5 years ago

July 18th, 2006 my life changed for ever. My precious baby boy was born at 10:12pm, weighing 7lbs 9oz and 21" long.








Happy Birthday my booger head!

Super Duper cool giveaway

Hey all, I've been super MIA just lots going on with Mr. Seamus finishing up school and school related things. Some medical things that will be saved for another post. But for this post I'm going to let you all in on a cool giveaway I found!

I’m posting this to enter a contest offered by Brad’s Deals at I Am Bossy! I want to win the iPad 2! Enter to win here!

So what are you waiting for go check it out!

Mohawk Rug Winner!

The winner of the Mohawk Rug is #26, Kimberly!










Winner has been emailed :) thanks for entering

Happy Birthday to my sweet baby!

I can't believe its already here. 2 years ago I was tossing and turning in my bed because I was going to have a baby in a few short hours! Baby Kieran was born via c-section on April 8th, 2009 @ 7:51am (due to being footling breach, and too risky to try a version). She weighed in at 6lbs 13ox and 19(or 19.5 I forget oops...lol)inches long. She took to breastfeeding like a champ, while I was in recovery still! We had some issues with her weight and latching after leaving the hospital but we pulled through and I'm proud to say that we nursed till she SELF weened in January of this year at 21½ months old!

Happy Birthday to my sweet, silly, goofy, lefty, dancing girly!

Mohawk Rug Review and Giveaway

I was reproached by someone from Mohawk rugs last month about doing a review and giveaway on the blog. I was super excited to be given this chance, especially with moving to a new house. Kieran finally has her own room after almost 2yrs of sharing ours so we've been excited to decorate it and adding in the rug to review was awesome and perfect timing.

Here is some information about the nursery rugs:
-They are made with a new technology in yarn that is very soft to the touch, perfect for a baby or childs room
-Latex backing provides non skid surface for all hard surfaces or it works great to keep the rug in place on carpet
-Made from 100% Nylon. Nylon rugs are easy to take care of, they spot clean easily but you can also wash the 40"x60" size in a front load commercial washer
-Made in the USA



We got our rug on March 18th, just 2 days after moving in (review up a little late sorry!), and I waited a couple days to open it since we were still getting things organize. The first thing I noticed before opening it was how big it looked which I was excited about. Next thing I noticed was the colors, really nice and neutral to any color scheme in a girls room (I choose a brown and pink rug). Kieran's room right now is flowers, butterflies, and Tinkerbell and done in light purple, blue, and pink. The pink and brown striped rug we received for review works really well in her room.



When I laid the rug out, with the help of the kiddos, I was excited to see and feel how soft it was (so was Seamus!). I figured that the softness would go away after a couple days of walking on it and Kieran playing on it. I was super surprised and excited to see how soft it was after a few days and even now after 2 weeks of use its still just as soft as when I laid it out! I change Kieran's diaper on the rug before bed and she loves to feel the rug while laying there, I think most carpet and rugs are rough on babies but this one is nice a soft.



I think these rugs would be awesome in any nursery or child's room. They're nice and soft, and complement many decorating schemes, and a nice size too.

Mohawk has been kind enough to offer one of my readers the chance to win a rug! Winner will get the choice of rug, and size (40"x60" and a 60"x84" (5'x7').


Mandatory Entry: Like Mohawk on Facebook and let me know you did by posting your first name and last initial. (as well as an email address to contact you if you win. Mandatory Entry must be done before any extra entries)

Extra Entries: (one comment per entry_
-share this giveaway on your Facebook Wall
-Follow Mohawk on Twitter
-Follow Me on twitter (heart at top)
-Follow my blog with google friend connect
-Tweet this giveaway include @SliverStorm and @mohawk_home in the tweet, leave tweet link in comment
-add my button to your blog and tell me where to find it
-Tell me which rug you'd choose (first 6 on the list)and if it would be for your child's room or a gift


This will end on Sunday April 17th @ 11:59pm PST. At the close of this I will use Random.org to draw the winner and post on the blog. The winner has 48hrs to respond to my email before a new one will be drawn. US only.


**Disclosure**
I was not paid to post this giveaway. I was sent an item for review, and the review in this posting is my own, I did not receive any other compensation.

