A Rainey Day

New blog address

2010-04-26T00:53:00.003-05:00

I'm trying out another blog host to see if it's any easier to upload photos. For now you can find us at:

http://araineyday.wordpress.com

See you over there!

Christmas: Parts 2, 3, 4 & 5

2010-01-22T20:58:00.009-06:00

Well it's only almost a month late, but here are pictures from the rest of our Christmas-ing.

Part 2:

Christmas Eve at Uncle Bruce and Aunt Linda's

Papa and Landry

Sweet smiles from Camden

Me and my best girl

Uncle Bruce getting a smooch from Landry

My favorite seester

Granny and Papa on their 62nd anniversary

Owen doing a little teething on Dee's hand

Part 3: Christmas morning at home

Camden thought he was all out of gifts until we pointed him to his stocking

Landry was quite thrilled that she had more goodies

Camden was VERY interested in Owen's loot

Daddy and all his babies

Landry's new boots

Part 4: Christmas brunch at Haley's

My littlest reindeer on Dee's shoulder

Camden's favorite Christmas present - his John Deere tractor from Pop and Dee

Landry's Mini Cooper from Pop and Dee (she's a terrible driver, by the way)

Pop and Owen

My middle reindeer

My biggest reindeer

Part 5: Christmas afternoon at Uncle Bill and Aunt Beth's

Uncle Bill and Landry

Landry warming up by the fire

Brannon faked "helping" so he could play with the toys

Brooke and Pat getting some practice for their April baby

Landry loving on her Radio City Music Hall doll from Aunt Beth

We had a wonderful holiday. Camden and Landry finally understood the concept of Christmas, which is kind of nice and kind of not. There was quite a bit of pushing and shoving going on over their respective gifts. Luckily the new has worn off and now the arguing has been minimized. We finally felt the exhaustion of going and going and going for three days straight. The kids did pretty well, but it was very taxing on me and Blake. Next year we might have to take it down a notch!

We hope you all had an amazing Christmas and that 2010 will bring you lots of love and happiness!

Landry's 23 month day, Owen's (almost) 7 month day

2009-12-27T15:51:00.006-06:00

Landry turned 23 months old on Christmas Eve. She is such a big girl! Her comprehension really seems to have taken off over the past several days. She's articulating better as well. It's hard to believe that she'll be two in less than a month. Where does the stinking time go?

Owen will be 7 months old tomorrow. We've got an early morning flight to Mexico, so I thought I better post this sweet picture tonight. He's trying to become mobile, but so far all he does is scoots himself backwards. His poor fat tummy keeps him high-centered a lot of the time. He briefly gets up on all fours, but all he can muster is a little rocking action. He's making more and more sounds these days. He's got "dada" down very well. His second tooth came in on Christmas Eve. Seeing teeth in a previously empty mouth is a little weird, but he's still cute as a button!

See? I told you so.

Christmas 2009: Part 1

2009-12-23T21:42:00.004-06:00

Tonight we celebrated Christmas with Blake's mom, step-dad, sister, brother-in-law and niece. Camden was so excited about opening his presents that he ate his entire dinner. We got our first dose of "is it time to open Christmas presents yet?"

He got a tool bench from Nana and Chappy. He loved it so much that every time Landry got near it he started babbling incoherently and pushing her away. Even though we couldn't tell what he was saying, he was definitely angry! This was made even more evident when he would throw whatever was in his hands down - in a not-so-nice way. Landry got a bassinet for her babies and a new red-headed baby doll. She really loved her gifts, but the fact that Camden kept pushing her away from his made her all that more interested in staying up in his business. Owen got a cute plush toy car that was just his big. He had a big time chewing on it and accidentally honking the horn. Landry and Camden both took a turn behind the wheel, which looked pretty ridiculous because they're both entirely too big for it. Landry also got a purse and mini baby doll from Aunt TaTa. Camden got a couple of new movies to add to his collection, and Owen got a little cow doll that counts.

It's only the first day of Christmas, and it's obvious our kids won't be hurtin' for anything this year! Although Mama might be hurtin' if they don't get a handle on this fighting over toys stuff. I try to keep telling myself that they're only one and two, and that they can't really help it, but JUMPIN' JESUS ON A POGO STICK! it's killing me already. But anyway, besides me getting stressed out over the sibling rivalry, it was a very nice evening!

I'll update more after Parts 2, 3 and 4!

A wonderful weekend

2009-12-22T17:46:00.003-06:00

Friday night we had Blake's company Christmas party at the house. The big kids stayed in Waskom with Nana and Chappy, and little O stayed home and partied with us. On Saturday we went and picked up the kiddos and went up to Pop Steve's old home place in Huffines, Texas. We had a great time visiting with Aunt Nancy and her clan from South Louisiana. The kids had a big time swinging, running and playing. Nana and Chappy came and rescued them (and by them, I mean us!) and brought all three kids back home so we could stay up at the farm and hang out with all of the cousins by the camp fire. A LARGE thanks to Nana and Chappy for all the kid wrangling they did over the weekend!

Toothless no more!

2009-12-22T17:40:00.002-06:00

Six days before his 7 month day Owen finally cut his first tooth. The second one is not far behind. You have to use your imagination, but it's really, really there!

This was my first attempt at capturing the little shiny tooth:

A sad, sad day

2009-12-08T15:56:00.004-06:00

I am so sad today. Wendy's dad, Ray McKibben, passed away yesterday. He went to school with my dad, so I'm going to guess that he's the same age - 57. Not that there's ever a perfect age to die, but 57 is way too young.

Wendy and I met in sixth grade, but didn't become friends until 7th grade. (She had a weird haircut in sixth grade!) Mr. McKibben called me Other Daughter and I called him Other Father. He has been a part of my life for many years. He did an excellent job of grilling Blake before we got married to make sure he was good enough for me!

He was truly a neat, neat person. He was loud. He was talented. He was brilliant. (He was also often cranky and sometimes downright abrasive, but that's neither here nor there!) The thing I know most about Other Father is that he loved his family beyond measure. He will be greatly missed. My heart goes out to Other Mother, Wendy, Hillary, Jason and their families.

(By the way, I stole this picture from Wen's facebook page.)

Lots of ground to cover: Landry's 22 month day, Owen's 6 month day, Thanksgiving, Owen's 6 month stats

2009-12-05T21:09:00.013-06:00

So, I'm obviously way behind - even more behind than I have been over the past several months. My laptop monitor bit the dust early in November, and I just got it back this week. I can't blame that alone, but it was a contributing factor! So if anyone's still reading this, here's enough to catch us up for the month:

On November 24th, Landry turned 22 months old. She's still a nutjob! She loves, loves, loves her babies still. I think Santa will be hooking her up with some more gear for her brood. She's still in love with Owen, but doesn't particularly care for it when he reaches out and grabs her clothes or hair. She frequently tries to love on Camden, but when he rejects her (which he usually does) she starts swinging. It's the few times that he embraces the idea of showing her affection that truly melt my heart. They can be so stinking sweet to each other when they want to be. She can say just about anything she wants to, but her voice is so nasal that almost everything that comes out of her mouth sounds the same.

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We went to Uncle Bruce's and Aunt Linda's to gorge ourselves this year. It was great, and a lot less tiring than being at Granny's. Aunt Linda has wayyyy fewer knickknacks lying about for our kids to dig in.

The day after Thanksgiving we had Blake's family over. The highlight of the day was surprising Peyton with her new car. She had no clue, and must have said "oh. my. gosh." about a bazillion times after she saw it.

On November 28th, Owen turned 6 months old. He's a very lazy baby! He's reached all of the developmental milestones appropriate for his age, but he doesn't really like to show off his skills very often. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that it's just not safe to leave him lying around on the floor in these parts. We need to be better about that, but I'm not ready to have him squished to bits just yet. Besides, I distinctly remember making the comment that if we had to have three kids, it would be great if the third could be a little slower than the first two. So far so good! He had his 6 month checkup on December 3rd, and the fact that's he's short was confirmed.

Owen's 6 month stats:

Height: 24 inches (3rd percentile)
Weight: 16 pounds, 13 ounces (25th percentile)
Head: 17.5 inches (75th percentile)

Not that we're counting anymore, but Camden turned 33 months on December 2nd. We are amazed daily at the phrases that come out of his mouth. He and Landry went in for their second round of the flu vaccination, and after the nurse gave Landry her shot he got very upset and asked "did you hurt my sister"? He told me last night (after I had punished Landry for something or another) "you being ugly to my sister". He's very protective of her when he's not trying to beat her up.

He's finally figured out his relationship to Owen. He repeats (often) "Owen's my little brother", or "hey, mister brother Owen". He's super sweet to Owen, but the bigger Owen gets, the less and less careful the bigger kids are around him. I'm surprised the poor guy hasn't suffered a crush injury yet.

There was also Camden's first movie (with Dee and his boy cousins). We saw Planet 51, and he did pretty well. He wasn't sure about the volume for the first few minutes, but he quickly decided he could handle it. He sat in his seat eating popcorn and drinking Sprite for the first 45 minutes or so, then got ants in his pants and kept going back and forth between me and Dee.

There's lots of laughter, lots of tears, and lots of loudness around these parts. But most of all, there's lots of LOVE! It's not always easy, and might not be everyone's idea of heaven, but to us it's simply perfect!

O's six month pictures

2009-11-29T17:21:00.001-06:00

Our little stinker

2009-11-01T22:38:00.005-06:00

I'll spare you the picture (although I really did take one the first time), but Landry pooped on the potty today for the second time! We were having potty time this evening and Camden and Landry were both begging for a bath. We kept telling them no. (We really do bathe them, I promise. They had a shower with me earlier in the day, and we felt like that should have been enough for one day.) They kept on and on, so I spouted off "if you make poopy on the potty I'll put you in the bath", knowing that it would never happen. Sure enough, my stubborn baby girl had to show me up by pinching one off! Fortunately for me, Camden couldn't manage a poop, so I didn't have to bathe them. I suck, right?

