Happy (Late) Thanksgiving!

I know I'm very late in posting this, but happy Thanksgiving!

We headed to Ohio to spend Thanksgiving with my side of the family. We headed down Wednesday, stayed Wednesday night and came back Thursday.

Things were all going well until about 3:30am Thursday morning. The peanut woke up, and decided he was up....for the day. Lets just say mommy and daddy were not so happy with this arrangement.

He did fall asleep on Grandma before the big Thanksgiving feast. I do have to say he was very chipper for only having a few hours sleep!

Noah

As I have posted before, a couple days a week I watch Noah. It’s funny to see them interact because they are complete opposites in every way. Noah is running and playing ever second he is awake. Josiah does not. Josiah throws tantrums, a lot of tantrums. Noah does not.

Another difference is how they fall asleep. When Josiah is ready for a nap he gets super cranky, we put him down in his crib, he cries for a few minutes, then falls asleep. Not Noah. He will be playing as hard as every, then all of a sudden he lies down and is asleep. It is the funniest thing to watch! I did get some pictures of him asleep after falling asleep eating.

Shoes

Amy’s Gift

Donnie’s cousin Amy was planning on seeing the peanut around his birthday, but things did not work out. So she had to mail the peanuts birthday present. The peanut was most excited about getting a box in the mail!

“A box? For me?”

“What is it?”

“Yeah! A dinosaur! How awesome!”

“I will call him Mr. Dino Jr.”

The Mr. Dino Jr. came with a music DVD that the peanut loved! He even dances to it. I will have to get a video of that sometime soon!

Sick Part 4,639

So after the night of screaming I thought something had to be wrong with the boy. Because the boy had no fever and no other symptoms his doctor said there was nothing wrong with him. I disagree. So I made a list of 5 possible peanut problems.

1. Teeth Problems (he is getting his molars in)
2. Stomach Problems (Donnie and I both have been having stomach issues)
3. Growing Pains (Katie came up with this one for us)
4. Mental Issues (how old does a kid have to be before they can have anti-depressants?)
And, in my option, the most likely
5. Demon Possession

Donnie called our pastor to discuss this possibility. (we love our pastor Chris) For some reason, Chris thought this was the funniest thing ever, and told us there would be no casting out of demons. We were very disappointed in this development.

My mother told us to go rent the movie Rosemary’s Baby. We will have to check into that.

(Update: Please note that the crankiness, as of now, has subsided. Praise the Lord!)

Sick Part 4,638

The peanut is still cranky. However, it got really bad Thursday morning at about 2:30am. He woke up crying. (Please note that the peanut normally is a really goodnight sleeper) I let him cry for a bit, then went in changed his diaper, and put him back down. Then he started SCREAMING. At about 3am I gave him some ibuprofen thinking that maybe he was in pain. Nope, he still screamed. At about 3:30am I gave him a bottle thinking that maybe he was hungry. Nope, he still screamed. At about 4am Donnie and I just decided to get him up. That did not even help. He was still screamed.

At this point Donnie and I are about to go crazy! It was so bad we called my mom at 4:30am asking her what to do. She suggested we call the doctor. We called the doctor, and she told us that the peanut was over tired, and to give him a bath.

I thought a bath was the stupidest idea ever, but we were desperate so we tried it. And you know what? He loved it! He was all laughing and splashing. We were shocked. After his bath he fell asleep watching Loony Tones with us. This was abound 5:30am. He slept till 9am. Thank the Lord!

Sick

The boy is sick AGAIN! It all started about a week ago with a cough, runny nose, etc. Then last Friday it turned into a fever, a high fever, a take the peanut to the doctor fever. The doctor said it was a virus and to keep an eye on him.

By Sunday the fever broke, and he was acting much like himself. Monday is was still acting better, but was being super cranky. Here is the proof.

Then this morning he woke up covered in little red dots. I knew it was time to go back to the doctor. (because the good Lord knows we are not there nearly often enough) And know what? He is sick! Mommy was right!!! He has roseola. He will be fine. My mother has recommended us just making standing appointments with the doctor twice a week. I think this would work for us.

Leaves Part 2

Here are the pictures from the leaves photo shoot. Enjoy!

