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!

William's 9 month check up

William had his 9 month check up last week. He weighed 21 lbs and 7 oz (which was 66% on the curve) and 28 1/2 in. long (58% on the curve). Everything looked fine. He was a little low on iron so he has to be tested again next month for it. He was 10.6 in iron but I don't know what normal is. They just are going to watch it so I guess no immediate danger. The doctor said he was really standing well for a 9 monther and that she wouldn't be surprised if he went straight into walking - AH!!!! At this point he has no desire to crawl but we are working on it daily. He LOVES to stand with help though.

I finished my sunroom the other day. I have two more decorative pillows to pick up that are done but I haven't gotten by the place to get them. I will post pics when I get some good ones. I LOVE it and am so glad it is done. It was the last room to get done yet it opens up to the den so everyone who comes over sees it so it needed to be done.

We went and saw Nana and Pop today - they were great and William behaved for them. He seemed to enjoy all their Christmas musical things. We even had a discussion on whether one of their toys was a monkey or bear and later I picked it up and it made a noise. Nana was shocked. The noise was that of a monkey so problem solved.

Shug and Dada invited William over to spend the night last night. Matt and I were so excited about a night off. We dropped him off at 5:45. We even video taped it to mark this big night of his life. Matt and I then went to dinner with friends and before it was even completely over Mom called. William was having a FIT. A MAJOR FIT! He was throwing a tantrum. My sweet little William has learned to be mad and boy can he show it. He must have gotten that from Matt :) j.k. Mom had done EVERYTHING we told her to do. So we left our little get together and went to pick him up. So 3 hours later we were video taping the pick up. How funny. He slept the entire night and didn't even get up until 8:30 this morning. The dr. said he would be going through separation anxiety right now and we have seen it. If I just walk out of the room he melts. Ah... what to do. He plays great on his own but someone HAS to be in the room. I don't know what to do. Anyway, we will try spending the night with Shug and Dada again soon. Matt and I might be spending the night too so we can help him cope with it. Hopefully he will out grow some of this separation anxiety.

Matt and I are having about 10 people over next Monday for a Christmas dinner. It is just family (julie, josh, ac, mallory, beth, mom, dad, betty, betsy, nana, and pop). We did this last year. We have had so much fun planning dessert. Last year we did chocolate mouse with cool whip snowmen on top. Well they were supposed to be snowmen. They melted a little and were a little leany and not quite snowmen looking. We got a GREAT laugh out of it. SO this year, we are trying to do something that will work but be creative. We have some great ideas. Luckily Matt loves to cook and bake. He is more excited about it than I am. It is great that he wants to help and be creative.

Other than that - Merry Christmas if I don't get a chance to write again until then.

William is so excited about Christmas that all he can do is dance about it!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards