Memorial Weekend 2011

If you know us, you know we love to travel.  However, as I have (gracefully) aged and added children into the mix, I really do not do well with "spontaneous" trips.  Admittedly I am a bit of a packing dork and like to begin at least a few days in advance. So we were planning on staying home over Memorial Day Weekend up until Thursday night.  We had a few things planned with friends but my secret plans were to spend the majority of the time relaxing - which is a crazy dream when you have 2 young children.....then Thurs morning I looked at my husband and said "why don't you go have a guys weekend with your buddies?".  Of course he jumped at the chance!  Friday morning he got things set to have a few days to go spend with his two best friends who live about 5 hours away.  Well, in the meantime, Nathaniel decided, out of the blue, we should go see Uncle Robert...and he preseverated on this all Thurs night.  So after a brief discussion as we were going to bed, we decided the kids and I would go up to my brother's and he would go on to visit his buddies who live about an hour away from Uncle Robert's.  Which sounds good in theory....but I had to pack like a madman when I got home from work on Friday.  And like I said, I want a few days to pack, this made me a bit crazy (crazier than normal) but we got out of the house around 8:00 PM and I actually managed to grab everything we needed.  Whew....the trip up went smoothly.  I really think this is the way to travel with kids.  The baby slept and Nate chatted until he also passed out.

It was a fantastic weekend!  We got in late Friday night but the kids and Tio Ted were up early playing in the back yard and jumping on the trampoline.  Well, until this:

I was just getting out of the shower when all I hear is "Logan, come quick Tio Ted just broke the trampoline".  Yes, it is everyone's fear that they may actually jump THROUGH the trampoline.  Admit it, you have wondered if it would happen to you.  Well needless to say we now have a serious case of catapedaphobia at our house.  And one is left wondering if my kids will ever be lucky enough to someday own their own trampoline.

However, the kids loved it.  In fact, I am told that even though Tio Ted was half way between the trampoline, Izzie and Nate did not stop jumping. They just jumped in circles around him. 

Please note:  No Tio Ted's were seriously harmed in this incident. 

Nate very seriously told Daddy time and time again "You were jumping too close".  Uh....to close to what we are not really sure.  Nate also was sweet enough to apologize to Daddy several times. 

Yes, an amusing (at least for those of us who did not need Advil to get through the day) start to the weekend!

Then Daddy left for his man trip and we had a ton-o-fun with the cousins.  Lots of chase, laughter, and playing ensued.  Saturaday night we went to the lake for the evening to race remote control boats.

Sunday we went to church and listened to Auntie's beautiful singing.  That evening we went down to the harbor, had a nice El Salvadorian dinner, and played in the fountain. 

 Rissa did not get in on the water action due to her recently placed tubes, but she had a great time laughing and squealing in delight at the kids!

When we got home that night, we went back down by the lake for more racing fun, on this beautiful evening.

More pics from this weekend to follow later.....

Never Grow Up

My friend Christy shared this song with me tonight. I am sorry I am not more technically savvy or I would embed this video into the blog.  But listen to Taylor Swift's song, Never Grow Up.  It keeps tugging on my heart-strings!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDbFxAtNNnU&feature=related

Oh Darlin' don't you ever grow up, just stay this little. 

Oh Darlin', Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple. 

Gosh, I wish I could keep my kids little forever. 

I got a high school graduation invitation from one of the kids I used to babysit regularly when I lived in Amarillo.  She was 4 years old the first time I spend the weekend babysitting her and her older brother....now she is graduating from High School and ready to tackle the world. I cannot believe she was only a year older than Nathaniel is right now. It may sound cliche, but time really does fly.  I realize that this amazing phase of life will be but a faint memory before I know it.  Although each stage of watching my children grow up will have it's own ups and downs, I just wish I could stay at this phase of life a little longer.  Yes, even with the sleepless nights, I love, love, love it.  Thank you God for allowing me the honor and privilege of parenting these two amazing kids!

...even though you want to, please try to never grow up...

"To Infinity and Bahahahaaaa...."

