It was fun, but glad its over

Christmas 2007 has come and gone. It was so much fun getting ready for it, buying gifts, decorating the house, wrapping all the presents, visiting with friends and family, but I am glad its over with. Christmas is always a stressful time for me. This year we had so much fun buying presents for Alex. She opened all her gifts all by herself. She is getting so big and so independent. It amazes me how much she already knows. We are working on counting to three. She can almost say each word clearly. She even knows what number comes after the other. She opened her cabbage patch doll and immediately started feeding the baby a bottle. I about cried. She picks up on everything so quickly and is growing up so quickly.

Christmas Eve day Doug and I exchanged presents. He bought me an absolutely beautiful chocolate diamond necklace, Victorias Secret PJs, Heavenly perfume and other wonderful gifts. I gave him a new pair of LUGZ boots, Usher Cologne, boxers, and other stuff. We celebrated Christmas with Grandma Thayer on Christmas eve. We had a very yummy dinner and opened some more wonderful gifts. Later that night Doug and I let Alex open her presents from us. Christmas morning we went to Plainfield to have the traditional Christmas Breakfast with the Thayers. Alex enjoyed all the fun toys, books and clothes from her great grandparents, grandparents, cousins and Great Aunt. We later went home and put Alex down for a nap that she really needed. Then Lance, Kari and Rick came over with more gifts. We played with the kids for a while. Later that evening my mom and brother came over for Christmas dinner. We had a very very yummy honey glazed ham, homemade fudges, all all the fixens.

I am enjoying this week off work. Alex is at the daycare while I tidy up around the house, getting rid of bags and bags of gift wrap and boxes. We have so much food left over. I have hit a few stores for some of the after christmas sales, bought myself a few new sweaters/shirts/jeans. Bought some more x-mas decorations. Im sure Doug will remind me we have enough Christmas decorations already. But I loovvee to decorate for this season. Now Im just debating when I am going to take all this stuff down and put it away. Thats the only thing I dont look forward to.

Finally Walking!

She finally is walking more than crawling. She has been taking about 5 steps at a time for a while now. After about 5 steps she falls to the ground. But last Tuesday I caught her taking about 10 steps from the table to the middle of the room. When she noticed me watching her she starting laughing and fell. So that night Doug and I played the walking game with her and let her walk back and forth to us for about an hour. She thought it was a game and was laughing the whole time. Now she has been walking more often and has it down really well. She got to walk to Grandma Thayer lastnight and showed off for Grandma Scheible today. Now she has been trying to lean over and pick things up which is a lil tricky being top heavy. But its cute when she falls because she always giggles.

Alexandra has been sleeping through the night again. For the last few nights she hasnt woke up screaming crying. We switched her back to formula and are slowly weaning her to whole milk. Also she isnt drooling as much, so I believe her tooth has finally broke through. So either it was her tooth or tummy hurting. We arent sure, but are sooo happy that she is back to normal. If it was because of teething, this has been the first worst episode. If it were because her tummy cant handle all the whole milk at once, we are working to prevent anymore tummy aches by weaning her.

Lack of sleep

Lately Alex has been waking up at around 3 am everyday crying, hard. It started Sunday morning. At first we thought it was because of teething. She has her 9th tooth coming in. But then she has done this everyday so far. And its the same time each day with the same reaction, her crying so hard and so loud. We have never ever had to deal with a crying screaming baby in the middle of the night, so this is really hard. The second morning Doug got up with her, brought her in the room (which I didnt agree with) and tried to get her to sleep with us. After an hour and a half of tossing a turning, not one moment of sleep, he took her into the living room where she played until about 5 in the morning. Then the following night she did it again. this time Doug got up with her again and took her into the living room. She finally fell asleep after playing and eating at about 6ish. This morning she did it again. This time I got up, gave her paci and beary, turned on her music and closed the door. She screamed, literally, for about 15-20 minutes until she finally fell asleep. The whole time I was awake listening through the monitor. Since Sunday, we have had only about 3-5 hours of sleep a night.
About a week ago we switched her to whole milk. So the doctor advised to try switching her back to formula and then slowly weaning her off of it onto milk. We have started that and the girls at the daycare are helping as well. We are also wondering if she is having nightmares that wake her. But its weird that she wakes up at exactly 3 every day. We have given her motrin for any pain, gas medicine, water, milk, but still nothing. What is even more weird is that she has perfect days at the daycare, never cries, plays well with all the kids, eats great, sleeps at least 2 hours and has normal dirty diapers. The girls cannot believe the stories we tell them.
So now is another night I am dreading, hoping she goes to sleep. I never had to deal with a screaming baby. She has always been so good at laying down and going to sleep.

