Our Mini-Vacation

Our small trip to Branson was very relaxing.  It was nice to get away and our condo was the perfect accommadations for our family.  We enjoyed dining out as a family, going to Silver Dollar City for the first time of many this year, shopping, swimming, and just spending time as a family.  If you ask Makenna about her favorite thing she will say watching TV while eating popcorn.  Thursday night we rented Ramona and Beezus from the Redbox, popped popcorn, and we all sat on the couch and enjoyed some family time.  That just goes to show you you don't have to spend much money to make a kid happy.  It was a great first family mini-vacation and we are looking forward to many, many more.  Sadly, spring break is now coming to an end, but we are already making plans for next year.  Who knows where we will go.

What a Day

This is the fourth spring break that we have experienced with Makenna and let's just say we don't have a good track record.  I don't remember anything happening in 2008.  In 2009, this happened.  Last year, we had a great trip to Colorado, but caught caught in a snowstorm on our way out there.  And, we are only a few days into break this year and we have already had our share of frustrations and scares.  I will start at the beginning.

Makenna has been running fever off and on for ten days.  Justin stayed home with her on Monday of last week because she still had a fever, but then she got better.  She was fine Tuesday through Friday morning, when she once again woke up with a fever of 102.  We decided it was time to take her to the doctor so Just took her in that morning during the early morning hours where they have a walk-in clinic and you see the on-call doctor.  Just our luck, the doctor on call was the once doctor at our ped's office that I don't care for at all and we didn't find anything out.  They tried to see if Makenna would give them a urine sample, which of course she wouldn't, so we pretty much wasted a co-pay and a lot of time to find out absolutely nothing.  She then got better and was fine until yesterday afternoon when she woke up with another high fever.  Being Sunday, we gave her Tylenol and she returned to her normal self.  This morning she woke up saying she didn't feel well, but she didn't have a fever--until about 11:30.  She fell asleep in the recliner watching Dora and when I felt her she was burning hot.  I took her temp and it was 104.2.  I called the doctor and they told us to come in at 1:15.  In the meantime, I gave her more Tylenol and tried to get her to drink as much water as possible.  We got to the doctor's office, and they once again checked her for all the typical things--strep, ear infection, etc. and still nothing.  They told me they really needed a urine sample and we tried for two whole hours to no avail.  At that point, the bad turned to worse very quickly.  Since she wouldn't go pee by herself they had to use a catheter and that was terrible--I think it was worse on me than it was her.  While waiting for the results, she once again started burning up and began to break out into a sweat while shaking.  It was terrible.  Of course, everything in her urine was fine, so we went to the next step--going to the hospital for xrays and bloodwork.  We had to do a bunch of paperwork in the outpatient department and then we played the waiting game to get the xrays and bloodwork done.  Makenna, however, did very good during it all and by the time it was over, she was back to her normal self.  The doctor called with the test results before we even got home and she has walking pneumonia.  We started her on medicine tonight and hopefully she will be better by tomorrow.  But needless to say, it was a long day, but we are thankful to have answers to why she has had a fever for 10 days.

We are still planning on taking our little trip to Branson at the end of the week.  Makenna is so excited about it and we are hoping the medicine will kick in.

Another first this week...

Beckham ate his first baby food tonight--carrots.  He gobbled up a bowl of cereal, so I decided to give him some baby food.  He ate half the jar and seemed to really enjoy it.  I guess I better get busy making the homemade baby food like I plan on doing.  Our boy is growing too fast.
**Note: he looks a lot like Makenna at this age in this picture. 

Our boy and our girl...

Our boy:  Got his first tooth a few days ago and we think he is working on some more due to the amount of slobbering he is doing.  He also has learned to roll from his back to his belly and the other night he rolled 3/4 of the way across the living room.  We have this on video, but for some reason it won't upload. :(  He is growing and changing so much and we can't believe he will be 5 months old at the end of next week.

Our girl:  Had a blast at the circus Sunday night.  She sat there the entire 3 hours and didn't complain once.  It was so neat the see her excitement and she says her favorite part was the elephants or the dogs that did tricks.  We are glad we took her, but honestly, we probably won't go again until Beckham is old enough to go because the place is so hectic with so many people, the place is stinky, and the floors are so sticky everywhere you walk.  Unfortunately, Makenna woke up Monday morning with a 102 degree fever so she and Justin stayed home and played.  Today she is doing much better and is back to her normal self.

Makenna and Beckham's Easter outfits also came in the mail today and I am so excited to see them wear them.  We will definitely post pictures.  Speaking of Easter, we are once again having pictures taken with live bunnies.   I am anxious to see how Beckham reacts to them, but I love getting these taken.  They have honestly been some of my favorite pictures of Makenna and I can't wait to see how they turn out this year with two children.

Beckham's Book

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Click here to view this photo book larger

Just have to brag for a minute...

I am one proud mommy right now.  About a month ago we purchased the Pre-School Prep Sight Words 3-pack DVD set for Makenna.  We bought the colors, numbers, and letters DVDs for her when she was about 1 because I just wasn't fond of the Baby Einstein videos and being and educator I wanted my child to watch something educational if she was going to watch videos.  Anyways, Makenna has been watching them off and one for the past month, but it is supposed to take a few months for the child to learn the sight words.  Tonight Makenna kept telling me she wanted to watch her "wiff" DVD (or so I thought that was what she was saying).  I had no clue what she was talking about so she told me to get her words DVDs so I handed her the box with the three DVDs in them.  She took out one and said, "This one, this is my "wiff" DVD."  I look at the back of the case and written in big red letters was WITH.  She then pointed to the word and I couldn't help but tell her how proud of her I was.  I then pointed to some other words on the cases and she got 3/5 of them, including be, play, and my.  She told me she didn't know the word of and she said her for she.  All I can say is that I am amazed that my 3 year old is learning her sight words.  Many kids go to kindergarten not knowing how to read the sight words.

So, needless to say, I HIGHLY recommend these DVDs to all parents with infants and toddlers.  Here is a link to the company website and yes, I plan on buying Makenna the books her very soon.