Monday, monday..

Hi there! Did I promise a picture today? Hmmm.... well I took a couple of pictures, but I can't find the camera now. I'm sorry! So, here is a picture, it's just not from today. These were on the other camera, and I downloaded all of those yesterday. This was from December 11th, so Alex would have been 3 days old :) Yes - I cropped my unshowered self right out of these pictures!

Johnny and Alex - Johnny 2, Alex 3 days

Today was a pretty crazy day, mostly because Alex was sick. He did not feel good almost all day and needed lots of holding and attention. He was up several times last night, and I re-dosed him with ibuprofen at 2 am because he was so hot. I fed him at 5:30 am, and he went back to sleep until almost 8:00! His temp seemed to max out at 102.7, and stayed there pretty much all day when he didn't have Tylenol. He took some OK naps, and didn't really seem to have any other symptoms besides the fever and being fussy. He did get really upset about me trying to check his ears using the scope and trying to use the ear thermometer, so I started to wonder if it might be an ear infection. He also was really fussy this afternoon even when his temperature was low, so I ended up bringing him to the pediatrician's office late this afternoon just to get them to check his ears. They said the ears were totally clear, and couldn't find anything else wrong, so they took a blood draw - from his heel - he was NOT happy about that, poor fella!! and checked his white blood count to rule out a UTI. The white blood count seemed low enough to rule out the UTI, and the doc said she thought it was viral. She said to bring him back if he developed any non-viral rashes (and told me how to know the difference) or if he still had a fever on Thursday. He had a really hard time settling at bedtime, but seemed happy that Johnny was home and had some fun playing this evening. He won't be going to daycare tomorrow of course, and maybe not the next day. Really hoping he feels better tomorrow!

I did get to Skype with Andrew twice today - once this morning with no sound,  and once this afternoon after Johnny and Annette had arrived - with sound! That was awesome. It was really good to see him and talk to him and it was fun for Johnny to get to talk to him that way. Alex even gave him a grin of recognition this morning, despite feeling so bad! Looked like a nice hotel right in the middle of everything. He had done his presentation today and had felt like that had gone well :) He noted that beer is cheaper than water there! :)

Annette and Johnny arrived a little before lunchtime bearing a wonderful gift - lunch from Chick-fil-a!! I hadn't really had much breakfast since Alex had been so fussy, so I was really excited about that. It was also really good to see Johnny. He had a great time at Grammy and Grampy's and was still talking about getting the ice cream last night at church, lol :) He was also doing a lot of wooshing around the house acting like a Transformer. Pretty funny. Grammy stayed all afternoon and evening and was a huge help since Alex needed lots of attention still. We moved the sand table in to the porch (with plastic under it - don't worry) so that Johnny could play on it even though it was raining. He also got some swinging time, which he was very happy about.

We had Daniel's for dinner - Grammy went and picked it up after we got back from the late afternoon doctor's appointment, and since we got pizza, we let Johnny watch Thomas and Friends while he ate it. The evening sort of turned in to a disaster. Johnny was pretty tired and fussy about going to bath and bed, and I thought I had Alex down for the night, but about the time I was going to bathe Johnny, Alex woke back up and cried hard for a while. Poor Grammy had the duty of calming him down. I wondered if he wasn't re-living the heel stick or something like that? Or maybe he was just overtired. Who knows? Anyway, I had to forgo laying with Johnny to go in and relieve Grammy. Alex finally calmed down and went on to sleep, but it was almost 8:00. Thank goodness Grammy was here, I really needed her help! It will be interesting to see how he does tonight. Speaking of that, time to go to bed!

Hope you have a great Tuesday in Prague, Andrew! We love you!

Andrew in Prague

Before Andrew left, he, Johnny and I built Johnny a "spaceship", so I had to take this opportunity to show that off: :)

Where's Johnny?

There he is!! Wait - if his eyes are closed is he still hiding?

Andrew made it to Prague on Saturday with no problems! We have heard from him a few times, and I think he is settling in nicely. He has been on a tour of Prague, and one of the wives that is with them spent part of last summer there, so knows her way around, which is helpful. I tried to Skype with him this morning, but his connection was so bad we never did even talk, just did some asynchronous messaging...

 The boys and I have been doing well. We all three went to the airport to drop Andrew off, and I intended to take them to the observation park at the airport to let them "watch Daddy's plane take off", but they fell asleep on the way up there! So, they didn't really get to say goodbye at the airport to Andrew :(. I drove to a park closer to home, and we played there for a while and even found a really nice family with three cute little boys to play "fish, fish, crab" with, which was a lot of fun. Johnny really liked the oldest boy, who was 5. Next we headed to pick up pizza for Johnny and I to have pizza and a movie night! I got Johnny all set up with the movie and pizza and got Alex ready for bed. I ate and watched the movie with Johnny once I got Alex in bed. Even after the 50th time, probably, Cars is a good movie. Love that Mater. To top off a good night, I went to bed early expecting to be up in the night with Alex, and he slept all the way until 5:20 Saturday morning! I know that is an early wakeup, but no interruptions in the sleep made that a great wakeup time :)

Saturday morning we got ready and headed on down to Carthage to spend the day. Johnny drew a couple of pictures on the way down. I thought the second one was especially good!

