Sickies

Sorry for the lack of updates, my dear blog friends. We have been super busy with work/hospital rotations/playtime at day care. To top it all off, we've been passing around some sort of bug this week. I got violently ill on Sunday night but woke up feeling much better Monday morning. Whatever I had must have passed on to Drew because he had a rough night on Sunday and was restless most of the day Monday. John had been feeling fine until this morning, when he woke up with a cough, congestion, and general achiness. I also woke up this morning with a sore throat, stuffy ears, and a headache. Drew seems to be the only one feeling good today. I think the weather may be a factor, since we had two 80 degree days last week and the high today is 32. Gotta love Texas weather! This time of year, there are probably all sorts of things going around and we're just lucky enough to catch lots of them. Please keep us in your prayers as it's just not fun to be sick, especially when Drew isn't feeling good either.

Busy Season

I know that people go through "seasons" of life, and clearly we are going through a busy one. Here is the latest update from here.

The day we got back from Amarillo, Ashley had tickets to a Dallas Mavericks game. These were tickets from one of her co-workers, and they were on row D. So we were 4 rows (and a few rows on the floor) away from the action. We could see the sweat on the players. We could hear what they were yelling at the referees (and realized why the refs don't wear microphones that could broadcast on TV.) The game was great, since the Mavs were up and down the whole time and finally won it at the end. We had a GREAT time and have volunteered to go with Ash anytime she needs someone to help her use these tickets.

I now in busy season, as I am every January-March. One of my clients has a super busy time the first couple weeks of January, and another client is swamped the end of February and beginning of March. So, I called in some reinforcements to help keep Drew the last couple of weeks. Last week my mom was here and this week John's mom is here. To top things off, John is doing his OB/GYN rotation right now, and he has been working the night shift this week. (Night shift = go in at 7-8 pm, get off at 7-8 am, stay for lecture until 10-11 am, come home and crash, wake up and start it all over again.)

I'm sure you can imagine that our stress level was a little high. Both working 12 hour days, plus not seeing your spouse for several days at a time will do that to you. And poor Drew got an ear infection. I'm not sure how he timed it to be during one of my busiest weeks of the year, but he sure did. The worst part (for me, at least) was that my sweet, sleeps-through-the-night baby turned into a crying monster who was up 3 or 4 times every night. So, two trips to the doctor later, he is feeling a bit better. He had been congested over Christmas and apparently his little ears didn't drain, so the infection kicked up. The doctor described it as "ugly" the first visit and "yucky" the second. (Gotta love pediatricians' vocabularies!) The first antibiotic didn't quite do the trick, but it looks like #2 is working. He is much happier, and thankfully has been only waking up once a night. I'm hoping that with some prayer, he'll ease back into his 9-hour sleeping routine.

So, other than the crazy work hours, the ear infection, and the family in town, it's been life as normal. John goes back on normal day shifts this week and hopefully I can go from 12-hour days to 10-hour days. Drew starts at "real" day care on Monday, so say prayers that everything goes well and he is able to handle the transition.

Final Christmas Post

Man, I feel like Christmas was a marathon. I guess that with all the travelling, visiting with so many relatives and opening so many gifts, it was certainly an eventful holiday season.

One thing we didn't get a picture of was the Christmas Eve service we attended at First Baptist Church Amarillo. It was mostly singing Christmas carols, and their pastor got up and gave a short sermon. They didn't have child care, so Drew came with us to the service. He started to get a little fussy during the songs, so I stepped out into the hallway and gave him a private concert as I sang the carols to him. He fell fast asleep and slept in my arms the rest of the service. My favorite song that an ensemble sang was "Breath of Heaven." I smile just thinking about it. I was sitting next to John, holding a sleeping Drew in my arms, in this beautiful sanctuary hung with wreaths and candles, looking down on this ensemble singing next to a life-size nativity scene. Christmas just doesn't get any better than that.

One of the other great parts was getting to see our cousins from California, who we hadn't seen in a long time. We got to meet my cousin Melissa's son, Ryan, who is about 2 months older than Drew. They're not quite old enough to play together yet, but I have no doubt that they will be great playmates in years to come.

Here is Drewby all dressed up for Christmas dinner. I may have a small addiction to Baby Gap, but you gotta admit that the kid is cute.

The first time we got Drew and Ryan together, they stared at each other for a little while, and Ryan started laughing. He just would look at Drew and have these big belly laughs. We think he was relieved to have another little boy around to play with.

Drew has learned how to make a motorboat noise, complete with lots of little spit. Granddad and Drew played airplane while Drew made his best airplane motor noise impression.

Yes, there is a backstory to this picture. My mom and Aunt Lainie have a major addiction to Christmas sweaters. It was worse in the 90s, when they'd have enough to wear them from Thanksgiving to Christmas without ever repeating. These sweaters invariably had some sort of glitter of sequins or were possibly even handmade. (Anyone else remember the year that my dad drilled holes in all those Christmas lights and we strung them together for earrings and necklaces?) So, to welcome the boys to the family, our moms bought them their very own baby-sized Christmas sweaters. Drew seems to be in shock at wearing it, but Ryan clearly understands the horror of the outfit. I will admit that the sweaters were kinda cute and even had adorable matching khaki pants, but I cannot condone such theme outfits.

Here's cousin Ryan opening his gift from Drew, a Texas A&M tracksuit. Melissa thinks Ryan may grow up to be the savior of the A&M football team, so remember him in your prayers. :)

Here are Pop and Grandmom opening gifts. Pop turns 90 in just a couple of weeks, and in March, they will celebrate their 70th (yes you read that correctly) anniversary. Their health and memories are failing, but it was neat to see them light up when everyone came over. Pop especially just loved to see the babies and talk to them.

We got all the cousins on my mom's side together for some family pictures, but my camera wasn't used for that photo session, so I can't post those. (If you're reading this and have those pictures, PLEASE e-mail them to me!) We did take some pictures outside since it was a gorgeous day.
Here's a great family picture:

Drew wishes everyone a very happy 2009! (Thank goodness he isn't old enough to realize how silly people look in paper hats.)

The Windmill

Here's a little video of Drew eating his cereal. He really loves his cereal and even turns his head towards the spoon for a bite. After a bite, he gets so excited that he does what we call "the Windmill." He flails his arms and legs as fast as he can. On this day, he wasn't kicking and swimming as hard as he does sometimes, but you get the idea. The day before this was filmed, he had made a big mess, so this day he was eating in just his bib. (I took it sideways and apparently there's no way to turn a video like you can a picture, so sorry!) The voices you hear are my mom feeding him and Sadie and Gracie barking in the background.