Baby Fat Don't Go Away

Mckenzee 3 months

Mckenzee is starting to thin out some. I am not ready for that. I like her little chubby self and if she is thinning out then she is growing up and I just don't want her to. Of course I want her to experience all kinds of things like playing babies and making friends, helping me bake things and going to preschool, but not for a LONG LONG time. I want her to stay my little baby longer. It just goes so fast and it makes me sad. When the rolls behind her knees are gone I think I will cry. I'm crying already writing this.

I am thankful for every minute because I know there are Mommy's out there that are missing their babies. And Mommy's with very sick babies. I really need to get over it because I have a healthy, growing baby, but I think I will be sad just a little longer, until she wakes up from her nap.

Pertussis

This is my little platform right now. I like to have a topic to get fired up about and I have been doing some research on this subject. Chris and I plan to have more children and so that is why this is of interest to me. For those of you that live in the area you may have noticed billboards that say Protect Your Family Against Pertussis. I am going to tell you a little more about it. The following is mostly copy and pasted so I am going to site these two websites http://www.drgreene.org/ and http://www.immunizationinfo.org/.

From personal experience-Dr. Greene
I stood outside the closed door of the hospital room where an adorable 6 week old baby lay all alone in her crib. As I scrubbed my hands in the sink outside the isolation room, an electronic monitor allowed me to hear her breathing peacefully.
Suddenly the quiet was shattered by a fit of coughing. And she couldn't stop. The coughs came so closely together that she couldn't catch her breath. I grabbed a mask from above the sink and, pressing it over my face, entered her room. The coughing continued. The pulsox monitor at her bedside complained insistently that her blood-oxygen levels were dropping too. The EKG monitor sounded an alarm that her heart rate was dropping. And she continued to cough. Even before I reached her bedside I could see that her face was turning blue. She began to vomit.
Moments later the peace had returned. Her various monitors beeped tranquilly; the coughing spasm was over. This little girl with pertussis survived, but she had many more weeks of coughing spasms before she could return home to her parents.

Pertussis, or whooping cough, which once ravaged children around the world, is again on the rise.

Pertussis is highly contagious
You or your child have been exposed if you spend a total of 5 hours in the same room with someone with the disease, or if you sit next to someone with pertussis for any length of time, or if you have any contact at all with infected mucus or saliva. Between 70 and 100 percent of susceptible people will catch pertussis if they are exposed.

Pertussis is one of the most contagious human diseases, so it is a great risk to those who are unvaccinated. Pertussis will develop in 90% of unvaccinated children living with someone with pertussis, and in 50% to 80% of unvaccinated children who attend school or daycare with someone with pertussis. Approximately 50 out of every 10,000 people who develop pertussis die from the disease.

Who should receive the vaccine
Adults 19-64 years of age should receive a single dose of Tdap (ADACEL®) to replace a single dose of Td for booster immunization if their most recent tetanus toxoid-containing vaccine was 10 or more years earlier. Tdap may be given at an interval shorter than 10 years since the last tetanus toxoid-containing vaccine in order to protect against pertussis, especially for:

Women less than 65 years of age who are planning to become pregnant.

Adults less than 65 years of age who have or anticipate having close contact with an infant aged less than 12 months should receive a single dose of Tdap and trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine. Ideally the vaccines should be given at least 2 weeks before contact.

Health-care personnel who have direct patient contact should receive a single dose of Tdap.

Spaghetti Slurping

I love hearing Chris laughing on this video!

Trying to be Healthier

I want to make better food choices for our family. I am concerned about the increase in cancer and other diseases. I have to think that it is something that we are doing by what we put in and on our bodies, in addition to air quality and environmental factors. This may be an area where my obsessiveness will start taking over. Maybe it already has. My interest in healthier foods started about two years ago when I started Arbonne and began to learn how the chemicals and ingredients in our personal care products get into our bloodstream and have an affect on our total body. This made me start to research the food that we put in our bodies. Then, when I got pregnant with Mckenzee I became even more concerned because now I had a tiny life to look after. I stopped eating french fries, stopped my caffeine intake, tried to cut out nitrites as much as possible, ate whole wheat breads, and began washing my fruits and vegetables with soap. I feel like this has been something that has interested me for a long time and I still only know a little bit about it. There is so much to learn.



