Happy 4th Birthday My Baby Boy!

How could it possibly have been 4 years since having Donovan! The time sure does fly. Donovan was a pleasant surprise. We had started talking about having another child right before Ellie turned 1. She turned 1 on March 6, 2005, and I found out I was pregnant about 2 weeks later. I just knew I was. All the symptoms were exactly the same as when I was pregnant with Ellie. Mikey did not believe me but I just knew it. We stopped off at the store on the way home from church and bought a test. I did what I need to do and he would not let me look at the test until the full 3 minutes had gone by. I had left the room and when I came back Mikey was kind of acting funny. He had peeked! Sure enough, I was pregnant. I was kind of in shock. We went to my nephew Ryan's birthday party that afternoon. I was not ready to anounce it but Mikey blurted it out to his brother. They just cannot keep anything from eachother. I think our friend, Jen, about fell out of her chair. I had really hoped for another girl because I am from a family of girls and would not know what to do with a boy, but I just knew it was indeed a boy. Everything about my pregnancy was completely opposite of my pregnancy with Ellie. Sure enough, the usual 5-month ultrasound showed a "rocket ship" (that is what the ultrasound tech called it). I remember being so afraid that I would be disappointed when I saw a penis but it was the complete opposite. I saw the "rocket ship" and could not wipe the smile off my face and I started crying. Ellie would have a brother.

Now it is 4 years later and we have the sweetest, yet wild little boy. He is the spitting image of his daddy with my eyes. I really could go on and on. He can frustrate me to no end with his antics. He gets in trouble constantly, but yet he makes me smile all the time. We have to leave the room often so he does not see us laughing at him. I can get so angry at him and then in a second he will have me bursting with laughter. He is definitely a momma's boy. He gives the best hugs and is constantly saying, "I love you girlfriend." He also loves to have a conversation with you, except he actually tells you what you are supposed to say. He never stops talking, ever.

I sure hope that I can raise this sweet boy to be a responsible, caring, and loving man, and I hope that when he is a teenager he will still come up to me and tell me he loves me and give me huge hugs.

Happy birthday my handsome boy!

Happy 5th Birthday Ellie!

I cannot believe I have a 5 year old! Whenever it comes close to my kids birthdays I tend to think about what I was doing that day. I just cannot believe that it was 5 years ago that I labored for 16 hours, and pushed for 2 hours to bring into this world my beautiful little redhead, Ellie. I was so exhausted because I had not been sleeping well. I had decided on March 5 that I would not nap that day even though I needed one because I had hoped that I would get a better night's sleep if I skipped that nap. Well, I ended up having some weird pains that night so off we went to the hospital to see if everything was okay. I guess I should back up a little and say that on the morning of the 5th I received a call from my doctor saying that on the ultrasound, that I had several days previously, showed the the umbilical cord was around her neck several times. Needless to say, I was scared. I was to go into the hospital a few days later to have some test to make sure she was okay. After having those pains on the 5th, I called the hospital and the nurse said to come in and get checked to be safe. We got to the hospital at about 11 that night and they checked me out. Everything looked good. I was dilated to 1 and I cannot remember all the other stuff. They wanted me to walk the hospital for 3 hours and then get rechecked to see if anything happened. I had worn flip flops to the hospital! So we walked all over the hospital for 3 hours, from midnight till 3 in the morning. I was exhausted. My feet swelled so bad that the flip flops were leaving indentation on my feet and I was having lots of contractions. They checked me and there was no change, but the doctor decided to induce me so they could monitor her. So at 4 o'clock in the morning on March 6, 2004, I started the pitocin drip. I don't really remember it being all that bad but my family says that it was bad. I can only remember most of the good stuff, except the very end when my epidural ran out in 1 spot. Ellie was born at 8:46 p.m. (I think, it may be off a few minutes) on March 6, 2004. It was so amazing. I remember not being able to say anything. I just cried. I wanted to tell her that I was her momma but I could not open my mouth. I could not believe that I had a baby, I became a mom. Amazing. The next morning we found out that her bilirubin levels were way too high. I guess that with jaundice the numbers usually don't rise until they are a few days old and her's were rising right away. It had something to do with our blood types. So off she went to the special care nursery. It was so hard not to have her with me. Her numbers did not drop like they wanted so they ended up having to put her on triple light therapy and put an IV in her head. That was just awful to have to see her with an IV in her head. She ended up having to stay for 2 or 3 extra days after I was released. That was so hard to not be able to take her with me. Luckily, everything turned out great. How could that possibly be 5 years ago? I cannot believe that my big girl who talks about Drake from Drake and Josh and loves Hannah Montana was once that little baby. I love the little girl that she has turned into. She has the cutest personality, but it makes me so sad that she is no longer a baby. I think I am in denial.

He can hear!

