P.S.

I forgot to say that Matthew has indeed cut a tooth on the bottom. And it's probably the first of about 4 more. Poor guy.

Another hot day

It was so hot and humid today I broke down and turned on the air conditioning. It was just too sticky. I spent another day trying to decide what to put where and what to bring. AHHHH! It's just ridiculous to have this much stuff. Anyone good at helping a person pare down their stuff? If so contact me immediately! My Grandmom was a saver and now my Mom and I are too. Having a baby just made it all the worse. Once I have this mess all figured out I hope it will be easier in the fall. When I come back I'll take one thing down at a time and sort through stuff all over again. Once the downstairs is full, that's it. Everything else must go, unless it has a real home upstairs.

Matthew did not sleep well last night. What a shock considering the day he had. So that left me very tired today. I did not want to get up, but my groaning just made he giggle. Today, over all, was a better day for him. But he sure looked tired. And man did he scream tonight when it was about time to go to bed. I don't really think he wanted his Grandmom to leave either.

Tonight I realized that there were some baby birds in a nest lodged in a hole in our garage wall. They are pretty cute. I took some pictures, but I don't feel up to downloading them tonight. Maybe tomorrow. I also have some cute pictures of Matthew to post. Well, I certainly hope everyone else's summer is starting off a little tamer then mine. Thanks to Mom for all her hard work today laying our new bathroom floor. I love it!

Sticky days

It's been a very humid sticky day. I was picking up magazines on my quest to get this house ship shape and cleared out for Bailey and they felt moist, soggy just from the air! It's awful. And Matthew was just down right fussy. I tried to get stuff done with him awake (which was most of the day considering he took a 20 min nap in the morning and a 30 min nap in the early afternoon) but he was so clingy I just couldn't. It was so frustrating I called Bailey and paid her to watch him for 3 hours. I thought it might do him some good since his little "girlfriend" is being watched by her. He sure was happy to see her. Hopefully tomorrow I can plow through the rest of the clutter and finish the carpet cleaning. I got all of the dining room carpet cleaned, but what I have to walk on. My bird Buddy likes the fact I had to move him I think. He can see the dogs better and is now barking at them, trying desperately to get their attention. I think they are ignoring him. Him and Peppermint were buddies. He probably misses her. Well, I'm really tired so I'm going to go and try to go to bed early to hit it early tomorrow.

The marvels of modern technology

Here are some of my very favorite pictures of Matthew. This one was taken outside in November. It was the very last warm day. And it was the very first day in over a week he felt good. It was right after he got over the awful flu thing he had when he left the daycare in Manhattan. Every single baby in his infant room had it and gave it to him, poor guy. Look how bald he still is! (Well, he had hair, it was just really short and fine.)
This was taken in December. What a close up! Look at those eyes! Ornery bugs are just jumping out of them.
This one was taken in January. The thing that grabs my attention the most is how his hair is still very short on the sides, his sprout hair that he was born with is the main focus. It makes him look like he has a baby mohawk.

Ask me how I took these 3 pictures. Yes, I took them on my cell phone. I finally realized that I could send myself pictures to my email. Yea! My pictures can't be lost now! Technology is just amazing. And I can't believe how good the picture quality is!

Matthew is most likely starting to cut more teeth. He has just been very fussy and unhappy for most of the day. It could have been that he was just unhappy that his father left, but I am banking on the teeth. His poor little gums seem pretty swollen up and I think I can see several teeth straining to come through. Time will tell. My dad very graciously offered to come up and watch him while I continued to weed through all my stuff (I won't even bother to say "our" stuff, because I'd say most of it is my junk!) and toss stuff upstairs. I don't know if it was much fun for Dad or not since Matthew was so fussy, but he looked every inch the part of the proud Grandpa.

Once again I want to say how proud I am of my husband. He has convinced 2 people to sign up now (even though he didn't get the credit for them since they hadn't given him his computer, grrr), and today he got 2 more to say they would sign up. They haven't yet, but if all goes well they will soon. Way to go get them Phil!

