Look what I found!

When I arrived at the daycare to pick up my critters today, this is what I found:

Yep. Pink pants. It seems there was a lack of communication between my critterboy and his morning teacher, and after a trip to the restroom, he failed to tell her he had taken his pull up off, therefore had an accident. These were the only spare pants the daycare had in his size. Yes, that means he wore the pink pants all day. I'm still laughing! The funniest part was how proud he was of the beautiful pink pants. He kept touching them saying "Mom, they're pink! I like my pink pants!" I love that little guy so much, and I especially love the innocence of the other kids not giving him a hard time about his girly attire. There's something to be said for being three . . .

Lots more updates are due, but not tonight--I'll be back soon with the full scoop and lots of pics!

Fav Foto Friday - Silly Smiles!

The theme this week is Silly Smiles. I love nothing more than to see my kids smile! Enjoy!

This is her "Who me? I know I'm pretty" half smile

I love this one of them together because they are so genuinely happy. Not silly smiles, but BIG smiles!

Last but not least, my wild man's "I'm outta control!" smile.

For more FFF pics of silly smiles, click HERE

Have a great weekend!

She's standing!

Check out this video clip of Miss Priss Pants standing up all by herself! It was the longest she's stood alone so far, and lucky me, I had the camera rolling! (Sorry, it rotates sideways half way through to get the full view of her standing and it's really dark--not great, but it captured the moment!) We're so proud of our sweet girl! With the clapping that she's doing, she's proud of herself too!

Good news! She does NOT have a UTI this time. I'm so relieved for her. I have self diagnosed her as having a milk allergy. Doctors love patients (and patients' parents) who self diagnose, if you didn't already know that! You should try it sometime! :) Anyway, the symptoms of a milk allergy are exactly what she's been experiencing: congestion, runny nose, vomiting, diarrhea, gagging, etc. It started again just a few days after we transitioned back to milk based formula after the stint with soy a few weeks ago. That just has to be the culprit. Cheese and ice cream don't seem to be an issue, just the 24-30 ounces of formula she was/is taking each day. We have switched back to soy formula and will likely go with soy milk for a few months to see if she grows out of it. For now we're just waiting on all that milk ickiness to get through her, then she should feel much better. I hate to jinx it, but she's even slept for 8+ hours the last two nights without a peep! I'm not in a hurry to give up the night bottle, so I'm just following her lead. Inevitably she's growing up, so I need to get used to that idea! I'm just happy for all of us that we seem to have the digestive issues under control for the moment. It's a great feeling to have her feeling better. Please pray that the ultrasound of her kidneys on Friday finds no problems. She deserves to have things easy for awhile!

Last Sunday we went to the mall and let the kiddos play in the play area. The wild man played surprisingly well with the gazillion other kids who were there. He only told a couple of them to go away--it's a miracle! Miss Priss Pants made some new friends--she was the hit of the play area for the other little bitty's and the bigger girls. It was so fun to watch! It was another one of those days that I wished would never end. Almost too good to be true! When we got home I even got to talk, virtually uninterrupted, to my BFF Krista for almost an hour. I guess the stars were aligned just right that day or something, because it was the only near perfect day we've had in awhile. I'm praying for patience for the next wonderful, wouldn't trade it for the world, day with the family. It can't come soon enough! Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trady ANY day with my family, but with all the sickies and crabbies lately my patience wears thin, you know?

The critterboy and la princesa have been playing together alot lately. They are just amazing to watch. They really do get along great, other than her *gasp* doing the unthinkable--"Mommy, sissy is looking at me! Make her stop! She's looking at me MEAN!" Then a few minutes later he'll say "Mommy, I love my sissy!" Ahh, siblings--I love these little ones so much I can hardly stand it!

Here are some pics of the last few days--enjoy!

Mommy, is it my turn to get down and play?

See mommy, bubby will play with me and protect me!

And he'll let me watch him brush his teeth . . .

And he'll show me how to play basketball!

These two are quite a pair! I'm so glad I get to be their mommy!

Backyard fun and la princesa's 10 month stats

Having young children reminds me how much I love the fall. For the past week or so we've been waking up to crisp, cool mornings that warm up into beautiful afternoons. If you know Oklahoma, you know that the wind usually "comes sweeping down the plain", but not this week! It's been picture perfect, or as the news anchors and weather people say, "Chamber of Commerce weather." We've played outside just about every evening and the fun started with one of the critterboy's daycare gal pals 3rd birthday party. She got a Barbie Mustang with a personalized license plate! How fun! When the little man started following her while she gave another friend a ride, she promptly told the other friend "Get out! I want to give M--- a ride!"

