Teeth

My baby now has 8 teeth. He has 2 molars that just poked through within the past few days. (So I guess that's 10 teeth now) Another one is on the way. The one that was all blistered up and had made his gums the size of a small grape is the one I noticed that finally poked through the gums today. I guess I can't be too mad at him when he wakes up crying in the night. Afterall, look what he's going through!
p.s. Off to the Carolina basketball game tonight--- yeeee haaaw!

Mixture of thoughts

Do you ever notice how you love change only when its planned?! Today I decided to rearrange some of our furniture in our apartment. I moved our love seat out of the "dining" room. (Basically we were using it as an extended living room because it is right past the living room.) I moved the love seat out into our living room which makes it a bit tighter but it still works. However, I moved ALL of Ethan's toys into the dining room so he has a play area which neatly hides the toys! I think I like it. As I was moving the furniture Matt called to ask if we wouldn't mind hosting a bible study group in our home. It was perfect because now we have more seating in the living room! But of course if he would have called and said. "Honey, we're hosting a small group in our house. Can you see if we can rearrange the furniture to make more seating?" Then I wouldn't have gladly accepted that change as easily! Ha.
Ethan is really starting to jabber and wanting to talk more. His currently vocabulary consists of "mama, dada, ball- comes out more like baw, and cheese- which comes out more like eese. It is so cute! The cheese thing he just started today. I decided to give him a piece of sliced cheese with his lunch today and I said, "Ethan, do you want some cheese?" And he said "Eeese"! Then he repeated it over and over again. We'll see if he does it again.
As mentioned in the previous post he LOVES to look out the window. Today he crawled over to it and just sat there looking out. It was so quiet I had to check on him to make sure he wasn't into anything. I am seriously getting an itch for spring and summer. I have all these plans now. I need to stop and enjoy the cool weather before it gets so hot and humid...because then, of course, I will be desiring fall and winter again.
Monday my running partner and I ran 2 miles again. I think we are running again today. It feels so good to be active. Now I just need to stop drinking coke and drink more water. I despise the fact that my husband eats all he wants and doesn't gain an ounce. Yet I gain 5 pounds just looking at a can of coke. I really don't care about diets and such... I just desire a change in lifestyle. Truly... because of family history of diabetes and such, I NEED to stay healthy and in shape. It's just easier said than done. We were watching part of Biggest Loser last night and she said that the average person consumes 50lbs of sugar per year just by drinking cokes. WOW! That is disgusting just thinking about it. But it didn't stop me from drinking a coke with my lunch. I'm cursed. I HAVE to drink more water to stay hydrated especially if i'm running more.
Well enough of my randomness. Ethan isn't napping well today and that makes it so hard when he's only taking 1 nap a day. So I need to run and get some things done while he's confined to the crib.

A window watching walker

Our son is officially a walker. Now of course he isn't running across the room and his walk is wobbly, but he can now walk about 8 steps back and forth from mommy to daddy. Today he actually crawled up to our ottoman, pulled up, turned around and walked a few steps. He pretty much learned to walk in a week. Now I know it is a long process and it will be a little while before he's walking from room to room, but we are so proud of him and we LOVE watching him get excited. He is so proud of himself. He smiles and laughs and has the face like, "yeah, look at me". It's so cute. Today I took him to get his foot measured because Grammy is going to buy him a pair of crocs and sneakers for his birthday. He is a 5 1/2 wide. Almost an extra wide. He's got a fat foot!
Today we also sat by one of our front windows and he just looked outside for like 15 minutes. There were cars passing and kids walking outside. A bird even flew right to this holly bush and started eating the berries off. Ethan just watched that bird and smiled. He LOVES animals. I can't wait until he's old enough to enjoy the zoo. Matt and I love the zoo so it will be so neat to take him there. Is it bad that i'm already ready for spring and summer?! I cannot wait to take him to the pool and enjoy the park.
Anyhow, I guess that's all. He is all healed up from his rash. I am much more of a relaxed and happy person than I was a few days ago...and so is he. Praise God he is feeling better!

"WOW, a bird!"

DRAMATIC progress!

