Evan is 15 Months

Evan had his 15 month check up yesterday....which took forever! He was 31 inches (50%) and 24.15lbs (55%) and his head was in the 90th%! He had a rash on one side of his belly and under his arm...not sure what that was about.

He talks all the time now. He attempts to say anything and even though it doesn't always sound like what it should you can tell what he's saying (when you have visual reference) by the syllables. He's working on animals sounds...he's got woof, rahr, quack, moo, neigh and maybe an oink every once in a while. Of course NO is his favorite word!

He loves to take anything his brother has away from him. He got to meet the Time -Out spot on his birthday because I caught him crawling on the kitchen table..which he did to steal his brother's hot chocolate. He did it 3 times! Also he threw Connor to the ground the other night when the neighbor girls were at the door because he wanted to see out. He's rough and is going to get what he wants no matter what!

His other favorite hobby is following me around crying to be picked up. He does this non-stop and if Dave's asks him if he can take him, he says "NO" and shakes his head. He just wants to be with his Mama all the time...except when there's something to climb on!

He's a sweet boy too! He loves to give hugs and kisses...especially to Elmo and anything with a dog on it! He goes to bed easily and sleeps all night and takes a nap during the day. He runs to the laundry room when you say "Time to feed the dogs" (where their bowls are kept). He runs to the stairs when you say time for bed or a bath. He understands so much it's amazing! Can't wait to see him grow into a sweet little boy!

Krismas

Connor had a cookie with some icing on it...tough to eat when you're 2!

Look the stockings have presents in them! The night before Dave was trying to read the Night Before Christmas to the boys..who weren't really paying any attention. So when he finished Connor told him that he had better turn off the fire and put the stockings back up right (assuming he meant so Santa could come)...guess he was paying attention!

Bodie got a nice big bone which he promptly tried to take outside...but it was too big to fit out the dog door! He eventually figured it out (or I opened the door) then he came back in when he was finished and helped the other two dogs polish off theirs too..presumably without asking.

A pirate ship! The night before we'd tried to get Connor to write a letter to Santa...but all he said he wanted was letters and a treasure chest...we got lucky with those two requests!

Evan worked hard to figure out how to get into big brother's new play-doh!

The boys had a nice Krismas (we found this spelling on The Meming of Life blog and we think it represents our approach). It took FOREVER to open presents and we really tried to make it a small Krismas...not too many presents at all. But they wanted to open and play with each one and then we had to stop for breakfast after a few and it literally took 2 hours just to open them all (and really this picture shows most of them). Connor played straight through until 4pm and then crawled into a corner by the couch and collapsed. They had lots of fun and definitely enjoyed the day.

The dogs were exhausted too!

Every time you turn around Evan has run off, climbed up on the chair and is trying to bust into the computer. He has almost figured out the mouse and is working on cracking our passwords! He's exhausting these days..and he just laughs when you tell him NO! He got to meet the Time Out spot on Friday...which was his 15 month birthday!

Evan got a vet kit that had this stethoscope in it. He has been wearing it like this since Friday (it's Tuesday now and he's still wearing it).

Practice Video

Here's Connor spelling his name and he was able to write the first 3 letters by himself this morning! Big day!

Pics

The boys playing at the park....Evan is mad that Connor is on the side he had been using and is trying to push him out of the way...Connor thinks it's funny!

Evan says...ok, maybe it is funny!

Connor working in his ABC book.

Evan wants to work at the table too. He can climb up onto the chairs now and esp likes to do it when no one is looking. He loves to stand in the chair.

Auntie Breezy and Josh were in town so we had a nice lunch with them! They gave the boys noisy toys...thanks A LOT!

Loss

As most of you know we suffered a loss last week when we found out that the baby that I was 16 weeks pregnant with had no heartbeat.

