It's been a while......

Wow it has been forever since I have updated but life has been extremely busy and go go go to say the least! I am now a mommy to 2 walking kiddos and i thought ayden was the handful when it came to being busy and mobile I was wrong Clayton has taken his new found freedom and ran with it! An 8 month old walking is an adventure all within it's self and ayden trying to protect his toys from his little brother the fights are starting already! Clayton just wants to be just like his big brother and do everything that he does!! It's so cute but poor Ayden just gets sooo frustrated with him! We are still ironing out jealousy issues with ayden which they are getting better but he still isn't quite okay with the concept that Clayton is here to stay and not going anywhere else! Here are some of Clayton's stats since I haven't done one yet on him since my last post:
Wears 12-18 month clothes
Size 5 diapers
Weighs 24lbs
Walking all the time
Standing by himself with out having anything to pull up on
Has 5 teeth
Loves giggling all the time
He is my baby Goliath lol that's what I have been calling him lately and I really think the name fits him!
Ayden has been doing well in school we are finally getting lots of words out and starting to understand him more and more each passing day! That makes me feel sooo good cause I have been super worried about that! He also knows how to count to 3 and also say some of his abc's I am one proud mama Only now if he can master listening and minding we would be set! Hahaha we just recently got back from vacation from Branson Missouri and we spent quite a bit of time at silver dollar city I will admit I was pretty skeptical on how the boys would do since I didn't think they would be able to ride rides there and with the heat and by my surprise they did really well! Clayton of course couldn't ride anything but ayden was able to ride quite a bit and he had a blast he got to go on his first roller coaster and got to ride the swings, fly with dumbo, ride the rocking ship, log ride, the river rapids and he loved alll of it! I was so proud how brave he was he is Turing out to be a pretty amazing little boy!
Well I am going to get off here I will post again sometime soon since Clayton will be 9 months on the 27th so until next time!
Elizabeth

7 months old and soooo much more!

              Wow it has been a REALLY long time since I have had a chance to get on here and update life has been CRAZY busy with planning a bridal shower to getting ready for a wedding and most of all taking care of TWO little ones I really don't have a whole lot of time for myself :)! So I guess I should update you on what is going in the MacDonald house I will start off with Clayton first! 

            Well on Friday Clayton turned 7 months old! He is growing and thriving very nicely we have had some ups and downs with him this last month with ear infections and teething and a severe diaper rash I have to admit it was testing to this mommas patients! We found out at his 6 month appointment that he had an ear infection (first one for Clayton and first time for me taking care of one) and honestly I was like okay we will do the antibiotics and go on with our life little did I know that this ear infection would literally at times feel like it was going to kill me instead! I have now a pure HATRED for ear infections cause this was hopefully the first and LAST ear infection I hope to deal with as a mother! IT LASTED A MONTH......you read it right a MONTH! We went nights with only getting minimal amounts of sleep and by minimal I mean like maybe 2-3 hours tops and went to the doctor countless of times we went through 2 different kinds of antibiotics and when we got through that we went back for a check up and guess what he STILL had a double ear infection so the doctor thought it would be best to pull out the big guns and do a 3 day dose of an antibiotic shot and on the 3rd day we went in to see if the ears were clearing and to my surprise BOTH ears STILL infected! So we were referred to an ENT to see what they had to say about his ears! Thankfully they were able to get him in the next week and we went in and I am thinking hopefully by now this ear infection will be gone but to my surprise the doctor looked into his ears and he said "THEY ARE STILL INFECTED" how long has he had this and of course I said a month! he just shook his head in amazement cause he thought I was joking with him and then couldn't believe that this was the first and only ear infection he has had in his 6 months of life! So he then said we need to look into getting tubes in his ears so this Friday June 3rd Clayton is getting tubes in his ears and Hopefully this will be the last ear infection he will ever have! That took up most of his 6th month of life in dealing with this but he did hit a few milestones along the way! 

