our weekend and the 4th of july

last thursday, graham and i left for texarkana to stay with mimi and poppi for the weekend. we always love going to mimi's and being out in the country. friday mimi, graham and i went shopping at tjmaxx, kohl's, old navy, sam's and wal-mart. we met poppi at lunch at ruby tuesday's too. graham did so good throughout all of the shopping. he sat so well in the shopping cart and just rode around and had to touch everything. but at least he wasn't screaming.

trying out a mushroom

one of my favorite things about mimi's is all of the wildlife that roams around their property. I am a huge tomboy and i love playing with bugs, mud, frogs, etc. I just love getting dirty. with that said, my favorite memories growing up consists of playing outside and finding lizards, frogs, worms, (no snakes or spider...eick) any kind of furry animal, just pretty much anything that was alive and I could play with. Well, Poppi found some baby rabbits and I was so excited!! They let me pet them and I tried to pick them up but those lil suckers are wiggly and fast. They weren't very old and we think that their momma had them in mimi & poppi's garden cause that is where they hung out a lot.

can you find the bunnies?
We had a pretty relaxing and low-key 4th of July. Poppi's family cooked out with us and Poppi bought a big display of fireworks. I tried to take pictures but my Nikon didn't want to take night pictures. I think I need to sit down and read the manual and figure out how to use that dang thing.

Graham wasn't too thrilled about the loud bangs that came from the fireworks. he kept trying to crawl up my neck, poor baby. i wish i would have taken more pictures. but i didn't. i was too busy trying to keep up with my child.

My First Week Without Graham

What a crazy week it's been!! I am sooo behind on blogging and for this, I apologize.

Monday - Thursday (June 1 - 4th) was my conference that I've been working on for 6 months now. Ever since I was promoted to Deputy Director at my agency, the conference has always been my "baby". There will be a whole other blog on the conference...as soon as I get pictures. Pictures are on the work cameras. Anyway.

For over a year now (ever since we found out that we were having Graham) we had decided that this would be his first time to spend the week with Mimi and Poppi. And for over a year now I have dreaded for the moment to arrive. Sunday, Chad and I met Mimi (my mom) in Arkadelphia. I actually did surprisingly well. Chad, not so much. After we got home and had the house to ourselves, we didn't know what in the world to do. We are so used to being on a schedule and planning everything around Graham. So to have nothing to do, our world was pretty much flipped upside down. So we got out the Guitar Hero and had a blast. Until 8:45pm rolled around and I was exhausted. Plus I knew Monday was going to be a hectic day for me so I went to bed.

Graham, Mimi and Poppi had so much fun this past week. They spent a lot of time singing and dancing, swinging in the swing, riding in the go-cart, playing outside. I was so thankful that I was so busy during the week that I didn't have much time to really think about how much I missed Graham and Chad. But on my way to Texarkana after my conference in Hot Springs, a huge wave of emotions came over me. I called my mom and was just BALLING! I was crying so hard. You would have thought that I would have been the happiest woman in the world because my conference was OVER and I was going to be back with my family. But I was just so exhausted and still so stressed out and just FINALLY had time to be with myself to just let it all out. Anyway. Like I said, more about the conference in another post.

Here are pictures of Graham's week with Mimi and Poppi.

G's first time eating spaghetti noodles

one of my favorite things about spring

I love going to Texarkana to get crawfish from Shamsie's...they are the biggest, spiciest and just the BEST!!! Mom got me 2 lbs Friday night and then I had to go back Saturday morning for 6 more pounds...ALL FOR ME...mom helped me with a few but she said that they were too spicy...can't believe my mom who is asian and LOVES hot food said they were too spicy...but more for me. :) I was hurting REALLY bad afterwards. I've certainly had my crawfish fix for the year. I'm a crawfished out.

the aftermath

man, looking at these pictures is making my mouth water

New Toys...Courtesy of Mimi

Friday afternoon, Shana (she used to be married to my brother...I don't like calling her my ex sister-in-law because to me, she is still my sister) and I left Little Rock to go to Texarkana for the weekend for Mother's Day. Mimi got Graham two new toys that he just LOVES!!! He is already standing at his Learn and Groove table all by himself...well, with someone very close behind him for when his chubby yummy lil legs give out on him.

Playing with Brooklyn, Shana's niece

Country Roads, Take Me Home...

Every time I go back to my mom's house in Texarkana, I never want to come back to Little Rock. I have so many wonderful memories living out in the country. There is nothing better than listening to the crickets chirping, birds singing, catching turtles, frogs and lizards, smelling the brush burning, and hearing NO TRAFFIC. As I got older and got into high school and college, I absolutely HATED living 15 minutes away because it was soooooo far from my friends. But now that we live in the city, I appreciate the country life so much more. It's Heaven. Simply Heaven. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love our house in WLR. I love that it was the first home that I'd purchased and I love that it's not even a mile from Target, yes, the location you just can't beat. I love our neighborhood too. But we have a small yard. that is infested with crab grass and as soon as you walk outside, you hear traffic EVERYWHERE. Non-STOP. our dream is to find about three acres of land right outside of Little Rock. I want Graham to be able to run around outside like a wild child who's been locked up for days. with his shoes off. barefoot. like I did as a kid. and run through the woods without a worry in the world. ahhhhh, i loved growing up in the country. you could run around naked in your yard and not have to worry about any neighbors seeing you. not that i did. but i could have if i wanted to.

