Saturday, June 30, 2012

My Favorite Things

A Daddy and a Little watching cartoons on Saturday morning...

Friday, June 29, 2012

Week by Week Photo Book



I have created a number of photo books for Evelyn over the last year.  It's scrapbooking with out the mess. :-)  This past one, Shutterfly gave me the option to post to my blog.  I'm not sure how it works..but we'll give it a try!

You'll love Shutterflys award-winning photo books. Try it today.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Daddy's Girl

The NBA Draft is a quasi-holiday in our house.  I annually remind Dan that it is the anniversary of our first fight.  Such a special night.

Last year I send Dan a picture of Evelyn with a basketball to wish him a Happy Draft Day - so I thought I would do the same this year.  Then I had to put them side by side and cry because she's getting so big!
2011                             2012
This was the reason it was so hard to get a still shot this year...
Apparently the, "No Talking During the Draft" rule that caused our first fight is revoked when there is a cute baby around. 
Dan was cracking Evelyn up by bouncing her little basketball.  
I wish I would have turned the video on 5 seconds earlier so you could really see her loose her balance because she was laughing!


Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Sixteen Point Five

As in sixteen pounds, eight ounces.  This is the weight Evelyn has more or less been at since February when she was 9 months old (she was actually just under 16 then).  We had her follow-up appointment from her 1 year well check yesterday.  Before I share how that went, I will add that the girl has been eating like crazy lately.  She was a little off when we were in Hawaii, but since we got back (including when she and I were in Colorado last week), she has been eating really well.  Still not a huge milk fan - but eating much better.  We were pretty confident she had grown because she seemed taller (legs looked longer in the high chair/car seat, she felt longer holding her on the plane, etc.).  Well...she lost an ounce and grew 1/2 an inch since May.  This takes her off the charts on the bottom for both height and weight now.  Her doctor has ordered some biochemistry labs and a sweat chloride test.  The biochemistry labs will test for blood count, thyroid hormone, and some other things.  The sweat chloride test is the standard text for cystic fibrosis.  What?!

Apparently low weight gain can be a precursor to the more serious symptoms of cystic fibrosis.  I had always thought of it as a lung disease, but after researching yesterday, I found out it can also manifest in the pancreas.  Cystic fibrosis is a disease where your body does not thin out mucous effectively, so mucous can build up within the lungs or pancreas.  When this happens in the lungs, children usually have a lot of asthmatic symptoms, pneumonia, and/or lung problems - something Evelyn has not had.  When it happens in the pancreas, the mucous build up can keep the pancreatic fluids from secreting into the intestines, preventing vitamins, and particularly fat, from being absorbed by the body.  From what I researched, when this happens kids usually have really fatty or slimy stools (which Evelyn has not had) and are fairly inactive (which Evelyn definitely is not!).

She did the blood lab right after our doctor's appointment - our children's hospital has a lab in the same building as our pediatrician (they are affiliated), so we took care of it there.
That lady poked me, right here...
She is not a fan of blood draws...but let's face it, who is?  Fortunately we didn't have a repeat of her time at Driscoll in January and they were able to get a good vein.  She cried from the point of the needle going in until the needle came out.  When the phlebotomist took the needle out, Evelyn took a deep breath, sighed, and was done crying.  It was cute.  Poor baby.

This morning, she had her sweat chloride test.  For this test, we had to go to the local children's hospital laboratory. 
She loved finding a table and chairs that were her size in the waiting room...
For this test, they attach electrodes to each arm to stimulate the sweat reflex in the skin.  This takes about 10 minutes for each arm.  They then wrap up the arm in plastic to collect the sweat.  They had me put a sweatshirt on her, then bundled her up in blankets to warm her and help her sweat.  We sit this way for 30 minutes, then the test is over.
Here we are waiting our 30 minutes...she got to watch Tangled, so she was pretty content (and it was near nap time, so she was sleepy!)
 The lab tech is taking her sample off now...
You can see the gauze (which collects the sweat and is then sent to the lab) wrapped in plastic.  She actually had something like saran wrap wrapped around this about 50 times as well.
Toward the end of the 30 minutes of her second arm, she was getting a little over it.
They send the samples (one from each arm) to the lab and then test the sweat for chloride levels.  Apparently excessively salty sweat is an indicator of cystic fibrosis.  There are two types of CF - the first type she tested negative for in her newborn screen at the hospital.  Her pediatrician said yesterday that it isn't impossible, but that it's more rare for a child to have a negative newborn screen and a positive sweat test.  The lady in the lab today also said that she has only seen a handful of positive sweat tests in the 10 years she has been doing it.

