Christmas 2009

Well, its been another eventful Christmas here at our house. Not quite the "eventful" that I thoguht it would be, but eventful nonetheless. Celebration started on Christmas Eve with some time opening presents at my parents house. Kaelyn got what we call the holy grail for 8 year old girls - an American Girl doll. It was the ONLY thing on her Christmas wish list this year. Thankfully she has a grandma who can deliver. :) Since opening this present I can actually count on one hand how many times this doll has actually come out of the box - and each of those times was to carefully comb her hair, occasionally change her clothes and to just stare in awe at the beauty that is an American Girl.

After Christmas at my parents house we went to the Christmas Eve service at our church. After being perfectly normal all day long, Cooper came down with a fever at the service and quickly fell asleep while listening to the quiet carols. As you can tell from the picture below he didn't feel better after his little nap at church. But, despite the illness, here is the yearly picture in front of the tree in their matching jammies.

We woke up Christmas morning to a still sick little boy. Thankfully he slept in a little bit and we were able to rest up for what became a long day. My mom and grandparents came over for a very quiet and relaxing day at our house. The kids opened their presents and the rest of us grazed on food all day long. Around lunchtime I noticed that Cooper had a couple blistery type things on his tongue. No wonder he hadn't wanted to eat anything all day! We called the nurse hotline - without getting any answers - then we called his doctor (who I hated bothering on Christmas day) without many answers there either. The general consensus was that no matter what he actually had it wasn't going to be treatable with antibiotics and would probably just need to run its course, so we just needed to make him as comfortable as possible.

Needless to say, the rest of the day (and ALL of today) was spent like this......

By the end of the day, the entire inside of his mouth was COVERED with blisters. He ran a fever all day (even with a constant stream of Motrin and Tylenol) and hardly slept at all last night. We are suspecting either Herpangina (http://www.drgreene.com/21_1113.html) or Hand, Foot and Mouth. We are leaning more towards the first one although we saw a few little dots on his hands tonight when Jeff was reading some stories to him. We'll see what the next few days bring. Another friend suggested it might be the first initial outbreak of what causes canker sores, as that can be a horrible outbreak to begin with. But who knows really. If its still bad by Monday (which I sure HOPE it isn't) we'll take a trip into the drs office.

As for how Kaelyn spent her Christmas.... she spent it playing her new Leapfrog Didj. I was really shocked at how much she loves this thing. It was a last minute purchase on my part as I found a really good deal on it. But man oh man, does she love that thing! I'm glad I went with the more educational video gaming system. :-)

Christmas pageant

First off, I have to start by saying that my kids are DARN cute. I mean look at this picture of Cooper. Such a handsome boy...

And, let's not forget Kaelyn. She is getting WAY too grown up looking for her own good!!!!! I'm not ready for her to be quite so grown up.

Of course, when they are together they are as cute as can be. :)

So, a couple weeks ago we had our church's christmas pageant. This was Cooper first year doing a performance and he did an excellent job, just like I expected! I was a little worried at first because when I dropped him off at his class he was crying and did not want me to leave. But he seemed to settle down and once he came downstairs he was ADORABLE. His little 2's and 3's class sang "Jingle, Jingle Happy Bells" and "Bells are Ringing". They are just so fun to watch.

Kaelyn was an angel in the pageant and did a great job singing all the songs that they sang throughout the morning. She looked great up there and performed beautifully! She even said she wasn't really nervous this year. :)

Sick computer again

Well, our laptop has taken yet another hit to it. Thankfully, it wasn't actually the computer part this time. The cord shorted out and our battery won't hold a charge, so I'm typing this entry on our big old desktop computer upstairs. But, because our laptop is out of commission that means no new pictures as we download them all to the laptop to keep them in one place. But I promise, once that new cord arrives in 3-5 business days I promise I'll have lots of updating to do! :)

The Christmas Spirit

Since Cooper's birthday party was over, we went out on Saturday afternoon and cut down our Christmas tree. Even if we don't do any other decorating for Christmas, this is the one thing that has to be done. I love the tree we got. We decided that we would be "smart" and put the stand on the tree before standing it up this year. This was the result.... ...we laughed so hard at the result and decided that from now on we'll probably just put the stand down and then put the tree in it like we've done every other year. LOL Here's the kids and Jeff trying to make the tree look a little better. Can I tell you how hard it is to take a picture of both a tree and people leaning sideways and trying to get SOMETHING straight? :-)
Needless to say, we did fix it. Here is the final result. I love Christmas trees. :-)

A check-up

Cooper had his three year check up this morning. I'm happy to report that all is well! No shots since we're not doing many of the vaccinations anyways and he met all the "goals" for his age. :) She even commented that she thought he was way beyond his age for intelligence. Not sure if that was a comment for mommy's sake or if she really meant it. He is pretty smart though. LOL He weighed in at 35.5lbs and measured 39.5" long. Both of which are right around the 90th percentile. Which is CRAZY to me because he seems to tiny! Granted, both those measurements were with his clothes and shoes on, so he's probably slightly less. Anyway, all looks good in Cooper's world! Yay!

