Pastry Chef in the Making

A couple weeks ago I made a pie and let Ethan create his own crust with the leftover dough. He's a messy cook, just like mom!

Fun in the Fall Leaves

Ethan always has a blast with his 2nd cousins, Blake & Taylor. Ma raked up all the leaves in her yard so the kids could have at it!

Joys of Pregnancy

There's just about 8 1/2 weeks to go until Annaliese makes her arrival, but we thought she might come early last week. On Wednesday of last week, I woke up around 5:15 a.m. sick (I'll spare you the gory details) and having contractions every few minutes. I called the doctor and she told me to count the contractions and come in if I had more than 4 in one hour. Well, about 15 minutes later, I had already had four contractions so I told Bobby we better head to the hospital. We dropped Ethan off at my mother-in-law's house (thank you Sandy!) and made our way to the hospital.

We arrived, got checked in and hooked up to all the monitors all the while still have contractions and getting sick. The contractions did not show up on the monitor, nor could the nurse feel them. The good news was that I was not in labor, but the bad news was I had a gastro-intestinal bug. They sent us home with medication and I slept most of the day. About six hours after taking my first dose of medication, I woke up with numbness and tingling in my legs, hands, nose and mouth, as well as stiffness in my hands. I could not pick up things or spread my fingers out - SCARY! We called the doctor and she told us I was having a bad reaction to the medication (duh!), to discontinue use of medication, to drink as much fluids as I could to flush it out of my system and go take a bath and relax. I wanted shoot the doctor......go relax and take a bath when I am losing control of my digits.....yeah right! I made up my mind that if it did not start to go away within a couple of hours that we would be headed back to the hospital. Thankfully, it never got to that and after lots of rest over the next couple of days I got over the bug and its side-effects. And thankfully the doctor I dealt with that day was not my own doctor, but another doctor in the practice who was on-call. I am praying that I don't get her when Annaliese really decides to arrive!

Annaliese meanwhile is doing well. I had an appointment this morning and she had hiccups while the doctor checked her heartbeat (which has been at 146 beats per minute the last three visits.....very consistent little girl). Can't wait to meet her!

Stock Show & Rodeo

Pop & Gigi took us to the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo this weekend. We had such a fun time! Ethan loved Whiplash, who is a little monkey that rides on the back of a dog and corrals sheep into their pen. He's told me everyday since that the monkey who wore a little cowboy hat didn't fall off, but the cowboys all fell off those mean bulls (of course, that is because the monkey was strapped on to that dog so much that he couldn't have fallen off if he tried!). Ethan also told me that he wants to ride one of those mean bulls one day when he is a big guy.....Mommy hopes he changes his mind when he's older! Ethan also got to feed some barnyard animals in the petting zoo and saw lots of "stinky" animals in all the barns.

GO COWBOYS!

Mommy is a big Dallas Cowboy fan and she is doing a good job of teaching Ethan to also be a big fan! Every time a game is on the TV he thinks it's the Cowboys, even if they are not playing. He yells at the TV with me....."GO COWBOYS!", "TOUCHDOWN!", "DEFENSE", "2 POINTS!" (okay, that's basketball, but his heart is in the right place!).

Grandpa (also a big Cowboys fan) bought him a Dallas Cowboys t-shirt for Christmas. Ethan wore the shirt for the Cowboys playoff game against the Giants. Here are some pictures of him crouched down in position to play, grunting and cheering.

Unfortunately all our cheering did not push our Cowboys to victory this year.....maybe next year!

Christmas

We had such a wonderful Christmas! Ethan had a blast this year with all the decorations, music and of course presents! One of the things I loved to do with him was sing "Jingle Bells". He would start out singing at a normal level and then he would gradually get louder and louder until he was shouting the song at the top of his lungs. Of course, Daddy liked to make the song silly with Ethan and they ended up singing "Jingle Beast" (Beast from Disney's Beauty & the Beast). It's amazing the things Daddy thinks up to do & say with Ethan that never cross Mommy's mind (that will probably be the topic of a future blog!).

Pictures will soon be added from the holidays......

First Posting

Well, this is our first official family blog posting - WELCOME! I am going to be doing a little bit of catch-up from the last couple of months, so there will probably be several new posts in the next couple of days. I'll try to keep things in chronological order, but bear with me if things are not perfect! :-)