My Boys

Just a few pictures today. Because they're so cute. That is all. 

Valentine's Day - never a dull moment

Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day. Before I go into how we spent Valentine's day, I'll show you the darling valentine gifts Hudson and I made for his class and his teachers. We had so much fun doing these together. We made his class heart shaped crayons. I've seen several versions that I liked so I just combined those versions and came up with this:

First, Hudson and I sat down on the floor and separated all the crayons into color families.

 Next, we broke the crayons and put them in the silicone baking trays. I found mine at Hobby Lobby.

Trying to explain to an almost 3 year old that it's actually okay to break the crayons was pretty interesting. :)

We baked them in the oven at 300 degrees for about 15 minutes. Until they were completely liquified.

 And came up with this. Super cute! I love how they turned out.

Then I cut out squares, taped the crayon to the paper and tied some twine around it.

 Easy and great to do with kids! 

For his teachers, I took a recipe I found on Pinterest (love!). It was super easy and Hudson loved helping me add the sprinkles and M&M's. 

Valentine Chex Mix - soooo good!

I filled mason jars with it, tied some twine and added a little Valentine sign. 

He wouldn't take a good picture for me - love his Heart Breaker shirt. 

So....that was that. Unfortunately, in between doing these fun Valentine activities, we've had a rough two weeks! In case you're wondering what happened to Hud's eye....here's that story:  Hudson started coughing and had a snotty nose so I made him an appointment with Dr. M for last Thursday. He came to the office with me that morning so that we could go straight to the doctor. While at my office, he tripped and caught the edge of a wooden chair in the kitchen. It wasn't pretty at all. Luckily, we already had that drs appointment. Dr. M took one look at Hudson and sent us to the Emergency Room. Nice. A one hour appointment turned into a 5 hour ordeal. He ended up with 5 stitches and when I tell you that it was a traumatic experience, I'm not exaggerating. Poor kid. I felt so bad for him.

 Here he is in the ER waiting room. Not pretty. It would NOT stop bleeding. 

I'm thankful it wasn't any closer to his eye. Shew.

And after the stitches. I've never seen him look so sad and exhausted. It took 3 people to hold him down and they had to put him in a straight jacket. I'm not gonna lie - I was crying too. :(

He took a loooooong nap that afternoon and woke up happy. Thank goodness. We also found out at the doctor's appointment that he had double ear infections. Lovely. Got him some antibiotics and all is good now. 

Fast forward to Friday afternoon - John Robert starts in with the coughing again. I'm thinking to myself - you've GOT to be shitting me. This isn't happening again. It was. It is. I called Dr. M's office and he immediately prescribed an antibiotic and a steroid for JR to try and prevent the RSV from making a comeback. All weekend long he got worse and worse. By Monday evening, his breathing was terrible and I knew he was miserable. The breathing treatments weren't working and neither was the medicine. I loaded him up and headed back to our local children's hospital. We didn't even have to sit down in the ER. They immediately took us back and started another breathing treatment. It lasted 35 minutes and he barely improved. At that point, the doctor decided that we needed to be admitted so they could observe him and continue to give him treatments throughout the night. 

Poor baby in his hospital crib. 

This picture was actually on Valentine's morning.

Needless to say, it wasn't quite the Valentine's Day I had pictured in my mind. 

Basically - JR has another virus. His chest x-ray looked fine though and he tested negative for RSV. Thank goodness. Doctor says it could last 3-6 weeks and we just need to closely watch him. He's better tonight for the first time. Probably because the weather has turned warmer. 

Maybe we need to move to Arizona????? Hmmmm......

So - that's been our life lately. Doesn't that sound like fun??? Not exactly the way I was hoping 2012 would start for us. It's never good when you've already made your health care deductible in the first 2 months of the year. Please pray for our family that we can all stay healthy from here on out.

Signed,

The exhausted Mama.

This and That

--A recent tragedy has really made me question why bad things happen to good people?? A friend lost her 4 month old son this past weekend and it's made me absolutely sick. I can't even imagine what this family is going through right now. Absolute heartache. It makes me realize how very lucky I am to have 2 healthy little boys. I've definitely hugged them tighter over the last few days.

