I'm an AUNT!!!

My precious, sweet, adorable nephew was born on Saturday!

Keller Rocket Rogers
6-11-06
7 lbs 15 oz
21 3/4"

Here are some pictures of our newest buddy:

HE'S COMING, HE'S COMING!!!!

I'm so excited! I just got a call from Ruthie. David called, and Cara thinks her water broke. They are on their way to the hospital now. As soon as we find out that she's for sure in labor, we're heading to Dallas!! I can't wait to meet my first nephew!!

Never growin up!

Alex stayed home from school with me yesterday and today. Yesterday he had a sore throat, and a low fever, and today he was probably ok to go to school, but we went ahead and stayed home anyway. We really have had such a wonderful time together. I sure miss being with him all day, and I think somewhere inside him, he does too. On our way home from the bank today Alex tells me (once again) how he never wants to grow up. He wants to always be a kid. He doesn't want to be tall, and he never wants to move away from our house. Then he says
"Momma, someone needs to take a picture of you."
Momma: Really? Why is that?
Alex: "So when I grow up and I'm not with you I can look at you when I think of you and when I miss you."

Silly lil Alex qoutes

We were visiting dad last weekend when Buddy decided to show Alex who was dominant in the little guy world. I never actually saw the incident, but Alex told me alllll I needed to hear... In a little Alex laughing voice "MOMMA, MOMMA, aww, Buddy was hugging my leg like a little child."

At dinner the other night Alex was horrible. Bouncing all over the place, not eating, same old Alex as usual, but worse. Daddy had been pushed over the edge (as was I) "ALEX, SIT STILL AND EAT, NOOOOWWWW I'M TIRED OF IT!" Alex put on his pouty face and says in a weepy voice, "but I can't help it Daddy, my body is just wild."

Same dinner..."Momma, what's a manager?" (From watching Spongebob) I gave my best definition and Ash responds with "Alex, you know daddy is a manager?" Alex: "!Oh Cool....does that mean momma is a girl-ager?"

Spring is in the air!

Wow what a gorgeous weekend it was! Now I'm starting to remember why I'm so much happier during the sunny months. I forgot what it was like to enjoy the outdoors. Mark and I did yard work all day Saturday, he planted 4 O'leander bushes outside the kitchen window in the side yard. It will be so much nicer to sit at the kitchen table and see more than the neighbors red brick. It will also give us a little more privacy, from their two windows that face our house. He also planted a Mountain Laurel. Yippeee! I finally got a Mountain Laurel (or two)! I've been wanting to plant one since before we ever moved in. Those suckers are expensive! 5 gal. for $25! It will be worth it though. I just LOVE the blooms that come in the spring. I'm hoping we'll get to see a few within the next couple of weeks, but I'm not counting on it this year. Steve is in town for the week, and David and Cara were in town for the weekend. It's so nice to have family over. The kids just LOVE when their uncles come to visit. Looks like David and Cara MAY have come up with a name for my new nephew who will be here in just 3 short months. They might have taken Blaze off the list (no comment- until after this baby is named!) and replaced it with Keller Rocket. David is a nut. I get the feeling that once this baby starts to live up to his name, they're going to wish they named him something more like Keller Devine, or Kellar Sleepswell. That's ok, no matter what they name him, he WILL take after David and keep them on their toes indefinitely, much to Dad and Ruthie's delight. :)

On the Urben kidfront...Ashley is on Spring Break all week, (nice coincidence that uncle Steve is in town) and will be going camping with Ciara on Thursday. No big plans other than that. I'm hoping to get a day off, maybe Wednesday, to spend with her. I'll probably take Alex to school late and just hang out with my girl.

Cluck Cluck

In 21 days we will have peeps! I can't believe how excited I am about this, maybe it's just that motherly instinct kicking in, whatever it is, I'm loosing my mind. Ashley is on her way home from Lockhart with chicken eggs that we will be incubating for the next 21 days. Ashley's good friend Kelly just finished her first batch of eggs, but unfortunately none hatched. I've been doing a lot of research and have learned so much about this stuff. It's really quite fascinating. We started out with a big plastic storage container, but the more I read, the more I realized that it might not be insulated enough to maintain a proper temperature so we decided to get a foam ice chest instead. Mark cut a hole in the side and we stuck a 25 watt bulb in. This worked great, but the temperature kept climbing and the only way to drop the temp. was to vent the top, but venting the top allowed the humidity to escape. After toying with several different ideas...most of which were a bit on the pricey side, Mark came up with the idea of wiring a dimmer to the bulb. He bought the $3.00 dimmer, wired it up and VOILA! It works like a charm. It's exactly what we needed to get the temperature just right. I hope this works!!! When the peeps hatch, we'll probably keep them for a few days and then take them back to the farm. Oh how I wish we lived in the country and could have a chicken coop! How fun! I will post incubator pics. when Ash gets home with the camera. :)

