Yay for the weekend!

Thank goodness today is the start of the weekend for me. I had such a craptastic week that I really need this break this weekend.

So, the week started with Kris leaving to go out of town on Monday. I'm used to him traveling, so that's not a problem, it's just this time I wasn't able to ask off from my night shifts at the daycare which means the boys had to be up there all week while I was working. So, Monday and Wednesday nights the boys didn't get in bed until 1030p. Very stressful. Leyton does fine at night, but is just a bear in the mornings when he has to get up for school. Maddox on the other hand is a bear at night because he's used to going to sleep at 8a.

On top of dealing with that, Maddox has really gotten worse with his biting. He started biting his brother about 3 weeks ago. Bad bites too! Then, last week he bit a little girl at the daycare. And, this week he bit 3 times at the preschool! I feel just AWFUL everytime he bites. I do not want to have the 'biter' kid everyone talks about. :( Wednesday night while at the daycare working he attempted to bite a kid. Luckily, the kid caught on and got away from him and bit him back!! He came running to me and I gave him no hugs and love. I'm hoping this will help teach him a lesson. Actually later that night he tried to bite his brother. Since I was there when it happened I marched him to the bathroom and bit him on the arm. I hate that I resorted to biting him and it made my stomach turn to have to do it, but at this stage in the game, I'm desperate and I want him to STOP it. There was no biting yesterday at school, so fingers crossed it worked.

TGIF!

Sleep Issues

Poor little Maddox, he's never been a good sleeper. The first six weeks he was so colicky and would only be held, my mommy, no less. Daddy just didn't have the bouncing, shhh'ing, rocking thing down to calm a colicky baby. Well, the colic disapated and turned into a typical baby who just wakes in the middle of the night. 2 and 3 nights he would wake up crying. We tried everything from feeding him before bed and even feeding him cereal in the middle of the night to keep his belly full. The kid just doesn't sleep well. By 18 months Kris and I were at our wits end. He's was still waking up once a night even then. Maddox was 21 months old before he ever slept thru the night without waking up once. Now at 27 months, he is still waking generally 3-4 nights of the week crying. He'll either wake up and yell from his room for mommy or daddy to come bring him a cup of milk, or he'll wake up from nightmare.

Last night for example he fussed/whined/cried in his sleep for a good 15-20 minutes. When I finally determined it wasn't going to stop I went in to pat his back and calm him down. You could tell he was still asleep, but just crying out. It was so sad. :( I got him quiet and calm and within 20 minutes he was up crying again. This time, yelling in his sleep (like he was fighting with his brother or something?). I decided to go ahead and bring him to bed with me and wouldn't you know, being with mommy the rest of the night I didn't hear a peep out of him. He slept quiet and calm the rest of the night. I guess having the safety and security of mommy next to him helped him sleep.

The Elves are watching

I've totally got Leyton convinced that there are lil elves spying on us in our house and in the toy aisles. Being that he's 5 now, he's really getting curious and has been asking a lot of questions about how does Santa know what he wants. We mailed Santa a letter a few weeks ago, but now Leyton is all concerned since he's changed his mind on what he wants, lol. So, I told him that Santa sends his elves to all the toy stores so they can listen in on the children's conversations and send the information back to Santa. He's buying the story and I love it! We were at home this afternoon and he's completely convinced the elves are hiding in our house too. I caught him taking the books off our bookshelf to see if he could find an elf behind the books. It's so cute. I even acted like a saw an elf (kinda like I'd see a mouse or something) and Leyton goes running to see if he could see the elf running behind our couch. He is going to be so ticked at me when he's older and realized mommy was just playing a joke on him. It's all just simple fun, right? I say, whatever you can do to convince your kids Santa still exists, do it. ;)

Family Portrait time

Well, since Maddox was in my tummy last time we had a family portrait we thought it was probably about that time to do an updated shot of our family. We had such a fun time doing this photo shoot and for once, it was great to be in front of the camera instead of behind it.

After meeting the photographer I found out she's not a lot different than me. She's a preschool by day (like myself) and takes portraits for people 'on the side'. Her camera was only one step up from mine. She's inspired me to try and start doing this myself. I'm getting my fancy editting program for Christmas and once I have that I can hone in on my editting skills.

Here's a few of our fun, family shots.

You'll have to wait for Christmas to see some of the better ones.

A day at the Arboretum

Maddox and I enjoyed a nice mommy & me day at the Arboretum on Monday. I was off from school for the day, but Leyton still had to go since he's in another school district then where I teach. I have really been itching to get behind my camera and take some shots. It's been awhile since I've gotten to play around with my camera. I took about 170 shots that day. Maddox was being very photogenic too, which just helped my trigger happy finger. Here's just a few funs shots I took.

Flu, Flu, Go Away...

Yep, our family was hit with some string of the flu bug. Amazingly, it hit all us in different ways. We're not sure, but we think we may have gotten it from Maddox, although he NEVER should signs of being sick?! He threw up in the middle of the night last Saturday and had one diarrhea diaper on Monday. And that's it??? Then, Monday night I woke up around 11p and was up for the next 6 hours hovering the porcelein goddess. Thankfully, Kris took both boys to school on Tuesday and I was able to sleep on the couch all day. I went to bed very early and woke up 110% better on Wednesday. It was back to work and school for everyone. So I thought...

I get a call around 130p on Wednesday that Leyton was sick at school. :-( Poor boy. Got him all picked up and the hershey squirts were blessing him with their presence for the rest of the afternoon. He never has felt sick or achy, but I've kept him home all day today to keep him from infecting his classmates. It would be a lot easier to feel sorry for a sick boy if he'd actually ACT sick.

Kris also was graced with the 'maria' all day yesterday and came home early from work because he was achy all over and couldn't keep his eyes open.

So, today, while I'm at home with Leyton this house is getting super cleaned and sanitized. All comforters and sheets are being washed, toothbrushes thrown out, and everything in sight is being hit with Lysol and/or Clorox!! Go away flu!!

Death is an evil bastard!

The title says it all. Death is an evil bastard who sneaks up on you just when you're least expecting it.

I recently found out this week that a dear friend of mine from year's past has been taken away from us at a much too young age. Robyn and I were college roommates. We lived together for almost 2 years and shared many travels and road trips together. Two very long roadtrips all the way from Oklahoma to Niagara Falls and one snowy trip I’ll never forget to Colorado. And of course, our 6 week journey to Scotland and England will never be forgotten. All of that was over 10 years ago!! My goodness, life sneaks up on you and next you know it’s been 10 years!!

Sadly, and to no fault of my own, I’d lost contact with Robyn after college. We went our separate ways and onto our separate lives. I got married a year out of college and moved to Dallas. There was no myspace 10 years ago and email had barely hit the ground running. Keeping in touch with friends took more effort, sad to say. Although I lost contact, she will always, ALWAYS be in my heart. Our memories will always remain. Loosing contact with a loved one does not make death easier. If anything, it brings in loads of guilt for letting our lives and too many years separate us.

Since digital camera’s didn’t really exist ‘back in the day’, here are a few ‘vintage’ photos of Robyn and I.