News Feed on the Sheehans

We made it!!

2012-06-08T14:49:00.001-07:00

Well, we survived Daddy's 2 week tour of the middle east(Dubai, Saudia Arabia, and Kuwait) and thank goodness we had moved in with my parents since they were a ton of help while he was gone. And we finally go to celebrate John's first birthday in which we were lucky enough to have a TON of family and friends around. He's still not walking yet but he just "graduated" to the Toddler room at school, so we are hoping anytime now since all the other kids in his classroom are walking. I can't believe we can't call him a baby anymore!

SOOOOOOOO, what''s new?!! Well, we had school pictures in May that came out pretty darn good for both kids. Little man put on two faces, his serious pose and he's goofy grin so we were very happy with the results!

Absolutely LOVE this one of my handsome man.

Who can resist a guy in boat shoes, khakis and a plaid shirt?!! Come on now!! ;-)

John had his one year check up on May 21st and he weighed 22 pounds and measured 29 inches and we survived all the shots! I for sure thought he was heavier but he's been super active and he's first year molars are coming in so exercise and cutting back on the eating will do that to a toddler. Something very scary for the DR office and especially for me took place while John was getting his shots. As he was getting his shots, his tears turned blood red!!! What the?! Thank God that his pediatrician and her nurse were close by so they could see what I was talking about since I was on the verge of freaking out. The DR also freaked out and we had several follow up phone calls(to make sure no more bloody tears) after this episode since no one could explain it. Lucky for us it was a one time incident and explaining it to Daddy over the phone so many miles away was not too fun either but John all in all did great at his one year appointment. His right eye tends to get irritated more than anything with we think allergies so he got treated for allergies in his eyes since he was irritated and we were given ointment to put on his eyelids since he was itching them so bad. Again, leaving the DR office with medication..story of our life, however, HIS EARS ARE PERFECTLY CLEAR! So, we were told to take the baby allergy medicine for 10 days and if his eye didn't clear up, we would have to visit a pediatric opthimalogist. I was sure we would be making an appointment but lucky for us, the allergy medicine and the ointment worked like a charm. Phew! It seems he is getting all his sickiness out in the first 2 years! :-)

He LOVES to play with his sister and when Alexis comes into the room and gives him love and attention, he really lights up. She's so gentle with him and loves to know where he's is at all times. Already a protective older sister.

Yep..he is pushing Alexis around on his Thomas the Train toy!! So STRONG!

About a week after his one year check-up, his school calls and he had a 104 fever!! Keep in mind Daddy is still gone so my work probably thought I was nuts with all these DR appointments...I take him and they couldn't figure it out and the DR tells us its a virus and it just needs to run its course...again..what the?!. I stay home with John for a day and his fever breaks that night. Phew again!

All these toys and playing with boxes.

Chillin at a birthday party

Trying on sister's boots...

John is now completely on 3 meals a day and is off formula and loving his milk and water out of his sippy cups.

One of his last days on the bottle, I told him to chug and here's what he did. Making us Sheehan's proud! Hahahaha

Miss Alexis is turning into quite the little lady these days with wanting to wear dresses and skirts to school. She recently pitched a fit when her shirt didn't have something pretty on it..it was a blue/white/pink striped shirt. Still no luck on the hair going up...I made her or asked her very nicely to wear her hair up for these pictures and she was OK with it. She's 3 1/2 going on 5, especially with her vocabulary and not 20 questions but 50 questions!! Everyday, I see more and more of her in me and it always makes me smile. My little mini-me since John is turning into his daddy with his looks. We absolutely LOVE her imagination that always brings giggling and much entertainment to the room.

Here's her new shades.

Getting ready to head out in her Dora car..she's not too good at steering but likes to go fast!!

This is one of my all time favorite pictures of my princess. I told her to smile for the camera and this is what she does. She loves having her nails and toes painted. She gets excited when Miss Sandy comes over(to babysit) because once John goes to bed, they have girl time with manicure and pedicures after bathtime.

Daddy made it home safe and sound which meant it was time to celebrate John's 1st Birthday FINALLY!!!

This is the sign his teachers made for him at school.

Getting ready to sing Happy Birthday and he's getting ready to dig into his smash cake.

He wasted absolutey NO time digging in.

Eating some cake and posing with Auntie.

Unfortunately, John did not last much longer after cake, he was not too social at his birthday party and ended up taking a 3 hour nap after he had cake, but the party continued on since we had 22 adults and 14 kids! It was a madhouse for about 2 hours but so much fun to see all ages of kids interacting and to talk with our friends that we do NOT get to see enough of. CRAZY but fun. We were so lucky that so many of our good friends and family were able to help John celebrate his first milestone birthday. STILL NOT WALKING!! But he's growing and changing so fast. I forgot how fast they go from babies to a "little" person after the first year. He's definitely more vocal now, points to things, saying more words clearer and now that his molars aren't bothering him anymore, he's definitely a happy camper. The evenings are quick for us since John likes to be in his PJ's by 6:30ish which means dinner right when we get home. Most times, Joe and I will eat after he goes to bed between 7-7:30 and then it's Alexis's turn for her bedtime routine of bath, reading books and snuggling.

You've made it this far to find out a little more about the house!!

We recently had a "checkpoint/walkthrough" before an inspection takes place according to our builder's standards and so far so good. There were a few things we noticed that will be taken care of before the inspection but it's nice to finally see the layout of the floorplan. We have not been giving a "set" date but we could be looking at the end of August or first part of September...funny how things always get pushed back every so often. Things are going well with living my parents...we just needed to figure out each other's space and get into a routine the first month but all is good with the 6 of us living in a 3500 square foot house. And of course NO BILLS!! Next up for the house is sheetrocking the walls and to start on the interior. The windows were on when we did our walkthrough.

So far so good!!

UP NEXT: The Sheehan Family of 4 takes a trip to Michigan June 20-25 so Daddy's family can meet

John James and be entertained by Alexis Victoria.

I'm BACK!!

2012-05-07T14:40:00.003-07:00

(Lexi had to "drive" and sit in the front of the box)

Ok, so where did I leave off? Oh yes!! John just had his tubes put in....so here we go!!

We have had such a whirlwind over the last 6-8 weeks, I can't believe it's all done. And the ALL part I will get to in a minute...piece by piece.

So, how did John do after his tubes? Well, he was good for about 4 weeks after his surgery and then things started to go downhill once again. He started to get stuffed up again and his eyes started to bother him so after a visit to his Pediatrician and lucky for us his follow up with his ENT surgeon was a day after all his symptoms started, we find out that Little Man has a partial blockage in one of his ears and yet another double ear infection! However, he passed the hearing test with flying colors and even got the award for "most improved" from his audiologist! All this with a partial blockage! He still never skipped a beat with his eating, his activity level, his sleeping patterns and never ran a fever which was odd but his eyes started to get "goopy" and we automatically knew it was another double ear infection. So, we were loaded up on ear drops, eye drops and some antibiotics this time and after 10 days, we had to go back to the ENT DR in which he was prepared to drain his partial blockage but it seemed that the medicine did the trick. Thank goodness!!! So, keeping my fingers crossed as I type this, John has been "infection" free for almost 2 months now!! Let's keep it that way. But his teachers at school say he's much more vocal in which we have also noticed and he can eat faster I guess because his ears are not plugged and he can probably taste now!

We got out of the house one weekend when we had a few showings scheduled and went to the outlet mall that also has toys and a playground. He loved tooling around in the stroller and people watching. Who doesn't like being pushed around and watching right?

He had a really good Easter and was in a great mood and cooperated for us at the brunch which was nice. He cooperated with his naptimes and all that good stuff since we have finally seemed to realize the best times for him to nap...he took awhile since he liked to play the random game for a few months.

John is not walking yet but he's doing everything else...so he can walk. Here he is pushing the highchair at Easter brunch around the table to help him walk. And at home, he finds any toy that will allow him to be on the move. He uses every piece of furniture to get to where he needs to go and if he has to crawl, he's there in a heartbeat, especially when playing chase with his sister! Now, that is hilarious!!

He's slowly but surely weaning off the bottles, has mastered a sippy cup and loves "real" food!! His eating schedule is very close to mealtimes...breakfast and lunch are good, dinner we are still working on since our evenings are so chaotic but he's a trooper about the whole thing. He's such an awesome sleeper too! He's ready to pass out around 7:30 and will be ready to play around 7, up around 6:30 jabbering but content for about 30 minutes and then he starts hollering for one of us to come and get him

Can't wait to start him on real milk. :-)

Playing in the fort that daddy made!!

Who can resist this cutie in a box?!! :-)

I was packing up some of the closets and left my wrapping paper out too long..look who got to it before I could!!

This definitely entertained them both since they loved the noise the paper made when playing on it. So, they played "chase" on the wrapping paper for about 30 minutes! I couldn't help but take some pictures!!

Alexis is doing wonderful and even with the move since her comprehension level is so high, we kept her "in the loop" about everything that was going on and it was hard NOT to keep her in the loop since she loves to ask a TON of questions. But we did our very best in trying to explain to her every little thing that was going on since it was happening so fast and so she could expect as much as we could prepare her for. I think the only part of the explanation she remembered is that we will be staying with Papa and Gigi in betweeen houses! But she is starting to give up her naps at school and at home on the weekends, very independent when it comes to the potty, loves playing outside, asking questions and is definitely curious as a 3 1/2 year old can be and she LOVES to repeat mommy and not daddy(in which he thinks is hilarious). So, I just make a little game out of it but when I start to repeat her, she doesn't like it too much...hmmmmmmm....

We have noticed(and school at naptime) that she doesn't like to listen very well and we find ourselves repeating ourselves quite often since she will ask the same question over and over. But sometimes the "not listening" can get her into trouble and she's noticing that she can't get away with much anymore just because we know she understands what's going on. She's trying so hard to be her own decision maker!! The word "no"(and being bossy) is very much in her vocabulary and will get her into trouble sometimes as well as her habit to whine....oh the whining....but like all things, this is a growing pain and we have the good days and bad days, especially when she's exhausted and wants to do everything in ONE day like play outside, go to the park, swimming, wagon ride, etc.....but she is definitely the entertainer of the house...with all her singing and rhyming with reading her books and all her story telling!!

She very much enjoyed Easter with getting to wear a new dress, she knows the drill now with church and using her inside voice. After church we headed to a brunch with the family and we are still continuing to try and get her to try new foods but unfortunately, we've had very little luck lately. She's a VERY picky eater and if she is unsure about the texture, she will not touch it!! So, we are pretty much still stuck on the same menu for now.

Posing with my princess

Hamming it up at the table

What's Easter without a little chocolate cupcake?! Now, that doesn't take any effort to get her to eat. She was asking us!! Thank goodness we did remember a bibb.

We chased down the Easter bunny too while we were at the brunch place. We almost forgot to get a picture with the Easter bunny since this place had a pond full of hungry fish that she was allowed to feed with food provided. She was all over that!

And we couldn't forget the Easter egg hunt. Papa helping her out since TONS of eggs were hidden and of course needed a little help(and the candy was melting in the eggs :-) )

Um, I think she has outgrown this seat! And many other things we are noticing. She's outgrowing certain toys(that we thought would last longer), cartoons(liking movies more), and growing quickly into tracing books, big wheels, bubbles and sidewalk chalk, etc. She loves to pretend!!!

Well, as you can tell from all the "moving" references, we did sell our house after being on the market for 4 weeks which we were excited about and we got what we wanted for our first home with tons of memories. Locking the door for the last time and driving out the driving for the last time got me a little choked up but everything happened so quickly, it was hard to "dwell". Since we got an offer on a Tuesday and were asked if we could close and move out in 9 days, we thought, why not?!! No need to drag this moving thing out. Little did we know that those 9 days would be SO VERY CRAZY but we did it!! We thought, yes, we did sell our house sooner than we thought but we got what we wanted, I guess we will moving into my parents sooner than we all thought. And so we did. We are very fortunate to have had this option and that they have room for all of us, literally, we all have our own room! It's crazy!

We did meet with our builder during the whole chaotic time period of moving and we were told our house would be completed and ready to move in by early August. I was able to swing by the construction sight of our new home and was very surprised to see the below progress. We are very excited and August cannot get here fast enough!!

I will be back after John's FIRST birthday in which I still cannot believe we celebrate next week. His party had to be set for a later date since Daddy is taking a VERY long 2 week business trip from May 18th - June 1st. So, the party is set for June 2nd! Hopefully John will be into his cake....but you just never know. And I hope to report back next time that we have a walker...but again, you still just never know!

Until next time!

Never a Dull Moment

2012-03-08T12:57:00.001-08:00

WHOA!!! Things sure got a whole lot more hectic once Little Man started crawling a little over a month ago! HE IS EVERYWHERE AND INTO EVERYTHING!!!

He did not stay here long!! Just thought it was picture worthy. Our furniture was moved since we were getting some painting done in our house.

He has to be doing something or close to you, hanging out. BUSY BODY!!

Playing a game with Daddy...

Listening to Daddy while he reads to Alexis

Our legs have become handles

And so has the furniture!!

Watching sister eat....and then when she didn't pay attention to him...

He checked out under the table

The window behind her...

And finally took a break!! He's like a SUPERCRAWLER!! He will crawl all over the house and then we have to go on the "John hunt" where we find him sometimes is....

