A little birthday luv

Happy Birthday Mimi-We love you!

And I thought I was busy...

Edit 6/27 I got in trouble for stealing such a great story. Jodi was debating if it was appropriate to write someone else's story on her blog. Then she looked at mine and saw that I stole someone's story about someone else's story. Guess you just need to blog faster-sorry!

Yesterday we hung out at the pool with friends Mike, Jodi, & Abe. Jodi told me about a lady she had met at the pool a few days ago. She has four kids and said her two and a half year old kept her running. One day she was taking them to the pool; She put the two younger kids in the car, into their carseats and buckled them in. She then went to put water in the dog's bowl. When she returned to the garage, the two and a half year old had disappeared. After looking around she found him-He had unbuckled his car seat, climbed out the sunroof and up onto the open garage door. He was apparently giggling with glee that Mommy couldn't find him. Can you imagine?

Here is a video of Tobin and Joshua. Joshua pretty much has two ways of interaction: crazy sweet. Sweet is he goes up to him and lays his head on him and sucks his thumb. This is the crazy version:




Fortunately Tobin usually smiles at his brother's antics. The other day Joshua sat completely on top of Tobin in his car seat. I told Joshua he had to go to time out for sitting on his baby brother, but he kept pointing at Tobin, saying, "He's smiling, he's smiling." Which he was! Don't tell me the ganging up on mommy is already starting!

Pumping Money into the Medical Field

Well, we felt like a good way to get the economy back on track was to pump some money into the medical field. We of course had all the birth related expenses. Then as you know, a week after Tobin was born Kurt and I both went to the ER with dehydration from the stomach bug. When it rains it pours.

Shortly before vacation to Virginia Joshua got a stomach bug. Previously when he has been sick he still has some life in him. This time he literally laid around for two days. He didn't seem dehydrated and after talking with the nurse we didn't take him in to the the Doctor. The whole time I was caring for him I had cold symptoms and a sore throat. He got better around Thursday evening/Friday morning. I finally got in to see the doctor for my sore throat at 4 PM Friday. About half and hour later my strep test was positive and I was rushing home to get Joshua to get him tested before they closed at 5. (We were leaving for Virginia the next day.) Sure enough he had strep as well. Off to the pharmacy we went. The following Monday the lovely feeling of pink eye in both eyes greeted me while waking up. Did you know that small little vials of eye antibiotics comes with a very big price tag? Then the next day Joshua fell and hit his mouth on a brick wall, knocking his tooth up into his gum. Wednesday it was off to the dentist to get it checked out. We actually managed to get mostly healthy for our remaining time in Abingdon. However, the following week my sore throat came back. Friday Joshua started complaining about his mouth hurting for the first time. I was worried it was getting infected so back to the dentist we went. Fortunately it all looked good, but the dentist wanted to but him on antibiotics just in case. The next morning I made it back into the doctors office to find out I had strep again (or still?) Round two of antibiotics for us both. At this point, the pharmacist knows us by name.
Here's a shot of our medicine cabinet. Just kidding, we're not that bad (yet)

Last summer I started having episodes of very bad vertigo. About once every two months I get his with very bad dizziness and have to lay down very still with my eyes closed to keep from loosing my latest meal. The last episode was worst than any of the previous, so I finally hauled myself in to see and Ear, Nose and Throat doctor. After a morning at his office, he recommended a bunch of tests to rule out big things like tumors, MS, aneurysm, etc. I'm 99% sure I don't have any of those things. But, it seems foolish not to get tested just in case. So today was six hours of testing. First an allergy test. 80 needles into my arms. And I get to do it again next week.
Then on for two and a half hours of audioneurological testing where they intentionally make you dizzy. Oh, and you're not allowed to eat for four hours before because they don't want your breakfast in the floor. Then onto a CT scan and an MRI. At first the idea of a "day off" was appealing to me, but laundry and screaming children would have been more pleasant.

So, President Bush, thank you for the economic stimulus check. We did our part for the medical community. Can we have some more money to buy a new TV?

Back to Virginia: Abingdon

We had a great time in Abingdon. The first few days we mostly relaxed trying to get better for illness (more on that later). The weather was great and it's always fun to hang out at Mimi and Papa's.

Bouncy House Fun-Mimi borrowed a bounce house from a friend-woo-hoo.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you."

Uncle Erik!

Stink!

They are having some work done on their house so one day Joshua sat on the patio and watched them continually for about an hour. He's probably never sat still that long before. Occasionally he sang "Bob the Builder." Notice the bike helmet. He insisted on having a helmet on for much of the; time he spent outdoors.