Ummm - Hope we don't need these directions anymore!

A Dinosaur! Roar!

Johnny went to VBS at Eureka, and Alex and I hung out there with him until Alex was about ready for his second nap. Johnny was a little shy at first, but warmed up and was having a great time. The kids made some really cute crafts, and were listening intently to the Bible story when I left.

After VBS, we all went swimming, even Alex! He really seemed to like the water and getting pulled around in it. The boys had a great time playing with the water balloons that you bought, Andrew. They were very long lasting in and around the water!

I actually did like this - but Mommy didn't get pictures of me grinning :)

Would you like some "ice cream"?

The boys were seriously wiped out from swimming. But managed to stay awake long enough to watch some Transformers.

Tired bunnies

 Alex and I headed on home after dinner. We did not get pictures of it, but he did NOT like peas, lol - lots of shivers and funny faces :) He fell asleep on the way home.

If you look closely, you can see Alex asleep on the way home

Alex didn't have as good of a night last night. He did sleep all the way until 4:30 am, which was pretty good, but then he would not fall back asleep and I finally gave up a little after 5 and got him up for the day and fed him, except he fell back asleep after I fed him. He slept until 8:00, and I noticed he was warm, and checked, and sure enough he had a fever of 101.1. Gave him ibuprofen later in the day when he was fussy and still feverish and it helped, but then he wouldn't nap much because he felt so good! Only slept for about 30 minutes around 2:00, so I did another stroller ride around 4:00, and he catnapped a bit. He was in a really good mood most of the afternoon, and did a lot of exploring around the house and crawling. And pulling up on the red ottoman :) Managed to delay bedtime a bit by giving him a bath, which he enjoyed, but he was asleep a little after 6:00. I gave him a bit more ibuprofen, as his temp was up to 101.5. He didn't have any other symptoms except the fever today, and being a little bit fussy, so we will see how he is tomorrow...

I talked to Johnny a couple of times today. He was really tired last night and got upset when I left Saturday night, but calmed down quick and Annette said he went right out after we left, and was in a much better mood this morning when I talked to him. He was very chatty this morning, which was nice. It always amazes me how little he sounds on the phone - so sweet! She said they swam some more, and then tonight they did some songs and things from VBS at church. Johnny was most excited about the ice cream that they had with chocolate syrup! He was excited about that and about going out to play with Klay, so I didn't talk to him long tonight. Sorry about no pictures from today. I'll try harder to take some tomorrow!

Oh - and here are all the pics above and a few more in a Picasa album:

For Andrew in Prague

Fall, Santa Train, and Andrew's Birthday

Here are pictures - a few just random fall ones, but mostly from our trip on the "Santa Train" yesterday and from Andrew's birthday today - enjoy!

Fall Random, Santa Train, and Andrew's Birthday

Halloween and Picture update!

It's been entirely too long since I posted anything on here, but Johnny's Halloween party at school inspired me to upload the pictures - get this - the SAME day I took them!! Who knows, maybe I will make this a regular Friday night activity....


Halloween Pics!:

Halloween 2011

Here are some random pics from October and the State Fair:

State Fair 2011 and October

We went to LEGO fest in downtown Raleigh in early October - this was SOOO cool!:

LEGO Fest!

And, the very next day, we happened upon the Fire Station Open House in Fuquay-Varina:

Fire Station Open House

7/17/2011 - Liz in Oregon Day 2

Happy anniversary, Liz! We've had 12 wonderful years together and I can't wait to have many, many more.

Johnny and I had a really good day today. He woke up around 6:30 this morning. I brought him into bed with me for a while, mainly because I was still sleepy. He played with Mater in my bed and had a great ol' time!

We ate cereal for breakfast this morning and then went to the 8:30 service at church. The lady who keeps the nursery wasn't there right at 8:30 so I took Johnny into the sanctuary with me. I told him that if he wanted to go downstairs to play at any time to let me know and that I would take him. He made it all the way to the sermon and decided he wanted to go downstairs so I had to get up and carry him out in the middle of the sermon. :)

After church we ran a few errands. I wanted to change the oil and rotate the tires in Liz's car so we ran by the auto parts store. Kroger had a good deal on ribeye steaks so we ran by there and got some steaks. We came home, had lunch, and went outside to swing for a while.

