Adam, Amy, Taylor and Kendall

HUMPHRY

2011-06-23T18:47:00.002-04:00

MEET HUMPHRY! OUR FIRST TEST COB! (a little small, but we'll get there)

Project Garden

2011-06-16T17:56:00.005-04:00

Hey all! Apparently I like posting about my garden. I just wanted to upload a few pictures. Here ya go!
P.S.
I didn't include the Sweet Potatoes. (THEY'RE UNDERGROUND)

MOST OF THE GARDEN

CORN

BANANNA PEPPERS

TOMATOES

SQUASH

WATERMELONS

CANTELOPES

CUCUMBER

BEACH BLAST BRINGS BIG CUCUMBERS

2011-06-11T16:34:00.005-04:00

Hey All!
Apparently posts from me are becoming the norm. Anyways, we just got back from a great beach trip (please see Amy for details), and there were lots and lots of cucumbers and an assortment of other veggies from my garden. Taylor and I picked all kinds of cucumbers, two bananna peppers, and one squash. See the pictures below. Thanks for reading. I just wanted to post some pics.

I see a little apple in your future!

2011-05-19T20:49:00.007-04:00

Hey all!
This is one of those rare posts that I do! (This is Adam) Some of you might not know this, but the girls and I gave Amy an apple tree for Mother's Day a few years ago. We brought it home, surprised Amy with it, and then planted it. One of the first things that Amy asked is 'Will we get apples?' Well, seeing how i've done just about everything else in my life, I can understand that Amy would think that I would just know the answer. Well, i'm here to tell you, I didn't. So, after much research, I came to the conclusion that, NO we wouldn't be getting any apples from her tree. According to my research, apple trees had to be fertilized by another apple tree. So, alas, no apples. But I told her it was 'Nice to look at though!' I think she 'bought' that.

Fast forward to today. Amy and I and the girls were out in the front yard talking to our absentee neighbor Duane, when all of a sudden, Amy lets out a cry that 'We've got an apple!' So we go over an look, and sure enough, there's a tiny 'fake' little apple. It looks just like an ornament. The first thing I thought was, 'Man, this tree's been get'n busy'. The next thing I thought was, 'Wait, I didn't plant another apple tree'. So I take a look around and try to see if there is another one in a neighbor's yard. I don't see any.

Well, the only conclusion I can come up with is that some other apple tree has been coming over and playing 'footsie' with my apple tree. At first, I didn't like that idea, but after arguing with Amy over who gets to eat the apple, i'm now on the look out for other apple trees to invite over. It's a low point in my illustrious life. I'm now an Apple P.I.M.P.

Shamefully yours,
Adam ($$Big Money$$) Morrison

P.S. This video is different from the previous one!

SAHM

2010-12-12T12:51:00.004-05:00

I've been a SAHM (stay at home mom) for 3 weeks now and have some random thoughts about the transition. Overall, it's gone really well. It's amazing how four weeks ago, I didn't have the confidence to 'deal' with my children 24/7. Working a job and coming home to my family was so stressfull, that I never was emotionally capable of handling my kids for long stretches of time. So I was really nervous about this new chapter of my life. I now can say that it's been successful so far.

The first week was kind of rough. Kendall was a walking disaster - falling, hitting her head like 5 times. Taylor refused her naps... EVERY day. But by day three she was cooperating with 'quiet time' and by day eight actually fell asleep after 1 hour 15 minutes of 'quiet time.' Now she does sleep most days after she reads her books for 30 minutes.

So here is my break down on the pros, cons and things to work on of being a elementary stay at home mom.

PROS:
- Taylor - to see her play by herself is awesome. She loves to color and play with playdoh. Nothing else holds her attention long. She enjoys staying home with me and therefore we have less battles. Her behavior seems to be more consistent.
- Kendall - in the three weeks I've been home she's learned several new words and I've started to pick up on what she is saying more (just by being around her. She has become extremly independent. This week after 20 minutes of "I can do it" (slurred into 3 syllables) she can put on her pants all by herself. It's hilarious to watch her and if you attempt to help, she'll pick up and run to a corner to continue doing it herself. She's also peed in the potty twice (in one day). She's asked to sit on the potty many more times but doesn't actually go. Last week, I saw her saw her feed herself an entire meal with a fork - no help from me. It's the little things but I figure before hand we were so rushed for everything, we would never take the time to let her do things herself. It's awesome to see her grow up.
- I feel less stressed (most of the time). I've gotten half the house cleaned up and maintained. I am able to balance my life better. I'm still working 17 hours a week but that gives me time to get a way.

CONS-
- Socially- I do worry about my kids and their need to socialize. They go to Bunnie's 1 1/2 days a week but I don't know if it's enough. Taylor has had trouble sharing and listening there. We've never had trouble with her at any daycare facility/home. Kendall use to love to socialize but recently I noticed she whines at children she doesn't know. I'm not sure if she's 'scared' or 'telling' on them but it's different.
- Weekends are still an issue. When working, I always fell apart on weekends... grumpy, irritable, etc. I was hoping it would be better but not sure. During the week, we have a 'schedule' (not really) and things are semi controlled. However during the weekend, it seems nothing gets done, the house becomes a mess, we all stay in our jammi's on Saturday unless we have plans and by that evening, I'm going stir crazy with all the noise.
- My socialization. I've found myself needing to talk to someone... but no one to talk to. I told Adam one evening when I was wanting to talk and he was wanting to watch TV that he's the only adult I see all week and hope for any conversation.
- Cabin Fever... I think eventually if we don't get out regularly, I'll end up with cabin fever. We haven't done a whole lot these past three weeks so we have lots of options but the fever is still there.
- Weekends - I find myself alittle crazy... needing to get away from the noise and chaos and mess. But at the same time weekends are time that we usually spend doing.. nothing as a family. heh heh.

Things to work on...

- Our schedule. Some days I find it hard to get dressed. My kids are dressed but I'll stay bummed out until late in the afternoon. I know I need to get dressed along with them but just don't find jeans ,etc all that comfy.
- I'd like to do some structured stuff with them - crafts, baking, etc. But haven't gotten there yet. I am not all that crafty and wouldn't know where to begin. If anyone has any ideas for any fun activities, please share them.
- I have to implement some away time for me. During the week isn't bad as I take time off during quiet time and can re-generate. But don't always have that time on the weekends.

Over-all I'm pleased with how things have gone. This was something I knew was coming eventually and have been nervous about it for months. The transition has gone well and I think both me and the kids have adapted well.

Kendall - 18 months

2010-11-20T21:05:00.004-05:00

It's occurred to me recently that I haven't posted on Kendall specifically since she was a baby. For Taylor, I tried to post blogs after her well visits to document her vitals and milestones. Since we've had Kendall there have been numerous occasions that I have looked back at Taylor's post to compare. So I'm going to attempt to make this post all about Kendall.

Kendall is such a sweet child. I knew as soon as she was born that she was going to be my cuddly child and she is. She is contempt sitting in your lap or you holding her. Don't get me wrong, she likes to play and can hold her on. But she likes to cuddle just as much. Kendall is an awesome sleeper. She get's that from me. She usually asks us to go to bed for both naps and night time. She'll gather all her night night items, say 'night night' and head to her room. She usually goes straight in her crib, alittle humming at the least.

She loves her big sister. She looks up to her and recently copies/mocks everything she does - actions, words, songs. This can be good and bad. She's hurt herself a few times copying Taylor and they've gotten into screaming matches to see who can outdo each other.

She loves music and is a dancer. Since she was a baby, she knew how to do the chicken dance. Now she dances to all music and will attempt to sing along.

She's my social bug. Everywhere we go she makes friends. If she see's another baby, she'll try to talk to them "baby." We went to the library this week and before we left she had had conversations with two other children their. She has a real concern for other people's feelings and wants to know what's wrong.

She is part monkey. She loves to climb. She started walking at 10 months old. Not long after that, she was climbing on the furniture. We have found her on table tops at times. I keep waiting for her to learn to climb out of crib. She's tried before by hiking her leg up.

She seems to like animals. However everything is a dog to her.

She is so independent. I'm sure this is typical of most second children and beyond. But it still amazes me. At 18 months, she went trick or treating by herself, sits at the doctor by herself (ENT doctor in the chair all by herself for the exam), puts her self to sleep, gets in her carseat, brushes her teeth, attempts to put on her shoes. She loves to read books but must read them herself (babble). She does not like to be read to.

She's my texture baby. She had trouble starting solids, starting a sippy cup, etc. Even today some days she doesn't like certain foods/textures. We haven't had a problem with her putting non edible items in her mouth. And she also has to adapt to textures with her hands. She does pretty well with it but has to get use to the texture first on her own time. With eating, she'll usually play with it or touch it a few times before putting it in her mouth.

She's a biter and a hair puller. Kendall has been pulling hair since she was 6 months old. She still has that habit and even occasionally bites. Luckily, she's never bitten anyone outside of the four of us. Hopefully we can keep it that way. She responds well to time outs and reprimand. She listens most days better than Taylor, though I'm sure that will change with age as well.

At 18 months, Kendall weighs 23.8 lbs (42%) and is 33 inches (85%).

Her speech had a slow start due to ear problems but in the last few weeks had blossomed. Her vocab includes: mine, "side" (outside), doggie, woof, shoe, more, milk (maa), cheese, sit, Taylor, (Ta-da), dada, momma, uh-huh (yes), uh-uh (no), CiCi, glasses, night night,

She knows many body features: eyes, ears, nose, mouth, teeth, hair, head, fingers, feet.

She has seen almost every doctor specialty since she was born: Gastro (stomach), ENT, allergist, Opthalmo (eye),speech (texture aversion- feeding therapy). Luckily we have spared the most serious referrals and all she has is treatable at this point. She does have esotropia (cross eyes) and probably will wear glasses her entire life. At this point, doctors don't think she will be a surgery candidate (good thing). We hope that the glasses continue to work. As for gastro, there are still some minor questions of her possible intolerances. We won't know anything for sure until she gets older. Around two, our pediatrician may order some lab tests but even that might not tell us what we know. Right now, our only suspicion continues ot be oats. We have no reason to think anything else causes her probles, (wheat, etc).

So that's my Kendall in a nutshell. She is a pleasure to be around and I love her so much.

Halloween 2010

2010-11-20T20:46:00.006-05:00

We had another good Halloween this year. For us it was a week long event, though definitely not planned.
The weekend before, we attended Faith's carnival with Caedyn and Eli. We always have so much fun at their church. The kids were a lady bug and ballerina. They loved trick or treating and got some great pictures.

Saturday night we went shopping. When we arrived home at around 6:00 our neighborhood already had trick or treaters. We weren't planning on having Halloween that night but turned out good. Our neighbors were having a small party and had music blaring on their porch. My kids had a blast handing out candy and dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller. I have to say my Kendall bug has quite some moves on her.

Sunday night we went to Melissa's house. We had good food and good fellowship. We took the kids trick or treating and I was surprised at how well my kids did. Kendall was the cutest thing. After the first two houses or so, she would walk up to the houses by herself. If it wasn't for steps, she could have done the whole deal solo. It was such a bittersweet evening. She's my baby but it was so sweet seeing her do it for herself.

Small Blessings... in disguise

2010-09-24T21:25:00.002-04:00

Taylor is a nail biter. She's been a nail biter since she's had a mouth full of teeth. Therefore she has no nails on her fingers or toes. She also bites her nails until she bleeds. She'll grap her cuticle and yank. We use to go through a box of bandaids for her fingers. We had to stop giving out bandaids to boo boos caused by her biting her nails.

Well one night this week, she woke up at 3 am to climb into our bed (not unusual for her). While she's gathering all her animals, she starts screaming 'ow ow ow ow.' It was so real, I had to ask what hurt and she said her finger. I turned on the light and the poor childs fingers looked like they were about to fall off. Two of her fingers were extremely infected with puss, redness, and swelling. She could barely move them and they hurt her so bad that she wouldn't let us put bandaids on them.

By seven the next morning, they were twice as bad. Adam and I took it upon ourselves to 'drain the wound'. We were safe and careful. We were able to get rid of the puss, put neosporin on it and bandage her up. She went to school. That afternoon when we got home, they were still obviously infected but much less puss. It didn't look any worse... maybe even a tad better. However, when she started running a 102 fever, I threw her in the car and took her to Doctors Care. I was so concerned about her fingers and her having some kind of major infection from them. Long story short, they took blood work at Doctor's Care. Her wbc was 22, which is twice as high as it should be. This signaled that she has some kind of infection. (Well, duh, her finger) but the doctor was adament that her finger infection wasn't 'large' enough to cause her white blood count and fever to be that high. Something else was brewing. She had a chest xray to rule out pneumonia, which was clear. She's had a cough for two weeks. She ended up getting a mega dose of Rocephin and we were to follow up the next day with her pediatrician.

Our follow up turned out better than expected. Dr. C wasn't happy about her fingers (and agreed that wasn't the cause of her fever and abnormal blood work)He seemed worried about her blood work. However when her repeat cbc came back at 11 (normal is 3-10), he felt much better. It was decreasing and her fever was gone. We went home with oral antibiotics to treat skin and respiratory infections. His theory is that she had bronchitis/early pneumonia. It was too early for it to show up on the chest xray. The Rocephin shot we received the night before (and the fact that she had fever for less than 24 hours) kicked it before it really started brewing.

Small blessings. I raced to the doctor because of a fever due to her fingers. If it hadn't been for her fingers, I would have waited, thought she had a virus (it's ALWAYS been a virus) and she might have ended up with pneumonia. I can't imagine what her wbc would have been if we waited. Scary! Especially since it was 22 after being sick for such a short amount of time. We might have ended up in the hospital.

Thank goodness for sick fingers. However, we are trying to kick that habit in the butt. The next day was hard for her but we refused to allow it and reminded all she had been through. I honestly haven't seen her bite her nails since then... though not to say she hasn't.

New Ears and Eyes

2010-09-24T21:10:00.003-04:00

We are proud to announce the new arrival of Kendall's new ears and eyes.

Kendalls glasses have arrived. Though she cried at the sight of them when we picked them up, I think she likes them. She wears them at school better than she does at home. It will still take some time but she is so adorable with them. I think she looks like a totally different kid... like Little Einsteness.

She also got ear tubes this month. After battling bad ear infection for six months, this last one was it. She's had six rocephin shots in a matter of two months. We saw the ENT doctor on September 15 and he put her tubes in the next day. She went in with infected ears ("loaded" was the physicians word) and nasty snottly green nose. She literally came out of the procedure running all clear. It was amazing. I"m not sure if they just sucked it all out or what but it was her cure. She has been great since then.

She is talking so much more though we don't know what she is saying. At 15 months, she's suppose to have a small vocab but she only has like three words. We hope because of her ear problems. The very next day her babble just took off. She talks to us with so much conviction. I hope soon she'll pick up some real words so we can understand her. I'm including pictures from her procedure. Most are from the playroom. They took us to a playroom while we waited for her turn to go back.

Crash, Bang - Bang

2010-09-24T20:59:00.003-04:00

As most have heard, Monday August 30, Kendall and I were in a 'little' bump in on Insterstate 20. Well maybe alittle more than .. little... but it could have been so much worse.

We were on our way home from a doctor's appointment. We were near between mile marker 58 and 57. There was a vehicle pulled off the road to the left. He decided to pull back on the the highway. At the same time he did this, tire tread goes flying across both lanes. There were two cars in front of me that basically had to come to a crawl to allow the pulled off vehicle back onto the highway. I was concentrating so hard not to hit the tread and slow down. I was breathing a sigh of relief (thought I was in the clear) when CRASH, the girl behind me slammed into the back of me.

We were okay. Kendall acted like she wasn't sure what hit her, never cried or whimpered. I immediataly had pain in my upper back and neck. I am not sure how fast she was going but could guess atleast 50mph or so. The girl that hit me had had cuts and bruises. Her car was absolutely totalled. We learned later that her car went completely under mine. Since where the accident happened was unsafe, I moved my car away from the scene at the officers request. My mom showed up on the scene. The three of us are sitting in the car (me, Kendall, mom) when I started losing gas and then the car cuts off and won't re-crank. It looked like I had run out of gas but I knew I had plent of gas prior to the accident. It turned pretty chaotic. Mom ended up taking Kendall to the house when my dad showed up. We were visitied by fire, ambulance, police, and DOT. We ended up leaving the car to be towed and headed home.

When Adam arrived back at the house, he turned around to go meet the tow truck at the car. He calls and says the car is missing. At this point, we were laughing to keep from crying. Literally, he says ' the car is gone'. I'm screaming, who would take a wrecked car... it won't even crank!!!" Turns out the tow truck beat him there and took it... however they took it to the wrong destination. It was all insane. It got taken care of eventually but was just chaotic.

My car has been fixed. The damage was basically invisible but still present. The bumper was curled underneath. Most of the damage was to the exhaust system/muffler since she went under me (hence why my car wouldn't start). They had to replace the entire system.

We've been working through Travelers and they have been very good to us. I'm having to see a chiropractor and am really hoping that he can cure my ailments sooner than later. We were very lucky that day. The accident could have been worse for all of us. God was steering those vehicles.

Goodbye September, Hello October

2010-09-24T20:47:00.002-04:00

September started out a dousy. Unfortunately, it has continued the entire month. Our family has never been so eager to see a month go by and start a new month. Let me recap.

Sunday, August 29 (not even September yet)- I started feeling sick. I was up all night, nauseaus and just couldn't sleep.

Monday, August 30 - woke up sick with major stomach bug. Kendall was due for a rocephin shot to cure yet another ear infection. Mom met me at doctors office since I was so sick. On way home from doctors office, I was rear ended on Interstate 20. We were okay. I'll probably post a seperate blog on this later.

I stayed out of work most of the week due to car accident. Stomach bug continued for eight FULL days. It turned out to be food poisioning. By day seven, I was so dehydrated, I could barely get out of bed. I felt so bad. Luckily, by day eight the antibiotic had kicked in and I started seeing improvement.

This SAME week (dousy beginning, remember), Adam came down with bronchitis. He has suffered for four weeks with this bug. He's gone through numerous cough medicines, two antibiotics, and finally a round of steriods seems to be his best treatment. He's still got a cough but feeling probably 85% better.

Kendall ended up having a HORRIBLE ear infection. We finally got our ENT referral. We saw him on 9/15. He was excellent. We ended up doing tubes the very next day. Again, I'll post more about that later with pictures.

Kendall also got her glasses this month and has been adjusting to those pretty well. She seems to like them but goes through times when she refuses to wear them.

Taylor has had some major adjustments this month as well. The beginning week of September, we were all so sick that she ended up sleeping with me every night. We didn't have the energy to put her to bed. Her bedtime routine takes like 45 minutes. So after we were all 'well' we had to transition her back to her room. This past week we had quite a scare with Taylor (again I'll post a seperate blog). Small blessings, paranoid parents and a Doctor Care visit ended up saving her from having pneumonia. It was a close call.

All this has been in a four week period. Can you see why we are ready for a new month. I am still dealing with the car accident injuries and treatment.

Kendall's news

2010-08-27T15:01:00.003-04:00

It's been an exciting time for Kendall. Last week she switched into the toddler class. I was worried for her b/c they moved her without any warning and she had been sick over the weekend. She did FABULOUS. She walked in and never look back. She loves her teachers and the room. I have been so pleased. She sleeps on a nap mat like an angel.

If you are around Kendall, you've probably seen her eyes do funky things. We saw an opthalmolgist in January, who said all was well. Her eyes were crossed due to a 'wide nose bridge' and that she would grow out of it. Well they seemed to get worse and we could tell her eyes weren't focusing on things. So today we met with a different opthalmologist, who was absolutely fabulous. He immediately said her eyes were crossing. She also has some vertical misalignment when looking to the left. And if you've ever seen her do that cute head tilt to the left to look at you or something... it wasn't just an expression (so we thought), it was due to her vision. So the doctor has prescribed glasses. We are going to try those for a month or two. He thinks/hopes that this will correct it. But their is a chance that she may need eye surgery. He did say that her vision isn't too bad, but she has a 'muscle imbalance'. We should know by 1-2 months of her wearing glasses whether or not she'll need to have surgery. So please keep us in your prayers during this new adventure. I'm not sure how you keep glasses on a 15 month old. I was able to spend time with a mother while at the doctor and she made me feel better about the entire situation. Apparently, once they realize the difference, they will want to wear the glasses. They will see the world in a completely different way. I'm actually excited about it. We have joked about Kendall being fearless. She's a HUGE climber and will completely walk off of tables, chairs, couch, etc. But this condition causes the child to have little or no depth perception. So she just doesn't know better. It'll be interesting to see how she reacts to her new world. Again, God is Good! We all suspected there was something going on. It feels good to have answers and a plan.

God is Good

2010-08-27T14:37:00.004-04:00

The past eight days have been some of the hardest of my parenting life. It's really a long story and so I will try to concise the situation.

Last Wednesday, Taylor (and some fellow students) were moved up into an older class. Due to her being so well behaved and potty trained she went straight to the 'older three's'. Starting Thursday, afternoon, in the hallway of daycare, my sweet, Taylor disappeared and an ugly, defiant, out of control toddler appeared. This being stayed until Tuesday afternoon. To summarize Taylor's behavior: she kicked, she screamed, she talked back (tone I've never heard come from her), she threw items at the wall, at us. She refused to sleep in her bed or room (she slept in the hallway). We tried time outs, spanking, reasoning only to make the temper worse. I heard from her "don't talk to me that way, don't you hit me, hush, you are not my best friend, get out," At night she would scream for me but when I appeared she would yell, "get out." Every morning, as soon as her eyes opened, she would scream about going to school. She didn't to go to school. Attitude you don't expect to come from a three year old. Tantrums that could be heard down the street and that lasted for hours. I didn't know what had happened. I honestly thought she had turned herself into a brat. She doesn't handle change well and I blamed it on the classroom switch. She just wasn't taking it well.

This went on all weekend, and most of the day... not just spurts. By Tuesday, I basically remained in tears all day. I felt hopeless as a parent. My child was out of control. I didn't know what to do or how to make her stop. Nothing was working. It wasn't until I got to school at 3:30 pm to see Taylor sitting in her teachers lap crying that I knew something was wrong. It was a turning point. T had basically cried off and on all day. I started telling the teacher what was going on at home. She then informed me that there was a child in the class with that same behavior during school hours. Again, long story short. There was alittle girl in Taylor's glass, that no one could control. She bit (kids, teachers even directors), kicked, threw chairs, talked back, screamed, cried... constantly during school hours. She had never done anything directly to Taylor. But she was picking up on this hostility plus the classroom environment wasn't stable. They spent all day arguing with this one child. The behavior and phrases Taylor was using at home was identical to this child's behavior. I left Tuesday with a much better understanding. My baby girl wasn't a brat! She was confused, upset of her environment and testing her limits. I immediatly started talking with her about this girl and the behavior. I went to the director and told her my concerns and the impact is was having on Taylor. That night I was much more patient, as I laid down beside Taylor on her floor to put her to sleep. My daughter was scared of her world. It wasn't just a fit. The next day (wed), Taylor had a great day! Thursday, she again had a great day! She's now sleeping in her bed again without mommy or daddy's help, talking more politely than she was before and having her normal fits. The director stopped me yesterday to inform me that the child had been dismissed on Thursday. Apparently, the child was supsended on Wednesday, which hence the reason Taylor had a good day.. The director said the atmosphere in the classroom was completely different. She gave the girl one last chance on Thursday but the girl acted out and they called her parents for good. She won't be coming back. As sad as it is for that little girl and her family, I have never been so relieved.