We are supposed to be getting results for both back in the next day or so.  I'm just ready for them to realize she is just small and nothing is wrong with her!!!

Saturday, June 23, 2012

We Interrupt Your Blog...

...to bring you this...
We have a walker.

Friday, June 22, 2012

Hawaii: Heading Home

Sunday was our last day in Hawaii.  As most of the flights to the mainland, our flight out wasn't scheduled until 7:30 in the evening.  While we were walking to breakfast, Evelyn was telling us she was hungry (she's finally started using some of the signs we've been working on - and she uses "nana" as her word for hungry).  When we finally got to the restaurant we were eating at and I got her banana cut up, she was SHOVING them into her mouth. 
I guess she was hungry.
 Daddy shared his pineapple smoothie with her...she loved it!
 Chowing down on a bagel while we finished our breakfast (macadamia nut pancakes...y.u.m.)
While we were at breakfast, we found out that our flight home was delayed by about an hour.  We were still ok making our connection in Houston, so we weren't too worried.  We then went back to our hotel to get everything packed up in order to check out on time.  The baby gear rental people were coming at 10:30 to pick up everything we rented for the week.  I seriously can not recommend them enough, it was so awesome to not have to pack some of these things, and their prices were very reasonable.  We probably would have paid more than what we did to rent the stuff had we checked the pack and play and another bag for all of her stuff.  Hooray for Paradise Baby!  I know there is another place with cities nationwide called Baby's Away...seriously, best thing we did. :-)
Evelyn loved the safe in our room.
 She also loved pushing her stroller around like a walker...
One last view of the beach as we left the hotel...
We had to be out of our hotel by 11:00, so we spent most of the day trying to find things to do to pass the time until we needed to be at the airport around 5:00.  We drove for a while to give Evelyn some time to get a morning nap in.  We also needed to stop at WalMart to get a new pluggie string - all of the pacifiers but one got packed (at least we hoped that's where they were!), and we needed something for the trip home.  While we were driving, we found out that our plane was delayed for 3 hours now, meaning we would miss our connection in Houston.  I spent most of that trip on the phone with United again (total of about 3 hours now...) getting our connection worked out.  After WalMart and one more lunch at an L&L Drive Inn (seriously yummy), we headed to Hilo Hattie - a major tourist stop for souvineir shopping.  Evelyn found this drum and wouldn't put it down, so we ended up buying it.  It's one of those hand held drums with the little beads that swing to play it.  Right now it's going to be a supervised toy because I'm afraid she'll try to eat the beads and choke on them.
Hey guys, check out my drum!
We then drove some more so she could get an afternoon nap in, then found a park for her to play at.
She loved climbing all over the play structure.
We got to the airport around 5:00 because we were told we still needed to check in on time for our original flight...plus, what were we going to do - keep driving around Oahu?  I think had we known earlier that this delay was happening, we would have paid for a late checkout in our hotel and gone to the beach again or something!  We got our rental car turned back in and got on the shuttle from Hertz back to the airport.  Dan asked me if I had some cash to tip the driver, which made me remember I had put my wallet under the car seat at Hilo Hattie.  Fantastic.  I frantically told the driver we needed to go back...we should have known this was going to be the first of many things not going as planned on this trip home!  Fortunately, they hadn't moved the car and we got my wallet with no problems.  We then got checked in - Mahalo to the nice man who didn't charge us for our bags that were 51 and 52 pounds.  We also got meal vouchers for the delay from United (gee...thanks).
Dan was really thrilled about them.
After dinner in the airport, we found a spot to park for a while so that I could re-charge my phone (using the GPS to get around everywhere driving totally drained it).  Evelyn helped pass the time by being cute and walking with the stroller.  Dan and I both paid $1 for a 5 minute massage from one of those chairs.  Not bad, actually.
Hi guys.  I like walking.
They finally opened up the waiting area for our flight (in the Honolulu airport, some of the gates have a separate waiting area that only opens up a little bit before the flight...ours was one).  We headed in there and found a big window with a bench along it.  Evelyn loved crusing along the window and watching the plane and people outside.  There was also another little girl who was 15 months old playing, so they kept squealing and laughing at each other.
Come on, plane, let's go!
 I just love this little diaper butt picture...
We finally boarded, and left - about 3 and a half hours past our normally scheduled departure time.  This was also about 2 and a half hours past normal bedtime.  Those of you who have kids know that this is never good.  She left the "over-hyper I need to go to bed" stage in the waiting area and entered the full meltdown, screaming stage as we got on the plane.  And the bassinet the lady promised me was going to be there.  It was not.  Actually, the gate agent told Dan she could put us in 3 middle seats so we would have the extra seats, but we had already checked her car seat.  Hindsight, I think I would have PAID them to retrieve the car seat.  So we settled into our bassinet-less, not economy plus that we paid extra for seats and tried to calm the 1 year old.  About 3 and a half hours later...she finally fell asleep.  Props to Dan, no MAJOR props to Dan for holding her the last 4 hours of the flight home so she would stay asleep.  We didn't make a lot of friends on that flight.  We had a fairly quick layover in Houston, then onto Corpus and our own house and beds. 
Here's what a little girl with 4 hours of sleep looks like...
 And here's what a little girl with 4 hours of sleep on the short flight from Houston to Corpus looks like...
We got home and hoped to keep Evelyn up for a few hours.  We had decided to get her onto Colorado time on the way home - she and I would be heading to Colorado a week later.  So rather than get her onto Texas time, only to change her again in a week, we opted to push her back an hour with everything.  So we figured a regular afternoon nap around 3:00, followed by a later bedtime would help her get back on track.  It did.  She took a 3 hour nap, then went to sleep around 9:00pm and didn't wake up until 10:45am the following morning!  Poor Dan had to go back to work that day.  I had woken up when he left and turned on the monitor so I would hear her when we woke up...the next think I knew, I woke up and it was 10:45!  She was a little fussy on Tuesday, but by Wednesday was pretty much back to her normal routine (in Colorado time). 

