What are the symptoms?

So Miss Thang has been tugging at her ears lately. I'm trying to decide if it's an ear infection or she just realized she has ears. I'm thinking its that latter but I'm very inexperienced in this department so I have no idea. Help! She's been a royal crap (except today) about going to sleep at night. We put her down and she screams and cries and tries to get out of the crib. We're doing some of the CIO and that is sort of working. She's also teething really bad. Any thoughts?

I rode in my new saddle today! It's just a work saddle but its a nice one! Faith and I enjoyed it very much:) Other than that, we've been just enjoying having Lance home during the big storm. I didn't have school on Monday so that was nice. Now I get to play catch-up tomorrow....watch students!!!

It raining.... its pouring....

its going to be freezing! Yikes! Raining in MN in January is NEVER a good thing! It's 32 degrees and we are bracing for a HUGE storm. Lance is driving like hell to get home before everything starts to freeze. He's in Iowa. He's always in IA when we or they have a huge storm. Dang IA!

It has been a week of catch-up with work, house work, laundry, ect. Makenna is doing great. She's all over the place now. She crawls up our stairs with ease and especial speed if she's chasing one of the cats. The cats are definitely less than impressed with her right now. Teddy thinks she rocks. She's really wanting to walk while holding onto our fingers. There is nothing she won't pull up on:/ Thank goodness we lowered the crib mattress because she was standing there this morning trying to figure how to get out. It won't be long before we have to lower it all the way down:/ Stinker! I think she's working on more teeth. She's also pulling at her ears occasionally...I'm always afraid its an ear infection but I think she's just discovered she has ears. I need to look up what symptoms accompany an ear infection....just in case.

Other than that, I'm trying to gear up for the show season again. My 1st show is in April. I might hit an open show for a warm up. We'll see.

I've been trying to work out a little more. I'm doing a bootcamp at work that is kicking my @ss on Wed. It's AWESOME!! I try to hit the treadmill or walk outside at least 2 other days a week. I'm down a couple lbs but that was my ~Christmas~ weight;) tee hee A couple of my friends are kicking butt on weight loss so they have inspired me to loss those 20 lbs that won't quit following me around:/ If only I could go to the Biggest Loser ranch for a week or 2. That's all I would need to lose that weight. Probably not the healthiest way to lose...that fast...

I'm watching the Hope for Haiti...its heart wrenching... I want to go grab Miss Thing and give her an extra hug. All those kids that are without their parents.... I can't even imagine... I'd like to take a bunch of them... we have plenty of room..... and lots of love to give....
Who knew motherhood would turn me into such a... I don't even know the word....its hard to explain, I just know I would never want M to go through anything like that. I know NO one does but those of us that are more fortunate (like Americans) need to help. I know I will.

I'll be back....

tomorrow. Too tired now. Long, fun weekend!

I'll leave you with some Makenna cuteness.

Thanks for the suggestions!

I implemented several techniques this morning when Miss Thang woke up at 4:17am. Yes, that's right. 4 o'clock in the morning! Not clue! I picked her up, feed her and put her back down all without saying a word plus I didn't change her diaper which seems to wake her up. It didn't feel very wet so I left it. She went back down no problem. Then she woke up again at 5:30am so I picked her up and held her for a little while (2-5 min) then put her back down and she slept until 6:45am. Not too bad! Hopefully it'll just get better and better.

Now...another question....how do you keep her up in the evenings? M goes to bed around 8pm so we start the bedtime routine around 7pm. She had a good nap this morning but nothing this afternoon and was rubbing her eyes and crying/whining/fussy by 5pm. What do I do? I tried playing with her, reading to her, fed her supper and finally I gave up and started the bedtime routine at 6:15 so she was asleep at 7:15-7:30pm. Not too bad but still...any suggestions?

TIA!!!

I can't remember....

I had this big post all thought up in my mind and now when I actually go to type it....blank. I've got nothing. WTH??