Happy Day for Alex

Alex's teacher sent a note home the other day. It reads:

Mark & Jamie,

Just wanted to let you know how proud I was of Alex today. Over the weekend I purchased new games and activities for our class and Alex was the only one to give me a hug and say THANK YOU for bringing us all the new stuff. You have a great kid!

Happy Day :)
Jane

We stopped at Walgreens on the way home and Alex got to pick out a special treat for making Ms. Jane's "heart feel warm". :)

Valentines Cake

Chilled Plum

Don't worry, in 8-10 washes we'll have our little girl back. :)

Cruel joke?

Alex is recovering from the flu, he's back to his normal self only with a little cabin fever. He's been cooped up since Thursday and needs to run around sooooo bad. Unfortunately, the rest of us have come down with it. What a JOKE. We all just want to lay in bed and rest, and Alex is bouncing off the walls. Poor guy. He's ready to get back to normal and we'd like to have that lazy boy back for just a little bit longer. If we could we'd ship him off for a few days so we can sleep, but unfortunately, he still has a low grade fever, which means he's still contagious. We really need to get some Tamiflu in us since it only works if you start it within the first 48 hours, but it's Sunday and the only place we can go is either the Urgent Care Center, or the ER. Urgent Care would be $50 each, plus the prescription, which was $40 for Alex. That would put us out $270 for the three of us! We just can't do that right now. I will probably call in a script for Ash first thing in the morning and hope we get her started on the meds soon enough to catch it. I wonder if getting the flu shot would have prevented this. Who knows. Next year we're definitely getting them.

Sick lil buddy

I took Alex to the Dr. yesterday after realizing that he had every symptom of the flu. Sure enough, his test was positive. Thankfully we caught it in time to start Tamiflu. He threw up the first batch yesterday, but today he was able to keep it in his system. He's feeling much, much better right now, but still doesn't have much energy. He's eating a grilled cheese sandwich and asking for more, so that's a good sign. I'm starting to feel pretty yucky, but crossing my fingers that it's just the high molds.

Update on us

Gosh, where does the time go!? If I could find a way to bottle time and sell it I would be a gazillion-aire. Lets see, what's happened in the last month...Grandaddy got out of the hospital and is doing ok. He's still not able to walk on his own yet, and he's still having to use his feeding tube, but his spirits are much better now that he's back at home. Mom has her work cut out for her, I wish there was more I could do to help.

I put in my 2 weeks notice at my job last Monday, sent out some resumes and then after a 3 hour "meeting" with the boss man and his wife, decided to stick it out and see if things could change. So far so good, it's amazing what a little communication can do. So much has changed. I just can't imagine getting a job clear across town, having to be there at 8 am, and not getting off until 5. Putting me out the door no later than 7 am and home no earlier than 5:45. That is not appealing. Not to mention the fact that I can go home for lunch, pick up Ash from school and take her home everyday, and attend school functions when I can. That is so hard to give up, I figure it's worth trying to work things out. And if it doesn't work out, I can move on. Ironically enough, after I decided to stay, I received 4 phone calls for interviews.

Ashley participated in her 2nd spelling bee she finished 8th out of 67 kids. Big Daddy and pops both came, Ashley was very surprised to see them. She was determined to win, so there was some disappointment, but nothing more than a little healthy competitiveness.

Alex is trucking along just fine at preschool. He still loves getting up and going everyday. He is surrounded by caregivers who truly love to care for children, and that has made a major impact on his attitude about school. Valentines Day is coming up and we're making out his very first Valentine Cards. I bought him cards yesterday and when I brought them home to show him he had no idea what they were. It never even occurred to me that I needed to teach him about Valentines Day! lol
I am home with him today, he woke up in the night throwing up and had a pretty high fever. He's not sick to his stomach today, but still feeling pretty lousy. He's pretty achy. I'm crossing my fingers that this isn't the flu.

Mark has been such a dream through all of my work troubles. He is just amazing. Our relationship continues to grow everyday, as we get closer and closer. He is the best friend I've ever had and he teaches me so much without even realizing it. I still feel like the luckiest person in the world to have found this amazing love.

