Christmas 2009

Aly opening her present from Mommy and daddy

Her favorite part of Christmas, eating the paper!

Playing with her computer Grandpa got her

We had to put the bow on her head, she didn't care at all.

Aly with Santa at Bass Pro Shop

I was cooking dinner and turned around and aly had pulled off her sock with her mouth! Crazy Kid!



Oh what a holiday this was!!! Aly cleaned up on presents. There are so many toys in our living room, we actually decided not to move my chair back in there after we moved the Christmas tree and made that Aly's corner!! We were at Dad's house on Christmas eve with the family and she had a great time. She got a talking bear, a laptop, her first bible, clothes and several other toys!!! Then Christmas day we went to JV's parents house and had another great day. Aly got a new exersaucer (which is so cool), more clothes, books, and many more things to play with and eat!!! She did pretty good with the presents and when she did get the paper off, it went straight into her mouth!!!

Santa also brought her a big fat cold!!! JV took her to the dr. yesterday and we were fully expecting for her to have 2 ear infections but it turns out its just a cold so they gave her another antibiotic so hopefully it will be gone soon!!! She weighted 17lbs 5oz yesterday, she is growing like a weed.

We think she might have a slight case of Acid reflux so we backed her bottles down to 6oz every 3 hours to help with the spit up and its seeming to work pretty well. She still isn't eating much solid food. She loves rice and applesauce, so who knows she might just eat applesauce till she is 5!!! But we are still trying!!

Things are going great with Shannon. She says she is really good. She takes her naps and plays and they have a good time. Her kids just love her. Ethan meets me at the door every afternoon with her bags like a good helper and even sometimes in the morning he wakes up early too. Morgan loves to play mommy with her. I love they can be involved with her and the older kids are going to be great with her development.

Aly is sitting up on her own now. She gets a little wobbly at times and falls over but for the most part she does really well. She is growing up so fast I can't believe it!!! WE are about to move her into a big car seat and put the infant carrier up, she is so heavy in that thing, I can barley carry her anymore!!!

Well thats about all for now, we are looking forward to her first New Years Celebration (which I'm sure she will sleep through) and we are so excited about what the new year holds!!!

Quick Update

Well we have finally made it out of the woods with this nasty cold and ear infections. We ended up having to do 3 days of shots of roseffin and it seems that finally kicked it. We worked with the breathing machine for about a week and I think she is doing well.

We moved Alyssa (aka fatty McButter pants) to a 8oz bottle last night and she slept from 9:00 till 6:30am when JV woke her up to eat before daycare!! Whoo hooo, that was a long few weeks of no sleep!

On another note, we found a very trustworthy friend who is going to keep Alyssa 3 days a week to get her out of daycare. I really like Five Star and have no problems with the teachers or Staff, but this poor little thing has been so sick we have to do something. Shannon has 2 little ones of her own, I believe they are 2 and 4 so she will be around other kids to socialize which is so important to me. Her mom also watches her nephew who is 3 and they get together several times per week so that will be a great addition. I have looked for about 3 weeks and out of everyone I spoke with they were all so nice but I didn't get that warm and fuzzy feeling. The one day (ironically the same day I scheduled me and Alyssa to get baptized at church) Shannon posted something about the little boy that she watches was going to be staying at home and she needed another child to love on, so there I was!!!! I'm super excited about this I think Shannon will be a great addition to Alyssa's day!!! and Alyssa to hers!!! She will start with Shannon on the 21st for a short week with Christmas!!!

We are so excited about Christmas. Alyssa has been getting small advent presents from Grammy and Grandpa and she (we) love them! Its nice to have a way to slowly bring in the holiday!!! We are going to get pictures taken with Santa tonight so I will post those soon!!!

Alyssa had a rough night Sunday night. She was coughing about 2 hours after we put her to bed so I went and checked on her and she was covered in throw up. Poor thing had it everywhere and didn't even know it. So we changed her clothes and put her in the pack n play in the bed room and tried again. Well about 10 mins later she did again. I never knew so much could come out of something so little. So I slept with her on the couch and she tried 2 more times but there was nothing left. Then the next morning she was fine as she could be. So we held off on the baby food once again. We started the peas again yesterday at daycare and she did really well. So who knows!!!!

