Missing Camera

So our camera is missing...strange, but then again not so strange. I have a sneaking suspicion that Ainsley maybe did something with it. She loves to play with the camera and she also hides things, or just doesn't remember what happened to them. Our weekend was so busy that I didn't really have time to focus on the missing camera, so I plan on searching the house when I get home tonight.


Anyway, since we have no camera, we have no pictures. But I want to keep on top of my posts, so I'm going to post anyway.


Our weekend was jam packed. Friday we left straight from work and headed to a friend's house for a little get together. There were 5 couples there with all their kids. These were all Clif's fraternity brothers and we were joking about college and would we have ever thought that the kids would outnumber the adults at one of our parties? It is crazy to think about. On one hand college and the years following seem like yesterday...but then again I have trouble remembering my life before Ainsley and Freddie. Anyway, we had such a great time and the kids had a blast. Thanks to Chris and Liza for hosting. I hope we can do it again soon.


My mom and Charles also arrived on Friday. Ainsley was very excited to see them. She loves Grandma and she really loves Mr. Charles. He's so great with her. His son and daughter in law are getting ready for their first baby and he's going to be a great grandfather. I spent most of Saturday dragging my mom and kids around getting ready for the shower I was helping to throw on Sunday. Nothing like procrastinating!


That night, mom and Charles babysat while Clif and I went to dinner. We went to a place on the river called The Boathouse. It was a lot of fun. The atmosphere was awesome. The place has walls of windows and it's right on the river overlooking the city. However, the food was just so-so. The appetizer was good, and the dessert was to DIE FOR!!! But the main dish was just OK. I wasn't super impressed.


After dinner we met up with Jeff and Amy at a local Irish pub and had a few drinks as grown ups with no kiddies around. It was a lot of fun and I'm glad my mom could make it up. Thanks to them for making the trip.


Yesterday, I helped a few other girls throw a baby shower for my good friend Tara. She's due with her first baby in August. The shower was great, and it was fun to hang out with the girls for an afternoon.

Freddie is growing, growing, growing. If my scale is accurate, he is tipping it at 16 pounds. We won't go back to the doctor until August. He's so sweet and loves to be held. He's so cuddly that I really just can't help myself anyway.

Ainsley is ever changing and getting smarter by the minute. She has started enunciating her L's. So, for instance, she used to say Ainsy for Ainsley. Now she's saying AinLLey. It's so funny because her little tongue just trips right over it, but she's trying.

We are in the process of planning her third birthday party, which is so crazy to me because how in the world could my little baby be 3!!!!

Clif is still job searching, but he's had some decent prospects lately so we're keeping our fingers crossed. For now, I'm just trying to be thankful that he gets to spend so much time with the babies.

I have been really busy at work since returning. I've taken on some really large projects, so I'm trying to not miss a beat. I'm also starting a new exercise program tonight, because my little Buddha Freddie made me a big Buddha!

That's all for now. I will try to locate the camera tonight and post some pictures.

What We've Been Up To

Life goes by so quickly. I can't believe I'm back to work, I can't believe it's summer time, I can't believe I haven't written a blog in 2 weeks.

Anyway, I'm not going to write out a long blog for each event I have pictures for...I'm just going to get all caught up so I can move forward.

Let me first tell you that everything is okay with Freddie's ear. It turned out to be a juvenile xanthogranuloma. Which is a benign growth that if left alone will go away on it's own. However, because of the biopsy, it was removed and now it's gone. So we are glad that's all over.

Now on to catching us up...

About a month ago we took Ainsley to see Sesame Street Live. She loved it and once again she desperately wanted to rush up on stage with her friends.

A couple of weeks ago we took another trip to Maymont and had another picnic. This time, Clif's cousin brought his two boys along. Sammy is only a few months younger than Ainsley, and Gavin is about 4 months older than Freddie.

We've been trying very hard to get Ainsley outside as much as possible. I've decided she watches way too much TV and I want her to be more active. A new activity we like to play is "water" as Ainsley calls it. I just fill up bowls of water, give her some stuff from the kitchen and she's entertained for hours.