Found him in the pantry....just EVERYWHERE!! If there is a cord, he will find it, the lamps, your shoelaces, electrical..anything! Anything that is on the couch, he can pull off now, he has found the tupperware cabinet, and while we are running the water for the bathtub, he will crawl over to the tub and stand up and start banging on the edge of the tub with both hands and also try to lean over and splash the water. The tub has become quite the adventure in trying to bathe him since he loves to crawl/stand/splash. I have to be quick!

He just learned how to clap a week ago and has also been waving. :-)

So........what's new with Little Man besides him being into everything and everywhere....his ears are(were) a mess!! Ever since his 4 month shots, he has been battling double ear infection after double ear infection. So, after 7 double ear infections over the course of 5 months, we gave in and agreed to tubes and they also removed his adenoids.

Now, many parents have been through "tubes" and its never a problem and we were told it's a "breeze" BUT when you add the Adenoid removal, it's a whole other ballgame in regards to recovery time and side effects that are short lived but intense at the time. His surgery went very well and his ENT Dr was just amazed at how much "stuff" he had in his ears and nose. We did do a hearing test before agreeing to tubes and because he had so much fluid in his ears, he had temporary hearing loss. Not my little prince!!! So, after a 30 minute surgery, it took Joe and I about an hour to calm him down since he was in pain, hungry(he couldn't eat before his 8:45am surgery), and tired. We checked in at the hospital at 6:30am and were released at 1:30pm. Because there is so much swelling after adenoid removal, it was hard for him to breathe so we had to monitor his oxygen levels for awhile once he settled down, drank a few bottles and took a few naps. They even had to give him a second dose of pain meds! We are almost a week out after the surgery and we are definitely seeing the improvements with his nose/ears and eyes. He's breathing better, way less mucous(still a little since he's getting more teeth, never a break for our guy), doesn't snore as much, sleeps with his mouth closed and his appetite is finally coming back since he was up to 3 sqaure meals a day and 4 bottles before the surgery. But our happy guy is finally coming back, more smiles and more energy and he's louder!! I guess because he can finally hear now.

Our Big Time 3 year old has been a blessing ever since we met her 3 years ago. She's got so much character and energy, she's funny(her big thing lately is knock knock jokes), loves to play, explore, pretend, sing(a lot) and of course ask questions. Since she started Pre-School, she has gotten a little sassier and opinionated but she's got a tough crowd in her class, meaning other bossy 3 year olds so survival of the fittest right?!! But all in all, she really is an easy kid and is your "typical" 3 year old with lots to say and curious about everything. She's starting to put letters together to figure out words when we read and recognizes punctuation like the question mark.

She loves to play dress up with the "trunk" she got from Aunt Julia for her birthday.

She loves to be a HAM for the camera and off camera. Not sure where she got that from ;-)

She's been VERY good with the arrival of her brother in terms of being patient when we are busy and helping us with something if we need to with all the challenges with his ear "issues". It took her some time, but she finally realizes that she needs to share her toys and it's not the end of the world if John plays with one of her toys. We try to keep his out and hers up where he can't get them but lately that has been a challenge since he has a pretty good reach!! But she REALLY is a good big sister. The other day, John was trying to use a piece of furniture to stand up and he got stuck so Alexis went over and helped him up. It was so cute, I thought I might tear up!

What she is NOT thrilled about is that when she is on the couch watching TV after dinner, John is right there standing up, "talking" to her and wanting to touch her "cuddlies" like her bunny, blanket and bear, who are the 3 items she ALWAYS goes to bed with or has close to her. We keep telling her to always be watching out for John since the other day she left her fruit loops snack and milk on a side table and he got to it. She just sighed with frustration.

Well, if you have made it to the end of this blog, THERE IS STILL MORE EXCITING NEWS(and no I'm not pregnant!)!! Yes, not only have the kids been busy, but mommy and daddy have been busy designing OUR NEW HOME!!! Yep!! That's right..after almost 11 years in the same house, we decided to move! Our new house is a new construction so we are building and designing it from the ground up.

Here we are on our lot that we finally got! We had the area and floorplan picked out right away...the hold up was the lot since we do want to put a pool in 5-6 years down the road. Patience is a virtue and we got our bigger lot.

Joe and I are SUPER EXCITED about this new house that we get to design ourselves but of course that means getting our decade old house in shape for the market in which we have been doing for the last month. It goes on the market next Friday!!! We have met some of our neighbors already and some of our friends and their families already live in the area so really exciting times! Several kids that are the same age as Alexis live on our street so she will have plenty of classmates in our area (and they are building a new elementary in our neighborhood that Alexis will go to!) Our new house will be ready in July!! Just in time to enjoy all the summer activities in our new neighborhood. So..what happens if we sell the house(in which we hope we do quickly since our realtor is a shark), before our house is ready? We move in with my parents!!! They are so excited if we have too...so only time will tell how many moves we will have to do.

That definitely deserves a clap!!

Happy March since I will most likely be back in April since our March is ONE CRAZY MONTH!! Never a dull moment for March 2012 with all the baby showers, wedding showers, birthday parties, house designing, and the list goes on and on!! I will be ready to be UNBUSY by the time we get settled into our house but then it will be football season and then the holidays....NEVER A DULL MOMENT!!

Happy 3rd Birthday to our wonderful Princess Alexis!!!

2012-02-27T15:13:00.001-08:00

I know, I'm a little late in posting this but better late than never right?!!! HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY TO OUR PRINCESS!! We still can't believe we have a 3 year old!! She's been a blessing since she arrived on January 7th, 2009 at 4:24pm weighing 5 pounds, 7 ounces and 19 inches. Alexis HAD a very happy birthday to say the least and she loved her bounce party at her favorite place. We were very fortunate to have great weather and lots of our friends come to help celebrate the birthday girl. It was a wonderful birthday princess party!!

Of course Auntie(Meredith) was in charge of the cake that was SO yummy!! Chocolate of course. :-)

It was a princess theme, requested by our princess which we were grateful for since finding princess "stuff" is SO very easy.

She got the party started by jumping with Uncle(Paul), her jumping partner in crime.

After jumping for an hour, we took a break(OK, some kids did, and had some Chick Fil A nuggets and fruit)

And then it was time to blow out the candles!!! Thanks Tanya for this awesome pic!

Chocolate is SO very messy but SO very yummy!!

We didn't open gifts at the party to save time so we continued the party at home and opened gifts with family. She loved having so many to open and couldn't open them open fast enough. And each one that she opened we had to take out of the wrapping so she could play with it for like 10 seconds until the next best thing came along.

Modeling her heels and figuring out the camera while Papa gets her Dora boombox ready. I don't think she's spoiled at all!

Ever since she started PreSchool, she's really into writing and tracing. I just loved that she let us put her hair up! So stinking cute when she keeps it up. Trying to get some headbands on her but no luck.

Little man of course was there to help celebrate sister's birthday with smiles of course.

Chilling out on Daddy while Alexis opens up her gifts.

And a Very Merry Christmas we had!!!

2012-01-09T14:00:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!! I know we did and still have one more Christmas to celebrate but the decorations are down after a 2 day attempt and we are finally back to "normal". The holidays are super hectic, just like for everyone, but for some reason this year, it seemed like the busy"ness" was up a notch! We were able to spend several days of "quality" time with our little mini us's and it was nice since we both work and we actually had the time to do things with them on the little winter break they had from school.

Christmas morning...Alexis got the hang of unwrapping in no time flat!!!

Her BIG gift from "Santa" this year was a Princess Dream Castle...we can't get her away from it!

John was kind of into it...mainly using the boxes as drums or chewing on the paper. :-)

His Build a Bear, "Furry" made by his sister.

Chew Chew Chew...are we done with teeth yet?!!!

He LOVES chairs for some reason, especially if they can rock!

Her Dora guitar that she now has memorized all the songs on there. That didn't take long at all.

Hamming it up in her UGGS from her Aunt Meredith.

Striking a pose...notice while she is playing a game on my phone.

Alexis has offically moved to PRESCHOOL!! We can't believe it!! But she absolutely LOVES it!! They are working on writing her letters, name and helping her recognize letters in words with sounds. She seems to be getting the hang of it since we can see results at home when we are reading and working on her activity books. We have also noticed she is a little bit more aggressive in her personality, meaning, demanding. I guess that's the only way to survive when your class is 22 people big. As long as she is nice about it to us at home, no worries. Survival of the fittest!! But she always tells us she really likes school. She does get frustrated a little more often we noticed when she can't figure something out and especially if she doesn't get her way right away. We have been finding ourselves having to do the harder part of parenting and discplining our 3 year old. Alexis slowly has started to realize what is acceptable and what is not. She knows to be patient if we have our hands full with John or if we are in the middle of doing something. But we are so very proud that we have one FULLY POTTY TRAINED..I still can't believe it!! Again, PERSERVERANCE!!!

And now she has hijacked my IPAD since I have found some games for her to play that she likes and doesn't get frustrated with.

Something is always in his mouth..of course!

This is the "make-shift" crib until he will sleep in his own during the day when he needs to nap. He will take hour long naps in this stroller! It's amazing!! Not complaining though since John will sleep in his crib at night from 7:30-7ish...battling him during the day is nothing for the great sleeper we have at night. Everyone gets to sleep at night!!

Soooooo, we tried this jump n go a month ago and he really didn't like it but now that he is bigger/stronger and taller(20 pounds, 28 inches), he really does like it since he likes to bounce on you when you are holding him. Thank goodness we have another spot to put him until he crawls since he pretty much tears up his exosaucer and moves all over the floor when we put him on a blanket full of toys!! He is SO very close to crawling!!

Little man bouncing!!!

It got really quiet since this bouncey as you can hear on the video makes noise and we couldn't believe he passed out here like this. He never just passes out. Had to get this shot...check out his hair!!

That just doesn't look comfortable but he would have slept there if daddy didn't move him.

I will posting again soon since we have Alexis's birthday party this weekend!! I can't believe I'm caught up!!

Last Post of 2011!! CRAZY!!

2011-12-23T14:19:00.000-08:00

I can't believe this is the last post of 2011!! This year has certainly flown by.
Let's see...where did we leave off?!! Oh yes..Halloween, then comes Thanksgiving!! We celebrated Turkey day the day after thanksgiving and thank goodness after the Aggies BIG loss on Thanksgiving day. We were able to drink and eat our sorrows away but we spent it with the immediate family which is always nice and relaxing. Lexi was very eager to help out. She went through a phase of carrying around a stool so she could see us doing everything!

Which included Thanksgiving dinner!!

Here she is helping her "Auntie" make the Green Bean Casserole.

So, what is new with Miss Alexis Victoria?!! Hmmm...what isn't new with our princess. She is not only day potty trained but decided to night potty train herself because she didn't like waking up wet BUT it involved us getting her used to getting up and going to the potty by herself if she wants to go at night. We had a few days there where she woke us up to go potty. Now, the light stays on in the bathroom so she doesn't have to wake us up. SCORE!!! She is doing very well in school and is starting to take interest in writing letters and is asking us "what that word says and which letters are in it". As we get closer to the BIG THREE, we of course are going through the 20 questions phase which keeps mommy and daddy on their toes quite a bit! We really don't have any more temper tantrums but she has been going through a phase of whining when she doesn't get her way because she now knows we have figured out when she is scheming us!! And of course we will always continue to battle the "listening" part but she's getting better at listening to us even when she doesn't want to do it. She is always very curious and you can hold a full on conversation with her which has made things super easy especially with little man getting ready to be on the move. She is still in her "DORA" phase but this year she when she sat on Santa's lap(it only took 3 years), she asked for a bunch of princess stuff, like dolls, dresses, nail polish...that kind of thing. She really has taken an interest in watching Disney movies in which we are grateful for a change of programs. But she will sit through an entire movie like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and most recently Tangled. She loves all the holiday specials though so we are pretty much on repeat with those right now with our DVR.

Daddy was off one Friday so he took Alexis to see Santa and then they went to Build a Bear so she could build one for her brother. That is her gift to John this Christmas. She definitely has coordination skills with a matching baseball outfit on the bear.

She continues to amaze us with her personality, creativity, humor, and just her knowledge of how the world works. For example, when it rains, she tells us that the trees/grass/flowers are happy because they were thirsty!

When it finally got cold in Houston, she LOVED wearing her "Poofy" jacket as she called it when it was time to head out the door to school.

Pajama day at school...yes..that's right..SILK DORA PJ'S!!! (From Gigi)

Our awesome little girl!!! She has become way more girly these days in wanting her hair up and wearing her "pretty shoes" that I had to find on Amazon of all places!

We had quite the little helper when it came to decorating the house this year for Christmas. She was so excited to open new boxes, put ornaments in a certain spot on the tree and helping mommy find a spot for everything. I just loved it when we had everything up, she sat down and looked at everything and said, "Momma, the house looks beautiful!! I loved the way you decorated it. I will be sad when Christmas is over and everything has to go back in the boxes."

PRICELESS!!

She really does help out a lot with John and is happy to do what we ask if we need her help on something. She can't wait until he starts crawling!! Not sure if we are ready for 2 mobile kids!!

We had several family Christmas gatherings so far and the first one she got a chef set, complete with apron, cheft hat and cake with serving utensils. SHE LOVED IT!! And it goes perfect with her kitchen at home.