I remember being at this crazy woman's house when I was pregnant and she began to show me everything in her pantry and refrigerator. It was all from Whole Foods and everything was organic...she was made of money. I thought wow...how cool is she? I want to be just like her! At that point I still did not know the importance of organic.



We have been making some slow changes in our diet for awhile now, and in the last few months we have started buying some organic. We are not made of money and cannot have a pantry like the lady above right now, but we are trying to do better. The Swinneys are sharing their knowledge with us and us with them. As Connie mentioned, Levi definitely contributes to my food obsessiveness... I have been known to throw away food straight from the fridge. Chris and Connie try to let us know when we are too crazy...and sometimes we listen. It makes for a good balance and good conversation. I wanted to share a couple of my favorite products right now and list the top 12 dirtiest foods and top 12 cleanest foods so if you are like me and have to be choosy with your organic you can choose the dirtiest things to go organic in first.

Horizon Organic

What a great company! Learn more at http://www.horizonorganic.com/

We started buying this milk for Mckenzee and now buy it for us too. I wish I would've known it's importance sooner. It is made without added growth hormones, pesticides, or antibiotics. They treat their cows well and use 100% clean wind energy. They also make yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese, butter, sour cream, ice cream, smoothies, and eggnog. I have to figure out where all these things are sold. Now for the price. It is over $6 for a gallon. You might be thinking "We cannot afford $6 milk!" I ask you this...."Can you afford to go out to eat?" I had to get real with myself one day because I kept saying that we were going to go organic when we were making more money, but then I thought we go out to eat regularly. We can be sure that going out to eat is not increasing our family's quality of life and buying this milk is. So we made some adjustments. Trust me, the more I learn about food, the less I want to eat out anyway.




Laura's Lean Beef

Learn more at http://www.laurasleanbeef.com/
Okay I'm not going to go into this beef. It is pretty much the same principle as the milk. It is not organic, but there are no antibiotics, growth hormones or food additives and the cows are treated well.

Okay, are these two things the very best milk and beef that are out there? No. The best beef would be a cow you raised yourself that you knew for sure what it ate and how it was processed, etc. Same with the milk. These are the things that I have chosen for our family for now and I feel good about it.

The Dirty Dozen
The 12 most pesticide-laden types of produce
Peaches
Apples
Sweet Bell Peppers
Celery
Nectarines
Strawberries
Cherries
Pears
Imported grapes
Spinach
Lettuce
Potatoes

The Clean 12
Consistently showed the least amount of pesticide residue
Onions
Avocados
Sweet Corn
Pineapple
Mango
Asparagus
Sweet Peas
Kiwi
Bananas
Cabbage
Broccoli
Papaya

Info from data by the USDA and FDA 2000-2004

Best place to buy your produce is from a local farmer that you can talk to about their farming practices or grow it in your own backyard.

Hopefully, this did not bore you completely. Like I said before, I am no expert on this subject, and if you see any incorrect information PLEASE tell me...I want to know! We are trying to learn all we can to give our family better safer foods.
Join the "Band Wagon" or "The Band Wagon Extreme!"

Peed on Twice in One Day!

Pee #1:

I like to put Mckenzee in the sink to fix her hair. She likes to look at herself in the mirror and sometimes I even get her naked and turn on the water for her to play.

Today I was fixing her hair and letting her play in the water and I picked her up out of the sink to dry her off. I put her on my hip while Chris got a towel for us.........and then I felt the warmness.

How a little one year old could have that much pee in her I can't figure out. She never pees on me straight out of the bath or sink because I know she has just peed in the warm water she was sitting in.

There's nothing you can do once it's started. It doesn't benefit you to hold her out because then you have a mess in two places. So I just held on to her while she continued to soak me and then I handed her off to her daddy.

