Un-Lazy Saturday

Sitting at breakfast this morning, we realized that we have full weekends for the next few weeks, so we needed to get some yard work done today if it was going to get done!  The biggest thing we needed to do was fertilize the lawn and trees (we have some struggling trees after a couple of drought-filled summers and a number of hard freezes during the 2010-2011 winter).  We got back from Home Deport in time for Evelyn's morning nap, so I put her down while Dan got started.  I figured I could help him with the fertilizer spikes for the trees while he mowed and just keep Evelyn's monitor close by.  I think Dan was happy to have the help because those spikes usually take about an hour to drive in around all of the trees....

until I convinced him to do this...

We have a couple of trees in the back that are either dead or on their last limb.  This one was dead - so I suggested cutting it down/digging it up today.  So his "help" from me turned into an hour long project on it's own.  He hand-sawed it down to the small stump, then dug up most of the rest.  If the second tree doesn't start reviving in the next month or so - I'm pretty sure we'll be finding a chain saw to take care of that one!  And...I might be losing that Wife of the Year title after this.

Timmmmmberrrrrrr!

 Evelyn loved being outside after she woke up!

After a nice family nap in the afternoon, we had some family wrestling with Evelyn. 

She loves being upside down - and I love kissing those squishy legs! :-)

A tiring day...but a good one!  Dan now has lobster arms...I finally have some color on mine! :-)

Fun Pictures!

I had to post this...our nanny (who is fantastic, by the way!) took this of Evelyn while she was swinging the other day. 

Not sure I'm ready for the teenage years yet!

And here's one I took the other day after I saw her positioned this way on her monitor...

Apparently this is a comfortable way to sleep!

Urologist Update

I realized today that I never really updated everyone on what happened after Evelyn's visit to Driscoll Children's Hospital in January.  We were referred by her pediatrician to a pediatric urologist, whom we saw about about two weeks ago.  Going into that appointment, we knew from follow-up labs ordered by her pediatrician that Evelyn has what is called vesicoureteral reflux (VU reflux for short).  What this means is that after her kidneys drain into her bladder, the small valve that is supposed to close off the bladder and keep the urine in the bladder to be eliminated is not closing so the urine is splashing back up into her kidneys.  At the pediatric urologist, we learned that normally this isn't much of a problem, but it is when infected urine is refluxing into the kidneys it can cause scarring and other kidney disorders.  She has a grade 1 reflux on one side and a grade 3 reflux on the other (the reflux is graded 1 to 5 with 1 being very minor and 5 being major).  They generally treat VU reflux in one of 3 ways.

1. Surgery to repair the immature valve.  Fortunately, Evelyn is not a candidate for surgery at this point because her reflux is considered pretty minor.
2. Consistent low-dose antibiotics to keep urine infections from coming, thus preventing damage to the kidneys.
3. Do nothing and observe.  In most cases, young children outgrow VU reflux with time - so as long as the child is not getting recurrent urine infections, you can just wait it out.

Going into her appointment we were praying and believing for no surgery and no medications.  We really do not want her to be on antibiotics all the time until she outgrows this.  Fortunately, her urologist opted for treatment number 3!  We just have to monitor her and watch for urinary tract infections.  So long as she does not have what he referred to as, "recurrent UTIs," she just has to follow up with him annually to check how the reflux is doing.

Well...we made it another week :-(.  On Friday evening, she started acting fussy and was running a low-grade fever.  Once again we initially attributed it to teething (still no teeth - they've got to come soon, right?!).  However, when it continued through Saturday and spiked overnight on Saturday, we decided not to wait it out.  Our pediatrician's practice holds office hours on Sundays, so we called and got in to see another doctor in her practice.  We had to wait quite a while to actually see the doctor, but Evelyn kept us entertained...

She loves playing peek-a-boo and has started hiding herself to play!

It turns out she had an ear infection starting, and her urine sample looked pretty suspicious.  So he started her on antibiotics again and asked us to follow up with her pediatrician on Tuesday (it takes 48 hours for the urine culture to come back from the lab).  Her urine culture was positive - so we're glad we caught this one earlier than the last one.  I spoke with her pediatrician today, and as long as she doesn't have any more UTIs - we just have to continue waiting it out.  If she has another UTI before we go back next March, we have to see the pediatric urologist again and he will likely put her on the low-dose antibiotic. 

Please pray with us and believe that God will heal and mature her little valves!  No more UTIs in Jesus' Name!!! :-)

This is How We Do Spring Break

I have been on Spring Break this past week and have LOVED every minute of being home with Evelyn full time.  I'm counting the days until the end of school so that I can be with her for the summer (and then probably bawl on the first day of school again).  We had such a good week, filled with lots of memories, lots of laughs, lots of snuggles, and lots of love.  Here's a little peek into our fun-filled week!

We explored...

We took naps...

 We did the dishes...

We had playdates...and then crashed on the way home...

 We played with toys...

We went on bike rides (and took naps on bike rides)...

We found where Mommy keeps her shoes...

We ate snacks (all by ourselves)...

We played hide and seek...

(sorry this is an awful shot...she was behind the couch!)

We found pictures on the refrigerator...

(this is from my nephew Ben - he painted it as Hurricane Ike came through our first fall in Texas...it's been on our refrigerator since - until Hurricane Evelyn got a hold of it!)

We made messes for Daddy to clean up...

  We got to have Daddy home with us for a 3-day weekend...

I am definitely dreading going back to work tomorrow.  I'm still waiting for that fully-online, full time teaching job - that's not semester by semester - and pays well (and doesn't exist...).  I didn't really get much work done over the break, and normally I would have considered that a bad thing, but this year...it's all good!

