Smiley Girl

Okay, I thought my last post was the last one for the night . . . but so many people don't get to see Matea that often and I know they couldn't go another day without seeing this picture of her, taken just this past Tuesday. Who can resist those little cheeks?! We are soooooo in trouble . . . she's going to be spoiled rotten. :)

Matea is Three Months Old!

I'll post more about our little girl and some of her quirks later (I promise!), but it's too late tonight to barely think straight. I wanted to post this picture of little Matea though with her three month stats . . . and I even got a smile for the picture! Our angel is just adorable when she smiles. :)

First ER Visit?!?

Well, the first ER visit was not one of the "firsts" that I was really looking forward to with Matea, but unfortunately we got our first trip to the emergency room before we even get our first laugh. :(

Last Thursday (Matea's three month birthday), Matea was not eating well and acting out of sorts all afternoon. Then she started moaning and groaning in discomfort and spiked a 103 degree fever. We called the pediatrician and they couldn't see her that evening but didn't feel comfortable with waiting for the morning for her to be seen since Matea is still so young. So they told us to go to the emergency room and have Matea checked out.

Unfortunately it was the night that the circus was in town and we had tickets with Jeff and Lori. We were so excited to take Elijah, but neither one of us wanted to not be with Matea if something serious was wrong. After much back and forth Grandma took Eli to the circus and Jon and I took Matea to the ER.

Once at the ER she was catheterized to get a urine sample and had chest x-rays done. Her fever was down to 100.8 after having Tylenol, and the doctors advised us to take her back home, keep an eye on the temp, and go to our pediatrician if the temp stayed over 102 for three days. We were seen quickly and actually made it back home before Grandma and Elijah made it home!

Over the next few days Matea's temp kept spiking up and she was pretty miserable, but finally it spiked the last time on Sunday night and she was fine (if tired) on Monday. Our little girl fought off her "first" viral infection, what a milestone. :P I'm not looking forward to the next illnesses, but I'm thankful that nothing more serious was wrong and that the hospital didn't put us through too many pokes and prods. And Matea is back to herself again . . . though I must confess I miss how much she slept while she was sick. She's back to her 20 minute naps every couple hours routine already! I'm still thankful for our healthy, wakeful, little peanut! :)

Watch out for the dragon!

When I was sick over Labor Day weekend Jon told Elijah and I a silly story as we were going to sleep in the hotel room in Canada. Our story was about going trick-or-treating, and Elijah got to pick the costumes that everyone was dressed up in. Eli was a toucan, Mommy was also a toucan, Daddy was a monkey, Matea was a butterfly, Tori was a football player, Lexi was a flower, and Noah was a blueberry.

Well, after that I had to try and find a toucan outfit for Halloween for Eli . . . but after exhaustively searching the Internet could only come up with a pattern to make one. Which was not going to happen. Then I was in Old Navy doing a little shopping and came across a dragon costume. Well, Elijah loves to pretend to be a dragon (I was actually quite certain he was going to pick to be a dragon in the story) and it was perfect for him. So I scrapped the toucan idea and picked up the dragon costume.

When I got home and showed it to Eli he was beyond excited and almost in the realm of spastically happy.

He wanted to put it on right away of course . . .

He wasn't too sure about the dragon head though . . .

And he wanted to see himself in the mirror and ROAR!

Then Eli wanted Daddy to wear his dragon outfit . . .

And that's the scariest dragon of all!

Elijah told Lexi and Tori all about it right away the next time he saw them and gave them a peek at what he looks like in it. I can't wait for Halloween!

Pictures on the Beach!

Well, at the beginning on September Jon and I had our family's pictures taken at Tunnel Park in Holland. I had snatched up an offer from an aspiring photographer on the SavingsAngel.com forums to have a half an hour sitting on the beach with her and then get a copyright-released CD with 12 of the pictures for only $25! Additional pictures were available for $2 a picture. I thought that was a pretty good deal and took it. Even if the pictures stunk we were only out $25 and got to spend part of the morning on the beach.

Anyway, here are some of my favorite pictures that she took:

 

And here are some of my favorite pictures that I took after our session was over (I think I got some pretty good ones, personally!):

Quotes

Here's another collection of Elijah-isms:

• Eli saw Jon doing some pushups on the floor and tried to imitate him. I asked Eli, "Do you know how to do pushups?" and he stopped, looked at me with a puzzled expression and said, "I know how to eat pushups!" He was, of course, referring to the pushup popsicles that Grandma gets him when they go to the zoo. :)
• Overheard while looking for a book to read with Grandma before bed: "I Spy book! Come to Grandma!"
• While goofing around together last week this exchange took place . . . Mommy: "Eli is silly!" Elijah: "No, Mommy is silly!" Mommy: "Eli is silly!"  Elijah (exasperated): "I don't want to argue. Mommy is silly!"
• While Matea was crying in the car while we were driving home from the store: "Mommy, Matea is crying because she is sad she doesn't have any teeth." Hmm, interesting theory! And while on the Matea teeth issue, this is a "Tori-ism" from the prayer that Tori said for us before lunch last Friday: "Dear God, please help Matea grow up as she will, enjoy eating her food, and be okay going along without any teeth." The day Matea actually gets teeth will put these little minds at ease apparently!
• And finally, this was requested after seeing a promo on Nickelodeon: "Mommy, tell Daddy to get me that podcast to listen to!" I never thought my THREE YEAR OLD would want a podcast! Life sure is different than when we grew up!