Playing on the floor since Little man can sit up now.

Here Lexi is at her second family Christmas and she is so pumped about this bucket full of animals!! She loved it!! She also got a singing/dancing little dolly that made her and John laugh. She had pajama day the same day of this gathering and the only way I could get her out of her Dora PJ's, was to put her in a dress. I wasn't going to make her dress up, just jeans and a Christmas shirt but she wanted to go all out. We have plenty of dresses so NOT a problem.

Our big girl!! Can't believe she's almost 3!! Who would've thought she started out as 5 pounds 7 ounces!

Me and my Lexi Bug!!!

SOOOOOOOO....what in the world is going on with John James?!! Well, we are definitely having a hard time keeping him well. Since he turned 4 months his poor ears just can't seem to stay well. He was diagnosed with his 4th Double Ear Infection today as well as an eye infection which according to the DR go hand in hand. So, we will start talking specialists or tubes(maybe) when we have our follow up with the DR after this round of medication. He doesn't get all that fussy and his sleep/eat patterns don't mess up but his nose just becomes a faucet. Sometimes he runs a fever and sometimes he doesn't. But it sure seems we have been at the DR way more than we were with Alexis. All the DR visits during the first year...AHHH!!

Other than his ear infections, John really is a happy go lucky baby..very smiley and flirty!!

We had our 6 month check up and he was 19 pounds and 27 inches long. He got 2 teeth when he turned 6 months and was able to sit up by himself at 7 months. And now that he can sit up, roll, the new thing is to inchworm all over the floor but backwards. We don't go forward yet but he's starting to rock and pick up his backside so we will probably have a crawler in a few months. We will all be happy since he is so bored staying in one spot and being able to get to where he wants to go and also seeing what his sister is up to.

Figuring this stuff out....

Class of 2031 and 2033 right here!!

Gotta love a little man in a beany!

I'm not sure how he is only 19 pounds!!

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling, we never find him where we leave him and he's never in the same spot in his crib after a night. He's always at the opposite end, facing a different direection or somewhere else!

This guy loves to reach and grab things. He will purposely lean over and try and grab whatever you are holiding or just play with your face/glasses, shirt if it has a zipper, ANYTHING!! So, we now have to make sure we tell Alexis to pick up all her toys because he will now roll/inchworm his way over to what he wants to check out.

He loves to stand and bounce/dance. He can shake those hips for sure. Getting ready for a bath here but I couldn't resist not taking pictures of my little man with no shirt on and his jeans.

Daddy on the floor playing with the kids. Notice how John is reaching for Lexi's hair!

Since we have a not so good napper on our hands, we have had to get creative with how to get him to sleep during the day so he doesn't become a complete nightmare and not end up napping at all during the day. He gets frustrated that he can't get comfortable when he's tired and this stroller seems to knock him right out. But he only naps for 30 minutes at a time!! Even if it's in his crib. Perserverance!!

All happy that he can sit up by himself!!

Rocking the mohawk.

Opening his first Christmas present

But who needs presents when I can just chew on the paper!

GIVE ME THAT CAMERA MOMMA!!

Seriously, I think I have had this green bow on my head long enough!

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!! SEE YOU IN 2012!!

Happy Halloween

2011-12-19T11:10:00.000-08:00

We definitely had a WONDERFUL Halloween this year. Alexis got so into it and their school always encourages the kids to wear their costumes for a day of fun and lots of candy of course. Daddy took the kids trick or treating while mommy stayed home and gave out candy to over 120 kids!! Crazy!!

Alexis is still in the Dora phase but is really starting to get into all the princesses so we let her pick her costume out this year and the winner was Snow White at the costume store. She loved the whole dressing up and actually kept her headband in all night. The red shoes she wore for her school pictures also went with this costume so she was really excited about getting to wear her "pretty" shoes again.

We had to "cut her off" in terms of going to more houses since it was getting late and she had school the next day but more importantly, her basket of candy was getting full!! What a difference a year makes. Last year she made it to only 5 houses, this year, it was close to 20!

Daddy got to "pick" little man's costume this year so of course being the Star Wars junkie that Joe is, John went as Chewbacca!!!

My poor little prince...but he got a lot of compliments on his costume(go Amazon) and Alexis thought he looked like a Lion! LOL! I have to admit, the first time I saw him with the hood portion of his costume on his head, I couldn't stop laughing since the "fur" stood so high on his head and while I'm laughing at him, he is giggling at me, so it just made it that more awesome.

Trying on the costume when we got it....just right!

Getting ready to go trick or treating in his "Lexus" with his big sister and Daddy.

He loves his stroller!! And passed out after an hour in the stroller and riding around the neighborhhood while his big sister got her candy.

We look forward to both of them walking and talking next year and being able to do more things together. Our red wagon will be put to good use next Halloween!!

School Pictures

2011-12-17T15:47:00.000-08:00

So, we were a little skeptic on how school pictures would go since we requested that our little angels be photographed together but it seems they like the camera whether they are together or separate, therefore we spent mucho $$$$ on pictures!! I guess we can't get lucky every year so we took advantage of the awesomeness!!!

Alexis is 34 months in these pictures and John is 5 months.

I was so excited that I found these red shoes on Amazon and that she liked them since Miss Princess is very picky about what shoes go on her feet. Kind of pricey but she needs something besides her princess tennis shoes, so since we had such good luck with the red, I bought them in brown and black and now she won't wear anything else to school! Go figure. ;-)

Her hair had not been cut yet since she was born in this picture!!

This picture just cracks me up especially when Alexis came home from school the day of pictures and said that the photographers put her baby brother in a trash can!! LOL!!

Happy Baby and a big FLIRT!!! LOVES LOVES being around people but definitely is ready for his quiet time at night when he's ready to fall asleep and drink his last bottle.

I know I am cheesy when I say this but I almost had tears when I saw this picture. It turned out way better than we could have ever expected.

GOLDEN!!!

Many more posts to come!! I am so very behind!!

Overdue Update

2011-10-10T14:55:00.000-07:00

Our bundles of JOY

I apologize for such an overdue update!! Time seems to slip away with two parents working and 2 little ones that keep us busy but always happy. Life has been wonderful but in superfast mode since Little Man arrived. The Fall is full of events with season tickets to A&M Football, birthdays to celebrate, tailgating with friends on the weekends, Halloween, etc..and the list goes on!! Joe and I were joking how we are supposed to rest up during the weekend but it is quite the opposite for us right now. Sleep is definitely a luxury right now but our two blessings are so wonderful.

Not sure what John's hand is doing but it was definitely picture worthy!!

A family of 4 is definitely a whole other dynamic and adjusting but we have managed pretty painlessly. We are still trying to teach Alexis that her brother cannot "play" yet since she is asking why can't Baby John can't hold this and why can't baby John play with me? We are so excited about her enthusiasm to have a playmate eventually but explain to her why babies cannot do what 3 year olds can do, so she just settles for tickling him and singing and dancing for him, in which he LOVES!! He's such a giggler right now and recognizes his big sister right away. She gets a smile every time she spends time with him or plays with him. He LOVES to watch her either when he is playing on the floor, in his exosaucer or sitting up in his chair or bumbo.

Alexis wanted to pose!

Little man "talking"

Lexi is sitting in my lap while I am filming this! :-)

So, what is Mr. John James up to?!! Quite a bit lately since he is getting strong FAST!! He is still sleeping through the night, OK, well, 7:30-5:30, wakes up to eat and then takes a long nap. If we don't get him in his jammies and a bottle by 7pm, he's toast and won't do much of anything! He still won't nap in his crib during the day but Joe and I are about nip that one! At his 4 month check-up his DR found that he had an ear infection in the left ear and fluid in the other ear! So, no shots at that appointment. Of course all this started to happen while daddy was away on business but lucky for mommy, Papa and Gigi were around to help out. John James weighed in at 14 pounds 10 ounces at his 4 month check-up and measured 25 inches long. 50% in both categories. She wanted to start him on rice cereal but since he was fighting an infection, we decided to wait after he finished with his medication. I was telling John's DR that it was so odd he had ear infections since he never ran a fever, wasn't really fussy, and his sleep patterns never changed. It's amazing but such the opposite from his sister! She would run a really high fever, really fussy and missed school. He was opposite on all accounts! The only thing I did notice was he was eating less since he was so plugged up! So, we go on the famous "amoxicillin" and our little man is back after a few days. We had to go back to the DR after 10 days of being on the medicine for a recheck on the ears and to get our 4 month shots and John had gained more weight!! Now, he was 16 pounds, 10 ounces. I couldn't believe it. I guess I'm so used to picking him up, I don't notice the few pounds here and there. He was a champ with the shots...one little cry. This weekend we started him on Rice Cereal in which he loved!! (Alexis absolutely hated it!!) He did really well so now he is eating cereal twice a day plus his 5, 6 ounce bottles. He is definitely getting stronger, rolling side to side and last night we found him on his face! So now he can roll side to side and onto his tummy but not back, YET. John's personality is very bubbly and low key.

This is what happens when you leave your sleepy 4 1/2 month old unattended on his mat while eating dinner.

Showing him how to sit up

He LOVES to giggle and snuggle but has to be around someone at all times. He will let you know when you have left him alone and he doesn't like it. He can just sit there in the mornings and just watch me get ready for work and be so content. He hates being left alone!! Alexis really didn't care. He's getting ready to sit up....his neck is solid and he can hold it up without becoming a "bobblehead". He's pretty solid in his exosaucer and can stand up in it and reach the bottom and has figured out how to bounce in it. And now that he does, he giggles when he bounces himself. He definitely can crack himself up!! It's hilarious.

This pose was comfortable for about a week..not sure why but it was so funny!

Gotta love the pink bumbo chair(Daddy doesn't!!) but he LOVES sitting in it and eating his rice cereal.

We go back December 5th for his 6 month check-up. Can't believe I am saying that! Feels like he just got here.

So..what is Miss Alexis Victoria up to?!! Well, the biggest news has to be that SHE IS DAY POTTY TRAINED!! WAHOO!! What a relief to have one done(and she had to be before she moves classrooms when she turns 3 in January) but she pretty much did it on her own to say the least. We did regress a little bit when John joined us but a few months after that, she got back into it and decided she had enough of the diapers during the day. She even stays dry at nap time. :-) We are still amazed at how much she wants to learn. She knows her colors, numbers 1-20, shapes and some letters. But now she is starting to put things together like, "the red box has 4 sides" and the number 13 has a 1 and a 3 in it. She's really into asking us what things say, like "Mommy, what does that S say on that sign?" And she is showing more interest in writing letters and when everyone's birthdays are. She is learning the months of the year at school too. And of course we are in the "Why" phase since we are almost 3. It definitely keeps you on your toes! We have alos noticed that she is starting to play more by herself with all her many "houses" that she has. She has Dora dollhouse, a little people family house, a noah's ark, etc. (She's not spoiled) But Joe and I like to eavesdrop on her playtime since a bunch will come out about what happens at school, if someone goes into time out or if she really doesn't like someone. This one little girl at school really likes to play with her (her teachers told us they are together all the time) but when we asked her about this girl at school, she told us that she follows her around all the time and doesn't really like it! What a trip!!

She's such a ham and loves to have her picture taken and then she always asks me to "show her Alexis" on the camera. She's like, that's me!

We used M&M's to help potty train her but she loves Lollipops! This also helped us when trying to keep her ears popped on the airplane going to Tennessee. She actually let me put her hair up here!

She is quite the fashionista these days!! Here she has Papa's boots on.

And the outfit is not complete unless it has a cowboy hat!!

Papa playing his accordion for his girl...she loved this!!

Another development in Alexis's personality is she is figuring out how to get away with things such as: She asked me if she could do something the other day, I said no, and then smarty pants went and asked Daddy who then said yes(Daddy did not know I had said no)!!! We are really having to crack the whip in terms of discliping her in regards to listening to us. She will hear us but only "halfway" do something such as: If we ask her to pick up her books, she will pick up maybe half of them and the same will go with her kitchen and all the food. She is REALLY good at making a mess but hates picking it up. But yet, she will help pick up at school. Go figure right!

Daddy is still the jungle gym...

Everytime I go to take John's picture, she wants her picture taken too...

So how are mommy and daddy doing?!! We are just trying to keep up with our kiddos. We are so fortunate for their health and all their milestones that they are reaching. Work for both of us is going really well. We have somewhat of a schedule down that seems to currently work for us. We are so lucky that Papa and Gigi live close because we have called them from time to time to pick up the kids from school since we run late and school charges a HORENDOUS late fee. We definitely try to avoid that. But as we get older and our kids get more active, we are finding ourselves going to bed earlier that we "normally" would. Alexis went through a phase in which she was waking up a few times during the night and asking for one of us so finally Joe told her that if she really needed us, to come to our room. Let me tell you how much that backfired. Miss Smarty pants found her flashlight(since she has a nightlight on in her room), got out of her bed and made her way to our room. I told Joe, that is all you since you taught her that!! That lasted for a week but it was definitely tiring waking up every 3-4 hours with her asking for us(we have 2 monitors in our room, one for each kid! Crazy!!) Thank goodness it has toned down.

School pictures are this week and we can't wait to see how they turn out!! The kids will be photographed separately but more exciting...together!! And we are finally ahead of the game..both kids have HALLOWEEN COSTUMES!!!