Then yesterday we drove down to Stony Point mall where they have one of those fountains that shoots water out of the ground. She had a blast running through it and chasing after the other kids.

So that catches you up on all of our activities. The kids are doing well and Clif is adjusting to being a stay at home, solo, dad again.

Ainsley cracks us up every day. She is starting to grasp the idea that things have happened in the past and will happen in the future. She doesn't totally get it and she doesn't always know what to call it. She often uses terms like yestermorrow and last morrow. It's almost as if lengths of time don't exist, there is the past, present and future and that's it. If something happened 5 months ago it happened last morrow and if it happened 10 minutes ago it happened last morrow. If we're on our way to lunch we're going to lunch yestermorrow and if Santa is coming in 6 months he's coming yestermorrow. It's so funny how a toddler's mind works.

She's so much fun. She has such an imagination. She's always talking to imaginary friends or carrying an imaginary puppy. The girl always has something she's holding on to. I'll say "what do you have in your hand?" and one day it's an ice cream cone, the next it's a purse, after that it's a horse...whatever.

Freddie is also doing well. He's getting so big and he's laughing and smiling and talking all the time now. He can still have a bit of a temper, he's not as laid back as Ainsley was, but he's definitely cooling off a bit.

Next weekend my mom is coming to visit and Clif and I are going to attempt a night out. We'll see how it goes.

Quick Update

Hi all! Well I am officially back at work. Good news is that I will probably be able to update the blog a bit more since I am sitting in front of the computer all day long. I know I haven't posted in awhile so I wanted to give a quick update...but sorry, I have no pictures at work.

Freddie is doing great. We had the biopsy of his ear mass on Monday. We should get the results back today or tomorrow. Thank you so much for all of your kind words and prayers. We are truly blessed with such wonderful friends and supportive family. We are so lucky to have all of you awesome people in our lives.

He is 10 weeks old today and at his last doctor's appointment he weighed 14 lbs 12 ounces. He is a monster!!! He seems to be getting over some of his fussiness. He is smiling and laughing a lot more these days. He really responds well to Ainsley. He lights up when he hears her voice.

Speaking of Ainsley, she has a bit of a head cold. I thought it was more serious when she was up most of the night Monday night, but she's feeling better and I think it's just congestion. She hasn't been sick since last January (2009) so I guess we can't complain about a little head cold.

We signed her up for a Romp and Roll class this week. It will start mid June. I'll keep you posted on that. I think she's going to love it and I think it will be really good for her to get away from both mommy and daddy for an hour here and there. I've noticed that she doesn't always know what to do when she's around other kids. She gets super excited to have playmates but she still wants either Clif or me to play with her. I like that she still wants to play with us but I think she needs to learn to play with kids her own age.

I will try this weekend to load pictures from the last few weeks. We've been busy. We went to see Sesame Street Live, we went back to Maymont, we visited friends and we took lots of pictures. So I will do my best to use the long weekend to blog.

Hope all is well and everyone has a fabulous Memorial Day Weekend!

Biopsy Monday

We are getting a biopsy of Freddie's ear mass on Monday morning. Thank God they were able to give us the first appointment and it will be over and done with before lunch time. We just got home from our pre-op visit with his pediatrician and I have to say that we have so lucked out in the doctor department. Ainsley and Freddie's doctor is just the sweetest, most wonderful human. I adore her. I am worried about putting him under anesthesia again, but basically I know that he'll be fine and this is a minor thing. But she knows we're worried and she shared such a personal story with us about her own child, it just made me love her even more. She gave us a whole speech about how hard it is to get through these things but it just makes you realize what a blessing you have and how Freddie is so lucky to be born to such loving parents and that he's being taken care of. Honestly, if you're looking for a pediatrician in the Richmond area, call me. She is amazing.

I will update the blog Monday when everything's done. Please send us all your good thoughts and prayers.

I have lots of pictures and stories about the last week or so, but I'm trying to wash diapers, calm a fussy baby and get ready to run errands. I'll update soon.