Mimi + Papa= Ice Cream!

Daddy making Tobin laugh.

I've always enjoyed time in Abingdon, but this time was especially true. It's so fun to run into people you know everywhere you go. Well, as long as you've taken a shower and put on makeup :)

Back to Virginia: Richmond

We took the opportunity to take a break from the Texas heat to head back to Virginia two weeks ago. Actually, Kurt's company had some work to do it Richmond so we decided to make full use of the free ticket. The first weekend we spent in Richmond at "Uncle Jesse's" Apparently Joshua can't say Jeffrey so my brother was Jesse all week. It's always so refreshing to be back home. Everything was so green and despite everyone's complaining about how hot it was, we enjoyed the cooler air. The boys hanging out at the bachelor pad. Jeff was a great host and sacrificed his new temper-pedic bed for us. I doubt Martha would go that far.

We hung out with my college roommate's family one night. It so fun to be able to watch our kids play together. Thankfully for us, Joshua didn't connect the Popsicle to the truck that plays music so we're off the hook for a little longer. The little guys, Liam & Tobin

Nothing like walking on a big tongue. We went to the Richmond Children's museum and Joshua had a blast. This was an exhibit on how food moves thorough your mouth and gets digested. It was complete with a rather loud belching noise. Looks like it could use my new Colgate 360 toothbrush.

After a few days in the city, we left Kurt to stay and make some money while we headed down to my hometown of Abingdon, via West Virginia to see my grandmother and family. Joshua got a little adventerous at a rest stop and managed to fall and hit his mouth. He was a bit upset but fell asleep once back in the car. Later his mouth started bleeding again and he was real low key for the first part of our visit at McDonald's. That night, we realized he had a tooth missing! I felt like a bit of a neglectful mom for not noticing earlier (well, for that and the fact that I forgot to change his diaper from about 10:30 AM until 6:30 PM-oops!)How do you spell trouble? This is Joshua's cousin that was born within a week of him. Here's a shot of them at three months-it was a lot easier to get both of them in one picture back then!

More about of trip later.

Hello from the cabin

The cabin of fever that is. (sorry that was really bad wasn't it?) This is day three of sickness in the Zeb household. The only time I've been out of the house was a quick trip to CVS two nights ago. JZ's had a cold and stomach bug and I've had a cold. Fortunately Tobin and Kurt have stayed healthy. We are on the mend though and we might even go to the grocery store this afternoon! Good times...Tobin and I thought we'd take a little break from cleaning and laundry to blog some of the latest.

This past weekend Kurt ran in a relay marathon with folks from work, so we headed to Corpus Christi/ North Padre Island for a long weekend. We hit the USS Lexington (aren't you proud Dad?) and the Texas State Aquarium, had some decent seafood and of course, hit the beach.

It was funny to see fearless Joshua scared of the hermit crabs. He wanted so bad to touch them, but you could tell he was scared since he was trembling.

This is a shot of Joshua eating his first salt water taffy. Don't worry bud, it always makes me drool too...

Aye Aye Captain Cheesy

Tobin clearly enjoyed the beach

We set up a baby contraption one of Kurt's coworkers let us borrow. It was kind of a small pack 'n play that had a sun shade and mesh cover. It was perfect and Tobin loved the toys.
Joshua is really into his sunglasses and likes to wear them inside too. In fact, even as he was sick on the couch watching movies yesterday, he was still wearing them.

Joshua LOVED playing in the sand and water. At first he seemed amazed that we were letting him get wet AND dirty.


And of course, the reason for the weekend...Kurt running. He seemed happy with his run and his team came in 2nd out of his company's 3 teams. Sadly, this is the only picture we have that was taken from one of those professional companies that try to get you to pay a ton of money for pictures of you running with an awkward look on your face. The race map wasn't very specific and I wasn't about to get out with both boys to wander around Padre Island on foot at 7 AM in hopes of catching a glance of Kurt running. Maybe next year...

Some of Joshua's first moments playing on the beach. It was overcast and freezing! But he had fun.

Sweet Smiles

Tobin is smiling up a storm these days. He is such a sweetie pie. It's the most fun to see Joshua making him smile. Although I can't get a picture of it because Joshua wants to look at the camera...

