We are working on hitting at the moment. She has such a nice swing. We just need to increase her power.

What the what?

Do people still blog? Likely not, but I was never consistent anyway! John is now 6 and Audrey is 10! They are so big and so much has happened. Audrey is having a toncsilectomy on Monday. I know that word is spelled wrong but this stupid blog doesn't have a spell check. Oh well. Anyway, I changed jobs over 2.5 years ago. I am doing great and have made great new friends. I have the best bosses...Robert and Bill. Robert I have known since I moved to Birmingham. I met April whom I love. She is a true friend. Kids keep Dino and I busier than we could ever know. Softball, baseball, basketball for both, wrestling, church. Literally, ever day of the week we are busy. I wouldn't have it any other way. We have made lifelong friends and we are truly living a dream.

Dec 2012

It's been forever since the last post. I need/will do better! J. is now 16 months old. He is such a joy. He is smart as a whip. He knows so many words that I can't even count them all. He can say sentences...like 'I want that'. His favorite word at the moment is 'outdoor'. He begs anyone who will listen to take him outdoor. He is wearing 18 month clothes and a size 5 diaper. He has used the potty a few times but nothing consistent. I put him on it everyday, though. He is able to communicate so beautifully with us. He can tell us when he is hungry without crying. He says eat and does the sign for it. I can ask him if he wants juice or milk and he answers by saying either juice or milk. The other day his milk cup was not in the living room and Dino asked me to go find it. I looked at J. and asked him to go find his milk and to bring it to us. He toddled out of the room and came back with it a few minutes later. Dino asked if he was supposed to be able to do that. I'm not sure but we were pretty stunned. He loves to feed himself and fights if I try to feed him. He can roar when I ask what a lion says, neigh when I ask what a horse says, and oooohh, aaaaahh, when I ask what a monkey says. One smart cookie I think he gets it from his big sister! Speaking of her, A. is doing great. She is in Kindergarten now. Her teacher is Mrs. Traynham. A. loves her. She is learning so much and is really close to reading. She knows lots of sight words. She is doing cheernastics and karate. She broke her left arm at the end of September. She was a huge trooper and was so brave. The fracture was a 'buckle' type at the end of her tibia near the wrist and so she did not have to have a cast. She wore a splint which was removable for 5 weeks or so and it seems to be fine now. We had a sleep over last night with the twins, Megan and Issy. We made a cake and rice crispy treats. The girls were a lot of help, actually. We even all made it to church this morning J. is having tubes and adenoid removal on Tuesday. I dread it for him but I know he needs to have it done. The ear infections came back after the most recent tubes fell out. Seeing a new doctor so I am hoping for a better result.

Back to work. Yeah, those 12 weeks flew by. I was so very sad to go back to work. I absolutely loved hold J. all.day.long. LOL He demanded it so I obliged. He would cry when I put him down. I did manage to shower and eat lunch most days. J. is doing great at school. I'm so proud of that. He took a three hour nap yesterday! I would say he is adjusting very well! That gives me such relief. I have to say that it was much easier leaving him at school than it was A. I knew all of the girls there at the school. Two of them are even the same ones who looked after A. when she was a baby. Talk about peace of mind! I didn't even cry when I left him on the first day. I knew he was in good, loving hands. A. is doing very good at school. She is learning to read and can sound out words. She is one smart girl. She is a great big sister, too. Very loving with the baby and a big helper! She went to Gigi's house last weekend for a couple days in order to attend Caroline's 3rd birthday. When she got back she told me how much she missed Johnny. I told her how much he missed her and how he cried. He may be only 3 mo old but I know he missed his sweet sister. I do love how she calls him Johnny. I love how when Johnny sneezes it is often with three in a row just.like.my.day. :) Love! I feel like it is a sign from him letting us know he is there. We are all getting used to our new routine. My morning this Saturday started at 6:15. J. slept 15min longer than during the week. LOL I got to sleep in because I normally wake up at 5:30. Oh and let me say, that J. sleeps so good. He is sleeping 10-11 hours every night. A. did the same thing. Yes, it is awesome. :)

