Love/hate and celebrate

As we get ready to leave for our much awaited trip to Disney for my birthday I wanted to post a few pictures of Makayla and Molly. They are having a very love hate relationship these days. Makayla LOVES Molly and Molly HATES Makayla. Makayla chases and slaps Molly and she growls back and bites Makayla. M just laughs and starts all over again Ohh what am I going to do with these girls.

Makayla on the move get Molly.

She has her sights set. "I will get you my pretty"

Makayla what are you dong? Molly getting away.


Molly says "I am outta here" Makayla "I will get you over here too"



"You can't hide from me" Come on come play with me.

"I will reach in and get you!" Mom says "Makayla LEAVE Molly alone!" M says" I didn't do anything!"

We are leaving tomorrow morning for a weekend away at Disney. When you can get in free and you only live 2 hours away who wouldn't go? We will be staying at the Fort

Wilderness campgrounds in the RV. I can't wait to see Disney through Makayla's eyes. I will Twitter updates and try to update on Saturday night if I have time, if not you will have to wait until we return on Sunday. I hope you can wait that long. I'm just kidding. I promise to take lots of picture and have a wonderful 28th birthday.

Wow 28, the best part is I am excited about my birthday this year. I am happy with were my life is these days, and couldn't be more thankful for my wonderful family. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

She's baaaack

My baby girl is back, and Happier then ever. She slept in this morning until 9:30 and woke up in the best mood. She is back to drinking her bottle wonderfully and eating all her meals. She had lost her appetite for a while. We played all day she is such a joy to be around. I feel so fortunate to be able to stay home with her and not miss a moment of her very exciting babyhood. I feel like she is learning huge new things everyday. She feed her self for the first time today and did such a good job I had to get it on video. Now if we could just get her to let go and take those first steps.



She is clapping her hands all the time even between crawls. She is saying all kinds of things I am just not sure what all she is saying. She has a word for Mickey Mouse but I can't make it out clearly but she says it every time she sees him. She plays with her baby doll and gives it bottle, soooo cute. She loves looking at herself or any other baby and saying "baabyyy" I have tried to get it on video but she stops every time I turn the camera on. She is so full of life and energy. She is growing up so much and so fast, I can't believe she is only 2 short months away from turning 1.



Playing Peek-a-boo this morning



Wearing Grandpa's hat and being silly.

Here are the pictures from our wonderful beach day.

beach photos

Ridges and lines of a shell.

As I sat today on the beach looking at the water and watching the waves glide in and out over the sand I noticed all the shells that drifted in it's tides. (I could hear the laughter of Makayla with her and Nenny and Grandparents which made the moment so much sweeter. ) Looking at all the shells that have traveled a long and timeless path or have they? There are millions of different shells and each one has a different story or path its traveled, much like strangers, friends, fellow blog writers and readers. We all have this log path we have traveled to get to the same place. We ride along the waves that God places us on and we begin our journey. Some end up traveling long waves to end up carrying a precious life inside only to become empty again. Some carry life throughout there entire shell being if you will, some end up on the beach only to be buried by the sand and someday washed back out to shore only to drift again upon another warm bed of sand. Some get scooped up by a shell hunter placed in the bottom of a sandy bucket, washed out and placed in a bowl to spend it's life collecting dust. We have all done this. I have an entire room decorated around shells and sea life.

My point is have you ever looked a shell? I mean really looked at it? It can hold so much history that no one will ever know. Where did it begin it's jourey, mllions of miles away or the next island over? It's ridges and lines tell a story to make it what it is at that very moment you admire it and scoop it up or in M's case put it in your mouth. Shells are more like people then we think our lines and ridges make up our story. Each person different but in some way all the same.

We had a wonderful day on the boat and at the beach today. Makayla loves the sand, the shells, and the sun, the water not to much. I didn't take the pictures so I am waiting on them but as soon as I get them I will post them. We hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

Out with the old....