Stay tuned!

John James Baptism

2011-10-06T14:45:00.000-07:00

Little Man in his Baptism suit furnished by his godmommy

Whew!! Trying to plan around 8 family members' schedules was a little tough but we managed to get it done so we could all see John James get baptized on Sunday, September 11, 2011. We had a very busy but enjoyable weekend. Aunt Julie and Uncle Dave were able to come and visit from Dallas for the weekend so we definitely made a weekend out of it. We celebrated Joe's birthday on Saturday in which the whole family went out to dinner, minus Alexis and John who stayed with their favorite sitter, Miss "Emmy". Sunday was the big Baptism day but short lived for Joe since his company decided to send him to Malaysia(after we planned the baptism date) for a week to attend several conferences. So he pretty much went to the baptism at 1:30 which lasted for an hour since their were 6 other babies receiving baptism as well, and then had to leave straight from church to the airport! It was a whirlwind of events to say the least but it was really nice to see Aunt Julie and Uncle Dave.

Checking out the lights as we arrived at church. Not taking any chances since he just ate with any drool on his outift. We took the bib off at the last minute!

Daddy and his princess, yep, she is wearing all sorts of mommy's necklaces!

Time for the blessing at the fountain.

Here Paul and Meredith are lighting the unity candle. They are Alexis and John's Godparents.

YAY for awesome Godparents!! We LOVE them!!

John in his baptismal "bibb" after he received all the annoitments on his chest and head. He smelled like PineTree after it was all said and done. That oil was some strong stuff! :-)

Attempting a Family picture

Attempting another picture with the Godparents, too many people taking pictures!

Definitely had to get a picture with Papa and Gigi. I love how John is checking out what Lexi is doing. Priceless!

Daddy and his little man at breakfast

Our happy ButterBall!

Aunt Julie getting her snuggles in!!

Labor Day Weekend in Tennessee

2011-09-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

Well, we decided to be brave and travel over the holiday weekend with both kids which of course entails a LOT of packing. But since we were going with the entire family to a cabin on the river recommended by a family friend, we knew we would have a lot of help and plenty of room for everyone and all our stuff. We were definitely pleasantly surprised when we took our first tour of the 3 story 4 bedroom house that included a front row to floating on the river as well as relaxing on a balcony and listening to the water.

Seeing if the carrier fit our butterball

Little Man's first airplane ride in which he did WONDERFUL on

On our way to the cabin..having a snack

Gameroom on 2nd floor had a SKI ball machine, pool table and yes that massive big screen TV with theatre seats!! We were in heaven watching the first Aggie Football game of the season on it. The 3rd floor was equipped with a room full of tunnels in which mommy/daddy/auntie/uncle had to chase Alexis around in. We all got a workout with the stairs and the 3rd story gameroom but this house did not skip a beat with all the amenities!! The 3rd story also had an air hockey table and pinball machine. 9 TV's in this house!! CRAZY!!

Can't forget the hot tub that was attached to the house off 1st floor.

Here's the back of the house and Lexi/Uncle/Auntie are walking up the path from the river..those stairs lead to the hot tub.

The view of the back of the house.

And part of the river that we had access to. It was deep in some places and very shallow in others.

The cabin even came equipped with inner tubes...here's a smiling one...

Now goofy at the request of our silly brother-in-law Paul.

It was definitely nice to get away and spend some time with the family in this beautiful, fully stocked house with EVERYTHING!!

We hung out on the deck at night since it was nice outside

Snuggled with Auntie

Auntie even let Alexis "pull" her around

Uncle became a jungle gym when Lexi tried to get the remote away from him!!

We had just enough to do but were able to relax as well. Joe/Jen/Meredith and Paul were able to go white water rafting while Mom and Dad watched the kids. That was a ton of fun!

But everyone knows that with an almost 3 year old..we know who runs the show!! Both gamerooms were a hit with her.

She managed to play her own version of ski-ball!

Here she is using the ski ball machine as a stage!!

Lexi definitely kept busy with 2 levels of gamerooms and a river nearby to throw rocks in.

She was so active, that she could barely keep her eyes open when reading her books at night!

We weren't too far away from a nearby town called Gatlinburg which was great for dining. We were in Tennessee for Dad's birthday and managed to find a nice restaurant to celebrate at. We also went into town and did a little shopping and sightseeing.

The kids did so wonderful with being flexible, eating habits were the same and surprisingly enough, their sleep patterns didn't skip a beat. We had 4 Master suites in the cabin and Alexis got one of them and never had any issues with her "new" room for the trip. We did bring John's pack and play and were a little anxious about the first night but he did so wonderful the whole time we were there.

Chilling with mommy one morning.

Tummy time on Daddy...and he managed to scratch his face while we were there.

Look at that expression!!

Lexi hamming it up since Mommy had her camera out.

Throwing rocks with Pappa into the "stream" while waiting to be seated for our pancake breakfast.

We had a great time in Tennessee!! Joe and I were not surprised at how much work it is to travel with 2 little ones but we were able to relax once they went to bed, played dominoes, watched some football and just enjoyed the scenery!!

Here's where we stayed in the Skipping Stone Cabin.

http://twincedarcabins.com/index.html

Adjusting

2011-07-20T14:17:00.000-07:00

Well, our Little Man is now 9 weeks old and our Princess is 2 1/2 years old and it has been one hectic ride so far to say the least!!

We are slowly but surely adjusting to life as 4...things were a bit overwhelming at first but we are getting into our groove as John gets older and establishes an eating schedule as well as a sleeping schedule.

Alexis took some time to adjust, nothing major really. She took her break in potty training(which we expected) but now we are back on track. She figured out that she wasn't the baby anymore and went through a whiney phase and put that together with the terrible 2's and you have one unpredictable little girl! You never know what will set her off!!

But as time goes by, she is realizing it's great to be the older sister and she is becoming our little helper when she can. Since "Baby John" as she calls him doesn't do much right now, she interacts with him a little at a time but will help us if we need it. She is ready for him to be walking so they can play. But she is always wondering what he is doing and where he is. She is really good about not trying to pick him up or touching him since Toddlers are one big GERM and she is very gentle with him so we are very pleased. School has also noticed a change in her demeaner and her happy go lucky attitude has finally come back.

I had to take a picture since I wasn't sure how long she would keep her hair up!! She likes to be a princess and dress up in skirts but rarely does she like her hair up.

Alexis still amazes us with her vocabulary!! It's so incredible we just can't even describe it! She knows all her shapes, colors. She can count to 20 and can recognize those numbers on a page if you ask her to find the number. She is starting to recognize which letters make which sounds! All you have to do is read her a book a few times and she has it memorized!! Especially if it's a princess one. We are noticing that she is shy at first when put into a new situation(which we thought was odd with her being in daycare) but have really witnessed this, this summer with her being in Little Gym every Saturday for 10 weeks. She's really clingy at first and then comes out of her shell but still is cautious about what she tries. She is definitely not a daredevil and we realized that she does not like being rushed into anything. And she is very particular in what and how she wants things, especially when we read books, play sticker book, or games we play before bed. Everything has to be just right!

Stealing Daddy's cap!

She loves games that involve pushing her around on things. Here daddy made up a game of pushing a couch pillow on the floor! And of course she wanted to do it over and over. We are realizing the games that take the most out of us are the ones she loves the most!

For Father's Day Lexi helped Daddy open his gifts before we headed over to my sister's house for some BBQ and swimming. We took everything over there but the kitchen sink having 2 small children but it was nice! And nice to get in the pool since it is just plain hot.

Lexi and her crown she made at school!

John James is doing wonderful!!! We had his 2 month check up on July 13th and he weighed in at 12 pounds and measured in at 22.5 inches. Even the DR couldn't believe how much he had grown since she saw him on his 2 week check up.

We ended up putting Little Man in his room in his crib right around 5 weeks because he is a really loud sleeper and very antsy in his sleep. Joe and I were ready for him to move so we gave it a shot and we have had no problems what-so-ever! We thought why not give it a try since he really wasn't fond of his pack n play..

At first we were worried about him having a touch of acid reflux with him spitting up at random times after his feedings so the DR said to give him some Rice Cereal in his bottle after we saw her for his 2 month check up. BUT, we tried the rice cereal for 2 days in his bottles and he pretty much stopped eating, gagged on what he ate and his sleep schedule was all sorts of off. So, we were quick to take the rice out of his bottle and now our on schedule eater and sleeper is back. He's eating every 3-4 hours starting at 4am/7:30/10:30/1:30/5ish and drinking 4-6 ounces each time. If we can get some fluids in him before he goes to bed which is between 8:30-9pm, we are lucky! But he has some awake time in the evenings and then he is DONE!! At first we were a little worried about this long span of time of him not eating..he ate last at 5ish and then barely ate before bed but he will sleep a solid 9pm-4am! We have tried to get him to eat around 10pm so he would sleep longer into the morning but for some reason he likes this schedule. And a tired baby won't do anything, especially eat!

Passed out on Daddy!

But lately he has started to really "talk", coo, giggle and interact when we are talking and he can get loud! Wonder where he gets that from!

Crazy Mowhawk sleeper!!

I thought I would get more done on maternity leave but he was a little more demanding of my time than I thought. He likes to be rocked in his chair and if I would walk away from him for even a moment if he was awake, he would let me know he didn't like that at all. I returned to work on Monday, July 18th and am glad to be back. His Doctor gave him the green light to start school after his 2 month check up and Alexis was so very excited that Momma was taking her to school again(since that was our routine in the mornings before John) and also that Baby John is coming with us to school. I told the Pediatrician that I was ready to go back to work if Little man could go to school so now we have 2 in daycare! Crazy!! But so far so good with him doing OK in a new environment at school and he's still eating like a champ and taking naps so nothing has been disturbed this first week. His teachers still can't get over how much he looks like Alexis as a baby and they claim he even has the same mannerism as her. We will see as he grows.

Life is way more crazy with two but we are so fortunate to have them and to be able to raise one of each!

And now we are 4!!

2011-06-03T10:55:00.000-07:00

Well, John James Sheehan decided to become part of the family on Wednesday, May 18th at 7:12pm weighing in at 7 pounds and measuring 19 inches. We pretty much had to evict him and induce labor since I was past my due date(May 13th)

Here I am 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant! Very miserable. But after being in labor for 9 hours(on drugs of course), we met our son. Mommy had a few complications but everything turned out fine and everyone is healthy.

The morning after he was born, snuggling in the early morning. Daddy has not come back to the hospital yet. (Yes, I LET him go home and sleep)

Getting ready to go home

We have made it through the first two weeks and I know that I have somewhat adjusted to being sleep deprived I guess since a good portion of the second week, Daddy was out of town on business so I was around the clock with John and eating every 2-3 hours. Whew! But we made it.

We did have a newborn DR appointment on Tuesday, May 30th before Daddy left the country and our little man is doing fine. We had a few concerns but the DR addressed them and said they were normal for a newborn and not to worry. We couldn't remember what Lexi did or did not do 2 years ago. He gained almost another pound and grew an inch in 2 weeks. HE LOVES TO EAT!!! We don't go back to the DR until he is 2 months old so I am sure we will see a TON of changes in the next 6 weeks. The big one we are waiting for is for him to establish an eating schedule and sleep through the night and give up those 1am feedings!

In the second week, we have noticed he will sleep in his bassinet more, instead of wanting to be held, he's less congested as all newborns are but he can snore!! And his alert time or awake time is getting longer which we hope will lead to him figuring out his days and nights sooner rather than later. John definitely recognizes my voice and he smiles a lot at me when I am talking to him or holding him. He does sigh, coo and is starting to do raspberries..if that is correct...making noises with his mouth thing. I need to brush up on my newborn lingo!

He's definitely gaining weight since I can feel it when I am holding him!! So, we have to try different locations like the mat and swing so my arm gets a break. :-)

So, how is big sister doing? Well, she definitely understands that she is not the baby anymore!! But we have had a few setbacks, especially with potty training, which I have heard is normal as well as some events that have happened at school. We also experienced more tantrums in the beginning, more whining and defnitely clingy to the parent that wasn't holding the baby. But, after 2 weeks, the clouds are starting to clear and she slowly but surely is coming back to her independent self and is starting to take interest in what she used to like to do as well as potty training. Even school said they have had some difficulty with her when John first arrived but things are definitely getting better. Don't we know it! Adjusting to a family of 4 is a bit overwhelming the first few weeks with no sleep, getting used to the numerous feedings, Daddy going back to work, Alexis in school, and making sure our princess gets SOME attention at night when we are so very tired.

We wanted to expose her to John right when we got out of the hospital so we went to go and see her at my parents house where she was staying.

Watching Gigi feed Baby John

She can be a little protective of him at times..

Daddy and his kiddos!!!

We have definitely tried to keep all her routines the same since you never know when she might act up. She recently has decided she wants to take a bath in cold water and no bubbles! She has to feel the water and make sure it's ok so bathtime is whole other experience now!

Getting ready to go swimming with Papa and Daddy

Helping Daddy dunk the ball

She's into girly and frilly things these days!

Getting ready to go to church!! She's SO GOOD in church!!

Telling us a story as we wait for JCPenny to open and get started with John's newborn picture appointment. We were hoping to get a picture with the both of them but she was only in the mood for about 5 minutes to listen to the photographer. However, the newborn pictures of John came out wonderful!! We get those back in a week or so and I will be sure to post.

