Daddy/Daughter Sweetheart Tea

The daughter and The Daddy for the last church hosted sweetheart tea.
Our Katie is not much into princess stuff. But she does own a few princess dresses and she did want to wear one if she could choose the shoes.

Love her style.

Katie has always had lots of fun at these Daddy/Daughter nights. She is most excited about planning a Daddy/Daughter date night.

After the end of the evening she said, "I love my Daddy because he is fwunny and nice. We had fun because he finally let me paint my fingernails!"

Something I Missed

I missed Collin's weekly assembly at school where he was called forward for his birthday.
You see...I don't miss things like this. I just don't.

But this was Jackson's first week out of the hospital and he was on house arrest. But The Dad got to attend and he took lots of pictures and told me all the songs they sang and told me how Katie reacted to seeing Collin go forward, etc. He spared me no detail. And I felt like I was there. Thank you my love!

The Lorries

A few weeks ago we made the trek to the zoo with some dear friends. I always ask the kiddos to tell me the ONE animal they must see or they will be so sad when we leave. On this day, Katie asked for the Lorries.
See she really wanted one to land on her. But I wasn't springing for the $3 tablespoon of bird juice. Nope. I kept telling her to be still and one would come near.

So our Mrs. Catherine saved the day when she did a bird transfer so Katie got to have a birdie on her!

She is so excited! And our sweet friend even go in on the Lorrie action.

And a note about myself: I do NOT like Lorries. When I taught 2nd grade science in Houston, at a prep school, so yes, we rotated classes and I taught all 2nd grade science! (It was so fun!) But when I taught 2nd grade science in Houston, I attended the first ever teacher camp at Sea World. And oh. my. word. it was eye-opening for many reasons. We were priviledged enough to get up at 5am and feed the animals! One of my animal rotations was with the Lorries. And when you come in with food, they WILL land on you. I had about 10 on me and a few on my head...I can still feel the little birdy feet scratching my scalp...disgusting! I think I might even have a fear of those birds now. This day at the zoo I wore a hoodie and had my hood up and tied tight around my face, I'm sure I looked adorable! But oh, the things we do for our kiddos, right?

He doesn't seem to mind

that rocks are in his shoes. Recess begins at 12:00 and then I guess Collin will continue to walk around in these shoes without emptying the shoes until he walks into the house at 3:30. I'm starting a pebble collection in the backyard.

Collin turns 9!

February 20, 2003 was a super exciting and scary day! Collin entered the world via emergency c-section 1 day before his due date! He spent 1 week in the NICU but has been a pretty healthy guy since then.
This year he had a day off of school since it was President's Day! He was thrilled to be at home in his jommies and also thrilled that little brother was better and home from the hospital!

Jackson....getting into stuff. He just can't keep still long enough for me to get a good photo. And oh my...I do need to mop my kitchen floor!

My attempt at making a Lego cake that I saw on Pinterest. The white piece looks really good! By the time I got to red and yellow I was ready to stop icing marshmallows! So don't judge...I was still sleep deprived from the hospital stay.

And here are our lovelies! This Friday, March 23 we will finish celebrating Collin's birthday with a trip to Legoland in Texas. Collin is much like me in that he likes to stretch out the celebrating of the birthday as long as one will allow! We love our smart, creative, magical, dramatic and funny boy! What a joy he is!

The Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very-Bad 4 Days

The day my mom left town, a Monday, Jackson got a diagnosis of croup at the pediatrician's office. Wednesday I took him back because he wasn't getting better with the steroids. Doctor, whom I love dearly, took a chest x-ray and determined he had pneumonia and an ear infection, so we added antibiotics. That Wednesday night things got worse.
When we went back to the doctor for the 3rd time that week, I was told to take him straight to Children's and that Dr. Grant would meet me in the ER. It was 9:25am on Thursday morning. Matt was to walk into class at 9:30 to teach. I jumped in the van with Jackson, handed him the GPS so I could hear him doing something and sped off to Children's. And honestly, I only knew that Children's was near the Capitol but that's it. Called Matt. Gave him the update. Prayed.

Jackson spent 6 long hours in the ER, until he was stable enough to be transferred to the PICU. The picture above is what Jackson looked like from about 5:00pm until about 5:00am the next morning. I remember being so happy that he wanted to hold a car! And I covered him up with his very special blankie. That night the doctor told us he did not have croup, nor pneumonia, it was RSV and a pretty bad case.

And this machine is what we watched for the next 4 days. Mainly watching the blue number - how much oxygen was his body absorbing. His number at the pediatrician's office was 85. :( But at the time of this photo he was on "comfort flow" of oxygen at level 7, so he was at a perfect 100!

Matt brought Collin and Katie up to see Jackson that night and I was allowed to take him out of the crib briefly before they got there. But because he was hooked up to so many machines, I could only sit right next to his bed and Collin and Katie couldn't get too close. In fact, they were scrubbed down and dressed in a paper gown and a face mask. I wore the same little outfit until Saturday when they sent him to a regular hospital room. And they were scared. They wanted to see Jackson, but I don't guess you can prepare your kiddos for seeing brother all hooked up and sick looking.

Grammy showed up early Friday morning. Matt was on Jackson duty. I went home to shower and pick up Katie from kindergarten. We went to eat lunch at Cici's Pizza and I remember thinking how weird it was that everyone's life was still going on so normally while my little baby was so sick at the hospital. :(

Friday brought the good news that we could get him out of bed and take off the face masks! So from 5:00am Friday morning on...Jackson was held. By me. By Matt. By Grammy. He loved playing on her iphone, because it has WAY more games than mine! And it was a great distraction from Jackson's 1 video that we had put on loop on the PICU TV...."Buckbase" AKA Backyardigans.

Sunday. Jackson got unplugged from all machines at about 10:00am. Three days earlier than expected! I don't believe in coincidences. I do believe in prayer. And at a time when I could literally only utter the words, "God, please" and that's it, I know it was the prayers of many family and friends that held us up.

Since Jackson had been in a bed for 4 days, he couldn't walk well at all! It was quite humorous. I wish I had videoed it.

This is what he wanted to do as soon as he got home - play "ball ball gee shoot". Jackson stayed on house arrest for 8 days and we did breathing treatments at home. He got an "all-clear" from the pediatrician, which was fabulous news. But we also got a warning...Jackson will most likely get RSV again next winter. :( But then the next one, we should be good! Thank you blog friends and family for praying for our boy.

Happy 38th to me!!

Here I am at 37 (above) and one year later.....
my self-portrait on the actual 38th birthday has NOT been airbrushed! But I believe the 37 year old one has had some touchups done to it...thank you Chiara Davidson! I LOVE my birthday! I really, really do! I think my day is such a great day...Feb 1. I think my year is such a great year...1974. I love to think about my young parents having their first baby at 11:44pm, my mom sleeping through the delivery (because they put her out) and my dad in the waiting room (this is the story I remember being told long ago). It's a great day to be alive! Also...I also love that when I finished first grade it was 1981...1 for first, 2nd grade in 82, 3rd in 83...you get it! Always loved that little factoid. But enough about me...

For my birthday and Collin's birthday, my mom always comes up for a visit. Yay Momma! Apparently we had so much fun that I only took 2 photos the entire visit!

Jackson...very sad that "Rammy" is getting on the plane. He still says "Rammy...plane...high...big high" when he plays with his toy airplane or sees one in the air. He's so cute!

Later on this day...Jackson would get a "croup" diagnosis at the doctor. The beginning of the bad and scary week.