Well thats about all for now!!! We love you!

Little Peanut is 5 months old!!!!

Aly Loves the saucer

At the dr. after her 3rd antibiotic shot for an ear infection. It was really bothering her can you tell?

Grandpa and Aly at Stone Mountain

Aly and Daddy

Oh where to start!!! So many things are changing!!! Well the best news of all is that I think Alyssa is finally over these ear infections( 5 dr. visits later) and this cold that has been kicking all of our butts for the past week and half. We ended up having to do a series of 3 shots, 3 days in a row. That ended yesterday. She hated the shots but I really think they worked!!! She has been on breathing treatments for about a week now and they are really helping too!!!

I am looking into moving her to a in home daycare and its been a difficult thing to deal with. There are pros and cons to both daycare centers and in home so we haven't made a decision yet. I have talked to several people but its hard to find that person that you trust enough.

Alyssa is changing so much. She smiles and laughs all the time. Now that she is feeling better she is back to her happy self!! She loves her feet, as you can see and now she has discovered that she has something fuzzy on her head and she tries to grab it but can't quite get it, its so funny!!! She is sitting up by her self most of the time. She tends to fall over a lot and she has to lean forward to keep her balance, but I feel like she's going to be crawling before we know it! She now weighs 16lbs and 4 ozs. She wearing her 6 months clothes and probably going to be in 9 months shortly. We have also been shopping for big girl car seats because she is going to out of her infant carrier probably by Feb.

We are going to attempt baby food again this weekend. We needed to wait until the medicines were out of her system to make sure we didn't have any reactions. She didn't do so well a month ago so we gave it some time. I think we are going to go with green beans this time and see what happens! I'm excited! She's really interested in food, she sits on my lap during dinner a lot (yes I know thats bad but she has an alarm clock that is tied with the oven and as soon as dinner is ready she is ready to be held) and she watches me eat every bit!!! I slip her some potatoes sometimes and she likes it! (she's not spoiled at all, I promise!!)

She is still sleeping good. We went through a rough patch while she was sick because she wouldn't sleep in her crib, so we are trying to transition her back in there! and now that she has her appetite back she is sleeping longer too.

Her first Thanksgiving was great, she managed to eat a few sweet potato bites so she had something to do!! We are so looking forward to Christmas. Grammy and I went shopping and got all of her Christmas clothes so she is ready to go!!! We went to Stone Mountain and tried to take some pictures for our Christmas card, but she wasn't feeling well so that didn't work out great! We did get one good one though in her dress Aunt Lane bought (so cute). We are going to go and see Santa one night next week hopefully so that will be fun!!!

Alyssa has really taken a interest in Marley too, when he gets close she reaches out to grab him, its so funny! He's so good with her, he just stands there and takes it! It won't be too long before she is chasing him every where and he's trying to get away!!

I think every night JV and I both say that she is the cutest, best thing in the world and we mean every bit of it!!! WE ARE SO IN LOVE WITH OUT PRINCESS!!!

We made it to 4 months already!!!!

Aly and Kylie playing.

Eating her Halloween costume

Bunny Butt

The kids on Halloween

My little Bunny, her 1st Halloween.


Well Alyssa was officially 4 months old yesterday, I can't believe it, time is flying by and she is growing so fast!!! As you can see she was a pink bunnie for Halloween. She wasn't thrilled with the get up and it was hot so she wasn't in it long, but she did like eating the carrot afterwards.

