New Blog

I've changed our family's blog to:

http://burntorangehobbs.blogspot.com/

Check it out!

A new Blog Name?

I'm realizing as my little belly grows bigger that I could make a certain little baby girl jealous that the blog is named after Mark. I guess only have a 1 and half to 2 months left with the baby inside of me...but it seems so far away at this point.

I'm just teaching summer school. I have next week off and then teach three more weeks. But we've been getting our little girl's room ready...she doesn't have an official name yet, but we have a list and we have a favorite name so far: Lily Marie. But it's not official. Just something we've been mulling over. :-)

I don't know when I post again, but hopefully I'll have pictures next time...

Two More Days...

Well, school's almost out for summer. Just two more days. I'm excited for the end, mostly because my big pregnant belly is getting bigger and my energy level is getting lower. I love the kids, but I think everyone's ready for summer... :-)

And once summer comes, more time with Mark! I may be teaching summer school...we'll see.

That's all for now. It's gonna be a short entry because I'm short on time. The picture with all three of us is after we hiked a little mountain at Glen Rose Dinosaur Park. Mark LOVED looking for "Dinosaur Footprints."

Below is Mark painting. He actually helped A LOT! And he loved it!

Spring Cleaning (and Singing)

This week, I started with a long list of things to clean. And I'm almost done with it! I really only have one more room to clean and then our house officially, verifiably clean! Fun stuff...

And on Sunday I made homemade lasagna, and since I knew Craig and I couldn't finish it all by ourselves, we invited Craig's mom (Diana) and Bill. They enjoyed the food (even though I messed up the homemade french bread) and after dinner Mark had a blast cleaning the dishes with Mammy (as you can see in the picture). He LOVES to wash dishes and play in the water.

Then Craig and Mark had fun bonding by dancing to bluegrass music. It's the funniest thing to watch them because Craig does a perfect "white boy" dance that looks hilarious and then Mark tries to imitate him. I just worry about Mark when he gets older and thinks that's really how you're supposed to dance. So, I got my camera to post a few pictures and videos. :-)

Mark says the funniest things sometimes. Like he knows the "5 dollar foot long" Subway song. It's funny to hear him sing it. :-) And every day this week during Spring Break, I've been letting Mark wake up on his own (which is after Craig leaves for work). And every morning, the first words out of Mark's mouth as he's getting out of bed are, "Where's Daddy?" When I tell him Daddy's at work he get's the saddest little look on his face. And I asked him yesterday, "You miss Daddy?" And he replied in the saddest little voice with his head hung low, "Yeah."

But we're having lunch with Daddy today and going to the doctor to check up on baby #2 in my belly! According to the weird gold chain thing, the baby is going to be a boy. That's when you hold a gold chain with a gold pendant above the belly and if it rocks left and right it's a boy, if it rocks up and down towards the feet and the head, it's a girl. (I think that's right) I don't know if it's too early to tell the sex yet, but Craig and I decided if the baby let's us look to find out the sex, then we'll find out. So, stay posted for my upcoming blog in which you may find out more information about the upcoming blessing due in September...

Until then, enjoy the video! Here's crazy dancing with Daddy (my apologies to Craig):

Ready for Spring Break

It's funny to read my last blog entry because I said "so far so good" with his transition to his new bed. Well, it wasn't good at 2:30am on Feb. 16th because I woke up to hear a huge "thump" from Mark's room and I heard it...that heart-stopping "I'm in SERIOUS pain!" cry. As soon as I heard it, I knew it wasn't good. And then I made it to his room, and there he was laying next to his bed and when I picked him up, I saw blood. I tried not to freak out, but I knew that it couldn't be good. I took him downstairs, got him some milk, turned on the tv, and calmed him down. I gave him ibuprofen for the pain and tried to look at his head. Apparently he found some way to fall of his bed at an angle that made his head it a corner. It didn't look tremedously bad at 3am, but I was tired and it was dark. When I got him up at 6:30am to get him ready for day care, I tried to get a washcloth to get a better look at his head. That's when I knew it wasn't good. So I drove to our doctor's office, made it there by 7:45am and our amazing doctor looked at his poor head. Mark was acting completely normal, but as the doctor and the nurse cleaned the wound and brushed aside his red hair, what was at first a "1-stitch" wound ended up being a "3-stitch" wound. So I held little Mark down and looked at his face to try to sing to him as the doctor and two nurses gave him a numbing shot and three stitches in his head. I didn't look at any of it, and tried to be a good, calming mother.

One week later, he got the stitches out and I just pray that it'll be a while before that boy splits his head open again.