Packing and loading

Matthew playing tug with Missy. He loves trying to play with the dogs. Yesterday he kept trying to play with my parents dog, Hershey. He would grab one of his toys and hold it out to him. Hershey would grab it and Matthew would scream with delight. This would unnerve Hershey so much he would automatically let go. Matthew would then look so disappointed and immediately try to get Hershey to come back. He has even less success getting Missy to play with him, but today they played for maybe 30 seconds.

Matthew had an awesome time clicking his toys together and having mom mimic him. He loves to play with her.
What a happy munchkin!


It's been a long day of packing, shuffling, and loading stuff. Mom came out and sat with Matthew while we tried to get stuff done. We did ok until we got the couch upstairs and found out that we couldn't do a thing with it. It's too wide to stuff through any of the doors and it's too tall to stand on end in the hallway. We left it upstairs in the hall for now because we struggled to get it up. But it will have to come down again. Sigh. I still have alot of sorting to do.

I don't think I have mentioned it before but Matthew learned to wave yesterday. If you wave at him, he will wave back. It's really cute because he has to watch his hand while he waves. He has also started to play ball with us. If you toss him the ball, often he will either throw it back or he will bring it back and place it in your hand. I think it's awful cute, but then I'm a little bit biased. I think almost everything he does is cute. Another thing he loves to do is play peek-a-boo. What a grownup little person he is becoming. He even will sit for a little while on the couch with us like another adult.

Happy Memorial Day

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day! We have had a great weekend. I don't want it to end and have to go back to packing, stuffing stuff upstairs, and Phil going back to work. I hate, hate, hate moving.

I forgot to mention yesterday that Matthew has really started taking off with walking. He is now starting to just take off on his own walking across the room to get something. He is just so cute. I wish we had it on camera or video, but you never know when he's going to actually take off. It has been such a great first year with him. I love all the new stages with him, but I also miss the itty bitty baby that he was. He was just such a cute bundle of loooovvve. Anyway, I bet by time his birthday rolls around he'll really have the walking thing down pretty well. Then it will be on to running.

We ran down to my parents today to pick up a ramp and stayed for supper. We stayed too long after supper and ran into heavy rain when we got here. Matthew was asleep, so when that cold rain hit him he started screaming. He was not impressed with the end of his evening at all. It will be interesting to see how much rain we get tonight. We have gotten 1.75 inches of rain since Friday. That's the most we've got in probably a month and most of that came last night. It will do great things for the crops and plants if we don't get too much too soon and flood lower areas. Hopefully we also miss the hail. We have the 2 Toyotas in the garages, but my car is out. Lack of room for it. It isn't worth much anymore and doesn't look real great, but the gas mileage is good and it has always run well!

If life ever gets dull...

Don't be digging my hole just yet, I'm NOT ready!

Here's our sweet but tired and old Foxy girl.

I have one clump of irises that have decided to bloom. I'm excited they are blooming, but disappointed that none of the others are. My grandmom says that the old saying is that they have to rest for 7 years until they are happy enough to bloom. Since they were all moved from friends' gardens and planted here last year maybe they need a couple more years.

Here's the little guy taking a nap with his head cocked at a very strange angle.

Today we had a family reunion of sorts with my dad's cousins and some of their family. Matthew seemed pleased to meet them. I hadn't seen them since I was pregnant.

I can't believe one of my little cousins that I remember being born is taller then me now! Time passes so fast.


