KerryAndGabe.com

Something that makes me happy: Hearing my daughter say, “I lub you, Mommy” tonight when she was going to bed.

Something I’m thinking: Today, my parents have been married for 40 years.

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping to pre-order my new iPhone this week. Yep, that’s right, we decided against the Droid Incredible with Verizon and now we’re going for iPhones. I’m excited.

Something happening around the house: I did some kitchen organizing with the pantry and spice cabinet. I still have a little more work to do, but I spent a lot of time on Saturday cleaning things out.

Something I’m reading: I’m almost finished with Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella for June’s book club meeting. I’m not sure what I’m going to read next. I’m having trouble getting motivated to read Devil in the White City (July’s book club book). I feel like I want to read lighter stuff, especially since my time and brainpower are limited.

Something I’m watching: We watched The Blind Side last night and really enjoyed it. I think since we don’t get much chance to go to the theatre these days, we’re going to try to make a point to watch movies at home with Netflix more often. Speaking of the theatre, I was able to sneak out on Friday night with a girl friend to see The Karate Kid. I really enjoyed it! I thought they did an excellent job of the remake. The movie was different enough from the first one to seem like a different movie yet stayed true to the basic story lines and had many references to the original.

Something tasty: Our first fresh corn on the cob (which I prefer off the cob) of the season.

Something Maddie is doing (27 months old): Maddie made some big strides in her potty training preparation. I call this phase, “potty awareness.” We’re not actively potty training, though I think that this will happen pretty soon. She has asked to go to the potty for almost all of her BMs this week. She’s so proud of herself. Her diapers are still often wet, though she will sometimes ask to do that on the potty, too. She is getting really good at dressing herself. Today, she got something on her shirt and wanted to change. She changed both her shirt and her shorts with no help from us. She went to the drawer, picked out her new clothes, took the old ones off and put the new ones on. She has been working on these skills for a while. This has been a big week for Maddie. In addition to her potty successes, she had another swimming lesson and continues to excel at puzzles. At her swimming lesson, she went completely under water for the first time and LOVED it. She has been a little timid in the water lately, so this was a big victory. She still seems nervous every time she gets into the pool, but she usually warms up and then has a great time after a few minutes. We bought Maddie some new puzzles this week, and I have to say that she is very impressive with the jigsaw puzzles! We bought 3 puzzles of varying difficulties – 12, 24, and 48 pieces. I was pretty sure the 48 piece puzzle was going to be too challenging. I thought that the 24 piece may also be too hard for her to put together by herself. We tried the 12 piece first. She put it together in less than 5 minutes, completely by herself. In fact, she was trying to teach me how to put together puzzles. First, she collected the corner pieces and told me about them. Next, she showed me one piece and one of the connecting pieces. “See the pink here? And the pink here?” Hilarious! I am very impressed by my little girl. She can put together the 24 piece puzzle without help from us (and does it over and over and over). We haven’t brought out the 48 piece puzzle yet, but I am thinking we’ll have to do that soon!

Something Cullen is doing (20 weeks old): We took Cullen to the doctor on Monday for reflux issues, and the doctor recommended that I cut dairy out of my diet as a first step. Well, I’ve been through this before!. I have been dairy free for almost a week, and I believe it has already made a difference. Cullen was spitting up often and was not taking good naps before the trial. He is spitting up rarely now, seems to be in a better mood, and has been napping better during the day. Now, if we can just get him to sleep at night for more than 2 hours at a time (and sleeping in the crib/bassinet would be good). I am still holding out hope that we’re in midst of the “4-month-regression”. Several of my mommy friends have indicated that their infant went through a regression around that time. Hopefully, it will just be a short phase and we’ll get back on track to making progress on sleeping through the night. Cullen went swimming for the first time this morning, and he seemed to love it! He’s so cute in his little swim trunks and rash guard. Cullen has been more interested in toys and has been happy playing on his tummy for greater lengths of time. He’s fascinated by the remote control, as Maddie was at this age.