I struggled this week. I struggled with the fact that you can't shelter your children from all the bad in the world. When she gets to public school, there will be bad behavior, bullies, etc. But what I kept reminding myself is that there would still be some order of control. THe behavior this child exhibited would not be tolerated in a public classroom. It was an unsafe enviroment physically and emotionally. I prayed on my knees this week that God would take care of this situation or tell me what I needed to do. I had found an alternative daycare down the street that had openings, Adam mentioned just me staying home. None were ideal but we knew our child could not stay in that environment. We were giving it to Friday and our prayers were answered yesterday! God is GOOD! I pray that as Taylor gets older, she won't be as impressionable. That other behaviors around her don't influence her the way they do now. But this week was a learning experience for all of us.

On a MUCH lighter note. Some children have immaginary friends. I had several growing up. Well Taylor has an immaginary GRANDMA! Yup. It's quite funny. The past months,she talks all about grandma, and things she did at grandmas, and ate, etc. I think it stemmed from playing at school with someone who must have a grandma. At first we thought she was referring to one of her real grandma's (cici, Grammy). But finally one day, I asked her a question with a concrete answer, "Taylor, what color hair does grandma have?" Without missing a beat, she leaned her head and said, "Grandma doesn't have hair." There you go, a bald grandma! To add to the story, we were at McDonalds (I think) in Lexington meeting Cici this week. We were parked out towards the back. Taylor says, "Momma, grandma lives there" and points out to the left. I look out my window to where she is pointing .... the Wingate Inn. Hilarious! She was serious too. Bald Grandma living at the Wingate Inn! Who would have thought?!

Old Lady in the House

2010-08-21T21:00:00.003-04:00

I've started calling Taylor a 'young lady' usually not in a positive way. Example, you need to watch how you talk, young lady.' She usually replies back, "I'm not a lady, I'm Taylor" as if I"m insulting her.

Well today on the way home from lunch, she was trying to get my attention with no luck. So she says, "Momma, look at me, Old Lady." It was hilarious. Who knew she was smart enough to pair old with young. I was actually pretty impressed.

What's new with us?

2010-08-08T21:11:00.005-04:00

I'm having a hard time keeping up with the blogging world. I want to blog, have things to blog, but just can't seem to make myself do it. So what have we been up to this summer?

Adam is working away at BCBS. He's joined a softball team with our church and so has practice on Sunday nights and games on Tuesday nights. This is his second week but so far has enjoyed it.

I recently joined the couponing world. It's alot of fun but I find myself getting in over my head. If I'm out searching for a 'good deal' that I have on my list... I almost make myself sick until I get it. I went to three Walgreens this week in search of 19 cent high-lighters and finally had to throw in the towel. I don't even need highlighters. My house is more stocked in food than it has ever been. If you visit my bathroom, you'll find applejuices (2), sodas (3), V8 splash all in the tub (that we don't use). In our cabinets, I have toothpaste and deoderant to last the rest of the year. Seems almost silly. But for a control freak, it's addicting.

Adam and I just recently finished a small group at church called Love and Respect. It was AWESOME! Maybe one day, I'll do a blog just on it and cover the highlights. But I highly recommend this six week class at Mt. Horeb to all married couples.

I have had the best time taking Taylor and Kendall to Music and Movement at the library every Tuesday. We join Melissa, Caedyn and Eli there as well. The kids really love it and it's been fun checking out books. Taylor has really grown to love to read. I have had so much fun with Melissa during the summer (couponing and library). I'm sad to see her return back to school this week.

Taylor has blossomed into a child over night it seems. She has amazed me at the conversations she can hold. She's also become a chatterbox. She'll perch on the couch and just talk and talk about nothing and everything. If you try to interrupt her, she'll say she's not done talking or it's her turn to talk. We recently had some issues with Taylor regarding meltdowns, monsters stories, etc. We ended up meeting with her pediactrician about it all and he helped us realize that she is just a strong-willed, type A personality child that will grow up to be goal oriented, want to be in control. This can be good and bad. But I'm not reading up on strong-willed children and how to parent them. Adam and I have let her have too much control over our family for too long because we didn't want to wake the 'beast'. Which in fact, that just creates a bigger beast. I can already tell a difference but we still have a long way to go.

Kendall has also grown leaps and bounds this summer. She's trying so hard to talk but can understand most of what we say and follow commands. She is in total love with stuffed animals, babydolls and blankets. It's so precious and makes my heart smile. (she must be my child). I can see her in a few years sleeping with dozens of her animals. She rocks them, reads to them, puts them to sleep, pats their back. She also loves spending time in her car that CiCi and Popsey got her. She can't go anywhere but she'll just sit in it. She's such a good girl. We've battled ear infections with her. The entire month of May she had one ear infectiion - treated three times. Finall three Rocephin shots fixed it in early June. She'd done well since then until this week when she got sick with a fever/rash and ear infection. I'm sure we'll be doing tubes in our future. More big news with Kendall is she will be moving up to the toddler class this month. Taylor is moving to the three year old class as well. But this is a bigger move for Kendall as she will go from sleeping in a crib to sleeping on a napmat along to one nap a day (which I think she is ready for). I'm nervous and excited all at the same time.
That sums us up for now. I'm going to attach some random pictures from the summer. Enjoy!

Fourth of July

Cow Appreciation Day at Chickfila

Dress-up fun

Let's go to the Movies

2010-06-28T12:44:00.006-04:00

Lately, Taylor has been begging for some undivided attention. So Adam and I thought we would take her to see Toy Story since it's in the theatres. I was alittle nervous about it and actually gave Adam a pep talk. I didn't want either of us going with high expectations. If we had to leave 45 minutes into the movie, then we would.

So Saturday morning, Nana watched Kendall and the three of us headed to the movies. Taylor caught a catnap in the car. We had lunch at Wich Which where Adam let Taylor concoct her own sandwhich. I opened it and thought "oh my what have you done." Surprisingly, she ate it. It was a BLT on wheat with mushrooms, olives, pickles, mayo, ketchup, mozarella,salt, pepper, oregano and I"m sure I'm leaving something out. Again, she picked everything on it and she ate it.

After lunch, we headed to the movies. She played outside by the "mountain" (fountain) and we let her "play" some video games out front.

We tried to take her in at the last minute possible. We took several potty trips and after findind seats, I took her out in the hall to get her 'runs out'. Running that is. (there weren't any people around and it was half the hallway).

I'm not sure who was more excited me or Taylor. Surprisingly, she sat through the entire movie. She did GREAT! We talked about how she would have to sit real still and talk softly. She was so proud of herself afterwards saying that she sat still. She only left the theatre twice... once to get popcorn and a second to go potty. Another real trick (for us) was that we didn't get popcorn at the beginning. She asked for it probably 45 minutes into the movie and it offered a distraction per se for the second half of the movie.

She only had one meltdown and that was before the movie even began... because I carried her down the steps for a potty break. She wanted to do it herself. It was a great outing and I was SUPER proud of her.

Beach 2010

2010-06-06T16:26:00.014-04:00

We took our first family vacation in two years this May. We rented a condo in Garden City. We normally go to Cherry Grove, but waited too long to get a condo at our regular spot and we needed a two bedroom condo, which were way expensive and not ocean front. This condo wasn't exactly ocean front but the price was too good to beat. (Thanks Kristin) It was our first time at Garden City and there's really not much to say about it. We usually took the 30 minute trip to Myrtle to visit Boardwalk and Barefoot Landing.
The night before we left, I told Taylor we were going to the beach. She replied, "yea animals," confusing it with the zoo, I assumed. I told her "no, zoo has animals. Beach has sand and water." Her response, "sand and water, not cool." She thought otherwise when we got there.

We had a rough start to our vacation but it ended well. We left Saturday and got a late start. Kendall woke up with a nasty cough and nasty runny nose. I decided to take her to the doctor instead of waiting and having to take her at the beach. It was a good call b/c she ended up with an ear infection. By tthe time I got back from the doctor, her rx filled and the car packed, it was 1:30. About 40 minutes down the road, the sky dropped. It poured the entire way to the beach (except for last 40 minutes). It was a nasty storm and I was tense the entire way. Luckily the kids slept for some of it. Taylor woke during the rain and screamed for her umbrella. I don't blame her, the rain was that hard. So depsite my better judgement, I let her have her umbrella in the car.
We arrived at the condo at about 5:30. After we unpacked, Adam left to get dinner. Taylor was eating on round cheese balls, that she's enjoyed a hundred times. I'm not sure what happened after that (something I played over a hundred times) but Taylor ended up choking. I mean REAL choking. She ended up where she couldn' tcough, she was trying to 'hack' it out and I wasn't sure whether or not to do the heimelech. (They say if they can cough leave them alone). She started turning colors. I had her in the position and looking for a phone at the same time. After about 60-90 seconds, she spit it up, covered in blood. It was so scary and I've thrown out all the cheese balls since then. I was in tears by the time Adam came home. To add to the night, there was a water main break and we didn't have water that first night. Welcome to Garden City.

Luckily the week wasn't as eventful as our first night. The kids seemed to have a blast. Taylor more than Kendall. Taylor loved playing on the beach. She didn't like the water but spent her time digging. Here's her first reaction to the beach water.

Kendall didn't like the water either. She wouldn't let us put her feet in with out cries. She did seem to like the sand on her toes and spent her time just pacing the beach. She did spend one afternoon seashell hunting. Literally, she walked the beach with a bucket and put broken shells inside. It was too cute. She would get pretty fussy outside. But as long as she had a food in her hand, she was content.

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One evening at dusk, we walked to the pier. Again, we really enjoyed doing this and it was such a nice night.

We enjoyed going to Barefoot Landing and Boardwalk on the Beach. We visited the Aquarium which was cool but extremely over-priced. Not sure we'll do that again.

Taylor rode dinosaurs at boardwalk at the beach, while Kendall slept. Taylor also enjoyed (but didn't finish) her first lollipop).

We spent time at the pool and lounging at the condo.

Some cool sights of the beach were a lady walking her bird... literally. It hung upside down or sat on her shoulder while she walked the beach. The picture is of our 'beach neighbors' from Pennsylvania. The girl, Jourdan, and Taylor played together on the beach.
It rained everyday we were there except for Thursday and then we were chased off the beach by high tide. When tide was high, there was no beach. The storms were vicious and had heavy down pours. They gave us time to nap and take a break. The beach and condo area was not crowded at all. Not sure it was the time of year or the location, but we enjoyed the lack of business. All in all it was a good trip. I think all of us were glad to be home except Taylor. She was upset when we arrived home and realized we weren't going to the beach. The first couple days of school, after picking her up, she would say "I ready to go to back to beach." Poor girl, we'll have to take another trip sooner than later.

Kendall's First Birthday

2010-06-05T20:27:00.007-04:00

May 13, Kendall turned one year old. We celebrated that night by eating strawberry cupcakes, which is a big deal for her considering her wheat free diet. She loved the cupcake and had no problem getting messy.
On Saturday we celebrated her birthday at Mt Horeb on their playground. It was a nice sunny day, though alittle on the warm side. The kids enjoyed making sun-visors. Kendall especially enjoyed wearing hers.
The playground had a lot of area to play, slide, and swing. We even set up tents to help with shade control.

Cici made the cake. It was too cute. It was her first experiment with foundant icing. Though it looked good, the icing wasn't as good as 'traditional' icing.
Kendall had a ball opening her presents. Surprisingly, she seemed to know exactly what to do with them. She even opened a few herself. She received alot of fun presents.

Thank you to all who came out and made Kendall's birthday special.

The following day, we enjoyed having pictures taken with Katie Pollard and the family. The girls were so good and smiled for the camera. We took one year old pictures for Kendall, which was only the second time since she's been born. I hope to have pictures to put on the blog soon but those will come later.

Kendall wrapped up her birthday celebration by going to the doctor for her one year old well visit. Doctor says she is doing great. She weighed 20.5lbs and was 30 1/4 inches tall. This is very similar to what Taylor was at this age. She has been walking since about 10 1/2 months and is all over the place. She's our dare devil, crawling and jumping off of things face first. She shows no fear. Her favorite word is mama. She's learned to shake her head (no) and knows what it means.... and means it. She's doing the baby sign language for 'more.' She is a big eater, most of the time, though isn't a big veggie eater (different from Taylor at this age). Her favorite toy is probably a babydoll that her and Taylor share. It's actually one of mine from when I was a child. The doll is as big as Kendall is but she manages to drag it around, hold it on her shoulder and even pat it's back. It's hard to believe she's one. I look back and don't understand where the year went. I assume the next 20 years will be the same. It's hard to enjoy life in slow motion with young children going 100 miles a minute.

Oh how we love the Park

2010-04-16T11:48:00.003-04:00

Many weekends we pack the girls up and head to the park. We go early in the morning to beat the crowd and heat. One day we went in the morning and afternoon. It's nice to watch Taylor play all by herself, six months ago we had to help her do everything. Kendall enjoys the swing and kid watching.

Easter Day

2010-04-16T11:31:00.004-04:00

We enjoyed a nice, crowded Easter service with Adam's parent. After church we played on the church playground alittle bit and headed home. That afternoon we had a picnic lunch at Nana's and the kids had a blast. Good time by all!

Family Picture

Kendall was not having it!

Adam's parent's and the kids.

First ride on a tire swing... priceless!

Daddy and his girls!

Kendall and CiCi

Easter Egg Hunt

2010-04-16T11:22:00.003-04:00

The Saturday before Easter we enjoyed Faith's easter egg hunt. Taylor had a BLAST. I am so glad we went. Here's what she enjoyed.

Easter egg hunt

Arts and crafts

Playing with a parachute... i've never seen her do this but she acted like she's done it before.

One of my favorite pictures!

Refreshments - another favorite pic.

Thanks Caedyn and Eli for inviting us. We look forward to it again next year.

Zoo trip

2010-04-16T11:18:00.003-04:00

We took the kids to the zoo on Good Friday. Had alot of fun but it was packed!

Check out her hair. ;-)

Taylor was holding on to the stroller and Kendall was taking it off. Sibling rivalry at a young age. Oh boy!

So much fun... too little time

2010-04-16T11:04:00.003-04:00

Where does the time go? It's hard to believe the older you get the faster life moves. But it seems to do so. It's been two months since I've blogged and so much has happened, I don't know where to begin. I'll probably just hit the highlights and then post tons of pictures from the last two months... there's plenty to tell our story.

Kendall has seen a GI doctor and he suspects her rash(es) are coming from wheat that is contaminated with oat. Therefore we've had her on a wheat free diet for a entire month and saw a huge difference in her skin. The diet is not easy to say the least. That means no bread, pasta, breaded meats, cookies, cakes, and several canned cooking goods (cream of anything, etc). It really limits what she can eat and is very stressful for me. We actually put her back on a 'normal diet' last week. She seems to be doing okay. Her skin isn't as flawlesas as wheat free but it's not as bad as it was prior to this. We'll see. She may end up back on a wheat free diet.

Kendall is starting to walk. She's not full -blown walking. But she's in a walk/crawl transition. She can walk across the length of our living room with no problem. She's so proud of this accomplishment.

She's saying dada, mama, taytay, bye bye and I swear at times, right back. She also loves playing peek a boo and patty cake.

Taylor is loving school every day. She's doing great at her potty training except for BM in the potty. We've regressed significantly with that. Not sure what's going on but she won't go in the potty at all.. not for the past two weeks. I think she's had a 'bad experience' and is now scared. We're working on it.

We had a GREAT easter this year... see pictures below. We are currently 're-doing' several house projects. We've had home improvement in our shower. And we tototally dug up our backyard. Adam has planted a vegetable garden and we planted new grass. Surprisingly the grass is growing and we are SOO excited about it! We've never had 'real' grass b/c of the dogs and such. It's actually growing pretty fast. I can't wait until I can walk with my bare feet outside.

We had our car broke into this week. It was a cheap break in b/c luckily (in this instance) Adam didn't lock his car door (unusual for him). Our neighbor was up when it happened (about 4:30am) and even spoke to the guy. It didn't hit her what was happening until after he walked away. But he opened the car and trunk, went through it, got what he want and left in a matter of seconds. He got away with his GPS system (in the glove box), sunglasses ($5 worth) and an old wallet of 'momentos.' We were lucky b/c the cop says if the door was locked, he probably would have broken the glass, which would have cost us much more. We are thankful and it was an eye opening experience.

I'm going to start posting pictures, which will probably post ahead of this post.

Snow 2010

2010-02-19T13:52:00.005-05:00

We enjoyed the much needed snow this month. Taylor's daycare closed early and when we got home she sat on the front porch calling "Snow" "Snow"! Shortly after, it started snowing. We ended up with a total of 7 inches.

Friday night, Daddy and Taylor went out to play in it while it came down. After an hour and a half of snow fall, there was plenty to play with and make a snow man.

That night we slept without power. Luckily it was only for a few hours but it felt like we were camping. We geared up and headed out again that morning. After 15 minutes, Taylor informed us she had to go potty. By the time she got undressed, pottied, she wasn't interested in going back out.

Kendall hated the snow. She cried Friday night was we walked out briefly in it. She cried Saturday as we attempted to pull her in the wagon. Maybe it was just too cold, but she wasn't a fan.

Morrison Update

2010-02-19T13:37:00.004-05:00

Well since it's been so long since I have written on my blog I thought I would take the time to update and post some recent pictures.

Taylor is now two and half and has more sass and attitude I've ever seen in a child. She mocks her teachers all day long. "I told you.... (with finger pointing)" "1-2-3 go sit in time out.", her attitude is endless. At times it is funny and at times I feel we are way in over our head with it.

She's still at daycare and loving it. There were a few weeks in December due to the accident and holidays that she had a hard time but she's overcome that obstacle. We are working on potty training full force. She wears panties at school and home. We still chicken out some in public but momma and daddy are working on that. She's done great.

She's discovered the Chick-fa- li play area and asks to go every weekend with Caedyn and Eli.

She's loving being a big sister. Kendall is getting old enough that they can play together... though Taylor needs to work on her sharing. Taylor's stuff is Taylor's and Kendall's stuff is Taylor's. Poor Kendall is just compliant as can be.

Kendall:

Kendall is nine months... just had her doctor's appointment and weighed in at 18 lbs and 28 1/2 inches. Ironically, this is the exact height and weight (off by one ounce) that Taylor was at 9 months. She has been crawling since 6 months. Her recent accomplishment is to stand and let go. She acts like she will walk soon... definitely before she is one year. Though she's pretty fast in her crawling.

She still battles eczema pretty bad. We go in March for a GI appointment to rule out wheat intolerance. I think she'll pass, though I'm not convinced she doesn't have some kind of food intolerance. Ped is saying possible milk/lactose now? Who knows!?

Because we started solids late, we are now having trouble getting her to eat anything other than purees. She gaggs at any kind of texture. Table food is OUT! I tried it one night and she managed she choke down three bites and then refused to eat anything else. The next night, she tried one bite, gagged and puked. Most nights she won't even pick it up. She doesn't like the way it feels in her hand. At daycare, the other kids her age are starting the regular lunch menu that the older kids eat. My goal is to have her there by twelve months so she can move up to the toddler room. But we're working on it.

Welcome 2010

2010-02-19T13:31:00.003-05:00

As most know we have had a rough 2009 year. His countless accidents and brushes with death. Both of us welcome 2010 with open arms, praying for a much better year.

Adam and I don't rely on horoscopes or the stars for guidance, but I had to share this that Adam found.

This is Adam's overall 2010 horoscope...

Okay, pause for a moment and check your pulse. Still there? Good. That means you survived the last couple of years with both Saturn and Pluto in less-than-perfect places for you. And by "less than perfect," I mean "lousy."

Ha ha... too funny and true!

"Daddy's Car Fall Down"

2009-12-11T19:42:00.004-05:00

As most have heard by now on Wednesday Adam and Taylor had an accident during that early morning rain storm. That's a mother's worst fear .... right... one of them atleast. That one of theei children have been in an accident.

The details are heart wrenching... for me atleast. Adam had just dropped Kendall off at Nana's and was on his way to take Taylor to school. It was pouring outside and their was a driveway that was producing a river in the road. Adam didn't have time to stop and ended up hydroplaning. By the time he stopped hydroplaning he was heading straight toward a tree and his wheel was locked up. If his wheel wasn't locked up, maybe he wouldn't have hit the tree... then again... he may have hit it the tree sideways and cause more injury to Taylor. They ended up hitting the tree head first.

Several cars stopped to help and see if they wanted to get in out of the rain. Taylor was in hysterics and wouldn't get in any car. While waiting for the police, Adam asked Taylor if she wanted him to sing "Amazing Grace" and she said yes. So they stood in the road, Taylor tucked inside his jacket under a small umbrella singing "Amazing Grace." That just brings tears to my eyes. Amazing Grace is her 'night night' song... and a source of comfort since she was a tiny baby.

Luckily there was a little steel mill across the road. When I arrived to the scene, Nana had Taylor soaked to the bone wrapped in a towel in the steel mill trying to warm her up. She wouldn't even pick her head up to greet me. I know where my mom got her survivor kit lessons from and after involving my child, I will put a jacket and towel in my car for keeps.

From the look of the accident, they were really lucky. Adam's angels were there again. His angels are around so much, they are going to end up with names. The car we can replace (though we just paid it off last month... that just makes it more heart wrenching).

When we finallly got Taylor into Nana's car to head to her house, I asked Taylor if she was okay. She said no. She looked up at me and as innocent as can be said, "momma, daddy's car fall down." My heart broke for her.

Both walked away with minor bumps and bruises. Taylor's worst was the mark that her seatbelt left. Adam ended up with a jammed toe, busted hand (from going through the dash) and a badly bruised knee (already bad knee). All together, we are grateful.

Taylor talked for a day and a half about daddy's car falling down. Her then next statement was "daddy's car "stop" on tree" (with a hand slap at stop). She repeats herself over and over. That day she pointed out every tree we passed to make sure we saw that tree. That night she refused to sleep alone. She slept with me and still had obvious nightmares.

She's improving. She's back to her normal sleeping arrangements. Doesn't mention the accident as much each day. She's till panicked about getting in 'daddy's car.' She rides fine in "mommy's car." We are currently using a car from Papa (Adam's dad). So we now call it "Papa's car." Half way to school today, she stopped crying and seemed to get over it. She later told Adam, she liked Papa's car. Hopefully she'll be 'over it' come Monday.

It's hard when a little child loses trust in the world. How do you tell her it'll be okay... when you can't make promises. There may be another accident down the road, bad things happen. Tonight as i was rocking her for bed, she looked up at me and whispered "daddys car fall down" after not mentioning it all night. Again, it tugged my heart. The best I could come up with that my two year old little girl would understand is "all done." The tree is all-done. She seemed to understand that.

That night I thanked God for sparing my husband and my child that day and then with tears in my eyes, I prayed that he doesn't take my family away from me. They are my everything.

In the mind of a two year old...

2009-11-29T18:48:00.006-05:00

So the other morning, Taylor had me cracking up. First conversation of the morning went like this...

Me: "Taylor, are you wet?"
Taylor: "No, not wet mommy. I dry."
Me: "Are you sure? I think you're lying."
Taylor: "Me, lion. ROOOAOAARRR."

We were able to get our Christmas tree and some decorations up this weekend. On Saturday morning, Taylor walks into the living room and see's the lit tree and say's "ohh pretty. Momma take a picture" and brings me my camera. So here is Taylor with our Christmas tree.

Again... same day... she found our Christmas nativity set. The night before she had the wise man in time out. But this is what I found the next day and thought was too halarious...