• he can sit up unsupported 
• he can pull up on anything and everything 
• stand and not hold on to anything 
• crawls all over the place
• has 4 teeth now two on top and two on bottom 
• loves eating puffies
• has figured out the TV has a on and off button and loves playing with it
• says "dada" all the time 
• has moved to his big boy car seat and LOVES it! 
• weighs in at 22 lbs and still in the 97th percentile for weight and height! looks to be around 6'5'' or 6'7'' 
• standing up comes up to Ayden's shoulders 
• eats and loves all veggies fruits and cereals 
• eats 6-8 oz bottles 
• cuddle bug!
• wears 12-18 month clothes

Clayton 7 months

           I can't believe how big he is getting it makes me really sad but soooooo excited to see the boys finally starting to interact with each other! Brent and I think it is sooo funny how Clayton is going to be bigger than Ayden and will probably be taller than him and can kick his bootie when he gets older! 

           Ayden is doing well he is all over the place and constantly moving and talking its exhausting just watching him let alone keeping up with him I WISH I had some of his energy! We started AydenAyden that is hot..... he also love to say BARNEY but sadly it comes out MARNEY! LOL we are working with him on that!  in a preschool twice a week and I have to say just in the 5 days that he has gone I have seen so much improvement in him I know that he absolutely loves going even though he screams his head off when I drop him off in the morning! But his speech is coming along and I am finally able understand some of what he is saying his favorite word right now is hot he will put his hand up to something and say hot hot hot hot and will keep saying it till I look at him and say yes

Ayden 28 months

 Being a mom to two small children is very rewarding and I love every moment of it the good and the bad and even the sleepless nights. Cause when I look at my kids faces and see the joy and love that they have it just melts me I love being their mommy! and I am soooo blessed I get to stay home and see them grow and thrive right before my eyes! My life is sooo full and sooo blessed to be around these two and getting to be home when my wonderful husband comes home from work is amazing as well I love our family time together! 

My amazing hubby and best friend!

Til next time and hopefully it wont be as long of a wait as before!

Elizabeth

HOLY COW! CLAYTON IS 6 MONTHS OLD!

              Well as hard as it maybe 6 months ago I welcomed the most handsome little boy into this world! Clayton Randall came in weighing 9lbs even and was 21 inches long, and today he has more than doubled his birth weight and at last measurement he was a whopping 27in long! I am positive he has grown by leaps and bounds and cant wait for his doctor appointment tomorrow morning to know how much he has grown and record it in his baby book! I am still in shock that he is 6 months old and the milestones that he has been hitting lately are amazing and  I am one proud mama of him thriving so well, but it makes me sad that he is already doing some things that I was sure I had a couple more months before he hit those milestones! Everyone keeps telling me he is just trying to get to that point so he can keep up with his big brother Ayden! So as most of y'all are wondering  here is what Clayton has been up to lately!

• Can crawl forwards and backwards can go anywhere in the house now 
• puts anything and everything in his mouth
• can pull up in his crib by either standing on his knees or all the way up on his feet! 
• takes 2 naps a day one in the morning for about 30 minutes or so and then a long one in the afternoon for about 3-4 hours
• sleeps all night long for about 12 hours from about 8:30-8:30
• starting to babble all the time 
• says "dada" 
• loves playing with his feet
• has 2 teeth 
• can go from a crawling position and sit up unsupported by his self 
• has tried all veggies and loved all of them 
• started the fruit trial and loves his pears, and bananas next to try is apples and peaches
• loves to laugh
• fascinated with Barney just like his big brother good for the boys not so good for mommy :(
• loves bath time and rolling over and fighting me to get his diaper on him 
• loves being naked :)
• big time mama's boy  
• Wears 12 month clothes 
• wears size 3 diapers but it wont be long til he is in size 4's probably in the next couple of weeks we will be upping his size!

 I am so excited to see what the next few months will bring a part of me thinks that he will be walking soon which in all  honesty I am not ready for I am not ready for both of my children to be mobile Ayden is a handful by himself and to add Clayton to the mix I am going to be one BUSY mama! and its also just sad to think that my baby could be toddling around soon! I will be getting on tomorrow and update with the stats from the doctor so look back! and I will also post some pics! but now the bed is calling my name so I am going to crash! 

Elizabeth

CLAYTON HAS 2 TEETH!