Then it was time for nap. He did pretty good at nap time today. He called out for me within 30 seconds of me leaving the room so I went back in to see what was wrong. He had found a toy in his bed and wanted me to take it out. He called out again after I left, but got quiet after a bit and went on to sleep. He slept about 1.5 hours.

While Johnny was asleep, I changed the oil and rotated the tires on Liz's car. I was pretty hot and tired after that so Johnny and I just sat around and played and watched TV when he woke up from nap.

We talked to Liz on Skype this evening and that was really nice. I had already started cooking supper so we didn't get to talk for long. We had more squash and onions, left over potatoes from yesterday, and corn and steak cooked on the grill. It was delicious! Johnny likes corn on the cob!

After supper, Johnny played with his trains. He talked me into letting him watch some Cars movie instead of reading our books tonight. We took a quick bath, brushed our teeth, then watched 5 minutes of the movie. We went to his room and sang our songs while he was laying in bed. He fell right out as soon as I left the room tonight.

I did a better job of taking pictures today.

July 17th, 2011

7/16/2011 - Liz in Oregon Day 1

Liz is on her way to Portland for a week long conference. Johnny and I are living it up as bachelors while she's away. Liz left around noon to head to the airport while Johnny and I were eating lunch. He ate a great lunch. He had a piece of pizza, some cantaloupe, half a turkey sandwich, some chips, and some of my bologna and egg sandwich. I didn't think he was ever going to stop eating!

After lunch, Johnny played with his puzzles and cars while I chopped up a watermelon. Liz texted and then later called saying her flight to Minneapolis was delayed and that would cause her to miss her flight from Minneapolis to Portland. The airline booked her on another route through JFK to Portland, but she didn't leave RDU until 4:45 (instead of 2:15) and wasn't going to land in Portland until 11:30 Pacific time (which will feel like 2:30 AM to her body). Now she's going to spend the night in Portland and then catch a shuttle to Eugene in the morning.

I put Johnny down for his first nap in his big boy bed this afternoon. He talked me into letting him sleep in his underwear (and nothing else) so I moved his little potty into his room and told him that if he needed to potty that he could get out of bed and go. We read "If You Take a Mouse To School" and "I Am a Bunny" and sang our songs and then he went to bed. He called out for me about 5 minutes after I left the room so I went back in. He had pooped his underwear. So I changed him and rocked with him for a while and then he went back to bed. He went to sleep around 2 PM and slept until almost 4 PM! I was pretty amazed. I looked in on him at one time and he had his knees on the floor and his head in the bed.

After he got up, we didn't do too much. We piddled around and then watched the Cars movie for a while. OK, I admit. I had the TV babysit my child while I tried to get supper ready. We had grilled salmon, squash with onions, and some roasted potatoes for supper. It was pretty good if I say so myself. And Johnny ate more salmon that I thought was possible for a 2.5 year old. I told him he was going to turn into a fish and swim away. He thought that was hilarious.

We talked to Liz after she arrived in JFK. In typical toddler fashion Johnny didn't really want to talk to Liz after asking about her all afternoon long. He really does miss Liz because after our call we went to the bathroom for bath and he had a melt down. He just started crying and screaming that he wanted his Mommy. But bath went good and he went down to sleep as pretty as you please. Hopefully we'll both sleep good tonight.

I didn't do a good job with the camera today. The only picture I took was this one of Johnny with my cell phone. He said he wanted to call his Mommy!

Big Boy Bed!

Our new adventure this week has been to move Johnny to a "big boy bed". It is really a low toddler bed that was actually Annette's (Grammy's) when she was a girl. We have been a little nervous about this, but felt like he was ready. We also wanted to go ahead and do it since he would need to sleep on an air mattress at the beach, and because I am not supposed to be lifting him so much. I was also not so sure how it was going to go, because when he saw the bed frame in the garage before we had it set up, he said "I don't like it", and that first night he told us at bedtime that he wanted his crib. We told him we would try the big boy bed for a few nights and if it wasn't going well, we could move him back in his crib. Although, I don't think Andrew really was wanting to take it back apart and move it back into his room!

We started on Sunday night, and so far he has done great! The first few nights he took a long time to fall asleep, and it was funny to watch him go on and off screen on the video monitor as he explored his new-found freedom. But, he stayed in his room, although we did have to go check on him a time or two. On Tuesday night he fell out of the bed and I found him asleep in the middle of the floor in the morning, which was pretty funny, but he did not seem upset about it! In the morning, he still calls for us so far and wants us to come get him. This morning, specifically, he yelled "Mama! I need a nose wipe!!" LOL...

Tonight he told us "I love my big boy bed!" as we were getting him ready for bed - so I think Andrew is safe on that having to take the crib back apart and moving it thing :)

Big Boy Bed