Happy Birthday to my lovely husband. He is now 35 and now I am not the only person in the house who is 35. So he loves it this time of year because for 8 days we are not the same age and he loves to rub it in. We celebrated his birthday by giving him his presents and we will be having cake and dinner tomorrow night with the family. We had a friends birthday party to go to today so I could not make him dinner so tomorrow he will get his meal. He requested carbonara and I am making bread and dipping sauce so it should be a nice dinner.
I have been very frustrated, annoyed and sometimes stressed out lately. It seems like since Nathan turned two he has been screaming, yelling and having tantrums more often. For instance, today he cried in the car the entire time home from yoga. I don't even know why he was crying. I think he wanted a breakfast bar of which he already had one before we went to yoga so I was not going to give him another one. And then he cried again later in the morning over something I do not remember. So when he is screaming in the car I am get short with the girls and then I loose my patience. I actually don't loose my patience very much. I am pretty laid back and our discipline techniques work fairly well where I rarely have to raise my voice and get very stern. However, Nathan's screaming drives me nuts. I try to talk to him and have him use his words but that does not always work. His tantrums are because he is not getting something he wants, he wants me to pick him up when I cannot, or he is telling me something and I can not understand. So when he acts up I put him in a chair in the other room and tell him he can come out when he stops crying. This usually does works, it seems like he has some built up frustration where crying and screaming is the only way he can release it and when he comes out of his "time out" he is much more reasonably and patient. So I know that this is all normal and he is just within is "terrible twos" but he seems to be in it more than the girls ever were. So we will see. I usually keep my cool but I feel the tension headaches coming on slowly these past couple of weeks. So hopefully this is the worst of it and it will get better.
On another note I picked up Julianne from school yesterday and as soon as she got in the car she started crying saying she got "A Warning". A Warning means that she did not received a Happy Hawk certificate for the week and she got a warning for some unwanted behavior. She explained the story to me through her tears. She was on the reading rug and she was talking to her friend and her teacher looked over and said "that is a warning, Julianne." So I guess she is not suppose to be talking on the reading rug. She was very devastated that she got a warning. She cried for about an hour about it and I kept telling her that it is OK that this is the first one she has gotten all year and that she is such a great student and it is OK to make mistakes sometime. She just keep whining and crying after I talked to her and I finally told her she needed to go upstairs into her room to settle down and to regroup. She did and she came back down relaxed and she felt better. She has not really talked about it since then. D also talked to her about it and told her the same thing. I have to sign this piece of paper that talks about the warning and give it back to the teacher. So I will do that and see if she reacts to that. She is just too hard on herself and has this first child perfectionstic quality about her that we have to make sure she does not take herself too seriously and let herself make mistakes and not get too upset about it.
Things I am grateful/thankful for:
- Celebrating D's birthday with him
-escaping my frustration during yoga today
-finding a great card for D for his birthday
-having really nice weather yesterday where we could actually go for a walk as a family with the dogs
-my sister-in-law making a cake for D for his birthday
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Birthday Party
Well we finally had Nathan's family birthday party at our house this weekend. We had a great time and Nathan had fun hanging out with our family. My sister-in-law made him a soccer cake which looked great but he was not too interested in eating. He was sick the entire week before with his usual cold/asthma so he did not eat my birthday cake the day before. So I was not surprised that he was not too into the cake.
