This morning

This morning as Donovan and I were getting ready to leave for the day, he coughed this yucky sounding cough a couple times. He hasn't had a cough in a few weeks, so more to myself than anything, I said, "Where did that cough come from, buddy?" To which he replied very seriously, "From my mouth." Touche, Donovan. Touche.

Update from the past week

So my goal is to blog at least once a week, so here it is. This week was busy, with Donovan's first week at school. He did very well. No tears from either of us the first day drop off, or any of the following days for that matter. Tom did call to check on him that first day and the teacher said he was doing well and she was scratching his back to get him to sleep. She said he had had a few times where he had this piercing scream, one that she mentioned was "very piercing" again when I picked him up that night. You know your child is loud when the teacher of 10 plus years of many, many kids is particularly surprised at the decibel your sons scream can reach. Poor guy. He also had pooped in his pants twice that first day. Lovely first impression. Overall though, he did very well for his first ever day at school by himself. The next day, he did very well, had no accidents and when I went to get him to go home, they were outside playing and he looked at me and looked away and just kept on playing. That turd. 10 minutes later I had to practically drag him to the car. Then Thursday he had another good day. They are learning about China in his class last week so I asked him what he was learning about at school and he said "We're learning about China!" I said, "You are? What did you learn about China?" and he said "He put his jacket on." So apparently China is a boy in his class (not really). He did tell me that they made fans and put them in the hall way, which was true. I told him Thursday when he told me once again that China put his jacket on, that China wasn't a boy but a big country. So friday when I got home from work he told me, "China is country" and I said "It is?" and he replied, "Yeah, he is really big!" Baby steps.

Anyways I thought Donovan was handling this transition so well until a few nights ago when he started refusing to sleep in his own bed. Wed and Thurs he fell asleep in our bed, then Tom carried him to bed in his. Then Friday, nothing, no complaining, perfect. Then Saturday came and all hell broke loose. Two hours after we started the sleep process he was finally asleep. I finally had to lay in bed with him and restrain him by basically bear hugging him as he screamed things like "GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME! I DON'T LIKE THIS! STOP TOUCHING ME! PUT YOUR GLASSES ON! (he tells us to take our glasses off when he wants us to lay down and sleep with him) DON'T SCRATCH MY BACK! I DON'T WANT TO SLEEP IN MY BED!" Nothing makes you feel worse as a parent then hearing your kid yell those things and know that what you are doing is causing him to say that. But we were out of options, trust me, we tried it all. So after thinking about it, I think that this is how he is breaking down a little bit with all the big changes, from the schedule, to the school, to me working more, to potty training, it is a lot for one little guy to handle. Today was much of the same but not as long or as severe for both the nap and the night time. Hopefully it will keep going this way because it takes it out of you when you have to spend an hour plus convincing your kid to a) go to bed and b)go to bed in his own bed and c)do it without you in bed with him. We used to look forward to 8pm, now we dread it. Plus that is our time to get things done so if we are spending it fighting with him, there goes the whole house. Fingers crossed. That being said, I am exhausted and I need to go to bed. Here are some pics from the last week.

Thank God for Reese this past week. She has been such a joy. Such a good girl and so happy. Definitely a balance to her brother's crazy. Her latest love is banging on the computer. See how happy it makes her? (I can hear my dad cringing right now after reading those last two sentences)

Bang bang bang.

Another love of her and brother's right now is playing the guitar.


My mom watched Reese this week as her sitter's kid was sick, and Grandma took Reese for a walk.

Today was nice again so we spent some time playing outside. Reese got to put some shoes to good use for the first time ever.

First sibling bath

Brothers are oh so helpful in the rinsing department. ("Not on her face Donovan, not on her.... Ok, thanks for listening Donovan." -read that last part with lots of scarcasm) Thank the Lord that Reese pretty much loves anything Donovan related so she took the soaking in stride.

