Happy Birthday Ady!!!

A little early, that is.  We had Adyson's birthday party this past weekend on the 13th.  Her party was at The Little Gym and it was a TON of fun!! 

We started the day off with a little shopping.  After hearing "No, I don't like that one" about 15 times, Ady finally chose this outfit as her "Birthday Outfit" complete with rainboots (which are the only shoes she has worn since then...)

This is what I got when I asked her to turn around so I could take her picture "Buuuuuuuuuuuuttt"

At the party they started off with circle and introductions.  They prentended to be crabs, clams, and starfish during a "warm-up" exercise with lots of running in between.  They also played with the giant parachute (which we actually turned into a slide where all the parents lifted the 'chute up and slid all the kids to the middle), hide 'n' seek, balls, bubbles, and air track (which is a giant air mattress basically).  I think the kids really enjoyed it!

Mmmmm.....Cookies!!!

This recipe is from Sunny Anderson on the Food Network - the recipe originally calls for dried peaches (which Wal-Mart didn't have) and 1/4 c light and 1/4 c dark brown sugar, I only had golden brown sugar so I used 1/2 a cup of that.

Ingredients


3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch salt
1 stick butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups rolled oats ( I used quick cook oats)
1/2 cup dried mixed berries (I used cherries, cranberries, and blueberries - they all came in one bag)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F with the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Slowly add egg and continue mixing. Slowly add flour mixture, oats, peaches, walnuts, and white chocolate chips. Mix until combined.

Line 2 sheet trays with parchment. With wet hands make 20 balls from the dough placing evenly among sheet trays. Press down on cookie dough with palm of your hand to make a flat circle. (I used a scooper like I always do and got 24 cookies)

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden and still a bit tender in the center. Remove from oven and let sit on sheet trays 1 minute. Remove to cooling racks to cool completely.

Yawn...

This week really kicked me in the pants.  I am absolutely exhausted.  Yet, here I am at 10:45 posting a blog because I cannot sleep.  As Ady would put it "What da heck?!!?!?"

Cooper is doing much, much better.  In fact, he is right back to normal with the exception of his nasty cough, but it is rearing up less and less.  He still has bruises on his little hands from the IV and the attempted IV, but other than that he is doing great.  He isn't quite rolling yet, but he can spin in circles (while his head stays in basically the same place) until he tuckers out and falls asleep. 

Ever wondered what type of face Cooper would make if Shasta was licking his feet?   It looks like this.

Ady had an ENT appointment on Wednesday and she will be getting tubes on Tuesday the 16th.  Her left ear is still infected and so she is on another round of antibiotics and ear drops (which she calls "pumps" for some reason).

Those are Skittles in her mouth...

Super Star

Out of all the commotion this week, Ady became a super star.  At the hospital, there was a play room down the hall where siblings and patients can go play if they are well enough. My mom took Ady down and they were invited to go to a hula dancing thing downstairs.  So they did.

The group was called the Spirit of Aloha and you can visit their blog here.

Ady made the local news!!

Here is the link to the video.  I can't figure out how to save it to the pc yet, so the link will have to do.  She is in the bottom right corner, refusing to dance :)

Spirit of Aloha Video

Here are also the pictures from the news website...

When it rains, it pours...

This weekend was a bit of an eventful one.  Here is how it went down:

Quentin flew out to Virginia for one last house hunting attempt.  His first flight was cancelled.  In case you haven't seen, the east coast was slammed with a pretty heavy snow storm (the same one that visited all you folks in Oklahoma!).  It rarely snows in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area so no one knew what to do.  He finally made it, but he had to fly in to Washington DC and drive down to Norfolk from there. It is normally a 2.5 hour drive and it took Quentin almost 6 hours to drive it.

Day 1 (Sunday) of house hunting went well.  We found a house, and contacted the realtor to make an offer.  There was already a full price offer, so we told the realtor we wanted to offer more and it would be submitted first thing in the morning.  Quentin made the drive back up to Williamsburg (where his buddy, Kevin, lives) and on they way encountered some not so great road conditions.  Long story short, his rented PT Cruiser and a snow drift got in a fight and the snow drift won.  Cha-ching. We will be paying out a deductible and the rental rate for the days the vehicle is in the shop.