Baby Jesus in time out... atleast the wise men were still able to find him.

Fall Fun 2009

2009-11-28T14:57:00.011-05:00

Now that I have kids, I think Fall is my favorite time of year. There is so much to do and so much fun. The following are blirbs and pics from some of our family activities.
Harmon's Pumpking Patch
We were really disappointed in Harmon's this year. We went one afternoon after it rained all morning and everything was put up. The pumpkins and hay displays were all missing. But we still managed to have some fun.
Taylor's first stop was the mechanical 'horsey.'

She enjoyed her first see-saw ride. Mom and dad rode too. Boy did it bring back memories. And quite a workout!

Lastly, Taylor found the little merry-go-round. She had to sit on every animal and wanted to turn it on. It turned out to be broke but... Daddy saves the day by pushing it round and round. Such..sweet moment.

Halloween 2009
For Halloween, Taylor was able to dress up and attend her party at school. They made trick or treat bags and went from classroom to classroom. Her bag was so full, she had to drag it to the car. Halloween night we ended up attending our church's carnival. It was so packed and chaotic... I'm not sure we'll do that again. Atleat not while they are young. We were home early but everyone was tired and okay with that. Kendall never did get dressed up in a costume. It was too hot to put her in anything. Taylor had a ball being a pretty ballerina.

Biltmore Trip to see Santa
On a whim, I decided to hitch a ride to Asheville with my sister's family with my two kids. Three adults, and four kids (including car seats, two strollers and multiple bags all rode in one van (Thanks Toyota). Taylor apparently hasn't grown out of her Santa fear yet. (Remember her christmas card last year) She cried the entire time. I had to hold her and she still cried. However, everynight during 'night night' prayers she thanks that "TaTa sat on Santa's lap." I"m not sure how we'll explain the Santa deal this year. I've mentioned Santa coming and bringing toys and she started crying.

The kids enjoyed running around the field, playing ball and eating ice cream.

We were able to visit the petting farm. Taylor had a ball chasing the chickens calling after them " I wanna hold you." Kendall was so good the entire trip... but just went along for the ride.

Corn Maze - Nov 2009
"We got lost in the corn maze" Yes, we took a toddler and baby into the corn maze. What were we thinking. Things started out real good. Everyone having a blast. THen after about an hour in wall to wall corn, we started getting ansy. Taylor half way through began having temper tantrums so Adam decided that we should just try and make our way out. What we were doing the first place, I'm not sure... I thought that is what the purpose of the maze is.... come out at the other end. I still got some good pics.
Girl with attitude...

Reading the map with daddy... "where are we?"

Soo tired... two babies, one carseat, one stroller.... what a family to do? Pile them in together. They didn't mind.

Thanksgiving 2009
Taylor got to help cook alittle. She enjoyed the eating part more, but who doesn't.

She enjoyed playing with Chandler during the feast.
Charles got practice on feeding Kendall.

She had a blast playing at Nana's with all her cousins. No pictures because the camera was left behind. And last but not least, Taylor and I attended her first Thanksgiving lunch at school. All the kids were dressed up as pilgrims.

Kendall's 6m well visit

2009-11-16T19:55:00.003-05:00

Today Kendall had her 6 month well visit check up. Everything went well despite her getting three shots. She wasn't too happy about those, of course. She was 27 inches long and 15.12 lbs. She's actually lost alittle bit of weight since her 4 month appointment. Doc says she's right on track.

He is referring her to an opthalmologist (eye doctor) for her eyes. He called it esotropia. We have to wait and see what the eye doctor says but he thinks it can be corrected with just her wearing a patch. We'll see.

He also 'confirmed/agreed' that the mysterious rash she's had for the last two months is an oatmeal allergy. We've thrown out all the Aveeno products... actually just using them on Taylor instead. I'm hoping she'll grow out of it by 9 months. He mentioned that if she doesn't then he'll probably refer her to a GI doctor... not sure why though.

So insurance reenrollment is coming up at Adam and mine work. After today's appointment, I feel comfortable signing up for the higher monthly premium. It'll probably benefit us since we'll have all these 'extra' doctor visits and procedures. We sure could have used this plan this year with all that has gone on... probably saved us a thousand bucks.

Kendall is constantly on the go. She hardly sleeps, I suppose she's scared she'll miss something. She's already scooting on the floor, rocking back and forth on her knees and really getting around. However she's not even sitting alone yet. I keep telling her she can't crawl until she sits. But I'm not sure she's listening. We are slowly introducing solids. Because of her possible food allergies, we are being extra caution. She can only eat rice (as in cereal) until 9 months. We just started veggies last week. She's such a joy to be around.

Ahh... the stress... does it end...

2009-10-13T20:06:00.003-04:00

This blog is more of a stress reliever for me. I hope I feel better afterwards... so I apologize in advance for the 'wahs.' We'll start with myself.

I had some dental work done last week to 'finish' off some issues. I was hoping it was the last of it and afterwards could resume my normal cleanings. But over the weekend my tooth started hurting pretty badly. I went in today and it turned out that part of the filling had chipped off and was shoved under my tooth and into my gum. I can assure you it felt as good as it sounds. However, the repair was 100 times worse. Despite four numbing injections of two different types and one injection going straight into the nerve of the tooth, the dentist still couldn't numb the tooth that was already aggrivated. I was between tears and climbing out of my skin. Towards the end, even just her touching the tooth caused severe throbbing. We are hoping it won't need a root canal. She said that my gum was pretty inflamed because of the chipped piece and that along with the work can make the tooth sensitive. So I'm on some meds for the next 24 hours but am hoping I'll be done with the dentist for a while.

Taylor is slowly killing us... by lack of sleep. This has been going on for about two months. She started out resisting to fall asleep. This lasted two weeks before I go so desperate I went out and bought all kinds of contraptions to 'help' her fall asleep. Then one night we did 'sleep bootcamp.' I established a strict bedtime routine consisting of specific books, a lullaby cd, a lava lamp, rocking, prayers and being tucked in. The first two nights were rough but then seemed to work well except momma had to do it. Well at some point, she wanted us to leave her lamp light on while she slept. She screams when we turn it off... so I started leaving it on. However, I'm not convinced it's helping her sleep. I turn it off when she's asleep. But she wakes up in the middle of the night screaming. So our issue now is not her going to sleep... but her waking in the middle of the night. For the past several nights, she'll wake up crying, screaming out and wanting to rock in the living room. She starts her temper tantrums and ends up waking the whole house. Sunday night, she was up for 3 hours. It's insane. I'm not sure what to do about it but this whole sleeping phase is by far the worse ... yet. We are all so desperate to get some sleep that we did the unthinkable last night. At 2:00 and we were all up, Adam and I decided to give her one of her paci's, thinking it would do the trick. It didn't. It's only meant for bedtime here at the house. She didn't take it to school and got it when she got in bed. We'll see how it goes tonight with it.

Kendall is so precious. She's such an easy going baby and so pleasant. She smiles at everything and especially when you talk to her. Poor baby though has had this crazy mysterious rash (off and on) for about 3 weeks now. It's the craziest thing I've seen and as a mother it is literally driving me nuts. It started the week she stayed with my grandma. I noticed these bite like marks on her belly and thought "nana must have flea's." Well by the end of the week (and she only stayed with Nana 2 days), kendall had these 'bites/marks' all over her back and belly and a few on arms and legs. I ruled out flea's because no one else in the house has any bites and we haven't seen any. On that Friday I realized the weekend before and the entire week I had been feeding her oatmeal. I was convinced she was having an allergic reaction. I stopped the oatmeal and they slowly went away with in a week.

Well fast forward two weeks... to last week. Kendall has eczema and I've been using Aveeno on her skin. I had used Aveeno for several weeks before we fed oatmeal to her with no problems. However, when she developed the rash, I stopped using it. Last Wed, her eczema was flaring so I decided to use the Aveeno. I used it Thursday too. On Friday, she woke with her belly flaring again. I assumed it was from the Aveeno. I've heard if they are allergic to oatmeal by mouth then you shouldn't use topical oatmeal either. I took her to the doctor and (not her ped but another doctor) said it didn't look like allergies. Her guess was either some kind of bites or a staph infection. (Adam had staph infection while I was pregnant) So she's on antibiotics for a staph infection.

So here's my dilema....

Description of the rash: Mostly on belly and back (few on arms and legs) A red splotch (size of dime) is present with a little white head bump (kind of pimply or bite like). When the redness goes down, her stomach has a very fine red rash on it, not including the bumps described above. These bumps with reddness come and go... usually in same spot but at times she pops out a new one or two or three.

I'm not convinced it's staph. If it is.. it's not typical. We are on day 4 out of 7 of the antibiotic and I'm not seeing a huge difference. I did see on babycenter.com some similar stories, but still not convinced. Not to mention.. if it is... how do I get it out of my house?

Bugs: This just gives me the creeps... what kind, where.. why are they attacking her and no one else. I've been searching for fleas and can't find a single one. Bedbugs.... we put tape on her bed and floor ... nothing so far. We may end up fumigating the house anyways... just to be sure. I should mention that her room is the room that patches lived in at one time (when the dogs and cats were inside). But again, we aren't seeing anything. I'm also thinking of calling our exterminator to come out and take a look. They said they could visit and just look around to see if they see any evidence of flea's.

I will say this.... I think (thought of this tonight) that I believe all this started when we got some clothes from melissa's. I washed all these clothes but wonder if something may have gotten in them while they were in Melissa's attic. I'm now tracking what she wear's and her breakouts.

Allergies: who knows... I think it's huge coincidence that it started with the oatmeal, cleared with the oatmeal, started with the Aveeno and is slowly clearing. We've stayed away from Aveeno... but i want to use it sooo bad to see if she has another reaction. However I'm scared because if it's an allergic reaction, they seem to be getting worse.

So what to do? where to go from here? Do we have bugs, do we have bacteria, do we have allergies? I'm not sure my pediatrician would know. I've thought about taking her to a dermatologist or demanding to see an allergist. I guess my plan right now is to finish the antiobiotic (Friday) and see what happens. If they are still there or pop up again, I may take her back in. I may end up trying the Aveeno on one spot to see what happens. And we may end up fumigating the house anyways, which brings on a whole new set of worries. How do you safely fumigate a house with an infant and toddler living inside. Pretty stressful stuff.

Day at the doctor

2009-10-02T15:44:00.002-04:00

We officially accomplished two well visits in one visit today. Of course, Adam was with me. No way I could have gone solo. He had no choice but to go. :-) So here are the updates on my both chillen's two hours and four shots later...

Kendall - 4 month well visit
Height : 24.5 inches (75)
Weight 14.8 (50th%)
Head: 10 3/4 inches (90%) "huge" in our doctors words

Developmentally: right on track (rolling, cooing, laughing, etc)

He said Kendall looks great and no changes were made. He did confirm she does have eczema (really, so shocked). Regarding her eyes being crossed, he wants to wait until her 6 month appointment (which really she's 5 months old next week, so we only have 5 weeks to wait) and see how they are then. They seem to be alittle better just this week.

I showed him pictures of her allergic reaction. Apparently, I wasn't suppose to be feeding her oatmeal in the first place. Even though we did with Taylor, the recommendations have changed. How's a parent suppose to know this. His advice (strict advice that we'll follow is as this...) Begin rice once to three times daily. When she hits six months (not a day sooner) we can start with babyfood fruits and veggies. She's not to attempt multi-grain cereals (oatmeal, wheat, etc) until 9 months old. At that point if she still has a reaction, it'll be addressed then. So rice it is.

Kendall got two shots. She didn't even cry for the first one. It was amazing. I've never seen anything like it. The second one she cried for a split second but she did excellent.

Taylor - 2 year old well visit
Height: 34 in. (75%)
Weight: 28 lbs (50%)
Head: 19 3/4 in (94%) "Huge"

Developmentally: following conversation took place...
Dr. C walks into room...
Dr. C: Hey Taylor, how are you.
Taylor: gives Dr. Cope the eat sh*t look
Dr. C: Give me 5 (to Taylor)
Taylor: "STOP"
Dr. C: (shocked) Well my developmental exam is through.
Mom: Yup, she's two.
Dr. C: Definitely two.

Apparently she's right on track. Ha! That's my girl. She's also been described as a fighter and strong willed during the same exam. However I was so proud of her when she walked by herself with the nurse to get weighed and height measured. Such a big girl.

The other conversation brought up was I told the doctor she's recently been exposed to the swine flu. He laughed at me and said " I could have told you that, have you seen the waiting room." And yes... for all you mother's out there.... the waiting room was packed. I suppose this isn't the time to go to the doctor just to get a minor cold checked out. They'll leave with something much bigger.

So proud of both of them!

Kendall's allergic reaction

2009-09-30T20:14:00.003-04:00

Last week Kendall broke out in this crazy bump like rash. At first I thought it was flea bites. But they continued to get worse and worse and no one else was getting bites. After about 5 days of it progressing, it hit me that we had started her on oatmeal a few days before the rash appeared. I should also mentioned that while she had the rash, she puked like crazy. She's a reflux baby but hasn't spit up like this ever. It was crazy. So I looked up and of course self diagnosed her with an oatmeal allergy. But the internet said a reaction would be exacty like she had. She's been oatmeal for 5 days and the rash and continued to improve. Yea! Though now I'm scared about what kind of allergies she may have. I'm hoping this is something that just didn't agree with her right now. But I'm worried she may have a wheat allergy or worse a gluten intolerance, which will change our eating habits drastically. See pictures below... I had taken these prior to realizing what it was... I was prepared to post them on here to ask people what they thought it was... bites, rash, eczema. But now I know. We see the doctor on Friday so we'll see what he says about that... along with her eczema and cross eyes. I'm sure I'll have something to blog about then.

Taylor is TWO!

2009-09-30T19:42:00.004-04:00

Taylor finally turned two on Saturday. She's been tempermentally two for a while ... now she's there chronically. heh. We decided to have an Elmo party because she has been into Elmo this year and I figure I should be able to get away with a neutral gender party while she's younger. I figure the older she gets she'll want more princess, fairy, pink parties. I was real happy with how it turned out. We originally were suppose to celebrate at the park but at the last minute moved it to Popsey and CiCi's house due to the weather.

We had a good turn out and Taylor got alot of good gifts. One of her favorite gifts is a talking baby and baby size play pen. She LOVES these. The doll is kind of freaky. It has a motion sensor setting so it starts talking, cooing, laughing when you walk by it. Adam says he's going to take it out and shoot it. Ha! She carries that baby doll around everyone and at times drags the playpen around behind her. She feeds the baby, puts it in time out, and puts it to bed. Too funny. She has also enjoyed her new 'lawn' chair. It's been deemed her 'tv' chair. Instead of rocking at night, she wants to 'sit here.

Baby Kendall (live baby, not doll) in Taylor's baby play pen.

It's hard to believe Taylor is two and she's made so many accomplishments this year. We've started potty training, she's sleeping in a big girl bed, started at a new school and adjusted well. She's learning her colors (knows orange, white and purple) and alphabet (A and B). Her favorite game is pointing and counting the school buses to and from school. Her favorite are the 'white' buses. She may even have her first 'boyfriend' as she asks about Tyler, a kid in her class, every night. Though she's hit her two's with a vengence (I'll save that for another blog moment) I am excited about what she will come up with next. She sure makes me smile.

Things I've realized....

2009-09-13T19:47:00.003-04:00

Random things I've realized....

1) I hate asking for help. I don't necessarily turn help away but find it hard to ask for help.

2. I have forgotten how to relax. Even when I have moments to relax, I choose to do something else that needs to be done. In the end, I am the only one who suffers.

3. I don't give my husband enough credit for all the hard work he does.

4. My children are so darn cute... even when they are irritating.

5. Vinegar makes a great household cleaner.

6. There's no point in cleaning house when it becomes stain splattered dirty in a matter of minutes.

7. I'm so done with animals (for now)... I have enough mouths to feed, poop to clean and cries to attend to without having dogs or cats.

8. Revelation: According to Taylor's baby book, every time she was sick last year with her 'fever viruses' she also got a tooth or teeth at the same time. The runny noses caused her to have ear infections but I believe most of her 'illnesses were really teething symptoms. Therefore, I'm thinking this on and off low-grade fever for two weeks and runny nose is her getting her two year old molars. Plus she told me last night that her teeth hurt... however I did catch her gnawing on her bed rail.

9. I miss my own kid imagination. I enjoy watching Taylor play with her ceramic garden frogs. She treats them like other kids treat baby dolls... I know... my kid is special. She rocks them, changes their diaper, feeds them, spanks them, puts them in time out and this weekend we had her school nap stuff home to wash and she kept her frogs in nap mode with blanket, pillow and milk... after singing Amazing Grace to them. It was so adorable.

10. Kendall isn't ready to sleep through the night. She did sleep from 7 to 5 ish for about two weeks but that stopped a week ago. She's back to her one night feeding again.

11. I also realized this weekend that the pesky skin rash on Kendall's face is really eczema and it is spreading. We've started to treat it with Aveeno.

12. For the first time this weekend, I was almost embarrased by one of my babies and am almost ashamed about it. We ate at IHOP and Kendall was very alert and looking around. It seemed everyone was oohing and aweing over her with giggles. Then it hit me are they awwing or laughing at her cross-eyes. I can't wait for her Oct appointment so we can see what the doctor says. I'm sure we are past the stage for them to correct themselves.

13. Should feel blessed for all I have and am but wear myself out so thin that I forget how blessed I am.... that's a problem.

Growing up too fast....

2009-09-02T19:38:00.002-04:00

Taylor started 'school' this past Monday. It's really not school... not even a preschool... it's daycare. But after being in an in-home daycare since birth it's a huge change. Overall I think she's adjusting well. She cried a good bit on Monday. She still cries at drop off in the mornings and says she doesn't want to go to school. But she dries up quickly and has a good day. I can already tell a difference in things and am so excited about school. First, she's wearing panties and still going to the bathroom. Now let me explain this. At home, the only way we could get her to go potty is to let her run around with no britches (no panties, diaper, nada). She would pee, poop,etc all by herself. Put a diaper, pull-up or even panties on the girl and she would pee in them. So today I put panties on her (trying to get away from the bare bottom phenomenon) and she pooped and peed in the potty all by herself. YEA!! Second thing she has learned this week (remember in just three days) is the letters A and B. We are just sitting there playing when she starts telling me "that's B." At first I ignored her but she kept repeating herself. Sure enough, when I looked up she was pointing to the B on the title "Mega Blocks." Ask her where the "A" is and she knows where it is as well. I was so proud I had a tear in my eye. And lastly the funniest thing was coming home from school. All of a sudden she starts screaming "Stop!" "Stop" Momma, Stop the car!" What two year old says that? Ohhh... it was soo funny.

Kendall is also getting so big. I weighed her at home (so probably not very accurate) but she's about 15 lbs. I'm shocked... but not. I think Taylor was only 10 lbs or so at 4 months... I should look. But Kendall is such a big girl. We started her on rice this week (a litle early, I know). I was just experimenting to see if she was ready because she has been eating us out of the house. She gobbled that stuff up. It was crazy! She doesn't eat much of it but she seems to like it. Imagine that! She is also starting to smile and laugh alot. We think she is very tickilish. She giggles every time we change her clothes, wipe her neck play with her hands/arms. It's pretty funny. She seems to be such a happy, laid-back baby. I can't wait to see what her personality will be like.

Ahhh these moments are the ones we cherish for a lifetime.

Halarious Toddler Moments

2009-08-09T18:52:00.002-04:00

So we've officially hit the toddler era. Taylor has been full of toddler moments. The two most recent that we laugh about happened today.

So afterchurch we went to crackerbarrel. Taylor was exhausted since she'd been up since 5 am. She fell asleep on Adam for a good 30-45 minutes. Well ofcourse that meant when she got home, she refused her nap. We tried anyways. So after about 30 minutes of her being in her room, I peeked in to check on her. Well precious Taylor was out of bed, sitting in her rocking chair quietly reading her books. This is the first time she's gotten out of bed. It was so sweet. She saw me and just quietly said "hey mommy" as innocent as could be. She ended up getting up... apparently wasn't tired and we tried naptime again a few hours later. She did the same thing. She got out of bed and started playing with her xylophone... not so quiet this time. It was cute but something we have to nix in the bud now.

The second toddler moment was with the potty. She was running around in her nightgown with no diaper or panties on. I typically just ask her every 20 minutes or so if she needs to go pee pee. She usually says yes and we take her. This time I asked her and she just took off. I kind of thought maybe she was going, but have never gone by herself. Seconds later, Taylor comes walking into the living room carrying her 'pot of pee.' It was so funny. She was so proud she had to come show us.

Ahhh.... gotta love those toddler moments.

Post

2009-08-08T20:47:00.001-04:00

If you're just tuning in, make sure you scroll down and see all four new posts.

"Dog -gone" day's of summer

2009-08-08T20:41:00.004-04:00

Well our dogs have temporarily found a new home. We've been looking for someone to take them but was unsuccessful. Luckily, Adam's parents have agreed to take them to see how they do. They aren't promising forever, but we can hope. So they got loaded up this morning and shipped to Gilbert. Apparently they did okay. Mia who is a Coli mix starting herding the goats. (his parents have three goats). She seemed to have a ball running circles around them. It's probably what she's wanted to do her whole life. Bella checked out the place first and then started chasing the momma goat. Apparently Bella got stuck in some twigs, and the goat took the opportunity to ram Bella. She stopped messing with them after that. Ha!

I think they'll be happy out there. They will have alot more space, more shade, more company (goats). We had gotten where we would just feed them and that is it. We didn't spend anytime with them. They have torn our backyard up because it's so hot. We are looking forward to growing grass and actually being able to play in the backyard with the girls.

Even though I didn't spend much time with them, I think I already miss them. I catch myself looking out the back door or window and when I don't see them have this wave of panic that they got out. Then I remember. I'm sure it's just habit.

Keep your fingers cross that they do okay in Gilbert.... or they'll get shipped back to us.

Next to find a new home.... Patches. Anyone want a cat??

Belles and Beaus

2009-08-08T20:29:00.002-04:00

This week was Belles and Beaus. I've decided that B&B is the best thing in town. Melissa and I went on Wednesday, which was 'volunteer' night. It was the first night it was open so all the good stuff was still there. We had so much fun. I ended up getting a tricycle (Taylor), a slide, a hippo with blocks, this awesome music art table (Taylor's favorite), tons of clothes for both kids, some books and two DVDs. Taylor has already enjoyed all her toys except the slide and tricycle. We put those up for her birthday.

Melissa bought a car (for CiCi), a tricycle, a dumptruck, and more clothes than you can imagine. Really! We spent (together) a whopping $500. It took four adults to pack my car... and barely got it all in. It was so halarious... all the toys in the back. I couldn't see past the front seats.

We were so tired and so hungry and high on freedom. We left and went to get food from BK. We laughed so hard through the drive through and headed home. Half way there we had to turn around to get Gary's food. So we thought about going back to BK but we couldn't keep straight faces and were scared they might call the cops on us weird girls. So we went to taco bell. So picture this - two girls; loaded up on toys; laughing so hard we were crying; in the taco bell drive through ordering two more orders (adam and gary)...already eating two bags of burger king. Maybe you had to be there but it looked like we had been smoking 'r**fer.' And we got a crack out of this.

Ohhh... fun times... we sure don't get out enough. Melissa, I had a blast!

Taylor Tidbits

2009-08-08T20:12:00.003-04:00

Where to begin with 'Taylor Tidbits?' She's at the age where so much is happening so fast. I have so many things to blog about for her.