The little man riding shotgun with his favorite new three year old!

The backyard fun consists of the sandbox (the dreaded sandbox! I emptied about a cup of sand out of the lint filter on the dryer after one of the little man's romp in the dirt!), the swingset, and various balls, bats, trucks, etc. For sissy priss, it's crawling super fast and eating grass. Hey, when you can't walk, what else are you supposed to do??

My favorite part of being outside is the sheer joy it brings my kids to be free from the walls of the house. The smiles and giggles are always more expressive when we're outside. I wish I would have videoed (is that a word?) my little man running SOOOO fast to the corner of our yard and back. It was a long run--our house is on an acre of land, most of which is in the backyard--and he was grinning ear to ear and giggling the whole time. When he was finished with that run, he wanted us to chase him and was hardly able to ask us to since he was so out of breath! Good times . . . really good times.

Did I mention that we suspect the little man has chicken pox? He woke up this morning like this:

He seemed to feel fine, although he's been saying he doesn't "feel very okay" the last couple of days, so daddy-o loaded him up and took him to school as usual. When he arrived, he asked the teacher her opinion of the spots on his face. She replied "Oh yeah, R--- had some spots like that on his stomach earlier in the week and the doctor said it was a mild case of chicken pox." The kicker is that the kid had been there all week. I know, I know, chicken pox really aren't that big of a deal, but when he and sissy priss have so many other current issues, it seems awful to add chicken pox to the list. Not to mention my insanely busy week at work next week, but that's another story . . . Anyway, there have been no more spots appear, so it may not be "the pox" at all, but with his luck (and mine) it is.

This brings me to la princesa's check-up today. I was right--they had to "cath" her again to get another urine sample. The doctor agreed that the symptoms were too similar, as well as needing to re-check her anyway, so my poor baby girl had to go through that agony again. The good news for her is that she doesn't have another UTI. Praise God! The bad news is that her symptoms could be the early stages of chicken pox, just no spots yet. Of course it could be the average run of the mill upper respritory infection, etc., so we got an antibiotic that would kick any and everything it could be. More bad news--we have yet to be able to get her to take a dose of it. We may be in for more shots next week if she doesn't start taking it this weekend. Fun times. Oh yeah, she threw up twice yesterday, and had diarreah yesterday and today. Looks like the tummy troubles are back. Have I mentioned fun times? hee hee

Enough about that--here's how the most beautiful baby girl I know checked out today: 17 lbs. 1 oz. (25th percentile) and 28 inches long (50th percentile). Otherwise known as PERFECT, which we already know! :) She is on target for all of her milestones. Still no teeth and none anticipated soon. She's crawling super fast which is clearly getting old to her since now she'd rather be standing all the time. She will crawl long enough to get her to something to pull up on, then immediately stands up. She even let go today and stood for about 2 seconds without holding anything. I'm one proud mama! She would still rather have table food than baby food. Doc says we can switch to whole milk anytime we're ready, but I'm leary since the milk based formula could be what's causing the tummy stuff and I'm worried that whole milk might be even worse. Doc says not necessarily so, so I suppose when we run out of formula this weekend I'll give milk a whirl. The dried up bank account will LOVE it if the transition goes well! She is babbling more and more and seems to be calling me mama, but it's still more mamamamama, but she says it when she's coming near me or when I pick her up. She was saying dadadadada alot today, along with didididid. Again, right on schedule. I couldn't be happier with her progress and adjustment. She fits perfectly into our family and we're so incredibly blessed to have the gift of raising her.

I'll leave you with a pic of the resident lazy bones at our house--our boy cat named Abby. That's a story for another day, but here he is on his favorite spot--the backyard swing. Have a great weekend!

Fav Foto Friday - Hope

The theme this week is hope. We snapped this pic on the last morning with la princesa on our 2nd visit trip in February 2008. She was 3 months old. What a beautiful angel! This photo gave me hope that she would come home in God's perfect timing. I stared many an hour at this sweet face, often while day dreaming of the day we could bring her home forever. That visit trip seems so long ago, but also just like it was yesterday. I am amazed at how much she has grown and changed since then, and I'm once again reminded what a blessing she is to me. As I sit here typing this with one hand as she sleeps in my arms, I couldn't possibly ask for more!

