Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Just a recap

Well, I don't know if there is much of anything interesting report, but I'll go ahead and fill you in on the last week. Gary was out of town (actually out of state) for 7 whole days and boy did we miss him. I managed to keep busy by painting a new room for Mason and we moved him into it tonight. Then I went on a scrapbooking retreat with some friends and stayed up to 2:30 and 3:30 each night getting a lot done and having tons of fun. Then Gary and I went out with the couples in our small group from church to Dave & Busters for some friendly competition, (which overall we won), but lost at the artistic competition at the dinner table. We don't sing. So we shared the title with another couple and won a gift card. It was so much fun! Last night I was telling Gary my right side was sore, but that I had no idea from what. Then Gary suggested it was the basketball portion of the competition. I think I'm getting old.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Happy Birthday Reese!

I cannot believe it has been a year since baby Reese was born. I guess we have to stop calling her "baby" Reese now since she is no longer my baby. Although, I might be able to hang on to that a little longer because she still only has 2 teeth and is not walking yet, and still wears mostly 6/9 month clothes with a splash of 12 month shirts. So in honor of the birthday girl, here are some recent pics.



Reese has recently been introduced to Baby Einstein and it seems she is instantly hooked.
Gary's parents got us a double jogging stroller for Reese's birthday since this girl LOVES being outside. I have to say that it is absolutely wonderful. Mason might disagree since it puts little hands so close to him. He was nice enough to share goldfish with her and actually put one in her mouth. So cute!

Did I mention she loves being outside? 

As you can see, she is starting to get some longer whispies of hair. Someday they will fit into a pigtail and I can't wait.




Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Green beans & ice cream

Mason has been asking for ice cream for the last 3 nights and I have been able to hold him off until today. Yesterday was funny though because he asked after Reese went to bed and this is how our conversation went...(of course it doesn't sound this clear)

Mason: Mommy, let's go get some ice cream.
Me: We can't sweetie, baby Reese is asleep and we can't leave her alone to go get ice cream.
Mason: We can wake her up and she can go with us.
Me: No sweetie, we aren't waking her up.
Mason: I can stay here with baby Reese and you can go get ice cream.
Me: (laughing) No sweetie, that won't work either. We'll get some tomorrow, but those were good suggestions though.

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Apparently you can't heat up green beans in a microwave on a plate without green bean juice. They tend to catch on fire or blow up. 


Sunday, March 22, 2009

Moving down the hall

I have just started a new project, moving Mason into a different bedroom. We are switching his room and the guest room/workout room. He will be right next door to Reese now. Why, you might ask, are we moving him? Well, there are many reasons.

1.  his new room will have a ceiling fan
2.  that will leave the guest room farther away from the kiddos in case we have company
3.  the kids will be right next to each other in case of a fire or other emergency
4.  my exercise equipment will then be farther away from the kiddos so I have no excuse not to work out at night anymore
5.  I can then claim his large walk-in closet for my own scrapbooking closet and Gary can have his half of our master bedroom closet back

When it's all said and done, he will have a cowboy room since he loves my mom's horses. I asked him what color he wanted and he initially said purple, but then he decided on blue. So yesterday we went to Home Depot and spent almost an hour at the paint color trying to tell the lady what we wanted. Last night I started taping the walls to prepare for actual paint today. So this morning, I asked Mason if he wanted to see what his room looked like so far. He was so excited, he dashed up the stairs and flew open the door and said in the sweetest, most honest voice, "It's beautiful!" and he kept repeating it several times. I had to laugh to myself because all that I had done was put up the strip of blue tape that will separate the 2 different sections of blue paint. But, to him, those were his blue walls and he loved them. Oh, if I could just see things as simply as he does.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Scrap Blog

For those of you who might be even remotely interested, I created a Scrapbook Blog just for the sole sake of displaying my scrapbook pages so my mom can see them. So if by chance you want to check them out, there a link on the right side of this page or you can click here.

Yet again, more pictures








These two crack me up! They are both 11 months old in these pictures and apparently have the same sense of humor. They are no longer mini-me's... she definitely has blue eyes, which is crazy since the only person in our family with blue eyes is my Granny. 