We went to the dr. today for her 4 month well visit today. It went pretty well, besides the office being huge and having 3 locations in 1 building, it went pretty well. She is 15lb 5oz, which is the 81 percentile for her, (which is way down from last time) she is 24"long which is a little on the short side (30 percentile). She did have to get 2 more shots in her legs and 1 orally. I didn't get to go to her 2 month appt when they did the first shots so I wasn't sure what to expect, but she wasn't happy, she screamed for a good 5-10 mins then fell asleep in the car. It was hard, I hate that so much!!! I did however appreciate the fact that the dr. didn't tell me not to feed my child anymore b/c she was eating to much. (which the dr. at Kaiser did, that being one of the many reasons I left there). She eats 7oz every
3 1/2-4 hours which is a lot but the child is hungry, what can I say!!

She does have an ear infection in her left ear so we are going back on antibiotics to help that.

She has been eating oatmeal off a spoon for a few days now and doing pretty good with it. The rice cereal didn't seem to sit well so we haven't gone back to that. We are going to start veggies tomorrow night, which I am very excited about!!!

She is sleeping through the night most of the time. Occassionally she will wake up for some reason and you have to feed her to get her back to sleep but most of the time she is a really good sleeper!!!

She has learned to play in the exersaucer at daycare and loves it so we borrowed paiges until we get one for her and she played for a little bit last night. Besides being sick all the time daycare is going good, I really like her teachers and they seem to really enjoy her. From what I understand she is pretty happy and low maintenance which is good for them!!! I know that Grammy and Grandpa are defiantly enjoying there time with her too!!!

Well that's about all for now, We will update soon!!!

love you
JV, Amy and Alyssa!

Almost 4 Months old!!!!

Eating rice for the 1st time off a spoon! what a mess!


Well I wanted to share some of the new pictures that we have of Alyssa. So Monday night (oct. 26) we put Alyssa in her big girl chair and gave her rice cereal off a spoon. We have tried it in a bottle and it didn't work well, it made her sick so I was told to try it off the spoon and maybe that would help. Well as funny as it was watching her spill it everywhere, we had the same outcome. she threw it up and was ill for a while after that, so i'm not sure what we are going to do now. We go to the dr. on Nov. 4th for her 4 month check up so we will talk to the dr then!

We did the 10 days of the antibiotic for the sinus infection and it seemed to be working for several days then she started the coughing and runny nose again. It seems to have gotten better in the last few days, so hopefully this is the end.

She has def. started teething. You can see the two front bottom teeth starting to push up on her gums and she is in a lot of pain. They have called me from the daycare twice b/c she has been so fussy. We are giving her tylnol to help but hopefully it will be over with soon (for this round anyway). She likes sucking on wet rags too!

She has been sleeping pretty good still. She sleeps through the night sometimes and then others for no reason she doesn't, so who knows!!!

She is up to eating 7oz's every 4 hours so she is still healthy and eating a lot!!!

WE are dressing up for Halloween this year and I'll post pictures of her costume afterwards, its a suprise for some people so I'm not telling anyone yet what she is going to be. WE are going over to Laura's house (JV"s sister) and eating dinner and hanging out there. JV will be in Palm Bay Fl. for the GA/FL game.

Well thats about all for now!!! WE are loving this little girl and she has changed our life in ways we never imagined!!! We are/have been so so blessed with everything and we couldn't ask for more!!!

We love you all!!!

JV, Amy and Alyssa!

We finally have a diagnosis!

Just a few short things to fill you in on! First of all Alyssa has slept through the night for the past 3 nights!!! Thats so amazing!!!! 2nd, JV finally got a small poopie diaper last night b/c it has been about 2 months since he has gotten one!!!
3rd, I switched her doctor this week because I was not happy with the way that Kaiser has handled this cough/cold that she has had for almost a month. We went yesterday and the new dr. thinks that she has a sinus infection, which makes sense. She said she saw some fluid on her ears which made her think that. So we have some antibiotics to do for 10 days so keep your fingers crossed that it works!!! Her cough has gotten better and I think thats why she has been able to sleep through the night!

Yesterday she weighed 14lbs 3oz. Last Monday (10 days ago) she weighted 13lbs 3oz, so she is officially the cutest, chunky butt!!! She is laughing and smiling so much now, its so great!! She is also starting to realize that she can control her hands. She is starting to grab and reach for things now. Most of them already go straight to her mouth, but its really cool to watch her figure these things out! She also learned how to yell the other day, which is quite funny!!!