Tobin is two months old today. We saw the doctor and he weighed in at 13 lbs 8 ounces! So he's beating big bro in the size department. He is looking good for the most part. I've been feeling like a bad parent because he has a flat spot. In the past, the association between flat spots and neglectful parents has been strong. And here's my child with a flat spot on the right side of his head. However, it's really hard to get him to turn his head to the left. After checking him out, the doctor thinks he has a shortened neck muscle on the right. We have some exercises to do with him to help correct it, but in most kids it corrects itself with time. So, add Physical therapist to my list of duties as a mom. We also talked about his constant spitting up. The doc thinks I'm overfeeding him so we'll try a little bit of a different approach to feeding and see if it helps. Then the poor baby got his shots. He pretty much zonked out for the rest of the day. Hopefully I can zonk out for the rest of the night!

Little Picasso

As posted months ago, we've been decorating Joshua's room Jungle-style. I've been working on some animal murals for his walls and finished the Monkey's some time ago. I started on some Elephants right after that, but it's been hard to get in there and paint now that Joshua sleeps in there.

So, the elephants have been left alone for quite a while. Right before Tobin born and my parents were here, the elephants got some attention. Papa and Joshua were contently playing together while I painted when the phone rang. While I was on the phone, Joshua snuck into the room and picked up the paintbrushes to add his artistic talents to the wall. Thankfully he didn't get any on the carpet. The event was pretty discouraging so the supplies were packed up and put away for another month.

Last week they finally came back out and I spent about an hour fixing the elephant. The shading has been very challenging and the duo have been painted over and over in an attempt to get it just right. Yesterday I worked on them and finally got to a finishing point. I say a finishing point because I still wasn't thrilled with them, but it was time to let it go. Kurt and Joshua came home from the park so I cleaned up my brushes and went to join them for lunch. My mistake was in leaving the closed container of paints in his room. Yep, you guessed it. Kurt put the man down for his nap. When he woke up, Kurt went in to find the little Picasso busy at work. With bright orange paint.

I didn't take a picture of the immediate damage because Kurt was pretty mad. That and we had to call poison control because he had it in his mouth. The good news is, acrylic paint isn't toxic. Next was a round of calls to a carpet cleaner, but we would pay a lot of money with no guarantee that the paint would come out. So Kurt worked on it for about 10 minutes before giving up. Now we will be looking for a fun jungle-themed rug to cover the damage.

Fortunately for me Kurt feels a little responsibility as he noticed the container when putting Joshua down but didn't think anything of it. So, Tobin's the only one in the house that didn't contribute to the incident. Kurt stated that if it's the worse thing he ever does we'll be okay. I'm pretty sure it won't be the worst thing he ever does. Just wait until he has his driver's license...

Going Greener-We have a winner!

Sorry I didn't get this posted on Earth Day as promised...I have taken naps the past two days so the house is a mess and I haven't had any time to post!

The response for The Zebley Daily Grind Going Greener Award was overwhelming with almost twice the entrants as expected-we had two! While it was a very difficult decision to determine a winner, it had to be done.Drum Roll Please...

Our first runner up is Jan, aka B-Dub's Girl. She has made some great changes in the past year including using reusable bags at the store, recycling junk mail and paper at work, and using glasses at work instead of paper cups. My favorite part of her entry was an attempt to save some gas:
"For a week, yes just one week, I attempted turning off the car and putting it in nuetral and coasting to my destination (I only did this on the way to work when I was on the final street.) I saw this on the news which is why I tried it. You lose your power steering but that's not that big of a deal. According to the news clip I saw this saved a man some fuel on his SUV. " That's dedication! She determined after the week that is wasn't the most efficient way to go greener.

Thanks for the entry Jan!

And, the grand prize winner is Jennifer D. Last September I wrote an entry on recycling and stated, " It's appalling to me that there are many families on our street that don't take advantage of the free, little effort required opportunity to recycle at the curb." Jennifer called that day to announce that she was "one of those appalling people that doesn't recycle." I wasn't quite sure what to say. Thankfully she has changed her ways; here is her official entry in green.

To sum it all up I used to be a litter bug.....only when people were not looking. For example....I would leave trash on my tailgate and pretend to "forget" it when I would drive off! BAD, VERY BAD JENNIFER!!!

Now I am starting to think about the environment more....baby steps but a great start!

Examples of how I have changed:

1. I throw away my garbage and toss all recyclables in my recycling bin when I arrive at home.

2. I make it a point to always recycle when I am at home- I feel like I have to do this every day- it is sooooo much fun to recycle and toss the stuff in the green bin.