1. Paci Bootcamp was ultimately a success. Night #4 was the roughest. It took her an hour of screaming to fall asleep and she woke three times during the night crying. The next night, I had a little talk with her about being a big girl. I'm not sure what I said or if she understood any of it. But that night, she went to bed with a 'new' bear and a book to read. She fell asleep reading her book. Since then that's been her routine. She fusses sometimes and asks for her paci during the day occasionally but overall has adjusted really well.

2. Bedtime stalling has become an art for her. It's taken me a few nights to realize how smart Taylor is... but I've caught on. After putting her to bed... she says she needs to eat. So first night, I beleive her and get her a snack. The next night I make sure she eats a good dinner. Second night she needs to pee pee. Okay... can't tell her no. So we sit on the potty for a while... no pee pee. Back to bed. Next night... she needs to eat. I tell her no. Needs to pee pee....tell her no. She wants milk... no. She wants to rock rock... no. She goes through all these items every night now. It breaks my heart sometimes... what if she is hungry... what if she does need to pee pee... but I've given her the chance to go many nights and learned she's stalling for bed. Kind of funny coming from a 22 month old.

3. Potty Training is going to be a breeze with this child. She is so ready and I'm so proud of her. She is constantly telling us she needs to go pee pee and she does. She's started waking us first thing in the morning to go (and once at 4:30 am). She's going in the potty on a regular basis when she is home. Today I decided to let her go several hours without a diaper. She refuses to wear panties so she went bare bottom. She did this for about 3 hours with only one accident. Again in the afternoon we did it again for about 2 hours with no accidents.

4. Taylor is starting to dress herself and pick out her clothes. I have pictures of her "picking' out her clothes for the day.

When she dresses herself everything goes feet first. She doesn't want any help so we can't correct her right now. THe "small fries' picture is her night shirt. She walked around the house like this for an hour because she refused our help. We got a good laugh out of it.

5. Just recently, Adam and I have decided to enroll Taylor in a public daycare. We are really excited about this decision. Nervous for Taylor and how well she'll adjust but overall excited. We've visited several times and even took Taylor a couple of those times. We've been pleased. They have a nice set up and Taylor seems excited about "school," though I'm sure she doesn't know what she's getting into yet. We felt that she would benefit from a structured routine and curriculum. She totally loves Miss Lisa's, but wanted her to work on more social skills with more kids. Taylor tends to freeze up when she gets around a group of kids. The older she gets, the harder this will be on her. I didn't want to wait until public school to introduce her to this type of environment. This daycare is expanding there two year old program this fall and just happened to have openings. Otherwise we would have to be on a waiting list. Please pray for Taylor as she makes this adjustment at the end of the month. I know she'll have a ball once she gets use to the new atmosphere.

Kendall Bug

2009-08-08T20:01:00.004-04:00

Kendall is going on three months. Where has the time gone. She is sooo big. When Taylor was three months, she was so scrawny, barely eating and still wearing 0-3 months loosly. Kendall woofs down her food and can wear 6 month clothes. She's so big.

She's holding her head up pretty well. She seems to enjoy tummy time if she has something to look at. This past week she has started rolling over... front to back and occasionally back to front. When she sleeps, she is all over the place, even rolls over in her sleep... but this wakes her up because she get's stuck.

Kendall's funniest recent accomplishment is the discovery of her hands. She discovered them several weeks ago. You would think they would get old to her and she'd move on to something more exciting. Nope. The child spends most of her waking hours looking at her hand... in complete awe. Laughing at it... and the child doesn't laugh or smile at anyone or anything except her own gas and now her hand. When she gets upset, she'll stick her hand in her sight and immediately stop. It's halarious. We call this 'phenomenon' "Hello Hand." And you have to say it like "Hello Clarice" Ha! She's also discovered her thumb. I've caught her many times sucking her thumb. I'm not sure this is a better option than the paci.

"HELLO HAND"

Paci Boot Camp Night #1

2009-07-31T19:44:00.003-04:00

Well after a long time of procrastinating (and that's not like me), Adam and I decided that this weekend was the time to say goodbye to the paci. Taylor loves her paci. It provides so much comfort, but I know she can do with out. She hasn't had a paci at daycare since she turned one. I held off taking it from her during all summer due to all the changes (schedules, new baby, etc). Right now we aren't having any changes and she's adjusted to Kendall wonderfully. So the time is right.

I've researched several methods of getting rid of the paci. There's the "binky fairy" the "binky tree" where you bury it outside. You can just throw it away or let it disappear. I've thought about all these methods and knew they weren't going to cut it. Then FINALLY I saw the best suggestion. It would work perfect for Taylor. The mom suggested cutting the rubber end off the paci. So there isn't anything for them to suck. It would take too much effort for them to keep in there mouth. We would tell Taylor it's 'broken.' That she has to throw it away. She would understand this and I think would handle it better than anything else. There's actual reasoning behind it... it's broke... it's trash.

So this afternoon, we came home and Adam cut the tip off. She looked at it... and put it in her mouth. She walked around a little while playing with it. When I got in, I made a big deal about it being broken. "What happened? It's broke." She looks up at me and says "Daddy." I swear nothing gets past her. After that she threw it on the floor and went off to play. I thought this would be too easy.

Bedtime came and Adam still let her have it. He had the right idea that she couldn't suck on it so why can't she have it in her posession for tonight. So in bed she starts whining. I went in there and told her to hold her paci or put it on her headboard for later. She seemed to like that idea. She did end up crying for about 15 minutes, but she also missed her nap today. She probably would have cried anyways. I'm impressed! Boot Camp Night #1: SUCCESS! (so far!) Things could change by morning!

Madness

2009-07-30T20:12:00.004-04:00

Absolute Madness. That is what this entire week has been. I'll only go into my current work situation as it contains enough drama for one blog.

So as everyone knows, I work in a nuclear medicine department at a local internist office. Well the two nuclear reactors that have been down for part of the year have really started to catch up to us. A brief overview: there are only five nuclear reactors in the world. These reactors supply the entire world all the nuclear medicine for all their medical procedures. There are many procedures. None of the reactors are located in the US. Currently two of the five are out of commision. Since early July, the nuclear pharmacies have had trouble getting enough doses to supply their clients. So they limit how many patients we can perform studies on. This past week was a rough week as we usually do 20-25 patients and we only did 13. As you can imagine our physicians aren't happy. We have many patients that need to have this study done and it brings in alot of revenue for us. We also got word that the entire month of August was going to be a nightmare. The pharmacies won't be able to tell us how many doses they can supply us until the day before. That is a scheduling nightmare (my job). On top of that, we currently use a compound called Technetium for both rest and stress injections. We now will be using two diferent compounds. Thallium for rest and Tech for stress. Neither me or the girl I work with are very familiar with Thallium. It has a higher radiation exposure and clears the heart alot quicker. The logistics of test will have to be changed. I also had to design completely different report templates since the protocol is different. It's insane.

This dilema is effecting everyone, everywhere. Hospitals, cardiology practices, etc. However, they get first priority from the pharmacies. We get what's left over - if any.

There is rumor that with in a few years, nuclear medicine will be out of commission. The government wants these studies performed only in the hospitals. For now, we take each day at a time - literally. We don't know when this will be over. I've read these reactors will be down for 6-9 years. I've also read that the shortage will be crucial for atleast one month this year (August?) and then again for six months in 2010. Honestly, we may not survive six months of a shortage like this.

So I'm thankful for my job each day. Even though it's caused a spike in my blood pressure, this week. Madness- abosolute madness!

Oh Happy Days!

2009-07-16T21:28:00.002-04:00

It's been a while since I've blogged and so much has happened since then. Kendall is 8 weeks and she is such a big girl. She had her 2 month well visit and she weighed in at 11.6 lbs (75%) and she's 23 1/4 inches (75%). She did pretty well with her shots. We'll see how she is tomorrow. She is in daycare and has done very well. Three weeks ago, I was pulling my hair out because of her. Since then we've changed her formula (yes, again),and upped her prevacid. The formula change seemed to be a major turning point. He put her on the Enfamil AR. She's doing great on it. My only complaint is that the formula is really thick and we had a hard time getting it to come out of any nipple we owned. So I read up on it on babycenter.com and saw some moms blending it. I have this 'magic wand' gadget that I got as a wedding present and never used. It's now getting tons of use. It's easy, great and works like a charm.

Taylor is back at daycare as well and loves it. She's so glad to be back with 'Sasson' (Addison). She is starting to go to the potty some and has done really well. She usually tells us when she wants to go and she goes. She's pooped several times. She's been in the car and able to hold it. And she occasionally stays dry during nap to wake up to say I gotta pee pee. I'm sure it's just a phase but we're so proud of her. She's also starting singing. This week is the first time that I've noticed her acutally singing words. It's so precious. The two songs I've heard her sing are "Amazing Grace" and "This Little Light of Mine." She's so smart, she blows my mind. Now that I'm not pregnant, we are trying to be more consistent with her discipline. She doesn't listen very well. Maybe it's the two's but part of it is her getting away with so much in the past. But sometimes you can't help but smile at toddlers. TOnight she purposefully dump a cup of water on the carpet and started stomping in it. I got on to her and tried to explain that she's making a mess and messes aren't nice. The next thing I know, she laid down on the floor and kissed it. I guess because when she hits or is mean we tell her to be nice and to say sorry - so she kisses as her apologies. It was so cute.

Adam and the rest of the world learned this week that come April BCBS will lose thousands of jobs. For those of you who dont' know, this is Adam's department that is being affected. He works in the IS dept for the PGBA or tricare department. The lost their biggest three contracts. Therefore basically won't have much work to do come April 2010. Yes, we are a little nervous about this. But we have been reassured that BCBS takes care of there employees. I think it helps that BCBS invested in Adam's training through the ELTP program. They are continuing to have that program so it doesn't seem that they are slowing down there recruiting at all. Keep us in your prayers as a job loss would be devasting but right now feel comfortable that he'll be okay.

Speaking of work, I returned to my position at JMA. I was nervous but like the kids, transitioned well. It's amazing how if you do a job so long how you will never forget a step. I went in and hit the ground running... haven't missed a beat, even though I was out for 4 months. Everyone seemed glad to have me back and it's good to be back. It's good to see a paycheck. :-)

I've spent the last month working on my birth control plan. I opted to get an IUD. It's been a crazy story. The first wasn't put in correctly, so I had to have it removed. The second one seems to be working fine - I think. I'm going to give it some time. I've gone though alot of trouble to get it and it's the best option for me at the time, so I hope it works out.

It seems the stress of being a twofer mommy and being back at work has started to get to me. I noticed yesterday that I have broken out in a 'rash' on my legs and arms. I haven't noticed it anywhere else. I hope it's stress but also when I saw it today I thought of lupus. I looked it up and unfortunatly have other symptoms of lupus. I've been complaining for 2 weeks of joint pain - my right ankle, right hip, left wrist.) I'm being treated for fatigue, anemia, hypothyroidism, etc) All which are signs - even though they can be related to having a baby as well. I don't know. I'm going to watch it and see what happens.

Not much is new with us. I don't have many pictures to post but will have to get some up soon.

Kendall's Summer Fun

2009-06-27T20:23:00.007-04:00

Well I have to say Kendall hasn't had no where near as much fun as Taylor has this summer (see next post) but I thought I'd cap Kendalls summer as well. Really this is just the month of June.

She was finally diagnosed with reflux and we just started our third medicine for it. Luckily this medicine seems to be working (most days) but we'll take it for now. She also is on her third formula but it seems to be doing okay for now (most days). She's still a high maintenance baby - gassy, refluxy, colicky, rotten baby. I always knew she would be my cuddly baby because Taylor wasn't... but I didn't realize what that meant as an infant.
Her biggent event this month was her weeklong hospital trip. I'm sure most have heard about it but it was pretty dramatic. I came home one evening from swim lessons with Taylor and Kendall (who had slept the entire day) was running a 102 fever. I knew this was a big deal for a 5 week old but I wasn't prepared for what was ahead. THe nurse on call told us to go to the Children's hospital and be prepared to stay the night. So we left at 8:00 that night (snuck away from Taylor as she was already asleep) and headed to the hospital. What the nurse didn't tell us what that it wasn't for one night but for three nights. And they weren't concerned about her dehydrating as much as her having spinal meningitis. They ended up taking blood, uring (both to culture) and having to do a spinal tap to test for meningitis. It was quite traumatizing.... but she seemed to take it well. They kept us in the hospital until the culture results were back, which takes 48 hours. Obviously they were negative. Meanwhile, I spent the most exhausting week of my life. The doctors went ahead and started treating her as if she had some kind of bacterial infection so she was on two different antibiotics around the clock and an antiviral. Night shifts were horrible. She would wake up to eat at 1:00 and 20 minutes after she got back to sleep the nurses would walk in to do her medicine treatment. This would happen atleast twice in the night. It was rough!

We were able to come home on day 4 and she seems to be all better. She ended up having a virus. In fact, the same virus (Fifth's Disease/Slap Cheek?) Taylor had the week before that caused a fever and rash. When Kendall developed her rash, we knew for sure what it was. We are just hoping for no more fevers for a while. THey tell us we will have to repeat this mess if she develops one again in the next two weeks.

She is starting to smile and coo more.... on her good days, which she seems to be having more of these days... but that can change at any minute.

Sleeping with Mommy...

Lastly, we have battled with thrush since she was born. Thrush is an absolute pain in the butt... for those of you not familiar with it, it's basically a yeast infection in her mouth. It can be painful to eat, suck,etc and shows up as white patches in their mouth. We've gone through three prescriptions of Nystatin with not much luck. The antibiotics in the hospital didn't help either. Finally, I resorted to Gentian Violet. I have heard of this stuff and Kristin used it with Ava Grace. I didn't realize until last night that it's an herbal/natural remedy and you don't need a prescription. Luckily our local walgreens had a bottle so we did our first treatment tonight. It does dye everything purple, so Kendall will look ridiculous for a while but if it rids of her thrush we'll all be happier. Here I dressed her in her purple out fit and she looks so pertty... purple really is her color.

Kendall starts daycare on Monday. We are looking forward to it. She will do well at Lisa's. She's in desperate need of a schedule and I'm not the best person at establishing that. Hopefully she will adjust/transition well. I return back to work on Wednesday... hopefully I'll adjust/transition to that as well.

Taylor's Summer Fun

2009-06-27T19:47:00.009-04:00

Even though most kids summer's are just starting, I'm afraid Taylor and ours is coming to an end. I go back to work on Wednesday so the trips to the park, library and CiCi's house must come to an end. We are sad about this but will enjoy having some stability back in our lives. This post will be devoted to some of the activities that Taylor has enjoyed and pictures to go along.
First we have the zoo... Taylor enjoyed her first trip to the zoo... twice. I know we are bad for not taking her before now but what can I say... I've been pregnant. She seemed to have a good time and still talks about the animals. Her favorite part though was the carousel with daddy.

Afternoons at CiCi's house - Since I was pregnant and basically immobile, I spent every Friday at my mom's house. That didn't change much when I had Kendall. We'd pack the bags and car and head to Gilbert. Of COurse we slowed our trips down, the night we walked into CiCi's house and seeing it broken into. These pictures are of swim time with Caedyn and Eli.

We also have been to the park several times some with mommy and daddy and other times with CiCi, Melissa (Sasa), Caedyn and Eli ("Li"). These pictures are from the Springdale park and they have a spraypool during midday.

She spent many days at Nana's and Pa Allens but I don't have any pictures to post. She talks about the geese that go bye bye all the time and learned about planes. She also visited her grandpapa and grammy some. Here grandpapa is pulling her in his new wagon to feed the chickens.

She also took swimming lessons which she loved. She only got 6 lessons and they weren't really swimming lessons ( I have to say that for Adam... :-)) But she became familiar with the water. She learned to kick and splash, put her face in the water and throw herself into the pool (seriously). Really all she learned was a false sense of security of the pool. But she had a great time.
Lastly, she spent many days at home with Mommy and Kendall playing dress up and hanging out.

Lastly is a picture of Taylor's new 'night night' attire. One night she decided she wanted to sleep with her toy Elmo head (in her hand) and both baby dolls along with two blankets. This stuck and she still sleeps with a stuffed Elmo (we lost the Elmo head), blankets and one doll. She is definitely my child.

Edventure Adventure

2009-06-04T14:46:00.007-04:00

On Memorial Day, Melissa, Gary and the kids came by to visit and afterwards we all went to Edventure. Adam and I have never been but I've wanted to go for a long while. The first half of the trip was great and the second half was miserable.

We got there late in the morning. There was so much to do it was almost overwhelming. I'm not sure who had more fun - Taylor or Adam. I was 'stuck' pushing the baby stroller most of the time, so I just had to watch. The funniest part of the day was at the 'baby grocery store.' It was the cutest concept. These tiny shopping carts they can push and shop. THere are cash registers to ring up and isles of groceries, a bakery and frozen section. Taylor grabs her cart and as serious as she can be starts shopping. Somehow she went straight to the bakery section and look what she picked out all by herself....

A cake and pecan pie. Not another thing in the store appealed to her... just desserts.

I laughed so hard. It was priceless. But then again... kind of sad. I mean we dont' eat THAT much junk food around here. And if we do it's in the form of cookies - not cakes and pies. I will say though with all the recent birthday's she learned REAL quick what a cake was. But I'll have to be more careful about my food choices around her.

She also enjoyed the firetruck with Daddy.

At this point in the day, Momma had checked out. Kendall had awoken with a vengeance wanting to be fed. It was a complete nightmare trying to hold her, feed her and push the stroller. After that she ended up screaming the rest of the trip.
Adam and I passed her back and forth trying to calm her but not much worked. Oh the colicky days began. We were worn out by the time we got home.

Memorial Day Celebration

2009-06-04T14:31:00.006-04:00

We don't usually celebrate Memorial Day except for sleeping in. That was before we had kids, of course. But this year, my neighbor, Jessica wanted to have a party. So the Sunday before, three houses on the street got together and had a blast. Jessica did a great job. We had planned on grilling out but an hour before the party started the sky dropped. She baked everything instead. There was tons of food: stuffed green peppers, steak and chicken kabobs, baked chicken, deviled eggs, banana pudding and cake. There was one other little girl, Sierra, there. She lives next door to Jessica. Taylor and her got along real well. I think Taylor thought she was as big as she was.

Sierra, is this how you lay on it??

After the sun came out (kind of), we pulled out the slip n slide. Taylor only went down once. Apparantly, she didn't like it. But she had a ball playing in the water and pool at the bottom.

Kendall slept through the entire party. This was back in her 'bili' days when she slept 23 1/2 hours a day (literally).

The Best Birthcontrol

2009-06-02T20:50:00.002-04:00

I swear the best birth control out there has to be actual exposure to a newborn around the clock for atleast two weeks. After nights of no sleep and endless crying on both mom and baby's part, any sane or insane person would wonder why they did this to themselves.

I walked into the doctor this morning and told my pediatrician I wanted a refund. Could I bring her back?

Kendall will be three weeks tomorrow and as Adam says, she's had a rough life - so far. First she was jaundice and had to see the doctor and get pricked 4 times her first week. Not to mention sleep on a baby tanning bed - minus the burn of course. She caught a nasty cold from her big sis on Day 3. So since then (and still going) we traumatize her with the nose suction bulb several times daily. THen she developed thrush, which has returned and so we are on our second round of meds for. About the time she developed thrush she started with diarrhea and vomiting daily. Her mood went from sleeping and eating all the time to sleeping, eating and screaming. We've switched formula to soy and she seems to do better on it - at times. The doctor seems to think (as of now) that it is reflux. We are on our second medicine for it to see if it'll help and he's checking for blood in her stool (which will rule out a forumula allergy). It's crazy. The worst part is her DAILY middle of the night scream fests that last atleast 2 hours.

Despite all her 'problems', the child hasn't altered her appetite. She came into this world starved and ready to suck. Day 2 at the hospital, we had to give her formula after 8 full hours of crying and discontentment. She hasn't changed a bit. She eats and wants to eat non-stop. She's taking 3 oz of formula every 2 - 3 hours. She's gaining almost a pound a week for the past 2 weeks. She's huge! It's halarious and so unloving that we make fat jokes about our 3 week old. I realize she's really not fat, but it's so different from Taylor. Taylor was so tiny and gained weight so slowly and was always so slow. Kendall is already outgrowing her 3 month old clothes. Ha ha!

Seriously, I joke about all this now but it has been rough these past weeks. Kendall doesn't get all the jokes... adam jokes that I now have to take my sanity in a pill form. Taylor has become aggressive toward Kendall - trying to yank her limbs off, sit on her, push her over, scratch her, etc. Not to mention all the toddler attention getter tactics she's learned - throwing herself onto the floor (pretending she fell) and then fake crying, refusing to go to bed at night, etc.

So we'll take our laughs in any form we can get these days. Even if it is making "This little piggy went to the market, This little piggy had gas" jokes about my baby.

Taylor the Big Sister

2009-05-21T19:56:00.004-04:00

Taylor has accepted her new role as big sister proudly. I'm not sure why I worried about her adjusting, she's done great....so far. If anything, she's been too eager and doesn't realize that she can hurt Kendall. The following are the cutest things that she's done to help us out.

1. Taylor's first reaction in the hospital was total awe. She was mesmerized by Kendall's features and had fun pointing out each one: nose, mouth, ears. She also wanted to hold her so bad by holding out her hands. However, she won't sit still to let us help her hold her.

2. The passe - everytime she see's Kendall's passe lying around she assumes it must go in her mouth. She tries so hard to shove it in her mouth.

3. The bottle - If there is a bottle on the table, it must go in Kendall's mouth. Not to mention, she loves helping feed Kendall. She'll sit on our lap and help hold the bottle. She's also our runner back and forth to the sink. Dirty bottles go in the sink.

4. The other morning when she first woke up and Kendall was in her bouncy seat, Taylor walked right over to her and crossed her elbows and rested her head on the bouncy seat and stared at Kendall. The moment was so brief but was priceless.

5. Kisses - I've never seen Taylor give real kisses. Usually she just leans in and accepts a kiss on her forhead. She has been so affectionate toward Kendall, planting kisses all over her.

6. Yesterday, Kendall wasn't feeling real well and was fussy. I explained to Taylor that she didn't feel good. Taylor took off running and brought me Kendall's passe and then turned around and brought me Kendall's blanket. It was the sweetest thing. These are the two things that make Taylor feel better so she thought they would make Kendall feel better.

7. It's been amazing how much Taylor understands. We've talked about Baby Kendall for months and it seems from day one that she understands that the baby we have is Baby Kendall. Every time she walks in the door, she excitedly greets Kendall with 'what's that?'

8. First sibling tears: As much as Taylor seems to enjoy Kendall, again she at times she's a bit much for Kendall. We can't leave them in the room together alone (like walk to the kitchen) because Taylor has tried to squeeze her head, sit on her in the bouncy, flip the play pen trying to climb in and just yesterday she threw her sippy cup at her head. Kendall screamed bloody murder so I know it must have hurt. It even brought tears to her eyes, which was a first I've seen. I read that newborns don't even have tears. It was sad but I'm sure the first of many sibling tears.

Welcome Baby Kendall

2009-05-21T15:28:00.005-04:00

Baby Kendall finally joined us last Wednesday, May 13. As most know it was a planned induction. I was unsure as to whether she would wait that long since I had been off my 17p shots an extra week. As soon as the shot was out of my system, I started having many more contractions and alot of pressure. I realize now how lucky I was to be able to carry her to the 13th. I was kind of nervous about the labor. Taylor's labor was so easy, I couldn't imagine that Kendall would be just as easy. Everyone kept telling me, "your body remembers, you'll do fine." Well apparantly your body does remember. My labor with was again eventful but short and basically easy, though not as easy going as Taylor's.