1:30 AM Monday morning.  I suddenly woke to Cooper having an awful coughing fit.  He was coughing so hard that he couldn't catch his breath.  I picked him up and he was on fire.  I took his temp.  101.8 - ok, not incredibly high but I decided to google it.  Three sites said anything over 101 for ages 3-6 months seek medical attention.  Cooper was still wheezing so I made the call to go to the ER.  I woke Ady up, put on her socks, shoes, and coat, loaded Coop into his car seat and off we went.  The ER was empty lucky for us, but it still took two hours and chest x-rays for them to decide that he needed to monitored overnight.  At Cardinal Glennon Children's hospital in St. Louis.  So I asked them where it was and how to get there and they informed me that they would be transpoting us in an ambulance.  Me, two kids, two carseats, diaper bag and purse all in the back of an ambulance.  We get there and they tell me Adyson cannot come to the room.  Right.  4AM I am by myself, no car, Q is in VA, and it is the middle of the night.  It took until 7:00 for them to get the order and move us upstairs and by then it was "visiting hours" so Ady was allowed to stay.  They brought us breakfast and while I wasn't impressed, Ady sure enjoyed the cinnamon roll.

Day 2.  (Monday)We sent in an offer and they had already ratified the contract with the first offer.  Back to square one.  Back up plan.  Look at more houses.

By now Cooper is on an IV and has had a second set of chest x-rays.  He is miserable, and refusing to eat and sleep.  Ady is tired, hungry, and bored.  Jayme to the rescue!!  Jayme (on of our awesomely awesome neighbors) came and picked Ady up and brought her back home.  They took care of Shasta and later Ady went to play with Brady.  Meanwhile my mom scrambled and got a flight out of OKC and she would be landing at 7:10. And just in case that didn't work out Carla was waiting by the phone keys in hand to make the drive.  Jayme to the rescue again, she manged to get the Trailblazer from the hospital to my garage AND she picked mom up at the metro and brought her home. 

We made an offer of a second house (this is the 3rd offer we have made now) and we are still waiting.  They turned down an offer a month ago for more than we are offering, but we offered a fair price based on comps and we will just have to see what happens. 

Cooper was discharged from the hospital around noon and we make our way home.  The kiddos were so tired that they both zonked out on the way home and stayed asleep for a couple hours after we got here.  The final diagnosis was that Cooper definitely has bronchiolitis and maybe RSV.  The initial RSV test was negative, but they said it is not uncommon to get a false negative on the preliminary test, but we wont know for sure for about 5-7 days when the results come back.

It is times like this I remind myself how lucky I am to have wonderful friends and family.  Thank you all for your support, thoughts, and prayers when I needed them the most.  

Exersaucer Fun!!

We got the Exersaucer out for Cooper this week.  He is still is a little wobbly so I put a blanket around him to keep his from leaning side to side.  He wasn't real sure about it at first, but it didn't take him long to figure it out either.

With the legs in the shortest setting he can barely reach the bottom.  He finally figured out that he could reach the bottom and started turning himself around a tiny bit at a time.  He was hilarious.  The more Ady ran around the more he turned.

Eventually Ady slowed down and showed him how all the toys work, especially the noisey ones. 

Like I had mentioned before, Ady doesn't want to have her picture taken.  She wouldn't look at me, so I took a picture of her boogers!!  HA! HA!

In other news, Adyson has made it a full week in big girl panties.  She only had two accidents all week, one pee-pee (when she was brushing her teeth) and one poop.  She will not poop in the potty and asks for a diaper or pull-up.  She forgot to ask.  She is learning fast though!!

Snow Days

We got a little snow this week and Adyson just could not wait to get out and play in it.  Unfortunately for her, Cooper cannot go outside to play so I bundled her up and sent her and Shasta out the back door. 

                                           

I am not sure who had more fun, Ady or Shasta.  They chased eachother all over the back yard.  Shasta knocked Ady down a few times but she got her revenge when Shasta stopped to pee and Ady nailed her with a snowball.  Silly girls!

