Lying

Apparently many studies have been done to determine what age kids learn to lie. Well, we just found out. Ryan took Emma to Dunkin Donuts & she asked to hold her bag of munchkins (donut holes). As they are driving home Ryan asks her if she is eating them. With a big smile, frosting all over her face, & chipmunk cheeks she shakes her head no!

Thanksgiving 2009

We lucked out this year & got to enjoy Thanksgiving with Ryan's family in Houston. Uncle Damon & Aunt Carlin hosted Thanksgiving for both sides of the family. Carlin did an amazing job of prepping the house. She had gorgeous floral arrangements on the tables & name cards. There was the "kids" table for all of us & the "grown up " table. Emma was the highlight of the day & enjoyed getting to see her daddy's family. Aunt Michelle came from Dallas with her guy Fred so the day was complete. Emma has really taken to her Grandma Sherry & was waiting all morning for her to arrive. This is the first Thanksgiving with Emma that we were not flying so it was nice to have breakfast & watch the parade. After lunch we hung out & watched the Dallas Cowboys game. Unfortunately I was supposed to work on Friday so we left around 7p for Austin. We learned we have a lot to be thankful for this year & enjoyed having a family dinner. I know this will mean more to my mother in law sherry than any present we can buy her. Having her children & grandchild together for the holiday. I have to work Christmas so this was our big chance this year for a get together. Now its off to a whirlwind pre-Christmas trip to see my 2 families. St. Simons Island, GA for 3 days & Maryland/Virginia for 3 days. Then, its Christmas Eve with our neighbors (who are really more like family). Next year we have offered to host Thanksgiving at our house because the UT game will be here.

Potty Time?

We spent a good portion of Saturday trying to get Emma on the potty trained path & were successful twice. Sunday Daddy did not have the energy to keep things up so it was back to diapers. BUT tonight as Emma was getting ready for her bath, she said "pee pee in the potty?" Ryan said she could get her chair out. Well she went all on her own without any prompting from us. So we are moving in the right direction.

Who's the Boss?

So last night as we are giving Emma a bath she throws a fit over getting her hair washed. In her fit of anger she splashes me & says her classic line "No don't do that again" while pointing. Daddy scolds her for splashing & reminds her the water is to stay in the bathtub. He then gets his own scolding! Frustrated, I tell Emma that "Mommy is the boss & she needs to mind me" Ryan gives me the look so I rephrase it with "Mommy & Daddy are the bosses & Emma needs to mind US". She says "NO, MOMMY! DADDY IS THE BOSS!!!" Ryan is now laughing & telling Emma "Thats right!" OH I AM IN TROUBLE!!! This child is so strong willed, what happened to getting the nice even tempered child like my hubby? Really this was for him. Do you think he can handle me & a mini-me??

NE Round Rock Mom's Club

Last night I went to a MNO/Game night with the NE RR mom's club. Normally they do not allow guests to their home events, but I got to go since our daytime activity was cancelled. I have been looking for a group of mom's with children Emma's age that live close by. The ladies I met last were extremely nice and welcoming, and I look forward to future events.

Yuck Mouth

Remember the yuck mouth cartoon/psa, well that is what my child has right now. We were warned she would have stinky breath for 2 weeks after surgery, but oh my goodness! Her breath gives a whole new meaning to the term potty mouth. I feel terrible for her because it must taste awful & brushing her teeth does not help for very long.

Friday

So, I am proud to say that I managed to cook dinner each night S-Th & eat lunch at home M-Th. So I did allow myself to get a hair cut & threading today that was slightly pricy. We also met a mom's group at Chic fil a for lunch.

I have been searching for mom's group that might allow us to make some new friends for Emma. I am learning that people are on such different schedules that it is nice to have a large group to plan activities with. So far we have tried some meetups with the "sugar & spice" mom's group & I met some nice moms.

We are a little tired this afternoon. Emma woke up full of vim & vigor, but has quickly faded.

ALL DONE!!!

So we are all done with Emma's surgery & it went fine. With her lacrimal duct probing she only needed inhaled anesthesia, so I was concerned when they mentioned intubation this time. The whole thing lasted 30 minutes, you are always worried. Essentially someone else is responsible for keeping my child alive for those 30 minutes & that is scary! The nurses & staff could not have been nicer or more understanding at Strictly Pediatrics. Numerous times we were asked if all our questions had been answered. Emma's PACU nurse was so sweet & rubbed her belly during her short stay there. Emma stayed in level 2 recovery for about 45 minutes to make sure she could keep juice down. She mostly slept in Daddy's arms but started waking up more & crying because her IV was annoying her. Today was a busy day there with lots of kiddos crying & I think that contributed to her issues.

once home she woke up & asked to watch Barney (of course). Within 30 minutes she was bebopping around singing & dancing. She ate a really light lunch of yogurt & cereal. She is now working on a very long nap, although I think the pain meds are helping with that. She needs it because we have been up since 4:15 so she could have some juice this am.

