Shuffling the deck

What is God doing in my life this year? Looking back, it's been a rough and emotional year (and a half...). I know I'll look back on it and say "Wow! I'm so glad God did that!". Right now, I'm just wondering what's going on. I feel like my little deck of cards that I call life is being shuffled and I can't wait for the dealer to finish up and deal me my new hand. :) I have so very much to be thankful for too, so while I've had a lot of change this year, it has certainly not all been bad.

The bad:
1. Our pastor left CBC. Okay - that was over a year ago, but it's still been a toll on me this year.
2. We had big layoffs and reorganization at work.
3. My boss of 6 years quit.
4. My officemate of 6 years quit (Friday is his last day here).
5. A whole bunch of other people have quit. We're running on a skeleton staff these days.
5. One of CBC's wonderful pastors is leaving CBC for bigger and better works. Okay - it's not bad - but it's very sad for us. He married us 5 years ago and we love him and will miss him and his family so much! Hopefully we have a while before he packs up and moves on to do mission work. :)

The good - actually, the WONDERFUL:
1. We got to have our first whole year with our precious baby girl!
2. Our baby boy is growing up into a bright and wonderful little boy!
3. We are all healthy.
4. We have a beautiful home for our family.
5. We have the best family we could ask for!
6. We have a great new pastor at Crossroads Bible Church. Thank you for joining us Pastor Steve! We are so thankful for you!

So, as you can see, the good always outweighs the bad, but I'm looking forward to a somewhat more settled 2008 as the rough and tumble 2007 comes to a close.

Grandpa Heinrichs

My last living great-grandparent has passed away. Lawrence Heinrichs was my great-grandpa - my dad's mom's dad. :) I didnt know him all that well. When I was younger, we used to see him fairly often (at least a couple times a year). However, for the last 15 years, I've seen him a total of I think 3 times. I went to his 90th birthday party a few years ago and we went to see him about a month ago when we heard his health was deteriorating. It was so neat to see him last month because I got to take my kids to meet him. Some other family members were there visiting, so we actually had 5 generations of my family there together at once. We got some pictures of all 5 generations (my kids, me, my dad, my grandma and Grandpa Heinrichs). I'll post one as soon as I get them from my lovely husband. :) Even though I didnt know him all that well, I feel a sense of loss and I know that a lot of people will be missing him dearly. He touched a lot of people in his 95 years of life and always showed a lot of love to everyone he knew.

Grandpa's bio:
Born: June 8, 1912 in Paris, Arkansas
Died: November 24, 2007 in Texarkana, Texas
Survived by his wife Grandma Hazel Heinrichs, daughter Grandma Charline Thompson, son Larry Heinrichs and other children that I did not personally know, lots of grandchildren, even more great-grandchildren and several great-great-grandchildren!

Mr. Smarty Pants

I keep getting stories from Owen's teachers about how wonderful he is, so I wanted to share some of them here because he is wonderful of course!! :)

Last week, his afternoon teacher at school was so excited to tell me some of the things he had been doing. One day, she was asking the kids to draw lines on a piece of paper. She said Owen was one of just a couple of kids that listened at all and he didnt just draw a couple of lines - he drew 15-20 parallel straight lines! She's excited that he's on his way to writing. Very exciting! :) He's such a big boy! Then another day, she went on and on about how smart he is and how well he does puzzles. She said she got the puzzles out and the other kids were just eating them and throwing them around the room, but Owen sat down and did 4 of them in just a couple of minutes. His Sunday school teacher commented on his love of puzzles too. He's definitely my child! I LOVE puzzles and always have since I was his age. At home, he has a few 25 piece jigsaw puzzles that he does all by himself in just a couple of minutes. He usually needs a little bit of help the first time or two when he gets a new puzzle, but after that, he's on his own. I did a 100 piece puzzle that Aunt Mary let him borrow last week and now he likes to take apart a corner of it and put it back together on his own. He hasn't gotten brave enough to try to do more than 10 pieces or so at a time, but it's so fun to watch him figure it out. :) I love having such an awesome little boy!

Good news on the potty front! Owen has decided that it's okay to potty for other people! He went all day at school yesterday without an accident because he actually went for his teachers. What a relief! I think we're pretty much done with the whole potty training challenge now. We just have to get through nights without wetting now. He actually usually wakes up with a dry pull-up, but the one night I let him wear his underwear, he pee-ed all over the place... And of course, he wont sleep on his bed that has a nice mattress protector on it... he sleeps on the living room floor. Thankfully, I thought to put down some extra towels and stuff under the blanket, so not much soaked all the way through to the carpet! I'm SO excited that I'm down to 1 kid in diapers again. It's so weird to have to remember to take him potty though! What a big big boy! :)

Thanksgiving lunch with the kids!

Today we had Thanksgiving lunch at the kids' school. I had a fun day because intead of just dropping them off, I just stayed at school and hung out with Owen until lunchtime. It was fun to see what his class does all morning. I was gonna hang out with Ella too, but she ended up sleeping pretty much the whole time I was there, so I spent the time with Owen instead. We had turkey and smashed taters and some vegies and it was yummy! Owen didnt want to stay when we left him after lunch, but hopefully he took a nap and had a good rest of the day.

Owen has finaly decided to start going potty for at least one of his teachers!! Miss Sharon is one of his newer teachers and I guess he really likes her. He's gone to the potty twice now for her. I'm ecstatic! He's been totally potty trained at home (except at bedtime) for several weeks now, but we were having a really hard time with school because he wouldn't go for his teachers. Hopefully that's turning around now. The only thing is that he might be moved up to Miss Crystal's class soon now that he's going potty. I'm torn on that idea because it would be nice to have him with the older kids who are all potty trained, but I'll be really sad if he gets split up from his friends that he's been there with for a year and a half now. They are all good friends and I'd hate to split them up. I'll be thinking that over for the next couple of weeks.

For fun, here are some of Owen's favorite songs to sing lately. :)
1. Jesus Loves Me
2. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
3. Bringing Home a Baby Bumble Bee
4. ABCs
5. Itsy Bitsy Spider
6. Mary Had a Little Lamb

There are some others that he sings at school, but I dont know them, so I dont know what they are called. There is one where they do the sounds of the letters and another one about not sticking fingers in your nose or something. It's so cute to hear him singing! I love it. The other day he told me that he sang Jesus Loves Me to this cute little girl in his class named Alex.

Mommy's had a rough day...

I try not to make this a complaint blog, but I've had a rough day today and could use some prayer! This has been a really rough year at work with various things going on that have led to lots of people quitting. It's been tough to deal with, but we've pressed on none-the-less. Today, my boss gave her 2 week notice. I'm so happy for her new opportunity in the job she's pursuing, but it's a big challenge for my team here at HP. I worked with for 2 summers as a co-op and started working for her right out of college. She has been my boss for 5+ years now and has been the best boss I ever could have dreamed of. She has let me work from home while the kids were babies. She gives us all so much flexibility and always fights for us in any circumstance that she can. She's our advocate and our friend and we're gonna miss her so dearly. She has made this a fun place to work even amidst difficulty and turmoil and we thank her so much for that. It's going to be a difficult transition for our team and I'm thankful for any prayer as we go through it.

Happy Birthday Ella!!

Well, it's official! She's 1!! We had a great time at her party on Saturday. She scored big-time on the clothes and thank you every one for not buying lots of toys!! :) I hope everyone that came had a great time and thank you so much for coming to celebrate with us! It means so much to us to have friends to celebrate with and we love you all so much! :) I know I always say this and don't often follow through, but I'll try to post pictures from the party! :)

Lots of news!

We've had a fun couple of weeks and I should have blogged some of this sooner, but it's been a busy couple of weeks!

First of all, Owen wore underwear to church on Sunday!! He's been doing pretty good about going potty at home, but has never worn underwear out of the house until Sunday. When he woke up in the morning, he wanted to go pee-pee in the potty and then really wanted to wear his underwear, so I let him. I tried to get him to wear his plastic ones over the regular ones in case of an accident, but he doesnt like those, so he didnt want to. But he did great! Not one accident the whole time we were gone from 8am-3:30pm!! Amazing! He still wont go at school unless I help him, but hopefully that will come soon. I can't wait to stop buying quite so many diapers!!

The kids have been so cute together lately. As I think I've mentioned before, Ella is a climber. She LOVES climbing up on stuff and standing on top and letting go. It's cute, but terrifying to think that she's gonna be able to climb higher and higher every day! Her favorite thing to climb on is Owen's little chair from IKEA, but lately, she's figured out how to mount Owen's little fire truck and Thomas train and ride them around. She still can't really get it to go forward very well, but she's great at going backwards. :) Mostly, she loves for people to push her around. The other day I was pushing her around and it wore me out so I told her we had to take a break. Then Owen started pushing her around and it was so cute!! I dont remember which one she was riding, but we got a video that we will post. It's so adorable. I love that he's interested in playing with her. He also loves to make her laugh and it's so funny some of the things he does to get her to giggle and it's funny what things make her giggle. :) I love watching them grow up together!

