Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
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...) :)
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...) :)
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. :)
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!
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Monday, July 2, 2007
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. :)
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.
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.
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