. She knows and recognizes the ABCs. She can count to 20 and recognize any number. Her memory is impeccable. If you read her a book regularly she can soon read the book back to you word for word. She enjoys singing and being sung to. If you ask her who her best friend is she will say Baby Howe or Jack. Baby Howe goes everywhere with her and she wishes her friend Jack could come everywhere with her too.

This picture is a little blurry but I love it. I know I'm biased but I think she is the most beautiful girl in the world. Can you find Baby Howe in the picture?
She wanted to hold Baby Howe in the baby carrier like I carry Liam.
Here is a cute picture of Hannah with Jack and his mommy Kelli.She is quite skilled at building towers and loves to balance toys at the top of her creations.
Oh and remember this post? Or this one? She still sleeps in weird positions. Here is the proof:

We love our Hannah! We are so lucky that we get to be her parents.

8 Month Old Tubs

Our little boy is 8 months old!!! (OK, truth be told he is now 9 months old but I started this post a while ago and it needs to be published before he is no longer a baby.) I probably sound like a broken record when it comes to saying my kids grow up too fast. But seriously people, mine are growing up way faster than most kids.

Liam's official name is William. But he gets called William like 0.001% of the time around these parts. Liam is his name in public when we introduce him to people. But at home he mostly goes by Baby Bruda, Tub of Love, Tubby's, Tubs, Buster....pretty much anything but his real name. Is that bad? I feel like we should be better at calling him by his name because at this stage they should recognize their name. But he really is just a heaping tub of love.

He is such a happy little thing. Case in point: One time I had to step out of a church meeting because he was laughing too hard. I wasn't even tickling him or anything. He loves eye contact and smiles and it doesn't matter who you are he will smile back with this big grin that lights up not just his face but the whole room. I love watching the effect he has on people. Our little ray of sunshine. Hannah can't get enough of him either. She loves making him laugh. And his laugh makes her laugh. They are like two peas in a giggling pod.

He started teething this month. Which was no fun. One day I noticed while I was feeding him some solids that between bites he would bend down and gnaw on the table of the high chair. The next day his first little tooth popped out of his gums. He was also pretty fussy and started waking up at night. I never knew when Hannah was teething until there was a new tooth in her mouth. Maybe I just understand the symptoms better this time around...or maybe Liam is just a little softy :-)

Liam's Latest

1st tooth
Started crawling
Loves to stand with support
He loves food. He will eat anything, even vegetables as long as they are disguised in some applesauce. I know. I'm sneaky like that.
He stopped sleeping through the night due to teething and 2 consecutive colds. Poor guy.
Loves people and will cry if he is left alone in a room.
His favorite thing to do is take something and hit it against another something.

He is so much fun and we love him to pieces!!

Now for some pictures:

Wearing his BSU hat to watch some college football
Playing with a toy dog
Dressed up in his Sunday best
Showing off his early crawling skills back in early October
He loves to stand in his crib
Such a sweetie

"Garbage Cawn"

First of all, I love my little Hannah. She is a dream of a child. But she is obsessed with something, and it is going to drive me bonkers. Most children develop some sort of quirky little obsession when they are young. For some it is trains, others it is a certain TV show, or a favorite superhero, maybe a well loved baby doll or stuffed toy...and then there is Hannah's latest obsession. "Garbage cawn's". That would be garbage can, but she pronounces it with a British accent, hence the "cawn". She doesn't play with them. She just loves to talk about them.

While driving down the street she will point out every single garbage can we pass and talk about how dirty they are. She will count them and name the colors she see's. And lets face it, when you live in a big city you see about a bazillion garbage cans in just a quick trip. It would be more bearable if she didn't force you to repeat everything she says just so she knows you heard her. A sample conversation that transpires on a daily basis while in the car:

Hannah: "Green, black, and a blue garbage cawn! 1, 2, 3 garbage cawns!!"

Me: "Good job Hannah."

Hannah: "Garbage cawn too deerty Mama." (She say's dirty with a British accent too)

Me: "That's right Hannah."

Hannah: "Garbage cawn too deerty Mama!!"

Me: "OK Hannah."

Hannah: "Garbage cawn too deerty Gretchen!!!!" (She mean's business when she calls me by my first name)

Me: "I hear you Hannah, you're right."

Hannah: "GARBAGE CAWN TOO DEERTY GRETCHEN!!!!!!!"

And then I cave in.

Me: Begrudgingly "Yes Hannah, garbage cans are dirty."

Can you see the joy that is a car ride with her lately? She loves garbage trucks too. She will gaze out the living room window in excitement as a garbage truck pulls into the parking lot to pick up the trash. Over the past couple of weeks it has gone from hilarious and sweet to "I would rather be hit over the head by that garbage can than hear her say it one more time". Please tell me this obsession will fade. Have your kids ever had an obsession? I would love to hear about it.

