Jonas' Dr Appt

Yesterday was Jonas' Appt at Duke Eye Center for his ptosis problem. We got up a little earlier than usual and got the kids ready and headed over to a friends house to drop Maddie off. She got to play with her friend, Brody from Nursery. We dropped her off around 745am and then headed to Durham. It was about an hour and 45 min drive. Our appt was at 10. Surprisingly, we got there and we were called back into the room within like 5-10 mins. The doctor checked a few things, asked some questions, and then dilated him and we were back into the waiting room in like 10, maybe 15 mins. We had to wait like 20 mins for his eyes to fully dilate but we were called back again right away. While she was checking him, she discusses with us her findings which were that she believes that his "lid lag" is improving and it isn't harming anything so surgery at this time isn't even a question. During this check, she notices that when he looks up his right eye pulls out to the side, called a slight strabismus. Because of this and it being so minor, she would like for us to patch his eye only 30 mins a day. We will need to go back in April for her to check up on the progress of this but other than that, that was it. Jonas did really well, as usual he was happy and smiling at everyone.
So we came back home and picked Maddie up. She had a lot of fun at Brody's house. He has a swing set and she got to go outside and play on that since it was such a nice warm day(70 degrees). And she must have played hard b/c she fell asleep on the way home and it's only like 10 mins away.
So the morning went well but our afternoon and the whole rest of the day and night wasn't anything like that. We still have NOOOOO idea what was wrong but Jonas cried the whole time and I'm not exaggerating, it was the WHOLE day. He was tired so we'd try to put him to sleep but he was just so...IDK not happy that he couldn't sleep especially if you'd try to lay him down in his bed, maybe like a 15-20 mins nap. We'd feed him and he'd eat a little but then he just start pushing it out of his mouth and cry. He just cried and cried and cried. We didn't know what was wrong or what to do. So then bed time came but by this time Jason and I wanted to SHOOT OURSELVES!!! But we got him ready for bed and he did good. He fell asleep very fast and then he was fine when I laid him down, this was at 8pm. He started whining at like 845 and then again and then again. In a 3 hour time period, he woke up 4 times. Some of those times he only cried for a bit and went back to sleep on his own. But at 11pm, there was no soothing himself back to sleep, he just kept crying. Finally, Jason took him into our bed and laid Jonas on top of his chest and they went to sleep. Then when I came to bed, Jason said that he couldn't sleep like that anymore, it was uncomfortable, so I tried to take him and of course...HE WOKE UP!!! You seriously didn't even want to breath b/c you were scared that it would wake him up. I couldn't get him back to sleep so Jason took him again and got him back to sleep but eventually I took him and he slept in my arms all night. But I'm not so sure just how much sleep Jason and I got. We are like ZOMBIES this morning. I think I just might fall over. Luckily, when he woke up this morning he was better. He was happy and talking to me while I was trying to act like I was asleep. But just knowing that he is happy again, gives me the strength to get up and go about my day. I'm just glad that he is my good little boy again.

Music to my ears!!!

Yep, Jonas finally says Ma-Ma and Da-Da. Of course he says Da-Da more. He even plays games with me. I tell him to say Ma-Ma and he just looks at me and grins and says "Da-Da", that little Stinker. But at least he is finally saying something. Maddie was talking at 6 months so we've been wondering when Jonas would start saying something besides "hmm" and "ahhh". But I guess when you have a big sister that talks for the both of you, it isn't really a priority. Either way, hearing him say "Ma-Ma" (actually like mumm-mumm) and even Da-Da really is music to my ears.

Where has the time gone???

9 MONTHS ALREADY

I can't believe that my little baby boy is 9 months today. Happy 9 month Birthday, Jonas!!!! He is such a sweet little boy. He gives the best hugs. And when he smiles at you, your heart just turns to mush. I can't imagine not having him in our family. I'm so thankful that our Heavenly Father blessed us with him, even though at one time I thought "But I'm not ready for another one yet." I guess someone else knows best. Well just 3 more months and we'll be celebrating another 1st birthday though it seems not so long ago that it was Maddie's. Where has the time gone? I'm not ready for Jonas to grow up. I'm not ready for another toddler zooming into trouble twos. Maybe Jonas will give me a break, but either way, HE IS MY LITTLE BOY. I wouldn't love him any more or any less, he has already stolen my heart. I love you, Joey!!!!

Gooble, Gooble, Gooble!!!

I know it's a little late now but I wanted to post some pictures of the pumpkin I carved for Thanksgiving. I thought it was pretty cute and I had never carved a pumpkin for Thanksgiving. When we bought our pumpkins before Halloween, we bought 4, one for each of us but we only ended up carving two for the kids and left 2 for decor. But as we were packing up all the halloween stuff, I saw a picture of a turkey in one of those books so I thought I'd give it a try. So here are some pictures of the kids and the pumpkin.

I'm down with the Faux Hawk

This morning, Jason was getting ready for school and when he went to style his hair, he felt like doing something a little wild and well...different. He walks out of the bathroom and says, "I'm wearing my hair like this to school today." Well I laughed at first but then after I looked at it, I really liked it. It was different and pretty hot in my opinion. So here's Jason's faux hawk...

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!!!

Not me, Silly. Jonas!!! I hope that's what he was wanting b/c that's what he got. He now has his two front teeth plus the bottom two that he has had. He's so cute with his little choppers. I do love toothless, gummy baby smiles but gappy baby smiles are cute too, esp when their your babies. He has been missing out of some foods that at this age Madison had been eating b/c she had already sprouted those teeth. So now he'll get to experience some new foods. I got a picture of Joey giggling at Maddie today while he was eating. So sorry he's little messy, but it's a cute picture and you can see his little teefies shining. Isn't he cute?? Check it out!!

Who says you can't...??

So my two year old doesn't quite understand that you can't wear swimsuits in the WINTER. I told her, "Sweetie, you can't wear your swimsuit, it's to cold to go swimming." And she looks at me and says, "but I'm pretending to go swimming. it's not to cold to pretend." So who says you can't pretend?? I'd love to pretend it's 90 degrees outside and I'm sitting in the sun, sipping on a strawberry banana smoothie maybe even getting a nice back massage. See, who says you can't pretend?? So now here are some pictures of Maddie "pretending" in her swim suit.

Here's Maddie putting on my shoes. I really hope that this isn't anything to worry about. You know, swimsuit and high heels. LOL


Maddie shaking her booty.


Still dancing but this time twirling around in circles.


In this one, she's pretending to surf. See her surf board? What an imagination!!

Another that I'm worried about! Shopping in a swimsuit. LOL

No Shave November

Well I thought I'd post a few of these b/c I know Jason is proud. Jason and some of his buddies declared November as NO SHAVE NOVEMBER!! So here is the first day and the last day of his "No shave November" and there are a few of pics of some things he was doing to be funny as he was shaving the beard off.

First day of no shave

Last day of no shave

Goatee

Handlebars - his uncle Brian would be proud

The crustache - And with this one, his Daddy would be proud

The pencil thin mustache - Gomez Adams....... No pun intended

And then, the man we know and love! Boy I'm glad to have him back!!!

Playing catch up

Well what can I say I really suck at keeping this thing updated. But maybe after all the chaos of the holidays, I can get back into the swing of things and keep things rolling like they should on here. Like the title if this blog, this is pretty much just a catch you up kind of one.

What's new with the kids? Well of Fri the 28th(day after Thanksgiving) Jonas cut one of his top teeth and this morning(the 2nd of Dec) he cut the other so soon enough he'll officially have 4 teeth. Besides that he is starting to talk or babble more with finally the occasional DA-DA. He's getting better with his"cruising" and trying to stand all on his own. He seems a little more advanced in this area than Maddie was at his age but Maddie definitely had him beat in the verbal area. But he seems a little more laid back than Maddie was or is so I'm totally ok with that. Maybe he'll stay this way and when he's 2 I'll get a break unlike what his sister is doing to me. But I'm so lucky to have two great kids.
On Dec 15th, Jonas will be going to the Ped. Ophthalmologist due to the fact that we haven't seen any improvements with his eyes. He has a condition called ptosis or also known as lid lag, which makes him look like he is sleepy all the time. And we get many of those comments but we are taking him to see what needs to be done. This appt is only a consultation so once we find out something we will let you all know what she says.

Now as for Madison, not much has been happening really. She's excited about Christmas. We took the kids to see Santa last night and Maddie enjoyed that. She walked up to him and in her very rare shy voice she said I want a castle. I thought it was funny b/c it was the very first thing she said to him, not Hi or my name is Madison but I want a castle. She was scared of him at first, so she just stood beside Jason and I and talked to him. Then after a bit we let Santa hold Jonas and then she wanted to sit with Santa. He was a very nice Santa. We were able to talk to Santa for a long time b/c no one else was there, surprisingly. You could tell that he enjoyed being Santa and loved talking to the kids. Funny thing was that when we told him Jonas' name he said, that's a great name, I love that name. Then when Maddie was getting her candy and book, Santa told us that his name was Jonas as well and that it was his father's name and his son too. We thought that was funny b/c we only know of two other Jonas' but now we know 3.
Jonas wasn't scared of Santa. He liked pulling on his beard. Maddie told Santa everything that she wanted. But the real Santa is missing two of those so I don't know what "HE" is going to do b/c "he's" all done and out of money. But I guess that's ok b/c Santa didn't bring me everything I wanted for Christmas when I was young either. Maddie and I had written a letter to Santa and she gave it to him. It was a cute letter. It talked about how she has been a good girl and listed some examples of why like, she's a good big sister and she helps Mommy with Jonas and she plays with him and that she's good when we have "school time" and she likes to learn. And she put some things that she has learned like ABC's, count to 15, colors, shapes and some songs. We put that she is a big girl now and use the potty and wears big girl panties. She also makes her bed in the mornings and sets the table for dinner. So from all that do you think that Santa will think that she's been a good girl this year and stop at our house on Christmas Eve? I DO !!! In her letter so also wanted to tell Santa that Jonas is a good boy so he needs presents too. She said Jonas can't talk so he can't tell us what he wants but you can bring him some big boy toys. When we were writing the letter, we talked about some things to put in it so I wrote all that about the why she's been a good girl and then I helped her write her list. We only wrote 5 things b/c it could have went on and on but then that's when she told me to write that about Jonas. It was fun. I think Christmas is so much more fun now that we have kids especially now that Maddie is starting to understand more.

Well a few other things that I want to tell you about Maddie. The other night we were putting Maddie to bed and she was talking to Jason and she said Daddy you have stripes like a zebra. She was commenting on Jason's deep forehead creases. Jason and I just looked at each other and laughed, oh it was funny.
Another funny thing she did was...she has this baby doll that has a little potty that goes with it and the other day we were watching America's Funniest Videos and there was a clip of a little boy peeing in a little toliet from a little dollhouse and so can you guess what she did? Yep she peed in her baby doll's potty. Jason had walked into Maddie's room to get her ready to leave, we were heading to the store and when he saw her he said, OH Lena, come in here right now, come here, come here!!! When I went in Maddie was starting to stand up and that's when Jason saw the potty b/c at first he thought that she was just peeing on the floor. LOL Not that this was actually going to be any better or at least that's what we thought but when we looked, she had peed right into it and didn't even drip anywhere. I just turned away and laughed, quietly. Then of course scolded her and took it away. But we couldn't believe that she did that and then on top of that, there wasn't a mess. I mean this thing is smaller that a CD. BOY, am I glad that it was just pee she was trying. LOL

Well that's all for now but I'll see what else I can think of.

Our trip to the Pumpkin Patch

at Briley's Farm


On Saturday, November 1st, though the pictures say Oct 31st, the kids and I went to a local Pumpkin Patch. Jason was on his way with the team to Florida for the game that weekend. I had been wanting to take Maddie since she missed the chance to go with our church play group last month when she was sick. This pumpkin patch is the same place that we went to in the spring to pick strawberries. It's really nice and has a lots of cool things to do. It's called Briley's Farm and there they have a small petting zoo and 5 nice swing sets. Since it's fall at the moment, they have some things for adults like corn mazes and they have a hay ride which we rode down to the pumpkin patch on which was pretty much empty. They had some crates that were full of pumpkins and other gourds and things.

So let me start off by telling you what it was like trying to find this place. Well like I had said we had been there before in like April to pick strawberries so I thought I knew how to get there but I thought wrong. On the way there both kids fell asleep which was great b/c I ended up being totally on the wrong road. I drove up and down this same road I don't know how many times looking for the road it was on. Any way I drove around that part of Greenville for like an hour and then decided that it had been long enough and that the kids had had a good enough nap so I finally stopped and asked someone and I had been only one block over the whole time. Anyway so we finally got there!!!
We went to just ride the hayride and see the animals and pumpkins. I had heard that the hayride was free and was disappointed when we got there and discovered that it wasn't. I had even looked on the website but it didn't say anything about it. Well I wasn't sure if I had any cash b/c I like NEVER do but luckily I did have a few dollars and some quarters, enough to ride. So here is a picture of her running to the tractor with her ticket in her hand.



She was so excited. As she was running she said, "Madison likes tractors. I ride Papa's (Avery) tractor." Then she hands the driver our tickets and climbs on and sits down. Then she says that she likes to sit on the hay. She thought that was pretty neat. So we started off with Maddie on one side and then she wanted her lil brother to come sit with her so here are some pictures of them riding on the hayride.
See how sweet she is? She was holding on to her little brother. They're Buddies!!!

Notice their shirts...they say Monkey say, Monkey Do, Monkey get in trouble too!! Maddie LOVES this shirt. She thinks it's funny and she likes that her and Jonas match. It's cute the way she says it too if you ask her what her shirt says.

Look at my poor baby's rash around his mouth. He's just such a drooler!!



Both playing with the hay here.

Jonas was eating the hay and so Maddie thought she'd help her lil brother out. So she start feeding it to him. I don't know what she was thinking. LOL


Look at that smile, that just makes me melt. Ohhhhh, I love him!!


Well here is a picture of the pumpkin patch. It's pretty pathetic but what do you expect in November? They've all been picked over.



Here's Madison as we ride by the strawberry patch, checkin' it out.


This is Madison after I told her that we'll have to come back and pick some when they are big and red. So if you can't tell, she's excited!!


Well after the hayride we ran into a pretty scary but awfully cute ghost and we were able to catch a picture of it.


After we ran into the frightening ghost we happen to cross paths with a troubley silly scarecrow.


At the end of our outing, we came to the area that was full of crates with pumpkins. Here's the biggest one that we saw there. Someone had already carved it though but it resembles someone I know. How about you?


Here's the kids, holding what Maddie called "silly pumpkins" b/c she said they look like they have tushies!! Oh how funny that was!



Here are some of the kids sitting amongst the picked pumpkins. I wish we had gone to the patch before they had picked them all but at least I have these.
Isn't that a sweet little smile??


Jonas is hiding in the pumpkins, can you find him? Like Where's Waldo?


Maddie hangin out on a pumpkin. She thought it was funny that Jonas was...well see for yourself...


Eating a little gourd. Seriously, he tries to eat everything!



Here he was banging on the pumpkin like it was a drum, a typical boy.



Maddie looking sweet. She's just so pretty. She's my baby girl and I love her!!!!



Here's Maddie in the little kids maze, she didn't quite get the hang of it. She was looking at me like Mom how do I get out of here.


Like I had said in the beginning, they have a petting zoo but unfortunatly it was roped off due to some e-coli scare or something, I'm still not clear on all of that. Maddie was not happy about not being able to pet and feed them but I got her distracted with the playgrounds. Here she is on the slides.



Well that was our trip to Briley's Pumpkin Patch. We all had fun and can't wait until it's strawberry picking time and hopefully we will be able to pet the animals.

So which Princess are you now?

So as most of you know, our little Maddie LOVES the Disney Princesses. She loves them so much that every day she is at least one of them, and I said AT LEAST one of them. On this particular day she was ummm...like ALL of them, ok maybe not all of them but pretty much. Well just take a look you'll see what I mean...

Here is Madison Joyce sporting her Cinderella dress. Not sure why out of all her dresses she chose this one as her "Cinderella dress", maybe b/c it's her biggest and poofiest one. IDK, but here she's dancing. And then she stops and says (in her words), Madison's prince not here. I asked her, "well where is he?" "Daddy's at school." Then I asked her, " so is daddy your prince?" "yeah and he has my shoe" she said. And after that she runs around saying, " I hear the clock. Oh no, I lost my shoe." Oh how fast she caught on to all of this. My girly girl, I love it!!

Moving on now, here's Madison still dancing and this time she's posing as Aurora or otherwise known as Sleeping Beauty. This is a costume that I bought for her from a 50% Halloween Sale and even though it's not Princess Aurora's dress, with her imagination it is!

Tale as old as time, song as old a rhyme, Beauty and the Beast!!! Yep, you guessed it. This is Belle!!! And her Daddy is also the Beast who ends up becoming the prince too. Isn't she just adorable? Now why she chose this dress for Belle, I do understand. Dancing here as well. She also grabs her dress and curtsy. It's almost like watching a play when she plays dress-up.

In this picture she's Tinkerbell and this is why she now has wings. Tinkerbell isn't actually a princess but Maddie loves her b/c she's seen pictures of when she was Tinkerbell for Halloween 2 years ago. She likes to think that she can fly too.

So of course if you have Tinkerbell, you must have a Peter Pan and a Captain Hook. So here is Peter being tortured by Hook by stealing his paci.

Well Tink found it funny that Hook was using the "hook" to steal Pan's paci so she wanted to try it out and she was trying to unzip little Peter Pan's Jammies with it. Boy, that Hook sure is cute but evil ;o) !!!!

Well here is Snow White and minus the 6 dwarfs. Maddie is dancing with Dopey and talking to him like he is going to talk back to her.

Maddie is wearing one of my shirts that she likes to pretend is a dress, her Snow White dress of course. Now she's all done with her dress up though she is still waiting for her prince to come home and dance with her.