Tales of a Fulltime Mom

Fitbit

2012-01-28T00:40:00.000-05:00

As hinted at in a previous blog, I became the proud owner of a Fitbit yesterday for my birthday. You may recall that I briefly mentioned how neat of a little gadget this thing is. Some may call it a glorified pedometer, which it is more or less, but it's completely high tech. You wear it like a pedometer but it keeps track of your steps, mileage, and flights of stairs. It also tracks how much sleep your getting. You wear it on your non-dominant wrist and hit a little button when you're going to sleep and then hit the same button when you wake up. It can tell if you are awake or asleep based on your movements. The best thing about all of this is that it tracks all of the data on the web so you can go to your dashboard and view your stats at any time. Not only that, but you can "friend" other people that have one and make it a competition of sorts to see who can walk the farthest, etc. This is a great motivator for me! They (whoever "they" is) say it's good to do at least 10,000 steps a day and I've done 10,132 today and that's without really trying to do a bunch. I also found it interesting that I've gone up my stairs 20 times today. Now all those trips up and down can at least count for something! Anyway, I think at $95 this is a great investment and I encourage anyone to go out and get one so we can compete. You can view it on Amazon by clicking here. And no, I'm not getting paid to say all this :)

Okay, back to regularly scheduled programming...last Sabbath was an uneventful day at church. Saturday night, however, was out of the ordinary in that Duncan and I had a date night out while Grandma and Grandpa came over to babysit. Since I didn't want to deal with the whole pumping/bottle thing, we didn't go out until about 8:00 so that I could feed Brady for the night right before we left which worked out perfectly. We wanted to go so a movie but because it was so late, we didn't have have enough time to eat out and do a movie so our dining experience consisted of eating in the food court of the Fashion Square Mall. I was very happy with that though. I haven't eaten there in ages so I was surprised to see a new restaurant they have there called "The Green Day Cafe" which has a lot of healthy vegetarian options like salads, wraps, soups, and a personal favorite, hummus. This is the kind of place that I'm always wishing there were more of like when you're driving from here to Boston and your options are McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, etc. exit after exit. They only have two locations so it isn't exactly a chain but here's hoping it becomes one. Anyway, after that delicious meal, we went and saw "Mission Impossible" which I thought was excellent which was a good thing since this was one of my two movies I basically see a year and you would hate for it to stink. We returned home at about 11:30 to the report that everything had gone perfectly at home.

First time with braids (albeit, very tiny ones)

Back view

After we got home, it was to the kitchen to prepare for our outing the next day. Sea World and Busch Gardens are having a special this year in that kids five and younger can go to their parks for free (usually it's two and under) so we decided to get passes again. Our old passes had expired in May and we hadn't pulled the trigger on new ones yet. Since many friends also have the passes, it was a no brainer. We hit up First Watch as usual in the morning, where the Bergherms joined us, and then it was off to Sea World for a few hours with the aforementioned Bergherms and Isidros. The weather was fantastic and there are barely any crowds in mid-January so it was a really perfect day. We didn't have to wait in any lines for any of the kid rides which made up most of what we did. I keep vowing that I'm going to go on the "new" roller coaster, Manta, but it still hasn't happened. Along about 1:30 we started wearing down so we decided to call it a day and took off to the van where our lunch awaited us for the ride home. Unfortunately Brady couldn't eat while we drove so it was impossible to keep him awake.

Daddy pulling double duty.

The first time that the polar bear has ever been awake while we've been there.

No hands!

Love those little feet!

We were only planning to be at the park for a few hours anyway but we also had the motivation to get home to watch the Patriots vs. Ravens football game which started at 3:00. This was the first game this year that we actually watched in real time and boy, do I HATE commercials. I kept forgetting and reaching for the remote to fast forward. David, Yully, Megan, and eventually Ron and Elaine joined us for the game and boy, it was sure intense. We were up and down, screaming, yelling, you name it. I think the kids were completely confused at what was going on. But at least we all were happy when the kicker missed the field goal at the end to send the Pats to another SuperBowl. Happy times!

Monday morning we were off, once again, to the Orlando Repertory Theater, to see "Pinkalicious." It's a musical based on the book of the same name. It's about a girl who loves pink and she eats so many pink cupcakes that she turns pink with the solution being to eat more green veggies. We've read the book so the girls were especially excited to go see it. We were joined by our usual crew of Jennifer and the boys, Heather Hilliard, who organized it, and then most exciting of all, Ashley Whitaker with Macey and Marley, and the triplets! They have been at church the last two Sabbath and then Jennifer was able to convince them to come to the show. The triplets, Will, Price, and Molley, are fourteen weeks old and they were perfectly well behaved. She did bring her mother-in-law to assist as I can't imagine going out by yourself with infant triplets and two other kids. Calleigh, who by her own admission, does love to play with the boys, was suitably thrilled to have Marley there and the two of them sat in the same seat for the whole show. Afterwards, we all went to a playground in Winter Park where we had lunch and pink cupcakes that Jennifer made. Fortunately, I did not turn pink despite downing more than my share of them (they were mini ones, in my defense).

Look at Aubree posing! Seriously.

The girls and Marley

The triplets just hanging out at the playground.

Tuesday was a quiet day with a trip to Walmart and the green playground. Wednesday we added some excitement by going to the Maitland Park with Jennifer and the boys. The kids all had great fun, as usual, although there was a small incident involving some sticks and poking of a little girl. It appears that Calleigh may have been the culprit behind it but neither Jennifer nor I saw what happened so who knows. Regardless, all the kids apologized to the girl and a little later, the girl and Calleigh were playing together so apparently all was well. We brought a picnic with us so that capped off the good time.

You can't really see it because it's so small but the girls ran way across the grass to the other end. When they were coming back, Calleigh was way ahead of Aubree and Aubree started to cry that she was left behind so Calleigh went back and held her hand all the way back. I wish I had a sister!

They finally let go at the very end.

Yesterday was my 36th (yikes!) birthday so to make it special, the kids and I met Duncan at First Watch for lunch. Yes, I know some may wonder how we aren't sick of that place but we always go for breakfast, not lunch, and plus, it's perfectly situated between Duncan's work and our house so it worked out well. First Watch actually had an amazing, if not the best, grilled cheese I've ever had so I was pleased to have the opportunity to order it. On our way, we stopped at the Minnehaha playground for a bit to get in at least a little playtime.

It's been months since we went to Minnhaha and Aubree was excited that she could do more things since last time.

We've come to the realization that Aubree is much slower than Calleigh when it comes to food going in and out. Duncan took Calleigh and Brady out while I had to sit at the table and wait for Aubree to finish her meal. She does not get this trait from me.

In the evening, Ron and Elaine came over and brought supper, a cake, and some gifts. I got the Fitbit from Duncan and they gave me a really great backpack for a laptop where you don't have to take the laptop out when you go through airport security. I had completely forgotten I had wanted one so it was a pleasant surprise to get it.

The girls were funny about my birthday. When I mentioned it to them the morning of and asked Calleigh if she wanted to wish me a happy birthday, she refused and said she couldn't do it because it wasn't the party yet. O-kay. Then, for the rest of the day, they kept asking to do things they don't normally get to do because it was my birthday such as "Mommy, since it's your birthday and it's a special day, can we watch a show on TV?" or "Mommy, since you're getting presents, I think you should be giving us presents too." Clearly they don't understand how this birthday thing works exactly.

This morning was a bit of a crummy day outside so the only yard sale we went to was a giant rummage sale they were having at a church in Winter Springs. Sometimes rummage sales can be junky but this one is always good every year. I told the girls that they could each get a little something and that ended up being a real problem. They couldn't figure out what to get. Then, Aubree grabs this green rubber ballish type thing that she saw lying under a table. Well, that set Calleigh off. She insisted that she had seen it first and she was just about to grab it. She wanted that to be her thing to get but Aubree had already declared it was what she wanted to get. That $0.25 ball became a thorn in my side for the next 30 minutes. Calleigh starts crying and she literally cried for the rest of the time at the sale, which became instantly shorter than what I had planned. The only way I got her to stop was when we were walking to the van and a bunch of people came out of the church part carrying a casket and crying. I said "See, someone died. Those people have a real reason to cry." That shut her up really fast. As you can probably guess, within a few minutes of being in the van, the toy became completely forgotten and it's barely gotten looked at since then.

This afternoon, Aunt Lori arrived from Cape Cod. She's here for the next 10 days attending some sort of health summit being put on by the church in Lake Mary. She's staying with David and Yully for at least part of the time. The girls were very excited to see here. She's going to be pretty busy with the summit but we'll at least see her here and there and most definitely for the SuperBowl.

I've made some progress on the Brady sleeping front. I say "I've" but I don't know that I've really done anything per se. Several mornings this week he slept in until after 7:00 although this morning it was back to 6:20. Fortunately, the afternoon nap is back in session and he's been sleeping at least two hours. We did have a "cry it out" for about 40 minutes one of the days before he gave in. As far as his weight, things are looking up. I weighed him Tuesday and he was up to 14 lbs, 15 ounces which is in comparison to 14 lbs, 4 ounces two weeks prior. I'm feeding him solids two to three times a day so it appears to be helping.

Aubree has had a change in her sleeping regimen this week. Pretty much every day either Calleigh or Aubree will ask me if Aubree can stay out of her crib for either naptime or at night. Usually I always saw 'no' but after Calleigh threw a "Please, please, please, pretty please, please" at me, I gave in on Wednesday night. We set up both of there sleeping bags on the floor and although there was no fighting (never a given), they probably didn't get to sleep until at least 10:00, probably later. Calleigh had actually napped on Wednesday (after the park with the boys) so that didn't help. Unfortunately Aubree woke up around 2:00, probably because she had rolled all over the floor and I had to put her in her crib. Same problem last night. So tonight, I'm going to just put her into her crib when I go to bed. I don't know how long we'll continue this or if we'll just convert Aubree's crib to the toddler bed or what. I don't think I'm quite ready for that step (we didn't do it for Calleigh until she was three and a few months).

This week I found myself in awkward situations with Calleigh. We were watching House Hunters and the episode was about these two guys looking for a place. My first thought was "How fun. Roommates." and then it quickly transitioned into them hugging and talking about getting married. CLICK. Faster than you can say jack rabbitt! I'll chalk that one up to "Things I'm Not Yet Ready to Explain." When is the right time? I don't know. But it seems like four is a little too soon. Then, tonight, I was reading the story of Joseph and it talked about how he was put in jail for doing "something he didn't do." Of course, Calleigh asks "What did he not do?" And I'm like "Uhh, ummm, uhh. Well, umm, (thinking quickly), they said he did some things that weren't nice to the man's wife." That seemed to satisfy her.

On that note, I will call it a night. I need to go check-in with my Fitbit and climb my 21st set of stairs. Happy Sabbath!

A few other pictures...

Calleigh's snack "set." She set this all up but wouldn't eat any of it until Aubree woke up from her nap.

A little boy and his dog. He loves Dewey!

Duncan has been playing around with different iPhone picture apps.

Another Day, Another Dollar!

2012-01-20T23:42:00.000-05:00

That kind of sums up the week I had. My busy week of work continued this week. I logged 30 hours for the week which is almost triple my normal amount. I told Duncan that I almost worked as many hours (32) as he did this week (Monday was a holiday for him) and that was just the job that I was getting PAID to do. Now, I know many other mothers work and 30 hours is probably no big deal but that's without a baby sitter, nanny, or day care. And, might I add that I barely worked at all while the kids were around so you can imagine that I had some very late nights. Indeed, I don't think my head hit the pillow before 12:30 any night and sometimes it was later than that. I am SO glad I do this crazy schedule only once a year because it stinks! It sure makes me appreciate that I normally only work a minimal schedule and that I have such an awesome husband who works really, really hard to make that possible for me. I am blessed.

Despite all the work, the week was not without enjoyment. I mean, how can you not enjoy yourself when you're surrounded by three enthusiastic kids? The actual end of the week was Sabbath, of course, and that proved to be an interesting day in that I had to bring out the dressy winter coats that I had already stashed away. I think the weather was only in the upper 40's when we rolled out the door to church and Calleigh started complaining about being cold. The downside to the coats is having to carry them all over the church the rest of the day which made me wish for a coat check as if we were at a fancy restaurant or something. Thankfully the forecast for tomorrow is 79 so there will not be a repeat.

Aubree keeping her baby warm on the walk into church.

Saturday night found us headed to the Isidro's for some football pregame festivities. Now, with Tangie being from Denver and all, naturally they (with Allen converting through marriage I think) are Denver Broncos fans who were conveniently playing the Patriots in the big playoff game Saturday night. Ahhh, a Saturday night playoff game. Brings back such memories! Anyway, Allen had invited us to watch the game at their place but all I could think about was the kids in bed while I got to sit back on my couch watching in peace. So unfortunately, it just wasn't meant to be to watch it there as much fun as it would be (I can say that now that I know the result of the game). Nonetheless, we went over for supper along with some other football fans both friend and foe. It was roll your own sushi (veggie style) and pad thai. As usual, Allen and Tangie had outdone themselves and I'm starting to feel hungry just thinking about it now. It was a great time but we hightailed it out of there just before kick off. David and Megan joined us here and since the result was a blowout at 45 - 10, we had a fantastic time. I told David the curse was over because it has seemed like for every big game that he's been at our house for over the last few years, our team has lost.

Watching the San Fran/Saints game during our meal. Love the seating!

Go Pats! That's THE Lisa (Calleigh's idol) in the Brady jersey.

I have no great recollection of Sunday other than I was working for bits and pieces of it. Duncan took the kids to Grandma and Grandpa's (who had returned the night before from business in San Francisco/Chicago) for a little while. Same thing for part of Monday morning. Monday afternoon Duncan took Calleigh to the ZOOm Air Adventure Park at the Central Florida Zoo. It's a ropes/zip line course for kids age four and up. Braelyn and Blake had done it a few months ago but we hadn't and I was waiting for a chance for Calleigh to do it. I had gotten a Groupon for it awhile back and so Monday afternoon was perfect timing. She had a few moments when she didn't think she could do some things but overall, it went great.

Calleigh holding court.

Learning how to do the clips.

I did it!

Tuesday morning we met Jennifer, Evan, and Kaleb (the older boys were at school - - they go one day a week to a home school co-op type thing) at the library for story time...or so we thought. Turned out story time is on hold for the rest of the month due to early voting taking the place at the library. How these two things are related, I'm really not sure. Despite that, the kids still had a good time with the blocks and reading books. At one point they all attempted to chase each other around the library which I quickly put a kaboosh on. I felt like the old guy at the Sterling church who would always sternly tell us kids, "No running in church." That's all I remember about him.

Reading a book with Kaleb

Wednesday was uneventful. I think we may have gone to Publix for our one bit of "excitement...." although their tagline is "shopping is a pleasure." Thursday, however, was much more exciting with the girls getting picked up by Grandma at 11:00 for an adventure. She took them to Toys 'R Us, her house, and then eventually the playground for a fun filled day. It worked out very well for me since I needed to go into the hospital to take some paperwork in for audit. Much easier with one than three! Aubree clearly had a good time as she asked me that evening, "When are we going to go on another adventurer with Grandma?" Apparently she had Adventurers on her mind as well. The day almost took a bad turn though. When Elaine had arrived, I was upstairs changing Brady so I yelled downstairs for the girls to let her in. The three of them left a few minutes later, I nursed Brady, got all my stuff together for the hospital, and went to go put Dewey in his crate only to find that there was no Dewey. I could only surmise that had run out the door when Elaine had come in. This is one of his favorite antics and normally we'll just call him back in although there have been a couple of times that we'll hear him scratch at the door and we let him in. Oops. Anyway, this time, it had been a good forty five minutes since he had gotten out and I hadn't heard any scratches. I was a little worried. I yelled a bunch of times ("TREAT" usually does the trick) to no avail. I threw Brady in the van and started driving slowly around the neighborhood. Granted, Dewey isn't the easiest thing to spot since he blends in with the landscape. I finally pulled into where the mailboxes are and there I spotted him standing there gazing out over the pond as if deep in thought. If I could read his mind he was probably thinking "If I give it a few more minutes, they'll probably have to up the ante on the treats." Or, more likely "You just had to go and have three kids. Well, take that, suckahs, I'm free!!" But, being the good dog that he is, he dutifully got into the van. On second thought, maybe he was thinking about Marlee since the one year anniversary of her death was on Tuesday. Either way, crisis averted.

This morning we went to three yard sales as the number of sales is still pretty small this time of year. We did have success in finding four nice shirts for Duncan for $0.50/each. I should have bought more, even if I didn't like them, because if you donate them to Goodwill and take a tax deduction, you're making money. They're probably worth at least $6 on Turbo Tax and if you're in the 25% tax bracket, for example, you would get a $1.50 credit on your taxes making a net pickup of $1.00. I'm not saying your going to become a millionaire or anything with this methodology but it's something. Anyway, the sales didn't take long so we also hit up Walgreens and CVS to do some couponing. CVS was a total bust - - they didn't have a single thing that I wanted but that's what happens with good deals that start on a Sunday and you don't go until Friday.

In Brady news, my last post I talked about putting Brady to bed earlier in the hopes that he would sleep later. Well, that totally backfired on Friday night. He woke up at 5:40 instead of 6:15. When you're up until 1:00, this is not a welcome thing. Fortunately, that early time has not been repeated but other than a 6:45 one morning, we're still on the 6:05 - 6:15 thing. On a positive note, at least he is going to bed earlier which gives me a little more free time (albeit work time this week) in the evenings. I really don't know if it there's anything I can do to make his sleep later so I'm just going to go with it. Although..maybe when the clocks spring forward that will help. The really good thing that I can't complain about it that he doesn't wake up at all through the night. The bigger problem, for me, is that he has not been taking his afternoon nap. The only day he slept well was Wednesday when he slept for about two hours (after 25 minutes of crying). Typically he'll fall asleep when he's nursing at about 2:00 pm and I'll put him directly in his crib still asleep. For the first 6 months and 1 week of his life, he would sleep for a good 2.5 to 3.0 hours after that. At 6 months and 2 weeks, he decided to reduce it to 30 minutes. Why? Who's to say. I let him cry for awhile but I eventually give in (although it worked Wednesday). I really hope and pray this doesn't become a pattern. Aubree also went about three days this week without a nap but I can deal with that because she just plays with Calleigh upstairs (although the grouchiness come about 6:00 is a real drag).

Sucking on a strawberry through his little mesh baggy thingy.

"I just don't get it. How does the water come out of there? Boobies are so much simpler."

A funny line from Calleigh this week...over the last few months, it has come up now and then about how it's different times of the day in other countries. For example, when it's day here, it's night elsewhere and vice versa. We were watching the Pats game last Saturday night and Calleigh stuck out her head to look down the stairs:

Calleigh: "What are you doing down there?"
Me: "Watching the football game. Now go to bed."
Calleigh: "What?? But it's dark out. Are they playing in China or something??"

It's also funny how kids take things so literally. We were headed out the door to go somewhere and the girls were lagging behind so Duncan threatened that we would indeed, leave them home.

Duncan: "So, I guess Mom and I are just going to run out to the store."
Calleigh: "No, you guys go too fast. We won't be able to catch up."

Gotta love those kids.

A few random pictures..

First time in a swing.

The girls love to make "sets" as they call them which is just a bunch of items put together to make like a bedroom, a playhouse, or what have you.

I haven't cut it open yet to see the answer but this cracked me up!

Have a very Happy Sabbath. I know I will be!

Legoland, Target, & The Circus

2012-01-14T00:47:00.000-05:00

This week was action packed with a couple of special outings as you may have gathered from the title. Before I get to that, I'll pick up where we left off from the last posting...

It was Adventurer Sabbath this week since it was the first Sabbath of the month. I volunteered Calleigh to do the offering again if no one else wanted to do it (I heard they were supposed to do just one for the year to give other kids a chance) and it turned out no one else did so she was pleased. Aubree was left out in the cold once again. One of the deacons actually asked her if she wanted to do it with him but he was sort of an "interesting" looking gentleman and I think she got freaked out.

After naptime, we headed over to the Bergherms for some dinner, thank you Jennifer, and some games. We ended up playing a game off a DVD which had you identify different movies based on the dialogue or pictures. Duncan completely carried our team and we were winning all the way to the end until we lost in the "final jeopardy" round. Oh well. The biggest challenge with the game was trying to keep the kids away because some of the movies weren't exactly kid friendly. Calleigh, naturally, is intrigued any time she can catch a glimpse of a TV screen in action. Funny how we adults try our darndest to pretend we're just two couples having a grand old time and there aren't four screaming kids running around.

Jennifer and I in our matching Old Navy shirts from the 75% sale

Sunday morning after our First Watch run, it was off to Madison Hilliard's 3rd birthday party at My Gym in Lake Mary. We had been there to a party almost two years ago and were glad to go back. There are a bunch of activities to do and then the leader also has some games they do. One of the games was where three kids have to run around in this big circle trying to tag each other. Aubree got picked by the teacher to do the game with two other kids and Calleigh was quite perturbed by this. "I want to be with my little sister!" she told the teacher. She was saying that from a perspective of being concerned about Aubree's well being playing tag with some bigger kids. Another game was a version of musical chairs except this time it was "musical mat." There was a long mat put out and when the music stopped, the kids had to jump on the mat. The mat kept getting folded to make it smaller but that also meant it kept getting taller. Calleigh was such a good sport. Whenever the music stopped, she would help Aubree onto the mat which meant at the end she was having to pick her up onto it. I was glad to see she was more intent on making sure Aubree got on the mat instead of looking out for herself.

The birthday girl

Not the greatest picture but you can see Calleigh trying to get Aubree on the mat.

The best part of My Gym was trying to get Aubree to understand the name of it. I told her we were going to My Gym and she, of course, took this to mean it was "mine." This came up in a discussion she had with Duncan:

Duncan: "Did you go to My Gym?"
Aubree: "No, I didn't."
Duncan: "You didn't? I thought you were going to My Gym for Madison's party?"
Aubree: "Nope."
Duncan: "Are you sure it wasn't at My Gym?"
Aubree: "It wasn't YOUR guy. It was Mommy's Gym!"

Sunday evening I spent some time preparing for the next morning. We are part of a homeschool group with the Forest Lake Church and homeschoolers are able to get a special deal into the new Legoland Park in Winter Haven - - $5/person. It's regularly $68 so clearly, a most excellent deal. Yes, I know you are probably thinking that we aren't homeschoolers and you would be correct but we've already joined the group in anticipation of being homeschoolers and that way we can be part of the activities and get to know people. It wasn't just to get into Legoland for $5, I swear! Anyway, we would need to leave the house by about 8:20 and considering that the girls don't even get up until 8:00, it would take a lot of prep work to get us out of the house on time. Fortunately, I pulled it off. We were out the door and on our way. It's about and hour and twenty minute trip.

At one time, I would say about two kids ago, going to an amusement park with three kids without Duncan or an equivalent, would have made my knees tremble a little bit. But now I kind of just go with the flow. To be fair, there is no way I could have pulled it off if it weren't for Jennifer and her mother-in-law because the kids had to have an adult with them to go on the rides and obviously it couldn't be me since I had Brady. Jennifer was there with her troop of four boys (two hers and the other two are Zachary and Kaleb) and her mother-in-law, Ellen, was who an extremely good sport. We could have used a few more adults actually since the kids outnumbered us but we were able to work some of the rides in shifts. It was an awesome day to be there. It was about 80 degrees (almost too hot at times) and hardly any wait to get on the rides. Calleigh ended up being just tall enough (42 inches I think it was) to ride the big roller coasters and I left Brady with Jennifer so I could go with her. She loved it! I think my first roller coaster was at the now defunct Boardwalk and Baseball which strangely enough was probably only about 20 minutes from Legoland. I was way older than four though.