Pee #2

We spent the evening at church for a special event and visited with friends afterwards and got out of there way too late. Kenzee needed a diaper change very badly when we got to the car. I was all ready to change her and get her in her pajamas which I was very proud of myself for remembering because I knew she would probably fall asleep on the way home.

I took off her shorts and her diaper and was waiting for Chris to hand me the next diaper.

If you are a mom you have probably already noticed the mistake here. Important rule of diaper changing: Do not remove the first diaper until you have the new diaper positioned underneath it.

Then, he says to me there's not one. What? How could there not be one? I just refilled the bin we keep in the car.

Then, I look down to see that my naked child is peeing on my back seat. She is also smiling.

Again, it is not beneficial to move the peeing child. It would probably scare her and just drip pee in more places.

So now we have a naked baby and no more diapers. I found a cloth diaper in the bin that I would just use for messes. I wrapped it under her and tried to put her in her car seat.

She did not want to go.

Wall-eyed fit begins!

I begin to wrestle and fight with her to get her little hiney down in the car seat. If I can just get her to bend then I can get the harness clicked.

She is very strong.

It takes both of us to get her pinned down and she is screaming and I am sure people walking by wonder what we are doing to torture her.

In the meantime I have gotten myself in the pee on the seat.

It really doesn't matter to me right now. She is in her car seat with the cloth diaper wrapped under her little naked self and we are going home.

Early Mornings

Mckenzee has an ear infection.... AGAIN! I am not happy about this, especially because I was, for some reason, under the impression that breastfed babies don't get ear infections and this little one has had five! She doesn't sleep well when she has an ear infection, but it has actually been very sweet to get up with her the last few nights. The first night I got her and went and sat with her on the couch. I turned on Baby Einstein and she sat on my lap facing me. I closed my eyes. A few minutes later I feel some tiny soft fingers barely touching my nose. I open my eyes and she is right up close to my face and kisses me and smiles real big. I love that! A little while later I doze off. Then I feel a tiny soft mouth kissing me awake again. What a sweet girl. It makes it so worth it to get up from my cozy bed in the middle of the night to get kissed by my one year old.

This morning she woke up at 5:30. Daddy and I both got up to get her and she and I were sitting on the couch and he turned on the TV to get the dvd ready and we saw that the Eukanuba AKC dog show was on. Kenzee started pointing and whispering pup pup pup. So we decided to watch the dog show. She sat very still and pointed every now and then at the ones she liked. She loves puppies! It was fun. After awhile we put her back in bed and she slept until 9:00! Woo hoo!

God Cares about Mascara

I have been reading Connie's blogs about God taking care of us, even in the smallest details of our lives and I just have to share what happened to me today.

I have had pink eye this week. I need a new mascara. Arbonne's mascara is just the best and my eyes are super sensitive and that's what I need. However, it was not in the budget for this month, as Arbonne's mascara is not cheap. I got a shipment in today and my sister had ordered black mascara and........lo and behold there were TWO mascaras in there!

You might think that was just a coincidental mistake, but I am thanking God for bringing me some new mascara for FREE!

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"

Matthew 6: 25-27

I love the weekends!

Chris works 9 hour days Mon-Thurs and only 4 hours on Friday. Granted this doesn't always hold true because things do come up at work, but for the most part we start our weekends at lunch on Friday. Chris makes pancakes on Saturday mornings and Kenzee plays naked in the living room. I wear my pajamas all day. I love spending time with my family.

These 2 and a half days make me long for more though...it is never enough. It makes me think every weekend how I need to conquer my fears about Arbonne and talking to people and get into high gear and make this happen for our family so everyday can be like the weekend.

I do work hard at it and I have talked to tons of people and I have had lots of setbacks, but there is always more I can do and always someone out there who has it really rough that made it happen for their family that inspires me to keep going.

Sometimes I wish I could see the future, but what fun would that be? I know that I am learning from every rejection and every hard night, every cancellation and zero volume party and God is growing me in personal development. I know that my story will someday help out another struggling consultant the way so many consultant's stories help me now. When will it happen though????

