Jesse is crazy! I mean, he's acting crazy. I think it's the steroids that the doctor prescribed. He's moody, rowdy, and gets real mad way faster than normal. And he's still pretty wheezy, although better than he was earlier in the week. He still doesn't like his one medicine. Last night we made a smoothie and mixed his medicine in. He had downed it in less than 5 minutes. So much better than the 15-30 minute battles before. I just hope he doesn't get tired of smoothies before the week is out. We still have 6 more days of this. Rebecca has been cranky too. My best guess is she's teething. I still haven't seen one pop through, but since she's already 8 months old she is definitely due!

So, amidst all the chaos today, I decided to bake some bread. It was kind of fun. And tasty too. Since we have no groceries in the fridge, we may just eat bread and butter for supper.

I guess I should share a cute story about Jesse too. He understands most of what we say to him these days (whether he agrees or not is another story!) So, to help with the frustration factor, we have started giving him choices in some matters. For example, we will ask him if he would like milk or apple juice. Since he knows both of those words he will just tell us which he would like. But, he doesn't know the names of the different cereals in our pantry. We will just point to one and ask, "Would you like this one?" His replies are usually something like this, "Oh...no, no, no, no" as he shakes his head. Or, "Oh, okay" with vigorous nodding. It's pretty cute I think. Best of all, we actually are communicating with each other. He gets what he wants and there isn't a lot of crying and gnashing of teeth. Now if only Rebecca could pick up some tips from him...

So Jesse is sick...like $290 sick. Good thing we have health insurance! He has an upper respiratory infection and a cough. It's sad to hear him wheezing and trying to catch his breath. I'm hoping the medications they have him on will help soon. They gave him a shot of antibiotics at the clinic. Every time I change his diaper he points out the bandaid and says,"pokey." Poor little guy.

On another note of sad news...I saw a cockroach tonight. We haven't seen any since we got back from our trip to San Antonio. We figured that we would get them again. I think it's just part of living in an apartment where they don't require tenants to spray. Hopefully it was just a random roach...

Other than that not much is new down our way.

What a helpful son we have raised...

First story...I was shelling pecans today with Jesse helping me. His version of helping me was to hand me a pecan, and then while I was busy shelling it he sat and ate two or three from the container of shelled ones. Anyway, he dumped the pecans on the floor (possibly to get my attention because I was talking on the phone at the time). But, he did help me clean them up (singing our clean up song). And after we had picked up all the larger pieces, he went to get the dustbuster to vacuum up the smaller crumbs. See...helpful, right?

Second story...tonight we were at a WCC information dinner with the kids. Rebecca ate something she didn't like and at the very end of the meeting she threw up all over me. So, I mopped it all up and figured that was it. Nope. A few minutes later, while I was visiting with some older ladies, Rebecca threw up again, twice. This time Jesse noticed and was pointing out the mess. I think he was saying, "Dirty." He saw that we were using the napkins to clean up the mess on the floor, so being the helpful son he is (at times), he grabbed my jacket and tried using it to clean up the mess. Oh well. At least it's a weatherproof jacket, and he was using the outside.

Happy New Year

I can't believe it's 2008 already. Christmas is past, and Mike's holidays are half over. We had a wonderful Christmas break in San Antonio with my parents and Mike's parents (yes, both sets of parents at one time...in one house for a week!) I love the fact that our families get along well enough that we can spend a holiday together like that. It was such a precious time, filled with lots of good memories. We toured the Riverwalk, went to the Alamo and the other four missions in the area. We also went shopping a few times, went to listen to Max Lucado preach, got lost a time or two in San Antonio, hung out in the hot tub, ate at Johnny Carino's, Mi Tierra, and Whataburger, and we even had a turkey dinner! The week went by too fast, but it was so much fun and I am glad they made the effort to travel all this way to see us.

So we actually celebrated Christmas day here in Abilene, just our little family of four. We got some small presents for the kids, and some stocking stuffers, so when they woke up Tuesday morning we all opened presents together. Jesse ate a candy cane from his stocking, and Rebecca ate a cracker from hers. It was fun. At dinner time we ate a roast chicken with all the yummy side dishes. Then Jesse and Rebecca napped, and Mike and I just hung out. It is so nice to have him around...I think I will find it difficult when he has to go back to school.

Jesse has started this annoying habit of taking his diaper off. He will strip off his pants and the undo his diaper. If we redress him, he will have it off again in a matter of minutes. This wouldn't be a big deal if he was potty trained, but he will just pee wherever he feels like. And since most of our house is carpet, it can be a pain to clean up. We have tried several tactics to keep pants on him including putting him in jeans (with a button and zipper), which he finds more difficult but not impossible to get off. We have also put the diaper on him backwards, which helps overnight. And we also continue to try potty training him, but he just doesn't seem to get the concept of peeing in the potty. I will put him on there (because I know he needs to go), and he won't do anything while he's sitting there, but a minute after I let him down he will have gone somewhere else in the house. It's frustrating. Rebecca can be frustrating too. Not because we are trying to potty train her, but because we are trying to get her to eat solid foods. She ate fine several weeks ago. Then she got the stomach flu, had a few periods of throwing up, and since then she does not want to eat from a spoon. She will eat crackers, and cheerios by the handful, but will not open her mouth to eat from the spoon. So, I have to be sneaky. When she opens her mouth to eat a cheerio, I will shove a spoonful of fruit, veggies, or cereal into her mouth. She seems to liked cooked sweet potato or carrots diced up better than the pureed variety. And I can tell she's hungry because she is wanting to eat every few hours which is really annoying during the night. But, I think she is getting better. It's just too bad that we have to deal with both children being frustrating at the same time!

We had a fairly uneventful New Years Eve. I guess that happens when you have babies. We didn't even bother going anywhere because we knew Jesse would be going to bed around 8. I woke up at 11:45 to feed Rebecca. We heard some fireworks that people were setting off around the apartment complex. And then I went back to bed. That's about as exciting as it gets!

Dan is coming to visit, and I can't wait. It will be so much fun to have him here and show him around Abilene and have him meet our friends down here. Hopefully we have some nice warm weather for him to enjoy.