We had so much fun taking the boat and jet ski's out on the lake and finding our lil fishing spots throughout the day. We got out on the lake Saturday around 11am and didn't come in until 9pm. graham absolutely LOVED being on the boat! We didn't catch a whole lot of fish but I do have to brag and say that I caught the first fish of the day. Certainly not a keeper but the first one at that. :) If you know me, you know that I LOVE to fish and that I'm pretty good at it too. Yes, I had to toot my own horn. toot. toot.

Sunday afternoon, the guys went back out fishing but they went to the ponds around the house. Chad caught a HUGE catfish but didn't want to worry about cleaning it so he threw it back...Mimi was quiet upset about it. She wanted that fish! ha!

It was such a great weekend and we can't wait to do it again!

The 42 day challenge is going well! By Saturday morning, I had lost two pounds. I worked out while I was at mom's. She has an awesome treadmill...I love it. I would try to talk my husband into letting me buy one but I don't think he's going to go for it since we already have an elliptical and a bike. I get so bored with those. That is where my ADHD kicks in.

Graham started talking A LOT more this past weekend. He had us all laughing til we almost peed our pants. He is saying "va va va", "gu gu gu", "ba ba ba", "fa fa fa" ALL OF THE TIME.

The "Daycare Curse"

That is what Dr. O diagnosed Graham with on Monday.

This past weekend Graham and I went to Texarkana to welcome Uncle Steven home. On Sunday, Graham was so hot and fussy so I took his temperature and it was 102. I started freakin out because in all of the material that I read, it says if they have a fever of 101 or above to take them to the dr. and of course it's Sunday, no doctor and only ER's are open. and I'm in Texarkana. Texarkana is my HOME but not really MY HOME. if that makes any sense. I've lived in Little Rock for almost 6 years now and to me, it's just home now. So I felt so out of my element and I was just so discombobulated and didn't know what to do. So I gave him Tylenol and Mimi and Poppi gave Graham a bath to soak in and his temp ended up dropping and he took a good nap so I decided to just go ahead and come back to Little Rock and see how he was doing when I got home.

by the time we arrived in Little Rock (around 430pm), g was doing fine. he was happy but still had a fever and it wouldn't go below 101. so i called the emergency after hours line and the nurse told me to just give him Tylenol and to keep monitoring his temp. and to take him to his pediatrician in the morning but if he starts breathing fast to take him to the ER.

So, i put graham in bed with me and we put daddy on the couch. graham didn't sleep well at all. plus his temp spiked all night long and at one point was almost 103 and he cried and whined and then would laugh, smile and play...everything but sleeping. so the next morning, i took his temp again and it was 100 so I went ahead and sent him to school and I went to work for a bit and made graham a drs appt.

We went to see Dr. O at 11:10am and after assessing Graham (no ear infections, no pneumonia, no bronchitis and NOT teething and again, NO RSV) he told me that Graham has the "daycare curse" and there is really nothing that can be done about it and i shouldn't be too concerned with it no matter how terrible he sounds when he is breathing, coughing, hacking, etc. He told me to be concerned about his cold/congestion/respiratory infection IF he starts breathing fast as in 40-60 breaths/minute or isn't eating or gaining weight. If those two things are to occur, then we have a problem that should be addressed. Also, concerning his fever, the dr said if it's a one or two day fever, no problem. Just give him Tylenol. If it gets to be 3 days or more, then that needs to be addressed as well.

I also asked him about Graham's spitting up and sometimes it's even PROJECTILE...like straight out of The Exorcist and it seriously freaks me out. he said that some babies are just spitters and it could be because he is on straight formula now. and again, nothing to worry too much about unless he's not gaining weight. but he went ahead and put graham on Reglan and Zantec and for me to try it out for a week and if there isn't any improvement, to stop the medications and maybe I could try switching his formula to ones that are for babies that spit up.

So that is where we are at now. Dr. O did make me feel a lil more comforted about g's cold stuff. maybe now I won't freak out so much when he's rattling and wheezing. I just hate it. I hate my baby being sick and there's nothing to do about it.

G's fever kept jumping up and down all day Monday and Tuesday but by Tuesday evening all was fine. He stayed in between 98 and 99. and is still as happy as can be! The only time he seemed really pitiful was when we were in Texarkana. I think it may have just been really hot in Mimi & Poppi's sunroom (really the only place we all hangout at in the house now that they have it finished) with all of the windows and sky lights and then the heaters were on as well. So that could have made his fever spike even MORE.

Please still keep him in your prayers.

I can't wait for Spring to get here.

A Soldier Comes Home

Friday evening my brother Steven came home to Texarkana from Iraq. He is a Captain in the Army and was on his second tour in Iraq. We are so proud of him and thank God for watching over him and keeping him safe! He said that he got really lucky because one day he and his troops came across a propane bomb and if there would have been an Iraqi watching them, all the Iraqi would have had to do was make a call on a cell phone or have a hand denonator and they would have all been dead.

He will be in Texarkana til the end of February and then he will go back to Korea for at least 2 years.

Mom and I both said we wouldn't cry (we knew it would probably embarrass Steven but we couldn't help it). The moment we saw him walk through the doors, we broke down! I miss my brother so much!

And he finally got to meet his nephew. :)

They were having some serious conversations going on! ;)