Catching Up

The Smith family has been having a busy summer.  It seems like the weeks and weekends are going by really quickly.  First we had our trip to San Antonio.  Then we had Emily's 6th birthday party.  Then we had Father's Day weekend.  This week Noah has Vacation Bible School.  And next week Emily has Cousin's Week.

Father's Day

We had a good weekend last weekend as we celebrated Father's Day.  We decided to give Mike his Father's Day present on Friday night so that we could enjoy it during the weekend.  We got him an electric meat smoker.  Mike did a lot of research online on how to smoke meat and some good recipes for marinades and rubs and things.

We got some chicken breasts, some pork chops, and some hamburger meat for our first smoking challenge. It was actually not too bad.  It just took longer than we expected because I read in the instructions that we had to season the smoker by running it for like 3 hours before we started cooking anything.   

We liked everything that we cooked, but we decided that maybe the meat was over spiced.  Maybe next time we'll try it with a little less spice.  We have been eating smoked meat all week for supper.  Yum!

Vacation Bible School

This week, Noah is going Vacation Bible School for the first time.  He's going with Nanny and Poppa.  Nanny is working in the baby room with him along with Aunt Pat and Aunt Charlene.  They have 10 babies so they have their hands full!  Emily is not going to VBS this year since she's going to Summer Camp at a local church this summer.  

Crawling Before You Can Walk

Noah recently started crawling.  He just took off and now he goes everywhere.  We put the Pack 'n Play up in the living room as a playpen the other week and Noah loves to sit in there and play with his toys.  He can pull up on the side and look around.  Pretty soon he'll be walking.  He'll be walking!  Oh my!

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Catch Up - Vaca Stop at the Childrens Museum

On the way to San Antonio, we stopped by a childrens museum to play and check things out. Here are some pictures from our day.




































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Happy Birthday, Emily!

Happy Birthday to my sweet Emily!






Emily turned six years old yesterday. She had a fun birthday party at Hideaway Pizza. That was her choice. We offered a lot of other party options, but she really just wanted some pizza and family.

I think we had about 20 people at her party. Grandmother and Aunt Heather and Uncle Stephen came from out of town to be with us on Emily's special day.  We ate pizza then had some cake and then opened presents. Emily got a lot of really nice things. She has been playing with all her new toys since we got home from the party yesterday.

All About Emily

Emily just finished kindergarten and will be starting first grade in the fall. She already knows how to read and she loves books! She got several books for her birthday and she has already been busy reading them.

Emily is so sweet. She loves her family so much, including the grandparents, cousins, and extended family. She is willing to help with whatever is needed.

Emily loves her little brother. And he loves her too. Noah is always watching her to see what she is doing. And she is very patient with him. He might pull her hair or try to take her toys. But she doesn't mind. They are going to be good friends I know.

Emily is so funny. Sometimes she gets on s silly kick and you never know what she will say. She can make Noah laugh like no other. They will often both get to laughing in the backseat of the car. They are fun to watch together.

Happy Birthday, Emily. You changed our lives forever when you were born six years ago. You are such a sweet, smart, beautiful, special little girl. We love you with all our hearts!!!!!!!


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San Antonio - Part II

Another exciting part of our San Antonio trip was visiting The Alamo. We had been building up to this at home. Mike and Emily had been reading books and watching movies about the heroes of The Alamo like Davy Crockett.





Noah was fighting naptime most of this visit so I didn't get many pictures of The Alamo. There were a lot of places where they did not allow photos to be taken too.







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Vacation San Antonio

Sorry about the blog silence. We were out of town on vacation and I am not comfortable telling the Internet that we were not going to be home.

So we just got back from our family vacation to San Antonio. We went with Mike's family. One day we went to Sea World. Another day, we visited The Alamo. We were going to go check out the Riverwalk but it was sooooooo hot!

I managed to get a few pictures with my phone. I didn't even take my other camera. I knew it would be nearly impossible to take pictures while tending the kids.

Here are some of our picture from Sea World.

Azul dolphin show. They has acrobats, high divers in beautiful costumes, tropical birds, and several dolphins. The trainers and acrobats got into the water with the animals during this show.