We are so grateful that John is finally here. Life is definitly more hectic with a newborn and a 29th month old but we are having fun!! I'm on maternity leave until July 25th!! I have no idea what I am going to do with all this time off but surely I can find something.

Can't wait to show the pictures of Mr. John James!!

Time to play catch up!!

2011-05-09T11:21:00.000-07:00

Well, still no Little man so I thought I would take this opportunity to hopefully catch up because who knows when we will be posting next with adjusting to having 2 kids. We honestly thought we would be +1 by now but he seems to be just fine where he is at. I MUST be treating him right with all the good foods! HA!!! Some people might think I am crazy since I am still working!! Yep...still putting in hours at work, moving much slower but still getting up and going. I would be so bored at home since all of John's clothes are washed, his bottles are washed, the nursery is ready, we are stocked and ready to go(for now) on diapers and wipes. All bags are packed for me, John and Lexi while I am in the hospital and a picture project I started intended for maternity leave is almost complete!! I guess I will be catching up on all my DVR'd shows while off work then and finding other "projects" to start.

Sooooooo, what in the world is going on with Little J?!! That is such a good question! I go back to the DR on Wednesday, the 11th, for one final visit pending no water breaking(since my official due date is May 13th) to talk about induction with my DR. All in all, I don't feel too terribly bad for as HUGE as I am. My aches and pains are getting more intense, especially in my hips!! They are really hurting this last month! I am having more contractions but they are still very far apart. I am getting a decent amount of sleep each time but I do know that I am ready to NOT be pregnant. Even Joe is ready to stop playing the waiting game. We got spoiled with Lexi in regards to knowing when she would be here but JJ will be much bigger than Lexi since he is full term and my ever growing belly is clear that he is bigger. He is very active but does let Mommy sleep from 11-5 and then starts up again. But his movements definitely pack more of a punch or stab now that he is bigger!! I will keep you posted or the next time I post, I will have pictures of our little man! :-) We are anxiously awaiting his arrival and can't wait to meet him.

Mother's Day

Again, we thought we would be +1 for Mother's Day so my family was kind enough to plan the menu and my sister and husband hosted us at their place so Joe and I didn't have to do anything and I'm so HUGE, that it's hard to move anywhere! However, my day was wonderful. Joe let me sleep in and then cooked me French Toast for breakfast. I received some flowers on the doorstep the day before. Lexi came home from school on Friday for a gift for me that specifically instructed me NOT to open until Sunday.

It has a wonderful mother poem on the inside when you open the ladybug wings. Melted my heart!! So of course it made the fridge.

We headed to my sister's house for some awesome home cooking by her and our brother-in-law. And of course the family tradition of dominoes was played while Miss Alexis took her 2 hour nap. We travel a lot lighter now that she sleeps in a big girl bed. :-)

She was so tired after all the running around she did with Uncle/Auntie/Papa that she halfway made it up the couch. She's watching Dora here. But she LOVES to wear skirts on the weekends so she can shake her hips in, so shopping for mommy has become superfun!! Her vocabulary is still EXPLODING and school can't believe how many words she knows and says she talks like a 3 year old. Um, her daddy and I certainly know that!! But it's amazing how all of a sudden she will pair the right words with verbs and her storytelling is becoming much more detailed! She is still not a fan of wearing her hair up so we will maybe get an hour of her hair off her face just to make her cooler and then she takes it out. However, her teachers at school and babysitters are able to put her hair up with no problem...hmmmmmm.....

Just a few random pics to catch up between Easter and Mother's Day. I haven't taken that many since she is so quick with some of her moments and sometimes she chooses to pose and sometimes not so much.

Getting ready to go bye bye with her Kai Lan backpack.

Helping Daddy put together her Anchor's Away table

Playing and loves getting wet!

I don't think she has enough toys. :-)

Serving Daddy some pancakes from her "restaurant".

Our Dancing Queen

Hands on the hips...definitely my child!

And Lexi in concert

This song is from the Backyardigans...Daddy loves to prompt her!

Cooling off from being outside with some milk and grapes

Chilling on her chair

We are still VERY fortunate with Alexis's health! Our little munchin that started out at 5 pounds 7 ounces and didn't want to breastfeed really has done well. No more ear infections after her 1st year so no tubes, or allergies, no acid reflux or not lactose tolerant, etc... and now that her 2nd year molars are ALL in, she is sleeping like a champ in her big girl bed. She goes through her phases of being a bottomless pit with drinking a TON of milk and then not eating so much and wanting to play more than eat but we are definitely noticing she is getting taller quickly!! Her growth spurts have been close together and she can get into more things since she is bringing us things from shelves we "thought were safe". Potty training is on hold for now because she finally gets what the baby is all about which means we have had some acting up with her and not wanting to cooperate on issues she normally doesn't have a problem with. And so the fun begins!! The hardest part of parenting is not giving in!!!

Easter

We had a wonderful and very hectic Easter but it was still great. Miss Alexis was a trooper with the schedule we were on and loved her 3 Easter baskets!! One from mommy and daddy, one from Papa and Gigi and one from Auntie and Uncle. And the great thing was, they were all so very different! We started out with one dress on Easter Sunday but discovered very quickly that it was too short so we had to get her into another more appropriate dress since Daddy didn't like how short the first one is. That is why you will see her in 2 different dresses. Our hectic schedule was church, hanging out Papa and Gigi's house(since our brunch didn't start until noon), brunch, and then back to Papa and Gigi's house. Needless to say, she was ready for a nap!

Her Easter egg hunt before church...can you tell Daddy hid them well? HAHA

Daddy and his princess

Mommy and her princess

OK, dress #2!! Good Gigi with the back-up dresses!

Playing in her tent

This is at Easter brunch...she is hamming it up for Uncle, our little cheeseball

Mommy and Daddy gave her a princess basket for Easter

Look what Uncle taught her to do...imagine that! She was pretending she was the "Bruha" which is Spanish for witch. Gotta love Dora!

We had a nice Day with the family with hanging out at mom and dad's after brunch and playing a little dominoes while Alexis took her 2 hour nap. We also got to spend some time outside since the weather was so nice.

APRIL 9TH BABY SHOWER

My amazing friend Kim hosted a wonderful Baby Shower for Little J and I on Saturday April 9th. We were so overwhelmed by all the gifts we received as well those ladies that could make it!!!

Kim and I at her beautifully decorated home

We decided to go with a jungle theme for the nursery so it was easy for Kim to decorate!!!

Yummy Cake!!!

Both of my diaper cakes that were made for me. Kim made the one on the left and my really good friend Erin, from Highschool made the one on the right!!! AWESOME!

Erin also made these washcloth cupcakes!! I absolutely LOVED it!

Michelle, Erika, Kim, Me and my sister at the shower

Family pic!! My mom, Me, my aunt Kayla and my sister Meredith

Me and my girls from highschool!! Erin and Brandy(who drove in from Dallas!!). Don't they look awesome!! Can't wait to get my body back.

Ok..so the fun really begins when you get home and have to sort through everything and figure out what you have and don't have!!! We discovered very quickly, there wasn't much we didn't have, except our little man in regards to being ready for him.

Here's what we unloaded from my Dad's Forerunner

And this is still not everything after I dug into everything and sorted!!!

We are SO VERY fortunate that John James has so much family that loves him as well as his DZ Aunties!!

He's SOOOOO spoiled!!! But we needed clothes really bad since we went from pink to blue. :-)

UPDATE

2011-03-24T12:37:00.000-07:00

Here I am to report about the big girl bed transition and to update on the latest DR appointment. It's a miracle I am blogging so close together..I know!!

We are happy to report we transitioned into a BIG GIRL BED with absolutely no problems!!! Lucky for us Alexis was not attached to her crib and welcomed the newness of her room. We have a very good sleeper so she doesn't get out of bed at night and will sometimes get out in the morning and come and will either meet us in the living room or our bedroom but for the most part when she wakes up, she just likes to chill out in bed until we come and get her..during the week that is since she knows she has to get ready for school. The weekends she is ready to get up and play in her PJ's.

Sharing her bed with Papa

Her BIG GIRL dresser

She's not quite tall enough to get in her bed on her own..one more growth spurt should do it but in the meantime, she is having fun climbing these pet stairs we found online. We were a little hesitant to buy a "pet" stair for her but she absolutely loves it! We did have a little mishap with her falling out of the bed one night. As you can see the bedrails do not "block" an opening between the rail and the head board. Her little 27 pound body managed to scoot itself through that hole during the night. Luckily Daddy was in the guest bedroom (since mommy snores A LOT while pregnant) to come to the rescue when she hollered at us. She also transitioned nicely with her naps...no new routine needed! She takes her 2 hour naps in her bed just fine as well. Now, I wish potty training were this easy!

Playing ball with Daddy in between bouncing

We need shorts for a Toddler with no butt!

Now that she can put her shoes on and take them off, it's easier for her to bounce between toys/activities in the backyard. But then again, it does help when mommy buys a TON of new shoes that are slip ons from Walmart. Gotta love WalleyWorld. And we are so grateful for the warmer weather!

Dancing with Daddy to her Dora doll that sings the "We Did it" song. She can play it at least 5-10 times and dance to it.

This was hilarious to see!! Daddy had not finished reading the paper from the morning and so he tried to finish reading it at night when our princess came home from school. She purposely went over to his newspaper stack, got a stack of her own and went back to her chair to "read" the paper. Gotta love how she's mimicking Daddy in the background. HILARIOUS!!

Time to turn the page!

Already sitting at the adult table and "playing" dominoes while we play..lining them up!

She couldn't wait to test out her little brother's swing after Daddy put it together.

SOOOOOOOO, Mommy and Little J had an appointment on Wednesday, March 23rd. Daddy was not present since he had to be gone for a week on a work trip to Brazil. But, Mommy got to see John James since it was time for an ultrasound and our little man is still a little man!! I've had so many friends been told the wrong gender, I had to ask again to confirm. We are growing how we should FOR NOW but given my history of not growing big babies, my DR will be taking pics of our little man in another month. Right now he is weighing in at about 4 pounds. So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed really tight that he gains weight in the next 4 weeks. He definitely has a kick to him!! His head is sitting on my right hip and I have some feet up by my right ribs according to the ultrasound. My DR does not think I will go full term either which I am so happy to hear since I am so WAY OUT THERE and HUGE!! But my blood pressure and weight are still good. :-)

32 weeks, 5 days

-the first picture is of his face. He's looking right at us!

Here are some pictures of the nursery..the walls are still too bare for me but for the most part we are done! We really just need a baby and some newborn diapers! Joe went up in the attic and got all of the infant seats for the car, the swing, and all the baby clothes from Lexi so I could sort through them to see if I could keep anything. I found more than I thought to keep! It saddened me to donate Lexi's clothes but I was ready to organize!! I guess I am nesting in a way?

We went with another animal theme for the nursery since none of the sport themes really impressed us. Yep..that is Alexis's old crib!

And her old changing table....we did put new carpet in and Joe painted the walls. That is the only way I can get a room painted is if we are having a baby! But that doesn't mean I will keep having kids to get rooms painted!! DONE DONE!!

And Lexi's rocker and infant chair and her swing...gotta love the "hand me downs"

And her dresser...and my Target lamp!

His closet really needs some work. One of my really good friends is throwing me a "sprinkle" shower on April 9th in which I hope to stock his closet with some of my gifts since we are in major need of CUTE boy clothes. You can only register for so many outfits!!

I will be back in a month when I have gifts to show, pictures to show of our little man and an accurate update on when to expect the arrival of John James!

I'm Back!!

2011-03-11T14:55:00.000-08:00

Wow! I can't believe it's been almost 2 months since I last blogged! I know I say that every time I start blogging but really...where does the time go!! We have been extremely busy since we last "talked" and have faced some adjustments along the way that just took some time to work through. It seemed like everything happened at once for Alexis...she turned 2, got her 2 year shots, her 2 year molars were coming in AND she she moved to the 2 year old room at school. It never fails that EVERYTIME she goes to the DR for a well check-up for shots, she gets sick! GRRR..so we battled a fever for a few days and then of course her molars bothered her for a few weeks. Her swollen cheeks, her moodiness and her clinginess were all well represented!

Playing Blocks with Daddy

Her adjustment at school also took a few weeks since the 1 year old room is VERY quiet compared to the 2 year room and she had to make some new friends since most of her friends had not yet moved when she did in January but as you can tell by the video that we have a very LOUD and confident 2 year old now and she is not afraid to speak her mind. We are lucky with the fact that she does listen pretty good for a 2 year old. Lexi has learned some song with an alligator in it and her uncle was giving her a hard time. Notice she is standing on a Wii board as her stage!! Our princess in the making!

We finally decided to break down and get Lexi's bangs cut professionally. We weren't sure what to expect since she has the most unexpected yet not often meltdowns so we just prepared for whatever came out way. Lucky for us...SHE LOVED IT! And it also helped that a big mirror was in front of her so she could stare at herself since she loves to watch her mouth move in the mirror at home after she brushes her teeth.

This lady was SO good with her!

Moving to the 2 year old room has taught her to be more independent. We had bought her a booster chair but we finally had to put it together since she constantly wants to sit at the "adult table" for some of her snacks and all her meals and not in her highchair. So we have retired the highchair until Little J is able to use it.

