Update

Just a quick update on my neighbor Tabitha. First off, thank you to all of you who have prayed for her. I know that she appreciates that, and we all know how effective prayer is! God is so good! Tabitha is actually home now on bedrest..or a modified version of it anyway. No working (other than on her laptop from home), no driving, and lots of taking it easy until Baby 'cooks' a bit longer. Her bleeding and contractions have abated for now...thankfully! So....all is well in that arena. But those of you who have been on long term bedrest (Amy and Kim) know how terribly difficult it is. :( It is definitely not fun, but it is certainly the lesser of two evils. If you could, when you think of her, please just say a little prayer for continued health for her and her baby boy.

As for things in our home, things are going pretty well. Ellie has decided that today is a good eating day and is showing improvement since my last post, both in the bottle and breastfeeding arenas. She still has yet to take more than an ounce from the bottle, but at-least she is nursing better. AND....last night, she slept for over 11 hours straight! Whooohooo! Can't complain about that!

Things are working out alright with the whole fraud thing. When we checked our our credit reports, everything was fine....THANK GOODNESS! No identity fraud, just the credit card stuff. And USAA (our credit card company) is taking care of everything...we won't be responsible for the $3000 charged to our card. We closed everything out on Monday and are being reissued new cards and numbers. Hope that takes care of the matter!

Onto things that make my heart happy...the weather has been so incredible the last few days! I even got a little sunburn at the park today! It was quite warm! Guess its time to break out the sunscreen!

Not much planned for the weekend. Just some gardening. I'm planting my rose garden! I'm so excited! I've always wanted a rose garden to nurture along. I've decided to personalize it by choosing bushes that have significance to me....one that was a favorite of mine from our home in Highland (a beautiful red and cream one called a Double Delight), one that is my best friend Diana's favorite (a vivid orange one called Voodoo) and another that makes me think of Luke (its a brillant yellow one called a New Day). I planted those three today. Hopefully on Saturday I will get another opportunity to shop for a few more and plant them. I have a serious itch to get my hands in that dirt again! There is just something about gardening that is so magical to me! Love it!

So...that's 'bout it from us tonight. And now that American Idol is over, I think it might just be time to hit the hay. I've been fighting to keep my eyes open past 9pm this week, since my sweet Ellie has me starting my day now around 5am. You know what Ben Franklin said...."early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Or at-least not a grump come the morning! :) hehehehe

Just a quick note....

Just wanted to ask for prayers for my neighbor, Tabitha who is 28 weeks pregnant with her second child and is having some complications. (Tabitha, I hope you don't mind me posting this!) She is was hospitalized yesterday for the second time this week and could really use our prayers that Baby Owen stays in there awhile longer! Please say a little prayer for her this morning that her bleeding and contractions would stop and that the baby remains safe! Also, if you could pray for her husband as well, since he is now taking care of a toddler AND his wife! Thanks! We all know the power of prayer!

One step forward, two steps back...

Ahhhh....the never ending saga of trying to feed my sweet Ellie! So you all know by now that Ellie has absolutely refused every kind of bottle imaginable for many months now. OK....that's a little bit of an exaggeration...I've tried several types of nipples and bottles with no luck whatsoever! She has been so, so, so stubborn! I've been offering a bottle (and a sippy cup) frequently; hoping against hope that she will just one day decide to take it. Over the last month or so, she graduated from screaming when anything other than me or a spoon full of cereal is placed in her mouth, to playing gingerly with the bottle nipple. She will bite and teethe on it (glad she doesn't do that to me!) but she had yet to actually suck on it. Today however, she took a tiny step in the right direction and actually took about 5 sucks and got some formula! Whoooohoo for a little victory!! In total this afternoon, she took about 1 full ounce (yes...you read that correctly...an OUNCE!) from the bottle. The kicker? It took a whopping 25 MINUTES for her to down that single ounce. :( At that rate, I'll be spending all day attempting to feed her. BUT....I will look at the bright side and say we are making progress!