Potty Training adventures

Donovan has been going pee on the potty for many many many months now but with no further signs that he wants to ever stop pooping and peeing in a diaper. When we were looking at different daycares to send him I started to think about how close he is getting to 3 yrs old and how that was always my goal to have him potty trained by then. So on Friday Jan 6th, on a whim, I asked Donovan if he wanted to try wearing underwear that day and he eagerly agreed. Win number one. I had him pee, then put his undies on and potty training was underway! (I was home by myself with both him and Reese, who was super crabby and clingy so what possessed me to think this was a good idea is beyond me). I didn't really have a plan, just try to get him to pee every hour and put a diaper on him for his nap. 20 minutes later, first accident. 20 minutes after that, second accident. So far, not so good. In the past when we had tried underwear and he had an accident we went straight to the diaper but I was determined to see this experiment through at least until the afternoon so I kept putting underwear back on. The first accident was a lot, the second barely any and the rest of the day, dry!!!!!! So he learned like I hoped he would, that it feels yucky to be wet. Fast forward to today and I would say we are doing pretty good overall!

He still wears a diaper at night and naps, except for 2 nights ago and the past 2 days during naps. Both naps were monster ones and he was dry for both but 2 nights ago when he refused to put a diaper on he peed a ton in the bed, but not til 5am so kind of a win I guess. About 50% of the time his diaper is dry in the morning but it is dry after naps about 98% of the time, which is wonderful. He is doing much better about telling us when he has to pee, but originally he wasn't telling us at all so anything is better than nothing. He doesn't have pee accidents very often, unless we let him go a long time between potty breaks without asking if he needs to go, or if we are doing something really fun and different, like when we were going to check out different schools.

Poop on the other hand, now that is a doozy. He has gone poop on the potty multiple times but usually only after he has gone in his underwear a little. And instead of pooping everyday, he goes every other so now that "other" day you have to be on major high alert. Today for instance was one of those days. Now he knows he needs to tell us when he has to poop, so he does, and we RUN to the potty, and we sit. And sit. And sit. He gets stage fright. If I had to estimate I would say we spent close to an hour and a half total today just sitting on the potty, waiting for the poop to come. He had two minuscule accidents with poop tonight too so I know he really had to go but he would just clam (or clamp) up. And tomorrow is his first day of school so I was getting sweaty just thinking that I was going to drop this ticking time bomb off with them and hope that when I picked him up at night that they didn't tell us that we were not welcome to come back and also, they had never seen that much poop come out of one child. I got so desperate that, against my better judgement, I offered to put him in a regular diaper so he could just poop in there. He agreed but then no poop. So right before bed he always pees, and instead he said "I have to poop". Well duh but we had heard that before. 20 minutes later, he was still on the potty and he would occasionally stand up and say "I feel bad" and I felt so bad for him. I know he was hurting but he just could not get it to work out. We were trying everything, reading "Everyone Poops", promising toys, I even let him ea a kit kat thinking that might put him over the edge. Then suddenly, about 30 minutes in, he produced. A man sized production. He was so cute he said "My tummy doesn't hurt anymore!" as soon as it was over. And I felt the weight of a thousand potty training kids, lift of my shoulders when I realized we might not have a massive accident tomorrow at day care and get kicked out.

All in all though I would say he is doing very good (other than poop). He is so proud of himself, loves that he wears "underwears" or "undies" as he will call them. Sometimes he requests to run around in only his underwear, and we let him. When we ask him how he is doing or if he needs to go pee and he doesn't he tells us, "No, I'm doing pretty good." For deciding to see if we could potty train him on a whim, having done no research, I am pretty proud of us. Now if only we can learn from our poop experience tonight and have more successes like that.