          Well my baby boy is growing up! He officially has TWO teeth! They made their grand appearance on April 8th! I cannot believe how fast he is growing up! It feels like just yesterday that I was laying on the OR table and hearing his cry for the first time a cry that I longed for during my hard pregnancy! Now he is going to be 6 months old on the 27th! I was joking with Brent the other day saying how SLOW last year seemed to go while I was pregnant with Clayton and that this year is SPEEDING by and since it is FLYING by we should so totally try for another! HAHAHA his face was PRICELESS! (I by no means am wanting to have another child right now!!) of course we are wanting more kids but right now I am perfectly content with the 2 amazing boys I have right now. But to see his face and him knowing I am perfectly content with the boys we have right now was just hilarious I so wish I had a camera to share that face with y'all! I am also saddened that Clayton is CRAWLING most of the time it is backwards but he is definitely getting to the point of figuring out how to crawl frontwards and also going from crawling to the sitting up position I really don't remember Ayden doing anything this fast like his little brother is. I just know that Clayton is just trying to catch up and do the things that his big brother is doing!! I am so proud of him but just not ready to have 2 MOBILE children!!!!  Ayden is like 5 kids mobile cause he is into anything and EVERYTHING the boy has no fear!

        Ayden brought me a present today while we were playing in the backyard and that was a dead possum head! I FREAKED OUT! and of course we came right in washed his hands and didn't go back outside today Brent had to go on a body hunt today when he got home from work and didn't find a thing so I am guessing Boomer had possum stew a few nights ago! Ayden is getting so big he LOVES singing songs with Barney on TV and it is sooooo cute! especially the mad song he loves to say breathe and of course his favorite word NO and then march around the room with his hands on his hips like he is mad! It is soooo funny! I cannot wait til the fall when I can enroll him into school for Mothers Day Out he needs it so bad I know that he is just getting bored at home and that's why he is acting out sooo much. I try to do activities with him but he just gets frustrated with me and shuts down and gets mad when I try and do activities with him. Some exciting things that Ayden is showing signs of is POTTY TRAINING!!!!  He isn't quite there yet but he will be soon I CANNOT WAIT he definitely knows when he is wet or dirty and loves taking his diaper off and bringing it to me and letting me know what kind of present is in there! I don't know about any of y'all who have kids and if they do this but he is FASCINATED with POOP! yes it is incredibly gross and unsanitary and just plain disgusting but the kid thinks it makes great paint. I have had many run ins with cleaning his walls, dresser, jungle gym, and TV, and giving him a nice afternoon bath after nap since he thinks its the COOLEST thing ever! I know when he gets older It will be a great way to break the ice with any girlfriends that come over to the house! haha! "you think he is cute now did you know he liked playing with his poop as a toddler" lol 

Well i feel that I am just rambling on so I am going to go but next time I blog I will be sure to post pics of the boys and give y'all Clayton's 6 month stats!! 
Elizabeth 

Ayden's ABR results

         Well first and foremost I want to be able to say after lots of prayers Ayden's hearing test or ABR came back COMPLETELY NORMAL! The first test was definitely not right! I am so glad that I trusted my motherly instincts and went ahead and let them do the sedated hearing test! I didn't want them to do it at first cause NO ONE ever wants to have to put their child asleep for something so minor if it could be prevented. I was hesitant but as a lot of you might know I suffer from hearing loss and recently it has gotten worse after I had Ayden I could tell my hearing got worse and same thing after Clayton it got worse. I started showing signs of hearing loss after I failed my 9th grade hearing test. I went to an audiologist at that point and I was diagnosed with "cookie bite" hearing loss which really means I cannot hear DEEP toned voices or things ESPECIALLY if I am in a restaurant or if there is a lot of noise around me it makes it VERY difficult to hear. So after finding out that hearing loss is a genetic thing of course I wanted to make sure that Ayden got the proper testing to make sure he hadn't gotten the gene from me and if he had we would start taking steps towards that direction like speech therapy and so fourth. I have still been advised by the audiologist that he should be seen every year to make sure that his hearing is still on track and ESPECIALLY if he hasn't started talking and getting away from his AYDENEESE :) and consult with a speech therapist. Which after a lot of thought and discussion between Brent and myself we have decided to hold off on speech therapy til Ayden is almost 3 and if he is still at the same point he is now on his speech we will go and seek professional help to get him on track with his speech for when he starts school. I am soooo incredibly thankful for all the thoughts and prayers that were given during this unknown time they were definitely felt and granted! OUR GOD IS SOOO GOOD!

