Mrs. Claus and a Reindeer?

Meagan found the empty diaper box headed for the trash today and decided it would make a great toy.

Mommy actually put her safely in the box after watching her try to climb in it, but it was Bubba's idea to push her around the house.

Then he decided pulling her around the house and acting as the reindeer was more fun than just pushing. She loved every minute of the attention and fun with her big brother.
We almost had a mishap and a run-in with the tree, but Bubba pushed her safely out of the way and around the rest of the room. At least it gave Mommy a few minutes not to have to entertain and chase her around. What a great big brother Meagan, or should I say Mrs. Claus, has.

I'm Ready for My Own Napmat

Meagan has decided that she likes to lay on Matthew's nap mat which we had out for him to take his nap on today. Obviously it didn't work, but Meagan thought she might like to try sleeping or playing on it.

Where's Meagan?

Can you tell which things are toys and which one is Meagan?

She has discovered how to climb up on Matthew's bed and decided to climb up there while we were cleaning their room and had put all the toys on Matthew's bed for the purpose of vacuuming. What a cutie and already so precocious.

Christmas Pictures

Well, we've been trying to find time and energy to get a family picture for our Christmas picture. With everyone being sick off an on, though, it's been kinda difficult. Well, I finally gave up and decided to just take one of just the kids myself in front of the tree. The other night when it was cold and we had a fire going, I decided it was the right time. It took several tries and a lot of coaxing and patience. The results were actually quite hilarious in my opinion. Below are a few of the resulting pictures I managed to get and in some cases clean up a little.

This was the first try...hmmm...someone's missing.

Oh, wait, there she is. Or should we say, there she goes. Not sure what Mattie was looking at, the TV maybe. Bubba's doing his best to keep everyone in place.

Try number 3. Everyone's there, sorta. They're just not all looking the right direction.

We thought maybe adding in the chair would help keep them in one place. Somehow, I don't think it's working. What's your opinion?

Well, we're a little closer. They're all in the picture, looking the same way, sorta. If we could just get Maggie closer to the chair and her brothers, we might actually have a great picture.

Yah, we got it. If only Maggie would look at the camera. I guess her brother was just more interesting than Mommy.

Merry Christmas to one and all!!!!!

Bubba's Train & Super Matthew

Our favorite thing of late is to play in Logan's room with his trains. Or more accurately to tear up the track of Bubba's train. A few weeks ago, we set up Logan's GeoTrax train set in his room. He loves to play with it and watch the trains go around the track. Matthew and Meagan like it too, but they spend more time tearing up the track and making a mess with it than watching the trains go around. And of course, Mommy spends the time putting the train track back together again. They're a lot of fun to watch as they play in Bubba's room. Matthew and Meagan love their big brother and his toys.

Matthew's new thing is to wrap his burp cloth around his neck and run around the room. I caught him doing it the other day and had to take a picture. He used to love to fly around the room in Daddy's arms and we called him Super Mattie. When he was a little older, Logan would turn his bib around when Matthew was done eating and call him Super Mattie. So, now Matthew does it to himself. Here are the pictures of our Super Mattie.

Just a Little Bit of Fun

Well, we've had a fun week and more fun to come with grandparents coming for Thanksgiving. Meagan is now a year old as of last Monday, and she is growing just as she should be. She had her one year check up on Friday and weighed in at 19 lbs. 2 oz. with a height of 28 1/2 in. She is most definitely catching up to her big brother, Matthew. She's eating and drinking just like a big girl most of the time. This weekend has really seen an improvement in that area. She suddenly seems to like table food much better and the cup is becoming more fun as well, as long as we can keep her from throwing it on the floor that is. Walking is her new favorite pasttime. She wants to walk everywhere including outside. This is such a fun age. Her smile is my favorite trait of hers.

We Have a Walker

Yes, folks, you read that correctly. We now have officially 3 walking children in our family. I have always heard or read that the subsequent children do not usually walk or develop other gross motor skills as early as the first one. I think it has something to do with lack of time to work with the other children due to the first one(s). My daughter has proved them all wrong. She started walking before both of the boys did when they were her age. She will not be one until next week, so this week she decided to really start walking. She is not crusing, she is full blown walking across the room even while holding objects sometimes as long as she is. She's a hoot and so proud of herself. It's so much fun to watch her and how excited she gets. In fact, she just came walking out of her room smiling at me. What a cutie! So here are some pictures of her walking. I swear she was walking across the room not just standing there.

