So far this week....

MDO (a.k.a. school) Part 2.

First, I promise that I won't give you a MDO update/recap each week... but since I blogged earlier this week about our second day of MDO I thought I'd let you know how it was. Great! We took Big Sis at 9:00 this morning. Thankfully the rain held off long enough to allow me to get her inside, while toting Little Sis, without getting wet. After kisses goodbye, we were off.

Little Sis and I ran errands and took naps and had lunch (at home, nothing exciting) and went back to pick up Big Sis at 2:00. Perfect day... she did well. The only issue is that she wants to constantly take her shoes off.... why is this? She loves taking her shoes off and doesn't like to wear them when she is supposed to. However, she will wear a pair of my shoes ALL DAY!

Tomorrow is the big day... hopefully! I can't wait to see this baby on the monitor again.... eeee, I'm getting so excited! I wish I could think of a fun way to tell all of our family and friends whether its a boy or a girl, but I've got nothing.

And finally, because I'm a proud momma, here is a picture for you....

This baby loves to go sit by herself (she usually goes by one of our doors) and "read" books. How cute is she? And I'm so proud that she loves books already.... both of my girls do! I have visions of us laying around, reading, on rainy days in the future. So sweet!

Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday!!

Slacker...

Ugh, I've been such a blog slacker lately. I can't even remember what has happened since I last posted. So rather than re-capping the past few days, I'll give you a glimpse into our very near future :)

Wednesday is MDO again! I'm a little nervous to see how I make it when I have to do the get ready, drop off, pick up by myself... well I say by myself, but I'll have my little tag-a-long with me. Just no daddy this time. So if you think of me Wednesday morning, say a little prayer that I'm able to keep my sanity and manage both of the kids during drop off and pick up!

Thursday is a BIG DAY for us! We are having our big ultrasound to check on baby #3. I'm so excited! I love watching our babies on the ultrasound machine and dreaming of how they will be in person. And knowing that this is our last time to do this (unless God changes our minds one way or another) makes it even more special. Plus, we should find out what Baby is... any guesses?!

And Saturday I'm hosting a Southern Living at Home party! Woo Woo! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE their products and can't wait to see what kinds of fun stuff I buy! But more importantly, I'm looking forward to hanging out with some of my favorite women Saturday morning! I plan on doing a little brunch spread. Hopefully my children and my husband will cooperate with me and I can pull it off!

So there's a little insight into my week. I will do my best at filling you in as our week progresses. Hope your week has started out well!

:)

First Day of "School"

Alrighty... let me first say that last week our internet broke down. And it took a week to get a new router then we were gone all weekend so I'm just now getting back to business. And actually, I'm going to confess that I TOTALLY enjoyed my internet break and I am considering making it more of a regular thing. Not total internet disconnection, but much less internet usage for me. It was so nice and I felt so refreshed every day knowing that I spent zero time doing "nothing" online. However, since I've had a few requests, I will continue to get on the computer and keep in touch with you all!

So here is my story for today. My darling child started "school" today. She has spent the past week being so excited! She told everyone that she has a backpack and lunchbox and she is ready! So we got up this morning and got all ready to go. I packed a lunch for her - a totally new experience for me. I loved putting her food in her baggies and putting them in her lunchbox. It was fun and exciting for both of us! Simple pleasures :)

And then it was time to go... Daddy was home today because he had taken yesterday and today off of work to enjoy and EXTRA long weekend. So he got to enjoy this special day with us! Here she is all ready to go! We went outside to take some pictures....

Then back inside to get everything together. She didn't want to take her backpack off! Such a sweet, crazy girl! Here she is with me... I'm such a proud Mommy, can you tell?!

And with Daddy.... he loves this girl so much! They are definitely two of a kind. She does things every day so she can be like Daddy... such as eating the same cereal as him or putting her feet on the coffee table like he does. She thinks he is the greatest!

All dressed up and ready to go to school!

Can you tell by her face how excited she was? She walked right into her classroom and was perfect. When we picked her up this afternoon her teacher said she was great and even took a nap! I think it was a success, even though I missed her terribly all day!