Leaves

Yes, we do live in the city, but we get a whole lot of leaves. More leaves than any person should have to deal with on such a small area. However, we did make the best of it by having some family fun time in the leaves.

I did do a leaves photo shoot. Those pictures will be up tomorrow.

Walking

Its official...he is walking. Well...wobbling I think is more like it.

High Five!

Recently the peanut has learned how to give high fives. I do think this is the cutest thing ever, so I wanted to get a video of it. However, the peanut did not want to corporate. Whenever the video camera comes out the peanut starts hamming it up!

I do think the video that we did take is funny, even if there is no high five. On the plus side, so can see the peanut doing (what his grandpa Baughn calls) his war cry! Enjoy!

Birthday Week!

As all you know, this is my birthday week, and I have to say it is going very well. I'm sad to say I have no pictures! :-(

We celebrated my birthday on Wednesday by going out to dinner. My dear friend Katie surprised me by meeting us at dinner! With flowers! I have the best friends!

I some point I will have to take some pictures of my gifts and post them!

Halloween

Happy belated Halloween! I have to say Halloween was great fun for us! When we first dressed the peanut up, he had a confused look on his face.
But then we took him in front of the mirror, and he was so excited! I think he liked how he looked!

My mom and I had made some pumpkin cookies that we took to my neighbors. I called it reverse trick or treating. I think the neighbors were happy to receive cookies. And everyone thought the peanut looked super cute as tigger!

Hair Issues

The peanut’s hair is getting long. Really long. Needs to be cut long. I want to cut his hair myself, but Donnie is very against this idea. For some reason he has no trust in my baby hair cutting ability. (Maybe this is because I have never cut baby hair before) So we have decided that my Aunt Deb (who does know how to cut hair) will cut it. Even though we have not talked to her about it. So, Aunt Deb, will you cut the peanut’s hair?

H1N1 & Birthday

I have a question for everyone out there. Are you getting (or do you want to get) the H1N1 vaccine? Donnie and I are not so into vaccines, so our answer is no. However, the news is making SUCH a big deal about H1N1. I heard a comparison between H1N1 and polo! My goodness. I’m 99.9% sure I do not want the peanut to be vaccinated. But then when I watch the news and I’m 0.1% not so sure. So are you getting the vaccine?

ps- Happy Birthday to me! :-)

The Pox

As I had posted before, the peanut a few weeks ago got the chicken pox. Let me tell you, chicken pox does not a happy peanut make. To make matters worse, grandma and grandpa were on vacation in China the whole time!

It all started with what we thought was a pimple below his lip. We did not think anything of this, because the peanut’s skin around his mouth is always broke out. However, that night he did not sleep very well at all. Then the next day the peanut was not into eating. This is very uncommon. So I made an appointment with his doctor not having any idea what could be wrong. By the time we got to the doctor he had a few what looked like pimples, and I had a good idea it was the pox. And it was!

Below is a video that I made to document the pox for my mom and dad. It is 15 min long, so if you have some time to waste feel free to watch!

Birthday Week!

Its birthday week time! As many of you know I celebrate my birthday for a week. And I think I should get even more than a week this year seeing that I turn the big 3-0. For a long time, I was telling people that I was only turning 15. But I think I’m at the point now, that I’m embracing 30. I’m saying 30 is the new 15! Feel free to wish me birthday week wishes!

Halloween!

Happy Halloween! The peanut is looking forward very much to tonight. We found him a tigger costume at Salvation Army that he is going to wear tonight. I will be sure to take pictures and post them when I get a chance. (I hope by next Thursday)

Halloween time only means one thing. Chestnuts. Everywhere. The squirrels are very happy about the situation. And I have to say, I think they are getting pretty bold, letting me take pictures of them eating!

I’m not sure what I’m more worried about. Getting whacked in the head with chestnut spikes or getting attacked by a squirrel. People are right about Detroit being a dangerous place to live!

Cards!

The past month or so have been tough. There has been an abundance of sickness with the peanut and then the dog scratching him up, things have been rough. However, I received some very touching cards during this time. I can not tell you how a simple card brightens my day! Thank you!!!!