On Wednesday I went in for a regular check up and the nurse couldn't find a heart beat. She got a second person to come in and try and she still couldn't find it so they got a third person to come in with a newer machine and try. When she couldn't find the heartbeat they called the doctor and I called Dave. The doctor brought in a portable ultrasound machine and she also could not find a heart beat. They sent me upstairs to the big ultrasound machine where they confirmed that the baby was gone. They said that even though I was 16 weeks the baby was only measuring 13 weeks. This could mean that he had been gone for a while and my body had done nothing about it...I had NO signs. We went back down to my doctor to talk with her about our options. She said that she would need a specialist to do a D & E (they do this instead of a D & C when there is a baby involved and in the 2nd trimester).

We met with the specialist on Thursday morning, where they did another ultrasound to again confirm the findings. He talked with us about what all the procedure would include and about our options. We scheduled the procedure for Friday afternoon, but I had to go in on Friday morning to spend the day in the hospital so they could give me meds to prepare for the surgery.

Dave and Nora spent the day with me at the hospital keeping me occupied. The doctor said the meds could cause some pain, but I never noticed anything...I was just REALLY thirsty. I walked into the operating room and we had agreed that I wanted to be completely out for the procedure. They gave me some light meds that put me under but not too deep. They woke me up in the operating room afterward and took me to recovery. I never had any pain at all and still haven't 2 days later. They let me eat dinner and sent me home that night. We were gone for a total of 12 hours. The boys spent the day with a babysitter and were both in bed when we got home.

We decided that we felt that genetic testing was our number one priority because we want to know if there is something that will affect trying again in the future. But the remains will be released to a local funeral home where they will cremate him and give us the ashes. The doctor said that he didn't think that the baby had actually been gone more than a week, but because he only measured 13 weeks he had stopped growing. I feel that it was a problem with the placenta. On the ultrasound they saw nothing physically wrong with the baby, but the timing of the whole thing is about when the placenta takes over and it doesn't look like the placenta was able to do that. This pregnancy had problems from the very beginning...lots of bleeding and low progesterone levels in the beginning, but we thought that everything was fine when we had a normal ultrasound at 12 weeks. The testing the doctor will do may or may not tell us anything...we should hear this week.

We feel grateful that we had already decided to name him Samuel, Sam. I'm not sure why him having a name provides a bit of relief, but it does.

Physically I am doing really well, emotionally it's been hard on us both. I was almost 4 months pregnant. We had bought a new car, decided on decorations for the room, bought a baby book and a blankie. We had a stocking hanging on the fireplace and only 2 days before had started talking to Connor about how he was going to be a big brother again. Our family had 3 boys in our every thought of the future and that is the tough part to deal with.

Also, I have either been pregnant or nursing every single day of the last 3.5 yrs. I am trying to focus on things that I can do now that I am neither (drink spiked eggnog, take a hot bath, wear perfume). The boys are a good distraction because they still get up at 7:30am and go, go, go all day so there is no time to sit and focus on the sadness. And really, that is all I feel...a deep sadness. I am not angry or depressed or anything else but deeply sad.

We know that in a few months we will try again, but for now we will try and mourn the loss of our son, Sam.

Happy Birthday/Hanukkah

Evan had a bad hair day the other morning! That's what happens when you take a bath and then go straight to bed.

Yesterday was Dave's birthday and the first night of Hanukkah. So we had dinner then did birthday cake and presents. Connor sang Happy Birthday to Daddy all by himself...the whole song! Then Daddy unwrapped his bowling shoes! Then we got out the menorah so we could light the candles. Connor again sang Happy Birthday, this time to himself (dear Connor) and then tried to blow out the candles. It's a little confusing having everything on the same day!

Bowling shoes!!!

We had cheesecake which Evan thought was pretty darn good!

Connor is able to say the sounds that go with most letters now. His teachers at school were amazed today when I went to pick him up. He also set a family record yesterday and spelled "Kostusiak" correctly, all by himself while I was on the phone with Grandma Kostusiak. She said he was the youngest to be able to spell it...even beating out Aunt Mary Ann! He plays with letters like other kids play with action figures or cars. That's just his thing...so we go with it.

Evan got a new Elmo for Hanukkah that blows kisses and says "Elmo loves you!" He loves it!

