Sami the Seal

As a Mom, if there's one thing that I've learned is that when your baby is hurting, it hurts your heart to know that they aren't feeling well. You would do anything to make them feel better and make the hurt go away. Zoey has been sick for about 2 and a half weeks. It first started as a cough that happened every once in a while, then one morning she woke up and was watching Cat in the Hat on t.v. like she does every morning when she's waking up, and she started coughing every 5 mins. I decided that was enough of that and took her to the Dr. to get checked out. He said that it was just Croup and couldn't give her everything for it because she was so young. Great! Not exactly what you want to hear as a Mom when someone says they can;t help your baby girl feeling better. He said that it would have to run its course and would get better after 10 days. So about 5 days later she wakes up and she is all congested and can't breathe through her nose and sounds worse and of course the cough is still there. I decide to take her back to the Dr. to get her checked out again. This time her 6 month birthday was just 2 days away and he said she could take Dimetapp for the cough and congestion and it should get better in time. Also that if she started wheezing or running a fever to come back in. Zoey has always had a temperature of about 97 degrees and that is normal for her. That was on Monday and by Thursday Ryan noticed that Zoey had some wheezing in her chest. Not what you really want to hear. The Dr. was already closed for the day so on Friday morning I took her in to the Dr. again, for the 3rd time now. He listened to her and she sounded horrible with wheezing in her right side of her chest. She was also burning up and running a temperature of 99.7. My baby was just getting worse and I just wanted her to get feeling better. I was then given 3 prescriptions for her and a new friend that's coming to live at our house for the next year.  One was an antibiotic, and the other 2 were for her breathing treatments that we are now having to do every day for the next year. Sami the Seal is the name of her breathing machine because its in the shape of a seal. I don't care what you call it, kids don't like the thing! We have to give her a breathing treatment twice a day for the next year and then every time she is wheezing and congested every 2 to 4 hours. Try getting a 6 month old baby to sit still for 10 mins. every time for a treatment, not any easy task!!! It has taken both Ryan and I both to accomplish this task each time. Ryan holds her and her breathing machine to her mouth and I sing and dance and distract her from getting upset and moving the mask away. It has not been a fun task and we've only being doing it, for 2 days. Being so congested has made Zoey not able to eat her bottle, yet has no problem with her baby food. This weekend it has been so bad, that we've had to give her pedialyte to drink so she is still getting some liquids in her, especially since she has been running a fever all weekend. The only good thing about her not feeling well has been that she has been very cuddly and letting us hold her and not want to get down and go everywhere.

1st Mother's Day

While I find out that I was pregnant with Zoey on Friday of Mother's Day weekend last year, this was my first real Mother's Day. Zoey woke us and the entire campsite up bright and early and we decided to pack up and leave a little earlier than we expected.  We packed everything up and headed to breakfast and then headed back into Mountain Home. We got home and Zoey was asleep so we let her sleep and began unpacking the car and do laundry of our pillow cases and camping clothes. I had then decided that I wanted to relax for the afternoon since after all, it was my day. So we showered and I went and out some appetizers from Chili's and we watched Netflix, eat and hung out for a couple of hours. After that it was time to head to Ryan's parents house for Mother's Day and we exchanged gifts and hung out, took pictures and ate dinner over there. By the time we left it was about 8pm and we had a fussy baby that wasn't feeling very well so we all went home and headed to bed for the night. I had a great Mother's Day because I got to spend it with my little princess.

                          She played so hard in her jumparoo that she fell asleep! She was even snoring!

                            Yes, I'm a silly Mom that makes silly faces and dances around and sings stupid songs!                         But she loves it so I will continue to look dumb! LOL  

                           The charm bracelet that Zoey and Ryan got for me for Mother's Day!

Zoey's 1st Camping Trip

One of Ryan's favorite things to do is go camping. Over the years I have learned to enjoy it also. It is so peaceful and nice to disconnect from everything and everyone for a couple of days and just spend time together. So many parents think that they can't do the things that they love to do once they have kids and Ryan and I were determined from Day 1 of being pregnant to not let that happen. We can take Zoey along with us and still do the things that we enjoy. First case in point of that was for our anniversary this year. We decided to go to Springfield so we could use some of gift certificates that we had and go out to our favorite place to eat, Texas Roadhouse. We had a blast that day with Zoey and it made our anniversary that much better to be able to include her. We couldn't wait to take her camping and I told Ryan that was what I wanted to do for Mother's Day. She had a great time on her first trip. It did take some extra planning on my part to pack for her and I did forget a few things for our trip, but luckily nothing we couldn't live without. Her favorite part of the trip was being by the water by the camp site. She loves to be outdoors so we knew that wouldn't be an issue. She looked so cute all cuddled up in the tent between Mommy and Daddy.

                                                              Such a happy little girl!

 She just woke up and Daddy had to take a picture of her 1st morning waking up from camping.

                               Staring at the water and couldn't get her attention to take her picture.

This is my favorite picture of us to date! She was in the middle of talking, if you can tell! Too cute. On Sunday, Mother's Day she decided to wake up the entire campsite. She woke up talking and making all kinds of loud noises and woke them up. It was happy noises, but still we were embarrassed a little bit. We decided that it was time to pack up and head home after a nice weekend.

Full Time Stay at Home Mom

Well, I've officially become a stay at home mom and I love it! I never thought that I would and always thought that I would get bored, but really that's so hard to do. For anyone that says you'd get bored, hasn't tried it. I've learned that I'm a better stay at home mom than stay at home wife. Zoey gets better taken care of than my house does. I've always been one that has to be in the right mood to clean and that hasn't changed one bit!! Zoey loves to be on the go and makes me laugh, because I was the same way growing up. It's been so cool just to see the things that she does and doesn't like or do that are just like Ryan and I.  She loves to be outdoors, sleeps just like Ryan and looks more like him than me. She loves to be on the go, hates to be ignored, has to have a pillow and blanket to sleep with every night, and since developing her voice loves to be heard. She also has started to want to do everything herself and she's only 6months old! I thought that wouldn't happen til she was a little bit older, but I guess not. She can hold her own bottle, but only when she wants to. She has started to grab the spoon when I feed her dinner and has started eating baby Mum-Mums and is so proud that she can do it herself. They have helped her develop getting her fingers in her mouth more and actually getting them in her mouth instead of her eyes or nose. She is just such a joy to have in our lives. It's so hard to be upset when she's around and we get offers everywhere we go to take her if we decide we don't want her. LOL I worked way to hard for that little girl to let anyone have her!!! Zoey sleeps through the night and only wakes up once at about 5am to have a bottle and then sleeps til about 7:30am. She LOVES the t.v. and will turn her head in any direction to try and find the t.v. if there is one on in the room.
  I went and got her a baby pool the other day and was so excited to see how she would react. She loves the water at bath time so we were hoping that she would enjoy it. Luckily, she did and she was too cute in her swim suit. Daddy wasn't to happy about her 1st swim suit being a 2 piece, but it covers her little tummy and works just fine. Once he saw her in it, he loved it. Here are some pics of her and her pool:

                                                             Too Cute in her swim suit!

We had fun and Ryan played with her in her pool the next day and she still enjoyed it. I'm excited to celebrate my 1st Mothers Day this weekend with my little princess! We are going camping for the weekend so it should be a great weekend!