Ella's birthday is Saturday! I can't believe she's already 1!! It seems like just a couple of weeks ago that we found out she was on her way. She's such a delight and becomes more and more delightful every day! She's such a happy baby (or almost toddler now!!) and she just makes us smile all the time.

I'm sure I've got more to write about, but I can't think of it now, so I'll write more later!

Owen won!! :)

Owen won his card game tonight all by himself! :) He has a memory game on his computer (yes - he has his own computer - it's Uncle Andy's old iMac). He plays the card game from time to time, but usually loses interest after the first or second round and runs off to play with something else. Tonight, he actually played all 5 levels and finished it! Granted, it took him a while as he's easily distracted, but we're very proud of him. ;)

Ella has developed a new little attitude (beyond her usual one...). This weekend she seemed to have a bit of a development spurt and has decided now that a girly scream is the method to get her way. It's hilarious because she makes this funy exagerated sad face and fake cries. I need to get it on video and post it because it's so funny. She also seems to be going through a bit of a growth spurt. She's been eating pretty good during the day and then waking up in the middle of the night to have a bottle. It hasn't been too bad though cuz she usually just goes right back to sleep after her bottle. She's also realized that she likes to climb. She climbs on everything. She tries to climb up Owen's little couch to get up on the big couch. I find her in Owen's little Ikea chair a lot. She likes to stand up in it, hold on to the back and bounce. She has also recently started being a bit more onery. She goes behind this quilt rack that we have and when I say "no no Ella", she giggles really loud and kinda runs in place. It's funny, so I always end up laughing at her even though I really dont want her playing back there. :)

Owen's biggest fun lately has been jumping. I'm guessing he's learning all kinds of such things at school being in a room full of boys. I think there are something like 8 boys and 1 girl in his class (poor Miss Charity)! Today he has been climbing up on the ottoman and jumping off onto his Pooh couch and landing on his hiney. It's quite entertaining. Matt got some pictures of it tonight, so hopefully we can post some.

p.s. Owen just went pee-pee in the potty again. He's been wearing underwear for about 2 hours now without incident. Some days he's interested... some days he's not, so we kinda just let him do what he wants with that so far. I know eventually we need to start pushing it more, but I'm just not quite ready for that yet. :)

Here we are!

Okay, so we disappeared from blog-dom for a while, but we're back. :) I have so many updates, I know I'm going to forget some really important ones, but I really am going to start doing this more regularly so that won't be a problem every time.... This might turn into a novel since I'm so behind... so bear with me!

For starters, Ella had her 9-month checkup about a month ago and here are her stats: weight=18 lbs, 7 oz (50-75%); height=28.5 inches (75-90%); head=17.75inches (90%). She's perfect on the charts and is healthy as can be. The only problem we have had is her ears. She has had a few ear infections and the latest one just wouldnt go away. We tried 4 different antibiotics and even did shots, but it just wouldnt give up, so a week and a half ago (Friday, the 14th), we went ahead and had tubes put in both ears. She handled the surgery quite well and was back to her old self within hours (after a little nap to let the anesthesia wear off). She's had a stuffy nose and a cough since then, but otherwise has been feeling pretty good. It's also good that she can hear us again because the fluid in her ears was having a significant impact on her hearing.

Let's see, what things is Ella doing these days?
- She's crawling all over the place and pulling up on everything she can find. She prefers to be standing if at all possible. She lets go and stands by herself for a second at a time, but is still fairly unsteady without support. She'll walk all over the place if someone is holding her hands. She'll be running before we know it. Part of me is pretty excited about that because it means she can chase her brother wherever she wants without my help. :)
- She's jabbering a lot. Her favorite sound/word is "Dat" but she also says "buh-buh-buh-buh" and "uh-oh". Her "uh-oh" is so cute because she says it so sweet and quite. You have to hear it!
- She's eating a lot of table foods now. She's pretty much switched over to the regular meals at school instead of the baby foods. She's gotten to where she really is not interested in baby food anymore. She prefers things she can eat on her own. Her favorites seem to be bread, avocados, peas, carrots, grean beans, bananas and Ella snacks (aka Fruit puffs). Just another month and a half and she'll be all table foods and drinking regular milk! Woo hoo! :)

I'm sure there's more on Ella, but I'll have to think about it and post it when it comes to me. :)

Now for Owen! He's getting so big and has become quite the conversationist. It's so amazing that someone who has only been on this earth for a couple of years can carry on a coherent conversation and understand complex concepts. It's is just crazy! The other day, we were getting in the car and he reached out and touched the car and we told him "Don't touch the car. It's really dirty. Yuck!" And he replied "Dadda's car is dirty? Both cars are dirty? Owee don't touch. Get grease on my hands." It's so cute and so funny to see how he remembers EVERYTHING that we've ever told him. He cracks us up. He also makes these hilarious expressions when he talks which just adds to the humor of it all. We really need to get some good videos of it so we can share it cuz it's great. :)

We've had a little bit of problems with his right ear too. His tube is coming out of that ear and he's had a bit of a bout with an infection in it, but the ENT said that it's not uncommon for an infection to occur as the tube is coming out. So we'll keep an eye on it and if it keeps coming back, we'll probably have to get a new tube put in. Hopefully not! I am hoping to stay out of the surgery center for a while. :)

Owen has been doing so many things lately, I know I can't think of them all right now, but I'll try to recall a few:
- He's started asking a lot of questions. His favorite one right now is "What happened?" He says that ALL the time. If someone coughs, makes a loud noise, says "dangit" or something, etc, he immediately turns to them and says "What happened?" It's really really cute and it's fun to teach him things. He also has started asking me "Where we goin momma?" when we're in the car.
- He LOVEs swinging on his swingset in the back yard
- He loves swimming at the neighborhood swimming pool (though we haven't been in several weeks now :( )
- He has learned about strawberry milk and that's all he wants to drink lately... Thanks Grami!
- He and Ella give each other hugs and kisses when we get to school before I take them to their respective classrooms. And Owen always gives Ella a "five". She hasn't quite caught on to that yet, so I kinda have to do it for her. :)
- He can count to 10 quite easily
- He sings his ABCs nearly perfectly start-to-finish
- He sings "Old MacDonald had a parm" and "tinkle ittle star" :)
- He also just started singing "The wheels on the bus go round and round"
- He does some routines from school a lot. He's been walking around this week saying "Open, shut them. Open, shut them. Give a ittle cwap. Open, shut them. Open, shut them. Put them in your wap." :) And I've heard him (once or twice) sing their little prayer that they do before meals at school "God our father (God our father) We thank you (we thank you) for our many blessings (for our many blessings) A-a-men (A-a-men)".

It's like a light has gone on in his little brain and the learning has just multiplied in the last couple of weeks. It's so much fun and we just can't wait to see what all he learns next! :)

Well I must get to bed, but I'll try to write more as I remember more significant things. :)

Updates! updates!

I know I'm slow, but here are some more updates as I promised! :)

First of all, Ella has started standing up in her bed! I'm sure she's done it before, but last night was the first time I've witnessed it. She was in there jabbering away having a good time so I peeked in on her and she was standing up talking to herself. I'm surprised it's taken her this long considering she pulls up on everythign else in sight. She doesn't sit down much now because if there's anything within reach that she can pull up on, she does. Sometimes she forgets that she doesn't know how to walk and she lets go and plops down. She'll figure it out before we know it though and then she'll really be off! :)

She has almost finished making her top front teeth! They have been trying to cut through the gums all week. It's been tough for her a few days, but for the most part she's done pretty well with it. We're gonna miss her cute little scraggly toothed smile when her front teeth come in! :) I think she's also starting to cut her bottom side teeth, but they aren't up to the gums yet. Wont be long and she'll have a mouth full of teeth!

Unfortunately, today we gotta take her to the doctor because her left eye seems to be infected. When I picked her up from school yesterday, it was all puffy and red and oozing goop. I had some leftover eye drops from one of Owen's eye infections, so I started using them last night and it's getting better, but I'm out of drops, so we're gonna go to the doctor at lunch and have it checked out. It doesnt seem to be bothering her too terribly much.

Here's some of the old things that I promised to blog about a while back. :)

Ella's jabbering- she talks all the time now. She says "da da da da" and "bubba bubba". Those are her main "words" that we make out. The rest is just baby noises so far. :)

Owen's latest talking advances :)- He has really started filling in his vocabulary. He pretty much repeats everything we say and can say almost every word we can now pretty clearly. He understands so much it amazes me. The other day in the car, it was hot and I had started the A/C but it wasnt very cold yet and he goes "Need some air!". It was so cute! I can't think of all the cute things he's done like that lately, but it's all the time. It's so much fun being able to have conversations with him. When we're laying down at night to go to bed we always talk about his day and what he wants to do the next day and he's always so cute.