If life ever gets dull...I'll FINALLY be able to do all the things I say I'll do next winter when I don't have anything else to do. What chance of that do I have with a little boy???? Memorial Day weekend is shaping up to be a be a very busy weekend. Since I last wrote we've been on the go. Wednesday, after the last day of ASP, we had a party for our 2 teens that graduated. Thursday I took Missy to be spayed just be find out that she'd already been spayed. After saying goodbye to the roofing crew, who has to come back one more time, I picked her back up, and went to a last day of school get together with my coworkers and my boss's kids. We had a great time teasing each other, grilling, and playing in the park. Such phrases as "ledge butt" and "get back to work baby" were born. Matthew was so exhausted he went right to sleep. He had a wonderful time walking all over and up and down the steps. He also got to take his first ride in a baby swing, down a huge twisty slide, and on a merry go round. He also rode with his mom on a horse swing. It was great fun. Someone else got pictures, so I can't wait to see them. Friday I went and chopped my hair off. It is nice to have it short again. It hasn't been this short since '03. Phil got home late that night. Saturday I went shopping all morning with a friend that needed help picking out a special outfit. Once I was done with that, I met Phil at some friends of ours. We grilled and then came home. Today we did chores and then went to a family get together at the lake. It was good to see my dad's family again. I get to see them once every year or 2. I can't believe that my little cousin, I remember when he was born, is taller then me! We grilled (again!) and had some amazing homemade icecream and cake. Now we're home. It is just now finishing up raining, which is good since it was getting really, really dry.

All week I've been carrying Foxy out to go potty. She looked so awful. Every time I left the house I expected to come home and she'd be dead. On Thursday I picked up a new medication for her. When Phil got home he agreed she looked on her last paw and miserable. We've been talking all weekend about digging a hole for her and calling the vet to put her asleep. Then today she came and got us up to let her out to potty! She'd walked over to us and walked outside on her own. She stayed outside all day and looked pretty cheerful. Tonight she looked so happy I decided to take her picture. I guess the new medicine made her rally a little. I guess when this doesn't help anymore that's the end of the road.

Day of poop

You have all heard the urban legends about the baby that pooped in their diaper and then decided to paint with it all over the walls, the carpet, the crib, the car, and finally eat it. You never ever believe that maybe, just maybe, some part of that story isn't an urban legend and your baby will put you through it. That is until they do. Yes, Matthew today covered a toy phone with it and got some on the carpet, while attempting to eat what got on his fingers. EWWWWWW! It was the second bath I had to give him because he was covered in poop. Yes, I said second. #2. This morning he accidentally sat in diarrhea in the yard and needed bath #1. I hope that we are done with poop for awhile. If not forever. Some days it's really hard to be a mom. And of course all of this happens while I'm alone with the baby. I'm the same mom who was lifting her son's butt up to put a diaper on it, after cleaning off poop, just to have him shoot liquid poop out onto my leg! EWWWWW! And while I tried to block that he started peeing all over me. Lovely. Well, he sure broke his new mom in quick. That least I can say that he never peed into my mouth, just his. Poor kid. I hope he makes it to high school!

On a not so hilarious note, Foxy is not doing so well. I'm not sure how much longer she has left. Phil is hoping she passes while he is gone and I'm hoping I'm not alone. It is never easy to lose a pet. At least in this case I can honestly say she's had a great life and has lived to a ripe old age.

The weathervane is up

My son has been entertaining himself all day by pulling out all the movies over and over again.
A picture of the front of the house. They got a coat of paint on the top.
A close up of how the roof looks.
A closeup of the weathervane.


I think the biggest news of the day is that the weathervane is up. I am excited and think it looks good. This means that the roof is 100% done now. The lightning rods all have their plastic globes up to replace the glass ones. They look good. The weathervane has ended up being a little controversial. Our roofer apparently does not believe in it. "It" being witches, Halloween, etc.? I'm not sure exactly, but he felt so strongly about it he was going to instruct Phil how to do it and not do it himself. But surprisingly he did it today. I believe that perhaps his church does not celebrate Halloween. We are a big Halloween family and we just thought it was very wimisical and cute. We don't "believe" in witches or witchcraft or worship satan. It all was a little upsetting for me. I don't want people to get the wrong impression over one little weathervane. He hasn't stopped working for us so I guess it's not as big of a deal as it's become in my head.

Matthew has a good day pulling out all the movies over and over again. He also enjoyed walking around the yard impressing the workers. He's just so proud of being able to "walk". Meaning he walks with great assistance. He did take two steps on his own Friday and two steps on Saturday. And Phil missed them both. The first time by being at work and the second by not paying attention to Matthew. Talk about frustrating, he was right there!

Graduation day is a biiiiggggg day...