I hope everyone else had a great day!

The Inevitable...

I realize I don't live in a bubble where I can keep my children tiny forever. I know they will grow up and I love watching them do that. However, it is really hard. A lot harder than I thought it would be.

You know I'm struggling with sending Big Sis off to MDO in a couple of weeks. I'm so excited for her but I still have a hard time "believing" that she is old enough to carry a backpack and a lunchbox and be taught by someone other than me. I'm working on getting over my sadness and emotions. I still have a couple of weeks to get there. Or so I thought.

We walked into church this morning. We haven't been in a couple of weeks as we have been out of town and then last Sunday we had the fever which kept us home. So today we walked in and signed the kids in and started down the hallway to their rooms....

Then the Children's Director stopped us outside of Big Sis's room and asked us if Little Sis is walking well. We told her she was and she said she needed to move up into the room we were standing in front of. Big Sis's Room? Hubs and I looked at each other and then we looked at the security tags and noticed that Big Sis had moved up to the next classroom too. WHAT? I had to choke back tears.... she's my baby, she should be in the baby room, or at least the little toddlers' room. But no.

Somehow in the past month or so she has gone from being my little girl to being a for real big girl. How did I let this happen. And I'm so torn in my emotions because I know what a blessing it is to watch her grow up and to be a part of it. I know that there are mothers out there who don't get to experience that and my heart breaks daily for these women. I am truly happy for her and all her "growing up" and big girl things. She is such an amazing little girl and I am incredibly proud to be her mother. But to me she should still be this tiny...

She should still be my 5 pound baby that I spent endless hours holding and praying over. She is such a joy to us and we love her more each day. I never knew this kind of love was possible until she was born and being a mother to her and Little Sis and now the new baby has been the most incredible blessing.

I am still emotional about everything but the husband has been so supportive. I looked at him this morning and said "this is the first time in 2 1/2 years that we haven't had a child in the baby room at church" to which he replied "it's just for a little while, we'll have one in there in a couple of months!"

I know children grow up but sometimes I wish I could control it... let's be honest, I wish I could control a heck of a lot more in my life than I can. But since I can't control it, I'm trying to embrace it. And thankfully my baby girl is so excited that it is hard for me not to join in her excitement. Hopefully this week I'll have some pics of some of her "school" goodies. She loves them all so much!

Hoping we all have a wonderful week...

Am I Crazy???

This morning we went and signed my Little Girl up for Mother's Day Out. She calls it "school" because she knows so many people who go to school and she wants to go so badly. So to us, MDO is School.

I know this is probably crazy (and I like to think I'm not normally a Crazy Mom) but I feel like she is really going to school. This is a new phase for us and I've been really emotional about it. My emotions range from excitement to sadness. Am I crazy? I mean, it is only MDO. It's actually supposed to be for me, right??? Mother's Day Out? :) I haven't cried so far, but I just feel like she is too little to be going to "school". She's my BABY! I'm sure the tears will come soon...

But my girl is so excited and her excitement is very contagious. We walked in to turn in our registration and we got to go see her classroom. We got to see the little bathroom with the teeny tiny potties. We saw all the toys and the playground. She loved it all and wanted to stay and play. :) She's going to be great and enjoy "school" so much. This just makes me feel like REAL school is so close. Lord, let me enjoy every moment of these next few years because I know they will go by so quickly.

Ok, now onto something less emotional... :) I haven't been good about posting pictures lately but I am trying to get better. Last week my dad came to visit for the day. He had a test to take here for work (he passed... Go Dad!). So after the test we all had lunch together and then he wanted to take the girls to Wal-Mart to get some treats. He loves them so much and he loves to take them to the store and let them pick whatever treats they want. He left soon after we got home from WM so I got all the goodies out of the bag to see what we had made it home with.

Does Pappy spoil his girls.... I think so! We are so lucky to have him! Love you Dad/Pappy!!!

Tests, Operation, and a Surprise....

