Just some videos!

Here are some videos of William. He will be 17 months old next week - hard to believe. In the second video he is singing the blessing. You probably can't interpret it but it is the one Anna Claire learned at the First Methodist Church Preschool. He even reaches out for our hands to hold when he sings it. Enjoy.

Nothing New

I realize I haven't written in awhile. I would like to say that I have SO much to share - but to be totally honest, there is not much to share. Right now I feel like I have been working a whole lot. I only work part time as a Math Consultant with SW RESA but with schools in this area about to start, we are REALLY busy. I will work 10 out of 13 days this month. Not what I call part time. Other than that, I am at home with William. He is learning so much lately. His new trick is taking his dirty diaper, putting it in the Diaper Champ, and then turning the handle. We can leave a diaper anywhere in the house and he will take it to his room and dispose of it. We are trying to teach him to pick up after himself at an early age - now if we could only get him to pick up the mess he creates around the house EVERYDAY! I can't keep the house clean before he destroys it all over again. He is definitely go go go..... ALL BOY! We are thinking about taking the pacifier away from him for good not this weekend but the next. He ONLY gets it for naps and bedtime - not around the house - but he goes for it as soon as we put him down in his crib and he cries when he can't find it. Ah..... I dread taking it away but I feel like at almost 17 months, it is time.

We had a crazy summer. I had 3.5 weeks off total. We went to my cousin's wedding and I loved seeing all the family. We then visited Matt's dad and then Nana and Pop in the mountains. We came home for four days and then went to the beach for about a week and then Wisconsin to visit Matt's family for 4 days and then I went to work a day after getting home from WI. Not much rest but I am glad we both had the time off to see everyone.

We did have to give Indy away. He snapped at Anna Claire about a month and a half ago. We don't think he meant any harm but we couldn't just assume it wouldn't happen again and the next time he wouldn't do harm so we found him a home. He is with a great family from church. He seems to be doing great there. We miss him but not having the responsibility of the dog has been nice - I won't lie. Matt is just waiting on Kitty to do something so we have to get rid of him too but I told Matt that Kitty won't. He doesn't care to much for Kitty.

Now that I have bored you - I will go. I will try to write a little more often (notice I didn't say often but a little more often). As long as I have nothing to write about - nothing has changed so we are doing good! I do still read y'all's postings so keep it up!

Jacksonville Zoo

Well we survived the zoo - but what a trip!

5:27 am - my alarm goes off - I MUST get up to get everything done to be at Mom's house by 7:30.

6:00 am - I am at the YMCA waiting to get weighed for Team Lean (I did lose 1.7 lbs this week)

6:45 am - wake up William and feed him

7:15 am - head to Mom's house

Once at Mom's house, we had to figure out how we were all going to get in the car - a total of 7 people can fit in her car and there were only 6 of us going. The problem was fitting all the car seats in. We started off having William's car seat in the back but realized that in order to have him in securely, the two chairs in front of him had to be moved all the way up, meaning mom would have had NO leg room. So we pulled out William's car seat and then put Anna Claire's back there. This worked - except now there was NO space between the middle car seats and the front seats for me to get in the back of the car. I am definitely NOT limber but I knew I could do it - and I did do it on several occassions - and yes, I am on muscle relaxers today (joking).

We finally all get in the car - Julie is driving, mom in the passenger seat, William behind Julie, Mallory behind mom, I'm behind William and Anna Claire behind Mallory - got it?

Of course with the third row up there is NO room in the back for storage so every space is being used - William's stroller is between William and Mallory and I have William's two bags, Mallory's bag, Anna Claire's bag, the DVD player and DVD bag, and my purse ALL between Anna Claire and me. Fun times!

We leave about 8:15 - running a little behind but honestly we are lucky we were all in and on the way.

The trip down there was great until about the last 30 minutes. Mallory had had enough! And William is sensitive so when Mallory started screaming - not whinning but screaming - so did William - yeah!!!! But for a 2 1/2 hour drive - 30 minutes of crying is not that bad.