Halloween and BU Homecoming Parade

Well, the weekend is over, and I have to say I am kind of glad. Friday night was Fall Festival at our church, and we all went and luckily met the grandparents there. Without them, we wouldn't have been able to handle all three of the kids. They were a big help especially when Matthew refused to go anywhere near the bounce houses. He and Daddy and Gigi ended up in the toddler area while Logan, Mommy, Meagan, and Grandpa stayed in the worship center to enjoy the bounce houses. Thank you Grandpa and Gigi for helping wrangle these three little trick-or-treaters.

Meagan's first Halloween. Isn't she a cute little Tigger?

My cute little Elmo freak. By the end of the evening, he was out of the outfit and actually running a fever.

Gigi and the little ones. Too cute.

Logan, aka King Peter, with one of his best friends showing off their costumes.

Sliding down the huge slide was lots of fun but what a line.

Saturday morning we actually got up and made it to the Homecoming parade at Baylor. It wasn't as good as years past, but we did enjoy ourselves. The band actually stopped to play right in front of us with the drumline standing right in front of Logan. He was in heaven. He loves the drumline and still insists that one day he is going to learn to play the drums. He definitely has the rhythm to do it. Mommy didn't get that many pictures because Meagan wanted to be held especially after the band stopped in front of us. She wasn't very trusting of the rest of the parade. Here are a couple of pictures I did manage to get.

After all that, we went to a birthday party for one of Logan's friends. We were there a couple of hours in the afternoon. It was a lot of fun and a chance for the kids to run out any energy they had left. Once we got home, everyone went down for a nap. Yaaahhhh! Whew, what a weekend. I'm tired now, so I'm going to bed. Goodnight!

Movie Night

Well, Logan had his first date last night, with Mom of course. He has been bugging me to take him to see High School Musical 3, and I'll admit, I wanted to see it too. As someone who grew up watching the likes of Grease and Grease 2 and other classical musicals, I've really enjoyed all 3 of these movies. So we went, just the two of us. We both really enjoyed it. We ended up running into a friend from church and her 12 year old son whom she had dragged with her to see it. I think there was only one other boy there who wasn't a dad. However, I think he actually enjoyed it too.

It's a great movie with lots of singing and dancing and a great male role model who has decisions to make about his future. It's also a sweet love story that's chaste and real. Some would say it's a little schmaltzy, but I like the way Disney and Kenny Ortega portrayed their relationship. It's more than just a physical relationship, it's an emotional and growing relationship. In fact, in what's become a running joke concerning their physical relationship among fans, they only have one kiss toward the end of the movie. Every time they go to kiss, someone or something interrupts them. Anyway, all that to say that we had a great time seeing a great G rated movie that my son already knows many of the songs to and wants to own the DVD. I think this is one we will pick up when the time comes. If you're looking for something entertaining, cute, and wholesome, go see this and don't be afraid to take your kids if they're old enough to sit through an almost two hour movie. It's worth it.

Birthday Pictures

Well, Matthew is 2 now, and we did actually have a birthday party, and Mommy did take pictures. I've just been too busy dealing with sick children to have time to post them. So, grandparents, sorry for the wait, but here they are. Enjoy!

The cookie cake, easier than a regular cake.
Of course, it had to be an Elmo party. We're all about Elmo.
You want me to do what???? That's a candle!
Mmmmmmmmm! That was good.
My buddy, Patrick. We like Patrick a lot.

Playing with friends in Bubba's room

We love our Elmo bathtub toys

Elmo houseshoes from Carson that must be worn every night before bed. Thank you Carson for such a fun present

Thank you Grandpa and Gigi for the Elmo DVDs. We could watch all day if Mommy would let us.

A Little People excavation playset from Grandma and Grandpapa. What fun noises it makes.

