Indian Summer Day

Outside with the doggy Bosco, one of my best friends!










Decided I'm thristy from all this playing with the dog. Good thing mommy and daddy leave this cooler out. I'm self sufficient!!








I'm a happy boy as daddy looks on proudly! Now how do you get this thing open?






Come on mom, open it, I want my Miller!! :)

Cool Milestones for Joey

I forgot to add this to my last update. Joey is now doing a very good "itsy bitsy spider." He LOVES that song. He's done the spider part for a long time now but he's added the "washed the spider out" part and "out came the sun" too! He's also doing peek-a-boo too! He will cover his own face (not always his eyes) and wait for you to say peek-a-boo to him and he'll cover again! It's so cute.

In swimming he's made a giant leap forward. He's always done very well but then we took the summer off and I thought for sure he would have forgotten things. Well over the past month he's has consistantly been closing his eyes just prior to doing under water and blowing out to keep water from going in his mouth! It's wonderful. He's also trying to jump off the wall to mommy but doesn't quite get air after he bends his knees! LOL He will also hold onto the wall and then reach for me and let go of it to come to me and visa versa!!!!

Wow, he's getting sooooo dang big and growing so much so fast!

And more pics

Joey's first professional haircut!
I love my Joey and my Joey loves me!
See what happens when you leave food laying around when there's a toddler in the area???
ooooohhhh...doggy makes good pillow and backrest!
Handsome boy!!! Beautiful blue eyes just like his daddy

More pics

Mr Smiley loves the camera!
Joey fits perfect in this box! Silly boys
Did someone put something in that sippy other than milk or water?? LOL
Love his laughs!
Joey and his girlfriend, they get along soo well together.

Ultrasound pics of Joey's little brother

I went today to have an ultrasound done of Joshua. I got quite a few pics, here are the ones that I have on disk.....my 2nd son is doing GREAT!!!!!

Joey goes on Vacation!

Joey went on his first vacation ever. We all went to the Niagara Falls area of New York!! It was a nice little vacation, more of a business trip for daddy but we got to do a little sight seeing and cross the border to see the falls. Joey loved the falls and did very well with the long car ride. Can I just say portable DVD players are a God send!!!???!!!! If not for the DVD player Joey would have been just miserable. As it was he had a difficult time sleeping in the car for some odd reason and we had to stop about every 100miles to stretch his legs out (mine too) as he appeared to get cramped up. Those dang car seats aren't meant for comfort I'm afraid, just safety!

One really cool thing about our trip was getting to meet an internet friend and her little girl who is the same age as Joey, for the first time. It was wonderful to finally meet and I hope we can stay in closer touch now too!!!

Another update on the boys

Yesterday I had a Level II u/s done to check up on Josh. He's doing very well. All the body part are there and appear to be functioning at they should!!! I got to see him swallow, that was so cool. He's measuring ahead now. At my 6w u/s he was 4 days behind. At my 8w u/s he was 1 day behind now at my 20w u/s he was 3 days ahead which changes my EDD from 2/2/07 to 1/31/07 and makes me instead of 20w today 20w3d today!! Yeah!!!! Oh and he was 13oz (approx). If I remember correctly Joey was 12oz at this age (well younger by a week).
My Josh is a wild child. He was very uncooperative with the u/s tech. She would no sooner zone in on an organ or bone or area to measure and he'd flip away so she couldn't! He was flipping around so much he's really making me nervous that he's going to knot up his umbilical cord or get it wrapped around his neck too much/too tightly! Joey was such as quiet child in-utero. He was uncooperative in the sense that he'd be in a bad position and not move out of it! LOL

Now Joey had his 15month pediatrician appt today. He is doing great as well! He was 6lbs 13oz and 19in long at birth. Today, 15mos later he is 23lbs 5oz and 30 1/4 in long!! That's just under 25% for both! Which is great because he's never gotten above 10% in height before. Dr said he thinks Joey will be around daddy's height (5'10) not 5'2 like I was dreading for him.
Everything is great, nothing was wrong. He's teething well, no ear infections, no other issues. He's a happy and heathy little boy and dr was impressed with how happy he was an the lack of stranger anxiety!!