Our sweet O is 5 months old!

2009-10-31T22:56:00.003-05:00

Owen turned five months old on Wednesday. I know I've said it before, but he is SUCH a sweet baby. He doesn't complain about anything except being hungry or sleepy. He chills out in his papasan chair or on his activity mat and soaks in all the craziness of his brother and sister. He LOVES when Camden and/or Landry stop and talk to him or give him hugs and kisses. He's got the sweetest little smile, but laughs like an 85 year old with emphysema! He's rolling over occasionally, but really doesn't seem too interested in reaching his developmental milestones early. I must say that while it's always exciting to watch your kids do something new, I won't be too upset if he does things slower than the other two. He'll be chasing behind them soon enough, and I'm not about to rush it this go 'round!

Landry's 21 months old, and I'm blogtarded

2009-10-26T15:46:00.005-05:00

So it's apparent that I have had a very difficult time keeping this blog up properly over the past few months. I'm not sure if having a third kid is to blame for that or if it's the time sucker known as facebook that keeps me preoccupied. It's probably a little bit of both.

The kids are all doing great. Camden and Landry are still using the potty periodically, though neither one has any interest in keeping a dry diaper. We just keep telling ourselves that it'll come . . . one of these days. Owen's still a super happy and super easy baby. He's rolled back to front several times. We haven't actually witnessed these rolls, we just find him in his new position after the fact.

But the reason for this post is because Landry Lu turned 21 months old on Saturday. She's still quite the firecracker. She keeps up with Camden with no problem whatsoever. They seem to be getting along a little better lately. The pushing/shoving has lessened . . . for now. She'll be kicking his rear in no time! The saving grace is that they still like to hug and kiss (which we think is the sweetest thing ever) . . . for now. Only three more months until we celebrate her second birthday!

Landry peed on the potty!

2009-09-29T19:41:00.001-05:00

Camden's been using the potty a few times a day for about 3 weeks now. We plopped him down on the big potty and put Landry on the training potty before their baths tonight and she did it!

Our little caboose is 4 months old!

2009-09-29T17:28:00.006-05:00

Owen turned 4 months old yesterday. Where has the time gone? He's babbling up a storm, giggling like an old man, trying to pull his knees up under him, doing a front-to-back roll on occasion and making our lives fuller every single day! It's hard to believe that less than a year ago we were trying to figure out what in the world we would ever do with three kids, and now we can't imagine what we'd ever do without all of them! He's still very laid back, but has developed a few preferences about how he likes/doesn't like to be held, etc. He's still a great night-time sleeper. He stays awake in hour and a half intervals during the day. We try to take advantage of all the snuggle time, because (and I know I've said this before, but) this is the end of the line!

He had his 4 month check up today, and here are his stats:

Height: 23.5 inches (10th percentile - still!)

Weight: 13 pounds, 11.5 ounces (25th percentile)

Head: 16.5 inches (50th percentile)

Everything looked great, but they're ordering another ultrasound of his kidneys just to make sure things are still looking good.

My little reds

2009-09-27T17:22:00.003-05:00

Landry at her 3 month check up.

Owen at his 3 month check up.

Happy 20 months, Lulu!

2009-09-27T16:44:00.006-05:00

The Queen of Fits turned 20 months old on Thursday. It seems like every day she finds a new level of loud to display during her tantrums. She's a little sweetie when she wants to be, but still doesn't take too kindly to being told no. She wakes up almost every morning asking for "mum" (gum), "numonees" (M&Ms) or "baboosht" (Starbursts), thus starting off the no!/temper tantrum portion of our day. It's a vicious cycle!

She's got a few four word sentences, the most common of which is "I don't like it". Her vocabulary gets stronger each day, and luckily Camden understands a lot of her "words". She often asks him for help, which comes out "needsumelp", and likes to point out everything that resembles a tractor by saying "you see dat dactuh?"

She's quite a character - SO completely and totally different from Camden. She still thinks Owen's pretty cool, but I think she's started figuring out that a lot of times when I don't do what she wants me to it's because I'm occupied doing something for him. I'm pretty impressed that it's taken almost four months for her to display any sort of jealousy!

We love her to the moon and back, in spite of her propensity for throwing fits!

Owen's three month stats

2009-09-22T22:03:00.005-05:00

So I'm finally posting Owen's three month statistics, just in time for his four month check up. I'm just a little behind!

Height: 22.5 inches (10th percentile)

Weight: 12 pounds, 8.5 ounces (50th percentile)

Head: 16.5 inches (75th percentile)

It seems that Owen will definitely be our shorty. I'll be curious to see how much he weighs when he goes in next month, because he's really chunked up over the past few weeks.

The pictures show him admiring himself in the mirror and then rolling over. He did it two times, but then will Scott walked in he tried to make a liar out of me.

Our baby is three months old!

2009-08-30T20:23:00.003-05:00

Little Owen turned three months old on Friday. These past few months sure have flown by! He got to meet and visit with lots of family Friday night that he hadn't met before.

He's cooing up a storm these days. He's still very laid back and is a very easy-going baby. He's been sleeping through the night since he was five weeks old, which is very much appreciated around here!

We go on Tuesday for his three month well baby check and I'll post his latest stats soon.

19 month old eyebrows!

2009-08-24T21:06:00.005-05:00

Landry Lou turned 19 months old today. (I'm impressed that this is actually getting posted on the correct day!) I got some pretty good shots of what are known around here as her Trouble Eyes. Just about every time I tell her to smile she cranks down her eyebrows and says "cheese", so it's hard to capture her big, beautiful smile these days. She's talking up a storm, but isn't scared to pitch a fit when we don't immediately understand what she's saying. She's got the basics down, and likes to list the names of people in the room or car with her. Camden is known as "bro-er", Owen is either "Oweee" or baby, and Christine is still "Dideen". It's amazing how different her little personality is from Camden's. She's got a quick temper, an infectious laugh and is cuddly as can be - when it's her idea. She's still not putting up with much crap from Camden, but is slowly learning how to share. Our biggest fights each day are about who stole what from whom, so learning to share is definitely an ongoing process around here.

She's unbelievably adorable, and that keeps her out of a lot of trouble around here!

All my children

2009-08-12T12:39:00.001-05:00

The "big boy" bed

2009-08-12T12:13:00.004-05:00

We broke Camden's crib down on Sunday and put him in his big boy bed - finally! He's done pretty well in it. We put a TV with a DVD player in his room in the hopes that it would make him want to stay in his room. We have several episodes of him coming out right after we put him down at night, but after a few trips back to bed he eventually stays put. We've been setting the sleep timer on the TV, so after 30-45 minutes it cuts off and he rolls over and goes to sleep - just like a big boy. We're very proud of him for handling the transition so well!

Statistics: Owen's 2 month and Landry's 18 month

2009-08-06T19:18:00.005-05:00

Landry and Owen had well-baby check ups today. Owen had to get three shots, but Landry was spared this go 'round. As we figured, he was not a fan at all. Here are their respective stats:

Owen:

Height: 22 inches (15th percentile)

Weight: 10 pounds, 15 ounces (25th percentile)

Head: 15.75 inches (50th percentile)

At 2 months Camden was 12 pounds, 1 ounce, 23 inches tall with a 15.75 inch head circumference (50th percentile for all). Landry was 11 pounds, 5 ounces (75th), 22.5 inches tall (50th) and had a 14.5 inch head circ. (20th).

Landry:

Height: 32.5 inches (75th percentile)

Weight: 24 pounds, 13 ounces (66th percentile)

Head: 18.75 (85th percentile)

At 18 months Camden was 33.25 inches tall, 28.5 pounds with a 19 inch head circumference. (All 75th percentile)

Owen at 2 months

2009-08-03T21:00:00.003-05:00

We were by ourselves most of the week, and this is as good as my extended arm shot gets.

This is what Owen did most of his 2 month day.

And this is how I finally got him quiet.

Owen turned 2 months old when we were in Florida last week. I'm sorry to report that it wasn't a very happy day for him. He quickly got used to being the only child and was none-so-happy every time I got really selfish and decided to put him down so I could do things totally ridiculous like go to the bathroom, put my makeup on, get dressed, etc. He was definitely Pissed Off Baby most of last week. Fortunately, he won't remember it, but he'll have this nice little diary to fill him in one day.

He is really a laid back baby (at home - definitely not in Florida). He started smiling on purpose the week before our trip, and on July 26th he smiled and giggled at us in the mirror. He's laughed a few times since then, also. He rolled from his front to back on the 29th, but I'm sure that was a fluke. He hasn't done that since. I think those are all of his firsts so far. Oh, and the most important thing: he's going overnight without a bottle. He started this around 6 weeks, and it has been FABULOUS. Sometimes he'll wake up around 4, but we're able to reinsert the paci and get him back to sleep until 7ish. This is definitely earlier than the other two, and it's also without the benefit of having rice cereal in his bottle.

We go on Thursday for his 2 month well baby check and shots (as well as for Landry's 18 month check and shots), and we'll see if we're still fattening him up too much. I'll report back with his statistics.

Landry's 1 and a half!

2009-08-03T20:44:00.003-05:00

Or at least she was on July 24th. Now I guess she's a few days over that. She's still the prettiest red head in the world! (Sorry to all of you other folks who thought you were the prettiest red head in the world, but it's true.)

