Birthdays, Sinus Infections and Waterslides

Friday we spent most of the night awake. Emily did not sleep a wink, nor did we. I knew she had a sinus infection so I called first thing Saturday morning. We went to the doctor and got her an antibiotic, and then went on to Landon's birthday party. It worked out good because they live close to where her doctor's office is located, and the party time was right after her appointment so it all fell into place. Emily and Landon were not crazy about the water slide but they seemed to have a good time playing together. The other kids had a ball playing on the water slide. It was good to see everyone, seems like we hardly get to put the brakes on time. Not long after being outside Emily decided she didn't want to wear her bathing suit any longer so she was running around in her swim diaper at the party. (As noted below, in the car photo!)  After we were there for a little while Emily said she was ready to go "bye bye" so we headed back home. It was past her nap time, and I knew she was tired. We spent the rest of the night at the house last night. I made another batch of Oreo truffles to take to the inlaw's today. I will post a recipe later. They are so yummy and easy to make. They are rich though. I also made some baked beans and potato salad for the cookout. We have so much pork, and leftovers in our refrigerator that we HAVE to eat!

Emily and I woke up early this morning and went to Chattanooga, as she made it very clear that she wanted to go "bye bye" soon after she awoke! She always wants to be on the go! I finally found some time today to start a little crafting. Not that I got any of my house work completed this weekend. (At least my husband got his "to do list" completed! Go Husband! I will have to play catch up during the week. Oh well. It's time for another busy work week. I'm hoping for a productive week of exercise... We will see!

Blog What?

So I've been thinking... about blogging annually. Right. No. I have been thinking a. lot. about blogging, and what I want to write about every time I blog but never do. I have all of these thoughts that come to mind, and great ideas. I think better of it sometimes. I guess I should write regardless of what it's about, since let's face it. This is MY BLOG. If the reader, doesn't want to read, it is their choice. I think I get wrapped up in that sometimes.

We've been pretty busy lately. Emily moved to the two year old room at school at the beginning of May. She   has learned so much since she moved to her new classroom. Although it doesn't seem new anymore since she has been in there for almost 3 months now. We've really got to start buckling down on potty training, but it just seems so hard for me to focus on it when I get home from work so late at night. Yes, I am depending on the school to help quite a bit, because Emily spends the majority of her day there and I do not have a way around that. I'm a working Mom, and I chose that path. Jayson seems to do a really good job helping here. I'm not sure why I fall through here. Sometimes I'm on top of it, sometimes I'm not. I can't be winning all the time it seems! Anyway, Emily turned 2 on May 12th. We just had a small party for her at the Children's Park in Ringgold with Family and a couple close friends. My Mom made Emily's cake and it turned out awesome. We did her birthday in Abby Cadabby from Sesame Street. The kids really enjoyed playing on the playground. We didn't do a lot of decorating for the party. My focus was on her cake, food and a few other things. I learned the first party that I could sink a lot of money in decorations that I would rather spend on something else. Some good friends of ours little girl's birthday is the same day as Emily's. She's exactly 1 year older than Emily. So later that evening we went to her birthday party. They had inflatables for them to play on. Emily had a really good time. They had a small one and a large one so the smaller kids could play also.

Emily with my Mom (GrandMom)

It was actually kind of cool on this Saturday. Her birthday party was on her actual birthday.

I took this picture Downtown on a Sunday Funday in May. I just love it.

We were unable to go down to Destin Spring Break (the first week in April, which normally falls on my birthday) this year because I was unable to take off of work that week, so I took off a couple of days around Memorial Day which is our anniversary and we went down that weekend and spent a few days. We had a really good time. 

These two are in front of a restaurant we went to. There was a playground down in the sand and Emily insisted on going down there after dinner! I just loved these two pictures at sunset even though they were a ways down the beach from were we are.

Just the two of us :)

The trip ended a few days early. Emily got really sick. The only thing we could come up with was that she drank some ocean water because she kept filling up plastic water bottles while playing in her swimming pool. Yuck!