Ella's eating real food! woo hoo!- She's even gotten to where she doesnt want much jarred baby food. She eats peas and cut up carrots and green beans. She's also had some other things like biscuits with jelly and other things that are soft enough for her to chew pretty easily. She mostly loves things she can eat on her own. She doesnt seem to like being fed as much as Owen always has. He'll still let someone feed him if they are willing! She's quite the opposite. She wants to do it all on her own.

Owen's the boss- Owen is the typical big brother who is Mr. Boss. He gets on to Ella about all kinds of funny things and watches out for her. If she is goign for a piece of paper, he'll say "Eh-uh, no eat paper!". The other day she was trying to pull up on his little rocking chair and he goes "Eh-uh, not a good idea." It was hilarious. Matt and I both looked over to find out what she was doing that was "not a good idea". For the most part, he's usually right about what he's getting on to her about, so that's good at least. The only thing he's overly enthusiastic about is when she's trying to play WITH him with something. He doesnt like for her to touch his stuff or him and he gets pretty emphatic about telling her to leave him alone. What's funny is that she seems to purposefully agitate him. Iwouldnt have expected a 9 month old to know how to do that, but she definitely does. :) It's cute now, but hopefully it wont get too out of control as they grow up!

That's all I've got right now, but I'll try to update more often!!

More Owen Dancing

Owen was doing some of his silly dancing one morning, so I decided to record some of it.

He has long had a strange ability to identify Bibles, which is why I decided to ask him about the one in the video. One day several months ago, he started talking to me about a Bible in a carrying case. Since then he has correctly identified a myriad of Bibles of various shapes and sizes, with only one or two false positives that I know of. Don't ask me how.

Ella's in school

It's somewhat bitter-sweet, but Ella started school this week! It's nice to have a consistent place to take her every day so I can go to work, but I just hate being away from her all day every day. She's still not taking a bottle or drinking milk much at all, so it's really tough, but I guess we would have to do it eventually. :) What's great about it is that she loves going to school! When I drop her off, she jumps out of my arms (almost literally!) and wants to go play on the floor with the other kids. She also gives her teachers big huge smiles when she gets there. And that's just the first week so hopefully it'll just keep getting better. They said she's being a little stubborn about sleeping, but they get her to sleep either in the swing or by rocking her. I'm happy that she's got some other kids her size to play with too. She's much more interactive with kids than Owen ever was (or is for that matter...). Yesterday when I dropped her off, she crawled right up to this little boy who was about her size and just stared at him for several minutes. It was really cute. I love seeing my kids playing with other kids. I dont get to see it much, so it's fascinating to me. :)

Ella's having her first full day without me today too! I've got volleyball practice for the Richardson Corporate Challenge tournament that HP participates in every year. I wont be home until about 10, so it'll be a long day for Ella without me! (and me without her!!!) I hope they get her to drink some milk! :

Just in case I forget... Here are some upcoming post topics:
- Ella's jabbering
- Owen's latest talking advances :)
- Ella's eating real food! woo hoo!
- Owen's the boss
- Whatever other adventures we encounter before I get to post again :)

What a doll! :)

Normalcy??

Can it be? Is this what life is like in most households? After last night, I'm beginning to see how most families are able to maintain some level of sanity and keep their houses in some sort of order. Let me begin with some background. :)

Our house is full of chaos... we are TERRIBLE at being scheduled and orderly! On a normal day, Ella wakes me up about about 6:30 or 7:00 am and we start our morning. Some days I take a little morning nap (unless it's an office day, in which case I gotta hit the ground running.) I go wake Owen up after Ella eats and get him some breakfast and clothes and we take him to school. Many days, he arrives after 10! We're working on that.... Then I either go to the office while Ella stays with my mom (at least 2 days a week) or work at home. Then we pick brother up from school in the evening between 5:30 and 6:30 and then the fun begins. I scramble to find something for Owen to eat, usually nothing terribly healthy since i'm scrambling, and while he's eating, I feed Ella a little something. Then I try to find something for me and Dadda to eat. If I'm having a good day, we all eat together.. but that doesnt happen very often. Then I kinda half-way pick up the kitchen and throw everything in the sink (if I get that far) and get the kids a bath, let them play for a few minutes and then nurse Ella and put her in bed. Most nights she does pretty good about going to bed between 8 and 9. She's our good sleeper. :) Owen, on the other hand, frequently stays up until 10, 11, 12.... sometimes even later! So I spend a good part of the evening and night keeping him out of stuff, fighting with him (he's very onery when he's tired) and laying in bed with him for the last 30 mins or hour coaxing him to sleep. It's so exhausting! Most nights I end up falling sleep before him so I dont get to finish cleaning the kitchen or pick up the house or anything... Everything just gets left in chaos until the next day which repeats. By Saturday things are such a mess, I spend most of the day cleaning up (assuming we dont have family events or the like). Needless to say, the average week is pretty tiring for me... but... there is hope!

Last night was AWESOME, despite an aweful drive home from work (I left my mom's at 4:45 after picking Ella up and I got to Owen's school at 6:25! Talk about a LONG 25-30 mile drive!!) and Dadda being quarantined in our room because he's sick. We finally got home later than anticipated but thankfully had some frozen meals I had purchased for lunches... at least there was food! Owen didnt' eat much, but I haven't been pushing that with him lately and have just been letting him eat as much or little as he wants and not allowing him to have treats and snacks. Hopefully it'll teach him some good lessons on eating dinner in order to get rewarded with desert or snacks. Anyways, so we ate dinner and then I gave the kids a bath and then a miracle happened! I let the kids play for a little bit in the living room and then decided to just let Owen watch his Choo-choo movie with his pillow in the living room (we couldnt lay down on mama's bed which he usually does because Dadda was in there). I just laid Ella in her bed and gave her her little blanket and she grunted for a minute and then went right to sleep! Then I went back to the living room and Owen was still laying in the living room watching his movie. I laid with him for a minute, but then got up and started cleaning up the kitchen and doing some laundry. Within half an hour he was asleep! It was 9:30 and both of my children were sleeping!!! I was able to do a couple loads of laundry, clean my kitchen, get stuff ready for tonight's dinner and pick up all the toys in the living room before I went to bed. Then I picked Owen up and we went and slept in his bed in his room! He slept all night and we all woke up at about 6:30 this morning happy and well-rested! I was so happy and relaxed! It was wonderful! I so hope that I can be disciplined enough to keep the kids on a schedule like this going forward. Someone always gets sick when I say that, but I just gotta stick with it anyways! It's so much better for me, the kids, Dadda, everyone and it makes me a much more positive person to be around. Thank you for answered prayers! (even if for just 1 night so far...) :)

Owen's playset

He's 2!!

Well... he's 2 and a month.. but close enough. :) I cannot believe my baby boy is already 2! Even weirder is that his baby sister is 8 months old! But back to Owen, I wanted to post about his birthday party since I never did that.

We decided to do a "smaller" party this year with just our immediate families and a couple of close friends (i.e. The Otey's). We went out to Aunt Josie's house and ate some of Aunt Bee's, Nana's and Papaw's goulash along with some beans (Matt's family calls them red beans... I call them pinto beans). We also had some yummy fruit salad, corn bread and other stuff, but you probably dont care about all the details. :) The theme of the party was Cars (the movie). I let Owen pick out his own theme and that's what he picked out the options at Wal-Mart. He almost went with Shrek, but settled on Cars instead. :)

His birthday cake was just a plain one because, of course, Kroger didnt have anymore of the Cars decorations and I waited to long to do it anywhere else. But it turned out fine. We bought some little toy cars and put them on top and he didnt know the difference! :) He got to blow out his candles and eat some cake and ice cream which he LOVED!

He also got lots of fun gifts. He was supposed to just get a playset (which he got!) but he also got lots of other gifts too. Thank you to everyone for being so sweet! I will post some photos of his playset next so you can see what he really got for his birthday. He LOVES it and when it's not raining, we try to play on it as much as possible. His thing lately is to just go up and down the ladder and swing. The boy loves to swing. I love it too, because I know it'll last a long time and will provide years and years of fun for him and Ella and whoever else joins our family down the road! :) (And the neighbor kids as well... They said it's the most awesome playhouse they've ever seen.) So thank you everyone for contributing to it and thank you Costco for having an affordable quality product available for us! :)

Well, I think that sums up the 2nd birthday details. If I forgot anything, I'll post them when I remember. :)

And... she's off!