She's talking up a storm, but there is still LOTS that is totally greek to us. She has finally gotten back to real kisses. For the longest time she'd let us kiss her on the head, but was totally opposed to the lip kisses. Maybe she heard about the swine flu. She and Camden are huge buddies most of the time. There's lots of playing and sharing and kissing and hugging, but when it gets ugly it gets REALLY ugly. It appears as if they're equally hard-headed. I'm not quite sure where they get that. ;) She definitely doesn't let him push her around.

Sorry for the ridiculously late update. We've been a little bit busy around these parts!

Yesterday

2009-07-11T02:09:00.002-05:00

Yesterday Landry spoke her first understandable three word sentence. Christine said "Landry, I think it's time for your nap" and Landry promptly responded (while running like a wild woman through the kitchen) "I think no". We looked at each other with the "did she just say that?" look. When we realized the other heard the same thing we decided that she really did say it. Her little vocabulary has blossomed in the past three days. Today Blake said "excuse me" and she said "excuse me, daddy" right back to him. For some reason we feel like she isn't speaking as well as Camden did at her age, but I think we're just comparing her vocab to what we get out of Camden nowadays. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's hard to remember there's an age gap between the two of them. She's making more and more sense every day!

My heart's a meltin'!

2009-07-05T15:53:00.003-05:00

As I type, Camden and Landry are sitting in the window waiting on their daddy to get home. I looked over at them, and this is what I found. I feel really lucky to have captured these sweet images! I love watching the relationship between these two develop. It really is one of the sweetest things in life.

Lots o' babies

2009-07-05T15:24:00.002-05:00

This doesn't happen very often, but I sure do enjoy it when it does!

Fun in the big bath tub!

2009-07-03T10:14:00.001-05:00

Happy 1 Month, Owen! (and belated 17 months to Landry!)

2009-06-28T17:25:00.006-05:00

It's crazy to think Owen's already been around for a month! Seems like we were just finding out we were pregnant with him. He's a very easy-going baby. He eats and sleeps, with the occasional poopy diaper thrown in the mix. He's been getting belly aches pretty regularly, but hopefully that won't last much longer. He had his circumcision on Tuesday. The good thing about an uncircumcised penis is that when he peed during diaper changes the stream went down into the diaper or the changing pad. Now that he's had a little taken off the top he whizzes everywhere - even in his ear! We go back on Tuesday for his follow up with the urologist. They ordered results from the ultrasounds that were done at the hospital when Owen was a day old. I'm curious to see what they have to say about his kidneys.

He's doing great, and growing like a weed! We sure didn't expect a fifth member in our family, but we sure did fall in love with him quickly!

He had his first overnight stay at Pop and Dee's last night, and then a quick visit with his great grandparents today. Papa still loves babies as much as ever. I think had we stayed a few minutes longer they both would have been napping on the couch!

Landry turned 17 months on Wednesday, which just happened to be Pop's birthday. We had dinner as a family (all 13 of us) at Texas Roadhouse to celebrate.

Landry is a hand full right now. She's still loving Owen, but she and Camden have been arguing more since we brought Owen home. It's a lot of fun. It's sometimes hard to remember that she's only one and we can't discipline her the same way we can Camden. She's still a baby!

She's getting more and more lovable. She's never been much on cuddling, but seems to be coming around these last few weeks. She doesn't slow down often, so it's nice when she climbs up in our laps and sits still for a while.

We're all adjusting quite well to life as a family of 5. Blake typically handles the first night feeding, and I get the second. Sometimes I luck out because the second falls around 6 or 7 a.m. We're getting a decent amount of sleep, but could always use more. Camden's still a "good helper", and Landry likes to try to help and then proclaim "good job", even though most folks wouldn't have a clue what she's saying. For having three kids in 27 months I think we're doing pretty well!

Father's Day Weekend

2009-06-22T10:12:00.007-05:00

We had a pretty nice weekend. The big(ger) kids behaved, somewhat. They were plenty bad, I guess, but it's amazing how quickly you can block out the miserable parts! Here are some photos from the weekend:

Camden loves to walk around in everyone else's shoes.

And Landry loves to imitate Camden. They walk really well in Daddy's shoes, although you wouldn't think they'd be able to.

This is what our sweetest baby (for now) did most of the weekend.

Blake and Camden cleaned up the boat on Saturday.

Camden was in charge of the water hose, which thrilled him to no end.

We got Blake a Boses SoundDock for Father's Day. He hooked it up and did a little dancing with his baby girl in the kitchen Sunday morning.

Owen got a little play time in, too.

And plenty of kisses from Camden.

There was a sprinkler hooked up to the other end of this hose, but of courses the kids liked the end that was making mud way better than the clean water.

I saved the best for last:

We had a white trash end to our weekend when Camden stripped off his clothes and started hauling the cooler down the driveway IN THE FRONT YARD. I'll spare you the pictures of Blake bathing the kids in the sprinkler before we brought them inside. It was super tacky, in a very funny sort of way.

A fun day for the big(ger) kids

2009-06-05T22:08:00.003-05:00

We bought a cheapo kiddie pool yesterday thinking the kids would enjoy splashing around in it. It was about one-eighth full of water when the side busted a leak. Christine and Camden made a mad dash to Academy and picked up an inflatable pool, which turned out to be a much better purchase. Camden and Landry had a blast splashing around and climbing in and out to go down the slide. And to top it all off, Camden only tried to hold Landry under the water once!

My Favorites

2009-06-03T18:54:00.002-05:00

A comparison

2009-06-03T18:25:00.005-05:00

Owen at 6 days old.
Landry at 7 days.

Owen at 3 days old.

Camden at 1 or 2 days old.

More Owen

2009-05-29T15:17:00.006-05:00

Announcing . . .

2009-05-29T07:59:00.002-05:00

. . . Owen Ridgley Rainey! Most of you already know, but Ridgley is Blake's dad's middle name and goes back generations before him. It's growing on me! We tested the name out last night before we sent him back to the nursery and think it suits him very well. And he can already purse his lips as if he's saying "Oh", so we think he approves!

Welcome to the world, little Owen. Sorry it took us 16 hours to finalize your name!

Pictures compliments of Danielle

2009-05-28T21:32:00.002-05:00

Not the best angles, but they whisked the baby away to the nursery about 45 seconds after Danielle walked in, so she didn't have much to work with. I'll post more as soon as I can.

The nursery called a few minutes ago and said they bathed him at 8 and fed him about 9:15 and he did great. They'll bring him to us as soon as we get moved to a postpartum room. Who knows when that will be though.

By the way, I can't read the blog on Blake's HP Mini, so if things look funny, I apologize! I think the privacy screen has a weird affect on whatever color I've got the font set to.

Baby Boy Rainey has arrived!

2009-05-28T19:15:00.002-05:00

No Name Rainey is here! He was born at 4:11 p.m. weighing 6 pounds, 8 ounces and 18.5 inches long. He's a shorty! I went in for my scheduled exam this morning and was dilated 5 cm. Dr. P sent me over to the hospital and they started me on Pitocin and broke my water shortly after 1 p.m. I got my epidural about 1:30, and bragged that I got it before I had too many painful contractions. This statement later bit me square in the ass when it wore off and I got about 30 minutes of strong contractions before the new dose of meds started working. I applaud all of you who have labored and/or delivered without pain meds, because I can tell you right now that sort of insanity just IS NOT for me. The epidural kicked back in about 1 minute before I started pushing, and after 2 to 4 good pushes he was here and SCREAMING. He immediately peed on my OB, and later went again on the nurses as they were cleaning him up and checking him out. So we know his little kidneys are working! My pediatrician said they would do the ultrasound on his kidneys tomorrow to see if they are still enlarged, or if that has resolved itself.

His respiration was rapid at first, but that seems to have resolved. He's in the nursery now awaiting his bath. He has to warm up first, and will have to warm back up afterwards, so we're not sure when we'll get to see him next.

He has strawberry blond hair. I'm curious to see what it looks like after his bath. Some say he resembles his siblings, some say he doesn't. I don't have an opinion on that yet, as we haven't really had much time together.

We've taken plenty of pictures, but somehow our USB cable got left at home. I have the little Canon in my purse, so when we see him next I'll take some pics with that and use the SD card slot on the laptop to upload a few pictures. He has a little bit of a cone head, but his little face is just perfect. I hope you show you all soon!

His name will be announced soon - I promise! Thanks for all your thoughts, prayers, good vibes, etc.

Checking out the new kid's digs

2009-05-24T21:02:00.004-05:00

We'll be doing really well if Camden and Landry don't tear up the swing and bouncy seat before the baby gets here. The fact that Camden can now open the baby gates isn't working in our favor. They are both super interested in all the stuff that's being brought in and dug out of closets, etc. We'll see how much they like it when there's someone occupying all these fun items! I'm guessing that's going to go over like a turd in a punch bowl.

(These were taken with the little Canon point and shoot camera, which is why the quality sucks. Sometimes digging out the big, nice camera is too much of a hassle!)

Our "good helper"

2009-05-24T20:43:00.004-05:00

Camden had all the wrong screws in the wrong places, but at least he didn't lose anything.

I'm pretty sure there was a "good helper?" right before or after this picture was taken.

They let him think he was helping for a while.

(Longer than they wanted.)

And the one who's content with Play-Doh for now.

Tuesday night Mom and Dad came over to help us put the new crib together. (That's the third crib in this house, for those of you who are counting.) Camden always touts himself as the "good helper", and Tuesday was no different. He's perfectly content as long as he's allowed to be involved. It's when the dad has had enough of his good help that things get ugly. Very, very ugly. But it's cute for a while!

Happy 16 Months, Landry Lou!

