Happy Birthday to our precious little miracle cubs

Today our little miracle cubs celebrate their second birthday. We often remember where we started from and realize every day how lucky we are to have our two precious miracles.

Our tiny start. Emily's very first picture:


Zach's very first picture:

After several weeks on strict bedrest our little cubs were born eight weeks early. Emily weighed 4 lbs 8 oz and little Zach only weighed 2 lbs 8 oz. They spent their first weeks in the Childrens Hospital and although we desperately wanted to bring them home, we knew that they were where they needed to be. They had the best care and after three weeks we were able to bring Emily home and her little brother was able to join her a week later. Such a little fighter, Zach didn't even weigh 4 pounds when we brought him home, but he was able to do all of the things he was required to do for discharge.

Proud daddy feeding Emily for the first time:


Mommy holding Zach for the first time:

We have certainly come a LONG way. Our little miracles are amazing...running, playing, learning and laughing every day! Happy Birthday precious ones!!

The long awaited catch-up blog.

I'm looking over my calendar and thinking to myself "Boy, is the reading public going to be disappointed with this one". So fair warning to all...while I have been off-line "forever", not much happened while I was gone.

Moving day:
April 9th was moving day. I struggled to get as much packed as possible before the movers showed up. Steve met them first at our storage building and then brought them to the apartment. As soon as it was confirmed that they were on their way(around 10am) I packed up the cubs and headed out. There was no way I was going to witness this move, especially with the cubs under foot. We drove by the old house, grabbed lunch at Chick-fil-A (we ate in the car), I treated myself to a vanilla latte and a chocolate donut from Starbucks, and then we headed to the mall. Thankfully I took Husky (Em's dog) and L.E. (Zach's elephant) with us so the cubs actually behaved better than I expected. Sadly, though, there was no nap. By 3pm I was begging to come home. I couldn't wait to see if things were put where I wanted them....such a control freak. I must admit that everyone did a good job. Later that night I was smack dab in the middle of suffering from the worst sore throat I think I have ever had. I was MISERABLE. I had taken Emily to the Doctor the day before and she was pretty miserable too. Poor Zach and Daddy didn't escape it either. We all spent the next few days under house arrest. I even missed my parenting class. No one felt like doing anything and the boxes remained stacked up all around us. By Sunday (Easter Sunday) Zach had a fever and by Monday he was suffering from the pink-eye minus the pink too. Steve called the Doctor early that morning and we were able to get in within a matter of hours. Little Emily Bear was diagnosed with her very first ear infection. Both cubs were prescribed antibiotics for sinusitis (I wish I could have had some too) and we took our sick selves back home. What an enjoyable way to spend our first days in our brand new home.

Easter:
We missed Easter morning services because Zach had a fever. I was so disappointed because I had bought Zach the cutest little Easter outfit to match a dress that one of Grandma Shirley's friends had sent us for Emily and I couldn't wait to take pictures. We missed out on every Easter activity this year....we didn't make it to a single egg-hunt and I was disappointed about that too. I really think the cubs would have had a lot of fun. The cubs did open their Easter gifts from Great Grandma Betty and Grandma Shirley and Grandpa John. Emily thinks that all gifts are hers. She loves opening gifts and she's good at it, even if they don't belong to her. We had fun playing with the puzzles, reading the books and watching the DVDs they received. Not to mention how cute they will look in their new pajamas. Pictures to come later.

Services:
We have had our fair share of people coming by...the refrigerator was delivered, the security system set up, the painters were here numerous time, the tile cleaners and installers, the TV guy to install the TV/Internet, blah blah blah. We've had a revolving door of service people through here lately.

March for Babies:
April 18th was our local chapter March for Babies. Our friends Kristi and Donna drove all the way from Abilene to join us. Wow! They were also our very first house guests. We were a little worried about the weather, but despite all of the talk about severe storms, we made it through the walk without more than a few drops of rain. It was actually very pleasant. Last year was hot, so I much preferred the cooler morning. Debbie and her daughter Sydney also met us there. I was sad that Steve had to work and was unable to make it. We want to thank everyone for their support! We are very lucky to have such wonderful family and friends.