Well, she's figured it out! She's up on all fours and on her way. I'll post some photos of our mobile baby girl as soon as I get access to some good ones. She's also got a new tooth.. this is number 4 and it's top right side tooth (next to the front teeth i think). It almost looks like her latest 2 teeth are her incisors, but i think they are just her front side teeth... Guess we'll find out once they are in further and we can see how much space is left in there. :) I think it's funny that she's cutting random teeth instead of following the usual order... I'm thinking it's just part of who she is! She's independent and is just gonna do her own little thing. :) I love it!

Pretty in pink!

It's raining... it's pouring!

Okay, I like the rain and even more I hate the hot drought, but this is just getting crazy around here! It has rained almost every day for the last 3 months and they say it's gonna keep on coming. All of the lakes are way above normal and lots of towns have gotten really flooded in the area. They are supposedly closing the bridge we have to cross to get to Owen's school due to the fact that the lake is about to engulf it. Not more than a few weeks ago, boats had plenty of room to drive under the bridge and now the lake has met the bridge! It's weird to see so much water accumulate so fast. The bad news is that they are anticipating rain for at least the next 3-4 days. We'll see how it goes! Hopefully at some point, it'll dry up enough for Owen to spend more than a few minutes in the backyard without it raining on us.

More teeth for baby girl!

Ella has decided to do things a little different from most babies in the world... Yesterday she cut her third tooth and the fourth is about to cut through. Rather than cut the top front teeth which would normally be next in line after the bottom front teeth, she's decided to cut the top front side teeth (i.e. the ones next to the front teeth). So now when she smiles, she'll have four teeth across the front where the outside ones will be on top and the middle ones on the bottom. :) Hopefully the front ones will cut through soon, though I dont see any signs of them just yet. I'll post some pictures next so you can see her bit bottom pearly whites.

The sad news this week is that she got her first ear infection. :( She caught a little virus and has had a bit of a stuffy nose and eventually got an ear infection. She's been on amoxicillin for 3 days and seems to be getting better, so thank goodness for that. Hopefully this isn't the start of a trend and will be a rare occurence with her!

Other things going on with her are that she's sitting up all by herself now and is SOOOOO close to crawling! She gets up on her hands an knees and moves a few steps before face-planting on the floor and repeating. :) Sometimes she just gives up and puts her face down and scoots around with her face on the floor pushing herself around with her feet. It's kinda hard to explain, but if I can get a video of it, I'll post it. :)

Updates at last!

Okay - I finally have some time off to relax, clean house and catch up on my blogging! I've been running running running at work on a big project that we finished last week, so I've had a hard time making time for things like this. I posted a few quick things, but so much has been going on! :) I'm gonna do separate posts so I can flag them for lookup later, so dont be confused by several posts on the same day.

Let's start with some family business. Uncle Kyle is starting to recover at last! I think it was 3 weeks ago when I talked to Aunt DeAnn (his wife) and she said he was starting to get better. He was more-or-less completely paralyzed for about 7 weeks I think. He wasn't able to use any of his peripheral nervous system at all... meaning he couldnt use any of his limbs, move any muscles in his face, chew, swallow, breathe, etc, etc, etc. He was on a respirator for the better part of those 7 weeks and has been on a feeding tube for several weeks now too. He's still got that but he's off of the respirator now. As of last week when I last heard updates, he was able to open his eyes and use his hands enough to write a few things on a white board? But I'm not sure of the extent of that. I'm quite certain it's still very limited. He's out of the hospital now and at some sort of in-patient rehab place. The good news is that he's starting to regain the use of some of his muscles. The bad news is that 1) his recovery is going very very slowly at this point - little to no progress in the last 3 weeks that I've heard of and 2) his muscles have atrophied so much that it's going to be a very long and very painful road to recovery that will include a significant amount of physical therapy and who knows what else. We're a little concerned about the length of time he's had the feeding tube too since I've heard it can cause problems if it's in too long. Hopefully he'll get to take that out soon and be able to eat on his own. I'll post more updates when we learn something new. His wife is spending all day every day by his side. Please keep praying for him and his family.

The lake with Grami & Kenbob

We had our 2nd annual Cook family reunion last weekend (June 9-11) in Oklahoma at Sequoyah State Park on Ft. Gibson Lake. It was a new experience for us. :) The first part of the new-ness was just being out for an extended period of time with 2 kids! Boy was that exhausting, but I had fun. The other different part of this "vacation" was the fact that it was just like summer camp! We had a "group camp" reserved which we filled up. Everyone stayed in little A-frame cabins and there was a nice lodge with cooking & eating facilities and then a little ways off there was a covered picnic area and down the way was lake access. We also had common bathrooms & showers for the whole camp. It reminded me of being at camp as a kid, except this time I helped cook and clean. :)

Owen had a BLAST. He ran right down to the water and waded around in it. The water was a little high so it wasnt the best swimming area, but he didnt care. He just liked to walk around in it, throw rocks in, hit the water with a stick to splash everyone and eventually started using his hands to splash around. He had so much fun. We tried to go swimming at a nearby swimming area, but Owen got scared once he couldnt touch the bottom and lost interest after that. We need to do swimming lessons or at least get him in the water more often! I'll try to remember to post a video or some pictures of it tomorrow.

This was my Grandma Cook's (and lots of other family members) first time to meet Ella. She also hadn't seen Owen in nearly a year, so it was great to let the kids meet her and I was also so happy to see her. I wish I had more opportunities! Pretty much everyone showed up, so we had a big crowd. I think we have something like 65 family members (that's just counting my grandma's kids and their families......) and several people brought along some friends.

We were pretty hesitant and worried about the drive up there (~4.5 hours) because Ella really hates being in the car, especially when she's a little tired, but not exhausted enough to fall right to sleep. Therefore, we decided to drive at night so they'd both sleep through it all. That worked out pretty well for us. We drove to Muskogee and spent the night there Friday night and woke up Saturday, got some breakfast and then headed to the lake which was about 30 minutes away. Then on Monday night, we packed up and left camp to head home. Ella decided to wake up when I put her in her carseat that time and made us stop a few times before we got going too far. She'd scream and scream until I took her out of the carseat. Then she's smile and play in my lap for a while, so I'd feed her in hopes she'd go back to sleep... but she didnt, put her back in her carseat and head out again. After 3 stops, she finally gave up and went to sleep. Thank goodness... otherwise, we would've had to stop somewhere for the night.

Overall, I think the reunion was a big success and it was so great to see everyone. The crazy part is how fast my cousins' kids grow up! When you only see them once or twice a year, they just sprout up like weeds! :)

We're still here!

Sorry it's been an eternity since I posted on here. Work has been a little bit busy lately, so I haven't taken the time to keep up on here. Boy do we have a lot to post about!! That's the bad time about taking time off from blogging... you forget what you needed to blog about! I'm gonna start with the latest stuff and try to work my way back to the old stuff I've forgotten. :)

For starters, I was awakened yesterday morning at about 4:30 to "Owee pee pee potty. Owee pee pee potty. Owee pee pee potty...." So I got him up, took him to the potty where he pee peed and then took him back to bed and he went right back to sleep!! I couldnt believe it! His teachers at school are starting to help with the potty training too, but they said that Wednesday he just stared at the potty like it was something strange... He says he went yesterday, but I haven't gotten to confirm that with his teachers yet. :) He's up to about 4-5 times in the potty when he's home all day and he's poo-ed in the potty 2-3 times on his own. Very exciting! :)

So I post this before it's week out of date, I'll post more updates tonight or tomorrow.

Owen's new words of the week... Well, he's saying almost anything he wants and repeats a lot of what we say, but there are a few things that are particularly cute. :)

"Canny" - formerly "nini" (candy)

"Mama Tina" - I think his dadda taught him that one

"Unc Matt" - my brother

"Dadda Unc Matt" - He says this because we told him Dadda's name is Matt.... I think perhaps he's a little confused about all that. :)

"Tanny" - Nancy (Unc Matt's girlfriend)

"Ake" - Lake (where we went for a family reunion last weekend - more on that to come)

"bi-see-cool" - bicycle

"Nana's big uh-oh" - Nana's knee injury (I think I still need to blog about that)

"NO! Eh-uh!" - He's become his sister's boss... oh boy!

"chock milk" - chocolate milk

"draw" - he likes to draw with his dadda's pens and pencils in the office

"keee nex" - Kleenex

"nack neen" - napkin

"pate" - plate

"see-yo bar" - cereal bar

"caw cotch" - washcloth

There's many many more, but I think those are the top ones. I still need to blog about Owen's birthday, his swing set, his new class at school, Ella's hair, trying to crawl, and many other things. More to come! I promise!

Success!

Well, Owen has successfully pee-peed in the potty the last 2 mornings! It's very exciting! I've taken him in the first thing when I wake him up and he did it both times! He's also very excited about it and hopefully it'll encourage him to continue to potty train himself. :)

I also noticed that Ella is cutting her other bottom tooth today (the bottom left one)! It's still under the gum, but I can see it and feel it there now so it'll be here any day.

