Whew! What a week!

     I hope everyone is having a great Saturday! We have just been enjoying the weather and watching the Ole Miss game (which if you have seen the score, you know why I have taken this opportunity to distract myself by blogging:)) We have had a somewhat crazy week or two, but things are starting to slow down. 
     Last Tuesday, one of my previous clinical instructors called to let me know that they had an outpatient PT position available. I was so excited since I had enjoyed that clinic, and its in Madison (5 miles from our house!!!) I spent the next couple days going over pros and cons and praying over the decision. I was happy at my job, but at this point this opportunity was not one to pass up! One of my concerns was getting Harper into daycare, since she was at the hospital's daycare where I worked. I called the facility she was at prior to getting in at the hospital and they had just opened up a new room and could take her!!! All the pieces just seemed to fall into place.


     Well, Thursday, after work I was supposed to go talk to my potential employer. About 3:00 Thursday afternoon daycare called and said H was throwing up. I quickly wrapped up some work stuff and ran down to get her, since Nick was out of town. When I picked her up she threw up all over my scrubs and in my hair! I ran home, tried to rinse out my hair and called my sweet neighbor (who was leaving for a Columbian mission trip Friday morning) to sit with her while I ran up to my meeting.  Friday morning I went in to work to finish paperwork, but took the day off since I wasn't sure what was going on with H. I also went ahead and told my supervisor that I was planning on accepting this other position. Anyways...H acted fine the rest of the morning and had no fever, so we decided to head to Memphis to visit Nick's family. All seemed well until we went to a Mexican restaurant Saturday night with some friends. Soon after getting our food, Harper began throwing up EVERYWHERE! I felt so bad! We stripped her down, attempted to clean up and headed home.

Playing with Pippaw

 Half way home Nick starts feeling sick...I will spare you the details.....Nick is up all night SICK! Sunday Harper is pitiful, Nick is pitiful, Courtney (Nick sister) comes home from church sick:( We drive home to Madison and I am up all night Sunday, sick! Nick's mom calls Monday saying Nick's Dad was sick. Anyway, I think we are all well now (hopefully!) and have not spread the bug to anyone else!

Courtney and Harper, not feeling so well:(

Here are some pictures of Harper enjoying the nice fall weather:)

 






   
We Love You!


Nick, Rachel, and Harper

I'm Back!!!

I wish I had a good excuse as to why I have taken a six month hiatus from blogging, but other than having a 15 month old and converting from PC to Mac (and having a few technical issues) I have no such excuse! Time continues to fly by us and I have sat down so many times to write another post only to be distracted by, well...life:)


 Harper has gotten so big and is looking more like a little girl than a baby. She is talking quite well and can scale furniture like a tree frog:) I have asked my mom many times what I did to deserve such a little ball of energy! She continues to be into EVERYTHING, but is starting to listen (and occasionally obey) which makes it a little better. Sometimes I fear that "terrible two's" have hit early for us as far as tantrums are concerned. When I am not pleasing HER she will throw herself on the floor screaming, and if I leave the room, she will just get up follow me and throw herself on the floor in the room I am in:) Despite it all, she is still the joy of our lives! We can't imagine life without her:) We went to her 15 month appointment last week and she was 31"(95%) and 24 lbs (70%), the Dr. said she was about 6 months ahead verbally (pardon my Mommy bragging:)). She continues to be a good eater and sleeper, which is such a blessing! (The child can eat an 8 piece chicken nugget from Chick-fil-a!!) She has "graduated" the the next class at daycare where they sleep on nap mats and are starting on cups without lids! Everyone tells you they grow up so fast, but I had NO IDEA!

I (Rachel) am still enjoying work, but still wish there were more hours in the day! I am training for another half marathon that is in New Orleans in October. Speaking of October...Nick turns 30 next month!!!


Well....that is enough for now. Please bear with me as a jump back on this blogging train:)Here is a video from May from our family birthday party for Harper and Reagan (my niece who is 2 and a half weeks younger than H)and one of Harper playing with Abby...ENJOY!

 We love you all!
Nick, Rachel, and Harper

A Big Step

It has been a busy week here at the Bradshaw house! For My birthday (Monday, March 14), Nick and my Dad did something I was wanting for a while...they redid the surround for my bathtub! I know our house is only 3 years old, but the tub was not put in properly and causing some issues. I got to go pick out the materials last week and they worked on it all weekend!