THE GOOD NEWS: Apparently her adenoid was pretty nasty & the ENT sent it for a culture. The benefit to that is determining if she has a super resistant bug & knowing EXACTLY what ABX to give her in the future. She is on her 3rd ABX in 2 weeks. Omnicef, Azithromycin, & Amoxicillin now. We think this will decrease her sinus infections & prevent a reoccurence of pneumonia.

Next Week's Menu

I have to work M-W so I need to get my new menu planned out. Luckily I cooked a TON of food this week. We have not necessarily stuck to the menu days, but we are EATING the food I cooked. It is just in a different order.

Sunday: Chili

Monday:Chili

Tuesday: Pot Pie

Wednesday: WW sloppy joes

Thursday: Marlboro Man's 2nd favorite sandwiches.



putting these menus up helps me stick to a plan & budget for the week. We are big into finding money or reallocating money for different purposes. The more I cook, the more restaurant $$ we have for other fun things like date night.

Menu Plan Monday

stealing this name from another "Budget" blog I found on www.frugalgirl.com

Some ideas I am trying to work on are eating leftovers & creating multiple meals from similar ingredients. For example, tuesday's sloppy joes becoming chili on thursday. The chicken from monday is used on Wed for pot pie. The chopped up veggies are used for sloppy joes & chicken pot pie. This will help us save time & money.

Monday:
Chicken Spaghetti (using leftover pasta from last night's quick chicken parm) & broccoli

Tuesday:
Weight Watchers sloppy joes (these call for lots of veggies & less meat, so cheap & healthy) on whole wheat hamburger buns, salad, & fruit

Wednesday:
Semi homemade chicken pot pie (I will not be making the pie crust, using Pioneer woman recipe, just on the lighter side)+ 1 for the freezer for next week when I work. The hubby requested this one when I asked what he wanted for dinner.

Thursday:
left over ww sloppy joes turned into chili (will be caring for a lil one so no desire to cook)

Friday:
looking for something fun & frugal to make that day

Surgery

So we just got back from Emma's ENT appointment: the good news is that her hearing is great, the bad news is that we need ear tubes & adenoids removed. Emma is having chronic sinus, eye, & ear infections. We are recovering from her third one since June & about 5 this year total. She has been on some pretty powerful antibiotics & we are all concerned about her developing resistance to them. We also thought she was developing pneumonia again & is going on ANOTHER antibiotic so she can have surgery next week. It is scary to think how many rounds of them we have been on already. As the doctor explained the adenoids are like a sponge & compared them to our kitchen sponge. YUCK if you think about what grows on those things :( He also cultured her to see if she has a super resistant bug living in her sinuses.

The good news in this is that we should have less infections. Also we are going back to strictly pediatrics for the procedures. We had her lacrimal duct probing there last year & were very happy with them.

Disney Trip

So I am FINALLY getting around to blogging on our Disney Trip. I was waiting for some pictures to come in.

We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and it was amazing. The decor was incredible, and you felt like you were in another country. We chose to save money & not stay in a room with a view, but it did not matter because you could easily walk around and see all kinds of animals on the savannas. Having a 2 yo that needed to run around, it was a great excursion. Emma love the large pool & we swam almost everyday. The disney buses have Mickey Mouse on them so honestly Emma's favorite part was getting on the "Mickey Mouse School Buses". It seemed she made friends on every trip :)

Our WED started with us going to Donald Safari breakfast in Animal Kingdom. There we saw Daisy, Donald, Mickey, & Goofy in their safari outfits. Our only complaint was that we were seated early in the back so we often had to wait to see the characters. Emma began to get a little fussy & did not get a picture with goofy. When Donald came to our table, she asked him where Goofy was! We walked around Animal Kingdom and went on the Safari ride which was Emma's third time. She loved pointing out the Animals & a giraffe came so close to us we could almost pet him! It was HOT with 91% humidity so although great for my bronchitis, it wiped the Putman clan out quickly. Each day we wandered back to the hotel for a nap & swim in the pool or as Emma calls it "splash day". That afternoon we went to the Magic Kingdom for dinner and walked around looking at the characters. We did manage to go on its a Small Small World while Daddy took a break. For dinner we headed over to the Liberty Tree Tavern.