As far as backsliding goes, she is struggling with breastfeeding now too. :( She is SOOOOO distractable (is that a word???) lately! Anything and everything takes her attention off nursing! Today it was so bad that even in the silence of my bedroom (Luke was napping) and despite the fact that she was pretty hungry, she kept pulling off to stare of the wrought iron art thingy on the wall behind my bed and then also to smile and flirt with me. She probably nursed for a grand total of 2 minutes. It's been like this for multiple feedings over several days now, and I know that its developmental, but c'mon! I'm not sure how much more my already dwindling milk supply can take! As it is, I struggle to keep my supply up when there is any lag in stimulation, and I've already placed myself on fenugreek as of two weeks ago. Not sure what else I can do at this point. I know my body well enough by now to know that if she keeps these little antics up much longer, breastfeeding will soon be over. :( I know that all the books say to nurse in a dark and quiet room, but with a three year old in the house, that just isn't always feasible. Ugh! I'm pretty sure that she isn't getting enough milk as it is, so I've been trying to make up for the extra calories through solids and cereal mixed with formula, but I'm sure she needs more. Will she just get so thirsty that some point that she will either nurse better or break down and take a bottle????? Anybody have any suggestions??? I'm starting to feel a little concerned.

On the upside, she is still gaining weight. I had her weighed this morning when we saw the nurse for her catch up immunizations and she was 15 lbs 4 ounces, which is up two pounds from mid-January. So that's good. Lets just hope she continues the upward trend. Pray for good feeding, my friends! I need all the help I can get here!!!

The hills are alive....

...not with the sound of music (at-least none that anyone else can hear) but my heart sings when I look about me these days. Everywhere I turn, green is all I see, and I LOVE it! The recent rains have painted our hills green, the mountains white and yesterday, as the clouds parted and the sun drenched the canyons, the view was simple breathtaking! Ty and I have both taken a liking to driving the back roads through the canyon to get into Redlands, rather than the opting for the freeway because everything is so beautiful! As I drive, I dream of pulling off the side of the road and lingering awhile with my camera in hand to capture the sights. The hills and flat lands are some of the greenest I've ever seen in these parts, and with the buds beginning to form on the barren trees, the branches have taken on the slightest hint of reds and green as well. The rains only intensify the contrast between the two. It is stunning....magical, really. But I know that my camera lens cannot do justice to the beauty around me. Well....I take that back....I'm sure it can, but I'm not seasoned enough to accomplish that just yet, nor do I usually have the opportunity to just linger in that way with two little kiddos in tow. But it IS beautiful and I will soak as much of it in for the short time that it will last!

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

With the drama from last night, I forgot that I had intended to wish my Dad a very Happy Birthday this morning! Happy Birthday, Dad! We hope you have a wonderful day today! We love you heaps!

We've become a statistic....

....of credit card fraud. Last night before bed, I decided to peek online to check the balances on our bank accounts (I do this periodically, as I'm sure you all do, just to make sure that all is well.) Out of pure curiosity, I decided to look at out MasterCard to see how many points we've accumulated over recent months. And that's when I found it.....two charges on our card for a online department store back east for items totaling close to $3000. Yikes! My heart went into overdrive! We are not ones to wrack up charges on our credit cards. If fact, we pride ourselves on trying to stay debt-free in that area, so when I saw those transactions, I knew they were not ours. I called for Ty to join me in the office and together we immediately got on the phone with our credit card company. Mind you, it was nearly 10pm, so I was relieved to actually get to talk to someone. Apparently, in addition to the two charges made in the last two days, there was a third charge that was attempted yesterday morning for another $2800 at Bed, Bath and Beyond. That one was actually flagged as fraud and declined. Guess someone was in the mood for a remodel or something, and they wanted US to pay for it. Jerks!! Man! I cannot tell you how freaked out I am by all this!!! We are SUPER careful...or as careful as we know to be...when it comes to our credit cards and such. But somehow some jerk has gotten ahold of our information. I just pray, pray, pray that it is just our credit card and not our identity. It was too late last night once we finally finished our phone calls with the credit card company to check our credit reports, but that will definitely be on the list for today. As for now, there is a block on our card and we'll have to talk to the fraud department on Monday regarding the charges that have already made it through. Sheesh.

