There are never enough hours in the day...

I have had all intentions of updating the blog for over a week now! However, as usual, our crazy, hectic, non-stop life has kept me from it! But I guess we have to have all that stuff going on in order for me to have something to blog about, right?!?!

Well lets get caught up. Today JC is 9 months old! I cannot believe it! I was thinking earlier about what life was like one year ago. I was pregnant and pretty miserable and highly anticipating the arrival of my little boogy. Now I want time to slow down so I can enjoy all the important moments with him that seem to be flying by. Let me update you on all his stats. He weighs a little over 20lbs. I cannot remember his exact height measurement, I think it was 29 inches. You see we went to the doctor last week. We were supposed to go today but Drew ended up having to go, that story will be part of his update, but anyway we went. So the doctor is all amazed at how long he is and starts asking me how tall I am. Well I told him I am 5'1". He ask me how tall my husband is, and since I really don't know Jim's height I guess at 5'6" or 5'7", I think my guess was off slightly, cannot remember what he told me now! Anyway, the doctor is like telling me about how JC is at the very tip top of the growth chart on his height and how amazed he is by that given that me and my husband are not tall people. So I kinda got the impression that he was implying that JC might be the "milkman's" baby! Seriously, I am sure he will grow into that height as some point, but he is really long and really heavy! I went back to Drew's baby book to see what he weighed at 9mon. Drew was just over 17lbs at this point! He did not even weigh 20lbs until he was 15mon! So I am not really sure how we ended up with a giant baby this time but we did. And since he is so big he obviously has a giant sized appetite to go along with it! The boy puts away a FULL bowl of cereal every morning along with a bottle of formula. At lunch and dinner he eat two full jars of food and usually wants to follow that with a good helping of puffs and a full cup of juice. He stills gets a "night, night" bottle which is now about 9-10oz and a morning bottle that is 8oz. The lady at the day care said "he likes his groceries", I like that and she is right, he does!! He has developed quite an attachment to his mama. I am sure that I make it worse but inside I know that he is the last baby and I indulge it more than I really should. He will even cry for me rather than Jim some now. He actually cried when I left him at the daycare this week for the first time. He only did it one day so it is not habitual yet, but I think that may be coming. He does cry every afternoon when I get there until I actually pick him up. And if they have to change his diaper when I get there, which is most days because he has been asleep, he cries the entire time they are changing him! He is not yet mobile, and I am kinda glad! He is very grabby and kinda bad at times! He HATES being put on his stomach! He can get up on his legs and arms like he is going to crawl, he can even rock back and forth but will not go forward or backward. He just does not like it! Now what he does like is standing! I have stood him up next to a chair a few times and he if figuring out how to hang on and stand up. He can pull himself up from a sitting position with just a little help. So I will not be surprised if this one bypasses crawling all together and goes straight for coasting around the furniture . He is very strong! He can say mama and bubba, but he will not say daddy or dada! As a matter of fact when you try to get him to say it he will usually either say mama or shake his head no! He is rotten people! He jabbers all the time though. He keeps himself occupied in the car everyday by taking his socks off! Most days I just take him in the daycare without them on because he refuses to leave them on, the boy likes to be barefooted! Thank goodness for footed pjs!