SNOW!!

All About Adyson

Adyson is growing up right before my very eyes. Everyday she amazes me with her wit and imagination. Even as I am typing this, she is drawing on her Magna-Doodle and you would be amazed at what she thinks those little squiggles are. She just drew a "big jet" but had to "rerace" it because it wasn't just right...

Adyson has been very helpful with packing the last few weeks. We have been packing a little here and there, and when I boxed up all of her stuffed animals I left the room to get tape and this is what I came back to. She was reading this book to her "Cowboy Bear" (an OSU beanie baby) and all her other "friends" too.

This week we have been working really hard on potty training. We have switched to a "panties only" policy. I bought PODS (Potty On Discrete Strips - which are basically like baby Depends) to put in her panties while we are out and about just in case of an accident. Ady has only worn a diaper at night and to poop since Sunday. We are working on the whole pooping on the potty thing, when she shows signs of needing to go she has asked for a diaper. I would rather change a poopy diaper (for now) than for her to get constipated, so I put a diaper on her. She is doing great and we haven't had any accidents!! It might be cheating just a little, but I moved her little pink potty into the living room (where we spend 90% of our time). She has several "practices" in between real potties, but that is just fine with me.

Other than that, Ady is her usual self. Crazy 24 hours a day, even when she is sleeping. She is battling a double ear infection right now (which is her third ear infection in 6 weeks) so we have been referred to a Pediatric ENT. She will be getting tubes in her ears, hopefully before we move. If not, I guess I will start over with doctors and referrals in Norfolk...

Three.Months.Old.

I feel like every month I get on here and say that I cannot believe that Cooper is already getting so big.  Well, here I go again.  Cooper is 3 months old today and I really cannot believe it has been three months already.

Cooper's new "favorite" thing is sucking on his fingers.  He usually jams his three fingers in his mouth with his thumb and pinky sticking out.  Of course he cannot do this quietly.  He makes the loudest slurping "suck, suck, suck" sound you can imagine.

He also loves to watch Ady.  If Ady is up to something, Cooper is watching and learning.  He loves it when Ady talks to him and plays with him.  She was taking pictures of him with her camera too.  You can see where I ranked.  He certainly wasn't looking at me on purpose!

I didn't get many pictures taken before Ady snatched the post-it note...  She was trying to stick it back up, but all the sticky was gone.

TWINS?!?!

I was scrolling through some old picture and cannot believe how much these two look alike.  The pictures in the giraffe seat are Cooper and the pictures in the blue seat are Adyson. 

...and for the record, they are wearing the exact same clothes.  Being a pack rat pays off...

It's almost Friday...

These days Adyson prefers to be on the other side of the camera taking pictures instead of having pictures taken of her.  I had to call her name and trick her to get this picture... so when you see more pictures of Cooper than Ady - it is because she doesn't want her picture taken...

She has always liked having ponytails in her hair, she says she is "Princess Fiona" when she has a ponytail.   However, lately she has wanted "two ponytails: one right here (as she points) and one right here"

Here are some recent pics of Cooper:

This outfit is the first "boy" thing we bought. 

GO POKES!!

Sitting like a big boy, with his "friend" of course.  He loves sitting in this seat.  He is also getting really good at pushing up on the floor when he is laying on his belly.  I don't remember Ady being so strong so early!!  (That is Ady's hand - she was making sure "Cooper's head don't fall over")

We see this look alot.  He gets this look on his face when he is watching Adyson.  It looks like he is saying "what is she doing NOW?!?!"

The Search Continues...

Well, the house we made an offer on is a no-go.  The sellers decided that they would rather wait until spring/summer to see if they can get more money.  Long story short, the house is worth what we offered, but they refinanced and put in a $30,000 pool so they are trying to recover that cost.  The pool is basically no value added for us so when they counter offered with only a $4,000 compromise we opted not to waste our time. 

