Happy Birthday, Josiah…Choo Choo

Posted on June 30, 2009 by Abbie

Let’s start with our adventure to find cupcake toppers. I felt cupcakes were the easy way to go but I wanted to add a “train” theme to help celebrate his fascination with all things that go “toot toot.” Wednesday, we traveled from one store to another until we ended up near Mark’s work which resulted in a great time out to eat with him (he works an hour from home). We (being me and the five kids) loaded up and headed to Hobby Lobby in the local town and purchased train candy molds. All told, that trip took around three to four hours…but, alas, we found them.

Since Josiah was the birthday boy, he got to lick the candy wafer spoon!

I’m not kidding when I say this kids is all about trains (and sports balls…but we focused on trains for the big day). The balloons were a hit. As were the napkins, plates, and cupcakes…he choo chooed everything he saw on party day.

He tried to blow out the candles the minute we sat his cupcake in front of him. We managed to hold him off long enough to sing the “Birthday Song” and then let him have at it. I’ll post the video in another post. For now, enjoy his birthday pictures.

“Sugaaarrrr!”

You can’t tell, but this is a friend who is an avid University of South Carolina fan with a nice Alabama pillow positioned behind him…Thanks John for fixing that up!

Mark “tricked” out this tricycle that I purchased at consignment. Once again, I did not get a “before” picture. Someone had painted it white with a faded purple basket in the back and a pink and white basket in the front. It also had faded purple wheels. I thought he did a great job on it…Mark was at least excited.

This was Josiah’s response at first. He had six “new” Thomas books and was enthralled with them. How to get him on the back???

Ta Da…stick all his Thomas paraphenalia on the bike.

Sunday, Josiah’s real birthday brought Ge & Granddaddy up to visit for the day.

More presents…more Thomas…lots of fun!

Happy Birthday my little man! We have so enjoyed seeing how you have grown this past year. Can’t wait to see the little man God is creating you to be!

Here They Come…

Posted on June 16, 2009 by Abbie

Josiah, Puppets, and Go Fish! from justabunchofcharacters on Vimeo.Josiah and Liam have both become a little camera shy…wonder why? Anyway, I promise he was excited to see them. He just didn’t want the camera pointed at him. And if you’re wondering why he didn’t say, “Go Fish, ” rest assured he did. That razzberry he blew is his word for fish and has been for quite some time, even though he can say all the sounds to fish (Ace has been working with him) he just can’t put it all together. By the end of this week, he was saying “razzberry ish.” He would say it and point to anyone who had on a Go Fish shirt or anytime he saw the Go Fish logo.

Ceili Rain’s Two Months Old

Posted on May 15, 2009 by Abbie

Don’t mess wit’ the best!

Stats:
12 lbs (80%)
23 3/4 inches long (90%)

Her head is a little small measuring less than 50% but she’s hitting her developmental milestones so Dr. B is not worried. She said that some kids just have really small heads. She is a petite little thing. I know some of you are looking at her numbers thinking I’m lying but all my kids have been in the 95% or higher for height. So, she’s petite for us giants! Looks like she’ll take after my mom’s side of the family (love ya mom).

More interesting Ceili Rain facts. She can go from a coo and smile to a scream in 2.5 seconds or less! We still can’t figure out her eye color. It ranges from a gray blue to green to a light brownish color depending on the light, what she’s wearing, and time of day (actually the latter has nothing to do with it but I needed a third thing to balance out this extremely long sentence). She is the only one of our babies who does not have a cleft chin. It’s kind of odd seeing one of my babies without one actually (oh, and that is a genetic trait passed down from me for anyone curious…I gotta claim somethign on my babies since they look so much like Mark).

Josiah started running a fever yesterday afternoon, so while we were at the doctor’s office, she checked him out (have I mentioned lately how much I love our pediatrician). He’s all clear except he has sores in his throat which means…hand, foot, and mouth disease has descended on our house again. Zoe and Ace have already had it but I’m not sure if Liam has. If he has, then we didn’t notice it. So, he may get it soon. Also, if it’s a different strain then Zoe and Ace could get it as well. Those non mommy’s who read my blog (if you are out there), not to worry, hand food, and mouth (not hoof and mouth) is a viral infection that toddlers love to share with each other. They can get sores/bumps on their hands and feet. My kids never really did but they did get them in their throats and it hurts, a lot. They can also get a little fever with it.

Ceili Rain says, “Thanks Aunt Heather for the cool shirt! It rocks the house…and the swing! My nurses raved over it!”

We have happiness…

Posted on April 29, 2009 by Abbie

Well, sort of. Josiah actually was a little more cheerful today and even Zoe remarked that he didn’t cry all day long. He did, however, take about an hour nap on the couch (and me) this morning, which is HIGHLY unusual. He woke up from his afternoon nap crying and didn’t stop until I rocked him to sleep tonight. Yeah, long afternoon and morning. He was wailing through Kroger and didn’t even want to play at Chick-fil-a. Again, very unusual for him. He finished up his steroids today. We’re praying the “old ‘Siah” returns very soon.

Besides that, not much to report. We’re still gearing up for our very busy week which begins tomorrow night and will end Monday morning.

My Day

Posted on April 27, 2009 by Abbie

Okay, I have to admit that my previous post was really boring…but I’m excited about it…along with something else we’re getting FOR FREE…stay tuned for that…I’ll even include pictures. I know you’re sitting on the edge of your seat waiting.

So, on with our day, in pictures no less!