June we celebrated the birth of our newest niece Alyssa, although I haven't been able to see her yet :(. They live out of town, and I can't remember what was going on when they were here. 

This brings our grand niece/nephew total to: Nieces: 6, Nephews: 2  Madison, Taylor, Georgia, Bryce, Kaylee, Matthew, Clara, Alyssa . Maybe I haven't forgotten any! Whew, this is a lot to keep up with. I was just trying to put them in order of birth! We also celebrated Jayson's birthday, Bryce's birthday and Father's day in June. For Jayson's birthday, we made a quick trip to Cherokee  to go to the casino. We haven't been since before I was pregnant and it's one of our favorite places to go. They have totally remodeled the entire place. It's a short drive for an overnight stay. We met some of our good friends that have moved out of town, there. Since it was kind of in the middle. It was great to get to spend some time with them. We never get to see them any more.

Yay we made it!

After a birthday celebration drink, or two? Who's counting?

July rolled around, and We didn't get to celebrate the 4th. Mainly because I had to leave a couple days afterwards for convention. We could have planned something, but there's always too much that has to be done before I'm gone out of town for a week to try to plan a weekend right before of something to do. So we just hung out around the house. It was WAYYY too hot to grill out. I wasn't about to ask Jay to grill anything. We went to Taco Mamacita's one of my favorite places to eat downtown. I couldn't have been more happy with that choice for dinner! I had to leave on the 7th of July for Orlando for a week. Jayson does a really good job taking care of Emily while I am out of town. I know it is not the easiest task for a Dad to undertake for such a long period of time, but he does such a good job at making sure she is well taken care of. I think they really had a good time spending time together just the two of them this time while I was gone. It's hard right now, because I can't talk to Emily while I'm gone. She knows what's going on, but it makes it harder if I try to talk to her as bad as it sounds. She doesn't understand I'm not going to be right back home. I only travel twice a year, which isn't much at all. 

When I got home from Orlando, we decided to go ride the Incline. Jayson and I had never been. So it was nice to take Emily and do something together. She enjoyed it!

So after I got back from Convention I was in the office for a couple of weeks, we decided to go down to Destin for a couple of days last week. I've got some time coming up in August when I know I will need to be in the office so I thought that would be the perfect time for me to take a couple of days off. So we headed down last Tuesday night, and planned to stay until Sunday but of course I knew in my heart that meant coming home on Saturday because we never stay the full time. Jayson always wants to leave a day early! So Saturday we came home which was okay in the end. I like to be back a day before going back to work so I can get settled get all the laundry done, washed, ironed put away. Get everything ready for next week. I can't come home on a Sunday night and start that, I would lose it. 

I really didn't take many pictures from this trip last week, but here's one of the water. It was so beautiful. One of the reasons we decided to make another trip back down was because Emily had such a good time in May playing on the beach. This time was even better. Everyday she would say "Let's go to the Beach", "I wanna go to the water". She absolutely Loved it. She made one little friend who had to be 3. His name was Tristen. We invited him to play with her, they had the best time. He brought all his little beach toys over, and was diving in Emily's pool. He went and got his beach chair and brought it over beside her's it was so cute! That's what it's all about. I really enjoyed just sitting there taking it all in!

Finally... and 17 months!

Finally... I got my layout changed on my blog. Just took some time for me to sit down and work on it. I hardly ever blog but I have got to start taking the time to. I think of things all week that I wish I would capture then, I never get around to doing it.

Emily turned 17 months on Wednesday and on that day she decided to use her Potty! I have had it in her bathroom for a couple of months but we haven't started training yet. On Thursday she was sitting on her highchair and starting giving me signals that she needed to go again, so I asked her and she proceeded to want down. So I took her and then she did both! I know (TMI). Sorry but I was really surprised. She has used it a couple of more times since then. So I guess we are going to proceed with potty training since she seem interested. My plan was to wait until she was 18 months to start. We will see how this goes!