I know many of you reading this (not there there are that many people that read this blog) may not understand what I am talking about, but it helps me to get it off my chest. There are also probably those of you out there who think that I will never get there, that NWM doesn't work. That only inspires me more.

I have to keep telling myself that I will be an RVP! I will drive a white Mercedes! I just so badly want it to be soon!

Thanks for listening!

Fantasy Football

For those of you not familiar with fantasy football I'll give you a brief overview. In late August we have draft day (pictured above). On draft day you are allotted $40 million to purchase players for your fantasy team. You have to do some studying to be ready for draft day. The draft takes about 6 hours and is conducted in auction form. You have to buy players at every position to fill your roster, starters and backups, to make up a 24 man team.

My team is the Fightin' Junebugs. I won the championship three years ago. The next year I came in 4th in the playoffs. Last year I didn't play...I was having a baby. This year the Junebugs are back with a vengeance.

Chris' team is the Texas Stampede. His team has had the best record twice but has never won a title, he desperately longs to.

Last week was the first game of the season and we played each other. The final score was 129.15 to 129.05. Closest game in history! Chris won. I was sad.

Football will be on at our house all season no matter what, so this helps me get more involved and care about more games. This is something we can enjoy together and it's also very competitive. We are both out to win the championship....stay tuned to see how this season ends up!

Note: flags are Chris Roberts' originals

Flaming Green Beans!

Maybe this will not be news to you. It was certainly news to me.

Mckenzee loves green beans (right now anyway). I was getting her dinner ready and I got out some green beans to reheat.

I put about 10 on a plate and put them in the microwave for 8 seconds.

I stood right there because I was only having to wait 8 seconds.

The green beans began to spark and sizzle and then......

There were little orange fireballs.

What the heck is wrong with my organic green beans???!!!!

Del Monte is about to get a personal call from me!!!!!!!!!!!

I called Chris at work to tell him what had happened. His response: "Oh yeah, they did that to me the other day too."

"What did you do?"

"I just got out a few more and warmed them up and they didn't do it."

"Did you feed them to our daughter?"

"Yes."

Called my dad. He asked what kind of plate they were on. I tell him ceramic. He tells me to try a paper plate. I don't have one so I use plastic.

I get out 10 more green beans and put them in for 8 seconds.

Sparks, fireballs.

Oh man, Kenzee has eaten a lot of green beans lately.

My dad looked it up on the internet. Here is what he found:

green beans spark because dense vegetables such as green beans, carrots, and green peppers have higher amounts of minerals than other food items. The minerals act like tiny pieces of metal and can create arcing effects in a microwave.

In the mood for fireworks? Put some green beans in the microwave.

Arbonne

I have to write about Arbonne. I am building my Arbonne business part-time. My ultimate goal in this business is to retire Chris in the near future and build compound residual income that will allow our family time freedom so that we can be together all day. It will also give us the financial resources to help others in a BIG way.

Chris and I believe in Network Marketing and know that it will work for us. It is NOT a pyramid scheme nor is it get rich quick, but it is get rich. Arbonne has one of the best compensation plans in the NWM industry and the leaders of the company are Christians and believe God and family should come first.

Arbonne is a 27 year old Health and Wellness company that offers Pure Safe and Beneficial products in 6 categories: anti-aging, personal care, weight loss, nutrition, aromatherapy, and cosmetics. Products are made with the highest quality ingredients and are rigorously tested to be hypoallergenic, they do not contain animal products, mineral oil or chemical dyes and fragrances.

Network Marketing is hard work, but with great pay off. 90% of people who start a NWM business quit within their first year! 95% of people who stick with it at least 10 years make it to the top income level in the company. I don't care if it does take me 10 years I will not give up. I couldn't make that kind of money doing anything else for 10 years and 10 years is not that long to be able to retire from your business.