Here is the finished north side of the house. I painted all the boards from the middle of the windows down on the first level. I think I did a pretty good job if I do say so myself.

Here is the south side. I think that the top level is painted twice, at least once. What a difference.
Here is the south west corner. The west side is also finished on the top level. The roof on the back porch was supposed to be finished Friday, but the last pieces of tin needed had been damaged on the truck so they have to wait for more to be shipped here. It will be so nice to have it finished.
This is one of Matthew's newest joys, looking out the windows and playing in the curtains. Yes there is a small boy hiding behind the red curtain.
Here is the small guy, awwwwwwwww...


Today was graduation day for the 2 teens that I work with. Our family spent the whole afternoon running around celebrating with them and their families. It was fun, but very hot and tiring. Matthew was a good sport about it, but he finally got very, very tired and we knew it was time to leave. One of the girl's families, my family has known for years. Her great-uncle was my parents very best friend. Her grandparents also owned a cabin at the lake and were good friends. Some of my best memories were spent at our cabin in the summer. Her cousin is only 2 years younger then me. When we were very little we played together alot at the lake. It was very strange to see him again after 20+ years. He also is married with a baby. Strange how life goes. Anyway, it was lots of fun to see all of them again. Another way my life was tangled in her families is her adopted father went to high school with me. It's a very, very small world. At least in this part of the world.

As you can see, the weather has been cooperating with us and much of the work has gotten done. It is really exciting to see so much work done. We are so thrilled with all the work so far. Hopefully we run close enough on budget to allow us to finish with all of the work we want to do at this point. I couldn't post the final side of the house due to camera problems. If I had you would see the roof is finished all except for putting up the weathervane/lightning rod. They have primed the walls and probably will soon have it painted. I am going to paint all of the lower level. Like I said above, I painted all of the lower level on the north side. I started scraping the east side under the porch, but we've been too busy this weekend to do more. Saturday Phil and the roofer, James, put in a new window in the living room. What a difference it has already made in the temperature in the living room. If we replaced all the windows I think this house would be so much cheaper to heat and cool. Two windows down, 19 to go with one more in the bathroom when we remodel in there. Anyway, we needed to get more trim pieces for the living room and kitchen window because both of them were missing pieces. We tried the local lumberyard and they didn't carry any so we went to Home Depot. Guess what. Our house is sooooooo old that they don't make trim pieces that even come close to looking like the ones we have now. Great. So we tried to get a piece that looked as close to what we have. We decided to only get a foot piece just to make sure it will work. Good thing because Phil hates it. It doesn't work so well I have to admit. I'm not sure what we'll do. Maybe we can find a place in the big city that has something closer. While we were at Home Depot we tried to get flooring for the bathroom and of course, the color we wanted was so popular they didn't have any left. So we'll have to go back next week and get some. A new shipment should be in by then. How frustrating. But I'm getting used to that considering every project in our house has a snag.

3 more days of work for me. Yea. I think. I have to decide to very quickly what I'm doing for the summer because I have several job offers here, but not much to speak of in the big city. Lots of pros and cons to weigh.

A big day

Matthew had a big day today learning high fives. He also spent a good part of the day outside which is a first for him. First of many I'm sure. He also has been learning how to send text messages, call people, get on the internet and more all on his mom's phone. He actually managed to call his "Auntie" Leah yesterday. Got the phone shut before he left a message.

The day was beautiful so more roofing was done. The end is in sight for the main roof. But once it's done it will be on to the porch roofs. I weeded, painted, and mowed. Phil had another good day, but long day of work.

It's Tuesday the 13th

It was kind of mean of me to tell you all that Missy might be having a reaction and never find the time to tell you she's doing great. Yes, it was a reaction to the shots. The vet wanted to ere on the side of caution so she had me bring her back in and gave her some more shots to counteract the reaction. Next time they'll give those first so we don't have to go through this again. Thank goodness.