Donovan was evaluated for his speech back in April. The lady said that the problem was that Ellie was always talking for him so he had no reason to communicate. Well, that day he started talking. He talks quite a bit now but you cannot understand a lot of what he says. I took the kids to the doctor back in December and the doctor said he wanted him evaluated again because he sounded like he had a hearing issue. So I finally called and got him set up to be evaluated again, this time with the school district. They sent us to get his hearing tested today. it was so funny because we had to go to one of the area elementary schools. The nurse there does all the hearing tests for the school district evaluations. Donovan thought it was pretty cool. We walked in and the nursed asked him how he was doing and he said, "I am Donogan!" She had him lay down on the bed. He had the biggest smile on his face. She had to stick this thing in his ears that looks like an ear thermometer. She showed it to him before and let him feel the things that had to go in his ears. She stuck this thing in his ears and he just laid there, totally calm with a big smile on his face. He was trying to see her out of the corner of his eyes. He just looked so cute and was such a big boy. She also did something to his eyes. She said he looked good. I am so glad that we don't have to worry about his hearing or his eyes at this point. I was really nervous because I though he was going to have to use those earphones and have to raise his hands like we had to do in school. She said that for the preschoolers that are trying to get into the "special" program, they do not do it that way. When we left, he flipped out. He wanted to go to school! He did not want to go to the car. I guess if he does get accepted I don't have to worry about him not liking school. I really hope he gets accepted because I am a bit worried about how he will handle it when Ellie goes to kindergarten next year. She has been sad that he can't go to school with her. When I told her today that he may go to a different school when she goes to school, she seemed so excited for him. She is such a good big sister and she loves him so much.

The aftermath of the black marker

My kids seem to be having lots of issues with crayons and marker lately. For the past few weeks they have written all over my house with markers. I thought I had hidden all of the markers in a high cabinet but I guess I missed one. I was working the other day and Donovan came into the office. I turned around and gasped. I just really do not know what to do. Donovan was initially the one we were having issues with but I realized after looking at the detail of some of the drawings on Donovan's body, he could not have done it. His toenails were marked on perfectly. There were polk-a-dots all down his legs. As I looked around the house to check out the possible damage I found that Ellie drew a growth chart in her closet, she marked on the closet door, and all over the toy box. I have not even attempted to get it all off her room yet. I am afraid the toy box may be ruined. I was so angry at taht moment but inside I was laughing a little. I was thinking about how one day I will look back and it will be one of those memories that you look back on and laugh. I think we will have lots of those.

Another thing we are having issues with it Ellie has a very tall dresser in her room. It is as tall as me. Donovan has figured out how to get on top of it. The other day I went in there and Ellie was laying on her bed and Donovan was casually laying on his tummy on the top of the dresser. I scolded him and tried to pull him off when he realized that it was kind of scary up there. He started shaking violently. I thought that would be good, he would not do it again. WRONG! We caught him up there yesterday. He was crying in a very frightened way and we went in there and he was petrified. Why would he keep doing this when it is scary? We caught him trying to get up there twice today! I need to move her furnitre around in hopes of keeping him off of it. Oh, yes it is bolted to the wall.

Christmas 2008

I am finally getting around to posting about Christmas. We had a great Christmas. It was so exciting to watch the kids this year. They both were so much more into it than last year. Our Christmas started with going to church on Christmas Eve and then going to my sisters for her annual Christmas Eve dinner. We always go over there after church and have yummy Mexican food and then have a fire in the back yard. We had a birthday cake for Jesus and the kids sang Happy Birthday. My sister, DeAyn, made reindeer food for the kids so that we could sprinkle it on our lawn and Santa would know where to land. Ellie was so excited. My Papa passed away in April so this was our first Christmas without him. Usually they did not come to our Christmas Eve dinner because it was too far for them to drive on Christmas Eve, but this year my Granny decided to come up and spend the night with us. We had my mom, my stepdad, and my Granny here. We had a full house but it was nice. Santa brought the kids both bikes, Ellie a Barbie bike and Donovan a Spiderman bike. They also got lots of other fun things. My dad and stepmom got Ellie a Barbie laptop. I had no idea how much she wanted it until she opened it. She had just started unwrapping it and must have realized what it as because she starting gasping and then yelled "Its a Barbie computer, what I always wanted!" I wish we had gotten it on video. It is so fun to watch them experience Christmas. Mikey and I don't usually exchange gifts but this year he surprised me with a fancy new camera. I love it! I still am trying to figure out how to use all the features on it. I am taking an online class to try to figure out what all the features are.

We decided that we would not run around all over this year and we would enjoy our first Christmas in our house. We opened presents and made a nice Christmas breakfast and just enjoyed the morning without worrying about whose house we had to get to next. We went down to Casa Grande in the evening for dinner at my Granny's. I think this Christmas was probably one of the best Christmas' but yet also the saddest. It still seems so unbelievable to me that my Papa is no longer with us.

The day after Christmas we had Mikey's family and our friends Tim and Jenny and their kids over. It was a lot of fun. We used to hang out a lot when we all lived closer and did not have all the kids but over the years we don't see eachother as much as we used to. We ate lunch, played Catch phrase, played some Wii, and the guys took all the kids to the park while us girls stayed. It was a very busy few days but it was nice to spend a few days with family and friends.