I want to wake up each day and know that I don't have to tell my husband good-bye as he heads off to work and count the hours until he comes home for lunch and then again until he gets off. I want to be able to take Mckenzee to the zoo in the middle of the day with her Daddy too. I want to write 5 digit checks to my church and help out a struggling waitress with a huge tip.

...and the Benz will be nice too!

Macy Roo Roberts

We got her when she was 9 weeks old just after Thanksgiving in 2003. She was full of love and full of energy. She loved running cirles in the living room and still does. She has traveled to Colorado, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico.

It is good to be a chihuahua at the Roberts!

So rotten! We love our chihuahua. I never thought I'd have a sweet chocolate chihuahua one day, but she is just right for our family. She is so full of love! She enjoys having visitors over and loves to "go" to Grandma's house. She is sweet to Mckenzee (most of the time) and they even play together with her toy.

She loves to hunt crickets and grasshoppers and enjoys going on trips. She will get in the water if it's her idea...lakes, rivers, ponds.

She enjoys warm laundry, cuddling on the couch and she sleeps in our bed...I know, I never thought I would let a dog in my bed, but I do. We love to spoil her!

A little about me

I am a wife and a mother. That is all I ever wanted to be. I love my life. I love waking up each day to a loving husband and having the privilege to stay home with our baby girl. Yes, at times they both drive me crazy, but I wouldn't trade one day.

In all my free time....I enjoy scrapbooking, camping, reading historical romances, watching movies, taking pictures and organizing. I would not call myself organized, but I still enjoy doing it anyway. I like cleaning out cabinets and closets and things like that. I also like writing and have written 3 children's books that sit here at my home where no one can read them. It is a dream of mine to one day be a published author. I just have to make myself start that process.

I am obsessive. The first step is admitting it. I am always improving, but in some areas I am comfortable with my obsessiveness and some I drive my own self crazy. I never choose the first item when I am shopping I always reach back to the second or third. I inspect items carefully for defects and make sure I choose the perfect one. I do not like people to touch Mckenzee in Wal-mart...you hear that everyone? If you see us in Wal-mart don't touch! I especially don't like people touching her hands when we are anywhere in public. I use a shopping cart cover. I use a placemat at restaurants. When we went for her first pictures I lysoled the room first and only set her on blankets from home. I am very very careful around raw meat and wash my hands over and over. I know that I am crazy. I hear these things and they sound crazy to me too, but that is me.

I am a retired kindergarten teacher. I love children. Children are fascinating little people that will change our world.

That is all I can think of. I am enjoying writing these blogs. Connie you were right!

Mckenzee Ellis Roberts

I did not fully appreciate the complexity of the human body and how God is totally in control and how He thought of every detail until I saw her tiny beating heart on the sonogram screen.

Mckenzee Ellis was born August 29, 2006. An amazing day that changed our lives forever!

She is HIGH maintenance! As a newborn she was pretty fussy. She cried a lot in the evenings. We were reading a sheet from the doctor on colic one day and we both thought...this is exactly like Mckenzee. So we diagnosed her, but it didn't change things. I still didn't want her to grow up even then and we cherished holding her and swinging her in our arms even when we were dog tired and in desperate need of a shower. I knew I wouldn't always be able to hold her while she slept so I took any chance I could get. Her swing and Baby Einstein dvds were our saving grace some nights. God bless you Julie Clark.


Here we are a year later and what a personality she has! She knows just what she wants and doesn't give up without a fight. She is stubborn, smart, funny and very talkative. She is so beautiful! I love her sweet face and her big blue eyes! She does look just like her Daddy. I admit, I am still jealous about that even though I try not to be, but I wouldn't change one thing about her. She gives us hugs and kisses... when we're lucky...more to Daddy than to me. She loves to play with her puppy and read books and turn the pages for you. She loves to dance and sing. Her favorite song is Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield. She also likes hip hop.

She can say: Momma, DaDa, PupPup, Bye Bye, Gee Gee (Get you), and sometimes PatPaw and a form of Grandma, and once she saw her Aunt Sara and said "Sa" never again though. She can sign milk and thank you. She plays peek-a-boo and likes to start crawling down the hall only to pause and wait for us to chase her.