I am blown away by the difference between yesterday and today. You do not realize how happy we are to have our son back. His personality is back in full force. We know he is feeling better and looking SO much better!

"Thank YOU for your prayers!"
I've missed this smile...even if it is full of goldfish!

Erythema Multiforme meets generosity and faith

It is amazing how something you once never knew existed becomes a term in your daily vocabulary. It has been a battle but Ethan is starting to get better. Last night was the true turning point for my baby. He slept well and woke up looking a lot better. The rash is completely off his stomach and his legs are looking a lot better. It all started with his stomach, so now that it is gone hopefully the rest of his little body will follow. My poor baby has literally been suffering the past few days and it has been a challenge as a parent to see and not be able to do anything. But in and through this all God has had his hand on Ethan. Although it has been rough, it truly could have been worse.
There have been people all over the world praying for my son. We just thank you and praise God that he designed a way for people to help even if they can't be here. We thank our families and friends for how they have been so generous with their time and gifts. My in-laws helped watch Ethan while we napped yesterday. Dee cleaned the vomit out of our carpet and cleaned our whole kitchen. Eddie was a great playmate for Ethan and helped take out our trash. My brother-in-law and his family picked up some bananas for us and surprised Matt with a sports magazine and me with a starbucks gift card. (I left our bananas and grapes at the grocery store last week on accident) My mom stayed the night and helped with Ethan and my dad came over this morning and cooked us a nice big breakfast. It just blows me away how people come together in a time of need without question. We appreciate the e-mails and the notes of encouragement left on this blog. All of this has really pushed me to want to help others in need. And like I said, although this wasn't life or death, it was serious for us and we appreciate everyone being there for us. Ethan is napping right now, but I hope to post some good pictures soon because he is looking so much better.

Pictures

We made another trip to the doctor this morning because he was throwing up. Basically we have to wait this whole thing out. There is nothing more we can do. The top 2 pictures are from this morning. He has to wear his mittens to keep from scratching. The bottom one is from lunch this afternoon.

So much worse

I am writing because I can't sleep and i'm emotionally at my wit's end. Last night got so much worse so quickly. It was weird because he seemed to be doing better but around bed time his hives started getting worse. We called the ER again because he was crying non-stop for 2 hours and his eyes were swelling shut. It was like he was so uncomfortable that he was trying to rip his skin off. They told us to bring him back in. So we went to the ER again last night. The Dr. seemed to think it was an allergic reaction for sure. His main concern (and ours) was to get Ethan comfortable. He was in such pain and discomfort. We were there until 4:30a.m. Ethan was awake a total of 12 hours before he finally fell asleep at 3:00a.m because he couldn't settle down and get comfortable. The Dr.'s had to give him a narcotic to relieve his pain and knock him out. They were giving him double the dosage of benedryl and it was not making him sleepy or knocking him out. They even gave him another anti-histamine that is stronger than benedryl to help and it wasn't working. The steroids weren't working and the 2 other prescription med's we've gotten the past 2 days are now worthless. It was SO rough for us last night. Even with my mom there and Matt's dad, our hearts ached for our son. He just cried and cried and pulled at his skin. He wouldn't relax or settle down for anyone. Not even me. And that just broke my heart. His eyes swole up off and on and nothing seemed to help. The main goal was to get him asleep and comfortable and when that finally happened they let us come home. They said that this reaction or whatever just has to pass on it's own that there is nothing we can do- we can only try to ease his pain. The Dr. said at this point we are treating him like a burn victim. That is what he is feeling. So anyhow, we got home and got in bed at 5:00a.m. and Ethan woke up at 8:00 so I fed him, gave him more med's and he went back to sleep. I just can't sleep. Matt and I are trying to catch up and regain some energy. But I can't. I just laid in the bed praying and crying because I felt so helpless. I decided to come on here to write out my thoughts and just get everything off my chest. I mean my poor baby is sleeping in his winter mittens to keep himself from scratching his skin off. Literally. He made the back of his head bleed last night because he couldn't stop scratching. All of this to say, THANK YOU for your prayers and PLEASE PLEASE continue to pray for Ethan. I know this isn't life or death but this is the hardest thing i've had to go through.
We go to the Dr. tomorrow again to check on him.