We are doing great and just wanted to update you guys!!! have a wonderful weekend!!!

My little girl is growing up so fast!

Well its been a few weeks and man, this little one is growing up so fast. I think she is already teething!!!! At 3 months, she has a raised spot on her gum on the bottom, already!!! I took her back to the dr. today (Sept. 28) and she weight's 13lbs 3.5oz!!! that puts her in the 90th percentile!! Chunk a monk!!!

Well she still has this pesky cough that she can't seem to get rid of and its been 2 1/2 weeks so we went back to the dr. to get it checked again. They did a chest x-ray but the films didn't turn out good b/c she was wiggling so much. Well the way they do it, what do you expect! They set her down into this thing, that looks like she is riding a horse, then I had to pull her arms up over her head and they wrapped this plastic tube around her to hold her in that position, what do you think is going to happen, she is going to wiggle and scream!!! But with what the Dr. could see, she didn't see anything huge so we decided not to do it again. She did check her oxygen levels and they were at 97% which is excellent and that helps to eliminate a lot of things like croup, whooping cough and bronchitis. So that was good, but we still don't know def. whats causing it. She is leaning towards RSV, which is a viral upper respiratory infection. Its a little early for RSV season but its still possible. We have her on a breathing treatment and they said we should stick with that and keep a humidifier in her room and hopefully it will work its self out. IF not we have to go back in another week. So keep your fingers crossed!!!

On a better note, we went to Helen this past weekend for our first family vacation. We went to Paige, Brandt and Alex and got a cabin for the weekend!! Alyssa and Marley had a great time!!! Marley did have to ride in the way back of my car b/c of all the stuff we had to bring, but he did really good. Alyssa slept almost the whole way there Friday night. She didn't sleep great that night though she was up at 1:30- 3:00 then again at 6:30, but sat. night she did much better!!! We tried to make it home cutting it close on feedings and that didn't work, so we had to stop off 985 so I could feed her b/c she wasn't happy, but we made it home safe and with full bellys!!!

Just for an update, she is doing great at daycare, they really love her and say she is a happy baby. She does sleep a lot still but they are enjoying her. Its getting much easier for me too. I still hate leaving her but I'm confident she is well taken care of. I think she mostly loves her Wednesday and Thursdays with Grammy and Grandpa though ( I'm pretty sure they love it too)!

She still isn't sleeping all the way through the night, she still wakes up for 1 feeding before we get up, which is ok. I really think though that if she didn't wake up coughing this past week she really might have, so hopefully when this is done she will!!!

She is/has been the most amazing gift ever! I can't say that enough. I still find my self looking at her and getting tears in my eyes!!! She is laughing a lot now and you can really start to see her personality coming through!!!!

well I think that's about it for now, but we are doing great and loving being parents!!!

Our week of 1st continues. . .

Well, I thought I was done writting about all of our first last week, but it seems that the fun continued on Thursday night. Alyssa had been congested most of last week and she woke her self up thursday night at 12:00 and was struggling to breath through her noise because it was so stuffy. So she was screaming trying to catch her breath, so I called the children's health care of Atlanta nurse line to see what I needed to do. When they called back, which was very quick, the nurse was concerned that Alyssa had a dry cough. She said that wasn't normal and because she was so little we needed to have her chest looked at. So we packed her up and headed to Gwinnett Meidcal. We go to the ER around 1:15am and the Dr. finally came in around 3:30 to see us. Of course Alyssa was fine and had been sitting there kicking and laughing for 2 hours. But when the Dr. checked her out she didn't see or hear anything alarming. She said the cough was the beginning or ending of something but she didn't think it was serious since there wasn't a fever involved. So we go home around 4:00am.

The next morning she woke up all stuffy again so I took her into Kaiser to see our ped. and he said it was just a cold. He did give us an inhaler to use with her to make sure it doesn't turn into something bigger.

