Trick or treat!

We had a fun halloween this year. It wasn't too cold which helped. Elias dressed up as a frog.
We've been talking to Elias about what to do on Halloween. Knocking on people's doors, saying "trick or treat", etc. It took him a few houses, but he was soon saying, "another house?". Such fun!

Good-bye summer

With the first snow of the season under our belts, it's hard to believe that summer is gone and fall is quickly passing us by.
We've enjoyed a beautiful fall so far. I have loved the continued warmth with a hint of crispness in the air. What a surprise to wake up to 9 inches of snow this past week. It was fun to watch Elias figure out what all this white stuff was. He started out saying hello to it in the morning, but wasn't so sure about it once we were out in it. He definitely didn't care for walking in it!
Last weekend we went to a pumpkin patch and picked out a few pumpkins. Although he only seemed interested in the tractors at the time, he's been talking about picking out pumpkins all week.
Earlier this fall we got Elias a strider bike. He loves his bike and has figured out how to walk with it and is working on steering.
Let's see, Elias is talking up a storm these days. His words and sentences are getting more complex and complete every day. "trampoline" is a recent word that comes to mind. His memory is amazing (at times). He recognizes where we're going and remembers who lives there. I could go on...
Elias is getting closer to being (daytime) potty-trained, woo hoo! We started reading potty books a month or so ago, got a new potty, and a week or so ago he started to consistently and accurately tell us when he needed to go. We're not totally there yet, but the days of washing diapers are limited! Any tips on nighttime training?
Tom has kept busy this summer and fall with work at Qualcomm as well as some iPhone app development. In spite of that he's been able to enjoy some bike rides, lots of coffee outings and Saturday mornings at the farmer's market with us.
This summer/fall I completed the 51-mile Venus de miles bike ride. I trained most weekends with the full cycle ladies club and had so much fun. I never thought i'd be looking forward to riding my bike another season.
That's not everything that's been going on, but hopefully brings you somewhat up to speed on our happenings!

Good bye Uncle Jack

I just received news that my Great Uncle Jack passed away today. I never knew my grandpa (Uncle Jack was his youngest brother), but I like to think that my Uncle Jack gave me a little bit of a glimpse of him. Uncle Jack was a kind, caring, generous, hard-working and loving man who has always held a special place in my heart. He will be so missed.

Good bye Uncle Jack. I love you.

From South Dakota - July 2011

From South Dakota - July 2011

South Dakota Weekend

It's time for a summer post, but I don't have the time at the moment. Instead I thought I'd give a peak at our most recent summer adventure - a road trip to South Dakota!

With the exception of lack of sleep and the heat we encountered on our last day, we all had a really fun time visiting the Black Hills and seeing family. Can't wait to go back!

Respiratory Season

So, at the rate I'm going, maybe I should just shoot for a quarterly blog post and slide show :) It's not quite time for the Spring post according to that schedule, but we're pretty excited about spring around here. Playing outside again, going for walks when you don't have to bundle up - we're welcoming spring with open arms.

Unfortunately for us we're not far enough into Spring to be out of what we recently found out is "respiratory season". Two weeks ago, Elias came down with a pretty bad cough. We took him into the doctor's with a diagnosis of RSV and a nebulizer and went to work giving him breathing treatments and trying to make him as comfortable as possible. The week went on and he didn't seem to get much better. He had moments where he'd perk up, but for the most part he just wanted to snuggle and had no appetite. On Thursday night last week, Elias was up a lot of the night coughing and Friday we had a check up with the doctor. When we went in, the doctor tested Elias' oxygen saturation levels and found out they were 82-85. Normal for Colorado is in the mid-90s.

We went home and headed over to Children's Hospital's Urgent Care center and ended up with a room right away. After being put on oxygen, blood taken, IV's started and x-rays taken, we were admitted to their inpatient section for the night. Elias had RSV/bronchiolitis induced pneumonia. Thankfully, he improved a lot over night and they decided to send us home with oxygen the next day.

After being home for a day, we got a call from Children's saying that they needed to do another blood test and that they wanted us to come back in. Heading back, we found ourselves readmitted and staying overnight again. They had found the H. Flu bacteria in one of Elias' blood cultures, which had the potential to be pretty serious. They wanted to watch him and give him a few doses of strong antibiotics via IV to make sure everything was killed.

The next day, they decided to let us go home again. Elias was improving so much and we had the option to get the antibiotics in a shot form, so we headed home. For the next three days we headed to the doctor's office for a shot. Today was our last day and it's a good thing. Elias started to associate the place and the different things we did right before the shot and was fussing way before the needle went in. Also, today was our last day of being on oxygen. After being off his oxygen for almost an hour, Elias' saturation levels were at 97 - hooray! We'll go in for one more check tomorrow, but we should be done with that for now.

Elias has been such a trooper through all of this. Once the trauma of getting blood drawn and IVs in, he made do with his arm in a little splint. As he got stronger he just continued doing what he wanted regardless of the IV/splint or the oxygen tubing. I don't think he noticed it too much, at least until he ran out of tubing and it yanked him backwards. But he's on the mend and we're all glad to have our happy, curious, mischievous little boy back.

Here are few pictures from the past week or so:

Winter 2010

We've had a lot of fun this winter. We celebrated Christmas with family here in Colorado, my dad visited in January before Elias' first birthday, Tom's parents came to visit and celebrate Elias' birthday, we had a fun party for Elias and my sister Laura visited over Presidents Day weekend.

We've loved all the visitors but have also been bundling up for winter walks, started play classes at Gymboree with our friends Erin & Kelby and just before his first birthday Elias started walking! Elias is growing and changing so much. Besides walking, he's getting better at feeding himself, although doesn't seem to like whole food too much, so we're still pureeing things for him. He's picked up a few signs. He regularly uses "all done", but on occasion has signed, "thank you", "hungry", "monkey", "banana" and "more". Elias has gotten really chatty since his first birthday and even said "cat" last week. He loves this toy cat that was mine when I was a kid and one day pointed at it and said "cat". He's repeated it a few times on different occasions, so I think we can officially say that "cat" was his first word. Elias loves trying to figure out how things work and one of his favorite things lately is unscrewing caps from bottles.

As fun as this winter has been, we are all looking forward to spring and warmer weather. We've had a week or so of 50-60 weather that has been wonderful. Not having to bundle up, getting to play outside without getting too cold - I'm relishing this bit of warmth. Also with spring comes the opportunity to train for the bike rides I signed up for this year. In May I will be doing the Road to Victory bike ride in honor of my Papa Snook who lived with Parkinson's before he died last year. In August I'm riding the Venus de Miles, an all women's bike ride. I'm really looking forward to riding the new bike I got last fall.

Well, I think that's most of what's going on with us - I think you're up to speed now! Here is a slide show from the Winter months:

Thanksgiving 2010

We're catching up a bit over here.

We went to California for Thanksgiving and had a great time visiting with friends and family. While we were there we celebrated Tom's Nana's 90th birthday - Happy 90th Nana! Here are a few pictures from our trip: