Guess Who.......

Is 19 months old today?

Deacon is!




Since we were sick from mid-September until mid-October, his 18-month well check was a little late. He is growing and developing very well. He weighs 27 pounds and was 80th percentile for height. He says over 30 words, some of which are "ball" "vroom-vroom" "mama" "dada" "lala" "swing" "juice" etc........ He can point to many of his body parts, including tummy, head, eyes, ears, nose, teeth, tongue, etc. He is facinated with transportation. He loves to go outside and touch Dean's car. If he is upset we can put car racing on the TV or computer and he immediately perks up and says "VROOM VROOOOOM!!!" Two of his favorite words the last month have become "no" and "mine," so two's here we come! Occasionally he will hit or bite, then turn around and give kisses to the person he just hurt. It's hilarious. He hates for his feet to be cold and will ask for socks or "ockhhhssss." He eats ALL THE TIME. This week he figured out that he could drag the step-stool to the pantry and look for what he wants. He is very attached to his sister and they play well together most of the time.

We love you Deacon!

Buzzcut

Taking a shower after his haircut.............



The finished product.

There's a Light at the End of this Tunnel

Am I going to jinx myself by saying that? I sure hope not. It feels like we have been sick forever. I started having symptoms of the flu last Monday. Deacon got it Thursday night. It was the worst "sick" I can remember being my entire life. I made Dean take me to the hospital-usually I would just tough it out, but I couldn't do it anymore! Poor Deacon.....he would wake up with fever and be shaking so bad! He hasn't had fever since Saturday, but he still has a bad cough. My cough is almost gone. We are all on Tamiflu, so hopefully that will keep Lola and Dean well! Then there was the stomach flu from 3 weeks ago, Dean cutting his hand, I cut my foot.....seems never ending.
I did get my flu shot, but it was only 6 days before I started to feel bad. Usually it takes two weeks for immunity. We may have had H1N1-we don't know. I can't stress enough how important it is to get your flu shot this year. Even if you are wary of vaccines, don't like needles, etc......IT IS NOT WORTH getting the flu. There are two strains present-the regular flu, and H1N1-which is just another type of Influenza A-but STILL! Two kinds of flu out there! And one has gotten a lot of people down before it's even cold outside! One more thing-to test for the flu, they will stick a long wire with cotton on the end in your nose and beyond-and it HURTS. That alone may be worth getting your flu shot. Off my soapbox now. I had an ultrasound 2 weeks ago and we got some really good face shots.

Fetus the Third

Sleeping

Lola sleeping at 6 weeks old-I think all my kids look the same when they are sleeping.

Deacon asleep at 4 days old.
(I have one somewhere of him that looks more like the other 2 but I can't find it.)

Please pray for us to stay well. We are all tired of being sick and stuck in the house! Thanks.

Cowboy Day

The 4-year old classes at preschool have quite a few special dress up days, and today was the first. It's Cowboy Day! I'm not sure what all they will be doing, but hopefully I will hear all about it this afternoon. Lola and I had a great time finding her an outfit yesterday. She didn't want to wear the bandana around her neck, so we cut it in half and tied them in her pigtails. She was really excited to see how everyone in her class was dressed.

Hooray for Cowboy Day!

What HAVE they done to the living room????!!!!!

Let me attempt to explain this mess. Last week, the kids and I had a stomach bug. It started with Deacon, then Lola, and then they so lovingly passed it to their mother.
I don't DO the stomach bug. I almost always have it in my power to avoid throwing up. This is my third pregnancy in 5 years, and it had been about 8 years since I had thrown up. Until this week. It was miserable. Luckily, we have great family members who took care of my kids for an entire day while I was laid up in my bed, achy and delirious. I didn't leave the confines of our bedroom for over 24 hours.
SO, to explain the picture, we had washed all of our linens and when they came out of the dryer, Lola built a ginormous fort out of them. What a mess. Dean and I finally got a lot of the house cleaned yesterday. Hallelujah!
Now that we are better, here are some recent pics.

Sick little Deacon man.

Can you tell he likes to say "cheese" for the camera?
She wanted me to take one of her, too.

We love our wagon!

Sharing her tricycle-how sweet is that? I think Santa will be bringing a big-girl bike!
"Cheese" again. Attempting to eat cereal and milk....out of a Dora sandwich holder.

We are so glad to be well again.

First Day of Preschool - 2009!

Lola has been at Sugar n Spice Preschool since she was one. She was exactly Deacon's age three years ago when she started there. At the time we had no daycare at all-our family helped out and we worked around eachother's work schedules. It was such a relief for her to be able to go somewhere and learn while being in a Christian environment where she was so well taken care of.

First Day as a Dynamite Dinosaur!

Sending Deacon at this age is a whole different "ball game." (For me.) He has never been left anywhere except for with family. He is a big time "mama's boy" because I have been with him at home almost every day of his little life. But, I need to work. And having a few hours twice a week where I can sleep allows me to work the nights before. And, the child is social. I am confident that he will make friends, just like Lola did. I just really didn't want to leave him. But we both survived.

First day as a Tiny Turtle!
Strapped in-ready to go. Hurry up, mother.

Lola's teacher is very experienced with this age group. The curriculum for the 4 year olds is a "kindergarten readiness" program. I am excited to see what she learns!

Deacon's teacher is very sweet. I hung around outside the door until he quit screaming-which explains the quality of this picture. He is the 2nd kid from your right. The teacher was blowing bubbles and he seemed to like that.

My kids are getting so big! And to think, I get to do this one more time. We are blessed by God.

Vacation, Part Two

The last full day in Galveston we had a very full day. We visited Moody Gardens. It is a huge resort area next to Schlitterbahn with several areas for kids to play and learn. We went to the Aquarium, Rainforest, and Discovery Pyramids.

In the Rainforest Pyramid, there was a huge exhibit on chocolate!

Penguins at the aquarium. They seem very friendly.

A teachable moment.

Deacon went absoultely wild at the aquarium. We had to get the wagon and strap him in!

Dean and Lola in the Rainforest.

We ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe that day. No pictures of that-batteries had died. The kids loved it.

That evening we headed to the beach one last time to take pictures, eat dinner, and swim.

The wild man being still for 2 seconds. He likes to say "cheese!"

I love this.

What is it about photographing 2 children at one time?

Hilarious.

Favorite picture of all time!

Look how they both have their right foot raised.....it's just perfection.

I'm pretty sure her innerds were sqaushed after this!

The humidity does amazing things for her hair!

What a pretty girl!

She didn't have the same fear of the water that she had at swimming lessons!

Little pasty boy got to take his shirt off to swim, since we were there so late!

He looks so big here!

We ate sandwiches on the beach-Deacon tore his to pieces, threw it in the sand, THEN proceeded to eat it. Gross. He didn't mind.

It started to thunder a little while we were swimming..........and then lightning! We went to Ben & Jerry's that night-an actual Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop. It was cute!

We got up early Saturday morning to head for Dallas.

This was the view from our window-not too bad!

Both kids loved looking out the window. It held Deacon's attention for a really long time. I guess he had a lot to think about?!

We had a fan-tabulous time on our first real family vacation. The kids were overall very well behaved and seemed to enjoy themselves. Can't wait to do it again.................with THREE kids!