The Casey Family

So....I just realized that I haven't updated this blog in...oh...four months--yipes! Life with three children is much busier than I imagined! Most days I collapse in the bed with dishes in the sink and piles of laundry waiting to be folded. I had this dream of when I would be a stay at home mom my house would always be clean, the laundry would always be folded and put away, I would cook three meals a day, and my children would do cute little educational art projects that would never ever leave a mess. WRONG.

Now on to more important things-----Isla Rose is ONE!!! One year ago she came in to this world and changed my life in such a beautiful way. Since my blogging has taken a backseat this last year, here is a very brief summary of this past year with Isla Rose. I remember the days after she was born. Oh she had such a time with her blood sugar, heel sticks every hour, an IV in her teeny tiny foot, an extra day in the hospital to lay under lights and of course her little eye. I remember at one point the doctor going from "Her eye is just swollen" to "I'm not really sure if she has an eye or not". I had a few moments over the first week of her life where I just had sadness over some of that uncertainty. But God was so gracious and faithful to remind me very quickly how He formed her and made her exactly as He intended her to be. A dear friend who has a child with a disability told me not long after Isla was born about what a gift we have in our children because we get to look at them every day and be reminded that His ways are higher than our ways. I am so grateful for that reminder.
These pictures were taken the day we went to the eye doctor and found out she had microphthalmia

This year has brought so much joy to our family. Isla was a very fussy baby. She would start crying at about 8 oclock and cry until midnight for about the first 3-4 months! Then all of a sudden, she turned a corner and was like a totally different baby. The minute she could sit up and play with her toys, she was content to just sit and watch everything happening around her, which was usually quite a lot with these two running around.

We continued to go every few months for a new conformer to grow and stretch her eye socket. She did really well with them, only fussing for a moment. She had some redness and irritation with her little eye, but nothing that seemed to bother her. She was a sweet happy baby!

Isla began sitting up at 6 months. We introduced solid foods at 6 months, but she did NOT like them. I have continued to have a difficult time finding foods that she enjoys to eat. I didn't push her much. She breast fed really well and just wasn't interested in foods. When she turned 9 months, I started trying to feed her more aggressively. We started on yogurt and she LOVES it. It is to date her favorite food. She also loves graham crackers and chicken....and that's about it. We can get an occasional banana or vegetable in her, but that's rare. When we went for our one year check up, she had only gained 3/4 of a pound since her 9 month check up. :( We are working hard to find foods that she will eat as I am hoping to wean her over the next 6 weeks. It is sad for me knowing that this might be the last baby I nurse. I have been so fortunate to have had such a positive experience with breastfeeding all three of my kiddos. Hopefully, she will do well weaning, because she really loves it hah! She began to scoot around when she was about 10 months, not crawling very fast, but doing more of an army crawl, getting from point A to point B.

Learning to crawl

Not happy about it

Having FUN at the Pumpkin Patch!

Playing with Big Brother's toys

At 9 months, she got her new eye! She did so well with the conformers that our occularist, Ms Elise, decided it was time for her painted eye. It was amazing how intricate and LONG the whole process was. Ms Elise is very talented and we have been so blessed by how well they have worked with us and worked for us. The biggest change I noticed after we got her eye was how few people stopped and stared when we were out in public. We usually attract attention when we are out just because I have three young children and we are quite rambunctious, but often when people would stop and talk to us, they inevitably noticed her sweet little eye and would ask questions, some would be rude, most often they were just curious, which I didn't mind at all. But her new eye is so natural looking, I never get any questions any more.

A "before" picture :)

First picture with her new eye!

Isla is the sweetest little girl. We are so blessed by her patience, sweet smile and precious spirit. I told someone the other day I don't think she'll ever do anything wrong (hah!) but at least that's how I feel right now. God has blessed our family with exactly what we needed in our children. She LOVES her Daddy and her big brother and sister. Her most favorite thing is to stand and walk with assistance. I think it makes her feel big. I am sure she'll be running around with her siblings in no time. For now, she is cautiously making her way from place to place holding on to the couch or the wall.She babbles and giggles all the time. Her first word was Da-da of course. She can also say Ah-ah for asher, juice, diaper, please, cheese (like say cheese for a picture :)), bye-bye, and occasionally will give me a ma-ma, but you know that word is just too wonderful to be spoken ;) More recently she will respond to what does a dog say? "woof" what does a cat say? "reow" and what does a tiger say? "rrrooooaaarrr" Love it!! She's not as big of a talker yet, but I'm sure she will catch up with Honor in no time. (if she ever gets a chance hah!)