Week #1 in the books

Week number 1 in the new job is officially over. I had training all of this week, and will have it all of next as well so it will be a while before I actually start doing what I was hired to do. So far I have learned that I need to wear my glasses on days that I will be sitting in the computer lab, doing computer based training all day because round about 2pm my contacts dry up and try to cement themselves to my eyeballs and that is not conducive to learning. In other news, so far I have met a lot of nice people and I am excited about the other new people that were hired that I will be working directly with. The most fun part of my orientation was walking up to wear all the new people were gathering on Monday morning and before I even had a chance to scan around the room I heard someone say "Is that ELLEN?" all loud and I look over and it was Lanita, one of my best friends from nursing school whom I have not talked to since her wedding several years ago. It was so fun to see her there and to already have such a great friend to start this process out with. And I'll always have someone near and dear to me working at SLUH who I can meet for lunch dates and what not down the road. I was very impressed with the majority of speakers that came and talked with us during our orientation. There seems to be a true sense of pride at SLUH and people are genuinely excited to be a part of the hospital. I hope that wasn't just a show. I hope to spend many, happy years here now that I made the change!

In other news the kids seem to be adjusting well as far as us jacking around their schedules goes. Reese went to her babysitters on Tuesday and Thursday, Ms Amanda. Ms Amanda is a former coworker of mine who I love and trust so I have no reservations leaving Reese with her. I know she will treat her and love her as if she was her own. Ms Amanda has a 6 month old boy and Reese is the only other child she is watching so it seems like the perfect situation. Little Nicholas and Reese are fast friends already, taking turns on the push car and being carried around by Ms Amanda while they chase the dog. Reese did well both days, eating all her food and drinking her bottles like a good girl and even taking good naps! I am so proud of her. On Tuesday after we got her home and she slept and ate I noticed she had a rash on her head and chest and back. Of course I panicked, thinking she was allergic to Ms Amanda's and I was going to have to smuggle her to work with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but alas, we brought her her own food to Ms Amanda's (instead of what Ms Amanda had made) and no rash yesterday so hopefully it was just a random rash or she just didn't agree with something she ate that day.

Donovan got to go to his preschool with Daddy for a little on Tues and Thurs. The school he is going to wants the kids to get to have two or three short, "testing it out" days, before you drop the poor kid off for 9 hours, so that they have an easier transition. I think it will be great for him so I am excited. Tom admitted he is having a harder time with Donovan going to school that he is with Reese. (Adorable). He said it is because Reese doesn't know any different but he worries that Donovan will act up or will need him and he is worried how Donovan will do. Just another reason why I love that man. I think Donovan is excited and from what Tom said, he seemed to like school. He tells us "I'm gonna go by myself" because I have been prepping him for next week when I drop him off instead of someone staying with him. Fingers crossed that goes ok.

The other 3 days of the week the kids were with Grammie Q, that saintly woman, bright and early. Today was a little rough for Donovan with Grammie asking, "Did you say you signed Donovan up for 5 days a week school?" Two year olds can test the reserve of even the best of the Grammies. From here on out though, Donovan will only go to Grammie's on Wed and Fri with the rest of the days being at Preschool. That means Reese will have Grammie Q all to herself on Mondays so they can have some girl time. I think that will be good for both of them. Big brother is fun, but a girl needs some one on one time on occasion as well.

Also, Reese has finally seemed to shake the majority of the cold she has been hanging on to for the past 2 weeks. It is still there a little but no fever for 5 plus days and yesterday we finally saw the return of her personality and the Reese we know and love (and really, really missed!) Crabby, clingy Reese is a lot to handle, especially with a potty training brother (more on that at another post, coming this weekend). Since yesterday she has been a joy that doesn't have to hang on you at every second. She smiles, she talks, she laughs, she even eats! And as a bonus she has been sleeping through the night (like she was prior to the devil cold)! As a matter of fact, both kids have been going to bed by 8pm, sometimes as early as 7:30pm and what a difference that makes! You can actually get a bit done before bed, who knew? She also has been going down, and not making a peep. No protesting or fighting, just sleeping. It is lovely.