J rolled over today for the first time! I put him on the floor for some time to just stretch. I started out with him on his back and then decided to give him some tummy time. I keep forgetting to do this. I rolled him over and in about 15 seconds he flipped back over to his back. He rolled to his right. I flipped him back over after clapping and being excited. He looked at me as if I were crazy. He was on his tummy again and this time he rolled over to his left and then on his back. I clapped and got excited again! He gave me a few smiles. I was so proud. I called D right away and told him! He was just as excited. J had his two month appt today. He weighed 10lbs 1 oz which was 25%. He was 23 3/4 inches long which is 75% and his head circumference was 15 3/4 which is 50%. So he is long and skinny. He got 4 shots today and vax via mouth. A went with us and got her flu mist. She is doing so well as a big sister. I'm so proud of her. Last week we went out of the state for the first time. I went alone with both kids. I must be crazy, right? Yeah, it didn't go as smooth as I was hoping but overall it was pretty good. They both rode really well for me. I knew A would but was concerned about J. He only cried when he got hungry which was just perfect. We got to visit Uncle James and Aunt Megan. We loved their new house. So cool! A had a blast with her cousins. J had fun with them, too. They took turns holding him and feeding him. It was so sweet how they fought over whose turn it was to hold him. Cousins rock! After that, we headed south to Brookhaven. We saw lots of family but didn't get to see everyone. A got to play with Carson three times and Dylan twice. She got to see Issy, too, and even went to her house for some major play time. And I finally got to meet Brantley! What a cutie he is. It only took me 8 months to see him. Ugh! I hate living so far away. I'll post some pictures from the trip once I get my camera hooked up to the computer.

Time marches on

I can't believe J is already 7 weeks old. He is growing so much. Such a sweet boy, too. He loves to be held and will often cry if I put him down. He weighed 10lbs at the doctor the other day. He was not quite 7 weeks at that visit. He really loves to eat. I mean all.the.time. I am breastfeeding so this really takes us most of my day, which is totally fine with me. How many times do you get to hold your sweet baby for hours? For me only twice. I breastfed A. for 2.5 months. I had to stop when I went back to work because I didn't own a pump. This time, I found one on craigslist for $50. It is working fairly well. I hope to pump at work. I've been told they have a pumping room. I hope they still do considering all the changes. I go back on 11/7. I'm dreading it so bad. I will be heading to Mississippi next week so John can meet everyone. He has met Gigi, Granny, Pop Pop, Granny S, Aunt Ruth and Uncle Billy, Aunt Gail and Richard so far. He has many more to go. We really love our families. J. is already sleeping in his own room. He has been giving social smiles for weeks and has been smiling after feeds since 9 days old. Pretty impressive. He has excellent head control and has been able to hold up his head since he was only a few days old. A. could hold hers up before she even left the hospital. They look so much alike. It amazes me, actually. They have the same nose, color of eyes, and the same hair or lack there of! A. is in soccer. She really loves it. She smiles as she chases the ball around. She scored a goal a couple weeks ago! She is doing great in school. She is in 4k and really learning a lot. We saw a no parking sign today and she could read the word NO. She asked what the sign was trying to say. She can read the CVS sign, too. LOL As we are driving around town, she knows where we are and if I take a different road home, she always comments. "Where are you going?" If we pass her pedi's office or the dentist, she always notices. As we drive, sometimes we get into deep conversations about God and Jesus. She wonders why she can't see God and how can she feel him. Very deep for a 4 year old. She is in Awana and I'm a teacher in her class. She is so well behaved. Now I understand why the teachers were always praising her behavior. She really is good. Here are a few pics. Here is Audrey:

Here is John:

I think they look quite a bit alike. Love it!

3.5 weeks old

J. is now 3 and a half weeks old. Time is flying by! He is such a sweet baby. He sleeps so well at night. Only wakes me once a night to feed and then goes right back to sleep. We usually sleep in until 8 or 9am. So nice! A. was always a good sleeper, too. She was sleeping through the night by 6 weeks old. What a blessing to have kids that like to sleep as much as Dino and I! J. was 8lb 7 ounces at his 2 week check up which was more like 2 and a half weeks old. He had grown an inch and a half since birth by that visit. How crazy?? His head had grown 1/2 inch, too. They had to get blood from his heel which he did not like at all. I felt so bad for him. He cried and cried while the nurse tried to get the blood. He is a slow bleeder, like me. He calmed down as soon as she stopped pressing. His next appt is 10/10. He will get a few shots at that visit.

Here is a few pics of him. He still has his brown hair and blue eyes. We shall see if those change or not. I have a suspicion that his hair might change color. His eyes seem to be lightening up toward the center, just like Audrey's did. They sure are pretty.



A. loves her baby brother. She is amazing with him. Helps change diapers, get bottles, feed him, hold him, kiss him. So sweet! This picture was taken right after we got home with him. Look how proud she is! I'm so proud of her and how she has dealt with having this new baby in the house and having to share time with us with him. Amazing little girl!

John's arrival!