LCMOM meeting/garage sale:
Tuesday the 21st was my LCMOM meeting. A speaker presented information to us about college planning. I don't even want to think about it. Two words: Golf SCHOLARSHIP. I also chose to participate in the garage sale, so I've spent my spare minutes gathering and tagging items. I had to work the sale on Friday for several hours and was glad to get that out of the way. I have yet to get the final sales total but was happy to free up some space here at the house. I sold the swing that Zach spent most of his first year in due to his reflux issues. That was a sad moment. He's grown up so fast.

Grandma and Grandpa Bear's visit:
My parents arrived on Friday. We were very happy to see them and I was excited for them to see the cubs again. They have changed so much. I was sad that I had to work at the garage sale while they were here, but the alternative was to postpone their visit for two more weeks and I don't think anyone wanted to do that. The cubs opened their birthday presents...we have a band in the making....Emily got a keyboard and Zach got an electronic drum set. I'm going to sit in a quiet corner and read some of the books they received. We cooked out on Saturday, the first time here at the new house. I am really enjoying the patio and watching the cubs play in the yard. I must admit that they are sleeping much better since the move, probably because they are so exhausted after all of the running they are doing. I think they are adjusting rather well. I know we will be happy once all of these boxes are unpacked.

Pictures:
We will be posting pictures as soon as we find the missing cable. UGH. It's either buried in a box or still at the apartment. Moving is such an inconvenience sometimes.

I guess that sums up most of what has happened in the last 18 days. We spent most of the time in voluntary quarantine battling this horrible illness that just drags on and on and on. The rest of our time has been spent scheduling service people and unpacking boxes. Steve took a few days off but unfortunately we didn't get as much done as we had hoped since he was under the shroud of illness as well. We didn't allow the cubs to attend any play dates until this past Thursday. We didn't want to risk infecting any of our friends. I did take them to Paradise Pond since our tile was being cleaned and sealed and we needed to be out of the house. They were still on their antibiotics so hopefully we won't have a relapse. It will be such a relief for things to get back to "normal".

Cub Central is back on-line

Greetings reading public!

We are finally back on-line. I had no idea how dependent we were on the Internet. I can't count how many times I said to Steve "Just go look it up on the....wait, never mind". We actually had to crack open a phone book more than once. Glad to know they still make the yellow pages. Glad to know we still know how to use them.

We still have a lot going on here at the newly relocated Cub Central. Please be patient as I try to muddle through my exhausted mind to update the blog and upload pictures when time allows. I'm hoping to have everything updated by Sunday but who knows what else may pop up in the meantime.

We are glad to be back and are happy we still have an interested reading public. Just "bear" with us for a few more days!

FYI.....important alert

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog posts to bring you this important message. We will be off-line for the next two weeks while Cub Central is relocating and getting the new internet connections established. Can you believe we will be without TV and Internet until the 22nd and I ordered it on the 2nd?? You would think that if your service were in such high demand you would hire people to deliver it sooner. Oh well. Please check back with us as we will return to blogging as soon as we can.

We couldn't possibly.....

....go off-line without posting some adorable pics of the Cubs first!

Our adorable little man:


Fighting over the golfing magazine.:


We've created a monster. She's already making her shaft selections.:


Zach teasing mommy, leading her to believe that he might actually take a bite of this pizza. Yeah, right. Better luck next time.:


Admiring Daddy's new club:




Please help us welcome the newest member to our family. The golf club:


This is how I found little man during nap time....all bundled up.