This is what I picked...tumbled marble and glass subway tiles...

Harper wanted to "help" SO bad:)

Speaking of Harper, my job while they finished working on the bathroom Monday was to corral this wild thing:) While we were playing on the floor watching them work...she took her FIRST STEPS!!! I was so proud, then I realized.... MY LIFE IS OVER! I can barely keep up with her crawling, how am I supposed to keep up with her walking?!?! Here is a video from today...of course once we got the video camera out she wouldn't do ANYTHING but she took a step or two!

Oh, almost forgot to show you the finished product in our bathroom.....TAH-DAH!!!

And...one more picture of Harper, well, just because she is so darn cute:)

ok, ok I promise last thing on Harper! Here she is yesterday getting ready for Easter:) She kept trying to get her ears , but couldn't figure it out:)


Thanks for checking in on us!

If you feel the need to see even more pictures, I put more on our Picasa site, click here.

We Love You!

Nick, Rachel, and Harper

Tubes, Tubes, Glorious Tubes!!!

Harper was scheduled for her 9 month check up last Friday, but when I called in Monday and told them that her ears were still not any better, her doctor said to bring her in Tuesday and we could knock it all out in one appointment. To fill you in, her ears had yet to clear up on 2 rounds of antibiotics and shots of Rocephin. Her blood work and all other well baby appointment stuff looked great, but the ears...not so much. He said they looked just as bad, if not worse! Since they STILL looked so bad, instead of scheduling an appointment with an ENT, he told us to go straight over and they will work us in. They ENT was super nice and immediately made us feel good about seeing a specialist. He sai her ears looked really bad and scheduled her surgery for Friday, February 25 at 7:00. Nick even talked him into looking in my ear (that had been bothering me) and said I had a pretty nasty infetion too! I guess poor Harper comes by it honestly!
As mentioned before, we had to be there at 7:00am and could not have anything to eat or drink after midnight!! Seriously??? with a 9 monthold??? Harper was a trooper and other than a little fussing, handled it like a champ. My sweet coworkers brought over a HUGE bag of toys and books that helped occupy her. They brought us back to prep her at about 7:45. Here we are waiting in her hospital gown:)

They took her back to surgery at about 8:30 and went Mom and Dad to waiting room to wait. The waiting room phone rang in about 15 min to tell us he was done and she did great! Really? All of this anticipation for 15 min??? The surgeon came out and told us she did wonderfully and definitely gets the award for the worst ears of the week! He said the fluid in her ears was so thick it was the consistency of airplane glue! Yuck! They warned us that after anesthesia babies are usually really angry, but this is normal. Apparently, Harper is not normal, because she was in there smiling and being her usual "ham" of a self:) She even gave the nurses a standing ovation when we left:)
Harper slept alot that day, but has since been very happy! So, thus far, we give tubes two thums up:)
I will leave you with some pictures from going to Memphis the weekend before last for and enjoying the warm weather! Nick's sister and family also came in and we spent the day at the park...




We Love Y'all!
Nick, Rachel, and Harper

Sicknesses...part 2

Ok, so I spoke too soon in our last post complaining about sicknesses. Last week Harper's daycare shut down early on a Thursday and was closed Friday, so took off to stay with her. She had been coughing some during the week, but was acting like her happy self so I didn't think anything about it. Thursday night she coughed all night and threw up her bottle the next morning. I figured, I was off work, I may as well take her to the doctor just to get it all checked out. Her pediatrician could hear wheezing and said her ears were full of pus...yuck, I know! Well poor thing turned out to have bronchiolitis that was caused by RSV ("Really Sucks Virus") AND another double ear infection. He said that the ears were BAD and if this one didn't clear up with one round of antibiotics then we were going to go ahead with tubes. For the RSV we had to get a nebulizer and start giving her breathing treatments every four hours. Let me tell you trying to keep a breathing mask on a 8 month old is no joke! She actually handled it surprisingly well, and Nick and I are both a little worried about her enjoying it a little too much:) The treatments take about 10 minutes and she usually does great for the first 7 then it takes a three ring circus (Nick + Abby + Jovi) to distract her!!! We were supposed to go to Oxford for Ole Miss baseball alumni weekend, but didn't think sitting at a baseball game in 40 degree weather was going to help her illness. Nick did get to go up Saturday and see old baseball buddies that he had not seen in a long time, which I was so glad!