She's also learned how to blow her nose over the past month which has been nice since she is always congested, except now she wants to hold the kleenex. Tonight she tried to take the kleenex up to our dog Sosha and get her to blow her nose. It was funny. She's doing better about not pulling Sosha's hair out. We have to be careful because Sosha is 6 years old, and set in her ways and I don't want Emily to be mean to her! ha. (or vise versa)!

We've had a pretty busy weekend. We had a yard sale Saturday morning that was a flop, but it was good to spend time with the family, then a birthday party that afternoon. Tried to scramble a nap for Emily in between. Today we tried to get some rest around the house while doing laundry. That's a task in it's self since Emily likes to drag it all over the house in the process. I decided to take her to Walmart against her wishes (bad idea). She should have stayed with Daddy. She acted like "that kid in walmart". She didn't want to ride in the buggy and I ended up having to carry her and she wanted to help push the buggy while I carried her. haha. Oh the life of a toddler!

Trying to decide if / when we are going to get to go to a pumpkin patch this year. I wanted to go this weekend or next but it is not looking good. We have another full weekend so I am not sure. I want to take Emily on a hayride. My plan was to go to Burt's but with the things we have going on next weekend we will not have time to go. Plus it is getting to the very busy time down there now. Maybe we can go somewhere closer.

Still haven't got my dinner plans together for this week. Maybe I can do that tomorrow night! I hope everyone has a good week!

Emily's 17 month measurements
23lb 50%
height - 31 in? 90% ?

It's Been A While...

I know it has been a really really long time since I have blogged! A lot has came, and gone that I will probably not even remember. Many of the things I will blog about in this post deserve their own post, they truely do! However, I am just going to try to do a recap because I can't just skip over everything when there's some very important things that have happened!

April 27, 2011 - Our lives changed forever. This is the day the tornado hit Ringgold. Everyone has seen the pictures. Everyone has been touched in some way. We were so blessed to not have any damage to our home. I will never forget getting my baby, who was 2 weeks away from turning 1 year old out of her crib holding her close to me. We ran to the hallway, and waited. It was the scariest thing we have ever been through.

May 12, 2011 - My beautiful daughter Emily Makenna turned 1 year old! The last year has went by so fast. I can remember when we first brought her home, and each transition she has made over the last year. She has changed so much, in ways I could have never imagined.

May 28, 2011 - Jayson and I celebrated our 6th Anniversary!

In July I went to Anaheim. Visited Laguna Beach, and went to Disneyland for the first time!

Extreme couponing- A MONEY MAKER OR TIME WASTER?

Extreme couponing- A MONEY MAKER OR TIME WASTER?

I found this post from "A Thrifty Mom" Hope you guys will read it. Being a Coupon person, I found it very interesting!.... Enjoy.

10.5 Appetite

Emily Makenna you are 10.5 months old. You weigh 20 lb. 10 oz. Quickly approaching 11. You have not had a bottle in 2 weeks, only a sippy cup. You have also switched from formula to whole milk. We went to the doctor last Tuesday because you have been coughing really bad at night and they gave you Zyrtec and Nasonex. Plus eye drops. So hopefully you will start to feel better soon. Your coughing seems to be somewhat better so far.

You are trying to walk all over the place. You can run up and down the sofa and around the tables as long as you have ahold of something but the minute you let go you want to get back into that crawling position!

You eat absolutely anything. There really isn't anything that you DON'T like. Sometimes I think you want to eat more than a Kindergardner. Seriously. That's okay though, at this point you aren't gaining much weight and have tons of energy!

Emily is learning sign language at daycare and this is her doing "more" like she wants more food!

You still love bath time!