Ok that is all I have the energy for now. It is Friday night at 10:15pm, the husband is downstairs making music, and both kids are asleep so you know what that means. Yes, sleep for mommy. Goodnight all!

8 months old

Poor sweet baby Reese. She got to usher in her 8 month birthday with a fever and a cold that she has been fighting off for the past week plus. She is the picture of pathetic. Eyes crusted over when she wakes up from sleeping at night, nose constantly running, screaming when her nose is wiped, breathing like a rhinoceros, VERY low reserve (really crying at anything), and just crabby all around. I wish there was something I could do for her but I think we just have to cross our fingers this cold is going to see it's self out very soon. You are not welcome cold. Our little girl needs a break. On to happier things though...here is the rest of what she has been up to this past month.

Eating: Still breastfeeding, yeay! This is when Donovan stopped so I am pleased we are still going strong. She nurses exclusively from me when I was home and seems satisfied so that is good. I am nervous how my supply will hold up with the new job and the good chance that I might spend some time standing and pumping in a public bathroom during my first week of training so we will see. She is also eating 3 solid meals a day, 1-1.5 hours after she drinks milk. Her morning one she usually gobbles up, her afternoon one she eats about half (1 stage 2 food container with some dry cereal mixed in each meal) and then for dinner cereal and milk and a fruit and cereal and she usually has no problem eating all of that. She also loves finger foods, especially her yogurt melts. She is drinking milk 5 times a day, sometimes 6 on an off day. She usually gets up for a feeding at 5:45-6:30am and then goes back to sleep until somewhere in the 8 o'clock hour. That's gonna change soon with the new job so next month will be totally different I am sure. We haven't tried any stage 3 foods but we will when we have to buy her more food next. On a somewhat eating-related note: she doesn't spit up a fraction of the amount she used to. Thank you cruising stage! Hopefully this means we can cut the Pepcid out, which we have been skipping some nights to test it out. So far so good.

Sleeping: Still going to be in the 8 o'clock hour and sleeping until her first feeding and then going back to bed until the am 8 o'clock hour. She is down to only 2 naps (unless she is sick or it is a weird day) and one is usually 30 min and the other is bigger (anywhere from 1.5-3 hours but usually in the 1.5-2.5 hour range.) Still swaddled, still on her stomach, still nothing else in her crib.

Development: Major developments this month are pulling herself up, cruising, walking when holding on to your fingers, and crawling on all fours (something she started within the past week and a half). She really doesn't crawl much at all anymore, army, all fours or otherwise because she would prefer to walk where she wants to go while holding on to your fingers for guidance. She prefers this above all other forms of travel, even over the lion, which she loves to push and be pushed on. She has an amazing balance for how young she is so I would not be surprised if she is walking by 10 months. In fact, our aching backs are counting on it. She is so steady and sometimes can walk (for short distances when she isn't trying to hurry {read: "catch the dog"}) holding on to only one of our fingers. She definitely has big ideas and plans for where she wants to go. It is really fun because she leads you exactly where she wants to go, and as mentioned before, that is often in hot pursuit of petey. She is so sweet when she is standing holding on to something and wants to walk with you instead. She smiles real big at you and flirts with you, then does this kind of upside down wave with her hand like she is telling you to "come here." Then you give her one hand/finger and she zero's in on that next hand like, "I am still learning, I need that second hand, ok?" It really does make her so happy. That coupled with her crabbiness/neediness/fussiness this past week and come to thing of it, I have barely seen her crawl at all recently. She is ready to be onto bigger and better things.

Believe it or not, this is a smile. And one of the very few from today at that. This was her crawling after me when I walked away from her. All fours baby!

With the mobility and the pulling up, nothing is safe from her now.

This caption is for my LOL cats loving husband. "I can haz food?"


Enjoying the cozy coupe, one of the few places she is happy this past week.


