Monday, February 27, 2012

Charlie - 1 year old!

Charlie turned one on Friday, February 24th.  We celebrated several days since his party was Saturday afternoon and yesterday we hired a photographer for some pictures.  And finally today we took him for his one year check up at the doctor.  We were told to ditch the bottle and move on to whole milk.  This is a huge relief to us since the Alimentum cans were pricey. 

His new stats:
Weight 24 lb. 4 oz (75%)
Height 30 and 3/8 in. (75%)
Head Circ. 18.5 in (70%)

He got some shots and also a chicken pox vaccine.   And we found out he STILL has a double ear infection, so another round of antibiotics... but let's get back to celebrating his birthday!


Charlie had found some of the masks the hospital sent us home with so of course I had to try it on him.







And here is the birthday boy LOVING his new swing. 

Some pictures of his party are coming your way soon!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Monday, February 20, 2012

Nashville Zoo

E's college friend Sarah flew into town for the weekend and their friend Jessica drove up from Huntsville, AL to visit. Jessica has two little ones, so they decided to go to the zoo Saturday afternoon. Charlie and I joined them (and we even signed up for membership since it's only about 10 minutes from our house - they even gave me an educator discount, nice!).
Kenyon College - E, Sarah, Jessica (and Jessica's husband Mike and their son Joshua.  Their daughter Kate was in a stroller that didn't make the picture)

The sister self portrait: 


The zoo closed at 4pm that day, so we went through everything pretty quickly, but I really couldn't get enough of the flamingos.  They were just so close! 


Maybe too close...watch your fingers CQ! 
Cute little meerkat.  I'm looking forward to our membership and hope to get back to the zoo again soon.
And I don't want to leave out our favorite animal - Winnie (I had to say favorite in case she ever reads this...)  Yesterday morning I looked over to see these two gazing out the window together. 

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Some Good Stuff

Charlie has finally embraced a sippy cup.  He's still much better with a bottle though. 
Pat and I actually got each other gifts for Valentine's Day this year...I got a new purple laptop!
And I framed Pat's Charter.
The other week I took Charlie to McKay's Used Books and got several cheap and new looking books for him and a couple books for me.  My book club just finished reading The Wave and we decided to go with a classic for next month, Steinbeck's East of Eden

Still no walking for Charlie but he sometimes stands on his own and he loves to push his train or a laundry basket.
The other Friday we had two play dates.  I went out to my friend Michal's for us to hang out with her two sons, and that afternoon we went to a little birthday party at one of my neighborhood Mom friend's house.
Her little nugget Liam. 
And his older brother, the birthday boy, 2 year old Graydon.

Pat is not feeling great, but he is feeling ok.  We did come home from the hospital on Thursday afternoon and were back at the clinic less than 24 hours later for his infusion.  They wanted to keep things on schedule if possible and we're glad we could stick to that.

It's snowing in Nashville today, but yesterday we were walking around outside at the zoo!  Hopefully I'll post pictures of that soon.
xoxo

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Valentine's Day


Oh, I wish I had some cute pictures of Charlie in a red shirt with a heart on it from Valentine's Day.  But Pat had to go into the Clinic yesterday for fluids after a night of vomiting.  They took blood cultures and found his White Blood Count is very low. (currently .8 when it's normally around 10.  Low WBC is called being neutropenic, fyi) And he had a 102.9 fever, so he was admitted to Vanderbilt Hospital late yesterday afternoon.  They are closely monitoring his input and output and he got rid of his fever overnight thankfully.  Pat had been feeling great on Monday but after dinner that night his stomach was upset.  He hadn't eaten anything since Monday night until lunch today (Wednesday). 

The first picture was from yesterday when he had the chills...and the second picture is him today, feeling much better.  It is a 48 hour minimum stay, so he is hoping to go home late tomorrow, but we'll see.  My parents and sis have been helping (A LOT) with Charlie, and Dad stayed at the hospital with Pat overnight and I plan to tonight.

Well, happy belated Valentine's (a memorable one for us!) and kisses to you all.  <3

Monday, February 6, 2012

Recent Happenings

I've got a lot for you today!

1.  Last Thursday I went to see my friend Kristen and meet her cute little boy Cullen.  I hadn't seem Kristen in several years, but we've known each other since we were little girls on summer swim team.
Cullen is 8 months old but about the same size as CQ.  They were so cute together!
 We were having such a great time visiting that I kind of lost track of time...
2.  But we made it to the airport and picked up Paul who had flown in for a long weekend.  Charlie had a lot of fun with his Grandpa. 
3.  Paul and Charlie hung out on Friday while I took Pat to get his second infusion.  The process of going to the hospital takes about 5 hours with blood work and meeting with his doctor.
But the actual infusion is about 3 hours.  This is a typical setup:  Pat in one chair and me in the other.
4.  That night I joined my sister, Mark, and Cousin Rachel for an 80s night to benefit the W.O. Smith school.  (they offer music lessons for 50 cents) 
There was a great band that played numbers like "Jessie's Girl" and a bunch more. 





5.  Saturday afternoon our friends Eugene and Kate came over.  Kate had made Russian food for us!  Yum!  Great to see them - and they got a puppy, so hopefully we'll go meet her soon.
6.  Splash time in the bath! 
Don't you touch the duckie. 



7.  Paul helped us tackle a couple house projects, like installing a new shower head and fixing our front porch light.  This has been out for a couple months now and after I had tried new bulbs with no luck, we needed a new fixture.   My parents stopped by yesterday afternoon with some baked brie and we went for a walk (and Dad's arrival meant I no longer had to help with the light, score)
Charlie really wanted to help the boys out there.  Too cute! 
We had a great weekend and Pat seems to be doing alright.  I know his treatment is supposed to be cumulative, but it really seemed like he felt better this weekend than he did after his first treatment.