Thanksgiving

Evan LOVES the new van with the DVD player! He says "Ehh-Ehhh" (Elmo) each time I set him in and get him out. You can also see one of his favorite toys in the picture, Dog-Dog. This boy loves dogs and Elmo! He can say "woof" now. He roars when he sees a lion. He makes the "ssss" sound when he sees Sophie. He still only has 5 teeth and he was 14 months last week.

Connor decided to build a fort and of course anything that Connor does...Evan wants to do too. Last night Connor was playing with some big foam letters. Evan would go over and steal one, and if Connor didn't notice he'd go hit him in the head and then run away laughing! It's gonna be a long 18 years with these two!

Helping Daddy put up the tree. The boys aren't actually very helpful with this process. They both refuse to leave any ornaments on the tree. We have had many arguments over whether ornaments are toys or not. Most of ours are hung on the top left so they can't get to them...even when they climb on the chair!

Evan also LOVES to vacuum! It's cute in a most annoying kind of way. He stands in the way when you vacuum. He gets out his vacuum and pushes it around behind you and generally makes the whole process a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

Thanksgiving was kind of quiet around here...just the four of us. The turkey didn't get done in time and those of us that eat at 5pm were having a hard time waiting until 6:30pm. The boys "ate" (Connor ate the roll and Evan ate the roll and turkey) while Dave was carving the turkey. By the time he was done and it was really time to eat, Connor was gone and Evan was throwing a fit and I had to attempt to hold him and eat. I vote for dinner at 4pm next year!

We all seem to have mostly recovered from our illnesses last week. I'm still coughing a bit. Marley seems to be a little more fragile and Connor is having some stomach issues related to the hard core antibiotics, but we're all much better than last week!

Sick

It's been a rough week around our house so far and it's only Tuesday afternoon!

Yesterday when we came downstairs we discovered that Marley had exploded all over the place. There was puke, pee and poop (P3)! She refused to eat or drink too. So we took her to the vet and he kept her all day. He was afraid she was having another bout of pancreatitis. She had no more problems through the day so he let us come get her around 4pm. On the way home, Connor said his ear hurt. Then he proceeded to puke IN my new car! The vet called to check on the dog and got quite a different story than they were expecting! Connor sat in front of the tv for the rest of the night like a zombie. He threw up 2 more times...Evan tried to help by getting him his bucket (which really just spilled puke all over the place) and by sitting directly in front of him and staring at him (which only pissed him off). But by 7:30pm Connor started to perk up and asked for some juice. He had a fever but we managed to get some Motrin in him before going to bed.

He and Marley both slept well through the night, but this morning Connor refused to get out of bed. His fever was up so we called and made an appointment for him. We scheduled with the vet too so we could drop Marley off on the way to the pediatrician. (Marley who was getting pretty mad because no one was feeding her.) On the way to the vet, you guessed it, he puked in the car again, but this time he did a better job of getting it on things. I had to call Dave to meet us at the dr, after throwing Marley at the vet, so we could clean Connor up. Turns out he has sinus infection and a blister on his ear drum! We came home, gave him some meds and he slept for over 2 hrs. Then he wanted juice and two pieces of toast and now he wants to go outside and play! Amazing how quickly they bounce back.

Meanwhile I'm have to feed Marley a tbsp of wet food every 2 hrs. She seems just fine. I would guess that this may just be a precursor to something worse. One of the tests came back 'abnormal' for pancreas function. She was able to fight this round off but it could come back at any time. She had pancreatitis 5 1/2 yrs ago and it was much worse so I'm not sure what this was, but I'd bet it's just being quiet today and will come back in the next few weeks....we'll see.

I seem to have the same cold that caused all of Connor's problems, but I can't take anything but Benedryl and Claritin for it so I'm suffering! I hope this neti pot helps soon!

Evan learned to say "Uh-oh" today at the dr's office. He said it so clearly that I asked Connor if he'd said it.

Dave is still bowling and enjoying it. Unfortunately two of the five people on his team have quit the company in the last few weeks...so we'll have to see if it becomes contagious!