La princesa has her 9 month well baby appointment this morning (a month late, but the best we could get!), but it will likely involve another catheter--I suspect another UTI. Ugh! My poor baby just can't catch a break. She's having exactly the same symptoms as last time, minus the fever. The kidney ultrasound is scheduled for the 26th, so hopefully it will shed some light on the situation. Please pray that she feels better soon. I'll update later on her 10 month stats--how exciting!

To see more FFF pics from my fellow bloggers, click HERE Enjoy!

FFF - State Fair!

I love the fair! I've been every single year of my life and I'm so happy the rain cleared long enough for us to enjoy a few hours there last night! It would be un-Oklahoman of me to not go, you know??!! This was obviously la princesa's first experience with all the lights, etc. and she seemed to really enjoy herself--especially when I shared my corn with her!

The little man pointed to everything and said, "I want one of those!" It was too funny! By the way--here's what $40 will get you in food at the State Fair: 3 corn dogs, 1 roasted corn, 1 medium dippin' dots, 1 pork chop sandwich, 1 drink (I snuck in more!), and a small bag of beef jerky. On the way out, the little man said "Mama, I want to come back again." to which I responded, "Well, honey, mommy and daddy are going to have to save up another fifty bucks to afford to eat here again.". He said, "Yeah!" Ahh, another year at the fair . . .

My very first FFF (Favorite Foto Friday)!

Before my time on blogger, FFF was started. Sarah picks a theme each week and bloggers everywhere share a pic (or lots of pics!) with that theme in mind. This weeks them is "Oh Baby"- the first pictures with our children. So, here it goes for me!

Holding the little man for the first time at 13 days old in the NICU. He weighed about two and a half pounds and had just been taken off the ventilator the day before. I was one happy mama! 2 weeks is way too long to wait, and I only got to hold him for about 15 minutes, but it was amazing!

Holding la princesa for the first time at the Vista Real in Guatemala City. She was two and a half weeks old. She was so little and so sweet. We only had 26 hours with her, and we savored every moment. Kind of weird that I held both my babies, bio and through adoption, for the first time when they were around two weeks old!

Be sure to click on Sarah's name in the first line of this post to see lots more FFF pictures from blogland!

A potty breakthrough!

My little man peed on the potty! Yay! This isn't the first time he's done it, but it IS the first time that he's done it without being prompted or bribed. It started out with him saying "Mama, when we get home I'm going to let my pee pee out!" when we were about 5 miles from home. I have heard this story before with no results, so I wasn't overly excited. Lo and behold he DID it!!!!! We got home and he headed straight for the bathroom, stripped his lower half, stood in front of his little potty chair and did the deed before I could even get there! We danced. We sang. We high fived. You name it, we did it. He was beaming with pride, as he should be. He was rewarded with far too many M&M's, but I don't care. This was a huge success for him! Can you believe that I didn't take a picture of the big event??!!

Lately I thought if one more person told me that he should be potty-trained by now or that we should work with him more I would scream. Everyone suddenly thinks it's their business to bring up potty training when a child turns 3. Grandparents, teachers at daycare, friends, other relatives, even his own daddy-o kept bringing it up. The kid baffles me a lot of the time, but I know him well enough to know that he has my stubborn nature, which means the more someone wants him to do something the more he'll resist. My approach has been to not even mention it, and when he shows interest, tell him he can go if he wants, but doesn't have to. It worked--at least this once! Personally, I don't care if it's weeks before he goes on his own again. I would rather him be ready on his own than push him and have it take forever and be traumatic for him. I cannot bear to think of outings where we run to nasty public restrooms five hundred times for false alarms just for the fun (yeah, fun!) of it. I'd much rather him KNOW he needs to go and do it when he needs to than for me to have to be potty police all day and night. Basically, for all who said we should work with him more, etc., ha ha! I told you he wouldn't go to college in diapers! By the way, since his potty party a few hours ago he wants nothing to do with diapers. It's pull ups all the way tonight--another breakthrough. We'll see what tomorrow brings, but for now, I'm one happy mama with one proud little man who is sleeping soundly in his 2 sizes too big jammies. Way to go little man--diapers or pull ups, I love you so much!

Road trippin' and other fun!

**Disclaimer—this is going to be long. As usual with my ramblings, I’ll sprinkle it with pictures since I totally understand that’s why you’re really reading!**

We’ve had lots of fun and have done some serious road trippin’ the past couple of weekends. It started with a trip downtown to our awesome ballpark for a minor league baseball game two Saturdays ago. The critterboy LOVES him some Rowdy the Redhawk, so we made sure we got a picture with him before the game.