It was such an awesome trip - we really had a great time with our little family of three.  NASPSPA is talking about hosting somewhere in Italy in 2015...I think Grammie will have to come town to watch the kids for that trip! :-)  So thankful that we are blessed to have the resources to do something like this!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Hawaii: Beach and Banquet

We got up to go to breakfast on Saturday, and met two of my friends from Purdue in the elevator.  We ended up tagging along with them to find a place, and found one not too far from our hotel. 
Evelyn figured out that she likes French toast on this trip, and today decided she wanted the whole piece to herself...
After breakfast, we wanted to take Evelyn to the beach again since it was our last full day in Hawaii.  Our hotel was literally across the street from Waikiki beach, so we headed over there.  We had to dodge a parade to get across the street - which she loved watching the bands go by, but wasn't too thrilled with anything else!
Toes in the sand...
General beach fun pictures...
This picture was actually an accident...I didn't mean to hit the button...but it turned out kind of cool!
And some videos of her beach time...
After the beach, I had to get ready to attend a few last day sessions - so Dan and Evelyn played in the room and took naps.
Evelyn also found the toilet paper roll while Daddy was showering...
I LOVE plumeria flowers...wish we had them in our yard!
The last day of the conference, there is always a banquet.  Megan and I (and others from UNC) always laugh that it's like a wedding without the wedding.  Everyone gets dressed up (some more so than others...), there is usually some sort of entertainment, generally tasty food, and dancing.  It's odd, but tradition.  We sat with Vince and Megan (the same couple we had dinner with on Wednesday evening).  This year, since we were in Hawaii, they had a Hawaiian drum line come perform - it was pretty cool - Evelyn loved it.  Dan took her closer to see and she was dancing around the entire time.
Vince, Megan, me, Evelyn, and Dan
After dinner, Dan took Evelyn up to start getting her settled down and ready for bed while I went to say goodbye to some of my colleagues and friends.  Here are some pictures from that time...
These are all friends from when I was at Purdue...the middle four are all graduated and spread across the country in various kinesiology positions.
This is everyone who either currently is, or has been, affiliated with the sport psychology program at Purdue (since Al has been there).
And these are all of Al's current and former doctoral students (minus one who wasn't there).
So long, NASPSPA.  We'll see you in New Orleans next year!