Needless to say, this morning, Ty and I both feel the need to 'lock down'. I'm guessing we will spend some time today going through and changing passwords, checking our credit and making absolutely certain that we are as safe as we can be. Along those lines, I wanted to give you guys a heads up that my blog is probably going to change too. Maybe the whole web address, or maybe it will remain the same with the site now turning to an invite only kind of thing. I have yet to decide. But the ironic thing of it all is that yesterday morning, when I was up early with Ellie and couldn't return to sleep..before all this happened....I was randomly thinking about how I need to remove our last name from our blog, for safety reasons. I guess that God was putting a hint of all this on my heart. That's how I came to change my 'look' yesterday. I was actually online to see about how to make some security changes. And I guess that is probably why I 'randomly' looked at our credit card last night too. Normally, we wouldn't have a need to check our balance or anything until it was time to pay bills, which isn't for a few more weeks. And who knows what could have happened in that amount of time!!! I hate that there are creeps in this world who will abuse us in that way.

So, what I will ask of you all at this point, is that if you would like to be added to our blog invite list (if that is the direction we decide to go), please send me an email to kmclaughlin25@yahoo.com. I really hate to have to do it this way, since I know that there are some out there who peek in on us because they are friends of friends or whatever, but unless I can figure out a different way to do all this, an invite-only blog is going to have to be the way I go. :(

On a much more positive note, today has already started off so beautifully! I just have to say that my sweet husband is such an awesome Daddy too!! This morning, he set his alarm early (after a long week of getting up before dawn for work AND being sick with a cold) and woke Luke up before the sunrise in order that he could spend some special one on one time with him. He got Luke dressed, bundled him up in his beanie and coat and took him out to pick up doughnuts and watch the sunrise together. They came home a few minutes ago with a special breakfast treat for me and the biggest smiles I'd seen! I could just see the love written all over Luke's face and how special he felt to join Daddy on a little early morning adventure. And that, to me, is priceless!

Going for a new look

....just online for a few minutes. I'm in the mood for a new blog-look. Wanting to change things up just a bit. What do you think?

Argh! I hear Luke kicking around upstairs in his bed. :( Guess that means no more blogging for me today. Bummer. Can't quite figure out why he doesn't just come downstairs to find me like he used to. I think he's looking for some attention. Guess I had better get going. More to come....

Ready for summer

My kids are officially ready for some warm, pool-worthy weather! Their swimsuits arrived in the mail today, along with a heap of cute shirts and flip flops for Luke...we love Old Navy sales!!! We are ready for summer! Too bad the weather calls for rain the rest of the week! :( But that didn't keep up from trying on our new digs....

What is with Luke never looking at the camera when I try to take his picture???!! Argh! Silly boy! Ellie wasn't in the mood for smiles either, so oh well! Anyway......

We're sticking around the house today, catching up on mounds of laundry and house cleaning. Luke helped me make a Body For Life pumpkin cheesecake especially for Daddy this morning. My last attempt to make a BFL dessert turned out disasterous!!! I learned that soy flour is
N-A-S-T-Y when I tried to make BFL carrot cake muffins. The batter didn't even make it into the muffin cups because when I taste-tested it, it was absolutely horrible!!! Eeeewww! It went straight down the sink. Bummer. But today's recipe (out of the BFL cookbook we have) looked (and tasted) pretty darn good! I'm excited to try it after dinner tonight. And the best part....it's SUPER healthy. Can't beat that!