The Great Pumpkin

Last Tuesday, The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown was on TV. We watched it together as a family, and I have to say, it was SO fun! I was shocked how into it the peanut was. At some points he was even dancing! I took a (poor quality) video to document this big event. Did anyone else watch it?

Toys

I am anti toys. The peanut has tons of toys, maybe even millions. However, he does not find them very interesting. What he does find interesting is silver wear. Especially plastic sporks. Give him a spork, and he will be good for hours!

There was one spork that he was in LOVE with. I don't even know where it came from! He would carry it around with him everywhere.

Then this happened

This was the cry heard around the world. The spork had been left on the floor, and somehow I had run over it with a chair. I have to say, the peanut has not been the same since. If you know of any sporks looking for a good home, please let us know.

Noah!

The peanut now has a BFF named Noah! Noah comes over a few days a week while his mom teaches at City Mission.

He has been coming over for a couple of months now. The peanut is not to sure of this arrangement. Noah tries SO hard to play with the peanut, but the peanut does not really want anything to do with him. (please note that I refer to Noah as the peanuts BFF. I don't think the peanut has the same feeling)

At some point I will have to get a video of them interacting, it can be very funny.

However, we did have a breakthrough last Friday. The peanut and Noah were sitting on the floor next to each other ALMOST playing together! We are making progress!

Party Pictures!

Here are some pictures from the peanuts birthday party! (yes, the one that was over a month ago)This is grandma, grandpa, Donnie and I outside with the peanut. Note how thrilled the peanut looks.

Here the peanut is eating his birthday cupcake. He did it much more neatly than I thought he would have!

Sadly I do not have very many pictures of this glorious event. I was so busy running around the whole time, that I forgot to take pictures. Luckily, other people took many pictures!

I'm here!

I know I have not posted in a very long time! I'll sum up the past 5 weeks for you.

The peanut had his first birthday but was sick with a cold. The cold lasted FOREVER...a good 2 weeks!

Then he came down with the chicken pox. Let me tell you....he was one unhappy peanut. This lasted about two weeks.

Then Frankie scratched up the peanut really bad. The peanut had a cut under his eye that got infected, and he had to be put on two different antibiotics. Because of this we did give our pug away. This was really hard, but I think it had to be done.

Currently the peanut is cold, and chicken pox free! And his eye is looking much better! Things have to get better from here, right? :-)

Pictures!

The family photos are here! Yeah! I know you all will want to see all 90 of them, so here are the directions. Go to http://www.nicolebakeman.com click on albums and then click on Kelley's. Enjoy and let me know what you think! :-)

Don't Worry!

Don't worry, peeps, I'm still alive. Computer time has been scarce recently, so sadly there have not been very many post.

I am happy to report that on Saturday we had our family pictures taken! I'm not sure if I posted about this, but we asked a lady at our church to take them, and not pay our wedding photographer the $750 she was wanting.

So on Saturday we went to Van Hoosen Farm in Rochester and had them taken. The peanut was very patient with all the pictures. And he was very happy about eating all the rocks and wood chips he could get his hands on.

I can't wait to see them! On Sunday Nicole said she would have them online in a couple of days, and seeing that we don't have Internet I have been making my mom check her website many, many times a day.

I will post a link to them when the pictures are up!

Garden

I harvested my garden for the first time a couple of nights ago! Feel free to call me Farmer Stacey from now on. Please note that the cucumbers are a little funny looking, because I did not stake them. I was told that if I let them grow up the fence, they will not be so odd looking.

(Sorry that the picture is turn on its side. For some reason I can't get it to load correctly.)

Too Cute

I love the peanut's laugh, so I knew I had to get it on tape!

Gymboree

On Monday the peanut and I went to a Gymboree class! I knew that at Gymboree he could climb on stuff, and he LOVES to climb, so I thought it would be a perfect match. Not so much. The class was 45 minutes long, and about 30 minutes of that was free play. The peanut was not so into playing. He just chewed on a ball, and stared at the other kids. I would even put him on the equipment, but he just stared.

We did sing some songs together, and played with a parachute. The bad part of this was that at any given time half of the kids were screaming, and the other half were wondering around. It was chaos! And to top it all off, the class is $68 a MONTH! I think I was expecting something really great because it was so expensive. (We got our first class for free) Sadly I don't think we will be returning.

