Latest "Milestones"

I am ashamed I haven't kept up with blogging some of my big girl's milestones. (I think I'm getting more and more sentimental the further I get into this pregnancy--I'm also ashamed I haven't done a good job "chronicling" this pregnancy as I did with Makena, but I think have reasons for that, more on that later...).

- This was a HUGE discovery for us, finding out our baby-big girl did NOT have cystic fibrosis. :) YAY! These are her sweet pictures from the "sweat test" that day. She was a brave booger.

- she LOVES to sing. Her current favorites are: silly songs I make up (which she has now learned words to--a bee-deep-bop-bop-shoo-wop-a-doobie-doobie, beep, beep, bop bop, tri-na-na-na), The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Shapes and Colors Everywhere, ABC's, The Clean up song, What time is it?, Dora's theme song

- speaking of Dora...I think she's converted from Barney to Dora. It's her all time favorite show right now. She always talks about "catching the stars" and "putting them in the star pocket", "Swiper no swiping!". It's so funny to hear her playing by herself saying these random things. She's also learned that "arriba is up, and abajo is down". ;)

- She LOVES to swing or play outside and will stay outside by herself (as a matter of fact, she'd rather sit in the middle of the yard to wait for mommy to bring her a drink outside than come in to get it--probably because she realizes that sometimes my "trick" is to ask her if she's thirsty to entice her to come in. ;)

- Speaking of outside, this girl LOVES to fish. Here she is with her daddy and the first fish she ever reeled in all by herself.

She 'practices' fishing every day now. Seriously. Here are some of the things she says "hand" (to push the button down), "And THROW IT", "and turn, turn, turn..."

- she's still not really interested in potty training. :-/ some days she tells me she wants to go tee-tee, so we go and sit, and sit, and sit....with little to no results. she LOVES it when I go potty, and screams, "YAY! MOMMY WENT TEE-TEE!!"...even in public places...it's pretty cute. Her pediatrician did tell me not to try to hard right now because even if we WERE successful, many times there is significant regression after a new baby is introduced into the picture.

- She loves brushing her teeth. And, mommy is getting better about remembering to do it on a consistent basis.

- She loves to say prayers (or copy our prayers) at meal times and at bedtime...and wants to say many, many prayers. It's pretty cute.

- She loves playing with her baby dolls. She feeds them, burps them, rocks them, puts them to sleep, puts them in time out....It's cute to see the "little" things that rub off on children. I don't know if any of you ever watch supernanny, but I've been doing time outs with Makena similar to the way she does them (where at the end you get a kiss and a hug and the child says "sorry"--she repeats these steps with her babies). I WISH i could get these things on video, but the SECOND she sees a camera, she wants to WATCH the videos.

- She can count to 15 unassisted.

- She knows her colors (purple, blue, orange, red, yellow, pink, black, white, green--basically the "basics").

- She knows multiple shapes (triangle, square, rectangle, circle, oval, heart, diamond)

- She knows many animals and their sounds (cow, horse, mouse, bird, dog, cat, elephant, lion, monkey, etc)

- She recognizes letters, and can tell you what they are. One time, we were at my sister's house...as we were leaving, Makena saw something on the wall that said "BLESS THIS HOME"....she impressed ALL of us by suddenly saying all of the letters, growing in her excitement and annunciation as we were all screaming with excitement and amazement!

- She is VERY active and very tough. Many times, she has unexplained bruises that make me sad, but she never lets them bother her. :)

- She loves to drive in Daddy's truck. When he gets home from work she usually asks him either, "Daddy fix truck?"--because one time she "helped" rotate his tires, or she says "Daddy, drive truck?"

- She asks many questions; I love how inquisitive she is. She's always asking "what's that?" And sometimes, it's a game, she wants to "quiz" me to see if I know what it is--for example, the other day, a dog was barking. She said, "Momma, what's that?" I said, "that's a dog barking!" she said, "that's RI-IGHT". :)

- She still LOVES to lay in bed. This morning, I went to get her up (because she's still in her crib and doesn't try climbing out).....and she wasn't ready to get up saying she was still "seepy", so she stayed laying in her bed playing/talking for 45 minutes before wanting to get up. (This girl spoils me).

- She also loves to cross her legs.