       We are also in the midst of possibly making some pretty BIG decisions regarding our family here in the next couple of weeks or month. I am praying that god will show us what we need to do and with whatever happens and praying that he will show us the paths that we need to take. I would love for the prayers as well right now about this  I am not going to say what it is right now I will when I know more. Well it is late and I am extremely tired and have a lot of projects around the house to do tomorrow.
Til NEXT TIME :)
Elizabeth 

Clayton is 5 months and soooooo much more!

            Well its been a while since I have updated our blog and its not that I haven't wanted to do update its just I have been INCREDIBLY busy! My volleyball season is in full swing and I have gotten so much wonderful experience this volleyball season as a coach! I had to sit in and head coach our Houston tournament a couple of weeks ago and it was by far the most stressful and most rewarding experience I have had as a coach thus far and I am so forever thankful for that experience! We did a wonderful job that weekend we came in 1st place on Saturday in our pool and then on Sunday we won the silver bracket and came in 9th place over all! We were slated to come in 11th out of 54 teams! I was a very proud coach that tournament and I just wish our head coach Hayley could have been there with us as well it was such a FUN tournament! 

16 Elite Houston Cross Court Classic Silver Bracket Champs!

        We have also been busy helping my brother and future sister in law with renovations to there house in Nocona. They had a pipe bust in their kitchen when that real bad winter storm blew threw and caused havoc on the roads but it also caused major water damage to their house and we have been helping them gut their kitchen to get it ready for all new tile and cabinets I have to admit I am a little jealous of what how nice their kitchen is going to look once they get everything done!

       Now on to the kiddos update I am going to start off with Ayden first. 

            This past month we have finally caved on getting to the root problem of skin issues he has been having and looking at possible allergies he might have. We also have investigated into what the Doctor wanted us to look into regaurding his speech and hearing. Ayden had his first dermatology appointment the other day and it went well we have gotten some new ideas to help keep his eczema under control which has been VERY helpful!  We go back in two weeks for a quick check up! 

         Now for the hearing test results...... I took Ayden to get his hearing tested a couple weeks ago just to see how he is hearing since the doctor is concerned with some of the things that he is doing and also because he isnt putting two words together and cant really understand him yet and to rule out hearing loss and possibly do speech therapy. Well the hearing test didnt go the way I thought it would go :/ for one they put us in this sound proof room and Ayden lost it I am pretty sure he had a panic attack I could understand why cause this room we were put in was sooo tiny and more box like than any thing. we had to get him to calm down before we could start the test this lasted for a few minutes but once we got him calmed down we were able to start. This is how the test worked basically sounds would come out of the speakers that were in all four corners and if he turned and looked at the speaker it counted that he could hear that sound. That lasted a whole 3 minutes  after his melt down of him cooaperating and then he decided he wanted to have nothing of it. So the test came back inconclusive but with what they had gotten it did show some hearing loss and that was concerning to them since I have had hearing problems since I was a child and my hearing loss has gotten worse here recently. So we are scheduled for a sedated hearing test this coming Tuesday to see how signifacant his hearing loss is or if he really does have hearing loss. I am praying that he doesn't have hearing loss but if he does we will manage cause I know he can hear.

        Clayton's 5 month update! 