This is going to be a quick week since I have a lot of NDQHA (horse stuff) items to get caught up on for the meeting and banquet this coming weekend. We're also trying to score tickets to the Vikings/Cowboys game on Sunday since I don't teach/have school next Monday (MLK Day). We'll see how well that works out.

Miss M is doing great! She is such a daddy's girl. I took some video of her crawling and playing but now Lance needs to find the software for our camera to upload it on my laptop. So maybe some video of her?! She is also sleeping through the night again but has decided that 5:15am is the perfect time to get up for the day. Not so perfect for mom or dad, let me tell you! She's goes to bed around 8pm. She's consistantly taking at least 30 mins -1.5 hr nap every day (well at least for the last couple of weeks!) so that's not THAT much sleep. Any suggestions on how to get her to sleep until 7-ish?? I'll even take 6:30!

7 months old!!

Wow. Miss Thang is 7 months old today. I just can't quite grasp that. I also can't grasp how she's able to scale 2 stairs before being distracted by a box, chase the cats all over, have a 2nd tooth almost completely through, pull up on everything, squishing up her nose at everyone and everything, try to stand without leaning on anything...the list goes on and on. She is full of attitude and does not like it when I tell her no. She's SO like her father;) tee hee OK, so maybe she's the exact clone of me except with blue eyes. God help us all!



Here is Miss M helping Daddy put the new bed together. Which by the way is FABULOUS!

Yesterday I received my Christmas present from my brother.

Zebra sequin Converse shoes! Love them:)

What do you mean??

I have to go back to school (teaching) tomorrow? I swear I just entered final grades a couple of days ago not a couple of weeks ago. Wow that 2 weeks went by fast! I am looking forward to this quarter of teaching since I'll be teaching 2 of my favorite subjects and 1 not so fav. However the whole Mon/Wed thing plus an 8am class is seriously putting a dark cloud over the whole thing:) I'm a whiner... I know. 5am is going to come WAY too soon! Add that to 25 below mornings:/ EEK! It's just not a beach in Jamaica with a pool boy serving me beer and bonbons. That's all I'm saying;) tee hee I don't ask for much! OK, maybe I do! All you who know me IRL know that I'm a ~tish~ high maintenance;) JUST. A. TISH!

Today Lance, M and I went out to lunch with Missy, Clay and Kate. Missy and I have been BFFs since we were around 5-8 yo. We showed horses together, went to NDSU together, were each others Maid or Matron of Honor is the other's wedding, ect. So they hadn't met Miss Thang yet. She did not disappoint! She was sleeping when we got to the restaurant but when she woke up, she dazzled them with her talking, squishing up her nose all the time, playing, standing and for the encore she displayed her go-go-gaggit arms and dumped Lance's water all over her parents! Nice. Luckily we've become quick with parenthood so neither of us wound up that wet. Little stinker:) Other than that, it was great!

Happy New Year!

MN and ND are really starting it off in style.....Antartica style.....Brrrrrr.....25 below air temperature....we won't even begin to discuss the wind chill temps. Ick!! Is it spring yet?

Global warming my ass.

Well I completed and succeeded with my post every day in Dec challenge to myself! Yay!! The reason I didn't get a post in yesterday was because we had a housefull of Lance's family for their Christmas celebration. We always celebrate on NYE or NYD. It was a house full! Lots of fun with the 3 little girls though:)
For NYE, Lance and I went out with some friends for an early supper then they all went to another friend's house for a kid friendly party. We had every intention of going too but just had too much cleaning and organizing for the nexdt day and too little sleep. Miss Thang's other bottom tooth is coming in and she's NOT impressed with it:/

I'm going to jump in a nice hot bubblebath and relax with a book or watch tv....XXX is on with Vin Diesel in it....Grrrrrrrr!!!!! Yummy!

I hope everyone has a very blessed, happy and healthy 2010!