Emily would not leave without her Husky and a blanket Great-Grandma Betty made for her. Notice that she even color coordinated her blanket selection. A fashion diva in the making.:


Gobbling down her cereal.:

One last update before pulling the plug (temporarily)

Saturday was a very busy day. I had scheduled three painters to come to the new casa to give us estimates. One was a no-show which made the afternoon even longer. I was definitely going to need a margarita and I was not disappointed. Saturday night we helped our good friend Matt celebrate his birthday at Joe T. Garcia's. I had never been there before but it is quite a popular little establishment. The line to get in was ridiculous and they don't take reservations, but it wasn't bad because we were in good company. The pitcher of margarita didn't hurt either. I think there was 14 of us in our group and Steve and I had a very good time. We dropped the cubs off at an hourly daycare. This was the first time we had ever done this so I was a bit apprehensive. I was not too worried about Zach. I knew as soon as I put him down he would be off and running. I was right. Little man didn't even look back. I was worried that dropping off Emily would be a little more difficult. She's been pretty clingy and I thought there would be some tears. HA! Could I have been more wrong?? I must admit that my feelings were a little hurt. They didn't even seem to notice us as we left. Emily joined a big circle of older kids (she's not shy at all) and the rest was history. Three hours later we went in to pick them up. Not only did we have to work at getting their attention, they didn't even really want to leave. OUCH!

Sunday was a blur. I was planning on taking the cubs to an Easter egg hunt but it was just way too cold and windy. We have had the craziest weather lately. I think we even had temperatures below freezing one night. That afternoon we met up with Matt and Beth Ann at the house so they could see it for the first time. We had a nice visit and then did a little grocery shopping before coming home.

The first seminar class was Monday night. I'm hoping to learn some very useful techniques for dealing with my Cubs when they are exhibiting some less than angelic behavior. I know it's hard to believe but it does happen on occasion where a little demon takes over.

Tuesday morning I met with the painters for a final walk-through to make sure that everyone was on the same page. I'm pretty excited to see what it looks like when they are finished. It is so hard to select colors from such a small sample card. That evening I met some friends for a much needed (aren't they all??) GNO (girls' night out). I showed a little restraint and did not order my usual (raspberry margarita) but I did break down at dessert time. One last dessert before the big DIET. Steve and I have decided to start eating better after we get moved in. It will be so much easier when we can enjoy the evening on the patio and grill our dinners. During the spring, summer and fall we usually grill most of our meats and vegetables but we haven't been able to do so here at the apartment. We are both craving a good steak.

Emily came down with "pink-eye" minus the pink yesterday afternoon, so this morning I dragged my poor little puffy raccoon face to the Doctor. We have had more Doctor appointments this year than we did for all of 2008. What in the world is going on here? This time it turned out that Emily probably has a small virus mixed in with a huge batch of allergies. Poor baby....she looks absolutely horrible. Her face is puffy and she has red bags under her eyes. This mess had better clear out by Saturday. We are supposed to go on an Easter egg hunt and I want to take pictures. In case you were wondering, yes, it is supposed to rain. My luck in action.

Zach has been doing really well. He ate one half of a Mum Mum today. It is a crunchy type of rice cracker. I couldn't believe it and I couldn't stop watching. This is progress in action. The other day we didn't feed him any baby food. WOO HOO. He still likes mac and cheese and the refried beans from Taco Bueno. He has even started eating rice if it has a little sauce or gravy on it. I honestly can't remember the last time we had a Mt. Vesuvius eruption and I am thanking God for that!

Tomorrow morning the movers come and I am excited but dreading it at the same time. I just know that it is going to be a very long day and I'm not sure how the cubs are going to handle everything. Emily did help pack a box of toys today. She is such a good little helper. It turns out that she also packed her shoes and Zach's sippy cup. OOPS.

From totally debt free to the poor house.

For a whole 8 days Steve and I were totally debt free. That all changed within a matter of 30 minutes on Friday. We had our closing on Friday and now we are back in the poor house. Friday was a totally crazy day. Early in the morning we met the Construction Manager at the house and went over all the warranty paperwork and made sure all of the items that we had pointed out on Monday were fixed. That's when we were told that they had to move the fence back due to City requirements. WHAT?? I'm a bit perturbed that no one told us about this. City requirements state that the fence line must be 10' back from the corner of the house that it is nearest to. Fine, whatever. They moved our fence 20' back so now we are fighting to get it moved back up to the 10' requirement. The whole purpose of buying the corner lot was so we could have as much backyard space as possible.

After that disaster we headed over to Dallas to sign our closing paperwork. We took the Cubs with us but it went better than I expected. They played pretty well while Steve and I signed the huge stack of seemingly never-ending paperwork.