Josiah’s on steroids for croup. Do you see how happy he is on steroids? One more day to go and we’ll be done with them. Mommy will be really happy with that. Plus, they are making him tired and that just adds to the fun. Yes, he was like this all day. With the exception of eating a bowl of cheerios this morning. Yes, he’s on the counter, but I was right there with him. No, Ceili Rain was not in the bouncy seat on the counter (this time). She was napping.

There was a little light in the day…

TA DA! She is smiling. I know she looks like a manic woman in this picture…sorry about the angle. She was looking up at me and I had the camera a little low…so no, it’s not gas!

Woohoo! I’m a happy baby with a full belly.

It’s been impossible to catch her smiles due to her a few things. First, she can sense a camera a mile away so you have to sneak up on her. Secondly, before today, she was only dishin’ them out every once in a while and only to particular people. She’s a little picky about who she shares her smiles with. However, this morning she was cheesin’ it big time at breakfast. And when she took a good nap this morning and then nursed well, I thought we’d try again…and I happened to have the camera capturing Josiah’s super mood, so I got a few pics before the “get this nasty dirty diaper off of me” crying ensued. I love this little girl and her crazy hair! I’m working on getting a picture of that and then we’ll run a poll to decide if it’s more Don King or Kramer. I’m leaning toward Kramer because it’s getting kinky curly.

Going to Cloth

Posted on April 27, 2009 by Abbie

Nope, not talking about cloth diapers. I did that here.

I’ve noticed recently that we fly through napkins. 500 napkins can last us about a month around here. They’re used for everything from wiping noses to cleaning spills. So, I’ve taken the plunge and just ordered cloth napkins. One hundred of them to be exact. I hope it’s worth the money we’ll save to have them.

On another note…Josiah is now asleep in my arms. He’s been grumpy since Saturday and I blame it all on that stupid Orapred which, my lovely pharmacist friends told me we could not stop until he’d taken all his doses. Thankfully, he’ll be done with it tomorrow. Just in time to be in a good mood for all our festivities this weekend.

Yeah, I Don’t Make This Stuff Up

Posted on April 23, 2009 by Abbie

Zoe was showing me a beautiful dance Tuesday morning. When she went to twirl, her foot didn’t follow and she fell on the floor. She complained a little about the pain but then got up and kept going. However, she continued to mention here and there that it was hurting pretty bad. By the evening, she said it was hurting worse. We sent her on to bed thinking she just bruised it badly.

In the morning, she woke up to a nice tennis ball size swollen ankle. I thought that it was just a sprain and started icing it and keeping her from running like a wild child through the house. It still wasn’t down by the evening so we wrapped it up and went to church. I stopped her pediatrician in the hall, told her what was going on and asked if she could look at it to see if she needed an x-ray. Sure enough, she said yes.

Where Zoe is complaining about the pain is where a growth plate is and a typical place to get a stress fracture. Dr. B wrote a script for an x-ray for the morning.

I took her in for the x-ray this morning and it didn’t show any fractures at this point. Dr. B gave orders to ice it and medicate and elevate until the swelling goes down. If it doesn’t improve by Monday, we’ll call her and then she’ll send Zoe on to orthopedics.

All this and then Josiah woke up this morning with a low grade temp. He’s acting generally yucky and so now they are all piled up on the couch for our sick day.

And…on the way home, God watched over us. Or I should say watched over a driver. He had a small truck and decided to cross over four lanes to turn onto the interstate. However, I was in the first lane he wanted to cross over and he almost ran into the side of the van. I looked and swerved just in time and caught a look of either complete surprise (because it’s hard to see a big red van passing you) or complete disgust (because I was in his lane). I didn’t slow down to confirm the look. I realized later that we would have been okay, but the driver of the truck would have been in a world of hurt…thanks to our big van.

Under the Big Top!

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Abbie

Welcome to the “Greatest Show on Earth!” No, not my house. Mark and I were able to take the kids to the circus last week. I have to say that even if the kids didn’t enjoy it, I sure did. The coolest thing was that before the show started they had a pre-show and we were able to go down to the ring and watch and participate with the performers. Very cool! We were also able to splurge and let them each pick out a souvenir. I was impressed with their choices…no big surprise, Liam wanted a sword. Ace actually picked out a clown nose and a program. Zoe got cotton candy that came with a clown hat and we picked up a dvd for Josiah (since they’ll all enjoy that and he didn’t really care). I do think the kids had a great time. And I actually got some decent pictures event hough the batteries were running down on the camera.

The dog trainer lady at the pre-show.

Silly Ace! He kept the nose on almost the entire time. It blinks too!

Liam’s sword and Dadyd with the boys. Don’t ya love his hat??

The motorcycle guys allowed the kids to sit on their bikes. They do that globe of death thingy that’s in the background, which is pretty amazing to watch!

Despite the look of horror on his face, he wanted to get on the bike (as a disclaimer: we don’t force our kids in to awkward picture taking, hence the reason you don’t see Santa and the kids on our site)

Dressing up as circus performers…some days it feels like we live in a circus!

For my sis…see daschunds can be trained (but apparently it’s very hard). They were so cute and she had a few very tiny ones.

And any guesses what Ceili Rain did during the entire performance (with a little break to eat)?

That’s our Sleeping Beauty.

What They’ve Been Up To

Posted on April 1, 2009 by Abbie

Stylin’ and Profilin’

Just a little mischief. We did not train him to say that…only to repeat it.

Park Day

Posted on March 31, 2009 by Abbie

We met up with some friends a few weeks ago to play at the park. Ceili Rain (aka Sleeping Beauty) was asleep almost the whole time. The kids had fun. Mark was still off work, so I got to sit, relax and visit with my friends while the kids played and Mark took pictures.