Here is the background. Thursday afternoon I noticed Baby Girl was warm. Temp 101ish. Motrin and bed. I was up in the middle of the night to give her more medicine as her temperature was still up. This has been ongoing since Thursday afternoon. The tylenol and motrin get rid of the fever but it comes right back as soon as the meds wear off. Then Sunday night I noticed her lips turning purple and her arms and legs were too. They were cold to the touch even though she still had a fever. We got her warmed up and gave her some more meds and put her to bed. Needless to say, Momma didn't sleep well (and hasn't slept well since Thursday night). So Monday morning I called the pediatrician and made an appointment. Thinking this would be no big deal, just a quick look over and make sure there wasn't anything wrong, I took Big Sis with me. Oh how wrong I was....

The doc wanted to do a blood draw. She then decided we needed a chest x-ray and possibly we would be doing a urine test. So the three of us sat in the waiting area for blood and x-ray. Blood draw came.... Baby cried. Big Sis didn't know what to do, so she just patted Little Sis on the back and curiously watched.

Then came x-ray. Since I'm pregnant I couldn't go help. So they took her away, which caused Big Sis to cry (she's pretty protective of her sister). After a few minutes we heard the unmistakable cry coming from the x-ray room. Baby Girl was NOT HAPPY! A few minutes later they brought a sobbing baby girl back to me. We went back to the exam room to wait for our results.

Chest x-ray was good. No problems there. Blood count was not perfect. Her white blood cell count was elevated and it caused the doc to think it may be a bacterial infection rather than a virus so she wanted to do a urine test. Now.... if you have never had a urine test run on your baby you may not know what happens. Sadly, this isn't my first experience with a baby urine test. They can't pee on command so how do you get the pee pee out? By catheter.... so sad. But Little Sis survived (not quietly.... she screamed A LOT). Urine came back fine so the doctor decided to call it a virus for now. Keep treating it the same and hopefully it will go away. If the fever is still present Wednesday or Thursday.... bring her back in. Got it!

Thankfully, we woke up this morning with NO FEVER!!!! Praise the Lord! Back to normal!! And in case you were wondering, Big Sis was awesome the entire time we were at the doctor's office. She was such a help to me and I am SO PROUD of her!

Now.... we are in day 2 of "Operation: Get Big Sis Ready for Mother's Day Out". I realize some moms may think I'm crazy, but I am very concerned with how she does with MDO. She has never gone to MDO or DayCare or stayed with anyone who wasn't family. I think this is great... that we've made it 2+ years and have been fortunate enough to keep her with us most of the time. However, this is presenting me with a problem as MDO gets closer. One problem - naptime. We've always had a scheduled naptime (flexible, but I try to keep to a schedule). However, I've always said as long as she plays quietly in her room during naptime then it doesn't bother me if she doesn't sleep. There is no playing at MDO during naptime... she needs to know how to lay down and rest.

Well, lately this has become a problem so Mission #1: Naptime = lay quietly in your bed. Yesterday's nap was not a success but today has been a different story!!! YAY!

We also have a lot of things to do to prepare for her to be away from us one day a week (I know how crazy this sounds, but it is an adjustment for all of us and I prefer to be overly prepared for EVERYTHING). Hopefully we can get naptime under control so we can focus on discipline and all the other things that I have to have figured out before next month.

And finally.... I got a surprise on my doorstep yesterday.... are you ready for this??????

Oh yeah baby.... that's my giveaway package that I won at Natalie's Blog!!!! She sure does know how to host a giveaway! This made my day. Check out all the great things in the package (and there are still more things to come).

The girls both LOVED the Sophie the Giraffe.... They thought she was so cute and her squeak is precious! And Big Sis has had a blast with the See What I See game! She has played with it constantly since I gave it to her. So great!

The husband and I have argued about whether or not the swaddle blanket and the sweater and booties are gender neutral since I showed him everything I got. I have a feeling this will be an ongoing discussion if we have a baby boy :) I guess we will find out in about a month!!!!

Ok... I think this is enough for one day! I don't want to overload the readers. :) I have a lot going on, so hopefully I'll have some good posts for you all this week.