John was born on 8/8/11 at 3:37am. What an amazing day it was! The labor went really fast this time once I actually started labor. I went to L&D at 6:30pm on Sunday. The plan was to give me a cytotec pill and then start pitocen in the next morning. Well it turns out that I was already in labor when I arrived even if it was early labor. I had progressed from 1cm to 2.5-3cm. I was having semi-regular contractions. John was doing great. The nurse told me that I could either go ahead with the cytotec or wait for the pitocen in the morning. She was afraid that if I got the cytotec that labor would commence pretty strong since I was well on my way anyway. I told her I was there to labor and to have a baby so I saw no reason to wait. Normally they have to give the cytotec every 4 hours to help ripen the cervix. When she first checked me I was already 75% thinned so I only needed the one dose. They never even had to give pitocen at all. John was ready and so was I! I started getting very uncomfortable at around 12:45am and she rechecked me. I was around 4cm then and 80% thinned. I requested the epidural. That was finished by 1:30am. She rechecked me again right after getting that and I was at 6cm. This was exactly where I was after getting the epidural with Audrey. Only 45minutes later, I told the nurse that I was back in pain and wondered if I was complete. Sure enough, I was at 10cm and ready to push! My waters still had not broken. The nurse could see the bag and was amazed. Once the doctor was woken up, they broke the waters and then I started pushing. I had some trouble pushing his head under the pelvic bone so the doctor helped with the vacuum. It left a spot on John's head, poor thing! I pushed for 35minutes and he was here. He was perfect and started crying right away. He also peed on the doctor as he was wiping him off. He peed again once they got him to the warmer. All of this before they could even way him. He weighed in at 8lbs 2ounces and 20inches long. Big boy for sure! He was nearly a pound heavier than his sister! A. just loves her little brother. She is such a great big sister. I couldn't be prouder of both of them. We both were released from the hospital on Wednesday. John lost down to 7lbs 12 ounces. We went to his first pediatrician appt that Friday and he had gained up to 7lbs 13 ounces. We are breast feeding so it was good to see that he was gaining weight! He is doing just great and is such a good baby. He hardly cries at all. He is only a week old, though. He does love his sleep which is nice. I hope he keeps this up!
Will add some pics as soon as I get them added to the computer!

Still waiting

We are waiting on John's pending arrival. I am so excited to see him! I had an unexpected sono last week and got to see his face after many months. He has grown and is so stinkin' cute! His approximate weight was 7lb 6oz which is already bigger than A. at birth. My bp was up a bit but nothing too alarming. I have another check up tomorrow so we will see how things are going. I'll be 39 weeks on Saturday. Time sure has flown by! I am actually really looking forward to labor so I can get to the end result which is sweet John in my arms.


Here is my latest belly pic:

new job

Tomorrow will be my last day as an auto company employee. It is a very strange feeling. All I know now, will change. My coworkers, my boss, my job, my desk. I will stay in the same building so that is good. I will be in a training unit for many weeks. I bet I am still in it when John arrives. That will likely derail my training timeline from everyone else, but that is ok by me. I hope to take 3 months off with him and I can't wait!

Speaking of John, I did buy several things for him today including bottles, a new mattress and boy bibs!

A. is doing great and is so sweet. She is talking so much and has such attitude sometimes. She is funny and charming. We went to a friend's birthday party this past weekend and she was the life of the party! She was the only kid there. It was pretty funny to see her entertain everyone with her cute self. She can brush her teeth by herself, pick out her own clothes, and get dressed shoes and all! She is very independent and self-confident. She really is a cool kid. Today she was singing a song that she had made up herself, and I asked her if she was going to be a musician to which she said 'no, I'm going to be a doctor'. It will be interesting to see what she decides to do as she gets older.

A. and I are off to Pensacola on Saturday. D. is staying here to work on J's room! It needs to be emptied, painted and then baby stuff put back in! So excited to get it started. I need to nest, dadgumit!

A few baby pics

Sono pic taken at 15weeks gestation. My sweet brother did this for me. This was the day we found out that he was a boy! We will name him John Burton.




This is the first belly pic of pregnancy #2. It was taken on 1/15/11.


Here is another belly pic. This was taken on 3/18/11.

Gym time!

This was taken on 1/9/11 at Flip Factor. It was Sophia's birthday party. She looks like a natural! She has been taking gymnastics classes for a little over a year at school.

Video test

This was a day at the park on 11/7/10.

Random

A. turned 4 a week ago. We had a huge party here at the house. There were 18-20 kids there. Coach Victoria with Playball came and did the entertainment. Thank goodness for her! Everyone seemed to have a great time. We had pizza, fruit, cake and ice cream. A. picked out Hello Kitty as the theme. It made for cute decorations and I even found her an outfit that she wore. Her invitation was done by one of my friends, Carissa. It was just adorable.



Next, I am going to try to post some videos just for safekeeping. Some are old but I want them here.

Oh, and the new baby is well on his way. Less than 76 days until the due date. Yay! We have not started on his room yet but we hope to very soon! I will post pics once it is ready!