New Stuff

This is not new, but kind of funny. At night Bodie only goes part way out the door and ends up blocking it so neither of the other 2 dogs can get out. You can see his tail sticking through the dog door (sometimes it's his back 2 legs and tail) and poor Sophie waiting for him to get a clue and move on!

Connor is back into letters again...and Evan is into anything Connor is into. Connor can match upper and lower case letter without help and knows quite a few of the sounds. Last night Dave was asking him how to spell things and no matter what he asked the answer was always c-o-n-n-o-r....which was pretty funny. Occasionally if he knew the correct first letter then he'd change the first letter but then spell the rest of his name...i.e.-horse is h-o-n-n-o-r.

He's started to like to write too. He gets up on my desk and writes on whatever I have. We've had some serious conversations about asking if it's ok first. The other day he got the refrigerator and pantry door with a pen and then colored on the computer screen with a crayon. We've got some work to do in this area.

Evan learned to climb up on the fireplace today..he's getting down now. Last Friday he got his 5th tooth...slow going with this one too! He's very into dogs and stealing whatever his brother has away from him. He runs if he has a poopy diaper and laughs as you chase him down. He still shakes his head no if you tell him it's nigh-night time or ask him to say bye-bye to someone. He's a funny little dude!

Tonight we are going to pick up our new van! Yes, I said van and we are ok with it! There really is nothing else out there that is economical and easy and fits 8 passengers. We ended up going with a 2011 and feel that we got a fair deal if not a good one. We got $1100 more for the Mazda at Carmax than we ever thought we would so we jumped on that quickly. I looked around and compared prices and actually got some help from the bank in negotiating the price on this car plus a good apr. We can get 3 large carseats across the middle row and still have room for 5 other people in the car! We can actually pick people up from the airport now and not have to leave cars in the parking lot and text where to pick them up! The boys are excited. They've been having fun running around inside each time we go to talk to the dealership people. Let's hope this is a) a good idea and b) lasts a long time!

12 Week Ultrasound

We had our 12 week ultrasound today called the First Screen. They look at the fluid on the back of the neck and pair that with info from blood work to adjust the odds of the baby having Down's Syndrome or another chromosomal defect. This is helpful because at 38 my odds of having a baby with a problem is 1:150 or so, so this can help us to decide if we want more testing or not. The fluid levels looked low and that's what we want. We will get the full adjusted odds within the week hopefully. While we were there we convinced the lady to take a "look" to see if she could see anything. She said that they've done an in house study and at 12 weeks they've discovered that they're right 70% of the time. (She also said don't tell her boss that she looked!) Anyway, it was pretty obvious that it was a boy! We will not know for sure until the 20 week ultrasound, but I'm pretty much giving up hope of it being a girl. I'll just have to hope my sister has girls so I can buy strawberry and watermelon clothes for them! Now we have to come up with another boy name! I've used all the ones I liked and am fresh out!

Connor got his school pictures back today and they were actually really good. He's getting so big. I was telling a friend yesterday that he's very trustworthy these days and then while I was making dinner tonight he took a blue pen and wrote all over the refrigerator and pantry doors. So much for that!

Halloween

We got a few decorations up in the front. Last year our neighborhood was like a festival on Halloween, but this year it was really quiet. We had TONS of leftover candy.

Evan wanted to go walking around the neighborhood and look for dogs.

Connor figured out what Halloween was about and that his pumpkin was empty and that needed to be fixed. We didn't go to very many houses...they had enough candy from Dave's office.

Passing out candy out front..or eating candy. Connor wasn't very helpful with passing out the candy. He'd run up to our bowl and put his hand on it and stare at the kids.

Connor's class...notice everyone else dressed up!

This week has been kind of rough since I haven't been feeling too hot. Today is the end of the 1st trimester though so hopefully things will start looking up. We have an ultrasound on Tues.

Evan is growing and changing everyday. He is completely obsessed with dogs and Elmo..which seems to be the average one year old obsession. He is a pretty competent walker and loves to follow his brother out to the play set to play in the dirt and sand. He likes to help me vacuum which is extremely annoying. He gets his vacuum and stands right where I'm trying to vacuum and he pushes his little vacuum back and forth as fast as he can. He's been working on this 5th tooth for a week now. It's just sitting there causing pain but not coming through.