One of the best things about this past month is the change that has taken place in the relationship with Reese and Donovan. She is learning how to play with him and he is learning she isn't just a pest. It really makes all the stress and hard work that two kids are, totally worth it. Donovan loves pushing Reese around in the Cozy Coupe downstairs and she eats it up. He also pushes her very carefully on the lion as well, another thing she loves. Tom and I love it because we get a break and both kids are happy. Donovan also has started giving Reese "horsey" rides, where he crawls around and she rides around on him like a rider on a horse (I hold on to her for stability of course). But by far the best thing they have started doing is playing together in the car. They started it coming home from Tom's parent's house with Tom one day a couple weeks ago and they do it almost every time they are in the car together now. There is this one particular soft, monster rattle that Reese has that we usually give her in the car and she hold it out, as if to offer it to Donovan. Then Donovan reaches for it and sometimes she rips it back out of his reach and they both have giggle fits. Sometimes he takes it and when he gets it he says "Thank you VERY much!" and then they both giggle and giggle and giggle. Then he'll give it back and they continue the game. I love everything about it. Listening to them giggle together, that's my happy place.

Reese testing out the horsey. The horsey is tired though so he is laying down.

And once the rider, now the horsey.

Taking a turn in the tunnel.

We have lots of big changes coming this month, my new job and the kids new daycares. Here is to hoping for all the changes to be good ones and for that dang cold to go kick rocks!

Snow!

Today we had the first snow of the season, and although it was quite the pain in the butt for travel, and it was freezing cold, we enjoyed it! Donovan and I went to go check out a school for him and after we came home he wanted to go play in the snow. So we both bundled up and went outside. For all of 10 minutes but it was a successful 10 minutes. In that 10 minutes Donovan managed to make his first snow angel (he walked right into the snow, hesitated for 5 seconds, then flopped down on his knees, then laid down and rolled to his back and made an angel with his eyes tight shut. The best), eat lots of snow (and some grass), and throw lots of snow balls in the street. He wanted to make a snowman but it was way to cold and the snow was too dry for that (also there wasn't that much). I was just happy he got to put those snow boots and snow bibs I bought for him this year to use since this might be our only chance this winter.

This is an out-take but I love it. Pre-snow playing. All bundled up.


It was less than 20 degrees but he would have stayed out there all day if I would have let him.

Brother's kitchen is fun

NYE

New years eve we had our friends Maria, Tom and Claire over for the night. I worked that day but got off early so instead of starting the party after I got home at 8pm, we got to start it when our guests came at 6. The kids were adorable together. Donovan and Claire get along so well and even played downstairs by themselves for a little bit (although Donovan was not to sure about that idea). They also spent a good amount of time standing against the door in the kitchen, counting to random numbers together, and then racing around the living and dining room, back to the kitchen door. Donovan even had his first friend sleepover- sort of. Claire slept in a sleeping bag on his floor until Maria and Tom took her home at 1am. Us adults had a great time too, lots of good adult conversation time. The next morning it was pretty cute, when Donovan woke up the next morning he popped up and the first thing he did was look on his floor and say "Claire!" They love each other.

The highlight of the night was when Donovan and Claire danced together. Tom O. told them to go dance and he said to Donovan, "You be the prince and Claire will be the princess." I figured Donovan wouldn't know what that meant because there aren't a lot of princes in books and shows about trucks and trains but it didn't matter because either way, he told Claire "I'm the prince and you are the princess" several times.

This is the prince and princess waiting for their music ("tale as old as time" from beauty and the beast) to begin.Claire twirled herself.

Once again, when Donovan and Claire were holding hands I over heard him saying "This is adorable."

Reese and her lion

Our sexy little sleeper

There has been a handful of occasions that we have gone to get Reese out of her crib after a nap and she looks likes this.


What a nut.