He goes again on his 18mos birthday (12/15/06) then not again until his 2nd birthday!! WOW!! I can't believe it, it seems like that's just around the corner. My little baby is growing so fast it's scary! I'll post a picture later when I get my camera downloaded into the computer!

Update on the boys!!!

I had a doctor appt this past Wednesday. It was just a regular check up and he threw in an ultrasound to verify baby's gender. I was so excited and yet while I feel the baby kicking all the time now I still get nervous at the ultrasounds. Something that happens frequently when someone has suffered a loss in the past.
Anyway all looks great. It appeared that all the boy parts were still there so we're definatly having a Joshua James come January!!!!

I was really very excited. I didn't care either way, boy or girl, but after thinking it was a boy for over a week I'd gotten all these plans in my head and was so excited about them. I think I would have been a little disappointed if he'd said it was a girl. Not that I"d hate to have a girl but I wouldn't be able to do any of my plans with a girl.

Since it's a boy he gets to take over big brother's room and Joey will be moving into a big boy room. Hubby and I already went and picked out what theme we want to decorate his room in and many of the thing in the spare room have been removed. So soon we can start building his new room and that's so exciting!!!

Joey's going to have a sports themed room in mostly blue with red and white accents. I've got it all picked out and in our registry at T-R-U!!!

Joey is doing wonderful. He's going to be a great big brother. He already knows where the baby is. When you ask him he'll come over to me and life up my shirt and pat my belly!! I'm sure he has NO clue what a baby is or that it's in mommy's tummy but it's cute none the less!

He's still getting all those toofies in all at once. One molar has made some good progress but the rest are still pretty dang slow.

He's eating great and I've tested tomato stuff on him recently and he's had no problems with diaper rash as a result so I guess he can start having tomato stuff again!

Teething Toddlers

OMG is about all I can say. Along with oh my poor little boy! Joey has decided that it's fun to get all his teeth at once. (yeah right, like he had a choice in the matter) It started out with my finding the beginnings of 3 molars, then while he was screaming while I held him down to change a diaper I find that he has two teeth (one on either side of the 4 already on top center, I think those are called the laterals??) well those have broken the skin already!! I didn't even know they were coming. Well then this morning I notice he's got one in and the other coming soon on the bottom (laterals). Now he teeths slow, once the tooth breaks the skin it's still another month or so before it grows out to the point it's supposed to reach. So all in all that is 7 teeth he's getting all at the same time. 4 through the skin (one of them is a molar) 2 others you can see are right there and 1 is still swollen and trying to come in!

I have to say he's been in pretty good spirits for 7 toofies all at the same time. No he's not an angel and has been crabby but nothing compaired to what I'd think would have happened!!

IT............is.................a...............

BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm thrilled! Didn't matter to me and we're not quitting yet anyway :) DH wants 3-4 kids total (if my body can take that much).

So anyway, last night at work (really Saturday morning) we were all bored. We can no longer surf the net so we had nothing to occupy our time. Well, then one of the nurses suggests we do a u/s to check gender because my dr wouldn't peek at my last appt. He said we couldn't really tell until 18w due to his machine, of course the one in his office isn't as nice as one to you find in a hospital. Well another nurse says he told her what her daughters gender was at only 11w!! I think he didn't want to take the chance of being too wrong having to u/s through all my excess chub! LOL
So, I'm like, how are we going to do this? Lo and Behold we have these smaller u/s machines for when the doctors place a PICC line in a patient. (PICC line is a type of IV that goes into the inner upper arm, the line is long and travels through the vein, across the chest to the tip of the heart and they can use it to give meds, IV fluids or draw blood) This is usually done in radiology but they use the little u/s's so they can do it in our ICU room so the nurse can assist and doesn't have to travel to radiology (ICU nurses can't allow their patient to go anywhere without them!)