Going MIA

I'll be MIA for about a week. We sign for the keys to the new house tomorrow (Tuesday) and our internet will be turned on at the new house "Sometime" on Thursday >.<. Time Warner only had a full day appointment available so we have to sit around all day (luckily my brother is staying with us since we have lots of appts. on Thursday's). I think I'll have a nice update blog post next week with pictures of the new house too :D

Saturday Snapshots: Listening Therapy/Therapeutic Listening

The main idea is to emphasize integration of the auditory and vestibular systems together. Since there is such a close connection with visual functioning, visual processing also will likely improve. Particularly spatial awareness, and the concept of time and space.

Sensory-processing-disorder.com

Computer Fail 2011

My luck with computers sucks! In late 2008, I had this feeling that something was wrong with my computer, it just seemed wrong. Hubby kept saying it was fine, and we could wait to "fix" whatever it was until tax time (Feb 2009). Sadly he was wrong and it wasn't fine, it died in late November 20008, just died, completely fried. (I don't think the graham crackers Seamus put in it helped matters much) It sucked but luckily the hard drive was still good (mother board and power supply went) so we didn't loose anything.

Fastforward to the end of January 2010, and we buy me a new computer(so ya dh and I "fought" over his desktop like a bunch of kids after school, for over a year lol). We stupidly went with HP even though we knew better, we knew they had issues with their power cords breaking and such. We got one of the newest models out at the time and paid just over $800 after taxes for it. It did pretty well till around November 2010, then the battery started having issues, and I'd have to keep it plugged in all the time or it would die. Then we had to pawn it for a month in early January 2011 due to having to pay off a lawsuit from old medical bills. We got the computer back early this month, and it "seemed" to be ok. But it didn't last long.

The warranty went up on January 29th, 2011, and exactly 2 weeks later the hard drive completely fails and dies, out of no where. We had no warning, and I had a 500gb hard drive more then half full with digital scrap booking stuff and pictures. Luckily most of my pictures were uploaded to facebook or photobucket so I didn't loose too many. Most of the pictures I lost were from the last 2 months, which sucks but at least it wasn't all of Kieran's first birthday pictures (most but not all are gone).

We then buy a new hard drive for the computer, only to remember that computers these days don't come with Microsoft disc's, so we have no way to install Windows 7 back on the computer. We do have Windows Vista from another computer we got for the kids (cheap $30 one for them to play around on) so we ended up putting that on the laptop. Huge fail Windows! Vista Sucks. My video card won't work, the drivers won't match up, Vista doesn't recognize it. We did order our Windows 7 backup disc from HP but it won't be here for a few more days.

Hubby's so ticked off with HP, and their horrid customer service, that he's trying to sell my laptop. He's done with HP and doesn't want this computer any more. We have 1 person looking at buying it (not back, $200 less then we paid a year ago), and if he does we're getting a new one. We debated whether or not to build another desktop for me. I'm planning on going back to school (if all works out) in the Fall so I wanted a laptop to take with me, plus I got spoiled with being able to lay down in bed with it, or watch a show on Netflix while taking a bath (lol). So we're going to get another laptop. We have our choices narrowed down to an Asus and a Toshiba. There's pros and cons of both so we aren't sure. Both of them have worse video cards then my current laptop which sucks (especially with my WoW withdraws from Vista not reading my video card right, right now), but the processor is better. The Asus has an Intel i5 processor which hubby likes, its just a tad better then mine so it will run a little better. But if we get the Asus I'll loose my BluRay and Lightscribe (even, though we hardly use them, it stinks)and my buttons on the laptop for easy volume and such will be gone, the Toshiba has those but the Asus doesn't. Both the Asus and Toshiba are between $550-620 so if we sell mine for $600 (asking $650, with a new hard drive in it) then we wouldnt' pay much out of pocket. Now we just have to decide which one to get.

But thats why I've been MIA so much this month. First I don't have a computer, then it super fails, and now that I have one I can't stand Vista so it drives me bonkers being on it. Oh ya and I'll be MIA again in just under 3 weeks with the move >.< lol

Moving

We are finally moving! When we moved into this place in August 2008 we signed a 6month lease, and our plan was to move in Feb. 2009...well we found out a few days after we signed the lease that I was pregnant with Kieran and moving just 2 months prior to her being born probably wasn't a good idea. We decided to wait till Feb. 2010 to move, but it didn't work out right. Since November I've been watching Craigslist trying to find a place for us to move once February came. We had 3 different places in mind at the beginning of this month, each with pro's and con's and we couldn't decide which one. Once we finally decided and went to apply the people said that they had other apps and we had to wait, so we went with our second choice, same thing happened. After that we thought we wouldn't find anything, it was already 1.5weeks into Feb, and we had told our landlord we'd be moved out by Feb. 21st.