Before I had a child I used to get in to the car of a friend with children and laugh and cringe when we had to listen to children music. I have always said when I become a parent I will never listen children's music in the car. Boy was I wrong. I have a 6 disc CD changer in my car and 4 of those slots are filled with Cd's for Makayla. I have no I idea how they got there (lol) or what is in the other 2 slots but I am sure that before long they will be filled with some catchy upbeat sing songy cd.

Her current CD these days is Disney's music play date. We listen to Hot dog many time on our trip to where ever. It keeps her quit and happy. The worst part is I know all the words. ugggg

I am excited to say I also said she would never play with my keys or cell phone and so far I have succeeded. She try's but I always win haha. So if I have to give up a few minutes of singing along to my favorite tunes and learn the words to songs by Ohh and Ahhh (they are monkeys on the CD) it's OK just see her smile and dance along to her favorite tunes. Ahh what we sacrifice for our children.

We also purchased her new car seat yesterday. Thanks Grandmom and Grandpa! We don't have it yet but we are excited to put her in her new seat. She growing so fast and learning new things everyday. She is so much fun I just can't get enough.

She can now say baby, puppy which she always whispers, and point to your nose, mouth, and eyes. She points to her pictures on the wall and says baby baby. It is sooo cute. She now loves loves loves Winnie the Pooh. I knew characters were going to haunt me. She is all about Molly and has discovered she can climb in her crate which Molly is not a fan of at all. They have a very love hate relationship.

We are getting very excited about our camping trip to Disney next weekend for my birthday. We just hope she likes all the big characters, we think she will. She loves everything about life as we have seen so far.

Praying For Stellen

We are wearing our orange today and praying for Stellen. You should do the same! You can read his story here. He is a strong little boy that has been through more then anyone should go through in a life time. I have been reading this blog for awhile now and we pray for Stellen every night but today is his surgery so we are praying for him through out the day today. Be Strong Stellen the world needs you.

crazy/lazy/sick weekend

We had a bit of a lazy/crazy/sick weekend. Last Thursday Makayla got to meet who she was named after. I met Michaella when she was 5 she is now 14. I always loved her name and personalty. I loved her so much I choose to name my daughter after her, just a different spelling. Makayla loved her and her sisters. It was so good to see them all it has been a long time since we have seen them.

Michaella and Makayla

Friday was spent at the Dr and filling prescriptions you can read more about that here.

Saturday morning we went to a small local fair to benefit a school. Hannah and her cousins joined us. Makayla and I rode on a firetruck

lol She loved it.
She also won a few prizes and got to look at all kinds of lights, sights and interesting people. Nenny and Grandmom were selling pampered chef stuff and a friend of ours makes yummy homemade dog treats so we went to get a few of those.

We came home to find Molly had done this.

She pulled out all the stuffing in the dog bed. You can see it all in the back of the picture. Funny thing was she was inside the bed but I couldn't get the camera out fast enough for that shot. Maybe we should have rethought the dog treats. We got the bed stuffing all cleaned up, and had a relaxing afternoon.

That is until Makayla started puking. Yuck I don't do puke well, even my own child's. We got that all cleaned up and then there was more snot sucking here are the cute pictures of here swaddled up.

Like I said so sad it's cute. She is not this happy when we are done.

Sunday we didn't do much I ended up with the stomach bug as well. We watched lots of movies and spent some good quality time together. Steve came home from his golf weekend away and Makayla was very excited to see him. She missed her Daddy.

We hope you all had a good weekend as well. We are all starting to feel better.

Oh and we had to go back to the Dr this morning and we are now seeing a new Dr. WooHoo and we like him.

I want a new Dr. and I want MY kid back.

