Happy New Year's Eve

Things have calmed down from Christmas and next week things should be "normal" again. I'm ready for work to get back to normal, it's always hit or miss between Thanksgiving and New Years, so I'm ready to roll in 2011!

Ben and I, and apparently Dad too, acquired a cold for Christmas. Ug. Mine and Dad's seemed to be worse than Ben's and finally today I'm feeling closer to normal. Earlier this week was a bit of a medicine induced haze.

As I mentioned in a post several weeks ago we are worried about Tucker's vision. We went to the Vet on Thursday to see what they had to say. It was as we figured, cataracts. Cataracts are odd in a dog as young as Tucker, he's 7 1/2. Normally early onset cataracts are caused by diabetes but they did a blood test and he does NOT have diabetes, thankfully. The Vet said that it appears as though he has essentially no vision in the one eye and very limited in the other. So, all that sucks but he's getting around pretty well in environments he's familiar with. With cataracts, like in humans, they can be removed, for a cost of course. There are also some supplements that claim to help, the vet said it can't hurt, so we will try those for a month or two first and see if we can tell any difference but my guess is sometime in the first quarter or so of 2011 we will take Tuker to Nashville to have the cataract in one eye removed. Apparently in dogs it's just as advantagous to just do one eye, and more cost effective as well.

Since I'm still recovering from a cold and have a list a mile long of things that need to be done around the house, we are staying home for New Years. We grilled a steak, have a bottle of champange, watching a few movies (which is really rare at our house) and just relaxing. We skyped into Aunt Brenda and other than that, it will be a low key entrance into 2011.

Hopefully I can finish my list of things to do and be ready to start 2011!!

Here's a few recent pictures!

Mallory's first Christmas!! And it was White!!

Ok, so I was way more excited for Christmas morning than Mallory was! To her it was any other Saturday morning, she had a leisurly bottle and didn't quite understand what was in store for her!

We had snow on the ground and Santa came and delivered! AKA UPS delivered Ryan the Activity Zebra, lol!

Here's a picture of Mallory Christmas morning sitting in front of her Santa loot! Santa brought Ryan the Activity Zebra, Jumbo Go Go Go (the replacement for Ryan that Back To Basics Toys sent that we just decided to keep) her first toy tractor, a Go and Grow Chair from Kristi G and some books!








Then we dove into all our other presents. Ben's parents got her some fun stuff as well as our Cousin's in Kansas!! Needless to say, she racked up. She really didn't know what was going on, but she had fun. We got her a few other small things, my favorite being the Melissa and Doug Stuffed Insect Jar. She's had a lot of fun playing with all her new stuff and we've got several new books to sit down and read!!

We starting getting ready for the rest of my family to come. We were supposed to have Mom, Dad, Susan, Nick, Memaw, Aunt Sharon, Matt, Mike and Aunt Mildred, but Mom, Dad, Susan and Nick are the only ones that came. The rest were worried about the roads, so we will just have to celebrate with them later.

We had a good evening of more food, a few more presents and just spending some time toghether! Overall Mallory's first Christmas seems to have been a success. I was really wishing she would have gotten her two front teeth, because they are still bothering her, but oh well, hopefully they will pop through soon!!

Hope everyone else had a good Christmas too!! Here's a few other pictures:

Week leading up to Christmas Day!

Sunday the 19th I took a trip to Sam's Club to do a little shopping for our Junior League Christmas party for the CASA, Foster and other underprivilidged kids in the county. We do this every year, rent out the ice skating rink, give them gloves, hats, socks, books and then feed them. I was in charge of food, enough to feed 250 kids hot dogs, juices/gatorade, chips and candy! It was a 2 cart trip to Sam's!

Monday evening Megan, our neighbor, watched Mallory again since Ben was going to be late and I got all the food set up for the kiddos and thankfully had some help from other great Junior Leaguer's! The party seemed to be a success and the food was organized and ready for everyone, so that made me happy, even though I smelled like boiled hotdogs by the time it was done!

Tuesday Mrs Carole called about an hour after I dropped off Bean saying she has basically been screaming non stop, which is very unusual for her. Again we thought maybe teething or perhaps ears, one of the other girls at the daycare found out over the weekend she had a double ear infection. So, we made an appointment and at 11:45 we saw Dr Gannon, because again it's Tuesday and that's the one day Dr Phillips takes off. Thankfully, once again, ears are fine, probably teething, could even be a pulled muscle in her neck because she favors the one side still. So basically she's fine. She also never screamed when with me..... So back to Mrs Carole's we went with a recommendation from Dr Gannon to do a little PT with her to help her straighten out her head/neck basically. So that will probalby start sometime after the first of the year, he said in just a couple months they could probably get it straightened out.