We are definitely still in our Dora phase so wouldn't you know, we found some Dora shoes at Academy when we went to look for a few things for the yard! Of course this is all she wears right now.

At Papa and Gigi's house..

The weather finally warmed up for Houston so we took the opportunity to go to the zoo and get out of the house on a Sunday since we had been cooped up way too long!! Let me tell you what a difference a year can make in terms of how much Alexis enjoys, understands, engages, plays, and how long she lasts since she doesn't get as tired as fast. The length of time between zoo visits was almost a year!

Checking out the monkeys on Daddy's shoulders

She LOVED this net ladder that she couldn't even attempt last year.

There is a slide on the other side of the net ladder and instead of sliding, she just "hung" out!! Lucky for her, a lot of kids were not around.

She is still not crazy about the petting zoo...TOO DIRTY for her..she has to wash her hands after almost everything she does but they teach her that at school. Lucky for us, there was a kids sink right by this petting zoo with soap.

She had a change of heart about the carousel from last year. She actually told Papa that she wanted to ride on the carousel so of course just say the word to Papa and here we go!

The zoo had a new African exhibit that just opened and she wanted to go and check out one of the huts. Daddy was quick enough to get a pic!

Getting a little help from Papa to help play the bongos with Daddy.

Lexi has also been busy attending birthday parties and most of them for 2 year olds are the "jump" theme. The first one she went to was for a classmate that had a bouncey in her backyard like Lexi did. She gave us a little scare when she fell right out of the bouncey onto the concrete that was right in front of it and scratched her face up pretty good. But once the shock wore off, she wanted to get back in and bounce! Lots of 2 year olds at this party so she liked jumping with kids her age.

The second jump party, which are the pictures you see here, were for her friend Kate. And she just couldn't get enough of this gymnasium sized room filled with 10-12 different kinds of bouncey's with slides, tunnels, little rides in them. It was crazy! Daddy had to do most of the bouncing and climbing since Mommy couldn't fit in most spaces.

She loved this one with 2 slides! She could almost make it to the top but needed a little boost at the top.

It was a Minnie Mouse theme, wearing her ears, drinking some juice and eating some Chick Fil A nuggets. It was hard to get her to come and sit down but we "bribed" her with juice since she doesn't get sugar very often. She is hyper enough!

She has definitely become more curious, testing our limits, more vocal and WOW, CAN SHE COMMUNICATE!! She is learning her months, she knows her right from her left, we can almost dress ourself. She can distinguish and tell you what is different between 2 objects when we ask her to compare. And her memory is incredible! If you tell her she can do something at night, like, see you in the morning for some pancakes, she will hold you to it!! She will remember things that you tell her before she goes to bed!

Hiding behind the couch and she was not thrilled I found her.

So, the million dollar question is: How is the potty training going? Let's just say it's GOING!! She currently is in Pull Ups right now since school requires them and they are helping to potty train her there as well. I do know that I have to make the switch to big girl underpants before anything effective takes place. But we definitely don't want to do a "bootcamp" on her or anything because we have heard of Toddlers that FEAR the potty because it was forced on them. SO, with that being said, she is getting better about telling us when she has to go, the trick is to get her to the potty. She does consistently go before she goes to bed since it is part of her routine. We were cutting her some slack since she had so many adjustments at the first of year. AND, THIS WEEKEND WE ARE PUTTING HER BIG GIRL BED IN HER ROOM!! Yet another adjustment!! So I will let you know how that goes the next time I blog. But she doesn't like being wet and we managed to find Dora Pull Ups so she is adament about wearing her Dora pants and helping us put them on her. So, little by little we are making progress and who knows what will happen when little man comes. She may or may not regress.

Somehow Lexi managed to get her OWN BOUNCEY from Papa and Gigi at Christmas and with the weather warming up, Daddy decided to put it up this weekend and let me tell you, it was not only fun but simply hilarious watching her and listening to her sing and tell us stories.

Crazy jump hair!

She just couldn't get enough of this slide!

Getting a boost from Daddy until we showed her the "entrance"

Socks came off so she could get better grip so she would climb up by herself and then slide down backwards on her tummy and cracking up the whole time.

Not sure what she is doing her but it was a kodak moment

Our monkey likes to be upside down a lot these days.

Mommy and her princess...excuse the no make-up...it was a Sunday!

SOOOOOOOOOO.....what is the latest and greatest on Mommy and Little J?

Everything is technically going well with the pregnancy and with that I mean John James is growing just like he should be HOWEVER, Mommy's body is taking a "beating"!!! I have A LOT MORE aches and pains and side effects this time with my hips always hurting, muscle spasms in my neck/shoulders and legs, slight migraines and VERY DRY EYES!! But little man is doing well..he is way more active than Lexi throughout the day, he kicks and moves a ton and with room running out, I can REALLY feel it. AND, my belly is WAY out there this time!! We just had a DR appointment on the 9th and everything is good. I always fear weighing in since my previous appointment my DR said my weight gain was too rapid so this most recent DR visit, I lost weight! Imagine that!! I tested negative for Gestational Diabetes...HOORAY, and my DR thinks he may come earlier due to him being TOO big!! She was joking around with me saying that between the 2 kids, I should have an "average" size baby! HA!! But we are every 2 week appointments for the next 4 weeks and then we go to every week. We get to see our little man on March 23rd which is the next appointment! We haven't seen him in 12 weeks so we are anxious to get a look again and the DR likes to start taking measurements at every appointment starting at 8 months which I am right there already! How time flies! Once Alexis transitions into her bed this weekend since we are using her old furniture for his room(not even here and getting hand me downs), I will try to take some pictures of the nursery since the blue/brown combo really turned out good. It's not quite decorated to its full potential yet but I haven't quite decided what else I want on the walls since it is a jungle theme.

Sorry this took so long!

Until next time which will be in 2 weeks since we will have pictures of John James!

2 YEARS ALREADY!!

2011-01-13T15:46:00.000-08:00

Wow!! I really can't believe it's already been 2 years and we just celebrated another birthday! Time sure is flying by!!

We had Alexis's 2nd Birthday party at my parents house just because the Dora Bounce we got her was so BIG!! There was NO way it would fit in our back yard.

And the guys who delivered it said this was one of the smallest ones!! WHAT!!!

It was hard to get her off this thing!

Her Dora Ball pit from the Moyers!

We were so fortunate with the weather since it turned really nasty the day after her party in Houston. AND it was the day after the Texas A&M bowl game, BUT, despite all that, we had a really good turnout of around 25 people. Lexi had a blast and fought naptime but eventually just passed out. We were able to sit outside and eat TexMex and relax(a little) while the little ones jumped and ran around. I was not able to get all the pictures of her gifts since we were opening them so fast and we had a bunch of toddlers "wanting to help"! Lexi got some really GREAT gifts and has plenty to play with now especially since her birthday and Christmas are so close together. We are set for the year!!

For some reason, she got really shy when we started to sing Happy Birthday to her!

The cake was YUMMY since it was the same lady that made my sister's wedding cake!

After all the guests left, it was time for the adults to jump!

Papa and Aunt Pam, Lexi and Cousin Nikki

My dad HAD to slide down

and guess who had to do it too?!

Yep! That would be my parents in the jumpy!

Peek a Boo!

She has finally figured out how to walk in my slippers!

The boots were even funnier!

GO AGGIES!!

Daddy taught her about the "cape" so blanky became a Cape and she was SuperWoman!

Alexis had her 2 year check up on Wednesday, January 12th first thing in the morning. Since Lexi has a VERY big vocabulary right now, lots of people at the DR's office, including other mom's could not believe she was just 2 for all that she could say. Neither can we!! This was the BEST DR appointment we have had so far. She didn't shed a tear or get fussy with the DR. She even giggled when she looked in her mouth, listened to her heart and checked out her feet. She got 2 shots this time and NOT EVEN A LIP stuck out! She was more concerned about the sparkly bandaids she got!! I couldn't believe it! No screaming the whole time and while the nurse and DR asked me all the developmental questions, she just sat there and read a book out loud. What are the odds! It's like night and day from the last few appointments. Our princess is weighing in at 26 pounds and standing at 34 inches tall. She's a little on the light side but toddlers are very active by nature since they now run/jump/climb/move very fast! She loved that she got to stand on a big girl scale and they measured her height on the wall! The only change we have is switching milks, no more whole milk and the DR recommended getting the first round of flu shots. We go back in a few weeks for the last round since "flu sightings" at the DR's office have increased.

School has already started transitioning her to the 2 year old room. We are not officially a student in there just yet because the 3 year olds MUST be potty trained. So just waiting on someone to move to the 3 year old room. But Alexis goes and plays with the 2's for the majority of the day, naps with them, eats with them and the teachers take her every hour or so to use the potty. Lexi goes potty for us every night before we put on her pajamas and right after her bath so the routine at school is helping! And we are consistent with at least ONE potty time at home. She is getting better in just telling us she is going potty so we are keeping our fingers crossed that we keep progressing forward like this.

Until next time!!!

We are having a.......

2011-01-13T14:47:00.000-08:00

I had a routine pregnancy check-up on December 29th and this was the big one where we find out the sex!! I wasn't nervous this time like I was with Lexi since this pregnancy HAS BEEN SO VERY DIFFERENT than the first, my gut was telling me what we were having. A lot of people asked us why we didn't find out what we were having before the holidays and that was MY choice because I knew once I found out, I would want to focus on getting ready for this baby! So, I wanted to enjoy the holidays without knowing.

So........

You can imagine how excited we were when we found out!! But the ultrasound technician looked at us and said, you guys know what you are having right? NOOOOOOOO..what in the world do you think we are doing here?!! Crazy!! As soon as we found out we were having a little man, Joe taps me and says, "Guess you are off the hook!!". I was like, I didn't promise you anymore than 2! But most people know that if this baby would've been another girl, Joe would have done his best to convince me to try for another one. NOT GONNA HAPPEN!! I'm done! Even if it was another girl, I was done. Me and pregnancy really do not get along. So, you are probably wondering what we are going to name HIM:

JOHN JAMES SHEEHAN

Joe's mom named him after his grandfather's(well, their middle names or else he would have been Wayne Wayne!!) and she asked us if we would do the same IF we had a boy. Joe's dad's name: John, my dad's name, James, JOHN JAMES.

Now that we know what we are having, I got antsy immediately in regards to picking out the paint, the bedding, etc. Gigi and Auntie have already started to shop clothes for him since we have all pink! Lexi's big girl furniture is almost all in her room(except for her bed) and the new study furniture is almost put together. Joe has been awesome in putting it together little by little after work once the Christmas tree came down. Once the nursery starts to take shape, I will post pictures! Paint and carpet are first!

Merry Christmas!!!

2011-01-13T14:30:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful but VERY hectic Christmas this year. We started off on Christmas Eve celebrating with extended family and relaxing/exchanging gifts. It was nice to catch up and just relax right before the "storm" hit.

Opening her Fridge Alphabet on Auntie's Lap

Time to open presents( for the kids only)

Cousin Nikki and Lexi really play good together even though there is like a 5 year gap!

Christmas came and went TOO quickly but it was a long day to say the least. Lexi was up at 7am, we fed her some "Christmas pancakes" and then got her dressed and ready to go for 9am church but FIRST, we opened gifts from Mommy and Daddy!!

Christmas morning pancakes

Time to open some presents!

This little car makes A LOT of noise and of course she LOVES it.

A drawing pad with shapes

RIIIIIIIIIIIP!

Christmas Morning Opening!

Little People Farm!

Daddy had to open that right away!!

After church, in which we met Papa and Gigi at and Lexi was an absolute angel at(no going to the cry or fussy room), we head over to their house to have "breakfast" and start opening gifts. Auntie and Uncle Paul came over shortly after we got there. We had to take breaks with Lexi since she really wasn't into opening one gift right after the other. She wanted to play with the ones she opened right away! So, we would open a few, then take a break, open a few more and then it was time for an almost 3 hour nap! The grown ups played dominos while the princess napped and then we finished once she woke up and had our Christmas dinner that Joe and I were in charge of (filet mignon and crab). I wasn't able to take a picture of all the gifts Lexi opened but I hope I some good ones.

Posing in front of Papa and Gigi's Tree after church

One of 2 backpacks..she got a Dora one and the one she is wearing is Kai Lan

Dress up shoes!

Auntie and Uncle got her chair with her name on it. It rocks and has it's own foot stool! Imagine that!

Here's the tent she got from Auntie and Uncle and she LOVES it! Mommy and Daddy can actually fit in it so she wants to us to play inside it! It's cramped but we manage :-)

Inside her tent with her Dolly that talks constantly unless you turn it off(thanks Gigi)

Watching TV from halfway inside the tent

Playing with Dora and Boots with Gigi

Watching TV on the floor...my all time favorite of her! She posed!

Her Kitchen from Papa and Gigi

Her playhouse from Papa and Gigi and the bubble blower is from mommy and daddy

Mommy's friend, Kristen from college, was in town with her family. We were lucky enough to be on the "visit" list! Her hubby and twin princesses hung out with us the afternoon after Christmas.

Lexi playing with Taylor and Madeline, showing them the alphabet train

Our Living Room after the girls tore it up after 90 minutes of playing!

Lexi is all wore out after her playdate! But she had fun meeting Taylor and Madeline.

