Snow Days

Who knew how much FUN playing in the snow would be? Too bad someone that is 1 year old won't wear his gloves so we could stay outside longer!!

We finally finished LJ's chalkboard in his toyroom. Joey used chalkboard paint and crown molding for the border. Although all LJ wants to do is draw a bunch of vertical dashes, we have been working on his alphabet on the chalkboard and he can say all of the letters but "C" and "W."

Left out

I saw some pictures on my camera that were recently left out of the last few blogs. I thought you'd like these. Below is Joey with his cousin, Sloanie. Joey has now mastered all family member names with the expection of baby Sydney. He just calls her "baby." LJ can also point to my belly and say "Ray Ray." Pretty cool, huh?Below is LJ admiring his first snow while having a very tight grip on his new IU basketball. It's hilarious.... we took him to his twin cousins' b-ball game and the IU game last week, and all LJ can think about is basketball!! He wakes up and shoots around, he now dribbles a few times before he shoots, he rebounds for me when I'm too lazy to get off the couch, and he even prefers the higher goal so he actually has to shoot it (yes, we have multiple goals in our house). I think he's going to be a righty, but his form right now would portray a lefty- he keeps his left elbow in great!!!

Santa didn't fool my 22 month old niece. Enough said.

Early in the morn on our Christmas.

Joey and I had a chance to get away for a few hours the other night. My sister had her annual holiday party. My parent's neighbor, Andrea, who is a sophomore in college is home right now, so she zipped over to babysit. LJ loooooves her!!

I love December!!!

Yup, you heard me, I love December. Yea, that's me up there with two of my favorite gifts from Christmas. Let me tell you all about it. The day started off going to Nana and Grandpa Taylor's.
We ate breakfast, then Uncle Jason, Aunt Brooke, Sloane and Sydney came over. I love that cuz playing with Sloanie is so much fun! She can walk sooooooo fast! We like playing with our toys together. So, speaking of toys, thats what we did next! We got a lot of boxes with pretty paper around it. Well, if we rip off that paper, turns out there are toys inside!!!!! We got so much cool stuff, like cars and ramps and books and stickers and stuff! It was great!

Next, we packed up our stuff and drove sooooo long to Grandma and Grandpa Matis' house (haha just kidding..they live like 2 minutes away!) So, we get there and I'm pretty tired from being up all morning and playing with my new toys, but those toys you see above, yea, I got those from Grandma and Grandpa! Who cares about being tired when you can play with a new slide and tricycle. And the coolest part of all, the tricycle has the neatest bell that goes, "Ding!" So I played with my new toys for awhile, but then I needed a nap. All that playing is really really tiring!

Thank you so much for neat and fun new toys from Nana, Grandpa, Grandma and Grandpa! I love you guys so much!

But its not over yet! The next morning I woked up and had MORE TOYS!!!! Santa left toys for me at my house! Look at my new kitchen I got. This way, I can help Mommy and Daddy cook at night and make the coffee for them in the morning. I love my new kitchen!

Oh yea, I love December too because my Aunt Katie was home twice!! I love playing with my Aunt Katie. She is so much fun. We got to see her 3 times when she was home. Aunt Katie, please come home soon so we can play some more! Oh, and all of the scrapes on my face is from me falling off the slide. It's takes a while to get used to that big climb.

Oh yea, and then on the last day of December, my mommy and daddy took me down to my first IU basketball game. I was hoping for better seats, but we had to settle for 3rd row on the floor behind the IU basket. I could hear everything the players and coaches were saying...it was AWESOME!! It was so loud in there and there were so many people. A lot of people were screaming and pointing at guys on the floor wearing black and white striped shirts, so I thought I'd chime in too. I told the striped shirt guy that he was, "blind as a bat" and that he was, "missing a good game!"...I heard the guy behind say those and I thought they were really funny!

Below is a picture of me, mommy and daddy at the game. It was so much fun to go! The only problem I have with Assembly Hall is that there are sooooo many NCAA Championship Banners in the building. I'll bet they might get in someone's way trying to watch the game. I'll be it's much better to watch a game at Purdue cuz I don't think they have ANY championship banners there!