Some big changes for the new year

So for the past few months I haven't posted as many updates as I have wanted because I have been really busy. Busy with work, busy with the kids, busy with the holidays and also looking for a new job. I have known for a while now that I wasn't meant to be a labor and delivery nurse, or a bedside nurse in general, forever. So I had decided last year when I got pregnant with Reese that on my maternity leave I would update my resume and start looking and applying for new jobs. Of course I waited until the last week of leave to start doing that but I did finally update my resume. Just to learn that you really need cover letters to to apply for anything worth while. Long story long, for these past several months when I wasn't looking for jobs, writing cover letters and applying for jobs, I was feeling bad about not looking for jobs, writing cover letters and applying for jobs. So that was the reason for much of the lack up updates.

But now that is all over because as of two Thursdays ago I have accepted a new position at SLU hospital transplant clinic as a Vascular Access RN Coordinator. So I will be making sure patients with vascular access needs (dialysis patients), and patients with liver and gall bladder issues have all their appointments and are getting the care they need in an appropriate time. I am so excited for this new phase of my life, I think it will be a perfect fit for me. In addition to that, it is Monday-Friday 8am-4:30pm, no weekends, no holidays, salary and a nice pay bump. So all in all, a lot of good changes for me. I will miss having random days off with the kids, but it is going to be so nice to know I am off every weekend and holiday and to do little things like have dinner together every night. How much do I know about the subject matter that I am going to have to become an expert on pretty fast? Not much but I am a smart girl so I can figure it out. I have a week between my last day at St John's and my first day st SLU so I plan on using some of that time to start reading up on it. My new boss said it will take me about 6 months to feel like I really know what I am doing so I have to remember to give myself that and not stress that I don't know everything right now.

How did a labor and delivery nurse go from delivering babies to working at a transplant clinic you ask? Well I have a friend who does the transplant surgeries and it sounds so interesting. And I have always thought care coordination or case management sounded like something I would like to do so I started looking for transplant coordinator jobs. BJC and SLU are the two hospitals in the St. Louis area that have those services. BJC shot me down immediately (as in I am pretty sure no one even read my resume). And I couldn't get the HR contact to return my emails or calls. Then I applied at SLU and heard nothing. I was starting to think about transferring to a med-surg unit in the hospital to make myself for marketable for case management/care coordination type of jobs when I saw an opening for a RN in SLU's transplant clinic. I thought maybe they would hire me, I would get to know the subject matter really well, and then they would eventually hire me into the coordinator position. So I applied and heard nothing until about 3 weeks later when I got a call. They apparently had called and left a message right after I applied but my phone messes up sometimes so I never got the message. So I had a phone interview. The next day I was offered a face to face interview for the following Thursday. That Thursday I interviewed with the HR lady, then the head of the transplant clinic. During the interview with the head of the clinic, I mention that my goal is to ultimately become a coordinator, to which she starts to tell me about the 2 different coordinator positions open, none of which are transplant coordinators but one is this vascular coordinator. By the end of the interview, I realize that she is considering me for the coordinator position. So she tells me the next step is to meet with some physicians and then have a peer interview. We set that up for the following Tuesday. Tuesday comes and I have my peer interview followed by the meeting with the physician. I felt like it went well so I was pretty confident I was at least going to get an offer for the RN position at the clinic. I just hoped it was a good enough monetary offer to be able to take it since we would have to put the kids in part time day care. They told me I would be hearing from HR by the end of the week. So on Wed (the next day), I am at work and I get a call from SLU, I dash into the bathroom to answer my phone and get the news that they are offering me the coordinator position for enough moolah that we could swing it with child care and not eat saltines every day!!! It was so exciting and a huge relief. So on Thursday I accepted the job. (Later on that same Thursday my sister was offered a job and the next day Tom's brother got engaged, we kind of like to steal each others thunder. Not really, but on a serious note, what an awesome 2 days for our family).

My first day is Jan 16th and my last day at St John's is this coming Saturday the 7th. It will definitely be bittersweet leaving there. I have come to care about so many of the girls there but I know I can't stay, doing something I don't love, just because my co-workers are awesome. (Well...most of them I mean, I do work with almost 200 people, they can't all be winners). It is scary going somewhere new and having to learn so much in a short amount of time but I am up for the challenge and I know I will do well if I set my mind to it, which I have.