--Hudson has decided to explore his musical side lately. We can't discourage it, so we're trying to embrace it, but between this:

 And this:

We're starting to question his music ability :) Both of these were Christmas presents. And they weren't from Santa or Mom & Dad. We would never be so stupid.

-- John Robert is a chunk. I know you all know this, but seriously.....he's a chunky monkey. His legs are all rolls. It's the cutest thing ever. And in all reality, his eating really has slowed down since he started food.

-- We had some friends over for the Super Bowl....even though I didn't really care about the game. There were 5 kiddos running around and it was pure chaos. Oh, how Super Bowl parties have changed! :) We made bolognese sauce with pasta, salad and a yummy dessert. 

The sauce. Recipe from Mario Batali via Anthony :) 

Trey named it: Super Bowlgnese sauce

The yummy and super easy dessert. A friend told me about this and it might be my new go-to dessert from now on. It's really easy. 

Take store bought sugar cookie dough - roll it out and press it into a round pizza pan. Be sure and spray the pan so it doesn't stick. Also, make sure it's even. Bake it per the instructions on the package. About 12-15 minutes, I think. Let it cool completely. Mix together 8 oz of cream cheese (I used light because I can't really tell the difference), 1/2 cup of powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Spread it all over the cookie and then top with whatever fruit you want. It was delish!

-- Trey and I joined a small group through our church for the first time. Definitely stepping out of our comfort zone. We had our first get together on Monday night and it was so much fun! We didn't know anyone in the group, so I was a little nervous. But, we loved all the people and I think it'll be good for us. Bonus is they all have kids around Hudson and JR's age and the kids got along great too. 

-- I started Crossfit a few weeks ago and I'm loving it. It's HARD though! I don't think there's been a week yet where I haven't been sore. Hopefully that will change. I like it because it's high intensity for a short amount of time. I think my longest workout has been 20 minutes. That's 20 minutes nonstop though so you burn a lot of calories. I also like it because the workout changes every single day. You never do the same thing. And it's everything from pull ups to running to rows to squats. So glad I tried this out! 

-- Hudson and I made Valentine's for his class this past weekend. Can't wait to show y'all the finished product. They're so cute. Next on the list??? His birthday! Fun stuff coming up........

JR Update

So.....if you read my blog consistently, you obviously know that Trey and I had a baby in June. You also know that he was 5 weeks early. Well, he wasn't just 5 weeks early. He had stopped growing 2 weeks prior to that so he was really more like 7 weeks early. We expected to see delays in his development. But I don't think I had fully prepared myself for the big picture. Anyway..here's the update on all that.

We're having some delays with John Robert's development right now. He's 7.5 months old and he's still not rolling over, sitting up on his own, putting weight on his legs or able to grab at toys by himself. He also tends to hang his head down after a little while. We've been to lots and lots of doctor's appointments over the last few weeks. He's seen physical therapists, neurologists, osteopathics, orthotics and we have more lined up in the coming months.  I'll break it down so that I remember all of this when I look back. But first....let me show you a recent picture of the cutie patootie.

To begin - let me explain that John Robert has torticollis. What? You don't know what this is?? I didn't either. Had never heard of it. Apparently, it's pretty common in infants. In normal terms, it's basically a bad crick in your neck. However, JR's case is very severe. It prevents him from looking to his left at all. And over time, it causes lots of other delays in his arms, hands, legs, etc... on that side of the body. It's also what caused him to lay so much on the right side of his head which in turn caused the plagiocephaly...yeah, that means he has a flat head. Sounds kinda scary though, doesn't it? It actually is pretty serious. It's not all cosmetic concerns. Hence the reason for his helmet. 

Okay....so now you know what we're dealing with. 

Here's the lowdown on what we're doing to help this sweet baby boy....