Sisterly Love

She LOVES to clap and play pattycake!

Walking walking

For her birthday, we took a family trip to the aquarium in Tennessee. My mom and sisters came and we met my grandmother there. It was a fun day. I knew Isla would do well because she is so laid back, but I had no idea how much she would LOVE looking at the fish. She would stand next to the glass and talk to the fish and laugh at them. We found a cupcake shop and let her have her first taste of cake. She LOVED it!Here are some pictures from our day (sorry if they look weird...can't figure out what's going on there)

2 days old!

One!

Two!

Three

Asher turned four years old on November 3rd! Four years of blessing, four years of wonderful chaos as I have watched this beautiful little boy grow. He is blessed with so much JOY! His name means happy and he lives up to that meaning. He has so much energy. He is ALL boy. I want to remember some of his favorite things and funny things about him right now, so excuse the bullet point list, but this is for preserving our family memories :)

-He loves being outside, doing anything, but especially riding his bike, digging in the dirt, playing with sticks (imagining them to be swords, guns, hammers, telescopes, binoculars, etc--it's amazing how many things a stick can be)
- He is obsessed with superheroes. Spiderman is his particular favorite, but he also loves Ironman, the Hulk, Batman, Superman, Captain America, etc. The only one he said he doesn't really like is Thor (?) I'm still not really sure how he got in to this other than maybe books from the library and his friends from school because he hasn't ever seen a movie
- He loves his sisters! They are his best little friends. He is always hugging and kissing on Isla and rough housing with Honor (poor girl ;)) He is THE BEST big brother!
-He sleeps with his teddy and turtle blanket animals. He has a very strict bedtime routine which includes bath, PJs, brushing of the teeth, reading a story, prayer time, asking for water, and getting out of bed a few times to tell us he loves us and we are his best friends before finally falling asleep.
-He knows several bible verses by heart. We have read through the story book bible at least twice. It makes my heart happy to hear God's word from his little mouth.
-He will try to charm you to get out of trouble, grinning, laughing, hugging, etc. (Bad habbit we are trying to break, especially because it usually breaks me hah!)
- He loves to read.
-His favorite food is chicken nuggets and chocolate milk. He would probably ask for that for every meal.
-He refuses to wear jeans. He only wants to wear sweat pants aka "soft pants"
-He really likes to dress up in his super hero outfits. He got some occupational dress up stuff that I think he is really going to have fun with.

I'm sure there are so many other things I can't think of right now. He makes us laugh every day. He has such a tender heart and is so kind. He has taught me so much about love. He loves so passionately, so genuinely it breaks me. It doesn't matter who they are or how they treat him, he just loves. I pray that I will love others like that. The Lord has been so gracious to allow me to see life through the eyes of my young children in all of their innocence and purity of heart. I pray that being a mom will continue to change me, grow me, challenge me and make me more like Jesus.

To celebrate his actual birthday, he said he wanted to go to the park. So we got up, made pancakes, gave him his presents (a bike!, a football helmet and Honor picked him out an iron man shirt ;)) Then we headed over to Gadsden and ate at Chick-fil-A per his request and then went to Nocalula falls, only to find out they are closed for the winter--egh! But they have a pretty sweet playground that we played on for a while and got to look out over the falls. He was happy to just play. He's not hard to please.

Closing his eyes for his birthday surprise

a BIG bike!

Honor excited to give Asher her gift: Ironman!

He also got a glove and baseball and a football helmet. He was excited!

Monkey Bars!

Pigtails!!!

Best Buds!

We had a family lunch for him on Sunday. We are out of the big party business for a while...maybe next year... Here are some pictures from our fun day.