2009-05-24T20:32:00.004-05:00

Landry turned 16 months old this morning. It's really crazy how fast time flies. She's as sweet as she can be . . . until you piss her off. Then you better watch out! She's very quick to try to knock your block off when she gets mad, and isn't afraid to fight for a toy, etc., if she thinks she's the rightful owner of it. She's still our best eater by far, and isn't scared to try anything at least once. She still won't eat fresh fruit, though she'll eat dried fruit and applesauce like it's going out of style. She's been in the habit of waking up at 6:20something every morning. That's getting old, but I guess we shouldn't complain since she goes down around 7 every night.

Happy 16 months, Baby Girl! We love you more than you'll ever know!

Just to update

2009-05-23T21:36:00.003-05:00

I think this is the longest I've ever gone without updating this thing. I would have divorced it by now if I were y'all!

Not too much to report here, except that the bed rest was officially lifted on Monday. I had pretty much taken myself off of it about a week and a half earlier though. Breaking the rules! Breaking the rules! My doctor also took me off of the magnesium and Brethine I was taking to slow the contractions. I was still at 2 cm and 30% effaced on Monday. That makes about 3 weeks of no change. The contractions picked back up almost immediately, and I'm having some pretty good ones at night. I'll go back on Tuesday and see if there's been any progress. Assuming I'm still progressing, we're scheduled for an induction on June 4th.

The kids are doing great, after a bad bout with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. That's some bad stuff. They were miserable for several days, and their moods certainly reflected it. Fortunately they had it at the same time. I'd like to block out those 5 days. They were really, really bad days. But they're all better now.

We found Landry on the dining room table twice this morning. She's enjoying climbing into the chairs entirely too much. She's a little dare devil for sure. She's talking more and more, although much of her vocabulary is still hard to understand. She's been crazy with the "hold me" since I've gotten off bed rest. Although I was a rule breaker, I really tried not to pick either of the kids up unless it was absolutely necessary. Now that I'm able to pick her up and carry her around again she thinks I need to ALL DAY LONG. I guess maybe she senses what's coming?

Camden is still a big goof ball. He wakes up in the morning and starts singing just about every day. This morning it was "Low Rider". The number of songs the kid can sing all by himself is ridiculous! He can repeat almost anything we ask him to. The other day I had him saying "that aggravates the fire out of me", after he continued to unfold the laundry as I was folding it. He comes up with some pretty funny stuff on his own though. He likes to kiss and rub my belly and say "baby", but I'm pretty sure he has no idea what it's all about. He also thinks Blake has a baby in his belly, if that tells you anything.

We finally had new floors put down in the baby's room and had almost the entire bottom floor of the house repainted. It's looking pretty good in here, if I do say so myself. We still need to find a rocking chair for the baby's room and get the camera for the video monitor hung, but for the most part it's ready for it's unnamed occupant. I still need to paint something for his wall, too. I haven't been inspired or motivated to do much lately.

I have lots of photos to upload, but they'll have to make it from the camera to my laptop first. One of these days, right?

I hope you're all doing well. I'll try to get more stuff on here soon.

Landry's 15 month stats

2009-05-01T13:01:00.007-05:00

Landry went for her 15 month check up today. I broke the bed rest rules and went with Blake so we could discuss the potential problems with Trouble Rainey. And no, I don't want to hear any griping from anyone about it!

Landry got three yucky shots and pitched a big ol' fit while she got them, but recovered very quickly. She weighs 23.5 pounds (60th percentile) and is 31.5 inches tall (80th percentile). We're always glad when one of our kids makes it past the 50th percentile in height! (I think we may have some underlying issues with this.) Her head circumference was 18.125. She's already passed the word requirement they set for 18 months, so unless something comes up that concerns us about her development she won't have to go back for another well baby check until her second birthday.

As we predicted, she's doing great!

I've been meaning to document her vocabulary (for my own purposes), so here's my attempt:

Mama

Daddy

Dee

Nana

Ball

Cookie (tookie, or something similar)

Cracker (cackoo, I think)

Uh-oh

Bye-bye

Hey

Night-night

No-no (while waving her finger at you)

Puppy (sometimes she says it correctly and sometimes it comes out "buppy")

Thank you (tantoo)

More (mo-mo)

Bite

Milk (also mo-mo)

Hungry (hawnee)

Hold me (hoe me)

There are more, but my brain needs a nap. I'll update as I think of them.

Happy Birthday, Blake!

2009-04-30T20:53:00.004-05:00

Happy birthday to the sweetest husband and father on the planet! We are so thankful for you!!

We celebrated with Blake's side of the family last night. The kids and I made his birthday cards this year since I don't get out of the house much. He really liked him, so I think that will probably become a birthday tradition around here. We had steak and taters, and yummy chocolate cake, which the kids thoroughly enjoyed. Many thanks to Nana for providing all of the goodies to make the celebration wonderful!

Too cute

2009-04-26T12:31:00.002-05:00

Beautiful blue eyes.

Not quite fully awake, but smiling nonetheless.

Somebody turned 15 months!

2009-04-25T07:49:00.003-05:00

Landry turned 15 months old yesterday. She's been learning lots of new things lately. She requently yells out "woof woof buppy" when she hears the dogs barking. There are many other things she's saying pretty well, but my brain isn't capable of thinking properly right now, so I'll need to work on her list of words and document them later. She's getting the hang of running, although it doesn't always end well. We've had several encounters with doors and door jams lately. She loves to torment Camden when he's sitting in Daddy's chair watching one of his movies. She walks up and starts jacking with his feet and the fighting commences. She's not as content to sit back and let him rob her of whatever she's playing with much these days. She's begun to put up a hefty fight if it's something she really wants to play with.

There have been many suggestions that we cut her bangs (Mom!), but the goal is to let them grow out so she doesn't have a full-blown baby mullet. She refuses to keep a clip or ponytail holder in, but we'll keep working with her. I think she likes her hair in her face. Maybe one day we'll get it under control. Regardless, we think she's prettier every day!

32 Weeks

2009-04-20T14:47:00.004-05:00

Not the greatest picture, I know. I took a picture of the 3D ultrasound picture with my phone so I could email it to Blake, and it's all I've got to offer you guys since our scanner is in a closet somewhere. We saw some pretty freaky stuff on the 3D ultrasound today. He had the hiccups and kept opening and closing his mouth in all sorts of scary ways, and also kept opening his eyes, which I was not a fan of at all. Still kind of creeps me out just thinking about it. It was neat to watch in real time though.

Mom took me to see Dr. Pineda this morning, as Blake is spending the week in Florida on business. Actually, it really is business, he'll just get to have a little fun while he's down there. And since fun is something I'm definitely short on these days, I'm a lot jealous and a little bitter about it! But anyway, back to the story. Dr. P checked me and I'm almost 2 cm dilated. I've been a little bit dilated for the past 2 weeks, but today was enough to make it onto the charts. My cervix is still about 25-30% effaced, which is the same that it's been for the past week. He didn't seem very concerned with the dilation. The baby is still very high and my cervix hasn't softened any more. We'll go back on Thursday and see if there's any change at that point. If there is, I'm probably going to start freaking out.

We saw the techs at the specialist's office after the visit with Dr. P. Things look almost identical to last week with the baby's kidneys (3.5 cm and 8-9 cm) and my amniotic fluid level (22 cm). He performed nicely on for the monitors and we got out of there a good bit quicker than the last several times. Apparently bananas get him moving pretty well.

That's all I know for now. We've got appointments with painters and flooring folks lined up to get his room (and other parts of the house) completed before he gets here. He has bedding and should have furniture in another week or so. Now if we can just find him a name!

Easter lunch/Libby's birthday

2009-04-14T13:38:00.003-05:00

Sunday afternoon my family came over for Easter lunch and to celebrate Libby's birthday. (She turns 13 on the 16th.) It was a nice break in the bed rest. I did stay off my feet, but got to actually get dressed, put make-up on and sit at the table for a while.

Blowing out her candles.

Landry grinning at Pop. This was right before she started wiping off his bald head with a baby wipe.

Camden could not manage to keep his finger out of the icing. Luckily Libby was quite a sport about it.

Libby and Pop surrounded by boys.

The kiddos digging through the huge Easter basket Pop and Dee brought them.

(And the only picture I made it into.)

Easter Morning

2009-04-14T13:16:00.005-05:00

Easter morning went over about as well as Christmas did in our house. The kids looked in their baskets, played with the toys, ate a little candy and then moved on to other things. No one would keep the bunny ears on and wouldn't dare actually look at the camera as I yelled their names from the couch. Camden's favorite thing was the Lightning McQueen RC car, but mainly because he used the antenna on the controller as a microphone to sing "Blue Christmas" in. What the heck, right? Landry's favorite thing was by far the paper Easter grass. She had it spread all over the living room and into our bedroom by the time it was all over. They were fun to watch. And if we heard "just one mo' [Hershey's Kiss], pweez" from Camden once, we heard it a hundred times. I can't say I blame him too much though.

Alexander Annual Easter Egg Contest pictures

2009-04-14T12:36:00.004-05:00

Blake and the kids went to the AAEC on Saturday at Aunt Beth and Uncle Bill's house. Here are some pictures from their day. Blogger is crazy slow with the uploading today. Otherwise there would have been many, many more pictures posted. They're also out of order, but sometimes Blogger uploads in order and other times it decides backwards is better.

It looks like Landry found a rather large egg that strongly resembles a football.

Landry getting a little lovin' from Uncle Beeeeeel.

Landry and Cousin Brooke.

Landry loves to kiss dogs. I'm not sure exactly how Ella felt about it though.

A funny, funny moment.

Landry trying her hand at decorating.