Mason has gotten past not wanting to touch baby Reese as you can see here. He is supposed to be helping her stand up so I can take a picture of them standing together.

From the expression on her face, she doesn't look so sure about it, and the expression on his face says he's having a little too much fun.


The evidence is written all over her face. I found her chewing on some of Mason's artwork from school...I guess it didn't taste too bad but it sure didn't come off very easily.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

More pictures

I was scrolling through our pictures today and Mason was sitting next to me. When he saw this one he said "Baby Ree has 2 teeth. They getting bigger now. She getting bigger now." It was so sweet how he said it too. My baby is getting bigger, both of them.

In the last couple of months, occasionally Mason will get out of bed right after we leave his room at bedtime and will fall asleep at the door. We then have to go back up and squeeze our way through the doorway because he is right up against the door.


Sound asleep.
Out like a light.
Except he turns his light on.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Lots of pictures

I seem to have a little helper now. Mason loves to vacuum and this little Swifter with the vacuum included is awesome!

Once again, these are the cutest baby shoes ever. Normally, as a PT I do not recommend shoes for kiddos that aren't walking yet, but have you seen them, they are SO cute! Gary makes fun of them everytime she wears them. But, each time she does, which is usually only to church, at least 3 or 4 women ask where I got them.

One of Mason's favorite movies is Dinosaur and for those who aren't familiar with it, there is a scene where all the nice dinosaurs line up to scare the bad dinosaur away. Mason likes to reenact the scene with his dinos. Can you guess what is out of place in this picture?



How about now? I don't remember there being a giraffe in the movie, but apparently Mason thought he belonged.

I love this picture!


Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Not much going on here

We don't really have anything new or exciting to say, but I feel bad not posting anything new in a while, so here goes.

Gary had today off so we asked Mason what he wanted to do as a family and he said "the mall". We were actually relieved because with it being Spring Break, the zoos and all other kid places would have been a mad house. So went loaded up and went to Stonebriar so he could ride the horsies on the carousal. That honestly makes me nauseous so Gary has to ride it with him. He's pretty easy to please as he was ready to go after the carousal ride and a trip or two on the escalators. Then it was home and then off to the tax lady to get that done. I actually look forward to taz season each year so I guess that makes me weird.

Update on Reese: she now knows where here belly and hair are and she will pull her shirt up or pat her hair in response. She makes sounds for the cow and tiger upon request, and has the cutest response for when we ask her what a fishy says. She also repeats "brother" quite well sometimes when we ask her, but still doesn't say mama. Her newest skill, which as a pediatric PT just amazes me, she already knows how to turn herself around and scoot backwards down the stairs and off the furniture. Now if I can just get her talking...

Update on Mason: he informed us today that next year he was going to have 3 horses, have a barn and that he would sleep with the horses in the barn. I guess we better get on that. His new favorite movie is Cars and he loves the movie trailer for "Up" which comes out sometime in May. 

Can you feel the excitement? The Twilight DVD comes out this weekend. I guess I shouldn't be feeling all giddy since I already have a "bootleg" version of the movie, but now it will be official. Luckily, I already have plans Friday evening or I may have been pondering the idea of going to some release party to get the DVD at midnight. I know, it's just plain silly.

Monday, March 16, 2009

I Heart Faces

This week's theme at I ♥ Faces is Green in honor of St. Patrick's Day. I ventured into the photo vault for this one because I knew exactly which picture I wanted to enter. This was the first time Mason ever played in or with grass. He kind of have a "what is this?" expression and of course our grass looked great at the moment. 

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Not Me Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week. 

I did not dress one of my kids entirely in his Sunday clothes Saturday night for bedtime so that there would be one less kid to dress before church.

I did not somehow get chocolate syrup in my eye when I was eating some much needed ice cream with my chocolate syrup. (Yep, you read that right, there is usually more syrup than ice cream)

I did not have my 3.5 year old unload my entire grocery cart at Super Target because I was too tired holding the baby. Besides, he really likes to help.

I did not let the same 3.5 year old watch the movie Cars at least 6 times this weekend.

I did not count queso at Tin Star as a serving of vegetables (there are tomatoes and something green in there, right?).