We sat in the splash zone, but we never got splashed. I was actually looking forward to getting splashed because it was sooooo hot. Probably best that it didn't happen though since Noah was asleep in my lap.

Later, we went to the Shamu show. It was late in the day so we say up at the top of the stadium, far away from the splash zone. More on this in a minute.

In this show, the trainers did not get into the water with the animals. They stood on small decks to interact with the animals.





Emily liked it when Shamu slid up onto the deck.



For parts of the show, there was a baby swimming beside the mom. Big baby. Really big baby.

This pic is not very good, but see that tail fin sticking up in the middle of the pic? That's actually a bad sign.




Because this is what happens next in the splash zone.





And then. Then. THEN! They lowered a big ball on a string over the pool. And this giant orca whale jumped completely out of the water to touch it!!! Seriously!





And in case you're wondering what happens next, all the water splashes out of the tank. Not really. But close.




Besides watching a couple shows, we also rode some rides.














And we even saw some Sesame Street characters live and in person. Awww!





We were so hot and tired by the time we left, but everybody had a good time at Sea World San Antonio.


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These Pics Are Classics

Tonight was Noah's first time to try mom's spaghetti.


I started out giving him little bits on a spoon but it didn't end that way.




His sweet little hands were making us laugh so hard.




He was just shoveling that food into his mouth with two hands.




And he was making the cutest mmmmmm mmmmmm mmmmmmmmm sounds with every bite.




Noah says mom makes the best spaghetti around.

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Happy Mother's Day 2011

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. A special shout-out to my wonderful mother and mother-in-law. I admire both of you very much and am blessed to have you in my life. I love you!!!!!

I had a wonderful day with my beautiful two children. It was not at all lost on me that this was my first Mother's Day as a mother of two. I am very blessed!





After church this morning, we went to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory with Nanny, Poppa, Aunt Cherry, Uncle Gary, Madison and Mason (and the rest of Oklahoma City). After the meal, Mike and I shared a piece of dulce du leche (caramel) cheesecake. It was sooooo good.




When we got home from lunch, I wanted to try to get a couple mothers day pics. You can see how that went. Oh well. We were together and that's what counts.

For Mother's Day, I wanted a new windchime. We went to a couple stores last night and finally found this blue bird. So cute. It's perfect.




I also got this cute little whirligig. Emily and I found a place for it beside the flower bed last night.




I'm so thankful for my two kids!!!!!!

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Noah - By The Numbers

9 - Months old, today.

20 - Pounds, plus

12 - Ounces.

40th - Percentile in weight.

27 - Inches long, plus a half inch.

50th - Percentile in height. That's a huge increase from his 6 month appointment. The Dr thinks the last one was a misread.

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12 - Month clothes size.

3 - Size diapers.

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6 - Teeth!

4 - Teeth on top.

2 - Teeth on bottom.

1 - Drooly baby boy.

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4 - Bottles a day now.

4 - Ounces each.

16 - Ounces of formula a day.

16 - Ounces a day is okay.

20 - Ounces is preferred by the pediatrician.

3 - Meals a day. Right on track. Make it healthy!

0 - Cows milk, until age 1. Milk products like cheese and yogurt are okay.

0 - Eggs and peanut butter at this age, too. Allergy risk. Zero honey as well.

3 - Fave Foods: Applesauce, Sweet Potatoes, Vanilla Wafers! He likes many other foods too.

2 - New foods tried today: rice and refried beans. He's a fan!





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10 Special Things about Noah

1: Happy boy.

2: Laughs SO hard at his sister!

3: Sleeping better now, both at naptime and at bedtime.

4: Likes to dance to George Strait, especially the song "The Fireman"!

5: Cruises all around the kitchen in his walker. He is getting a lot better at controlling his direction of travel.

6: Sits well without support. Likes to roll to get to whatever it is he wants.

7: Loves the pacifier now. I think we have seven pacis now so there is always one handy.

8: Still likes a blanket when he goes to sleep. Rolls all over the bed at night!

9: Handsome just like his daddy.

10: Very much loved by his family!!!

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PVC's

Premature Ventricular Contractions.

