Christmas Decorations

Here are some pictures from last weekend of the tree decorating festivities as well as a little Strawberry Berry Merry Christmas on the TV. We enjoyed decorating the tree so much we spread it over two days. The kids were not scared of the 4 foot Frosty the Snowman, they actually really like it and like to give him hugs and kisses, Kaylee even makes sure to tell him good night sometimes. I did stop short of putting the 8 foot polar bear in the girls room while they were sleeping. I figured the nightmares wouldn't be worth it.

The girls all had doctor's appointments this week. Kaylee and Allison had follow ups on their ear infections, plus Allison and Samantha both had immunizations to receive. Allison is holding steady weighing in at just over 22 pounds (Kaylee is only 24) and Samantha is now up to 9 pounds 6 ounces.

Basketball

Here are some pictures from our basketball practice last week. For those that don't know I am coaching Andrew and some other boys in a local 12 and under league. We were able to pick up some extra gym time the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Only a few boys came out and Grandma Marty got to come and watch, since she wasn't able to be here for any of our games. I'll get some results posted (once there are some worth posting 0-3 so far).

Happy Thanksgiving

Well Thanksgiving may be over but the fun will continue on, at least until the leftovers are gone and I have to go to work on Monday. By the way, for those that don't know I am starting a new position at a new company Monday. My last day with John Deere was Wednesday and I start with ACS on Monday. We had a good day just lounging around watching the parades and some not so exciting football games.

A quick reference for the pictures. Kaylee had a Thanksgiving lunch at her Wee School on Tuesday. Grandma and I got to go and see it. It was pretty fun. Andrew was helping Grandma make a couple Hershey pies Wednesday night and yes Andrew is walking like an Egyptian. No my Joey Harrington Detroit Lions jersey did no good, for either game and our little cheerleader couldn't inspire a victory either, but she was fun to watch run around. I figured I could kill two birds with one jersey since both the Lions and Falcons played (for those that don't know Harrington now plays for the Falcons).

We are going to be pulling out all the Christmas decorations today so we should have some pictures of that up tomorrow or Sunday. Anyways, on to the Thanksgiving pictures...

Doctors Appointment

With the holiday and my last few days at John Deere I forgot to post the results from Samantha's doctors appointment on Monday. Elizabeth took her in to have her checked to be sure she did not have the ear infection that Kaylee and Allison both have/had. She doesn't, thankfully. Imagine...not only 3 kids under 3 but 3 kids with runny noses and ear infections!!! Agghhh. Kaylee seems to be a lot better and Allison just seems tired and a little clingy.

They did Samantha's weight and height again and she came in at 21 1/2 inches and 8 lbs 10 oz. Keep in mind that on Friday when she was at the cardiologist she was 7 lbs 14 oz. That's a 12 ounce gain in 4 days and 2 lbs 10 oz in 4 weeks. She is bound and determined not to be the smallest around here.

And now random, obligatory picture time...

What a Run

So three females here at work decide they have nothing better to talk about then what they are suppose to get for each anniversary. Paper, plastic, glass, silver, blah blah blah. So of course being me I decide to start snickering under my breath (but just loud enough to be heard) as they go through the list. Needles to say this catches their attention (as planned) and they begin making their comments at me as the “typical male”. As they begin questioning me as to my thoughts on the subject they preface it with the question of “how long have you been married?” to which they laughed at my answer of “I’ve got 4 years down”. After they make fun of my answer I point out how Elizabeth has been pregnant for 3 of the 4, to which they tell me to just leave her alone. The answer of 4 years down while true and while said with the kind of attitude you would expect from a “typical male” got me to thinking…THAT’S IT?!?! We’ve only been married for 4 years!!! I am not questioning the math nor am I acting as if I’ve been so miserable the past 4 years that it seems so much longer. This is where I am going to deviate from the “typical male” game I had been playing.

My response now becomes serious. Yeah the past 4 years seems a lot longer. Let me explain why. I got thinking back over the past 4 years and could not believe the timeline I came up with. See if you can follow:

July 5 2003 – Elizabeth and I get married
July 26 2003 – We leave Michigan for Florida
August 2003 – Elizabeth begins her studies at Full Sail
February 2004 – I begin my job at Meadowbrook S
eptember 2 2004 – Elizabeth Graduates from Full Sail
September 2004 – We find out Elizabeth is pregnant
February 2005 – I accept job at Westin in Virgin Islands
March 2005 – Move to Virgin Islands
April 2005 – Move out of hotel and into “home” in islands
June 9 2005 – Kaylee is born on St Thomas
August 2005 – Move homes in islands
December 2005 – Elizabeth becomes pregnant
May 2006 – I accept promotion to Sheraton in Atlanta
June 1 2006 – Elizabeth and Kids leave St John J
une 21 2006 – Movers load up all our stuff and send to Atlanta
June 24 2006 - I leave St John for Atlanta, begin living in hotel
June 26 2006 – I begin new position
June 30 2006 – Elizabeth and Kaylee join me in Atlanta
July 2006 – Andrew joins us in Atlanta
August 24 2006 – Close on new home
August 26 2006 – Movers bring stuff to house, we move out of hotel
August 27 2006 – Allison is born
February 07 – Elizabeth is pregnant (again)
July 19 2007 – I get laid off of work
July 24 2007 - I start contract position at John Deere
October 20 2007 – Samantha is born 2 weeks early
November 21 2007 – My last day as contractor at John Deere

Do you see where I am coming from here. How many of these things listed above (getting married, moving the family, adding to the family, graduating college, changing jobs) are major life events? And how many have we jammed into the past 4 years? Too many.

