lexi's one year old well visit

Today was Lexi's one year old well child visit- her first Dr appointment at the new doctors office. We didn't get to see a doctor, only a nurse practitioner, but she was really nice. Anyway, here is the results of her visit:

1. She weighs 19lbs (10th percentile)
   
2. she's 28 1/2" long (between 25th and 50th percentile)
   
3. her head is 48 1/2 cm (way over 100th percentile as usual)
   
4. She needs to go see a eye dr about her tear ducts getting cleared
   
5. She got 3 shots


Two in the leg

and one in the arm

7. and a finger prick
8. We found out right before the shots that our temporary insurance does not cover well visits so now we owe the Dr's office $221

Yah, she could win contests

The Day My Daughter turned one

Thursday was a pretty big day around here, atleast for Eugene and I, I don't think Lexi could tell the difference. She turned one. Since her birthday party is today, we decided to celebrate just a little on Thursday to give her some practice.

She didn't like the feeling of the frosting at first,

Once she realized there was cake in it and that it tasted good, she couldn't get enough.

We only let her eat half, for fear of her getting a belly ache- not to mention it was 7:45pm.

She made sure to suck every last bit of food off her fingers. Then she had an amazing sugar buzz that we forgot to get on film. We'll be sure to get her sugar buzz from her cake today on film though.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

My walgreens adventure

Beth inspired me with her amazing savings at Walgreens, so last night I clipped some coupons and mapped out my adventure for tonight. I got $58.45 worth of merchandise for $20.45. That is a savings of $38.00! Here's a picture of my goodies!

Fighting the sin nature

Today is the big day. Lexi turned one today. unlike other one year olds, she did not get her first hair cut, she did not start to walk, or even crawl. She didn't even get her first tooth. Sure, she's a little behind on those developmental things, but I know her brain is working. Not only does she have a vocabulary of seven words (uh-oh, momma, dadda, more, all done, hi and bye) three of which include signs, I have seen her activly fighting her sin nature. You know, that desire inside of you to do what you've been told not to do.
Today I sat Lexi down on the floor outside of the bathroom and noticed her looking around. This is not unusual, she likes to see what all she can get into. Well, I just happened to have set her down next to the outlet with our cell phone chargers plug into it; this is her usual sitting spot while mommy is going potty. On more than one occasion her daddy or I have told her "no, do not touch the plug" it wouldn't surprise me if she has even had her hand "smacked" for touching them. Well today she saw the outlet, leaned towards it like she wanted to grab the chargers, then stopped and shook her head no and sat back down looking for something else to get into. What a good girl I have. I immediatly praised her for not touching them. She was thrilled that I noticed and replied with a big grin.

Wordless Wednesday-Ocoee River

See more Wordless Wednesdays here

Works For Me Wednesday: Bye-Bye Boo-boo

My friend Beth got me interested in The Works for Me Wednesday from Rocks in My Dryer, I thought this was a perfect week to jump in. My daughter will be a year old tomorrow, so I don't have years and years of experience and knowledge built up. However, it doesn't take long being a mom before you learn a thing or two. The little bit of advice I have to offer started before my years of of parenthood when I was just an aunt, but worked today when my daughter hit her head.
When a tumbling toddler bumps into a door frame, or clunks their head off the corner of a table try blaming the table! We "spank" the object that caused the injury and say "bad table!" or "bad door!" More times than not the reaction is smiles. Say bye-bye Boo-Boo and good morning giggle!

Read more Parenting advice and tips at Rocks in my Dryer!

A Year Ago Today -as inspired by Beth

Lexi turns one tomorrow. This amazes me. It seems like in a matter of days she has gone from this :
To this :

Nothing explains my thoughts better than Beth's blog from the day before Olivia turned one. There are a few differences, one being I DON'T fit into my pants yet and the second one being I had changed a diaper before Lexi was born. But still, how did a year go by so fast?!