The "fun" never stops.

Well. It has been a whirlwind of events the past 24 hours. We got home from the Dr. yesterday like previously mentioned. Ethan took some Zyrtec before bed. He slept a good 2 hours before the fun began. He was up ALL night whimpering and crying. He seemed to be in pain and discomfort. Matt and I were up with him taking turns. I even had him in the bed with us for a few hours hoping he would get some sleep. Finally around 4:00a.m. when he was up crying I took his temperature. He had 100.5 temp. I decided to call the nurse line at his pediatricians office that connects to a nearby hospital. When we turned on the lights to take his temp. and call the Dr. we saw that his rash had gotten SO much worse. It was all over his face and his eyes were swollen. It looked like someone punched him in the eyes. His hands were swelling and it was not looking like the medicine was helping at all. So after some calls to the Dr. they concluded that he couldn't wait until a check up that we needed some help. So off to the Emergency Room we went. We went to a hospital that was further away because it had a special pediatric ER. Although we were there for several hours it was actually a "quick" trip. They determined that he was not having an allergic reaction that it is something else called Erythema multiforme which basically means his body was responding to a viral infection. The viral infection being the ear infection that he was on medicine for. Because of his rash and the hives shape they were able to diagnose this. He had what they called "target leasions" - a circular hive with a clearish center which looked like a target. The ER Dr. actually brought out a text book and showed us pictures. The nurse that saw Ethan was like, "impressive... they should take a picture... he is one for the books!" Apparently we weren't the only ones thinking that Ethan was looking pretty rough. It didn't make us feel good, but it was nice to be acknowledged that he was going through something serious and it wasn't just mommy and daddy over reacting. So anyhow. Praise the Lord it was something that we can just give him benedryl for and also steroids to help. Hopefully it will be gone in a few days, but they said it could take up to 10 days or so. I took pictures for my own benefit, but of course it is nice to be able to post them. However, these pictures do not honestly do it justice. The lighting and flash just wasn't able to pick up the true look, but you get the picture. Tomorrow we have a follow up appointment and hopefully we're on the road to recovery. I am just praying that tonight brings a lot more sleep than last night.
Thank you to friends and family who called, prayed for, and helped us out.
While I was typing this post my son was practicing walking with his daddy so here are some walking pictures I snapped as well.

Circular sores, swollen ears
swollen red hands
This picture really looks better than it was. Both his eyes were red and swollen.

Never too sick to practice walking!

So sad

This is so sad. Throwing up was rough, diahrea was rough, ear infections aren't fun....but this has to be the worse for some reason. I can't stand to see his little body like this. He is itching all over and it just seems to be getting worse. I know i'm not a doctor, but to me it just seems like more than an allergic reaction to medicine. It is all over his armpits, back, neck and head as well. Please pray for my little boy.

Allergic Reaction

We just got back from the doctor. Ethan had an allergic reaction to his Amoxicillian he was on for his ear infection. When I got Ethan up this morning and went to change his diaper he had a rash all over his stomach. Throughout the morning it got worse and worse and spread to his neck, armpits, hands, and feet! He even had them on his face and head. I knew he was having some kind of reaction to something but we didn't know what. The Dr. concluded it was to his antibiotic. However he had this antibiotic before and this is the 8th day out of a 10 day cycle. She said that sometimes allergies to medicines don't show up until the second time you are on them. My husband and my dad have allergies to medicines so I guess it got passed to Ethan. My poor baby. He was scratching all over. I tried to get some pictures but didn't want to pester my son who is already in pain, but here they are. Now imagine these hives and rashes all over his body and worse than what is pictured. :(