Speaking of healthy....that reminds me about our weekend. On Sunday we took the kids on our first hike of the year! (Our first hike with Ellie, as a matter of fact.) Now that she is 6 months, I was able to coat her in sunscreen, and wear her in one of my carriers that works as a backpack, while Ty toted Luke in our bigger Kelty hiking backpack carrier. We wanted to stick pretty close to home, so we hit a trail in the hills behind my parent's house. We hiked for over 2 hours...Ellie snoozed most of the time and Luke even 'hiked' about a third of the way on his own. It was just so nice to get out in the sunshine and enjoy being a family. We can't wait until the kids are old enough to start camping again! We miss that so much!

Backtracking in our weekend even more, on Friday Krystal and I took our kiddos out to the Living Desert in Palm Desert for the morning. Being that both our husbands are/were out of town (Ty was at a conference all Friday and Saturday, and Will is currently on a missions trip to Costa Rica for the next 10 days), we decided a zoo trip was a good way to kill some time. The weather was great...sunny and warm, but cool in the shade, and we got to see lots of neat animals up close. Cheetah's, zebras, mexican wolves, giraffes (my favorite!) and a really cool Golden Eagle. It was much better viewing than at the Wild Animal Park, in my opinion. While the Wild Animal Park is bigger and has a greater variety of animals, The Living Desert is much more managable for toddlers. Just though you might like a little 'review' in case you're interested in checking it out. LOL! But it was very cool! We had a nice time. I have some pictures, but they are on our other camera and I don't have to cable to download them. :( Guess they'll have to wait for another time.

And looking at the clock reminds me that it is now time for me to go! I've 'fluffed' the load of laundry in the dryer like three times now. Guess I should go hang 'em up and get some other things accomplished before naptime is over! I'll see ya when I see ya! :)

Half way through......

My sweet Ellie Paige turns six months old today! Half of her first year is already over! (sniff, sniff!) How can that be?? Wasn't it just August???? Isn't she the most beautiful child?! Those pouty little lips and those round, chubby cheeks! Not to mention those stunning blue eyes? Where ever did she get those eyes??? And that little dimple in her chin....oh my sweet child.....you are so adorable! I just want to eat you up!!! :) (Of-course, I'm completely biased, but I think she is the prettiest little girl I have ever laid eyes on!)

And speaking of chubby....I sat her on my scale the other day to see if she had gained anything since she started on solids. According to my scale (which I verified is just about the same as our pediatrician's), she has gained a pound and a half in just under two weeks! She is now up to 15 lbs! Bye, bye 25th percentile! Well....maybe. At-least its a start, right? She is definately into the veggies and cereal we've been giving her. So far, she has loved the sweet potatos and will tolerate the peas, although she prefers them mixed with oatmeal or rice cereal. We're onto veggie #3 this weekend....not sure which one just yet though. Need to hit up the grocery store first!

Her new skill of the week is blowing raspberries. Mostly when she is frustrated or mad though! And watch out if she's got a mouthful of peas! I learned that lesson very quickly the other day!! (You would think I would know better by now!) She is fun though! Such a silly, Momma's girl!

Since I haven't had much time to blog recently, I didn't get the chance to share any of the pictures I took when Amy and her little Sara came for a visit last week. We were fortunate to be able to spend a few hours together while Amy was in town for a short time. It was her first time meeting Ellie and only my second time seeing Miss Sara. Sara was only a tiny thing when I saw her before Ellie was born! Here are our girls....

A highlight of our weekend (last weekend) was that we got to spend some time with my sister Jenn and the girls. It had been awhile since we saw them! Jenn brought along a framed set of pictures of MY dad when he was a baby (we aren't sure exactly how old he is here) but we were astounded by the resembelence Ellie has to my dad. The picture has obviously been 'colorized' as they often did back then, so it made him a very 'pretty' young boy! :) But you can see how many features Ellie shares with her Grandpa! Lots of people have commented recently how she looks like my dad! A much prettier, girl version anyway! (Nothing against you, Dad!)