We then took the Cubs to Chuck-E-Cheese but unfortunately that was a disaster. Zach did pretty well, he actually ate some breadstick but was totally uninterested in the pizza. Emily was very unlike herself. She refused to try anything. She just fussed and cried. I think she was exhausted from having to get up early and we had just waited too long to feed them. Lesson learned.

After the big pizza mess we headed over to pick up the keys to the new house. I had an appointment with a painter to get an estimate for interior painting. Fun. After dinner we headed back to the apartment just in time to get the cubs ready for bed. Then I hit the MCMOMs garage sale to see if I could score any goodies. I did pick up a few pairs of jeans since Zach's seem to mysteriously disappear.

I returned to our beloved (hack hack) apartment. It's sad knowing that we now have keys to the house but we are still in this apartment. **SIGH** Just a few more days.

Birthday Bonanza

Today is a very busy birthday day!

It is my Grandpa's 89th birthday today. We don't get to see my Grandparents very often but we are sending tons of happy birthday wishes Grandpa's way!!
Emily with her Great-Grandpa at Christmas.

Today is also Steve's brother's birthday. We hope he has a wonderful day! Happy Birthday Uncle Craig!!
Emily with her Uncle Craig. We obviously are overdue for a visit with Uncle Craig and Auntie Leslie...this picture is almost a year old. Hint hint.

I normally reserve the birthday announcements for family, otherwise I'd have a birthday announcement almost every day, but we want to wish Matt a happy birthday. We consider him an 'honorary Uncle' to the cubs, afterall he and 'honorary Aunt' Beth Ann got to see our cubs even before I did. Plus Beth Ann works at the Children's Hospital where the cubs spent their very first weeks and helped to keep a watchful eye over our precious little ones. Happy Birthday 'honorary Uncle' Matt! We look forward to celebrating with you!
Emily being sassy with Matt as Beth Ann watches.

Happy Birthday Grandma Shirley!

Grandma Shirley with Grandpa John playing "Toss the Cub" with Zach-man. He loved it!

Grandma Shirley teaching Emily the ins and outs of the computer.

Today is Steve's Mom's birthday. We sure wish we could celebrate with her in person but we hope to see her really soon. We hope you have a happy happy birthday Grandma Shirley!!

Walk-through to closing.

Monday we had our walk-through of the new casa. It's our opportunity to point out things the builder has missed. Steve and I spent two hours with the Manager and we went through the house room by room. We go back again tomorrow morning to verify that everything has been corrected before we head to closing. I still can't believe that this is really happening. The stars have aligned for us. We managed to sell our house just in time to buy the new one. We are a lucky bunch.

Zach had his last therapy appointment today. Steve and I decided to switch to ECI so that Zach could have his therapy sessions at home. I can't help but think that this will work better. At this rate it can't be any worse. I was late this morning because traffic was horrible (due to the races this weekend), so we had a 15-minute $40 session which consisted of me feeding Zach the same exact thing I feed him at home (for free) while the therapist watched. That pretty much sealed the deal and I voluntarily discharged Zach from the program. His evaluation with ECI is on April 17.

Zach has been doing pretty well lately. He had some loaded baked potato and some mashed potatoes this week. He ate almost half of Emily's chicken with rice (minus the chicken). The rice has far more carbs and calories than the chicken so that's ok with me. Steve told me that we could all go to Chuck E Cheese once Zach starts eating pizza. Yesterday our little man ate the cheese and sauce from a frozen pizza. He didn't eat the crust but that was good enough for me. So we are going to Chuck E Cheese. I am so proud of him for trying something new. Then today he tried some salisbury steak. So so proud of our little man!

Emily has been Emily. A bundle of energy who is so fun to play with. She loves playing peek-a-boo with her brother and I love to watch them. I'm a lucky girl!

I have been crazy busy coordinating things for the new house. Setting up the utilities, scheduling painters to give us estimates, and just trying to keep things running here at Cub Central. Mom is exhausted. I wish I could go to sleep and wake up tomorrow morning in the new house, with everything in its place and no packing or unpacking to do. **sigh**