After the banquet and goodbyes, I got up to the room in time to help put Evelyn down to sleep.  I then went to check us in for our flight and found that they had bumped us from our purchased seats (on the bulkhead, so we could have a bassinet).  I spend almost 2 hours on the phone with United trying to get an answer as to why this happened.  We paid extra for those seats, and the best excuse they could give me was, "the system messed up."  I was less than pleased.  The lady ended up lying to me and telling me that she put me in seats that would hold a bassinet (which I knew wasn't true because I was looking at the seat map as I was talking to her) and that we should take with the gate agent when we checked in.  United Airlines, big fat liars.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Hawaii: Conference Talk and Yummy Dinner

On Friday, I had to give my talk at the conference I was attending.  I was pretty nervous about it because this was the first research project that I came up with entirely on my own and I was giving a presentation about it in a symposium with my former advisor.  Fortunately it went really well and I received a lot of good feedback about both the presentation and the project.
Here we are after our presentation
My former advisor is on the far right...the other two are others in my field who study in the same area.
After my presentation, I was greeted by my sweet baby girl and husband.  Dan had taken her swimming during my session, and the pool was right outside our main meeting rooms.  There's nothing like that sight to make you not worry about your job! 

Dan took her up for a nap while I had some more sessions to attend, then we met up for lunch at a place called Lulu's.  I had gone here on Tuesday night with the Purdue crew for the post-limo proposal celebration and really liked the food I got, so I wanted to take Dan there.  It was tasty, again! This was our view while we ate!
I had a couple more sessions to attend while Dan watched the Celtics-Heat game (at 2 in the afternoon in Hawaii!) and Evelyn napped.  After that we found the major shopping mall in Honolulu, Ala Moana, and walked around there for a bit before and after dinner.  We found a yummy Italian restaurant for dinner, Evelyn loved it - she has had pretty monotonous lunches and dinners throughout the week, so she really loved the pasta!
If the sauce all over her face is any indication...she loved it!

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Hawaii: Zoo - Day Two

Thursday was the first day of my conference, so I was in sessions for most of the morning.  Dan and Evelyn decided to go to the zoo again, and caught the animals out and about.  Dan took some great videos as well (see below). 
A second trip to the zoo with Daddy wore a little girl out!
We went to lunch at a place called Duke's.  It was super yummy (but not on the Jumer List...we found this one ourselves!) and their dining room is just off the beach.  Evelyn loved watching all of the pigeons walking around (and eating the food she dropped).  She also learned how to stand up in her high chair to watch them...a fun feat we now get to deal with at every meal!
After lunch, I had another session - so Dan and Evelyn headed back to the room to play for a while and then take naps...
This is what I walked in to...
Based on her hair when she woke up, it was a good nap!
Playing while we wait for Daddy to wake up (he still wasn't quite at 100%)
OK, Daddy, time to get up!
The rest of the day I was in sessions and an opening reception - so Dan and Evelyn were on their own for dinner.  I made it back up in time for bedtime, but missed most of the evening :-(.

These are the videos from the zoo that Dan took...
These monkeys were talking like crazy...Evelyn was not a huge fan
She will cry when we play these, even now...

This is the beginning of a fight between some monkeys over a ball...


I miss out on all the fun!