Its neat for me to see both Ty and my family reflected in our children. I love that they look like 'us' in so many different ways! Luke is definately more of a McLaughlin; looking so much like his handsome daddy and all, and Ellie is more of a Thorp, taking on a lot of the characteristics I had as a baby and looking so much like Grandpa too! Love that!

So I guess its on to Ellie second half of the year. She grows more fun by the day, but I still wish I could press pause and keep her wrapped up in my arms forever. Babies just grow up too fast! We have to hold on tight while we can, right?!

Happy 'Love' Day!

...that's what we call Valentine's Day 'round here. And we love to spread the 'love' around to one another! :) To show Daddy how much we love him today, Luke and I will be preparing him a special 'Love Day' dinner and an extra special treat for dessert...homemade chocolate covered long stem strawberries. Mmmmmmm!! :) It's not going to be an overly exciting Valentine's Day, but I guess when you have nursing baby and a toddler 'round, you do what you can to make things special. Its not the super-romantic kind of V-days we used to share pre-kids, but it's wonderful nonetheless! I'm happy to keep it simple. In fact, I almost prefer it! :)

We've had some crazy Valentine's Day weather today. We woke up early to unexpected rain pounding on our windows, and as the morning progressed, the weather took an exciting turn....

Snow!!! LOTS of it! Can you believe it?! Crazy weather! It was literally 80 degrees on Sunday! I stood on our driveway Sunday morning in shorts, a tank top and flip flops! Weird! And wouldn't ya know...we just planted all of our plants and trees Tuesday and Wednesday. Our landscaping is now complete! But who would have thought it would freeze today!? We're just hoping our new beloved sago palm and other tender plants don't bite the dust! Yikes!!

Anyhow...that's it for now. How I wish I had the time this week to put together a super cute montage or even some Valentines-ish pictures for ya'll! I miss my blog time lately!!! But duty calls. :) Gotta keep this house of ours running! :) I must run for now to tidy up and prepare for our special Love Day feast tonight! Happy Love Day, friends!

Luke's checkup

Luke had his very belated 3 year physical yesterday with our new pediatrician. I have to say that she was awesome with Luke. She took the time to play with him for several minutes to get acquainted with him and she was very gentle with his shy spirit. By the end of the visit, she had obviously won him over because when she asked him for a hug, he HUGGED her!! For those of you who have tried to pry a hug out of my shy little guy, you know that it is no small thing for him to offer her a hug! Most of the time he won't even hug his Aunt Jenn! (He loves you so much though, Jenn...you know that!)

Anyway, all in all the visit went well. He weighed a mere 31 1/2 lbs which is still only the 10th percentile for his age, but he was in the 50th percentile for his height at 37 inches. I honestly think it is the first time my little tyke has seen the 50th percentile in anything! :) WHoohoooo! As for the weight, I explained his history and that he's always been on the skinnier side, so there really wasn't a concern. I think he was the 10th or 25th percentitle at 2 years too. Dr. Zaft just encouraged us to offer lots of high calorie, healthy foods...and even just extra fats like butter on toast, extra sour creams added to things, etc. We try. And we will continue to do so. But if being skinny is all that we have to contend with from his preemie days, then we are certainly blessed! :)

I have to run for now. I'm sorry to be so quick with the posts lately. There has been little time to sit and blog. I have so many pictures I want to share and fun stories, but I guess they will just have to wait until another time. Happy Wednesday, friends!

Kids say the cutest things!

Just a few minutes ago, Luke ran out from the potty without his pants, because apparently, they were too difficult to put back on. As he ran bare bottomed to the family room he exclaimed, "I'm goin' commando Mom!" LOL! Then, as I was sitting at the kitchen table working on some things a few minutes later, he came up beside me and said, "Hey, Mom. Look!" He sat down on the hardwood floor, STILL with a bare tooshie and said, "See....I sit down, and 'den I get back up and my toosh sticks to da floor! hehehehh!e! Isn't that silly, Mommy??"