First Birthday Bash

Mommy w/ Alex's new diamond earrings
Sharing cake with daddy.

Alex and Uncle Tyler






Playing with her music center

Sitting pretty on her singing chair & table

On Saturday Nov. 24th we celebrated Alexandra's 1st birthday, one week late. I am glad that we postponed the party because she was 100% better and had a lot of fun. We had about 25 people, friends and family that came to the house. It was a simple party, with snacks, cake, ice cream and opening of presents. There are so many years to come that we can have games and activities for everyone to play. She received lots of musical toys, books, outfits and her first pair of diamond earrings from Papaw and Memaw. I had to hold back tears when I opened the earrings. It means a lot to me for my daughter to receive her first diamonds, especially from my father. After presents, we sang to the birthday girl. She didnt care to be the center of attention while we sang. She just glared at everyone with a lil evil eye. We gave her her own special cake. She didnt want to touch it at first, so Daddy placed her hand in it. then she wanted to share with me and Daddy. She kept pretty clean, with only cake on her face and hands. And she liked it very much, especially the icing.

Not so happy birthday

Alex turned 1 year old Nov 16th. Who ever knew this would be such a terrible first birthday for her. It started Wed afternoon when the babysitter called Doug to tell him Alex had a very high fever after naptime. He picked her up and took her home where she dropped her fever by one degree. That evening we were home with her and she acted perfectly normal except she had a high fever. Now this is her first fever ever. So I was extremely worried because we had never dealt with this before. Thursday I stayed home with her and was able to get her fever to break in the early afternoon. Around 8ish that evening she started to break out in a terrible blotchy rash. We called the emergency line for the dr and was advised she had roseola. I had heard of it before because my friend Jennifer's son Zach had it. It was no longer contagious since her fever had broke. She would get rid of the rash in a few days. Okay so now we were worried she would have a rash on her birthday and at her party. I can deal with that. She went to the sitter on Friday and by 2pm I received a call advising her rash was worse and on her face, swelling her left eye. I rushed her to the dr. After the dr checked her out she determined that she had a different virus (dont even ask what it was called because it was such a long name). The rash causes large and small red patches all over. Well it sure did. All we could do was give her medicine for her uncomfortableness and benedryl for the swelling. Plans for the party were still a go. By saturday morning, we woke up to her having purple hands and feet. The on-call dr recommended we take her to the immediate care to check it out. We did and they determined that she was so swollen and the rash was so bad, it was turning purple. Her blood was circulating just fine, we would just have to deal with it. We decided to cancel the party because she was so cranky and uncomfortable from itching. She wasnt napping well and would be handful during her party. Saturday and today, Sunday, we are trying our hardest to help her out with the itchiness, giving her medicines and also oatmeal baths. Of course everything is temporary. She is very cranky and cries all the time. Not the baby we know. We never have had to deal with something like this. Doug and I are so stressed and worried, we arent eating or sleeping well. And neither is Alex. We are hoping she gets well enough for a party next weekend.

Halloween Pictures

Sorry it took me a while to get these up. Normal hectic, busy schedule keeping me away from the computer. Alex did really good during her first trick or treating. Her and Lance rode in the wagon together. He was the most adorable chicken. We gots lots of candy.