Videos

Here are a few videos of Jack from this weekend. We'll start out small...
This clip is of Jack opening his bedroom door. We have the kid proof caps on all the main door knobs but this weekend he learned how to open his bedroom door and escape. We thought it was so cute that when he woke up in the morning he came into our room to say good morning. We didn't think about escaping from nap time. This went on for about 20 minutes then we resorted to putting him back in his crib. He hasn't gotten out of bed since. :-)



This is a long video, our first bouncy house experience at the Kid Fest. Fun times!



And this is the video of our very own bouncy house. He keeps asking for us to come in it with him but it only holds up to 70 pounds. I guess we'll have to get the jumbo one next year. :-) hahahah

Rough Week (Part II, the good stuff)

April is the "Month of the Military Child". Every base will have some type of Kinderfest/block party, something. The Navy's base had theirs this weekend. The Army's having one on April 25th. We took Jack this weekend. It was a beautiful weekend plus we needed a good distraction! There was a bouncy house and a petting zoo. Big hits with us! Jack sat with a bunny on his lap for 10 minutes just holding it soooo gently and petting it. It was the sweetest thing! Then we hit the bouncy house. I wish I could have gotten in there with him, so much fun!!








Of course when your kiddo loves the bouncy house what do you do??? You buy one for the house. Hahaha. We set it up in the baby's room for now. The back yard is full of burrs and we didn't want it to pop the first time we blew it up. Of course this thing is gigantic. Hahaha, but he loves it and that's all that matters! Enjoy the pictures...I have a bunch of videos, I'll save them for the next post!

Rough Week (Part I, the rough stuff)

So yet another week that didn't go as planned. I'm very ready for this cycle to break for us! It's been hell at work. Late nights are more and more common which means less and less time with Tom and Jack. I saw Jack for a total of 45 minutes on Tuesday. Enough to see him start breakfast and then eat dinner, get a bath and I put him to bed. This is not how I planned on being a mom!
We also had Jack's 2nd follow up appointment about his ears on Wednesday. He still had fluid in both of his ears but it wasn't puss, and they weren't red. No ear infections, therefore we moved to another plan. I refused to put him on another round of anti-biotics. The pediatrician really doesn't think he needs ear tubes so we're going with seasonal allergies. After a long chat and talk about symptoms, it kinda made sense. We're on a prescription for Clarinex and believe it or not, it's working. YEAH! He hasn't had a fever and hasn't been playing with his ears at all. I'm hoping this is it. We of course have another follow up in a week. We're keeping our fingers crossed. Tuesday was a rough day. It started with Bruno going after Sadie. We really watched him all week. You can tell he's young. He was very possessive of Tom. Thursday came along and he went after Jack. Jack was fine, Bruno just took him to the ground. It happened before I got home. When I walked in the door I could tell something bad happened. Tom jumped in right away. It's just after that how do you trust the dog again? What if he had another 3 seconds, or Jack had food in his hand or it was the new baby? So afer a night of thinking the situation to death and a few tears we took Bruno back to the SPCA on Friday. It was definitley NOT what we had planned. It was a sad day. He really is a good dog, it's just that he made us so nervous around Jack we couldn't relax. I really hope there's a home out there for him, maybe a young couple with out kids. They'd be perfect. We feel horrible but we had to think about Jack and the baby. We miss Bruno and hope he's doing ok!!
Another rough part to this week was that a childhood friend of mine passed away. I grew up with her, our parents are good friends. She was 27. She was sick for a little while, battled an eating disorder and was in the ICU for the last 6 weeks of her life. Her funeral was on Thursday. I hate that I wasn't there for her family. We got to see her while I was home, when Tom was at Ft. Lee. She got to meet Jack and we had the chance to catch up. I'll always remember hanging out at the PSU football games and our goofy short haircuts. Kristin, You are missed!!!
We're also trying to send good thoughts to Tom's Gram. She's been in the hospital for almost 2 weeks now. Tom's thinking about flying home this coming weekend to see her. I don't think Jack and I will be joining him on the trip. We hope that Gramme is feeling better soon and can get back home and out of the hospital!
I actually took off on Friday. Basically just for a mental health day. With everything building up I felt like breaking down. Of course that came back to bite me....I've been sick all weekend. I now have NO voice, what so ever, and have been sneezing and coughing for 3 days. Going back to work tomorrow is the grey cloud looming over me right now. The work load didn't go away with my day off, it just got bigger. I'm trying to remember why working was such a good idea. Does anyone have a plan on staying home with your kids and making millions???
Rough week! I'm hoping next week is better. We did have a fun weekend considering everything....that's the next blog. I need to finish on a happy note!