My boys

I am in love with my son. He brings such joy to my life... even if he's waking up every hour in the night from an ear infection. Just like marriage- we're in this through thick and thin!
We were running errands this afternoon and as we were strolling through Target my husband goes, "oh yeah, I forgot to show you.... Ethan give me a high five" and he put up his hand and Ethan high fived him!!!! While my son does do a lot of things quickly high fiving and waving bye are not one of them. Well Daddy actually taught him something all on his own. Going back to work has been hard on me and praise the Lord I get to stay home again with him starting next week... but I am SO thankful my husband got to spend the past 3 months being a stay at home dad. It has really strengthened their relationship and really gave my husband insight into what it means to be a stay at home mom. I am so happy to see that Matt got to teach something to Ethan all on his own! Ethan has also recently mastered clapping... for the longest time he would wave his arms back and forth but just couldn't get them to meet in the middle. It was funny... like watching a baby bird flap his wings to learn to fly. So anyhow, here are some pictures of my family whom I love with all my heart!!!!

I just love this shot for some reason
My boy and his trucks
High fiving with daddy!
"Teething BITES!"
So sleepy at the end of the day! After his bath last night he curled up on the floor with his puppy- he was ready for bed!

Snow!

Although we did not get the accumulation that was first forecasted, we did get to see our first real snow of the season!!!! Matt and I grabbed each other and jumped up and down in excitement. We've been waiting for this. It was enough to barely dust the ground, but nonetheless we were excited to see it fall. We were hoping to get out with Ethan's new sled, but that didn't happen. Maybe tomorrow we'll take a ride on the grass or something. Today brought a lot of fun as we waited for the snowfall. Grandaddy and grandee stopped by and we practiced sledding in Ethan's toy basket and then moved to the real deal on the carpet. Then Cary and Amanda stopped by. We enjoyed hot tea and hot chocolate with them. Tim, Anna, and Ty walked over and we all ended up ordering pizza with everyone and enjoyed each other's company. The boys ventured out and treated us all to some dairy queen ice cream which was SO yummy! We all watched the snow fall... and our blinds! (I went to let the blinds down out our kitchen window and they broke and fell.) It was a fun day, I just wish we could have gotten more snow. Oh well, I still captured some fun pic's!
p.s. Side story: I am so proud of me and my running partner, Brooks. We haven't run in several weeks due to the weather and other issues. Last night we ran 2 miles! We're working our way up there. We decided to run a 10K (6.2 miles) possibly in March. So we'll see... we need to put off the 1/2 marathon until the fall. BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY, IF I CAN START RUNNING THEN ANYONE CAN DO IT!!

Being pulled around in his toy basket
Clapping in excitement
Practicing with the sled
Watching for snow with Grandaddy

An eventful night

Last night was an eventful night in many ways! Ethan was standing up next to his bounce and spin zebra. I grabbed him by the hand and started to pull him away and the little booger took about 8 steps with me holding onto one of his hands! He has been hiding this talent!! I was so proud of him. The other part of the eventful evening came at night. He woke up every half hour to every hour crying. He had been tugging on his ears recently but I didn't think much of it because he didn't have a fever or cold symptoms, but after last night and the little sleep we got, I knew something was up. Today brought more ear pulling and a 45 minute nap to which he woke up crying so I made a Dr. appointment for this afternoon. We went and found out the poor little guy has another ear infection! While the Dr. was examining him she grabbed him by the hand and he walked with her a few steps. Then after we got his meds and came home, I grabbed him by the hand and he walked from our kitchen to the living room holding onto just one hand! Who knew?! When he does things, he does them over night!!!! Granted he walks real slow, but I can't believe he is getting old enough to be walking soon! Back to the Dr.... while there I had her look at his molar that is REAL swollen and she said because his teeth are coming in so fast it isn't giving his gums enough time to really stretch and it is causing a blister. She actually found that he is getting 3 molars all at one time and they are causing blood to pool at the surface of the gums. She said poor little guy, no wonder he woke up crying. He's got so much going on!!! So there's an exciting post for you. Now off to give my baby a bath and put him to bed.
p.s. my beast of a son weighs 26.3 pounds now and turns 11 months old tomorrow!

