7 Months

Easton turned 7 months old the day before Arden's birthday. Our little 'photo shoot' did not go as planned. Actually it lasted all of 2 minutes because Easton does NOT like to sit still. Just try changing his diaper. It never ends well.


He's into everything.
Does not sleep good.
Is a light sleeper.
Wakes up twice a night. This started in October when he got his second cold. He's had like three colds since then, so maybe that's a factor in the sleeping issue. Thankfully after topping off his little belly, he does go back to sleep.
He's a very happy boy.
He's very ticklish.
Loves phones, remotes, computers, cars, balls and anything that Arden doesn't want him to touch.
Typically takes two naps, but for the past week or so has been taking shorter naps and trying to sneak a third nap back in....this could be caused by his cold though. Still no teeth but he's been teething for like...years.
December 6, Easton pulled himself up for the first time. That's now his favorite thing to do. He loves standing and I love when I catch him standing at the toy box, staring inside with amazement.
When I try to sit him on the floor, he stiffens his legs and tries his hardest to keep me from sitting him down, so I usually have to put him by the couch so he can STAND. Silly boy.

Oct/Nov Recap

October started off with my mom coming to visit for a week. I scored an awesome deal ($5!) on tickets to the Great Wolf Lodge indoor Water Park, so Ashley, Brigham, Clarisa, Arden, Easton, Mimi and I spent the day there. I will say that I am glad I didn't spend more. Arden and Brigham were really too little to enjoy it and it's not as big as they make it seem. I'd say it's best for 6-11 year olds.
The next day, I was delivering a meal to a lady who had a miscarriage. Well my car wouldn't start as I was leaving, so she got her neighbor to jump me off (I just need to add that this was my first time meeting the lady so I was pretty embarrassed!) Derek works five minutes away, but I couldn't get in touch with him. He finally called me about 30 minutes later as I was almost home. He told me to go get a battery before going home. I was two miles passed our neighborhood and my car just shut off. While driving. It was great. Luckily my car was still under warranty and had roadside assistance. After waiting about 20 minutes and watching the zillion cars drive by and just slow down and stare, a sweet man stopped to help. The first thing he asked was if I had any gas. I could help but laugh thinking about my mom. He was on his way to a meeting, but went back home to get jumper cables. He jumped me off and it started back up but quickly shut off again. He jumped me again and told me to keep his cables in case it happened again. Of course it did, but a friend from church happened to see me and stayed with me until the tow truck came.
I was only 2 miles from home. I could have walked, but someone had to be there when the truck came. I really had to get home to feed Easton (LUCKILY I did not have the kids with me since my mom was here.) I was trying to figure out how to tell my mom how to unfold the double stroller and how to walk towards me so I could meet her half way. My mom is directionally challenged and I just knew trying to talk her through opening the stroller would be a waste of my precious phone battery.
I was calling Derek every 30 seconds with no luck. I sent him multiple texts and voice mails telling him to 'leave work now. I need to feed Easton and my car is dead.'
I finally got home a little after 8PM and a few minutes later Derek calls. First thing he says? "What's up?" Thinking he was referring to where exactly am I so he can come rescue me, I respond, "Well I'm home now." He says, "Yeah I know that. Did you get a battery?" Me-"Huh? WHAT? No, I didn't get a battery. Did you not see your 78 missed calls from ME and the voice mails, and the texts?!" No. Of course not.
I just so happened to have an appt for service that I made that morning for the next day on my car because all of the lights on the dash suddenly lit up.
There was an oil leak that messed up a few things and stripped the starter. Luckily all covered under warranty minus the battery. Unfortunately their loaner car wasn't available for a few days and my car wouldn't be ready for two days. Would have been fine, but I had plans to drive to Durham to visit my cousin Russie (Don't you just love her name?!) so I had to rent a car.
Russie had a chemo treatment at Duke the week my mom was in town, so it was perfect timing. As soon as the kids woke up, we loaded them up and headed for the highway. At that point Arden would not use 'big potties' so I brought her potty chair too. Easton did surprisingly well the whole trip. He hates being in his car seat, but he fell asleep for his nap with no problems and slept until we were about 20 minutes away from their hotel.
It was much fun catching up with Russie and her husband, Pat. The last time I saw them, I was 12 or 13! I unfortunately did not have my camera on the trip. We visited for about 2-3 hours then came back home. Russie is so upbeat and has such a bubbly personality and infectious smile!
Arden did not go potty one time on the trip. She went before we left home, and then at 6PM when we got back! Bladder of steel. Arden and Easton both napped on the way home. For some reason, I just don't think he would be that good again.

The following week, Derek's mom came for a visit.

