3/1 The Croup

This morning Zeke woke up with the worst cough I have ever heard.  I knew I had to take him to the doc for my own peace of mind and when I got there he said it was good that I brought him right away.  I had heard people talk about the croup before and I thought his cough sounded like it, but I didn't realize kids can have trouble breathing with it.  He gave us three days of steroids and Zeke sounded better by evening, however, he was still pretty sick so I stayed home from work on Tuesday too.

Jill is 26

By my birthday, the following Sunday, Zeke felt much better.  We went to Dad and Cyn's for supper.  Zeke had a blast playing with the girls, he likes to pretend to be big like them.  He is catching up on them though :)

Sick Sick Boy

On Saturday morning February 13, we woke up to Zeke throwing up.  We just thought he had some drainage making him sick to his stomach and we all fell back asleep.  It wasn't long before we realized that just wasn't it.  He continued to throw up everything and then some.  I have never seen him quite so sick.  We got to sick call as soon as they opened at 9, but he had already thrown up about 7 times.  By the time we got his medicine and got him to stop he had thrown up around 10 times.  By that evening, we had a better little boy and thought that he was better.  On Sunday, we decided to run to Jonesboro to get him something for Valentine's Day because we had planned to do that on Saturday.  When we got over there, he started having diarhea.  This continued for about a week.  It was so sad to see him feel so bad :(

Snow Days

We really enjoyed the snow this time, it was the first snow that we were able to play in.  Zeke wasn't sure at first, but when he decided he liked the snow, he didn't want to go in.  We made 2 snowmen, one at Papaw and Meme's and the other at home.

Dustin is 28

For Dustin's birthday, we got together for supper with Lisa, Tommy, and Travis.  We had Zeke's favorite Cu-K for dessert! 

17 months~Growing up Fast

Gosh son, you are growing up before our eyes.  I know everyone always said early on, he will be in kindergarten before long.  I definitly believe that, you will!  Days go by and then months and it all happens so fast.  We love you more with each passing day and can't imagine life without you!  You have changed so much in the last few months!  You no longer seem to be falling down, you are a steady walker and runner for that matter.  You can run about 20 feet without problems, amazing to me after all the things we heard on your Birth Day.  One thing is for sure, God is in control of your life and he isn't finished with you yet!  You started cutting your molars on top and your bottom right tooth (teeth 7,8, &9) all on the same day.  It was around the 15th of December and now they are almost cut through completely.  Now we have those bottom molars to be looking forward to!  You are a major fan of your bop these days and you will go all over the house looking for it when its bedtime.  You say Baa, Baa.  It is pretty cute!  You still love to play in your closet with your little people town, but since Christmas you have a few new favs.  You love your guitar, blocks, cars, ride ons.  Your favorite thing to do since we rearranged your room and made it a semi big boy room is to sit at your table and read books or play with your laptop.  You love to put your phone, keys, and laptop in your backpack (with help of course) and take them for a ride in the cozy coupe and then back to your table.  Daddy thinks you are going to work, who knows with you though!  Eating has not been one of your favorite pasttimes ever since you started cutting those molars.  Some days you eat us out of house and home, others not enough to keep a bird alive.  You like spaghetti, sweet potatoes, yogurt cereal, big boy cereal, carrots, bread, and pastas.  The one thing you would eat no matter how full or how sick is a cracker and boy do you have that word down.  You go to the cabinet often and ask for crack-ker or a cook cook which is a cookie.  You love those two things.  Your favorite cookie is an oreo (momma's fav too so we haven't bought any in a while).  You still love to stay with your Gran, but you still like to be eating when I leave to prevent a melt down.  Gran pretty much knows how to keep you happy and she does it all day long, we love her bunches!  You love for people to visit, to go visiting, and to go shopping or out to eat.  You love to be in your stroller anywhere.  You are kind of messy at restaurants because you try to feed Chance and the food gets messy on the floor, we are breaking you of this slowly.  Your new fav restaurant is Front Page, you love beans, mac, rolls in your own bowl of course, fries, and a little chicken for your meal. You still absolutely love music and to dance.  You love Grandma's ringtone and can really get down to it, but any music will do.  You still love your Celine CD that is now downloaded on all iPhones, ha!  You like to play along to Head and Shoulders and If your happy and you know it.  You love to play with our iPhone, you know how to unlock it, and turn on the iPod, imagine you figuring out how to turn on the music.  You love to watch your DVD player in the car, your fav movie is Toy Story.  You will watch it over and over.  You like the Backyardigans-racing episode and Yo Gabba Gabba or Barney if you are watching tv.  You still sleep with us at night and are still sleeping through the night, although I hear that can slow down around this time as you are learning to do more things.  Ok so we just let you drink however much milk you want to right now and juice sometimes if it doesn't upset your tummy.  You love to drink gaa gaa (gatorade), but we don't do it too much because it upsets your tummy too.  You can't do too many acidic drinks, so mainly we stick to milk.  You drink alot of it, typically 16-20 oz at least per day.  If you get up before 8, you still take 2 naps.  After 8, 1 3 hour nap.  At night you still rock and drink milk, but you hate brushing your teeth these days.  It used to be cool!  You still love riding in the car, eating cheerios, and have branched out to fruit loops and apple jacks (momma even tried apple jacks when you did).  You are still wearing SMO's until March when we see Dr. Sawyer.  You get a new pair Friday of this week.  Your feet are doing so much better, although I think there will always be some outward rotation.  Church is getting better, we have learned to take lots of snacks.  One snack that is not a good idea is a ring pop, it gets us all messy.  We take cracker, cereal and marshmallows your three fav snacks.  You don't get into trouble until you have been there an hour, its like that is your absolute limit to sit there!  You are growing up 25 pounds (with clothes) and 33 inches, WOW I can hardly believe it.  You have almost doubled your birth height.  You are growing into a handsome little boy, not quite the baby I gave birth to anymore.  I must remember not to hold on too tight, you are here for God's purpose, not for me, and I must allow you to fulfill your purpose so that you may return to him some sweet day, what a sweet day that will be for us all!