             Well we have embarked on Clayton's 5 months of life and I have to say its been the most rewarding 5 months ever! I had to take Clayton to the Doctor the other day since he has had a cough for about a week and I was SHOCKED when we took him to the scale and weighed him! Clayton at 5 months weighs in at 19 lbs 10oz! I am not sure how long he is because it wasnt that kind of appointment but I was and still am SHOCKED on how big he is! To put it this way Clayton weighs a little less than 9lbs from what Ayden weighs! We have started table foods with Clayton and thankfully as of right now we have had no signs of food allergies! This is what we have tried right now

• Rice cereal 
• Oatmeal cereal 
• Sweet Potatoes 
• Squash

We will be starting Carrots tomorrow! So far he has liked EVERYTHING I have given him! Now on to the thing with Clayton that is really BLOWING my mind away.... He is CRAWLING......yes you read that right Clayton is crawling at 5 months old! He hasn't grasped the concept of crawling forward but he is crawling backwards! On all fours pushing up and going I keep telling him that I am NOT ready for him to be mobile having one child into everything right now as it is I was hoping I would at LEAST have a couple more months of Clayton being a NON mobile child but it looks like this is not going to be the case as much as I want it to be that way its just not! But I am still extremely proud of him!

      Well that is pretty much everything that has been going on I am so sorry this blog is so long and more like a book but I guess this is what happens when you dont update frequently! As I get off here are some pics of Brent and I and the boys :) Hope yall enjoy! :)

Brent and I in Houston

Confused on why Ayden had a panic attack at his hearing test cause that room was definitely not as small as this box!

My sweet baby munchkin @ 5 months

Elizabeth

Clayton is 4 months old!

    Well as hard as it may seem Clayton has hit the 4 month mark! I keep thinking where oh where is the time going didn't I have him yesterday? LOL! I also think the exact same thing about Ayden as well didn't he just get here! I guess the saying is true when time will fly when you are having fun! Having fun is exactly what happens every day in our house hold good or bad, happy or sad, there is never a dull moment in our house and something is always happening here and we are always on the go! We are more on the go when Brent and I are both home then when we are home alone with the two boys! Being out numbered in a public place= NO FUN what so ever! Well on Sunday Clayton turned 4 months and we introduced rice cereal to him and he LOVES it! Tomorrow we are going to start on oatmeal and see how he does so far sooooo good! We had a busy Monday with Doctor visits for both boys and we were very suprised at where both boys where at percentile wise for weight and height! Ayden came in at 28lbs and is 35in long and in the 75 percentile in weight and height! Clayton on the other hand came in at a whopping 18lbs 4oz and is 27in and is in the 97th percentile for weight and height! CRAZY I know I still find it hard to believe that! But the scale doesnt lie we are just going to have a linebacker on our hands! We keep telling Ayden to watch out cause Clayton will probably be able to kick his bootie when he gets a little bit bigger! Clayton this month has also hit a few milestones and is thriving nicely! While we were at the doctor's office we were talked to about how Ayden is talking but isnt quite talking the way he should be so we where referred to an audiologist and a speech therapist. I am not worried but we need to make sure that Ayden hasnt gotten my hearing genes cause I have a cookie bite hearing loss that they have said that I had since I was born, and as I have gotten older has gotten worse I need hearing aids but I just cant bring myself to get them. I also think that Ayden is a lazy talker as well I am optimistic that he is fine and just developing a little bit later than normal! 

   Brent has started his new project at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in downtown Fort Worth and I have to say its nice for him to call me and tell me he is on his way home and not be here an hour later! The project is just kicking off and he should be on site here in the next week or so. 

     My volleyball season has been absolutely full of fun! Our team is absolutely amazing they make my job as a coach fun and definitely rewarding! We are playing in a tournament next weekend in Houston and we are super excited to see how we do! We also got on to the NTR website and found out we are ranked #42 in the region! YAY GIRLS! 

   Well its getting late and I am having to get up SUPER early to be at a tournament so I am going to close this blog with some milestones that clayton has hit! 

• we have started eating cereal
•  he is sleeping almost 13 hrs at night and takes about a 2hr nap during the day and a couple of cat naps in between! 
• he is in a size 3 diaper 
• he is wearing size 6-9 month clothes and some 12 months (yes you read that right!)
• he is giggling all the time 
• loves "talking"
• has started playing in his exasaucer
• can sit supported for a few minutes 
• rolling over from tummy to back and back to tummy 
• has found his feet 
• loves chewing on his hands

Elizabeth