Doctor Appts & A Present

I took both kids to the Doctor on Monday since their congestion has been getting worse and not better.  She listened to their lungs and both were okay, they just have horrible chest colds.  When she checked Maisy’s ears she has two really bad ear infections again.  Ryder has one starting in one ear.  So we left there with 2 amoxicillin prescriptions…welcome to the world of siblings!  I don’t guess I’ll be making many sick doctor visits for just one of them, they literally caught this cold one day after another.  I’m glad they have medicine now and are hopefully on the mend!

Daddy didn’t like seeing our tree empty underneath so he took matters into his own hands today and came home with presents.  One for Mommy, one for Maisy, and of course a few for his main man Ryder!  I didn’t think that putting presents under the tree 26 days before Christmas was going to go over well when you have an overly excited 2 year old and two very weak parents that are just as excited!

The Christmas Spirit

Oh we are SO ready for Christmas!  Not ready in a Mommy-and-Daddy-have-their-crap-together-and-are-done-shopping way…but more like a BRING IT ON, SO EXCITED, CAN’T WAIT kind of way!!

We put out our Christmas decorations, hung our stockings, and went to the Christmas Tree farm to pick out our tree…that’s right, no fake tree for us this year!  Ever since we moved into our home we’ve used Alan’s Moms fake tree and all of her decorations, which made a gorgeous tree.  But when Alan told me we could get a real tree this year, I was SUPER excited.  And when he said we could even get colored lights, WOO HOOOOO, hello childhood!  (If only he would let me listen to my N’Sync Christmas CD while we decorated, but that was pushing it!)

After we put it up and decorated it…the first time…we stared at it, admiring how perfect and beautiful it was.

Then CRASH it fell down!

After we put it up, tied it down with fishing wire, and decorated it…the second time…we agreed that even though it fell down, we still loved our tree and it was still so beautiful and perfect.

Then the fishing wire broke and CRASH it fell down AGAIN!

So now that the tree is tied down with cable, and decorated so beautifully for the THIRD time, I’m praying and having little pep talks with it to please stay up.  I’m afraid one more crash and it will be laying in the woods somewhere, beautifully decorated with my colored lights and all of our ornaments, only to be replaced by a fake tree with white lights. 

(Why am I just now realizing that we don’t have a topper on our tree?!  Probably a good thing, might have caused damage in the crash!)

Maisy’s Precious Moments “My First Christmas” ornament did not survive the second crash, here’s a memorial.

We are not letting any of this ruin our Christmas Spirit!  We’ve even made Christmas cookies already!

We found the cutest camo stockings for Ryder and Maisy…adorable!

 

Ryder is all about Santa, he carries a little stuffed Santa with him all over the place, says that Santa is his Best Friend, plays the Talking Santa app on my phone all the time, and already has plans for what he will leave Santa on Christmas Eve.  Not cookies…wait for it…HO HO’s!  “Because that’s Santa’s favorite thing, that’s why he says ho-ho-ho all the time”…Does anyone have a better explanation of why Santa says Ho-Ho-Ho?!  Me either.

I put Ryder’s chair in front of the Christmas tree to try to get a picture of him & Maisy together by the tree.

A little while later he asked if they could take another picture…OF COURSE!  I set Maisy on his lap and snapped a picture as I heard him say to her “so little girl, what would you like for Christmas??”  Yes, he was pretending to be Santa.  What came next was even better “Oh, you want a racing car steering wheel thing and a boat?  Okay sure!”  No Ryder, that would be what YOU want for Christmas.

We got my Mom’s Christmas tree today and my nieces helped me decorate it.

Oh we are SO in the Christmas Spirit around here!  27 more days!! :)

Our Thanksgiving Break

Well, I didn’t get my camera out at ALL on Thanksgiving, hence my lack of an immediate blog post out of eagerness to share photos.  But then I realized that I don’t need pictures.  I can still write and say that we had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We went to Gregg’s girlfriend Catherine’s house for breakfast, my Aunt’s house for lunch, then Alan’s Dad & Cindy’s for dinner.  Eat much?!  It was great getting to spend the day with family and enjoy such good food.  Most importantly we talked a lot that day (that’s what we do with Ryder around!) about everything we are thankful for.  #1: Jesus.  #2: Eachother.  #3: Our Family & Friends. #4: Santa Claus (per Ryder)…oh yes…we are full blown in the Christmas spirit over here (More to come on that)!

I am extremely thankful for this little break that we’ve had which gave us so much quality time together.  Both of the kids have been pretty congested since Wednesday so we tried to lay low.  Went for a walk in our new (to us) double stroller!  LOVE this thing!

