Uncle Davey Made a Leaf Pile

Stella for some reason is calling Dave, Uncle Davey. Once today she called him Uncle Davey Gravy. Ha anyway. I told her that I bet we could get Uncle Dave to rake us a pile of leaves to jump in. Well she got really excited about this. Then Dave was on the phone for over an hour before we could ask him. Finally he got off, and Stella said, "Uncle Dave make pile of leaves for me to jump in." Ha! So he did.

Stella did not know what to think of the leaves. We told her to jump, and she just looked at the pile. Then we told her to kick them, and she just looked at the pile. She is very girly!

And she looked some more.

Then Aunt A threw her in the pile!

Then I got in with her and showed her how to throw the leaves.

Baby Everett loves the leaves too!

Dave said when we were taking this picture, "so he can't go to the nursery at church, but you'll lay him in dirty leaves." It's for the sake of art Dave, and I put a burp cloth under him. Ha!

Smile!

Now this is precious!

October has been AWESOME!

I know. I am really losing faith in myself when it comes to blogging. And sooooo much has gone on this month. Let's start at the beginning ... a very good place to start.

At the very end of September, I had what I HOPE to be my last surgery for a very long time. It was a hard decision for me to make. I did not "have" to get the surgery. It wasn't life or death. It was a personal decision that I wavered on for a couple weeks up until the last minute. As you know, I had an open wound. It had been nine weeks, and this sucker was still not closed up. It was closing, but at some point there was a stand still. The wound started healing but not closing. It looked bad (really bad). It was annoying. My risk for infection was still prevalent. And to be honest, I was sick of it! My doctor was too because she referred me to a wound specialist, who then referred me to a plastic surgeon wound specialist. Ha! He suggested going in and cutting off some of my skin (a lot of my skin), taking out dead tissue, removing undissolved stitches, and ultimately sewing me shut. This was a blessing, but sort of had a possible curse to it too. If I did the surgery, I would look much better and feel better and be done with this wound. However, I was at risk for another infection. My past infection was a fluke, but it was possible to happen again. This is why I had a tough time deciding. Now that I am a mom, decisions like this aren't as easy as before. Sure I don't want to look crazy, and have a non-healing wound on my body, BUT (and a big but), I want to be ALIVE. I have a son now. I prayed, and I prayed, and I had faith that I would be okay. And I am!

I am sad to say that I have no pictures to share with you regarding my surgery. ha!

A couple weeks later on Sat Oct 8, Sara, Dan, Dave, and I took the kids to the pumpkin patch in Youngsville. This pumpkin patch is the Mac Daddy of pumpkin patches. I don't think people still say Mac Daddy. Maybe they never did .. Anyway ... Stella had a great time. Everett didn't know what the heck was going on, but he slept and was good. I couldn't ask for more.

Looking at the animals with Dad.

Silly Stelly

The horse is the obvious stand out!

On Thurs Oct 13 (Stella's Birthday!), Sara and I took Stella and Everett to Ohio. I had to sit on the back on the hump between both kids. Don't tell Sara (I know she doesn't read my blog anyway, so this shouldn't be an issue.), but I actually would much rather sit on the hump the whole way than to drive the whole way. ;) The kids were great. Again, Everett slept the whole time. I mean seriously, whose 3 1/2 month old sleeps for 9 hours straight and only wakes up a couple times to eat and gets out of his carseat once for a diaper change? He's an awesome baby. Stella was actually pretty good too. We watched a million episodes of Yo Gabba, sang Disney songs, and she kicked me a lot. It was her birthday, so I let it slide.

Once we got there we took family pictures at Stella's Birthday/ Everett's Welcoming party. We had a nice time with family.

Stella ended up staying in Ohio with Oma and Poppy. My mom came back to Raleigh with us to watch Everett. While the kids were being spoiled by their grandparents, I was getting spoiled in Charleston for a "surprise" 30th birthday weekend with my friends. I had a great time. I appreciate my friends and Dave for planning that for me. It meant a lot to me. I ended up making everyone go on this inappropriate walking tour that was supposed to be a ghost tour. We had to cut out because the tour ended up being very nasty. If you want details, I'll have to tell you later. Thankfully, we all got our money back the next day!

I really love these palmettos.

Playing frisbee by the water.

Cheers to 30!

Surprise! My friends came to Charleston too!

Dinner at Leaf.

Found this monkey hanging in a tree.

When I got home last weekend, my baby was sick with a cold. He still has it today. My mom didn't want to tell me because she knew I'd worry and want to come home. He's been to the doctor twice since then. There isn't too much that we can do. He actually went in today for his 4 month vaccines. This big boy weighs 18 lbs, which is the 95th percentile, and is 26 inches, which is the 85th percentile. His head is in the 65th percentile, so it's getting bigger too. Ha! I don't know how I have such a big baby. You'll be seeing me on Dr. Phil in a few years. The mom who won't stop feeding her child. What can I say? He's hungry. But in all seriousness, the doctor says he looks great and is very healthy!!! Praise God.

It's Stella's World ... and we're all just living in it

I'm officially back watching Stella. It has been an adjustment keeping both of them (for me and Stella). Thankfully she's a really good girl. She hasn't developed any jealousy toward Everett yet, but we'll see what happens. I'm trying to work out their naps, so that one of them is always asleep. Somehow I always manage to be holding a fussy Everett while I'm making Stella's lunch, so don't call me around 2:15!!! Here's some pictures from the past week.

Last weekend my roommate from college (GO BSU!), Kasey came to visit me from Texas. She is 6 months pregnant, so she was getting some practice by holding Everett.

When she got here, we were having a cold spell!!! It was like 60 degrees. We put Everett in this warm outfit that Kasey bought him before he was born. He looked so adorable. Thank you Kasey!!!