Our neighborhood had a fall festival with those blow up things and after a few times down the big slide with mom and dad, Arden went up by herself!
At the end of October, we went to a pretty neat farm/corn maze/pumpkin patch. There is a lot for kids to do and Arden had a blast.


This year, I finally made it to a haunted house (woods actually) with one of my fav's- Tamara and her two older kids. We might've had more fun driving to the place. I just love hanging out with her!

November 14 was Easton's first time swinging! He LOVED it! It was a beautiful day too.
Oh my gosh he's so cute!
We celebrated Thanksgiving with my Dad's side of the family.
Arden said she wanted to feed Easton....Hmmm....

The End.
I'm sure I could write so much more, but it took me two weeks to get this post finished!

Big Girl Alert

Not sure how I missed posting about Arden's big news, but even three months late, it's worthy of a post.
She's potty trained! After all of the drama we had at the beginning of the year, I decided I'd let her do it on her own. Then as summer was slipping away and school was around the corner, I figured I better do it. I didn't want her to be the only one in her preschool group still in a diaper.
I picked a week where I had a few days with nowhere I needed to go.
Day 1:
When I got her out of bed, I took her diaper off, put panties on and told her that she's a "big girl and big girls don't wear diapers. We aren't using diapers anymore except for night night." She protested a little but did just fine. Actually at times when she was ready to go, she would ask for her diaper and sometimes cry for it but I stood my ground and she went on her potty. On the third day, we had company over and she got nervous and hid and went in her panties. Other than that, she's been great. I continued to put a diaper on her for naps and night time even though she woke up dry except one time overnight when she was sick. I stopped putting her in a diaper for naps after a month and in the middle of October, she decided she didn't want a diaper at night either and has had one accident when she didn't go potty before bed. So only two accidents and it was so easy. I definitely recommend waiting until kids are older rather than attempting the potty training in a day drama early on.
Arden has a bladder of steel and I really don't have to worry about dealing with public restrooms.
Her reward was a digital camera (She was dying for one. It's a $30 camera, but I got it 75% off. Go team.) It's a small Hello Kitty camera with internal memory only but holds 80 images and has flash. She loves it.
*She just started using the big potty this week. YAY!
Arden started school in September. The photo above is from her first day. My little rock n roller. I'm not really sure where she picked that up, but she's been doing it for a while. I need to teach her the 'Too much rock for one hand' way. It's much better.
In October, we moved Arden to a 'big girl' bed! Our awesome neighbors gave us one their grandson never used. It was perfect timing because the weekend before, we went bed shopping trying to figure out what we were going to do. It's a 'Cars' toddler bed, so it doesn't exactly go with her room so I'm trying to figure out a way to cover it with fabric or something, but she does love it and if we are out and she sees Lightning McQueen or Tow Mater, she gets very excited and reminds me they are on her "big gorl bed!"
When I was rearranging her room to get ready for the bed, Arden freaked out. She is not a fan of change. She refused to go to bed until I put her dresser, chair and bookshelf back in their original spot. We recently dropped Derek's car off for maintenance and she cried when we left it. I made sure to prepare her a few days before we traded my car in, and she got to see the new car before we picked it up. It really helped. She was a little concerned, but she loves our new car.

The first two nights in her new bed, she fell out (even with little guards) but didn't wake up. The third night, she said she wanted to sleep in her crib. I asked her why and she said because she wanted to sleep better. haha. It was a fairly easy transition. The first few days, she would get out of bed, but now she stays in bed and just yells at us if she needs anything (like if her covers come off or if she needs cold water or wants to tell me she doesn't want to go night night or two minutes later when she decides she does want to go night night.)

While I'm thinking of our awesome neighbors, Arden and I were outside playing basketball last week and he came over and played with Arden for a few minutes. The rest of the night, she asked, "where did that boy go?" and "I want to see that boy." He's in his late 50's/early 60's. Ha!

Six Months Old!!!

Easton turned six months last Saturday. We celebrated by having yummy food, cupcakes and presents at a friend's house. We even let them think the party was for their one year old and let him keep the gifts! It was great.
We had his check up yesterday.
Stats:
Length: 29inches (off the charts)
Weight 19lbs (75%)
Head 44.5cm (75-90%)

His Doctor said he is very advanced in gross motor skills and said that he has amazing 'trunk control.' She kept trying to get him to lay on his tummy to see what he does with his legs and he immediately sat back up each time. She said she wouldn't be surprised if he's walking by 10 months. I hope not =(

He gets around too good and pretty much just wants to eat cables.
Likes:
Yogurt
Attention
Chocolate (I caught Arden sneaking him pudding twice recently)
Cars
Balls
Chasing Arden
Peek-A-Boo
Moving

Dislikes:
Green Beans
Kids yelling (ie preschool kids having a yelling contest=very upset little boy)
Car Seat
Car rides
Being still
We sure love you, Easton!!!

