22 months and growing

Today you are 21 months old, hard to believe I started this blog about 2 years ago in the hospital waiting to have you.  You are growing up so fast, it is so hard to believe.  There are so many things that have changed about you in the last couple of months since I have updated this blog.  You are a big time runner these days and won't let anything get in your way.  I have to be careful when we go out somewhere if I let you down or you will take off running.  You have cut all your molars now and are trying to cut the ones in between.  You are still a big fan of bop and ask for it all the time, sorry to tell you it won't be around much longer :(  You have really gotten into playing outside since it has gotten warmer.  You love to ride your tractor, dig in the dirt, play in the water, throw balls, and just be a boy.  You love your riding toys when you are inside and you are way too busy to read a book with me :(  You have never been that into listening to me read a book, but you love to sit and look (and attempt to read) at them for hours at your little table in your room.  You really like to color these days although it is more like just drawing lines.  In fact last night a crayon made it into the washer and ruined a bunch of clothes.  You still have a fascination with balls and will carry them wherever you go trying to get someone to play with you.  You are really into tv and you have a few favorites which you call by name:  Barney (Bar-e), Toy Story (Buzz), and Cars (car).  We watch these wherever we go and you love to watch tv in the car.  You have a new Buzz that makes noise when you soar through the air and you love to play with him.  You also have a Barney you love to play with.  You are starting to show signs of actually acting out things you have seen as if you are pretending.  It is quite amusing to watch you play like Buzz.  You love to sing anytime you hear music and you love going to "chuch" to sing.  When the preaching starts, you need your snacks though :)  You don't keep your attention on one thing for very long and you are a super active little boy.  You are used to getting your way most of the time and are quite a pistol when you don't.  You are head strong and we battle with you at times to keep you in line.  You know what you want and you don't give up easily, but hey I guess that is part of the reason you made it into this world.  You have had spells with your eating over the last couple of months, but right now you barely eat enough to keep a bird alive and there is literally no food that I can expect you to eat every time I give it to you (except cookies and fruit snacks).  You really love turkey sandwiches, carrots, cookies, pudding, fruit snacks, mashed potatoes, and cereal.  Your favorite drinks are apple juice, milk, tea, and gatorade.  You could live off of just your "juices".  Everything is juice, no matter what it is.  You like to be on the go.  When we wake up and get dressed it is time to leave, so I have to be ready before getting you ready.  You love staying with Meme during the day and you are well behaved according to her except for the occasional push.  When we talk about it pushing you show me how to push and then shake your head and finger while saying no-no so we know that you know better despite the fact that you still "pusssh" sometimes.  You still love to be on the go no matter where we are going although while shopping you like to choose whether your stroller is sitting up or laid back.  You tell us down or up when you are ready to change.  You hate high chairs and most of the time you hate boosters.  We have resorted to all kinds of things to get you to eat and sometimes eat in the living room even though we never really have before.  You are pretty good with a spoon and fork these days (when we can get you to eat).  We don't have the mess we had gotten accustomed to anymore.  You still sleep with us and go to bed early.  We lay down with you while you go to sleep and you have to have your arm up my shirt sleeve to fall asleep.  It is one of the sweetest things to cuddle with you at night, it's the only time you stop!  You drink lots of milk (only thing that keeps you alive) and some juice and gatorade.  You usually take 1 2-3 hour nap and I usually rock you at nap time.  You no longer get your bop except at bedtime and naptime so brushing your teeth has become easy.  You have to brush your teeth to get bop and so you brush like a champ.  You are pretty good at doing it yourself, but I help to be sure they are clean.  You no longer have to wear your SMO's and have gotten a few new pairs of shoes because we have never been able to just put you in regular ones until now.  Last time you went to the dr, you weighed 27 pounds with all your clothes on and you were 35 inches without your shoes on.  You have doubled your birth height now, yay Zeke.  We expect you to be tall like your daddy, you are tall for your age.  You are no longer a baby as bad as I hate to admit it.  You are a little boy that has your own ideas and opinions.  You have a sweet spirit about you that I know God has a plan for.  You love to say thank you, please and occasionally sorry.  You haven't mastered the art of saying your welcome but instead you say thank you every time someone does something for you or if you do something they say thank you for.  We are about to start potty training, what fun!  That is just another step that shows me how much you are growing up.  You use enough words to communicate that you don't get easily frustrated and to be real honest you haven't really been in the "terrible twos" yet.  I hope you don't since we communicate well.  You have started using a few phrases but you don't put alot of words together yet.  You say What's that? and I don't know along with just a few others.  I think you will really be talking by the time you are two, WOW that is in just three months.  I love you so much and I love watching you take each new step in your life.

