Christmas

Well, it was so much fun planning for Christmas this year with both kids! Poor Reece got Olivia's cold though so he hasn't felt great this week. Santa was good to them this year. All Olivia wanted for Christmas was MAKE UP, believe it or not. Needless to say, David and I weren't too thrilled about that so we asked Santa to go easy on the make up and add a few other items in as well. Reece got several some toys that he could play with sitting up and using his hands. I will say though, that sister has been MORE than helpful with showing him how each work. I secretly think she likes his stuff as much as he does :o) Olivia also received a ton a doll house items which have been such a hit! She has her doll house that Alicia gave her, all fixed up with dolls and furniture!


I think my favorite gift of Christmas (besides Dad's metal detector) was the gift that Olivia picked out for mom from World Vision. I saw this organization featured on Good Morning America awhile back, and they showed how you could donate specific goods like livestock or clothing to help families in third world countries. So, I showed Olivia the catalog and she selected to give a family 5 ducks in moms name. The ducks provide eggs for eating and the family can sell the chicks at local market for money. They gave us a print out to wrap also. It was so neat!
We did the traditional Christmas Eve at David's parents house. I was a little worried with Reece being sick how he would do, but he was great! We had a wonderful dinner (Jan I still want the potato casserole recipe) and all received tons of great gifts! Christmas morning we had here which was so cute. Olivia told me the night before that she had changed her mind and that she didn't want Santa to come. She asked me to please call and let him know. I knew it was the idea of some man in our house that freaked her out a little bit. So on Xmas morning, she peeked out of her room and asked if I ever called him. When I said no, she was so relieved :o) After we opened our gifts and had breakfast we went to my parents house for lunch and of course, more gifts. It was a really a great Christmas! Here are some pics below. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday as well!

Gammy & Papa with the Girls

Missy, Dave, & John

Matching Jammies

Santa's Spread

Santa Reece with his new train

Ears Dad, Fix my ears!

THE MAKE-UP!

Taking it all in

Xmas Day at Mom & Dad's

Seek & Find books...our fave

The metal detector....time to find more treasure!

Dave waiting patiently

The caterpillars to go with the butterfly garden

Pam, Olivia & Joyce

Reece's Dr. Appointment

When we went back to the GI specialist on Thursday she basically said, since the Zegerid isn't making much of a different let's go back to the Prevacid and start solids. Hallelujah, I've been waiting for this. She also said to start weaning him off of his 4 to 5 night feedings. Our Pediatrician had said all along, that since he had the reflux, he was using these night feedings to fulfill his nutritional needs since he couldn't take more than a few ounces at a time. So, I hated to take them away from him until I was told other wise. Well, that time has come. I'm so hoping that we can regain a normal sleeping pattern in the house. As it stands right now, Reece is up at least 5 times a night, so I'm ALL FOR the change. Wish us luck, I'm sure he isn't going to like this at all. Stay tuned....

Trail of Lights

Well, we finally decided to be brave and take Reece out in the evening. This is THE first time we have done this since he was born. For those of you who don't know, at Zilker Park in Austin each year they put on an amazing lights display open to the public. It is know as the Trail of Lights. It is only open from 7pm to 10pm each day. We had been wanting to take Olivia this year since the weather is so incredible....76 today!! We debated on whether to take Reece or not since he typically has such a hard time in the evening. So, we sucked it up and took him. Well, he did GREAT. He napped all the way there...which took an hour in a half because of traffic (normally a 30 min trip). When we got there I bundled him up and popped him in his stroller, his favorite place lately. We walked for an hour with all the ten million people, screaming kids, blaring music and the train horn, all the while he was just as happy as a lark. I can't tell you how liberating this was. It may sound silly, but finally we were able to do something as a family that everyone enjoyed! We took several pictures, but for some reason they all turned out blurry. Here are the ones that were okay. We all really did have a good time. Olivia's favorite things was the "light sword" she got which magically turned her into Darth Vader. Check out the video below...it's a scream. Especially David's sound affects.

Darth Vader

Photo Update

We've had several different things going on lately, so instead of adding all these different posts I've decided to add several pics with captions.

P.S. Reece goes back to the GI specialist tomorrow at 9am for a follow up appointment. I'm really curious as to what she will say since we've really not seen much of a change with the new meds and formula she recommended. I'll try and post tomorrow afternoon and give you all an update. Stay tuned...

Olivia and I before the hayride on Sunday at Deana's. We looked at

Christmas lights and sang carols around the neighborhood.

Reece Laughing at Daddy...he's just too funny, as you all know

Olivia's at the X-mas program for school. She did so

well....we were all very proud of her!

Grandad with the kids after the program. Yea, Reece stayed up

until 8pm and was super quiet the entire program. Thank you GOD!