Introducing Bruno

Well, we'd like you all to meet Bruno. The latest McMurtrie addition.

We have been wanting a 2nd dog pretty much since we got Sadie. Tom's friend Troy just adopted a dog from the Monterey County SPCA last week and that sparked our interest again. Tom was off on Friday since it was his week of finals so he kept Jack home and they had an SPCA field trip. Jack loved looking at all the dogs. There were 2 Dalmatian puppies from a liter of 4 and a few mixes that were all possibilities. Tom fell in love with a German Shepherd named "Theo" (now known as Bruno). He was absolutely gorgeous! In order to adopt they make you bring the whole family (including other pets) before they let you have your animal. So Saturday morning after I spent 2 hours at work....we, Sadie included, ventured out to the SPCA. As we walked in the last Dalmatian puppy was being adopted. We went right for Theo. He is the sweetest dog. He totally took to Tom. We took him for a long walk and played. He has a great temperament! He was awesome with Jack and even pretty good on the leash. They did a meet and greet with him and Sadie in a play area. They could have cared less about each other. They sniffed each other but never showed aggression and even off their leashes they were great. So they passed that test. He really seems like a great dog.
The SPCA knows nothing about Bruno. He was found in a mall parking lot last week. They're guessing that he's about 2 yrs old. We actually think he's younger, his teeth are perfectly white. He's about 80 pounds and very strong. We decided that we definitely wanted to bring him home. The catch was since he was a stray they have to hold him for 5 days so the owner has a chance to claim him. Today was the 5th day. We called this morning, no one claimed him so we went and signed all the papers, he's ours. He gets neutered tomorrow then we can pick him up.
I can't believe how inexpensive it was to adopt him either. All of his vet bills (neutering, shots, and microchip) are included in his adoption fee. It didn't seem right so we made a donation too. Seeing all these dogs and cats with the saddest eyes ever was so heart breaking. We felt like big losers for not going out there sooner and volunteering to walk the dogs, take bags of food or to drop off old blankets. While we were there we saw 2 dogs get dropped off. One by an owner and another by 2 kids that found a dog at a busy intersection wondering in the street. I wish we could bring more home. I know you all think we're crazy for getting a 2nd dog 9 weeks out from having a 2nd baby but it feels so good to have rescued Bruno! We can't wait to bring him home!!!!





Here's a few pictures of Jack's long haired mohawk from bath time the other night. The boy needs a haircut, but it was cute! :-)

Somewhere Over.....

The Rainbow.....


Last weekend Tom, Jack and I went out for Mexican food and made a pit stop at the Aquarium. Coming out of the aquarium we saw this rainbow. I don't think I have ever seen a whole rainbow end to end. Pretty cool.
The reason we stopped at the aquarium was because we saw in the newspaper that a local diver caught an 11 pound lobster. He decided not to eat it but give it to the aquarium. Tom being Tom, we had to see this thing! It was GIGANTIC!!! I wish my pictures would have come out better. They had it in the touch pond area but it was under a piece of plexi glass. It was like a football with claws. After we oohh and aahhhed at the lobster we did our usual rounds. We checked out the sharks, the jellyfish and the best part....the otters. It was a lot of fun! Then we had good Mexican food and headed home. It was a great weekend!
Baby news...I'm at 30 weeks, moving right along. I had a dr's appointment this morning and all is well. I'm ready. I know I have some time yet but I'm ready. Since we moved Jack into the guest room the baby's room is all ready to go. I just have to pull out clothing and the newborn necessity.....the swing! :-) YEAH!

Here's a more random pictures of Jack.

This is Jack running to Tom and I on the pier.


This is Jack wearing one of his favorite dog shirts. He has favorite clothing that he insists upon wearing. He didn't want to snap the onesie under his pants, so we went over the pants. He wore it that way until we went to the aquarium. Goofy!!


This is one of my new favorite pictures. He was sitting on the couch and it was the sweetest face. He looks soooo innocent too. :-)HA!

