Well Checks & Josiah’s 6 Months

Posted on January 4, 2008 by Abbie

Liam and Josiah went today for their well check visits.

Here’s the scoop:

Liam is doing great. His height/weight are gaining and he actually jumped up a percentage. She noticed that he walks with his toes turned in and checked and said that it was due to the curvature of his leg and that would correct itself over the next few years.

Stats at 2 years are:
Weight: 28 1/2 pounds (50%)
Height: 33 inches (25%)
Head: 19 3/4 inches (75%)

Josiah’s doing good too. His cold has improved and she didn’t note any difficulties. She did say that reflux babies sometimes take longer to get over colds. He’s doing everything he should do. She told us we could increase his meals to three times a day, but I’m wanting him to nurse longer than one year, so we’re going to wait at least a month or two. We’ve started introducing him to a sippy cup but so far we’ve just put water in it. He’s getting to be a real treat and a definite momma’s boy. He will reach out for me whenever Mark has him. He loves his toys and smiling at his brothers and sister. He is working on grabbing his feet when laying down. He rolls from every which way and is working on controlling where he goes. His favorite thing to do as soon as I pick him up is grab both sides of my hair and do a face plant on my face…drool and all. He’s got two teeth still and we’re guessing by the increase in drool that he’ll have more very soon. He now sleeps about 9 hours during the night. His naps are getting better. I can now put him down and he’ll roll over and go to sleep. A lot of time, he doesn’t want me to rock him and fusses until I lay him down (sniff, sniff…they get big so fast).

Stats at 6 months are:
Weight: 18 lbs, 11 oz (65%)
Height: 28 7/8 inches (95%)
Head: 18 1/2 inches (90%)

Not much else going on. I made it to the gym two days in a row…owww! Hopefully, it will work out for me to go tomorrow, but I have to get ready for a date with Mark and a baby shower on Saturday. We’ll see!

Happy New Year!

Posted on January 2, 2008 by Abbie

Well, I was going to post this last night, but something’s up with our electrical outlet that is attached to the computer and it goes out every once in a while. So, Happy New Year on January 2nd!

We had a good New Year’s Eve. I called the doctor to see if Josiah was in need of an after hours visit. Nope…just having issues with a sinus infection most likely. Then we proceeded to clean the house for our MOPS steering team to come over with their families. It was a blast.

I think that we’re going for another week of bruises, though. What a way to start the new year. Zoe fell on New Year’s Eve and got a major carpet burn on her knee along with a bruise. Last night, we had sparklers (don’t freak out no fireworks accidents) and Liam did a face plant on the bricks on our porch. He has a nice scratch and bruise on his forehead. Up next, Ace and Josiah!!

We were busy on New Year’s Day with Mark fixing Zoe’s toilet (it was leaking…don’t ask me). I spent the day taking out Josiah’s 6-9 mth clothes and replacing them with 12 months (he’s only six months old!!!). After that, I got clothes ready for consignment and then we ate, did the sparkler thing and went to bed.

Did you know that University of Hawaii’s football team does this chant thing? It’s supposed to intimidate the other team and give them an advantage. It didn’t work for Georgia!

Oh yeah, ROLLLLL TIIIIIIIIDE!

Kids Pics and catching up, again.

Posted on December 30, 2007 by Abbie

Okay, the pictures are up and running. I just remembered I forgot our Christmas Day pictures and will have to do those later. Here are the links to the pics:
Liam’s Birthday
Zoe’s Birthday
Christmas pre-travels part 1
Christmas pre-travels part 2
Christmas pre-travels part 3
Christmas pre-travels part 4

Tracy, the babysitter, Kevin, her fiance, and the kids reading a book!

Daddy’s workout! He’s working on a video to help other dads abuse…I mean use their kids for weights!

Happy 2nd Birthday Liam!

Posted on December 29, 2007 by Abbie

Liam actually made it to 2 years old. His birthday was yesterday and he celebrated with…a fever! Yes. Fortunately, the few children we invited weren’t able to make it. Ge & Granddaddy were able to come up and his babysitter and her fiance came up. Liam’s a big sports fan, so we celebrated with football things. This is one of the better cake decorating jobs I’ve done. Unfortunately, the icing on the letters messed up and the a and a ‘p’ were messed up.