When I picked up Bean Tuesday evening, she had still screamed all afternoon. Got her home, she was fine. Who knows. Perhaps she was just having an off day! I still think her teeth were really bothering her.

Wednesday Bean and I went into the office for the morning and worked a little bit. Here's a picture of her in my chair "helping" me.





Wednesday afternoon we headed down to Mom and Dad's where they were going to keep her while Ben and I went to see Garth Brooks in Nashville for his last night of Flood Relief Fundraising Concerts.

Dad watched Bean until Mom got home and they seemed to have a pretty normal night. Ben and I had a great time at the concert, he puts on one heck of a show! Here are some pictures from that night.






Thursday Ben worked from the Hopkinsville office and I scanned in some of Dad's Vietnam slides for a DVD Movie I'm making for him of his pictures and slides and overall we just took it easy. We were going to have dinner at Mom's and open presnets with them Thursday night. Here's some pictures of Thursday night's festivities:









Bean's teeth starting bugging her again Thursday night, she woke up around 9:30 pm with a fever, but otherwise acting fine, just a little upset. So I gave her some baby motrin and laid down on the bed with her on my chest, which is one of her favorite places to be, especially if sleepy or not feeling well, and there she immediatly went back to sleep and we both slept in that same spot until about 1:30 am when I woke up and put her to bed. She stayed there until about 5:30 when the medicine wore off and I gave her some more and we went back to sleep on my chest until around 8 am, and then she was pretty much fine the rest of Friday.

My Secret Santa from The Preemie Palace sent me this great stuff! She's from Palm Beach area Florida and had this great ornament made, or she could have made it, not sure, for Mallory! Love it!!



Ben's family came in late Friday afternoon. It started snowing after they got here and my guess is we ended up with 2-3 inches. The roads were a little slick Friday night when it was snowing and they all tried to go to church. They didn't get very far and just came back home.

So, looks like Bean's first Christmas will be a white one!!!

March for Babies, Run for Dimes

In case you missed the first post about this on my New Momma Jogger Blog Post, here it is again!! My fundraiser for our March of Dimes March for Babies walk.



I'm kicking the new year off with continued training for my Half Marathon and starting fund raising for the March of Dimes March for Babies and I thought wouldn't it be awesome if I could figure out a way to combine the two, and while running on the treadmill the other night I did!!

That's where MARCH FOR BABIES, RUN FOR DIMES was born!

I have a goal to raise $1000 for our March for Babies Team, Team Butterbean, and I would like to do it in more creative ways than just asking for a typical donation. Get people a little more involved.

So, on a take off the old bike-a-thons we used to do as a kid where people would sponsor you so much for every mile you could ride in a given time, MARCH FOR BABIES, RUN FOR DIMES is similar in that you can sponsor me for every mile I run between Jan 1 and April 15th.

I will post all my runs, and take pictures or screen shots of my actual mileage, I will not cheat, and post on the blog here.

According to my training I should run 187 miles between Jan 1 and April 15th, and I will cap the mileage at 200 miles in case I get extra frisky and log a few more miles : ) That way everyone will know the max amount they would be donating.

My half marathon is April 10th and the March for Babies is April 30th, so that's why I chose April 15th, get my 1/2 in and still have time to let everyone know their donation and collect before our walk.

The plan is that you can donate how many ever dimes per mile you would like. So 2 dimes per mile at 200 miles would be a max donation of $40. I'd like to keep it to dimes per mile, but if you want to participate and aren't comfortabl at $20 being the max donation at 1 dime per mile, I can do nickles if need be : ) It's for a good cause, I'm just playing off the March for Dimes title!

So, please let me know if you would like to participate. I will keep everyone updated on the totals via facebook an always on this blog. I think this is a fun way to raise money and keep my butt moving through my training program too!

Please let me know via email, facebook or comment on the blog if you would like to participate! Just so you have it handy, email to use is: rhondacwerner@gmail.com.

I will probably have a couple other fund raisers, but this is the first!

Swimming Lesson Success!

I'm not sure who had more fun at Bean's lessons, me or her!

She hadn't ever been in the pool before. I don't count the 4th of July because the water was still so cold I didn't get anything more than her toes wet.

Of course the pool at the Y was heated, so the water was nice and she just loved it. No crying at any point. The lessons were about as I figured, some splashing, dunking, floating with assistance, kicking, just getting used to everything.

The instructor said she's never seen a baby so relaxed and actually seeming like she's enjoying it. She said most scream and some don't but don't look "happy" about being in the pool. Bean just loved it all.

We just bobbed together, floated on her back (where she would always try to eat her feet while on her back), we would "swim" on her belly where she would move her arms some and kick her feet, jump off the side (assisted obviously) and we dunked her about 3 times and it never phased her. She just had a ball. We had a few toys to play with and overall just had a good time.