The results are in. We went to the dr. today and Makayla weighed in at 17.2 lbs and 27 1/2 inches long. She is 50% on weight and height. (I guess Melissa wins the prize since no one else left there guess and she was the closest.) She was a champ at the dr. They took blood from her toe to test her iron and if looks could kill the nurse would be 6 feet under, but M didn't even cry. Then came the shot which again she gave the nurse a dirty look and this time came the tears. They quickly ended when I pulled out Winnie the Pooh. For those of you who don't know I am not big on characters or stuffed animals outside of the crib, but M LOVES her Winne the Pooh so we brought him along. (sympathy kicking in again)
So the iron test came back a little low and the Dr gave us a prescription for iron. Well come to find out our insurance does not cover it and it's $67.00 a bottle CRAZZZZY. I got it filled anyway. Well when I got home and read the insert the first thing I read in this: Overdose of iron-containing products is a leading cause of fatal poisoning in children under the age of 6. And yes it was in bold! After reading all the rules and restrictions of the medicine I did not feel comfortable giving it to her (mothers intuition) so I called the Dr. After 2 returned phone calls it seems her levels are a 10 and normal is 10.5 are you kidding me? It can be controlled with diet. Why did he not say this when I was at the office? So now I have a bottle of what seems like deadly iron that I wasted $67.47 on. I want a new Dr. for Miss M.

I was also told that her runny nose that I thought was just from teething is a bad infection/cold and her last ear infection never totally cleared up. So she is now on a stronger antibiotic.

Why I want MY kid back?
Most of you say you have never heard my kid cry and well this is true because she really doesn't cry. That is until the last few days. She is battling teething, a head cold, bad cough, and well just all around irritated. She wants to get into everything and for some reason I am always telling her NO (safety reasons of course) well now when she doesn't get her way she throws herself on the floor and SCREAMS. Since I haven't had to deal with much screaming in my days of motherhood this is all new to me. All I can say is I hope this doesn't last and I get MY kid back really soon. Poor Miss M she doesn't feel good and she is just not herself. I want my healthy, happy, and playful baby back, I miss her!

Also I have had to swaddle her to clean out her nose this is pretty funny I will take a picture tomorrow to share with everyone. It is so sad its cute.

For now I am going to enjoy my quiet night to myself minus M's coughing. Steve is away at a golf tournament.

what is your guess? Dr appt tomorrow

Makayla has her 9 month dr. appt tomorrow. Her weight at 6 months was 14lbs 0 oz and her height was 25.6 inches long. I think she is a little over 16lbs close to 17. What do you think? Leave a comment on what you think her weight and height are. I will update tomorrow by 9:00pm so you have until then to leave your guess.

Ohhhh and she is doing pretty good with her new tooth except for the throwing up out her nose she did tonight. Poor thing it scared the crap out of her and totally grossed her mom out, but at least it didn't land in my hands. You should have seen Steve's face when he looked down to see what landed in his hands. O-well its all in a day of parenting. Needless to say I had my glass of wine tonight!

tornado's, tired, and TEETH

For the past 3 night Makayla has woken up almost every hour. She wakes up screaming. This is very unusual considering she has been sleeping through the night since 6 weeks old. She wants nothing more then for me to hold and rock her. Since she has had a runny nose I have had sympathy and gone in and rocked her, or let her lay with me until she falls asleep. As soon as she hits the crib shes up again.
I have tried the cry it out and well after 20 minutes that feels like 20 hours I give in. She naps fine and still goes to bed fine but about midnight shes up.
Well today after a lavender soothing bath and warm pjs I put my finger in her mouth to feel her gums.....and.....WE HAVE A TOOTH! Finally she is getting her first tooth. I now have so much more sympathy, so much so that I gave her Motrin before bed and ahhhh she is still asleep.

So why is it midnight and I am still up? Well the past 3 night have told my body I don't need to sleep I guess. I also wanted to update with Easter pictures and let everyone know we are ok from the Tornado's that hit today. It was scary bad weather and then come to find out 2 tornado's hit just a little over a mile away from our house. SCARY. Besides much needed rain, and some thunder and lightning, we didn't get much else. I am off to bed now lets hope I get to stay there all night!