Waiting to blow out the candles.

Gettin’ the hang of presents!

Okay, guess what was the big hit of his gifts…that’s right the football helmet…and uniform.

Our bobble head doll!

Granddaddy trying on the helmet! Liam’s uniform came complete with pads and a chin strap all with Alabama colors on it!!!

Zoe’s Birthday Celebrations

Posted on December 29, 2007 by Abbie

Zoe’s actual birthday was on the 20th. We were able to celebrate with Mark’s parents. But, I thought I would post pictures from her party which was the 29th all together with birthday so there will be a mish mash of pictures.

Zoe had a “Groovy Girls” Party. I made her cake to look like a fun and funky flower. So, how did I do???

The highlight of the party. Zoe received a Webkinz. She knows what these are because of her cousin who has several. She was so excited. For those that don’t know. Webkinz are stuffed animals that come with codes to register the stuffed animal online and then you can do all sorts of neat games and fun stuff online with your “pet.”

This was a present from Ge and Granddaddy. Ge and I had more fun with it though…lots of Raggedy Ann memories!

Opening presents at Papa & Grandmere’s!

Tellin’ time, football, and more…

Posted on December 28, 2007 by Abbie

We’re still fighting the cold around here. Zoe’s up next with it. She isn’t and, my guess is, won’t run a fever with it.

Here’s a Zoe funny: She has been learning to tell time. While we were visiting my parents, we went out to eat and the establishment had the penny candy/toys in the little dispensers (although they weren’t for pennies but actually quarters and some two quarters). So, naturally, the “grands” decided to ask their “grand” parents for some money to get something. It just so happens that one of the cheap toys was a digital watch. Zoe saw and immediately wanted it. She got it and proceeded the whole night to announce: “It’s 7:31 mommy.” Walks away…”Mommy, it’s 7:32 now.” Walks away. “Mommy, oh, mommy, guess what it’s…7:33.” This continued on until she went to bed. My parents, the whole next day, kept asking her what time it was to get her going again! Mark and I were anticipating her getting up in the middle of the night to tell us it was 4:00!

Football funny: Liam got a football man that you bang on and he kicks a ball (Headbangers, I think?!) at my parents’ home. It was the first gift he opened.

“butball!” he exclaimed
“Yes, Liam. That’s great. Here, open the rest of your gifts.” mom, Granddaddy, Ge and the like.
“No, butball, open peese.” Granddaddy proceeds to open the football guy up and Liam starts to playing.
“Oh Liam, isn’t that great. But you have other gifts to open. Don’t you want to open these gifts up?” me hoping he can open his so the rest of us “adults” can open ours.
“Nooo, no, no, no.”

He did eventually get to opening gifts and still went back to the football.

Can you guess what his favorite sport is? His birthday party this year is going to be football. I found a football cake pan at Wally World. He saw the cake pan and exclaimed, “butball, burday cake.” Oh yes, that’s what he’s getting for his cake. Too cute.

I promise pictures are coming.

40 Things to do before I’m 40

Posted on December 28, 2007 by Abbie

Mark and I are seeing the advertisments for the new movie The Bucket List in which a couple of guys come up with a list of things to do before they “kick the bucket.” So, in honor of that, and because I need to set goals, I’m working on my “40 Things to do Before 40 List.”

Here’s a start:
1. Catch up on scrapbooking (so far I’m behind on 2006 and 2007).
2. Go on at least 5 domestic mission trips.
3. Go on at least 5 international mission trips.
4. Adopt at least two babies/children.
5. Get back down to my pre-pregnancy weight (the first pregnancy) and get in shape in the process
6. Travel to Hawaii.
7. Go on a cruise.
8. Go backpacking.

Okay, I got a ways to go. Any ideas??? I’ll update as I think of stuff!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Posted on December 26, 2007 by Abbie

What a wonderful day to celebrate the birth Jesus, our Savior. We slept the latest of any Christmas day I remember (even when I was little).

Mark tried to get the kids up by “Ho, Ho, Ho” but we found out later, Zoe just cringed and hid under her blankets. Oh well, we’ll try next year.