Thursday we had a nice breakfast at Boma & headed for the Magic Kingdom. We rode the steam trains around the magic kindgom. Emma had the chance to take pictures with Cinderella, Aurora Rose/Sleeping Beauty & Belle. We were always on the lookout for Snow White but never got a picture with her. Then we headed over to the carousel & emma picked out a horse to ride. We then decided to sit on mommy's lap instead. We watched a show at Cinderella's castle, and managed to watch a small parade before leaving that morning. The floats went around the circle in front of the castle. We were so excited to have the one with Minnie Mouse & Goofy right in front of us. Emma sang & danced with characters. We did ANOTHER swim in the pool that afternoon while mommy enjoyed so lovely cocktails from the bar. That night we went back to Boma for an African inspired dinner and we enjoyed trying lots of different foods.

Friday we headed back to the Magic Kingdom again & went to Adventureland & Frontierland. We had a great time laughing at the jokes on the Jungle Cruise, then went on an adventure with the Pirates of the Carribbean. Emma posed for some cute pirate pics at the end of the ride. Mommy got her Pineapple Dole Whip float so life was great. We tooks some pics with Peter Pan, Goofy, & Donald. The very nice photographer with Frontier Donald shared where we could find Goofy. I was so excited because Emma seemed to be on a Goofy kick that week & we would have been so sad to miss a picture with him! Friday night we hung out at the hotel again and went to see the animals around the hotel. Emma had a great time playing on the playground while waiting for the grazing animals to make their way over to us. 7:15pm seemed to be the magic time for them to show up.

Saturday, our last day there, was gloomy & rainy. We headed off to MGM (finally a different park!) for the playhouse disney breakfast. There we saw JoJo & Golith & Leo & June from the Little Einsteins. Emma was finally ready to pose for pics with the characters. It was not super busy so she had lots of chances to interact with them. By the end she was calling out to them & waving. We rushed over to the new Toy Story Ride, which is a moving 3-D ride that has you stop at sections similar to a midway game. It was so cool because each section was inspired from a movie scene. Ryan managed to whip my butt even holding an Emma. We then headed off to what we knew would be a highlight of the day: Playhouse Disney Live show. We were able to sit right up front. Emma loved singing & dancing along to her favorite Disney shows. It was a great place to be during a major rain storm. What was also cool was that we added 2 new items to our list of things at Disney. Ryan & I never did the playhouse disney live & Toy Story was a new ride for us.

We ended up back at the Magic Kingdom that afternoon but did not do too much. As our trip progressed, we watched waits go from 5 mins to 45mins, especially in Fantasyland. I was slightly disappointed because we did not get to take Emma on some rides. She had fun walking around Tomorrowland & Fantasyland. We walked by "Its a small world" & she said I wanna go on the boat ride. The first time we went on WED, we walked right up with no & she was a little scared. This time we had to wait 10 mins & she was a PERFECT angel. She was pointing to everything saying "look at dat mommy" & dancing along. Ryan HATES that ride & I am so excited to have someone to go with me :) At the end, you walk over a bridge when leaving & she was waving to everyone in the boats. We spent sometime in Winnie the Pooh's Play area. Emma loving running & climbing. It was raining so I did not care about her stepping on the water areas. We road the Tomorrowland transit & steam trains one more time. Our last moments in the Magic Kingdom were at the Main Street Bakery where Emma ate a cupcake the size of her face.

Sunday was our last day so we had a photo session done at the Animal Kingdom Lodge & headed back to the airport. It was a great trip, but very different from the ones past. I found myself excited to start new memories & share this with Emma, but sometimes missing those special moments Ryan & I used to share.

Halloween Past & Present

First Halloween

Second Halloween

Well, our halloween did not go as planned. Emma developed a bilateral ear infection which changed our plans. She did make it to her school party & mommy came to help out the teacher. I was able to leave work around 5:30 so that we could enjoy halloween together.

Unfortunately, Emma REFUSED to wear her Snow White costume. I bribed her with candy & that did not work. I hoped seeing other kiddos in costume would inspire her to wear one, NOPE. I even tried other costume options & she refused those as well!

Instead we put on her PJ's, brought her princess couch & blanket outside to hand out candy. SHE would hear kids & say "ITS COMING MOMMY, TRICK OR TREAT!" She loved handing out the candy & would say "you're welcome" to all the polite trick or treaters. We have this ghost that sings & dances to loud noises. Emma realized it quickly but her claps were never loud enough to make it happen. So once mommy tired of clapping, she figured out how to hit the drain pipe to make the ghost move. My favorite part of the evening was watching her dance & sing like a ghost. So, I have learned that my child will no longer conform to what I want her to do & to make the most out of what we've got.