Headstrong Children

So I don't know how this happened, but both of my children are just a little bit headstrong.....I blame it on their father. :) Josie knows what she wants and when she wants it. She really likes to feed herself, and she really really wants to eat exactly what everyone else is eating, even when that would really be impossible. Like apple slices or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She'll scream and reach as far as she can to try to get things off my or Daddy's plates. Also, while she has the desire to move forward (rather than roll side to side gradually to get what she wants), she would rather lie on her belly, flail her arms and legs, and scream in protest than crawl. I try to explain to her that if I pick her up I will be stunting her growth to no avail. But she is getting closer! (As I told Will, the end is near.) She is now getting up on all fours (and then plopping back down on her belly and screaming in protest).


It's a good thing she's so darn cute. (Please ignore the fact that she is cross-dressing. In my personal opinion, ALL jammies are unisex.) Banana nose!





And then there's my little angel Marshall. Marshall is having difficulty distinguishing between himself and adults lately. For instance, he'll come right out of time out for yelling "Bad Baby" to his sister (which he now does all the time. It's a bad habit. He'll yell it at random when she isn't doing anything. I'm trying to break him of that.), and after saying sorry to his sister, he will come over to me and tell me something that I am not supposed to do. "Mom, you don't talk with your mouth full." or "Mom, you don't bang on the windows." Like, now that he's been disciplined, it's his turn to be the discipliner. How do you explain to a 3 year old that it doesn't quite work that way?


In other funny news, lately he's been really into talking about babies in bellies. Maybe it's because he's connecting all the prego women around here (Sarah and formerly Blair) with when Mommy was pregnant. He's also really into the book "Sleepy Jesus" that Josie got from the church when she was baptized. It's about the birth of Jesus. Yesterday he started a conversation with "Mommy, you had a baby in your belly." "Yes, I did Marshall. I've had a baby in my belly twice. Once for you and once for Josie." "Mom, I have a baby in my belly too." "You do?" "Yes, it's Sleepy Jesus." Wow, so many possible things to talk about in that one, that I think I'll just let it lie.

I caught him reading his pop-up Thomas book to himself and making up new stories with the scenes.

I'm a Good Big Brother, Mom!

Lately, Marshall has really been into being a "good" big brother. He loves to hug his sister and play with her. (Of course he also loves to yell "Bad Baby!" when she rolls over and takes one of his toys or whine over and over again to me "Mom, she's coming to get me!". This will only get worse once she stops rolling and starts crawling.)



Anyway, here are some pictures of Marshall being a good big brother.


So I made Marshall turn around for this picture. And the minute the picture was taken, my little camera ham Josie realized that her 40+ pound brother was sitting on her leg. Crying ensued.


Here's Marshall pulling Josie by her legs so he can get closer to her. Notice how much Josie LOVES the attention from her brother.



This was the next day and I was sitting Josie down to get a photo shoot of the cute baby-legwarmers I had just made her. The minute the camera came out, Marshall said,"Mom, I'm a good big brother!" , sat behind Josie, and gave her a "hug" (and I use the term very loosely here). So maybe he just knows that I love it when he says that and wants to get some attention...but you know, whatever works.



Love the ski googles from 1990 right? Marshall's big into pretend play lately. He loves to wear the googles. He wore them out and about the other day. We got a lot of looks. Secretly, I love it. He is just too darn cute.

Not a UTI

So it's not a UTI. Which I suppose is good news because that would have been really really frustrating. (It would have been number 4.) So apparently, it's just some other random virus. And Josie will just break out into spots every time her body fights off something. Interesting to explain, but at least they aren't so worrisome anymore.

This is the song the never ends.....

Fever's gone....spots are back. Waiting on results from the urine culture, but clearly this is another UTI.

The Scoop on Josephine

So here's the scoop on my little Josephine. (I might be reiterating a little bit.) After the whole ER shenanigans during the last case of the spots where they found out she had a urinary tract infection, they sent us to an allergist which resulted in nothing. No allergies. Then after finding out she had yet another urinary tract infection, they sent us to get an ultrasound of her kidneys. This test showed that her left kidney was a little smaller than her right kidney. So we had to do another test called a VCUG this past week at Children's Hospital.

That test was more invasive than the ultrasound. Basically, they put a cathater in and fill her bladder up with a dye that shows up on an X-ray. We had to hold her relatively still while this whole test was going on. Luckily, she loves to be naked and she was great. She stared at her Daddy the whole time. (Will says it's an alpha male thing. :)) The only time she really cried was when her bladder became really really full with the dye. But then she peed it all out (that's what she was supposed to do for the test) and she was okay again. Until the nurse took the cathater tape off at the end. That produced a few tears too. So the VCUG showed that Josie has some urine reflux up to her left kidney, but it's not that severe. It's something that most kids will outgrow. She's just going to be on a low dose of antibiotics for a while so that bacteria from the UTIs doesn't scar her kidneys.

All in all, it was good news. However, she has had a fever all day today. It's probably just a cold, but with everything going on, I am nervous. We are going see the doctor tomorrow morning. I swear, soon the nurses at the doctor's office are going to start calling me by name the minute they hear my voice on the other end of the line.

Check out the Hottie at our House

Hey ladies, check out my new haircut. GROWL! It only took two days of screaming, one cookie bribe, and me using the clippers on Daddy's armhairs first in order for me to look this good.

And for good measure, here's a couple pictures of the kids playing blocks together this morning.

My quirky children

With parents like us, these kids have no chance.....

First we have my slightly OCD son. Please ignore the fact that we are feeding him chicken nuggets and tater tots for dinner and focus in on how the boy eats his nuggets. (To make myself feel better, I'll tell you we were attempting to rid the freezer of leftovers from Marshall's 3 year old Birthday Dinner extravaganza.)

And then we have my beautiful daughter that loves to sit around and chew on her socks like a dog.

Pre Christmas Pictures

I was a little too involved before Christmas to post all these pictures. :)

Our beautiful Christmas tree outside in the falling snow

This is a great story. So Will says, "This year I think we should have an outdoor Christmas tree. We can get a tree that we can plant at the new house and the kids can watch it grow every year." I agree because we will we celebrating the holidays at my parents and they have an indoor tree. Will tells me he found this great tree the grows 3 feet each year. "Won't it be great? The kids will really be able to see it grow!" It's a Giant Sequoia tree. Like the Yosemite tree you can drive through. Yeah, we are moving to a house in an extremely wooded area. We're probably going to have to take down a tree to find room to plant this one. But we will be the only ones in the neighborhood with a Giant Sequoia.

This is Marshall drinking his first cup of hot chocolate after going sledding with Daddy. (I know, I know, but that's what happens when your mom doesn't like chocolate.)

Marshall helping Daddy clear snow from the walkway.