Reece wearing Granzie's earmuffs (notice his expression)

Loving his sister...have to take these while I can

It's not Christmas without Maw Maw's Gumdrop Tree

Me and Alicia at her party last weekend. I drove

up and surprised her! We had a really good time.

Alicia and her wonderful boyfriend Lee.

Reagan's Surgery

Reagan's surgery went really well yesterday. The vet said his tumor was actually the size of a small orange, but that he was able to remove all of it. He's still recovering at the vet clinic, but is coming home tomorrow. Thank goodness, my first baby will be spending Christmas at home with his family :o)

Reagan Update

The vet called late yesterday, and thankfully his biopsy turned up to be non cancerous! We are so relieved. We still do need to have the tumor surgically removed though. He is scheduled to go in first thing Monday morning to have it done! I'm so glad, I don't know if I would handled a different outcome right now with everything else on our plates. I've had Reagan now for 11 years and he truly is my first baby. Here are a few pics of him throughout the years. I don't have any digital of when he was a baby, but here are some from when we first had Olivia.

Pre Kids

Relaxing on HIS Couch

Reagan with Olivia

Reagan and Livi

This think stinks he says :o)

Ride 'em cowgirl!

I know...animal abuse!

He can sleep ANYWHERE

Accessories are a MUST

The Easter Bunny

Last Christmas

Notice the smile on his face

Posing with Livi

Nap time

Reagan with Reece

This Christmas

Update

Well, we went to the Opthamologist late yesterday and all is good with 'livi's eye. We hadn't taken her patch off that eye since Tuesday evening, so when we took it off that hurt really bad, but her eye was tons better. He looked it over and said that it was healing just fine, so no need to do anything further. She said it didn't hurt anymore either so we are all back to normal. They did do an eye exam for both her eyes and that right eye showed up as a 20/40. We aren't sure if that was just from wearing the patch for so long or if in fact her site isn't that great in that eye. We're scheduled to go back in a month to recheck that. Stay tuned...

Still waiting to hear from the vet about Reagan's biopsy. I'm so nervous to find out, but we're trying to stay positive. He is feeling much better today, but we will see. I'll let you all know more when we hear back.

What a Tuesday!!

Well, what a horrible day yesterday was! Our dog, Reagan, had been acting funny since we got back from our trip. He hadn't eaten since Sunday and he didn't want to be in the house at all (for those of you who know him, is REALLY odd). He was just wandering around the back yard. So we took him to the vet...they said he has a rectal tumor the size of a lemon and that it is causing him to be "backed up" incredibly bad. He is also leaking urine which they don't know what is causing that. They did a biopsy and we will have the results for that by tomorrow hopefully. I'm sooo worried about him. They gave us some stuff to help him go to the bathroom now, but we'll probably have to do surgery in the next week or so.

Secondly, while Olivia was at school yesterday, she accidentally got scratched on her eye on the playground. We didn't think it was that bad, but when she woke up from her nap she was really screaming that it hurt. So, since our paediatrician couldn't get her in late yesterday, David took her to the Urgent Care Clinic over by our house. The doc said that she did have a severe corneal abrasion and that we needed to take her to a specialist. They also made a makeshift eye patch for her to wear. Needless to say, that didn't last long. We had to go buy some eye patches from HEB while we got her prescription filled. Thank goodness, that gave her a codeine/ Tylenol drug to help her sleep last night. She hasn't slept that long in a while!

I'll keep you posted as to the progress of both. What a mess!!

Make-Shift Patch From the Dr.

Daddy Tried This....Didn't Last

The One that Worked

Chicago Trip

David and got back late yesterday afternoon after a GREAT weekend in Chicago. We decided a couple of weeks ago that we would cash in on some of David's hotel points and take advantage of his free tickets with Southwest! I had never been there before and David had only been a couple of times for work. We stayed at the Conrad Hotel which is at the south end of the Magnificent Mile. The weather was pretty cold, but we brought our warm clothes and braved it. Since it is 80 degrees here it was a bit of a shock, but it sure does get you in the Christmas mood when there is snow everywhere.

We didn't do much site seeing, we just had coulpe of nice dinners and did lots of shopping. We went to the American Girl store which is a nightmare. There was a door man and a line just to get in the front door. It was mass chaos with all the little girls everywhere and mothers grabbing for dolls. I totally needed an adult beverage when we finally got out of there. CRAZYNESS!! We also went to the movies, which is a treat for us too these days! It was great. I definitely want to go back when the weather is warm and check out some of the local museums and tourist stuff.

My mom and dad watched the kids for us while we were gone. Even though I think everyone was ready for us to come back, I think they all had a great time! Olivia just has to realearn what the word NO means now :o)

Here are a couple of pics. You can see how cold we were :o)

Not sure, looks like an old church :o)

Wacker St. Bridge over Chicago River

Macy's (Of Course)!!

Us..... FREEZING!!

Us at Dinner