The mother of a Toddler

If I now sweep the floor atleast 3 times a day due to food not dirt,


And spend more time telling Lexi not to play with the DVD player than I do changing her diaper,


And I'm afraid to go to the bathroom for fear I'll come back and find her into something,
Does this mean I'm the mother of a Toddler?

my life in a nutshell

The story of my circumstances...
I'm just kidding, I love my crazy husband I met online

Lexi

My baby turns one in a week. I can't believe it. Time goes by way too fast. Cherish the moments you have with your children. I'm afraid I'm going to sneeze and she'll be 18.

My Moral Dilemma

I faced a moral dilemma yesterday, I guess I'm still facing it, I've just made a decision now. Since I had the Molar pregnancy it is very important that I don't get pregnant in the next 6-12 months. Well my DR back in TN put me on birth control. I took it for about a week and it was making my legs numb so I stopped taking it. I met with my new doctor here in NC yesterday and he told me I can't get pregnant for one year and put me on a different pill. I have always been dead set against the pill- all forms. I have a very strong opinion about Abortion and birth control and in all my research on various sites including rock for life I learned a thing about the pill that most people don't know. There are many different pills that actually prohibit a fertilized egg from attaching to the lining of your uterus. To me that is an abortion. The pill my DR in TN put me on didn't do that, so I asked the DR here if the new pill he was giving me did- this is our conversation:
ME: Is this a type of pill that will kill the baby if I do get pregnant while on it?
DR: there are no oral contraceptives that do that.
ME: Let me rephrase that, will this pill keep a fertilized egg from attaching to the lining of my uterus?
DR: the first way this pill works is by keeping you from ovulating, the second way is it keeps the sperm from passing through the mucus in the cervix..."

he stopped short I knew there had to be more so I just took the boxes of pills with me and went home to research. Sure enough when i looked up YAZ I saw this :also cause changes in your cervical mucous and uterine lining, making it harder for sperm to reach the uterus and harder for a fertilized egg to attach to the uterus.

So there I was facing a little bit of a hard decision - listen to my DR who was trying to scare me into thinking this was my only option or stick to my convictions that birth control is bad and trust God to keep me from getting pregnant. Seems obvious doesn't it? saying trust God when the dr is telling you all these bad things could happen if you get pregnant is easy, but actually trusting him... that's another story. Believe me though, my heart was screaming to throw the pills in the trash, my husband was telling me to take the pill and my dr was telling me to take the pill. After a clear talk with my husband he understood I didn't want to take it and he made it clear that he didn't really want me to take it. So my choice? No Pill for me.
It's not just the knowledge that some pills can keep the egg from attaching to the uterus, there is more to it than that for me. I'm not saying this to make anyone out there who is taking the pill feel guilty or feel like they are doing something wrong. I do encourage you to research the pill you are on and know all the facts, I would then take those facts regardless of what they are and pray hard about what God wants. I'm a bit old fashioned on the pregnancy topic, I feel God will give you a baby when He wants you to have a baby. To me that means just doing things naturally and letting God have complete control. Trust me if you're taking birth control and God wants you pregnant, you'll get pregnant- ask my sister who has 5 children - she was on birth control with 4 of them and still got pregnant.
So my moral dilemma has been solved and it gives me a great opportunity to trust the God who created me and the universe- i think He can handle it.

my daughter has an ego

Today at the dr's office someone told Lexi She was so pretty she should be on a magazine cover that she'd blow some of those other babies away. Lexi immediatly opened her eyes wide and started nodding her head as if she was saying "Tell me about it! I'm so much prettier than those babies"

Adventures of July 21st

Daddy drove me a half an hour away to his company picnic at the Lazy 5 Ranch, they promised me a full day of fun. First we got on a horse pulled wagon and I realize mommy had a camera.



We saw a Zebra- that's what Daddy called it, I just know it wasn't a human.


Then Daddy took a picture of mommy and I on the wagon looking at all the animals.


Then we saw a long horned steer, it kept following the wagon

at the end of the tour we saw it trying to get in someone's car!

i learned that buffalo have really big mouths and tongues.

We saw Giraffes too! We saw tons of animals but...

I got fussy.

the swing made me happy.

After the family picnic we had to go get the car inspected, so we went to a local shop where mommy did something that made her cry...

Notice anything? here's a closer one...

Yup, mommy got her nose pierced, and it hurt even though the lady doing it said it wouldn't...