Ella's Tooth

(Click to see full sized picture)

Potty Training??

I'm not sure if I'm really ready for this yet or not... but it seems as though Owen is, so I don't guess I have a choice. :) Owen has decided that he likes sitting on the potty. He hasn't actually done anything in it yet, but he loves sitting on it. He tells me all the time "Owee pee-pee in the potty" so I'll take him in there and let him sit on it for a while. He likes to get little bits of toilet paper and put them in his potty while he's sitting on it. We try to make him wait until he goes pee pee to get the toilet paper, but I usually give him a square or 2 to keep him happy. :) Half of me is so excited about the prospect of having a kiddo out of diapers, but the other half of me is not quite ready to commit to the whole potty training business just yet. So far, it's all his idea and I'm gonna keep it that way for a while. If he does it on his own, good for him, but I'm not gonna push the issue for a long time. He's still my little baby! He can't grow up too fast! :)

Uncle Kyle

I thought I'd post a little family news and ask for some prayers for Matt's uncle Kyle. He was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome a week and a half ago. I had never heard of this rare disorder until last week but it's a very sudden and serious disorder. You can read more about it here: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/gbs/gbs.htm. From what we understand, he experienced some tingling in his hands 2 weeks ago today (on a Sunday night) but didnt worry too much about it and went on to work Monday morning. He ended up coming home early from work because he wasnt feeling well. When Aunt DeAnn got home from work, he was on the couch and as she was talking to him, she realized that one of his eyes was almost closed and he didnt realize it, so she told him to get up because they were going to the ER. At first, they thought he might have had a stroke, but he continued to get worse and by Thursday morning, he was completely paralyzed and on a respirator. From what we've been told, they've tried to take him off the respirator twice without success so he's still on it now. Most people recover well from this disorder, but it's a long difficult road, so please pray for him, his family and our extended family.

She's got a tooth!

Oh my! I just can't believe she's big enough for teeth! She cut her first tooth on Thursday (May 17th). It's her bottom right one and it's already getting big. It wont be long and she'll have a pearly white smile. My baby's growing up! She's been a bit of a stinker for me lately. She only wants me 99% of the time and still wont take a bottle. We had a couple of experimental days this week where I didnt nurse her during the middle part of the day and we managed to get her to take a few ounces of milk out of a sippy cup. We just had to mix in some bananas first. :) If it gets her to drink it, I'm more than happy to put some bananas in her milk! We gotta keep trying and hopefully it'll get easier and require less coaxing. I look forward to a little more freedom. We're having a lake day for work in a couple of weeks, so she's gonna spend the day away from me then and also the following week when I go out for the day with Janis and Stephanie from work. I'm kinda nervous about it and I know I'll be worried sick about her all day both days, but she'll survive! I think she'll spend at least one of those days with Grami (who will be finished with school!!!) so it should be a fun adventure for both of them! ;)

Big Boy!

Owen is growing up so fast, it's just crazy! He's already going to be 2 in just a week! He does the funniest things and he's such a little boy. He's not our little baby anymore at all! His vocabulary has just exploded lately. He can repeat almost anything we say and is saying a lot more on his own. I have a list of our favorite things he says at the end of this blog. He also knows a lot of signs that we are starting to figure out more and more. The one he does all the time is "open" which he does while he's saying "ope me, ope me". It's hard to explain the sign, but it kinda looks like he's immitating a chicken. :) We'll try to catch it on video and post it for all to see. :) Another one he's been doing is bicycle. He has some flashcards that we play with and one has a picture of a bicycle wheel on it and he says "beep beep" and does the sign for bike. It's so cute. I know there's more to post about him, but I want to get this posted before I get sidetracked again! :)

Here are our new favorite phrases:
"hap birday to you" :) You have to hear this one!
"cock dooo dooo" - cocka-doodle-doo
"back ard" - back yard
"card" - he has a card game on his computer and has a deck of cards he likes to play with
"big door"
"big bump"
"big truck"
"cereo" - cereal (which he eats with milk & a spoon all by himself now!)
"hurt"
"oh no!" - he says this SO cute and exaggerated :)

Rolly Polly Ella

She's figured out how to roll all the way over so she goes here and there and everywhere. She gets mad sometimes because she really wants to crawl but hasn't figured out how to get up on her hands and knees just yet. It's only a matter of time. She manages to scoot herself on her tummy pretty good. And if that doesnt work, she just rolls to where she wants to go. :)

Speaking of her rolls... She's tried a few more foods. She's still not gung-ho about eating like Owen always was, but she's willing to eat and manages to get most of it down. It's just hard to tell when she's done because she has no clear indication as to whether she ever wants more or not... I just feed her until I'm bored or the food is gone. :) (only kidding...) This last week she's had a jar of carrots and a little bit of sweet potatoes. She also had some of my cranberry-grape juice and seemed to like it. I dropped it into her mouth with a straw which worked quite well. Maybe that's the answer to giving her milk since she still refuses the bottle... and cups....

She's started doing this funny thing with her mouth.. I call it gritting her gums. If she had teeth, she'd be gritting her teeth... but since there are none of those... you see what I mean. :) It's so cute. I think she must be tryin to cut a tooth or something because she does it a lot. The pressure must feel good or something. It's hilarious. If I can manage to catch a picture of her doing it, I will post it.

Hmmm... There is more to blog about her, but I can't think of what off the top of my head right now. Matt's got a list, so I'll update if we think of anything else. :)

Owen demonstrating his computer using abilities

First foods, Arboretum, ears, etc

Well, I'm a little behind so I have a little catching up to do! :)

First of all, we've started giving Ella cereal at dinner time. She seems to like it most of the time. Last night she wasn't terribly interested, but she's done pretty good the last few days. The first day we tried was Sunday, March 11th. She mostly just pushed it out of her mouth so we waited a week and tried again the next Sunday. She did about the same that day, so we waited another week. That day she started to be more interested and started actually eating it instead of spitting it out. Since then she's had it 4-5 times and done pretty good each time. I also gave her some apple sauce last Thursday (March 29) and she loved it. She got mad at me when it was gone, but I didnt want to give her too much the first time we tried it. We'll do that one again. :) I think we'll start introducing her to some vegies in the next couple of weeks. I'll start giving her cereal for breakfast next week probably so she'll be getting 2 solid meals a day. She's been nursing after her cereal, but I think that'll probably slow down as she starts eating more. I still can't believe she's old enough to eat food! It will be a nice break from nursing once she starts having more real meals. :)

On Sunday, we took the kids to the Dallas Arboretum so Aunt Bee could snap some pictures. It turned into a crazy day, but we made it there and had a picnic and then strolled around a little and took a few photos. Aunt Bee got them developed and said some of them turned out pretty good. We haven't seen them yet, but I believe her. :) I'll try to post a few of the pictures Matt took. Ella looked so cute in her little green shirt and matching hat. :)

Owen's been doing pretty good at school. There are a couple of kids that bite in his class now, so he gets bitten a couple times a week, which I hate, but hopefully when he moves to the 2-year-old class in a couple of months, that will get better. We are going back to the ENT tomorrow to follow up on his ears. We were supposed to go next week, but last Friday, we noticed that his ear had been draining a little bit and the fluid had blood in it, so we're kinda concerned about that. I called this morning and they got us in tomorrow to have him checked out. I hope everything is okay with him. It's been nice to stay out of the doctor's office for 4 weeks! I think that's a new record for us. :)

Here are some of Owen's new words and phrases:
"Dadda juice" (aka V8 - he loves it!)
"in there" (you really have to hear this one - it's the cutest thing he says)
"more" (he used to say "mo" - now he says "more")

Rolling and grabbing

Ella has become so interactive! She's started grabbing at everything and has really learned how to use her hands. One of her favorite things besides eating her hands is playing with her feet. She's always got to keep her hands busy doing something. It's so cute. On Wednesday, she rolled over from her back onto her tummy for the first time. She's been really really close for a couple of weeks, but she got mad and threw herself over finally. :) She's gonna be mobile before I know it! Scary scary....

Owen's vocabulary is growing exponentially. He even had a little conversation on the phone with Papa Kenbob and Grami yesterday. It was the first time he's said more than "bye bye" on the phone. It was very cute. Here are some new frequently used words:
"strawby" (strawberry)
"caw cotch" (washcloth)
"ewie shewie"
"bah-er" (water - he's added a little to his previous pronunciation)
"car"
"big chuck" (big truck)

I know I missed some good ones, but I'll add them if I think of them.

Pictures at last!

Ella is starting to enjoy her exersaucer.

Bathtime is so much fun!

Our little scholar.

Won't he make a handsome surgeon? :)

Hallelujah!