Thoughts

I want to post something on my blog, but don't really have anything exciting to post about. So here are some thoughts that are currently running through my head...
I wonder how long Ethan's nap will be
I wonder what i'm going to make for dinner tonight
I really need to go running
Yay for potential wintry mix in our forecast for Thursday morning
This laptop is getting kinda hot from sitting on my lap
I could go to bed right now and sleep until morning
Wow my husband looks cute with his goatee
Well that is about the extent of my thoughts right now. Hoping for some cute pictures or an exciting story to come my way so I don't lose all my blogging fans ;) ha ha.
Since I don't have any current cute pictures. Here is a picture of me around this time last year. This was taken on January 6th at a Carolina Hurricanes Ice hockey game. I look like I am about to pop!!!!

Girls night

Girls night was a success and a lot of fun! My parents took Ethan for the night which was nice. They got to have a lot of fun with him. Us girls had a good time together. We ate salad, pizza, brownies, raw cookie dough out of a cup (thanks Lynn!) and much needed coffee. We had a blast playing music catch phrase. We watched the movie Holiday which was a cute movie and we stayed up until 2:00a.m. talking. My friend Amanda and I shared a bed and talked to about 3:00a.m. Needless to say we were all zapped this morning when all the kids got us up around 7:30. My husband is back in town! YAY! He brought Ethan and I ASU shirts because the retreat was up in Boone. I got a 3-peat t-shirt for my mountaineers winning the State Championship 3 years in a row! Both of us cannot wait until bed tonight, we are SO tired! Matt is getting ready to go play basketball with some men from church and my friend Brooks is going to come over in a few. We are debating about running a 1/2 marathon in April or we might do a 10K. We have a lot to discuss because I want to do it...but I don't know if i'm ready for the training!!!
Hope you enjoy your Sunday services tomorrow!!!!

Slumber Party!

My husband is currently out of town with a few other men on a church staff retreat. I am jealous because they got a cabin up near Boone. But oh, won't they be jealous when they hear of all the fun that we are going to have tonight at our SLUMBER PARTY! The wives of the men + a few extra ladies are all getting together tonight for some fun, food, and fellowship! The night will start off with a evening of fine dining which will consist of salad and pizza! Then we'll move onto dessert, games, and fun. We will end the evening with a Slumber Party where we will all stay the night at Anna's house! Now, i'm sure we won't be doing pillow fights and painting each other's toenails, but we will have a fun time together! I am really looking forward to a girls night. While some of the women will be bringing their children and the upstairs will be littered with pack n' plays, I will have the privilege of being baby free because my parents want to take on the role of being grandparents and keep Ethan for the night! So i'm SURE you will be seeing a post later on of the stories and pictures from this evening.

Anyhow, onto other things. My BIG BOY has officially dropped his morning nap and is napping in the afternoon only. He hasn't napped at church in a few weeks and I thought he has been ready, but daddy hasn't been as willing to let go of that morning nap as Ethan has. Today he did GREAT! Wasn't fussy at all, but was so ready to go to sleep after lunch. He's been napping for 2 hours now, and I hope he'll make it for one more hour. The past 2 Sundays he has conked out and slept for 3 hours. So we'll see. He's growing up too fast.

I was tagged by my friend Sheila to do a meme. Still haven't figure out that yet, but basically I think it's a blogging forward. You fill out some things and tag a few people to do it. I'll complete my task, but doubt i'll do any tagging. Sorry if I ruined the fun. If you happen to read this and want to do it for yourself, rock on!

My Materialistic Gift/Wish List
1. A new car- if you've read previous posts my husband and I have cars that are dying and I would LOVE to have a new car. Maybe a mini-van or SUV so that we can carry all our baby stuff like jogger and whatnot. I also want automatic windows and locks as well as cruise control because we don't have those things in my car. To end, I would like my car to have somewhat tinted windows so that I don't have to have these tacky looking window shades to keep the sun from burning Ethan's eyes or bald head!
2. A house- So I can have my own back yard so we can get a dog. Also the increase in size would be nice compared to having an apartment.
3. A daily massage and work out with a personal trainer.
4. A maid- I love cleaning, but sometimes I would LOVE for someone else to do it for me. So maybe someone to come in and do the laundry and clean once a month.

My Spiritual Gift/Wish List
1.Patience
2. Love for the hard to love people
3. Self discipline for daily time in the Word
4. Not to be judgemental or assuming of people
...this list could really go on forever.

It can't snow when it's 70 degrees outside!

Today was absolutely BEAUTIFUL and tomorrow is going to be about the same. We took advantage of the gorgeous weather and went for a walk down to a big park near us. Here are some pictures of Ethan on the swing. He did not want to get out of it when he was done! My boy has learned to voice his opinion.
p.s. We met a man there named Mark who was pushing his daughter in the swing next to us. Pray for him and his family. We invited him to our church and talked with him a good 30 minutes. Being a parent opens up whole new set of doors for meeting and interacting with people. I can't wait until it gets warm again... but I do wish for some snow!!!!!



Here are some cute pictures from lunch the other day. Ethan was wanting the camera so bad.

Gift Card- Holla!

Ok, so my husband and I have 2 shelves on our book shelves that get filled with junk! Bills, papers, Ethan's well visit papers, receipts, and so on. WELL, yesterday I was in a HUGE cleaning mood. I mean, I wanted everything to be organized and cleaned. (No, I am not pregnant going through the nesting stage, I was just sick of the mess!) Anyhow, I found 2 of his birthday cards that he got during his birthday in October. I decided to open them up and read them real quick before they inevitably were going to be thrown away. When I opened the second one I was pleasantly surprised by seeing a Target gift card. I curiously logged onto Target.com to see the balance and it was $50!!!!! What a little unexpected blessing! Money is REALLY tight right now while we are in some transitions and that just meant the world to me. So I already discussed it with him and we will be using it towards groceries. That's what my $60 in Target gifts cards went to that I got for Christmas. I love it when you find money or things that you forgot you had!

HAPPY NEW YEAR- A new year brings a long post with a lot of updates!

I just can't believe that it is 2008! Where did Christmas go?! I think because we were out of it for like 3 weeks being sick and whatnot, that Christmas and the new year just flew by! I can not believe that it is January 1st! My baby will be turning a year old so soon. We've had an eventful few days. We were blessed with some UNC basketball tickets that I was able to give to my husband for his Christmas present. So we enjoyed a WONDERFUL date night while my parents watched Ethan. Matt and I have so much fun together and I absolutely love it. (More about that later) We had a few days of rain which we needed so badly and the puddles and storms were welcomed with open arms. Our apartment complex was flowing with streams and ditches running over. Then last night we had a great time with some friends on New Years. So great of a time that I actually missed the fact that the ball dropped. In my defense they didn't count down on the TV like they usually do AND we were all a little preoccupied with a puzzling math problem. (More about that on another day!) So here are some pictures that tell a little bit more about the past few days!

Preface: Throughout Matt and I's marriage we've had so much fun doing the most random dumbest things. Well we went to McDonalds before the UNC game #1 because Brueggers was closed which is where we were going to use a gift card and #2 it was the cheapest and easiest thing to find. WELL, I got a kids meal and got a little strawberry shortcake doll in it. I started playing around with my camera and discovered a zoom function on it that I didn't know I had. So we started posing the doll around taking pictures. Well that lead to taking pictures of her in random places which led to us wanting to take pictures of her doing everything that we did that night. We were laughing hysterically and having a blast together with this dumb little toy! I guess we got our money's worth.

Matt and I at McDonalds
Picture at the game that got out of order
Modeling with the sweet and sour sauce
Striking a pose with the tickets
Enjoying some popcorn
Guess which row we sat on?!
Post Game- YAY UNC!!!!


New Years Eve with some of the girls(Left to right- Anna, Amanda,Me, Courtney)
Rain and flooding where we live
Our big boy growing up too fast!
"Now I know my ABC's....."

p.s. Since i've been out of comission with my running.... we are starting back strong today. We have a goal of running a 5K in March and then possibly a half marathon later in the year. My brother-in-law thinks he wants to start running too. So we'll have to get a little running clan started. I'm sure you'll be hearing more about running later on as well!

Thank you Jesus for a wonderful 2007, You blessed us with more than we could ever imagine! Looking forward to a wonderful 2008!