D made a great birthday dinner for me. We had roasted red pepper pasta with goat cheese. It was delicious and it was great to have him make dinner for me. I went to get my hair cut and colored and I came home and dinner was served. The girls helped decorate a cake for me and we had a nice dinner surrounded by my beautiful flowers D had delivered on my birthday. He does such a great job making sure my birthday is special and he takes a lot of time to think out what he wants to do and executes it beautifully. I appreciate all that he does and how thoughtful he is. He is a great husband. Thanks D:)
I had Nathan's two year well doctor visit today. I had a lot of questions to ask her about his general health. I am trying to be more proactive to make sure that we have explored all possible causes for his different issues. I tend to have the attitude that our body will generally take care of itself and intervention is not necessarily needed. Here are my major concerns:
1. Asthma. We know that when he gets a cold it goes straight to his lungs and causes coughing/wheezing and labored breathing. He has had 4 of these episodes since October. They last for about a week and then the rest of the month he is fine. She suggested he take a once a day asthma medicine to curb his labored breathing during this time. We decided against that since he does not have symptoms during the rest of the month. We decided to be more proactive when his cold begins and to use his nebulizer at the beginning of his cold (which is his runny nose) instead of just during his labored breathing. I told her that I don't really know when I am suppose to be using the nebulizer and I just use it (minimally) when he begins the labored breathing. She said we should start it when he gets his runny nose and it should help him not have the labored breathing as much and will help with the amount of wheezing he has during the week. So I will try that since the scary part for me is when he has the labored breathing. So hopefully that will help even though I am not too thrilled with using that stuff more often.
2. Eczema. It is not too bad right now since the seasonal allergies are not bad and because he wears pants and does not have access to itching it. He loves to itch it when he is using the potty and that is when it gets bad when he itches it more. There is not much we can do about it since I have all the medicine I can use and I choose to only use them when he really breaks out. Right now it is manageable and does not affect him too much right now.
3. Yeast infections. He has been getting lots of yeast infections lately in his diaper area. I am aware that cloth diapers hold the yeast spores and they get more moist than disposable diapers so that may be the major cause why he gets the yeast infections. However, I have been reading more about how some people have yeast overgrowth in their intestines and this can affect their digestive tracts, nutrition, etc. So we talked about that briefly. She recommended we use Florastor which is a probiotic and helps maintain the balance of good microorganisms in the gut and promotes intestinal health. So we will see and I am hoping that this will help his very runny stools. Which was another issue. He has very loose stools and it could just be that he has loose stools but could it also be from something else going on. So hopefully this will help. I like that it is like a supplement and not a medicine. We will use it for 10 days and see what happens.
4. Allergies. We talked about his next allergy test (which is in early March) which will hopefully show what other things he may or may not be allergic to. On one hand it would be nice to find out what he may be allergic to and what may be messing with his system and keeping his eczema going. If we knew than we could eliminate that item(s) then we could see if it helps him. On the other hand if it is wheat or something common it will be a pain to eliminate that item also. Additionally, we could eliminate the offensive food and it would not affect his eczema and we would be in the same position. Or it could help his digestive tract or it could help him not be so picky. Who knows. I may never know. So it will be interesting to see what happens when he has his next allergy test.
So those were my major issues we talked about. Gosh, usually my well check ups are boring and we don't usually talk about anything because I never have any issues. But with little Nathan I do. He was almost at the 25th percentile for weight and almost at the 10th for his height. So he went from the 10th percentile for his weight at this 18 month appointment to the 25th. She was not overly concerned with above issues since he had gained weight. She said she would be concerned if he had not gained weight. She said that kids with all sorts of digestive/allergies issues do not gain weight. So that is good. Like I told her I am fine if he has these issues and that is just what his body is doing but I want to make sure that I have exhausted all resources and options and to make sure we are not making it worse by not being more proactive. She was really understanding and said she is mostly interested in his allergy test results to see if any other allergens shows up positive.