Aubree has been talking about going on roller coasters for months now but at barely 36 inches, she wasn't tall enough to do any roller coasters but at least was just tall enough to get on some "big kid" rides as we called them. One of them was a ride that goes up and then drops down quickly - - they have the same one at SeaWorld but she hasn't been on it yet. I was curious to see if she would be a scaredy cat when it came right down to it (was betting that she would be) but it turned out that she laughed the whole time. Ahhh, such a great sound!! I could have done the ride a dozen more times just to hear that.

Aubree bawled because she was too little to drive a car.

Feeling better now.

Aubree on the big kid ride. I look huge.

Ellen was great to have there.

I spotted this unique double stroller.

A few years from now they will probably make a face at this picture.

Aubree and Kaleb. Awww!

With all the excitement of the rides and giant Legos, the biggest thrill of the day might just as well have been the playgrounds. The girls both let out a squeal as we came to one of them. I was impressed with how many play areas they had there. The six kids spent a good 30 or 40 minutes just running around one of the playgrounds and we had to tear them away to go on to something else. Good old fashion fun.

Aubree led Zachary all over the playground and kept saying he was "going to jail." Not sure what his crime was.

Working on him in jail.

During all of this, Brady was as good as can be. When there is stuff happening around him, he's happy to just sit there and observe it all. I did switch him back and forth between the stroller and Bjorn because he would get a little antsy at times in the stroller - - I think mainly because the girls tend to harrass (i.e. kiss) him incessantly when they can reach him. He fell asleep for about a grand total of 30 minutes while we were there which was between 10:00 - 5:00 (those are the hours its open). Didn't want to miss any of the excitement I guess!

Finished the day with some delicious apple fries. Thanks for the tip, Allen!

All in all, I would say we definitely enjoyed ourselves although at $68 I would have felt like we needed to squeeze more of the attractions in. When it's $5, you can just relax and go at whatever pace the kids want to go at. We did leave some things undone so there will have to be a next time! We left about 5:30 and didn't make it home until about 7:20 with all the traffic. It felt like a long day to be sure.

Tuesday we took Brady in for the second part of his flu shot. He didn't cry a bit so that was nice. I checked his weight since it was the same scale he was weighed on exactly one month previous. Four ounces. That's all he gained in four weeks. From 14 pounds to 14 pounds, 4 ounces. Very frustrating to say the least. We weren't seeing the doctor or anything so I couldn't have a discussion with the doctor on it so for now I'm going to just keep feeding him as much as I can. Maybe he's just a little guy. I've added a second serving of solids a day although I'm somewhat hesitant to feed him too much solids since I don't want him to reduce his nursing. That's where he gets most of his calories.

Tuesday evening we met Jennifer and the boys over to Chik-Fil-A for kids eat free night. This time the event was a lady doing caricatures. I don't know how much the pictures really look like them per se, but the girls thought it was fun. As we were getting in the van to come home, Calleigh says to me. "I wish I was a boy." When I asked her why she says "So I could play with my business. You know, the thing where the pee comes out." But yes, that's exactly how she said it...So I could play with my business. Things that make you go "Hmmm."

Brady...I think.

Wednesday we were going to hit up a playground but the weather turned rainy so we decided a trip to Monkey Joe's with Jennifer and the boys, once again, was in order. Aubree isn't quite big enough to make it up to the biggest slide and after about two or three times of my climbing up with her I was like "And...we're done. Go find something else." Fortunately most everything else she was able to do on her own or with help from one of the other kids.

Wednesday night Duncan was able to get home in time to take Calleigh, and Aubree, to Adventurers. They don't seem to mind that we have a 2-year old doing pretty much everything that Calleigh does so we just go with it. Aubree loves being with the big kids. Meanwhile, I just had Brady back here at home so I was running around the house like a madwoman cleaning up, folding laundry, making a grocery list while talking on the phone (which led me to ponder for several minutes while I was at the grocery store what just exactly "chase" was on my list. Finally realized, once I got home, that it was supposed to be "cheese.") .

Thursday morning was a day I had been waiting for. Twice a year Target has a huge clearance sale on their toys where they mark a large selection of stuff down to 70% off. The last time they had it at the end of July, I was on my way to Nova Scotia and missed it. Not this time! By studying the coupon blogs, we were prepared that Thursday was going to be the day. You have to go on THE DAY or else you miss it because everything goes really fast. Jennifer warned me that I had to be there right when it opened at 8:00. So, like Monday morning and Legoland, I had to get the kids up early and out the door, this time by 7:35. Fortunately they weren't grumpy and we made it to Target by 7:53. Nobody else was around so I wondered if the blogs were wrong but as I came around the corner of the aisle, I saw the big 70% off signs and all the toys and my heart skipped a little beat. Within a few minutes there were at least six to eight other fanatics there with their carts piled high just like mine. The sickening thing is when you see something you paid full price for at Christmas and now you see it heavily marked down. We paid $20 for a doll for Aubree and now it was $5.30. Fiddlesticks! Now, you may be wondering what on earth am I doing with a cart full of toys. The answer to that is planning ahead. I was buying gifts for all the birthday parties the kids will go to this year, gifts for their birthday and possibly Christmas if there's anything left. Yes, I know they saw the stuff but I don't think it matters. They were actually quite good about the whole thing. I thought they were going to have a fit when they couldn't have some of the bigger things...namely a dancing baby doll in Aubree's case. This was my exchange with Calleigh on the way home:

Me: "Now you know girls, these gifts aren't for now. I'm going to have to put them away when we get home."
Calleigh: "But Mom, could we just play with the boxes that the toys are in?"
Me: (After taking a moment to think how precious it was that she had asked that) "I don't know. I don't think I really want you to be looking at these gifts. Some of these may be for you for your birthday or something."
Calleigh (in a very serious tone): "Mom, we won't even remember any of these. We'll just forget what's in the boxes."

The real thing that amazed me was that I told them if they were really good they could pick something out to have now. I was anticipating it would be some giant Polly Pocket set up (not that I was going to give them something that big) but it turned out that all Calleigh wanted was a little play cell phone that was a whopping $2.28. Why? Because it had some sparkly stickers that you could stick on it. She's had a blast with that cell phone, I must say. Although...I wonder if it's just encouraging her to have a real one someday. Incidentally, Aubree never picked something out and they barely even noticed when I took all the gifts to the garage. I guess they're still satisfied from Christmas. I'm not going to say how much I spent on the toys because I don't want you to judge me. But I will say that if I had paid full price it would have been in the hundreds of dollars.

Last night was the big trip to the circus. We hadn't told them in advance where we were going only telling them the morning of that we were going somewhere. Calleigh kept trying to guess and as a clue she wanted to know where on the earth it was. In the middle or on the edge? Guess we need some work on that aspect of the earth. Anyway, at one point Aubree somehow came up with the idea of the circus but Calleigh kept shooting her down. I don't know that Calleigh realized it was the circus until we were in building and then they had big smiles on their faces. We only got there about 10 minutes before it started at 7:30 but that was just fine. The Bergherms (minus Bruce) and Allen and Braelyn (too late for the twins) joined us. Now, the circus isn't necessarily where I would go to spend my free time if I didn't have any kids but I do have kids so I enjoy watching them enjoy it. Since the girls are night owls anyway, they had no trouble staying awake for the whole show. Nor did Brady who was awake the whole time too...just watching it all. Personally, I didn't think it was as good as last year but others disagreed. The highlight was at the end where they had eight guys on motorcycles all riding at the same time in this cylinder ball. Calleigh said it was her favorite too...since there was no "tall man" this year. Her favorite last year was the man on stilts and both she and Aubree kept asking me when he was coming out. He never did, sadly. The show lasted until 9:50 and we got home at 10:35 and the kids all went right to sleep.

I don't want to say the circus protesters are right but this is what I saw in the hall on the way to our seats.

Excited!

Picture courtesy of Allen's blog.

Picture courtesy of Allen's blog

This morning we were happy to be out on our yard sale circuit. Not too many sales out there still but I did find a few shirts and a pair of shoes for myself. Happy times.

In other news, I'm making a concerted effort to get Brady on a different sleeping pattern. He's woken up between 6:05 and 6:11 every day this week. He's consistent if nothing else. Unfortunately this is just too early for me to be waking up. My sister-in-law read a book about how if you put them to bed earlier, they'll actually sleep later. The more babies sleep, the more they sleep. I'm trying it tonight to see if it will work. I usually don't feed and put Brady to bed until after the girls which means he's not hitting his crib until after 9:00. Tonight I put him in there at 8:15. He went right to sleep (he always does. Yay!). Please, oh please, let it work!! If not, I've set up a pack n'play downstairs for him for the morning. When he finishes eating in the mornings, it's still pretty early and no one else is up yet. I just set up some toys for him and lie on the floor next to him. Since he's moving around (not crawling but rolling, etc) I'm constantly having to re-position him. Now I can just throw him in the pack n'play with his toys and I can relax a little bit.

The last two weeks have been majorly busy for me work wise and I've been up pretty late a number of nights (what's new, right??). The month of January is always like this for me though because of year end and audit. Thank goodness I'm not exercising any more! I know that sounds really bad. I finally got back to my pre-baby weight by the second week in December and once that happens, I stop the fanatical exercise. Not a good thing, I know, but for now, I'm just too busy.

I think that's about it although I will share one other Calleigh conversation or conversations I guess you could say. At the beginning of the week she asked me if people used scissors a long, long time ago. I said I didn't think so. She didn't seem convinced of my answer so she said "Let's ask Papa." I was a little perplexed by this statement because I was thinking to myself, "Does she want to ask Papa that because she thinks he's old and was alive back then?" But I didn't pursue it further. A few days later, as we left early for Legoland actually, there was a lot of fog. Calleigh asks me where the fog came from and as I paused to try to come up with an intelligent answer Calleigh says "We should ask Papa. He'll know." So it turns out that Papa isn't old, he's just really smart. The go-to person for tough questions. I'm assuming she must get this from my always saying we should ask Papa when she asks me Bible questions that are impossible to answer (like the "will cockroaches be in heaven" type of ones). So there you go, Papa. Your granddaughter thinks you're pretty darn smart!

That actually reminds me...one other Papa related story. A little background first. At VBS last year, the theme was Panda Bears and the mascot was one named Ping. With that in mind...We were on our way to church on Sabbath and Aubree is looking through this picture book. She excitedly holds up the book and says "Look! It's Ping Crosby!!" (This is Papa related because it's a well known fact that Bing Crosby is his favorite singer.)

Ping Crosby...errr, Bing Crosby?

Have a Happy Sabbath!

Back to Normal

2012-01-06T23:51:00.000-05:00

Things are pretty much back to the normal routine around here. I finally finished and folded all the kids' laundry from the trip on Wednesday, a mere eight days after returning. In my defense, it's not like I can do it while they're in bed at night (well, I suppose I could fold it and not put it away but I like to do it in one shot) so during the day you have to make a choice of whether to fold a gigantic load of laundry or spend time doing stuff. I guess you know which won for awhile!

Monday was a holiday for Duncan so we had the pleasure of his company for the day. Granted, we did go our separate ways in the morning. Duncan headed over to the Oviedo Mall to get fitted for some new suits he had bought. Meanwhile, I loaded up the kids for a trip to the dentist where Calleigh was to get her semi annual checkup and cleaning. It seemed as if everyone and their uncle was there and I was concerned about a long wait but it was only about 10 minutes or so. After she left and I was left to entertain Aubree and Brady, I looked around the room at all the adults that were sitting their waiting for their respective children and I would say of about a dozen adults, eight were on their smart phones and two were reading Kindles. The two that weren't on their smart phones or Kindles were talking about the Kindle Fire that recently came out. Not a nary magazine was to be seen. That's the technology age for you. Anyway, after Calleigh had been gone for a bit, Aubree announces that she had to go potty. This is never a good sign when we're out and about since she only goes number two on the potty and it is not a speedy endeavor whatsoever. Sure enough, I ask her about every two minutes "Are you done?" Nope, she was still working on it. Of course, I'm imagining that Calleigh is going to be all done and they'll be looking for us and we'll be nowhere to be seen so I keep sticking my head out the door without revealing a two-year old on the pot in all her glory. Finally, finally after what was definitely at least 8 - 10 minutes, she declares she's done. At this point, I note that the strap on the baby changing table is broken and since I hadn't brought in a stroller for Brady, down he went on the floor in front of the toilet braced against my legs so that I could wipe Aubree. I really need to think of these things before I leave the stroller behind. This is a single bathroom and I was imagining a long line queuing up outside the door for the amount of time this took us. But no, it's just Calleigh and a hygienist milling around wondering where in the world we went. The hygienist says to me that Calleigh said she thought we went to the hospital (huh??) and she was about to call me. I was just hoping no one would go in there and think I made that smell.

As far as the actual visit itself, normally we would have gone in the back when she was done and gotten a short report from the dentist himself but obviously that did not happen. Instead, I was quickly told that she had no cavities and all was well. I'll take it. I made her next appointment for July and this time Aubree will be going too! We'll see how that pans out. I'll need to make sure she goes potty first. Ha!

First tub together. One of Daddy's duties on Monday.

We stopped at the playground after the dentist. I love how he's looking at something out of the corner of his eye.

We made the girls play outside with their new moon dough. That stuff is a PAIN to clean up.

Tuesday was a pretty quiet day with our only venture out of the house to Walmart. It was a very chilly day by Florida standards with the high only in the upper 40's. Sometimes I have such a tough time getting it through to the girls that it's cold outside because they always dress themselves in sleeveless dresses, skirts, or whatever. Always dressing up, those two. I finally convinced them that they needed to wear jeans, a turtleneck, and a sweater because it was cold like at Papa and Gigi's. Calleigh really wasn't excited about this and declared to me "I like it when it's hot better than when it's cold. Then we can wear tank tops, shorts, and skirts." There's no denying that it's a whole easier lot to dress kids for warm weather. Incidentally, we did turn on the heat for the first time on Monday night which I always find terribly wrong but for the sake of the children, I did it.

Wednesday I finally got around to doing what I've been procrastinating on for a month...get Brady to the hospital for his follow-up blood test. This was the test to check his "t" cells which had been low in the original blood work. Since he's been healthy, I haven't been as motivated to get it done. But off to the hospital we went. We were in a different area this time (outpatient lab) so it was not the same guy drawing the blood...unfortunately. The lady was very sweet but she couldn't get it the first time around. I tried not to look as she moved that needle all around in his left arm to no avail. The girls just watched it all wide eyed. Brady, to his credit, although he was crying, wasn't absolutely wailing. He was fairly composed given the circumstances. She finally gave up and went to the right arm which is what had been used last time. Apparently the right arm has a better vein because she finally had success. Or, maybe she was so desperate to not hear me singing "Jesus Loves Me" one more time that she tried a little harder. We'll never know.

Thursday morning we were off to the ABC to stock up on some cases of veggie food. As I posted on Facebook, I was so excited to be walking through to the back food section when I spotted out of the corner of me eye a very familiar looking book. Yup, there was my brother Shawn Brace's book, Pursued By A Relentless God, right there on the end cap. That was a pretty neat thing to see. You can also buy the book on Amazon by clicking here. Thought I would put in that little plug!

After our brief ABC stop, it was on to the playground near downtown Winter Park for some playtime with Jennifer and the four boys. The weather has fortunately gotten warmer as the week has gone on and it was a great day for some running around which they all did quite happily. As we watched them I could hear Calleigh talking about taking them to the "royal dungeon." I had no idea where she had gotten that from so I asked her and she told me "Bruno."

It's baaaaack! There's that darn pink bow headband.

Today would ordinarily be yard sale day but January isn't necessarily an ordinary month for yard sales. It's definitely the slowest month of the year due to cooler weather and people are probably all tired out from the holidays. Instead, we did a few errands like checking out the sales at Target (about to be a big one soon but I can't say more) and Walgreens. Calleigh is obsessed with Honey Nut Cheerios right now and they have them on sale at Walgreens for $1.25 a box which is great. I got four boxes on Monday and tried to get more today but they were none to be found. I'll have to try another store Saturday night.

So that's the week in a nutshell...a big nut I guess you could say. If it were a very brief update it would be a nutshell because a nutshell is so small, right? Anyway, in other news, Brady is still doing very well health wise. He's doing great sitting up by himself but we still keep a Boppy or pillow around him because he'll occasionally topple over. I think he's woken up during the night about once or twice this past week but has quickly gone back to sleep. He even slept until 7:45 this morning which was odd but greatly appreciated. I'm continuing to feed him solids once a day but he sits in his high chair for each meal and nibbles on his Mum Mums which he loves and as it turns out, so does Calleigh. She keeps trying to steal them from him. They look like tasteless pieces of board to me but whatever.

In closing, here are a few conversations or comments from the girls:

Aubree's favorite phrase of the week or month, more like it: "What did you said?" I don't know how many times I've corrected her to say "What did you say?" but it seems to be going in one ear and out the other.
Calleigh insisted on wearing her bathing suit into the bathtub tonight and Aubree says to her "I love your bathing suit! Where did you get it?" Of course, Calleigh has worn this bathing suit numerous times but that's just how the girls talk sometimes. Anyway, Calleigh says "Thanks, I got it from Mommy who got it on the Internet." I thought this was the perfect opportunity to ask her what that was. So I ask her "Calleigh, what is the Internet?" She responds "It's Facebook." Okay, guess that's true. "Anything else?" "Yes, it's where you buy things like presents and stuff." Also true. So she wasn't that far off. I just thought it was interesting to see how they think of things.
I was feeding Brady some baby sweet potatoes and Calleigh insisted on having a bite so this was our exchange:

Me: "If you want a bite, you're going to have to get your own spoon." She goes and gets her spoon and takes a bite. She then goes back into the kitchen and I hear a drawer open and close.
Me: "Did you put that spoon back in the drawer? That's not what we do. That's yucky."
Calleigh: "No, no, no. It's okay." She assures me. "I sucked everything off it."

Have a Happy Sabbath!

Watching a Disney ocean documentary on the new Apple TV. They love it! As you can see, they dressed up for the occasion.

Aubree takes the van for a spin.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

2011-12-30T23:47:00.002-05:00

After a three week hiatus, I'm back! Things were a little hectic during the holiday and blogging just wasn't in the cards. Now it's on to the intimidating challenge of trying to catch up on all that's been happening.

Before I get into the holiday festivities up north, I would like to mention a couple of fun things we did before we left Florida. The first is that Duncan, the girls, Ron and Elaine, and Bruce along with Blake and Evan went on a bicycle fundraiser ride. It was on Saturday night, 12/10, and was about an eight mile ride through the back streets of Casselberry. We had seen it go by Ron and Elaine's house last year and were determined to join it this year. Clearly it didn't work out for me to go but the kids had a blast being pulled in their trailers by the dads. All the riders, which probably numbers in the hundreds, had their bikes decked out in lights and Christmas splendor. There was even a police escort for them all so it was a pretty neat thing. After that, the crew headed to the Oviedo Mall where they had brought in snow from the "North Pole" and had a bunch of other festivities. Seriously, I laughed and laughed to myself when I saw the snow. I kid you not but there were probably 40 kids in line waiting to stand on this snow(really ice) pile that was about the equivalent of the dirty snow that sits at the end of your driveway up north. I guess I wouldn't have laughed so hard if I had known then that this would be the only snow we would see this year. There was also a little man made hill that you could sled down. Again, rather pathetic but I guess this is what Floridians have to do to get their taste of winter. The mall wasn't a complete bust though as Duncan got a few new suits at a really good sale they were having a Jos A. Bank. The kids had fun, though, and that was what was important.

The sledding hill

The mound of snow everyone waited to climb on

One other little thing of note was that we were at Ron and Elaine's on that Tuesday night to see Santa Claus come to the neighborhood. Typically he comes on a fire truck and we patiently waited for the sirens to go off warning us of his arrival. We didn't hear anything and began to worry that he wasn't coming. The only thing we heard was this little bell and barely gave it a second thought. But upon going outside to see if anything was going on, low and behold, the bell was from the golf cart that Santa was on. Boy, things must be really tough at the North Pole this year to downgrade that dramatically. Santa stopped at a neighbors house and I asked Calleigh if she wanted to sit on his lap. As soon as she saw the goodie bag he was giving out, she ran to the line and sat on his lap without a second thought. All it took was a little candy and she was over her fear. Aubree still wanted me to sit on his lap and then she sat on mine.

Aubree was so excited about the trip north that she wore her coat to bed.

The rest of the week was spent packing for the big drive which commenced at about 2 pm on Thursday (12/15). Every year it seems to get a little tighter, which I suppose makes sense since we do have another kid since last year. Of course, we were down one dog and that was a bit sad. The girls are such great travelers but the big question was obviously how would Brady do over a 24-hour car ride. The first two hours were great with Aubree and Brady sleeping but then we hit a traffic jam from an accident just north of Jacksonville and things went downhill fast. Brady woke up and needed to be fed so we got off the highway to quickly discover we weren't in a very good section of town. But the baby had to eat so that was that. Afterwards, I turned on his DVD player (I'm not a proponent of infants watching TV but I was willing to do anything to keep him quiet over that long period of time) and found that the picture wasn't working. Major boneheaded move on my part for not checking it ahead of time. I had to ask Siri to find us a Walmart which she did but every one and their brother wast a Christmas shopping and I couldn't get anyone to help me. On to Best Buy and fortunately, after waiting in line for at least 10 minutes to pay (which feels like an hour when you still have 22 hours of a car ride ahead of you), we had our new DVD player. By this time, it was just about time for supper. Needless to say, we were barely into Georgia and we had already been on the road for six hours and Duncan and I were feeling a little worried. Thankfully, we were able to pull things together from there and the rest of the trip went pretty smoothly. Brady had a few bouts of crying but it wasn't bad. We arrived at my parents the next afternoon almost exactly 24 hours after we left.

The highlight of the first weekend was a trip to Newport, Rhode Island for the whole extended family minus Ricky and Ana, Jonathan & Marcela, and David & Yully (who went to Columbia). Someone counted that there were 31 one of us. Lori and Charlie have a timeshare and got a great deal in getting us all rooms for Saturday and Sunday nights. It was really fanstatic! The way it worked out is that we stayed in a two-bedroom place with Devin, Leigh, Mia, and baby Bode. Our place, at the Wyndham Vacation Resort, ended up being the hub of activity for the weekend and at times was a little tight with so many people packed in there but everyone loves each other so it wasn't a problem. There was a great pool which was half inside and half outside and had a little water slide. As you can imagine, this was a very popular spot for the kids and it was nice having them get some swimming time in after a hiatus.

On Sunday morning, we went to "The Atlantic Beach Club" for brunch. I was glad to use my couponing prowess while were there. I noticed that if you bought $100 worth of gift certificates, you would get $25 for free. Our bill was at least $500 and we were able to buy the gift certificates and use it to pay for the meal. Jackpot! We were glad to pass the freebies on to Lori and Charlie as our thanks for the weekend. The food was really, really good too. Afterwards we spent some time driving around looking at all the million dollar plus mansion. In the afternoon, we did a book swap where many of us brought a wrapped used book and we did a "Yankee Swap" game with them. Fun! Then we watched the Patriots game and had a lasagna feast during halftime. All in all, it was an awesome family time and we would love to make it an annual tradition if we could. Oh, and the best thing was that we got to meet the new babies, Finley and Bode. Finley is an absolute spitting imaging of her father, Sean, and I told Shannon that she was welcome to the club of women whose children don't resemble them. Bode is only two months old and practically the same size as Brady. We've discovered that people are already combining their names into "Brody" and calling them both that.

Cousin Acadia, 10 Months

The Atlantic Beach Club

Calleigh found this headband with an obnoxious bow at my parents and wore it like every day we were there.

Devin with Bode

Finley and Bode. Who shrunk Sean down to baby size? Seriously!

My mother (far right) and her three sisters. I think this is an awesome picture of them!

Our room - - watching the Pats and eating lasagna.