But in one week my Spring Break will start! I think all the students and teachers are ready for it. The trick is thinking of ways to make class fun, engaging and educational.

And Mark is still amazing. He's constantly astounding us with what he knows. When I ask him (if he's in the mood), "What letter does f-f-flower start with?" he'll tell me, "F!" without hesitating. As long as I sound out the letter, he can tell me what it is. And he LOVES Thomas the tank engine. He's got the wooden railway and loves to play with it.

We're also trying to potty train him. For the most part, he's doing pretty good. He still has an occasional accident, but he's mostly good if you remind him. It's still not his idea to sit on the potty, but he'll go if you ask him.

So, Mark's hungry, I'm hungry and Craig's on his way home. So I've gotta get dinner ready! Adios!

Since I actually have a day off, I'll take a few moments to "blog." Mark just upgraded to his new "big boy bed." So far, so good. All this means is since we got the crib from IKEA that can change into a toddler bed, we took off the rails so he can crawl in and out of his bed easily. He's been able to climb out of the crib for a while, but didn't show a tremondous interest in escaping, so we didn't worry about changing it to a bed. But when we were at Toys 'R Us and they let us have their "Handy Manny" toddler bedding set for $8.00, we took it. They had actually sold out of the sheets already, but we convinced them to give us the display sheets. So after carefully washing the sheets, Mark's been sleeping in his "new" bed! He looks so cute and he seems proud of it. It did take some extra convincing to take a nap today, and an extra cup of milk, but he finally went down for his nap.

I've been dusting and vacuuming, and wanted a break, so that's why I'm here. But Mark and I went to Craig's work today to have lunch with him and Mark sang "The Eyes of Texas" perfectly for him! He also loves "Duh duh duh" which is the Texas fight song without the words. It's so cute to hear him sing it because he really tries to hit the right notes. He definitely has some musical tone. I think he's got music in his blood.

And we love putting Mark to work by emptying the dishwasher. He did break a dish the other day. :-( But, it's still nice to have him reach down and grab the non-sharp items from the dishwasher and hand them to you. It really helps relieve stress on your back from leaning over. I just make sure to take the knives out of the dishwasher first because otherwise I have a panic attack when he reaches for the knife.

Well, I'd better get back to cleaning the house and folding clothes. Otherwise, I'll have no time to catch up on my household chores when I go back to work. :-)

The Hospital Week

This week has been quite eventful. At 5am Wednesday morning, Craig woke up with an extreme headache. By 6am, I was driving us to the ER with little Mark. At 9am, I dropped Mark off at Daycare because his patience in the ER room was waning. By 11am, the doctor informed us they would admit Craig to the hospital. We made it to his hospital room around 3 or 4pm and Craig is quite drugged up at this moment. The few times he would talk, he thought it was the next day. At 5:30pm I picked Mark up from day care and when I hugged him, he felt very warm. We took his temperature before I left, and it was 102.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Since 2 kids at the day care had already gotten strep throat, my instincts told me Mark had it too. So, since the doctor's office was already closed and I was already at the hospital, I took Mark to the ER about 6:00pm on Wednesday. They didn't even test him for strep and gave us a prescription for penicillin. Craig's mom and I went to Wal-mart, got his medicine and came back to the hospital. Craig was mostly out of it still, but Craig's mom wanted me to go home and sleep in our bed. Craig's face looked betrayed when she suggested it, and I knew I couldn't leave him. So Craig's Mom stayed with sick little Mark at our house, while I slept in a fold-out chair/bed next to Craig's bed.

I kept Mark with me all day Thursday in the hospital room. Thankfully he was pretty entertained by his 4 hot wheels cars I had stuck in his diaper bag. I desperately tried to get him to take a nap, but it wasn't until they finally released Craig at 4:30pm that Mark fell asleep in the car. He was worried about Craig, and I don't think he wanted to sleep until he knew Daddy was better.

I stayed home Friday with both of them as well. As the family nurse, I think both are now on the road to recovery and with a few more prayers, hopefully we won't have so much trauma for a LONG time.

Now today, Saturday, Craig's Mom is getting ready to get married to Bill Moon. She's called several times this morning to see if we're coming. I think we are. It depends on how Craig's feeling because I don't want him to push himself too much too soon.

So, this blog is more about my life than Mark's cute little things. I will say one thing that amazes me that Mark did last night though. For Christmas he got this little chalkboard and I was drawing different things and I told me everything that I drew: eyeglasses (he called them "glasses"), shoes ("boots"), a glass filled with liquid (he called it "milk"), shirt, pants (he said "jamas" for pajamas), a dog, and when I drew a hand, he said "gloves!"

I need to go, but maybe I'll remember to add to this blog in the near future...