The nurse takes me into an empty room and I lay down in the bed and tries the machine. Well she couldn't see nothing, couldn't even make out a uterus or anything like that. So she gets another machine I didn't know we had and tries it, still nothing. So on a last ditch effort she tries a different wand and BAM there's the baby. It was great, he was jumping all over the place, doing flips, had his left arm up over his head. I think he was very head down because we kept seeing a lot of his really awesome little feet. Finally he showed us between the legs and it looked very much like a blob (scrotum) she said she thought she saw the little penis too and of course just like Joey his little anus was very visable as well.

So since none of us are trained to use an u/s for this type of thing and the machine isn't made for this type of use I'm saying we're 65% sure it's a boy. I wouldn't be too shocked if on the 6th my dr said girl but I'd really want a good shot on his machine to be able to plan for a girl instead of boy. KWIM??

And his name will be Joshua James. We were going btw Benjamin and Joshua but someone who shall remain nameless told me they liked Benji over Joshie because they had a dog names Benji....well how can I name my son their dog's name??? I mean would you name a kid Rover or in our case Bosco!!! NO WAY!!! So Joshua it is :)

Talking Toddlers

While wasting time, awaiting news of my friends newborn baby I'm listening to my son playing and talking to himself in the crib patiently waiting for me to come get him out. Well it hit me, I have an update I need to post...my son is finally and 14 1/2 very long months saying ma-ma!!! He just started it yesterday. He's been saying da-da and daddy forever now but ma-ma was elusive. I was just reminded of it as I'm listening to him now going ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-mum in his crib! Too adorable.

Another newer word, less than a week old is eye. He will say eye and proceed to poke you in the eye to prove his point! LOL

He knows where the nose it but won't say the word yet and isn't very good at pointing to it on demand.

Ok, so that's it for now. ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-mum needs to go get her kid, guess my friend hasn't had that baby yet!

Went to the orchard yesterday

Joey and I met up with some mom's and kids from our playgroup and we went to the orchard. We had a nice time, it's very much a place for kids. There's a big play area, pony ride, train ride (that's really a tractor not a train engine) petting area with goats and chickens and ducks....oh my. Then of course there's the orchard but I'm not sure where it is! We didn't get that far. Oh and there's a maze made out of "maize" stalks! LOL

We it was fun. Joey went on the train while I walked next to him. I couldn't even imagine how I'd get into the cart as it had to step and not door. I just don't bend like I used to and with this big old belly in the way....NO WAY. Lucky for me it went slow so I walked next to it. There was another pregnant mom there too, she is even further along than I so she too walked next to her 22mos old daughter instead of trying to climb into this thing!


Then I put Joey on a real pony. At first I just let him sit there hoping he wouldn't freak out. Then the guy took him for one trip around and that was enough. Joey did real good but I didn't want to push it. Not to mention they take the horse poop and put it in the middle area, you know the area where I am walking! YUCK!!

Well I was pooped, after the trips I did in circles I needed to sit my pregnant rear down and put something in my tummy. So we all went into the restaurant and had lunch. I have to say that with 4 mom's, 1 grandma, and 5 kids (6,3, 22mos, and 2 at 14mos) we all did real well! My kid was the whiny one, he was so over tired and missing his nap but it was a great day all together!

Afterwards we came home and both of us took a good 2 hr nap!

Lazy day

Joey has this horrible thing right now that he's peeing more than his diapers can hold over night. So every morning when I get him up and change his diaper I have to take his PJ's off him too due to leakage.

Well this particular morning, daddy's army tee shirt was right there. So instead of takeing my lazy butt to get an outfit I decided the tee shirt would suffice for breakfast (works as a great bib too!)