Ryder and Daddy built a clock for his room, a little project they’ve been waiting to do together:

Mommy & Daddy even got to sneak off for a little alone time together…in the woods…

HUNTING!  Haha, Alan took me hunting with him, it was my first time ever.  He always said he wouldn’t take me because I couldn’t stay quiet that long.  I have to admit, it was hard, I thought of a million things I wanted to talk about.  But instead I kept quiet, took in all the peace and tranquility that being in the middle of nature had to offer, then had the best thought that I couldn’t hold in, it was too good so I had to let it out “From now on every time you go hunting, I get atleast a bubble bath in return!”  He smiled and nodded knowing it’s only fair since he is getting all this quiet time!  We didn’t shoot anything (which obviously I’m not upset about) but it was nice to have that time with my husband, getting out of my comfort zone and experiencing something that he loves.  Even gave me some ideas of how to get to his level and use terminology that he can better understand.  Next time he’s up getting ready for work at 3am making all kind of noise, instead of yelling “could you PLEASE be a little quieter so you don’t wake the kids?!” I think I’ll try “Nice easy steps babe, don’t drag your feet, you don’t want anything to sense you’re here!”

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!  On to Christmas!  Yayyy :)

5 Months!

 

Since Maisy turns 5 months old on Thanksgiving, I figured I’d better post this a day early.  Here is what our 5 month old is up to these days:

• She wears 3-6 month clothes, some 6-9 month pajamas, and size 3 diapers.
• She eats 4 ounce bottles every 3 hours during the day and a 6 ounce bottle before bed.
• She eats Stage 1 baby food twice a day, and loves every bite of it!  She has had rice cereal, carrots, sweet potatoes, bananas, pears, green beans, peas, and applesauce.  She seems to like it all!
• She loves to eat ice cubes and frozen bananas in her mesh teether and also loves to chew on frozen teethers.  She chews and drools a lot so I won’t be surprised when a tooth comes through.
• She goes to bed by 7pm every night and then wakes up anywhere from 3-6am to eat.  So she is sleeping from 8-11 hours at night.
• She is seriously becoming mobile.  She can get anywhere she wants by rolling and has even started putting her butt up in the air and scooting her knees like she wants to get moving.  My girl is in a hurry to get somewhere! 
• She HAS to be part of the action at all times.  She is perfectly content laying on a blanket or swinging, as long as someone is near, but if you leave her there she will let you know that she wants you to come back.
• Her hair has actually started falling out on the sides, which you can’t tell because the top is so long now that it covers it up.  But if you flip one of the sides up, it’s pretty bear under there!
• The best word to describe her from the day she was born to now is SWEET.  Her voice is sweet, her cuddles are sweet, her laugh is soooooo sweet.
• She reaches for everything and can grab her little toys now and chew on them.  Her favorite toys are her purse, her rattle, and her bug friend that rides in the car with her.  At Nana’s she loves to spend time in her activity gym.
• Her eyes light up when she sees someone familiar like Mommy, Daddy, or Ryder…it’s my favorite to see that we can make her feel so happy.

It wouldn’t be normal if big brother didn’t come crash our party! 

Look at Maisy’s faces in these pictures.  First she’s like “Ohhhh boyyy, here he comes, let me brace myself.”  Then it’s “Yayyy, he brought me my rattle”.  And finally “what the heck happened Mom, how does he always steal my spotlight?”

Little Mini Me!

Alan has his little Mini Me…

So really it’s only fair for me to have mine too!  Mommy as a baby on the left, Maisy on the right…

  

 

 

It’s such an amazing work of God to see a reflection of ourselves in these beautiful little creations we’ve made.  Our little mini-me’s!

Isn’t it Just the Sweetest Thing?!

 

When a baby finds their toes?!

Sibling Love

I love seeing these two together. 

And they love seeing each other.  Maisy lights up when she sees her big brother and Ryder is always concerned with where Maisy is and what she’s doing.  They’re like BFF’s.

Except for when he’s all up on her and won’t give her space.

 

Or when “she won’t stop touching meeeeeee”.

(Yes it has already begun!)

As a little sister to two older brothers, I totally get this sibling love.  I pray that even through the little arguments, they will always appreciate each other and learn to meet in the middle.

 

As Maisy is getting older and more interactive, it’s funny to watch them together.  I love to listen to the things Ryder tells her as she watches him so intently like she’s hanging onto his every word.  She wants to get up and play with him so bad, he is all over the place and she tries to keep up with him the best she can.  Here’s a little glimpse of playtime this evening:

 

Now that she is starting to play with her own toys, I can tell we’re going to start learning some lessons about sharing!

 

Dr. Appointments & A Surprise

Ryder’s first doctor appointment yesterday was to see his Kidney Doctor.  I prepped him in the car, telling him that the nurse would have to use a wand to look at both of his kidneys and we’d be able to see them on the computer screen.  To which he responded “I hope she doesn’t put a magic spell on me with her wand!”  He was totally fine with her doing the sonogram, but I forgot to mention that she would have to look at his bladder too.  So after she checked out both kidney’s, she moved the wand around front and Ryder said “Mom, I have another kidney you didn’t even know about!!”  He can always find ways to make us laugh!