Landry must have become bored with all the decorating. Not sure what happened to Uncle Bill.

Looks like Camden enjoyed himself.

A lot.

Getting schooled by Aunt Tara and Peyton.

31 weeks prego

2009-04-14T10:14:00.003-05:00

I saw Dr. Pineda this morning. My cervix is behaving and the meds are doing a great job of keeping my uterus nice and relaxed. I'm still having Braxton Hicks contractions, but they've slowed way, way down. He said my cervix was a little shorter than last week, but at 31 weeks with my third pregnancy he wasn't surprised by it. He was pleased with the results from the combination of the Brethine, Slow-Mag and bed rest. I'll see him again on Thursday, just because he wants to monitor me a little closer this week because of the meds. If everything looks good after that I'll go back to once a week with him. He did mention 35 weeks again yesterday, so it looks like if my cervix and I can behave until then he'll lighten some of the restrictions at that point.

We saw Dr. Groome's ultrasound tech and nurse after the appointment with Dr. Pineda. Dr. Groome has been out of town for the last 3 or 4 weeks, so it's been quite a while since we've laid eyes on him. The baby's estimated weight is 3.8 pounds, which is right around the average mark. One of his kidneys looked excellent - down to 3.5 mm - but the other was larger than it has been before - 9.1 mm. They said while that obviously wasn't a great finding, that it still wasn't anything to freak out about. The non-stress test went very well. I only had one mild contraction while they had me hooked up, which was a vast improvement over last week. The baby's heart rate was excellent and he was plenty active to make them happy. We go back on Thursday and will see Dr. Groome and hopefully get some more information about the kidney issue.

We got some additional 3D ultrasound pictures of his little face. I would scan them and post them, but I'm trying to behave! He still favors his siblings, but something funky was up with his nose. It looked rather large in most of the pictures. I'm hoping that can be explained by shadowing during the ultrasound, or maybe that he had his face squished against something. Or maybe he just has a big nose. I guess we'll find out soon enough! (And again, as usual, he had his little right hand up by his face just taunting me!)

30.5 weeks pregnant

2009-04-09T18:46:00.002-05:00

Last Thursday I got put on what Dr. Pineda called "strict bed rest" (even though his description didn't actually sound all that strict) after having 7 Braxton Hicks contractions in an hour the night before. Today I went for my non-stress test at Dr. Groome's office and had 7 contractions in the 45 minutes that I was hooked up to the monitor. They called Dr. Pineda's office and sent me over after the NST was over. (I had only had 3 contractions when they called - the other 4 came in the 10 minutes or so that it took them to call and come back in the room.) We went to Dr. P's office and he put me on two medications to slow the contractions and relax my uterus. I was also put on the real "strict bed rest" and will go back Monday. There still isn't any change in my cervix, other than that it's soft. Monday he will re-examine me and decide whether he thinks I need to be hospitalized or not. So basically, I'm seriously motivated to behave this time! The meds are supposed to make me feel crappy, so hopefully it'll be a little easier to lay around.

I hope you guys enjoy your Easter weekend! I'll be sitting out on one family gathering and laying about for another. But I hope to have lots of good pictures to post of the kids enjoying their weekend.

A very Rainey day

2009-04-05T14:13:00.005-05:00

Pop Steve was in town this weekend so Blake loaded up the kiddos and made a trip to the farm. Here are a few pictures from their day:

Camden and Pop Steve took a few four-wheeler rides.

Landry did a little swinging with Aunt Victoria. (or as Camden calls her "big tortilla". it's funny what little ears hear.)

Loving every minute of it.

Handsome happy boy.

I'd LOVE to know what the inside joke was.

Sweet siblings.

Ultrasound and Non-Stress Test (NST)

2009-03-31T15:11:00.003-05:00

I had another ultrasound and NST today. The baby had the hiccups when they first started the u/s, so we had to wait a few minutes for him to get rid of them before getting started with the measurements. His kidneys are still dilated, but last week they were 6 and 7 mm and today they were only 5. That's good news. My amniotic fluid was measuring right at 22, and last week it was 21.6. She said that small of an amount could probably be explained as a discrepancy in measurements based on the baby's movements. So it looks like it hasn't increased any. He had his right hand over his face during the entire ultrasound. I don't know what the deal is with my kids and their hands near their faces, but let's hope he doesn't try to make his appearance like that.

The NST went well. His heart rate is good (at 133 beats per minute during the u/s) and he moves around JUST fine. I apparently had a good Braxton-Hicks contraction while they were monitoring me. I have them so frequently that I don't pay a lot of attention. The nurse asked if I was on any medication for contractions. I don't know if that will become an issue or not, but I'm sure hoping it doesn't.

While this certainly doesn't mean we're out of the woods, it is nice to see that the kidneys look better and the amniotic fluid issue hasn't gotten worse.

I'll go back Friday at 10:30 for another NST and keep you guys posted.

**** Oh, and I'm 29 weeks pregnant this week, not 28. Somehow I got confused along the way.

Our 1st "kids say the darndest things" moment

2009-03-29T21:03:00.003-05:00

We walked into Wendy's today for our fancy Sunday afternoon lunch and there was a kid hanging out by the door who had a curly red fro. I giggled, turned around and said "looks like Ronald McDonald" to Blake. We went about our business of getting the kids settled and ordering. We weren't paying any attention, but the Ronald McDonald kid and his parents walked out the door. Right at that moment Camden yelled out "bye bye Annie!" Blake and I about fell out of our chairs!

Norton Art Gallery

2009-03-29T15:13:00.006-05:00

We went to Norton Art Gallery today to try and get some decent pictures while the azaleas are still in full bloom. We got a few good shots, but most of what I captured are pictures of Camden as he was running and/or walking away from me. He was entirely too preoccupied with the leaves and sticks and flowers to pay attention to what I was asking him to do. Landry didn't run away from the camera, she just refused to look at it. Three will be even more fun, am I right?

Thank you to my friends (and one or two family members) who continue to tell me how good I look, but I now have evidence that you are all full of bologna! And it's pretty indisputable!

I hope you are all enjoying your Spring!

A very belated happy 13 and 14 months to Landry!

2009-03-28T22:56:00.006-05:00

Wow. I'm a terrible mom! It looks like I completely missed Landry's 13 month day and missed her 14 month day by 4 whole days. Poor middle child.

She's trying her best to make words, but it doesn't usually work very well. She has "bite" down pretty well, and tries to say "ball", "balloon", "tickle", "night night" and a few other things that don't come to mind right now. She's walking everywhere she goes, but still looks pretty unstable. It seems like after Camden started walking he just took off, while she still seems a little skeptical about the process. She figured out how to unhook the cabinet locks, and of course her favorite is the trash cabinet. She kindly taught her brother how to open them as well. Blake finally replaced the locks with fancier locks that require a magnet to open, so until they grow to about 5' 2" and can reach the magnet we should be safe. The bar stool in front of the trash cabinet was working well, but I'm not able to squeeze myself and baby between the cabinet and the island anymore, so the new locks were a necessity. We tried to take her pacifier away when we put her down one night last week, and that went over like a turd in a punch bowl. I didn't make it five minutes before I made Blake go in and give her one of her pacifiers. She only takes them at night and nap time, so we figure a little while longer probably won't hurt, right?

27.5 weeks pregnant

2009-03-26T20:18:00.006-05:00

We had our follow-up with the maternal fetal medicine specialist today, so I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and knock out the glucose tolerance test for gestational diabetes since I had to be at WKSouth anyway. It turns out that wasn't the best idea I've ever had. When you're faced with the possibility of not-so-good news (because they can't tell you anything bad quickly), it's probably better to have at least a little bit of food in you. I thought I might have time to grab some fries or something between the lab work and the appointment with the specialist, but no such luck. So we get to the specialist's office and wait in the waiting room for a solid hour past our appointment time. Do you know how much food I could have consumed in that hour? Most of you would probably be embarrassed to know what all I could have shoved in my mouth in that amount of time. Anyway, we get back to the examination room and the tech does her deal. The kidneys are still dilated, with the right measuring 6 mm and the left measuring 7. They still describe this as slightly dilated. As she's wrapping up, the nurse starts to walk out the door and the ultrasound tech says "something, something, she's got Polly". Now, I don't know exactly who Polly is, but here I am thinking that she's down the hall and another nurse is with her. Not so much. When the doctor comes in they discuss the fact that I've got poly - polyhydramnios - which is an increase in amniotic fluid. Sounds potentially scary, right? The tech later explains that the upper limit of normal is 20 (ccs, I guess - not sure of the measurement) and mine is measuring 21.something, and that it's not uncommon for it to be in the normal range on future ultrasound. So now we've got slightly dilated kidneys and slightly increased amniotic fluid. So I'm slightly worried at this point.

The doctor goes over the possibilities, but starts with something to the effect of: there's no structural explanation for the dilated kidneys or increased fluid, and his experience is that in 99.9% of the cases where they see no structural explanation for the findings, they deliver a healthy baby. There's a possibility that the baby has issues swallowing, which would explain the increased fluid. There's the possibility that I have gestational diabetes, which could explain the increased fluid (although we should know tomorrow whether this is the case or not). There's the possibility that he's not urinating properly, therefore he's not swallowing as much fluid . . . I think the possibilities are endless. He offered us an amniocentesis to rule out a chromosomal disorder, which we again declined.

I had a non-stress test today, which I guess I passed. The nurse came in to check the print out and asked me if I was experiencing any tightness or discomfort. I explained to her that I had a lot of Braxton-Hicks contractions, and she relayed it to the doctor, which must have satisfied him for the time being. There for a minute I thought they were going to put me on bed rest. Because that would be my luck, right?