Mommy and Matea!

I just had to post these pics of me and my beautiful daughter . . . :)

Busy busy beavers.

Well, it's busy over here. Of course, it's always busy, but it seems like my head is spinning around in circles lately trying to keep all the balls in the air. Since the last time I wrote we of course have done all kinds of things - gone to the zoo, to the gardens, started BSF, got our pictures taken at Tunnel Park in Holland, and even tried to go sailing over Labor Day weekend.

I say "tried" to go sailing, because we never actually went sailing exactly. We were supposed to go up on Saturday morning to Canada to go sailing, but on Friday night I wasn't feeling that great. Then Saturday at 2:30 am I woke up shaking, cold, and with a fever. My fever hovered around 102 most of the time, though it went as high as 104.8 on Saturday for about an hour. Our plans for a sailing weekend looked doomed. We did end up going up on Sunday because I felt much better (I even drove!), but then I just got sick again and spent plenty of time in the bathroom or sleeping. I think everyone else still had fun, but I really wasn't "there" for the most part so I'm not sure. I have hardly any pictures, but I'll try to post some (and steal some from Jon's Mom) in the future. Don't hold your breath for them though. :)

Also in the last two weeks we've started Bible Study Fellowship for another year (Jon and my seventh year and Eli's second). I'm a childrens leader again this year. Which I think is a little crazy, but God thinks I can do apparently, since He gave me sermon after sermon and scripture passages to convince me that I should serve again this year. It truly is a blessing to lead little ones (I have just turned 2 year olds!) in learning about God, so I'm just trusting in Him each week for the time to prep and for people to watch Matea on Wednesdays. Lori and I are doing a kid switch thing so she takes Eli and Matea on Mondays so I can go to leader's meeting for BSF in the morning and then have the afternoon to do errands/prep/whatever, and then I take the girls on Friday so she can get stuff done. Only one week so far, but it's going great! :) And my cousin Catherine took Matea the first class day and it went well, so that was an answer to prayer. My Aunt Linda is going to take Matea next week, and I have childcare for Matea figured out through October 15, so I think I'm doing pretty well. If anyone wants to watch an adorable baby on Wednesdays from 9am-1pm don't hesitate to call though. :)

Anyway, I keep hoping to post pictures, but those take time and that's a resource in short supply around here. And I keep forgetting to write down the crazy things Eli says, so I have to get back in the habit of doing that. I'm trying to keep this blog thing going . . . but it's an easy ball to drop among all the "have to dos" in my life right now. So, I apologize in advance for the sporadic-ness (is that a word?) of my posts. Oh well!

Eli did tell me yesterday that I could share part of his snack because I have beautiful eyes, and then today he hugged me and said I have beautiful fingers. He's figuring out how to charm the ladies at only three! We're going to be in trouble!

And as far as Matea, she is now "sleeping the night" which means that we are a lot more rested. Unfortunately she naps very poorly during the day (though she puts herself to sleep in her crib at naptime which is a blessing), so I don't get many breaks, and she is a bit of a night owl. She usually doesn't fall asleep until 11 or 12 (it used to be 1 or 2 so she's getting better). Then she sleeps until about 6 am, wakes up to eat and then sleeps for another three hours. I'm pretty happy with that schedule! More sleep for Mommy makes everyone happy! :) Hopefully I'll figure out a routine soon that allows me to get everything done and still have time to blog more often. Time is flying by, and our kiddies are adorable and growing fast, so I want to share their antics with everyone!

Definitely an Internet-age kid!

The other day, Eli and I were just sitting in his room and had spontaneously started playing a silly game where we would take turns saying some silly short phrase to each other.  This game arose from each of us holding a plastic cup up to our mouth and speaking into it, giving us each an altered "Darth Vader" type voice as we said something. 

Of course, Eli found this all highly amusing; I was having fun too, partly because Eli was having fun, and also due to the sheer "non sequitur"-ness of our back-and-forth exchanges.  (Eli: "Lightning McQueen!"  Jon: "I like ice cream!"  And so on.)

It was my turn to say something, and pretty much out of sheer randomness, and perhaps also from running out of other things to say, I said, "WWW!"

To my surprise, Eli responded by saying, "Dot com!"  I was totally surprised: Eli and I have never discussed the Internet per se, but obviously he'd picked up the fact that "www" and ".com" go together.  There's no question that Eli is a child of the Internet age!

Now, this has become kind of a game unto itself -- I can say "WWW!" to Eli at any random time, and he'll respond by saying "dot com!" and we'll both laugh!