Pictures

A couple of weeks ago we took the kiddos to JCPenney Portraits to get some professional pictures taken of them. It was the first time Liam had ever had his pictures taken professionally. He is 7 months old, so it was about time. They both did great! We got some good smiles out of them.

6 Months Old

Liam is now 7 months old and I still haven't posted about what he was up to at 6 months. But my mind has been elsewhere for the last month, see posts below if you want to know what on. I want to remember what this little cutie was like at 6 months, so here it goes.

Where do I even start? Liam is such a joy. He smiles and laughs for anyone who gives him an ounce of attention. He adores his big sister. Anything she does is hilarious to him. It's easy to tell he just can't wait to be mobile and try to keep up with her. When he get's excited his arms start flapping like he is trying to take flight. It is adorable. Here is a breakdown of life as a 6 month old:

Milestones
At 6 months he could stand up supporting his own weight while holding onto furniture or a hand. When he was about 5 months old he started rolling over from back to front and sitting up on his own. As soon as he figured out how to roll onto his tummy he started sleeping better. Which brings up the next category.

Sleep
Apparently sleeping in the same room as your parents for the first 6 months of life is rough because now that he has his own room he is sleeping through the night like a champ. Lately he has been sleeping from about 9pm-9am waking up once around 7am for a quick feeding and goes back to sleep. Usually he takes 2 naps but some days he is so exhausted that he need's a 3rd nap in the evening.

Words
At about 4/5 months Liam started saying "mamamama". He say's it when he is tired or hungry. It pretty much melts my heart.

Eating
He is a nursing machine. I nurse him every 2-3 hours. He loves solid food too. His favorites right now are sweet potatoes and applesauce. We tried rice cereal but he gets a red rash wherever the cereal touches his face, so we moved onto oatmeal.

Toys
Anything he can get his hands on. If he is really into a toy and someone (aka Hannah) takes it away he screams bloody murder. Such a softy.

6 Month Stats
At Liam's Dr. appt we were seen by a different nurse than usual. I think this nurse was new because her aptitude for measuring was not the best. For instance she was asking me to assist in measuring his head and it kept slipping.....needless to say I don't entirely trust these stats. The important thing is that he is a big, healthy, and happy little babe.

Weight: 18 lbs 6 oz

Height: 27 inches

Head: 17 inches

These pictures were taken at 7 months. But what is a baby update without a picture of the baby??

His smile is infectious.

"What's with the flash people?"
A rare serious moment

Such a cutie

Update

Thank you friends for your sweet phone calls, messages, and comments. We can't thank you enough for all the love and support. Some of you have asked for updates, so here is what we know now. Jake had another appointment yesterday with his Urology Oncologist and we were given the lab results from the procedure. The tumor was cancerous, a T1 seminoma to be precise, but the good news is that we got it out before it had a chance to spread and there are no tumor markers in his blood work. That mean's he does not need chemotherapy or radiation at this point. He will need to have an MRI every few months for a couple of years to scan his body for any sign of a recurrence. We feel so lucky to have caught it early and relieved to know that no further treatment is necessary at this time. Thank you for your prayers, they have strengthened us and pulled us through this hardship. Life is a roller-coaster, and it looks like we are finally heading towards the upward climb....well if you don't count the craziness of the grueling 31 credits Jake has to take this semester. Good thing he is a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

Trials and Blessings

This post marks the end of my 6 week blogging hiatus. There has been a lot going on in the Pollard casa. Originally I wasn't going to post about this. But it would be like editing out the most important thing going on in our lives right now. Let me elaborate. The end of July was spent packing up our apartment and moving to Seattle. 3 week's ago we moved into our new home. 2 week's ago Jake had a Dr. appointment regarding a suspicious lump. 1 week ago Jake had surgery to remove a tumor. 2 week's from today Jake starts his second year of medical school while recovering from surgery and awaiting the official diagnosis of what the doctor suspects is testicular cancer. Life has been a whirlwind.

In a time of so much turmoil and stress I have never felt so blessed. Blessed to be so close to one of the best hospitals in the nation. Blessed to have an outpouring of prayers, love, and service from family, friends, and our new ward family. Blessed to have a husband with so much faith and strength whose biggest concern right now is not being able to pick up and hold his children for a few weeks. Blessed to have 2 amazing children that remind us everyday what true joy is. Blessed that testicular cancer has one of the highest cure rates of all cancers. Blessed to feel the burden lifted as we pray to our Heavenly Father. Blessed to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and know that families can be together forever because of the atoning sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Now Jake has more reason than ever to sport his Livestrong bracelet. Your accomplishments amaze me Jacob. Soon you can add *Beat Testicular Cancer* to the list. Love you!