A big dump truck from Mommy and Daddy and Bubba and Sissy. I love to push this around, so does Sissy.

All in all, despite the delay, Matthew had a great birthday. Thank you to all who came and celebrated with us.

Family Picture

Well, we're back on track, and a lot has happened this last month. Logan started Kindergarten and loves it most days. Mommy, Matthew, and Meagan started back to Mother's Day Out on the same day. Matthew loves his new teachers and now walks in completely by himself most days. Every once in a while, Ms. Christy has to bribe him to come in to Early Drop Off by making sure Elmo is playing on the TV. Meagan is still suffering from separation anxiety, but as long as Ms. Janice is there to take her in the morning, she goes just fine. Mommy has a new class of students and a somewhat new age group. These kiddos are about six months younger than the age group I usually have, so it's been a bit of an adjustment. Baylor started classes again, so that means Daddy is busier than ever.

The other neat thing that happened is Matthew turned two on September 12th. We were supposed to celebrate on Saturday the 13th but Ike had other plans. He sent us rain, so we postponed to this Saturday. Mommy actually got her camera back on the Wednesday before the party, so there will be new pictures forthcoming especially of party day. In the mean time, though, Logan had to have a family picture to take to school as they are discussing homes and families these two weeks. I realized on the Monday the note went home that the last family picture we had was from when Logan was 2 1/2 and Matthew and Meagan weren't even born yet. Without a camera, what was I to do? Ask a friend who is a great photographer and has a camera kinda like Mommy's. We met her at the park one evening and she got some great shots. Here's the best.

Thank you so much Jennifer. We really appreciate your help.

I'll try to do better about posting now that I have my camera back. And for the family, yes copies of these pictures will be forthcoming.

One last shout out to Aunt Shar, Happy Birthday!!!! We love you and miss you.

9 Months Old

Well, we made it to month 9. Meagan was officially nine months old yesterday, but we had her checkup today. Our doctor is finally back from maternity leave, good news, Jen. It was great to see her again as she knows all the kids and knows everything we struggle with concerning getting the kids to eat. Meagan is starting to have a few problems with that. I think mostly it's a taste and texture thing. She doesn't like anything with apples or greens or coarse textures. It makes feeding her very interesting. She does like the meat and veggie combos so that is a good thing. She still won't eat table food even puffs. She tries them, but she hasn't figured out how to bite them or how to leave them in her mouth long enough to melt. She tries to swallow them whole and ends up choking and then throwing up. Not fun.

Well, here are her stats: weight - 17 lbs. 13 oz. (Matthew still outweighs her, but not by much)
height - 26 1/2 in. (Matthew is taller by about 5 in.)
head - 17 1/2
The doctor said she is doing great and we didn't have to have any shots or blood drawn. We were so excited by that. Her one year checkup will include all of these in a few months. Should be a great start to our Thanksgiving holidays.

She has started crusing as of last night. She's been pulling up on anything she can reach for the last two weeks, but last night, she actually decided to take a few steps hanging on to the couch. One more mobile, very curious child to add to our family. Tonight it was the dog's water bowl. She dumped the whole thing over on her and the floor. Luckily, it wasn't very full, but it did require a change of pjs. I didn't even realize she had crawled into the kitchen until Dennis heard her playing with the bowls. She's a quiet mischevious little thing. We're going to have to keep our eyes on her. I will post new pictures once I get my camera back. Sorry.

Meagan's New "Tricks"

This has been a week of many firsts for Meagan. I wish I had pictures of them. I'll get some of her doing these things once I get my camera back. At this point, I'm just hoping to have it back by Matthew's birthday in a few weeks. Anyway, back to Meagan. We figured out part of her fever issue last weekend, her first tooth finally cut through. It's so cute on the bottom with another one about to pop through right next to it. Let me tell you, that one little tooth sure can hurt. She bit down on my finger while I was trying to feel for the other one a couple of nights ago. OUCH!