The other part of this is that Tom's mom is going to watch the kids M,W,F which means that we need to find care for the kids on Tu, Thurs. I know this will be great for Donovan, he needs to go to school and play with kids his age and learn new things. I was just having a hard time thinking of where I would feel comfortable sending Reese. Thanks to the magic of facebook though, we have found Reese's daycare and I am so relieved. She will be going to one of my former co-workers house's who lives pretty close. Her name is Amanda or "Ms Amanda" as we will be calling her. She is wonderful and I trust her and she is just going to be watching her own son Nicholas, and Reese for now. I know she will love and treat Reese like her own so I have no reservations sending her there. This week we will visit some places and decide where Donovan will go. We have one place in mind we really want to send him, so fingers crossed they have an opening and it work's out.

So anyways, 2012 is going to be a year of big changes, hopefully all good!

Christmas overview

We had a wonderful Christmas weekend celebration, complete with me getting called off work on Christmas day! Saturday my sister came over early and we made some gooey butter cookies and Oreo balls. MMMmmmmm. Then my parents joined us that evening and we ate a nice dinner together and then opened presents. Donovan shocked me with how well he did that night. When my parents got there and brought in all the presents he was so excited but I told him that he had to wait until after we ate dinner to open any. And he was so good! He didn't pitch a fit or whine, although he did ask a few times after that so Grandma had the great idea to let him open one present which was a shake and go Lightning McQueen car that he ended up playing with for the next 20 minutes like a perfect gentleman. He could have not opened any more present that night and he would have been perfectly happy. He actually ate a regular dinner with us too (pulled beef and cheesy potatoes) so that was special (anything not macaroni or grilled cheese these days is kind of a big deal). Then we opened up the rest of the presents and again, he was so good. Helped Reese and myself open our presents and played so nicely with the presents he got. He did have a hard time going to bed that night but that was to be expected.

Reese's booty reindeer.


Big shake n' go lightning was the center of attention for the night.

Donovan would take the presents to grandpa, and grandpa would tell him who to give him to. He needed help with this big one though.
Tom and I got an Ipad from our parents. We fancy!

Donovan cutting his wooden food.
Can you tell Donovan was excited about his drag racer track?





Christmas morning both kids got up early, and Donovan was again so good. Taking turns opening presents and all. Then we did our traditional breakfast casserole with Jenna and got ready and headed out to Tom's parents house. More presents over there and then lunch, which he was way too busy to touch. Somehow we did manage to get him down that day for a nap, and then after that it was straight to my Aunt and Uncle's house for celebration with my extended family. Donovan was wiped by 7:30 so we went home pretty early, but then when he got home and saw all of his toys again, wouldn't you know who got a second wind. All in all a great weekend.

Donovan's cool new garbage truck that Reese got for him for Christmas. It's actually a recycle truck but Donovan pushes it around and says "Gawbidge, gawbidge, gawbidge" and it makes Tom and I laugh so we don"t correct him.
At grammie and paw paw's.

Once again, Donovan passed out all the presents under the direction of Paw Paw.
Reese's new babydoll.
Tom's special brother and his new fiance decided to test out our camera and it"s self timer. I have about 20 variations of this picture.
4 generations of the Q family. Grandma is 97!
4 generations of the H family.

Reese seemed to enjoy her first Christmas. She thinks her presents are ok but brother's are really cool. Brother got a big kitchen that she wants to stand up with and play on constantly. Probably her favorite present is the blanket she got from Donovan that is just like his favorite blanket, except for pink. She wants his sooo bad and he is very possessive of his so it was the perfect gift for her. Good choice of present Donovan! Christmas day was a little over whelming for little missy so she was a little fussier than normal. She is in the beginning of the stranger danger phase so she was a wary of all the strange people.