Lots of news

We have lots of stuff going on in our household. First, we are expecting another baby! This time we are having a boy! EDD 8/6/11! All three of us are thrilled! I am 22 weeks as of yesterday. Second, I got a new job. Still with SF, but in Fire instead of Auto. This change will take place on 5/28. Lots of things going on at work which makes life a bit chaotic. Auto is being moved to Atlanta. I am very sad about this because I did love my job not to mention my co-workers. Lots of them will be moving this summer. That's life, I guess. We are just thrilled that I was able to move over to the Fire company so I still had a job. Such a relief especially since we are pregnant!

A. is doing really awesome. She is growing up so fast, I can hardly believe it. She is spunky, cute, funny, silly, adorable, sweet, kind, thoughtful, loving, not to mention my best friend in the whole world. She is more than I could ever have dreamed. Today, we went to the zoo with her friend Kaylin and her mom, Jessica. What a fun time! Kaylin recently changed schools and A. missed her so much.

A. is going to be such a great big sister. She is already kissing my belly and tell J. that she loves him. She is excited to get to hold him. We have been discussing that babies can't play when they first are born. They can only eat, sleep, and cry. She seems to understand that, but I guess only time will tell.

I've gotten a new computer and a new camera. I need to hook up the new camera so I can post some pictures. Will do that soon.

Leigh

Time

I am a blog slacker. I hate that I get so far behind on this thing. I have already forgotten things that I wanted to say on here.

Anyway, we had a nice Withers beach vacation this year. Next year, I hope Richard's girls get to come. They were missed! We went to San Destin, Fl. Wow, what a place! Audrey sang karaoke, played moroccas with a band and did the trampoline jump thing. It was an experience she will never forget...well she is only 3 so she probably will forget. We have pics to prove all of the above!

Here are a few pics:

This is Audrey's last day of being 2. She fell asleep in my arms this night. It wa a great day. We tried to go to the water park. Their website said they were open but they weren't when we arrived. So we went to Chuck E Cheese instead. Yes, we did go in our bathing suits. We had a few clothes over top. LOL!




This was a pic from Audrey's party. She had a ball and for weeks after she kept asking for all of her friends to come back. She would set the chairs up in preparation for everyone. I hated to tell her that it would be another year before her next birthday.



A picture from Mary, Paul and Andrew's visit to Pensacola. We had a ball. Mary is amazing and so is her family.



Here is a picture from my May Mommies trip to Jax Beach in June. It was a magically weekend. I had the best time ever.



Here is the family shot from the San Destin vacation.



Ok all for now.

Radio silence

Whew! Sorry for the radio silence. We have been so busy. Since the last post: Audrey had her third birthday, we had a garage sale, we met Mary, Paul and Andrew in Pensacola, the oil has now ruined the beaches, we went to Charleston for Dino's 20 year HS reunion and lots of other things.

Here are just a few pics of some of the fun times.

Well, I'll have to post them later because Blogger won't upload them right now. ARGH!

My sweet princess. She has been feeling 100% better since her surgery. I'm so grateful that she is feeling better finally!

Her birthday is approaching very fast. We will be having a princess party (her idea). My friend is working on the invitation for me. I should be sending it out soon. I hope lots of friends can come.

Post Op

Surgery was about 11 days ago for A. She did really great. She amazes me. The first couple days seemed easy but then Sunday she kinda went downhill a bit. I think the pain was increasing. Gigi told me that day three or four would be rough. She was right. I'm sure that the scabs were itching her. Since they were in the back of her throat there was no way to itch them. Ugh! She is a trooper and never complained. I would have been curled up in a ball crying. She went on to school Monday and never looked back. I am praying that this will be the solution for her ear issues once and for all!

On a side note, I got to meet John Croyle today. Wow! What a powerful speaker. I found myself wiping tears away and so did D. He was talking about how to be a great parent and how to raise your kids up the right way. His main question was "Where do you want to be in 10 years?" and "Where do you want your child to be in 10 years?". My answer was to gain more control over our finances, have another child if God has it in the plan, and to have a better position within the company. We are on our way!

Surgery planned

A has been very very sick for over a month. Double ear infection that won't go away. Her tubes that she got less than a year ago fell out which we weren't aware of until we went to the pedi about 3 or 4 weeks ago. After a round of antibiotics which did nothing, he referred us tot he ENT. So the ENT examined her and did 2 x-rays of her head. He told us that her adenoids are enlarged and that her sinuses are filled with puss plus the ear infections. Yuck! I feel terrible for her. I can't imagine how bad she must feel. It does explain alot about her behavior lately. I asked her many times if her ears hurt and she would say no. I guess she had felt so bad for so long that she couldn't tell me what hurt. I knew something was not right though so this was confirmation of that. She doesn't always run a fever with an ear infection so it can be a real tough to figure out that she is sick. Sometimes it appears that she is just being grumpy and defiant. She really is a sweet child so next time she starts acting like that we will be off to the pedi.

So she will have surgery for her third set of tubes, an adenoidectomy and a sinus irrigation. Hopefully after this she will feel normal again. Surgery will be 4/1.