It's been a week and a half since Owen's surgery and a week since he started back at school, and while I should probably wait a little longer before celebrating, he's been doing great! His eyes have been as clear as can be, he's had so much energy and has been so silly and playful (and is also becoming much more defiant and onery). It's wonderful to see him feeling good again. Unfortunately, he's started using the word no this week. Usually when we ask him a question, he pretty much always says "uh-huh", but this week, he's been saying "huh-uh" and "no" at the appropriate times (usually appropriate). I'm just waiting for him to start saying no to everything. He's also becoming increasingly independent and stinkerish. We're pretty sure it's just the onset of the "terrible twos". Oh boy! :) He's also been saying some pretty funny stuff the last couple of weeks. He's gotten to where he tries to repeat pretty much everything we say, although it requires a tuned ear to understand much of anything still. :) Here are some of his words of the week:

"baa stro" (he says enthusiastically as he pushes his hands forward) (english: fast stroller)
"Owee eat"
"Owee tee" (english: Owen's teeth - meaning he wants to brush his teeth)
"Nina" (We think this is what he's calling Grami - perhaps a nickname change is in order)
"Bah" (english: water)
"Pizza" (english: pizza, spaghetti, ketchup or salsa - context is required here) :)
"hot saw" (english: hot sauce)
"Debi" (his old babysitter who we got to visit last week)
"puh" (english: puzzle)
"nee nee" (english: candy - he's been saying this for a while, but i keep forgetting to post it)

Bedtime is still a bit of an issue both for naps and nighttime, but we're finally able to work on that now that he's feeling better. He still wakes up a lot at night which concerns us, but we'll address that with the pediatrician or ENT next time we're there. For now, he's taking good naps at school and Grami worked her magic on Saturday to get him to take a nap. We've been getting him to sleep around 11 or 12 at night (after starting the effort around 9:30-10) but we're working on that too by waking him up earlier and shutting the house down around 9:30 at night to calm every one down. If you have any advice, it's greatly appreciated!

General update

I haven't posted a general update on the kids in a while, so I thought I'd do that now. :) (besides, brother has kinda taken center stage lately and sister needs some attention!)

Ella is growing up so fast! She will be 4 months old on Saturday. Can you believe that?? We go in for her well visit next week, so I'll post details about her weight and height, etc then. This week she has decided that she wants to be mobile. She's started trying to roll over and she's SO close! She can get all the way onto her side, but can't quite kick over onto her tummy yet. I'm sure it'll be any day now though. She also has figured out how to move around in circles. I laid her in her bed yesterday for a nap and when she woke up, she was laying perpendicular to the way she started. It's so fun to see her doing new things. She is such a happy baby. Owen was a content baby, but I dont remember him smiling as much as Ella. She just smiles at people and laughs. I love it! She also talks a lot. She's started this new thing lately where she grunts. It's cute - kinda like her own language. :) I'll post some new pictures of her later today so you can see how much she's grown! She played in her exersaucer last week and liked it for the first time, so perhaps I'll post one of those pictures.

You've gotten the latest news on Owen already, but he's been saying and doing some new things lately (besides being sick), so I thought I'd post those here. He's started trying to repeat a lot of what we say now. Below is the list of things I can think of right now. I'll add more if I think of any others today. The big thing with him right now is "Do it me!" It's out of control! The child wants to do EVERYTHING. I'm not kidding. He gets mad at me because I wont let him put his ear drops in by himself. Yesterday he got mad because I didnt let him pour his own juice. It's really funny, but sometimes it's irritating because he gets so upset when we don't let him do things. We try to let him do as much as is safe. He gets most things for himself, opens and closes doors (and locks them if they have a lock he can reach), gets his medicine (i.e. sticks the dropper into the bottle - I fill it up - and then he puts it in his mouth), and lots of other silly things. He's getting to be such a big boy. We're trying to channel this newfound independence into some productive behaviors like picking up toys, throwing things away and learning to put his clothes on. So far, he's done pretty well, although the picking up toys things is kinda sporatic. :)

Today is Owen's first day back at school. He did pretty good at drop off (although he was kinda acting like a zombie... hopefully he was just tired) so we'll see how he is when we pick him up. I hope he has a good day. I'm gonna miss him now that I'm used to him being here with me all the time. Hopefully I can get some productive work done today though!

The Dentist

Yesterday Owen had his second appointment with the dentist and he did great! He let them take x-rays of his upper and lower front teeth (which they said look great). Then the let them brush he teeth (quite thoroughly I might add) and then polish them (yes - with the little spinny machine thingy) and then brush flouride on them! He even let the lady use the little water sprayer and suction tool to clean out his mouth after each step. I was so proud of him! Then the dentist came in and peeked around and said everything looks great. Now if I can just get him to let me brush them better at home! :) Needless to say, he got a prize which was a shiny blue ring and 2 stickers (1 from the hygenist and 1 from the dentist). He's such a good boy!

After the dentist, we stopped by Miss Debi's house to visit and introduce sister to her. He was a little quiet around her, but he showed her his new toothbrush and ring and got to play there for a little bit. Then, when it was time to go, she gave him a nice wooden puzzle. She is so sweet! I wish so much we still lived close enough for him to stay with her. Hopefully we can find someone like her to keep sister soon! Thank you Miss Debi! We miss you!

Owen's surgery

Sorry for the long absense from blogging. Things have been a little crazy around here and I've been lagging a little on things I need to do. :)

Yesterday Owen had surgery to have tubes put in his ears and we also ended up having his adenoids removed. This happened a little sooner than we were expecting. As my last post said, Owen got yet another ear infection, but this time it would not respond to the antibiotics prescribed (Omnicef - didnt work last time we tried either) and also did not respond to the rocephen shots he got a few days later. Therefore, he ended up having that ear infection for at least 10 days and the pediatrician was very concerned so she called up the ENT we were scheduled to see on Friday (Dr. Murray @ ENT for Children) and got us squeezed in with his partner, Dr. Paul Bauer, on Thursday. He too was concerned and decided it would be best to get the surgery done ASAP so he scheduled us for first thing Friday morning. He spent lots of time with us on Thursday explaining what was going on, answering lots of questions and really making sure we understood what could be causing Owen's various problems (nasal congestion, eye infections, ear infections, etc, etc, etc). After a long discussion, he decided it would make sense to go ahead and look at his adenoids while Owen was getting his tubes and was under anesthesia, and if they were too big, go ahead and take them out at the same time. It turns out they were HUGE and blocking a very large percentage of his nasal airway, so we chose to have them removed. We are very hopeful that these 2 little procedures will make a dramatic difference in how Owen feels. The poor little guy has been sick almost constantly since September (and was also sick all spring last year) so we are looking forward to him getting some relief.

His surgery was at Texas Pediatric Surgery Center in North Richland Hills. It was nice because all of the people there are pediatric specialists, even the anesthesiologist, so that made us a lot more comfortable. We had to be there at 6am, so we didnt get much sleep, but we made it there right on time! (Yes - we really did...) He was the first surgery scheduled for the day, so we were only there for a few minutes before they took us back. When they first took us back, they gave him some nose drops that made him kinda drunk. It was pretty funny how goofy he was acting. Then they took him back to the operating room and put him to sleep with some gas. Putting the tubes in took about 5 minutes and then the doctor came out to show us the picture of his adenoids. Then he went back and took about another 10-15 minutes to remove the adenoids and then we got to go meet up with Owen in the recovery area. He got to take a cute little monkey home with him. :)

So far his recovery has been phenomenal! Immediately after he woke up from the anesthesia he was fighting mad for a good 20 minutes or so, but after they took out his IV, he calmed down a little and eventually calmed down enough that he was ready to go home about 45 minutes after his surgery. In the car on the way home, he was hungry so he ate a banana, and some iced animal crackers, and 3 of Momma's hash brown sticks from Whataburger. He was happy and seemed to be feeling pretty good. They gave him some pain medication before we left the hospital, so perhaps that helped a little. When we got home, he was ready to play so we played for a little while, ate some yogurt and drank some juice. Then he took a bath and when he came out of the bathroom and got a clean diaper on, he laid down for about 30 seconds before he was sound asleep. After we all got a nice long nap, we headed over to Nana's and Poppy's house for a visit with the family and some dinner. Despite the tough morning, Owen had a good day and is feeling good so far today as well.