The only small downside to being there was the cold weather. Since we're right on the water, it seems particularly cold. I'm always in a quandary of how to handle it. The kids can't wear their jackets in their car seats so do you take the time to get them all geared up to go outside for like 10 steps, get them in the car, and then take it all off? I tell you, these are things I'm glad I don't have to deal with down here.

We returned to my parents house on Monday morning and the rest of the week progressed in the whirlwind that it usually does. Here's a summary of what we did each day:

Monday night my parents took the girls and Camden to the house in Millis that is owned by a car dealer and has like a million Christmas lights. Duncan and I used that time to run to Patriot Place where we saw some carolers which warmed my heart. When we got home and asked how the house had been, Calleigh had a big frown on her face. Turned out that she had fallen asleep as soon as she got into her car seat and had missed the whole thing. Whoops!

Who doesn't love carolers??

Tuesday evening we went to Edaville Railroad and I thought this was the best year we had gone most notably because it wasn't so cold. But also because I got to go on some of the rides with Calleigh and seeing and hearing her joy was priceless. The best one was the bumper cars. I think it was the first time she had done bumper cars and seriously, she giggled and laughed the entire ride. I loved it! For some reason, maybe because it was always so cold, we had never done some of the rides but we hit them all this year and it was a complete success. From what I understand, Aubree and Camden enjoyed their rides too but I didn't actually witness it.

On Wednesday we all went to the South Shore Plaza for some mall shopping and from there, Papa and Gigi took the three older kids to Santa's Village and a light show at Jordan's Furniture. Funny how just having one kid to deal with seems so much easier but one you only had one kid, it felt a lot worse. Anyway, Duncan, Brady, and I were able to get some more shopping done between there and the Wrentham Outlets. The highlight of the day was once the kids were in bed and Duncan, Shawn, and Camille and I went to the CBS Scene Restaurant to celebrate our anniversary, albeit a day early. It was late so we just went for dessert but Duncan and I got this dessert sampler that even a week later, our mouths salivate over. But more importantly, some adult quiet time was SO nice.

The girls made a beeline for the computers at the Apple store. Duncan was so proud!

Thursday was our nine-year anniversary so obviously, that was the big deal of the day. Duncan surprised me with two dozen red roses and a lovely note. What a guy! I'm already thinking of what we can do to celebrate our tenth next year. It's a big year as it will be my parents fortieth!

The other big thing on Thursday was the Boston Pops. As I mentioned in earlier posts, we were thinking only some of the Grodack clan would go but in the end, I really didn't want to break tradition and we all went. First we went to the Cheesecake Factory at the Prudential Center which has become our new tradition the last few years after our previous restaurant closed down. This was a down year for the Pops with people going out of town and the whole Newport thing. No extended family came, just some friends. No matter. As we trudged along from the restaurant to Symphony Hall we couldn't help but marvel how different it was from previous years. It was like 50 degrees out and not a bit of wind. Usually we're freezing our tails off. As we took our seats, I was wondering to myself if I was crazy to bring a 4-year old, a 2-year old, and a 6-month old, to an 8 pm performance no less (of course, the girls are such night owls the time didn't really matter for them). The first five minutes were a little rocky and then after that, they were amazing. Brady slept until intermission and then was awake but quiet the second half. The girls watched the whole thing and were quite into it, especially Calleigh. There were a lot of different props and such which I think really held her interest. I think she particularly like the reading of the Grinch set to music. So in the end, I was SO glad we all went and I'm still marveling at how well it went down.

I lucked out in that they were able to wear their same church coats two years in a row. There's the darn pink bow again. It went with us to the Pops.

We did have a little drama at the end of the evening on the way back to our car. We stopped at the Cheesecake Factory to use the restroom and when my mom, Gail Irrgang, Calleigh, and I walked into the restroom, we found a lady passed out lying in one of the stalls. Just a little unnerving. We tried to get Calleigh to crawl under and unlock the door but she was too scared. Gail ended up wiggling under. It turned out to be a late in her late 40's and when her husband came running in (he had been waiting outside the door for her and someone called him in) we discovered she only spoke French. 911 was called and she finally came too long enough for someone to get her up and put her in a chair but she seemed to pass out again sitting there. We left and saw the ambulances arriving. Who knows what happened and we'll never know but I'm sure Calleigh will remember that. She kept asking if the lady was okay.
Friday we did a little last minute shopping and then a bunch of people came over my folks for Friday night dinner including Calleigh's pal, Bruno. He may be seven and a boy but the two of them get along like two peas in a pod.

Daddy took the girls to the playground on Friday. Pink bow alert!

Sabbath we went to the Norwood Church and once again, Calleigh and Aubree got to star in the Christmas program put on by the children's department. They dressed up as angels and were very pleased. I think anytime they have to dress up, it's a happy day.
Saturday night, Christmas Eve, we had a very nontraditional evening. This mainly stemmed from the fact that the Case family went down to Tennessee for Christmas and weren't with us. This was a tough pill to swallow as we've been having Christmas together since, I think, shortly after my grandfather passed away in 1988. Instead, some friends came over which was nice but we sure missed the Cases. A group went out singing carols around the neighborhood which the girls loved. I stayed behind with Brady. We didn't end up doing any games which was very strange but it was a down year for me planning them anyway.

Christmas morning went great. We did our stockings first. I had Camille and Duncan had my dad. Because of all our couponing, we already had most of our stocking stuffers from that so that was very handy. The girls, as can be expected, loved ripping open all their presents and would get impatient at times while other people opened gifts. I saved their big present for last which was a big box of dress up clothes that I had gotten off eBay. I knew it would be a hit and it was. Duncan's big gift, which I had gotten him, was this nifty thing called Fitbit, which is essentially a tiny device that you wear and it tracks your steps, how much water you drink, how much you sleep, etc. It's really awesome and I would like one for my birthday. Hint, hint. After the gifts and brunch, we watched our new favorite Christmas movie, It Happened On Fifth Avenue. Highly recommend it!

A few other notes about the trip:

We were so disappointed that there wasn't any snow. We saw a few tiny wisps on Christmas morning but that was it. I had warned Calleigh before we got up there that there may not be any and she was quick to assure me that "It's okay. We won't even want to go outside because we'll be so busy playing with our presents." The girls still spent time playing outside and had fun but obviously the dreams of sledding and building snow forts was not to be. But what can you do. This is the first time in years without snow so I suppose we should be grateful that it's atypical.

And there it is again.

Things were quickly progressing downhill with Brady and his sleeping situation so it was a good thing we left when we did. Because of the number of people in the house (Papa, Gigi, Shawn, Camille, Camden, Acadia, Bob, Ricky, Ana, Duncan, Corey, Calleigh, Aubree, Brady, and Karon (Camille's mother who was there part of the time)), the only place for him to sleep was in the bathroom in his pack n'play. I couldn't put him in the room with the girls to sleep without us in there so the bathroom it was. He did pretty well at first but the last few nights he kept randomly waking up and to avoid him crying and waking up other people, I would nurse him. Definitely not something I wanted him to get used to! I'm happy to report that since we've been home, he's been sleeping very well and has only woken up once during the night out of the five nights.
We were happy to have Ana with us for Christmas. She was only going to stay until Friday night but Ricky convinced her to stay through Christmas and go back to Maryland with him when he went back on Monday.

Monday morning it all came to close when we departed for home. Since we figured there would be a lot of holiday traffic, we left earlier than we normally would. My usual plan of attack on these long road trips is to leave in the afternoon so that you split the day time driving up over the two days with the night in the middle to break things up. Instead, we left at 11:00 am. As expected, there was a bunch of traffic most notably in southern Connecticut, Exit 8 of the New Jersey Turnpike, and after the Delaware Memorial Bridge. I have an app on my iPhone called "Waze" that's like a traffic guide and people post stuff to it in real time as they go so I was able to quickly and easily see where the traffic spots were and how long they would last. It's also easy to find alternate routes although we ended up just sticking it out. But somehow being able to see where it would end, helped it go by faster. Duncan did the majority of the driving with me driving from 2 - 7 am. The kids were really good, with a few little tears from Brady. When we pulled into our driveway after the 25 hours, it was a beautiful sight. But compared to the trip last year when we were all sick, this was a piece of cake! As is his typical, Duncan threw out the "This is the last year I'm driving" line but I believe the finances of flying will dissuade him next year just like it does every other.

Aubree pooped out after the trip.

So here we are back at home. I'm still doing piles of laundry and it's coming out of my ears. I seriously want to tell the girls to stop wearing clothes so I can just catch up. It doesn't help that the girls wear like three outfits a day. They are constantly changing clothes. I don't know if that's a girl thing or what.

It was a slow week as far as getting out and doing things since it's hard to enjoy myself with doing anything when my house is in shambles. We did do a little shopping on Friday since Duncan had the day off and we were getting ready for Christmas 2.0 which we had last night. That's the term for our Christmas with Ron and Elaine. Russ and Saray joined in this year so that made it feel like even more of an event. The highlight of the evening for the girls was a big doll house they got from Grandma and Grandpa. Duncan got an Apple TV which he had been hoping for and I got a slow cooker that was high on my list.

This is how we roll now at Publix. Brady has graduated from the Bjorn to the cart.

Ron and Elaine got an XBox 360 with Kinect that allows you to do various exercises

Yesterday did have a little drama in the morning. I had gotten the girls up as usual and Aubree seemed a little whiny from the get-go. Not that unusual actually. But then she didn't want to eat breakfast and was just half lying on the couch. A few minutes later she came into the kitchen and proceeded to throw up on the floor. It was all pretty much liquid since she hadn't eaten so as far as throwing up goes, it wasn't that bad. I thought maybe it was a one and done but over the course of the next few hours, she did it about three more times. Needless to say, she didn't go to church. She stayed home with Daddy and I went ahead with Calleigh and Brady. She slept most of the morning when she wasn't vomitting. She wasn't crying or anything just kind of listless. She had no fever either. Well, our lunch was lasagna and edamame (do people know about these? The girls just LOVE to eat them out of the pod.) and she came right off the couch, sat down at the table, and proceeded to chow down. And that was the end of the sickness. I have no idea what caused it as she had only eaten things that we had all eaten for supper on Friday night.

Brady at Sabbath School. I did clean those bells before he went to town on them.

Today we were back at First Watch. Brady sat in the highchair for the first time. We stopped at Walgreen's on the way there to pick up some Mum Mums to give him and he chowed down on those while we ate. He ate two of them in fact. This was his first "finger food" since he's just been eating baby cereal and canned food so far.

First Watch

Duncan took them to the "Green" playground while I cleaned house. Here their new friend Paige taught them some exercises.

This evening that Isidros came over and we caught up with them on their trip to Denver. Those lucky dogs had snow. We had haystacks and exchanged gifts with the kids. At one point it seemed like all six kids were either yelling or crying and the downstairs looked like a disaster and I said "Someday we will look back at all this."

Fooling around with Braelyn

I'm sure I'm forgetting dozens of things went on but this is it for now. Have a great week!

Halfway There

2011-12-09T22:04:00.001-05:00

Brady turned six months old yesterday which I like to think of as halfway there. To me, the first year of having a kid is the toughest. I'm sure I'll revise that idea sometime down the road but for now, that's my humble opinion. Although...as I think of some of the tantrums Calleigh has thrown recently over what outfit she wants to wear, it may be sooner than down the road.

We went on Wednesday for Brady's sixth month check up. It was so nice to bring him in and tell the doc that he's all better, at least for now. In fact, this was the first time that our new doctor, Dr. Emmert, has seen him not being sick. What a blessing, really and truly. The big moment for me, now that he's healthy, is to see his weight. Here's how his stats shook out compared to the girls:

Brady Aubree Calleigh
Weight 14 lbs, 0 oz (5th) 14 lbs, 8 oz (25th) 14 lbs, 5 oz
Height 25 1/2 inches (10th) 25 3/4 inches (50th) 25 1/2 inches
Length 16 3/4 inches (25th) 17 inches (75th) 17 inches

So yeah, he's a little one. He dropped from the 10th percentile at four months to now the 5th percentile. But that's okay. It's hard to believe, looking back at the stats, that Aubree was actually the biggest considering how much smaller she is now compared to Calleigh at age two. Clearly how big you are at six monthes doesn't mean how big you'll be down the road. Anyway, Dr. Emmert isn't concerned about the weight. She said he checks out healthy, he looks healthy, and he's eating, peeing, and pooping so it's all good.

The girls, as usual, were very talkative with Dr. Emmert and as we were leaving the appointment, Dr. Emmert told them to have a good Christmas. Aubree promptly responded "Well (this is how she starts about 50% of her sentences), it's not Christmas. It's the Christmas SEASON."

Considering he doesn't crawl or walk, he sure gets around. He was supposed to be on that mat but rolled over to the tree.

Monday morning found us headed to a musical called "A Nutty Nutcracker Christmas" at the Orlando Repertory Theater. We tagged along with the Begherms, Hilliards, and another mother and her four children (incidentally, I asked her what transition was the hardest and she said from three to four which I've thought was the easiest. So maybe adding a fourth wouldn't be too bad!). The show was an hour long and you always wonder how that will work out with two toddlers and an infant. The answer is...stunningly! Calleigh barely said a word the whole time. Aubree made a few comments my way and then Brady pretty much stared entranced for the duration and only fell asleep in the last ten minutes. Honestly, can I just say how easy of a baby he is? Knock on wood. He doesn't fuss, squirm, cry or anything. I realize this could all change at any time so I'm enjoying it while it lasts. After the show, we all went to a nearby park and had a picnic lunch.

Waiting in the lobby to get into the show.

Tuesday was shopping day with a trip to a consignment store and Publix. I still had to pick up a few odds and ends of warm clothes for Brady. I think I'm pretty much set now although the telltale sign will be when I start packing for the trip north. I hope to not wait until the last minute to do that.

Thursday we hung out at home for a good portion of the day because I had to take my van in to get the brakes checked. The brakes have been squeaking for about the last 10,000 miles, at least. The van will be three in March and has 37,000 miles on it and I wasn't thinking it would be time for brakes yet but with a long road trip ahead of us, we thought it would be good to check on it. I got annoyed at the dealer when I called to make an appointment (long story) so I decided to go with a guy that I had taken my Alero into for brakes back in 2008. I wrote about that experience here (strangly enough in that same post, I mention my new laptop so I guess I now know definitively that my laptop lasted from June 2008 to December 2011.) Please note that the word "here" is in black which means it's a link that you can click on. Anyway, I haven't had a need, with a new van, for any service so I haven't been back to the Manic Mechanic in Winter Park but this was my opportunity. Ron and Elaine came over to help me drop it off around 10:00. The owner, Mark, was very nice and I mentioned to him about how impressed I had been with him the last time when he told me I didn't need new brakes and how I had referred him a bunch of people since that experience. Along about 1:00 he gave me a call to tell me that once again, the brakes were fine. I still had about 1/3 of the brakes remaining. I asked about the squeaking and he said it just meant that the brake pad probably wasn't put on exactly right or something like that and the only way to fix it would be to undo the brakes. Um, no. We did have him do an oil change (Duncan usually does it but is just too busy right now) and put in a new air filter so at least we did give him some business. So there you have it. It's nice to have a mechanic you can trust. He was very chatty when I paid telling me how he bought one new car his whole life (I would say he's in his 50's) and it's a Chevy Silverado pick-up and he changes the oil every 2,000 miles if you can believe it. The truck has 102,000 miles on it and he's changed the oil 51 times and never had to do a brake job. He says changing the oil is one of the most important things you can do to preserve the life of a car so he's very anal about doing it so often (he says it's not necessary for me to do it so often). The other thing he said to preserve a car is to NEVER drive with it overheated. If the temp gauge goes up past 75%, stop immediately. Good to know.

While our the van was there, obviously we had no way to get out and about so Yolanda and Emma came over for a play date. We had a nice time playing various games including "War" with the Rook cards. Everyone plays a card and whoever has the highest, wins the cards. It was a good way for the girls to learn the higher numbers (like the teens).

This morning we were off to our yard sales. I thought it might be a slow day so close to Christmas but it was not. We found a bunch more bargains on toys and then the very last place of the day, a neat oy for right now...a rocking angel fish. The girls both made a mad dash for it. I was thinking it was going to be like $15 or $20 bucks but he said $5 so I was like "We'll take it!" Not sure where we would put it, but we'll take it. So the girls are, for once, sharing the rocker and I'm holding Brady who is just chilling and the couple running the sale are like "Wow, we're really impressed that you go to yard sales with three little kids like this." And I'm like acting all cool and I'm like "Oh yeah, it's really pretty easy. No big deal." I'm feeling pretty good how about I have this all mastered. Then, in a flash, it all fell apart. Aubree stood too closely behind the fish rocker and gets hit in the mouth as Calleigh rocked back. Her lip starts bleeding and she's crying hysterically which naturally sets off Brady. All the while, Calleigh is rocking furiously seemingly oblivious to the drama she has inadvertently caused. I say a few comforting words to Aubree and then realize she's bleeding all over my brand new white Old Navy shirt. Aggghhh! I mention this fact out loud and then quickly try to cover it up thinking how horrid a mother probably sounds to strangers when she's groaning over her shirt while her daughter is bleeding from the mouth. In my defense, white is my favorite color of shirt and also, I could tell it was a fairly superficial wound. I finally get them all loaded into the van, two out of three still crying, throw the fish into the back, and off we go, much louder in departure than in arrival. I wasn't quite so cool any more. Now that we're home, there have been about six fights over who gets to be on the fish rocker and I'm thinking yup, that's why it was only $5.

The new fish rocker during happier times.

Tonight would be the night that we do our annual drive through the neighborhoods to admire Christmas lights. We decided to forego it this year do to Brady and his car seat aversion although truthfully, he's gotten much better with it. Instead, we went to the neighborhood just down the road that has the house with the ginormous display of lights. The big difference this year was that we were in short sleeve shirts compared to cold and windy conditions last year. Ron and Elaine joined us and we were able to just stroll leisurely around taking it all in. The girls loved it, of course, and kept trying to run ahead of our little group to see what was next. There were several other houses that had their own displays. Two of them had giant villages set up in there garages. And I mean giant. One was in the garage of an older couple. Ron asked the husband how long it took to set it all up and he said "Oh, it took me no time at all. My wife did the whole thing." When we asked her, she said it took three months. I could believe it. The level of detail was unbelievable. As you look at it all, you can't help but imagine yourself living there. It seems like just the perfect place. We even picked out which house we would want to live in.

Seriously, there were like hundreds of houses in this village.

At one point, Aubree asked someone to pick her up so she could see better and Calleigh volunteered. So yeah, she was like a whole six inches higher up than she was before!

The lady on the left is the one who set it all up.

When it was time to go, Aubree threw a fit. I guess that meant she had a good time (even pointed out some of the "instruments" that she particularly liked). I had to force her into the car seat and put the buckles on and she just wasn't a happy camper. Meanwhile, in the backseat, Calleigh had found a fruit snack and I said she would have to share it with Aubree. I ask Aubree if she would like a fruit snack and in a crying/whiny voice she says "No, I don't want a fruit snack." Half second pause and switch to a completely normal voice "What kind is it?" It was so funny how she changed on a dime. Elaine and I got a good laugh out of that one.

Other things that have been going on this week is that Aubree took a sudden interest in dressing herself. Oh sure, she's been able to dress herself, for the most part, for quite some time now. But usually it's been to put on whatever I give her or occasionally grab something out of the drawer when it's time to get dressed. Well, the last few days she's been going upstairs to get herself changed, for no apparent reason, and naturally, the outfits she comes up with aren't ones you would really want to be seen in public with her wearing. I'm guessing that I'm heading for some tantrums in the near future with her. I can already feel it starting. Calleigh can be horrible sometimes. She just got her dress up clothes back after a week's punishment after she went completely bonkers before the Christmas party last Saturday night. She wanted to wear a particular shirt, that was too small and had her belly half sticking out, and she lost it when I said no. I do hope this is just a girl thing and I'll get a reprieve with Brady.

Wednesday's outfit.

Thursday's outfit.

Realizing it doesn't match. That's Christmas music playing on the TV, by the way.

Calleigh getting in on the action.

Brady's solid food eating has been going great. He ate the rice cereal, happily, for three days and then yesterday I started him on peas. I'm sure he was expecting rice cereal again so you can imagine his shock to find peas on the spoon. But the shock quickly wore off and he ate almost a whole container of it and then the whole one today. He's certainly having no probably with it. I, on the other hand, am mentally calculating how long it will be until he can eat finger foods because it's so much easier for me. I quickly remembered why I don't start my kids until six months on the solids. It takes up a lot of time to sit there feeding them! Add that on to the approximate two hours and twenty minutes a day you spend nursing, you take up nearly three hours of your day, or 1/6th of your awake time, feeding just one of your three children. Like I said, halfway there.

One anecdote before I close. A few nights ago after the girls were already in bed, I went into their room to put something away. It had been so quiet in there that I thought both of them were asleep. But as I stood there for a moment, I could hear Aubree talking to herself. She didn't see me but I could hear her and this is what I heard "to the republix for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Amen." I don't know if this was her version of counting sheep or what but I had to chuckle with the amen at the end. Apparently she was getting the Pledge of Allegiance and Lord's Prayer slightly confused.

Well, I think that's about it on this end. Have a Happy Sabbath everyone!

Calleigh hasn't slept in her actual bed in weeks. This week the theme was "forts" and Duncan had to build her some kind of fort every night for her to sleep in.

Last night she came downstairs at like 10:30 and said she couldn't sleep so I let her sack out on the couch and this is what happened after about five minutes.

Better Brady Brother

2011-12-05T00:08:00.001-05:00

Before I begin, let me say that the reason there has been no post this weekend until now is that my computer inexplicably died on Thursday afternoon as I was in the middle of sending a work email. I believe I bought my laptop about 2 and 1/2 years ago so I was thinking it wasn't quite time for it to give up the ghost just yet. But alas, Duncan wasn't able to revive it which tells me that it was really, truly dead. Since we still had our $180 gift card to Costco from our Directv switcheroo, we decided to get a new one there (and since they were having a great sale) but couldn't make it there until this morning. That meant I went three whole days without a computer. Thank goodness I have my iPhone or I would have gone bonkers. I did enjoy the day off work on Friday though! So this morning Duncan picked my up an Acer laptop. No, I have never heard of an Acer before but Duncan insists all PC's are the same and it doesn't matter what brand I get. I think he's just being an Apple snob but whatever. Now I'm just trying to get used to the difference. For one, it has a ten key on it which I love because it will really help with my work. Secondly, the "Fn" or function key is the second key from the left on the bottom row whereas with my Lenovo it was the far left. Why different brands put their keys in a different spot I'll never know but this is bound to drive me crazy for the first few days/weeks. I'm sure there will be other stuff I'll go nuts about that I haven't discovered yet but for now, I'm just glad to have a computer again.

Okay, now on to more important matters. I'm so happy to report that Brady is all better...at least for now! As I had mentioned in my last post, we hadn't noticed Brady coughing for a few days. That continued and when we went to his doctor's appointment on Tuesday morning, Dr. Verma confirmed that she couldn't hear any wheezing or mucus in his chest. I was anticipating that we could stop his steroid but she insisted quite adamantly that he needed to stay on it because we're in the sick season. She said it's much better to take the steroid through the nebulizer to keep him from getting sick than having to take the oral steroid that's a thousand times more powerful to try and get him better. It was a valid point. I asked her that if this was asthma, could it not come back at any time and she confirmed that was correct. I would hope that if/when it does, it will not include the mucus because I do believe that was from an illness. The last thing we talked about was getting the bloodwork repeated so we can see if the t-cells have improved. This reminds me that I need to go do that.

The other big thing was his weight gain. I was a little worried from his lack of weight gain the previous week but when we weighed him at the doc he was at 13 lbs, 13 ounces which was a 6 ounce gain from the previous week and 14 ounces from the previous appointment four weeks earlier. Again, not the greatest gain ever but definitely enough to make me happy. We got four his 6 month appointment on Wednesday at the pediatrician so we'll see what he's up to then.

