Five Years, Twelve Months, Two Weeks, three Days...

I cannot believe that Kaylie's birthday is just two days away!  But most of all I can't believe that it's been a year since I started this blog and didn't write in it quite as often as I'd hope to.  That in itself makes me very sad.

Let me update...both kids just had birthdays making Elysabeth 4 (an age she was quite proud to arrive at) and Alekzander 2.  Elysabeth has been on anti-sseizure medication for about 9 months now and everything is going well.  She had a mild seizure in the spring just before her first follow-up appointment with the neurologist, he credited it to her growth and just upped her dosage and we've been fine every since. 

Both kids are now in school and finally loving it.  Alekzander had a rough first couple of weeks; he cried everyday when I dropped him off but he's finally starting to come around and being OK with the whole drop off and Mommy will be back later situation. 

My work schedule has changed quite a bit due to Mom's health.  I am now working part-time while the kids are in school and during Kevin's day off.  I am having so much fun spending more time with the kids.  I feel like I'm really getting to know them.  I'm seeing all the things they do everyday rather than hearing about them when I pick them up at the end of the day.  This is what I intended for motherhood to be and I can't wait until we are in a financial situation where I don't have to work at all and finally get a little bit of time for myself.  However due to this change in schedule and reduction in income we have decided that we are not going to purchase a new house (something we've been saving for the last two years to purchase), we are going to stay in our little house that we have severely outgrown.  But I'm willing to give up my new dream home if it means that I get to watch my kids grow up! 

In my previous post I promised photographs of a couple of projects that I was working on.  I'm happy to report that the family binder is working out great for us; I have however made tweaks and changes to it as the year has gone on and I'll post all about it very soon.  The chore chart however was discontinued shortly after we began to use it.  It turns out that Elysabeth doesn't really care much about how many stickers were on the chart.  She was just as happy with one as she was with all 7, so I figured there was not point in continuing to use it.  I still have it up in the kitchen and I'll be glad to post photographs of it. 

Now that I'm home more often I'm going to try to blog at least once a week with some type of project or recipe or even just some thoughts.  We are planning on doing some renovations to our little house and I'd like to blog about the progress and changes we are making. 

I'll be back soon! 

Five Years, Three Months, Three Weeks, Six Days...

Being a mother is all about the little things...I love the sound of Alekzander's laugh when he realizes that the move Cars is on the TV. He gives this hearty laugh and gets all excited like he's never seen the movie in his life. And starts screaming Ka-Ciao (that's what he calls Lightning McQueen) and Maty (that's what he calls Mater).

So Elysabeth's neurologist appointment went well. He ran a couple of little tests on her like putting some balls on a stick, asked her some colors, had her follow a light simple stuff like that. I'm not sure what he was looking for. But he put her on anti-seizure medication and thinks that she'll be on it for about a year before they take her off of it to see how she does. We'll have to see him every three months and have bloodwork before every visit

Five Years, 3 Months, 3 Days...

Sorry that it's been so long since I've posted...I've skipped quite a few things, but it's been quite hectic.

Let's see...last time I posted was Halloween. Thanksgiving was complicated as always, 15 plus people in my tiny house trying to cook in my even smaller kitchen.

Here are some pictures of the kids on Thanksgiving.

We also made a weekend trip to Dallas for Shannon's graduation from UNT; that was an interesting trip. Very short and hectic with the majority of the time spent in the car. Someday I'd like to go to Dallas for more than one day. LOL

Christmas Eve we went to my brother Jose's house for Nochebuena...roasted pig and all. We took the opportunity that the kids were all dressed in coordinating outfits to get some pictures. However Zander as always had his own plans and refused to pose with the girls. But here are some pictures of the girls in front of the Christmas tree...Elysabeth and my niece Isabella.

Here is Zander playing with one of his favorite toys from this Chirstmas...the boy loves Cars!
Christmas morning was awesome...this has been by far the funnest Christmas to date! Elysabeth finally understood that Santa brings presents and we left him cookies and milk and we also left some carrots for his reindeer. Here she is opening some presents. She got so many presents she honestly got tired of opening gifts.
Zander got some help from Daddy...he lost interest after he opened one. He then wanted to play.
This last picture is Elysabeth on New Year's Eve after dinner. We went to dinner at Brio just the 4 of us and when we came home I shot some pictures of Ellie in front of our Christmas tree. Zander was asleep by this time, so there were not pics of him.

Amidst all this we are still waiting for the day of Elysabeth's neurologist appointment. She had another seizure on the 22nd of December while spending the night at her grandparents house. We didn't take her to the ER or even to the doctor as Dr. Haggerty agreed that nothing else could be done until she was the neurologist. The appointment is next week. Hopefully we'll have some answers by then.

I made some family resolutions with regards to organization and cleanliness. I created a family binder to keep track of chores on a weekly and monthly basis. I've also been better about creating menus and putting together grocery lists. I'll create a separate post for that project with pictures. I've created an inventory of my coupons to ensure that I'm using the coupons I have and ones that are about to expire. I'm also in the middle of creating a chore chart for Elysabeth, I'll post that one as well.

Holidays: Halloween - Part Two

Holidays: Halloween

Carving Pumpkins!!!!


Every year Kevin carves Pumpkins with the kids. They love the idea of getting all dirty with "pumpkin guts"; but when it comes down to it and they actually touch them they want nothing to do with it. But it still makes for some cute pictures.

Five Years, Three Weeks, Five Days...

Sleep training is beginning today. Alekzander has not slept through the night in his own bed in over a month. So today I decided to lay him in his bed still awake and see how long I can hold out before I go in there to get him.

It is very difficult to share my bed with a toddler; and I knew that this would be very difficult for him because he is very stubborn. Right now he is not crying he is screaming at the top of his lungs!!!

On another note, we recieved results for Elysabeth's test. They found something on her EEG. We are waiting to hear back from the Neurology department from TCH in order to recieve more details as well as how we are going to proceed with the finding.

Projects: Elysabeth's Room

So Elysabeth officially got her own room last weekend! Originally when Zander was born they shared a room and nobody was sleeping! Inevitablly one or the other woke up in the middle of the night always waking the other requiring two parents to get out of bed (one for each kid). The system was not working for us. I was very reluctant to utilize the room we had set up as an office as one of the kids rooms because its on the side of the house that faces the main street of the neighborhood. But for the sake of sanity I had to give in.

We had already built and moved into the room a hand-me-down Pottery Barn bunk bed given to us and the matching dresser. However the room still housed Elysabeth's old crib (that we moved in there for Zander to sleep in before we switched Elysabeth over), my desk with Kevin's computer (that included two monitors) and the shelf with both printers and all the networking boxes.

After taking furniture apart and moving it into the garage and rearranging the furniture to make it hers I wished I would have taken a before picture...but sadly I did not. So here are the after pics:

The toile fabric is from her nursery. I always intended for elements from the nursery be used in her big girl room.

My friend Susannah made this for Elysabeth for her christening. It's a magnet board!

I made this to hang Elysabeth's play clothes. Super easy to make... One piece of wood and 4 drawer knobs.

I painted the wood (we bought it at Home Depot; its supposed to be for house numbers) black to match the magnet board. I got the drawer knobs at Target. Simply drilled 4 holes in order to insert the drawer knobs, added hanging hooks to the back. I'm thinking that I want to add something else to it but I haven't figured out just what yet. Any ideas or suggestions feel free to comment below.