Evan goes right to bed at night which is awesome since his brother does not. But he tends to wake up a few times in the night. I know this because you can hear him play with Elmo through the monitor at 2:30am! He also likes to turn on his aquarium and generally find anything he can that will make noise just long enough to wake me up so I have trouble getting back to sleep!

Connor still loves letters and is working on sounds now. He follows directions if he feels like it and his teacher says he's really starting to open up and participate in class. He runs right into his classroom now and I never hear anything negative about not wanting to go to school. He's getting so big!

Halloween Preparations

Halloween has been a sore spot in discussions with Connor. He absolutely refuses to even talk about costumes. The other day Dave asked him what he was going to dress up as and Connor said "I said NO!" So Aunt Mary Ann got the boys these rock n roll shirts so we put those on. I got him a microphone and told him to say "Rock N Roll Baby" into it..which he gladly did to most people we saw while trick-or-treating at Dave's work. As you can see, Evan just wanted to check out the candy.

Then we went to the pumpkin patch. Evan had so much fun hugging all the pumpkins.

Then we cleaned them out with lots of help from the boys.

I looks like they are working together but really Evan is pulling Connor's hand out because he wants to do it himself. He got shipped off to bed right after this.

The finished product...the problem is in TX you can't carve your pumpkins too early....it's hot, they'll mold. So the pumpkins are sitting inside until tomorrow night when they need to do their job. Also a note for next year...don't get the bumpy pumpkins they are really tough and take power tools in order to carve!

The Valley

We had to take an unexpected trip this weekend down to the Valley in TX..McAllen/Hidalgo to be specific. My step-grandmother passed away on Thursday and we decided that it would be worth the trip to go down for the funeral. Ironically my mom and uncle were arriving that day for a scheduled visit anyway. They arrived to find out what happened while they were traveling.

So on Saturday afternoon we packed up the boys and made the 6 hr drive down. Evan's not such a fan of the car, but Connor had his videos and ABC sticker book and he was good to go. We got there much earlier than expected and were able to spend some time with my mom. We decided to stay at the same hotel for convenience, but when we got there it was little creepy. It was one of those with the doors all on the outside...which is a big no-no for safety. We got all ready for bed and discovered that the remote didn't work. So Dave went to the office to get a remote and when he came back a gigantic cockroach tried to take it from him! He fought it off and we agreed it was time to go. He walked across the street to the Comfort Suites and got their last 2 bed room for only $20 more! We packed up the boys at 9:45pm and switched hotels and it was the best decision we'd made in at least a month! The new hotel was very nice and no bugs!

We went to visit Grandpa the next day for a few minutes and eat at my favorite place in the Valley, El Pato. Then we had the visitation at the funeral home that evening. The funeral home had pews instead of chairs and every other pew had a cross on it. Connor ran right up to the pew and tried to pry the "letter t" off...guess we need a little religious education. The boys did pretty well there for about 30 min. until Connor shook his bag of letters all over the place and it was obviously time to go. We went back to the hotel and ordered pizza...another good decision!

The next morning was the funeral and the church had a "crying room" at the back which we walked straight into (after having a conversation that those "letter t's" were called crosses and we can't touch them). We made it about 3/4 of the way through the service but apparently missed the mayor of Hidalgo getting up and saying many wonderful things about Anita and all of her contributions to the community. Then we went to the cemetery which, ironically, is adjacent to their property line so you could see the house from her plot. We decided to say goodbye there and head home.

We are glad we made the trip and hope that my Grandfather's health continues after this loss...they had been married for 42 years...his 3rd marriage I think!