Love,

LJ

Last week

Well I was determined to get a lot of rest over this last week. I had worked Thursday (17th), Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, and then holiday festivities began on Wednesday. How was I going to get "a lot of rest?"

Wednesday night was spent with the Matis' for fondue night, which was amazing! I had some discomfort in my back, but shook it off. By Thursday morning, I could barely move I was in such horrific pain--from my hips to my chest- front side and back side. I seriously could barely get out of bed. I feel like I have somewhat of a high pain threshold. I take Tylenol maybe 10 times a year, and I've had about 10 headaches my entire life. I don't take medicine- just vitamins. I was thinking my body was reacting to stress.

The Wednesday (16th) before my heavy work week, LJ spiked a fever of 103 something. For 2 days, nothing would keep it down. He had no other symptoms, so we just started Motrin ever 6 hours to keep him from being too uncomfortable, but still 102+. We talked to the MD, and he called in a script and suggested waking him up every 3 hours for Motrin/Tylenol. LJ has a tendency to get very sick quickly. I called my mom over around 9pm Thursday night and it looked like we needed to head to Riley Hospital. LJ was extremely lethargic, barely opening his eyes and had 102-103 fever. After cooling him down for about an hour and starting the meds, you could tell he was feeling a little better, so we stayed home knowing we'd wake him every few hours. The MD thought it may be another round of H1N1- GREAT! I had to be at work the next morning at 6:45am and all I could picture was my little boy about to code in St. Francis' ER or him laying limp on the lifeline stretcher, which is what we did last June. After many mass texts, facebook postings, and prayers with Big Joey, I felt comfort. LJ seemed to be doing okay throughout the night. My mom, who is an RN, had him the next day. I got reports from her all morning that he seemed to be more alert and more himself.


Stress. I never knew this type of stress before-- the exhaustion, the scary thoughts, the worrying, the overwhelming feelings of the holidays coming up, the thought of trying to make it to all of the holiday festivities with a one year old not doing too great, while being 7 1/2 months pregnant, and I could go on and on. So is this why my body decided to shut down and go into spasms? I don't know. So now we are back at Dec. 24 and I woke up with cramping all over. I continued to ignore it- just hoping to not let it interfere with our plans, but it just continued to get worse. I went over to my parents around 4pm. I was chatting with my dad in the kitchen while he was putting together a car station for LJ (and kindly reminding me how he thought he was done putting toys together on Christmas Eve). Then he looked at me seriously and said, "You aren't comfortable. You're not okay are you?" I asked how he knew. He said that I couldn't sit still and it was obvious I was getting worse. I knew if my dad was concerned, I needed to call the doc. Luckily my doc is Jewish and I didn't feel as bad calling him on Christmas Eve. He asked me to come in right away. AWESOME! I will be spending my Christmas Eve away from LJ in a hosptial. My hospital is about 40 minutes away... by choice. It's amazing!!!! It's worth the drive- the environment and the care given is indescribable. Finally about 11pm, we concluded I wasn't going into preterm labor, however, the baby is very very low, but my body was having some severe muscle spasms. I was sent home with some meds and to keep them updated. I was happy to be sent home- very happy. Is this God's way of making me take time for myself? Big Joey and I did get some quality time in the hospital I had been longing for.

So Christmas Eve isn't what I imagined, Christmas morning wasn't what I imagined, and feeling this awful for 3 days topped it all off. Luckily I have a pretty wonderful husband that had taken over the night shift/early morning shifts and suggested celebrating the 26th like the 25th... and LJ had a blast!! I will be posting Christmas pics shortly, but for right now, we're still enjoying each other's health... and lots and lots of toys.