Freddie Update

Thank you everyone for your prayers and good thoughts.

Freddie is doing well. We arrived at the hospital just after 7 and they took him back a little after 8. Around 8:40 he was asleep and in the machine. They called us back to come get him around 10:15. So it took longer than we thought. We won't know any results until we hear from the ENT tomorrow.

He did very well not eating for so long...the Lord definitely answered my prayers on that one! I fed him in the middle of the night extra long, then he slept until after 6 this morning. At that point he was actually very calm. He didn't start losing it until right before 8 when the nurses and doctors were taking his temp and listening to his heart/breathing.

It was extremely difficult to hand him over. I guess I didn't realize how nervous I was until the time actually came. I didn't want Ainsley to see me upset so I went straight to the bathroom. I was afraid she'd be scared if she saw me upset. She was very concerned about her baby brother and why people were taking him away. Clif reassured her and she was good as new by the time I got back to the waiting area.

We are home now and Freddie is sleeping away. He will probably do that most of the day. Perfect for a rainy, cloudy, cold-for-May day.

Cloth Diapers

I started using cloth diapers this week and so far so good. I like them and I feel like they're not as much work as I had anticipated. I guess I'll have to get back to you in a few weeks.

Here's a picture of Freddie in his cute little diapers. He looks like a little sumo wrestler! We had a doctor's appointment today (which I will explain in a moment) and he weighs 13 lbs 15 ounces!! Goodness he's a little monster!

So the doctor's appointment...We had a follow up with the ENT last Friday and now they're not so sure that the growth in Freddie's ear is a hemangeoma. It's gotten really big and now completely fills his ear canal. So they want to biopsy it, however, before they do that they need to make sure that it doesn't run deeper than they think. So tomorrow we go for an MRI. Today's doctor's appointment was a "pre-op appointment" because little Freddie has to be put under anesthesia. A person has to be perfectly still for an MRI...which is not really possible with an 8 week old.

So please send your prayers our way tomorrow morning. I'm kind of worried, because he's so small. Also, I can't feed him after 2:30 AM tonight. So that should make for a very fun morning filled with the sounds of a screaming hungry baby boy!

Well moving on to other things. Last weekend we went to visit my mom and meet my new nephew Austin. We had a great time and it was nice to see all the kids together. Freddie is way bigger than Austin!

Everything is going really well. Clif is still looking for a job every day and we are keeping our fingers crossed that he'll find something soon. I just started doing jewelry shows again, but I gotta say that I'm probably not going to do as many as before. Life is so busy and I just don't know if I'll find the time.

Ainsley is such a little mommy. And if we thought she mimicked us before, well we were very mistaken. She is literally on my heels all day long. She nurses her babies and puts them in the swing and swaddles them. We even caught her pumping one day! I wish I had that on film. She is growing into such a wonderful little girl and I'm so lucky that I get to witness it. She's so imaginative...even has some imaginary friends...and she really is a good girl. Don't get me wrong, she's not perfect...but she's about as close as they come. And she loves her baby brother.

Maymont

Last week my sister came to visit. She was just here overnight, but we were able to take her and the kids to Maymont park. It's a park in Richmond that has farm animals and bears and a Japanese garden and a bunch of fun sights.

We spent the day walking through the animal and garden areas then had a picnic under a big tree before heading home.

We also picked up Ainsley's flower girl dress for Cam and Amanda's wedding. Ainsley asks to put it on every day.

This weekend we are heading to my mom's house in NC to meet cousin Austin and just spend some time with family. Then next weekend we will head to NOVA for Nanny's birthday. Then I'll be heading back to work soon after that. I'm pretty bummed about it, but I guess it's better than the first time. I absolutely dreaded going back to work after Ainsley. This time, I'm not dreading it as much, but I'm still sad to be going back. I feel like I have to pack as much as I can in to these last 3 weeks. And Ainsley is still not potty trained. I promised myself she would be by the time I went back to work.

Well, that's all for now. Not much exciting going on. Hope everyone has a good weekend.