More photos!

Yeah, I'm a slacker. I was intending on heading in to the craft room to upload photos and do some crafting but all of a sudden I got the deep cleaning bug and set to work. Next thing I know it was 11pm! Figured I better get in bed since this morning was my morning to get up. :)

It's 10:45 now and I'm just getting started, but it's Thursday! The night I attempt to watch Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice in between tending to children who are fighting sleep. I think I'm asking for DVR for Mother's Day (hint, hint, babe ;) ).

Anyway, on with the photos!

We finally finished our front yard! We finally decided what we wanted to do with it, spent a couple of weekends at nurseries and planning where and what we wanted to put places.

This is when we came home with our first load of plants! Drew got to work right away. :)

These got a little mixed up, but this was the following weekend. We wanted a smallish tree for the corner but couldn't decide. We thought we wanted a japanese maple, or a crepe myrtle, but at the nursery we fell in love with this Snowball Viburnum and had to have it! Of course the blooms fell off within a week or so, it was at the end of it's blooming period. We could possibly have more in the fall, but if not we'll see them again in the spring!
Mostly finished, I haven't taken a photo yet, but we did put two small white Azalea plants in front of the three windows.


Carson was hanging out in his chair for a few minutes while we were doing a bit of the gardening!



Taylor was helping organize my pots I had gotten for a project!

Here is my finished project, it's actually in the back yard.. I made one on either side of the fireplace and they are different. This one is mostly purples, the other one is yellows, oranges, and reds.Taylor got bored with gardening and decided to go for a drive. She's spent the last couple of weeks with a dirty face. She LOVES to be outdoors and playing in the dirt! You should see the bath water at night!


This was at a birthday bash for our playgroup. Remembered to grab my camera this time. Once she gets comfortable she likes to climb the stairs and go down slides. It takes her a while though.
Eating cupcakes.
This is Miss Bella. She's so cute! She's a couple of months older than Carson.

I love this picture of Taylor getting ready to come down the slide. She has such wild hair, but the sun behind it looks ethereal to me. Our beautiful baby girl!
Carson hangin' out on the floor playing with the piano. Poor little dude, as I've been processing these I realized he's not been in too many lately! He's forever in the carrier on my chest, not with me, or sleeping when I have the two hands to take the photos! I'll have to fix that!


Grandma Ivy and Grandpa Ron came to visit us, and I got a few photos while they were here as well! I still have more on our little camera that I have to get off but here's these for now.

Grandma holding Carson and playing with Taylor.
Getting a squeeze!

Grandpa and Drew installing the rain gutters.
Just before they left. First it was just Taylor, Carson was asleep.
Then Drew came out, sporting his PJ pants as usual.
We did the switcheroo so I could get in the photo too!

While we were doing that, Carson woke up so we got one last one with him in it as well!Whew!! That's those for now. I still have more from the Air Show, and my visit to the Duck Pond! I don't know if I will get to those tomorrow, but I will try. I have a long to do list when the kids are sleeping so I need to hack away at that a bit as well.

Hope everyone is having a great week! TGIF (almost)!

Wow!! Was I behind on photos!

As I'm sitting here sorting through 550 photos from April!! Yikes!! A lot of them are similar so I wont share them ALL, but I'll put up some of my favorites. This might take me a few days so I'll do them in batches!

I'll start with some of the older ones.

This is how bad the pollen is in the spring!! I'm glad we don't have really horrible allergies to this stuff.
Easter!! The yellow of the kitchen lights and painted walls throws the color of these photos off. I could go through and fix it, but I can't ever get it to look just right and it would take a long time to go through them all.. so I'm leaving them as is!!

Drop!

Lookin' a little mischievous

This one wants to be green!

I haven't colored eggs in a LONG time!
She's too busy to pose with me.

Ooh, look! It's blue!
Taylors first dyed eggs.
The kids' Easter baskets.


Somebody was up early and into the peeps and "chockit"

A poor unsuspecting half eaten peep somehow ended up stuck smack dab in the middle of Taylor's bum. Now all she needs is ears and she'd be the Easter Bunny!
Out hunting eggs!
Found one!

The basket is starting to get heavy!
Here's one too!
And another! (I think we need to get more difficult in hiding them next year!)
This photo cracks me up.. like father like daughter!
I made our name for our mailbox.Here's a video of Taylor hunting eggs!




Well, this has taken me 2.5 hours, so I'm off to bed and I'll try and get to more tomorrow!

Quick Update

Lets see, so much has gone on the last couple of weeks!