It's the 13th and that means it's the little guy's 11 month birthday. 11 months so soon. I can hardly believe he's been here so long. He just keeps growing and changing by leaps and bounds. Today he celebrated his day by going to the doctor to see what was all the rashy stuff on his arms and legs. Yes, it's atopic dermatitis or eczema. He is now on a steroid cream and I have to keep lubing him up with Aquaphor. They also think he has allergies, so he gets to take Zyrtec. Poor baby. He's getting the worst stuff from both sides. I really hate to give him Zyrtec, but it might make him feel better. A note of interest: his 1st birthday is on a Friday, yes his first birthday is on Friday the 13th. Scary.

Well the weekend went way too fast. I spent a girls day out with one of my best friend's Audrey, while Matthew was spoiled at his grandparents. His dad came home Sat. evening in time to put him in bed and left very early Monday. We had a pleasant Mother's Day. We took a gift over to my mom's and since it was plants for her yard, I help her to plant them.

More keeps getting done on our house. As soon as I charge the camera up I will take pictures and post them, along with some of Matthew of course. Last night I put Matthew to bed a little early and painted half of the lower part of the north side. It's nice that now both Phil and I have personally helped fix up our house.

Well, I'd better go. I have to call the water people and run after the little guy!

Busy busy busy

As I said earlier this week, I've had my boss's kids all week. Getting them to school this morning was my last obligation. Their mom will stop by this weekend and pick up all their bags. I have never seen anyone come with more stuff then they did! That family doesn't travel light anywhere.

Last night our neighbor came to look at the house. That was a little stressful since I feel like it looks like a tornado has blown through it. Especially with all their stuff and the hamster. Which runs on it's wheel all night. Almost every time I woke up all week, there it was running. And I woke up alot this week.

Yesterday was one of the most gorgeous perfect spring days possible. Because of that fact the roofers were able to get another whole side done. It looks to me like they are starting the 4th and final side. Yea! And I hear they are getting ready to start putting up our new weathervane and lightning rods. Our house is starting to look so much better. I heard last night that our house even made the paper. A lady that writes a weekly column mentioned that a nice young couple was fixing up a house in the community and she was very glad. Or something to that effect. I haven't got to see the column yet.

Meanwhile this morning after I dropped the kids off, I took Missy in the have her checkup and shots. She did great and while I was writing this threw up all over Matthew's playmat. She looks like she feels absolutely miserable so I'm guessing that the shots aren't sitting well. Poor girl.

I have been thinking about things I should say about Matthew all week and haven't had the time to put it down. So far I've forgotten again almost everything cute I wanted to share. I can say that he has 2 new loves. 1. Holding one finger in each of his fists and making me "walk" him all over the house. The more U-turns he can do and the more toys he can step on, get tangled in, or step over, the better. That really makes him giggle. I get tired and dizzy after awhile and make him walk around with his walker toy. 2. He loves to run away so people are forced to chase him. He shrieks with laughter to be chased around furniture. He especially thinks that it's funny when mom crawls after him. It's alot harder on my kneecaps then his. I haven't crawled this much since I was his age I think. I am also realizing that if you listen really hard to his garbled speech it's actually turning into words, sentences, and phrases that make sense. Yesterday he handed me his toy and said, "Here you go." I about fell over. There it was in his garbled speech, but clearly what he meant and it was what he should be saying in that instance. I can't believe how grown up my little boy is. His head shaking is getting clearer and not so much a new movement he's trying out. On Wednesday of this week I really made him upset. He realized I stuck my head in the daycare door. He got so excited and started crawling for me as fast as he could. Well, I waited for him to get there, picked him up and hugged him. Since I wasn't ready to leave I tried to put him down and he started to cry and cling to me. I ended up having to pass him over to the staff just bawling and trying desperately to get back to me. I felt awful. He doesn't care when I leave so I didn't think that he'd get so upset to have me peak in. And I felt bad to make him upset and left it to the staff to make him better. Mom on the other hand, had the opposite experience with him this week. He wasn't interested or excited to see her one day this week because he was too into playing with his ball. I've noticed at home alot more independent play. Oh, our little man is growing up too much. Way to fast. I try to make the most of every day with him. I've been very blessed to have the opportunity to stay home with him as much as I have. Not many moms can afford to in this day in age. I think being away from his Dad is upsetting him though. Every night he hasn't seen Phil, he's slept that much worse. Last night was the worst he's been for a long time. He cried a significant portion of it and refused to stop crying unless I was holding him. Talk about making sleep impossible for the poor mom who was already roughing it on a couch. I'll be so glad to sleep on the futon tonight. At least there will be plenty of room for both of us if he repeats last night. Well, now I'm really glad. Missy just decided that she needed to puke again so she hopped up and puked all over the couch, my blanket, and feather pillow. I thought the inner pillowcase was waterproof, but I guess not. Lucky me, this week just gets better and better. I'm running on 4-5 hours sleep. I just pray work can go ok so I can make back home alive. Well I think I need to go so I can call the vet and see if this much puke is normal.