Today was a big day for Brady. He had his first taste of "real" food. I didn't start either of the girls on solids until they had passed the six month mark but Dr. Verma encouraged me to get Brady started now (albeit only a little over a week from turning six months) so out came the rice cereal today. If I remember correctly, the girls weren't too excited about it and we started off very slowly. Not so with little man. He barely made a face, if at all, and I even had to refill the little bowl with a second helping. I probably gave him about 25 bites of the stuff. Of course, they were small bites but they say to start a baby off with a tablespoon and I know we exceeded that for sure.

A lot of other stuff has been happening this week. Last Sunday morning following First Watch, we went to JCPenney to try and get a nice family picture for our Christmas card. I emphasize the word try. It did not go very well. It was nearly impossible to get a picture where all three kids looked good. I ended up having to settle for "not looking horrible" as the criteria. And then, the worst was trying to get a picture of just the three of them. The girls would not leave Brady alone. They kept trying to kiss him, hold him, stroke him, tickle him, etc. They could not resist him since he was right there in their laps. Finally he had enough and that was that. I figured they were tired out and we would try another day which we did on Thursday. I settled for another average picture.

After naps on Sunday it was off to get our Christmas tree. It greatly disturbs me as to how many people in our circle of friends have fake trees...even Canadians who you would think would know better. That is one thing you will never see the Grodacks do. We will NEVER have a fake tree. I have many fond memories from my youth of my family going to pick out our tree. So off we went. We ended up with a slightly smaller, and cheaper, tree this year but it was one Calleigh picked out so it's all good. Of course, had she picked out a Charlie Brown tree, I would have overruled her but this one was pretty full with no gaping holes. Decorating the tree went pretty well with only three broken bulbs and only a few branches hanging down to the floor...because as you know, kids put all the ornaments on the two lowest branches. Aubree started talking about the "instruments" and it took us a minute to catch on that this is what she called ornaments. Close, Aubs, close. You can watch a video of our tree trimming by clicking here. There's a little something special right at the end.

Watching our tree getting bagged.

Tuesday evening we met Jennifer and the boys and Karis and his boys at Chik-fil-A for kids eat free night. More importantly than the free meal, Mr. Richard was there performing. He's a guy with a guitar that does kid's concerts. The Christmas music was in full swing when we arrived and imagine our excitement when he did "Must Be Santa." We heard that song for the first time at the Boston Pops last year and Calleigh declared it her favorite song and even remembered that fact this year. We hadn't heard it since the Pops but Mr. Richard belted it out so of course, I had to get a video of it. Click here to see it. The girls really, really enjoyed Mr. Richard (we were almost the last ones to leave) so I'm sure we'll be catching him again on the next go round.

Wednesday night was the Christmas party for Adventurers. Since Duncan had to work late, I was there with Aubree and Brady. Aubree pretty much thinks she's an Adventurer too and she's involved in nearly all the activities that go on with Calleigh. Calleigh was giving me a hard time about going (I know she wanted to go but she'll put on a fuss for a minute or two saying she doesn't want to) and I had to bring out the Lisa card as in "Lisa's going to be there. Don't you want to go?" That got her going. I told Lisa I was sorry but I was now using her as a bribe. The party was a fun time involving games, crafts, singing, and at the end, cookies and hot chocolate. They handed out the cookies in sets of four so the girls really thought they had hit the jackpot on that one. I don't about the wisdom of kids having four cookies at 8:00 pm but it is what it is.

For some reason, Luke Deininger is obsessed with ruffling Aubree's hair. It's pretty cute, actually.

Cookie time!

Thursday was the pictures again, as I mentioned, and then Friday was yard sales. It's always especially fun this time of year because the weather is usually perfect and then just before Christmas you find a bunch of toys that make great gifts. At one spot, there were a bunch of girly stocking stuffer type stuff and you should have seen me trying to snatch stuff without them noticing. I pulled it off though and I got some neat stuff for their stockings. It's nice because a lot of the stuff you buy is junky and the stuff I got is still junky but at $.10 and $.25 a piece, you don't really care.

Friday evening we went to Ron and Elaine's for supper and the girls were so excited to see all their outside lights and then, most importantly, the train under the Christmas tree. They have a big village under the tree too and the girls love moving the pieces all around.

Sabbath was a big day for Calleigh. Since it was the first Sabbath of the month, the kids are supposed to wear their Adventurer uniforms and then they also get to help with the offering. Calleigh was one of the volunteers this month and did a great time passing the plate around. I think she thought she was a bit of a veteran at offering collecting since she's done it a few times at Papa's church with Bruno. I thought Aubree was going to have a fit because she kept talking about doing the offering too but in the end, she retired to the pew and didn't make a fuss.

Shepherd Aubree again. Calleigh wore that dress for our Christmas picture two years ago. Always strange to see her wearing things of Calleigh's and realizing how much time has passed.

Last night was the Christmas party at the Bergherms. There were about seven or eight families there, mostly our usual group, and it was a really great time. I SO love Christmas and always enjoy Christmas parties. We all brought appetizers and Jennifer made some of her famous cookies and cupcakes some of which we were happy to bring home. The girls got to decorate their own cookies with frosting and glitter. Towards the tail end of the party when some people had already left, I noticed Calleigh walking back from the kitchen with a strange look on her face. Turns out that when no one was looking, she had snuck in there to stick her finger in the some of the frosting still sitting out. Caught you! Jennifer put me in charge of the games and I was all to happy to oblige. Since I'm in charge of all the games each Christmas at home, I had a number of games already in the till that I could reproduce. It seems like things went over well and Duncan and Allen (who randomly got put together as a team. Go figure) almost won but finished second to Rob Deininger and a lady named Nichole whom we just met.

The kid table

No, no. Only the piano or violin.

Today we had no official plans other than to get things done. Duncan got a new battery for the van, got the tires checked (need two new front ones), and new windshield wipers. I went to the consignment store during the kids' naps and got some needed winter clothes for Calleigh and Brady. Poor Aubree. She gets the short end of the stick since she just inherits Calleigh's old clothes. David and Megan came over this evening so we could watch the Patriots dismantle the Colts in a game we recorded earlier in the day.

Go Patriots!!

So that's that. A few other random bits of news and quotes:

Duncan got the new iPhone 4S on Thursday. He's had a work phone for years but the policy is changing so he had get his own and finally gave in and got the iPhone. He's very pleased.
This week Calleigh told me, in disgust, that she was going to just have to change her name because everyone keeps calling her "Cay-Leigh." I feel like I should apologize since I'm sure people get confused with the unique spelling.
My exercise regimen is on about week eight/nine and I haven't been as diligent with it the last week because I've been so darn busy. Since I began, I've lost seven and a half pounds but I'd like to ideally lose four more. We'll see what happens.
I don't want to say my dog is hurting for attention but I had my arm outstretched with a dumbbell in it and he tried to strategically place his body underneath it right in the middle of my set. All in the name of getting a little pat on the back. Poor thing.
Brady started saying the "d" sound today so it sounds like he's saying "dadadadada" but obviously it has no meaning.
A few days ago Calleigh was asking me how the first person got here. I took that to mean Adam so I told her that God created Adam. But then she says "No, how did the FIRST person get here?" So I said "Do you mean God?" And she says "Yes." I tell her that God has just always been here and that no one created him. Boy, that sounds even more unfathomable when you say it out loud to a 4-year old. I told her that it was very hard for us to understand that but we would some day in heaven. She's asked me the same question a few more times so I can see it's a very hard concept.

Finally, I just have to say how much I LOVE this time of year. It's truly the best time of the whole year. I love having our house all lit up with Christmas lights, the aroma of the pine and cedar candles covering up the dog pee smell, the Christmas music playing around the clock, singing Christmas carols for worship, seeing my 2-year old sing Silent Night during the church service (even if she did say "Holy infant so tender and 'child' instead of 'mild'), seeing the excitement on the girls faces as we drive by houses lit up (Aubree even got excited to see the lights on Hooters even though they're lit up all year round), and so much more. It all culminates with out trip to Papa and Gigi's coming up and I'm telling you the truth, Aubree asks me every single day, and more than once, "When are we going to Papa and Gigi's?" Now if we could just get it to snow there...

Have a great week!

Aubree is very into cleaning the table. I think she sprayed the same spot and wiped it like eight times.

The ultimate Aubree face. Yes, I know I didn't fix the red eye but Picasa isn't working on my new computer yet.

Happy Thanksgivings!

2011-11-26T21:54:00.001-05:00

I feel like so much has gone on in the past week that it will take me forever to catch up. I really hate this posting once a week thing but until I can get rid of this last five pounds, I'm afraid this is how it will be.

Going back to last weekend...Aunt Sherrie, Uncle Kevin, Jonathan, Marcela, and Zasha all arrived in town for Thanksgiving. They came over for supper (along with David and Yully, obviously) on Saturday night but not before we made a rush trip to Kohl's right after sunset to use my five remaining $10 off a $10 purchase coupons. I wanted Duncan to be there so I could use more since they're limited to one per customer. We used them to purchase some hair stuff and tights for the girls, put those items into the car and went back in for another round. We were new customers then, right?? We used two more on some Christmas gifts and then Duncan used the last one for a new toothbrush head for his Sonicare toothbrush. A very successful outing. After that we hightailed it home in time for the relatives to arrive for some pizza. Zasha is 13 months old and Calleigh and Aubree love her! Aubree loves leading her around and will often put her hands on Zasha's shoulders to keep her away from something she shouldn't be getting into to. I think Aubree is excited to have someone that is younger and smaller (though not by much) that she can be "in charge" of. During the evening, Jonathan made the announcement that their baby on the way is a girl and we're all very excited about that. They can see from our set up how much fun it is to have two girls.

Brady hanging out with Uncle Kevin in Cradle Roll

On Sunday, we went to David and Yully's for a little belated birthday party for Zasha. She turned one on October 10 but since they live in Texas and we all clearly missed her birthday on the actual day, we thought it would be fun to celebrate with cousins. Yully made her usual awesome cake, they served lunch, and we had a fun time opening presents and playing with balloons. You know how you hate to give kids clothes because you know they'll be bored with them? Well, Zasha definitely broke that stereotype. She got a new shirt and she would not put the shirt down! She kept holding it up in front of her and making an "Ohhhh" sound. She was just so excited about that shirt. It was really cute.

Brady with Uncle Kevin again. This time with his own balloon.

Awesome cake Yully!

Opening the shirt.

Sunday evening was our big Florida Hospital Gala down at the Coronado Springs Resort at Disney. I get so sick of doing my hair the same way every year that I decided to go and get it down so I didn't have to worry about. Well, as things often work out with the kids and having to nurse Brady and all that, I didn't get there as early as I would have liked so the lady only had about 45 minutes to do my hair. She ended up doing something that I really didn't like but what are you going to do? At least I didn't have to do it myself. Grandma (and later Grandpa) arrived around 5:00 and off Duncan and I went. This was by far the longest I was leaving Brady and in fact, he would need two bottles, while we were gone. We had been practicing the bottle feeding in the few days leading up to it. It doesn't seem like he takes that much from it. I don't know if it's because it's a bottle which he doesn't really care for, or if he just doesn't have a big appetite, or if because he's still nursing so many times a day (we're at about 6 or 7) that he doesn't need much each time but if you can get 3 or 4 ounces in him, you're lucky. I remember Calleigh drinking 8 ounces from a bottle before bedtime at this age. Anyway, I wasn't really worried about it. I figured if he was hungry, he'd eat. And if not, we wouldn't be there to hear the crying!

The Gala was a lot of fun in that it was nice to just get out. Duncan had a bunch of invites to sit at the tables of some vendors but we ended up accepting the invitation of our CFO from the hospital, Eddie, and his family. Usually the vegetarian entree is very lame but this year I actually really enjoyed it. The entertainment was Bill Cosby and I hadn't seen him in years. He sounds the same but definitely looks older as he's now 74. He was dressed in sweat pants and did an hour comedy bit sitting in an easy chair on the stage. There were certainly some funny parts though as some other friends who were there commented, some of it was a little dark. We left a bit early so we could scurry home and make sure everything was going smoothly at home which it was. Brady took his bottles, didn't eat much, but he was contented. There was a small incident where Aubree was jumping around and somewhat fell on Brady (he was fine). She got a stern talking to from Grandma and then of course, Calleigh gave me a full report in the morning (there are no secrets with kids not that this was a secret since Elaine had given me a full rundown of it all) including the part where she told Grandma that they should take Brady to the hospital for an X-ray...which fortunately wasn't necessary. While we were at the Gala, we were talking to a few friends who had paid baby-sitters to watch their kids that evening and Duncan and I got to talking about how fortunate we are to have grandparents that live so close by. Not just because it saves money but because it's nice to have people taking care of them that love them so much. Ron and Elaine, you are so appreciated!!

Monday morning the kids and I headed to the mall to meet up with Sherrie, Kevin, Jon, Marcela, and Zasha. David and Yully had to work so those guys were on their own. Fortunately since Jon and Marcela had driven, they had their car to get around. We took them to the play area and then it was off to, I hoped, sit on Santa's lap. Would this be the year that Calleigh got over her fear of Santa? As I'm sure I've mentioned on here in previous years, we've told the kids that Santa is just pretend for two reasons. One is because my mother was so devastated when she found out that Santa wasn't real that she cried for days. Thus, they never told us he was real and so I followed suit with my children. But also it's because I just couldn't bring myself to tell them something that wasn't true. I know, I know. He's real in our hearts and all that and I have NO problem at all with people that go along with it but I just couldn't look Calleigh in the eye and say that Santa was real knowing I was telling a lie. Nonetheless, I love the thought of Santa and I think it's fun to pretend he's real. I don't know if it makes him more scary for the girls to think of him being a regular person dressed up or what. Whatever the reason, Calleigh still wouldn't do it. She talked a big game but when it came right down to it, nope. At first they would only stand a few feet away. From there, Aubree was able to yell over, "What's your last name?" Why this was information she was interested in, I do not know. Finally, they at last got close enough to sit on my lap while I sat on Santa's. At the very end, I put Brady on his lap to see how that would go. Brady sat, looked around, saw Santa, and just kept on sitting there playing with Santa's white glove. Yup, he's a pretty easy going boy.

Zasha and Brady were both sleeping when we got to the mall playground.

The girls definitely weren't!

Tuesday the main focus of my day was to get over to Old Navy where they were having a 75% sale from 12 - 5 on adult long sleeve shirts. I ended up buying about 10 shirts for myself (at roughly $3.50/piece). When I reviewed my purchases I noticed that I had bought like 6 white shirts and 4 blue ones. Yes, I'm very, very boring in my color selection. But at least they all weren't white so that's something.

Wednesday we met the Walls at the "Magic" playground so the girls could spend some time with Zasha again. It's been very nice out this week and actually a little warmer than usual for this time of year in my opinion. After the playground, Aunt Sherrie came with us back to our place and then took the van over to the Salvation Army. This mile trek there and back in our van would come into play later in the evening.

Duncan got off early for the holiday and as we were sitting around wondering what to make for supper, Duncan announced that he was craving Indian food. Now, I'm notorious for not liking ethnic foods. When we were playing the "Group It" game at Pumpkin Fest, one of the categories was "Favorite Type of Food" and out of 40 or so people, I was the only one in the "American" group. But, I'm trying to branch out a little and in fact, made a dish a few weeks ago that was made of garbanzos and curry and was somewhat Indian in nature. So I said, what the heck, I'll try it. We decided to order take out from a nearby restaurant. And I'll admit, it took me awhile to make up my mind because there were quite a few delicious sounding items on the menu. In the end I went with something called "Daal Makhani" which is described as follows: Slow simmered black beans flavored with ginger, garlic tomatoes, and spices. I love all types of beans so it sounded really good. I left to go pick up the food only to find that the van was completely dead. It seems as though Aunt Sherrie had hit a wrong button and left some lights on or something. Oops. I ended up taking the truck which unfortunately has no break lights. Anyway, I did get back safely and I was really hungry and dug into my Daal Makhani with great anticipation....only to find that it was a complete dud. There's some ingredient in it that rubbed me totally the wrong way. I did eat a good number of bites but then finally gave up. So disappointing. Looking back, I'm wondering if it was the ginger? I'm vowing not to let this sour my opinion of Indian food.

While I was on my way to get the food, I made a stop at CVS. Now, let me backtrack a little here. I got on the coupon bandwagon in September of last year. On Thanksgiving last year, I was still fairly new but I specifically remember all the good deals that were to be found on that day. Black Friday isn't just for your regular stores (Target, Best Buy, etc). They go all out at the pharmacies too. So I have been eagerly anticipating Black Friday, or should I say Black Thursday, this year since then. I mean seriously, this would be like the Super Bowl of pharmacy couponing. Along about Sunday of this week, Duncan breaks the news to me that he's planning on going golfing with all the relatives on Thursday morning. What??? CVS was going to be open at 7:00 and I was planning to hit it shortly thereafter for all the deals. This was devastating news. But, I didn't want him not to golf so I devised a plan where Aunt Sherrie would come over on Thursday morning and watch the kids while I went out because this was absolutely not something you could take kids too. Well, as I was out on that Wednesday evening making a quick stop, I did a short survey of the items that were going to be on sale in the morning and when I saw the low quantity of items that were on the shelves, I got all depressed thinking that they'd all be gone but the time I got there at around 10:00 the next morning. A little later, as I'm surfing Facebook, I see where the lady who runs my favorite couponing site, SouthernSavers.com, posted a question as to whether people would be going at midnight for the sale or waiting until the next morning. That's when the lightbulb went on. I could just go to one of the 24 hours stores at midnight! There is one only about seven or eight minutes away at that time of night. So, I got Duncan to push the van into the road so he could jump it, I got all my coupons and my list read to go, and at about 11:35, I was ready to hit the road. Unfortunately, the van hadn't run long enough so it was dead again when I tried to start it. I was a little apprehensive to take it as I was concerned about it not starting once I came out of CVS and then what would I do but I knew I didn't want to take the truck so in the end, I chanced it. Meanwhile, I had talked to Alison around 10:30 and she was headed out too except she has Rite Aid up there so she was hitting three pharmacies that night. Lucky!

I get to CVS and I was curious as to what I would find. Sure enough, there were probably about 15 other couponers in the store, mostly all of the same ilk....35 - 45 year old mom types. Everyone was very pleasant and CVS really had it together with most of the free stuff all at the front of the store. The only thing they didn't have was the free Theraflu. At about 12:35, I was back into the van which fortunately did start. I wasn't sure if I was going to do Walgreens too but since CVS went so quick, I decided to stop there too. It's funny because there were probably about 3 other people in Walgreens despite it being about 1.5 miles down the road from CVS. I guess that's a testament to how people prefer CVS to Walgreens. Indeed, CVS is much easier to coupon at although you can generally get just as good of a deal at Walgreens. Because of the way coupons work, it takes longer at Walgreens and I was probably there for an hours. I think I finally pulled into the driveway a little before two. It was well worthwhile though. The next morning I checked all my receipts and tallied it up to find that I had spent a grand total of $1.74! I made $4.61 at CVS and spent $6.35 at Walgreens.

The retail value of this was hundreds.

The next morning, Duncan was off to golf while we stayed home and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. I also used that time to try and conk out on the couch while Brady was having his morning nap. After the afternoon nap time (in which neither girl slept but that's probably because I didn't make Aubree go in her crib), it was over to Ron and Elaine's where we were joined by the Wall gang and the Isidros. Every one chipped in with bringing food and it was all very good. We had lots of leftovers to take home and I didn't have to cook last night so that was a definite bonus. We got home from the festivities around 8:45 and after I got Brady fed and in bed a little while later, I was SO incredibly tired that I just collapsed on my bed. Around 10:30 I got up and contemplated doing something but that only last a few more minutes and then I went back to bed for good. I don't remember the last time I was that tired. Clearly being up until after 2:00 that morning had done a number on me.

Sorry about the weirdo eyes, David. The camera keeps making people's eyes this shiny silver that I can't get rid of.

Kids' table.

Brady in a post Thanksgiving meal stupor. Duncan, about to be in one.

Friday morning we had reservations at Long and Scott Farm in Mount Dora at a corn maze. I've been wanting to go there for years and we finally had this opportunity. We were joined by Ron, Elaine, and the Walls and then we were part of a bigger group of friends. It turned out that the bigger maze was quite intimidating and after hearing reports from some of the friends who had done it last year with their kids, we decided to just do the smaller kids maze which turned out to be just right. As you go through the maze, they have little tables at various places where you can dip your finger into a chalk like substance. There are five of these tables which each contain a different color chalk. When you get all five colors, you then find your way out. Once you get out and you now have a different color on each finger, you find your color combination and it gives you a fortunate. It was neat to see how people did the colors in all different order but Aubree, Elaine, and I had put the same color on the same fingers, interestingly enough. Our fortunate said that "Your outlook is cheerful" and I thought that was quite nice. Anyway, the kids really enjoyed racing through the rows of corn looking for the colors. Besides that, there were a bunch of other things to do at the farm like a playround, big slide, a little train, fishing, and Calleigh's favorite, a zip line which she did several times. We ate a picnic lunch we had brought and Grandma and Grandpa bought the girls corn on the cob which they gobbled down. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time!

Aubree looking at the blue chalk on her finger.

This is where you checked the board to find out your "fortune."

She didn't catch anything and became predictably bored with it after a few minutes. Not like her mother!

One interesting thing from the trip there was that they had a Santa at the entrance to the farm. At first, the girls wouldn't even go near him but they finally let me roll them up with them both sitting in the stroller. They did carry on a conversation with him with Aubree saying she would like a baby and Calleigh saying she would like a swing (huh??). Since then, any time that I've mentioned Santa, Aubree gets all excited and shouts "I talked to him! I talked to him! I talked to him!" Baby steps.

Today was on to church at usual and then early this evening we went to the Isidros for Thanksgiving 2.0. Allen's family came up from Avon Park to be part of the festivities. The food was delicious and I commented that this is how people get fat during the holidays because we just kept eating and eating and then there was like six different desserts. I took more leftovers home and I'm hoping I can get away without cooking supper again tomorrow night. Tonight we would typically be getting our Christmas tree but we've postponed it until tomorrow afternoon.

Aubree, the shepherd.

Calleigh hard at work at her table in Sabbath School.

I wanted to get a picture of Duncan and I and unbeknownst to me, he was being a doofus !

And again...

Take three.

The men and their boys.

I think that sums up all our activities. On to Brady Brother and his situation. Knock on wood here but Duncan and I are convinced we haven't heard him cough in several days. The problem is that we are so used to it I'm wondering if he did cough and we didn't notice but I've been intentionally trying to pay attention to it. Could it be possible?? The coughing news is good news but I was little dejected on Tuesday when I did his weigh in and found that he had lost two ounces in a week (weight is at 13 pounds, 7 ounces). He had been doing so good with the weight. That morning he did have a huge throw up (but no other problems) so maybe that impacted it although I didn't weight him until much later in the day. But everything else seems fine so I'm not going to worry about it. Tuesday we go back to the pulmonologist. He's been doing pretty well in week two of the sleeping in the crib. I'm still getting up once or twice during the night to put in his binky but it's mostly not until the early morning hours like 5:00 or 6:00 so at least I've slept uninterrupted until then.

As usual, I've been having some interesting conversations with the girls. One of them amused me a little. It went like this:

Aubree: "Where's Daddy?"
Me: "He's at his office."
Aubree: "Where's your office?"
Me: "My office is at home. I used to have an office at the hospital but now my office is at home so that I can be there with you guys."
Calleigh: "Someday when we're at school, you can have an office again."
Me: "But then who will be at home when you get home from school?"
Calleigh (thinking for a second): "How old will I be when I can start driving a car?"
Me: "16...perhaps."
Calleigh: "Well, when I get a car, I'll just drive over to your office building, get in the elevator, go to your office, and tell you that I'm home so you can leave and come be with us."
Me: "Okay, sounds like a plan."