We got to the zoo about 11:00 and what a beatiful day. We all had strollers - Julie pushing Mallory, Mom pushing Anna Claire, and me pushing William. Honestly it was more like Anna Claire pushing her own stroller for most of the day!

All the animals were great! We saw elephants, giraffes, snakes, leopards, panthers, monkeys, rhinos, birds, wolves, deer, ant eaters, bairds (look this one up if you want to), kangaroos, lions, etc.

Of course the highlight was the gorilla Keto. Keto was quite the character. When we got to his space - we couldn't see him. There were two other women and a man there looking for him too. They all had their faces smashed against the window looking for him. Mom goes over there too and has her face right there on the window. All of a sudden Keto does a BODY SLAM into the window. There were screams and other words used by these two women and the man. Oh yeah - mom screamed really loud too!!! Which of course made julie and I laugh but made Anna Claire cry. The zoo keeper came by and said the Keto does this all the time. He likes to scare the viewers by smashing his 800 lbs against the window. He would be over 6 ft tall if he stood straight so we are not talking about a monkey but a GORILLA. About 5 minutes later, one of the ladies was still talking about how her heart was still racing. It totally made everyone jump. It was great - Anna Claire later said her favorite animal was the large animal that scared shug. :)

The trip home was pretty good. William was fussy a little because it was dinner time and he had a very little nap. We stopped for dinner and fed him and then everyone was great from dinner to home.

Anyway, we arrived back home about 8:15 or so. Great trip - the kids did great and we had a ball. I will post pics as I get some from Julie and mom. I didn't take any.

William sleeping sitting up!

William fought his nap this morning - he FINALLY fell asleep. I went in to make sure and he was sound asleep sitting up in the corner of his bed. I wasn't about to move him and wake him up so he slept like this for 2 1/2 hours. I actually WOKE him after 2 1/2 hours hoping I would still get a good afternoon nap from him - just so you know - it is 4:45 and he has had NO afternoon nap. He will just go to bed early tonight.



Tomorrow Julie, Mallory, Anna Claire, Shug, William, and I are all going to the Jacksonville Zoo - I can only imagine what the car trip will be like :) Keep us in your prayers - ha ha!

William trying to be an elephant!

Matt reads William a book that has an elephant in it. Matt does the elephant noise with his mouth and uses his arm as the trunk of the elephant. William LOVES it!!! Matt was doing it at the dinner table tonight and William started trying to make the noise. Now if we can just get him to use his arm too. He is teething again so the last two nights have been painful for EVERYONE! This morning we were UP at 4:30 (as in playing on the floor with him because he would NOT go to bed or quit screaming) and he didn't go back to bed until 8:00 am and that was for a 45 minute nap. He then took a good hour and a half nap at 3:00 pm. Talk about being tired. I am so glad it is the weekend and we can all rest tomorrow - hopefully!

William at 11 months old!

Well William has learned A LOT this month. He is crawling everywhere, more verbal, and pulling up on everything and walking around the coffee table or sofa while holding on. He has grown so much. It is hard to believe in 3 weeks he will be 1. Where does time go? I have posted some current videos. I need to get a video of him crawling on my camera - I have it on my camcorder but it is hard to pull things off my camcorder since it is High Def. Enjoy!

William and his nebulizer!

So William has been sick since last Monday. I took him to the doctor on Tuesday and the doctor said he had a small virus which causes ulcers on his throat so he had a sore throat. We were told to use tylenol. Well, its been a week and he has a TERRIBLE cough and you can just hear the congestion. He wheezes a lot! So I went back to the doctor today. She definitely heard the wheezing and also saw that he had a minor ear infection. Fortunately we caught the ear infection in the early stage so that we can take care of it now and not when it is a full blown ear infection. So by the time we left the dr. office, we were getting medicine for his ear AND a nebulizer for his breathing. The nebulizer cost us $108!!!! I sure hope it helps his breathing. It is cute though. It is a kid one so it is a cow and the carrying case is a barn. We used it the first time and William did NOT like the idea of something blowing smoke in his face. The second time we put Praise Baby DVD in and he was so glued to the TV that he didn't mind the Nebulizer at all. (William is not allowed to watch TV until he is one - Matt says it causes ADD and ADHD - whatever - So watching Praise Baby was quite a treat!) Anyway, I think for now, Praise Baby and a Nebulizer will hopefully take care of William's wheezing. Oh the joys of being a parent!!! Never a dull moment.

Other than that, things are going great here. My job is working out very well. I truly enjoy it. I am not sure if I will have it next year due to major budget cuts. Hopefully I will but either way I have totally felt blessed by having it this year. I got tested for CMV (the virus Matt had over Christmas break) and my blood work showed that I have immunity for it - in other words, I have already gotten it in my lifetime so that is good. I am still trying to lose weight. I lost 4 lbs last week and I have to weigh in for Team Lean again on Wed morning so I hope I lose at least 3 lbs but right now I think I have only lost 2 more. Since Nov. I have lost 14 lbs at this point. I wish I only had a couple of more lbs to go but I have about 30 - uh..... the weight battle continues. I envy those of you that never have to worry about your weight. It is a life long battle. The good thing about trying to lose weight is that I do exercise which is great for my body. I struggle with it - I am a Terry not an Odom! :) I do my elliptical 5 times a week and I just ordered Turbo Jam. Not sure if it was worth ordering but I got it off ebay and thought it might change up my cardio a little - plus it has sculpting with it so I can tone. For those that don't know what Turbo Jam is, it is just a DVD that is like kick boxing with current fun music. We will see and I will let you know if it is worth anything. I am excited about changing it up though from the daily elliptical and walk.

Hope everyone is doing well - I will try to get out and see some of you when William gets better and can be around you. Until then.... have a great one.

William with one piece of his Nebulizer (looks like a gas mask) - To no surprise, he didn't like the head piece so we decided to use the piece that just blows in his face!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone! Christmas for us this year was quite different. Matt got CMV (a virus) so William and I moved out of the house. So for the first week Matt was off of school - we were at Mom and Dad's house. Sad! We didn't spend Christmas Eve with each other and then on Christmas Day, William and I went to see Matt once William woke up. We spent a couple of hours at our house doing Christmas and then William and I left again. Because CMV is highly dangerous for pregnant women, Miriam was unable to do Christmas with us bc we didn't know if William or I had it. Miriam had not been exposed to Matt but we had. So when we did Christmas with my family, Miriam and Matt were on Skype through the computer so they were still kind of there. Uh....How sad! So no new traditions with us having William. Hopefully this will not be a tradition :)

So we got the okay for Matt to be around people again so we headed to Winder to be with his dad. Matt's brother and his family came into town this year so we were glad Matt would get to see them. He hasn't seen him in a year and a half and they had never met William. So we get there - and did Christmas that night with his family. We woke up about midnight that night to here Matt's brother vomiting in the bathroom. Ah...... we had known that Sammy (our nephew) and thrown up several times on the way down from Indiana but they thought it was car sickness. Of course, at this point, Matt and I both know that it wasn't car sickness but a virus of some sort since Mike now had it. So the next morning - we rushed to pack and got out of there as soon as possible. We couldn't risk William getting it or Matt who was still recovering from CMV. So we drove all the way to Winder and back in a little over 24 hours. uh...... Fortunately, none of us got it! We did leave in time. But Matt didn't get to see his family but a night.

So we have been in T'ville all week instead of Winder. This was a good thing because William is cutting at least 3 if not more teeth right now so he has been miserable. Which of course means we have been pulling hair out too. It has been a week of him being unhappy, crying, and just off schedule. Luckily today he has been great! I hope that means the teeth have cut and we are back to normal since Matt goes back to work tomorrow and I won't have any help.

Here is a video of William today at 10 months. He still can't crawl or wave bye bye but he can clap. He can move - somehow he gets to objects that he can't reach. So slowly he moves inch by inch while sitting. He also goes from a sitting position to the crawling position but then just rolls over. So there is progress. He loves to stand so we are working on balancing and walking too. Maybe we will just skip the crawling and go straight to the walking - who knows!