Sick again

So both my kids are sick again. Garrett has had a virus, bad diarreha, aftervirus, pink eye, and now an upper resportory infection and bad cough all in the last month. Poor guy. Emma has the upper resportory and cough only way worse than Garrett. She is coughing constantly. They will both start the "Z pack" and are on different strong cough meds. Hopefully in a couple of days they will be back to their old selves.

Emma and Isaac

A good friend like this is hard to find and a treasure to have.

beyond the creep

Garrett is crawling now. Not great or fast but he is slowly but surely doing it. I set him in the hallway while I began to draw the bath for Emma. He got up and slowly crawled into the bathroom with us. I set him downstairs on the floor and he crawled to matts computer cords. So the babyproofing begins. We are so proud of our little boy.

Emma Update

Emma's doing good. Growing tall like her Daddy. She's in the 3-4-5 year old class at daycare because she is smart enough and big enough. She is a sweetie. She loves to play. She loves to help everyone she can with whatever she can. She's a Daddy's girl also. Here's Daddy pushing the stroller and holding her going uphill in the sprinkling rain. What a Daddy!



Here's her wearing her purse "Like Tana". Because if Tanya does it she wants to do it too.



Here's some pictures of her new room after Granny came up and helped Mommy unpack and Daddy hang pictures.

Garrett Updates

Garrett turned 6 months old and now weighs 18 lbs (75%). He just got over a bout of a bad virus and aftervirus which had him throwing up a couple times and diarreha that made his poor bottom real red. I was looking through old pictures of emma and she had the same thing at 5 months of age too. uuggg! They are so alike.
Garrett: Emma:



He got rid of the virus and aftervirus and now has a cold and pink eye. Of which I blame "Beth". I read her blog about her daughter getting pink eye then suddenly Garrett has a nasty eye with yellow pus. Thank you soooo much "Beth". He's so sad to look at. (Don't mind the green on his mouth-- that's green beans :) )

Mom came to visit to help me unpack the kitchen and hang things and straighten up. Apparently I was not getting it done fast enough for her taste! Well, thank you soooo much mom we have the whole kitchen unpacked and the house looks sooooo much better! While doing all this she also spent some time spoiling the kids. We went to McAlisters for lunch on Saturday. What did my lovely mother do for my poor son who was just getting back on solid foods after his stomach thing? She gives him Rotel cheesedip! Yes you heard me right cheesedip! Oh bother!

He now has two teeth (which I think you can see in this picture)



Why do we buy toys? He's the happiest when chewing on papertowels and empty plastic bags.



He is now creeping and ready to follow Emma and Isaac around the house. So baby proofing the new house now begins. fun fun. He also has decided he wants to sit at the table when we are eating. He isn't real great at the highchair but he's doing pretty good as long as he's entertained.

Creeping

Garrett creeps! Watch out Emma and Isaac he's after you and your toys now!

temper temper

This is what happens when someone doesn't get his food in a timely manner.

Jesus loves the little children of the world

red and yellow, black, and white . . . Well, it happened, Emma has begun to notice people different than her. We were sitting at a stoplight today and she looked over and saw a black lady sitting in her van, window rolled down resting ehr arm on the window ledge. Emma looks over and says "his arm is black" I look over and say "yes baby it is" She says "it's supposed to be like me" while holding her arm up. I ask "like you? what do you mean? white?" "Yeah" I think oh man ok. Then I say "Well sweetie. not everyone is white like you. God made lots of people all different colors. White like you, black, brown, tan, and even red when you get sunburned. But it doesn't matter what their skin color is they are still fun people to play with. You know like Anyia at bible class and ebeneezer at daycare" "yeah" She seemed to accept this and went on watching out the window.

GO Patriots!

Mr. Ted and Mrs. Allison were so sweet and got Emma a Pat's hoodie so she could match her Daddy today.