Well, let me move on to Drew. He has had an interesting few weeks. We have had a conference with the teacher since school went back after Christmas due to him getting N's on his report card. We just did not understand the problem. His school work is great. He knows his skills and is really doing good on sight words, writing, math, etc. The N's were for not listening and not following directions. When we met with the teacher she indicated that he seems to be daydreaming and not paying her any attention. Jim and I both suspected that he may be bored because he did have the skills down. So we ask the teacher to begin moving his race car off track (their classroom discipline tool) when he was not listening. We talked to him about the listening and we prayed about it with him. The teacher even told us that after the new year they had talked about New Years Resolutions and Drew had drawn a picture of his showing him sitting at a desk and the teacher standing there and wrote that he wanted to listen better. So he obviously knew that he needed to do better in this area. Jim and I began to notice more and more at home that we were having to speak very loudly to get his attention. Well a couple of weeks ago Jim and I realized it was getting really bad. So we talked to a friend from church that is a school nurse about checking his hearing. She came to the house and did it and he heard nothing on one side and only heard 2 tones on the other. So she contacted our school nurse the next day and it turned out that the district audiologist happened to be at our school that day and they tested him. Well he failed it again and the test she did indicated that he had fluid in his ears. So I made an appointment with the doctor last Thursday. That is why JC ended up at the doctor last week instead of today. They checked his ears and they were full of fluid and puss. So we are now on antibiotics. He is already hearing so much better. I really suspect that he has had that going on for months now and just got really bad in the last few weeks. He even told Jim one morning earlier in the week that the water sounded funny while he was brushing his teeth but Jim told him it was just that he could actually hear the water now! They will test his hearing at school again in about another week and let us know how he does. I am sure if he does not pass it this time we will have to see a ENT but hopefully that was all it was. He has had a much better week at school this week too, has not gotten in trouble one day!

Here are the pics of the two of them at the doctor...






Here is a video of the kids, and yes at the end of it Drew lets JC fall over. I promise no one was hurt in the making of the video! Just one more thing for JC to add to the running list of things to one day retaliate against his brother for! I am telling you, one day that big brother is gonna get it from the not so little one!!


Honestly I have so much more I would like to write but this post is already so long now as it is! I will try to post again in a few days. I do want to leave you with a quote from a book I am reading, actually I do not have the book with me so I will have to paraphrase it. Basically is was talking about our never ending "to do" list. If you know me very well I am a major list person, I have a list for everyday of the week and I live by the list! But I often feel like there is never enough time to do all the things on my list. The point of what I was reading is that we often use our "to do" list as an excuse for not spending time with God. The quote was that while there will never be enough time for all the thing on our "to do " list there is always enough time for the things on God's "to do" list. I am learning that because He is an all-powerful, mighty God, He makes it possible for me to get done all the things I HAVE to get done if I only put Him first! I love Him so much for that!

Well, that is it from the Mayos for now!

Catching Up

Well it has been another snow day here in Northwest Mississippi. We have now officially missed 4 days of school. I am happy to say that this time there was actual snow though! And I have the pics and videos to prove it! We had a really good time playing in it all this morning. Now it is raining/sleeting. The rain has managed to knock our snowman down already. I was rather disappointed but Jim did not feel the need to go out and fix him. JC even got to have some fun in the snow. He seems to be fearless and wants to experience everything, very different than Drew at that age! Now we are spending some time just chillin in the house. It is nice to have a day like this where we can just sit and relax. We have been so busy lately. Jim has been working most weekends right now, so it is especially nice to have a day to spend with him. I know it will be difficult to get all the work done at the office this week but it will be worth it I think!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Jim beginning to build the snowman, and Drew throwing snow on him!


Showing JC the snow for the first time!


JC getting to play in the snow in Jim's truck bed.

Pics of the tooth and a video

All smiles even in the midst of teething!

Check out the new tooth! Just coming through the surface, so look close.

A Busy Week

Well it has been a busy, and somewhat tough, week. I will start with the less fun stuff from the week. Wednesday I ended up in the doctor's office due to a bump that was on my arm that kept growing. It turned out to be an abscess that had to be opened up. I will not go into all the incredibly painful and gross details. Needless to say I was then put out of commission for the next couple of days. So I unexpectadly had to miss work on Wed and Thurs putting me further behind on all the things that have to be done by the end of this month. I did work today but still have so much to do. I will be doing some work from home this weekend. I went back to the doctor today to have them check my wound and they ended up bandaging me up again and I will have to go back again on Monday for another check. I am currently taking 2 antibiotics and have pain meds as needed. Thankfully I have not been in too much pain since Wed when they actually cut it open. Hopefully I will soon be back to normal and able to return to my normal routine, like exercising!