My beautiful flowers
My birthday cake (the "5" broke so we just used the 3)
Mallory and the newest cousin, Jacob
Julianne with Lexee
Nathan and Mimi
Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-being able to celebrate my 35th birthday with my family
-coming home to a lovely cooked meal
-seeing my kids excited for my birthday
-having a great husband
-having a warm house when the temperatures are below zero
-Having a generally healthy son
D made a great birthday dinner for me. We had roasted red pepper pasta with goat cheese. It was delicious and it was great to have him make dinner for me. I went to get my hair cut and colored and I came home and dinner was served. The girls helped decorate a cake for me and we had a nice dinner surrounded by my beautiful flowers D had delivered on my birthday. He does such a great job making sure my birthday is special and he takes a lot of time to think out what he wants to do and executes it beautifully. I appreciate all that he does and how thoughtful he is. He is a great husband. Thanks D:)
I had Nathan's two year well doctor visit today. I had a lot of questions to ask her about his general health. I am trying to be more proactive to make sure that we have explored all possible causes for his different issues. I tend to have the attitude that our body will generally take care of itself and intervention is not necessarily needed. Here are my major concerns:
1. Asthma. We know that when he gets a cold it goes straight to his lungs and causes coughing/wheezing and labored breathing. He has had 4 of these episodes since October. They last for about a week and then the rest of the month he is fine. She suggested he take a once a day asthma medicine to curb his labored breathing during this time. We decided against that since he does not have symptoms during the rest of the month. We decided to be more proactive when his cold begins and to use his nebulizer at the beginning of his cold (which is his runny nose) instead of just during his labored breathing. I told her that I don't really know when I am suppose to be using the nebulizer and I just use it (minimally) when he begins the labored breathing. She said we should start it when he gets his runny nose and it should help him not have the labored breathing as much and will help with the amount of wheezing he has during the week. So I will try that since the scary part for me is when he has the labored breathing. So hopefully that will help even though I am not too thrilled with using that stuff more often.
2. Eczema. It is not too bad right now since the seasonal allergies are not bad and because he wears pants and does not have access to itching it. He loves to itch it when he is using the potty and that is when it gets bad when he itches it more. There is not much we can do about it since I have all the medicine I can use and I choose to only use them when he really breaks out. Right now it is manageable and does not affect him too much right now.
3. Yeast infections. He has been getting lots of yeast infections lately in his diaper area. I am aware that cloth diapers hold the yeast spores and they get more moist than disposable diapers so that may be the major cause why he gets the yeast infections. However, I have been reading more about how some people have yeast overgrowth in their intestines and this can affect their digestive tracts, nutrition, etc. So we talked about that briefly. She recommended we use Florastor which is a probiotic and helps maintain the balance of good microorganisms in the gut and promotes intestinal health. So we will see and I am hoping that this will help his very runny stools. Which was another issue. He has very loose stools and it could just be that he has loose stools but could it also be from something else going on. So hopefully this will help. I like that it is like a supplement and not a medicine. We will use it for 10 days and see what happens.
4. Allergies. We talked about his next allergy test (which is in early March) which will hopefully show what other things he may or may not be allergic to. On one hand it would be nice to find out what he may be allergic to and what may be messing with his system and keeping his eczema going. If we knew than we could eliminate that item(s) then we could see if it helps him. On the other hand if it is wheat or something common it will be a pain to eliminate that item also. Additionally, we could eliminate the offensive food and it would not affect his eczema and we would be in the same position. Or it could help his digestive tract or it could help him not be so picky. Who knows. I may never know. So it will be interesting to see what happens when he has his next allergy test.
So those were my major issues we talked about. Gosh, usually my well check ups are boring and we don't usually talk about anything because I never have any issues. But with little Nathan I do. He was almost at the 25th percentile for weight and almost at the 10th for his height. So he went from the 10th percentile for his weight at this 18 month appointment to the 25th. She was not overly concerned with above issues since he had gained weight. She said she would be concerned if he had not gained weight. She said that kids with all sorts of digestive/allergies issues do not gain weight. So that is good. Like I told her I am fine if he has these issues and that is just what his body is doing but I want to make sure that I have exhausted all resources and options and to make sure we are not making it worse by not being more proactive. She was really understanding and said she is mostly interested in his allergy test results to see if any other allergens shows up positive.
