Saturday, February 27, 2010

Another blog facelift!

You've probably noticed the blog has just received yet another facelift. I started feeling super guilty that Maddie wasn't anywhere in the header or slideshow, so that had to change! My Mom's League had a charity auction last night and mama had 10 too many glasses of wine and I'm suffering for it today. So, playing with the blog for hours on end was the perfect hangover activity. Please don't judge. Mama doesn't get out very much anymore and when she does, there is no such thing as limits!

Maddie has really started experimenting with her voice. For some reason, she loves to screech and squeal while she's in her swing for no apparent reason. She doesn't really do it anywhere else but once you strap her in the swing, she's screeching in seconds. She's also found a new love for blowing raspberries. I'm going to start putting a bib on her 24/7. She is WET all. the. time. Between the constant spit up (which is mind boggling by the way) and her blowing bubbles out of her mouth all the time, we can't keep a shirt dry to save our lives.

The screeching in action:



The raspberries in action:



And here are the girls I spend every Friday morning with. This was at the Gala last night. Love them!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Mission Accomplished!

Maddie has started rolling over consistently! I should document my "missions" in the blog more often because apparently it's good luck! New Mission: Get Maddie to sleep through the night!!

Take a look:



Proud happy baby!

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

My new mission in life

For the last few weeks, I have been obsessing over the fact that Maddie has yet to roll over (either way). She is almost 5 months old!! She easily turns her body from side to side to reach for a toy or to look in your direction, but she still can't quite make it all the way over on to her tummy. She tries so incredibly hard to lift her body up over that little arm that gets stuck underneath her and then she gets tired and falls back on her back. It breaks my heart! My new mission in life is to get this girl to roll over consistently before she turns 5 months old, which, given it is February and a short month, only gives us THREE MORE DAYS!!!

Maddie trying to roll over:



This is how she hangs out most of the time:





Cutie on her tummy!



And of course I just had to take one of her adorable self in her boots

Monday, February 22, 2010

A Valentine's Day full of Love

John and Misty tied the knot on Valentine's Day so we all drove down to Houston for the big event. Jacob was the ring bearer so we had been prepping him for weeks for his big role. We even busted out our own wedding video to show him what Hudson and Hayden did at our wedding. He said "I can do that!" after watching it and we felt we had prepared him well. He did do amazingly well and looked so super handsome in his suit. While I think it's always cute to see him so dressed up, it also makes me sad to see the little man he is turning into. What happened to our baby? The wedding was fantastic and we are so happy for John and Misty!!

Here are some of our favorite pics:

Jacob hugging Brookie at the rehearsal dinner. Man he loves his cousins!



Jacob and Hayden. The command must have been "Show me your teeth!"



Hallie and Jacob practicing walking down the aisle



Jacob loved his ring bearer pillow



All the cousins! (Minus Misty's oldest son Clay)



I love how Jacob is eating in this picture and the one above



Handsome boys! Frank and Mark



The beautiful bride



Grandpa with Maddie and Jacob



We managed to get Maddie to sleep right before the ceremony started. What a relief!



I love this picture because I'm kneeling down giving Jacob a pep talk before we're all about to walk down the aisle. We're going over it one more time...look how serious I am!



They all made it down the aisle and plopped down right there on the steps at the altar.



Jacob listening



So handsome!



The beautiful couple!



We were so happy Great Grandma could be there (look how awesome she looks and she's 91!!). She amazes me everyday.



The Ildebrandos



The first dance



Me and my angel



Daddy and his angel

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Jacob's first surgery

Exactly a week ago (last Thursday), we had an appointment with the Pediatric ENT, Dr. Ragsdale, to take a look at Jacob's ears. It had been almost a week since his last antibiotic injections so we wanted to make sure he got in before those shots wore off. In our experience, once the medicine was out of his system, the ear infection came back raging. Dr. Ragsdale basically told me that the antibiotic injections were the "big guns" to treat ear infections and if those weren't working, our last resort was to have tubes put in. A myringotomy (putting tubes in the ears) is such a common procedure these days that we weren't too worried about the procedure itself, but I have to admit I was a little freaked out about them putting Jacob under. I asked how quickly Dr. Ragsdale could get us in because I didn't want Jacob's ear infection to come back and for him to suffer any more. He got us on the surgery schedule the next morning.

On Friday morning, we had to be at the Cooks Childrens Hospital at 6 am and the procedure would take place some time after 7 am (they start at 7 and do the procedures back to back based on the age of the patient). Once again, Jacob made sure to let everyone know that he was not supposed to get any shots. The nurses were great and kept telling him "we don't give any owies here." Once we were all checked in, they gave Jacob an oral sedative and we noticed him relax within just a few minutes. He was a little loopy and when he talked, we had no idea what he was saying! A little after 7, they came to take him away which was the most nerve-racking part of the day. I hated watching him get wheeled away knowing they were about to put him under. Luckily, they just use a gas mask and patients come out of the anesthesia soon after the mask is removed. Mark and I went to the waiting room and waited. Not even 10 minutes later Dr. Ragsdale came out and said that they were done and Jacob did just fine. We just had to wait for him to come out of it.