Something I am struggling with: Food! Cutting out dairy isn’t as bad this time as it was the first time. Some of the substitutes are coming back to me. Pizza is something I miss the most as there really isn’t a reasonable substitute. Quesadillas are also tempting and without substitute.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: We bought tickets to see Jack Johnson later this summer! Seeing one of his concerts is on my goal list. His music is meaningful to our relationship, so we are excited to see him perform!

Something I’m looking forward to: A swim event for kids under 4 years old at work on Friday.

Something random: I almost forgot to take Cullen’s photo today! Good thing I still have a few more hours. Something tells me that this one isn’t going to be an awesome photo.

Something captured: The neighbors’ yard had a midnight makeover. Maddie’s response was profound: “it belongs in the potty.”

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: Finding out that we can cancel our account with Sprint at any time now with no penalty. Woohoo!

Something I’m thinking: I’m thinking about the Survivor finale that we’re going to watch very soon.

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping to figure out something cute for Maddie to wear for daycare photos tomorrow.

Something happening around the house: Looks like we’re getting a lot of rain this week!

Something I’m reading: I made progress on The Girl Who Chased the Moon. I might actually finish it in time for book club…if I can make it to book club.

Something I’m watching: We had been recording Happy Town and caught up with the episodes this week. Creepy little show. We’re not sure what we think of it yet.

Something tasty: We grilled some of the fresh zucchini and squash for dinner last night. It turned out great. Yum!

Something Maddie is doing (26 months old): For weeks, Maddie has insisted on wearing only the diapers with Elmo on them. I’m not sure how she has become obsessed with Elmo (books??), but she is. Unfortunately, the box of diapers comes with a variety of characters. Why don’t they make an Elmo only box? We are out of Elmos and thought we might have a major crisis on our hands. She has consoled herself by picking out the baby Elmos for Cullen to wear in his diaper stash. This week, we tried out a little bit of TV to see what she would think. Of course, we went for an Elmo-centric episode of Sesame Street. Maddie was super excited to see Elmo on TV!!! We aren’t quite ready to delve into regular TV time, but we aren’t opposed to a few minutes of screen time here and there. We planned on limiting the viewing to 15 minutes, but she lost interest anyway about 10 minutes into it. Fine with us! She did seem very interested until she decided it was time to sculpt with play doh.

Something Cullen is doing (16 weeks old): He had his first sick visit to the doctor since before his 2-month well baby check up. He was diagnosed with pink eye, though we weren’t 100% sure that is what he had. His nights have been mixed…still working on that sleeping through the night thing. He did have a couple of good nights this week where he slept 6 hours between the last feeding of the evening and the middle of the night feeding. It was more difficult to get him to bed each night, though. Sometimes it took over an hour which is reminiscent of a little girl we all know. He’s still screaming most of the time in the car, though he slept in the car twice this week. He’s become very interested in his hands and feet. He’s been sucking on his fingers (hopefully, he will not be a thumbsucker – we’re still encouraging paci use). He’s fascinated with his feet and likes to grab them and has almost resulted in “toes in the nose!”

Something I am struggling with: In the early part of the week, I struggled with our routine and schedule. I started to do much better by the end of the week and hope to continue the trend this week!

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I’ve been evaluating what we are doing to meet certain financial goals (retirement, paying for kids’ educations, vacations, etc).

Something I learned: I learned that Verizon wants us to put down a large deposit in order to buy phones and start new contracts with them. As a result, we’re going to be a little less impulsive with our buying and wait a little while. They may or may not get our business when we’re ready to purchase.

Something I’m looking forward to: I’m looking forward to seeing how Maddie’s first school picture day turns out.

Something random: I added a few new header images to the rotation. A random banner is selected every time a page is loaded on the site.

Something captured: Cullen is trying to get all of his fingers into his mouth at once. Yummy!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

I’ve posted the Halloween photos! Maddie wore her costume to daycare on Friday, and we went trick or treating with her best friend, Keira, on Saturday. We had a family sleepover (the “spooooooky sleepover”) at their house Saturday night. It was a great Halloween weekend! Click on the photo to see the rest of the album.