The verdict: I have to go in twice a week for non-stress tests and ultrasounds until a) he decides there's no reason to keep going, or b) I have the baby. What the hell they think that will accomplish is beyond me.

I'm pretty angry about all of this, because in my heart of hearts I don't think there's anything wrong with my baby, but with all this freaking information flying around I can't help but second guess my gut. I'm mad that Dr. Pineda had trouble finding the heart rate that day back in December, because if he hadn't had that issue we wouldn't be sitting where we are now. I realize that means there's a chance we could be oblivious to a problem until his birth, but I'm wondering if it might be better that way.

So that's it, in a very long nutshell.

p.s. They said he weighed 2 pounds, 5 ounces today. And he really does have arms, contrary to what a couple of those pictures seem to show. The tech was pushing pretty hard on my belly trying to get him to rotate, and it distorted the picture to where it looks like his arm just stops. In another couple of shots that I didn't scan he has his RIGHT hand in front of his face. Seems he's taking pointers from his big brother already!

River rats

2009-03-23T13:44:00.005-05:00

We spent Sunday at Caddo. It was a beautiful day for it. Landry enjoyed her first boat ride, but wasn't happy at all when I put her in Blake's lap to "drive". Conversely, Camden wasn't very happy unless he was driving. It got pretty ridiculous at times. Fortunately, Nana and Chappy joined us so we had two extra sets of hands to tackle him with.
*

In the future we'll have to send Blake up the day before to unload all the kiddy paraphernalia and wipe down the outdoor living areas so we can be ready to enjoy ourselves when we get there. It's lots of work trying to get the place tidy enough for kids to wallow around on while they're present - especially with all the tree pollen that's lying around right now.

Thanks, Alexanders, for letting us enjoy the camp once again!

For your viewing pleasure

2009-03-18T21:09:00.006-05:00

Geez! I've been trying to upload new photos to this stupid thing since Tuesday night. I finally figured out that it just was not going to let me upload five photos at a time. I tried and tried and tried, though. Here are a few pictures from the past week or so, uploaded two or three at a time with love.

Christine and Camden are enjoying all sorts of new and fun activities while Landry naps.

These are finger paints, but he doesn't like the paint actually touching his "shingers".

Camden and his beer and popcorn.

Chill out people! It's only water.

Camden and his girls. We had the Millers over and learned that three kids will fit in the Learning Tower without collapsing it.

Landry quickly figured out what t-ball was all about. But it's not so much fun when Camden runs up swinging the bat while she's still holding the ball!

I found Landry in our bedroom laughing her rear off the other day. She and Miller were playing fetch.

My handsome boy!

Teething, maybe?

He hasn't quite figured out where the batter's box is yet.

There is often quite a bit of congestion on the slide.

Pretty blue eyes. (Ignore the snot!)

Smelling the "showers".

And again.

Rubbing Daddy's back.

The birthday party

2009-03-08T15:54:00.006-05:00

We had Camden's birthday party today at Gymboree. It was a huge hit. I'm a big fan of trashing somebody else's place and then letting them clean it up! We got home and everyone crashed out in short order. We still haven't opened the gifts and it's about to kill me! Look for pictures of the birthday boy and his gifts soon.

The almost finished product

2009-03-05T21:27:00.002-06:00

We bought a play set from a family in our neighborhood, oh, about 8 months ago. It sat on a trailer in the backyard until just a few weeks ago when Nana and Chappy started fixing it up for Camden's birthday. They have done a jam up job getting it ready for the kids to play on. The only thing left to do is to add one more set of swing hooks and for Blake to stain it. We're going to give it a good workout this weekend when the Giovengos and Schoonovers come over to play. Thanks, Nana and Chappy for all your hard work! We all love it!

Camden's 2 year check up

2009-03-03T17:20:00.003-06:00

Height: 35 inches (66th percentile)

Weight: 31 pounds (80th percentile)

Head: 19.5 inches (75th percentile)

Dr. Scott was impressed with the five-word sentences Camden was spouting off, and said he should have a vocabulary of 100 understandable words by the age of 3. I think we're probably already there, but I'm not going to do any counting to find out. Health-wise and developmentally he's doing great!

And besides us paying for waking him up prematurely from his nap this evening, today has been MUCH better than yesterday. Thank goodness!

Terrible and Two

2009-03-02T20:02:00.005-06:00

Oh my. What a day this has been! I guess we've seen it coming, but Camden decided today of all days to debut his terrible two behavior. There were moments of rationality, but for the most part today was the worst day the little guy has had. He was very testy and would pitch a big, fat fit at the drop of a hat if he didn't get his way. And obviously he didn't get his way much today because he spent a lot of time pitching fits.

Even though he was awful, I guess we'll keep him and try to focus on the good parts:

Last night, as he sat on the potty, he actually pee-peed a little. In the toilet. Pretty exciting, right? He asked to sit on the potty a couple of times today, but was only interested in toilet paper and flushing. It's progress, I suppose.

Today he sang the alphabet all the way to the letter P, only missing a couple of letters, and counted to ten like a pro.

He spent a good while actually paying attention to Christine (our mommy's helper) while she went over colors with him.

We made birthday cupcakes, and after he threw a fit when the electric mixing part was over we had a glorious time making a mess.

We had dinner with the Giovengos, which was probably the longest period without a major meltdown. I guess we should at least be proud that he controlled himself in public.

I had him repeating "Don't be bad" this afternoon, and somehow he turned it into "be be bad" by the end of the day. I guess he knew better than I did how the day would end.

In spite of all these things I'm bitching and moaning about, he's still amazingly bright and generally a joy to be around. We love him very much, even when we feel like shaking him!

Camden did not like this at all:

Joshua enjoyed the cupcakes WAY more than anyone else:

The birthday boy and his newest prized possession!

2009-03-02T08:57:00.002-06:00

He locked in on his "motorcycle" as soon as he rounded the corner with Blake this morning.

And as soon as he got a hold of a set of keys he made himself an ignition switch.

I think we made a good choice on the birthday gift this year.

Beautiful babies

2009-02-27T14:34:00.002-06:00

The view from my awesome birthday present!

2009-02-25T20:36:00.005-06:00

Can you see the difference? Blake got me a super-duper, big ass camera for my birthday. I mean the kid's still as cute as ever, but the quality is TONS better than my little point-and-shoot. We stole the whole set up idea from Erin, and if you've looked at the pictures of her little guy on her blog you'll understand why. I still have a low-light lens on the way that will make the indoor shots even better!

Here's one for comparison:

Keep an eye out for much better photos from here on out!

The icing on the cake

2009-02-24T23:11:00.006-06:00

Camden got an award at Mother's Day Out today. He FINALLY went into his class without crying! All I had to do was bribe him with the cinnamon gum that I had in my mouth. How easy and gross is that? I believe that fits into the "whatever works" category of child rearing. Landry didn't cry either, which happens periodically, but was extra sweet because it coincided with Camden's tear-free day.

See? It really was a great day!

p.s. - I'm pretty sure they were making fun of me because I was so excited about getting out of the building without hearing one of my kids crying, but hey! I'll take it!!

Before the birthday dinner

2009-02-24T21:21:00.004-06:00

What a wonderful birthday! Thanks to facebook, I think I received about 80 birthday wishes, which has to be a record in my 34 years. Blake and I went to Bella Fresca for dinner, which was yum-yum-yummy! I somehow managed to fit bread, sesame tempura shrimp, salad, turbot (fish) and hot chocolate flambois in my squished belly.

I never imagined spending my 34th birthday with two 1 year olds at home and another baby on the way, but I truly can't imagine my life being any better than it is at this exact moment. Thank you, Blake, for taking care of me the way you do! And thank you to the rest of my family and friends for making another birthday special. I love you guys!

Melts my heart! and makes me giggle!

2009-02-24T09:11:00.003-06:00

I love how he ends it with "Wandry" and looks over at his sister. He has no idea whose birthday it is - he's just singing!

Just because she's beautiful

2009-02-22T16:12:00.001-06:00

Birthday brunch

2009-02-22T15:52:00.003-06:00

Today we went to Caroline's birthday party at the Schoonover's. They made a yummy brunch and I ate entirely too much. I guess I figure if my kids don't eat I get three portions! We had a great time playing outside in the sunshine. Happy birthday Sweet Caroline!

Caroline thinks we have some sort of "happy birthday" affliction after two days of partying and singing!

The two mamas. Someone should have told us to suck in.

Camden lifted Alex's brand new tricycle.

He still thinks he's in charge of swinging Landry, even though he gets knocked down repeatedly.

Landry swinging with the birthday girl.

A Gymboree Day!

2009-02-21T20:26:00.004-06:00

We celebrated Alex's birthday today at Gymboree. He turned 2 on February 16th. Happy birthday, Alex!!! Thanks for letting us play with you today!

This is about as close as it gets to a smile when Alex sees a camera!

We've known for some time that Camden loves Gymboree, but it turns out that his little sister is just as big of a fan!

It took Camden about 2 seconds to get into full Gymboree mode.

Landry liked the singing!

Camden STILL loves the parachute!

A few notes

2009-02-18T18:24:00.004-06:00

A couple of things worth mentioning:

Camden is counting to ten (I think I've mentioned that before), but when he does it all on his own it goes "2, 3, 7 (sebben), 8, 9, 10!" He requires assistance to get all of the numbers.

He also tries to spell his name, but for some reason he always starts with the letter T. He'll repeat each letter after one of us, but when he goes out on his own he says T.

His big thing these days is that he's a "good helper". It doesn't matter what you're doing, he's going to try to help and say "good helper?" He even thinks he's a good helper when he's doing the complete opposite of what we're telling him to do.