- The other night her paci was getting dangerous because of the way she gnaws on it. It was hanging by a thread, so I cut it. I gave it to her, and Luke and I left the room. She immediately said "Paci cut!" And at first we were all laughing about it....then, it turned into the saddest cry you've EVER heard in your LIFE. She was almost hyperventilating because of crying so hard. (I'm so glad Luke was there for this so he could hear the tragic-ness in her cry because explaining it doesn't do it justice--A long while back, I tried taking her paci at naptime and that didn't go well either "uh-oh momma, forgot paci!!" BREAK your HEART sad.) Somehow, momma and daddy found another paci that night and gave it to her. You've never seen a little girl so excited in her LIFE. I have warned her that if this paci breaks, it's the last one. I also figure, there's going to come a point where a paci is going to embarrass her, so she WILL stop....just not right now. :)

- She loves to eat "cheese pop" (pop corn). Sometimes, we have movie watching parties on mommy and daddy's bed...she first discovered this love at Target--and now, EVERYTIME we pull up to Target, she reminds me to get a "cheese pop" and a drink.

- Her vocabulary grows daily, and she enunciates better daily. It's so fun being able to communicate with her, and for her to finally be able to tell me when she's hungry/thirsty/etc, so that I don't have to guess....I love that.

- She's still very shy....but I know that's something she'll eventually outgrow. I was a VERY shy child (and really, I still am for the most part....but I'm able to hide it pretty well in social situations--except to Luke who knows how incredibly uncomfortable some situations are for me, ha!). I love that she wants me to love on her when she gets nervous, and I'll take it as long as I can get it.

- She loves riding the horse at Walmart. These pictures make me look majorly trashy because she's in her PJ's ....very rarely do I take her shopping with me in her PJ's, but for some reason, each time I do, I document it. ;)

Wait...I found one in clothes. Yes, I take a picture each time she rides...at her request. If I don't get my phone out, she says, "Momma, take a picure??" "CHEEEESE!"

AND, yet again, another picture to document my trashy-ness, but to be fair, she insisted on wearing this (boots/PJs/coat combo): ;)

Phew, that was a lot of catching up. :)

-

my angel princess and her cough

I realize this is going to be boring for many of you, but I want to document this for the future. :)

Makena has been struggling the past 4-5 months with a chronic cough. It's really been on and off the past year, but until recently, always went away. At one point, we were treating it as an allergy induced upper respiratory infection. At that time, she was on 2 different allergy medications, and ended up going through 3 different rounds of antibiotics with the doctors thinking the infection just wasn't going away. Then, they put her on a nasal spray (antihistamine/steroid). Her cough went away, so I was hopeful she was just struggling with major allergies. I stayed on top of all of her medications, but unfortunately, the cough returned--and this time was worse, waking her nightly to the point of almost throwing up.

I took her BACK to the pediatrician to try to get some answers/relief, but every time I took her in, they couldn't ever hear wheezing, or anything concerning. Finally, they referred us to a pulmonologist (lung specialist). As scary as this was to me, I was glad to finally talk to someone who specialized in lung illnesses.(Many of you probably remember my fears during my pregnancy with Makena with her having CF-cystic fibrosis--a disease in which my uncle had, and, being pregnant/hormonal my mind has been ALL over the place as we are trying to discover what's exactly wrong with her.)

The pulmonologist spent quite a bit of time with us during the appointment, asking us about any family respiratory illnesses (of which included severe allergies, asthma, and CF). When we went to the pediatrician (before being able to get in to the specialist), they sent us home with a nebulizer and sample prescription medications, which seemed to help her...and because of that, and our strong family history of asthma, he feels that treating her as an asthmatic (which is possibly/probably triggered by severe allergies) is probably the best bet.

However, allergy tests results came back showing that she's not really allergic to many of the common allergens (except for a type of mold). We've since learned that the way he ordered the allergy test is not the best (he did a blood test, a skin prick test is much better). So, I don't know how much "weight" to put on that test because I can definitely tell there are different times of the year where allergies really seem to bother her (and that dadgum test was one of the most expensive!) Makena also had a chest x-ray done, and it showed there was bronchial swelling--what that means, other than knowing something isn't completely right, I'm not exactly sure. It could point to asthma (but could always point to other illnesses/problems as well).