So many new things, so little time

I kept saying I was going to inform the blogger world of all the new stuff going on in my life, but have yet to have time. As you can see we had our pictures taken two weeks ago. A friend of ours from church took them, they came out very good and once we get the edited copies, there will be more posted- especially of Lexi.
First things first- we moved! Yup, we now live in North Carolina again. If you want my address email me and I'll give it to you if I feel you need it. Eugene got a new job so we moved. The job is awesome, it's commercial drafting for a company with amazing benefits. As a matter of fact the reason i have so little time right now is because in an hour we will be leaving for the company picnic which is being held here.
Lexi is going to be one in 12 days. I can't believe it. I was looking at the pictures from when she was first born it seems like yesterday, she was so tiny and perfect. Now she's growing and well... the sin nature has started to kick in. She's still lazy though, no walking or crawling even for this girl, rolling is her choice of mobility.
Some of you might remember me announcing that I was pregnant, well about a month ago we found out I had a Molar Pregnancy. Luckily I had the lesser evil of the two, the partial which has less of a chance of causing cancer and it also means we only have to wait 6 months before trying to get pregnant again.
In an overview that is what has been going on, I'll post more once i have more time and more pictures. I'll leave you with one more...

caught ya!

here's another cute picture of Lexi.

My little Chef

This is Lexi playing with her little kitchen. she loves that toy!

Mother of the year award goes to ME.

I just wanted to let the blogging world know what a great mother I am. Some of you know I watch my friend's baby on Thursday's and Fridays, her name is Emma and she's one. Since she is a few months older than Lexi she is also further along developmentally. She is passed the crawling stage, and standing stage, she now walks and runs. Well Lexi... all she does is sit's up. So today they were both sitting on my lap we were watching Blue's Clues. I was very distracted. Well one of the babies stood up so I let go figuring Emma wanted to walk away to get a toy or something. Well that baby quickly did a face plant right into the floor. I looked and notice it was LEXI!!! OOPS! She's never stood up like that before by herself without my help, so i just assumed it was Emma! What a great mother I am... On the plus side I guess Lexi is starting to pull up to standing by herself!! She just doesn't have the balance down yet

random post about nothing

Nothing is going on here. That is the reason for the long spaces between posts. I have nothing to say. But I'm in a talking (typing) mood right now and Beth is not on IM, so that leaves you- the unknown blog readers.
I've been emotional lately, crying at every little sentimental thing- must be the pregnancy. I am pretty excited cuz I saved money at CVS. I bought Huggies Grins and Giggles bath wash for Lexi and Degree deodorant for me and only spent $3.36 after tax. pretty cool huh?
I took Lexi to the Doctor today because Emma came down with strep throat and since Emma was chewing on Lexi's binky on Friday I thought for sure she'd get it, but she's fine. YAY GOD!
Our Woman's Bible study is over for the summer, i'm relieved and sad at the same time. That just leaves one more day of me doing nothing, but i was kinda getting sick of doing that Bible study. Not that it wasn't good, I was just ready for it to be over.
So Beth made a budget for us, it's pretty funny when you look at all our bills and out going money and realize there's not much for food and house hold things. And there's none for getting the car fixed or dr bills or any of that stuff. That's not Beth's fault though, it's the fact that we just don't have enough money for it to make sense on paper. God always provides though, somehow. I think I'd rather not know how He does it. It keeps things exciting. Our utility bill is only $98.13 this month, how cool is that? it's normally like $145. about 4 months ago it was up to around $170.
In two weeks we will be going to VA to pick up Eugene's nephew Cody. He is 16. He's gonna stay with us for a month, I think he has a job which will be good that will give him a chance to save some money, and get out of the house. He's the oldest of five so it will probably be weird for him to be without other people in his business for that long.
Mother's day was so much fun. I haven't relaxed that much in forever. After church Jim and Kathy took us to Logan's for lunch- YUMMY. then we went to there house and crashed on their back deck. I sat on their deck from about 1:30 until 11pm. Well, actually around 9 I moved from the deck to the yard where the fire was. (I brought my comfortable lawn chair though). It was very fun. Since we have no money i didn't get any physical presents, but Eugene did the dishes for me and that was way better. There were a lot of dirty dishes sitting on the counter.
So yah. This is the summary of my nothingness. hope you enjoyed it.