Landry recently started doing the signs for "all done" and "more". We're working on "eat". I think she knows what it means, but hasn't tried to do it herself yet.

She is trying to say a few words, like "dog", "bite", "bath", "tah-tah" (thank you), and probably a couple of others. Her words have no ending consonants yet.

She has both of her bottom 2 year molars. I knew one of them was coming in a few weeks ago, but yesterday I did a little investigating and found that the entire surface of both bottom teeth were exposed.

Another toddler?

2009-02-15T18:54:00.002-06:00

Libby was very good at getting Landry to take more than a few steps today. I think she topped out at 8 or 9 this afternoon. This is all I've managed to catch on video so far.

Fun times!

2009-02-15T15:34:00.004-06:00

My part of the family came over this afternoon to eat and visit with Libby. We had all of the cousins together except little Claire. Maybe one day soon we'll all be together again.

The kids took Dee on a walk after lunch:

Aidan was too tall to make the little truck go.

He was determined to try, though.

5 out of 7 of Pop and Dee's grand kids.

Landry getting a pull from Tanner.

Camden could make this little scooter thing go (ala Fred Flintstone), but Dee thought he was entirely too slow, so he got pushed.

There were several switch-offs.

Ready or not, here I come!

2009-02-15T15:24:00.004-06:00

Happy birthday, Peeps!

2009-02-14T19:30:00.004-06:00

Peyton turned 16 on Thursday! It's hard to believe, right? We celebrated today at Superior where she was serenaded by the wait staff. She was a little embarrassed, but it was fun. Landry really enjoyed the blue and green icing on the birthday cake!

We love you Peyton! You are such a beautiful and sweet young woman.

Suckers!

2009-02-12T21:33:00.002-06:00

Camden's a pretty efficient sucker eater, but Landry is way messy. I wish these pictures showed how absolutely sticky she was during this endeavor!

22 weeks pregnant

2009-02-12T21:11:00.006-06:00

Partial face shot.

Full penis shot.

We had our follow-up appointment with Dr. Groome, the maternal and fetal medicine specialist today. This child has something against showing his face, but has no problem WHATSOEVER putting his man bits in the right spot for viewing. Sorry these pictures aren't the greatest. It's because I cheated and took a picture of them instead of using the scanner.

Everything looked good, except the baby's kidneys were slightly dilated. While this could just be because he needed to pee and hadn't, it has also been linked to chromosomal disorders like Down Syndrome. Dr. Groome said that he's never seen a case of Downs where the only finding was dilated kidneys. But because it's his job, he went through the possibilities and offered us an amniocentisis to rule out a chromosomal disease. In about a half a second we decided that we wouldn't take him up on his offer. Number 1: knowing wouldn't change anything; Number 2: the risks sounded absolutely horrible (they include miscarriage); and, Number 3: there isn't any solid reason to let ourselves worry about it too much. So I think I'll be a little uncomfortable about things for a few days, then hopefully will start believing it when I say there's nothing to worry about. That's the plan, anyway. We see the specialist again in 6 more weeks to check out his baby kidneys again.

So, while I would love to be all cheery and say with 100% confidence that everything's great, I'll have to go with 90% for now.

Oh, and he weighs a whopping 1 pound, 1 ounce right now!

Two of the sweetest smiles

2009-02-11T21:05:00.007-06:00

What sweet babies! (Today, at least.)

I thought it might be time for a little update on what the kids are doing/saying before I forget it all.

Landry is really into eating anything she can get her hands on these days. Blake says she'll eat anything that doesn't eat her first. She still won't do fruit unless it's apple sauce or dried tropical fruit. Maybe one day she'll decide unprocessed fruit isn't the devil. She's eating most things without being cut into teeny tiny pieces, which is very nice. Meat still has to be pretty small since she only has a few choppers, but otherwise she bites and chews very well. She's such a big girl already!

She enjoys mimicking Camden when she has the right consonants to do it. The phrase of the week has been "Mama!!!!" in a very, VERY loud tone of voice. Did I mention it's loud? Especially in the car? She doesn't seem very interested in saying much else (other than dah-dah and bye-bye), but has been making more and more sounds lately that we hope will eventually turn into words. She loves to blow kisses and wave when we say bye-bye. She's good at anticipating the goodbyes and starts blowing kisses, waving and saying "bye-bye" as soon as she senses that it's coming.

She's up to about 4 steps, but other than that doesn't seem to have the urge to go any further upright. Today she took three steps with the same foot, so she pivoted around almost 180 degrees before she bit the dust. I would have sworn she would have been walking by now, as would both of her grandmothers!

Last night Camden and I were sitting on the couch before bedtime. Blake was in his recliner and sneezed a couple of times. Camden leaned up so he could see past me and said "bwess you daddy, bwess you". It was seriously one of the cutest and sweetest things I've ever heard. I'm glad I was sitting here to hear it.

He's saying just about everything we say, and lots of things he hears on TV. The latest being "Oh my God!", which he got from watching Annie. We're trying to morph it back into "oh my goodness", since that's what we say and what he said before. Did you know they say GD on Annie? I was very surprised. Hopefully he doesn't pick that one up!

He still loves music and loves to sing. We ended up buying Annie because we were sick to death of The Sound of Music. Now he has two obsessions as opposed to one. (He didn't like Mary Poppins AT ALL.) I guess we'll sing Doe a Deer, the goodnight song and Tomorrow until we're blue in the face and like it! It sure is cute when he chimes in during the songs, or better yet, starts singing them on his own.

He has made some friends at Mother's Day Out. He comes home talking about Mary Ashtyn "mare atton" and Cody every day. He even wakes up from naps saying "owna pway with mare atton". He still cries when I drop him off, but he usually dries up before I'm out of the building and reportedly has a really good time and behaves very well.

I don't think he really understands much about the baby, but he's taken to saying he wants to see the baby and raising my shirt (yay!) and rubbing the baby or sometimes giving the baby kisses. He's gotten to where he tries to shove Landry in my direction when he wants her to go away, and I feel quite sure he'll use that with the baby (who remains nameless) once he gets here as well.

Okay. I think that's enough documentation for now. Hopefully I've done a decent job for now. I'll need this for the baby books when I ever get around to filling them out!

Hugs and kisses

2009-02-08T20:37:00.003-06:00

Thanks for catching these on camera, Danielle!

The play date of the century

2009-02-04T21:08:00.003-06:00

We had the most full three hour play date today that we've ever had before. Anne Marie had us over, along with Danielle and Joshua, and Jana, Jude and Julie. We turned the play room into a disaster, played outside on the play set and all had a yummy dinner. And everyone behaved nicely, to boot! It was a very enjoyable and extremely tiring play date. Thanks for the hospitality, Schoons!

Camden thought he needed to be in charge of swinging Landry.

And she didn't mind at all.

Camden and Alex checking each other out in mid-air.

Camden and Julie getting quite a shove from Jana.

Me and my sweet girl.

King of the mountain.

Camden's surprise ride down the slide. Notice Julie right behind him? She got a little tired of waiting for him to get the guts to let go. I think Jana put it best when she said "I'm glad that ended well." He loved it!

Jana overseeing the climbing.

My tired little girl.

Jude's action shot.

(And I have no pictures of Caroline because she was a perfect angel and napped through most of the play date.)

Happy 2 years minus 1 month, Camden!

2009-02-02T20:12:00.004-06:00

Camden is 23 months old today! He seems to be enjoying Mother's Day Out once I get good and gone. He hasn't gone in without throwing a fit since the first day, but his teachers assure me that he has fun after the initial wailing is over. He's napping while he's there - on his nap mat on the floor even! One of his teachers thought he was over two because he speaks so well. Of course when she told me he says "Mama come back?" that kind of broke my heart. But at least he's communicating, right?

His manners are coming along, but he's having trouble with pleases and the ma'ams and sirs. He says thank you and you're welcome, and thinks every time we pass someone in a store he should say "scuse us". I guess I excuse myself a little too much. Now if we could just get him to say "excuse me" when he passes gas instead of "toot tooooot" we'd be getting somewhere!

He's counting to ten now - sometimes on his own and sometimes if we start and alternate numbers with him. He was skipping quite a few until last Saturday when Nana and Chappy set him straight somehow. I tried to get the counting on video, but all he wanted to do was "see Mulner on cam-uh" (see Miller on the camera).

He's growing and learning and doing/saying new things every day. And we don't have any more bad words to report, which is always nice!

Landry's 12 month check up

2009-02-02T19:48:00.006-06:00

Landry's 12 month check up was last Monday. I'm a little behind, I know, but she and her brother were kind of bad for a few days, which doesn't make me want to brag on them much! (Kind of = THE WORST THEY'VE EVER BEEN SIMULTANEOUSLY.)

She weighed 22.5 pounds and was 30 inches long, landing her in the 75th percentile for both. We started giving her milk a few days before her birthday, and she gave up her bottle for good on the 27th! I can't tell you how nice it's been to go five days without washing a bazillion bottle parts (for the first time in almost 2 years). I'll enjoy the few months off I'll get! She's adjusted very well to eating and drinking like regular people.

She's taking 2 and 3 steps at a time, but gets so excited when we try to cheer her on that she hops and then falls down. I think if she'd give up the hop she'd be gone. Hopefully in the next few days we'll have some video of her toddling around all cute and stuff!

Landry's birthday party

2009-01-25T20:50:00.005-06:00

My two 1 year olds

2009-01-24T19:51:00.004-06:00

We made cupcakes this evening for Landry's birthday. This was the first time Camden and Landry have shared The Learning Tower, and the first time we've let them help cook. They had a large time making a mess and digging in things we normally don't let them dig into. Blake and I had a great time wathing them, and it looks like they enjoyed themselves, too. This has truly been a great day!