This week is a wrap. Especially since it's now 12:05 am and it's a start of a new one. Have a great week!

A few random pictures to end:

The girls admiring the large squashes for the Thanksgiving meal.

Adding a worm to the farm. I have no idea if it's the same kind of worm. Do worms of a different species attack each other or live in harmony? I do not know.

Crib at Last

2011-11-18T23:16:00.001-05:00

It's official. Brady now sleeps in his crib. I had given it a try last week with not very good results and I was feeling a little dejected about the whole thing but I came back from the camping trip with renewed energy to make it work. If we had to go to the cry it out method, so be it. It turns out, the problem wasn't the crib but the fact that he was still being swaddled. I had been hanging on to the swaddling thing as long as I possibly could (putting socks on his arms to keep him from breaking out although it didn't always work...probably since I hadn't sown the socks to it). Monday night it was off with the swaddle and into the crib. Things started rather poorly. I put him in his crib around 9:00 pm (the girls go down at 8:30 and then I nurse Brady and give him the nebulizer) and over the next hour, he let out a few cries. Duncan went up each time to put the binky back in after letting him cry for a few minutes. At this point, I'm thinking, this is going to be a LONG night. At some point, he settled down and then I woke him up at about 11:30 to feed him before I went to bed. And then, I didn't hear a single sound the rest of the night. And it wasn't because I wasn't listening because I hear everything. He really didn't make a peep. I couldn't believe it. Naturally, I woke up many times wondering what was going on. He woke up around 7:15 and that was that. Rejoice!! Apparently he's much happier sleeping on his stomach which he had rolled onto once he was out of the swaddle.

He hadn't been taking an official morning nap but into the crib he went on Tuesday morning and slept great. Meanwhile, he had been taking his long afternoon nap in his swing. Nope. That's over too. I knew that had to go when he practically heaved himself, swaddle and all, out of that thing on Sunday late night when I was on the toilet. You've never seen someone stop in mid-stream and run so fast with their pants around their ankles! I hadn't been buckling him because of the swaddle and clearly, that was becoming a mistake. Again, I was concerned how nap time would go in the crib but the worries were for naught. He's taken it all in stride.

The week of sleeping has continued to go well. Oh, and the first thing I did after that first night was get rid of the bumpers, otherwise known as a deathtrap, out of his crib. Of course, now I have to deal with the binkies falling onto the floor but it's worth it. He hasn't had a completely silent night like he did the first night but there's been nothing more than a few little cries that have lasted like 20 seconds. One of these nights I'm going to sleep the whole entire night and it will be marvelous!

The other bit of good news is that he gained 5.5 ounces in a week at his weigh-in here at home on Tuesday. He's at 13 lbs, 9 ounces. I was so pleased that I decided to try foregoing the last feeding at night. I have been waking him up to feed him before I go to bed since I thought he needed all the nurishment he could get. But with the good weight gain, I thought it was time to get rid of it. Goodness, Calleigh and Aubree at this age ate their last meal at like 7:30 pm so doing a feeding at 11:00 pm was unheard of for me. I wondered if he would have a problem lasting the whole night but obviously my worries were unfounded. I've actually been pumping now in place of the nursing because we are going to an event on Sunday night and he'll need to have a bottle. I will NOT be making the pumping a habit, most definitely not.

What else is happening? Let's see. My brain is always a little slow when I get to Friday night. I think we did some grocery shopping on Monday. On Tuesday we went to Kohl's to use some of our coupons. We had gotten these $10 of a purchase of $10 or more coupons in the mail last week. In case you can't do math, that means that if you buy something for $10, it would be free. Well, I had gotten the mail and had seen the coupon and was excited and then after a few minutes it occurred to me that my neighbors might have gotten the same coupon. So back to the mailboxes we went with me looking into the trash to see what I could find. Sure enough, everyone in my neighborhood had gotten the same coupon and as expected, most people either didn't see it or didn't care because they threw their coupons away. Unfortunately the coupons are only one per customer so you can't go in and use a bunch at once (I was thinking of giving Calleigh money to pay so she could be a customer) but we did use one and it was fun to just walk through the store and see all the Christmas stuff out. Not to mention that Tuesday was our first official day of the Christmas season since it was my dad's birthday. I'm going to take Duncan to Kohl's tomorrow night so they're be two of us and then maybe we'll leave the store and walk back in so we're new customers. Hey, free is free!

On Wednesday, Yolanda and Emma came over so that Yolanda could watch the kids while I went to find a dress to wear to the Gala on Sunday night. I have a couple of dresses that I've been rotating but I was sort of nervous to try the one on from two years ago because I was afraid it wouldn't fit me and I'd be depressed. The exercise program is going pretty well (lost five pounds in about six weeks) but I still have about five more pounds to go before I'm where I want to be. I don't think it's coming off quite as fast as it was after Aubree. Anyway, the bottom line is that I wanted a new dress whether the old one fit or not. Fortunately I had good luck and found one at Ross right away. Yolanda was thrilled to be able to watch Brady and he was great the whole time...not that I was gone that long.

Brady chilling with Yolanda.

Thursday morning we were off to the Orlando Shakespeare Theater where they put on a production of the book "Miss Nelson Is Missing." I had never heard of it but Jennifer had read it as a kid and loved it. There were a bunch of other kids going as a group so we decided to tag along. I must say that it exceeded my expectations. The seating was in a semi-circle with the performers in the middle. Calleigh, Aubree, Blake, Evan, Zachary, and Kaleb, were all in the front row sitting on a mat and they were basically only inches from the action so I think it especially held their attention since they were so close. I made sure to sit next to Jennifer in case I needed to get up and leave with Brady since it lasted an hour and I didn't know what to expect from him. No worries there. As we were leaving, one of the attendants told me that she just couldn't believe how the baby was so into the show. It was true. He was glued to the performance the whole time (well, except when he was eating under the hooter hider) and was as good as gold. The girls really enjoyed it, especially the music. In fact, last night when they were in their room for bedtime, I could hear them acting out different parts of it.

Later in the day, my friend Vasti stopped by with her two boys David and Jonathan. She brought me a bunch of shoes (for me) that no longer fit and then some boxes of boy clothes and other odds and end. Seriously, it was like Christmas a month early. The boys clearly enjoyed playing with our toys and poor little Jonathan (almost 4) was crushed when Vasti said they had to go home. He kept begging and begging to stay and even brought out the "But we'll be good. We'll be good." card. It was so cute watching him try to work every angle to stay.

This morning we worked the yard sale circuit and it was a good day. We got a few good Christmas presents that I'm excited about. Speaking of yard sales, the day before, I had been talking to the girls about things we were thankful for and I was saying things like "I thank Jesus for my kids, good food, etc." And then I mentioned being thankful for yard sales and Calleigh was appalled. "Jesus did NOT make yard sales." I told her I know but he made the people who made the yard sales. Somehow she just couldn't wrap her mind around this concept.

But the highlight of the day was getting to see Ron and Elaine after three plus weeks. They've been on a European tour and finally returned last night. They popped over this evening to see us (or really, the kids...who are we kidding). They brought a bunch of gifts back for the girls including a snow globe from Greece that as luck would have it, was unfortunately made of glass. Yup, you guessed it. I'm in the kitchen with Aubree when I hear a bang and I see the snow globe lying in a bunch of pieces on the floor with water and "snow" all over the place. Aubree is naturally devastated by this development. And then, Calleigh volunteers "Aubs, you can have mine!" I was so touched that she would share like that. Aubree went and got it from her and promptly gives it to me. "Put this somewhere I can't get it" she says to me. Too funny! We did get bits and pieces about the trip and they reported to us that Prague was their favorite spot. As we were there ourselves some years ago, this did not come as a surprise. It's a beautiful place.

Sporting some of their gifts from Grandma and Grandpa. Yes, those do look like headwear that a haram would be wearing. Great for dress up though!

I asked Calleigh if she would recite the Lord's Prayer for Grandma and Grandpa since they hadn't seen her do it yet and before Calleigh could even get started, Aubree stands up and starts reciting it. Seriously, she probably knew about 80% of it. I had no idea! That kid is like a sponge learning all the stuff Calleigh learns without my even realizing it. I wish I had been able to get a recording of it but at least I recorded her doing the Pledge of Allegiance which I also didn't realize she knew!

Finally, I just want to mention that my brother, Rick, is engaged! He proposed to Ana on Sunday evening and she said yes, obviously! We are thrilled. The last of the ten cousins will be getting hitched in 2012. They are planning a June wedding in Maryland. We are so excited that Ana will be joining our family.

Have a Happy Sabbath!

Camping Adventure

2011-11-13T21:59:00.001-05:00

We made a family memory this weekend. It was our first "official" camping trip. I say "official" because we had the camp out with the Adventurers last month but that wasn't in tents. This time it was the whole nine yards. A friend of ours, William Cochran, planned the outing for eight families to go to the Clearwater Lake Recreation Center our the outskirts of the Ocala National Forest. Friday afternoon, we all trekked up there for the weekend. Besides ourselves, it was the Cochrans, Isidros, Bergherms, Zbaraschuks, Deiningers, Biris, and Vargases. All said, it was 14 adults and 17 children (12 boys and 5 girls, slightly lopsided!). It's only a little over an hour drive so very ideal for the family with a baby who doesn't like his car seat. When we arrived and got out of the car, Calleigh immediately reassured Aubree (who hadn't expressed any concern over things whatsoever), "Aubree, you don't need to be worried. There are no bears here. Just turtles, ducks, and alligators." Of course, I quickly corrected her misunderstanding. There most definitely are bears but the park attendant had told us that the bears would just quickly pass through.

Duncan was able to get out of work a little early so could get there while it was still light to set up our new tent. We get the biggest tent they have at Walmart a few days ago for a very reasonable price, I must say. What a pleasant surprise to find that the Isidros had the same one! As it turned out, we ended up sharing a campsite with them so we had our matching tents set up pretty close to one another. The way the food was set up was that two families would take a meal (we would be on our own for Sabbath lunch) and that way we would only have to cook once. That worked out very nicely.

Helping Daddy put up the tent.

The children's wing

They told Duncan he had to move the van because it was parked on the dirt. Isn't that weird?

Clearwater Lake

Unfortunately, we picked the very coldest night of this season to do our camp out. The temps got down into the low 40's and we were COLD. It doesn't seem like the 40's are THAT cold but I can assure that when you are in a tent, you feel every bit of it. It wasn't too bad while we were sitting around the fire but once you got into the tent to go to bed, it was brutal. I told Duncan that I knew he was judging me when he saw the giant stack of blankets I had us pack. And it turned out that it wasn't even enough. It didn't bother the kids at all at least. The girls did take a long time to get to sleep though. Calleigh had fallen asleep on the way there which I knew would be trouble. They were the last kids to sleep and with the back light of the lantern in the tent, you could see their giant looking silhouettes running all over the tent. About every two minutes they would stick their heads out the flap and shout "Maaaamaaaa." They finally settled in around 10:30 both of them sacked out on our bed (I had let Aubree out of her pack 'n play). They were just about perfect the rest of the night. While Duncan and I barely slept a wink due to our shivers, teeth chattering, etc. they barely made a peep. I had to make sure Aubree was still breathing in the morning she had been so quiet. Brady pretty much had the best night of his life and stayed sound asleep in his rock 'n sleeper all night. I kept checking on him because I was worried the blankets on him would creep up around his face.

Sabbath morning we did some Sabbath School related festivities with some songs and a Sabbath Bingo game courtesy of Lisa Deininger. Each kid had a sheet with picture on it and she would call out a picture and if you had it, you crossed it off. She then would ask if anyone knew a story in the Bible that involved that picture (for example, a lion could be Daniel and the lions). We all got a big laugh when there was a picture of a donkey and when Lisa asked if there were any stories with a donkey (besides Mary and Joseph) and her son Adam got all excited and shouted out "Shrek!" Calleigh and Aubree participated in the responses in all this and raised their hands to answer many times. It's always exciting when the stories you read during worship stick in their minds.

The Isidro family

Bible Bingo. That's Lisa with her hands up.

Crafts courtesy of Jennifer.

The rest of the day was very relaxing with the kids running around and playing, a hike around the lake, and just some rest and relaxation. The day time temperature was in the low 70's and made us forget all about the cold night. Thankfully the low last night was only about 51 which was nine degrees higher than Friday night but it made a huge difference. The girls were much more warn out after the day and went down much faster leaving us to pleasant conversation around the fire and then eventually a few hands of Rook which Allen schooled us all in (we were playing call partner). I feel confident I could take him in the rematch. Ha!
Despite the warmer weather, the night was definitely not better for Duncan and me. Calleigh flipped out at like 11 and wouldn't stop crying. I have no idea why. She wasn't hurt. I guess she was just over tired or something. I have to say it's not a pleasant feeling to have a screaming child in the middle of the night with tents all around you knowing that everyone can hear everything. I had to take her into the van and finally calmed her down by making up a story about Snowball, the lost kitten. She just sat on my lap in a daze listening to the story, didn't say a word. I thought she was in some kind of trance as I carried her back to the tent but then just as I was about to open the flap, she whispered to me "We saw bear poop on our walk." So I guess she wasn't completely out of it. Aubree, meanwhile, would let out little screams every hour or two...just enough to wake us up and in some cases, Brady. So yes, Brady ended up in our bed about 3:30. Sleeping on an air mattress with an infant is not the best idea ever. Every little movement by anybody makes a big squeaking noise and shakes the whole bed. I kept praying that neither of the girls would wake up an insist on coming into our bed because I have no idea where they would have gone. Thank goodness that never happened.

I would call the whole thing a success. And as I told Allen, it can only get better from here, you have to figure. As the kids get older, the sleeping will improve, one would hope. For Calleigh, the camping was a success for no other reason than Lisa Deininger was there. She has a total obsession with Lisa. Lisa is an adult, in case you didn't know. She first noticed Lisa during the 4th of July festivities at Allen and Tangie's when Lisa accidentally fell in the pool with all her clothes on (a distinction that Calleigh now shares with her after the incident at the birthday party a few weeks ago). I think her obsession really kicked up at the Adventurer's cam pout. She's constantly asking me where Lisa is. She talks about her almost every day. This week she told me her favorite thing about Lisa is her hair but then she did go on to give me less superficial reasons which are escaping me at the moment. The question is, what makes a little girl become infatuated with an adult? I think it's because Lisa is so attentive to her.

Last week was like a whirlwind between getting back from Jacksonville and then preparing for this weekend. Nothing really stands out as far as activities. One thing we did have to do was get accustomed to the time change. The girls adjusted surprisingly easy but Brady was more of a challenge. Generally he's been sleeping until around 7:00ish but with the hour going back, yup, he was waking up at 6:00. I think I finally have him back to 7:00 now. The getting dark earlier has thrown Aubree off a little though. We came out of Walmart on Thursday evening around 6:00 and Aubree was clearly surprised to find it now dark. "Turn it back on" she yelled. I guess she was referring to the sun or something. She did not want it to be dark out.

One of our Walmart purchases - - two new chairs for the camping trip.

The one scheduled thing we had this week was an Adventurers meeting. Duncan was able to get out of work in time to come home first to get Calleigh which meant I didn't need to take her to the church. This meant that Aubree wouldn't be able to go for part of the program. She was so disappointed that Duncan just ended up taking her anyway and she had a great time. One of Calleigh's recent achievements with Adventurer's was learning the Lord's Prayer which she can reel off from memory in about 15 seconds flat. Very proud of her!

We thought Brady was on the upswing with his health, which he probably was, but then on Wednesday things started moving backwards. I think he may have caught a bug up in Jacksonville as there were a few kids sick while we were there. The coughing came back full force and we were thinking the timing of being without electricity was a little untimely. As I referenced, though, he slept really well on Friday night but then Saturday the coughing started in again. Duncan was able to give him an Albuterol treatment by hooking up to Allen and Tangie's van which did help things. He does sound a little better today. Since he got weighed at his last doctor's appointment on a Tuesday (11/1), I've decided to do a weigh-in every Tuesday. On Tuesday 11/8, he was 13 lbs, 3.5 ounces which means he had gained 4.5 ounces in a week which I was very pleased with.

The Patriots game is just about over here so I think I will wrap things up here. I hope every one has a great week.

A few pictures form the rest of the weekend in Jacksonville:

A guy came from the Jacksonville Zoo with a few animals. This was a chinchilla.

Ice cream party on Saturday night.

Getting her face painted at the Saturday night kids' festivities.

Final product

Riding a mechanical bull for the first time. Clearly, it did not go well.

The hotel had this nice playground.

Tired...

2011-11-10T23:31:00.001-05:00

I really wanted to do a post tonight but this is all I can do. Just too tired. Brady has been sleeping in his crib at night for the first time this week and it hasn't been the smoothest thing ever. I'm not accustomed to babies waking up during the night so I just don't know what to do. I knew things weren't going well at about 4 am last night when I was so tired I konked out in his room with my head on an Elmo chair. I woke a short time later to a peculiar odor that smelled a lot like urine. Thank goodness it was a shower day! I think Elmo will be hitting the dumpster. Anyway, here's hoping that Night 4 will be the night things turn around.

Hello From Jacksonville

2011-11-04T23:18:00.000-04:00

This weekend we are up in Jacksonville (technically, Ponte Verde but whoever has heard of that?) for Florida Hospital Leadership weekend. We used to go to these back a few years when I was in my old position at the hospital. Now we're here because of Duncan, obviously. Back then, it was held in Clearwater but for whatever reason, they've changed it to here. I'm guessing because of the golf but who knows. To give you some perspective, I would say there at least 300 leaders and then their families so we're talking a pretty large crowd.

We left to come up yesterday afternoon. Since it's almost a 2.5 hour drive I told Duncan we either needed to come during nap time, if he could his schedule to support that, or we would need to go at like 7:30. There's no way I was going to go during a non-sleeping time for Brady and listen to him cry the whole way there. Actually, in Brady's defense, a few places we've gone in the last few days have been crying free. If only that could continue! At any rate, Duncan was able to maneuver his schedule to fit in with nap time and off we went at 3 pm. The whole morning was spent rushing around trying to get packed, cleaned, etc. You always think you have more time than you really do. The drive up was quite peaceful with the girls watching a movie and Brady indeed sleeping for most of the way.

So here we are for three nights and I'm once again glad we've perfected the art of sleeping all in one room. This time we have two doubles so that we can each take a kid or kids if things get out of hand. Last night it was food on our own so we found a nearby Panera and then hit the sack around 9:15. The girls were keyed up as expected and probably didn't go to sleep for at least an hour after that. The morning we had a great breakfast provided by the hotel and then the hotel also provided entertainment for the kids. I had noticed on the handout that it said it was for children ages 3 - 13 ONLY. The capital letters were their emphasis, not mine. I figured that meant Aubree was with me. When we checked in, a friend of mine from Sabbath School who also happens to be one of the persons in charge of this whole operation, said to not worry about it. Aubree would be fine and to just put that she's three on the paper and if any one gives me a hard time, they can come to her. I waffled back and forth as to whether I was being dishonest or not by putting that age down and in the end, I went along with it since my friend told me too. As it turned out, I don't think it mattered what I did because they didn't even look at the paper and Aubree was more than fine. They didn't even glance my way when I left with Brady. I went back to the room, fed Brady, and we both took a little snooze. Bliss!

I finally figured I should go check up on them. As I was heading back to the the room where they were, I was walking through the lobby and I saw all the kids walking in from outside with little bags. They were on a scavenger hunt. Calleigh was at the head of the pack and I finally saw Aubree who was bringing up the rear. She was clutching her little bag and looked as happy as a clam. I was told that she was perfect the whole time so I was relieved although not surprised since aren't kids always better behaved when their parents aren't around?

Posing with Luke Deininger in their pirate gear. Not sure why the hotel was handing out these items.

Getting in a little reading time...

...and an attempt at a photo.

This afternoon we were on our own for lunch (rest of meals will be provided by the hotel) and activities. It would have been so nice if this resort had an indoor pool but for some reason it does not. And wouldn't you know that a cold front just came in. As we were walking out to our van this afternoon, it was windy and the temp was only(!!) in the low 60's although it felt chillier. Calleigh started complaining that she needed her hat and mittens. Oh, those Florida girls. Duncan told her that if it was like this up in New England, they would be jumping in the lake. Needless to say, this weather is not conducive to our swimming in the ocean or one of the pools. That left the playground which they were at for several hours (no nap for Aubree although we tried).

A little stop at Target and both girls wanted their picture on the red ball.

This evening there was a kid's program which we attended. It went from 7:00 - 8:30 and I was afraid we might have a little trouble with Aubree considering she had no nap. But save for a brief meltdown over a pinwheel she couldn't get to work, all went well. I must say that the teachers did a great job when you think of having to entertain toddlers for 1.5 hours. They'll be back doing it again tomorrow for church.

These are no spring chickens teaching the class.

In other news, the countdown to the Christmas season starting (on my Dad's birthday on November 15) is in full swing! We all can't wait. Calleigh has been asking to sing Christmas songs during worship but I'm holding her off. Over the last few weeks, Calleigh has talked very animatedly to Aubree about the Boston Pops, "Aubs, do you remember the Pops???!!" Aubree replies, "I don't like the Pops." And then Calleigh is quick to remind her that it's music, not an actual pop. Back in September when my dad went to purchase the Pops tickets, I had told him only to get two tickets. When we went last year we had decided that it just not as enjoyable for us because it's hard for the girls to sit still and be quite and at $33 a pop (pun intended), including infants, it's not all that cheap. So I just said two tickets thinking maybe Duncan and Calleigh could go. But then I said to myself, I really need to go so maybe it will be Brady and me. Finally, when Calleigh started talking about it a bunch of times to Aubree (without my prompting or anything), I figured I can't burst her little bubble about it nor do I want to stop the tradition since my family has been going every Christmas for as long as I can remember. Needless to say, Papa has been commissioned to get three more tickets and it will now be all five Grodacks attending. Yay!

It's also that time of year that whenever the see something in a store, I remind them that Christmas is coming and they can put it on their Christmas list. This message is apparently getting through to them. As we were checking out at Target this afternoon, Aubree gazed longingly at a princess doll next to the register, picked it up, and said, "I'm going to put this on my list."

Brady is well. Still on the road to recovery, we believe. He really is a very happy baby other than being in his car seat. He's definitely in the "put everything I can get my grubby hands on into my mouth" stage. This evening he started chewing on my hair which is one more reason not to have it down very often (or I suppose I could just get a haircut one of these days). As expected around this age, he's been breaking out of his swaddle. The other night I had to re-swaddle him three different times and that was quite enough. I finally decided to give my friend Amy's invention a try which is to put long socks on their arms and then swaddle them. Works like a charm! No more breaking out. Thanks Amy!

Well, Duncan is shooting me the stink eye (if I could see it in the dim lighting) from his bed so I will close here. Look at that, I'm posting a blog before midnight. Awesome.

Another Brady Update

2011-11-02T23:50:00.000-04:00

It's almost 11:00 pm and really, I don't have time to write on here but I really wanted to get a Brady update written down. We had our follow-up appointment at the pulmonologist yesterday. I was very much looking forward to seeing the doctor and getting the results of the tests given to me in English. Duncan was going to try and meet us there but unfortunately it didn't work out with his schedule in the end. So it was me with the three kids (Elaine is out of town).

First off was the weigh-in. I was holding my breath. This kid is nursing eight times a day to try and fatten up and it gets pretty tedious, quite frankly. Don't get me wrong. I like the nursing and bonding and all that but when you're wanting to get out there to do stuff with the girls, it messes with your schedule. At any rate, he gained 5.5 ounces in 14 days. A website I use called, kellymom.com, states that from 4 - 6 months, a baby should gain between 3.25 - 5 ounces per week. Obviously we are below that but compared to gaining nothing, I'll take it. His weight is 12 lbs, 15 oz.