Physical Therapy -- I'm excited because we just got John Robert enrolled in the ECI (early childhood intervention) program. It's a state-run program and he can stay in it until he's 3 years old. And the best part??? THEY come to us. It's perfect. He'll start out with therapy once per week. He'll also be getting massage therapy from ECI. It's much less expensive than a private physical therapist. It's taken us almost 3 months to get started though. But in the mean time, we've gone to an: 

Osteopathic/Manipulative Medicine -- okay, some of you may think we've lost our marbles, but we truly believe in this therapy. We found a doctor...who was highly recommended by several people, including my MIL...who will do manipulation therapy on infants. He's very gentle. We've had 2 treatments so far and John Robert's turning his head to the left more than we've ever seen him do. It's incredible! Dr. T assures us that we'll see a huge improvement after 5-7 treatments. He also assures us that it's going to decrease the amount of time JR has to spend in that helmet. He's basically manipulating his cranial plates back into place. He's also relieving pressure on his neck muscles and his pelvis to loosen them up. The downfall on this treatment?? Insurance doesn't cover it. And it's not cheap. 

But...if it's working, we're continuing with it!

Neurologist -- This was the scariest of all appointments, but I was prepared for that. I'm not so sure Trey was prepared though??? We both loved Dr. A and it turns out that he's a D.O., not an M.D. I kind of like that aspect of him as well. If you're not sure of the difference, google it. Anyway, he was definitely concerned with JR's low muscle tone. He was hesitant to order an MRI at first....until he checked his leg reflexes. After seeing his very low reflexes, he insisted on scheduling us for an MRI. He explained that it was highly possible that JR sustained small brain injuries while he was in my womb - probably from losing oxygen due to my teeny-tiny placenta - and this could be what's causing his motor delays in his legs. He also noticed that his left thumb was still curled inward and not outward. The brain injuries would explain this as well. Treatment is still just very aggressive physical and occupational therapy. So........we're now scheduled for an MRI. It takes quite awhile to get on the schedule because they have to sedate babies in order to get them to sit still. As Coco pointed out to me though...at least they're not rushing us to do it. Which must mean that they don't think there's anything too terribly wrong. :) 

And lastly - Orthotics -- we see an orthotics specialist every 2 weeks to have his helmet adjusted. I'm a little discouraged in this department. They originally told us that he'd wear it for about 12 weeks. They measured his head last week and it's only improved about 3.5%. He's been in the helmet for 8 weeks, so I'd hoped to see about a 50% improvement. Not happening. I have mixed emotions about this helmet ever since starting the manipulation therapy, but we'll continue on with it and see what happens. 

Even with all these doctor's appointments.....John Robert is still a happy, happy baby! He's almost always smiling. And he's a great sleeper (knock on wood). He normally sleeps about 12 hours each night. Along with 3 hours worth of naps during the day. He's babbling and talking to us a lot these days. And he LOVES to hear his big brother's voice. He's eating lots of different foods - sweet potatoes, carrots, pears, apples, bananas, peaches and we're introducing more every few days. 

I started making his food myself and he seems to really like it! 

And that's the update on Mr. John Robert. Sorry for the wordy post, but I really wanted to get it all out there so I don't ever forget what we were going through during this time. 

More pics from the weekend to come later, but here's a few of the boys together. Hudson loves to lay next to his baby brother and cuddle with him. 

Full Weekend!

This weekend was busy...but lots of fun. Trey and I decided to pack up the boys and spend the night at the lake on Friday night. Hudson loves going out there and it's a good change of scenery for everyone. We cooked dinner and played and relaxed. And John Robert is finally getting used to sleeping out there...yipee!

We came home just in time to meet Fricks at our house. Natalie and Ty had a wedding to go to and couldn't find a sitter, so we happily offered to keep Fricks. He and Hudson get along so great and have so much fun together. They ate dinner, played, took baths, played, ate snacks, played...did I mention they ate and played??? They got a little messy, so Fricks took matters into his own hands and helped us clean. I may fire our housekeeper and just let Fricks clean the house from now on.

After baths, we settled the boys into Hudson's bed to read books. I thought maybe.....just maybe they might fall asleep.....but, it was a no go. After about 45 minutes, I took Fricks downstairs and we watched cartoons until his parents came to get him. I think these boys are still a little young for a sleep over!

We had another busy day on Sunday. Heather and her sweet family came over to meet us and go to the stock show. Colt and Hudson had a blast together! And when I say we went to the stock show, I really mean we went to the Midway to ride the rides. They did ride a horse though!