My beautiful flowers
My birthday cake (the "5" broke so we just used the 3)
Mallory and the newest cousin, Jacob
Julianne with Lexee
Nathan and Mimi
Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-being able to celebrate my 35th birthday with my family
-coming home to a lovely cooked meal
-seeing my kids excited for my birthday
-having a great husband
-having a warm house when the temperatures are below zero
-Having a generally healthy son
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Winter wonderland
Well we finally got the white fluffy snow that I was wanting the other weekend. It pretty much snowed all day on Wednesday and now it is bitter cold. I think it is suppose to get below zero tonight and only be in the single digits tomorrow. So the snow is staying. It was so beautiful this morning. The sky was blue the sun came out this afternoon and the snow is just so pretty. I love getting lots of snow. As long was we have electricity than I love it. I also love snow days. The kids did not have a snow day today but they had one or two last year and it was a lot of fun. They played outside all day and it is a day where you are not suppose to be doing anything, the schedules are off, and you can just relax at home. Last year we had a blizzard and it was a level 2 snow emergency so driving was discouraged. So that was kind of fun. This snow is not as much fun as that was since it is so cold. So we can't really play in the snow but they probably will for a little while tomorrow. Most of the schools are closed tomorrow because of the temperatures, however, Julianne's school is not scheduled to have school since it is a teacher grading day.
I also took Nathan to the doctor today because he was very tired this morning and had a mild fever. I mainly took him since these were his symptoms after his cold/breathing troubles/wheezing this week. He began this episode on Tuesday with his usual runny nose which turned into coughing and then turned into labor breathing. I gave him a breathing treatment at around 3:30 ish and he was OK the rest of the day. He was still breathing rapidly and would play and then stop knowing that he was not breathing as well as he usually does. Wednesday he was pretty much the same but with more wheezing and not as much labored breathing. This morning he still felt warm and was had a lot of junk (aka. mucus) in his lungs. I have been using Julianne's stethoscope to listen to his lungs and you can really hear the wheezing and gurgling in his lungs. So today since he still had a low grade fever and he still has a runny nose I thought I would take him in to see if he had a secondary infection. It was nice that I finally got to talk to my regular doctor about his symptoms. I have not seen her since his first occurrence in October. I saw another doctor at that time so I have not been able to talk to her. She listened to him and said that he was wheezy and a little congested. She wanted to make sure that he did not have pneumonia so she gave him a breathing treatment and then listened to his lungs. He did not have signs of pneumonia so she said to keep an eye on him. So I go back and see her on the 20th for his 2 year check up. So it was a nice visit, we will probably talk more about what we should do about his ashtma when I see her on the 20th.
Here are some pictures of the day.
Picture of all the snow early in the day on Wednesday
Thursday morning after all the snow had fallen
Our back yard
Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-receiving such a thoughtful and beautifully constructed handmade gift from my friend Katie
-appreciating snow and how pretty it is
-sleeping with Nathan this morning
I also took Nathan to the doctor today because he was very tired this morning and had a mild fever. I mainly took him since these were his symptoms after his cold/breathing troubles/wheezing this week. He began this episode on Tuesday with his usual runny nose which turned into coughing and then turned into labor breathing. I gave him a breathing treatment at around 3:30 ish and he was OK the rest of the day. He was still breathing rapidly and would play and then stop knowing that he was not breathing as well as he usually does. Wednesday he was pretty much the same but with more wheezing and not as much labored breathing. This morning he still felt warm and was had a lot of junk (aka. mucus) in his lungs. I have been using Julianne's stethoscope to listen to his lungs and you can really hear the wheezing and gurgling in his lungs. So today since he still had a low grade fever and he still has a runny nose I thought I would take him in to see if he had a secondary infection. It was nice that I finally got to talk to my regular doctor about his symptoms. I have not seen her since his first occurrence in October. I saw another doctor at that time so I have not been able to talk to her. She listened to him and said that he was wheezy and a little congested. She wanted to make sure that he did not have pneumonia so she gave him a breathing treatment and then listened to his lungs. He did not have signs of pneumonia so she said to keep an eye on him. So I go back and see her on the 20th for his 2 year check up. So it was a nice visit, we will probably talk more about what we should do about his ashtma when I see her on the 20th.
Here are some pictures of the day.