Next, she listened to his chest and stated that she actually couldn't hear any wheezing. Now, I now that he's still wheezing from time to time so she must have just caught it at the right time. She said there was still mucous but not as much. His ear infection was gone.

Finally, she left to go get the results of all the tests while I got out my pen and paper. Sadly, I pulled a "Melanie Brace" and it's possible I threw it away so I'm giving this to you all from memory.

The x-ray showed no signs of pneumonia but it did show that the walls and pipes were thickened which is consistent with asthma. I asked her why the x-ray back in mid-August did not show that, or at least, nobody told me that. They had said at that time that the x-ray was consistent with the Bronchiolitis diagnosis. She said it's possible that it had gotten worse since then.
She confirmed that he did not have cystic fibrosis.
The bloodwork was negative for any allergies.
The bloodwork was positive for the Epstein Barr virus which means that he DID have mono (I did not understand that from the non-English speaking doctor who called with the results). She said it would have been 6-8 weeks prior to the bloodwork which would place it around the end of August, beginning of September. Of course, the first thing I think of with mono is fatigue which I didn't notice. But apparently the symptoms in infants are milder. The doctor said that mono could have caused the coughing, mucous, ear infections, etc.
The bloodwork also showed that he has a low level of t-cells which are cells that help fight infections. She said he could have a low level because of his age. We will wait for a month and do the blood work again. If they still show low t-cells, she'll recommend we see an immunologist.
Our next appointment is November 29. Until then, we are to continue with the steroid through the nebulizer twice a day and the Prevacid (reflux) twice a day.

I asked her if she was pretty confident, following the x-ray results, to say that he definitively has asthma. She didn't say "definitively" but she's pretty certain. We're still hoping that the mono is what has caused all this and it will just go away. We do think the frequency with which he wheezes and coughs has decreased.

Since it's so late, I'll just quickly touch on a few other things. Monday night, we went to the church for Trunk or Treat. Not being celebrators of Halloween, this was definitely a nice alternative. Numerous people set up displays in their trunks (hence the name) and kids could go from car to car playing the games, etc. And yes, the reward was often candy so we couldn't escape from that. Our game was that you had to throw a hula hoop over a pumpkin. I kept backing the pumpkin up farther and farther away so it got more challenging. It was definitely a popular game as kids were lining up the whole time (from 6 - 8 pm). Unfortunately I didn't foresee how tiring it was going to be to pick the hula hoop up off the ground a million times. Thankfully Duncan and I switched half way through. The girls enjoyed themselves and brought home a bunch of candy that they enjoyed looking at, touching, smelling, the whole nine yards. Ninety eight percent of it they won't be eating if I have anything to say about it. As I discussed with another parent, you put it on top of the fridge and then in about two days they forget all about it. That's where ours sits. I'm hoping they inherit my genes. I don't like candy!

Oh, I almost forgot. Monday morning we went to a pumpkin patch at a church in Longwood. It was absolutely pouring rain out but a few other families (Bergherms, Hilliards, & Zbaraschuks), toughed it out with us. We were able to hang out under a covered area of the church and they put on a really nice little program with stories and games. In the end, the kids all got to bring home a couple of pumpkins. No rain was going to keep us down!

When you try and buy a pumpkin on October 31, it's not necessarily the best selection that remains.

Just a few little conversations with Calleigh to end things. We were in the car the other day and she says to me "I'm sick of sitting in the back." She sits in the way back while Brady and Aubree are in the middle. I ask her why and she says "Because people keep saying, 'Where's Calleigh? Where's Calleigh?' So I say, "Well, who is saying that?" She says, "Aubree." "Anyone else?" I say. Dead silence. I guess Aubree constitutes "people." The other thing is that I think I need to stop watching House Hunters with her. Today she informed me that we needed to have eight rooms in our house because, as she put it, we need a room for "instruments, a chalk wall (she saw an episode where someone had a whole wall made of chalk), a play room, one for drums (I guess that's different than instruments), a bedroom, a school room, and a library because I would like to go in there and read." That's only seven rooms so I'm either missing one or she miscounted. Apparently these eight rooms would be in addition to the rest of the bedrooms, kitchen, family room, etc. From your lips, Calleigh, to God's ears!

Worms, Bug Bites, & Late Nights

2011-10-29T23:47:00.000-04:00

I was hoping to do a post last night but David and Yully came over for supper and after they left, I conked out on the couch for "just five minutes" and then the next thing I knew, it was 11:30. So much for that.

The week started off with our trip to the worm farm over in the boondocks of Apopka. We were there with about seven other families (I almost said "mothers" but Allen was there too) and a bunch of kids. So who knew worms could be so interesting? Worms have no eyes (which I knew) and did you know they have from two to five hearts? And that they are unisex? Glad I didn't have to explain that one to Calleigh! But seriously, their poop and pee can be used as fertilizer. Fascinating! A grandmother that runs the place gave a little talk and showed some samples of worm excrement that the girls were able to touch. At the end, the girls got their own bottles and were able to put six worms into it to take home. After we wrapped things up there, we all went to a great park nearby and had a picnic. It was a beautiful day. On the way home, I did get a little chuckle. The lady had said that worms can eat paper because it comes from trees. I decided to test them and see if they remembered this little tidbit. I asked where paper comes from and Calleigh replies, "From the ground and the mailbox." It took me a second to realize she was referring to the newspaper which gets delivered to our driveway. So yeah, that's where she thinks paper comes from. I guess I have a little work to do.

Calleigh volunteered to go up front when the lady asked but then clammed up.

Calleigh wasn't too bashful about touching the worms.

Filling their bottles with paper.

Aubree didn't mind touching the worms either.

Tuesday was a routine day at story time. What wasn't routine was Duncan getting home from work after 11 pm. Cerner, which is the system for electronic medical records and a bunch of other stuff, went down at the hospital causing a big problem as you can imagine. Thankfully it wasn't anything that the hospital had done but a problem on Cerner's end. Either way, this caused a massive amount of extra work hours for Duncan this week with many late nights at the office and conference calls in the middle of the night. However, Duncan was on the phone starting last night at 2:50 am until the wee hours. Fortunately it seems to be resolved as of early this morning.

Wednesday evening was Adventurers. Of course, Duncan couldn't be there because of the above issue but thankfully Allen was happy to fill in as substitute dad and watched Calleigh. I didn't want to hang out there with Aubree and Brady. We went to Publix for a few things and then came and picked Calleigh up when they were done.

Thursday was another beautiful day (high's in the 70's) so we did an outing to Maitland Community Park with Jennifer and the boys. Thank goodness Jennifer got there before I left home so that she could have me bring bug spray. The mosquitoes are out with a vengeance right now. The spray worked out well but when we got home, I realized I missed one crucial part....Aubree's face. Poor little Aubree is SO sensitive to bug bites. She has at least four of them on her face and she looks a mess. To make matters worse, she banged her face of the floor this afternoon so now she has a red mark next to her nose and a bruise on her forehead. I'll have to get a picture!

Speaking of pictures, I have to take a moment here to say how much I'm loving the camera on my iPhone. I don't think I'll ever use a regular camera again. I love it. But not only that, thanks to Apple iCloud, the pictures automatically transfer from my phone to my computer. No sticking the memory card into the computer again which frankly, I always found to be such a pain in the behind.

Friday was stinky because it rained. That meant the yard sales were pretty limited but I guess in a way it worked out because I needed to grocery shop too. I did find a picnic blanket at a yard sale which I had been looking for so that made me happy. As I mentioned earlier, David and Yully came over for supper and we had a nice visit. We're trying to keep our Friday night meals with them going.

I excused Duncan from church this morning since he had been up for so much of the night. I know he felt bad because it is a bit of a chore to go by myself but it was manageable. Calleigh was so cute when I told her Daddy was going to stay home. She got all serious and helpful and told me "It's okay if Daddy stays here. Remember, we went by ourselves one time when he had surgery on his leg. Besides I go to Sabbath School by myself now so it's okay."

Aunt Wanda gets in a little "Brady time."

We had a few little hiccups at church and after another incident at home this week, I came to the realization just how often we as mothers, and sometimes fathers, have to deal with cleaning up bodily fluids from our children. I was sitting in Aubree and Brady's Sabbath School and I looked down to find that Brady's poop had leaked all over my shirt. Miraculously it had somehow not leaked on him so he was spared (good thing because my backup was a Red Sox onsie which had seemed a little out of place for church let alone the embarrassment of being associated with a team that had some, er, problems, this year). Then, a little bit later, I see one of Calleigh's teachers leading a contrite Calleigh into our classroom with a suspicious looking bundle of paper towels in hand. Yup, Calleigh had peed her pants in Sabbath School. Nice. A few hours later Calleigh admitted to me that "I ALMOST cried in Sabbath School when I had my accident."

But those incidences couldn't beat Calleigh's fiasco on Thursday afternoon. The girls were upstairs for naptime and I was downstairs feeding Brady. I hear a voice yelling the words I cringe to hear "MOMMY, I HAD AN ACCIDENT." I told her to wait because I was feeding Brady. This I try to say in just a loud enough tone so as not to disturb Brady who is falling asleep but loud enough so that Calleigh can hear me. After a few more minutes, Calleigh is getting really disturbed up there so I finally go up. Calleigh is sitting there on the floor in front of her felt board with felts all around her. I stop feeding Brady and put him down to deal with the situation. Sure enough, Calleigh has had the worst kind of accident. I take down her pants and it looks like I can take care of it with minimal damage. But just as I'm about to get the undies off, the dirty part somehow hits Calleigh's foot and she freaks out from the mess hitting her and kicks her foot as if to get it off. I'm sure you can imagine what happened when she did that. The next thing you know, poop is spraying all over the room, landing on the felt board, the felts, and the floor. Brady was mercifully spared somehow. Needless to say, we no longer have a felt board and our felt collection is now missing some of the disciples and a few angels. The bigger dilemma in all this is that I'm not sure what tone to take. Do you act all sympathetic to her (because she is contrite and keeps saying sorry) about the accident or do you take a much sterner, reprimanding tone? I'm just not sure.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I did hear back from the doctor regarding Brady's sweat test. It was a comedy of errors as far as actually getting the results but in the end, they told me that there was so little salt in his sweat, they couldn't even do the test. Since a major indicator of CF is a lot of salt, the doctor says that it's very highly unlikely that he has it but we could always try to test for it again down the road if symptoms continue. Over the last few days we think the cough has improved as far as how often he coughs but we do still hear the mucous when he does. We don't think we hear the wheezing as often either. We will go for our follow up appointment on Tuesday.

I think that's a wrap on the week. Until next time, toot-a-loo!

Party, Party, Party

2011-10-24T00:45:00.000-04:00

This weekend was pretty much non stop action, as my fairly messy house and dirty laundry can attest too. It all started off at church yesterday where we were happy to see our friends the Reeves who were in town for some of the action. Last night was the annual (10th annual to be exact although I've only been at about the last five or six) PumpkinFest party at the Isidros. We decided to take all the kids this year since they had to babysitters at the party and we were able to just drop the girls off with them upstairs where the proceeded to have an awesome time making crafts, playing games, etc. Brady stayed downstairs with us but Yully was so kind to take him for most of the evening so I was able to participate in the festivities, which, being a game lover, I was very happy about. As usual, we were to bring a pumpkin or squash themed food item. My selection this year was pumpkin seed cherry trail mix. It was sort of an nontraditional selection on my part, and I knew I probably wasn't going to win anything for it, but it was something I wanted to eat myself so I went for it. It turned out very well and I plan to make more. If you would like to try the recipe, click here. Incidentally, I used regular pumpkin seeds (great way to use up seeds if you carve a pumpkin) and not the baby ones listed in the recipe (too expensive). Also, someone had commented that it was really good if you add cayenne pepper. I did to a little of it and it was most excellent but I figured it would be too "spicy" for kids so I left that out.

Walking into church

Craft time

So no, I didn't win any awards but I was really excited that Tiffany won the dessert category with her pecan cheesecake something or other and then Yully, who made a cake from scratch that looked just like a pumpkin, was the grand prize winner. I'm glad we kept it in the family! My partner and I won a couple of the games so I wasn't a complete loser. Ha! Anyway, Allen and Adam did a great job with all the games as they usually do and as I usually do, I plan to steal a few of them. A great time was had by all and it was about 10:30 when I retrieved the girls from upstairs so we could get jammies on and head out. As Aubree comes downstairs she says to me "When is the party starting?" I said "Aubree! This was the party." And she says "Oh."

Planking

Yully's winning pumpkin cake

Noah, Calleigh, & Braelyn

Calleigh, Noah, and Braelyn (on the same couch, I think)

Ponytails are out = party is over.

This morning was our usual First Watch outing, then a rush home so I could get some presents put together, feed Brady, give Duncan a few instructions, and then rush out the door to a tea room in Altamonte for Stacy Litzenberger's Bachelorette party. She's getting married next month to an Australian Shepherd. She made that joke herself so I think I'm allowed to use it. She's actually marrying a guy from Australia who's name is Adrian Shepherd. Makes for a great joke. This was my first time going somewhere for more than about 30 minutes without Brady so it was a nice few hours to just be with the ladies. Meanwhile, Duncan had all three kids and took them to a nearby park where he met up with Cory and boys Noah and Jacob. This included a lunch for the girls because our next party was at 2 in Altamonte and I didn't want to go all the way home and then all the way back. I quickly fed Brady in the van and then it was off to the birthday party for Kenny and Maddox. Duncan had work to do so he went home. It is a bit of a challenge with the three kiddos, mainly because at various points you're incapacitated by a nursing baby. But also, the girls didn't get into bed until at least 11 last night and now they weren't getting a nap because of the party. Aubree did fall asleep in the car for a few minutes fortunately.

Stacy

For the most part all went well...up until I heard a splash and then some crying. Turns out Calleigh had fallen into the swimming pool. Now, obviously she can swim so it's not a major panic but I think she was so shocked that it had happened that it scared the wits out of her (not to mention the water is getting pretty chilly) and she freaked out. She was fully clothed too so I'm sure that didn't help. That took a good 10 minutes for her to calm down. At that point, I had to just dress her in her bathing suit since I didn't have a change of clothes. Anyway, other than a few whines from Aubree, we had very nice time.

Richard was kind enough to hold Brady for awhile.

Deep discussion with the birthday boy, Kenny

Wiped out at 5:30 this afternoon.

Getting to Brady...I did hear back on some of the test results. Unfortunately, the doctor who called me could not speak English very well at all and I had the worst time understanding what he was saying not to mention that he was speaking in complete doctor jargon a mile a minute. I was nursing Brady, too, so I couldn't get a hand free to write anything down or really concentrate. Very frustrating. First off, the results for the sweat test for cystic fibrosis had not come back yet. That was disappointing since obviously I'm very interested in what that one says. The blood work did come back and it showed that he had been exposed to mono but not recently. Apparently he didn't or doesn't have it but was only exposed to it. I really don't know what that means. The x-ray showed that he had some inflammation in the lungs but the meds he's been taking were able to fight off any pneumonia or influenza from starting. This was the jist of what I was able to understand but who knows, I could be way off. The bottom line is that he said there isn't anything different we should be doing and they will see him again at his already scheduled follow up appointment on November 1. The doctor who saw him for his appointment spoke English so I'm hoping she'll be the one to call with the sweat test results or if not, I'll try and talk to her so I can really understand what is going on. We have finished with the five days of the oral steroids and I don't think I've seen a noticeable difference. We have, at least, come to the realization that he seems much worse in the morning as far as coughing and wheezing then in the evenings.

Oh, I just realized that I didn't even mention about how he went to have all these test on Thursday. So yes, Thursday morning I took him in at 7:45 to have the sweat test. Duncan stayed home with the girls and then dropped them off at Ron & Elaine's on his way to work. Thank goodness for them. Honestly, I just have to say I have the best in-laws. Thank you guys! Anyway, for the sweat test they rubbed something on one leg and then put two electrode thingys on his leg which is supposed to stimulate his sweat glands. They let that run for five minutes (it doesn't hurt) and then she taped a piece of gauze to that spot in hopes of collecting .75 (not sure what the measurement is) of sweat to test. I then had to try to keep him warm so he would sweat. I thought they would put us in some warm room and give me a bunch of blankets, which is how it was described to me on the phone when I made the appointment. Instead, we were sent back to the sitting area and I had to use my own one dinky blanket. I was feeling pretty discouraged about getting a good result but when she took the gauze after the 30 minutes, she said she got .78. Just made it. Of course, the non-English speaking doctor was saying something about needing .90 so maybe it wasn't enough in the end. I guess we'll find out.

From there, we went back to the lab area to get his blood drawn which ended up being four vials. Quite a lot! The lab tech said he had a great vein (better than some adults) and it went very smoothly. Of course, he did cry but it wasn't too bad. Last but not least, he had the chest x-ray. We had already had one of those before so we knew what to expect...no big deal.

He tried his exersaucer for the first time this week and loves it. Can't you tell?

I finally pumped for the first time this past week. I hate pumping. But I forced myself to do it. I figured it would be problematic giving a baby a bottle for the first time at four months of age and sure enough, he wanted no part of it. But, I persisted. The next day I tried again and it may not have been pretty, but he drank it. Now I need to just stick with giving him one from time to time so he doesn't forget.

Ummm, no thanks, Dad. Why buy the bottle when you can get the real thing for free...or something like that.

Since it is now 11:44 pm and we have big plans tomorrow, a field trip to a worm farm of all places, I will end here. Oh, I did want to mention something about Calleigh's dreams though. She'll occasionally have nightmares and typically they'll be about lions or bears or something of that nature. It's not often but when it does happen she'll cry out in her room and I'll go in there. I let her bring her sleeping bag onto the floor in my room and she quickly goes back to sleep. One morning after she had come into my room during the night I asked her what her bad dream was about and she said "Oh no. I didn't have a bad dream. I just THOUGHT I was going to have a bad dream." So apparently it was a preemptive move if you will. Then another night, after her reporting a bad dream, I asked what it was about. I was expecting her usual response of a lion but imagine my surprise when she told me, "I dreamed that Jesus came and we weren't ready." That, from a 4-year old.

Brady Update & Campout

2011-10-18T22:52:00.000-04:00

Oh man. I don't even know where to start. Obviously it's been quite a long time since I've written on here. The main reason is that we were gone this past weekend on an Adventurers campout so my Friday evening blog writing opportunity wasn't there. Things remain very busy here the rest of the week. I'm going to try and catch if I can...although I do still need to get on the treadmill tonight.

I'll first get everything caught up with Brady who is essentially in the same condition as when I last wrote which is to say that he's still coughing. The Monday (10/10) before last he went in for his four month checkup. I was on pins and needles about his weight and was relieved to find that he had gained about five ounces in the 12 days since he last was weighed. Not a huge gain but it was something. The pediatrician was satisfied with it. But the 12 lbs, 10 oz that he weighed dropped him down to the 10th percentile...pretty much what I was expecting. Compare that to the 11 lbs, 3 ounces he weighed on July 25 (his early 2 month appointment), it's quite disheartening to see he's gained so little. On the other hand, Calleigh had dropped down to the 10th percentile also at her four month appointment and look at her now. She's been in like the 90th percentile for a long time. His length was 23 3/4 inches (10th - 25th percentile) and his head was 40.7 cm (10th).

At the appointment, I told the doctor that I was seeing virtually no improvement in his condition. She said that she thought he would probably be on the steroid through the winter because now is the start of the sick season. His earache was gone so that was at least one positive. Her recommendation was that we see a pulmonologist since they specialize in lungs and that way, they could see if there was something else wrong.

So today, Duncan and I took him to The Children's Lung, Asthma, and Sleep Specialists in Winter Park. Right off, I started feeling a little worried again because his weight was unchanged from eight days ago. Very frustrating. She checked his ear and found that the ear infection was back in his right ear. Not full blown but definitely headed that way. Back on drugs he goes for that. We gave him a treatment of the albuterol so that she could listen to his chest and see if helped at all. She thought it did but could hear a bunch of mucus rolling around in there. That said, her thought is that he may have asthma but that there's something else going on that's causing the mucus. She ordered blood work to check for things like mold, dust, and other allergens (she does not think this would be a factor because she states that children under one aren't very susceptible to environmental allergens) and another chest x-ray. To top that all off, he's also going to have a sweat test to check for cystic fibrosis. That's a pretty serious diagnosis, obviously, and one I had thought about myself before and brought up to her. She really doesn't think that's it but wants to check for it just to be sure. She's prescribed him an oral steroid that he'll be on for the next five days. He had been taking it through the nebulizer but she really wanted to step it up a notch by giving it to him orally.

The sweat test, blood work, and chest x-ray will all be happening on Thursday morning with the results back on Thursday afternoon (they say). I'll will try to do an update on here.

The other big thing that happened with us is that we went on a "campout" with the Adventurers over the weekend. I put that in quotes because we stayed in a cabin so it wasn't exactly camping. The campout was at Pine Lake Retreat which is a Seventh Day Adventist camp in Groveland (about an hour west of here). We stayed in a four bedroom cabin with the Isidros (Allen & Braelyn only), Bergherms (Jennifer & Blake only), Deiningers and Holloways. In total, there were eight adults and nine kids. Due to our brood, we were able to score the "master" bedroom which had a kind size bed and a bathroom (although it was a shared bathroom). The cabin was basically a double wide trailer put together but it was pretty much what I was expected. The weather was fantastic and we had great time. Most importantly, so did the girls. They loved being with all the kids and Calleigh got to ride her bike everywhere. I won't get into any more details but I will share these two little tidbits...

I posted all the pics on Facebook so I'm only posting one here.

Sabbath afternoon Aubree was napping and Calleigh was running around with the kids. The adults were all sitting on the porch gabbing. Calleigh went inside and a minute or two later I followed her in. No one else was in there except for 5-year old Luke Deininger. I heard Calleigh say to him as he unplugged his mother's phone, "Your parents aren't going to be happy about that." Then a minute later, there was silence and I wasn't sure where they had gone. I went into the boys bedroom and the room was empty. But then, I heard these muted voices and realized that Calleigh and Luke had both gone into the closet. As it turns out, Luke had taken the cell phone to play games on and wanted a place to hide so in they both went. I got Luke's mother, Lisa, and she and I stood outside the door for a few minutes and just listened as they whispered back and forth. I told her that in ten years or so, I wouldn't like this but for now, it was pretty cute!

The other little incident happened Saturday night. Everyone was in the main pavilion working on one of the honors when I realized that Aubree had soaked through her pants. I had Brady in the Bjorn so he, Aubree, and I walked back (about a 7 or 8 minute trek) to the cabin to get her a change of clothes. I was actually pushing Aubree in the Bob stroller. While I was there, I got a text from Jennifer to hurry back because the hayride was about to start. I quickly wrapped things up and headed outside. I was on the second stair (of about five) going down and I turned to pick up Aubree to expedite the process. As I did that, my left leg slipped off the back of the stair. This, of course, caused me to slip straight down. Thank goodness Brady wasn't hurt or anything but I was! I let out a couple of little cries of pain as I pulled my leg up. I checked for blood and didn't immediately see any. What does Aubree come out with but "That's why you have to be careful, Mom." Thank you for those pearls of wisdom, Aubs. But that's not the end of the story. I'm still thinking about that hay ride and how bad I would feel if Aubree missed it. So I manage to get down the stairs, get Aubree into the Bob and then I'm having walking, half running with a big limp to try and get back. At last I see the wagon in the distance and can see everyone on it and it appears they're waiting for me. I finally get there, park the Bob, someone helps me up, and I sit down on a bail of hay and start to get into the ordeal I just went through. A few seconds later, someone says, "Where is your other child?" Oh the horror! In my injured state I had completely forgotten that Aubree was in the Bob. I turn around and go back to the ramp and there's someone standing next to the Bob, holding Aubree as tears come down her cheeks. Pretty much a horrible feeling. Anyway, she was fine within a minute or two but I, of course, felt like a terrible mother for a long while. I'm sure I would have realized she wasn't there in a minute or two but I'm sure it felt like forever to her. Incidentally, when I went back and looked at the steps in the light of day, I could see where that step didn't go all the way back like part of the board had broken off or something.