Mother's Day

I didn't write this! My mom got it in an email and I thought it was great so i decided to post it. Enjoy.

LOVE IN THE HOME

If I live in a house of spotless beauty with everything in its place, but
have not love, I am a housekeeper--not a homemaker.

If I have time for waxing, polishing, and decorative achievements, but have
not love, my children learn cleanliness--not godliness.

Love leaves the dust in search of a child's laugh.
Love smiles at the tiny fingerprints on a newly cleaned window.
Love wipes away the tears before it wipes up the spilled milk.
Love picks up the child before it picks up the toys.

Love is present through the trials.
Love reprimands, reproves, and is responsive.
Love crawls with the baby, walks with the toddler, runs with the child, then
stands aside to let the youth walk into adulthood.
Love is the key that opens salvation's message to a child's heart.

Before I became a mother I took glory in my house of perfection.
Now I glory in God's perfection of my child.
As a mother, there is much I must teach my child, but the greatest of all is
love.

warm summer day

I took Lexi outside today to take some pictures, this was the best one, although they all came out excelent. I love the bright colors they add so much to the picture.



here's another picture for you.... Lexi is going to be a big sister.

a step in the right direction

My husband share this news article with me, and I thought I'd share it with you. The Supreme Court passed the law to ban partial birth abortions. Although the article is clear that the number of abortions performed will not decrease because they are still allowed to use an alternative form of an abortion which is actually more common, it's still a step in the right direction. At least someone is taking a stand for the lives of babies. I am proud of whoever wrote that article because it actually explains what the abortions do to the babies... "The procedure at issue involves partially removing the fetus intact from a woman's uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion. " "the law will not reduce the number of abortions performed because an alternate method — dismembering the fetus in the uterus — is available and, indeed, much more common." If only they would replace the word Fetus with baby. As I said, it's a step in the right direction.

Wonderful Husbands Unite!

I had to post about my wonderful husband. This morning he came in to kiss me goodbye. I was still laying in bed with Lexi, and he was leaving for work. Something that i always feel bad about. Anyway, he stood by the side of the bed and was telling me bye and look down at my pile of clothes on the floor from the day before(something I never do) he said "i hope none of those are dirty cuz i just did all the laundry". I was so overwhelmed by the fact that he was wonderful enough to do not one but TWO loads of laundry this morning before i even got out of bed that i missed the irony of the situation. See, the pile of clothes next to my side of the bed was all my clothes, i NEVER leave my clothes on the floor, i always either throw them in the hamper if they're dirty or my jeans i fold and put away. However, he used to constantly take off his clothes and leave them in piles around the room, i would pick them up, but for some reason i never seemed to notice the piles on the floor by his side of the bed until after laundry was done then i would say... yup you guessed it "i hope none of those are dirty cuz i just did all the laundry." HE HE HE. Anyway, not only did he do the laundry he put away all the clean dishes for me too! What a wonderful husband.
The reason for the title "Wonderful Husband's Unite" is because Josh (Beth's husband) was wonderful the other day too. She's been sick so I'm sure that's why she hasn't posted about how wonderful he was to her the other day... I'll let her tell you what he did. Here's her blog so you can check it. I'm just proud of wonderful husbands. There needs to be more wonderful husbands in the world. If your husband is wonderful- tell me about it. :)