Blog, what's that?

Yeah, so life is a little crazy with the two of us working, finding time to Blog is next to impossible.

Granddaddy just got out of the hospital, he's doing fine right now, but suffered a broken hip and had to undergo surgery last week. The surgery weakened him and caused his Parkinsons to worsen, which is hopefully temporary. The parkinsons is affecting his abilty to swallow right now, and he is unable to swallow anything without aspirating, so they put a feeding tube in to his stomach. He's doing well with it. We are all hopeful that he will gain his strength back and be able get back to normal.

Children's Garden

Alex finally started at his new school yesterday, and he did super! The director noticed that he was reluctant to let me leave him on the playground so she came over and asked him to be her helper with breakfast in the kitchen. He was more than willing to go be her helper and even cracked a smile as he said by to me. :) I called later and they let me know that he was doing fine and had eaten a good lunch. When I picked him up he told me that he really likes his new school and that he had a lot of fun. I was pleasantly surprised to find a note from his teacher in his cubby. It was very thoughtful of her to tell me about his day and really put my mind at ease. :) Today was pretty good too, although there were some tears as I left. I called at 10:30 and they said he was doing fine and stopped crying shortly after I left. The two times I have called up there, they know exactly who I am and can instantly tell me all about who he was playing with, how his day is going, etc. That makes me feel so confident that he's getting the care he deserves.
I got a phone call from them today at about 12:30, I was worried when I saw their number on my caller ID, ususally a phone call means that he's either sick, or upset, it was his teacher calling to tell me that he was still doing good, had eaten a good lunch and was sleeping soundly. :) Ahhhh, I feel like I can finally RELAX a little, he's in good hands.

TEXAS WINS!!!!

WHAT A GAME!! Vince, you are my hero. :)

Report Cards

Miss Ashley has done it yet again. Her report card came home with straight A's today! We are so proud of our girl! Way to go Ashley!

Happy Retirement Big Daddy!!!

This was all Ashley's idea.

We love you and wish you all the best dad...now go fishin already!

Alex-isms updated

I added a few Alex-isms tonight:

Alex-isms

Reverse Psychology?

Our everyday eat-your-dinner battle has reached a new level. We've tried just about anything and everything to get Alex to eat his dinner, to the point of giving him a standing ovation for each bite taken, that didn't work and neither did bribery, which is our last resort catch all. Tonight we took it to a new level. I was talking to Mark about positive reinforcement and how that's the thing to do these days. We chuckled about how grateful we'd be to get the opportunity to give him positive reinforcement, but that he actually had to do something positive first. lol I decided that I would dupe him in to some reverse psychology by praising him for taking a bite even when he didn't. So I praise him, he gives me a funny look, but remarkably, he responds and takes a bit. Wooohoooo! We're on to something here. So I can't just take my winnings and leave the table, I have to have more, so in a weak moment when he's on his knees playing in his chair I continue the lying mommy's version of positve reinforcement and tell him how proud I am at how good he's being by staying on his bottom and eating so well. He responds by saying "but momma I was doing this..." and he stands up on his knees to demonstrate his poor behavior. By the end of his demonstration Mark and I are holding our guts laughing out loud. Turns out we're the ones that got duped. The lying mommy's version of positive reinforcement is a crock. I guess that's why I've never actually been given this advice and why it's not published in any child rearing books. One thing the lying mommy's version of positive reinforcement did do was provide a pleasant dinner. When that didn't work, I decided to use it on Mark instead. "Mark, thank you so much for cleaning up after dinner" didn't work too well either. ;)

2006

Happy New Year! It's hard to belive it's already 2006, it's a bittersweet year, chock full of changes and new beginnings, and we're only a few days in to it. The year that my baby girl will turn 10 and enter the era of double didgets and everything else that goes along with it. My baby boy will turn 5. He will have to use an entire hand to tell his age, and coordinating his little fingers in to small numbers will be a thing of the past. This year my dad will enter the retirement years and my brother will have his first baby and enter the world of parenthood. 2006 is going to be a very big year in our family. A year to be thankful for, a year to open our doors to and welcome with a smile. Clearly, we will all have big resolutions for the new year. As for me, I'm going to enjoy my family more than ever this year, and appreciate the little things a little more. Keep in touch with family a little better, maybe send out Birthday cards for once in my life, and try to do the little things that I know mean so much. I'm going to smile more, think more and play more. Most of all, I'm going to work on being a supportive wife, listening mom, caring daughter and supportive friend.