Our sweet Landry is 1!

2009-01-24T14:23:00.003-06:00

Landry turned ONE(!) this morning at 10:16 a.m.! I swear this has been the quickest year of my life -- even quicker than the last one. She got to turn around in her car seat this morning, which we thought would really excite her, but she never minded riding backwards so forward didn't seem to be much of a treat to her. We decided we'd spend her actual birthday as a family of four and celebrate with the rest of our family and friends tomorrow. It's been a nice slow-paced day, and now all my one year olds are snoozing. Now it's time to start getting ready for tomorrow!

Happy birthday sweet girl! We love you!!!

Since there's not much exciting going on, how 'bout some pictures?

2009-01-20T20:46:00.003-06:00

Landry got her hair did at MDO today.

This is Camden's latest obsession - pushing the Learning Tower over to Daddy's cell phone.

This has got to be the worst case of weird beard in the history of all weird beards.

The weather was actually nice enough for a wagon ride on Sunday.

Camden went to the World of Wheels on Saturday with Blake and Chappy. He had a huge time!

Blowing kisses

2009-01-13T15:41:00.004-06:00

Waiting for Daddy to get home

2009-01-13T15:22:00.003-06:00

If you were to drive down our driveway on any given workday around 6 p.m. there's a 90% chance that this is what you'd find. It makes Blake's day!

The world's worst case of bed head

2009-01-12T13:11:00.004-06:00

Landry woke up from one of her naps like this yesterday. She looks like Donald Trump in a wind storm on a day his hairspray didn't work! It looked much worse in person.

Mother's Day Out

2009-01-08T18:07:00.002-06:00

Today was the first day of Mother's Day Out for the Rainey kids. Unfortunately, only one of them made it. Landry woke up last night with a fever and a deep cough, so she got to go to MidCity Pediatrics instead. We dropped Camden off and he ran right into his room and started playing with all the new toys. He didn't even pay us any attention. When I got there to pick him up his teachers were telling me how impressed they were because he did awesome on his first day. He laid down -- get this -- on his nap mat on the floor and took a nap! They said he cried for a few minutes and went right to sleep. He watched the bigger kids go in and out of the bathroom and decided he needed to try it. He went and sat on the potty three different times during the day! We were both thrilled and relieved that he did so well.

Landry's day wasn't so hot, but at least she got some Mexican food out of the deal. She has another ear infection and the croup. She had an ear infection before Christmas and the consensus was that she never completely got over it. Dr. Scott prescribed some antibiotics and steroids and hopefully she'll be feeling all better in a jiffy.

It's a . . .

2009-01-07T13:26:00.002-06:00

. . . another set of testicles for the Rainey household! We saw a maternal and fetal medicine specialist this morning to check out what Dr. Pineda referred to as our "sluggish" baby. The baby was so active that they had a hard time getting some of the measurements they needed to evaluate the little guy! His heartbeat was excellent, and all other systems looked great. We'll go see Dr. Pineda next week for the 18 week ultrasound he does, and then back to the specialist in six weeks for a routine follow up. He said he didn't see anything to indicate a problem of any kind, which was quite a relief. Now we get to start the name game! Any suggestions?

Sweet 22 month old

2009-01-02T22:45:00.003-06:00

Camden turned 22 months old today, and we totally forgot to tell him Happy 22 month day! We suck. We did, however, let him have some fun this evening. We met the Schoonover's for dinner at Fudrucker's. We were quite a site: four adults and four high chairs. Afterwards we took the kids down to the fountain so they could watch the water. Camden repeatedly yelled "WWWAAADDDDER". He loved it. Us girls took a stroll down to a couple of stores, and when we got back to the boys there was a guy playing the guitar ("high tar") and singing outside of The Cheesecake Bistro. Camden and Alex danced around like very white and very crazy kids. It was adorable.

Camden is repeating just about everything we say, which has included two expletives to date. I'll let his father tell you which ones they were, as he was responsible for the most recent rash of cursing. He can't pronounce his Fs or Ls, so some words are still incomprehensible if you don't already know what he's saying, but for the most part he's able to carry on short conversations with no problem. He's enjoying his big boy table, and eats some of his less messy meals there. I haven't been brave enough to turn him loose with applesauce or pudding outside of the high chair yet. We'll get there one day.

He is a happy and very energetic little guy, and fortunately for us he's sweet about 92% of the time. We must be doing something right! Or maybe just right enough.

New Year Quiz

2009-01-01T21:30:00.005-06:00

This took forever, so you bee-otches better appreciate it and/or fill one out yourselves and send it back to me! I robbed it from a mommy blog I frequent, http://www.sundrymourning.com/.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before? became the mother of two beautiful babies and then got pregnant by a man who had a vasectomy

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I typically don't make resolutions because I'm not the type to keep them. But if I did make one last year, it was probably not to get pregnant in 2008. Whoops. I'm not tempting fate by speaking of 2009.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? My friends Anne Marie, Jen, Jennifer, Erin and Wendy - and me (I'm pretty close to me).

4. Did anyone close to you die? no

5. What countries did you visit? Mexico

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? A glass (or maybe a bottle) of champagne at Christmas and New Year's.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? January 24th - Landry's birthday

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? giving birth and learning how to survive with two babies

9. What was your biggest failure? does a vasectomy failure count?

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? fortunately I did not

11. What was the best thing you bought? gosh, I don't know.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Blake's. Not only does he seem to balance work and family very well, he also had the best year SAFE Planning has ever had. Most of you know his dad moved to Florida, so he did it all by himself (along with his wonderful support staff).

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? I can't put this answer in writing. Call me - I'll tell you!

14. Where did most of your money go? probably to diapers and formula

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Landry's birth and Camden walking

16. What song will always remind you of 2008? I'm Yours - Jason Mraz

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder?b) thinner or fatter?c) richer or poorer? Happier, definitely thinner than this time last year, richer in many ways

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? travel

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? ha! I'll bypass this question. You guys can fill in the blanks.

20. How did you spend Christmas? with my family, of course

21. Did you fall in love in 2008? I did - with a little red head

22. What was your favorite TV program? Grey's Anatomy, I guess

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? I'm not a hater

24. What was the best book you read? The Final Lecture

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? "What's gonna work? Teamwork!" - as performed by the Wonderpets

26. What did you want and get? a healthy baby girl - after a small glitch

27. What did you want and not get? I can't really think of anything, which must be a good sign.

28. What was your favorite film of this year? Considering I only saw two movies in 2008, both of which happened to be Will Smith flicks, I'll go with the one that didn't scare the bejeeesus out of me: 7 Pounds.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I had dinner at The Mabry House with several good friends. I turned 33.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? winning the lottery. I mean, I've already won the husband and child lottery, but the actual money lottery would be great.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? uh, how about this: My kids look really cute! I personally dress them.

32. What kept you sane? A very helpful and involved husband.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I haven't kept up very well since I don't have time for my People magazine anymore.

34. What political issue stirred you the most? I suppose the presidential election, although sadly, politics don't stir me much.

35. Who did you miss? My far away cousins.

36. Who was the best new person you met? I'm sure I met new people, right? Doesn't everyone meet new people all the time? I guess I didn't let any of them stick around.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. This lesson began in 2007, but continued to grow in 2008, and will continue for the rest of my life: Never, ever, ever say anything beginning with "my kids will never do . . .". I'm eating a lot of crow these days, but I like to think I'm doing it gracefully.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. This song doesn't sum up my year, more like almost the last decade, but if it weren't for stumbling upon Blake almost 9 years ago, my 2008 would be nothing like it was. So here's a little Lila McCann for you, from the song "To Get Me to You" from the Hope Floats soundtrack:

And I don't regret the rain
Or the nights I felt the pain
Or the tears I had to cry
Some of those times along the way
Every road I had to take
Every time my heart would break
It was just something that I had to get through
To get me to you

Welcome little Carsten Patrick Spies!

2008-12-31T22:27:00.003-06:00

Wendy and Terence welcomed their second little guy into the world on Saturday, December 27th. He weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces, and he and Wendy are reported to be doing great. Welcome little guy!

Smooth talker

2008-12-30T11:28:00.003-06:00

I was getting onto Camden yesterday morning in the truck because he kept yelling "Mama!" over and over. I told him that I was going to ignore him until he could use his inside voice. The next words out of his mouth, in a much lower tone, were "Hey Mama. Hi seet-heart. You're coot." He's buttering me up already!

Will he be embarrassed by this one day?

2008-12-27T23:20:00.003-06:00

Camden is enjoying picking things up and labeling them either "Mommy's" or "Daddy's". Luckily he hasn't decided everything is "mine" just yet. Today he found one of my bras and correctly identified it as "Mommy's". I helped him get it on correctly, but he decided the strap needed to go over his head. This probably qualifies as some weird kind of child abuse, doesn't it?

Hey Mikey, she likes it!

2008-12-27T14:25:00.002-06:00

I swear this kid will eat anything (as long as it isn't fruit). We ordered pizza for lunch because the grocery situation in this house is extremely sad. Landry's had a few bites of pizza before, but this was the first time I'd turned her loose with a tray full. She made a total mess, but seemed to enjoy every little morsel.

And yes, she is eating lunch in her PJs. What can I say? We're pretty stinking lazy around these parts.

Christmas 2008 - Round 5 (the final round)

2008-12-26T21:12:00.002-06:00

We had our fifth and final Christmas celebration with Blake's family at Aunt Beth and Uncle Bill's house last night. More good food and great times!

We have lots of great Christmas memories from our 5 Christmases of 2008!