Has anyone else tried Gymboree classes? Did I just go on a bad day?

Party!

Last Thursday we attended my fathers surprise retirement party! We had a great time. My dad knew something was going on, because someone had said something to him about it. However, when the guy spilled the beans, he told my dad the wrong day, so my dad was surprised in the end!

Josiah did a great job eating Cheerios, and crawling around trying to get into as much trouble as possible.

I was quiet impressed with this retirement party! There was a slide show, a video, and presentations. I think for an office full of guys this was most impressive! I think it was a great party to honor my dad and his 40 years with Square D!

Ice Cream!

Last Friday a group of us got together to celebrate Courtney’s birthday. As part of this event we walked to Dairy Queen, and the peanut had his first ice cream!

At first he was not too sure about it,

Then he thought about it,

Tried it again,

And he was hooked.


On the way back we stopped at a park, and the peanut tried the baby swing again. And once again he was not to thrilled about it. However, Courtney was able to make it bearable.

Shoes

Awhile ago I bought the peanut some sandals at a mom to mom sale. I have to say they are the cutest things ever.

I don’t put them on him very often because they are really hard to get on, and he’s not walking so I really don’t think he needs them. However, I knew I wanted to do a photo shoot with them before he outgrew them because they are so cute!

The Zoo

On Monday the peanut had his first trip to the zoo! We are members of the zoo, and on Monday they had a special member’s only night. I have to say we had a really good time! I thought we would only stay for about an hour, because of the peanut, but we ended up staying over two hours! The peanut did great. I’m not sure if he liked it or not, but he was very well behaved.

As the law states, we took the mandatory pictures in front of the fountain. I know I have pictures of me when I was very little in front of the fountain.

One of the peanuts favorite things was banging on the glass with the polar bears. He thought this was great! They were feeding the polar bears while we were there, so that was super fun to watch. We also rode the train while we were there, and that leads us to the peanuts second favorite part. Eating the fence in line for the train. I’m not sure why, but he loved this fence! I think he was sad to get on the train because of leaving the fence. To him the train was not nearly as fun as the fence!

Sick

Now that I'm teaching again, I have gotten sick. Kids are germ monsters, I swear! So on Sunday I really started to feel sick, but I do think I'm on the mend now! However, now Josiah has it. Last night he had a fever of 102. This is the highest he has ever had. So we took him to the urgent care up the street from us. They just gave us some Motrin and sent us on our way. However, when I got to school this morning I was chatting with Dana, and she said that doctors are not really worried until the temperature hits 104. Katie is this true?

Mommy Problems

I think I had posted before that we are going to have our wedding photographer take family photos in a couple of month. I have SO been looking forward to this because Dionne does such a awesome job. On Friday I got a email from her assistant with a contract to sign and sent back, and a price list. Now I never looked at her price list on her website, because every thing she has done for us before has been very reasonable.

Well, lets just say her prices have gone up and by a lot. As most of you know when we moved into our house we had Dionne come and take photos, and then she gave us the photos on a CD so we could print them. She only charged us $100 for this. I wanted the same thing for our family photos. Want to guess the price? $750! Yeah, that is not really in the budget.

So what do you think? Should we still do them or not?

Peanut Problems

Recently the peanut has started to pull up on everything. Now this in it self is not the problem. The problem is that he can’t figure out how to get down after he has pulled up. So he will just scream until someone comes to rescue him. The worst part of all this is that he does it in his crib while he should be sleeping. I’m sure you can see how this would be a problem. We hoped that if we lowered the crib to the lowest setting he might not be able to stand up. Nope, he still can. So lets all be praying that the peanut learns how to get himself down soon.

How does your garden grow?

I posted awhile back that I wanted to start a garden, and I have! I’m growing tomatoes, green peppers, and cucumbers.
My tomatoes are doing great! I even have baby tomatoes. My mom says I’m going to have a boat full of them when they are done, so if anyone wants some tomatoes let me know!
Next are my green peppers. They are not doing so hot. However, I was chatting with some other Detroit gardeners and they said the same thing was happening to their green peppers. They told me that this summer has not been hot enough for them to grow. So much for global warming. J
Next are the cucumbers. Currently they are blooming, and I hope to see some cucumbers soon!