Picture of all the snow early in the day on Wednesday
Thursday morning after all the snow had fallen
Our back yard
Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-receiving such a thoughtful and beautifully constructed handmade gift from my friend Katie
-appreciating snow and how pretty it is
-sleeping with Nathan this morning
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Happy Birthday to my second main man
I want to officially say Happy Birthday to Nathan. I am so excited that he is growing up and learning how to talk and to communicate. However, it seemed that he realized that he turned two today and he threw three very large blood screaming tantrums. I think he wanted to fall into the category of the "terrible twos" and wanted to start out full swing with the tantrums. He started out this morning not liking his cereal and when I gave some of his cereal to Mallory in order to put a different cereal into his bowl he began to scream very loudly. I gave him a warning that he was not allowed to scream like that and if he continued to cry he would go to time out. He did not listen and continued to cry very loudly, like a scream. I put him in time out and told him he could come out when he settled down. After about 5 minutes of hysterical crying he stopped and came to the table like nothing was wrong and ate his entire bowl of cereal. D said that he also had a tantrum at lunch. His last one for the day occurred after nap, I think it was over what snack he was getting, I can't really remember. I put him in his time out chair, he again cried for about 5 minutes and then he was done. I don't remember the girls crying that loudly or passionately about something and then just getting over it after they cried it out. So his may be different but he is very stubborn and persistent.
We had a great day. We planned on going bowling but the bowling alley was packed and we decided to go to the mall to their play area. The kids, especially Nathan, had a great time playing on the equipment. It was pretty crowded but they managed to have fun. We went out to eat at a favorite pizza place and gave him a few presents. It was a great night. The girls were excited that it was his birthday. Our neighbors, whom Nathan loves the dad, came over and gave him this cute Mexican soccer outfit. Our family is coming over next Sunday to help him celebrate his birthday.
Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-being able to celebrate and experience Nathan's second birthday
-seeing the girls be happy for Nathan that it was his birthday
-Hearing Nathan say "Birthday" to people on the phone who called to wish him happy birthday
-Having my brother come over and visit and help with our computers (he is our family's Geek Squad)
We had a great day. We planned on going bowling but the bowling alley was packed and we decided to go to the mall to their play area. The kids, especially Nathan, had a great time playing on the equipment. It was pretty crowded but they managed to have fun. We went out to eat at a favorite pizza place and gave him a few presents. It was a great night. The girls were excited that it was his birthday. Our neighbors, whom Nathan loves the dad, came over and gave him this cute Mexican soccer outfit. Our family is coming over next Sunday to help him celebrate his birthday.
Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-being able to celebrate and experience Nathan's second birthday
-seeing the girls be happy for Nathan that it was his birthday
-Hearing Nathan say "Birthday" to people on the phone who called to wish him happy birthday
-Having my brother come over and visit and help with our computers (he is our family's Geek Squad)
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Dreary day with ice and no snow
Well we were suppose to have 3-5 inches of white fluffy snow and instead we got a lot of ice, slush and some rain. I dislike these days. The sidewalks are slippery so you can not run or walk outside and the kids do not want to go out and play since it is slippery and icy. So we hung around all day and the kids pretend played and we organized the basement storage area. We did that mainly because I broke Nathan's crib lowering the rail. The plastic thing that keeps it close to his bed broke off. I guess the crib has held up for three babies so that is good that it has lasted that long. I may try to find a replacement part online but if not I am glad that it lasted that long. So since that happened we decided to switch him to a big bed. We thankfully have my brothers bed (who is now 16) and we set it up and tonight will be his first night in it. This will be the earliest we have transferred our children to big beds. Julianne was around 27-28 months because it was right before Christmas when we moved her. We moved Mallory right before Nathan was born so she must have been two and half or older. So we will see. I think he will be fine. You always have the expectation that he will be getting out, climbing over everything, getting into trouble and they never do. With Mallory and Julianne it took them several months to half a year to figure out that they could get out of the bed by themselves. So we will see, Nathan may be different but he may not.