We arrived at the hospital at 6 and were told we would have to wait in the waiting room. They had had a flood of preggo's from 4:00 on that were not false alarms. Luckily we only waited 30 minutes, however, I was already feeling like this wasn't going well. The nurse that got us back and started ended up sticking me three times. Again... didn't start out well. She finally stuck me in my 'antecubital' (elbow) which is usually a no-no at the hospital. It turned out to be a pain because everytime I bent my arm even the slightest, my pump alarm would sound. My doctor wasn't pleased about it. Luckily this nurse was going off duty after she started my IV (it was obvious she needed to go home) and my nurse came in. Nurse Courtney was very good and refreshed. She was actually new to LMC but did an excellent job. The labor and delivery floor only had 4 patients while I was there, so I had alot of attention.

Pitocin was started around 7:00 am and my cervix was 3 cm/65% effaced. These brought on contractions alot quicker and stronger than they did with Taylor. At 9:00, my water was broken and I was 3 1/2 cm. My motto for pregnancy has been been to endur the pain as long as possible. Courtney did tell me she would need a 20-30 min notice for my epidural. So when I got close to my breaking point, I told her I was ready. I ended up waiting 45 min for the anesthesiologist (11:00am). The epidural was quite painful. For both labors, they seem to have trouble putting it in. With Taylor, I had to have it done twice. THis guy was just very persistant and caused me alot of pain. I never got to enjoy my epidural. Contraction pain never went away. Nurse Courtney gave me two boluses (concentrated shots of med) with no luck. The anesthesioogist was called back in and he gave me another type of epidrual - with no luck either. At this point I was 7 cm and 85%. I started to panic at this point. I felt like my epidural wasn't working and my options were to have this baby with the epidural that I had or I could attempt to have it redone. Then it hit me... the pains I was having were the same exact pains I had with Taylor that signaled me to push. I had just been checked but asked if it was possible that I could be dilating that fast... sure enough.. in a matter of 15 minutes I had gone from 7 to 9 1/2 cm and was completely effaced. It was time! It all happened so quickly. But I realize that if I had waited any longer to request my epidural they wouldn't have been able to give it to me. Kind of scary!

Kendall was born at 12:27pm. She weighed 7 lbs 15 oz and was 20 1/4 inches long. Her face was pretty swollen and arm bruised. Apprarently she had been pushing down for quite a while. Otherwise, she was perfect and healthy. Adam was with me the whole time. My mom and dad and Nana and Pa Allen were in the waiting room. I immediately felt better. :-) It was a great feeling to be able to bend in half again. heh heh.

Our hospital stay was very busy. We had tons of visitors and appreciated them all. But we were glad to come home on Friday. We followed up with our pediatrician on Saturday to find out Kendall has Jaundice. Her numbers spiked overnite. She was on a bili bee until this past Wednesday. Her numbers plummeted. We actually go back tomorrow to have them re-checked. We are all still learning each other. She seems to be a really good baby, alot easier than Taylor was. Though we've had our share of sleepless nights, though that's to be expected.

I'll keep everyone updated on Kendall's progress and post more pictures later.

Mother's Day 2009

2009-05-11T19:56:00.003-04:00

This year for Mother's Day, I decided to stay put since I was having a baby in 48 hours - and was trying to keep it that way. I wasn't sure if I would enjoy my day but it turned out rather nice. When we woke up, Adam made me my favorite breakfast: chocolate chip pancakes and scrambled eggs. It was delicious. Afterwards, he surprised me with an apple tree that he later planted. I was able to take a nap and read my book. I rarely get to enjoy both. That afternoon, I had Shealy's delivered to my doorstep (a huge thanks to my parents for the Shealy's, Nana and Pa Allen for the delivery). Taylor and I watched Adam plant the apple tree and Taylor got her first experience with the hose/sprinkler. We played outside for an hour and ended up taking her inside kicking and screaming because her diaper had had enough. It was a great day! It's hard to believe in just a couple of days, our family will be on more person larger.

Hmm....

2009-05-07T11:11:00.003-04:00

I really don't feel like blogging though I've had a running list in my head for weeks of things I should blog about. But considering I'm suppose to have a baby in less than a week, I figured I better get in one more blog. So what has happened the past few weeks...

1. I think we are officially ready to have Kendall. I've been physically ready... the mentally ready has been lagging. But I think I'm on board now. I've also come to really appreciate all the other mother's out there. This has been a REAL hard pregnancy on me... my body... alot of pains, 24/7. The thing that has kept me going is knowing my end date 5/13. I feel like the little engine that could.... 12 more days... I think I can..... 10 more days... I think I can. I sat up one night realizing that most women can't do that. They don't know their end date. They never see the light at the end of the tunnel... it just appears suddenly. Also I appreciate all the other mothers because as much pain as I've been in... I still am having this baby two weeks early. I have no idea how women carry until 40,41, or even 42 weeks. It's insane! Kudos to all mothers!

2. Sleepless nights: Every morning Adam asks me "How did you sleep last night?" My answers have gone from an actual answer to a grunt to now I just ignore him. He has quit asking. Between the bathroom trips EVERY 2 HOURS (literally.... am I suppose to peeing that much), the thousands of things going through my head, (I've started keeping pen and paper by my bed and have aced writing in the dark, and the pains of rolling over from Position #1 to position #2 and back again. Nightime is not for sleeping!

3. On a brighter note, I think Taylor is going to okay with a new sibling. I think she is going to be alittle momma. She is already such a little helper around the house. But Miss. Lisa at daycare has caught her chasing the baby trying to feed him. This week, while I was getting our bottles ready, I gave her an empty bottle and a formula dispenser (the kind that's already partitioned). She spent the ENTIRE day playing with it. She knew exactly what to do with it. She would take the imaginary formula dump it into the bottle while making this 'shhh' sound and then turn the bottle upside down. It's amazing what she picks up... she must have seen this at daycare. I'm alittle nervous about the hospital stay for her. She's never been away from m/d or home that long. But it may be tougher on me than her.

4. Other big Taylor news.... Last weekend she went pee pee on the potty! We really aren't potty training. But when she started acting like she was curious, I bought her a potty. Since then she usually just sits on it with clothes while we go potty. At times she tells us when she is pee peeing but she hasn't acted interested in sitting down to do it. But last weekend, she said pee pee and Adam put her on and by golly she went! We freaked... she seemed to not think it was a big deal. Maybe she won't be so hard to potty train.

5. Taylor had her first major boo-boo last week. She was at daycare and got hit in the head with one of those metal buggy swings. It could have been worse but it still called for a trip to the doctor. Luckily it didn't need stitches. He was able to dermabond it. But that was by far the most traumatizing doctor experience she's/we been through. I was wishing for her worse ear infection. Luckily she seemed to forget about the whole experience once we left. But it took 4 of us to hold her down. And she was so scared... had no clue what was going on. That is one experience I'd rather not have to repeat!

6. Finally pictures of the finished nursery...

Mary Kay Inventory Sale

2009-04-29T14:12:00.002-04:00

As most of you know, I've come to an end with selling Mary Kay. I just didn't have the time to put into it. Perhaps one day I may get back into it but for now I'm trying to clean things out. I was surprised with what I found in my inventory and I'm trying to get rid of what I can. Everything is atleast half off and is first come-first serve. Let me know if you are interested in anything.

TimeWise Moisturizer Combo-oily $ 11
TimeWise Day Solution $12
Purifying Freshner $6.50
2in1 Body Wash and Shave $7
Aftersun Replenishing gel $6
Highlighting Facial Pen - Shade 2 $9
Microdermabrasion Refine (not the replenish, only the scrbu) $15

I also several trial size tubes that I'm selling for $1 each:
Satin Body Buffing cream, Cleansing gel, hand cream and hydrating lotion.

Again, let me know if you're interested in anything or have questions!

Three week's

2009-04-22T10:38:00.002-04:00

Well I haven't officially announced this on my blog but three weeks from today I'll be 15lbs lighter and a momma of two. My induction is scheduled for Wednesday, May 13. Yes, I realize this is Joel's birthday and he has approved. Thank you, Joel. My only letdown is I seriously doubt I will make his wedding that Saturday. I was really looking forward to it but had a feeling that this pregnancy was going to interfere somehow with me attending.

So people keep asking me if I'm ready. Are we ever ready? No, probably not... but it doesn't matter. I lay in bed at night wondering how I'm going to get my two babies in and out of my vehicle everytime I go somewhere. Taylor is still at the age where she would run off. Heck, most of the time we put her in the car she is kicking and screaming. I fear I won't be able to set foot outside my front door with my two kids alone for a long time - not until I learn how to juggle them. We might have to take 'field trips' to the back yard or neighbors so I can practice. I worry about Taylor sitting on her. Knowing T, she would sit or push her out of the bouncy so she can get in. What is ready is her room. It is so precious. I'll have to get pictures up. Adam did a great job. I almost say it's my favorite room in the house except for the funky smell - don't ask! I wonder how to prepare Taylor for this big transition. We've been talking about baby Kendall for a long time. She know's where Baby Kendall's room is and yesterday she even rubbed my tummy and said 'baby.' But I don't think she realizes that Baby Kendall is coming to visit ... and staying for good. I hope she likes her. I know that sounds silly but part of me thinks she would like a baby brother better. She seems to get giddy around little boys (Eli, Phin, etc). I know Adam prefers a boy... as he puts it he's ready for another set of balls around the house - even if they were on a dog, cat, or mosquito... his words, not mine.

I'm sure we'll all do fine - it's just the anticipation.

Taylor had her 18 month check up last week. I'm not sure if I updated her post but she was 33 inches long and 24.8 lbs. Doctor said she looks great. Ears are perfect. Development perfect (which we had no doubt). I have loved watching her grow these past weeks. Every day she learns a new word or phrase. She's becoming such a little girl. She has developed her sense of fear - fear of falling, fear of shadows, fear of unrecognized noises. But I guess that's normal for her age. She loves to color and write. And she concentrates real hard and say's "eeh' 'eeh' 'i', which is her version of the alphabet. I wonder if she gets that from Miss Lisa's. I know Lisa spells things out for Hannah to write. She loves her dada. I can show her picture after picture and she'll point out daddy in every single one but seems to not even notice the female standing next to daddy (ME). I wonder if my looks have changed that much - does she not recognize me or is it her daddy infactuation?

I'll have to post updated pictures later. Until then, this blog will have to do.

Busy Sunday

2009-03-29T21:08:00.006-04:00

To celebrate my 32 week mark tomorrow, I perhaps decided to go all out and test my limits today. It's 9:00pm and the Morrison household is still going strong. I don't think we could have packed any more into a single day.

We started out by going to church for probably the second time this year. We've been very lazy about church. Between T being sick and me being pregnant, it just hasn't been a priority and yes I have discussed this with God. He understands. But we went today, though it turned out to be a choir production, that we weren't too impressed with.

Since we go to the 9:00 service, we thought that it would be perfect to go to the park after church and before the afternoon crowd arrived. So we went home changed and headed back out. Unfortunately the playground equipment was wet and she didn't get to play on the swing or slides, but had a ball running around anyways.

She loved the waterfalls and staring up at the trees.

She played/ran so hard that when it was time to go, Adam had to carry her to the car. She was give out.

After the park, we got lunch and headed home for naps. This weekend, Taylor made her official (I hope) transition to her big girl bed. Until Friday, she really hadn't slept much in her bed. But CiCi was over and put her down for a nap in it. That night Adam on a whim decided to put her in her big girl bed. Surprisingly, she stayed and slept great. Since then every night and every nap, we put her there and she has seem to do very well. She doesn't know she can get down from her bed (or know how) so when she wakes up she just stays in her bed. This morning I found her sitting on the edge of the bed calling us.

Anyways, back to today. This afternoon, Adam managed to change the furniture around in our master bedroom while I directed. If you've seen our room... that's not an easy task. I should also mention that this weekend we basically finished up the nursery. There are still some odd and ends to do/buy but it's much more baby ready.

This evening, Adam decided to wire/re-wire satellite to our master bedroom. This required him climbing around in the attic and us pulling strings (literally). After loud yelling, string pulling, Taylor screaming (she's suppose to be sleeping but how could she with the noise), I hear a big bang! I get up and arrive in my hall to find a large chunk of our ceiling all over the floor. Yup, that's right. The drama never ends in the Morrison household. It could have been worse... Adam said he was real close to coming through the entire ceiling. Luckily it was just his leg. Damn legs! He's got some major scratches and will probably have some bruises tomorrow but atleast he has his legs. His dad is coming by tomorrow to fix it. I'd love to see how they do that. All that and still no satellite for the bedroom.

Adam reminds me that this is his new motto in life (thanks to my parents birthday card) I'm starting to think it fits.

Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting, 'WOW . . . What a ride!' "

This picture is after he 'patched' up the ceiling. I didn't get pics of the actual hole because I was still fuming. It wasn't until I saw the yard stick tacked up to my ceiling that I found the humor in the situation.

So with all that said, I think I'll turn in for the night. What a day!

Taylor Tidbits - 18 months

2009-03-26T16:05:00.003-04:00

Well I haven't done this before but today Taylor is officially 18 months. I thought I would highlight some of her accomplishments, though I'm sure I'll have to add on later. How do you re-cap all the milestone alittle one makes when they surprise you daily.

Anyways... I don't have official vitals (her check up isn't until mid-April) but she's about 25 lbs and I want to say 31-32 inches.

Favorite words:
dog, baby, socks, shoes, bye bye, kitty kat, pee pee, stinky, mine, juice, eat, ice, ball, hot, empty

Her speech has improved drastically in the last month. She can say almost anything if propmted.

If prompted, she can point out on herself, a babydoll, or someone else the following:

head, hair, eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, toes, feet

Favorite thing to do:
Empty and fill anything - canisters, bowls, etc
Dance and sing to music- loves hand motions and participates
Talk on phone
play on computer
Anything outside

Favorite Shows:
Wheel of Fortune
Sesame Street

Misc. Accomplishents:
Can tell you how old she is
has started singing "ABC's" though every letter is "e"
Follows commands
Basically feeds herself with spoon and fork
Loves to help around the house (sweeping, dusting, taking out trash, unload dishwasher)
Has developed a love for books

Her all time favorite person is her daddy. She is such a daddy's girl. She lights up when he comes home and cries when he leaves.

Again, it's impossible to document all the accomplishments Taylor has achieved but this is a beginning. Daily she shows us she knows and understands more and more. It's awe inspiring. I've really enjoyed being home with her these past few weeks to see her accomplishments. I look forward to her future accomplishments.

Afternoon at Nana's

2009-03-14T21:24:00.003-04:00

Since my last two posts have been so dreadfully dramatic, I thought I would add a more positive post. The pictures below are from our afternoon at Nana's last Monday. We had such a great time and enjoyed hamburgers. It took Taylor a minute to remember who Nana and Pa Allen were (they have been gone a long time) but after she warmed up she had a ball. Her favorite was running around in the yard. I discovered that she doesn't like to get dirty (we'll have to change that). Everytime she fell down she would arch her back, hold her hands up and whine until someone came to pick her up. She refused to put her hands on the ground to help herself up. It was the funniest thing I've seen her do. Thanks Nana and Pa Allen for a great afternoon, we are so glad your home... even if it's for a little while.

Nana and Taylor

Lessons from "Pa Allen"

"Help I've fallen and can't get up"

Blind standing at Death's Door

2009-03-12T10:59:00.002-04:00

First thought for the day: When you think things just can't get any worse... THEY CAN!

Second thought for the day: What doesn't kill us will make us stronger but at some point we're begging someone to go ahead and put us out of our misery.

I knew on January 3 that 2009 was going to be a whopping of a year. That each of us would be faced with each of our own obstacles to overcome. Adam had his burden with his leg and accident, Taylor with her sicknesses and ears, and well this week was mine.

My official start to bedrest:

Day one: babysitter sick, no one to keep Taylor and I really needed that day to recoop from overdoing it on the weekend. Started with the stomach flu that evening.

Day Two: Dying on the bathroom floor, hopital visit, full moon, baby on the way- need I say more?

Day three: Corneal scratch - wishing for the GI bug all over again.

Day Four - today... oh boy, I can't wait to see what is in store for today!

So you ask how did I manage to scratch my cornea while being sick and not having any energy to even pick up my dirty clothes. Well yesteray morning, I finally woke with no fever and thought I would clean up some of the germies around my room. Luckily I was smart enough to prioritize and I took a shower first to rid of the death smell. I barely made it through the shower and a quick clean up of my bathroom before I had to sit down. As I'm on the floor, I decided to move a TV cable wire that was in the way that I've been tripping on everytime I go to the bathroom. Well instead of the wire going where I wanted it to go, it whipped back and hit me square in the face - smack in the open eye. My reflexes must still be paralyzed from the virus.

I knew immediately I did something horrible. The pain that went shooting through my eye and head was atrocious. I didn't see stars like some people say but that could be because I was blinded by the pain but the ringing in my ear didn't stop for a long time. I started hyperventilating and almost passed out. Luckily after a few good breaths, my head cleared... but the pain did not. To make a long and painful story short... I knew I had cut my eyeball. You could see it... when I could open my eye. I was able to get in to the eye doctor that afternoon but had no way of getting there. Everyone was working or unreachable. I sat in the driveway attempting to take myself but realized before even getting out of the driveway that I couldn't see a darn thing. Luckily Nana called at that instant and came to my rescue.

She took me to the doctor where she didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. "You have a pretty big scratch on your cornea - candy cane shaped." She was able to numb my eye for the visit but the drops only lasted 15 minutes and she couldn't prescribe any to go home with me. I went home with an antibiotic gel to put in my eye and she told me that it should heal fast. The good side is it does seem to be healing fast as I am here not quite 24 hours later on the computer but yesterday afternoon and evening, I've never been in so much pain.

She advised me to keep my eye closed. But keeping it closed wasn't enough. Even the eyeball moving while closed sent excrutiating pain through my head. How do you not move your eye ball??? It does it on it's on. For the 2nd night I was unable to see Taylor. Adam put her in bed with me but trying to look out my 'good' eye was so painful for the other that I just ended up in tears and begged them to leave. I went to bed with some Tylenol pm and slept suprisingly well. This morning it seems to be doing much better. In fact, with each hour it feels better and better, I think. Light still stings my eye pretty bad. I'll never make fun of people wearing glasses indoors again... they may be recovering from a cornea scratch. I go back to the doctor tomorrow for them to recheck.

So that's the crazy story. I wonder what is next for the week... because it's only Thursday. Today is Adam's birthday so hopefully nothing will go wrong. He has been such a trooper this week and taken up all the slack. He deserves a great birthday!

Dying at Death's Door

2009-03-11T09:49:00.002-04:00

That's my phrase for the week if you've seen my facebook. I also thought it would make a catching blog title... especially after being faced with death.

I started with the famous stomach bug late Monday night and have never been sicker in my life. It is amazing how quickly your life can do a 180 so quickly. Monday I felt fine. Adam and I visited Nana and Allen and had dinner with them. We got home and Taylor in bed and I thouht I'd go to bed early. I laid in bed for an hour and couldn't sleep so decided to get up. About an hour later I started throwing up everything on my stomach. I can assure you I didn't stop until my stomach was empty. That was just the beginning. For the next 7 hours, I was running to the bathroom every 30 minutes - like clockwork. If vomiting wasn't bad enough, after about 2 hours of that, I had it out the other end as well. I was sooo thirsty but every sip of fluid that I took just sent me to the toilet. And it gets worse.... at around 2:00 (in the morning) during one of my wretch fests and such, I noticed that I was spotting. Shortly after that I began cramping pretty badly. I couldn't get in touch with my OB doctor so finally called my home nurse company. Of course they wanted me to come into the hospital.

So at 3:00 in the morning, we are waking family up to come watch Taylor. I'm freaking out because with every bathroom visit I'm bleeding more and more. Not to mention, I wasn't sure how I was going to get to the hospital anyways. A yuck bucket is only good one way. And it was a full-moon, my doctor is on-call, and I was wearing the same shirt I wore when I delivered Taylor - not that I'm supersticious or anything.

Even though I kept telling people I thought I was going to die and even smelled like death by the time we left. That hopsital trip was the shortest ever. They gave me fluids (though I think I needed more), gave me medicine to stop the contractions, told me the bleeding is from the wretching and sent me home. I think we were there 2.5 hours. I was home and in bed by 6:30 and can honestly say this is the first time I've been out of my room since then. Yesterday I stayed in bed all day. The GI symptoms subsided but I still ran a fever and was very weak yesterday. THis morning I am feeling much better and as of now...no fever.

A big thanks to mom and dad who came out in the wee morning hours to stay with Taylor. And a HUGE thanks to my hubby who has played stay at home dad/hubby since Monday. He did such a wonderful job taking care of me - and making sure I get better. He also managed the house and has been a single father for the last day or so. He did a great job. Now I can't wait to see Taylor!

My turn for a list

2009-03-07T21:15:00.004-05:00

Well since lists have become so popular on blogs I thought I would go ahead and do mine. Plus I have so much to update on that it seemed a list might be the easiest way to go. Where to start... it's been a busy month.

1. Taylor got her tubes placed on Feb 11th. We were really anxious about the procedure but she needed them so badly. Everything went well. She looked so cute in her little hospital gown and she didn't even cry when she went away with the nurse. Like we had been warned, coming off the anesthesia was the worst part but by that afternoon she was good as new. Check out our pics below

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She has done real well since her procedure. We've noticed a huge difference in her speech. She talks so much more and more clearly. We actually know what she is saying now.

2. Baby #2 is doing well. I had another ultrasound done mid-Feb and she weighed in at 2.5lbs which is the 62% percentile. So she's already bigger than Taylor was at this point. It must be all the sweets... I should cut back. After many long conversations and soul searching, Adam and I have FINALLY agreed/decided on her name. There's a long story about her name and alot was considered but we are both comfortable in saying that she will be Kendall Sevage Morrison. Sevage for those of you who don't know, is Adam's middle name that he wanted to pass on. We had thought this baby would be a boy and that Sevage would fit just fine. But with her being a girl, we decided to still give her middle name Sevage. We are making progress on her room. We had some hold up with the carpet, but I think that is resolved. The room is now painted and we are getting ready to place border. It looks really good but it alot of purple. We are now looking for green and pink decorations. I'll have to take pictures of it to put on here.

3. Adam is still loving his job at BCBS. We are proud to announce that he received his first promotion this month. We are very grateful especially since it came earlier than we were expected. Job well done, hubby.

4. I am doing well however, at my doctor visit on Friday, he pulled me out of work. Baby and I are okay - no dilation, etc. However, I was contracting too much for comfort, especially at work. The contractions I have this pregnancy are much more uncomfortable and painful and persistant. However, as long as I take it easy, they stay to a minimum. I already take medicine tabs to help control them and so hopefully modified bedrest will allow us to stay on this treatment track. The next step would be a pump but the doctor says he didn't think I was ready for that. I agree.

I also passed my diabetic test. YEAA!!! If you remember, with Taylor I failed the one at the doctor's office and was unable to complete the 3 hour test at the hospital due to being so sick. So they presumed I had gestational diabetes. I was so relieved to pass that test.

Well I think that is an update on everyone in the family. I know I've missed out some things but my Sonic milkshake and fries are here. Gotta go!

Some pictures.....

2009-02-09T19:00:00.003-05:00

Cool Chick!