ADK 2010

This past weekend we went to NY to the Adirondacks to visit Dave's family. After narrowly making the plane, it had to turn around due to engine trouble. This is the scene outside our window as we landed...never had this happen before. Our flight ended up getting canceled and we had to get our luggage and go back through all the lines again to get a new plane...which didn't leave until 4pm and it was about 10am at that point. We decided it would be more trouble to deal with going back home (shuttle, parking, packing back up and doing it all over again) so we just stayed at the airport. It was grueling! We didn't make it to our cabin until 2am after leaving home at 6:45am. Then Connor was so wired and confused that he couldn't fall asleep until 5:30am...and you guessed it, Evan was up at 6:30am! It was not pretty!

Evan really, really, really wanted to walk INTO the lake. Not sure what he thought but he was bound and determined to do it so we didn't let him outside much. As you can see it was chilly there.

We had this random Native American statue in our condo that Dave and Scott just had to have their picture with. Scott spent most of the weekend trying to figure out how to get the statue home. Along with this statue we had some very interesting art work and at least 2 mice. It was a nice condo though.

We stayed with Dave's nephew, Scott, and his wife, Erica, and their boys, Braeden (5) and Landon (2). The boys got along great and had so much fun together. Braeden said the best part about the Adirondacks was Connor! So sweet!

Landon and Connor checking out the beach!

We managed to get everyone together for 5 minutes to take a picture. This is just Dave's immediate family...Mom and Dad in the middle, 7 of their children with their spouses and children (17 +1 grandchildren (some with spouses) & 2 great grandchildren) = 34 people altogether! Crazy big family!

We didn't really get to talk with too many people while we were there though because we spent a lot of time wrangling our two. Evan was not happy about the change of venue and refused to be more than 3 inches away from me the entire time (I went to the bathroom with him on my lap most of the time...it was BAD!) Connor spent a lot of time saying he wanted to go home even though he did a really good job of dealing with all the people. This was our 3rd trip in 3 months and I guess it was one too many for them. I just can't imagine trying to do this with 3 next year! We aren't traveling until the trip up next year so I have time to prepare myself.

I had my first appt with my new OB yesterday. She was very nice and the wait time was minimal. She asked if we were planning on having any more and I asked her if she could tie my tubes before taking the baby out! She said she hadn't tried that one, but she'd get it taken care of one way or another. We have another ultrasound scheduled for Nov. 9 and everything is looking as it should. I still haven't had too bad of morning sickness....a bad day with this pregnancy would have been considered a mild day with the last two...so I really can't complain.

Could It Be? #3

Yep, that's it! (In more ways than one!)

I've had some troubles with this one and it turns out it's just a bit smaller than we originally thought. #3 is due May 25, 2011!

I've had cramps, bleeding and low progesterone levels. We were pretty sure that this one wasn't going to make it, but it just kept sticking with it and seems to want to be here. I've been on progesterone pills for a few weeks and those seem to be working. I haven't had any real morning sickness yet, but maybe that's because I'm not as far along as I thought. The baby is only measuring 6 weeks and I thought I was 7 weeks. So let's keep our fingers crossed that it just keeps fighting and that all this drama just means it's a girl!

1 Year Old Stats

We went to the doctor this morning...Evan is 22 lbs 6 oz (45th %) and 29.5 in (45th %)! He's grown over 2 inches since his 9 month appt and only gained 4 oz...all that running after a big brother works the weight off! He got 3 shots and blood drawn and did very well. And we're pretty sure he's about to get a 5th tooth. His brother on the other hand is still crying 4 hours later about the sneak attack flu shot he got. He was screaming in the waiting room and just kept going on and on. He ate lunch with his leg propped on a chair and a towel over it. I'm sure I'll still be hearing about this for months to come!

Evan's Party!

We had lots of friends come over to help us celebrate! Aunt Nora made this awesome cake for our zoo animal themed party.

Evan was pretty neat as cake eating goes.

He definitely liked it too much to let any of it get away!

The best picture of the 4 of us that we'll probably ever get!

Connor begged for hours to start unwrapping the presents. He was more than glad to help. I'm not sure he's actually let Evan play with any of his toys yet, but hopefully soon!

Lucy wanted to help too.

Now they each have their own lawn mower...notice Connor has Evan's new one though!

Thanks for all the fun and great birthday wishes!