Sick boy

On Friday the 8th, when I got into bed with you I realized you had a fever.  You had about a 102.7, so we slept with one eye open and gave you medicine until we could get to the doctor.  On Saturday, we went to the doctor and found out you had hand/foot/mouth disease.  You have sores in your mouth and your fever will be between 103 and 104.5.  This terrified us, but we kept you dosed with your tylenol and motrin every 3 hours and kept your fever away most of the time.  You would still run a higher fever at night though.  By Tuesday, your fever had pretty much gone away, but you will probably still have sores for a few more days.  You don't like to eat much right now, so maybe you will soon.

Snow Dayz

We had a snow day on the first day back after Christmas.  We went out and looked at it and you played for a few min, but it was so cold that we didn't stay out long.  I enjoyed having another pj day with you before I had to go back to school.

On Thursday, we had another snow day.  We had a little more snow this time, but not much.  Neither snow was as much as we saw in Branson on Sunday so they were both disappointing.

New Year's in Branson

On 12/30, your Daddy decided he wanted to head to Branson for New Year's.  I don't do things on the spur of the moment very well and getting out of my pj's didn't sound that great, but we decided to tag along anyway!  We did a time share meeting while we were there so Granny tagged along and kept you while we did that and they put us up in a super nice condo, you loved having all that room to play and explore.  We shopped at the landing on New Year's Day and at the outlet malls on the 2nd, but we didn't go to any shows because we were afraid you wouldn't like it.  You got lots of clothes for summer and next fall!  We had an absolute blast and may have to do it again next year!  We drove home in 4 inches of snow and had to go through Conway which took us about 5-6 hours. 

Lazy Week 12/27-12/31

We went to church on Sunday and then spent the rest of this time  being lazy.  We literally did nothing but play with new toys and stay in our pj's for a few days, one of the perks of momma being a teacher! 