in the world not of it

so our commenting on my Easter bunny post got me thinking and i decided to just blog again instead of writing another comment...
Christ calls us to be in the world not of it right? So where do you draw the line with Holiday traditions? We already discussed the Easter bunny, Stacy and her amazing memory educated us about how getting all dressed up in new clothes is from the same pagan tradition. So if the Easter bunny is pagan, that pretty much means Easter eggs are pagan which to me means if we are going to be in the world and not of it as followers of Christ we should not take part in Easter egg hunts or Easter baskets or anything to do with the Easter bunny. It also means we should not buy our daughters those frilly dresses to wear on Easter (that doesn't mean they can't get a frilly dress and wear it some other day- hey if you wait until after Easter it will be on clearance and you can save money!) The thing that gets me about this is that most churches (mine included) has Easter egg hunts for the children. The next holiday is Halloween. I know I don't have to explain to you that Halloween is a paganistic holiday, I'm sure you can guess from the ghosts and witches... So that eliminates dressing up and trick or treating. Once again... churches (mine included) have things called Fall Festivals or something similar to allow children to dress up and get candy and have fun. One more holiday, Christmas. The biggest thing here is Santa Clause. Yes he was a real man who helped out a family in need by putting presents down their chimney because he didn't want to be known- yet he got turned into a "saint" and is now the main reason for most people's Christmases. How is all of this being in the world and not of it? It's always bothered me that churches have events like Easter egg hunts and harvest parties, to me it says "if you change the name of something bad and do it at a church it's not bad". A little confusing to me let alone the children. So what is your input? I admit Lexi had an Easter dress this year, of course I had forgotten about that part being bad, but even if I had known she probably would have gotten one. I'm really leaning towards we should not celebrate in any way Halloween and Easter should be kept as the day we remember Christ's Resurrection- AKA Resurrection Sunday. So what do you think... do we have Easter egg hunts? Do we get our pictures taken with Santa clause and the Easter bunny? Do we have celebrations on Halloween? Or is that what Christ would consider being of the world?

hmmm

My cousin showed me this article and I thought I would share it with you guys. I might be a little confused but last time I checked the Easter Bunny was NOT Christian. It started from some pagan worship rituals, people serving their gods- nothing to do with Christ or Christianity! wake up world, if anything, the Easter Bunny is ANTI CHRIST.

Texas

So we went to Texas for Easter to visit my mom. I was so excited to bring all Lexi's summer clothes and show them off, they're so much cuter than long pants and long sleeved shirts. here's a picture we took of her outside the day before Easter....



Yah, that's right... snow, in texas... the day before Easter!!!

welcome Benjamin!!

so incase you didn't know my friend beth had her adorable baby boy on the 29th of March. you can read all about him here . He's so cute. Congradulations Zapf family!
well, tomorrow morning we leave for texas... and by morning i mean 5:00 am we will be leaving our house. A friend of ours is bring us to the airport and our flight leaves at 7am. we don't arrive in Dallas until 11 (that's central time) and then we have a 2.5 hour drive to my moms house. Ugh what a long day of traveling with an infant! oh well it will be worth it in the end!
So this will probably be my last post until we get home then i'll hopefully have all sorts of pictures of Lexi and her cousins. :) have a great Easter!

My little sunshine

 

 

Here's a family shot... best out of three of course you can see the huge wet spot on Lexi's shirt from her sippy cup, but that's ok!

 

This is some of Eugene's family, his mom is on the far right, his brother in law Jason is next, then his niece and his sister, April then Lexi and him!

 

Lexi and her nana

blogging is for overachievers

That's how i feel anyway. Maybe it's just because i feel guilty that i haven't blogged in forever. Eugene's family was here from Monday till Saturday. That was a lot of fun. We had five adults, one six year old and Lexi in our little two bedroom apartment. Nothing beats family. We pretty much sat here and did nothing the whole week too, Thursday afternoon Eugene took time off of work and we all went to the Ocoee river. We drove all the way out there, grilled some hamburgers and hotdogs and then it starting pouring down rain so we didn't even get to walk around. we packed up and left because we were cold and wet and about 2 miles down the road the sun was shining and the ground was dry! So we went and got ice cream. he he.
Oh, Eugene and i went out twice without Lexi! one time with his sister and brother in law. We went to IHOP and drank lots of coffee then went to walmart. The second time we took his niece out to go see Meet The Robinsons. don't waste your money watching that movie. it was dumb. the only funny parts they show in the preview the rest is all sad and serious.
Thursday we leave for Texas, we have to be at the airport around 5:30am. that will be ewwy. i'm praying that flying doesn't bother Lexi's ears and that they don't lose our luggage. but we'll be there until Monday so it will be a nice vacation for us. not to mention the fact that i'll get to see all my nieces! (I have three new nieces i've never seen!)
I'm babysitting today-wednesday, both girls were sleeping but Lexi just woke up so i'll post some pictures then leave.