Easter weekend

Sorry this post is a little late we had a very busy weekend and I have been playing catch up the last 2 days.

Friday April 10th

Play Group

We had an Easter playgroup on Friday morning. Demetra was a wonderful host and planned a fun and exciting Easter egg hunt and a delicious lunch. Makayla had a great time. It is so fun to see how much she has grown. When we started playgroup she was about 6 weeks old and just sat in the papasan. Now she is taking toys from other kids cruising the couch and making sure she gets her way. It is so much fun to see her interact with the other kids. Here are a few pictures of her hunting eggs and swinging on Alex's new play set.

Makayla found an egg

Mom look what I found

Ethan finding an egg

Ally sliding kinda!

Friday night we went to Bryan and Ashley's weddings shower. Makayla had a really good time and got to meet alot of people I went to high school with. She loved all the attention. So much so that she stayed up until 11:00pm I think she was afraid to miss anything. She was so good the entire time. It was an interesting night. But more about that later.

Saturday April 11th

Egg dyeing party

We hosted an Easter egg dyeing party Saturday night. We made golden egg punch, 2 quiches, Nenny (Jenn my sister) made two Pampered chef crescent rings, a veggie and fruit tray and cupcakes. Everyone brought there eggs to dye and we supplied the dye. Makayla had a good time throwing the eggs on the floor, and trying to grab at the cups of dye. Hannah and Peighton and a wonderful time also as did all the adults. Results we got some beautiful eggs for pocking on Sunday, and had wonderful time. We hope to make this an annual event at our house.

The cupcakes I made

Every single cupcake was different

M getting ready to dye her eggs

Or eat her egg

This egg went on the floor 2 seconds after this picture. 1 of many

More eggs PLEASE

Peighton

Hannah

Eggs.

Sunday April 12th

Easter Sunday

Sunday was a beautiful day. We awoke to a Easter basket filled with wonderful things for Makayla. The bunny must have forgotten about her parents. Then we spent the day at my Moms house. The Easter bunny dropped a nest at her house as well. This time he left a few things for Mom and Dad. We took some pictures, had a huge Easter egg hunt with lots of prizes, a delicious Linner (lunch and dinner), and a really nice day with the family. We also pocked eggs. For those of you who don't know what this is I will explain.

It works like this. You take your hard-boiled egg, and your opponent would take his. Both of you would hold them with the pointy end exposed, and the two of you would tap them together until the point of one or the other broke. The broken egg became the property of the person with the intact egg. This would go on until nobody had an uncracked egg. This is a southern tradition that my mom taught us as very young children and I was excited to pass it on to Makayla. She had fun with it. Shea her cousin loved it and got most of Grandmoms eggs.

We hope you all had a nice Easter and got to spend some time with your family as well. I put all the pictures in an album it was to many to post them all on here.

Easter 2009

Click on the album to view them all.

My version of a play pen. hehe

Makayla is still loving her cube of Books. She dumped out the books and I needed to
contain her some how. So this is what I did.


Hey how did you get me in here?

I will eat my way out!

Darn it didn't last long she escaped.

Dog sitting

While my mom is on vacation we are dog sitting Cayenne Peppers. As many of you know our dog Molly is not so fond of Makayla. In fact she bit her today, but Makayla just laughs. Cayenne likes M a little more but M LOVES Cayenne. She is trying to crawl into her cage with her and loves to tease her with her toys. She bangs on the couch and pulls the blanket from under Cayenne. Poor Dog :( She deals with it well though.

With a 9 month old that is into everything and 2 dogs I feel like I say "no" and "stop" all day long. They had stare down this morning. Makayla WON!

Makayla is drinking her afternoon milk from a sippy cup all by herself. I thought this was so cute.

Who knew a 9 month old could make this much of a mess? She found a cube of books and has been obsessed with it for the last 3 days. She has to dump the entire cube to find just the right one. The Elmo one is her favorite.