Monday, March 30, 2009

Hail. Lots of it. And big too.

Here are some pictures of the hail damage from a big storm that hit Austin last Wednesday. I also took some video out the back door of golf ball and tennis ball sized hail falling into our pool. It looked like the pool was boiling. We talk to the insurance people this week about my car and the house damage. Not much else to say other than we're pretty bummed.


Hood of my car. The whole thing looks like the upper right corner, you just can't see it in the picture.


The roof of my car. Again, the whole thing is banged up, but it's hard to take a picture of a silver car.


Canvas canopy over or deck/grill. The deck is also badly damaged but I didn't get a picture.

A few of the holes in the siding. They are roughly the size of tennis balls.

Close up of two of the holes.


Thursday, March 26, 2009

I'm HOW OLD today?!

6 months!

Halfway to the big 0-1, buddy.



Sorry for the blurry photo. I didn't have a chance to take a picture this morning so all we had was this gem from Jon's camera phone.

At 6 months, three of my favorite things:

1. He reaches for us now when he wants us to pick him up. If I'm holding him, he will reach for Jon, then he'll turn around and reach back for me. This game continues until we become aware of his shananigan.

2. When I sing to him before bed, he touches my lips really softly with the tips of his fingers and closes his eyes. I think maybe the vibrations are calming for him. Every night we do the same songs in the same order: Norwegian Wood, I Will, Blackbird. Repeat. Sometimes I throw in Allison Kraus' When You Say Nothing At All on the end for some variety.

3. He grabs my cheeks with both hands with a big smile like he's going to give me a big kiss. But he's teething, so instead of a kiss, he leans in really fast and chomps the end of my nose. Too funny.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Avocado FAIL.

First bite:


Second bite:

No likey.

Monday, March 23, 2009

When in Texas

Sunday started out pretty normal. Get up, go to church, run a few errands. When it was time for lunch, Jon and I decided the only thing that sounded good was Smokey J's. Smokey J's is a cash-only barbecue stand that has been in Austin for years. I think Jon even frequented Smokey J's in high school. They have the best BBQ wraps in Austin in my humble non-native Texan opinion. On any given summer weekend I myself have been known to polish off three chopped wraps in a row with pickles and cheese, then top them off with potato salad and banana pudding.

Back to the story. As we were leaving Smokey J's, we saw a huge LONGHORN PHOTOS sign across the highway. Are you kidding? Of course we turned around. When we pulled up, we realized that the owner of said longhorns was non other than our old friend Ralph Fisher. Our faithful blog readers may remember our adventures in armadillo racing with Ralph way back in November 2007.

Amery wasn't too sure about sitting atop a giant steer. And he was BIG. I'm 5'4" so you can see how wide it is from tip to tip of those big horns. Immediately after this picture was taken, he stuck his lip out and started to wail.



Somehow I don't think the Easter Bunny photos in a couple of weeks are going to go over much better.

He was a little more open to the resident pony. Much closer to his own size!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Hey Sweet Potato!

Amery had his first "real" food last night.


He wasn't so sure about the first bite.


By the second bite he thought maybe there was something he liked about this "food" thing.


By the third bite he figured he would just do it himself.


He was clearly a pro by the time papa showd him how to do it.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Say Ya to Da UP, Eh?


If you're confused, you haven't been there.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!



Kiss me - I'm approximately 1/8 or less Irish.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Correction: We have TEETH breakthrough

Our little overachiever decided to cut two teeth at once. He doesn't mess around. It took a couple of tries to get a good picture of the new incisors:


Attempt #1 = FAIL


Attempt #2 = FAIL


Attempt #3 = SUCCESS.
In other words, he finally got mad enough to open his mouth and complain. If you click on the picture it will get huge and then you can really see them. You will also get an excellent view of some stuck-on cereal, baby drool, and a crusty booger. Next time I'll clean the poor kid up before his close-up.

Monday, March 09, 2009

We Have Tooth Breakthrough!

Time for a happy post! With all the sickness this past week I never had a chance to post the big news. Amery has his first tooth! It's partway through his gums and it's sharp. I don't think we'll be letting him chew on our fingers much longer. I'll try and get a picture of it tomorrow if he cooperates so check back.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Finally Home

We thought we were on our way out last night, but when the resident doctor took a look at him around 6:00 last night, she still didn't like the way his chest was retracting. Retracting means that he had to work so hard to breathe that his little chest and tummy muscles were visibly moving in and out. She said she didn't think it would be overkill to keep him one more night and make sure he didn't need oxygen while he slept. He slept almost the whole night straight through and didn't need any oxygen! The nurses came in 6 or 8 times to check his vitals and suction his nose (he's not a fan) and I only had to rock him back to sleep twice. Otherwise he just crashed right out. He woke up once with a fever of 100.6, but that's a lot lower than it had been the day before.


We're home now and he's taking the longest nap I think he's ever taken at home. He's been through a lot the past few days. I think we will keep him home from daycare one more day to ease back into everyday life. Thank you for all the well wishes and prayers.


A picture from this early this morning (it's from my camera phone so it's not the best):

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Sick Little Man

I have a couple of minutes while Amery and papa are napping...

We've been at Children's Hospital since yesterday afternoon, and before that we were at the pediatrician's office since 9:00 on Friday morning. On Tuesday we took Amery into see the pedi for a bad cough he's had for a week or so. She gave him a decongestant to try and clear it out. Wednesday he didn't do so good at daycare so I stayed home with him again on Thursday. We went back to the pedi Thursday morning with a fever and fast hard breathing, and he was diagnosed with RSV. His doctor sent us home with some breathing treatments. Thursday night he hardly slept at all. Friday morning his temperature was up to 102.6 so we went back to the doctor. She did more breathing treatments, took a chest x-ray, and monitored his breathing. By mid-day she said she was "on the fence" but suggested we get him admitted to the hospital just in case. I'm so glad we did.

When we got to his hospital room, I don't know what was up. We think he was giddy with how well the Infant Motrin made him feel. He was a giggle-fest with all the nurses! Jon and I were beside ourselves thinking, did we just bring our kid to the hospital to have him laugh is way out? If only that were the case. His fever came back up and with it the fast breathing returned. He actually slept the whole night, only waking when they came to take his temp, give him Motrin, and take his vitals. At the beginning of the night when he finally fell asleep, the nurses told us that if his oxygen level fell below 88 an alarm would go off and he may need extra oxygen to breathe. Sure enough, after he'd been asleep for 20 minutes it went down to 81. So the poor little guy has been on oxygen every time he is asleep. Until this nap! He's been down for a while and no drop in his level yet! Yay! That may mean we can all go home later today.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Light my Fire

Sometimes he just wants to rock out. Is that so wrong?