His Kidney Doctor said that things look the same.  He still has some dilation and some pockets of fluid in his kidneys, but as long as things don’t ever look worse, he’s happy, which makes us happy!  We talked about potty training and how well Ryder’s doing with telling us when he has to go, but that we aren’t able to put underwear on him because even though he goes potty he will still be wet 15 minutes later.  Since we could see that his bladder was full on the sonogram, his Dr. convinced him to pee in a cup (all it took was bribery with a lollipop and a sticker!), so he was able to see that Ryder has control over when he goes and when he stops.  Then he did another sonogram, and sure enough his bladder wasn’t emptied.  So he’s basically just going pee enough to not feel the sensation of having to pee anymore and then stopping.  Because his bladder is so muscular, he can then just hold the rest in.  If this continues, there’s a test they’ll have to do to insert die into his bladder and watch and measure his bladder function…which he’ll have to be put to sleep for, blah.  BUT he said right now it’s too soon to make that call, this could still be normal signs of potty training when kids learn how to use that muscle.  So we’ll see how he’s doing at his next check-up in 6 months. 

Onto the next appointment, the eye doctor.  I gave Ryder the pep talk about all the tests the eye doctor would probably ask him to do, but this time I forgot to mention the eye drops…until we got in the appointment and I asked “will Ryder have to get drops this time?”  Wrong thing to say.  The Doctor said he wasn’t sure yet, he’d have to check a few things first.  He started shining objects onto the screen and asking Ryder, what do you see?  Ryder would say “a birthday cake, don’t put drops in my eyes.” “a cow, don’t put drops in my eyes”.  Thank goodness he didn’t have to get the drops.  For a refresher, the whole reason we have to follow up with an Ophthalmologist is because Ryder has a nerve in his brain that is being pinched and isn’t allowing his left eye to look all the way to the left, so he compensates by turning his head and focusing on things to his left with his right eye.  This is called VI Cranial Nerve Palsy.  Anyway, the Doctor said he is actually turning his head slightly less than he was last year which is a great sign that he’s getting better control over his eye.  We follow up again in one year.  If it doesn’t correct itself, this too will require surgery…so we’re praying for no surgery, obviously! 

I’m seriously about to put his Urologist, his Ophthalmologist, and his Physiatrist all in a room together and give them one chance to do whatever they have to do.  I’m so tired of hearing he’ll have to be put to sleep for this or for that, it makes me want to throw up even hearing about the possibility of him having to be put to sleep any more times for anything else.  Obviously we want what’s best for Ryder so we’ll continue to do what we have to do, but hopefully it ends up with less sedation and more of his body healing itself!  God has done amazing things for Ryder thus far, so we know that regardless he is safe in God’s care! 

So Daddy promised Ryder that if he was good at both appointments, we would take him to the Bass Pro Shop.  Is it normal that my 2 year old actually got excited and looked forward to this allllll day??  He was SUCH a good boy at his appointments and so cooperative, so of course you know where we went.  It made his whole day, he got to drive boats:

And 4-wheelers and golf carts and side-by-sides, oh this boy was in riding heaven!

But the REAL surprise came when we saw a jolly old man with long white hair, and a long white beard walking across the parking lot into the store.  I jokingly said “look there’s Santa Clause” before reading his shirt that said “ho-ho-ho”.  Then we realized it really WAS Santa, before he was all Santa’d up.  Ryder was on a mission, he wanted to see Santa and tell him what he wanted for Christmas!  This was so funny to me because we didn’t even mention Santa to Ryder last year, and even though we planned on joining in on all the hype this year, we hadn’t started talking about him yet.  But who needs us!  Ryder knew exactly what he needed to do without any coaching from us.  We stalled to give Santa a little time to become Santa, then made our way over to his workshop.  It was mid-day so we were pretty much the only one’s there.  Ryder ran as fast as he could down the long red aisle until he finally made it to Santa and hopped on his lap.  Santa said “what would the little lady like for Christmas?”  YES!  Even with a MOHAWK hat on, a shirt that said “Daddy’s Best Friend”, baggy jeans, and Timberland boots….LADY!  “It’s a BOY” I yelled from the sidelines (I have to make sure he gets on the right naughty or nice list, we don’t want Santa to show up with Barbies now do we?!)  Ryder ignored the lady comment because he had better things to talk about “I want a boat!!” Santa said “Oh do you want to go fishing?”  Ryder said “Ummm no, I just want to go for a ride on my new boat.  Okay? thanks!” 

Maisy Movies

She’s rolling both ways now, big girl!

 

 

She is really getting the hang of eating!  So far she has had cereal, pears, and sweet potatoes.

 

 

She’s so cute when she gets tickled, she has a funny little growl laugh.

That’s all for the Maisy Movies!  Not as entertaining as Ryder’s, but still cute to watch :)

2011 Kidney Walk

Today was a beautiful day for the Kidney Walk!  Team Ryder gathered to walk in support of the National Kidney Foundation, and as always we had fun for a good cause!

 

 

 

    

 

Thanks to everyone who joined or donated or both!  We had another fun successful year :)