Last year, I asked for restaurant recommendations for our anniversary dinner. We received some great replies, and we’ll be looking at those again. I thought I’d send out another request for ideas. We LOVED Mo’s Diner. It’s tempting to go there again this year, but we would rather try something different, preferably a place neither of us have visited. We went to 18 Seaboard for our first anniversary which was another good recommendation from friends. Where should we go this year?

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that made me smile this week: Yesterday evening, one of the girls from the neighborhood came by and knocked on our door to see if she could play with Maddie. So sweet! We’ll be keeping her in mind in a few years as a potential babysitter! She’s very good with Maddie.

Something I’m thinking: I really, really would like to get rid of this cough. I’m currently waiting to hear back from the doctor’s office to see if I can get a prescription for the cough.

Something I’m hoping: I am hoping that the rest of my family stays healthy.

Something happening around the house: We discovered ants again, this time in the pantry. We decided we needed to toss anything that had been opened. Ugh.

Something I’m reading: I actually bought a book for the first time in a while. I purchased My Sister’s Keeper, which I thought I already owned. We are reading it for book club, and I have started reading it this week. I read it about 4 years ago but don’t remember much. I went to see the movie recently, and I heard that the movie differs a bit from the book. I’ll be finding out how soon…

Something tasty I ate this week: I made my regular Stuffed Peppers recipe, but this time I used fresh tomatoes from our Produce Box (instead of canned) and one finely diced jalepeno for extra kick. It turned out great! Gabe loved it. Oh and last night, I threw together some more veggies from the box – squash, zucchini, and heirloom tomatoes. They were quite yummy in this recipe on the grill.

Something Maddie did this week: She played with her friends at daycare while Mommy was quite sick and rested at home. Times like these make me very thankful for the daycare!

Something I struggled with this week: Last week, I hoped that I wasn’t getting sick. So much for that! I have been sick all week with some virus or something with sore throat, fever, aches and pains, congestion, cough, etc. The first part seemed very flu-like, though I would have expected a higher fever. Then the cough has gotten worse and worse. I haven’t been able to sleep more than 2 hours at a time before I have to get up and get some hot tea with honey or something to try to make the cough better. I’m struggling to get rid of this bronchitis…plus, I still don’t have my voice back. It’s been missing since Wednesday afternoon. This has not been a good week!

Something I’m doing towards my goals: Well, earlier this week, I started Maddie’s Christmas stocking. I see no way that this is going to be finished by this Christmas. I spent about 8 hours on the stocking, and I think I completed 1%. So….according to my calculations, it will take me 800 hours to do it. Um, yeah. How am I going to get 800 hours of “free” time?? Oh, and one of my goals was to organize my games…working on that and hope to have more to report next week.

Something I learned this week: I never realized that green, orange, and red bell peppers are all from the same plant. The only difference is how long they stay on the vine. I guess that explains why red peppers are more expensive – it’s riskier to leave them on the vine longer as they remain more susceptible to pests. This week, we had two bell peppers in our Produce Box. They were an interesting mix of colors when we got them and had turned almost completely red only 24 hours later! Neat.

Something I’m looking forward to next week: I’m almost afraid to list things here as it seems like every time I am looking forward to something, it gets canceled or something happens. Last week, I looked forward to poker and play dates. All 3 play dates and the poker were canceled since I was sick. Bummer. We have some fun things next weekend, plus the cleaners are coming on Tuesday.

Something random: The Carolina Ale House is not a bad family place. We went there with Maddie yesterday for lunch after running some errands. Maddie LOVED the music (classic rock) and danced around in her high chair. She also ate a pretty good lunch. Their kid’s applesauce looked pretty tasty, and she seemed to agree.

Something I captured: On Friday, I put 3 pigtails in Maddie’s hair. Gabe said that was ridiculous; I thought it was adorable. I think Gabe changed his mind later in the day to agree with me. You can see two of them in this photo.