After 2 weeks of little to no change in the coughing while on all the asthma meds, I called the doctor back. This is the point where I became increasingly not impressed with him. First of all, they NEVER called me with the allergy tests results (and I was told they would). He was very rushed in our conversation (as he was when he called me with x-ray results, still leaving me puzzled to what the x-ray meant).....but this time--something wasn't right. He definitely confirmed after 2 weeks we should've seen a significant improvement in her symptoms (and we hadn't). He prescribed her a strong, oral steroid to take for 3-5 days, and switched her inhaler medicine to a steroid plus a bronchodilator . I continued with this course of treatment for a week. During the phone call, I asked him if it was possible reflux (which she had as an infant) could be the cause of the cough--and if so, I had some prevacid left over from then that hadn't expired yet. I asked how many pills she should take. His response was, "1 to 2 pills, she's a big girl now, she can handle it". That response went ALL over me. He didn't ask what KIND of prevacid, the strength of it, NOTHING. I called the pediatrician's office to confirm what he said, and they told me "one pill MAX" (after confirming strength of the medication first).  During this conversation, I also requested for  a CF sweat test to be performed--which came out negative, PRAISE THE LORD (I'm not putting enough emphasis on this--but we were SO happy to have peace of mind with this test!).

I started her on the prevacid a week after being on the other meds that didn't seem to be producing results, and the cough has significantly improved. (It hasn't officially gone away, but it's ALMOST gone). Now, I'm at a cross roads-I don't know if the asthma meds (which I never stopped) FINALLY kicked in, or if the prevacid is what did the trick?? I have since switched pulmonologists to the one our pediatrician originally referred us to, and have a first visit but "follow up" appointment with them (instead of with the original doctor) in January, but, I'm beginning to wonder if we need to see a GI doctor instead. It's so confusing because it's a guessing game. In the meantime, I'm stopping the prevacid today, and hopefully if it's a reflux issue, the cough will flare up again soon.

Please pray that we get this figured out. I hate seeing my girl in a coughing fit and wish I could make it all better. I'd LOVE to get this figured out before we welcome Dalen into the world, that would be ideal--but sometimes our timing isn't God's timing...we will see how it plays out! I know He is in charge, and we are being taught patience in the process. :) Makena is a trouper, and honestly doesn't let it bother her. She's a brave little/big girl. (She didn't even whimper when they drew an entire vial of blood from her arm!!)

Finally, a name.

I have told you all we would let you know when we finally came up with a name for our sweet man, and we have finally reached a decision. (HOORAY!) His name is "Dalen Luke Ragsdale" (pronounced phonetically like "DAY-len").

There is no significance to the name other than we just love it, and we like our names to be a little different! :) We knew a guy in college with this name and it kind of stuck with us. I am happy for my little man to carry his Daddy's name because his Daddy is a strong/loving/sensitive/hard-working man. (I could go on forever listing adjectives about my sweet Luke..).

We are so happy to be able to refer to him by name now. :)

Dalen Luke Ragsdale....our little prince.

Busy Month Recap

I had EVERY intention of being a more regular blogger, and then, my computer died. I guess it was KIND of a good thing, because I've gotten a LOT accomplished around my house lately (and have made a TON of "to-do" lists, which might or might not have stressed me out in the process, seeing my lists grow daily; and I might or might not have had a few break downs along the way). But, I have an amazing husband who has helped me accomplish a LOT of my to-do list junk.

There are a TON of things I want to remember in the future, so I've made a TON of posts (and, since I'm probably one of the most verbose individuals you'll ever meet...they don't all fit on one web page). October was a VERY busy month for us! :)

Makena's Birthday
Orlando
State Fair of Texas
5 Year Anniversary
Halloween

Halloween

I decided that this year I'd take Makena up to the pumpkin patch and try to take pictures. I'm always jealous of seeing everyone's creative/memory-making pictures. I had her dressed in cute fall-ish attire, and even brought along her costume. Obviously, I had big plans. Unfortunately, the day we chose to go, they were mowing/weed eating ALL around the pumpkin patch. Makena is TERRIFIED of lawn mowers/weed eaters.

I set her in the middle of some pumpkins to try to to get some pictures. It was obvious it wasn't going to happen.

I decided I'd try to join her to see if it would calm her down. Nope. She kept her eye peeled on the guy with the weed eater. 