Neglect

So life has been so insane here lately I just wanted to send out an apology. There's about 40 e-mails that I haven't returned, I haven't blogged, I have been trying to call my grandparents and aunts for over 2 weeks now, I didn't even get to call my brother on his birthday. :-( I'd like to blame the time change but in all honesty I have no excuse other than when I have a second to stop and think that second is then followed by rushing around to do the everyday stuff that's been neglected on top of my family and friends. Now I know no one likes a whiny blog. You'd all much rather see pictures of Jack or hear about sunny Ca. But I just need to put it out there, it's cheaper than going to a therapist, right?
We had this huge inspection at work and basically the shit hit the fan. There were some MAJOR findings and now we're all scrambling to fix all these issues before we have to answer to the COL next week. Last week most of my co-workers and myself, have put in 12 hour days. The crazy part is that I inherited these problems. These things were broken well before I came on board but now it's under me. I'm feeling truly stressed for the first time in a LONG time. I'm beginning to think that my pay check really isn't worth all of this. Did I mention that I'm 10 weeks away from having our 2nd little boy, which I not prepared for in any way, and Jack is currently on another round of anti-biotics for another ear infection and my doctor WOULD NOT give me a referral to the Ear, Nose and Throat Dr??? I'm just trying to get through the next 10 weeks, have this baby and go on leave so I can feel the normal craziness of having 2 kids and a husband. Tom has been so great to me putting up with everything that's going on. I feel so guilty because he's now in the last 2 weeks of his semester and has 3 projects and a few papers due. I'm ready for that AH moment where everything just calms down and you can catch you breath and look back and say..."Wow that was a shitty month!"
So please forgive me for being "off the grid" and I'll be in touch soon! I promise!! I miss you all!

Craziness, change, work, and silliness

So the last 2 weeks have been CRAZY. You already read my daycare drama that ended with me eating my words. Go figure. With Jack being out 2 weeks ago from daycare I only worked 1 full day of work. Two Fridays ago I was out all on my own though. We had a friend in town for almost 2 weeks and went out to dinner that Thursday night. I woke up around 2am and I thought I had food poisoning. It wasn't pretty. The up-chucking continued every 30 minutes right along with Braxton Hicks. Tom made me call my OB in the morning and he sent me to the hospital. LOVELY! I was in rough shape! Turns out it was a virus and after a lot of IV fluids and anti nausea medication I was starting to feel better. The hospital didn't make me stay over night which I was happy about. I was still off work last Monday and then it all started over again with Jack... On Wed. after being on his anti-biotic for a full week he spiked a fever at day care of 101.7. Tom was super dad this week and stayed home with him Thurs and Fri. I felt so bad because he actually missed a class trip to the San Fran airport to check out airplane engines. Since I missed so much work the week before and my upcoming week involves a regional inspection that we're getting ready for, he stayed home from class this time. (He's such a great dad and hubby!) We called the doctor trying to get an appointment. Apparently there's been some bug flying around here that only results in a fever. They told us to treat with Tylenol and keep him on his anti-biotic and if his fever goes over 103 to call. Nice! Jack is done his medicine and hasn't had a fever since Friday so I'm guessing it's out of his system. We'll just have to see. So that's been the craziness....
The change we went through is this....I'm 7 months along with baby #2 which means we're starting to prepare. I can't believe I only have 12 weeks left but anyway...one of the things we wanted to make sure happened before the baby came is that Jack would be in a "Big Boy Bed". This weekend was our first go at it. We switched over the guest room and bed and just made it his room. That way Jack's old room is already set for baby #2. We put a double bed on the floor and made it kid proof. We put him down for a nap yesterday in his bed and with some resistance at first, he eventually fell asleep on his bed, YEAH! We peaked on him thinking he would be laying, asleep, right in front of the door but he was all curled up with his blankets and monkey. Then when he woke up and he just played with his toys. We thought this equalled success and that's where he slept last night. There was some crying again but when we went in to peak he was racked out, snoozing like normal. So my little guy is in a big boy bed. I almost can't believe it! Potty training will be our next adventure.


We spent most of yesterday doing yard work. It's been so miserable here with rain the last 2 week our yard was looking more like a jungle. So we mowed, trimmed, weeded and whacked pretty much everything. Jack helped out of course and Tom and I are both hurting today. Hahahh



While I was at work Friday and Tom had Jack all to himself they had a silly moment. Tom won't let me post the pictures he took of them together since he's anti-blog, but he didn't say I couldn't share the story. ;-) For Halloween Jack had an Elmo head/bucket. For some reason it became a hat on Friday. The best thing is that Tom joined him. We have Tom's West Point parade hat (The big one with the 2 ft. black feather plume on it) on a shelf in our living room. Since Jack was wearing a hat, Tom needed a hat too. I wish he would let me post the pictures, they're so hilarious and sweet at the same time. It's one of my favorite pictures of them. I hate that I was at work and missed all the fun!!