THREE!!!!

This past Saturday we had a great birthday party for Cooper. I can NOT believe that my baby is three years old. Crazy. His theme was Thomas the Tank Engine. We had almost the entire family there and it was a fun day of celebration!

The cake was good. Although very blue. :)

The guests were delightful...

and the presents were fun!

And I found out what happens when you ask a three year old to show me his shirt. LOL

It was a great day. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY PRECIOUS LITTLE BOY! I love you Cooper!

Somber

While I am fully intending to write all about Cooper and his third birthday, I feel like today I need to pause to honor the four officers that were killed just down the street from our house. I took the kids out in the 20 degree weather this morning to stand on the side of the road and wait for the procession of over 2,000 cars going to the officers memorial service. We were all horribly cold and Cooper was crying from the cold by the time we left (we left after standing their for an hour - it continued after we left for another two hours). But it was so worth the sacrifice. I kept reminding Kaelyn that we are sacrificing a couple hours of bitter cold to honor them, when these four officers sacrificed their LIVES to protect us. This loss has affectecd our entire community. It has brought a community together like I have never seen before. I'm torn deep down to the core about the pain these families are feeling. And feeling so much more grateful for those who serve us every single day.

Part of the fire department that was standing next to us.

The beginning of the procession and the first of the fallen officers caskets.
The families of the officers. Tears just gushed as these cars drove by. I squeezed my kids a little tighter too.

So from us to all of our officers, fire fighters, military personnel, and their families...

Three years ago today

I promise to post more later tonight about the weekend's birthday festivities. But in the meantime, I wanted to post something remembering our day three years ago.

Double Digits

So, if you take a peek at my "ticker" at the top of my blog you'll see that I'm down to 99 days until my due date. How in the world did I get to double digits! Eeek! That makes it seem so much closer. I realize it's still a ways off, but its definitely approaching at a rapid pace.

So, feelings about this pregnancy thus far...

I feel pregnant. Really pregnant. In multiple ways. I'm getting bigger by the second. I'm sure of it! I'm also feeling the aches and pains of pregnancy start to set in. I've had a lot of lower back issues, but I'm hoping and praying they will go away as soon as this baby comes out. At that time I'm sure I'll have other "issues" that will take over from the lower back pain. LOL The positive part about feeling really pregnant is that I'm feeling this little girl moving a lot more than I was awhile ago. It's such a creepy yet amazing experience. This is one of the parts that I'm sad I missed with my other two miracles. When I tuck the kids in to bed at night and sit down in my chair and start relaxing she starts to go crazy. A couple nights ago I was kind of slouching in the chair and all of a sudden I saw my belly JUMP out of the corner of my eye. She did it again about 4 times. It was so funny. Of course, Jeff couldn't see any of it no matter how hard he tried. I'm finding that while I don't enjoy the kicks to the bladder, I do really enjoy feeling that movement all the time. I like know that she's safe in there, that she's "still kickin" and that all is well.

I only have another week until I enter the third trimester (well, there is some debate over whether it starts with the 27th week or the 28th week but I'm going with the former). I really am finding it hard to believe that I'm already that far along. And I know that with the holidays and all the birthdays that are cramp packed in the next two months that life will speed by and then it will be almost time!

I also am not feeling very prepared for this little one. And actually when I really think about it, that's not true. The only thing we really NEED is another car seat, other than that everything else is just a perk. But I think that because I'm not preparing a nursery this time around (we're not even bringing the crib back to the house) that its making me feel like I'm not preparing enough. But truthfully, I only have a few more things that I want to get.... A bouncey seat, a swing, obviously a car seat, and a boppy. I really need to get started on making all the diapers I need, but I've gotten a great start on covers and wool for the diapers which is nice. Of course, there are things that I'd *LIKE* to have too - like a double jogging stroller - but if that doesn't happen its definately not the end of the world.

So, I guess I really am more prepared than I think I am. Now the hard part... to MENTALLY prepare myself for baby #3. That's gonna take a little bit I think. :)