Right now I am pumping for the first time. I've finally decided to bite the bullet and just do it. It may be too late to get Brady to take a bottle but I need to try. At least that way I can see how much he's drinking.

Let's see...what else is important enough here to mention? Well, another cousin has been added to our family today. Devin and Leigh had their baby boy today at 3:53 this afternoon. He has yet to be named. The ten cousins now have ten children so that's pretty neat.

The girls are happy and healthy. What more could you ask for? I've had a few cute moments recently with Calleigh. From time to time Aubree will start talking about something that makes no sense. Calleigh and I will look at each other and give each other this look that means "She's not making any sense so I have no idea what she's talking about." It's almost like this bonding moment and it makes me feel like she's so old. The other thing that cracked me up is that she and Aubree were in their room and I think I was doing some laundry. I could hear them taking stuff out so I called in to them to not make a mess. To which Calleigh responded, "Oh mom (in that voice that means "you are being ridiculous"). You know how girls are." As if to tell me that not making a mess was an impossibility. Pretty much is, actually.

My big personal news is that I got the new iPhone 4S. I just got it on Monday. It came Friday but I was gone for the campout and had to wait a few days. So far I'm very pleased with it. I haven't wanted to chuck it across the room like I did with the old Android so we're off to a good start.

Okay, I'm done pumping. I got 3 ounces which is decent for the first time. Here's hoping he'll drink it tomorrow. Now I'm off to the treadmill. Not the smartest thing to do at nearly 11 pm but it must be done.

Jeans, Tights, and Long Sleeve Shirts

2011-10-08T00:20:00.001-04:00

I walked out of my house on the way to church last Sabbath (October 1) and all I could think was "Finally!" There was a distinct change in the temperature and even the slightest of breezes. I was so excited and quickly relayed to the girls that fall had officially begun. As the girls got into the van, it was obvious that the excitement had reached them too. Calleigh's voice raised a couple of notches as she said "Aubs, Aubs, we can wear jeans, and tights, and Aubs, long sleeve shirts!!" Of course, none of that has actually happened yet but it's coming, it's coming. I'm sure I sound silly when I say it feels like fall because the day time temperature is only 80. But I'll sure take it.

I hate having these once a week blog entries because there's just so much to say and inevitably, I'm sure I'll miss something. Not to mention that it takes forever. It's now 10:29. Let's see what time I actually post this. Anyway, I'm afraid this once a week thing may be the norm for the next, oh, 10 weeks. Or until I lose 12 pounds if that should come sooner.

We had an enjoyable Sabbath, if for no other reason, than the weather. We recently got a new pastor at our church and although we miss Pastor Morris tremendously, we're enjoying the new one, Pastor Patterson. He's definitely different but that's okay. Sabbath School has been so much better the last few weeks because Aubree is completely over her shyness or clinginess or whatever you want to call it. Thank goodness. There's a little side room that we go to at the end to do crafts. At the end of Sabbath School they made an announcement that the room was locked so we couldn't go in there. A minute or two later, I was looking around and I didn't see Aubree any where but then finally spotted her practically hanging on the door nob to that room. She yelled out "I want to do a craft." Yup, she's over it.

Brady's not quite sure he's ready for sitting in a "big boy" chair.

Aubree participating

Calleigh scored two lollipops in Sabbath School - - specifically as a lesson on how to share. Check!

Sunday was a pretty low key day for us. We were contemplating hitting up Sea World with some friends but opted to just stay home and get some things done around the house. Thankfully one of those things was getting the van cleaned out. It's amazing how much junk accumulates in it not to mention cracker crumbs, pony tail holders, sippy cups, etc. Duncan took it over to the car wash place to get it washed and vacuumed and it looks wonderful. Calleigh even announced to Aubree that they were going to "keep the van clean." Yeah right.

Monday my main task of the day was to get over to the Pathfinder store to get Calleigh her Adventurer's uniform. She already lost out on earning a point on Sabbath because she wasn't in uniform. I'm such a bad parent - - I just didn't get around to getting the uniform in time. Anyway, we went to the Pathfinder store (who knew there was such a place?) and despite Calleigh's cranky attitude ("I'm NOT wearing that to church, ever") we managed to get her a white shirt and navy blue skort. As we were paying, I was pointing out all the ties for sale that they had on display. One was a particularly garish "Noah's Ark" design that seriously, only someone at least 80 would wear. And even then, I would question it. But it was a nice distraction for the kids. As I was pointing it out to the girls, the lady said with a lovely smile, "It would make a wonderful Christmas present for Daddy." All I could think of was "Lady, if you can find me a 33-year old man that would be caught DEAD wearing that tie, I can guarantee you he has no wife, girlfriend, or any social life whatsoever." Of course, I just politely smiled.

Tuesday was time to take advantage of this wonderful weather. We were off to the wood playground, aka, Phelps Park. Normally, we would hit up storytime on a Tuesday but it's on a break this week so it worked out well. While the girls run around, Brady is very content with watching it all from this Baby Bjorn. It's interesting because I probably wore the thing like two times with Calleigh, a few more times with Aubree, but with Brady, I use it all the time. Not sure what has changed.

Wednesday, Wednesday. Hmm, I have no recollection of what we did in the morning. Oh wait. I remember now. We went to Old Time Pottery to get some fall decorations. The girls loved that. We made a quick stop, right next to it, at the "movie consignment store" aptly named because they have a little TV that kids can watch. Calleigh loves to go to this store as you can imagine and it's very nice for me to have them distracted. After that, we stopped at the library because there's a book that was overdue that I can't find. I had noted that the book was only $6.95 so I figured I might as well get it done with and pay for it but it turns out there is also a $10 "processing" fee. In the end, I just renewed it (which I can do two more times). So hopefully it will magically turn up here at some point. It's just a little book about squares that Calleigh insisted we check out to teach Aubree her shapes. It sounds like it may end up being a costly lesson.

Wednesday evening was Adventurers which consisted of a special induction ceremony. I tell you, getting there is quite an ordeal. Typically I'm working and Aubree and Brady are sleeping until 4:45. You would think that having an hour plus a few minutes to get ready would be plenty but it somehow goes very quickly (partly because some of the time is taken by feeding Brady). Everything comes down to the last minute and I've now decided that leaving at 5:55 to get there by 6:30 is just cutting it too close with all the traffic. On the plus side, the girls at least ate a hot dog for supper this time.

Figues. She fell asleep on the way there.

Aubree entertained herself and the twins with a sticker book. Thank goodness I had the idea to bring it. An induction is not exactly top notch entertainment for a 2-year old.

Watching the Pledge of Allegiance...obviously not familiar with what she's supposed to do.

The Little Lambs

Finally let me take her picture. Look at Aubree's funny face!

Anyway, the ceremony was cute. Everyone was dressed in their uniforms and they all came marching in one by one. Then each group, with is sorted by age, went up to the front together to pass a candle amongst themselves and to make a pledge (the older ones, at least). They all sang a couple of songs, said the pledge and law, and also the Pledge of Allegiance. I know what we need to work on along with our memory verse each day! At the end, all the Adventurers got a goody bag which had some cookies, a juice box, a lollipop, and a pencil. Oh boy. I knew this was going to be trouble. You can only imagine how this all was going to go over when the 2-year old sister got nothing. Calleigh was allowed to open the bag of cookies which could be shared and then she got to have the other stuff when Aubree wasn't around (actually, the lollipop is on top of the fridge and I'm hoping she just forgets about it).

Yesterday Calleigh had Swim & Gym and Aubree, Brady, and I went to Publix as usual. The last few weeks we've been pulling up in front along side Jennifer's car and then she'll run in to get all the kids while I watch the cars (we aren't supposed to park there). This saves us the hassle of parking and dragging all the kids in. Well, we had a little time to kill this week so I ended up parking and going inside to get her. The look on her face when she saw me, was priceless. Her face just lit up with happiness and she came running out to us. Ahhh, there's just no feeling better than that. I know it was only two hours since I had seen her but I had truly missed her.

This morning we did a few yard sales with the express purpose of getting a new Pack N Play. We've only have a small one (we had a full size one that I had taken up to my parents and left there) and poor Aubree has been having to contort herself to sleep in it. Since we'll need one at least two times over the next 5 weeks (camp out and Leadership weekend) I figured it was time to just get one. Fortunately we found one at the first place. I also found some decor items for Brady's room at another sale so it was a successful day. One thing that truly hit home was how much Brady dislikes his car seat. If he's not asleep, he's usually crying. This kind of puts a damper on the yard sale festivities. The real problem will be come December when we do the drive up to my parents. Should be fun!

So that's what we've been up to. Now, a few updates on things. First, Brady has shown little to no improvement on the coughing/wheezing front. So that's kind of a downer. We go on Monday for his four month appointment so we'll see what happens there. Our friend, the pediatrician, had recommended I take a some supplements that will help Brady via the breastmilk. Hence, I'm now taking Garden of Life "Raw Green Super Food" and Udo's Oil "3-6-9 Blend." The bottle of Super Food was $28 for 240 capsules and I thought it was a little pricey but worth it for Brady's sake. And then I got the bottle and it says to take eight capsules a day! So yes, this seems like it will be quite a pricey undertaking. I've taken the pills for the last two days and so far, last night I got a headache and now today I feel like my throat is getting sore again. But other than that, it's been great. Ha!

Despite Brady's ailment, he's still hitting milestones. This week he was able to roll over both ways. At the beginning of the week he rolled over from stomach to back and then yesterday he was finally able to get that darn right arm out of his own way just enough to roll from his back to his stomach. The sleep is still killing me though and I just don't have the experience to know what to do in these cases. Both Calleigh and Aubree were sleeping from about 8 pm to 7 am at this point with hardly ever a problem. He's waking up at all hours of the night (usually after 2:30) and making noises. Before the noises get to crying, I've been bringing him into my bed but that's just not going well. My mattress clearly has a dip in it because he keeps rolling right into me when I put him next to me. And then I get all paranoid that he's going to suffocate himself in my pillow. So what is the solution to all this? At what age can you just let a baby cry at least for a little bit? I want to put him in his crib and see how that goes but I want to be in the same room with him still and I'm not ready to give up my comfy bed. I will say that the last two nights I've jiggled the Rock 'n Sleeper around a little bit and that has put him back to sleep. I guess I'll just keep rolling with that.

Aubree also had some accomplishments. She's now able to open doors on her own. This has become a little bit of a problem as far as getting into the food pantry. She's become very fond of getting in there on her own and getting out snacks. Clearly, I need to rethink my shelving strategy and try putting the onions and other unappealing things on the racks she can reach. She's also able to do the stairs now while holding the railing. I'm not particularly liking this one ever since Calleigh's fiasco. Calleigh has been so gracious as to go in front of her to "catch" her if she falls which is really quite laughable since I imagine they would both just tumble down together, sort of a two-for-one deal if you will. The other thing is that she's going # 2 on the potty I would say about 90% of the time. Although this is definitely nice as far as not having to change poopy diapers (and let me tell you, here have been some doozies), it's created a whole set of other challenges. For example, I'm feeding Brady on the couch, Aubree sits on her little potty, goes to the bathroom and needs be wiped. I can't get up so she decides to come to me. She manages to get to me with her pants around her ankles and then presents her little bottom so that I can somehow manage to wipe # 2 with one hand while at the same time holding Brady's head to my breast. I can't give her the poopy wipes to throw away so there they sit on the coffee table until I finish up with Brady. These are priceless moments.

We may be solving Aubree's binky addiction sooner than later. She's only down to like one or two more binkies because the rest are "crunchy." Duncan thought he had solved the mystery as to what exactly constitutes a crunchy binky. It had water in it. But no, that isn't right. It turns out a crunchy binky is one that squeaks. Sometimes when something is new or really dry, it will make a squeak when you suck on it. That, is what I believe Aubree has coined "crunchy." I realized this when we went to Walmart on Thursday to get new binkies since she was down to so few. But she looked at the new ones at the store and declared that they were all "crunchy." That's when I knew exactly what she meant. So we left the store empty handed. I really don't know what she's going to do when her last remaining binkies get lost. Go without? Or will crunchy binkies do in a pinch? Stay tuned.

Well, as of about 7:40 this morning, I'm the proud, but expectant, owner of a new, black, 32GB Apple iPhone 4S. I was disappointed when there was not a 5 forthcoming but the 4S is still much better than what I have now so I'm excited. I was going to stay up until midnight last night to make the purchase when they went on sale but at around 11:30 I realized it was midnight Pacific time they would go on sale. So that tabled that idea. Brady woke up at 3:28 and I kicked around the idea of getting up then but I was just too tired. Fortunately it was still available when I got up to feed Brady shortly after 7. There I was on my computer, typing with one hand, while feeding Brady with the other. Hey, it was easier than cleaning poop! Anyway, after it all went down and I got my confirmation email from Apple, I noticed I had misspelled my name. Cortney is said. I guess the one handed thing wasn't so smooth after all. Or maybe it was because my contacts were still stuck to my eyeballs. Here's hoping that American Express doesn't reject my payment. Assuming it works out, I'll be getting my phone next Friday, delivered to my front door. I spoke with my Uncle Terry this evening and he got the exact same one but at 3:04 this morning. He did get up!

I think that's about it. The clock has just struck midnight and I'm about to turn into a pumpkin. Happy Sabbath!

I had bought a kid's croquet set at a yard sale last week. Daddy tries to teach them how to hit the ball.

There's my little man. Come on, isn't that an adorable little face??

He's been fond of sucking on his fingers this week.

New Baby, Coughing Baby, Tired Baby (Me)

2011-10-01T00:32:00.000-04:00

I really hope I'm not going to have to resort to writing on here only once a week but it's possible we might be going there. Monday (finally) marked the beginning of my post baby weight loss regimen and I haven't been to bed before midnight since I've started. You know, I'll take the birthing, the sleepless nights,the sore boobies,the crying, etc any day over having to lose the baby weight. Definitely the worst part about having a baby. But then, I've never been a lover of exercise so it's really no surprise. Since the program I did after I had Aubree worked so well, I'm doing a very comparable thing this time which has me using weights three days a week, three days of doing ab exercises, and then I plan to do cardio about three to four days a week. So yeah, it takes up a lot of time...time which I would prefer to be using to do 1,001 other things. But, if I can lose about 12 pounds, it will all be worth it.

Speaking of child birth, I'm pleased to announce that I have a new cousin..er, second cousin or whatever you want to call it. My cousin Shannon had her baby this morning at 1:47. Her name is Finley Mae Frost and she weighted 6 lbs, 12 ounces. I'm jealous on my children's behalf when I saw how much hair she had. Not fair! As far as the name, it was surprise. They decided on it a few weeks ago but didn't tell anyone. Finley is a name that Shannon had picked out from the very beginning but Sean wasn't sold on it. As I told a few people today, we (meaning the mother) usually get our way in the end. Hehe! Anyway, it's crazy to think of Shannon with a baby. I remember her being my baby when she was little. She's eight years younger so I would carry her around on my hip and take care of her. My, my.

Now on to my real baby. We had Brady's follow-up appointment on Wednesday. Elaine was kind enough to take the girls so I could have some concentrated time with the doctor. I can't remember if I mentioned it on my last post but over the weekend, while we were at the condo, it seems like Brady kind of went backwards as far as getting better. The coughing started happening more frequently like it had been previously and you could hear the wheezing very distinctly. Plus, his sleeping reverted back to the waking up around 4 am although I blamed that on being at the condo. The appointment started off very poorly when he got weighed and it was 12 lbs, 5 ounces which meant that he hadn't gained any weight in two weeks. I'm, as well as the doctor, reassured, by the fact that he's peeing and pooping very regularly and I know I have milk so it's not like he isn't eating or anything. I do feel, however, that he hasn't been eating quite as much lately although I have been blaming that on him just being a fast eater. From what I understand, taking medications could be affecting his appetite. So while he may eat each time he's fed, he may just not be eating as much. The doctor's recommendation was that I feed him more often.

Next, the doctor listened to his chest and definitely still heard the stuff going on in there. She checked his ears and found that he very much still had an ear infection in his right ear although the left was fine. She believes that the the ear infection and the Bronchiolitis go hand in hand and he just hasn't been able to kick it. She prescribed him another med, Amox, to take for the ear. He had been taking Amoxicillan before but apparently it didn't do the trick. She also prescribed him Ranitidine which is for reflux in case that is also going on (he spits up a lot).

I asked her about whether it could be something more serious like cystic fibrosis but she really didn't think it was that, thank goodness. She did have him get blood work. His platelets were just a little high which is indicative of an infection. His white blood cell count was normal.

Her recommendation was that we keep him going on the steroid, Budesonide, through the nebulizer and then do the Albuterol as needed. That's in addition to the other two meds I already mentioned. So yes, I feel like I'm drugging my kid and nothing is coming of it. To make matters even more murky, my mother emailed our good friend, Cassy, who is a pediatrician in Massachusetts and she was concerned that he was still taking a steroid because it could have some long term side affects. We didn't give it to him tonight and I think we need to come up with a game plan on what we're going to do. The reassuring thing is that she said it's not uncommon for an infant to have this for so long after being exposed to a strong respiratory virus like he was when we all had the horrible cough back in June and July. If it took me at LEAST four weeks to get over it, it would take that much longer for him. She had a bunch of other helpful info in her email that I need to think about.

Anyway, that is the saga of Brady. Despite all this, he's still a happy little fellow with many smiles to share around and even laughter. We've had him laughing on several different occasions this week and it's just precious. One of the things I forgot to mention is that he found his feet on September 15 and one of his favorite things to do is put them in his mouth. I point out that date because all three kids found their feet at 3 months and 1 week. Maybe that's the universal age for when baby's realize something is down there! Just wait until he realizes what else is down there...

His sleeping is still leaving something to be desired. Some of my fears that having a boy would equal a bad sleeper have been realized. Of course, I'm sure it has nothing to do with him being a boy but he's definitely not as good a sleeper as his sisters. I wouldn't call it terrible by any means but I also wouldn't say I'm getting very good nights of sleep. Wednesday and Thursday morning he woke up both times at 4:03. The next thirty minutes or so involve my putting the binky back in his mouth over and over again hoping he'll just go back to sleep. During this time, he doesn't cry but makes little restless noises. Or, sometimes he will fall back asleep (I assume since it's dark) for a few minutes which is basically just long enough to trick you into thinking that you've won. When it ultimately doesn't work, I bring him into bed with me but lately he's just been rolling around and not sleeping. The final step is to then take him downstairs to the swing. The swing has this white noise that plays that sounds like birds chirping. The extremely unfortunate thing about this noise is that it only lasts for about 10 minutes and then you have to hit the reset button again. Brady is hooked on that noise. During the day, when you can see him, he'll be sleeping in his swing and that sound will go off and you'll see him pop his eyes open as if to say "What happened?" At night, I can't see him but I can here him rustle around as soon as it goes off. So I pretty much lie there on the futon, next to the swing, at five in the morning waiting to reset the button every ten minutes. Usually I'll be just ready to drift off into never never land and I'll startle awake when I realize there's dead silence. On some occasions I'll go through like five or six cycles of button pushing before he'll finally stay asleep without the noise going. Clearly, I'm not getting good quality sleep during this time. This morning, after hitting the sack at about 12:30, I prayed a special prayer that he would sleep until six. My prayer was answered! I'll be saying another one tonight. The bigger question in all this is, why couldn't they have made the swing with the ability to keep the noise going continuously?? Seriously, it would make my life so much easier.

It seems awhile ago now but last weekend we had a very nice time at the condo. The highlight of the trip, besides visiting with my mother, of course, was Sunday when the Rondinelli's, who are on vacation in Florida, made the trip over from Deltona to spend the day with us. Freddie and Bruno are addicted to the beach so they fit right in with Calleigh. Except for a small afternoon break, Calleigh was in the water for about the entire day. She and Bruno had a blast playing together. She's got massive tan lines and I have to admit, I'm a bit jealous! Aubree did really well too in that she'll float around in a tube all by herself and kick her feet. What a change from back in May when we were there and she sat on the steps with her baby doll the whole time. Duncan, Ron, and Elaine ended up going home on Sunday evening because Duncan had to work on Monday but my mom, the kids, and I stayed until early Monday afternoon. We caught a bite to eat with Aunt Shirley and then we had to say goodbye to Gigi whose flight left that evening out of Tampa. Oh one other thing that did happen over the weekend was that I caught Aubree's pink eye on Sunday. I used her drops (bad, I know) and it disappeared in about a day.

Sabbath afternoon walk.

I was there too. Calleigh looks a little sour because she had just had an accident and we had to make a hasty exit from the playground.

Sunday afternoon picnic by the pool.

Aubree and her floaty. Not sure why she looks upset here because she did enjoy it.

Brady's first "swim." Only fitting that it should be with Gigi.

Calleigh and Bruno. Three year age difference but they get along great.

On Sunday, while we were there, I had to make a CVS and Walgreens run since it was an awesome week at the drugstores for freebies and good deals. I haven't done much there lately but this worked out perfectly because the girls were at the beach and my pal Brady and I were able to shop at our leisure. It was a very successful trip.

All this for under $2!

Let's see, as far as this week, what did we do? Nothing big comes to mind. Thursday was a good day at Swim & Gym as another girl joined the class so that's fun for Calleigh although she's very happy playing with the boys too. This morning we had a bunch of yard sales. I think the season is starting to heat up!

This afternoon we went to our first festival of the season. It was over at the Orangewood Church and School. It was the same one to kick off the season last year. They had a bunch of bouncy houses and games. Unfortunately the bouncy houses weren't really conducive to a 2-year old but in the end, Aubree did do one of them and was very pleased with herself. The weather is supposed to get cooler this weekend and may feel more like fall or so the weatherman said. The temp will be...wait for it...in the low 80's!! How funny to say that but compared to the low 90's, I'll take it.

Aubree sporting the pig tails. Love this profile picture of her!

An unsuccessful attempt at hoola hooping.

Both girls give it a whirl for the contest.

Calleigh enjoyed the games.

Waiting in line to go into the bouncy house.

Brady was thoroughly unimpressed with the festivities.

Both boys sacked out after we got back.

Between this week and last, we've done quite a few games and activities and it's neat to see how Calleigh has grown up. We're now able to play Red Light, Green Light and she'll actually stop when I say red light. We can play Simon Says and she's aware enough not to do things when I don't say "Simon says." We can play a whole round of Candy Land without her getting bored. Some of the things are funny though. I started rhyming some words and had her pick out some words that rhymed. For example, I said "cat" and she came up with "hat," "mat," etc. Then she said she wanted to pick a word. Her word? Saxaphone! If you think of something, let me know. We also did some opposites such as big and small, night and day, etc. At one point I said white was the opposite of black which then put her on a whole tangent with colors. She very seriously told me that purple is the opposite of pink and gold is the opposite of blue and so and so forth. That's kind of hard to explain.

The funniest thing happened today. We were in the Walmart parking a lot and ahead of us a little ways I could see a man with a dog on a leash. The dog had a vest and the man had dark sunglasses on so I assumed it was a seeing eye dog and launched into a whole discussion with the girls about how people are blind but there are dogs that help them by leading them around and making sure they don't bump into anything. I really thought I was doing a good job until we got up closer to where they were and noticed the man helping the dog into the car and then he himself getting into the driver's seat to drive off. I could just see the wheel's turning in their heads as they stared at him. That left me to say "Well, yeah, he must not be completely blind." But then I realized how stupid (bad word, sorry Calleigh) that statement was because really, who wants an even partially blind person driving around? I'm left to assume it was some other kind service dog (although those glasses really had me fooled) but it really was a funny moment when I saw that.

