It snowed today!

Not a lot but enough that Ruben was all excited when he woke up this morning. I took him out before Marissa woke up to play in it. He tried to ride his ATV in it but he didn't get very far. :)

Myspace Glitter Graphics

Potty training and lightsabers!

It has worked so far. The lightsaber has seemed to do the trick with Ruben and getting him to poop in the potty. He seems to be potty trained after months and months of trying. I know there will may be accidents in the future, but I can deal with that. I only had to take the lightsaber away from him once. He lost it on Saturday for not pooping in the potty. Sunday he did go in the potty, so we gave it back to him. Since we bought the lightsaber on Thursday, he has not let it out of his sight. He even sleeps with it. I think it was a combination of finding something that he really wanted, the lightsaber, and him just being ready. I'm glad he is potty trained but I have to say it makes me a little sad. He is growing up so fast, too fast for me. He will be 4 in April, 4 years old! WOW, where has the time gone?

I just reread this post, I never thought I would be blogging about poop. Only parents will be able to understand that. :)

Marissa is still sick. We visited her pediatrician on Thursday, she seemed to be feeling better. The doctor said her ears looked a lot better. However, since Friday she has been running a fever between 102-103. She cries constantly and has been extremely clingy. She's not sleeping at night. Saturday night she slept in our bed for the first time since she was a week old and she probably will again tonight. She is also teething, getting her molars in, so that is not helping things. I will call the doctor sometime tomorrow but I am pretty sure he will just tell me to continue the meds and keep watching her.

Ruben's buddies Josh and Jake are coming over tomorrow for a play date. Marissa has hidden the batteries to my camera. Hopefully I can find them and get some pictures of the boys and the magical lightsaber. :)

Can't stop lauging at him!

It's 2 AM and I am up yet again. I don't think I have gotten a full nights sleep in over a week. However, tonight I have company and he is very entertaining. Ruben has joined me and he is cracking me up. Maybe it's lack of sleep and I am just delirious. He is playing with his Lego's and building star wars fighters and being his silly little self. Star Wars, that is his new thing. He is obsessed with it. He seems to think it is some special holiday because he did not get in trouble for getting up. He actually got up to go pee and made me laugh. So I guess he thought that was a free pass to get up again as long as he continued to make me laugh.

It must be the excitement of getting a lightsaber tomorrow. We made a deal that if he pooped in the potty and not his underwear he would get a lightsaber. He has been peeing in the potty and wearing underwear since the beginning of December, but has only started pooping in the potty since we made that deal yesterday. I explained to him that after he gets the lightsaber he has to continue to use the potty or it will be taken from him. He seems to understand this. After all, this is pretty much the same kind of deal I made with him to get him to start wearing underwear and peeing in the potty. It just involved his smart cycle.

Well, I'm off to get my silly little guy in bed. He is so wound up, I'm not sure how I am gonna do that. He keeps saying "Holy hoke a hoggie," I have no idea where that came from but is very funny at 3 AM.
Oh how I love that little guy!

Does this look like a sick child?

We went to Nashville on Monday for Marissa's cystagram. It was horrible. Jose and I had to hold her down while they catheterized her, put dye in and took x-rays. She screamed and screamed until she threw up. The good thing was that it did not take that long. We then went upstairs for her doctor's appointment. He said that the test did not show urine backing up into her kidneys. Good news, except now we don't know why she continues to have these infections. He wants to see her again in July, unless she gets another infection. We are to keep her on the medicine until then.
She had a fever last night and was up most of the night vomiting. This morning I took her to the doctor and she has a really bad ear infection. She also has a cold. The doctor told me to watch her closely. She put her on another antibiotic, which will be fine for her to take with the antibiotic she is already on. She also prescribed a medicine for her cold and cough. We go back to her pediatrician on Thursday.






As you can see, being sick does not slow this child down! She has been a handful today.

Poor Baby!

I took Marissa to get her 1 year shots yesterday. We had to wait a couple of months because she has been so sick. I was thinking she would probably get three shots, that's the most Ruben ever got at one time. So I asked the nurse when we got in the office and she says Marissa will be getting five shots today. FIVE, I wanted to take my baby and run. But I didn't, I sat there and held her while the nurse stuck her FIVE times. Two shots in each leg and one in her arm. She screamed more than she ever has before. So I cried with her, not just for the shots she was getting but for all the things she has had to endure in the 14 months of her life. She has been been poked and prodded so many times. She has had so many IVs and been catheterized more times than I can count. She has survived one surgery and two hospital stays. Monday she goes back to Vanderbilt and will have yet another test, a cystogram. I'm hoping and praying that this will be the last test she has to go through. This test should tell us why she has had urinary tract infections since Oct.

She still amazes me, after all that she has been through she is still the happiest little girl I have ever met.

Here's Proof!

Everyone says Marissa looks just like Ruben.
If I had not had to go into the blog archives (Feb. 2005) and find this picture of Ruben I would have thought it was Marissa. Especially since we still have the same highchair.

Ruben at 10 months old. (Pay no attention to the date, the camera was possessed!)

Marissa at a little over 10 months old.

This has been my day!

They have been fighting and crying all day.


No, no one hit her in her head, she just rubs her head when she is upset.


She will not leave the computer alone. I guess she wants her own blog!


And Ruben...well he found the stapler and was trying to staple his sister, he stopped as soon as he saw me so I could not get proof of that.

Only 2 hours until Jose gets home! Let's hope we all make it. They just will not leave each other alone today.
Oh and Ruben is playing with a ball and he keeps saying "my ball" well Marissa is now following him around the house screaming "no, my ball." Great, that is her first sentence. Just tells me what I am in for the next 17 years or so with the two of them.

Seven Years

Jose and I celebrated our 7 year meeting anniversay on Dec. 29th. We will celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary this year. The day we met is very special to us. We had already been talking on the telephone and online for six months, so we already knew by the time we met that we were in love with each other. I know, sounds strange and hard to believe to most, but here we are 7 years later still very much in love!

Christmas in Nebraska

We Survived...

...16 hours in a car with the kids. I'm not sure what we were thinking when we decided to drive to Nebraska to spend Christmas with Jose's family. It's a 13 hour trip but took us about 16 hours to drive it. We stopped half way and spent the night in a hotel both ways. Marissa does not like riding in her car seat. Overall they both were really good on the trip. Ruben played his new Leapster and watched movies most of the way. They both loved being there and playing in the snow. It was great to be able to spend time with Jose's family. I wish we lived closer so they could see the kids more.

They both had a great Christmas and got way too many toys as usual. Ruben, who says that Disney movies are too scary, has now discovered that he LOVES Star Wars. He watched one of the movies with Jose while we were in NE and he wanted to watch it over and over. We bought him Star Wars II and he has watched it about 5 times in the last day or so.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year! I will post more pictures from our trip soon.

Here are some pictures of them playing in the snow.