Now for the exciting and big news! JC has his first tooth coming in!! Last night he was just trying to bite on everything, including me! So I decided to check his mouth really good again and sure enough the front bottom left tooth had just poked through the surface. He has not been fussy about it at all, just wants to bite on stuff. He did have some icky diapers on Thursday, but has not really had that problem again either. He is such a good baby, even with teething!

So I have some pics and videos to post but I am on Jim's computer right now. Drew is watching a movie on mine in his room so I will have to wait until tomorrow to post those. I will be home with the kids again as Jim will be at his first indoor percussion competition. So hopefully during some nap times I can get those pics and videos loaded!

Some New Pictures

Jim and Drew playing in the very little snow we got last week. As you can see they were not even playing with the snow but decided to play baseball.


JC hanging out in his bouncer/saucer toy he got from Santa.


JC playing in his highchair while I wash dishes.


Drew and JC taking their first bath together. JC loved it! He just kept staring at Drew and smiling at him.



Sweet, clean little boy!

My attitude stinks and I know it!

Well as you can see it is now the 15th, so I have not done so great at getting a post on here at least once a week, oh well. As my title for this blog states I have a bad attitude. The reason for the attitude is that Jim has to work the next 4 weekends. I know that is whiny and petty but that is the way it is and the attitude stinks so I suggest not arguing it with me!

On the upside, Jim is off work on Monday. I am not though, however, because the daycare is open and we will have to pay for the day regardless of whether or not JC is there, I will be bringing him to daycare on Monday. The reason for that is so that Jim can CLEAN THE HOUSE!!!!!!! The house cleaning has become one of those things that just gets done when we can get to it. Now don't get me wrong, we are not sitting on nasty potties or anything like that, it just is not CLEAN in my sense of the word. So I will be compiling a massive list for him to work on Monday!

Tonight Drew is having his best bud and cousin Ben to spend the night. Actually Elizabeth, Ben and Matthew are coming to the house for dinner and for me to color her hair. This will be a good distraction for me tonight! I am looking forward to some "sister" time. I am also contemplating having her color my hair. I just don't really have the money to get it done professionally right now and it could be one of those things I could go back to doing myself, not sure on this yet, I will keep you posted. Anyhoo, that is that plan for the day.

So let me get you up to date on the kids. JC is HUGE! I mean seriously, he is one big kid! He is wearing 12mon clothes exclusively and size 4 diapers. Jim and I had this conversation last night, he is not a fat baby, just a big baby. He is long and solid. I don't think it will be too many years before he and Drew will be wearing the same size clothes even! He says mama, ALL THE TIME! I do seriously mean all the time. He is so much more of a mama boy than Drew was. And Drew said "dada" first. JC still won't say "dada", even though Jim tries constantly. He is not crawling yet but he will sit up on his own without any support. He will still fall over from time to time so we have to watch him. I just don't know that he is really even interested in crawling. He loves to stand up, so he may just go straight to walking, who knows!

Drew is back in the swing of things with school. It has been a good couple weeks back. They did end up with 2 snow days last week, even though there really wasn't any snow! I was rather disappointed. I really wanted to have snow that we could play in, but it is just January and plenty of time left for that before spring. I have couple of "Drew Stories" to share. First, Wednesday was the second round of his H1N1 shot at school. I totally forgot to tell him about it. So I felt like a terrible mother when I picked him up and expected to hear how bad it was and would have to console him and figured I would bribe him with some Sonic. So he jumps right in the car to tell me how brave he was and that he did not cry and he got a toy from the treasure chest because he was so good! I was so proud of him, such a big boy and growing up so much! And the added bonus was I saved $2 by not having to buy a milkshake!! Second Story, Wednesday night while driving home from church, just Drew and I, he told me that he wanted to grow up like me and daddy. He thought for a few seconds and then told me he had a "big problem". Of course I ask him what was the problem and he then told me he did not know what he wanted to be when he "growed" up yet. So I began to tell him that he could do anything he wanted to do. I was aiming really high and told him he could be an astronaut, or a doctor (you know I want him to be able to put me and his old dad up in style!!). So he interjected that he wanted to be a teacher. I almost teared up thinking how he wants to be just like his daddy and teach school. So I went with that direction and starting talking about him teaching band and helping children learn music. Then he finishes his thoughts on the subject and tells me that he wants to be a teacher so he can drive the bus! Now understanding has come over me and I realize that his interest in teaching school is not to be like his daddy or to want to mold young minds but simply to be a bus driver! I don't think I will tell him that you don't have to have the degree to drive the bus, I will just let him think that is one of the perks!