Thanks for a fun week, baby girl!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

March Madness

If you know anything about us...you know we celebrate March Madness like Christmas in our house.  Having a Hoosier husband kind of makes that a given.  Every year, we do a bracket pick'em with my family - so we needed to get Evelyn's picks.  Of course, we forgot about this completely until about 7:55 on Wednesday night (she goes to bed at 8:00).  But we powered through and got some picks!

 Evelyn's method of choosing the winner...

 Her first March Madness bracket! (go Harvard?)

 More rested and ready to play!

The Two Hundredth

This is my 200th post to our little blog of life.  I thought I would do something witty, or funny, or...?  But I realized that today is March 16th - 3/16 - which reminded me of another 3:16.

And I realized, this is the entire reason I am here.  Because God so loved the world...God so loved me.  That He plucked me out and chose me to love is inconceivable to me - that He sent His Son to die in my place just blows my mind.  I wish I had the courage to love Him in the same way...maybe someday.  In the meantime, I'll love Him in my meager, messy way - and know that He sees that desire in my heart.

Ten Months!

 It doesn't seem possible for you to be 10 months old already!  It seems like you try something new every day, and are growing in so many ways.  Mommy's favorite thing that you have started doing this month is SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!  Hallelujah!  It's only been for the last week, but it has been heavenly.  It must be because you are wearing yourself out as you play and crawl all day.  You are quite the little explorer and are curious about everything.  If we put you down to play with your toys in the living room and go to do something in the kitchen, you will crawl over to find us.  You are growing weary with your exersaucer and jumparoo - probably because they keep you contained and you can't roam free when you are in them.  We used to be able to put you in there for chunks of time to keep you entertained while Mommy vacuumed or made dinner, but now you aren't having it.  You want to be out and free!  When we are in the kitchen working, you love to play with spatulas, wooden spoons, tupperware, and anything you can get your hands on in the dishwasher.  You learned the hard way earlier this week that the dishwasher shelves roll.  Most of the time you like to play independently - you don't want to be messed with, and you want to choose what you will play with.  You do still love wrestling with Daddy and shooting hoops with Daddy - two of Daddy's favorite things as well.  When Mommy has you upstairs in her bathroom, nothing is safe anymore!  We have to close all of the doors to our bedroom, the toilet, and the closet or you will roam in while Mommy is showering.  Earlier this week you wandered into Mommy and Daddy's closet and in the 3 minutes it took Mommy to get out, dry off, and get you - you had pulled most of her shoes off the shelves onto the floor.  You just looked up at me, grinning - "look what I did, Mom!"  You have also started pulling yourself up on everything - bookshelves, the entertainment center, couches, the bathtub...  And speaking of the bathtub, you still LOVE your baths - as well as throwing all of your toys into the bathtub when Mommy is getting ready.  When you are playing downstairs, you basically start on one corner of the room and make your way around until you've played with everything and the living room looks like Hurricane Evelyn just came through.  One of your favorite things is to pull all of the books off of your bookshelf and "read" to yourself.  This month we started using the Burley (bike trailer) to go on bike rides.  You really like to be outside and ride along with Mommy and Daddy.  You also like your new swing outside!  Eating has become much less of a chore this month as you generally will eat what we give you - especially if it's something you can pick up and eat by yourself.  Vegetables are your favorite (green beans, peas, corn, and carrots are the front-runners) - thank God for individually packed tubs of these!  You also like deli meat and cheese, and most fruits.  You still have no teeth, so pretty much everything you eat is still pretty soft.  You started eating Cheerios this month for snacks.  And finally, we had to lower the mattress in your room this month.  You figured out how to pull yourself up onto your knees - and though you were very cute peeking over the top of the bumper when we walked into the room - we didn't want you bailing out.  Mommy used this as an opportunity to rearrange your room!  Baby girl, you are such a sweet, blissful, joy in our lives.  Everyday is a new adventure with you, and we are so thankful to be your Mommy and Daddy!  Happy 10 months sweet Pete!

Nine Month Pictures

I forgot to post these earlier...oops!  Here are Evelyn's 9 month pictures from Cat, our amazing photographer!  I also like to refer to the ones that I am in as the, "OK - it's time to lose the baby weight" pictures. :-)  So look at her, not me!

A Swingin' Good Time

Since we bought Evelyn's swing - it's one of her favorite things to do.  Now if only we could keep the impending South Texas summer from coming...ugh.

Here's a video of her fun today!

Sorry if you get a little motion sick...

Reading Corner

Now that Evelyn is getting around more easily on her own, one of her favorite things to do is to crawl over to her bookshelf, pull out all of the books she can reach, and "read" to herself. 

This reading Mama loves that she loves books!

 Moved a little too fast!

 There's still a couple more in here...

 Once upon a time...

 Did you see what I did, Mom?

Big Day for Big Girl Things

Evelyn has had a pretty big last couple of days! 

She's full-on crawling now...

She's been sort of scooting and army-ish crawling for the last few weeks, but decided it was time to get busy and really crawl.  Of course, she did this while I was in Austin for a conference :-(, but at least Daddy was home with her to witness it for the first time!  Fortunately she loves her Mama, and crawled for me as soon as I got home!  She was all over the place today - with the red knees to prove it!  (This picture is awful, I know...we'll get some real ones up!)

We also lowered her crib down to a lower setting.  She's mastered sitting up from laying down, and has started pulling herself up on the side of her crib.  She's not quite pulling up to standing, but she'll get to her knees (and then cry because she can't figure out how to get back down!).

A big girl crib for a big (little) girl!

And just because it was cute...a video of Daddy making Evelyn laugh.  She (of course) was laughing so much harder before I started to video..but it's still cute!