Since my kid is only 10% in height, the tee shirt was longer on him than he is tall! LOL It was just too darn cute though. And he was too adorable trying to get the sleeves to move out of his way when he'd bend over to pick up a toy on the floor!

County fair trip

Well since the State Fair trip was a bust, I though we'd try the county fair as it was not going to be anywhere near the size of the state fair and not have near the amount of people.

Ended up being a good trip. Joey got to see some animals, he really loves pigs!

Then his little girlfriend's grandpa took him to play the ducks. He LOVED that and did very well. He got a little stuffed doggy as his prize.

We had a good time at this fair!

State Fair 2006

Joey took his first trip to the State Fair this year with mommy and her friend from work. Just like his daddy, Joey isn't too fond of big crowds so he didn't have that great of a time unfortunately. Mom's biggest reason for wanting to take him was for the carousel ride. As soon as he got on it he was in heaven, just loved the horse and was petting it. Then that darn old carousel started to move! Oh my, that is not good. Joey don't like when the horsey moves. Maaaaaaaa, get me offfffff this thing!!!! Save me ma-ma!!!!
Ok I'm going to jump, ma-ma you catch me ok?!

Well that was it for the ride. I held him the rest of the time and boy is that ride slow when you just want to get the heck off! After that we went to the expo to maybe buy Joey something for this first time trip but he didn't like the crowd in there in spite of the fact that it was air conditioned. So we didn't get anything and just left. We had a good time, while it lasted!

More toofies!!

Joey is 14months old today!!! What a big boy he is. I think he has recently had a growth spurt, he appears taller! All this past weekend he was a very crabby clingy boy. I chalked it up to teething but being old, he doesn't let me look into his mouth. So yesterday I took a chance and stuck my finger in there to feel for any new toofies coming through....low and behold he had two, one on the left bottom (molar) and one on the right top (molar). Today I stuck my finger in to see if there was any more progress (all I could feel yesterday was a few bumps that had broken the skin, not a full tooth yet) and today there was another one on the bottom, right side this time (it did feel swollen yesterday so I'm not all that shocked)!!!

He's also truly decided he has no fear of falling or heights. Not only did he fall off his cars which are made for sitting on, today but he was also throwing himself off this rubbermaid container that I put his daddy's army stuff in! Luckly he was falling towards me, this container was pretty high for that sort of thing! I guess my boy is ALL boy and I'm going to have major heart attacks and he's going to have multiple numerous cuts and bruises from all his antics. LOL

Where oh where do I start now.

Here's a recent picture of my boy.
Joey is 13months old and is the joy of our lives. His gross motor skills have always been way ahead of schedule. The only thing he did late was roll and once he rolled at 6 months he was crawling and everything else in a flash! He was first sitting up unassisted for a minute or more at only 3mos. Talk about early!! He's walking very very well but still falls quite a bit and not running yet, though he can walk pretty darn fast when he wants to. He loves the water and loves to swim. He does great when I put his head under the water and has just recently started putting his face in the water all by himself!

What he's not doing right now is talking much. He will say da-da and daddy and ba-ba which means the dog. No ma-ma for his primary caregiver though. Oh and he's is such a daddy's boy. Oh my it's amazing what a switch he made between me and my husband! Now when daddy is around, mama is chopped liver. What a little stinker he is.

We have this really nice bedtime ritual right now. Daddy would brush Joey's teeth and while doing that I would get his water cup ready and make sure his crib was clear for him. Then we'd both take him and put him in the crib and that was it for the night. Well daddy wasn't home the other night so mommy took over. NO WAY was he going to sleep without daddy! OMG it was amazing. Finally I figured out what the problem was and daddy put him down and we didn't hear a peep out of him again. Since then we've reversed roles as daddy will be out of town soon and I don't know what this kid will do without him!