Moving forward

Give me that camera Mommy!
Ha, ha! I got away from you! You didn't get to button my outfit up or put my pants on. Nananana. And on the way I found my blanket and pacifier.

Things are moving along, even the things I don't want to. Like Phil being moved into his apartment. But we are all doing ok. Matthew was rather fussy yesterday, but he had a very long weekend. We did too, but we got him moved. I was very very upset to find that there already some tenants living there and they are the worst kind. But the pest people come today and we have already taken measures so hopefully we don't have to find another place to move him to. I hate noxious bugs!!!!!!! (Sorry Angela, I know you are the bug lady.)

Last night Matthew and I collected my boss's children from their father and brought them home with us. We got them settled in for the night and off to school this morning. Matthew thought it was great fun to wake up and have them here. He loves playing with kids and he has been around them almost every day since he was 3 months old. I had to tell Missy to not jump on the boy because he is not so sure about her yet. She just wanted to give him lovings, but it was a little much for him. Hopefully they don't get to missing their mom too much. I hope we all have a great fun week.

I have to brag on my husband just a little. Yesterday was his very first day on the job. He made lots of phone calls and did a little driving around with the commander. He actually found and convinced a guy while they were out and about to come in and join the Army! His very 1st recruit on his 1st day, and it doesn't count for him. That's the sad part. Since they haven't issued a computer to him someone else gets the guy, but the commander says they will make it up to him so he'll get the credit for someone else. It was probably beginners luck, but he was pretty excited! I am too! Way to go Phil!

Hectic days

Yesterday I stayed home from work and helped Phil pack his life up to ship to his new apartment. We have more packing in the trailer to do, but for now it's all done. It feels very surreal. I don't think it's really, really hit me yet. Matthew and I are going to really miss him.

Last night my boss and her two kids came over and had dinner and a movie with us. My boss is going to TX for a conference all next week, so her two kids will stay with Matthew and I. It might be a very good distraction for us. Matthew likes her kids alot so it will be pretty fun for him too.

So far Missy, the dog's kennel name, has had no accidents. I was told she was only partially potty trained, but so far she's done great. Maybe she was just too nervous. I wish I could say as much for my cat. She is very upset I think. New dog, her bed got packed (actually it's ours...), people in and out, and new litter. I just washed my bathmat yesterday and yes, it's getting washed again today. I hope that she has decided she punished me enough and will use her litter box now. She is a very sweet and loving little cat, but she is really pushing the limit with me this past year. If she continues to misbehave she may go to someone else's house. I threaten, but I probably wouldn't. Maybe at most send her to Phil.

Better go prepare to move today.

Newest member of the family

Here she is. A Peppermint look alike. She looks like Peppermint and acts an awful lot like Peppermint, but I don't think she is. We adopted her today from the pound. Poor girl, I think she is tuckered out. Foxy doesn't have any objections and Matthew doesn't seem to mind her too much. Only when she gets in his way and gives too many kisses. This dog sticks to me like glue.

Matthew has had a very very big day. Today he took a morning nap and did away with his afternoon nap. And wasn't all crabby because of it either. We had a birthday party for a coworker and he was quite sociable. I was very impressed and a little scared. If he doesn't take naps how will I get anything done!!!

I'm tuckered out. It's been one big emotional day, so I'm signing off for now.