We finally have a good schedule that works out for us! You wake up about 5:00/6:00 each morning 6:30 on the weekends; We get ready and you have your milk before we go to daycare, We are at daycare by 6:30 most morning, sometimes 7:00. You eat breakfast there around 8:15-8:30, You drink your whole milk throughout the day there, and always have it with your meals. You have lunch around 11 (from the kitchen of course! You haven't had baby food in a couple of months), and then have your early nap.  You usually sleep for at least an hour to two hours at day care, but at home you usually take an earlier nap and sleep for around 3 hours! It's hard for you to sleep I guess..., then later you take another !!! after noon nap, around 3:30 or so for possibly 1 or 2 hours! I pick you up around 5:30. We come home, and have dinner. Then it is play time for 45 minutes or so. We take a bath around 7:00 or 7:15. Then it is off to bed at 7:30! Sometimes I rock you for just a few minutes just to relax you, but I do not rock you to sleep. I lay you down in your bed and you go to sleep on your own. You sleep until the next morning!

You are very curious now, you love exploring things in the house. You love magazines! You love Kleenex! Oh the newspaper! When you eat your food, I usually just chop it up and put it on your high chair because you want to feed yourself, well if you decide you don't want it you drop it in the floor! Nice! Now you insist on taking the spoon away from me. I only feed you what has to be served with a spoon. You aren't very good at holding the food on the spoon but you are very independent, so I let you practice!

Here you are when you feel asleep in the car with your steering wheel!

Your favorite thing to do!

Here you are in your Bikini getting ready for the beach...

9 Months

Emily Makenna You are 9 Months Old!

Where has the time gone?

** Page Note** Please disregard my page as is it being remodeled :o)

You are such a fast crawler! You pull up on everything walk fast down the side of the Sofas and around the tables. You try to turn around and walk off but you don't have good balance yet so you fall down. Hopefully it won't be long and you can walk. You like to get into the cabinets, the toilet, the fireplace. You crawl under the end tables in the den. You try to unplug the lamps. You are such a mess!

You are eating some table food. You had biscuit and gravy last weekend. This weekend I finally decided to make you an egg yoke an give it to you. You seemed to like it. Although there aren't many things you don't like.

Sure wished you would eat your greens again. They use to be your favorite, now you hate them. You scream if I try to give them to you. You drink about (5) 6oz bottles of formula a day. You use to drink 8oz but you were sick so much we dropped you back down and you have stayed there. Your not that interested in your bottles too much anymore. You also eat Yogurt first thing every morning, Then you have a fruit. You also eat Vegetables in the afternoon, Then Some kind of Dinner/Vegetables for Dinner.  You are doing good drinking out of your sippy cups... You sure can put away some food child!

You have been sick since you were 3 months old consistently. You have had 6 ear infections. You have taken antibiotics every other week each month for 2 weeks of the month. Twice a day. Finally, Finally. We were able to take you to have tubes put into your little ears. We are so very thankful to get that fluid off of your ears so you can have better balance and to have the pressure off of them. I pray that your hearing has been restored in your left ear when we go back to the doctor and that it is not permanently damaged from all of the infections. I pray that it was only the fluid blocking your hearing during your hearing test sweet baby. .
You have also had the absolute awful mess of RUNNY / CONGESTED NOSE which has been the cause of the ears I am sure. Since the doctor couldn't give you anything for nose, the ears kept getting infected. Anyway, the nose is still a mess. I believe we will use the nose suckers till the fall apart.

Now if we can get those 2 front teeth to come in ... that have been trying to come in for OH let's say 3 months or so... We can all have peace. Emily has been waking up each night running a high fever because of them. They are so swollen.

Emily use to spit up really bad. She didn't have reflux. Well she was never checked for reflux. (We switched doctors). Anyway, my point...She "out grew this" around 6 months. So glad..Whew she was going threw some outfits those days!

I don't mean to sound as if we are having a worse time than we are. I know there are many others that are having a much tougher time that we are. I am just simply sharing our story of what is going on in our lives at this time. I don't want this to come across wrong. I am very blessed that these are the only very little medical issues we are having to go through. We have truly been blessed.

Time is going by so fast. In a blink of an eye my sweet precious daughter will be turning 1.
So hard to believe...