PVC's are basically early "premature" heartbeats that originate in the lower chamber "ventricle" of the heart. The heart squeezes "contracts" before it is full of blood so less blood is pushed out to the rest of the body. (This is why my blood pressure registered low on my BP cuff when I was having the irregular heartbeats.)

PVC's are common and not usually cause for concern. They could be caused by stress or an overload of caffeine or other stimulants.

Even the number of episodes of PVC's that I have was not cause for concern. But it's the strings of 2-5 irregular heartbeats in a row that is causing the doctor to investigate further. (And even then he did not seem concerned and said these things were "very rarely" serious.)

So next week I will go back to the Heart Hospital for a Heart Echo. That's an ultrasound of the heart. Out of an abundance of caution, he wants to check to make sure there are not any abnormalities in my heart muscle or valves etc. "But it's probably fine since this arrhythmia just started."

He also gave me a prescription for a very low dose of beta blockers that I can take to see if it helps reduce the number of episodes of PVC's that I have.

The nurse and I really bonded over talk of IUD drama and how long it's going to take to see the electrophysiologist. She started to say that they only read the results of the Heart Echos a couple times a week, but she said she would make herself a note and call me as soon as she got the results.

So that's the update from the cardiologist. It's way more than I intended to type out with one finger on my iPhone, that is okay.

Two more things:

A) The nurse did an EKG on me and I asked her if it registered a skipped heartbeat. Yep!

B) The doctor listened to my heart with his stethoscope and I had a PVC while he was listening too.

C) Just for fun, here is a pic of me at the Heart Hospital this morning. Ha ha!







Thanks for all the prayers!!!

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It's Not All in My Head

I knew it was not all in my head. I could feel it happening. I know you didn't think it was all in my head either.

The cardiologist's office called this afternoon to let me know that the doctor reviewed my Holter monitor results and would like to refer me to an electrophysiologist in the same office.

The nurse said the monitor did show that I was having some early heartbeats. Early beats are common, but I had some episodes where several beats in a row would be early/irregular. In some cases, I had up to five beats in a row that were off.

So I will still go see the cardiologist in the morning so that he can give me the detailed results of my test. And I will go see the electrophysiologist in mid-June.

All the wait-and-see gets really old. But what can you do? The doctors are just too busy! The nurse said "if it makes you feel any better, the other electrophysiologist in our office is booked until July!"

A) No, it does not make me feel better.

B) Do I really want to see the electrophysiologist who is only booked up to June if the other one is booked up till July? Is the other one better? Hmmm?


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Late Update

Mike commented tonight that I didn't update by blog today so I thought I better put up a quick update for you. And him.

I'm still having the skipped heartbeats today. It seems like they get more frequent as I get toward the end of the week. Sometimes it takes a few seconds longer than normal to get back into the regular rhythm. I try not to worry too much about it, but it is definitely a strange feeling.

More Fun

Emily had a reading assessment test this week at school. I'm anxious to see how well she did. I think she is doing a fantastic job of reading, especially considering her age. That girl loves to read!

I think Noah heard through the grapevine that I was complaining about his nighttime habits on my blog. I say that because he went to sleep a lot easier tonight. He didn't do all that fussing like he did the other nights this week. I'll take an easy night where I can get it these days.


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Holter Done

Sorry about the late update. I've been relaxing in my bath for a while. When I had the Holter monitor on, I was not allowed to bathe or shower. So tonight was my first bath or shower since Monday morning.

I was able to take the Holter monitor off myself this morning. The electrodes just unsnap from the sticky pads. And the sticky pads just pull right off. Ouch!

I will return the monitor to the heart hospital in the morning. We were busy tonight and I did not get a chance to go up there before the office closed.

Baby Sleep

Noah has started fighting bedtime this week. He is clearly sleepy, but when we put him in his bed he cries. I guess I had taken for granted how easy he has always been to put to bed. This new thing is hard! I want my "old normal" back. I was spoiled!

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So Ready

I'm so ready to get this heart monitor off! The sticky patches are so so itchy to me. I think I'm allergic to the adhesive that they use. I bet I'll have some big red marks on my chest when I take the electrodes off in the morning.

I marked and logged 18 instances of skipped heartbeats yesterday. Today, I did not do so well. I marked most of the episodes on the recorder, but I didn't log everything. I actually ran out of room on my log sheet. But I probably had about the same number of episodes.