At 9:15 p.m on January 10th two years ago my water broke while I was watching Real World on MTV. I was sitting on our blue couch and I heard two kind of pops or rubber bands snapping. Sure enough I got up and looked down and there was a spot of water on the couch. I walked to the bathroom and my pants were completely wet. D was actually running with his friend Ron and it just happened that he had his cell phone with him. It was so ironic because before he left he said that he was going to take his cell phone and I told him that he probably did not need to take it since I had not had any contractions that night. But he said that he should probably take in just in case. So anyways, I called him and told him to get home. He was about 2 miles away and he drove to a spot so he had to run 2 miles back to his car and drive home. So it took him awhile. I called the midwife and told her that I have fast labors and she told me to get to the birthing center as soon as I could. I also called my friend Luzzette who was watching the kids in this instance. They were already asleep and she forgot that her husband was out of town that night so she was going to come over and pick the kids up. Well it ended up that she and her dad met us at the birthing center and took the kids home with her. So I think we got the the birthing center around 10:15 ish and I got my dose of antibiotics for the Strep B infection. At that time my contractions had just started so I was not really in that much pain. I remember walking around the birthing center halls a couple times and then mostly just sitting on the edge of the bed for the rest of the time. That helped me with the contractions a lot more than laying down. I really wanted to have a water birth but the room with the tub was already occupied. I began to feel pressure and I pushed just a couple of times and he was born at 1:43 a.m. His umbilical cord was wrapped around his head two times but he came out so fast that they did not have time to cut it so they kind of had him do a somersault to get him out. They put him on my chest and he layed there for a while, nursed and an hour or two they took him and wighted him, measured and wrapped him up and gave him back to me. I suspected that he was a boy so I was not too shocked to find out he was a boy but it was a great feeling to have him out and to be able to see him and to have him close to us. I have to mention that when I felt the urge to push I had to lay on my back so that the midwife could check me and that is when the pain got really strong and I started scream a little and my face got all red. My point is that D could see me experiencing pain and he almost fainted by the side of the bed. I remember hearing the nurse asking him if he was OK and I looked over and said "what are you doing?" It was kind of funny and sincere at the same time.
So that was Nathan's birth story. We went home 12 hours later (it is usually 6 but since I had Strep B they keep you 6 more hours) and picked up the girls from preschool and they got to met him for the first time. It was a great experience and I would not change any of it. The girls took right to him and adored him and I don't remember too much jealousy. I know that it was chaotic and hectic for a lot time but that passed after several months. A nurse came our house the next two days to check us both out and that was it.
I still can't believe that he is two years old tomorrow. It seems like we have always had time and then sometimes I seems like he is still a baby.
He has been peeing on the potty more lately mostly because he has a yeast infection and a red behind so here is a picture of him on the pot. The ball ended up going in the potty where he had already peed a few seconds after I took this pictures.
His new bed.
Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Having a nice warm house on a dreary cold day like today.
-The kids occupying themselves by pretend playing all day and enjoying being home and not always having something to do.
-organizing things
-Buckeye Blitz ice cream from Graters (I had some last night and have not had it for a long time)
At 9:15 p.m on January 10th two years ago my water broke while I was watching Real World on MTV. I was sitting on our blue couch and I heard two kind of pops or rubber bands snapping. Sure enough I got up and looked down and there was a spot of water on the couch. I walked to the bathroom and my pants were completely wet. D was actually running with his friend Ron and it just happened that he had his cell phone with him. It was so ironic because before he left he said that he was going to take his cell phone and I told him that he probably did not need to take it since I had not had any contractions that night. But he said that he should probably take in just in case. So anyways, I called him and told him to get home. He was about 2 miles away and he drove to a spot so he had to run 2 miles back to his car and drive home. So it took him awhile. I called the midwife and told her that I have fast labors and she told me to get to the birthing center as soon as I could. I also called my friend Luzzette who was watching the kids in this instance. They were already asleep and she forgot that her husband was out of town that night so she was going to come over and pick the kids up. Well it ended up that she and her dad met us at the birthing center and took the kids home with her. So I think we got the the birthing center around 10:15 ish and I got my dose of antibiotics for the Strep B infection. At that time my contractions had just started so I was not really in that much pain. I remember walking around the birthing center halls a couple times and then mostly just sitting on the edge of the bed for the rest of the time. That helped me with the contractions a lot more than laying down. I really wanted to have a water birth but the room with the tub was already occupied. I began to feel pressure and I pushed just a couple of times and he was born at 1:43 a.m. His umbilical cord was wrapped around his head two times but he came out so fast that they did not have time to cut it so they kind of had him do a somersault to get him out. They put him on my chest and he layed there for a while, nursed and an hour or two they took him and wighted him, measured and wrapped him up and gave him back to me. I suspected that he was a boy so I was not too shocked to find out he was a boy but it was a great feeling to have him out and to be able to see him and to have him close to us. I have to mention that when I felt the urge to push I had to lay on my back so that the midwife could check me and that is when the pain got really strong and I started scream a little and my face got all red. My point is that D could see me experiencing pain and he almost fainted by the side of the bed. I remember hearing the nurse asking him if he was OK and I looked over and said "what are you doing?" It was kind of funny and sincere at the same time.