Yes....honey...that IS silly...and so are YOU!!! And I love you, Silly Bug!!!!

Around the world in 365 days....

We've calculated the miles Ty drove for work in 2007 (our tax appointment is today...in just a few minutes, actually) and his total for the year was 33,372 miles. That means, in essence, he drove around the circumference of the earth 1.34 times. Pretty impressive, no? Just thought you might like to know! :)

Oh and by the way... just in case you were wondering, if he wanted to drive to the moon, he would need to drive 238,000 miles and 93 million to get to the sun. Thank goodness he doesn't commute THAT much! :) LOL!!!!!

Rain, Rain, go away....

Its raining again today. And while I know we desperately need the rain, I can't say that I love it when it botches our plans for the day. We were invited to Krystal and Will's for Super Bowl, but with the roads so slick and the long drive, we've decided it was safer to stay home. :( Oh well....so it goes. As I type, I am sitting on the kitchen floor using Ty's laptop and Luke is sitting here next to me playing Playdoh. Its definately a playdoh kind of day...too cold and dreary to do much else. He is such a responsible playdoh-player too! Always sure to keep the doh on his table and to keep just one color out at a time. I love that I can trust him to follow the 'rules'! He's so awesome!!

We have yet to resurrect ourselves from our pajamas (well..I have, since I went to the gym earlier) but the rest of the gang has not. Ellie is taking her morning nap, Ty is in the office, and surprisingly enough, our house is quiet....only the ticking of the clock on the mantel and the occasional tap of Luke's playdoh toys on the table. Its almost serene here.

Our big news for the weekend is that Ellie had her first taste of solids yesterday. My little girl is growing up! (sniff, sniff!) She did amazingly well!!! I wasn't expecting her to take to it as well as she did. She was definately ready!!! We tried again this morning, and she ate quite a bit again! She seems to like it! Here is a little video of her....

Lets see...what else happened this weekend?? Last night I got to enjoy a fun Mom's Night Out with my two neighbors Tabitha and Kristin, at the Melting Pot. Mmmmmmm! I can't tell you how nice it was just to sit and talk, enjoy really good food and linger as long as we wanted over our glasses of wine. I think we were there for four hours!! :) It was great! Thanks again, Tabitha for treating us! You are awesome! :) At dinner, we all talked about how lucky we are to have such a great neighborhood. God heard all of my fervent prayers for good neighbors that we could befriend all those months ago! We certainly feel fortunate to have great neighbors with kids all around the same ages! Its what Ty and I have always hoped for!

Well....it seems that Luke has grown tired of the playdoh and we are onto another activity for the time being. That is my cue that I need to sign off. I hope that you all enjoy your Super Bowl Sunday and please.....rain, rain, GO AWAY!!!! :)

He's baaaack!!!!!!

Luke found Snuggie today!!! YAHHHOOOOOOOOO! We had Krystal and the twins over for a playdate and the kids were playing in the playroom when all of a sudden Luke comes running into the kitchen hollering "Mom! Mom! I found SNUGGIIIEEEE!" I wish I had my camera at that moment, just to capture the sheer JOY on his face! And I think I met his excitement with a happy shrill of my own! I might have been more excited than he was! Holy cow! Was I happy to see Snug! Apparently, he (Snug) was hiding in an old christmas cookie tin, with the lid on somewhere in the playroom...either in Luke's little kitchen or in the toy box. We turned that playroom upside down back when Snug went missing, but who would have thought to look in that silly little tin box?!?!?!? Oh I'm so glad Snuggie is back! Its like the return of an old friend. It makes me happy to see Luke so glad to have him home! :) Welcome back, Snuggie! We missed you! :)