Last week, Wednesday, Carson had his MRI in the morning. He had to go under anesthesia for it, and he did fantastic! I kept waiting for them to roll a screaming baby back to me, but they opened the door and here was my little man tucked under the covers up to his neck just hangin' out looking around! He didn't cry until he saw me and realized what he had been missing. We still haven't gotten the results, so I'm hoping that's good news.

Also Wednesday, Drew had his big V. He did very well, I was surprised when he walked out to the car! We had the kids and no sitter so I dropped him off, and went across the street to PetSmart to look at the animals with Taylor, then came back to get him. I didn't want her running amok in the Drs. office so I kept her out busy. I thought they would wheel him to the pick up area, but no.. out he came.. frozen peas in hand!

He was pretty much recovered by Sunday though a bit sore.

Saturday, my Grandma Ivy, and Grandpa Ron came to visit from Nebraska! They spent until Wednesday with us and we had quite an enjoyable time. Grandpa had made another chair for the kids table so now Carson has one too! He also made us a cool magazine rack! It's going in the "library" for Drew's magazines ;).

We had a closet door that was broken, and Drew got another door to replace it, but hadn't gotten around to hanging it, so him and Grandpa spent a day doing that. Apparently everything that could go wrong, did so they had to keep doing little things to the door to finally get it to fit. Works like a charm now!!

They also hung rain gutters in the front of the house! It rained one day and the rain coming off the roof was tearing up our beds and Grandma and Grandpa said this will not do. They treated us to the gutter materials, and Grandpa directed Drew and together they put them up. It was quite a sight! I do have a few photos, I will get them up at some point. I think I'm behind back to Easter still!

Monday, Grandma and I drove to Monroe (about an hour and 15 minutes) to take Carson to the neurologist. I really liked him a lot. He was very impressed with my video of Carson's head drop episode (video is below), and agrees that it is indeed an issue. He said there are two types of head drop seizures, one is epileptic in nature, the other is not. He tried to get us in that day for a short EEG, but was unable to so we went back today (Friday). He did the rest of the exam and he said that he is 90% certain this is something he will grow out of. He's otherwise on track and strong. I'm hoping he's right!

Here's the video so you can see what we are talking about.






Okay, I started this post last night but never got to finish. .now it's Saturday night so trying to continue!

Tuesday I had to go to the dentist in the afternoon, and Wednesday, Grandma and Grandpa left us to head to Houston. Thursday I did a quick trip to Dallas to get a couple of things that we had been needing from Ikea, and of course my old faithful stops to The Container Store and Whole Foods. We now have clear counters to work with and a "utility bar" for all of our daily used appliances! Plus a place to store diaper bags, purses, and bibs!! I still need a photo of it though.

Friday I took Carson back to Monroe for his EEG. The tech was a bit concerned because normally EEG's on babies are done with them asleep, but the neuro wanted him awake, so she was afraid he was going to be really upset for the electrode placement, much less for two hours of recording! However, he was PERFECT. She said he did better than most of their 12 year olds! He was content and smiling while she was putting them on with glue and tape. He got a little fussy when she used the air to dry the glue especially towards the front of his head, but he just hung out, it took quite a bit to get them on, there were a lot!

After that we moved to the recording room where he was hooked up to the machines and they wrapped his head all up so eh couldn't pull out any of the wiring, and gave him a little strap for the smaller machine to be a little backpack on him. It was all wrapped up too so he could play with it and not worry about any of the wires coming out.

He also had a video camera on him for the 2.5 hours (I was sitting with him trying to make him have a drop episode). I'm not sure that he ever had a full one, but he might have done a couple of little ones. I hope so that way it will at least be recorded! It was a long 2.5 hours, but we made it through. He only got fussy a couple of times because he was getting tired but I gave him his paci and we played with more toys and he was better. But boy, he was asleep within 2 minutes of getting back in the car!

So now we wait for the results. Hopefully we will hear something soon, but I'm guessing we will have to wait until our recheck appointment on the 10th of May. That seems like a long time to wait!

Taylor is doing well. She's pretty much potty trained! She's been wearing panties during the day for a week and has only had a couple of accidents. We still put her in a diaper at night and at naptime, but otherwise she's doing great! We've even gone out to dinner, and gone for walks and been gone for a few hours at a time and she hasn't had any accidents!

Tomorrow we are going to the airshow, and Monday Drew goes back to work. I think he's sad that his leave is coming to an end, and I am too! I love spending time with him and so do the kids! I'm hoping to get a Mommy/Taylor day soon since I've been spending so much time with Carson lately taking him to Doctors and what not. I miss my baby girl! She's getting to be quite funny.