So that was Nathan's birth story. We went home 12 hours later (it is usually 6 but since I had Strep B they keep you 6 more hours) and picked up the girls from preschool and they got to met him for the first time. It was a great experience and I would not change any of it. The girls took right to him and adored him and I don't remember too much jealousy. I know that it was chaotic and hectic for a lot time but that passed after several months. A nurse came our house the next two days to check us both out and that was it.
I still can't believe that he is two years old tomorrow. It seems like we have always had time and then sometimes I seems like he is still a baby.
He has been peeing on the potty more lately mostly because he has a yeast infection and a red behind so here is a picture of him on the pot. The ball ended up going in the potty where he had already peed a few seconds after I took this pictures.
His new bed.
Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Having a nice warm house on a dreary cold day like today.
-The kids occupying themselves by pretend playing all day and enjoying being home and not always having something to do.
-organizing things
-Buckeye Blitz ice cream from Graters (I had some last night and have not had it for a long time)
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Work, work, work...
I don't have much time to blog or to watch my kids. I have been busy the last couple of days getting work done for my boss. I am working on an annual listing of obligated project report, I updated a spreadsheet of Knoxville's High Proirity Projects and I am getting ready to recieve 120 plus project list of transportation projects so that I can financially constrain them. So I finished with the first two proejcts this afternoon and they should be ready to go as long as my boss does not request any changes. So I feel better and now I am ready to work on the Long Range Transprotation Plan. After I get this done I really should not have much work to do. It seems to come in spurts where for months I will not have much to do and then little plans come up and I am busy again. The winter time is kind of busy with the Congestion Mitigation and Air Qualty report and the annual lisitng of obligated projects and the Long Range Transportiaotn Plan is updated every 4 years so this just happens to be the year it needs updating so that is why I am helping them with it.
I do enjoy the work and it does keep me involved in planning but sometimes it is hard and frustrating since I am not physically there and I always have computer problems. Also I don't have all the information in front of me since I am 400 miles away. So I really don't mind it it just bugs me when it comes on all at once and I really don't have that much time during the day to work on it. I had an hour while the kids were in school today and then I worked 1.5 hours while Nathan was sleeping and Mallory was watching TV. So I mostly feel bad for her because she ends up in front of the TV which she does not mind but it annoys me. However, it is temporary so I can handle it and I feel 100 percent better since I got those two reports done this afternoon.
We had a great New Year's celebration. Our neighbor had a party and the girls got to stay up until 12:00 so they had fun but they were also tired. Nathan went to sleep around 10:00 at their house but he still had fun. I tell you he loves my neighbor (the dad). He would leave me and walk through the crowded party and find my neighbor and want him to hold him. My neighbor enjoyed holding him and spending time with him but I also felt bad since it was his party and he was greeting everyone and walking around talking to his guests while holding Nathan.