I did not bring my baby to the Acute Care Kids clinic Saturday evening thinking she had an ear infection only to find out she is teething. In my defense, I already knew she was teething, but she was presenting the same way the last time she had an ear infection. 

Nope, not me!






Saturday, March 7, 2009

Update on feeding Reese

It definitely seems that the change in bottle & nipple did the trick.  In the last 2 weeks prior to the change, we were doing good to get her to drink 2-3 ounces at a time and then she started waking up again around 10 and we would feed her again. Now she is consistently eating about 6 ounces in each bottle and just yesterday she shocked us all and downed 8 ounces in one feeding. I am thankful that we solved that problem, but still feel bad as a mother that I didn't solve it sooner. 

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Y didn't I think of that earlier?

Reese had her 11 month weight and iron level check yesterday.  She barely gained any weight in the last month and is hovering at the 13th percentile, and she is still anemic even after being on iron supplements. That was not the part that concerned me, it was the constant battle we have been having trying to get this little girl to eat. A baby her age (according to all the research) is supposed to be consuming 24-30 ounces of formula a day and eating a lot more solids. In the last month, but mainly the last 2 weeks, 18-20 ounces in a day was a good day and that came with a struggle. She would constantly push the bottle away and we would have to sing, dance, rock, walk, and distract for her to take that much. Same way with her baby food and table food. She has to be distracted and almost tricked to eat food.  

So our plan was to not focus on the numbers, and just assume she was making that transition from baby food/formula to table foods, even though she wasn't eating much of that either. So I left with a better feeling, and a stronger iron supplement to try.

In my gut, though, I knew there was something wrong, and I was just praying that it was a simple fix and not something serious or medical. I have been telling my mom now for weeks that my instinct was telling me something just wasn't right. I should have known.

So, I got to thinking...she has been on lactose free formula and iron supplements for a little over a month now, which is when our battle with bottle feeding started.  For those of you who don't know (me being one of those until recently), lactose free formula has a more powdery texture to it, which makes it a tad bit thicker. If you add the liquid vitamin supplement to the bottle too, it makes it even thicker. So....if you put thicker formula and a thicker vitamin supplement to a bottle with the same nipple you have been using, it doesn't work. Unfortunately, it took me a month to figure this out. Well, not really. In the last week I have been messing around with her other nipples, poking extra holes in them and adding slits, but it still didn't make a difference. No wonder the girl would cry, arch, push the bottle away, and just all out fight us for the couple of ounces she was getting. It was too much work for too little reward.

Today, I meandered to Babies R Us and bought the Dr. Brown's bottle with a Y cut nipple designed for thicker liquids. Voila! Little girl downed 6 ounces without a fuss, fight, or fidget. It brought tears to my eyes. For two reasons, I didn't realize how much her bottle battle had stressed me out and then I thought that poor thing was trying to tell us there WAS something wrong, her bottle. So we'll see tomorrow how much formula she takes and then see if she can gain a little more weight in the long run.

My instinct was right, there was something wrong, and wouldn't you know it at least part of it is a simple fix. Now we will just check on her iron levels again next month.

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And now just for funzies. Here's a video of little girl herself in her high chair. She loves to growl at us and can contort into some interesting positions (note the upside down watching the TV while in her high chair piece). 




Tuesday, March 3, 2009

I Heart Faces

It's I Heart Faces time again. This weeks theme was messy faces and I had so many pictures to choose from with our 2 kiddos. Gary made me choose this one for Reese's "Oh my goodness, what did you put in my mouth?" expression with her very first taste of sweet potatoes.  

Monday, March 2, 2009

Not Me Monday!

Here goes my list of things that I absolutely did not do this past week as part of Not Me Monday!

I did not cut my son's hair with clippers and then decide not to take care of all the little "itchies" by disconnecting the hose from the vacuum cleaner and sucking up all the hairs right off his head and neck. Nope, not me.

He did not laugh hysterically and then ask me to "do baby Reese's head too, mommy!"

I did not pick out all the cashews from my husband's snack bags for work only to leave him with cashew-less mix nuts. Sorry sweetie!

I did not whisper "ice cream" in my son's ear so that he would then go beg Daddy to go on a car ride to get some ice cream. 

Wow, that doesn't sound nearly as bad as my last parenting confession.