Day after Christmas

We headed out fairly early for some after Christmas sales on Saturday.  We used our gift cards and bought some wrapping stuff for next year.  We ate at Ruby Tuesday's with Aunt Elaine and Grandma and did lots of shopping.  After we got back, we went to Newport to see what all they had.  All the toys we bought were on half price sale, I think we need to have Christmas around the 27th next year, lol.  We did buy you a Little People nativity to put up until next year half price, as if you need more toys now, ha.

Christmas Day @ home

We started a new tradition last year, and it has worked wonderfully.  We decided we would have Christmas dinner at our house and everyone that wanted to come was welcome.  This year we ended up having Grandma, Grandpa, Travis, Granny Nancy, Gran, Me, Dustin, and Zeke.  Granny Fannie and Gene didn't want to come because the water was up and there was so much flooding and Papaw and Meme always head down to see Mamaw!  We missed the family that couldn't make it, but luckily we get to see them all at other Christmases too!

Christmas night we headed over to Perry and Terry's for my Granny's family christmas.  We ate and then played dirty santa and watched the kids open presents.  We had a great time visiting and the boys played pool!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning this year was an absolute blast.  Zeke loved opening presents and went through them rather quickly.  We got lots of video, but we didn't take many pics because we were all having so much fun!  He loved all his presents and got a tv from Santa to watch his shows on.  He loves being able to play in his room while listening to his favorite show and sometimes he even stops long enough to watch it!

Christmas Eve at Home

When we got home from Granny's house on Christmas Eve, it was time to cook and decorate Santa cookies.  Santa loves eating break and beak Christmas Tree cookies with icing on them at our house.  Momma doesn't particularly care for these, but Santa, Daddy, and Zeke all love them!  Zeke's favorite part was getting to share the icing!  After the cookies and milk were out, we snuggled up with some milk and read our favorite story and especially our favorite Christmas Eve story "The Crippled Lamb".  Zeke fell fast asleep quickly because he was so tired and ready for Santa to come!

Christmas Eve with Granny

Christmas Eve we went to my mom's house to eat pizza and open presents.  Zeke's best buddy Chance went with us.  We ate our traditional Christmas meal at Mom's, pizza!  Then we opened presents,  Zeke had a blast.  He loves ripping paper!  Chance just enjoyed getting to go with us, he has to stay home most of the time these days!

Christmas 5~Grandma and Grandpa's

On the 23rd, we always do Christmas with Tommy and Lisa.  All of their kids and grannkids can get together and we don't see each other very often.  We missed Uncle Stewart this year, he is stationed in Alaska right now!  We had enchiladas and opened gifts. 

Christmas 4~with the Mosses

On Tuesday, we had Christmas with Bryan, Rachel, Jules, and Abbi.  We had snack foods and the kids opened presents.  We visited for while Abbi took care of Hopper her new giraffe! 

Christmas 3~With Rick, Granny, Gramps and the gang

On Monday, we made Christmas cookies.  Zeke wanted to eat the dough so bad, but I just couldn't let him even though it is my fav thing to eat, ha!  We had Christmas with Rick and Melinda's Christmas on Monday.  Rick was in just for today so we had Christmas while he was here (Melinda and Matt were sick at home and it had snowed alot there).  We had a great time visiting and enjoyed some Sloppy Joe's (a fav around our house).  Zeke got to play with all his cousins.....

Christmas 2~Church Breakfast and play

Today was such a fun day.  It started with a yummy breakfast at church, followed by Christmas songs around the piano, the Christmas Story read by Sis Francis, afternoon nap, and watching Zeke in his first Christmas play.  What more fun could be packed into one day.  In the play, Zeke thought he was the star and decided to put on a show!

Christmas 1~Dad and Cyn's

Our first Christmas this year was at Dad and Cyn's.  We ate lots of good food and enjoyed watching the kids open their presents and visiting with each other.  It was a lot of fun!  Once again, I left the camera at home!