Well I think those are the details. Hopefully I didnt miss anything too important. We are so thankful that everything went so smoothly and that he's feeling so good. We can't wait to see how well he does from here on out. :)

The sick house

Well that was a fun long weekend! Owen got sick with a stomach virus Thursday night and that started all the fun & games. The poor little guy had the tummy thing until yesterday (Monday), although the good news is that he only threw up that first night, so it could have been worse. I got sick Saturday night, but mine only lasted about 10 hours and then I was pretty much back to normal. Then of course, Dada got it Sunday and was still feeeling pretty icky yesterday. We took Owen to the doctor yesterday because he has also been running a fever since Friday night so I figured he probably had another ear infection. It turns out I was right. He's also got this nasty congestion and wheezy cough and she said he has a sore throat. So, in other words, the poor little guy has got almost everything wrong with him all at once. Since I started doing ear drops and antibiotics he seems to be coming alive a little bit. He's not just laying around all day anymore, which is good to see. He even ate 2 pieces of pizza last night for dinner which is the first substanative food he's eaten in 4 days. I think he's slowly starting to feel better. With all of this going on, we've had to postpone his surgery for his tubes. We've also decided we're gonna go see a pediatric ENT for a second opinion. We're pretty certain he needs tubes but we want to make sure nothing else needs to be done like adnoid or tonsil removal so he doesnt end up needing 2 separate procedures. We'll report back after we see the new guy. He comes with high recommendations from a friend, so hopefully he will pay more attention to us while we're there. The other guy didnt seem to care all that much about what I was telling him about Owen's various issues. He just seemed to be in a hurry to get out of there which irritated me.

I hope your weekend was better than ours! I'm just so very thankful that my sickness only lasted a short bit and we all seem to be on the road to getting better. Keep your fingers crossed that sister makes it through!

Playtime!

Ella is getting so big! In the last week or 2, she's started playing with toys and really interacting with things. We have this little Looney Tunes toy that Owen loved and Ella seems to like too. It's a little swingset that you can position over her bouncy seat and she can play with the toys. She seems to prefer Sylvester just like Owen did. Perhaps it's just the black and white.. who knows. :) She also enjoyed her carseat toys for the first time this week. She pretty much always sleeps in the car, but yesterday she stayed awake for the full trip to brother's school and back and played with her little toys. It's so fun to see her growing up. I can't wait to get to know her more and more! :)

New words & phrases

We are slowly, but surely, starting to understand more of Owen's words. :) I'll try to think of some of the new things he says, but I'm sure I'll forget most of them...

"Oweeeee" (Yes - that's his name)
"Thank you" (he usually includes the persons name too - i.e. nana, dada, mama, tee-choo, etc)
"Do it me"
"Eh-Uh pee-pee poo-poo" (He says this when I'm changing Ella's diaper and he always brings me a clean diaper for her.)
"Cooo" (aka School - he recognizes it when we're driving up to it now and also says bye bye to it when we leave every day)

I'll add more to this list if/when I think of them.

ENT for Owen

Well we finally made it to an ear, nose and throat specialist for Owen. His recommendation is for Owen to get tubes in his ear, so we're going forward with that and his surgery is scheduled for next Tuesday. I'm very anxious, yet timid about this whole thing. The doctor didnt seem very interested in understanding all of Owen's issues as a whole and mostly just focused on his ear infections. He didn't seem to want to address his allergies or eye infections, so we've decided to find a new pediatrician for 2 reasons: we need someone closer to our new home and we want some fresh eyes on Owen's history and a new opinion on what to do with him. So far, we've seen an allergist, an opthamologist and an otolaryngologist (ENT). Our pediatrician and the opthamologist say we need to get his allergies under control to fix some of the other problems like chronic congestion and chronic eye and ear infections. The tubes in his ears should help with the ear infections and should improve his hearing according to the ENT. My next issue is his eyes. I'm very worried about the fact that we have to give him antibiotic drops almost every other week for eye infections. Meanwhile, the allergist just tries to convince me that all of Owen's problems are because he's in day care and she's not convinced he has allergies at all... right... As you can tell, this is all getting very frustrating for me because 1) my son doesnt feel well most of the time (poor little guy), 2) he keeps getting kicked out of daycare and the church nursery and 3) I dont have time to take him to the doctor every other week. I'm hoping everyone is right when they say he might just grow out of all of this.... please soon!! :)

All that said, we've started him back on Zyrtec for the allergies which our pedi recommended, so we'll see how that helps. I'll report back on his ears once that's all done. Please pray for a smooth procedure!

"Do it me"

The time has come. Owen's favorite new phrase is "Do it me!" which means "Let me do it!". He wants to do EVERYTHING on his own. We try to stop him from climbing into his high chair, but there's no stopping him (just waiting for him to bonk his head on the floor or table one day). He gets into his car seat on his own now and buckles the straps. He carries his own bag to school. He likes to feed himself most things (although he still gets upset when he makes a mess - especially if something gets on his hands). He's also decided this week that he likes to hold Ella. He tried to pick her up out of her rocking seat the other day. Luckily I noticed in time. :) I let him hold her sitting in the recliner and he enjoyed that. Sister wasnt so happy about it, but it was really cute. Later on, he said "hold me seee soo" so I let him hold her again. He's been very interested in her this week and it's so much fun to watch him interact with her. He brings her toys (and usually puts them on her face) and covers her up with blankets, etc. It's wonderful. :)

Can you say OCD?

Okay - we joke all the time about Matt's OCD tendencies and Owen definitely inherited some of that (and is taught a bit too). But sometimes I can't help but laugh (and sometimes get irritated) at the extent of Owen's! For instance, lately he has this new thing where if I put a bowl of food in front of him, I have to give the spoon or fork to him clean. If I stick it in the food, he will take it out, shake off all the food and start eating once it's clear of any food. It's craziness. :) At least I've finally figured out why in the world he keeps slinging food across the room when I sit it in front of him. I wish he could just tell me "Mommy, please dont put my fork in the food. I prefer to start with a clean utensil." :)

Mirror Time

Apparently Ella really likes to look at herself in the mirror. I had her strapped onto me with the "Baby Wrap" a little while ago, standing in front of the mirror and she was hilarious. She would stare at herself for a few minutes and then smile and talk a little and then stare some more and then giggle, etc. It was so funny. I now know how to cheer her up when she's fussy! :)

Owen slept (really slept!) ALL night in his room last night! The poor little guy usually wakes up a few times in the night and wants someone to lay down with him or wants to go to our bed, but the first I heard from him was at 7:30 this morning. I hope he's finally starting to get some better sleep. I hate the thought of him not being well rested in the mornings. Hopefully we can keep it up!

Cradle cap & talking

I dont remember if Owen had it very bad or not, but Ella's got some serious cradle cap going on. The top of her head is pretty bald, so it shows a lot. She's still got quite a bit of hair in the back of her head. I wonder if she'll lose it? She's kinda got a halo. I'll have to post a picture cuz it's kinda funny. :) I've also got some other funny new pictures to post. I'll try to get those up soon.

Ella's really starting to talk a lot. When she's on her changing table she's just as smiley and talkative as she can be. It's so cute. Maybe I can catch it on video to share. She's also still sleeping a lot. She's been doing pretty good at night sleeping about 4-5 hours at a time, but during the day she still sleeps a lot too. Maybe she's just a sleeper like me (very unlike her brother.)

Owen has been talking more this week. He's finally starting to try to say more words and is starting to string words together. At church on Sunday, I told him to say bye-bye to his teacher and he said "bye bye eee-choo" and he's into saying "an too" (thank you). Yesterday, instead of saying goodbye to his teachers at school, he told them thank you. :) Usually, he says it many times like "an too an too an too an too an too". He's also said a few other new words. Last night he was trying to say monkey. It was hilarious. The first time he said it perfectly, but after that he started saying "kunkey". All of his grandpas have slightly different names, but he called them all "Pa pa" until this weekend when he decided to start saying "Pop-eeeeeeee" (Poppy). He also tried to say "Cookie Monster" the other day. He got the "cookie" part pretty good, but he still needs to work a little on monster. :) That's all I can think of for now, but I'll add some new ones as they come.

Sleepeating

Ella's 2 month stats

The results are in and Ella is healthy and growing! She weighs 12 lbs 3 oz, is 23 inches long and her head is 15.5 cm. For the record books, she's wearing size 3-6 mo clothing for the most part, although for 2-piece sets, she can still squeeze into some 0-3 mo outfits. I haven't put real shoes on her, so I'm not sure what size she wears, but I assume 6-12 mos are about right. I thought she was a big girl, but I looked back and Owen's 2 month stats and he was a chunk! At this same age, he weighed 14 lbs, 10 oz, was 24 inches long, and his head was 16.25 cm. Wow! I forget how big he was (and still is). :)

She had a little bit of a local reaction to one of her vaccines, but a little Tylenol and a cold rag seemed to fix her right up. We're trying a bottle again today... wish us luck! :)

The battle against sleep

Does anyone understand exactly why kids - even tiny infants - fight sleep so hard? Here I am in the middle of the night feeding Ella "one more time" so she'll hopefully finally give in and go to sleep... so far, so good... but the real test comes when I put her in her bed. Meanwhile, until about 5 minutes ago, I was sitting on the floor rubbing Owen's back hoping he'll finally stay asleep this time. My kids are crazy! I hear stories about kids who go to bed at 7 or 8 and wake up the next morning... that's never been the case for us. Owen is just a late nighter and Ella just isn't on any schedule yet. It's tough since I love sleep so much and am ready to hit the hay around 10:30 every night. :) Guess we'll just have to keep working on it. Owen has been tired since about 9, but has been fighting sleep like the plague. He's also got a bit of a cold, so he's particularly fussy about it all. Hopefully now he's finally out for the night after a breathing treatment, Tylenol, a back rub and a lot of wishing from mom. :) Question now is... should I move him to his bed or leave him on his little couch in the middle of the living room? Hmm... I'll have to think on that one a bit more. :) Nighty night.