As I was looking through some rental companies around here I found one place that was similar looking outside as the current place we live. I had hubby call the rental place to see about it (and it was only 2 blocks up the road from us), but they mentioned that they had another place that was slighty bigger, and only $50/mo more. The place they mentioned was a duplex, rather then the triplex we called on, and is newer built. They had A side open but were holding it for someone who applied already. We got to go look at A side, because its the exact same as B side and B side would be the side we would get if we decided we liked it, just had to wait for the current tenants to move out. We really liked the place, a 3bd 2.5ba (opposed to our 2bd 1ba) with a fenced back yard (we have no fenced yard now and are on a fairly busy street), and the other nice thing is that its only $125 more then we pay now. One thing I realllllllly didn't like is that its the same exact layout as our current place. The front door opens to the living room then the kitchen straight back, you cannot see from the kitchen to the living room, I really wanted an open kitchen, and the laundry is in the kitchen again. All 3 beds are upstairs, along with 2 baths (one in the master one for the kids). We decided to go with this place because it had more pro's then con's. We put our deposit down on it on Friday the 11th, but we can't move till March 19th (haha lucky me on my birthday! >.<). The current tenants move out Feb. 28th but then the rental company has a 2 week period for inspection and cleaning/fixing things. So we'll have another month to move, luckily our current landlord is nice about waiting. So next month I'll probably be MIA for 2 weeks while we move and wait for Time Warner to come and hook up internet at the new place

Bright Starts Winner!

The winner of the Brights Starts giveaway is #51 Jessica.






Winner has been emailed and has 48hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen :)

Kieran's going in for surgery

Today we went to the ENT, Kieran's speech is behind (Average is 3-50+ words, Kieran has just over 10). We were worried that her hearing was the reason for her speech. Turns out we were right her hearing is the reason for her speech issues. When the did the first test to see how her ear drum reacts it wasn't good, her left ear hardly had a reaction at all, a tiny one at the end of the the flat line, the right had a slightly better one but still not good. And the hearing in her left ear wasn't good either (they didn't test her right?!) He said she was hearing at 30 decibels and they wanted it at 15 or higher (said the lower the # the more they could hear the softer and quieter sounds) so not terribly bad but he was worried about her ear drum not reacting like it should.

Like we thought he brought up tubes. Kieran's only had 3 ear infections since September so that wasn't the worry, he said normally kids like that with fluid on their ears he would just recheck in 6 weeks when the weather warms up. What he was worried about is the fact that its affecting her hearing and her speech, because of that he's going to put tubes in. He said we'll do the tubes then a few weeks later we will check her hearing again to see if it helps. He said this kind of hearing loss is normally reversible, in 5% (I think it was) of patients it isn't.

We are waiting on authorization from insurance but once thats in we are scheduled for the surgery on the 17th of Feb. He was also sort of worried about her tonsils and adenoids, they were larger then they should be, he said medium, so not as large as Seamus' were but he wants to watch that too. He also said they will possibly take out the adenoids if the tubes alone don't help the draining (The left ear was really full, the right a little)

Been on a Hiatus

Sorry for the lack of posts since December. Seamus had a break from school, for the winter holidays and it hit us really hard. We had a lot of break downs and behavioral issues. We ended up stopping the brushing technique because it became too much of a fight. Some times he would asked to be brushed others I had to make him. Our OT said that it would cause him to regress on some behaviors but only for 2 weeks, after a month of it we couldn't take it any more. So now we're back to square 1 trying to find something else, hopefully the listening therapy but he doesn't like wearing the headphones so I'm not sure.

Other news about Seamus, we had a follow up at the Eye Specialist a few weeks ago, where we thought we would get to stop doing the dilating drops, but nope. The eye doctor (a new one, the main one in the office, since the old one left)didn't see enough of an improvement to let us stop. He has to continue the drops till April, then we will see the specialist again and decide from there whether or not to do the surgery on his eye.