The kids didn’t get up until 7 and then we headed in the living room to see if Santa brought anything. He did…thankfully, he didn’t have to stay up too late putting it all together.

Zoe got an art easel.
Ace got a red bike with a Spider man helmet (he needed specifics, and then he decided for the longest time today that he wasn’t going to ride it because he’d fall…he rode it and didn’t fall…thanks to training wheels).
Liam got a Thomas train and small train set (Santa ditched the train tracks that had been passed down from a previous owner of the train table we have and replaced them with a simpler one with instructions, oh yeah!).
Josiah got a small activity cube (that we, delightfully, realized lights up).

Other gifts included educational and fun toys and videos to watch.

After opening gifts, we concluded our morning festivities with a hot breakfast that included the all-time famous tradition of Hot Fruit Compote and biscuits. This was passed down from my mom who got it from her sister-in-law (thanks, Aunt Diane, the tradition lives on).

After the adults got showers, we headed over to Ronald McDonald house to drop off our gifts. That being done, we then searched for a grocery store to purchase some things needed to make Friendship bread (my mom got a starter and she didn’t want to finish it so she passed it on to me). Did you know there are no grocery stores open in our town on Christmas day? Not even Wal-Mart. Oh well.

Got home, ate lunch, and Mark took the kids out to ride bikes while I made Merry Kiss-Mouse Pie and the Friendship bread (yummy is all I gots to say). We piddled the rest of the day and played with the kids and now their asleep so we’re rounding out the night with a movie!

Zoe had major meltdown from exhaustion about the time we were trying to finish up our “What God Wants for Christmas” and our advent calendar. We managed to survive and get to bed without any major incidences.

Merry Christmas! I pray everyone celebrated the birthday of Christ with Him in mind! Pictures to come later.

We Made It!!

Posted on December 26, 2007 by Abbie

Two huge suitcases full of dirty clothes (would’ve been more if I hadn’t forgotten to pack a couple pairs of undies for a few of us and we washed a load at my mom’s).
Four (I couldn’t thing of a three) extremely tired preschoolers (they were asleep by 7:30 last night).
Five nights of go, go, going here there and everywhere
Equals a night back at home.

We logged over 1000 miles traveling from here to Alabama to another part of Alabama to Georgia, to another part of Georgia and back to the first Georgia and then home. By Monday morning, we were sooooo ready to be out of the car.

The kids had a wonderful time and after our first night of no sleep, we actually had a “silent night.” Multiple ones in fact. The only other sleepless night was on Sunday night when Josiah got over tired and it got really cold in our room.

Josiah and Liam had fevers on Thursday but by Friday were feverless (yippee for breastfeeding). They both have very yucky colds but we used a vapor rub on toes and a humidifier and it’s been working well.

We enjoyed seeing all of our family but are all extremely grateful to be home.

Okay, so if you’re a new reader because you received my Christmas card, let me know by dropping a comment! Happy reading about our crew.

Yes, yes, pictures will be up this week just as soon as I…
finish plotting and planning grocery lists for the new year (I do three menus and rotate them out) and month.
getting ready for not one but two birthday parties (my babies are growing up)
and cleaning the house for end of Christmas season/birthday parties (see above)
all while juggling the adventures (and sometimes “mis” adventures) of our lovely clan of kids.

Our Pre-Christmas Travels Part 4

Posted on December 23, 2007 by Abbie

On Saturday we traveled to my parents and then on Sunday we traveled to see my aunt and met up with my niece, nephew and sister and her husband. On Monday we traveled home (yes!) and tried to catch up on sleep before Christmas day.

Josiah playing with cuz, Jacie.

The infamous football player!

Ace in present heaven!

Zoe really looks up to big cuz! Watch it Jacie bug, you have to live up to a lot with Miss Zoe around 🙂

Zoe now has an American Doll. On receiving it, she remarked that it had flat hair. My mom and sister did research to find a doll that looked like Zoe. This doll even has blue eyes! So, we explained to Zoe that she had “flat” hair because she looked like Zoe and her hair was fine like Zoe’s. She was okay with that. She loves this doll and sleeps with it every night.