Tom

(9 months pregnant with Arden)

This week has been a sad one for us. We had to put our sweet little Tommy boy to sleep on Monday afternoon. It came as a total shock. He was fairly young at Seven years old and a picture of health. He was slim, active, we fed him the best wet food (Cats can't digest carbs; therefore dry food is bad for them) he had a beautiful coat and stayed indoors.


Tom's Journey
We had a cat loving neighbor at the apartments we used to live at who let his cats roam free and did not get them fixed. He decided to move and leave all the cats because...."they probably won't survive the winter. hah!" Well they did and so did all of the new babies they were having.
We felt bad for them and started feeding them.
Derek working second shift and every night he got home, we would go downstairs and feed them. Then some would follow us back upstairs, or even be waiting at our door before we fed them.
While I was in bed, Derek started having cat parties. He would leave our door cracked open for HOURS and a few of the cats would come in to rest and play. Tom was there EVERY night. Tom and his buddy, Georgie (we also attempted to keep) would come inside for hours as long as the door stayed open. If the door closed, Tom would FREAK.
One night Tom came inside and wasn't feeling well. He started that gagging thing cats do when they throw up and Derek freaked out and kicked him outside. He ended up throwing up a ton of worms (typical for an outdoor/wild cat). Derek woke me up (at about 2AM to investigate.)
The next night Tom didn't come. I knew this wasn't good and that he must be pretty sick or felt like he was no longer wanted.
My mom called me the next morning as I was on my way to work just to say 'hi'. I told her about Tom and luckily she didn't have to work that day, so she went to the apt to search for him in the woods. When cats get really sick, they tend to hide and like to be alone.
For some reason, my mom decided to cut through our building on the opposite side of our apt to get to the back. She looked to the right and there he was laying under the bushes just under our balcony. She would not have seen him from our side. Tom was feral. He was the most tame of all the 29 cats and let Derek and me pet him on occasion, but he wasn't a cat anyone could just walk up to and pet and NO ONE could pick him up. Well, he was so sick, my mom was able to pick him up and put him in a cage. She took him to the vet. They said they weren't sure if he was going to make it. They ran lots of tests and found out he had a respiratory infection and (of course) worms! They thought he was the sweetest feral cat ever and sent him home with TWO weeks worth of antibiotics. He was so sick that
He came home and I put him in the bathroom with a blanket to rest. He was so sick that he peed on his blanket (Cats are very clean animals so him laying in urine shows how sick he was).
Derek came home and I told him the plan.... D:"OK so two weeks on meds. How are we gonna know that he's the one getting it and not another cat?
K: Well he's going to stay inside so we can keep an eye on him and make sure he gets it all =).
D: Oh no. He's no staying in here for TWO weeks.
K: He has to.
D: WHAT?!?!................
D:Well when that medicine is done, he's going back out.


And what do you know, after a week of Tom not making much progress, I called the vet and they switched him to a new antibiotic that he had to take for TWO MORE weeks.

So after all of the meds were done (you try giving a PILL to a feral cat) and Tom was back to his old self, I opened to door to let him out. He took one look and turned around. He wasn't going back out there and I was thrilled.

We eventually got the runt of the runts (and most feral of them all) so he would have a buddy and Derek made them stay in the bathroom at night. I think he was afraid they would destroy the place (In his defense, he never had any pets before this.) That stopped after I was tired of being attacked every morning. The little runt, Kali would sit on the bathroom counter and every morning I went in there, she swiped at my hand as I tried to turn on the light.
Derek has grown to love cats and always said Tom was so different and awesome. Yes, he was.
Tom was such a good cat. He looked out for the colony of cats at the apartment. He was the leader and protector. He never ripped up furniture or jumped on the counters.
He could jump 5 ft high when playing with Kali. When he really got going, he ran sideways with his back arched.