We had an awesome Christmas!! I don't think anyone was spoiled this year... ;-)

Merry Christmas!!

2010-12-17T14:58:00.000-08:00

Well, at least my blogging is getting a little closer together!! :-) We have had a VERY busy last 30-40 days since we last "spoke". Our little girl is growing up so fast right before us and her vocabulary just keeps expanding. Joe and I are always astonished on a daily basis on what kind of conversation we get to have with our almost 2 year old!! We are really enjoying our princess and have a TON of fun with her. I can't say that we have really experienced the "terrible twos" but then again I have heard sometimes we skip the 2's and the terrible 3's happen. We do have the occasional outburst or temper tantrum but we normally are good at noticing what sets her off. All in all, Lexi is pretty calm but can get a little hot headed every now and then. We had a WONDERFUL TURKEY season. We were able to have 2 Turkey Days. On Thanksgiving, we were invited to my aunt and uncle's house where my "gourmet" chef cousin(yep, he graduated from culinary school) cooked our Thanksgiving dinner and let me tell you how AWESOME that was!! We got to see the Aggies beat the Longhorns on Thanksgiving as well.

Lexi playing with her cousin Nikki. She had animals and a DOLL HOUSE that we had to tear Alexis away from.

On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, the immediate family got together at Mom and Dad's since our brother-in-law is from a HUGE family and he and my sister needed to spend some time on Thanksgiving with his side. But Dad cooked up a turkey and the rest of the family chipped in with all the sides. Needless to say, we had a share of turkey AND all the sleepy effects that go with it.

Other than, that, we have been busy cleaning out and rearranging our house for the newcomer due May 13th. Here Lexi is helping me figure out what is for Baby and what stays in her room. We have a lot more stuff than I thought for a newborn!She had to test the bumbo chair out and she still fits! But we have managed to clear out a room(our former study), turn our formal living room into a study, buy office furniture, we decided to go ahead and get Lexi her big girl bed and transition her into that before the baby arrives. All we need now is the GENDER!! We find out what we are having on Wednesday, DECEMBER 29TH!!! I am glad that we are finding out after the holidays so I can focus on Christmas with the family and not be thinking about what to get for the baby's room. Because once we find out, it's GAME ON for getting the room ready. We will paint first, then put new carpet in and then set up the furniture!

Lexi came home from school(here she is in her spirit shirt) with a ponytail and I went crazy with the camera since she doesn't let me put her hair up!

Getting a haircut from Daddy, just her bangs.

And we did this all while she watched Dora!! Imagine that!

Getting into trouble.....

She is finally showing some interest in the Christmas Tree and wanting to touch all the ornaments and asking us "What's this?".

She made an ornament at school and Daddy helped her put it on the tree

SOOOOOOOO..we have a dancing queen on our hands

And here's her Live in Concert!!

Sorry it's so dark, she had to start dancing by the Christmas Tree when minimal light was on!

Being a bum on the weekend. She loves to be a bum on Sundays and just lay around.

Gotta Love this face!!

I just had to take a picture of her in this outfit. We have been real fortunate with Lexi "recycling" her toys. I know Mommy and Daddy are ready for some new toys but every 2-3 months she seems to go back to a toy she has played with before. We are just glad she is still interested in her current toys but we agree that it is time for some new toys and "bigger" girl toys since she seems to be outgrowing her current toys. We still read every night before we go to bed but lately, Alexis has been reading to us and has been doing really well. She has managed to memorize 5 of her books by looking at the pictures and by listening to us read it over and over. The tone and the sounds are all right on the money!! Joe and I can't believe it! It's definitely entertaining.

Christmas Cards are sent out, Alexis's birthday party invitations are sent out, decorations are up, most of the presents are bought and wrapped, baby's room is ready to find out the gender. Our "checklist" before the holidays is almost done! Just a few more gifts to pick up!! Now we can just RELAX!!

WE WISH YOU A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Our Little Adult

2010-11-09T09:17:00.000-08:00

We have finally made it back to the world of blogging!! How time flies when you have VERY good talker on your hands and realize almost 2 months has passed by and then you realize that you have a 22 month old on your hands and its REALLY time to start thinking about a birthday party!! The last time we blogged, we talked about Blues Clues vs Dora but it seems our little "Baby Genius" (this is what her teachers and babysitters call her) can't get enough of Dora so DORA it is!! I have to say that me and her Auntie Meredith are pretty excited about planning a Dora themed birthday party since the sky is the limit on what you can do and what is available.

We have been having a really GREAT past few months with our princess!! If we thought her vocabulary exploded last time, she is now speaking in FULL sentences and really has a grasp of what things are. On the way to school she will tell me what she wants for breakfast and that mommy and daddy are going to work and she is going to school to play. These first three pictures were her most recent school pictures and Joe and I have to say, we were very pleased!! (Since the last school picture she ended up crying in). I asked her the other day if she had fun at school and she said yes Momma, I played a lot with my friends! I couldn't believe it!

Not only do we have a total HAM on our hands but we have reached that curious stage that all toddlers get to. And because she can talk and communicate A LOT, we are having to explain more things than we are used to.

We have a world traveler on our hands, with a too small of hat and she insisted that she wear her backpack!

All of Momma's shoes are now fair game since she knows how to put her shoes on and take them off. She even walks around in my slippers for when we have those very few and far between cold days.

She found Momma's gloves after I used them during the A&M vs OU game..that we won..WHOOP!!

Yep..we have quite the cleaner too! She is mopping PaPa and Gigi's floor with a swiffer but still she didn't forget the corners this time.

She loves to "drive" on her slide/wall climbing combo. Here she is at her friend Ashton's 1st birthday party and she had to get up there and drive!

Playing with her friend Kyler who turned ONE in June. Lexi is definitely a lot less shy around kids her age. She still is a little leary with dogs but does warm up after a bit and then has no problem.

HALLOWEEN was a great event for us this year. Lexi only managed to go to 4 houses but she loved walking around and looking at all the decorations and being socialable. She had her school party on Friday and then we trick or treated for about 20 minutes on Sunday. We originally were going to go with an Aggie Cheerleading outfit but then we changed our mind at the last minute.

Getting ready to go to school!

Bumming around on Halloween and drinking from her Halloween cup that Auntie gave her.

Our little monkey...literally!

Our little monster!! GRRR

Getting ready to go trick or treating

Her 2nd year molars are starting to come in so I apologize with all the pictures with the pacifier in them!

Her Kicks that Auntie just had to buy!

Eating some candy from her trick or treat adventure. I was SO glad she let me put her hair up without a fuss!! MIRACLE!

Watching some Dora before Bath and Bed

Halloween was definitley good!

Besides our olympic talker that we have on our hands, her motor skills are really starting to develop. She can now brush her teeth on her own!! She is definitely taking more interest in her potty and not being "wet" and she is also starting to help out more in the tub with the soap. More and more of the days we are shocked at what she understands that we tell her. We have tested the "help pick up" phrase and she actually does it..when she wants to that is but she knows what we are asking. She still does repeat a lot but she not only repeats, she understands what she is repeating!! So, we have our own little Alexis "Explorer" on our hands. I know the next phase is the "Why" phase!

She's been really into "jumping on the loveseat this days". I guess it's the perfect trampoline for somone her size.

Our goofy girl!

WE love how she will just sit and watch TV now. As soon as she gets home from school, she eats her dinner and then it's time for the TV to go on and she always wants Dora but will watch whatever is on Nick Junior. And she will just sit there contently and QUIETLY while she watches her shows before bed. She definitely knows her routine!

Let's see how far this Elmo chair bends back!! Not only good for sitting but for rocking back and forth! ha!
We still have been VERY FORTUNATE with Alexis's health. She will get the occasional runny nose due to teething and she did give us a scare when school called and said she had a minor fever. But a half day at home with Momma seemed to do the trick. But she can now blow her nose on her own..most of the time!

Since you stuck around to the end of the blog......

SO, what else is new with us?

Well, Joe and I have decided to expand our family to 4!! YEP!! YOU READ RIGHT!! We are expecting our second child May 13, 2011.

We are very excited about the upcoming addition!! We keep asking Alexis if she wants a brother or a sister...she gets that their is a baby but....

We are keeping our fingers crossed that we can find out what we are having BEFORE the holidays so I will definitely be asking the DR on my next visit about that!! Time to convert another room!

Now we have to blog about 2!!!

12 weeks 2 days of Baby Sheehan

It was hard to get a scan of the baby since it seemed to be moving around a lot!! But we heard the heartbeat and saw the flutter. :-)

So..what is different about this pregnancy you ask? WELL, definitely less morning sickness. This time I only had a few weeks of it unlike the 20 weeks I had with Alexis. My energy came back quicker even though for 3 weeks all I seemed to want to do is sleep and eat hamburgers. But no weird cravings this time around but I am having to eat every 2 hours or else I get a little light headed or a headache. So lots of crackers and fruit by my desk at work. This baby will NOT let me eat eggs for some reason! Milk I can do this time around but in small quantities. Lexi hated it! I haven't gained too much weight but am starting to show already! I have heard you start showing quicker with the second one. I definitely feel a lot of different with this one and a lot better!!

Happy Thanksgiving if I don't get to blogging before then!

Time Flies

2010-09-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

CHEESE!!

Wow..I can't believe I am so bad at this posting thing!!! Time sure flies when you are having fun with your Toddler. Things are WAY better since I last blogged. We are all done with phases for the moment and our happy go lucky toddler has been with us for the last few months. Since the last blog, Alexis has grown in 2 more of her front teeth..the left top and bottom Eye teeth and is currently working on the right side. So this will leave us with just the 2 year molars in which we are keeping our fingers crossed will not give us any problems unlike the rumors we have heard. No fussiness with the teeth, she just gets tired since it seems she has been going through several growth spurts the last few months as well. We are noticing that she can reach some new places and will bring us items that we thought were "safe". We should know by now to never think this!! So...what's new?!! Lexi's vocabulary has decided to EXPLODE!!! She can not only speak in sentences but she can also use words in the right context. I don't even know where to begin with everything that she can say and do with hand motions! She was singing Farmer in the Dell to me this morning! The fact that I could recognize the tune just amazed me. Some of the latest and greatest are:

1. Momma Look!!
2. Come here Momma/Dadda
3. No Momma/Dadda no Nite nite
4. It's dark outside, nite nite?
5. Where did it go?
6. I don't know
7. When she sees something she doesn't like, she will say, Ew...Gross...it's really kind of cute!
8. When we are in the car going to school, Momma, the light is green, Go Go!! And when it's red, she will say time to stop!
9. Anytime we go anywhere and get back to our house, she will say, We're here!!!
10. And being the good parents that we are, sometimes Alexis has to remind us that we need to brush her teeth at night!!
11. And she loves to sing with songs on the radio...
12. This week she has figured out the concept of ouch and what it means. When she is being rough with her stuffed animals, I will say, Ouch...and then she will give the stuffed animal a hug. I will ask, all better, and she says, Yeah.
I am sure I am forgetting some!

We have been trying to play outside but it's SO hot on the weekends still right now but we know she does get to run around on some cool playground equipment at school and that wipes her out pretty good.

She started in 4 word sentences about a month ago and the fact that we can have a conversation with our 21 month old is just incredible. She can understand a lot of what we say and if she doesn't understand, she will ask. We love it now that we can communicate!!!

Sticker Time!

Her Masterpiece from the morning of sticker play

We did decide to buy her a potty last month and just start introducing her to the concept since she is showing signs that she is ready and starting to understand what it is all about. Active training doesn't begin until October since Daddy has been traveling for business the majority of September. But he seems ready to start potty training her at 21 months! CRAZY!! That's definitely all him right now. However, Alexis will be moving to the 2 year old room at the end of this year and they really emphasize potty training in this classroom.

Checking her new potty out.

Off to a good start!

Lexi is still a reading machine at night once the TV goes off and we have watched her Blue's Clues. We will read a book and then she will read the same book and we do this for about 5-6 books!

Reading on Daddy's Lap

Daddy has this BIG book with all sorts of short stories(from when he was little) in it that of course she doesn't know what they are but because the book is BIG, she loves it!

Lexi's own library!! Thanks Aunt Julia for the Dr. Seuss book club membership!!

Lately, Alexis has been noticing that Mommy has a lot of Elmos(since I like to collect them) and she is also figuring out how to turn them on!!

The Pizza Elmo..she keeps turning it on until she knows what they are saying and can sing the song back. She also does this with her Alphabet table as well. She will keep pressing the button and sing her ABC's until she knows the whole thing!! Of course a dance is also accompanied with her singing and maybe some tumbling. She loves to somersault! Joe and I couldn't stop laughing on Sunday when she was singing her ABC's and dancing with hand motions and little kicks and everything!

Time to press it again!

She actually likes her sunglasses

And so we had to keep them on in the house. Had to get a pic since she let me put her hair up and then she took it down right after I took these pictures.