We are still searching...and searching...and searching.  We have looked into base housing, but it is very similar to what we have now (duplex style) or worse, and I am just tired of taking showers with the neighbors.  (Literally, it is weird taking a shower when you can hear your neighbor of the othe side of the wall doing the same)  We are also looking at rental houses, but not much luck on that front either.  We have expanded our search to include Chesapeake and a couple other areas.  The trouble is, we are having a hard time finding houses that aren't foreclosures or short sales (which means the owner is trying to sell it for less than they owe the bank - so the bank would have to approve the sale which can take up to 10-12 weeks).

In other news, our move date has been pushed back to March 8th.  We had planned to pack the Penske on Feb 22nd but the Navy had a different idea and Quentin will be going to a class in Virginia 22 Feb - 5 Mar.  We wil pack the truck on the 6th, clean on the 7th, and leave on the 8th.  Unless we are told plans are changing again.  So right now our schedule is this:

4-11 Feb - Quentin to DC for Bone Marrow donation
13 Feb - Ady's Birthday Party
22Feb - 5 Mar - Quentin to Richmond for a class
6-10 Mar - Pack, clean, drive to VA
22 Mar-30 April - SODHC class in Athens
15 May - check into the ship

Yikes.

On a side note - where the heck is spell check??  I can't find the spell checker all the sudden so please excuse my typos :)

The Week in Review

This week has been absolutely nuts.  Quentin left on Tuesday for his bone marrow physical in Fairfax, VA (DC area).  Physical went great, took half the morning on Wednsday.  Wednesday evening, Q teamed up with a good buddy and they went to the "road show" where he was able to talk to his recruiter.  This is what we know: We are going to Norfolk.  End of discussion.  We still do not have orders, but even if the proposed orders fall through, there are plenty other places for Q to be in Norfolk...

Quentin spent all day Thursday and today looking at houses.  We now realize that our wants/expectations were not exactly in line with the market out there.  All the houses that looked great online, ended up being total dumps, to the extent that one didn't even have anything in it.  Really.  No carpet, flooring, cabinets, appliances, countertops... nothing.  Literally a slab of concrete with pipes coming up out of it. 

Re-freaking-diculous. 

We did find 2 houses that we weighed out and made an offer on one.  It is increadibly overpriced so we made an offer almost 30K under the asking price.  We will see what happens...

So with all that excitement out of the way... Home alone with these two crazy kids has been a ton of fun (wink, wink).  Okay, it really hasn't been THAT bad, but definitely exhausting.  I can't wait for deployment!! HA!

Ady did manage to slow down long enough for me to get a picture of her loving on Cooper...

Cooper is getting really really good at holding his head up these days.  Here he is sitting in the bumbo seat like a big boy with his "friend".  Cooper likes to play with his burp rags and Adyson has dubbed them his "friends"

Granola Bar Please!!

So this story is gross... but funny :)

Yesterday we had a list of things to accomplish out and about in town. As we were walking out the door I grabbed a couple granola bars for the road. Ady doesn't usually have any interest in granola bars, so the two I grabbed were FiberOne bars (which oh by the way provide 35% of your daily fiber).

After we had been out for a while, Quentin decided to eat his granola bar. Adyson said she wanted some, so I passed her a small piece. She gobbled it up and asked for more. Since she hadn't pooped the day before I decided to go ahead and giver her half a bar. She gobbled that up too and asked for even more!!! i gave her one more little piece and she finally decided she was done eating.

Fast forward 4 hours later. (We are working on the language thing... Really. Watch what you say around your toddlers...) Adyson says to me "Mom, I think my shit my pants" Diaper change - regular ol' normal Ady poop. 2 minutes later she was grunting and red-faced again. I asked her if she was pooping and she said yes, but she "not done yet". When I saw it leaking out onto her pants I made her let me change her. Chunks, yes literally chunks, of granola and nothing else. Great. A few minutes later "Mom, I think I made fart-toot" and then she "fart-tooted" again although it was more like fart splatter (I was actually glad she is still in diapers yesterday). Diaper change. Chunks again.

Dinner time. Cheese quesadilla. Extra cheese.