Taylor helping with the dishwasher

Future Nurse Taylor

Taylor's First Haircut

2009-02-09T18:43:00.005-05:00

This weekend we took Taylor to get her very first haircut. She was way past due for this as her bangs hung well below her eyes. We've tried all kinds of methods of keeping hairbows and hairbands in her hair but the child refuses. So off it went. We really didn't know where to take her but I just got my hair cut last week and liked the girl that did it. So we took her to the same place, Cost Cutters on Hwy 6. I was worried Taylor wouldn't sit still or would associate the situation with a doctors offie. But she did very well. She held on to her own comb and seemed to enjoy being 'pampered.' At one point she almost acted like she was going to fall asleep. Below are the pictures. We weren't able to get a lock of hair but we'll get one next time.

What a week!

2009-01-24T20:28:00.003-05:00

This has been such a long week for it to be so short.

Monday - Though it was a holiday, I still had to work. I guess that's the downfall of being in the medical field. After work Monday was filled with doctor appointments and birthday parties. Taylor saw the ENT and he said she needed tubes. What a shock! She's scheduled tubes for Feb 11. She'll stay on antibiotics until then to keep her ears clear. After Taylor's appointment, we had Adams with the orthopedic. His legs checked out fine. Doctor basically said he was a lucky sun of a gun. It would take months for his legs to completely heal but he has no structural damage. That night we celebrated Melissa's birthday with pizza and delicious cupcakes. We had a good time and the kids enjoyed playing with each other.

Tuesday - What a snow storm! We got a whopping of a dusting that they cancelled school for. I had to stay home with Taylor since daycare closed for all the snow but we had a good time together. I was pretty exhausted by the time Adam got home that evening. We really didn't get much snow at our house, not compared to what I've heard some others had. What a dissapointment.

Wednesday - Back at work and it turns out that we have 3 clinical people out - for the rest of the week (didn't know that then). Since I'm on desk duty that makes the office even short staff for most clinical duties. I ended up handling 3 out of 5 of the nurse calls, which I've never done before. The office was insane. We were all struggling to stay afloat but made it through the week.

Thursday - After another crazy day at work, I had an OB appointment. Everything checked out fine. No changes and as the doctor said we're just staying the course. Call if anything changes. One good thing she helped me realize is the pain and pressure I'm having real low isn't contractions or contraction residual, it's ligament pain. She had me laid back and pressed softly where the ligaments were and it about made me jump off the bed. That's exactly some of the discomfort I've been having and she says the pains get worse with each pregnancy. So I'm more comfortable knowing that I'm not contracting as much as I thought I was. I do have to monitor for contractions each night but have been getting good reports. It seems I do pretty well unless I push myself physically to much and even then they calm down once I settle down. I go back in four weeks, which will make me 26 weeks and almost the time that I went into labor with Taylor.

Friday - We had a fake break in at the house. Drama never ends at the Morrison household. Kay and DOn came by to pick something up from the house while we work at work. When they arrived, our front door was wide open. As far as we can tell nothing was taken and the place was still a mess. For peace of mind, we are assuming Adam forgot to shut the door that morning. That afternoon, my home health nurse, Kim, came by to give me my 17p shot. My parents were there and enjoyed watching Taylor play with Kim. She's so good with her. Taylor loves playing with her equipment and shocked all of us by knowing how to use the stethescope and monitor. I swear in the pictures on Snapfish (and I'll post some here later) Taylor did everything on her own. I thought Taylor wouldn't be a medical person because of all she's gone through at the doctors office, but after seeing her Thursay, she may be a natural born nurse/doctor.

Saturday - Adam and I packed up and hit the road. We bought a dresser (from His House - the best kept secret in town) for the babies room. We quickly and nervously walked through the US#1 flea market - which is a place for people up to NO GOOD - shoppers and vendors. We scouted out some furniture stores for twin beds for Taylor. We are hoping to put her in a big girl bed real soon... we just have to find the right bed. We've got some in mind but haven't purchased anything yet. And most excitingly, we picked out the decor for Baby M's room. I can't wait to get it done. You can check it out at Babies R Us - it's called Mulberry by KidsLine. So pretty but the picture doesn't do it justice. We have so much to do the room right now, it overwhelming. And Taylor room actually needs to be rearranged as well. But for Baby M, it's currently used as a junk room. So we have to find places for everything in it. The carpet will most likely have to be replaced (due to too many cat accidents) and then we can start painting and decorating. We have a treadmill that we are going to try and sell. It's brand new - bought it last May and literally been used probably 10 times. We bought it for about $500 but would tell it for $350-$400, most likely. Not in stone, but if you're interested or know someone who is, please let us know.

Well that sums up our week. Hope everyone had a good one. Blogging off for now... check back later for pictures.

Full Moon 2009

2009-01-10T15:11:00.004-05:00

Have you heard? Tonight (Saturday) will be the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. So that has to be the explanation for all the chaos around us. In fact, December's full moon was the biggest and brightest of 2008 so for the past month we've been orbited by the powers of the moon.

I'm a full believer in the full moon phenomenon. After working in the medical field for many years, I've seen first hand the craziness that comes about from full moons and hurricanes (barometric pressures). It's not just people that go crazy (though some tend to do) but the crazinest things happen. In my current job, we can clock the moons by how our day goes. The strangest and most stressful events happen close to the full moons.

So that has to be the explanation for the past week. And I've found out it's not just been us three that is feeling the effects. Adam's brother tore a ligament in his ankle this week and spent an afternoon in the hospital. My dad has thrown his back out and is hobbling and a girl at work (who probably has it worst) her mom was in a car accident on Sunday and is in intensive care at Richland. I haven't heard any updates lately on her but the last I heard it was still iffy if she would survive.

The 'good news' about all this is that aftertonight the full moon will slowly diminish and it can only get better for all of us. RIGHT??

Cinnamon Rolls....

2009-01-10T09:57:00.002-05:00

Yummm, I'm sitting here enjoying a nice warm plate of cinnamon rolls. I'm on my third... oooh I shouldn't say that and still counting. They are so good. The highlight of my week! I'll probably have a belly ache afterwhile but for now they are hitting the spot. Baby M likes them too though her favorite is Banana Nut Crunch Cereal. That makes her go haywire. :-)

We are slowly recovering from our intense week. Adam saw the doctor yesterday (family doctor not ortho) to make sure he was healing properly... for now. He came home with new meds and wraps for his legs. He looks like a burned victim but they are working well. He's working on getting a knee brace for support.

I went back to work yesterday. It was kind of rough but most everyone is being supportive. I'm having some problems with what I am almost certain is sciatic nerve problems in both legs. Quite painful. If anyone knows any good remedies, let me know.

Taylor officialy has the 'crud.' Hopefully it won't turn into anything more. She is feeling pretty rotten and we can't keep up with her nose. She did however sleep much better last night, which was a relief.

She is so cute and I've realized that she has inherited the CiCi neat gene. Even at 15 months, she amazes me with her cleaning skills. Last week, she found a napkin on the floor and she started scrubbing the kitchen floor with it. She spent the longest time in her own little world 'mopping' the floor.

This week Adam and I were in the living room talking and she was just playing by herself. She walks to the kitchen and comes back with a kitchen towel... dragging it the way she does her blankie. It was the same color so we paused wondering if she thought it was her blankie. But she walked over to her stool in the living room and started wiping it. I looked down and amazingly there was water all over her stool and she was cleaning it up on her own.

If she finds trash on the floor, she will walk it to the trash can without anyone telling her to. Then she'll start playing in the trash but that's another story. It's amazing. Half of this stuff, I don't know where she even got it from. It's amazing what they pick up on. Oh, it's the little things .. but it's so sweet to see our little Taylor becoming a responsible citizen so early on. heh heh

Just a clarification on Baby M - we don't have any names picked out yet. We really haven't talked much about names. Heck, we havne't started on anything... am I really expecting? We were going to start clearing out the 'nursery' this weekend but opted not since all three of us are crippled/sore/sick. Hopefully it'll get done before the baby arrives. One day we'll come up with a name as well. As far as I see it we still have 5 months to prepare... right? That's coming from someone who doesn't have a procrastination bone in her body. Kind of scary!

Bloggin off for now....

Big Big News

2009-01-08T19:17:00.003-05:00

Highlights from today....

1.Adam has joined the blogging world. See following post. I thought it was very well done and was quite a surprise for me to read when I logged on just now.

2. Taylor has become a Tylenol/Motrin junkie and hates her pediatrician - but can you blame her as much as we see him. We had another visit to the doctor today to have her checked out. She cries as soon as he hears his voice. It's actually pretty sad. She's been running fever off and on all week and has this terrible cough. Luckily, all tests were normal and doctor believes she just has the 'crud.' Hopefully we can keep it that way (and it not get worse or go to ears). But she loves her Tylenol and if she see's the bottle will drop her passe and hang her mouth open - even when she's not needing it.

3. As most know, I've been out of work all week but will return tomorrow with new work orders. Per doctors orders, I must stay off my feet as much as possible, which intails different work orders, or I'll be put on bedrest. I am still heading towards bedrest but hopefully staying off feet at work and some at home will prolong it. Luckily, my work is willing to work with me to keep me sedentary. I go back tomorrow and we'll see how this works.

4.As as most are dying to know or already do.... we found out the sex of Baby M today. Well..... IT"S A GIRL! Who would have thought. I was sure it was a boy and most people I've talked to voted boy. But this morning as I was laying in bed my half stranger neighbor sent me a text message saying she thought it was a girl. Apparently, she had a dream last night about Adam and me and we had two little girls in it. Also, Lisa called me right before my appt to say she thought the same. These were the only two people who said they thought it was a girl and they waited until today to tell us. Adam thought all along it was a girl. He was a bit disappointed as he's so excited to carry on his Morrison gene and name but I think he is and will continue to come around. I'm excited but think I would have been excited either way. We got some good pics of the baby.... and she looks very different from Taylor - as far as I can tell right now. However, I think she will look more like Adam. She weighed 14 oz, which ironically is what Taylor weighed at her first ultrasound, which was at 21 weeks as well.

It's been an extremely exhausting day and week. Glad tomorrow is Friday. Blogging off for now.

Hello from Adam

2009-01-07T22:08:00.004-05:00

I just wanted to drop a quick line and say thanks to everybody concerned about our family. Amy got her 17P shot today and is feeling much better with the contractions. And Taylor seems only to have a cough.

My legs are worlds better. They just look worlds worse. The bruising has turned a nice shade of black and purple and has spread up and down and around my legs. On my left leg, it has even made its way to my heel. Also, there is still a fair amount of swelling. I am not quite sure how I didn't break anything. When Paul and Amy and myself went out to look at the limb, there was only 3 to 4 inches of space where my leg was pinned. Obviously my leg is not that thin.

On a different note, Amy has been telling me for years that I need to be more careful, and that I am not invincible. For the most part, I think I have been more careful(especially since Taylor). But, as 'The attack of the Pecan Tree' shows, you can never be too careful. I think the two weirdest conversations I had after the accident were from Amy, and surprisingly, my little bro Daniel. First, Amy sits me down and wants to talk about life insurance. Do you have enough Adam? When you die I want to make sure that the kids and I will be OK? I found this to be a weird conversation for 2 hours after arriving home from the hospital. But, I assured her that if I bit the bullet, that she and the kids would be in great standing.

Then shortly after this, I get a call from Daniel. He does the family obligated 'are you alright?', and then proceeds to tell me that I must be running out of lives. He tells me that I have gotten into too many accidents and that I should be more careful. So I respond by telling him that it was just an accident and that no matter how careful you are, you can never be sure when it comes to trees, AND that I will be back out to Pauls to personally kill that limb. At this point he just doesn't care and starts naming the car accidents, fallings(from great heights), near bow and arrow misses, ricochets, 4-wheeler accidents(more than he could even count) and countless other things that ALMOST messed my world up.

Well, I have to say that I do intend to be more careful, and that Daniel was the one that really got me thinking. It wasn't because of the near misses that I have had. I think if you talk to almost any guy, you will find that they all have them. Some have more, some have less, but I believe that every guy has them. What really got me thinking was the fact that it came from Daniel. This is a kid who, when he thought that I was going to Turkey for the war in Iraq, had only one thing to say to me as I left. It was 'If you get killed can I have your stereo?' That was the last thing he said to me before we both thought I was heading to Turkey, and then into Iraq. Now, he was like 8 and all he could think about was a stereo, and didn't understand the gravity of the situation, but once he called about the tree accident, I just couldn't get the two conversations out of my head.

Well that's all. I just wanted to let everybody(Carol and Paul and Amy) know that I intend to be more careful. I think Amy is right about the insurance, and I believe I am going to make a great step in that direction. So first thing in the morning, I am upping HER insurance!

And what is it she says? BLOGGING OFF for now.

Rollercoaster Ride continues....

2009-01-06T19:25:00.003-05:00

Well unfortuantely, the drama in the Morrison household has continued for the past few days. Today was much calmer but thank goodness. Just to recap - if that's something I can do.

Saturday- Adam's unlucky run-in with the pecan tree. Spent four hours in the ER. Saturday night I started having contractions so bad that my parents had to come get Taylor. Poor T was back and forth between houses all day but I knew that Adam and I weren't capable of watching her. Contractions calmed down for the night after I was able to settle down.

Sunday - We enjoyed our rest but my contractions and 'irritability' continued. After a long debate and talk with my home nurse, Kim, we thought it would be best to get checked out at the hospital. So Adam and I headed up there. As we pull in the parking lot, my OB doctor returned my call and told me to not go to the ER, but to go home and put my feet up, drink lots and see how the night goes. He also said to not plan on going back to work until Wednesday. By this point, I was pretty frustrated because I felt like I needed peace of mind that things were okay. We went to get Taylor from my parents and then headed home.

Monday - Taylor went to daycare and I had the house to myself. I was still feeling iffy. Contractions had calmed down - nothing like they were on Saturday- but was still having a good many if I was up and about. I decided to call the office to see if they thought I need to be seen. Well after that call, the doctor decided I should go to the Maternal Assessment Unit at the hosptital. So Adam who had 'hobbled' to work today despite his gimped up legs, had to leave work early and meet me at the hospital. I ended up spending about 3 hours there. Of course, during those three hours, I had minimal contractions but again showed a good bit of irritablity. They gave me a shot of Brethine, which really jacks you up, and sent me home with the pill version to take when my contractions become more than 5 an hour. What comfort. Everything else checked out fine - no dilation, etc. What a relief.

Well we weren't home but an hour and a half from the hospital when Lisa (daycare) called about Taylor. Taylor was screaming her head off - high pitch shrills, unconsolable - for the last hour. I could hear her and the adrenaline rush kicked back in. Here we go... Adam had already left to go get her but I swear that half hour was the worst. Taylor was going baserk. I've never heard her scream the way she was screaming and I felt 'helpless' that I couldn't get to her. I just had to wait for Adam to bring her back. We were contemplating taking her straight to urgent care - she was screaming that bad- but Adam thought he could get her home first. She calmed down some with Adam and was able to get her home, where she obviously didn't feel good and sobbed and whimpered some but nothing like she was doing at Lisa's. We gave her some Motrin (per her doctors orders) and went to take her temp. At this point, we couldn't get the thermometer in, she starts screaming again and I panic. I thought, oh she's eaten something she can't pass. If you know Taylor, she's a human vacuum. Adam even saw what I saw. We immediately got her in the car and headed to urgent care. However, on the way there, she seemed to calm down. We then started to reasses the situation - Adam and I clearly weren't very stable and seem to be jumping to rash decisions at this point. We realized what ever pain she was in the motrin helped... and maybe we could make through the night. That sure would cost us hundreds versus a doctor office copay. I realized that if she ate anything it wouldn't be obstructed where we thought it was and perhaps she was constipated, even though she just went yesterday. Third, we were headed to the satellite urgent care - were they equipped for a toddler? and the cost of walking in the door. I didn't want to put Taylor through the exams and such they would do if we went there if she seemed content at this point. So we decided to go home and see how she does.

GOOD DECISION. Taylor ended up being constipated (was that the cause of her screaming fit????- maybe) but that resolved itself. She did run a fever from the time she got home from daycare to about 2 am but then she woke up in a sweat and hasn't had a fever since. (Maybe she had a quick virus along with it????? It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. I kept her home with me (despite me supposedly taking it easy) just to watch her and incase she needed to go to the doctor. But she has felt great and no fever.

I currently am doing better. Still not contraction free, but went most of the day without them. They returned last this afternoon, which is common, I think. I go to the OB doctor Thursday for an appointment and the BIG ultrasound. Work said just come back Friday with a note from my doctor approving me being there. So hopefully, I'll be able to get some rest tomorrow. This rollercoaster ride has been absolutely exhausting.

Adam is doing much better. He's off cruches and yesterday realized he could bend his knee more - until then he hadn't tried. The bruising is really settling in and Taylor constantly asks him 'what's that?' See the pics below of his boo boo as of today - 3 days after. Saturday, there wasn't much to see as it was all internal - swelling and red. Now it's more picture ready. We are still very grateful of this outcome. I believe Adam has played the incident in his head a thousand times since it happened as he talked about it nonstop for the first two days.

Hope everyone else is having a much calmer start to the new year. I hope this isn't a fortaste of what's to come for my family.

Rocky 2009 Start

2009-01-04T09:14:00.003-05:00

Well it was only the third day into the new year and I had the scare of my life. Saturday, Adam had planned to go out to my parents in Gilbert to help cut down one last tree. By now, Adam is an expert tree cutter... literally he's cut probably 5-6 in our yard and helped with almost as many in Gilbert - and that's just been in the last 3 years. The victim today was a hundred year old HUGE pecan tree - so big you can't get your arms around it. Limbs that are as big as a normal tree trunk (if not bigger) splayed everyone. They were actually only trimming this tree - it's limbs- not taking it down completely.

So Saturday morning we rose as a family and headed out to Gilbert. I talked my mom into going to IHOP with Taylor and me. I couldn't wait... pancakes are my favorite. My mom has a hurt knee right now and is a hoppalong on crunches. :-) So I was playing chaeffeur (sp). Our first bad omen should have been the rain that started falling as my mom and me pulled out of the driveway. Let's see : tree cutting, chainsaw, ladder and rain.

Anyways, so mom and me are sitting at IHOP, we just got our food and Adam calls. He tells me that he's hurt his leg and is on the way to the hospital. At this point I'm thinking he's in the car with my dad. So I try to rush my food at IHOP and then decide to call him back to find out what happened. He says he got pinned by the tree and he's in the back of an ambulance. I'm freaking at this point.

I end up leaving my 'gimp' mother (sorry mama) at the restaraunt with my 15month old, who was oblivious as long as the food kept coming. Melissa, my sister, was coming to IHOP to pick them up. I headed to the hospital. Meanwhile, the stress of all this is causing me to have contractions... which is NOT a good thing, but atleast I was going to be at the hospital - best place to be.

My dad was waiting for me when I got there and we weren't too far behind the ambulance. Adam's dad was shortly behind us. Ambulance was definitely the way to go because the ER was absolutely packed - insane.

The story turns out to be that Adam was about 10 feet up in the pecan tree reaching out to cut the limb. This particular limb was already broken and partly laying on the ground. They were having doubts about this limb anyways but wanted to get it over with. When he cut it loose, instead of the limb falling straight down or out, it actually swung back toward Adam and pinned him against the trunk of the tree hitting/pinning him across both knees and lower legs. I'll post pics if I can but you have to imagine that this is a HUGE tree, the kind you only see in Gilbert or Batesburg Leesville or the mountains. Each limb is the size of a tree itself. Adam was able to somehow free himself from the tree. If you see the space he squeezed out of you'll know that it had to be adrenaline that abled him to lift that tree. He was able to make it to the ladder and sit tight until paramedics arrived. He thought he crushed both legs completely and knew he couldn't walk. I'm sure it felt that way too.

Adam turned out to be okay. The tree pinned across his left shin and pummelted his right knee. Fourteen xrays showed no broken bones (miracle) and the doctor said all his ligaments looked good. He got sent home with pain pills and a puny but grateful diagnosis of bruising and muscle damange to both legs.

He's home now and we are counting our blessings. This could have ended much more tragically with several different endings. We are so blessed his angels were looking out for him... again.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T10:55:00.002-05:00

Wow, it's hard to believe it is 2009. I know everyone says that but it feels like just last year was 2000 and all were nervous about Y2K. Here we are almost 10 years later... geez... we get old fast.

Adam and I surprisingly had a good new years eve. We decided to stay put in our own home despite the party that family had. We thought that we just needed a break from socialization and germs since Taylor has been sick since November. She is well, feeling good and we'd like to keep her that way.

So our plans were for just the three of us to have an elaborated meal. The menu was as follows:
Appetizer: BBQ cocktail weenies
Mexican Cheddar Cheese fondue with carrots, broccoli, bread cubes and apple slices
Main meal: Marinated steaks with baked potatoes
Dessert: Chocolate fondue fountain with banana, strawberry, and cheesecake pieces

As we were cooking, our nieghbor across the street came over and needed help with his car. So Adam assisted with that and then asked if they wanted to come over later and have fondue and play games or something. These are the neighbors from New York so obviously, they stayed here for the New Year and didn't have any plans. So Adam, Taylor and I enjoyed our steak and potatoe. THen after Taylor went to bed Jessica and Luis came over. We enjoyed the cheese and and chocolate fondue - it was sooo good. We ended up playing games until midnight - Dominoes and Uno. We had a good time.

It was funny because as were playing the door bell rings and we're wondering who the heck it could be. It turns out to be our neighbor next door whose been missing in action for over a month. He stopped by one night before Thanksgiving to tell us he's got to go out to Denver for a week and could we watch his house and get his mail. But he's been gone 6 weeks. We didn't know the guy at all but I was starting to get worried. I knew there was a huge snow storm in Denver and there was a plane crash/mishap in Denver. I thought how long do we wait before we report him missing. heh heh.... but he showed up and yea he had some stories to tell from the snow. So for a while we had a house full of neighbors. Who would have thought!

For our lucky new years lunch, Taylor and I are going to Aunt Kays to enjoy black eye peas and rice and collards. I can't wait. I look forward to this meal each year and it's one that I can't seem to cook right myself. Adam has decided to stay home - probably get in some Xbox time - but he's not a big fan of this meal anyways.

I hope everyone has a great New Year's Day and stays bundled up... it's cold out there... finally!

Blogging off....

30 day recap

2008-12-28T17:27:00.003-05:00

It's almost been one month since I last blogged and actually the last holiday. You know you've gotten slack when your husband asked if you could update your 'family site.' So here I am, we'll see how far I get.

The last month has been filled with tons of family get togethers. We've had some occasion to celebrate every single weekend in December - birthdays and Christmas get togethers with every side of each family. I can honestly we enjoyed each one but am glad it's over so our weekends can calm back down.

Unfortuanately, for the last month (actually longer but we'll stick with past 30 days) Taylor has been sick. This has been a rough season and I"m starting to wonder how mothers of multiple children stay employed. Better yet, how do single mothers do it. T has been battling ear infections since October and had her third one in December. The doctors put her on a stronger antibiotic and told us we were on our path to tubes. At this point, I am all for tubes for Taylor. If she was one of those children who we didn't know had a EI, then it would be different. But with every infection, she runs a HIGH fever and gets really ill. She screams, doesn't sleep, and refuses to eat. So tubes here we come.