My Celebrity Look-alikes

My cool celebrity look-alike collage from MyHeritage.com. Get one for yourself.

Lexi's first chocolate

Yup. we're such bad parents. Lexi is 7 months old and was enjoying her first candy bar. Hershey's with Almonds. We didn't let her have any of the nuts though. And yesterday she was enjoying my steak. She has no teeth so all she does is suck and get the juice, and man she loved it. She'd scream when i'd put it down and take a bit for me. She just wanted that steak in her mouth! Someday she'll be able to enjoy chewing it as much as she enjoys sucking on it!

Just another normal Wednesday

This week i've been watching Emma, my friend's baby. I normally just watch her Thursdays and Fridays but something came up with the lady who watches her the rest of the week. Which is fine, it's actually fun, She's 10 months old and crawls and pulls up on things- she entertains Lexi who just lays there and rolls like a log. :) Someday Lexi will figure out how to move by either army crawling or crawling normally... we're still waiting for that day. Anyway, they girls are both napping, so I thought I'd take advantage of the peace and quiet and blog a little bit. So Jes, what's going on in your life? I know that is what you all are wondering. so i'll answer that question.
Right now Eugene and I have been praying that things work out with this real estate agent we're working with and that we can get approved for a house. We've been excited and looking at houses online in our price range for a week now, but we're still waiting to hear if we can get a loan. That has pretty much consumed our thoughts as you can imagine it's quite exciting to think soon we could be in our own place.
Eugene's been busy at work and church lately, at work they are almost done remodeling the office to make room for another person. They've been so busy and had a lot of work come in that 2 people is no longer enough. They also have a high school intern who comes in for a couple hours every day. Our Church is also in the process of building. We bought a new building in January which was used primarily as a youth club, so they've been working on building a couple walls, and laying carpet over the basketball court (that's the new sanctuary). Eventually they are going to begin real construction work on building the nurseries and classrooms, for now they will be in portable buildings. And after the classrooms are built they will begin building a sanctuary. Another thing he's been busy with is the youth, he's one of the Middle school youth leaders and he loves it. Since spring is here and summer is coming they have a lot of activities planned, camps, retreats, trips... he's gonna be pretty busy. In two weeks they will be attending Aquire the Fire in Nashville for a weekend, then labor day weekend is survivor camp, then in June he will be in Florida for a whole week for camp. So yah, he's going to be busy. On top of it all he just informed me that his 10 year high school reunion is going to be soon... he's so old. ;)
Lexi's not doing much, aside from perfecting the rolling. She is very interesting in the crawling she sees Emma do though. She's still got a cold, actually, i'm begining to think she's got bad allergies to what? i don't know. She's already 7 months old- which i cannot believe and has a head that's in the 90th percentile. For those of you who don't know what the whole percentile thing means- that means her head is bigger than 90% of other 7 month old girls heads... yah she's got a big head.
Most of my day is consumed with cleaning, cooking, and watching the baby/babies. I also am quite addicted to the internet and love to spend Lexi's naps sitting here looking up whatever i can and talking to my friends on AIM. I'm also getting excited for Easter, we will be taking a trip to Texas to visit my mommy, step dad and all my step siblings. As well as the 3 new nieces i've never met. We will be flying which excites me even more cuz #1 i love flying, #2 it beats a 20 hour trip in a car with a baby! Oh, i've also been getting ready for a yard sale. I love to sell stuff. I recently decided I am sick of "pretties" (things that sit on shelves and collect dust just because they're cute to look at). So 90% of my "stuff" is sitting in a pile in the middle of my bedroom. Soon it will be moved to Kathy's basement/garage until whatever Saturday in April she has picked out for the yard sale. It really helps that we are hoping to be moving because i'm pretty sure we wont be getting anything bigger than the apartment that we're in so Eugene is willing to let stuff go so that our house isn't cluttered. (he's a bit of a pack-rat).
Ok, i need to go do my devo's and my Bible study before these girls wake up. Have a great day!