2 more diapers later and probably an overdose on dairy Ady finally went to bed,

So far no issues today. Moral of the story - Don't give Ady FiberOne granola bars!!

Resolutions

This year I didn't really make a set resolution, but some things I would like to accomplish are:

Eat better - and maybe even lose some weight

Blog more - I plan to get at least one post up a week

Be more patient - I'm working on it... it is hard to be patient with two screaming kids... maybe I want them to be more patient... Hmmmmmm....

So far, I have joined Weight Watchers Online and while I am not expecting to lose a ton of weight immediately, it is nice to have a place to track my "points" and utilize all the tools and recipes. I will posts on my successes and failures, but so far I have only had one real failure. Whatever you do, do not look at the nutrition label on your Cheddar Brats next time you eat them...you will probably never eat them again...

Blogging - as you well know I am not very good at keeping up with this thing. I like to change the background and font colors a lot, but I feel like I do not post nearly enough. Even today: Ady's at achool, Cooper is fed and sleeping, Shasta is fed and sleeping, I pumped, ate breakfast, checked email and Facebook, then decided I should write a blog... about what? I couldn't think of anything good so this is what you get! HA!

As far as being more patient. I am really working on it. Adyson has taken to being the most, well I am not really sure how to describe it, but she is certainly pleading for our attention every waking minute. She has gotten into a pattern that as soon as I sit down to feed Cooper she will do things that she knows she is not supposed to. She will continue to do so, even while being asked, told, and yelled at not to, until I get up and walk over to spank her. Then she stops and says "I love you". She is a turkey. I am working on keeping a more strict regimen, asking three times and then time out, but then she spends 3/4 of her day in time out, crying the whole time. We are going to work on it.

On that note, Coop and I have some shopping to do before we pick Ady up at school so we better get going!!

Happy New Year!!!

Another year has come and gone... 2009 was a great year and we are looking forward to what 2010 brings!!

In February, on Valentine's Day to be exact, we found out that we were expecting a little bundle of joy. We were extremely excited, but scared at the same time. We decided that it was best to keep it our little secret until we passed the 3 month mark. Time flew and in June we were so happy to find out that we were having a boy. We had our hearts set on having a boy, to the point that we had not even decided on a girl name. Time flew by and the next thing you know,

Cooper Patrick Lease was born on October 23rd, 2009.

During 2009 Quentin had the opportunity to do a little traveling. One thing we learned during all his trips to Virginia and Georgia is that the Atlanta airport sucks and if you are flying through there just plan on being delayed! :) During his internship here at Scott he studied the many aspects of transportation by land, air, and sea. One of the most interesting classes for me was the HAZMAT class...he can tell me what every placard on every semi truck on the road means. I am sure it wasn't his favorite class, but it was interesting to me.

One of the classes he went to at Ft. Eustis (Williamsburg, VA) was only a week long so Adyson and I decided to join him. We had a great time, but one week is no where near enough time to soak up the history and sites in the Hampton Roads area of Virgina. We took Adyson to the beach for the very first time and she loved it. She asked for weeks to go back to the beach...

Little did she know, not even a year later, we are planning our move to Norfolk. We are excited about the move, but of course the logistics of finding a house from here are complicating things. We lucked out and a good friend of ours has a good friend (and fellow Navy wife) who is a realtor out there and she is working her tail of for us. We have a list of house possibilities that Quentin will look at when he travels out there later this month...

Mid-January Quentin will again be traveling out to the Washington DC area as part of a bone marrow donation process. Back in November we got the call that Quentin was a possible match for a 17 year old male with leukemia (he had signed up on a registry back in 2006 while on board the Lincoln). He did the additional blood test to determine if he was a match or not on December 1st and with a couple weeks they called to tell us he was a match. This month he goes out for a full physical and in February he will do the actual donation. He is donating through a process called Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Donation (PBSC). With PBSC he will receive a shot of a drug called Filgrastim for 5 days and then on the last day he receives the shot he will also donate the stem cells. The donation process is much like that of donating platelets or plasma. I will keep you posted on how that all goes...

And that pretty much is our year in review...

Happy New Year!!!