Our latest ill battle has been some fever virus from h***. She woke christmas eve screaming for 3 hours, which made Christmas Day that much more exhausting. But she did okay then. HOwever, Christmas night (Thursday), she began running a 104.4 fever that would not come down. Friday and Saturday her temp stayed near 103 and today luckily she's been better but still around 102 -103, but meds are working much better. I took her to the doctor Friday, destined for a EI diagnosis and hoping for an antibiotic. But no luck there, after a horrible visit with lots of tests, we left with a viral illness that we have to wait out. She is going back to the doctor tomorrow (unless her fever breaks overnight). I am still concerned about her ears as since her visit on Friday she's developed the cold crud and is still running fever 4 days later. So we'll see what he has to say. It's been a VERY rough weekend. Taylor is usually okay to deal with when sick but she's has really felt rotten with this and again has not slept at night or during the day and it's lasting so long. Before this, I believe the longest she's ever ran a fever is 24 hours. But this too shall pass...

Baby #2 is doing well. I had my 4 month check up last week and all was well. I did begin my 17p injections last week, which came right in time for some contractions. A few weeks ago, I came down with the cold crud, and apparently it was enough to dehydrate me. So shortly after I started having contractions. Doctor wasn't too concerened and the 17p helped put me back in place. I now am making sure I drink plenty of water, however, I haven't given up my caffeine yet. (sorry, hun)

We had a good Christmas. Taylor was able to see Santa the Thursday before. The picture is priceless. She's already wary of strangers, and men strangers. So add a big Santa to the picture and it was devastation waiting to happen. I'll post pics. She really didn't have any thoughts on Christmas, she loved the trea and cried when we took it down today. She liked her presents - after they were unwrapped- but before then just enjoyed the wrapped boxes. Some toys that she got and her favorites are her animal farm, bristle blocks, and a rocking horse (her favorite). THe rocking horse was a present from my sister and her kids. Taylor wasn't sure what to think about it at first - was scared. But we took baby steps and she got use to it. Now she gets on and off it and rides it like she's a cowgirl. It's too precious.

Adam's favorite toy was his Garmin GPS system. He's such a gadget guy. He has no need for a GPS system and he doesn't travel anywhere he doesn't know where he's going. But he's loving it anyways. "how many ways can we get to one place"

Well I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and is battling the cold and flu season better than my family (extended family too- they've been quite sick as well). Enjoy the last few days of 2008 and we'll do it all again in 2009.
Blogging off.....

Blogging is for the Holiday's

2008-11-30T09:24:00.003-05:00

My family is on the ball with this blogging... I couldn't be left out. So what did our holiday festivals entail this year. We thought we were going to join Melissa on the 'sick train' for Thanksgiving as Taylor came home from Daycare on Wednesday with a fever. She was sick that night and by 7:00 the next morning was better. We had intended on not taking her to Nana's but she was doing so well and we all wanted to go so bad that we decided to suck it up. She was pretty 'outzy' - heck still is. But we had a good time. I ate SOOO much and it was SOOO good. Baby #2 was very appreciative. Kristin - I hope AG didn't get her germs from Taylor but it's possible. It did cross my mind that T had a stomach virus but she only had 2 'so - so' diapers. I apologize anyways even if it didn't come from us.

Adam and I started the shopping frenzy early. For the first year, we hadn't bought a single present and decided to go out on Black Friday. In fact, when we left Nana's on Thanksiving we ran to K-mart. They were having a sale and there was one thing I had to get.

Friday morning, we had intended on Taylor staying with CiCi and Popsey. But she got up early and so did we. We decided to hit Walmart and take her with us. We must have missed the ambush crowd because it was really a pleasant shopping experience. We really only wanted to visit Target afterwards so we toted Taylor there as well. So the three of us survivived our Black Friday outing and were home in bed by 10:00 am. That night CiCI kept Taylor so Adam and I could rest up - and rest we did. I was in bed by 8:00 - not exactly an ideal 'date' night and slept until the next morning.

Saturday - Bj came by to visit and helped us get Christmas out of the attic. And then that afternoon we decorated our house. It's quite festive but nothing like my momma's, which could come out of a Better Home and Garden's magazine. But I suppose it takes time.

Well I hope all is well... including us. As I type this and got my finances done my household is still asleep. Taylor has officially been sleeping for 14.5 hours straight.... which is not usually a good thing. I think I'll go check on her..... Love the blogs... keep them coming.

Lisa - LOVE the music addition to yours. I'm listening to your playlist as I type my blog. How'd you do it??

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!

Blogging In...

2008-11-23T18:57:00.004-05:00

I've gotten several 'complaints' of my lack of blogging, so I thought I better atleast check in. As you might can tell blogging has become one of my last priorities, among other things as well. So much time has gone by I'm not even sure what to blog about. But I'll try...

Halloween was a success. We didn't decorate our house... not a bit. Shockingly, we didn't even buy a pumpkin this year. We spent trick or treating at Melissa's house and had a blast. It was so much fun... good food, good company and alot of good trick or treating. My camera battery was dead so I don't have pics but mom and Melissa do. The kids had a great time and Taylor even got to enjoy some chocolate.

Adam was in a 'truck accident' a few weeks ago. He was fine, though the people he hit had some cuts and bruises. "Luckily" he was driving the big green truck, which belongs to his sister, and is an 'extra' vehicle. Unluckily, the truck was totaled and several people were quite upset about it. The final outcome has yet to be resolved since it wasn't our truck to wreck in the first place.

Thanksgiving is approaching. I've already had two Thanksgiving festivities so far and more to come. This past Wednesday was my work lunch - covered dish of course. We had so much food. Today we enjoyed lunch with Adam's family and again had lots of good food. Taylor got to play with her cousins. She really hit it off with Chandler who seems to have a knack for kids.

Baby #2 is growing and doing well. I went for a check up on Friday and everything was fine. Heartbeat 146 and that is the only statistic. I've only gained one pound which is a miracle if you've seen how much I've been eating. Doctor gave me no hope on my complaints (fatigue, headaches and can't sleep). It's part of the duty. I go back in another four weeks (12/18) and he says we will start my other shot (pre-term labor preventative). This will be the castor oil in the butt shot. Lovely!

I've been a big baby about this pregnancy. With Taylor I was able to find some kind of inner strength and seemed to be able to conquer every hurdle that came my way. With baby #2, I can't even give myself my own shots. If Adam didn't do them, I probably wouldn't be doing them. I whine alot more and just am not being a good sport. I would like to contribute most of it to the relentless tiredness and not being 'ready' to be pregnant again. Hopefully it will get better with time.

Taylor is growing every day. She's such a little girl. Just in the last week, she's gone from trouble to so cute. We've started teaching her some sign language and it's been so fun watching her learn - more, eat, sit. She also can do the motions to 'If your happy and you know it" through three verses (clap your hands, pat your head, and hoorah) Just this weekend, we've established that she can say 'sit down' (which she hears alot in the tub) and "get it." She is on her second ear infection within a 6 week period. Luckily, we caught this one much earlier than the first.

I just updated some stuff on my blog to the top right, so check out my 'favorite' links and follower section. Sign up if your a fan, I'd love to see who checks in.

We look forward to seeing everyone on Thursday for Thanksgiving. If I am not back to blog before then (which I probably won't be) I hope all who read my blog (whoever you may be) have a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving.

This week's highlights

2008-10-24T20:10:00.006-04:00

We had a good week this week. But I'll try to capture what I can.

1. Adam started his real job on Monday. Last Friday, they had a graduation ceremony and lunch for him and his 'classmates.' This was the end of an extensive 12 week training course. I was able to attend and meet his teacher and his new supervisor. His supervisor seems really cool and good to work for. Adam enjoyed his first week so far. He comes home with stories every day of what he's doing and the people. His co-workers seem to be real laid back so I'm sure Adam will fit in well. In fact, his boss was found playing goff in the halls praticing for a fundraiser. His boss also takes him for 'walks down 'the mile' (which apparantly is this extremely long hall way to get to the common area) to make sure he's getting settled. I am so grateful that Adam has been blessed with BCBS. It seems now that all the other jobs and hurdles were just 'stepping stones' and that this is where he is meant to be.

2. I had a pre-natal doctor visit this week and got another good report. I was nervous about it considering I was one for one with good/bad reports. He didn't do a ultrasound but did do a 'scan' to verify that there was a heartbeat.... and there was. I'll be 10 weeks on Monday. This pregnancy has been alot better than the first. (knock on wood). I have minimal morning sickness though there have been some moments that were close calls. Mostly I've been hungry all the time and tired. The fatigue is pretty profound but I also blame being out of shape. I loss a lot of muscle mass being on bedrest a year ago with Taylor and I'm 10 lbs heavier at the start of this pregnancy that with her. So my weak body is starting to feel everything.

3. Taylor is growing daily. She is such a toddler now. She is soo... bad but so cute. She's really not bad ... but is developing some nasty habits. Such as impatience. The child will scream a shrill scream if she wants something and doesn't get it IMMEDIATELY. She's also started testing her limits. She kind of funny because we'll tell her no to someting and she'll just watch us with a smirk and do it again. The funniest thing is at the dinner table she likes to throw her food on the floor. Adam has really started to get on to her about that and it has started to hurt her feelings drastically. When he yells at her for it, she looks at him and bursts in to tears. These big croccodile tears start falling and she goes into a full fit crying tantrum like you just stole her heart. It always sets me into giggles. But then again... she is a daddy's girl. She walks around all day 'dada' 'dada.' Every morning she wakes up screaming for him from his crib. He's the one that gets her up and ready since I"m usually gone. So she just screams his name over and over until he comes and gets her. It's so cute but sometime I'm envious.

She's also walking away. She's done really well with it. A week ago she was still crawling most of the time. Now she rarely crawls. Our little girl is growing up.

I've updated my blog so make sure you continue to scroll down to see my latest posts and pictures.

Pumpkin Patch and Halloween carnival

2008-10-24T19:58:00.007-04:00

Last Saturday, we went to a local pumpkin patch. I had heard good things about the patch but never been myself. We got there late in the afternoon and didn't dress warmly enough. As we arrived, it seemed a cold front approached and it got cold and windy. Therefore we didn't stay long but we were able to get some cute pictures.

Where we went also had a petting farm. My favorite were the goats. They had a huge play area with towers and walkways. It was too cool and the goats were so cute. This one in particular wouldn't stop staring at me..... halarious.

On Sunday we went to a church carnival. Taylor was a giraffe. It was what I would have loved to pick for her to be. But I bought it several months ago at a consignment sale and thought it was cute... and it was a good deal. Plus she's only one and won't remember it. But she ended up being a cute zoo animal anyways. She had her first hayride, played on the swings and got all kinds of treats at trunk or treat. I think she enjoyed playing with Eli the most.

More 12 month Milestones

2008-10-12T20:32:00.005-04:00

1. First ear infection. Friday we found out she has her first ear infection. I call it alittle bittersweet because of course I don't wish an ear infection on my child. But I was so proud that she waited until after a year to have her first one. Most of the children in my family have had problems with ear infections/ tubes prior to their first birthday party. So it was nice to be able to escape that problem.... for now.

2. First Fair experience and merry go ride. We went to the fair for alittle while today. She got to see the horses and seemed to enjoy them. But when we started approaching the merry go round, she about jumped out of Adam's arms. So Adam took her for her first ride. She rode one of the horses and just laughed the entire time. It was precious.

3. Taylor is going to be a BIG SISTER! Yea, yea. The rumor is true. As of today, I'm 8 weeks pregnant. It's already been an up and down emotional roller coaster. I went to the doctor several weeks ago, but when they did an ultrasound to determine how far along I was, the doctor didn't see a baby - just an empty sac. He said it was most likely a pending miscarriage but for me to come back in a week. That was the longest week ever. However, the following week an ultrasound confirmed I was 6 1/2 weeks pregnant with a baby and a strong heart beat. The only explanation they can give me is I was too early to be seen the previous week.

I feel pretty good about this pregnancy as since then I've developed morning sickness and the hormones are definintly there. During that week I prayed for answers, miscarriage (I didn't want a DNC)... anything. And I feel I got my answer. We are excited... of course nervous... as we weren't expecting this at all. But please keep us in your prayers as we go through this pregnancy. Hopefully we will have far less complications.

Blogging off for now.. Make sure you read all my recent blogs. I added several below.

Fall Fun

2008-10-06T20:17:00.004-04:00

Fall is such a wonderful time of year. I'm so excited about the cooler weather, leaves falling and fun activities. I have such a to-do list this month.

1. Go to the fair and eat a corn dog. yum

2. Go to the local corn maze with my family - I've never been but have always wanted to go. It looks like so much fun.

3. Take a hayride with Taylor and Adam

4. Go to the fair and eat a corn dog. yum

5. Attend a halloween carnvial and go around the neighborhood looking for chocolate.

Taylor has already gotten started on her fall activities when we visited Popsey and CiCi. Check out her pictures on the hay.

Well Check Up

2008-10-06T20:03:00.003-04:00

Well Monday, September 29, Taylor had her one year old well visit. She has started to realize what the doctor is. As we walk in the door, she clenches to me tightly. She loosens up in the waiting room and clinical room but as soon as Dr. Cope walks in she starts crying. She screams through the entire exam. As soon as he leaves, she hushes. It's kind of funny because he doesn't even give her the shots, but she doesn't cry with those girls.

So since Taylor is finally 12 months, I thought I would highlight some of her accomplishments ...

1. She finally has hit the 20 lb mark... which means she can be forward facing in the car... though we haven't done yet. She has remained in the 25% percentile in weight and 75% in height since birth.

2. She has 10 teeth - including two molars working their way in. She can eat almost anything... and does.

3. She has started taking her first steps and CiCi bought her first pair of shoes. Taylor isn't thrilled about wearing them but the velcro distracts her.

4. She has a pretty good vocab and better yet will mock almost anything you say. Her new words include: balloon, bella, Adyson (didi) and taylor.

5. She is completely weaned off the bottle. Yea! We are so proud of this accomplishment. She had been down to one but was really holding on to her nightly bottle. But she has done great without it.

6. She is now only taking one nap a day. Again, has done great with this. We thank Lisa tremendously for taking this leap. Taylor sleeps like a log at night now.

7. Taylor is starting to feed herself with her own utensils. It's so cute to watch the learning process.

Hmmm... Well I was aiming for 12 milestones but I can't think of anymore......

The Big 1 !!!

2008-10-06T19:47:00.008-04:00

Well Taylor is officially a toddler and she knows it. Her first birthday party was at daycare on Friday the 26th, which was her acutal birthday. That's when she had her first taste of a cupcake. She actually didn't know what to do with it. It was really messy and she tried to eat the cake without picking it up. (see below)

Saturday was her big party at the house. We had a hotdog cookout, cake and icecream. Yum. She seemed to have a good time but had no clue that the whole shin-dig was all for her. The best part was opening presents, she just wanted to sit in her wagon. She has really enjoyed her gifts. She loves her new baby doll and 'kisses' on it constantly. She was thrilled about her toy phone for the first couple days until she finally realized it was a hoax... can't fool her.

She loved her cake and ice cream and made a much bigger mess. The pic below is one of my favorities... so devious looking.

Believe it or not, after all the excitement and sugar, she slept great that night. Thank goodness. I slept good as well.

Pure Exhaustion

2008-09-18T19:35:00.003-04:00

Exhaustion (n):
1. the total consumption of something
2. weariness

Hello blogging world. I apologize for being negletful for so long but blogging just hasn't been a top priority lately. I've been running ragged lately.

Taylor's birthday party is next week and I'm going to throw a party to celebrate after it's through. It's not that I want it to come and go. It's that since we decided to throw it at our house, I had certain things I wanted to get done around here before hand. Therefore, for the last 3 weekends and the upcoming one as well, Adam and I have been doing projects. Adam's done most of the work. He built Taylor a swing set and did a great job. He and Danny built me a landscaping box for my beds in the front yard. So really... I guess I can't complain because they did the work. But it's like he wasn't home at all and so I never got a break from being a Mommy, which is an exhausting job. Also, inside my head I have a neverending to do list to get ready for the party. Go to Sams, Walmart, make ice cream, get decorations, cake, clean house (which should take up two slots) and on and on and on. Please make it stop!!!!

On top of all that... Taylor was sick this week. Sunday night she woke with a 104* fever. It was quite scary. We ended up stripping her down and putting her in the tub, which she screamed through. It was pitiful. She ended up running a fever for about 3 days, but it didn't get that high again. Doctor said it was just a virus - of course. The worst part of a sick child is lack of sleep. Sunday through Tuesday night, she didn't sleep a bit. Sunday and Monday night I literally was up for 20-30 minutes every single hour. It was worse than when she was a newborn. You can imagine I was pretty much useless at work. Last night she did a little better.

On top of that.... Now that Taylor is feeling better... I should mention she is teething again. Does every child go through teething this much. ha! It feels like she gets one tooth after another. It almost looks like she's getting multiple teeth this time and it's really taking a toll on her. She's been so cranky and irritable. I hope she is done with it by next week for her BIG PARTY!.

On top of that.... I found out Monday, that a co-worker's husband died over the weekend. He was 29 and they have a 6 year old son. Apparently he was an epileptic and had stopped taking his medicines and died of a seizure. It's a very unfortunate event that has taken the breath of our office. But on top of all that, the wife (co-worker) doesn't have any family support and is getting harrassed and bullied by the husbands family. It's a real bad situation and I feel for her. Please keep her in your prayers.

On top of that.... Gas has really killed my budget. How ridiculous! I won't complain about this one since everyone is feeling the pain.

On top of that.... I have my first lab quiz tomorrow. Have I studied... nope. I have a lecture test next week that I have to fit in at some point. I believe it'll be the hardest one yet. It's alot of material and the most difficult to learn. Wish me luck.

On top of that.... Adam has pointed out to me that I have HORRIBLE grammer on here. So I have to apologize. I type as fast as my head thinks and I don't proofread. I actually do have proper grammer when I need to. :-)

On the positive side: Taylor has mastered some new words:
1. mama
2. dada
3. nonononno
4.uh-oh
5. Amen - this is a new one.
6.hey there - when she feels like it.

She has such a cute, beautiful voice. It's the best sound in the world. I'm sure most moms say that though.

Okay well, I'm blogging off.

Proud Mama Moments

2008-09-01T19:53:00.006-04:00

There are two new things that Taylor has started this weekend. One is just adorable and the other would make any first mother proud.

1. We were playing in T's room this morning and she went over to her rocking chair, pulled up on it and started rocking it. While rocking it, she was humming 'rock rock, rock rock'. I can remember of only one time that I did that, but she must have picked up on it. She also did it to the rocking ottoman. Then at dinner time she started rocking back and forth in her highchair and humming it again. It was too cute.

2. The proud moment came again at dinner where my little baby is now becoming an independent toddler... officially. She hasn't liked being fed since July, she prefers finger foods. But we've been slowly letting her experiment with silverware but this evening was the first time she fed herself her entire meal. We use a baby fork to put food on and give it to her. When she's finished, she gives it to us to refill. I have a video of it , so you'll have to tune in- as long as I can get it to post.

Busy Weekend

2008-09-01T16:11:00.004-04:00

I had an extra long weekend this time and it went by so fast. Friday was my 'off ' day and then today (Monday) was a holiday. It'll be nice to have two short weeks in a row.

Friday - Lab went okay. Really there isn't much to say about it. Nothing spectacular happened. I wasn't real impressed with anyone in there... yet. No one was extremely friendly. My instructor is actually the instructor I had 7 years ago. She' pretty good and has a wierd sense of humor. We covered alot of material but I made a 100 on the pop quiz at the end of the class. GO ME!

Saturday - Adam and I went shopping and bought a bigger car seat for Taylor. She dislikes her infant seat with me. Adam didn't want one yet so we only got one.. so that'll be interesting to see how that will go. Hopefully he won't leave the seat somewhere.

Sunday--we went to church and Lisa, Danny and the kids went with us. Lisa has joined a small group at the church on Sundays so I plan on joining next week. I'm actually looking forward to it, and am so glad they are visiting Mt. Horeb. We went to lunch after church and then to Adam's parents house for his mom's birthday. Busy day.

Monday- We went to chickfa li for lunch. Yummy. Then came home and worked in the yard. Taylor's party is coming up and we are trying to get our yard fixed up. We still have/had remnants of the storm that came through earlier this month and dumped trees on our land. It looks nice now.

So on top of it being a busy weekend I also learned something this weekend:

1 - I can't get mad at my husband for overreating when I do it on a regular basis. Had a touche moment. Which brings me to my question again: how do you get a personality makeover when you need one?

2- It is time for Taylor to start eating off a plate, which can be a messy venture. Sitting in a nice resturant Friday night, I was embarrassed for the first time because I was feeding her everything off the table - bread, carrots, beans, potatoe. It hit me that she was too old for this. Which leads me to point three...

3. Heavy, big plates are better than small plates. They allow you as the parent a faster reaction time, which is needed. Also, ticky tack doesn't work.

4. Facebook to most people, is probably another useless hobby. However, it has been a real blessing to me. I think I told you about my friend Kathryn that I found and hadn't seen in 8 years. In case, I haven't updated, Kathryn is in China studying Mandarin. She has a blog which I've posted to the right where she journels her trip. It's really interesting and she's real good and catching the culture there.

Anyways, just last week was re-connected to another friend that I was penpals with for years until she moved to the area. Still again I haven't seen her since 1998 or so. It's been so nice catching up with these people. Both have done great things with their life and makes me want to better with mine. Who knew technology would be such a blessing.

Well hope everyone had a good holiday. Blogging off.

First day of 'skool'

2008-08-29T13:10:00.002-04:00

Well today is the first day of 'skool' in the words of my neice, Caedyn. I'm actually kind of nervous, which isn't surprising since I always did get the jitters the first day of school. Despite that, I'm looking forward to meeting the people in my class. Since it's an online class (besides our weekly lab) we had to introduce ourselves on a discussion board. It seems most of the students are on the nursing program track. And many are returning back to school and have families, like me. There's one girl getting married in a month and another having a baby in October. So this gives me encouragement that we'll all be in the same boat... overwhelmed with our busy lives and school. It seems like for most of us school won't be top priority which is a change for me this time. Well I'll have to let you know how it goes... only 55 minutes to go. Wish me luck!

Highlights

2008-08-26T19:19:00.007-04:00

1. We had Taylor baptized this past Sunday. It went really well and it was a big milestone for us. She did excellent during the service. I was concerned that she wouldn't go to the Pastor or would fuss but she did neither. We had a good turnout so thank you for the support. After church we went to Fuddruckers and it was soooo yummy. Check out our pics from Sunday below.

Pastor Jeff

Popsey, Cici, mommy, Taylor, Daddy, Grammy, Grandpapa

"Let's Go, Mom"

2. I have a feeling we are going to have a handful with Taylor. She is exhausting - never slows down. She has never been a real cuddly baby. She's always wanting to play and goof off. She is so close to walking right now. She's standing with no support and will actually squat and stand back up. Her new temper tantrum behavior (remember the hitting) is that she screams a high pitch scream as loud as she can. The human ear can't tolerate it but once or twice before long term ringing occurs. I can't imagine that she is already like this and isn't even one. What are her terrible two's going to be like? On the other hand, she is so cute.

Taylor "walking" her toy on her knees across the room.

3. One more Taylor tidbit. She is getting her 8th tooth and who would have guessed it would be a molar. Yup, I'm not kidding. Her mouth is alittle crooked right now with four on top, three on bottom and now getting an upper molar. Her teething toy for the week (thanks to her dad only) was a chicken bone. I wasn't very supportive but she seemed to enjoy.