So this week I've been juggling Stella & Everett. Whew! This is all of us relaxing while Stella was taking her nap. Sorry Stelly, but this is our TV time. I think we were watching Dr. Phil.

Sometimes when Dave and Sara are both out of town, I stay at Sara & Dan's to make it simpler. Dan leaves for work at 6:45, and neither of us want to wake our children up that early. It works out nice because they can both sleep. Here we are relaxing, Everett in his vibrating chair, and Stella eating her afternoon snack. Doesn't she look so old here. :*( Makes me sad. I don't want her to grow up. She has started to become a good helper though. She grabs burp cloths and paci's for me. She loves to help her Aunt A.

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Okay ... So Stella and I have a new obsession. BOO! We are both in LOVE with this dog. I mean really, have you ever seen a cuter dog? You haven't! So I kept telling Stella that Boo is the cutest dog in the world. Now she always grabs my phone and says, "Aunt A, I wanna see Boot in the world", or sometimes she says, "Boot, dog in the world". Either way it's adorable, just like Boo. If you love Boo, as much as me, become his friend on Facebook. He has almost 2 million fans!

www.facebook.com/boo

While Everett was asleep one day, I decided to see if his car seat would fit in Stella's wagon. I thought it would be fun for them to ride together. I told Stella that I was going to try it and asked if she wanted to help. She did. She kept saying, "try it Aunt A in the wagon". Anyway the car seat fit, so I took them on a ride.

We only made it next door, and then it started raining.

They are so cute laying on the play mat together. This only lasted for a few minutes, and Stella decided she was SCARED. ha. A few minutes later she wanted to lay with him again.

He's working on his BUMBO skills.

Stella and her "sister" Ray Ray. This is one of Ray's favorite places to lay down. I walked into the living room to find that Stella had climbed up there with her. So cute.

While I was washing bottles, Stella thought it would be fun to "ride the horsey". She calls Ray, "Maximus" from Tangled. Thankfully, Ray is a very good sport.

Everett is showing off his best asset. His huge smile!

He's hungry!!! But he's wearing his cute new fox pajamas.

My mom found this picture of my brother. We think that Everett looks a lot like him, especially his smile, eyes, and eyebrows. Gordon was 1 in this picture.

We decided today to get Everett's toys out. A few of them say 3 months and up. He is almost 3 months, so we thought now would be a good time. He doesn't have much interest in grabbing them, but we are working on it. Here he is with Sophie. SO CUTE!

F is for Fall, Food, Fun, Fox Family, & Football

It's our family's favorite time of year! FALL!!! We love to watch the football games as a family. This year we were excited for the opening week of NFL football. Dave and I were also really excited that we got to share this with Everett. I tried not to get too depressed with Peyton Manning being out for the season. I'm keeping the faith. GO COLTS!!! Dave was his typical self. He loves the Bengals before the game starts, and usually decides he hates them about 2 seconds after kick off. He then goes totally crazy high fiving everyone "if" they score, and goes back to cursing them a few plays later. I always secretly want them to win because I have a much nicer husband when they do. This time of year is also exciting because we get to eat our "Football Foods" again. This week Dave made Cincinnati chili dogs and 3 ways (which is something like Cincy chili, noodles, onions, cheese ... umm that might be a 4 way. I don't actually eat that, so I'm not sure. If Dave wants people to know, he can write his own blog. ha!). I just had a hotdog with cheese on top, but I loved it! Of course it was just a normal day for Everett, but we got to dress him up and take cute pictures of him. That was fun for us.

Stats for Week 1:

Bengals 1-0

Colts 0-1

Food:

Cincinnati Chili

Oh, I almost forgot ... We call Everett, Meatball now. He does this weird thing where he sucks his hands, and they always smell like formula. Ugh ... gross. So anyway, Dave and I were making jokes that he smelled like a hamburger, or a hotdog, or a meatball. Well he sorta looks like a meatball too, so we call him that now. He is a really cute Meatball!

Everett looks so cute in his football hat and socks from Stephanie. Dave was so excited to take a picture with him. First picture together as Bengals fans.

Sara, Dan, and Stella came over to watch the game at our house. We'll go to their house next week. Here's Aunt Sara and Cousin Stella with our little Meatball. (I'm pretty sure we had to bribe Stella with something to actually look toward the camera.)

And again.

Our football family. I think Everett was crying, "get me a Colts jersey." GO HORSE!

We caught Everett sucking his thumb while Sara was holding him. Dave does not allow this sort of behavior. It doesn't bother me. He looks so cute doing it.

He fell asleep with me. It was a long day of football. And yes that is a Bengals remote that you see.

2 months vaccines & screams

Everett turned two months old on Aug 26. He isn't doing anything too fun just yet. He can smile, and he loves staring at his mobile and the ceiling fan. Sometimes he'll just lie and stare at nothing at all. I think he's starting to know who his mom is. I can tell he feels comforted when I'm holding him. But nothing stops this kid from screaming or screeching (which is why I call him little screecher). He is very particular and wants his way already. For instance, he does not want to be burped. He will screech so loud in my ear and try to head butt me. His newest thing is digging his nails into my throat. Once the digging starts, I quit burping. So he gets his way, and he probably always will. :)

On Sept 1 he got his 2 month vaccines. He screamed out when she stuck him, but was fine the rest of the day. He actually slept almost all day, which was great for me. I got a lot of things around the house done.

Waiting on the doctor to come in. This is shortly after I pee'd on the nurse and Momma's foot.

He's excited ... because he doesn't know he's about to get shots.

Dave with Everett. I'm sitting down trying not to get upset that my baby is about to get poked. Although I got poked over a thousand times for HIM!

Look at those cute dimples. Who does he get those from?

ME!!!