I"m going to close here as it is 12:30 and time to hit the sack. Happy Sabbath everyone!

Indian Rocks...Again

2011-09-23T23:26:00.000-04:00

I sure could get used to this. If only we were millionaires so we could tell people in a stuffy voice (and I imagine it with a British accent for some reason), "I'm going to my condo for the weekend." Alas, it's just a rental. We're back at the same place we were at in May when we took a mini vacation with Ron and Elaine. Sort of like a last hurrah before the family unit changed. We were so impressed with our time here that we were looking for any excuse to come again and fortunately, my mother was that excuse when she decided to come down for a visit. She's a sucker for the ocean/gulf. Ron and Elaine are with us again and it works out perfectly with the three bedrooms. The girls are bunking with Gigi. If you want to check out where we are staying, click here. The only downside of coming here is the Tampa traffic that we got stuck in right during rush hour. Duncan was very frustrated (as was I) and he kept muttering, "This sitting in traffic is torture." I quickly pointed out, "No, sitting in traffic with your baby screaming is torture." Thankfully that never happened. He only woke for about the last 10 minutes of the trip. My mother flew in to Tampa so we were especially excited to get here. We'll be here for three nights and then my mother flies out of here Monday night. Short trip but very worthy.

This week started off very slowly as Aubree was recovering from her pink eye. Thankfully, the redness and basically, freakishness, of it went away pretty quickly. But trying to put those drops in her eyes was torturous (I'm convinced more so for me than for her). The only way I could manage it was by putting a pillow over her chest with her arms and hands pinned under it. Afterwards, she got rewarded with an M&M. Somehow, Calleigh got in on it too and she would get one M&M every time Aubree did the drops. I'm sure you can guess what that lead to. Yup. Every few hours Calleigh would ask "Is it time for Aubree to get her drops again?" Eventually, whether it was from the candy or maybe because she realized it wasn't that big of a deal, Aubree doesn't mind getting the drops any more. But the strangest thing is that she asks for a pillow on her chest every time she gets them. It's like she thinks that's a requirement or something. Go figure. I had heard that after even one dose of the drops, you aren't contagious any more. I really don't know if that's true or not but what I do know is that Calleigh's eye is starting to look red today so we had to start with the drops for her. She was not a happy camper.

The first few days of the week we didn't do a whole lot. Oh yes. I do know that on Tuesday we did make a CVS and Walgreens run. I haven't been doing much couponing at the drug strores lately because I have a pretty good stockpile of stuff and frankly, I just haven't been wild about dragging the three kids in there. But the deals seem to be heating up there so off we went. I won't talk about what we got since it might be stocking stuffers in a few months! Wednesday we went to a huge consignment sale, Boutique for a Week, that they were having at a nearby church. It was a very successful outing.

Wednesday evening was Calleigh's first Adventurer's meeting. It was at the church. It was quite a rush to get there on time. Usually I'm working until about 4:45 and with us needing to leave by 5:50, it didn't leave much time. I had to get Brady fed, the girls changed, myself dressed (I work in my sweats, of course), and then the house was in disarray and it pretty much stayed that way. I couldn't figure out what to do about supper because we usually don't eat until 7:00 and we had eaten lunch at almost 2:00. In the end, I just brought along a cheese stick, fruit bites, and a granola bar. I think I'll have to come up with a different game plan for next week. Actually, I'm hoping things will go differently next time. Duncan is the one going with her to the meetings but because he couldn't get out of work any earlier, he just met us there. Anyway, the evening went very well. There are probably about 40 - 50 kids in total with about seven or eight the same age as Calleigh. The 4-year olds are officially called "Little Lambs." Her best buddy Braelyn is in it too and it was funny watching them take it all in. They sat in the front row with their mouths agape pretty much the whole evening especially when a lady known as the "Mad Scientist" did a whole show with experiments and such. I stuck around for about half the program and then I took Brady and Aubree to the airport to pick up Ron and Elaine who were returning from a work/pleasure trip to Pennsylvania.

Going over the pledge and law. Don't ask me why these pictures are in black and white. I'm sure from Calleigh messing with my phone as usual.

The "Mad Scientist"

Thursday it was time for Swim & Gym. We started loading up the van to go (mind you, time is very tight because it starts at 9:30 and we need to get on the road by 9:05) and Calleigh yells out "Where's my car seat???" I knew it. Duncan had forgotten to move the car seat out of his truck and back into the van. He had taken it out the night before to drive her home from Adventurer's. What to do, what to do. I knew time was ticking so I quickly came up with the resolution of her sitting on Aubree's portable highchair thingy and using the regular seatbelt. So it pretty much resembled her sitting in a booster seat (which is legal in Florida for 4-year olds). Definitely not the ideal solution but it was pretty much the only option for getting to Swim & Gym on time or at least at a reasonable time. As soon as Duncan got home from work I reminded him of the car seat but he put it off saying he was too wiped. Yup, you guessed it. I was brushing my teeth this morning and it occurred to me that he had never gotten the car seat out of the truck again. At least this morning I was able to go over Ron and Elaine's and get an actual booster seat for her to use.

Last night, Calleigh had another little accident. The week before it was falling off the couch. This week it was a wipe out on her scooter. Yes, she rides her scooter (it has three wheels) in the house. She half fell off it, which would have been fine, but then the bar ended up coming up and hitting in the mouth. I saw a bunch of blood and she was covering up her bottom lip and I was so freaked out that she had done something to her teeth. For some reason, my very worst nightmare is that she loses a baby tooth because they don't put those back in. It's kind of like the bad dream you have of your teeth falling out. Except in this case, I'm so worried it's going to happen for real. Thankfully, it was only a busted up lip and a Creamsicle eventually cured it.

This morning we went to one yard sale and then it was back to Boutique for a Week where we met Jennifer and her gaggle of boys. It was an excellent diversion for the girls so that Jennifer and I could get a some shopping done. At one point, they were all up on the stage playing and I could see Calleigh bossing the boys (mainly Evan and Kaleb since they're younger and smaller and will listen to her) around. Today most everything at the sale was 50% off so it was very hard not to go too crazy.

Calleigh really impressed me this week with her dedication. Not too long ago, Grandma had taken them shopping and got each of them a hula hoop. Calleigh has used it here and there, mainly to just goof off with. Well, this week she decided to pick it up a notch and she in fact, taught herself to hula hoop. Seriously, she must have spun that thing around herself like 100 times. She did it again, and again, and again. And finally, after about 40 tries of it, she was able to get it to stay up for about 5 to 10 seconds. Since then, she's been going pretty crazy with the hula hooping. I have to hand it to her...I don't know that I have that kind of stamina in learning something like that.

By the way, I did get my new camera battery charger but unfortunately forgot to bring my little tool to the condo that transfers the pictures to my computer. Oops.

In Brady news, he still has his cough. He is coughing much less often but you can definitely still hear the cough in his chest. This week, I'm glad to say, I haven't had to take him downstairs to the swing at all. He's slept until 6:00 or even 7:00 in his rock n' sleeper every night. When he wakes up before 7:00, I just put him in our bed and he goes back to sleep. He's usually been going to sleep between 9:00 and 9:30 and then I wake him up to feed him before I go to bed between 11:00 and 11:30. I think I'll try to get his last meal moved up though once we get home. I'm sure he could be going without such a late feeding but it's just worked out to be the easiest thing for me to just feed him before I go to bed.

In closing, I'll share a little story about the girls. They were in the tub one morning this week and Calleigh let out a yelp and said "Aubree just hit me with that rubber ducky." Aubree was completely outraged. "I did NOT hit her with the rubber ducky." Pause. "I hit her with this boat."

Making Progress!

2011-09-18T23:44:00.000-04:00

This picture has nothing to do with this post. This was taken at Hammock Beach. Since I barely have any pictures this time, I figured I'd finally scan it in and post it. This is the kind of picture you get at 9:30 at night!

Yay! The cough is actually getting better. It's about time. Brady started the antibiotics and treatments on Tuesday evening and things started improving very quickly. By Wednesday night, he was no longer waking up during the night and coughing. In fact, each night he's slept longer and longer. My usual routine had been that he would sleep until about 5:00 although before that time he would wake up now and then and cough. At 5:00, I would bring him downstairs to the swing and that's where he would sleep until about 7:30. Now I've got him staying asleep until 6:15 and there hasn't been any waking up coughing previous to that. I feel like we're making real progress. At the 6:15 wake up, I've just been bringing him into my bed and he goes back to sleep until around 7:15. I HATE having kids in my bed but I'm making an exception in this case.

We had our follow up appointment on Friday morning (right during yard sales!) to assess how things were going. She listened to his chest and although she still heard things going on in there (not that she expected him to be cured in three days anyway) she said that she definitely thought we were on the right path. She said we needed to continue with the Albuterol via the nebulizer which meant that we had to purchase our own machine. They try running it through insurance and if that doesn't work (I'm pretty skeptical) we'll be out $195 but I'll consider it money well spent if it comes to that. She stopped the original steriod and now he's on another one called Budesonide for all you medical people. Unfortunately this one is given through the nebulizer too. I say unfortunately because it is not a pleasant operation having him do the nebulizer. The Albuterol is given three times a day and Budesonide is twice a day so two times they are one right after the other and that is a VERY long 25 minutes to say the least. If this cures him, then it's all worth it but the journey is not a pleasant one. Anyway, as I said, it seems to be working so far. We'll go back in about a week and a half for another assessment.

So, just as Brady seems to be on the mend, another one falls by the way side. This time it's Aubree. We noticed yesterday afternoon that her eyes were getting a little red, puffy, and watery. It reminded me of when my eyes bother me from allergies at my parents. Calleigh had one red eye on Thursday and we had briefly considered it was pink eye but it didn't bother her at all so we just let it go. By Friday afternoon, it was fine. When we were at the doctor's on Friday, I had asked the doc about the flu mist that the girls an I had gotten on Tuesday. The flu mist, as opposed to the flu shot, has a partially live virus in it and it can give you mild symptoms like a runny nose. So I figured that was what Calleigh had and now maybe now Aubree. Well, by last night, Aubree was getting worse and worse and she woke up about 4 times during the night saying she wasn't feeling good. This morning when she got up, her eyes looked really, really horrible. We still weren't sure what it was but decided to take her to Centra Care. The doc there quickly determined it was, in fact, pink eye. As my friend Jennifer says (I sent her a picture), it's the worst case of pink eye she's ever seen because it's not just Aubree's eyes themselves that are bad but underneath them too. I think it may be because she's so fair skinned. He prescribed her some drops to put in her eyes which, as you might suspect, Aubree absolutely hates. But her eyes are already looking better. Gee, I should have a really fun day tomorrow between Brady's treatments and having to battle Aubree to get those drops in (every four hours).

Poor Aubs!

Other than all this, we're doing great! We're all still in happy spirits so that's the important thing, right?

Let's get to some non-sick news. Calleigh had her second week of Swim & Gym on Thursday. This time she didn't bat an eyelash when we dropped her off. It was really cute when we came to pick her up though. She saw us waiting for her as she came down the hall and her eyes lit up when she saw us. I know it was only two hours that we were gone but we missed her too! She did have a good time though. I forget to mention this funny part from last week. That first week I had gone down with her to the pool so she would feel comfortable and as I was waiting there, one of the teachers went over the pool rules. These were the rules: "No running. No jumping in. No splashing. No yelling. No wild play. No fun." Of course, I just made that last one up but I could see Calleigh's face all bewildered like "What is there left to do?"

Friday I did manage to get in a couple of yard sales around the doctor visit. One place had a deal where I could stuff a Walmart bag of baby boy clothes for $3. Those are the times that I try to do all I can to keep the Cheshire grin off my face less they realize what a steal that is!

Friday evening we went over to David and Yully's new place. Their lease was up at their apartment over by the RDV so they decided to move into a townhouse very similar in size to our place here. Even better is that it's much closer...only about 4 miles away on the Winter Park/Oviedo border. We're very excited to have them so close. It has a pool so we did a little swimming first and then on to their house for a tour and supper. It's a really pretty place (I loved their upgraded stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops. Seriously, I watch too much House Hunters!). Nobody else was at the pool until we were almost ready to leave when two parents (we assumed) came with their three boys who I would say ranged in ages from about four to seven. I had taken Calleigh and Aubree into the bathroom to change and when I came out, Duncan was like "Let's get out of here right away." He said the mother was yelling and swearing at the boys because they wouldn't swim across the pool and Duncan was just so uncomfortable he couldn't take it any more. How very sad.

Sabbath was a typical day as far as church went. The one big thing was that Aubree actually did things on her own during Sabbath School. As I've mentioned in here before, she becomes so reticent when she isn't around Calleigh that I have to do every little thing with her during Sabbath School. But this week she was fine. She did it all on her own. I have no idea what changed since the last time but I'm happy.

Saturday night we went over to the Isidros for "Roll Your Own Sushi Night." Yes, I actually ate sushi. I had no idea they had "veggie" sushi but it turns out there is such a thing. I had it with cucumbers, cream cheese, and strawberries and I have to say dipping that in soy sauce was quite delightful. Hmm, now I'm feeling hungry. I wish I was still pregnant so I would have an excuse to eat right now. Anyway, we had a great time as usual there although we had to cut our stay a little shorter than we typically do since we all had things to do later in the evening (mine was to get registered for my on-line personal trainer but it didn't happen because of Aubree).

The men rolling sushi.

Five Star Dining! And no, I did not use chopsticks. I'm messy enough with a fork.

This morning we were supposed to join a big group down at Green Meadow Petting Farm but that obviously got sidetracked by the trip to Centra Care. We have a Groupon for it that expires on September 28 that we will now not be able to use. If anyone reading this would like to go, let me know. I have three tickets I'll give you! Anyway, I felt bad that it didn't work out as the girls were excited to go. We had been talking about it yesterday and asked the girls if they were going to milk the cow. As we were walking to the Sabbath School classroom, I have no idea why Aubree was thinking of it at that time, she says to me "Mommy, do we milk the cow with our mouths?" I think she's somehow getting the whole milking thing mixed up with a baby nursing or something like that!

Since we already had our picnic lunch in the van, when we left the Centra Care late morning, we decided to drive up to Wekiva Springs Park. It's funny how you can live somewhere for years and yet never go to things that are right near you. This was our first time in the park. We didn't exactly pick the right time to make our park debut since the love bugs are out right now in full force. As Calleigh says, "I don't love 'em, I hate 'em." They don't bite but they sure are annoying as all get out. Anyway, we decided to walk down this big hill to the springs. Since I hadn't brought sunblock we tried to maneuver ourselves to a spot that was well shaded but the only place available was covered with dirt and roots. I had miraculously packed bathing suits for the girls (although Aubree just sat with me because of her eyes) so Calleigh was able to go into the spring with Duncan. We didn't have any towels so we used a few little baby blankets to sit on. Needless to say, it wasn't the most comfortable or cleanest picnic lunch we ever had. We had been there for probably 20 minutes tops when Duncan noticed ominous black clouds moving in. Just after we had lugged everything back up the hill the torrential rain started. Duncan chauffeured us home in his underwear which he had the foresight to remove before swimming in his shorts. That went off without a hitch until we got home and as he was walking in a couple of people drove by in a car and Duncan tried to hide behind the cooler he was carrying. Hey, at least they weren't whitey tighties!

Before I close off I wanted to mention one thing I observed about the girls. I've found it interesting over the last week or two to notice that Calleigh has learned how to delay gratification. A trait of children, at least to up to a certain age, is instant gratification. They want it NOW! Well, little Calleigh is growing up because she doesn't give in to the instant gratification any more. I noticed this with the Buddy Fruit snacks that they love. When I give them both a little bag, Aubree gets hers and eats it as fast as she possibly can which is usually about 60 seconds. Calleigh, meanwhile, savors them very slowly and will save some of them for a later time. Same thing with cheese. Sometimes I'll give them a cheese stick with their meal. Aubree eats it first before anything else on her plate. Calleigh used to do the same thing but now she'll save it for the last thing she eats as if she's saving the best for last. Just an interesting observation...

I think I'll end here. It's promising to be another long night, again, with Aubree as she's cried out a couple of times already since she went to sleep and I've had to go up there.

One other thing...I (okay, Duncan) finally ordered a new battery charger for my camera so I should be back to more and better pictures very soon.

Still Coughing...

2011-09-14T23:22:00.000-04:00

Brady has now had a cough for approximately 10 of the 14 weeks of his life. He was last at the pediatrician three weeks ago when he got the bronchiolitis diagnosis. Since we haven't seen any improvement since then, I took him back in yesterday for another assessment. We saw a different doctor this time but she stuck with the same tune as the other doctor - - it's bronchiolitis and he just can't seem to fight it off. During her exam, she checked his ears but couldn't see anything...literally. My kids may not look like me but one of them has at least gotten one gene from me and not a good one at that. His poor little ears were filled with wax! She had to clean that all out and then she was able to look in there and discover that he had an ear infection. She said she wasn't surprised since he's had the bronciolitis for so long. He's now on Amoxicillin for that.

The doc listened to his chest for quite awhile and noted that he's still very wheezy. She decided to give him some Albuterol through a nebulizer. For those not familiar with that term, it's a little machine that gives the Albuterol in mist form to someone via a mask that they put over their nose and mouth. I was very happy to actually be doing something, anything for Brady's situation. The girls were with me and we had been in this little room for a good 30 minutes. I put the mask on Brady's face and I'm thinking, oh, it's going to be a minute or two of this. Imagine my surprise/dread when the nurse says, "Okay, we'll let that thing run for about 10 or 15 minutes." Yowzers! That tiny room with two rambunctious girls becomes like a prison cell. And I couldn't do much about it because I was trying to hold a thrashing Brady on my lap. Thankfully they didn't end up in a big fight or something. In the end, Brady even fell asleep with the mask on because they said it was okay to give him binky (I guess it's fine that he just breathes it in through his nose). The doc came and checked on him after that and said it sounded like things had loosened up a bit in his chest so that was good. The end result is that we are now giving him the Albuterol three times a day. They gave us a loaner machine that we'll bring back on Friday at a follow up appointment. She also prescribed him a steroid that apparently helps with the inflammation in his chest. I hope it all works but poor little guy that he's only three months old and is going through all this. He definitely has not followed in his sisters' footsteps as far as the lack of illnesses early on.

The other thing that caught my eye that I pointed out to the doc was that he only gained 6 ounces in three weeks. According to things I've read, babies from 0 - 4 months should be gaining anywhere from 4 to 7 ounces in a week. Clearly, he's fallen well short of that. He's at 12 lbs, 6 oz which is still average for his age but obviously the recent trend isn't that great. I know it's not a lack of milk on my part since I'm still leaking. The doc said it was most likely related to his coughing problem. He probably gets worn out from all the coughing or just isn't feeling that great so he's not eating as much. We'll obviously weigh him on Friday to see what he gains in these few days.

So far, things have gone fine with doing the nebulizer at home. We've found that it takes 12 minutes. He gets a little antsy after a few minutes and I find myself singing to get him calmed down. Duncan's assessment is that it's helped his cough be much more productive. Here's hoping it helps.

In other Brady news, we brought out the Bumbo seat for the first time yesterday. It looks like he likes it.

The camera on my phone really stinks.

Let's see...what else is going on? We had a pretty uneventful weekend compared to the one before. The Isidro's were down in Avon Park visiting Allen's parents and his brother who was in town so we didn't see them at all.

Okay, so I guess I'll just get into my latest DirecTV chapter. In my last post, I mentioned how disgusted we were with their customer service or as Clark Howard would say, customer no-service. They finally came on Friday and did all that work. Meanwhile, over the last few weeks, we've had various friends tell us about how they signed up for DirecTV and have gotten the free NFL package ($340 to us faithful subscribers) and a $180 Costco gift card. We were pretty ticked off to hear that since we've been customers since 2002 and what do we get for that??? You guessed it. Nothing. So over the weekend we were at the mall and happen to walk by a DirectTV booth and I told the guy that I was pretty frustrated in how well the new customers were being treated compared to us old ones. And he responded by telling me we should just switch the service to the other ones name and then we'll be new customers. In fact, we should just be doing that every two years (the length of the contract) and then we'll keep getting the good deals. Obviously I had no idea you could do such a thing. I figured it went by the address or something. So Sunday afternoon we were off to Costco where they were still having the $180 gift card deal. It turns out that there were a bunch of other fees we don't have to pay anymore and that bottom line is that if you include that $180 gift card, we're probably going to be saving like $800 for the year. Crazy, huh?

Now, obviously we already have all the equipment (and a new dish just installed on Friday) but they still had to come today to bring us our new and improved receivers. The man, who yes, actually arrived on the day and in the time frame he was supposed to, immediately took note of the fact that we already had DirecTV. He tells me that he doesn't know if he'll even be able to activate a new account because we already were subscribers and that the account goes by both the name and the address (as I had been thinking all along up until Sunday). Just great. But he tried it and it worked so happy times. Of course, now I don't know if we did something against the rules or not. Funny thing happened while he was here though. Calleigh wasn't napping, as usual, and she was getting a little chit chatty with the guy. He told her he had a girl about her age so Calleigh asks him what her name was. Now, this guy was Indian (the dot, not the arrow) and he had an accent (thankfully a very understandable one) so I was wondering if it would be an interesting name. He tells Calleigh, "Ja-mem-a." She laughs and says "No" like it was a joke and was waiting for him to give the real name. When he didn't say anything she tells him "That's funny!!" Just slightly embarrassing.

With everything set up with Duncan's new account, that left me with the unenviable task of having to call to cancel my account. As I expected, they wanted to ask a million questions. Not wanting to admit what we had done just in case we weren't supposed to, I tried to be evasive as possible without actually lying. I told them I really didn't want to talk about it and that I just wanted to cancel my service. When he mentioned that he saw I had the football package and wouldn't have it anymore, I could help but give him a hard time that new subscribers got it for free. He says, "How about I give you $5 off a month?" Gee, thanks. When I said, "No" he then starts in with "How about $10?" and then he keeps going, "20?" "$50?" "Free?" Obviously I declined it all but it bugs me that I didn't try and pretend to cancel my service in a previous year or at least call and ask for some kind of discount. Lesson learned.

This afternoon we took Ron & Elaine to the airport who are going up to PA for business and some pleasure to see the family. I told the girls this morning that we would be taking Grandma and Grandpa to the airport. Aubree gets excited and quickly tells me "I'm going to bring my blanket and sleep on your lap." I was so confused. And then I realized that she thought we were going on the airplane. On the way to the airport I could hear her talking about JetBlue and Southwest. Even when we pulled up to the airport I think she still thought she was getting on the plane. I don't think she actually wanted to go to a particular place, she just wanted to be on the plane.

Calleigh gave us another scare this evening. The girls love to get on the futon and pretend it's their stage. Well, you could say that Calleigh fell off the stage. I was in the kitchen but I saw, out of the corner of my eye, her fall forward off the side off the couch into our end table and then onto the wood floor. Thankfully she only suffered a mark on the side of her face which didn't even bleed. It was definitely red though and we think it will be purple in the morning. It looks like her face may have hit into the lock on the part of the table that Dewey's crate was built into. We wanted to put ice on it which she refused but then she finally came around and was very concerned as to whether it would be purple. She then told me very seriously before going to bed, "I'm going to tell Blake and Zachary all about what happened." She'll see them at Swim & Gym in the morning.

Time to wake up Brady Brother to feed him before we turn in for the evening. Have a great rest of the week.

We had lunch at Aunt Wanda's on Sabbath.

Try to get past the red eye which I can't eliminate...Brady being tortured with stickers by Aubree.

We love the way she crosses her legs!

This picture cracks me up! Calleigh loves taking pictures with my phone and here she is photographing her feet (Pats pregame on in the background).