A Blueberry Smile

As you can see, Aunt Tammie's homemade blueberry jam was a hit. :) And how cute is that smile? He just started smiling for the camera a couple of weeks ago and it's hilarious as you can see.

Oh what a night

Funny how it always seems to work out like this. Last night Ella decided to sleep great! She slept from 11:30-4:30 and then 5-7:30! It was wonderful! Of course, at the same time, Owen wasnt able to sleep a wink. I dont know if he just didnt feel good or what, but the boy was tossing, turning, sitting up, talking, whining, crying ALL night long. At about midnight (I think) we gave him a half-dose of Tylenol because he was so fussy and acting like something hurt. He finally feel asleep for about an hour, but then woke up and finally at about 4 or so, we gave him so more Tylenol and he did finally sleep the rest of the night until now and this morning he's happy and seems to be feeling good. No fever, so I dont think he has an ear infection, but who knows what's going on. Needless to say, Momma and Dadda are a bit tired this morning... of course, Dadda is still sleeping, but I'll get my nap later. :)

The pink eye feud

Well, we survived 2 weeks at school before having any illnesses, so I can't complain too much, but Owen woke up this morning with a bright red eye... again... This is probably the 10th time he's had pink eye or something like it since September. I have no idea why it's such a problem for him and it's almost always his right eye. Good news is we've already got eye drops, so it's just back to the medication routine. So far he doesnt seem to have a cold or anything, so I can handle pink eye. :) Just gotta disinfect my house again.. guess it's good motivation to sanitize this place. He's also cutting a tooth we think, but that's been going on for a good 2-3 weeks now, so I'm not sure if that's what it is or not. At least he's eating toast this morning, so it can't be hurting him too badly. Last night, dinner was difficult, but I guess he got enough.

Ella is still well... so far. I woke up with a bit of a sore throat today, but hopefully it's nothing. Last time around, I just had a minor cold for 2 days and it was gone...

Grammi and Papa Kenbob are coming to play today before the really stinky weather hits. Right now it's just rainy and cold, but it's supposed to freeze and give us a nice layer of ice later today or tomorrow, so they are getting their visit in while they can.

Have a great weekend!

All smiles :)

2 months and wearing thin...

Can you believe it?! Ella was 2 months old yesterday! Boy is time flying. I start back to work today, though I'll be working at home until I can get the little stinker to take a bottle. So far, she'll have absolutely nothing to do with it, despite the fact that I've tried 3 different bottles with different nipples. Oh well. She'll take it when she's ready. One of the wonderful things about working at HP is that they let me telecommute, so I can get back to work and just keep Ella here at home with me. Once she's taking bottles, I'll go to the office once a week like I did before and telecommute the other 4 days. Although I would love to be able to stay home with my kids, I could not have a better company to work for and am so thankful to HP and Christine (my boss) for being so accomodating to our family. :)

Ella has been such a smiley girl this week. She does most of her smiling while she's laying on her changing table. The other day I got some good pictures. I'll have Matt post one here. Matt even got her to giggle a little a couple of times. It's so much fun to see her interacting with people more and starting to be a lot more alert when she's awake. She just needs to slow down a little on the growing up thing. I need more time to enjoy her as a baby! :)

I know there's nothing odd or weird about it, but boy am I finding it difficult to handle 2 kids. Owen was such an easy baby that even though he was our first, it was a relatively easy adjustment to having him around. Adding Ella to the mix has been such a challenge for me. She's also a very good baby, but she's very demanding (much like her big brother) and requires a lot of attention when she's awake. So far she still sleeps alot, so I'm not sure how I'm gonna handle it when she's awake more of the time. I feel so guilty for being relieved to have Owen back at school. It helps a little to know that he really likes it there and enjoys playing with the other kids, but I want to be able to have them both at home without wanting to pull my hair out after an hour. Even with Owen at school all day long, I get stressed out in the evenings and get very grumpy. At about 9:30-10:30, my body just shuts off and says it's time to go to bed. The problem is that no one else in my house is ready so I have to try to find the energy and patience to play with Owen, feed and hold Ella, feed Dadda if he hasn't eaten yet, clean the kitchen up so nothing is there to rot over night, etc. Owen gets so grumpy in the evenings after school too, so it just tests me severely and I easily loose my patience with him whining and pulling on me. I think he just gets really worn out at school and is tired when he gets home, but even at 10:30, when I know he has to be exhausted, he refuses to go to sleep. I try to lay down with him to help he go to bed, but it never fails that Ella wants to eat or fuss right about the same time. She doesnt calm down very well with Dadda, so I almost always have to get up to tend to her which makes Owen want to get up and it's just a cycle that's driving me crazy! I know all moms struggle with getting things situated when new babies are added to the mix, but I feel like I'm just not wired to handle it well. That depresses me a lot because I've always wanted to be a stay at home mom with lots of kids. Now I'm starting to wonder if maybe I'm still working because that's what's best for me and I'm just not made to be a stay at home mom. For that matter, I'm not sure I could handle any more kids... of course it would be a few years before we'd be ready for another, but I just dont know! I know I dont need to worry about keeping a clean house, but I feel like I'm just keeping my head above water and only getting enough done to get by. I dont have a clean house - in fact, it's a gross pig sty. I can only keep up with laundry enough to have at least 1 pair of clean underwear and the sink is ALWAYS full of dishes with various kinds of food all over them. We only see the living room floor for about 5 minutes at a time because toys are always spread all over and I'm about to kill myself tripping on blocks and toys in the kitchen and hallway. I dont want live like a neat freak, but it would be so nice to keep the sink clean (to avoid any gross smells that might develop) and to keep at least some clothes clean and put away. I could use a lot of prayer in area this right now. I need patience in dealing with my kids and lots of love to show them every day. And I need help finding a way to juggle life. Now that I'm starting back to work, I'm really worried about how I'm going to be able to do everything. Any advice is very welcome, so please share. I know I'm not alone, but I dont see the others who are like me! All my friends seem to have their acts together and at least have tidy homes and some sanity. :)

Well, I needed to get that off my chest as I've been near a breakdown many nights this week. Please pray for me and our family. :) God can do all kinds of neat things if we remember to rely on him.... if only I could remember that more often!

The first week of school

For those thinking I'm slacking off and not doing this as often as I should, I'd like to set the record straight. I tried to post Wednesday and Thursday of last week and the stupid website wasnt working correctly so it wouldnt let me post anything. Then I got aggravated and haven't tried again until now. Hopefully it'll work this time.

Owen has survived his first almost-full week at school (4 days) without any major injuries or illness, so we are very thankful about that. He's done quite well and fell right back into his old schedule. It's been quite nice to get him to bed at closer to normal times again. :) He still fights it every night, but it's getting better. Hopefully after this week, he'll be fully back into the swing of things and we'll be going smoothly when I return to working (from home) this Thursday. Yesterday, Miss Sandi and Colby came over to play so Owen got to stay home from school. We had so much fun. It's nice to them over since we dont get to see them much since moving out here. They also brought us dinner which was yummy - Thank you Sandi! :) Today Owen decided he needed to take his dog that Uncle Jordan got for him to school. I dont usually let him take toys into the school for fear of losing them or other kids messing them up, but he wasnt gonna have it any other way. Wish us the best in getting him back complete and relatively clean. :) I think it's cute how much he loves that dog. He's never really had any attachment to anything before, but he takes the dog with him most places and always has to have him when he goes to bed each night. It's very cute. :)

Ella is still doing great. She starting to go a little bit longer between meals now which is nice and she's sleeping for slightly longer periods at a time. She's still asleep a LOT during the day most days, but hopefully she'll start waking up more soon. She started smiling a couple of weeks ago, but in the last week, she's doing it a lot more. She's got a beautiful little smile! :) I just can't wait until she's awake and alert more so we can see it a lot more often. It's amazing how fast she's growing up. It's like I blink and she's an inch longer and 3 weeks older. I'm excited to see her develop and start doing new things, but not so fast! :) I can't wait until she and Owen are able to start playing together a little bit. It's gonna be so much fun to see how they interact with each other. I have a feeling sister might be the bully in that relationship. :) She seems to have a little more attitude than brother, but you never know! We'll find out soon enough. How exciting!