Our seats were just off third base on the front row, so we were really close to the action. We had a great time and stayed for 5 innings before the kids were done with baseball.

Hi! I'm miss priss pants and I am so good at being beautiful, even in the Oklahoma humidity and heat!

Hi! I'm the critterboy, and because I'm 3 years old, I can't look at a camera anymore. Chin. . .must . . . be . . . in . . . air . . .

We walked across the street to Bass Pro Shops to walk around a bit and let the critterboy climb on all kinds of expensive hunting type vehicles for a bit while daddy-o looked for some ridiculously expensive ammunition for his gun. It was so ridiculously expensive that he didn’t buy it and is planning to sell that gun and get one that is “cheaper to shoot”. Ahh, the joys of hunting. Clearly not my cup o’ tea, but he doesn’t smoke, drink, gamble, pander, etc., so I can’t really complain!

The next day we were off to Dallas for our first official family of four road trip. I had to be in Dallas for work early on Monday, so we figured “Hey, let’s test our patience and try to have some fun for an afternoon before Mommy has to work”. We left mid-morning on Sunday with the car loaded down like we’d be gone for a week instead of one night. We stopped at the Grapevine Mills Mall for loads of fun and firsts for the kiddos. The first “first” was for us to pay $7.00 to rent a nasty, gosh only knows how many germs are on this thing mall stroller. We had only packed one stroller, sadly not the Sit n' Stand, and we knew the critterboy couldn’t be trusted to walk in that packed to the gills mall, so it was the only way to go. He LOVED that disgusting thing.

Why does bubby get a cool yuck covered mall stroller and I have to have this somewhat sanitary, hand-me-down from bubby, plain old run of the mill stroller? Being the youngest is ROUGH!

It was all just ducky, and he rode in it until we decided to take him on his first (and my first!) carousel ride. It was so much fun! The first couple of times around he looked panicked, but then I got him to wave at daddy-o and sissy priss as we went around and he had a ball! I’m not kidding when I say that I had to drag him off the ride when it stopped. He could have stayed on all day!



Because we hadn’t had enough fun for one day, we decided to take both kiddos to their very first movie in a movie theater. We saw Wall-E. The little man had movie theater popcorn and loved every bite. Both kids did great in the movie until about 20 minutes before it was over. The little man said “Mama! I’m all done with Wall-E. I’m ready to go.” We stayed, but he was less than thrilled with the last part of the movie. The kid hardly sits still most of the time, so it was truly a breaking news kind of event that he lasted through all hour and thirty-seven minutes! It was a fun day.

(if you're wondering, that's not my arm in the foreground--I have hairy arms, sure, but not all manly hairy like my dearest hoosbond!)

The next day the rest of the fam cruised the Dallas metro area while I was working, then they picked me up and we headed home. The kids did really good in the car. No more meltdowns than usual, so again, I counted the trip as a success! Well, a success if you consider la princesa coming down with a fever Sunday night in the hotel, then not herself Monday. She continued to have fevers that would break for about 15 minutes then come right back. The “big D” from a couple of weeks prior resurfaced (super fun diaper changes on the road trip, by the way) and she had episodes of the pukies. By Wednesday morning I came to the conclusion that it was more than just a cold and took her to the doctor. My poor baby girl had a urinary tract infection. A bad one. Since she doesn’t take oral medicine well and she HAD to have the meds, the doc decided to do a series of three shots, one per day, of antibiotics to clear it up. Yes, we went to the doctor three times in three days for those shots. Have I said poor baby? On Friday her doctor said that he’d like to schedule an ultrasound of her kidneys to make sure everything is working properly and rule out any issues there that might be causing the yuckies she’s been feeling lately. I’m trying not to worry too much about it, but if you don’t mind, please pray that there’s nothing seriously wrong and that she continues to feel better. I'll keep you posted.