So I will take the electrodes off after my time expires in the morning. Then I will take the recorder and all the wires back to the heart hospital later in the day.

I'm so ready to be done with this test and to find out why this keeps happening. I will keep you posted.

Fairies

The Tooth Fairy came last night. She didn't bring $20 though. There was no way that was going to happen at this house. Instead, she brought a "gold dollar".

And she also failed to get the tooth out from under the pillow. She tried. But she must have dropped it in the way out.

Maybe next time she will do better.



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Emily Lost a Tooth!

Emily lost her first tooth tonight. Looks like the Tooth Fairy is on her way to our house for the first time ever!

Poor Emily. Her tooth had been hanging on by a thread for days. So tonight I helped her brush her teeth to see if I could help it on it's way a bit.

Well, it started bleeding and she got SO upset. So I gave her a wet paper towel and she put it on her tooth and the tooth came right out. I showed it to her but she wanted NOTHING to do with it.

She finally did want to look at it. Then we put it into an empty 35mm film container just like I did when I was a girl. Emily said she was glad the tooth was out because it had been feeling funny.

So the Tooth Fairy will be coming tonight. But how much $$ does the Tooth Fairy bring these days?? A dollar? More? Weigh in soon before she gets here.


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Wired: Holter Monitor

This morning, I went to the Heart Hospital to get attached to my Holter heart monitor. I have decided that I got attached to it instead of it getting attached to me. Once you get it on, it pretty much runs your life.

Sure, you can go about your normal activities with it on, but it's right there annoying you every step of the way. You can do anything except take a bath or shower. But everything you do takes more effort.

The Details

So I have seven electrodes stuck to my chest. Each of them has a couple feet of wire that goes to it. They are each color-codes so that if they come off (!!!!) you can reattach yourself. They gave me a diagram that shows where each color should go. Thanks, I say.

So I've got the seven wires that all attach to a recorder box the size of a deck of cards that I can put in my pocket or maybe wear it on my belt. And that recorder has another few feet of cord that also gets stuffed into my pocket.

The extra cording attached to the recorder comes in handy when doing things like going to the bathroom. I won't explain but trust me on this.

But what about all the wires attached to the electrodes? Well, the lady (girl) who hooked me up asked me what I wanted her to do with all the excess. This question sort of took me by surprise because I expected that sort of thing would be decided for me in this situation.

After several seconds of me staring blankly ahead, the girl suggested that I might stuff all the wires into my pants (!!!!!) or maybe she could tape them to my abdomen. Okay, fine, option 2 please.

It actually is a lot less intimidating with everything taped up and out of the way. I thanked her for the suggestion.

The recorder has a button on the side that I am supposed to press when I feel my heart skipping beats or if I have chest pains or nausea or anything out of the ordinary. And if I press the button I have to write down what I was doing at the time and any further explanation about my symptoms.

So far today, I think I have pressed the button about 14 times. Good times.

A Funny From The Waiting Room

So I was a little uncomfortable in the waiting room at the Heart Hospital. I was the only person under the age of 60 I am sure. I had to fill out some paperwork so I sat down in a section of maybe 8-10 chairs that had no people in them.

So I'm sitting there filling out my papers and this old guy sits down right next to me. And I can just feel him looking over my shoulder at my forms. I gave him the evil eye. Ha! He didn't really stop but I felt better.

So not two minutes later another old guy comes up and sits on the other side of me. Helloooo? See all those empty chairs over there? Those are for you!

Follow-Up

Anyway ... I get to wear this contraption until Wednesday. Then I get to unhook myself and take the device back to the Heart Hospital at my convenience. I go next week to meet with the doctor and get my results.

I'm praying that this test will clearly show the doctor what's going on and what needs to be done.

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Easter 2011

We had a good Easter weekend. We colored eggs, hunted eggs, spent time with family, were visited by the Easter Bunny, went to church, and ate lots of candy.

Somehow, I managed not to get any pictures of the kids in their Easter clothes today. When we finally got home, it was Noah's naptime and he was half asleep. It just did not happen.

