Happy Halloween!

To: All my friends and family
From: A little Sugar Plum Fairy (what else? It's purple!)


"Yummmm. I can't wait to eat all the candy I'm going to get tomorrow night... Do you think Mommy will let me gum a Snickers?" Fat chance, kiddo. We wouldn't want you to get carmel stuck to your two front teeth!
All bundled up and ready for our walk. She looks like she has freakishly huge and dark eyes in this one!
Sponge Letty Square Face

Violet and her pal Porter. He was laying with his head on the toy next to her right before I got this picture! He is so sweet with her. Hope you all have a VERY SPOOKY Halloween!

Violet is on the move!

It's official! She can crawl in her cast!

Here is a video from this morning. She can go around in circles and backwards, not so much forwards. Either way, if I leave her for a minute she ends up in a different place than where she started! Looks like I'd better 1) babyproof the house, and 2) dust under the furniture (although maybe that's yet ANOTHER advantage to the cast! I'm taping Swiffers's to the legs and letting her go at it!)



Here she is hanging out on the living room floor. Look how long her hair is when it's not in a clip! It is WAY below her eyes!


We only have a little bit of carpet in our house - the dogs usually call this spot their own. They have taken to the fact that there is now a pinchy-pully, bone-grabbing baby in their midst quite nicely. They both ignore her. She is showing off her "resting" pose. I think she does this when her arms get tired!


Also, her cast change has been pushed back to November 5. :(

We're halfway there!

(whoaaaOH livin' on a prayer...) If I have to have Bon Jovi in my head all week, so should you! :)

It's official! As of Monday Violet will be halfway done with her cast! Yay! In some ways it's gone pretty fast, and in other ways it is going incredibly slow. Hopefully the next 6 weeks will fly by!

We go in next week Monday for her cast change. They'll have to sedate her again so we'll probably be in the hospital most of the day. I'm not really looking forward to it, but at least this time we know what to expect!

Jon is continuously finding ways to amuse himself and Violet with the cast. I finally got some of them on camera, so without further ado, here are...

********** SPICA TRICKS! **********

The Cast Pickup

The One Legged Dangle

The One Legged Over-the-Head HoldThe Peek-a-Boo Bottom
(she's going to KILL us for this one someday! Sorry Letty, but your little rump is just too cute!)

********** Now back to our regularly scheduled pictures **********

Just a funny grin of her's while eating dinnerSome Spica Cast "studio photos" The pink duct tape that is around her diaper opening is to keep the gore-tex liner from ripping. She also has some moleskin around the chest/back so the cast doesn't rub her in any way. We're learning ALL the tips and tricks of spica casts lately!

If you found this blog searching for info on Spica Casts,
please visit this wonderful and incredibly helpful forum:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/
Also, please take a look at my Spica Cast Survival Guide, which you can download here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/files/
It's the first thing on the list.
Sending lots of good hip healing vibes your way!!

Some Fall Pictures

Geesh! Sorry it's been a while. My old camera died and I've been in mourning. And I quote Jon (who turned the big 3-0 today!!) "That's what happens when you take 7,000 pictures of the same kid with one camera." The sad part is he may not be that far off. Currently I have about 3,500 pictures in my iPhoto... and that doesn't include all the really bad ones I deleted off my camera before I downloaded them. Yikes!!

I did get a new one but I haven't figured out the settings yet, but these turned out okay!

Here is Violet with her Violet-sized pumpkins...



And her Daddy showing off her one "Violet Cast Trick"

Hangin' out on the Harley.

Other new things... she's on a food strike! She decided that anything pureed that must be eaten off of a spoon is silly and won't eat it (for me, anyway!). Which really stinks as I have a freezer full of homemade baby food for her! She will still eat Cheerios and a few other things but she is picky!

She also figured out how to scoot forward even in her cast. We've been finding her in the front corner of her crib (where she used to like to cuddle up pre-cast). The only problem is that I don't think it's very comfortable once she scoots off her support pillows and blankets, so (yay for me) she's waking up more. Ah well.

We did have a doctor's appointment last week and they did an x-ray - everything looks great! I got to see the x-rays side-by-side and you could defenitely see that her right hip was in a better spot. I have to call today to schedule her cast change which should be in about a week and a half. We're already at 4.5 weeks and counting! It can't go fast enough, but is going a lot faster than I thought!