Since we are all about testing the boundaries of sanity, we decided on another much longer road trip this past weekend. Hubby’s grandma, who we’ll call GiGi, is getting up in years and has been having some health problems in the past month or so. She hadn’t yet met la princesa and it had been more than a year since she had been blessed with the presence of the wild man, so we headed out on Friday for 8 hours in the car to southeast Missouri. I call it something else, but I won’t say it here. Trips to see the inlaws are always an adventure, to say the least, and this was no different. If you’ve been to that part of the country, you’ll know that the vast majority of the population in their small town are what we like to call “rednecks”. They even call themselves rednecks. It’s just a different way of life there. Almost like stepping back in time to the days when it was okay to openly fly Confederate flags, and I think you know what I mean by that. Seriously, I get the feeling that someday we might stumble upon a KKK rally or something. Weird. Anyway, I was just sure that the inlaws would want to parade us around to all of their friends to show off the grandkids, but surprisingly, and thankfully, that didn’t happen. On the way home I realized that it probably had to do with those darn confederate flag flyers. I’m guessing they wouldn’t “take too kindly” to la princesa not having pasty white skin and a pack of cigarettes rolled up in her sleeve. I'm dreading having to explain all that hatred to my children someday. I digress . . . Anyway, we did do lots of fun stuff, more firsts, while there. Here’s how it all went down:

We arrived Friday evening and stayed in for dinner. On Saturday morning we went to a local parade, a first for the wild man and la princesa.

Miss Priss Pants with Nana and Pawpaw waiting for the parade to begin.

I am pretty, oh so pretty . . .

While waiting for the parade to begin, we visited a few "yard sales on wheels" in the parking lots surrounding the parade route. No, I'm not kidding. People had loaded their "goods" on trailers pulled by their pickup trucks and had a parking lot garage sale. I'm also not kidding when I say that the two people talking to Nana are wearing matching "Dog the Bounty Hunter t-shirts. La princesa didn't know what to think . . .

I couldn't resist sharing this "people watching" pic--this large group was also waiting on the parade to begin. As if the wife-beater t-shirt guys weren't enough, the guy on the far right was wearing a woman's pink t-shirt under his button down shirt that said "got Jesus" on it. Fella, as a matter of fact I do "got Jesus", and since I'm quite sure that shirt should be on a woman, please, please give it to me. I shouldn't make fun, but I just can't help it.

The wild man got so much candy! It was so fun to watch him pick it up. He would wave to someone in the parade and they would throw him a handful of candy. I loved seeing him so happy! He’s still talking about that parade, and lucky for him, our town is having one this coming Saturday. Yee haw! More free candy! I jokingly told hubby that since we’re poor we should save all that candy and give it out at Halloween. Hey, that’s not cheap—that’s smart thinking!


After the parade, we went to pick up GiGi to ride yet another hour in the car for our first trip to “Lamberts—the home of the throwed rolls.” My mom also throws rolls at her house so we had to go see what the fuss was all about. I mean, really, why pay for what you can get for free at home, right?? It was a lot of fun—the food was good, the atmosphere was so cool. Huge portions that were impossible to finish and awesome rolls thrown to you if and when you want them. Heavenly! I lost count of how many rolls were consumed at our table. Yes, there were that many. It’s a really neat place and I’m sure we’ll go back sometime simply for the atmosphere. Pretty much just like being at my parents house, except my mom doesn't wear cutesy red suspenders when she throws the rolls and biscuits.

Justin, our roll thrower extraordinairre! (You have no idea how many time we tried and failed to get a picture mid-throw. This was semi-staged, as I finally asked him to throw slowly so I could get a good picture!)

We don't know these people, but we had just as much fun catching rolls as you see they are having here. It is quite the experience!

Yep, that's right. There is so much food on our table that you can't really see the table at all. And this is AFTER the meal when we were packing up the leftovers to take home.

A random pic of our beloved GiGi with la princesa. We love GiGi so much and we hope that both our kiddos get to know her and love her too for many years to come.

On Sunday, well, a lot of nothing happened. I take that back. Stuff happened, but I’m still a bit annoyed and since my mama taught me “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”, I’ll leave Sunday out if it’s all the same to you. We got up super duper early and headed home on Monday. Again, surprisingly both kids travel pretty well. I was worried that Miss Priss Pants might get confused and scared and clingy with all of this traveling, but instead I think it has shown her that while we might not always BE home, we always go BACK home. Together. Always. No one is ever leaving her ever again. I’m so thankful that she is adjusting well enough to show no ill effects of these past few crazy weeks, and that she is feeling alot better than this time last week. It is truly a blessing that our kids not only survived, but also mostly enjoyed our travels. We look forward to sharing many more trips, both by land and by air, during our life as a family. There are more action packed adventures planned for the next few weekends, and I'll try to do better about updating. Until then, love, peace, and chicken grease!