On Monday afternoon, Nov 14, I was feeding Easton and getting ready to put him down for a nap. Arden left the room and came back and said, "Toddy spit up in my room." I told her I would check it out in a minute. I put Easton in bed and went to her room. She was sitting beside him with some toilet paper, trying to clean his face. He was drooling and had a puddle on the floor. Since he was letting Arden touch him, I knew he was sick.
I went downstairs to entice him with food. He came down and stood in front of his food for a minute, tried to eat, then laid down beside his bowl. I called Derek and he came home immediately and took him to the vet. I was thinking he had a respiratory infection and after some meds, he'd be good to go.
The vet heard a heart murmur and said his temperature was low. He took some blood to run some tests and sent him home. He said with the heart murmur, he may have suffered a blood clot which would make him weak.
Derek went back to work, Tom went to sleep and a couple of hours he woke up and stumbled to his litter box. He collapsed inside and still managed to go. He got out and fell on the floor. He laid there for a minute, panting and then got up and stumbled over to me (I was feeding Easton) and laid down near my feet. After about 2 minutes, he got up and somehow made it into the spare room. I called Derek crying because it was so sad to see. He called the vet and came right home. The vet said he could've had a stroke. He took him back to the vet so they could observe him. This second visit, he put up absolutely no fight and could barely breathe.


I have taken it so hard and these past two days have been rough. The next day, I had to teach Arden's preschool group. I really didn't want to but I sucked it up and did it. Tuesday night, I loaded the kids up and went to the grocery store. I bought two packages of cookies, three cartons of ice cream and pudding. One package of cookies already gone....Isn't that what everyone does when they are depressed?...Or is it just me?!
Every time I'm feeding Easton is when I cry. I guess because I have nothing to keep me occupied.
I know non animal/non-pet people probably think I'm silly, but they truly become another family member. Losing a pet is the hardest part about having them. I told myself years ago- pre tom and kali- I wasn't going to have anymore pets because it's too hard.
Just last week I was thinking about them two and how they were going to be the pets Arden and Easton grew up with. I expected Tom to be around until Arden was at least 10. We also hoped and thought (because she's overweight and possibly diabetic) Kali would pass first because she is lost without Tom. If she can't find him for 5 minutes, she freaks out and cries for him. She unfortunately does not do well with other cats because she is scared of them, so getting a new friend for her is not an option. She seems very sad and only comes out when it's time to eat. I feel so bad for her. She adored Tom.
Looking at these pictures is really hard.

We had a visitor- a couple of years ago, Clarisa's cat stayed with us for a week. Tom loved it.

Tired after a long day at work.






We set up a bird feeder by the window for their entertainment.

(7 months pregnant with Arden)

RIP Tommy boy. Miss you.
I'm grateful for my sweet aunt and Dad (both of whom are animal lovers and get it) for calling to check on me. Love.
OK. I bawled my eyes out writing this. I think I need to go to bed.
P.S. If you see me in the next 3 months, don't talk about it to me. I'd rather not cry in front of you too!

Halloween!

(pictures + Arden = I'll take what I can get)
Arden sure did a lot of of dressing up this year.
We started a week before Halloween by going to a Trunk or Treat.
Last Thursday her preschool class went to a Halloween Festival at a library.
Friday, our town had a Trunk or Treat where local businesses handed out candy/goodies.
Saturday, her dance class had a Halloween party.
Saturday night, our church had their Trunk or Treat.

By Monday, Arden was pretty much over the whole candy thing and had no desire to stay out long. At that point, she also decided she wanted to be a princess. Next year, little one.
Last year we (I) carved pumpkins, but I wanted Arden to enjoy it, so this year, I let her paint her pumpkin.

It's no fun if your kids can't get in on the action and cleaning out a pumpkin is not Arden's idea of fun. "That's sooo yucky, mommy!

Arden's costume (80's girl if you couldn't tell) was somewhat last minute. The shirt was an old shirt of mine that I took some scissors to (I really had no clue what I was doing. I've never re purposed any kind of anything.) I cut it in half with a front and back piece and then I cut the sleeves off and cut the bottom at an angle. After that, I'm not really sure what happened but it turned out how I imagined! Originally only one shoulder was hanging off, but it bothered her so much, she stretched the neck out so it didn't look as good. I made her leg warmers out of socks and tried teasing her hair. I think I used half of a bottle of hairspray and teased away but it never stayed nice and BIG for more than like 10 minutes.



Easton was Jack Skellington without his suit on. HA. I sat him outside to get a couple of pictures, but it was his first time sitting on grass, so he was totally preoccupied and amazed. He wouldn't look up for anything.
Having his first taste of grass:
I guess he liked it enough to grab a handful to munch on:

A couple days ago, I was upstairs feeding Easton and was eating a piece of chocolate from Arden's loot when she came upstairs and caught me (I try not to eat junk in front of her). She wanted some, so I told her I would get her a piece when I went downstairs. Well she went back down, moved a chair to the counter and got her own. I came down a few minutes later to this:
Reese's Cups are her favorite and she likes to leave the paper on. Derek said it's because she wants to keep her hands clean. Silly.
(Training for a marathon)