Silly antics of Bubba (AKA Buzz Lightyear) and delightful giggles from his favorite fan:

Mom's Birthday Ramblings

Tuedsay was my birthday.  I love birthdays, I love to celebrate with friends and to do fun things together but I always feel a little awkward about my own birthday.  I don't know why.  I am not one to get caught up about my age.  In fact, I don't think I said my age correctly once this whole last year....I kept telling everyone I was 32 when they would ask - and my dear, sweet hubs was always quick to point out I was 33.  And now here I sit at 34.  Hummm...maybe this year it will sink in.  Who knows?  For some reason I am actually stuck at thinking I am 28.  And I have no idea why. Anyway I digress.....analyze that for what you may.

I have had some pretty significant birthdays.  My 16th my parents gave me a car and a suitcase (tell me that was not a hint!).  My 21st my roommate threw a huge surprise party in our little bitty college apartment and crammed about 30 people in my bedroom where my twin bed literally took up half the space....and I did not take hint after hint to go into my bedroom so there sat 30 people stuck in that room like sardines in a can for over 30 minutes!!!  There was also the year Amanda gave me a watermelon with my name painted on it....ahhh, yes I have been blessed with some pretty memorable ones.  This year will also stand out in my mind.  Thanks to the magic of facebook I had over 118 birthday greetings - and over 50 of them were pictures of people's FEET.  Now if you know me very well, you probably know I am not a fan of feet so this was actually humorous and disgusting at the same time.  Certainly a very unique gift from Amanda- and I never thought she'd be able to top the randomness of the watermelon.  I sure to love that girl! 

The day in and of itself was pretty great. My department had breakfast for me.  There was a spontaneous birthday lunch outing and then I got home to a sparkling clean house and we were off for a birthday picnic at a local park.  It was pretty much perfect - until I got a stomach bug later that night.  But most significant moments in my life are followed by a little upchuck (ie. my wedding).  So here area some pics from the park:

And today tooth #5 has arrived (upper left)...

I am thankful for another year, my precious family, my hilarious friends and all the memories of the past 34 years.  See there? I am already getting it right :)



Busy Weekend.

Busy weekend.
Friday was Ted's birthday,  Mommy had a crazy day at work where a soldier was having a really intense flashback and thought Mommy was at war with him, followed by the annual work crawfish boil. 

Working Gals

AnnDee and Marissa

Saturaday was Isaiah's 4th birthday party, lunch with Granny, a trip to Grandma and Grandpa's for the Lee/Ted/Sybil birthday bash.

Fun at Fun Max for Isaiah's birthday

My little pirate!

Tons-o-fun with Ry-Ry



She got him!





She has inherited her Mother's love for ice cream!

Emma drenched Uncle Lee

That's so funny!



A birthday is not a birthday without cake (or cupcakes in this case)



We even managed to catch some Zs!



Ahhhh...peace!



Sunday was church, followed by a Mommy and Daddy going out on a date to STOMP, then Nate and Mommy went to visit Ms. Brittni in the hospital.

Whew...what a weekend!

Mother's Day 2011

It is my first Mother's Day with 2 kids...and I am simply in awe of both the gift of Mothers and the gift of being a Mother.  There is nothing I could ever want more than what I am living right now with these 2 precious kiddos and having such a great role model as my own Mom to show me the way.  I am truly blessed!

We had a great Mother's Day.  It started by going to church...

Last week (Easter Sunday) Nathaniel insisted he saw two of his daycare friends, Travis and Julianne.  Knowing Julianne lives pretty far away from this church, I told him I did not think he saw them at church but does see them at school and kinda blew off the whole ordeal.   Later that day facebooked Julianne's mom and found out they do not go to this church...and thus, I think my kid is lying!  So we talked about it again and Nathaniel insisted he saw Julianne and Travis at church.  Later in the week he brought up the incident again and said "I saw Julianne and Travis but Mommy says no".  Well, of course, after leaving his class we ran into Travis and his mom today!  Sure enough, Travis does indeed go to church there.   A little Mother's Day lesson in listening to your kids!  

We then had a delicious Sonic-sponsored picnic in our backyard, followed by Nathaniel's current favorite game, "You can't catch me".  Where Daddy chased one giggling little boy and Mommy held a very amused little girl who was cracking up at her brother!  And I just paused and wished I could capture moments like this forever.

This was followed by a glorious nap time for all! I got Nate upstairs and in bed (but I don't think he ever actually napped).  It is extremely rare that both kids go down at the same time.  Marissa actually fell asleep while I was holding her so I just laid down on the couch and treasured every second of it.  Studying her precious little features - her turned up nose, her rosy cheeks, her wild hair -and wishing I could keep her little forever! 