Monkey see, Monkey do

sibing love

Too cute. Daddy just got a new 60 inch TV downstairs and what captures Garretts attention the most? . . . . His big sister. Emma has hung the moon if you ask Garrett.





Being a Momma's Boy:

Food Fight 2

Emma got up and ate yogurt for breakfast. She got a snakc of goldfish from her Bible class teachers. Then we went to Senors for lunch. She ate 1/2 a soft taco shell, a bunch of chips and cheesedip, a bite of rice, and about two bites of cheese enchilada. Before I got on to her for not eating much of her lunch on her plate. I thought about it and she really did eat a bunch of food for her age. At church Corrie gave me a book called Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense. I read and skimmed the parts that pertained to Emma's age. It was informative especially the portion sizes for different ages. Going with the age 3-5 (instead of ages 1-3 since she'll be 3 in Dec)

Ages 3-5 portion sizes:
Meat, poultry, fish 1 oz
eggs 1/2
cooked dried beans 3-5 Tbsp
Pasta, rice, potatoes 3-5 Tbsp
Bread 1/2 slice
veg's 3-5 Tbsp
fruit 3-5 Tbsp or 1/3 piece
milk 1/3-1/2 cup
fats and oils to appetite

Minimum amount of food needed from each food group:
Bread, cereal, rice, and pasta group: 6 servings
Fruit group: 2 servings
Vegetable group: 3 servings
Meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, eggs, and nuts group: 2 servings
milk, yogurt, and cheese group: 2 servings

Other excerpts from the book:
- have family meals that are enjoyable
- let the child serve themselves from the serving bowls on the table
- give them planned meals and snacks
- don't force food or bribe for it
- don't cater to the child and make extra things for them

I have come up with a schedule I think might work with our schedules. We will try it and use other ideas for snacks out of the book. We'll see how it goes. Prayers for this struggle as well as my internal struggle of trying to be a good Christian mother to Emma and Garrett while they are both trying to figure out how to be independent and learn to do things on their own would be greatly appreciated!

food fight

Emma and mommy are havieng a stand off on eating her lunch and dinner when it's time to. I have drawn the line in the sand and we are fighting it out untill mommy wins even if it kills us both! I don't know what else to do about this eating thing. I'd finally had enough yesterday with the crying baby fits yelling "i'm hungry" when told no about something she wanted to eat before i left to get dinner. I gave in and gave her the banana. We went to get food. We got back and it took us an hour of talking and threatening with her to get her to eat 1/4 of the burger and 1/2 the banana in time to go out with daddy to the football game. I finally won so I felt proud.

Today she didn't eat a great breakfast but I'd already decided to play this out untill I fully win. so later on when she wanted yet another cup of milk I told her no b/c I was going to go fix lunh in a few min and i didn't want her to fill up on milk. another "i'm hungry!" fit. it eventually ended and a little while later I fixed her applesauce, a cheesestick, and 1/2 a PBJ. she began to eat then tried to get up and play. I saw where it was going so I said if she didn't eat her sandwich and applesauce she didn't get to play with megan (big kid babysitting here in a few minutes) she took another bite. then stopped saying "I'm not hungry. I want to play". I kept telling her "if you don't eat your lunch you don't play" finally after about 45 minutes I'd had enough. I spanked her and put her to bed. I threw away her food and left a note for megan not to give her anything to eat and only to give her one cup of milk. This is so frusterating. We are tired of her not eating at lunch and dinner, wasteing whatever food we've bought (either out or at home), then 30 minutes later crying b/c she's hungry. She would graze all day if I let her. So this week is going to be so much fun for she and I. First, b/c of the daily battles to sit and eat at the right time and even worse since she can't snack I can't induldge and do a sonic run or anything. ;) I guess for the next week she will get no snacks at all. She will only get a few cups of milk throughout the day and she will eat when we eat or she'll go hungry. Hopefully it won't take too long for her to break. This is wearing on mommys heart, emotions, and senillity! . . . . any other helpful suggestions would be greatly appreciated.