I love her with all that I have in me and I would do anything just to see her smile. Her smile lights up her whole face and you can't help but be thankful just to have seen it in that moment. Sometimes I wish I could freeze moments in time and revisit them. Like when we are dancing together and she looks at me beaming and leans in to kiss me. She melts my heart.

Christopher Roberts

How I love him!

I don't even know how to begin. Chris is an amazing husband and father and even though we have been together for over 11 years I still learn new things about him and he continues to impress me.

He works at EFW Inc. It is a defense contractor supplying electronic parts to companies like Lockheed and Boeing. He is Manager of Program Financial Analysis. That sounds very sexy to me! He is so smart with numbers and spreadsheets and things I can't begin to understand. He is the financial provider for our family and with God's help has promoted very quickly at his company allowing me to stay home with Mckenzee.

He is a Longhorn fan! He loves football, especially his Texas Longhorns. He coaches them from the couch and scares the dog. He plans events around Texas games (including our wedding) and wears his burnt orange t-shirt to watch them. He also loves animals. He cuddles with our chihuahua on the couch and lets her lick his face. I am sure someday we will have three labs for him to wrestle with when we get a bigger yard. He also loves to build things. He designed and built a deck in our backyard by himself and can do most any home improvement job.

He loves to take me on dates in his Cobra because we can sit closer. He is such a gentleman...a good-looking one at that. He puts me in the car and orders my dinner and kisses me at the door...still! He told me once when we were first dating..."I've got you taken care of." He has always taken great care of me and babied me and I just love it. He gives me lots of hugs and kisses and does things that make me feel special. He supports me in all that I do and understands my craziness. He always smells good...I like that. I even like when he does things that get him into trouble because he has the cutest little smile that I can't resist. Which gets him into MORE trouble!

He loves being a"DaDa." I love to watch him with our daughter. He takes such good care of her. I don't know how he knew so much about babies, but it just seemed to come natural to him. He would read stories to her before she was even born. He plays with her, dances silly with her and loves to tickle her and make her laugh...which he is very good at! He changes lots of diapers and gives baths and even puts her bows in. He loves to hug and kiss her and take her on dates to Gymboree, just the two of them, to pick out a special outfit. He fixed up her room mostly by himself before she was born and added a hand-painted mural signed Daddy. We are taking it with us when we move.

I could write about him all day. He is perfect for me and for Mckenzee. We love him with all our hearts!

Okay you convinced me!

I am going to try this blog thing. My good friend Connie just started one for her family and I do so enjoy reading it so I am going to give it a try. I don't know if I will be good at keeping it current or not, but I do look forward to the opportunity to tell everyone about my wonderful family. I love my sweet husband and adorable baby with all my heart and they make my life complete.

First I will introduce you to our family:

I wish our dog was in this picture, but I will write about her later. Chris and I started dating in high school on February 4, 1996. We married 6 years and 8 months later on October 5, 2002. We have so much fun together. We love to laugh and be goofy with each other. We are both fiercly competitive and enjoy playing any kind of game. We love to have date nights on the couch watching our current favorite show The Hills. We love to go on walks. We love storms...especially in the Rocky Mountains where we love to go on vacation. We love to be in the car together on long trips. We can talk about anything. We pray together daily. We are best friends and don't know what we would do without each other.
Last year we had a wonderful new addition to our family, Mckenzee Ellis. She is a little firecracker. We have so much fun with her and think everything she does is amazing and adorable. She has truly blessed our family and makes us laugh everyday. I am so thankful for her and thankful that God chose me for her Mommy.
We love the Lord and are grateful for His daily presence in our lives. We don't always put him first or give Him enough of our time, but we long to do better in learning and in service. Looking back over the last five years it is so obvious how God has worked in the life of our family. He has worked out so many specific things and always provides and cares for us.
We are working on being content at every stage in our life and enjoying our journey. We firmly believe that for everything there is a purpose and are thankful for every day we are given. We hope that we will bless others through our marriage and our daily actions.