3. I am recycling my plastic bags and I am asking for no bag at the store for items that really do not need a bag.

4. I am talking with my children about the importance of recycling.

5. I am running hot water in my milk jug and then pouring the water out- thus shrinking the milk carton by smashing it----it will take up less space in my recycling bin to fit more in it.

6. I bought a cute little onesie for an adorable baby named Tobin that is about going green! (Sounds like a bribe)

7. I am making Hannah stay in her diaper longer- dirty or not- so that I will use less diapers- they are so bad for the environment! (Someone call CPS)

8. We have installed 42 compact fluorescent light bulbs in our house- the energy saved by converting to this light source is the equivalent to removing 2 vehicles and all of their emissions from the planet! This info comes from my lighting expert husband. (How many Texans does it take to change 42 light bulbs?)

9. We have a HE washer and dryer which uses on average 2 gallons less water per load and less soap! (Technically this one doesn't count since the changes had to occur within the last year...)

10. We recently purchased a vehicle that has a variable displacement engine (whatever that is) which runs on fewer cylinders on the highway which consumes less fuel and emits lower emissions.

Congratulations Jennifer. Jennifer won a HEB & Target reusable bag, Recycled Toilet Paper (paper that has been recycled and turned into toilet paper, not used toilet paper), Seventh Generation All purpose cleaner, and Simply Green cleaner. (She would like it noted that this picture was taken just after she finished working out)

I'm very thankful the contest is over so Jennifer won't have to call me every time she puts something in her recycling bin. Thanks again to all the entrants, and start working towards next year's contest!

Joshua decided to celebrate Earth Day by "donating" his shoe to the duck pond.

Some fun pics

"Yea, these people are finally giving me a bath."

"Hey Mommy!"

New Pjs are so fun.

Popsicle Power!

He's probably frowning because he knows his future girlfriends are going to see this picture.There's nothing like a warm chocolate chip cookie.

"Hmmm"
This is a great shot because you can see his serious sideburns. Now that he's sporting an old man's balding pattern, his sideburns look even better. That's some serious snoozing going on.

Going Greener: Plastic Bags

It's been a while since the last Going Greener post, so it's about time. These days we are hearing a lot about the environment and climate change. It gets old at times, but hopefully it causes us to make changes in how we think about things, and more importantly how we act.

Up today: plastic bags. Just in case you hadn't heard, they're bad for the environment. And in the U.S. alone, in one year we use an average of 380 BILLION plastic bags, sacks, and wraps.
First up is the production, they use toxic chemicals and non-renewable resources to produce. Secondly, only 1-3% get recycled. Those that end up in the landfill, even those reused for another purpose, can take hundreds of years to decompose. So, the plastic bag I just used for Tobin and Joshua's diapers will still be lingering around when their great-great grandchildren are trying to find clean land and water for their community.

I started using canvas shopping bags for the grocery store about 9 months ago. I LOVE THEM. It is a little challenging to remember to take them with me, but I've been successful in this lately. They are much easier to carry and handle than plastic bags; They don't cut off the circulation in your fingers if they're heavy. Since mine have long straps, I can carry them on my shoulders too, so it's less trips into the house with groceries. Usually a week's worth of groceries fits into about four bags.

Our bags were purchased at our local grocery store. Lots of retailers are selling these now. Without even looking I've spotted them at Target, Home Depot, and Ikea. You can also find a plenitude to choose from online; you can see a bunch of options for reusable shopping bags here.

Lucky for us, this is a trendy thing to do these days, so hope on the trendy bandwagon and take your own bags to the store! For those times you forget, ask for paper or at a minimal recycle the plastic bags you end up with.
In honor of Earth Day, which is coming up April 22nd, we are having the First Annual Zeb Daily Grind Going Greener Award. Yes, hold on to your hats, it's exciting. It's been fun to hear changes people have made after reading the blog, so we are going to celebrate those changes. So, tell me about a change you have made in the past year to Go Greener. The winner will be announced on April 22nd and will win a beautiful HEB reusable shopping bag (pictured with Joshua) filled with a few products to help you go greener.


Official Rules:
1) To enter, send an email to zebfamily@yahoo.com (Please note that this is a junk email account that we don't use very often.)
2) Deadline for entry is next Sunday, April 20th.
3) Your change or event must have occurred within the last year. It doesn't have to be something specific that we've talked about on the blog.
4) Sorry, immediate family members of the Zeb Daily Grind do not qualify ( Joshua, Toby and Kurt-you are out of luck)
5) In the event that no one actually enters, the Zeb Daily Grind reserves the right to keep the grand prize. Hopefully that won't happen...