Oh and my most important news to bring this blog up to date is that Joey is going to be a big brother in late January/early February! We still don't know if it's boy or girl (we may not tell until birth either!) But we're very excited. Joey, however, hasn't got a clue. Oh well, he'll figure it out soon enough. Officially my due date is February 2, 2007 but I will be induced by 39w if I don't go sooner. All of us, me, hubby and Joey have odd day birthdays so I talked to the doctor already about going in maybe January 26th or 28th and hopefully having the baby on the 27th or 29th! Then we can all have odd birthdays. In my family I'm the only one with a odd birthday, I wonder if that's why I see very little of them, aren't very close to them and they all see each other all the time? To them I'm a bit on the odd side! LOL

Oh well I'm looking for more cute graphics but until I find them here's more Winnie the Pooh! (my favorite not Joey's)

Oh my what a challenge

So my friend has a blog here and has it all set up nice and cute with blinkies and graphics and such. Well I want to copy her. Lord Almighty, what a task that was! Finding out where to put the codes in the big box of codes was tough work and took me hours. But I did it!!! And I'm so proud of myself. Now if I can just find the time to blog on a regular basis it will make it that much more worth while!

See ya later, I gotta get to bed!

Joey James is born

James Albert Jr was born June 15, 2005 at 5:21pm
He was 6lbs 13oz and 19inches long.
I checked into the hospital on Monday evening, the 13th, to be induced. I got settled into my room and around 10pm the nurse gave me a dose of cytotech. At that time she said I was about 1cm which was an improvement from earlier that day when I had an appt with my OB who said was had no dialated at all yet. At around 2am the nurse came back in again and gave me a second dose of the cytotech and at that time she said there'd been no change. I did my best to try to sleep but I was so excited to know I was going to be meeting my baby boy soon I couldn't sleep any more than little cat naps. Around 5am the nurse let me use the bathroom and walk around a bit then I was hooked up to the pitocin drip. It really didn't do a whole lot until around 12:30pm when my OB came in to check me out and decided that no matter what I was going to have this baby, there was no turning back, so he broke my water. After that I had some pretty strong contractions and I so wanted my epidural. Come to find out I couldn't have the epidural because after checking in last night I took my dose of lovenox, a blood thinner, and I had to wait at least 24hrs after that dose before I could have the epidural. I suffered through some horrible contractions until 6pm when finally they decided to take me off the pitocin, as it wasn't doing anything but hurting me anyway. Let me eat and take a whirlpool bath, gave me a dose of morphine and let me sleep for the night. Technically because my water was broken I was still in "labor" but my body was not doing anything to help me deliver this baby. At 5am the following morning the anesthesiologist came in, gave me the epidural. The RN hooked me back up to the pitocin and now we were rocken!! I was having a lot of contractions and finally I was dialating. At 4pm I was finally ready to push and tried a practice push. At that time we stopped and let the nurse call the dr and get the room ready and around 4:45 we started to really try pushing. I was getting three pushes in to every contraction which was great but I don't recommend it! That was a lot of hard work that wasn't necessary. By 5:10pm his head was crowning and I was in 7th heaven just loving that I was finally going to have my baby boy safe and sound in my arms in just a matter of minutes. I got him out to the tops of his ears when the RN said we needed him delivered immediately, she wasn't getting a heartbeat! So I grabbed up my legs and pushed with all my might and in two pushes he was out with a healthy beautiful scream. My OB put my son on my chest while he sewed up the beautiful tears I created by delivering him so fast and I was in love, couldn't take my eyes off him. My James Albert Jr who is nick-named Joey was finally here. We call him Joey because my husband wanted a junior. I had to give him that, he's a wonderful husband and I knew he was going to be a wonderful father as well. But I hate the name and we could not agree on a nick-name that goes with James. So my husband told me I could call him whatever I wanted as long as his legal name is junior. So, Joey he is and I call him Joey James quite frequently, it has a nice ring to it and it will help him get used to his legal name as well.