Fast forward to today. Sunny and beautiful. Everyone in the house seems to be well (at least for the moment). We spent most the afternoon outside enjoying the beautiful weather, washing cars, cleaning up, and H and I even went for a run. One of my best friends from Ole Miss got married here this weekend so we have been going all weekend with all of the festivities, so it was nice to enjoy some time to relax and enjoy each other. Here are some pics from today...
We hope you enjoyed this weekend as much as us:)

I also have some more pics up on Picasa....click here

We Love You!

Nick, Rachel, and Harper

WOW...do I still have a blog???

Ok...wow....I am not even going to address the fact that we are one day away from February and I have not blogged since Thanksgiving! Our baby girl is now 8 months old and into EVERYTHING!!! But I will start where I left off...

Christmas 2010

Harper's first Christmas was a blast! Jenn and Kyle came down from Annapolis for a little over a week before Christmas, and it was so fun for the cousins to play together:) Reagan and Harper couldn't be more different, it is going to be so neat watching them grow together.

The Bradhaw's, The Viertel's, and The Sponaugle's

Unfortunately, being a new employee, I had to work Christmas Eve:( So, after work we headed to Memphis to spend Christmas weekend with the Bradshaw's. As always, the weekend flew by in all its craziness...but was so much fun! Somehow pictures from actual Christmas have yet to be found, so hopefully I can get more on here soon!

January 2011

This past month has been a rough one health wise. Harper started the month off with a double ear infection, the next week Nick got the flu, who then passed the "flu-baton" to me for the next week. Just when everything was looking good I had a bout with some bad guacamole...then Nick needed a little MORE attention and got a horrible stomach bug, and Harper used this time to get the worst diaper rash I have ever seen AND cut a top tooth. That pretty much sums up our month so far, but one positive...our pharmacist knows me by name:) Enough complaining...

Harper is now 8 months old!!! I can't believe how fast everything is passing me by! She is now a professional "cruiser" and will even let go of her support and stand on her own from time to time. I am not sure she will ever walk because she cannot stop "dancing" long enough to take steps! (Not that I am ready for her to...she is already hard enough to keep up with!) I went to the bathroom for 5 seconds and cam back to the living room and she was behind the TV chewing on the cable!
As I said before she has now cut her top front right tooth, and feels this gives her passage to eat whatever is on Mommy's plate (she has already figured out I am the weakest link). She has tried all kinds of food and loves everything (gets that from her Mama): tater tots, ice cream, pizza, kibbles and bits (oops!).
As I have said before, I am scared what we will have if God blesses us with another child because she is such a good baby! She is sleeping from around 8:00-7:30 (roughly) every night, eats good, poops good, and is always HAPPY! She is such a joy in our lives, I don't know what we did without her.

She has now learned to give kisses on the lips. Well, our lips, usually her tongue...I guess Abby taught her this...cute none the less, but feel free to turn it down if she offers you one:) She will also wave bye-bye and is working on blowing kisses! This is actually really funny because when she does she sucks her lips in and looks like an old man who forgot to put his dentures in! I am fairly sure she will say Dada first since she says Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba all day long now.
lkWell thanks for checking in on us! Here is a link to our Picasa site to see more pics.

P.S. Before I go, I have to brag on my husband! I told him I wanted a sofa table, and look what he whipped up last weekend:)
We love you all!
Nick, Rachel, and Harper

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and weekend! We had a wonderful time staying here in Mississippi. Since I just started work, I didn't get any days off except Thursday (what happened to getting the whole week off like the last 24 years of my life???). Still, we had a great time seeing family here and managed to eat a miserable amount of food! Here are a few pictures from Harper's 1st Thanksgiving (which also happened to be her half birthday...I can't believe I have a 6 month old!!)

Harper's first try of Cool Whip!

Of course she needed something to wash it down:)

After stuffing ourselves, she wanted to do a little Black Friday shopping

Here is a link to more pictures http://picasaweb.google.com/RachelVBradshaw/Fall2010#. Harper has hit some milestones in the last week or so...her first tooth FINALLY broke through and she has started "crawling". Well crawling may be a little strong...she gets on all fours and inches around, but its a start!

I hope to be better at posting during the next few months (since it is the holidays)! We are heading to Memphis this weekend for me to run the St. Jude 1/2 Marathon again and spend time with Nick's family, so check back for more posts/pictures!

Love you all!
Nick, Rachel, and Harper