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that she was scooting around in her own little fashion, not quite army not quite crawling. It was kind of a push and pull thing with her hands and toes. Well, a couple of afternoons ago, she decided she was going to crawl on her hands and knees. So, she pushed up on them and started going. She didn't get very far with the first attempt, but she didn't quit. She kept trying until she got where she wanted to go, Bubba's room. That is now her favorite place to crawl. On Thursday night, we put her on the floor after the boys were in bed. Logan likes to leave his door open just a little once he goes to bed. We have to put his trash can behind the door to keep it from opening all the way. That didn't stop Meagan. She decided she wanted to go into Bubba's room, so she crawled over there, pushed open the door, and went right in. Logan was not asleep yet and got the biggest kick out of her coming in his room. He started laughing because of course we already were laughing just watching her. Whenever he laughs, she starts giggling too. So needless to say, we were all laughing as she crawled in to the darkness of Bubba's room. Daddy went and retrieved her though so Logan would go to sleep. We were hard pressed to keep her out of there for the rest of the night. She just loves her Bubba.

She has also started trying to pull up. Her favorite ledge, Mommy. She will crawl over to me, reach up her hands and pull to a standing or kneeling position. Sometimes she tries to use the couch, but the lowest handhold is still too high for her to quite reach. She has tried to use her exersaucer but has learned not to use it after bumping her head and face into the cold metal bars of it. They hurt but she gets over it and is a fast learner. She's a lot of fun to watch, but then sometimes I realize I'm watching my last baby do all these things discovering her world. It's hard at the same time as being fun. She seems to be doing everything so quickly once she tries, but I know she is only trying to keep up with her brothers. Now, I just have to wait until she discovers the kitchen. It's childproof of course, but it's hard tile and you can't see around the corner if you're sitting in the living room and the opening is too big to put up a gate. Well life won't be dull around here anymore. Not that it ever is with three kids.

No More Pics

Well, bad news, friends and family, my digital camera died tonight. The problem with it is so bad that I'm going to have to send it in to Canon for service. This means no new pics for quite a while. Hopefully it won't take too long or cost too much. If it is more than the body of a new camera, we probably won't repair it. Even still, we're not sure where the money for repairs or a new one will come from. I'll let you know when we're up and running again.

My Toys

We recently found one of the boys' old toy bins and emptied it of their toys and put Meagan's in it. Matthew has a larger toy box and Logan has the shelf and bin system in his closet. We realized that Meagan didn't have a place to put her toys, so we knew we had to do something rather than letting them clutter up the floor where we kept tripping over them especially in the middle of the night. There are not a whole lot of things in there, a few teething toys, some soft squishy cloth blocks, a handful of balls, stacking cups, and a musical star stacker is about it. Most of these toys are hand me downs from the boys. She doesn't care, but Matthew sure does. He must still remember playing with them because he continues to want to play with them. The first day we did this, if Meagan was playing with something, he came over, took the toy, and announced, "Mine!" I encouraged him to share with Sissy and let her play too. He wasn't real sure about the idea at first, but he is slowly warming up to it. I try to remind him that he has other toys that are his in their room. Sometimes it works, but other times he insists on playing with what are now Meagan's toys. Meagan has figured out how to get them back, though. If they take them from her, she starts crying or screaming. That either gets Mommy's attention or they end up giving it back to make her hush. Either way she ends up happy. Mommy's solution is that if she has one of their toys which inevitably happens, they should trade and give her one of her own toys and get theirs back. Again, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I'm still trying to figure out which of my children is going to be the most stubborn and strong-willed. Right now the race is neck and neck...and neck.

Meagan is scooting around now in her own way and at least getting to where she wants to be. A couple of days ago, I put her on the ground just by my feet in front of the couch. A few minutes later, I looked up and she was across the room at her toy bin trying to get to the toys inside. Smart little thing. She was so cute with her head buried inside that of course, like any mom, I had to take a picture. I had a hard time getting her attention, she was so involved in what she was doing. She can be a very intense little girl already. After a minute or two, she finally looked over at me with this great big smile that said, "See, they're my toys now." Too cute for her own good. I hope she always stays that way.