The point I want to make is how important it is to pay attention to your stress level and your body. I do believe there is some connection with the amount of stress many people are going through right now and the increasing amounts disease and cancer that have been swarming many of our friends and loved ones. I firmly believe you have to be in control of your stress level and you need to do what you have to do to keeep yourself healthy for you, your family and your friends. Responsibilites are overwhelming, holidays are overwhelming, and the feeling you aren't doing enough is overwhelming. Take some time for yourself, seriously, take some time for yourself. Meanwhile, I will be doing the same (and snapping away picture after picture of my Little Man from the recliner).

Hope this blog finds you taking a breath for yourself. Happy Holidays!

He didn't like it.

LJ carries a Santa doll all over the house saying "Ho Ho", he loves playing with his new manger scene, he admires the Christmas tree for long minutes and he'll even watch his Portable North Pole personal message from Santa six times in a row, BUT he does not do Santa in person.

Maybe next year.

Fairy Toddler?

To the right there is a picture of LJ's Godmother, Tiffany, who flew all the way from LA just for a play day. LJ adapted quickly to playing balls with his new friend "Ifffeeeeey."

The second pic there is a nice pic huh?? This is my toddler attempting to ride his non-ridable tractor. He doesn't cooperate for pictures anymore, so this one will have to do.

I think it was Tuesday night last week when my son turned into a toddler overnight. The toddler fairy must have sprinkled some dust on him when he was sleeping because when he woke up, he could speak 2 word phrases, say "no" to plunger, toilet brush, Christmas tree and anything that comes out of the oven, he can tell me what he wants to eat, and even sit in his high chair for about an hour at meal time. He grew up over the night. He will now tell me when he wants to eat (even if it's goldfish at 7:45am), he is starting to sleep in till almost 8am, he knows how use the remote, pretend to wash his hair and face, say cheese, repeat what I say, and tell me when he's ready for bed. This one tops them all- he's been teething for the past few weeks and we've been trying really hard not to get him Ibuprofen at every intense crying spell, but the other morning he managed to pull the diaper bag apart to find the Ibuprofen and dropper and bring it to Big Joey. He then went over the couch and leaned back with this mouth open (and I want to mention he's not one of those kids that likes the taste- he usually hates it).

I'll have to admit. I pretty much thought my son was an angel. He has never been a problem while I shower and get ready, and he doesn't throw fits when he has to share. He usually just stares and waits patiently. As of Wednesday, this has all changed. While I'm in the shower, he empties out every drawer, hides all of my jewelry in small places a 28 week pregnant girl can't get to (under the bed), and unrolls the toilet paper. You're probably thinking isn't this normal for a little boy at 19 months?? NO, NOT JOEY!!! You see, he has been this little OCD kid (taking after me). He finds crumbs in the couch and throws them in the trash, he throws his own diapers away, he closes doors and cabinets behind me, and he tells me who made the mess. He will find a small, excuse me, TINY pine needle under the rug bring it to me to show me what he found, then walk over to the trash can to throw it away. Where did my little cleaning lady go???? Yesterday I found 3 trucks in the freezer!!!

I do giggle at all of his little ways. I love this age!!! I wish I could have all my babies at this age. I'm not one to sit around and guess what's wrong with a fussy babe. To my next topic, the pregnancy. It seems to be going okay- maybe a little better than last time. I do have good days, which helps. I've gained about 20 lbs so far (but don't let that fool ya- the last 10 weeks of LJ's pregnancy, I gained 40 lbs). Work is still easy and fun. I have a bunch of friends who are pregnant with me, which helps when I need someone to call and complain about my chest touching my stomach and my stomach touching my thighs when I sit down. I'm still exhausted all the time (but then again who isn't?), and it's getting harder and harder to work out. I've been trying to walk at least a mile a day, but doing that on the treadmill versus resting during LJ's naptime is hard to swallow.

Thanks for all who have been thinking about us, and I love love love visitors!! LJ usually naps between 12-2:30, but we're around Mon-Wed so feel free to stop on by. I hope you are about ready for the holidays- I can't believe how quickly the end of the year has come.

Who knew??

...trying to get Christmas pictures with little kiddos would be so entertaining!!

The key: singing. If you sing a song they know, they'll look. Worked like a charm!!!

Can't wait till next year!!! Geesh!