Dying Easter Eggs

On Saturday morning, we got up and played outside for a while and then decided to dye Easter eggs.  It took a while to talk Dustin into letting Zeke do anything but watch, but he finally gave in.  Zeke put the eggs in the cups, breaking a few, and got them out.  After he got them out, he wanted to put them in another color so some of them were ugly colors or broken.  He really did like playing in the dye best, luckily with a little Dawn we got it all of his hands and he won't have green hands for church this morning to match his shirt.  In the afernoon, we went to Charlotte for Ruby's birthday celebration.  We always have so much fun visiting with everyone and Zeke loves playing outside there.  He has finally decided to call Travis something that we can understand and so he spent yesterday hollering at him and his Poppy to do what he wanted to do.  He is not at all spoiled....lol.  He hollers Tra-is leaving out the v and PopPop for Poppy.....too cute!

A Beautiful Week

The week leading up to Easter has been the most beautiful week I remember in such a long time.  The temperatures were perfect all week and the sun has been shining daily.  We spent most of the week outside playing.  On Monday and Tuesday, we played outside.  On Wednesday, we took Easter pics and then worked in the yard.  Zeke helped Daddy mow the yard and then we played tball before going to church.  On Thursday, we cooked out, rode his tractor, and played on the swingset.  On Friday, we rode the tractor and played on the swingset.  We did alot of the same stuff, but he loves all of it.

Finishing the deck 3/26-3/27

We finished the deck this weekend.  I shouldn't say we, because Zeke and I did very little, but Mom and Dustin finished our deck.  I was very proud of them because it turned out very nice.  Mom got Zeke his own little rocker like our big ones and he thought it was the coolest thing ever.  It's so funny.  Towards the end, we went out because the weather was so pretty and Zeke "helped" his Daddy.  He followed him around closing screw boxes, carrying pieces of underpinning, and measuring where he thought the boards should go like Daddy did the weekend before using a carpenter's pencil.  It is so cute how he is about his Daddy lately.  He thinks he must do everything just like his Daddy.  Not quite as funny when he points to the tv and says e-it, which in his babble language is idiot.  He watches his Daddy do that and does it too.  I hope he doesn't pick up everything we do.

Key Club DLC

The Friday before spring break we took off to Key Club Leadership Conference in Lake Ozark, MO.  On Friday, we drove from 1030-330.  I took two girls with us.  By the time we got there and got checked in, it was time for some supper.  After supper, we had meetings all evening until 1130.  By that time, we were all ready to hit the bed.  Dustin and Zeke enjoyed the hotel room and being lazy.  On Saturday, we had breakfast, meetings, lunch, meetings, time to rest and go out to eat, and more meetings.  We were busy all day.  We won first place in two categories:  most money raised for district project and most money raised for major emphasis programs (march of dimes, children's miracle network, and unicef).  By the time it was time for the dance the girls just wanted to hang out in the room.  On Sunday, we went to a church service, meetings, and drove home.  We got home by about 5 and when we dropped the girls off at home, Zeke cried, he was losing his buddies :(

3/13-3/14

For the weekend, we went back to the lake.  This time the goal was to build a porch.  Dustin and Mom got up early Saturday and got started and they worked hard.  He has never been much of a carpenter, but his hobbies are changing as we get older, because he really enjoyed the work.  We didn't get the rails put on so we will have to go back during spring break to finish it up.

3/8 back to the dr a week later

On the 8th, we were back at the dr, fifth time in the last four weeks.  I just had that feeling again and not really that much of a reason except I just thought we needed to.  I was right again,  he had a left ear infection.  He has been so lucky to have only had 2 since birth and the other one was in his right ear last April.  He gave us some amoxicillan and Zeke loved it (I always did too). 

3/6-3/7

For the weekend, we headed to the lake.  We got a new pontoon and we worked all weekend getting it really clean and finding a place to store it.  It was such a pretty weekend!

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!