After nap time we loaded up the family and went to the Aquarium at Moody Gardens.  Nathaniel, like his father, is very into marine life.  His current fascinations, thanks to an Ocean book that we read every night, are sharks and penguins.  There just so happens to be a shark exhibit at Moody Gardens right now and they have quite a few penguins to watch.  Nathaniel LOVED it.  Marissa tended to love looking at other babies in the area more than the fish (I think she gets that from me!). 

Our evening ended with a nice dinner and visiting with our neighbors. I really could not ask for more.  Oh yeah AND I got  two awesome cards and tickets to go see Stomp when they are in town next weekend (I am super excited about that).  What can I say? I am one lucky Mom!

I hope your stopped and treasured your own precious families today.

Miss 9 Months

I know this is long overdue, but hey we have had a lot going on!  Little Miss is 9 months old now.  She is recovering beautifully from her ear surgery and has been giving us 3 or 4 hour stretches of sleep at a time.  The first day after the tubes were placed, she would just look at me and get a huge cheesy grin on her face, so I am guessing that means there is a lot of relief now.  Hooray!

I continually stand amazed at how quickly time passes once you have kids.  She is up cruising on furniture or holding onto my pants whenever she can.  Tonight she actually stood and banged two toys together without holding on to anything for the first time.  She also cut her 4th tooth a few days ago.  She continues to only coo and say "da-da-da" much to her brother's demise.  He is anxiously waiting for her to say "Bubba".  He (being Nathaniel) is still the light of her life and can elicit smiles, chuckles and squeals from her like no one else can.  Well, he and the dog...

I know the pic is over-exposed but it is the only one I have been able to take that shows her top teeth at all.   Oh yeah, and we've recently been sporting the Pebbles look (one pony tail on the top of her head) in attempt to manage her unruly do!  This ginning little girl has forever captured our hearts!  I love that she is changing so fast and I sure wish it did not happen so fast.  My prayer is that I am truly treasuring these moments because I know they will be a faint memory all too soon.

Infant Ear Tubes

At the ripe old age of 9 months and 2 days we took our precious baby girl into get bilateral Eustachian tubes placed. I dreaded/feared the night before the surgery. Not because of the surgery itself - we have been down that road twice before with our son, but because we are not allowed to feed the baby anything after midnight. While I do realize for "normal" 9 month olds this is not really a big deal, you have to understand that our 9 month old has never slept through the night. In fact the two nights prior to this one, she was up every hour. Yes, that is right, crying in pain EVERY hour from about 11:00 to 3:00 or 4:00. I don't know why but she does always manage to get a few hours of solid sleep in before I have to wake her up in the morning to get ready. Go figure. Anyway, back to last night....we strategized, prayed, and gave medicated aid to keep this precious child asleep.  To no avail.  She woke up at 11:00 and I fed her, then I woke her up again at midnight for another feeding, thinking this would sustain her until we needed to go.  But she was up screaming by 1:00 - we walked, rocked, watched TV, had water/apple juice and she refused to go back to sleep or even calm down until she just wore herself out around 3:30.  Then she slept until 5:15.  We got ourselves and both kids ready and headed to the hospital.  Daddy took Bubba into daycare early and was able to make it before Rissa went back. 

 

Looking cute even in her hospital gown and cap



Ya think?





Fun games while we waited for surgery

 

 What we were told would be about a 10 minute surgery was nearly an hour.  The doc came out afterward and told us that it was more complicated that they thought. Apparently she had a lot of very thick fluid in both ears.  The doc reported that she typically uses a suction level of a 3 on babies and in rare cases will use a 5.  For our little over achiever she had to use a 7.  She said she spent a lot of extra time making sure things were really cleaned out and said we would notice a huge difference even today!

Now despite constant ear infections for the past 4-5 months, Marissa is a very pleasant child and is rarely grumpy so I am hoping that the huge difference will mean guaranteed sleep for all of us (fingers crossed).

Here was our recovering baby:



She was a little fussy as she was initially coming out of anesthesia, but calmed once we got a bottle in her mouth.  She has had bouts of fussiness today but even that has been rare.  Thank God! 

 Here's hoping that we will not have to do this again....we will see if third time is a charm for the Yancy family!