Well until next time bloggy friends, that is what is going on with the Mayos!

A New Year, A New Decade

Well I don't really have time to be on here blogging but I am going to do it anyway because I really want to do better at posting this year. I have allowed Facebook to take the place of this a bit and I know that there are so many little things happening everyday that I am failing to document. This blog is more than just a place for pics but a journal of our lives. So with that said lets get kinda up to date.

I hope you all like the new blog design. I wanted something kinda wintery but girly too. I like this. Not too sure how long I will stick with it, I tend to get bored with it and want something new, but we will see!

School started back today. I was glad and sad all at the same time. Glad because we needed to get back on a regular schedule. Sad because it is so hard to get back on schedule! Drew told me yesterday that he likes home more than school. My response to him was that I really like home more than work but we just cannot do that everyday! However, I know that if I did get to stay at home each and every day that I would eventually go nuts. I mean you can only get a house so clean and eventually all laundry is washed except what is on your back! I do think I would enjoy it for about a month and then I would be ready for work and adult interaction again. I am praying that today will be a good day for all my boys! Jim has a very challenging semester ahead of him, truthfully he is already wishing for Spring Break. I reminded him last night that as he wished the school year away that is actually wishing that time with the kids away to as they are both growing up so fast, especially JC. In a way I am glad that it is this time of year because it is somewhat slower around the house in the evenings and weekends. I guess because there is no yard work to be done and we don't go places to much because we are broke from December! Anyway, the last few days have been really nice and rather relaxing around the house.

Now on to other subjects. If you are reading this post from somewhere other than the Desoto County area let me just tell you that it is FREAKING COLD HERE! 22 degrees is to be exact at this moment. I honestly cannot remember having this much cold weather in my entire life. Our heat at home is hurtin trying to keep our house warm. I think that we will be lighting up the gas logs this week because we have a strong chance of snowy/winter weather coming. For those of you who know me well you know it is pretty serious if I ask Jim to fire up the logs! Additionally, since having JC and losing so much weight I now have the new colder nature. I am used to being hot all the time but now find myself quite comfy sitting in my office with the thermostat set to 73 and the space heater blowing on me less than 4 feet away. Different for me for sure! I am beginning to think that my feet will just be numb until spring. This morning as I was getting dressed I actually contemplated putting on 2 pairs of socks and then got all giddy thinking of possibly purchasing wool socks and wondering if they carry those at Wal-Mart! Even with the extreme cold I am really hoping for some snow. Drew is so excited about the prospect of playing in it and I would just love to see JC's reaction to it. We will see what the next few days bring!

I will be starting my second weight loss challenge next Monday. I am so excited and ready! I have definitely put on a few pounds through the holiday. I am back exercising full force but I am having a really hard time getting my eating habits back in line. It has been a struggle. I know that it is due to eating lax for about 3 weeks and now I am trying to go back to the complete opposite of that. Pray for me in this. I am determined to see this journey through. I want to lose 40 more pounds by June and vacation, that is the goal. I lost 22lbs on the last weight loss challenge and I will have 2 more before vacation, so if I can pull off 20 in each one then I will hit my goal. Of course it is a lifestyle change. That is what I have realized over the last few weeks is that I still have some bad habits that need to not just be broken but destroyed. I cannot fall back into old patters. I am serious ya'll, pray for me! I want to whip this thing!

Well that is the update for now! I will try to get on here and post more of what is going on with us on a regular basis. Hope your new year is off to a fantastic start!