Today wasn't one of those days, though. Today was a 'worry Mommy to death' day. Last night, Logan had a birthday party to attend at Chuck E. Cheese, so Grandpa and Gigi agreed to keep Meagan so we could be more available to both Matthew and Logan at the party. Things didn't go as planned. She started pitching a fit shortly after I left and cried for an hour straight off an on. I finally had to go get her. She was fine as soon as I walked in the door. When I finally got her home, she felt warm again, and I thought, here we go again with the fever. Yes, it was a fever, 101.8. Just a little too high for Mommy's comfort. It got up to at least 102 in the middle of the night. Needless to say, I took her to the doctor first thing this morning. She has a lovely ear infection in the right ear. She will be on antibiotics for the next 10 days, but we will have to watch her closely as this is her first exposure to penicillin and both of the boys are allergic to it. The one huge fly in the ointment is that she hates to take medicine orally. She does everything from gagging to completely throwing up everything. This is what she did this afternoon when I tried to give her Motrin for her fever that was up to 103.3. I called the doctor because we can't keep doing this, and he had me bring her back in real quick so they could give her an antibiotic shot to help the process of healing get started. She's doing better, but still running a pretty high fever. We did discover that she will tolerate Tylenol with only a little minor gagging. Right now, we're just praying for a good night's sleep, but I'm not counting on it. Although, she is currently sleeping through the raging thunderstorm outside. I can always hope.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Grandma!!!

We love you and miss you lots.

See you in a few months.

FUO not FUN

We have had a not so great 3 weeks lately with Meagan. Every afternoon and evening she runs a low grade fever. At first it was nothing I worried about, but when it kept on for 2 weeks, I took her to the doctor. That was last Wednesday. She couldn't find anything wrong with her, but took a urine sample to be sure it wasn't that with Meagan's history of kidney infection. The results came back normal with no signs of bacteria, but since she was still continuing to run these low-grade fevers, the doctor had me bring her back in yesterday. Her conclusion was that it was an FUO (fever of unknown origin), not my idea of FUN. She took some blood and ran a CBC and two other tests that would check to see if there was any type of inflammation anywhere in her body. The results came back today and everything is normal. Her thought now is that it must either be a virus or Meagan now has a higher normal temperature than most people including the entire family which all have lower normals. Go figure.

Please pray that Meagan's fevers will go away and return to her old normal. Her attitude and personality have been great lately. She has been in great spirits like there was absolutely nothing wrong. In fact, she's doing so well that she gained 8 ounces in 5 days. She now weighs 17 lbs. 4 oz. She's going to outweigh her brother before long. (Like in the next two weeks if she keeps this up.) My concern is that the fevers will go up higher indicating a true problem, so please pray that I will be vigilant without being overprotective. It's disconcerting to pick up your baby and have her entire body feel hot to the touch. When I check, her temperature is never over 101, but still it can be nervewracking never knowing when a higher fever might strike. Please pray that I can leave all of this in God's more than capable hands and not worry about her.

On a fun note, we bit the bullet and joined the crowds. We bought a Wii. We've been talking about it and thinking about it for months now. Now that they're a little cheaper, we decided to buy one. We got a pretty good deal at Walmart. What fun! Even Logan is able to get in on the action. He loves to play baseball and he's not half bad. We're looking forward to the fun and getting a little exercise sorta. As Dennis put it, "at least we're getting our bottoms off the couch and doing something." :-)

More pictures for the grandparents and out of state friends to come soon. BTW, love to Kat, Dee, and Dana. Say hi to Buck, Jeff, Langley, and Day. We miss you all.

Fun in the Sun (and the Shade)

Last Saturday was a lot of fun. We spent the morning in the pool again, all of us, Meagan included. She spent time in her own little pool with just an inch of water. But she sure could splash a lot in that little inch. I think she sprayed as much water as her big brother who was in the big pool doing backwards "dives". We had a lot of fun, even Matthew, who still needed his cup in the pool. He at least got in the pool this week and splashed around a little bit. Mostly he got splashed by his brother like the rest of us. At least he didn't cry about it this week. Here are a few of the pictures I took from the morning. Logan's diving abilities

Matthew and his cup

My little waterbug splashing

We like to sit up and splash too. I like the tongue sticking out like she's soncentrating

Here's a close-up of the tongue.