So, we decided to go to the complete OPPOSITE side of the pumpkin patch with a little prop to take a picture. I swear that dadgum weed eater man FOLLOWED us over there!

We tried for ONE more, and it definitely wasn't happening. We made memories, just of another kind. :) It's ok, I'm glad I don't feel obligated to try this anymore! 

We got home, where we were mower free, and created sweet memories. :)  

I do have a silly girl.... 

Then, one night we carved the pumpkin as a family. Makena LOVED helping. She loves to get dirty, but loves to clean her hands quickly after. She doesn't like being "sicky" (sticky).

One of my absolute favorite things to do on Halloween is to roast the pumpkin seeds. Kena helped to rinse them off, and helped stir them in the butter and salt. Yum.

I have the biggest helper EVER. We started carving the pumpkin... 

Then, Daddy wanted to pull power tools into it. Men and their power tools....I'll never quite understand it. :) It worked for the most part (I just cleaned up its jagged edges). Thanks for participating Love, it probably did help it go a little faster. Kena helped by coloring the other side of the pumpkin. 

Halloween night was a BLAST. Makena was the cutest little Lion!

She loves The Lion King! We've been watching it on the "old school VHS", but loving every minute of it! I KNEW saving my old stuffed animals "for my kids" (as I did with MOST of my toys...my poor parents' attic....) would come in handy because Makena will not go to bed without her "Rawr" every night (it's Simba from The Lion King, and she named him herself), but I LOVE that he's being loved all over again! :)

Makena WANTED to walk around this year. We worked all day on saying "Trick or Treat!" and she had that part DOWN. I just hoped when she got to the door she'd remember to say it. She really did for the most part! It was so cute to hear her sweet little voice say "Trick or Treat" and tell the sweet, candy giving strangers "THANK YOU" (da go) and "BYE!"

That night, we let her eat ENTIRELY too much candy. She's never had a "sugar high" but she SURE did that night. She laid in bed wired out of her mind, talking until close to midnight. Eh, live and learn...and she had fun, and we had a blast seeing her really get into it this year!

I sure love my cuddly little Lion. 

Orlando

Luke had a cast stone convention in Orlando, and though we didn't see a lot of him (except for a few visits during breaks through out the day) I'm so glad we tagged along! We stayed an extra day and got to go to one of the Disney theme parks (Animal Kingdom) with Luke after he was finished with the convention. It was so nice to get away from everything and take a break from cooking/cleaning!

It was Makena's first time on an airplane, and I was MORE than a little nervous. We took all sorts of games/coloring fun/books/babies and suckers. She did REALLY well. By the end of the flight down there, she was pretty sick of sitting in her seat (but for a 3 hour flight, I don't blame her!). She never cried or got loud. She just wanted to stand when she wasn't technically supposed to. ;)

When we got to the hotel room, Makena's excitement set in. It was a new place to experience, and she was bouncing off the walls and jumping on all the furniture. It reminded me of being a kid and going on vacation with my family and becoming extremely excited when we FINALLY got to our destination. She LOVED checking out every nook and cranny of the hotel room, and she especially loved the shower because she could go in and out of it (as seen in this silly picture).

The lobby of our hotel had a couple of parrots. Makena LOVED going down to talk to the birds. The bird's name was Merlot and he would say "Hello Merlot" and "Here Kitty Kitty" and meow back at us. We only got him to talk to us one time, but it was towards the beginning of the trip and Makena never forgot about it. I LOVED hearing her trying to talk to the bird. It was soooo stinkin' cute!

We ate most meals by ourself, but Kena didn't care, she had my phone to entertain her. Me? I was just thankful to have "cooking duty" off for almost a week. I would sit and enjoy people watching. I also heard many interesting conversations with my superb eaves dropping skills. And, awkwardly talked to the manager each day we were there, (I always felt my booty clench when he'd come walking over to me, regretting that we'd been spotted. He HAD to have been  bored because EVERY day he had something new to talk about. I'm not a big fan of trying to carry on a conversation with someone I don't know while stuffing my face in front of them. But, anyone with a toddler knows that stuffing your face you pretty much HAVE to do because you never know when you'll need to leave!) 

We had a beautiful view and a LOT of places to play during the day.

