Since I (Brandy) have been busy battling sinus infections and stomach viruses, the blog has been neglected a little bit lately. So, here is a long overdue update on the kids:

Big Sister:

As you can see, Anya is still wearing her patch. Back in December, her eye doctor upped the duration she wears the patch each day–basically if she is awake, the patch is suppose to be on her eye. It has went surprisingly well. We had a checkup 2 weeks ago and her bad eye improved another line, so the patching is working. That is good news and makes it easier to put the patch on her knowing that it is indeed doing some good. Hopefully when we go back for our next appointment in March, they will be even more improvement. The other day at the mall in the elevator, a little boy pointed to Anya and asked his mommy why she had a band-aid on her eye. Anya replied “it’s not a band-aid, it’s a patch. It makes my eye stronger!” I was rather impressed.

Bedtime has taken a turn for the better as far as Anya is concerned. As many of you know, Anya has been a die-hard rocker from her earliest days–falling asleep in the rocking chair on mommy’s or daddy’s lap was her preferred method of going “night night”. When we learned of Josiah’s upcoming arrival last fall, we decided we needed to get her to fall asleep in her own bed. Well, we accomplished our goal–we could get her to fall asleep in her own bed, BUT only if one of us was lying right next to her. Not much of an improvement. So, recently we stole a page out of the SuperNanny’s book and have been sitting by her door for a few minutes every night while she lays in bed by herself and eventually falls asleep. Some nights go better than others, but at least it is a step in the right direction. And for those of you wondering how we let the situation get this bad, trust me, we have learned our lesson!!!

Anya has surprisingly been the healthiest member of the family this winter (I hope I’m not jinxing her by saying this). Other than a case of the 24 hour stomach virus back in December, she has been good to go. Getting tubes in her ears last February has made a huge difference for her–she has been ear infection-free ever since. Her ENT says if we can get through this winter with her tubes staying in, we should be in the clear. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

We have always considered Anya to be pretty bright (and this is a completely unbiased observation ) but I do truely think she has a pretty good memory. Each week for Bible Buddies, she has to memorize a short verse having to do with the Bible story they are learning about that week. Jason & I are amazed again and again at 1) how fast she can learn her verse for that week & 2) how she can remember verses from weeks ago that we hadn’t talked about or mentioned since. Again, I’m impressed.

Along the same lines, we are beginning to teach Anya how to write the letters of the alphabet. We are on the letter “c”. So, we have a ways to go before she will be writing our annual Christmas card. However, she seems to enjoys learning the letters and again her power of recollection is pretty darn good. It is really fun to watch her learn something new. As much fun as it is, it is also sometimes a battle of wills between her & us. However smart she seems to be, she is 100 times more stubborn. Makes for some long afternoons with mommy & Anya trying to learn something new. But, we manage to get the job done and both live to tell about it, so it could be worse!

Scooby-Doo is hands down Anya’s favorite show to watch–and has been for quite awhile now. I personally think that some of the episodes would be a little frightening for a 3 year old, but whenever it is on, she is glued to the TV. It makes for a good bargaining tool for us….”Anya, take a nap or no Scooby”, “Anya, eat your supper or no Scooby”, “Anya, pick up your toys or no Scooby”….you get the idea.

Little Brother:

Josiah is recovering well from his bout with RSV and his first ear infection. We are hoping that his ear infections are few and far between. Otherwise, he has been healthy, and for that, we are very thankful.

FINALLY Josiah got his first tooth! I was beginning to worry even though everywhere I read said that some kids don’t get teeth until well after their first birthday. With Anya getting her first teeth at 6 months, I was sure Josiah would around then also…but no. So, now with his one lonely tooth, mommy can breathe a sigh a relief.

Josiah has become an expert at feeding himself. Some of his favorite finger foods include cheerios, fruit puffs, pancakes and cheetos. Do we have all 5 food groups covered?

Josiah is a champ about going to bed/taking naps. We definitely learned our lesson from Anya on this one. We put him down in his crib awake and rarely hear more than a peep out of him before he is asleep. And when he wakes up, he will play and roll around in his crib for 15-20 minutes before he starts to get irritated.

I wish I could say that Josiah is crawling, but no such luck. He prefers to roll everywhere and it amazes me how quickly he gets from here to there by rolling. I would think it would make him dizzy, but doesn’t seem to bother him. He does tease me constantly though–he gets up on his hands and knees as if he is going to crawl, and then as soon as I get all excited, he drops down and rolls to where he is going. Can we say ornery? He is starting to pull up on stuff though, so I wonder if he is going to skip the crawling stuff and go right for the gusto. I am so not ready to have him walking!

This kid needs to be strapped in–to his highchair and stroller. This is hard for Jason & I to remember b/c we never strapped Anya in because she never made even the slightest attempt to fall out. Not with Josiah—leave him unattended in something he can fall out of and he will be out in no time flat. Thankfully we didn’t have to learn this the hard way–no spills yet anyways. However, I found him dangling out of this highchair by not much more than 1 foot–scared me half to death. So, strap this kid in!

As if it isn’t obvious, Josiah needs a haircut. Some days his hair is just off the wall crazy….and boy does it draw the comments from everybody. Not only is it long on the top, but it is also over his ears and curling up in the back. For some reason I am just not ready to cut it for the first time….he will be one step closer to being a “big boy” when he gets his hair cut. So for now, I will just keep trying to tame it down in the mornings.

So, there is a snippet of what the kids are up to these days. At our house, life is busy and life is good.

Yep, its cold outside. Just in case you hadn’t noticed!!

It has been one of those weeks around the McArtor household–one of those weeks that really makes you appreciate how easy your life is when your kids are healthy, everyone is sleeping through the night (in their own beds) and the weather is more accommodating.

Josiah had been fighting what we thought was just a really bad cold until Tuesday night when he didn’t sleep a wink (meaning neither did Jason or I), was running a low-grade fever and just couldn’t seem to shake an increasingly scary cough. So, we skated (literally on ice covered roads) to his pediatrician’s office Wednesday morning to learn that he had a double ear infection and RSV which was causing bronchiolitis (inflammation of the small airways of his lungs). I knew he had a bad cough, but didn’t realize how hard he was working to breath until then. They gave him a nebulizer treatment in the office and that seemed to improve his breathing and mood almost instantly. So, because RSV is a virus, the only course of treatment is time and continued neb treatments every 4 hours until his cough is resolved. Talk about a miraculous recovery—48 hours later and we have our normal happy, easy-go-lucky, sleeping through the night Josiah back. He has really been a trooper through it all.

And the weather was finally above zero today. Now if we could just get everyone to sleep in their own bed’s at night……

Well, we finally had our family Christmas today…..apparently we like to stretch out the holiday joy as long as possible! We had a great time watching the kids open their gifts and Anya couldn’t tear through the wrapping paper fast enough. I would say that all in all, they made out pretty good this Christmas.

Here are some pictures of our McArtor Christmas. Enjoy!

And I thought I had bad bed head in the morning:

Since we are already 2 days into the new year, I thought I better get on here and wish everyone a Happy 2009! Our year started off on the right track with a hefty Hawkeye win in the Outback bowl–made even better because we got to watch it with a group of our good friends: Chad & Jodi and Fuzzy, Steph & Jaxson.

2008 was a good year for us…I almost hate to see it end. But, I look forward for all the new, exciting times we have waiting for us this year! Here’s to wishing everyone a happy, healthy and safe 2009!