Oh yes, we noticed today that Carson is FINALLY Getting ready to cut his bottom teeth! There are two little holes where the teeth are starting to come up, but we can't actually see them. I'm guessing in the next couple of days they will be there.

Well, that's about it for now, just wanted to give everyone an update. I'll hopefully be able to get to those photos some what soon. Been working on some other projects around the house lately!

Love to you all,
Jen

Easier for me to update without pics!

I know you all wait anxiously for photos, but I can update more often with just words since uploading and getting the pics off the card takes a long time but I can type here and there pretty easily! So I'm going to start trying to update MORE even if I don't have time to get the photos up, and I will get those up as often as I can. Does that work??

The BIG update, I know I talked to quite a few of you regarding Carson and his apparent seizure activity. We aren't positive if that's what it is, but it definitely looks strange and has been going on for a while. Again, we weren't sure before so I haven't mentioned anything because I didn't want to scare anybody unnecessarily until we had more information. It started maybe 3 or 4 months ago with him dropping his head down to his chest (or the floor if it was during tummy time), but we thought it was probably his muscles still developing.

A friend of mine had a daughter with "Head Drop Seizures" and said that I should watch him because the way I described his movements reminded her of those. So we've been keeping an eye on him, I mentioned it to his doctor at his 6 month checkup, but she said he could still be working on muscle control and that he was on track developmentally so to keep watching.

As he's been getting bigger, it's become more and more apparent that something else is going on. I caught it on video and called and scheduled him an appointment. He went in last Wednesday and his doctor (who I really like!) agreed that something is not quite right about the little episodes and suggested we get him in for an MRI and an EEG. They called us this morning and he goes in Wednesday morning for his MRI, which he will need to be sedated for. He goes in Monday for his consult with the neurologist which is actually in Monroe (about 45 minutes to an hour East of us). The doctor said that the good thing was he still seems on track developmentally (a bit slower than Taylor, but still well within normal range) and that she's hopeful that whatever is causing this will not have any lasting effects, but wants to make sure we cover all of our bases.

Drew has his big V on Wednesday as well in the afternoon so it's going to be a busy, busy, busy week ahead. Especially for me since Drew is going to be laid up for at least a few days! We'll figure it out though.

Otherwise, both kids are doing well. We've been working with Carson on learning how to sleep out of a swaddle. It's been a long week, but he seems to be adapting fairly well. We struggle a little more at naps then we do at bedtime, but he's sleeping most of the way through the night (about 7:30 to 5) when he gets up for an early breakfast. Sometimes he goes back to sleep, sometimes not, so it's a bit rough. Our next step is to try and nix that morning feed and get him sleeping at least until 6! 6:30 would be nice. 7 would be heaven. ;)

Taylor is growing like a weed, she sprouted upwards a bit, but is still a skinny minnie. Put it this way.. she's 2 and 3 months... and she has been wearing some 12 month shorts! 18 month shorts are a little longer, but a tad loose in the waist. 24 month shorts/skirts we need to roll down the waist to make them a little more snug. She needs 18-24 month shirts though since she got taller, her shirts got a little on the short side even though they fit everywhere else.

Her bottom 2 year molars are in now so she has been in a slightly better mood. Her top ones haven't started yet so I'm expecting the grump to come back shortly. We're going on a couple of days of her not taking naps and we're not ready for that yet, so hopefully she goes back to napping soon!

We've been working a lot in the yard the last couple of weeks, finally and putting in lots of plants, flowers and even a tree/bush! I did take pics, but I have to get them off the camera still. Taylor has had fun helping put dirt in the holes for the plants and running around while Drew works. I help with the designing, and take care of Carson when he's awake. I built a couple of tiered planters in the back, started an herb garden, and am working on making a raised garden bed as well! We started a compost pile and we plan on putting a fruit tree in the back!

Easter was enjoyable. We ended up having one of Drew's friends stay the night and have breakfast with us Easter morning. We took Taylor out front to hunt eggs, she had a blast and found them all! Although next year we are thinking only a teeny tiny bit of candy, because she was hyped up on sugar for about 4 days! Maybe that's why she's not napping!? I did fill their baskets with Easter books, and regular books and some fun stuff!

Oh, Carson is up, I guess I better run. I'll see if I can't get some photos and videos up tonight. I'm trying to go to bed earlier since I know it's going to be a lot of early mornings coming up, so we will see how it goes.

Love to all!

-Jen