On Makena's ACTUAL Birthday day I promised her I'd take her swimming (out of ignorance). :) I was HOPING it would be a little warmer in Florida. Not so. Luckily, one of the pools was "heated"...it claimed to be 76 degrees. Makena loved it, but I was freezing. I found us a loan hot tub that wasn't being used by anyone else (and even out of the sun), and seriously enjoyed every SECOND of it. It was relaxing to me, and Makena got to swim around in her own little mini-pool.

After we went swimming, we ate at the restuarant with the awkward manager...but this time, it paid off! Makena got her meal for free, and they brought her out a cupcake with a candle and 2 balloons. She didn't eat a BIT of her meal because her cupcake was brought out at the same time, but, I figured she could splurge on her birthday.

One day we went to Universal Studios with the cast stone group to tour the "making of the haunted houses". That part wasn't as cool to me...what WAS cool was that afterwards we were set on our own and the Ragsdales got to experience Dr. Seuss Land at the park.

Then, the Saturday that Luke had off, we went to Animal Kingdom, paid entirely too much, but made memories that will last a lifetime. We first went on a "safari". It was so much fun! The animals were all very close, and to my surprise we weren't crammed in a row in the car with anyone but our family. The park was nice and clean, and the weather was PERFECT. Makena LOVED pointing out all the different animals.

They even had a petting zoo full of sheep, goats and a cow. I was AMAZED at how quickly they cleaned up after the animals poo'd. It was one of the cleanest petting zoos I've ever seen!

In "Africa", Makena played the drums with Daddy.

We saw LOTS of tigers.

And plain wore this girl OUT! I can probably count on one hand, the number of times she's fallen asleep in a stroller. It NEVER happens. She had to have been EXHAUSTED.

We took a chance however, and decided to go see the "Lion King" show, having to wake her up in the process. We were running low on the amount of show times left and happened to hit this one PERFECTLY. (Makena is VERY in to The Lion King right now). We had NO wait time, and because we were literally the last to be admitted, we got to sit in the very front row (reserved until the end for handicapped people). Makena was a little unsure of it at first, but then fell in LOVE with all of the dancing, and pointed out Simba and Timon and Pumba. And most of all, she loved clapping after every song/dance number.

After lunch, we also hit up "Finding Nemo" (which was not NEARLY as cool as the Lion King). But, Makena was so tired, she was dosing in Luke's arms. She would wake up like she'd never been asleep when she heard clapping after a scene, and join in clapping right along, and screaming "YAY!" and then, no lie, go RIGHT back to sleep. We KNEW she was out when she finally didn't wake any more to join in on the clapping.

Makena also got to experience her very first "big girl bed". At home, Makena still sleeps in her crib. She LOVES it. She doesn't try climbing out, and seriously LOVES her bed, so I figure, why change a good thing right now!? We requested a crib at the hotel. They brought a metal rickety crib the size of a pack and play. Seriously, a pack and play would've been better than this--she had no where to roll without touching hard/cold metal bars. So, I experimented one nap time, and it worked perfectly. Our couch in the room folded out into a bed. After her nap, or waking for the day, I'd fold the couch back up so she wouldn't think of the bed as a place to "play" (only to sleep) and my trickery seemed to work well. :) I had to take a picture of her plain EXHAUSTED from our day at Animal Kingdom. I love this sleepy girl.

All-in-all we had a GREAT time in Orlando. And, one of the best parts....the whole reason we were there was because Luke was attending the Cast Stone Institute's convention.  The night of Makena's birthday, we had no plan to attend the awards banquet with him because we weren't sure how kids would be received. It worked out that there had been 2 cancellations, and that kids were welcome to attend. I'm SO glad. First of all, Makena was an ANGEL--and I discovered on this trip that Netflix now streams to the iphone, so Makena stayed entertained watching Barney and Dora the Explorerer while awards were given out.

My Lukey won 3 of the 11 CSI 2010 Design & Manufacturing Excellence awards given that night (For Residential, Commercial, and Manufacturing). You can go here: http://www.caststone.org/AwardWinners/2010awardwinners.pdf to see pictures of the award winning buildings. Luke's company is Dallas Cast Stone Co.

I was such a proud wife. He works hard at what he does, and I'm soooo happy it's paying off. (Architects voted on 2 of the awards he received, and the institute voted on the other one, so to me, it was being commended all around!). I'm proud of my man. Unfortunately, I didn't take a camera with me that night--Luke would've been embarrassed.