So here are some pictures of Emily coloring Easter eggs. We did the eggs in stages. We boiled them on Friday night and then dyed them on Saturday morning. We were still in our pajamas. It was a lot of fun.

We ended up with 22 colored eggs. And they are beautiful!




























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Two Hands On The ...

Two hands on the ...




... Bottle!





Sister thought this was soooooo funny.




Easter update coming soon. I promise!

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Poor Baby Boy

Poor baby boy. He has nothing to play with after his bath but the laundry basket.






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It's Funny

Okay, having arrhythmia likely caused by a Mirena IUD is not funny. I will get to the funny parts in a minute.

First, an irregular heartbeat update. After a couple rounds of phone tag, I was finally able to talk to a scheduler from the cardiologist's office.

And let me tell you she was SO sweet. She kept calling me honey and baby while we were talking. I got the feeling she felt sorry for me, like "you poor thing, you're so young to be having heart problems." I kept expecting her to come out with a "bless your heart" (har-de-har-har ... bad joke!) but she didn't.

So the cardiologist wants me to come into the office on Monday to be hooked up to a Holter monitor. This is a small heart monitor that will record my heart rhythm. I will have to wear this for 48 hours.

Then the following week I will meet with the doctor to discuss the results of the test. To me, it seems like an awful long and drawn out process for someone having heart problems. I mean a heart is a pretty important organ. You only get one heart!

Overall, I have felt a little better. I didn't feel like I had as many irregular heartbeat episodes today. That makes me think the problems really were caused by the IUD and I'm feeling better now that it's out.

A Funny Story From Work

I know I don't normally tell stories from the office, but this one was just too good to pass up.

So this morning one of the guys at the office came in walking all stiff-legged like a bow-legged cowboy. We asked what was the matter with him and he said he got into some poison ivy the other day. He had gotten a rash on his hands, around his eyes and nose, and apparently somewhere in his pants. Awful!!!!

I know it's not nice to laugh, but we laughed about that off and on all day. I have not laughed that hard in a long time. Someone would mimic the way he was walking around this morning with his arms and legs out to the side and I would just die in a fit of giggles again.

Something Stinks

Something stinks and it's Noah's feet! Emily and I washed them with a wet rag tonight and then put baby lotion on them. Noah was laughing so hard when Emily was rubbing on his feet.

I love to watch the two of them together. Noah just loves to play with Emily and she loves to play with him. Nothing better than watching brother and sister play.






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Hearts of Gold

Not much news on the heart arrhythmia front. My doctor's nurse did call me back this afternoon, but only to tell me that the cardiologist's nurse would be calling me directly. Well, they never called today.

I continue to have the irregular heartbeat several times throughout the day. I did end up telling a couple of my co-workers what was going on. I figured at least a couple people should know what was going on in case I need help at work. I mean I spend a big part of my day up there so you never know.

My news was greeted with a mixture of jokes and genuine concern. That was to be expected. I think a person has to keep their sense of humor at a time like this anyway.

Show and Tell

Today, Emily took the two birds nests that we found in the cedar trees a couple weeks ago for Show and Tell at school. She said that it went fine and her classmates thought the nests were "fine".

She asked me on the way home how I got the nests out of the trees so that must have been one of the questions the kids had. I told her that they were low enough in the tree that I just reached in there with my glove and pulled the nests out.

But I clarified that if there were bird eggs in the nests, I would have left the nests alone. I didn't want her to think I stole the nests out from under some baby birds. I wouldn't do that. I might have taken pictures of the eggs, but I would not have disturbed them.

Tomorrow is Emily's Easter party at school. She has to bring a dozen filled plastic eggs for the egg hunt and a veggie tray for the snack party. I wish I could go, but I have not worked a full day yet this week. And if I was to make it to the party, I would have to leave work by 1:15pm. Not good.

This Blog, In Print

I have been thinking about this for a while, but I have decided that I would like to print a book of my blogs. I'm thinking I could make a book for each year as sort of a scrapbook for our family.

I was looking through some of my older blog entries today and I almost squealed at some of the pictures from when Emily was smaller. I remember some of those days like it was yesterday.

I need to shop around and see what blog printing services are available. The one I found today would be about $80 per year. That seems a little high. Maybe I can find a better alternative.



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