The question is where do we go from here (besides the insane asylum)? We have decided that we are settling here in Atlanta for the next several years. We are going to be in our home for the next couple years. We’ve taken the steps to rule out having any more kids. Now if one of these two jobs pans themselves out well….then we aren’t going to know what to do with ourselves.

2 for 2

Well we had our follow up at the original cardiologist this morning. Everything came back good! So we can finally put this behind us once and for all. Needless to say I had to bite my tongue when the doctor told us the good news and followed it up with “so you don’t ever have to see the Michigan fan again”. There were several things I could have thrown out there at that point, including but not limited too... “Go Buckeyes” (or badgers) I would have had to choke back the vomit though. However, I figured keeping my mouth shut was probably the best course of action. The doctor did seem a little shocked when he told us the good news and we showed little to no reaction. In fact he did reiterate to us “that is good news you know”. Elizabeth fought back telling him we all ready knew because of the second opinion. This has been a rough past three weeks thanks too Dr. Death, as Elizabeth affectionately refers to him, but after two confirmations that everything is okay we are more then ready to move on and put it all behind us.

She weighed in at a whopping 7 pounds 14 ounces and 21 inches long. However we suspect she dropped back down about 6 ounces a few minutes later, if you know what I mean.

And now for the obligatory pictures…

Kaylee enjoys laying with her "Baby Mantha".

Our Little Heart

I just wanted to give a quick update on Samantha. We had an appointment this morning with a second Cardiologist to follow up on a couple issues the pediatrician who saw her at birth wanted to monitor on her. One was a murmur caused by an abnormal PDA, a valve that is open on all children while they are in the womb, which usually closes itself off between 72 hours and 3 weeks of birth. The cardiologist today told us that that valve has completely sealed itself off and is fine. The second issue was something that the first cardiologist found while monitoring the PDA. He said he didn’t believe there was an issue but he noticed an irregularity in her QT Interval and wanted to monitor it. Apparently, in real simple terms, the QT interval is the rate at which the heart recharges itself. So a long QT interval, which is what he was watching, means the heart is not recharging itself as fast as it should. Long QT intervals are leading causes in SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) as well as seizures and other wonderful things no one should have to endure. However, after meeting with the cardiologist today, that worry has sort of been put to rest. Today’s cardiologist gave Samantha’s little heart virtually a clean bill of health. He did notice an “Innocent murmur” which he explained as something that 50 percent of children have and that typically seals itself off by 6 to 12 months. But other then that everything was perfect, which was great news for us to hear!

We are still meeting with the original cardiologist on Friday so he can run his tests and to hear what he has to say but the second opinion this morning provided somewhat of a huge release of tension. We are not going to rest easy until after Friday’s appointment but we feel a bit more relieved and are much more confident with the second doctor then the first and not only because he told us what we were hoping to hear. The doctor today ran more tests, as well as give really good explanations as to what was going on and covered everything thoroughly. We didn’t leave with more questions then we came in with as we did after our first appointment with the other guy. Besides the first doctor had a slight arrogance about him, which is quickly and easily explained off due to the fact that he’s an admitted University of Michigan graduate (nice job Badgers).

Also, Samantha weighed in at 7 lbs 8.8 oz which is up a pound from last week and a pound and a half since birth. They also measured her length today at 21 inches which is a half inch longer then birth as well.

Another Song

As we were getting ready to leave for the hospital Kaylee and Allison wanted to check out the bed their new little sister would be sleeping in. As they played in the crib Kaylee gave us another one of her many serenades…enjoy!



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Picture Ratings

Okay, so I'm browsing through the different slide shows with all the pictures we just posted and as I'm looking I notice a few comments posted here and there, which are great, we love the comments, whether on the slide show or on the blog. But then I look around a little further and see the ratings....4 stars!!! You rate our brand new little baby with only 4 of 5 stars?!?! Oooohhh boy I tell you....the least you could do is identify yourself or are you too scared? Afraid you won't get a Christmas gift are ya? At least two of you rated the album called "Our Little Sister" 5 out of 5. You two are lucky! But for that other person...what is Samantha not cute enough on her own to get that 5th star she has to have her brother and sisters in it too? You better hope I don't track you down. You are aware I am a father of three girls aren't you? If you knew that I had three girls then you should also be able to figure that it means I must own at least 2 shot guns (the third is on it's way). Are you starting to see the trouble you are in? Your only chance at redemption will be to pay for at least one of their weddings. Again, do the math...three girls.

Halloween

I figure it's been 24 hours so I know you are waiting for the Halloween pictures. So here they are. Kaylee is a little Princess at least that's what she dressed up as, Cinderella. Allison had two choices a Kangaroo (which was originally purchased for Kaylee but for the first time in her life she was too big for something) and a pretty little butterfly. We got Andrew a werewolf costume and he went out with his friends from the neighborhood, who were supposed to be "Emo" (emotional) kids or high school freshman as Elizabeth called them. Last but certainly not least, Samantha was our little pumpkin. While it would have been nice to have Andrew with us it was probably for the better since the mask scared Allison, Kaylee just laughed and thought he was funny. The pictures of the girls in their pajamas are from Tuesday night. They were able to stay up late and watch the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, they were also having fun practicing for the big night with their little pumpkin bags.