 There's Colt and John in the background. Both Colt and Hudson loved the horses.

 John Robert just chilled and looked cute.

 Colt and Heather on the merry-go-round

 The boys wanted to go down the BIG slide. So Heather and Trey took them while John and I stayed with the babies and played paparazzi.

 Next up? the choo-choo train, of course. Don't let this little train fool you...this sucker went pretty fast and whipped around those corners. It made me a little nervous. And I don't think Colt was a big fan. At all. But, he stuck it out for the whole ride! 

After the stock show, we headed over to our favorite restaurant....Joe T's! Unfortunately, since it was 75 degrees on January 22nd, there were tons of other people with the same idea. The line for the patio was ridiculous, so we ate inside instead. I think everyone liked it and JR and Sula had a great time people watching. It was a fun day!!! 

In other news........... 

Today is a big day for Trey and I. We're celebrating 13 YEARS of marriage. 

Wowsers. 

Can't believe we've gone from this:

To this:

Either he makes me laugh a lot.....or I my mouth is just open all the time. Hmmm.....

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! 

Cheers to many, many more years! 

Weekend Recap

I've been knee deep in planning my cousin's (Erin) baby shower for the last couple of months. I wanted it to be super dooper cute. I had so many cool ideas and some of them didn't pan out. Who knew it would be so hard to plan a shower with 2 kids under the age of 3 under your feet all the time?  Anyway - I did get most of them out there. However.......................I'm a total idiot and forgot to bring my camera to the shower. Who does that???? Apparently, me.

I got a few pics with my phone, but they don't do it justice. I'm so sad.

Table in the entry as people walked in - there were probably around 50-55 people.

Notice the white cloth diaper with Eva's initials. I had 25 of these monogrammed (by my mom..thank you) so that Erin could use them as burp cloths. Some have her initials and some have her name.

Erin LOVES candy, so it was only natural that we would have a candy bar at her shower. Glad she already had that glucose test :) I ordered all of the candy from Candywarehouse.com. Much cheaper than trying to buy it at a candy store. Plus you can pick whatever colors you want. 

Obviously, we went with purple, white and lavender.

 The bags had stickers with Eva Marie's initials and each guest filled up a bag to take home with them. 

Part of the table. I can't believe I didn't get better pictures. This was before I made the executive decision to move the drinks to a different location. 

The shower was from 11-1, so we did a brunch theme with quiche, fruit, french toast, bacon, mini cinnamon rolls and banana bread...along with cookies to finish it out. 

Because there wasn't enough sweet stuff. 

French Toast sticks...

 Fruit cups - I did all berries and found little appetizer forks to go in each one.

Lemonade for those who didn't want to partake in wine or mimosas (not me).

I used mason jars, tied a piece of twine around them and found the striped straws on Etsy.

And the onesie cookies. These were assorted colors of purple, white and gray. 

The Momma to Be and her Mom

Everyone had a great time. Plus...Erin got some darling things! 

Can't believe she only has 6 weeks left. Doesn't she look cute??

Moving on....the rodeo and stock show is in town, so we decided to take the boys to the stock show yesterday. The weather was perfect. 

First stop - the Ferris Wheel. We can see it from our deck at the house and Hudson has been obsessed with it ever since it went up. I thought he would chicken out before we got there, but he was determined.

 Then he wanted to ride the dragon roller coaster. I let Trey do that one with him. 

 Next up - drive dat monster truck!!

And finally....he wanted to ride a horse. It was just his speed.

His horse's name was Tango. 

I kept thinking in my head - "Maybe the Tango ate your baby" - Seinfeld, anyone? 

And yes, I know it's really dingo, not tango.

 He was very serious while riding Tango. 

John Robert hung out and did what he does best....chilled.

And that was our weekend! 

Now.....it's time to start planning Hudson's 3rd birthday (tear). 

And....Trey and I are celebrating our 13th Wedding Anniversary!

Just typing that out makes me feel very old.

 John Robert has doctors appointments galore coming up. 

Update on all that later this week. 

Ciao.