Ugh, coming out of it. That was NOT pretty. I went back there first (Mark had to stay with Maddie) and Jacob was just screaming and moaning. They put him in my lap and I didn't know what to do to console him! I said "is he in pain?" and the nurses said "no, it's just very confusing for him. Right now he's seeing double, he doesn't know where he is, etc." I knew it was just a matter of time before the anesthesia wore off, but he was clearly confused and uncomfortable. I just kept holding him and singing to him and telling him it was going to be okay and that he was going to feel better in just a few minutes. He also kept asking for Daddy but when I would say "Okay, Mommy has to leave to go get Daddy", he'd scream "no!" and didn't want to be left alone again. :( He asked for a drink so they gave him some water and then we managed to give him a popsicle. About 2 minutes later, he vomited it all up. In my lap. This was all going on while the nurse is going over the discharge papers with me asking me to sign all these things. I wanted to be like "Can we get him calm first?!" After getting cleaned up, I told Jacob I would go get Daddy. I pulled the car up and we were finally on our way home.

That anesthesia is potent stuff! We gave him another popsicle when we got home and 2 seconds later, he vomited that up too. I decided to wait to give him anything for a few hours. He was such a champ though...he never whined or cried about his ears and was back to normal in just a few short hours! We haven't heard a peep about his ears since. I've heard so many wonderful stories about how ear tubes have really helped other kids and I hope this is the case for Jake. I just can't stand seeing him suffer from another ear infection. These tubes are temporary and will fall out in a year, so hopefully by then he will have grown out of these types of infections.

Here's some video of him today. We were snowed in again today (can you believe this is the third big snow in Dallas this winter? It's unheard of!) so I decided to take some videos. The things that come out of his mouth constantly crack me up so I keep meaning to try and get him on video just talking about random stuff.

In case you can't hear what he says at the end of the video, he looks at me and says "Mommy, can you get the camera out of my face? I don't like that". I nearly fell out of my chair I was laughing so hard.



Jacob is obsessed with the Movie "Cars" and now has a collection of about 18 cars from the movie. It's beginning to get seriously difficult to keep track of them all. Here are just a few...

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Happy Birthday Jacob!!

Jacob turned 3 on Saturday and it was a super fun, eventful day. He didn't complain about his ears once so thank goodness for that! The whole family was here including Nanny and Papa, Grandma and Grandpa, Jacob's cousins Hudson, Hayden and Hallie and his soon-to-be cousins Joshua, Hunter and Brooke (who also turned 3 the exact same day!) Last year, we didn't have any family in town to help us celebrate his 2nd birthday in San Francisco, so Jacob was spoiled with love and attention this year!!

We started the day off by going to the Jump Zone in Southlake for some jumping fun with the cousins. There were a TON of birthday parties going on that morning so Jacob was so confused that all the kids running around there were there to celebrate other kids birthdays and not Jacob's! Whenever they'd announce another birthday, Jacob would start pouting and say, "but it's my birthday!!" I didn't even think that he'd be upset watching everyone else celebrate their birthdays at the same time. We still had a great time and headed home around noon for a much needed nap before the REAL birthday party started at 3:30 pm.

We planned Jacob's birthday party at The Little Gym in Southlake. He took classes there for a long time and stopped when they closed down the location near our house. It just reopened so we jumped on the opportunity to have his party there! Of course it had a Disney "Cars" theme since he is absolutely obsessed with Lightning McQueen. There were 19 kids there to help celebrate!! It was a load of fun and I am so happy we decided to do it there. The instructor was fantastic and all of the kids had a great time. Including the birthday boy -- he was smiling from ear to ear for the entire party! After the party, all the family came back to our house so we could open presents and also have a little celebration for Brookie's birthday. Jacob got so many presents I lost count. Mark and I got him the Leapster game system since he loved playing with it when his cousins (on Mark's side) had visited over Thanksgiving. As soon as he opened it up, he wanted to play with it and didn't want to open anything else! What kid does that??

I was sad to see the day end. Sometimes I think we have more fun on his birthday than he does. :) Now we get to look forward to Maddie's 1st birthday!

At the Jump Zone in Southlake



I love that Jacob is throwing up the horns in this picture





This picture cracks me up because everyone in it belongs to our family -- there were a lot of us!









Party at The Little Gym
























The other birthday girl Brookie!


















There are lots of new babies in my Friday playgroup