Watching TV

We have been VERY fortunate with Alexis's health. The last time we went to the DR was in June and that was for precaution since we were traveling to Michigan(and her ears were an issue the first year) but she has had NO problems whatsoever!! (Knock Knock). She will get the occasional runny nose while she is teething and then it's gone the next day. Right now, we go back to the DR in January for her 2 year check up!! And I have to "start" thinking of a 2 year birthday party one of these days...Blue's Clues or Dora..hmmmm....With all of her growth spurts, Alexis has been eating like a bottomless pit!!! And she LOVES fruit!! She will eat anything with a utensil when she feels like it that is..but she can eat with a fork and will eat pudding or applesauce(her favorite) with a spoon with no help. She will scoop and eat! She's a great eater and a great sleeper. Getting her to bed is a challenge sometimes but she eventually gives in. We have having a blast right since her personality is really starting to show! I will try to take more pictures next time but she won't sit still very long for us but I guess I will just have to chase her. Until next time!

For some reason she likes to sit in her stroller and then tells me GO GO Momma!

Halfway to 2 years

2010-07-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

Wow!! I didn't realize how long it had been since I last "blogged"!! But we have been busy to say the least!! Mommy and Daddy both had some really great but BIG changes at work in which they are now in different positions and loving it!! But of course their is always the transition phase in which they are both still trying to wade through. As for our princess, everyone that has ever had a toddler knows that things change quickly! Shortly after I "blogged" last time, the crying phase when we dropped her off at school stopped. It seems Alexis is cutting her 2nd Molars and was definitely "feeling it" since she was always irriatated, clingy, needy and seemed overly sensitive. But, the day after she ran a slight fever, she seemed to snap out of her little "phase" and our happy go lucky little lady is back. We had a little spoof of it when we got back from our Oregon trip since she was around our family and is always spoiled but it really didn't last long.

Still a messy eater!

Our Oregon Trip was WONDERFUL!! Not only did we miss the torrential downpour of rain that came down in Houston(all time record in the few days that it took place), the weather was a nice change(even though it was a bit chilly the first day we got there and we experienced a light shower) from the heat. It was definitely a fast, jam-packed with visiting family, vacation but nice all the same. Alexis was able to meet some of her cousins, some aunt and uncles and most importantly, her Great Granny. It took Lexi a few days to warm up to her but eventually she gave Great GiGi(as she ended up calling her) a smile and would "play" with her. We were very lucky that Auntie Meredith and Uncle Paul were able to come with us as well as PaPa and GiGi. So we had LOTS of help while we were there. Daddy, Uncle Paul and PaPa got a chance to play a few rounds of golf since the courses are so scenic in Oregon while Mommy, Auntie and GiGi went to the park and chased around our 18 month old. We also were able to take a tour of local and well know winery while in Oregon which had been a first for all of us! We got to taste several different wines as well. Needless to say, we were feeling good after this tour! Miss Alexis did WONDERFUL on the plane with take off and landing and she started to get antsy towards the end of the 4 hour flight(but who wouldn't!). She did great with her nighttime sleeping habits...napping was a bit of challenge but we got at least a small one in each day.

Waiting to board our plane in Houston to Portland

Hamming it up!

On a Winery Tour in Oregon..Willamette Valley Vineyard, where the bottles are corked and packaged

Wine cellar where the wine ages

Getting ready to start our wine tasting

wow..that is a lot of empty glasses

It was a little chilly

Out on the deck at the Vineyard

Love their Chardonnay

Of course she had to find something to play with

Auntie and Lexi snuggling

Time to leave the Winery and meet some family for dinner! PaPa and GiGi have it covered.

PaPa and his Girl on the 4th

Uncle Paul letting her get away with hanging on Great Grammy's clothesline

Playing Kick with Uncle Paul

Getting ready to go on a walk to the Park

4 Generations with Grandma, Mom, Me and Alexis...Auntie was holding her up since she didn't want to sit in our lap in the front.

Joe and I honestly can't believe how much she has grown over the last few months. She knows almost all body parts, all her colors, her teachers at school tell us she knows everyone's name, and she is starting to connect words into sentences, short sentences of 3 or 4 words but we were still shocked. School tells us she gets concerned when other kids are playing with other kids things. We were told she told a little girl to get off another girls cot when it was naptime! She is also able to recognize some action words and use them correctly, like swim in the "wawa", put shoe on or read a book. The not wanting to be diapered or undressed/dressed phase has calmed down a bit but it still shows up every now and then.

Singing in the pool

We were so pleased with the results of her swimming lessons, that we decided to sign her up for another 6 weeks that takes her through the middle of August. She's SO close to being able to lay on her back while her instructor holds her....we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. She definitely attempts it in the tub and when she is on her belly, she kicks and moves her arms in "swimming" motion that her instructors have been working with her on. We were in the pool last weekend and again, the difference between the first of the summer and now is ridiculous! She definitely feels more comfortable in the water and is more willing to take chances in the water, which is of course stressful for mommy and daddy but she doesn't whine anymore when trying something new in the water. She's really not into her float since she can walk on the 2nd step in our pool that goes around a good part of the shallow end and through our waterfall(that she now loves).

Playing on the steps in the shallow end

Giving Daddy a "Kissy"

We had our 18 month check up on July 8th...yes, I am definitely behind in posting!!! And Alexis REALLY doesn't like the DR office AT ALL! As soon as we got into the examining room, it was game over for my eardrums! She cried when the nurse weighed her, measured her height and her head. Which, by the way, Miss Alexis weighs in at 23 pounds(50%) and stand 32 inches tall(75%). Her head is still in the 95%! Go figure! So, the nurse leaves and she settles down and goes back to playing with her toys that we brought and then her pediatrician comes in and now I have an attachment on my hip while screaming. So, trying to take a look at her ears was a chore since I had to hold Alexis in my lap while holding her head in between my hands so the DR could look in her ears!! Got to get a thorough look since she has had so many double ear infections! So, once again the DR and I are screaming at each other and discussing developmental things for Alexis and they also tested for Autism and she was telling me that Alexis is fine. But they also test for it at 2 years. SOOOOOOOOOO....the DR leaves and Alexis settles down and we get her dressed but we still have to get a shot....YAY for mommy's ears!!! So, once we are dressed, her favorite nurse from before comes in and gives her a quick shot. Now, Alexis's recovery time from a shot was so quick, that I didn't even realize she got a shot...or maybe I was just used to the over an hour crying session that I just didn't notice! We are definitely in the terrible 2's! Alexis is right on track with her height, weight and head circumference as well as all her developmental skills....and even ahead of her time in some areas(like the talking...yep..she is definitely mine!). She is all over the place with walking, running, jumping, climbing, kicking and throwing a ball....it doesn't stop until nite nite!!

We are keeping our fingers crossed that we do not have to go back to the DR until January for her 2 year appointment and one more shot but with the seasons changing in the fall...we get into trouble! I am hoping to not let as much time pass between postings! We sure have been busy!

Until next time!

"Phases"

2010-06-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

We are definitely going through many phases at one time with Miss Alexis these days. She is back in the phase of where she doesn't want to be dressed or diapered again! We experienced this around 10 months and the evil and challenging phase is back! This time she is a lot faster and more vocal about it. And feeding her is always a challenge but now she will tell us she is "all don" and wave her hands and then want to eat what Joe and I are eating!

She came home with a pretty good pigtail from school and of course I had to get a picture of it!

After 3 weeks of swimming lessons, we now have a waterbaby on our hands so this is definitely a GREAT phase! It took a few kicks and screams but we jumped a big hurdle this past Saturday with her being dunked and really not crying all that much except for the first 10 seconds of when I had to hand her off to her instructor. Getting her dressed for swim lessons is another story!

Swimming on Father's Day

She is in a MAJOR "NO" phase right now. We will ask her if she is ready for bed and she will flat out say NO BUT...when she is ready for bed, she will lead you to her room. But right now everything is NO with pursed lips and shaking her head.

Hamming it up for Momma in her playbox

Reading before bedtime

Lounging on Daddy while reading another book

And for some reason she has to put her feet on the book while reading...who knows why but it was funny!

The most recent phase is she does not want to be dropped off at daycare in the morning! Normally, I just drop her off, sit her down at the table since they are serving breakfast and she is all for it! But not recently, she death grips me and screams "NO" when I try to put her down while in her classroom! I do call her school while on my way to work to see how long lived the "fit" is and the power of distraction seems to work just fine. Just tack on another phase while we are at it! AND, we are getting our Eye teeth in in which the pacifier is constantly being used and of course all the drool!

We have one more airplane adventure for our princess. We leave for Portland, Oregon on July 1st to go see Great Grammy! We are all looking forward to this trip since the whole family is going. FUN!! We are continuing our swim lessons through the month of July and have our 18 month check-up on July 8th. More shots! GRRR! But only a few this time.

Happy July 4th to everyone! We are escaping the Texas heat for a long weekend. :-)

Our First Trip Together

2010-06-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally decided it was time to brave our first airplane trip to Michigan with our very mobile and VERY vocal princess. We were a little worried since we had to make a trip to the DR a week before we were leaving since Alexis was running fever and sent home from school one day. Turns out, she had some fluid in one ear! So we got on some quick acting medication since we could not mess around with the trip so close! We definitely took a chance since we had to connect to get to our destination so we really tested the limits of Alexis! Our flight out was not too terribly early BUT we had to wake her up to get to the airport at a decent time and she wasn't too happy about that! Lucky for us Grandpy picked us up and was able to distract her. For our first trip, we actually did pretty good on the packing part in regards to not overloading too terribly on things we didn't need.

Here we are at the Houston airport and we just finished our breakfast. We had to bring her carseat since we were renting a car so we were told to put it on wheels so we could pull her along in airports. This thing was a HUGE lifesaver and she loved it! She didn't mind being carted around on escalors, moving walking floors. trams between terminals...WE DID IT ALL!

Of course by now she is awake and has all the energy an 18 month old has!! Playing all over the place and of course running all over the place. We had to change her diaper before we got on the plane and we used our fingers to ask Alexis to "come here" and before you know it, she is mocking us!!! We couldn't stop laughing! Her little finger telling us to come to her...too cute.

Here she is on Daddy's lap...taking off from Houston and flying to Detroit where we had to connect to Michigan. She did really good on the way up with no problems with her ears but on the way down was another story! She was sleeping when we were told to start getting ready for landing and we had to wake her strike #1, and she was hungry strike #2, and she had to either sit in our lap or her own seat strike #3 so we experienced our own kind of fit from our daughter on the plane. Lucky for us, it only lasted a few minutes but any parent knows that a few minutes of a screaming child feels like FOREVER! But we got through it!

Here we are at the airport at our final destination and of course what does she spot....YES!! The luggage carousel and definitely wants to climb on it and run on it. She kept giving us that, "are you watching me look".

Our little helper! Checking out of our first hotel and she wants to help with anything that is on wheels. But first we have to climb on it and test it out.

We had to unplug the phones at both hotels because she would always pick up the phone and try to call someone...Grandpy was one and Aunt Wuwee(Julie) since she was also there with us from Dallas.

We are astonished at her vocabulary!! She is now putting 3 words together like "I love you" and recognizing what animals are such as "turtle green" and "get in water". She is definitely a sponge so we have to be VERY careful what we say because she LOVES to repeat!

Aunt Vickie bought a little swimming pool for Lexi which she loved!! The majority of the time, we didn't get to her in time for a bathing suit before she drenched herself with a cup of water or tons of splashes!

Alexis was a really good sleeper! We had to bring her pack n play all the way from Texas but her sleep pattern stayed right on schedule for the most part. Most of the time we would put her to bed at our Aunt's house(since that is where we spent most of our time with the family) and then just scoop her up when it was time to go and relocate her and her pack n play to the hotel. We were so grateful! We had tons of snacks for her when she woke us and even let her eat in bed and watch cartoons until Mommy and Daddy were ready to go and get some breakfast. She even napped during the day for a couple of hours each day. A lot of setting and breaking down the pack n play but totally worth it so she could sleep!

Sitting on her cousin Cadie's lap and playing while the grown-ups played a game called "Catch Phrase".

Admiring the big pool from the sidelines.

Had to put a hat on her since it was getting a little too sunny for her fair skin.

Uncle Bill and Aunt Vickie had a family reunion BBQ while we were up in Michigan in which we were able to see a lot of family. It was tons of fun and Alexis got to meet a lot of family that had not met her yet.

Sitting in her cousin's lap..Abby

Playing with her cousin Aidan in the pool

Aunt Diane was willing to hold her snack bowl while she played with the jewerly she let her wear!

Playing the "what's on Daddy's face" game in the Atlanta airport while we wait for our connection. We had a minor incident in the Atlanta airport. There is so much to see and do in airports and of course our toddler wants to touch EVERYTHING!! And this time is was play with a pay phone( Didn't know these still exist!). Of course we didn't let her and we even moved locations so out of side out of mind would kick in but NO SUCH LUCK!! She threw a hissy fit and it didn't help that she was so very tired. So, another temper tantrum that lasted for about 5 minutes and screaming at the top of her lungs so all of Atlanta could hear her. But, like the first time, we got through it. She ended up falling asleep on Mommy's lap on take off! And slept for about an hour.

We had to end our travels with a nice hot bath in her favorite tub and Dora "strawberry" Bubbles.

It was definitely a good trip with a few minor incidents. We are so grateful we have a good traveler. We are off to Oregon for the 4th of July to meet Great Grammy!! The whole family is going this time, Grandpy and Grammy and Uncle Paul and Aunt Mere. We are very much looking forward to this trip as well. We will have lots to report since a few days after we get back we go in for our 18 month check-up and we will have completed our first 4 week session of swim lessons!