Everyone is back at school and it is nice to get back to a schedule. However, it is also a pain to be on a schedule and have to wake Julianne up for school and have to wake Nathan up from his nap to pick Julianne up. Oh well that is life and we all adapt.
My stepmother has us take a picture of the kids every year for her Valentine Day card (instead of a Holiday card she sends a Valentine Day card). So my brother and I are usually incharge of doing that. This year she got shirts for them that had their ages on it and we took a picture. However, Nathan was not coorporating with the picture so I had to revisit my photoshop skills and cut and paste him into the picture. So we took a picture of the other kids and then I took a picture of Nathan by himself and then cut and pasted him (well it included more steps than that) and put him into the new picture. It worked pretty well. I had to soften his edges so he did not look like I just plopped him in there and I had to make sure all the colors were the same, etc. It is was fun to do that again. I did that several years ago when I took a Photoshop class but have not done it sense.
Picture of Nathan not very happy
We tried it again and he was still not happy.
Picture without Nathan
Picture of Nathan later without anyone and happy
Nathan pasted in the picture
Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Nathan roughly turning my head and giving me a sweet kiss on the cheeks.
-school starting back
-snow on the grass
-my ability to multi-task
I do enjoy the work and it does keep me involved in planning but sometimes it is hard and frustrating since I am not physically there and I always have computer problems. Also I don't have all the information in front of me since I am 400 miles away. So I really don't mind it it just bugs me when it comes on all at once and I really don't have that much time during the day to work on it. I had an hour while the kids were in school today and then I worked 1.5 hours while Nathan was sleeping and Mallory was watching TV. So I mostly feel bad for her because she ends up in front of the TV which she does not mind but it annoys me. However, it is temporary so I can handle it and I feel 100 percent better since I got those two reports done this afternoon.
We had a great New Year's celebration. Our neighbor had a party and the girls got to stay up until 12:00 so they had fun but they were also tired. Nathan went to sleep around 10:00 at their house but he still had fun. I tell you he loves my neighbor (the dad). He would leave me and walk through the crowded party and find my neighbor and want him to hold him. My neighbor enjoyed holding him and spending time with him but I also felt bad since it was his party and he was greeting everyone and walking around talking to his guests while holding Nathan.
Everyone is back at school and it is nice to get back to a schedule. However, it is also a pain to be on a schedule and have to wake Julianne up for school and have to wake Nathan up from his nap to pick Julianne up. Oh well that is life and we all adapt.
My stepmother has us take a picture of the kids every year for her Valentine Day card (instead of a Holiday card she sends a Valentine Day card). So my brother and I are usually incharge of doing that. This year she got shirts for them that had their ages on it and we took a picture. However, Nathan was not coorporating with the picture so I had to revisit my photoshop skills and cut and paste him into the picture. So we took a picture of the other kids and then I took a picture of Nathan by himself and then cut and pasted him (well it included more steps than that) and put him into the new picture. It worked pretty well. I had to soften his edges so he did not look like I just plopped him in there and I had to make sure all the colors were the same, etc. It is was fun to do that again. I did that several years ago when I took a Photoshop class but have not done it sense.
Picture of Nathan not very happy
We tried it again and he was still not happy.
Picture without Nathan
Picture of Nathan later without anyone and happy
Nathan pasted in the picture
Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Nathan roughly turning my head and giving me a sweet kiss on the cheeks.
-school starting back
-snow on the grass
-my ability to multi-task
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Meet nephew Jacob
Here is a picture of my new nephew Jacob who was born on December 30th at 7:07 p.m. He weighed about 8 pounds 5 ounces and was about 21 inches long. My mom was able to be with my sister while he was born and I know that she was thrilled that she was able to see his birth. I visited my sister around lunch time that same day and then I got to go see Jacob at about 7:30 that night.
Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-having another nephew
-knowing my mom got to see and be here for his birth
-D taking the day off work so that I could visit my sister
-holding a sweet newborn
Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-having another nephew
-knowing my mom got to see and be here for his birth
-D taking the day off work so that I could visit my sister
-holding a sweet newborn
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