Maddie’s teachers hosted an Easter Egg hunt for the kids in her classroom. She had been practicing gathering eggs into her basket at home, but she seemed a tad intimidated by all the other kids running around the playground. She gathered exactly one egg (with a little help from Keira’s mom) and then gave it away to one of the other kids. Another kid took pity on her and gave her a consolation egg. Maddie didn’t seem to mind that her basket was empty. Click on the photo to see the rest.

Maddie has been battling the flu for over a week now. Two weeks ago, she had a fever and was cranky all day, so we took her into the doctor. They checked a few things and ran some tests and didn’t find anything of note. The fever went away the next day, so we never were sure what was wrong with her.

A week ago, exactly one week from her original fever, she had another fever. Neither fever was high, but since she just had one a week ago, we wanted to take her to the doctor just in case. This time she had a bit of a sore throat, so we were happy to have some sort of explanation. That night, her fever was 103.5, so we headed back to the doctor on Saturday. They tested her for the flu, and the test came back negative. They did a few more checks, and everything else seemed to be ok. Then that night she spiked a fever of 105.6. We were really scared and worried about her! We nearly took her to the ER but heard back from the advice nurse just as we were walking out the door. The nurse advised us on how to get Maddie’s fever down, and urged us to go to the ER if we were unable to reduce the fever or if the fever reached 105 again later in the night. Either way, we should go to an urgent care on Sunday.

So, we went back to the Urgent Care where her fever was around 105 in the middle of the day. The doctor told us that we shouldn’t be concerned about high fevers, although this Mommy is still going to be concerned about fevers above 105 no matter what! Her throat looked awful. The doctor said that he has never seen strep in a baby her age, but he tested for it just to be sure. The quick test came back negative, and the full test did as well a few days later.

Her fever was high again that night. She seemed to be quite uncomfortable, especially at night. Her fever went down for half a day, and then it started going up again, so we made an appointment with her pediatrician on Tuesday. They did a blood test which came back normal and did all the usual checks. At this point, I thought I was getting the same thing as I was feeling pretty awful. Wednesday, I felt miraculously better and Maddie had been fever free for 24 hours, so we attempted to go to work and daycare. I got a call from daycare about an hour later saying that she had been pretty much inconsolable all day. I wasn’t surprised as she had been upset during the night and that morning, but we thought that she wasn’t contagious and that a change of scenery might be what she needed.

We called the advice nurse and were waiting to hear back from her after consulting with the doctor. In the meanwhile, I made an appointment just in case we needed it…and then decided to cancel the appointment. The advice nurse called back and made us an appointment and wanted to see us afterall. This time, I asked if it was possible that they took a flu test too early and got a false negative. They did say it was possible, but that treatment wouldn’t be much different if she was diagnosed with the flu. I pushed to have the test done, anyway, because we would at least have a diagnosis! They did the test, and she tested positive for the flu. He advised us to keep her home for a few more days as she’s likely still contagious.

She shows signs of improvement parts of the day, but still has very rough nights and none of us are sleeping well. I hope that she is better soon!

I cohosted a baby shower on Saturday that had a children’s book theme. My cohost and the mother-to-be are all in the same book club, so we felt that it was an appropriate theme! As part of the shower activities, I took 20 book covers and photoshopped out the titles. Can you name these children’s books? At least one person knew all but one book cover at the shower. I’ll post the answers in a few days. Click on the cover below to get to the quiz thumbnails, and click on each cover to see the larger photo.

We missed having our New Year’s Eve Games Night last year. We had a good one this year, but I didn’t take very many photos. Maddie took a nap and then woke up just a few minutes before midnight to ring in the new year and see the fireworks (which she did NOT like). The New Year’s Eve photos have been posted. I need to update the Photo Calendar, but the regular albums from 2008 are now complete! Woohoo! Click on the photo for the rest.

I’ve been busy sorting through photos! Gabe’s family came to visit a few days after Christmas and stayed with us for a few days. We exchanged presents, had some tasty food, and played some Guitar Hero World Tour. I have posted the photos from Christmas with Gabe’s Family. Click on the photo to see more.