Holidays '08

I must say, it is never a dull moment at our house!
The Saturday before Christmas Jason and I headed out for the mother of all shopping sprees. With two boys under two, you don't get out to do shopping often. So my dad generously volunteered to hangout at our house with Miles and Grey while Jason and I did all our holiday shopping in one trip. The boys were, as always, excited to see Grandpa so early in the morning. We enjoyed a quiet breakfast at Panera and then hit the stores. Surprisingly, we were done with our shopping in about 3 hours and had time to swing into Pei Wei for a yummy lunch.
The Sunday before Christmas we finally located our Christmas ornaments in the mountain of moving boxes in the garage! Woohoo! After the boys went to bed, Jason and I decorated our Christmas tree for the first time in our new house. Oh, also that week, our sheet-rock guy finished all the sheet-rock work on our new staircase. *What an awesome Christmas present from my dad!*
Monday was not such a good day. When I got home from work Jason told me that Miles had been lethargic and warm all day. Immediately I noticed how sad his eyes looked and it was unusual that I didn't get a giant smile when he saw me. I continued to take his temperature through the afternoon and it hovered around 99 and 100. Jana called and said she had a spiffy digital ear thermometor and brought it over a little while later. Poor Miles, his temp had shot up to 104.8! So we called the ped and headed to the ER as he instructed. Thank goodness Ryan was so kind as to stay at our house with a sleeping Grey.
We arrived at the ER and the 1st nurse we encountered said to strip Miles down to a diaper. It was cold in that waiting room, but I did as I was instructed. About 10 minutes later a woman walked through the ER, glanced at Miles and said, "Why is that poor baby in a diaper? Too bad just anyone can be a parent these days. Good grief!"
I was already stressed and worried and I instantly bristled. I shouted, across the ER, "Because the nurse told me to. Because he is a sick little baby! Any other questions?" OK, so now the entire ER waiting room is staring at me and a lil' bit afraid of me.
My sister started stroking my hair and calming saying, "It's OK mama bear." But after I told Jana what that woman said, she agree that she needed a verbal attitude adjustment.

After we were escorted to a room they checked him over and gave him some Tylenol. (I had given Motrin at 4pm.) It took about an hour, but his fever did come down and he started to coo and play a little. We were sent home and told it probably was the pre-cursor of a cold or the flu. Lovely. Poor guy!

Lesson I learned in the ER: You can overlap medicine doses. ( I always waited until the full 8 or 4 hours was complete before giving more medicine.) The safe and appropriate dosage chart provided by the ER (for Motrin and Tylenol) definitely suggests larger amounts than the directions on the bottle.) So the second lesson is that you can administer more medicine than I initially thought.


So that is the downside of the week. Miles continued to improve but was still a little under the weather all through Christmas.

Christmas eve was busy but fun! I got home from work and hung out with the boys while Jason and Doug and Ryan went to "baste the turkey." AKA--- drink a few beers. Then we all went to Christmas eve service at church and then back to my dad's house for a nice meal. The boys each got to open one gift. Surprise surprise... it was new PJ's to wear on Christmas eve. They changed into their new matching PJ's and we headed home for our first Christmas eve at our new house.

Jason and I stayed up until about 1:30am arranging and wrapping presents. Let's just say we might have gone a little overboard. Shocker!

Doug, Jana and Ryan came over Christmas morning and we all opened presents. It took almost 3 hours! At one point, Miles was napping, Grey was playing with his toys... and Jason and I were opening the rest of their presents for them. The biggest hits are the talking gas grill from Jana and Ryan and Elmo's Restaurant from Fred and Donna. I was amazed that as we were loading the car to go to Jason's parents house I experienced something unfamiliar... total quiet. I looked in the living room and Grey was in his new Transformers tent, "reading" a book, and Miles was playing with a ball. I think they were a little overwhelmed with the sheer volume of toys and they were just quiet as church mice. hahaha!

The afternoon was spent with Grandpa and Papa Tovar. We opened presents and ate lasagna. Grey is always excited to see his cousins. Although he was annoying them by barging in on their dollhouse fun. hahaha!

If I can wrap this up on a sentimental note, I just am in awe of how lucky I am. Jason is a wonderful husband and father and Grey and Miles are the two best lil' guys I have ever met. This year has been full of blessings and happiness for our family. We sold our house, we bought a great house, we have had hours and hours of laughter and fun with our sons and we are even closer than last year with our families. Any day now, Jana and Ryan will welcome a new baby and we couldn't be more excited. I am humbled and grateful for all the happiness and joy I have experienced in 2008.

8 months and 21 months and growing

Miles and Grey have had Jason and I laughing often for the past week or so. Miles isn't just crawling, he is speed-crawling all around the basement. Where ever Grey is... Miles is right behind. His main goals are: get eye contact with Grey and flash him a smile (bonus points if Grey smiles back), steal Grey's binky(pacifier) and/or lay on top of Grey so he can't get up. Miles is getting big enough that the wrestling has begun! And he is a hefty little man! He is in 12 month clothing and less than a head shorter than his big bro.
For the first six months Grey could not have cared less about Miles. But now that Miles is moving and interacting he is very curious and attentive. Sometimes he can melt your heart when he announces, "Hugs... hugs and kisses" and proceeds to do Grey's famous forehead-to-forehead kiss and then envelope Miles in a hug. He usually calles Miles "BeeBee," but in the past week has also begun calling him Miles. But some of the attention to "BeeBee" is not as affectionate. The past few days he has been taking real enjoyment from pushing Miles from a sitting position to a sprawled out laying position. Of course Miles isn't so keen on the pushing and lets him know by crying.
Oh, and Grey hasn't just learned Miles' name... he has learned mine and Jason's. He really likes calling Jason by his name, even though we stress that he is "daddy." As soon as Jason leaves for work, Grey is quickly explaining, "Jason. Jason in trucky. Jason trucky work." It makes me giggle everytime.
He also has this new perception that Grandpa (Doug) lives in the garage. hahaha! Several times each day he points up the stairs to the garage and begins to talk about Grandpa, his "shoppie" and of course then he names all the things in the shoppie... the mowie (mower), the truckie, the car and the Merc (the Mercury).

I say it everyday.... I am one lucky lady. Two healthy, loving boys and a hard-working, wonderful husband.

Also, Jason received word that there will be lay-offs at his company today. So, please keep your fingers crossed for us. I will post an update tomorrow.

And the other fun project at our house is courtesy of my dad. We still have unfinished sheetrock walls leading down to our basement. So my dad has generously offered to pay someone to finish our walls. I AM SOOOOO EXCITED to have this project finished! And, for our Christmas present from Doug, he is paying a wonderful carpenter to create the wood part that goes on top of our half-wall that is in our upstairs living room.

We also enjoyed a fun Saturday evening with some great friends... Lindsay Sutton and Sarah Parks! It was soooooo good to see them! Grey took a liking to Sarah right away and spent most of the evening snuggled with her a chair, playing with her phone. We all might have had a few too many mojitos... but how could we not celebrate seeing friends from out-of-town. How awesome that they took time from their busy Wichita-area visit to spend a whole evening at our house! THANKS SARAH AND LINDSAY!