Miss Kieran started Speech back in December. Her's is pretty delayed, only saying around 10 words and most are the same word just slightly said different. She sees the same speech therapist Seamus does so that's nice. Early Headstart has been worried with her hearing even though her receptive language (on the ST's test) was through the roof, so they kept testing her with the ear test that goes in the ear, which she failed multiple times since she pulls it out. I asked our pedi for a referral to the ENT (same one Seamus went to for his tonsil and adenoid surgery) to get tested in the sound booth. I'm glad that I got that referral. I found out on Saturday, when I took her to the pedi for a different reason, that she STILL has fluid on her left ear, its been months now that its been there. I'm actually quite irritated the doctors haven't done anything sooner when I kept asking about it. The doc I saw Saturday (in the office there's quite a few pedi's and NP's, when you do a "walk in" or same day appt, you see whoever is available, normally not our usual pedi.) said the ENT will most likely tube the ear, something I asked about in November to a different doc and he told me no <_<. The doc on Saturday told me that the fluid is probably the reason her speech is so bad, if its been there this long she's most likely not hearing out of that ear so its causing her to not hear words correctly. We have our ENT appt on Monday the 31st, so I'll find out more then. I kind of have to laugh though, Seamus was 2yrs 2mo old when he went to the ENT for his snoring and sleep apena, Kieran will be 22mo when she goes, pretty close to the same age, and if she gets surgery on the ear then again pretty close to the same age, lol.

Bright Starts Bounce-a-Bout ~Giveaway~

I've had lots of Bright Start things for the kids, from the teething necklaces/beads, and rattles to their Exersaucers. When I saw Bright Starts post on their Facebook wall about looking for bloggers I jumped right on it, I love their stuff. Some of the first toys we bought for Kieran, while I was pregnant with her, were from Bright Start. We bought her a pink rattle, with a chewy part on one end, and some links to link on her car seat. Seamus had a couple of similar rattles when he was younger, the teething necklace, and both kids had one of their exersaucers (we've had 2, but ironically they were the "same" one lol!).

Bright Starts asked if I would be willing to do a giveaway on my blog...and well Yeah! I love their products and would love to share them with my readers!




Bright Starts has offered to giveaway a, Bright Starts Bounce-a-Bout (like an exersaucer). Here is some information on it:

Bounce, Spin & Rock in this fun filled entertainer! The unique bounce pad provides a soft surface for baby to bounce and dance. Seven entertaining toys are within baby's reach including a colorful bead chaser and push top spinner with swirling beads. The overhead toy bar also features two toys to encourage baby to reach and grab. The seat rotates 360° so baby has access to all the fun!


Features:

* Seat rotates 360° for access to all toys
* Three adjustable height settings allows entertainer to grow with baby
* Colorful bead chaser
* Frog push top spinner with swirling beads
* Spinning bee rattle ball
* Ratcheting bug with crinkle fabric wings
* Bendable firefly stalk toy
* Overhead toy arch includes teether and rattle
* Easy to clean toy tray
* Four toy loops for attaching more toys

Additional Features:

* Lays flat for storage
* Machine washable seat pad

This is a great item for babies 4months and up, lots of different toys and sensory items on it. This retails for $59.54 at Walmart.


Giveaway: Bright Starts has generosouly offered a Bounce-a-Bout to one (1) lucky Silent Storm reader!

Mandatory Entry: Visit Bright Starts site and tell me another product you'd love to try.
(must be completed before extra entries will be counted. Please leave me email address in at least 1 comment, so I can contact you if you are the winner)


Extra Entries:
-Follow Bright Starts on Facebook (2 entries/leave 2 comments)
-Follow me on Facebook (heart above)
-Follow me on Twitter (heart above)
-Follow my blog with google friend (2 entries/leave 2 comments)
-Grab my button and tell me where to find it on your blog (2 entries/leave 2 comments)
-Tweet about this giveaway. Be sure to include @SliverStorm with a link back to this post. This can be done twice a day, at least 4hrs apart.
-Blog about this giveaway, link me to the post
-Enter this giveaway into a Giveaway Mr. Linky and tell me where you did


This will end on Tuesday February 8th @ 11:59pm PST. At the close of this I will use Random.org to draw the winner and post on the blog. The winner has 48hrs to respond to my email before a new one will be drawn. US only.


**Disclosure**
I was not paid to post this giveaway. Bright Starts will send product to winner