I was beginning to wonder if I was going to find her swimsuit and then if she'd fit in it once I found it. After tearing her room apart, digging through all the tubs of her 0-3 month clothes I finally realized where I put it after this summer.....in my swim suit drawer. Oh well, I found it in time and she did still fit in it. I remember it being so big on her this summer and swallowing her. I looked at it this time wondering if I could get it over her head, LOL! It wasn't too tight, actually it probably fit about right, so it should get us through the next few lessons and I'm glad we are getting some use out of the first thing I ever even bought for her before she was born and I ended up in the hospital!

Here's some pictures that Ben took at the pool (some are foggy until the camera adjusted to all the humidity in the pool room) and one that I took of her in her swimsuit at home.

Team Butterbean & our little Snow Angel!!

The March of Dimes Walk for Babies is their biggest fundraiser every year and I am looking forward to putting a team together for the walk in Owensboro on April 30 of 2011. So, friends and family, plug it in the calendar because I want Team Butterbean well represented! I'd like to raise $1000, and I've got a few ideas on how to do that outside of just begging for regular donations, but regular donations are perfectly fine as well!

I've started putting a few ideas together on team tee-shirts. Here's what I think will be on the front pocket area and I'm still working on the back. And I'm assuming you all know why we are called Team Butterbean, since that's Mallory's nickname.....I am a little worried she may never learn to answer to Mallory....



You will also see this logo in the right side bar. If you click on the logo it will take you to the Team Butterbean home page where you can sign up to be part of our team, so if you think you want to join us (there's no money exchanged to just sign up to be on our team) just click over there and get signed up. I think it should be fun!!

And the walk is 3 miles, just so you know : ) I guess if you don't actually want to walk 3 miles you can be there to just cheer the rest of us on.

Today was Mallory's Christmas at Mrs Carole's since we didn't venture out yesterday because of the ice in the morning. I thought she ought to wear her "party outfit" for Christmas, it has faux fur, and is just too cute. Stefanie got it for her before she was even born. So, here's a few pictures Mrs Carole took today at their Christmas party....our little snow angel!






And I'm so excited because tomorrow is our first Mom and Tot swimming class at the YMCA!! I really hope she can fit into her yellow polka dot swimsuit because I have no clue where I'm going to find a suit this time of year for a 8 month old....

Ben's going with us tomorrow to take pictures. Should be fun!!

Winter has arrived & Picture Proofs

Not that I'm happy about it, but it has arrived! 2-3 inches of snow yesterday, 30 mph gusts of wind and a high of about 17 today, yuck! The snow came Sunday but the roads were slick this am so Ben and I attempted to work from home, which is easier for Ben than me, but I got a few things done.

In the middle of writing this I got the email saying Mallory's proofs are up, you can view HERE and clicking on Mallory and entering password: april12 There's several that I will have to have! Ashton also put a few of us up on my Facebook page Sunday night, so if you want to see those, look on my FB profile.

We had a very unevenful weekend at home, yes, we actually spent all weekend at home! It's amazing! We did go into town on Saturday for a bit, but other than that we enjoyed a relaxing weekend at home.

Bean got her first Synagis shot on Thursday, finally! She tolerated it well. Insurance wouldn't cover a home nurse to come to our house and do it, which is fine, to me its easier to take her to the Dr's office than wait on a home health nurse. We had to wait 20 minutes to make sure she had no reactions, which she didn't, and then we were good to go. Now that we will change insurance companies in Jan on Ben's work policy we will see if any more shots will be covered or not, I sure hope so!!

Little Miss Bean is a bubble blower. She's has really started doing this full force in the past 4 or 5 days, all the time. I've got to get it on video, it's cute. She squeals, grunts and blows bubbles! Being a baby is the life!

I've started Christmas shopping, have one big order to place from Amazon.com and then a few minor things I can get in Owensboro and I'm calling it done. I really think all this present stuff is way over the top anyway with the exception of the kids, but whatever.

We moved Bean into her big girl tub Sunday night since she was finally outgrowing the sling/hammock thing I had been using with her and she loved it. I wanted to wait until she was sitting up better, and she's getting better and better every day, and she liked splashing in the water and playing with her bath toys. Towards the end she kicked back and relaxed and I thought it was just too funny, but here's a picture of her all kicked back!






On another note we are worried about Tucker's vision. Over the past year or year and a half we've noticed that his vision doesn't seem to be as good, especially his pereferial vision. We had the local vet look at him last year and he couldn't see anything and other than taking him to the doggie eye doctor in Nashville there wasn't anything he could see. So I'm not sure what we will do, one eye looks a little cloudy, so maybe he has cataracts. We will probably have the local vet look at him again and then decided what if anything we can or will do. As far as dogs go, he's a pampered pooch and eyesight or not, he still has quite a few years of doggie pampering ahead of him.

Here's a few other pictures of Bean!!