4. I start school this week. Please wish me luck for the semester. I'm taking Anatomy and Physiology on line. I will have to attend a lab on campus once weekly (Friday's). So I'm hoping the class won't be too overwhelming, especially since I did take it 7 years ago. Wow hard to believe it's been that long. Actually, I was in this lab class on September 11 when the world trade center fell. Where were you on September 11, 2001?

5. I've discovered a new outlook. Facebook. I've heard several people mention it and my sister mentioned it in her blog. So last night, I wanted to check it out. I believe I might be hooked. I have no clue how I'm going to keep up with both this blog and facebook but I was surprised at how many people I knew on Facebook. In fact, the most exciting thing is a girl I went to highschool with and was one of my best friends, I found ... in China. We lost touch when we graduatated. Her family moved out of state so we just lost touch. Well I was searching everyone I knew on Facebook and she was one and found her in China, apparently studying abroad. It was so cool. I haven't seen or talked to her in 8+ years and she was someone that made a huge impact in my life then.

Well It's 8:00 and time for Taylor's bed. Gotta go

Needed: More time!

2008-08-26T19:10:00.004-04:00

I've discovered I don't have enough time in my days. Here is a day in the life of Amy.

5:40- alarm goes off - snooze
5:45 - second alarm goes off
5:50 - get out of bed and shower, dress
6:15- pick up house from night before, make sure Taylor's bag is ready (husband and child still in bed)
6:30- leave for work
6:50 - arrive for work and bust my butt until time to go
3:30- leave for work (I leave at different time daily so this varies)
4:00 - pick Taylor up from daycare - she screams the whole way home. Is it the car seat or because she misses her best bud, Adyson?
4:30- unwind for alittle and get settled
5:00 start getting dinner ready and chase Taylor around house
5:30 husband comes home= yea! Finally some relief
6:00 dinner time and then clean up
7:00 Taylors bath and bottle
8:00 Taylor's bed time
8:30: Me time - this includes what ever I need to do: cross stitch, work out, study, house chores, blog, etc.
Bedtime .

As you can see there isn't much time for extra curricular activites. Why I just blogged this, I have no idea. Maybe I thought some one might have pity on me... ha ha.

I wake up at 5:45. Shower/dress/ready for work. I leave for work anywhere between 6:20 to get

This week's highlights

2008-08-16T20:48:00.005-04:00

I know it's been a week or so since I've blogged. But it's been a real busy week. I'll try and recap what I can.

1. Taylor is getting so big. I can't believe it. I looked at her today and saw a toddler instead of a baby. She is really cruising now and standing on her own. I am pretty sure she will be walking before her first birthday which believe it or not is only 6 weeks away. I can't believe she is almost one. Where does the year go.

2. It's been a real "poopy" week. Taylor pooped in the bath tub for the first time. I'm sure it won't be the last. But it was gross! We haven't gotten her ...regulated. Last week she was going all the time and I thought it was the milk base formula I was trying. This week she's struggling every time she goes. Also... I discovered little mice friend droppings at my work place this week. In fact they indulged in some of my snacks. I spent most my week disinfecting my work station. Again.. how gross.

3. Adam and I have started a hard core intense workout program called P90X. It's insane. The first night Adam did it, he couldn't even lift his arms. It was quite funny watching him scratch his head or put his glasses on. I am doing the same program but a different route and think it's quite fun. I actually am looking forward to the next workout. It calls for these workouts daily but as you can imagine it's hard to do that daily. So we do what we can and it's better than what we were doing before... nothing.

4. I finally got registerd for Midlands Tech. So I guess I am going back to school. Amazingly, the exact class and session I needed (which has been full) came open with one slot on Friday. So I was able to get into the class I need. I'm actuallly kind of looking forward to it.. alittle nervous but excited. It's an internet lecture and then lab once a week on site. We had to introduce ourselves on the discussion board and so far the others are in similar situations as me - going back to school and retaking the class.

5. Adam and I bought a new car today. YEA. We had been contemplating it but after getting word from an auto shop that the Nissan Sentra needed alot of work, we decided we would be better off trading it in. So we spent ALL day car looking while mom and dad watched Taylor. We ended up getting a 2008 Ford Edge which I've liked since I saw one last summer. We got an INCREDIBLE deal and are real excited about our purchase. I can't wait to show it off!

6. Taylor is teething...again. I swear she is going to have a mouth full of teeth before she turns one. She already has7 teeth and working on the 8th. Her new favorite teething toy is a corn cob. I eat the corn off of it and then hand it to her. She has a ball with it. Her other new teething toys include her crib and an icecube rag.

7. Taylor's Baptism is next Sunday. We are so excited to have this day finally get here. The date has been changed soo much and it's hard to believe that it's almost here.

8. I saw my doctor this week for a check up. My anemia and low iron (which I've been since pregnancy) is improving...slowly but nothing to be concerned about. Which is a relief. However, he is sending me to a GI doctor for some stomach troubles I've been having. How fun can that be. I'll keep you posted but hopefully nothing big will come of that.

9. Taylor had her first swing ride, that I know about. She acted like a pro so maybe she's done it at daycare. We were at my cousins graduation party at a church and we took the kids to the playground. She had so much fun and started screaming and kicking her feet. Adam and I have been wanting to get her a swing set for the house but they are so expensive and we don't have anywhere to put just a toddler swing. We will have to work on that. My mom says she's going to be like Adam with the adrenaline rush craze and maybe she will. She loves to be thrown in the air and all kinds of crazy things like that.

Well I'm exhausted and heading to bed. Blogging off -

A Messy Night!

2008-08-06T20:55:00.005-04:00

They say lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place... but they dont' say that about wind. Do they? Adam and I had quite an interesting evening last night. We had two really big storms. The first one was around 7:30 and I was in Taylor's room putting her down when the dogs start going nuts. Adam then tells me we had a tree fall through our wooden privacy fence. This was hard to believe since I didn't hear anything and didn't really think the wind was THAT bad. But sure enough, the biggest pine tree was laying completely flat through our fence and to the road. Luckily, it missed our house. Unlucky in the fact that it happened and it messed up our dogs area. So we had to get out there at 8:00pm and start cutting the tree and put up a makeshift fence in place so the dogs wouldn't get out. We discovered this was a great way to meet neighbors on the street. A guy down the street came over with his chainsaw. The neighbors across the street came over to watch and the mysterious guy next door finally made an appearance as well. So we had 5 guys and 4 wives standing out side while fixing our fence. It was quite a scene. Meanwhile, it's lightning and another storm is approaching. I am getting kind of nervous because I could see it in my head appearing in The State "guys struck by lightning while clearing fallen tree." But we were able to finish up, get the dogs a confined place to stay and get inside literally as the sky fell out and mini tornado II came through. Well the second storm was worse than the first. I told Adam that I felt a really dark cloud hanging over our head. But I didn't know until this morning that during the second storm, the wind knocked down ANOTHER pine tree! Can you believe it? Two trees in two storms! NO WAY! WAY! This one stayed within our privacy fence but is going through the dogs wire fence and laying in our hammack. So to say the least, Adam has his work "cut out" for him this weekend - literally. The good side of this is Adam was going to cut down the second tree anyways this weekend (after the first fell) because it was too close to the house and we had concerns about it. But mother nature took care of it for us. The dogs are also enjoying a 6 foot 'window' to the outside world now. I hope we still have dogs by this weekend. I also hope this doesn't violate our new LH community association regulations - which are a complete joke. But that's another blog. Well I'll post pics later from last night. Hopefully our unlucky streak has passed. Until then I'm b'logging' off!

Tree No. 1 from storm No. 1

Tree. No. 1

Tree No. 2 from storm No. 2

WHAT A MESS!!!!

Lucky Blog

2008-08-05T16:40:00.006-04:00

I have some exciting news to blog about... exciting for me. I just won my first ... sweepstake prize. Not really a sweepstake. I saw this blog in one of my parent magazines where you can register for free stuff. So I thought I would check it out. Well one of the things on there was for a cool notebook stationary set. So I thought I would enter. Well lo and behold, I got an email today saying I won and I got to pick out what color and design. How cool. Not only that but I noticed when going to the site they have my name "Amy M' on there congratulating me. heh heh. I just might have to follow my mother in law's footsteps... maybe I'll have her luck as well. Just thought I'd share my winnings. :-) If anyone is interested, the blog is http://www.prizey.blogspot.com/ I'll post under my other blogs to check out. And to see what I won and my name... go to www.coolmompicks.com/2008/08/thank_you_notes_togo.php. You'll also have to check out www.coolmompicks.com which is the company that I entered the drawing for. They have all kind so products to win and all you do is send an email to enter.

Happy winning!

Second thoughts

2008-08-01T11:30:00.003-04:00

Well I'm kind of having second thoughts about the PTA program. It's kind of overwhelming and I don't know where to start. I did find out that I have two 'basic' classes to take over- Anatomy and Physiology I and II. They have to be current by 3 years before entering clinical courses. But from the paperwork I got, I can't even apply for an interview for the program until both of those couses are done 20 observation hours and submit a written paper. Considering that fall starts... now and classes are full then it's possible I won't have these courses done until after summer semester and that's if they offer the second one during the summer. Who knows what the waiting list is.. I think it's a year or two, so I'm looking at starting the actual program in like 3-4 years. That alone is frustrating.

So I've thought about just going ahead and starting anyways and not lettig this get me down but it costs to apply to MTC and to take classes. I would hate to take one class if not two then to find out that the waiting list is too long and I'll be ancient. I don't know what to do but I'll keep you you posted.

What a week?

2008-07-31T17:22:00.004-04:00

This has been quite an interesting week and it's not even over with yet.

So Tuesday I had a freak accident at work. I haven't told anyone but my husband this so I'm sure I'll be getting calls from my immediate family tonight - or when they read my blog. I work with IV's (starting and removing) and had my first blood exposure. When I was putting the patient's IV in the sharp's container somehow it splashed back and a drop of radioactive blood landed in my eye. It was freaky because I was wearing my eye glasses and I have no clue what it made it splash... as I was literally carrying it from point a to point b when it did it. But it happened. So I got to use our eye wash station for the first time - not fun. And then undergo some lab testing. I was lucky because I knew who the "source patient" was and she came in today to get 'exposure labs' done as well. She was understanding and compliant which makes the whole process alot easier.

Wednesday, we had a halarious day. Part of what I do at work, is carry out exercise stress testing. So I hook up patients to EKG's while they are on the treadmill which requires either shirts off (men) or to pull blouses up (women). Well we had this..... eccentric... female patient yesterday and she comes dressed in a floor length gray/blackish dress, thick, purple cotton socks and brown hiking boots. So when I get her back to do the treadmill, she had to pull her dress all the way up to her head so I go do my electrode placement. That's not too bad.... what was halarious is that when she got on the treadmill, I realized that if her dress was down then the wire would hang all the way to the floor and she would trip. So I'm thinking a mile a minute of a solution ( I should also mention that the physician is in the room - who is also my supervisor). My solution ended up being to tuck her dress into the belt around her waist (which was better than the patients solution which was to tuck it into the very top of her dress/bra). Either way, she had to walk/hike up the treadmill bearing her black panties. Meanwhile, Dr. Supervisor is having to stand behind her the entire time watching her panties ride up her behind. It was absolutely halarious!!! Infact, what's funny is that Dr. Supervisor and me are known for these crazy occurences. She told me afterwards, that she thinks that was the most halarious situation of all. It even beat the time she (barely 100 lbs) had to hug a 350lb guy's crack to keep his pants from falling off or the time that the lady peed on the treamill. Oh, how funny.

My friend, Natalie, just started a blog. I'll post a link to her blog under my sisters. I'm so glad she started. Natalie and I went to high school together but lives out of state with her son, Graham, whose 6 months old. So it's nice to see how they are doing and how big Graham is getting.

Today was a very busy day but nothing dramatic happened. Adam is still giddy about his job. He comes home excited nightly with different stories about his day.

Our neighbors came over and we hung out for a while. This was only the third time we've talked with the second being yesterday. She came over to let us know about the apparent crime happening in our neighborhood. Great, right? Apparantly, some guy was trying to get into a house with young girl babysitting. The cops were called and they got a description on the guy and actually I passed the guy pulling into my driveway. Also one of our close neighbors had their car broken into a few weeks ago. So we've decided to start a 'crime watch' with the three of our houses. We're also going to join up and do neighborhood supper club. The two houses across the street already are doing it and they asked if we wanted to join.

Taylor has had a good week so far. She's has developed this hitting things that she apparently does to only to me. At first, I wasn't sure if she knew what she was doing so I ignored it. But now it's clear that she does it when she's frustrated with me. (ex: I take something from her or talk to her when she doesn't want to be talked to, etc) It's gotten really frustrating because I don't know what to do about it considering she's only 10 months old. I think spanking can be appropriate in certain situations but not at this age. So I just tell her "no" really firmly and then she usually starts crying b/c I hurt her feelings. She might catch herself the next time but she does it again eventually. I think it's almost a reaction to her frustration... she just does it almost out of habit. I hope we can correct this and that it isn't a hint of the temper to come.

Taylor also has really started talking/babbling this week. She's got dada down pat, which really makes Adam happy. We think she knows who dada is as well. I think she's saying uh-oh and it sounded like she said "kiki' when petting patches today. So we are excited about this.

Well dinner just arrived... (Chili's) and I'm starved. Until next time...

Minutes from Monday

2008-07-28T20:10:00.003-04:00

It's been a while since I've blogged so here are the highlights from today:

1. I HATE COMPUTERS. This is my second blog. I just spent a 1/2 hour blogging and when I went to post... I got some error and it completely ERASED my entire BLOG. AAAAGGHHH. I'm so upset. I don't even know what I was writing about.

2. Adam started his new job today. He came home all excited and nervous. Apparently there were hundreds of applicants and they only chose 12. Four of the 12 were already employees of BCBS out of state and moved/transfered to take this job. His training starts tomorrow and will last 12 weeks and they will be pampered - lunches, juice, snacks, etc. He came home with a BCBS leather bag filled with all kind of goodies. When he has homework, they pay them time and a half for the study time and gas mileage home. It's incredible. We are so excited about this opportunity.

3. RAIN - We got more rain today than we've seen all year. It poured for a good hour. It was a mother load of a storm with 'cloud-to ground' lightning as Brandon at WIS would call it. In fact, atleast one house (if not two) were struck in our neighborhood. We've had firetrucks running up and down our street for the last 1 1/2 hours. But I think they went to the same house. I'll check it out tomorrow... it' was too late to get in the car and go chase firetrucks... plus the last time I did that in our neighborhood I got cornered by the firetrucks and couldn't turn around. hahah..
Our neighborhood had a track record for lightning.... they should post that when people buy houses.

4. Taylor is doing better... we think. She put her self on a diet last week and refused to eat. By Thursday she wasn't eating any solids hardly. We tried everything but she would just cringe and gag even at the sight/smell of food. We did forcefeed a bottle down but she threw it all up. We aren't sure what her deal was. Saturday she started eating and she's like the bottomless pit. I've though at times if I fed her anymore she would explode. Today she's been extremely fussy and clingy (atleast this afternoon), she slept for 3 1/2 hours at daycare and she's had 5 poopy diapers (you can imagine her hiney). So I'm hoping it's either her teeth or the 3 applesauces in 2 days (I know I know bad Mommy.

5. I'm considering going back to school for physical therapy assistant. Physical therapy is something I've wanted to do since I was 16. If I was smart, I would have stayed on that track and saved alot of time... but who knows what else would be different in my life. But this idea has come and gone many times over the years and I feel a calling to do it. I only have 3 semesters to get this degree but they will be all clinical and time consuming courses. I'm really nervous, excited am not sure how it will work out being a mother/wife and trying to work when I can. But I think that it's its the right thing to do then the plans will be laid out for me.

Gotta go ... Taylor's up and crying. Until next time... B'logging' off (Adam hates that phrase... is it corney?)

Happy Friday!

2008-07-18T21:10:00.002-04:00

I love Fridays! I now have a whole new reason to love them. My workplace has now gone to letting the staff have every other Friday off. Our office is still open on Fridays, we just rotate who works. So today was my Friday off. How exciting. It was hard to decide what to do with this time off. Do I send Taylor to daycare and get some things done or do I spend time with her? Well... I actually did both and had a really good day.

I spent the morning at home..... alone, which I know most mothers don't get a chance to do. But I accomplished so much. Not to mention, I really needed some very alone time. Even the cat knew to leave me alone! :-) I did end up answering the phone about 25 times but that is what it took to plan my afternoon.

I picked Taylor up from daycare in time for the book mobile. This was our first time and it was pretty fun. I was surprised but Taylor seemed interested in the whole idea. We picked out a couple of books and she held on to her library card the entire time. I had to pry it away from her to check out. It was a kodak moment. After the book mobile, we went swimming with some of my cousins and my sister and all their kids. This was her second time swimming but didn't seem real thrilled about it. I think she was just hungry and tired. She usually loves the water (bath and swimming) but just wasn't into it today.

The biggest accomplishment today was Taylor's rescheduled baptism...again. This is the third time we've scheduled this. Once due to illness and second due to family conflict. Who knew it would be such an ordeal to have the child baptized. But it's all worked out now and the date is set for August 24.

I also found out today the culprit for Taylor's Hand Foot Mouth Disease. It's been baffling because its such a contagious disease and I was puzzled where she got it from. But apparently, a friend of the family's child was in town the week before Taylor got it and he had it the week before. They had seen each other at the library. So the mystery is solved. I've also heard (rumor, which I won't name names) that this friend who lives out of town might be moving back to town. I am excited about this. I hardly get to see her and now that we both have kids close in age it will be nice to get together.

Well I'm b'logging' off for now. It's been a busy day and I'm tired. Until next time....

"Guiding Light"

2008-07-14T20:42:00.010-04:00

Well I know it's been a week since I've blogged. I seem to either have choose sleep or blogging and these past days... sleep is just more important. But I figure I would let everyone know all that has gone on this week because wow... what a week! Adam calls it "Guiding Light." Let's see, we finished battling the Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease last week and Taylor actually got to spend 2 days at daycare. She was so happy to be back. Last Monday (a week ago) we got word that my uncle had died. He had been sick and just recently had surgery but it was still a complete shock. In fact, I believe our family is still in shock. It's hard to believe he's gone when he was here just here and improving. That was Monday and his funeral was Wednesday, which I thought was pretty quick but I guess it's better to get it over with. During all this I should mention there was alot of drama going on at work but I will save the details. Then Saturday, we woke up and Taylor had pictures taken at Portrait Innovations. She was suppose to have these done last weekend... but she was sick. Well this Saturday, she woke with a horrible runny nose. and cough. But I was determined to have these pics taken. She actually did really well - smiled alot. We just had to chase her nose between shots. However, by that afternoon she was really ill. So... we drove around trying to decide if we should take her to doctor's care (closed) or urgent care (2 hour wait) and decided on home. Sunday morning we got up first thing and visited the doctor... again. Of course, the verdict is viral and there's nothing we can do for her. So once again, Taylor is sick. She has been so miserable. In fact, last night she didn't sleep a wink and cried for 5 hours straight. Tonight she is already doing better since it's 9:00 and she's asleep.. we'll see if that lasts. I've used up all my time at work and employees patience, so Adam is playing 'house wife.' We've been blessed that he is 'able' to take the time off to stay at home. Oh- I don't think I've officially annouced this but Adam has accepted a job with BlueCross BlueShield starting July 28. He will be an Applications Developer I (I think). We are REALLY excited about this switch and should offer a promising career for Adam. Well I'm going to post some pics from Saturday and head to bed. 'B'logging off for now!

Minutes from Monday

2008-07-07T21:10:00.005-04:00

Monday hightlights and realizations....

1. Taylor almost slept through the night last night... only woke twice instead of her 5-7 times from the past few days. YEA!!

2. Adam would make a great stay at home dad but then that would mean I would have to work full-time forever and make alot of money.

3. My 9 month old already has quite a HOT temper... where did she get that from?

4. She also has the funniest "Clarence" laugh.

5. Sometimes going to work is good medicine.... sometimes it's not.

6. God will never give you more than you can handle.... but sometimes he will push it really close.

7. Treasure each day you have with your loved ones, you never know when it might be your last.

Would the real Taylor please come forward!!

2008-07-06T16:12:00.004-04:00

So the new verdict is in... Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. After several days of fever and sore throat, she broke out in a tiny rash all over her body. Apprarently, this rash will turn to blisters and cause alot of pain. Luckily her rash is very fine, so the blisters will be very fine as well. Some of them have already started turning... but who knows how long this progression will be. She seems to be feeling better. Though at times, she is quite irritable. But her fever seems to be gone and the rash hasn't really stopped her from getting around. I think she must feel something on her hands, because she'll stop and look at them like something's on them.

So over the last few days, Adam and I have seen a new side of Taylor. One that we don't particulary care for. Last night for the first time in a few days, we were able to see our real Taylor, when Popsey and Cici came to see her. So I thought I would hightlight my perfect angels new characteristcs.

1. There is the I'm not sleepy *yawn*, I'm not going to sleep, *rub eyes* You can't make me, *scream* See I'm not tired, * climb up you* This goes on for hours.

2. She also has developed this 'fake' cry. Now this cry sounds fake, but I have yet to figure out if it is or not. Sometimes I think she's just miserable or doesn't feel well... other times it seems like she's having a temper tantrum. And it's hard to 'discipline' a child that could be crying out of sickness.

3. Let's not forget Taylor as the "human vaccum." The child has a litter sensor. She picks up the smallest and most disguised pieces of trash and eats them. I can't tell you how many times we've gone digging in her mouth.

4. Taylor the "Spoiled." "Hold me" ** climb up you** "Wait, don't leave me in the room alone" *cry* "Rock me to sleep"

5. Then lastly, there is the Taylor that doesn' t know what she wants. She wants up, she wants down. She is sleepy but wants to climb and play games. She's got no appetite but wants her bottle. She wants mommy but also wants daddy. geez...

All Adam and I are asking is where is our Taylor... you know.. the one who is real smiley and laughing all the time. How long will this irritable Taylor last?

Happy July 4th!!

2008-07-04T19:50:00.003-04:00

What do you do on July 4th with a sick child? Nada. It's just another day. However, it is a day for husbands to be motivated to grill out and cook dinner. For that alone, I wish every day could be July 4th.

Well so Taylor is sick for the 4th. She woke up yesterday with a fever. By the time we got to the doctor in the afternoon, her temp was over 103 and she could barely hold her head up. She was pitiful. She's doing much better today, though still has a slight fever and still doesn't have her appetite. It's no fun with a sick child. We just sat in the rocking chair all day together. She sure picked a bad time to be sick. We didn't have any big plans for the 4th in the first place, but we are suppose to have her pictures taken tomorrow and her baptism is Sunday. Why did we wait so long to have her Baptized? Well, Adam and I have been church hopping for the past year. We finally joined Mt. Horeb Methodist last month and have really enjoyed it. We are still planning on Sunday... sick child or not. Maybe if she's not better by then, the healing waters of Christ can do it because I can't take another day off from work. :-)

Well I hope everyone has a safe and fun July 4th. It's actually storming right now.. so hopefully everyone's plans were inside.

Welcome to the Blogging world

2008-07-02T18:00:00.000-04:00

This is a test blog. I can't believe I've gotten sucked into the blogging world. But I've enjoyed reading people's blogs (people I don't even know) so I thought I would give it a try. You know you are ready to start a blog when you walk around telling yourself "if I had a blog, I could write about this or that that happened today." So.... now that I have a blog.... what do I say. I think I might have "blog fright" or would it be more appropriate to call it "blog block."

Well I'm going to play around with this for a while and I'll get back to yall. Check back later.