Over the past 2 days she has slowly gotten better, she is just snotty!!!

I'm sure we are going to have many nights like that, but hopefully not to many in the ER. I'm glad this one turned out not to be a big deal.

Some pictures from my Phone

A Week of First

Well we have had an exciting past week and thought I would share. First of all Alyssa is 9 1/2 weeks old already! Man, time flies!!! She had her 2 month well baby check on Friday the 4th. I caught some kind of nasty stomach bug or something Thursday night and was sick all day on Friday, and not knowing what it was, I didn't think I should be around JV and Alyssa or in a ped. office, so I didn't go. That was tough b/c I knew she was getting shots and she was going to be in pain and I couldn't be there. Well JV said it was terrible, she screamed so much. She got 3 shots in her leg (2 in one and 1 in the other) and one orally. Everything else at the dr. went good. She weighs 11lb 6.5oz. and is 21.5" long. She was in the 55 percentile for her weight, but the 90th for the weight for her height. So basically she is kind of a chunky butt!!! Well they told JV that she could run a fever with the shots so to pay attention to her. When they got home around 4:00pm she was fine, she went to sleep for a while, then around 7:00 she started screaming and didn't stop. I called the Kaiser after hours nurse at 8:30 and she didn't call back until 10:15! Well around 9:30 she just stopped screaming and went back to her old self, so I guess she started feeling better. When the nurse did finally call back, she was a little concerned b/c the marks on her leg had bruised and she didn't think that they should of done that, so they wanted me to take her in on sat. have it looked at just in case. Well I did, and when I got to the office, it was full of sick, sick people, so we left. The bruises are gone, so i'm not to worried. I bruise really easily so its possible she just got that from me!!

Then later that day, Alyssa got to watch her 1st GA game. She slept through kick off, but woke up in the 2nd quarter. She had a good time watching the game with Aunt Cheryl, Paige, Alex and Dad. Even though they didn't win, it was a fun time!

Then we rolled right into Tuesday, her 1st day at daycare and my 1st day back at work. What a mess that was!!! She woke up at 4:00am for her bottle, so I fed her and then for the 2nd time ever, she decided she didn't want to go back to sleep (she was excited about daycare I guess). So neither did I. JV tried rocking her and everything, she was happy but didn't want to sleep. So We got ready to go and I took her there at 7:20. I stayed till about 7:40 just talking to the teachers and looking around. I really like all 3 of the ladies in there. She slept most of the morning and ate really good. JV was planning on picking her up and I was going to leave work at 5:00 but then at 4:00 dad said "go and get my grand baby!" that was the best feeling ever. I was so excited that I got to pick her up!!! I walked in and she smiled at me! They said she was just the cutest and sweetest baby! they really enjoyed her!!! That made me feel a lot better! They do have a camera in the room so I was able to stalk her most of the day. Its not a great one but better then nothing to me!!!

Today, JV took her and met John around mall of GA, then he was going to go and see some customers while she was at Grammy's. And tomorrow they are going to watch her at our house. I felt much better about leaving her this morning. Its just hard going from seeing her all day everyday to only a few hours. I wasn't ready for her to go to bed yesterday, I wanted more Alyssa time!

I'm sure it will get easier as time goes by, but Its an adjustment!!! The good news is Dad did a really good job with everything while I was gone, so I don't have as much to do as I thought. I have a lot of catching up to do, but he did a great job, i'm very proud of him!!!

Well Alyssa still loves her changing table, thats her happy spot. She has started laughing and smiling a lot lately, its so cute!!! She is sitting up, with help, but she is very very strong. She rolls over from her back to her side and then back, but not all the way over yet!! She really doesn't like tummy time, so she is still a side sleeper.

Well I think thats about all for now, but I will let you know how everything else goes! She doesn't go back to the dr. till Nov. for her 4 month well check (hopefully she doesn't need to go till then). But I'll post pictures as I get them!!!

We Love you all,

JV, Amy and Alyssa