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
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
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!
Hello friends! Hope that everyone is having a wonderful Fall so far. We are starting to enjoy the cooler weather and leaves starting to change here in Mississippi. A lot has happened since I last blogged, so let me catch you up. I took my licensure exam on October 27th and found out I passed the 29th. I took a Physical Therapy job at one of the hospitals here in Jackson, and start MONDAY....real world here I come!!! So I have been rushing around doing everything that needs to be done before I start...I have been a daycare registering, vet taking, dentist going, clothes sewing fool:) I am also running the St. Jude half marathon again in December with some girls from church, so TRYING to get back in shape!
Nick was scheduled to take his engineering exam on Friday the 29th. His exam is different than ours: it is only given twice a year in Vicksburg, is 8 hours long, and you can bring any materials you want in with you...open book. Well, Nick left our house around 6:00 to be there for the 7:45 exam time. When it came his turn to enter the test, they would not let him in to the exam because his driver's license expired 7 days before on his 29th birthday!! He was soooo frustrated, and I was too! So now he has spent time studying, paid money, and can't try again until April. I felt awful for him! In the last month when we WEREN'T studying (which was rare) we...
watched football...
(the look on their face shows you how our Rebels have been doing:()
Carving pumpkins... Enjoying the fall weather... Nick's parents came to visit and brought Harper a toy chest that he built for her... Dressing up for Halloween...
The first picture is of our friend Carrie and her baby boy, Grady, who is a few weeks older than Harper. Grady was a pea in a pod, and Harper was a football:) She also wore the costume Saturday night to the Ole Miss vs. Auburn game (I forgot my camera)...and was a big hit. One good thing about a baby is an excuse to leave a football game after 3rd quarter when you are getting killed without looking like "just a bad fan":) It is so much fun to see Harper get more and more personality. She is such a happy baby! She is over 5 months old now! She is already wearing me out...I don't know what I will do when she can walk! She wants to crawl so bad, but can't quite figure it out so she just rolls or belly crawls everywhere. She can sure move though! She has started choking down her green veggies now, but her favorite foods are carrots and avacado! We started applesauce yesterday and it was a HIT! I couldn't shovel it in fast enough:) She has now graduated to her high chair that GG and GPaw gave her...
Abby just sits like an alligator under a bridge waiting for something to fall.
You may ask, "don't you have another dog? where is she?" Why yes, we do. I took the girls to the vet for their yearly shots and checkup today and Jovi had to stay overnight because she flips out when they try to cut her nails. They are going to sedate her to do it...does anyone have a prescription for doggy Xanax??? Haha...such a "special" dog:)
Well, thanks for checking in on us! We love you all! Nick, Rachel, and Harper
Hello friends! I hope everyone is starting to get some awesome fall weather...it has been beautiful here this week! We even broke out one of Harper's hats this morning when we were outside!
Well, as I mentioned last post, Harper had her 4 month check up (and shots) on Monday. Here were her stats: Length: 25.25 inches (80th percentile) Weight: 14lbs 5 oz (70th percentile) Head Circumference: 40.5 cm (35th percentile) Our pediatrician said everything looked great and after assuring me that head size is not indicative of brain development, I felt much better:) He even said that her strength and development was that of a 6 month old! As we were talking about her "rolling off the bed" incident, Harper took advantage of this opportunity to show the Doctor her rolling trick (luckily he caught her by the leg before she rolled off the exam table!) She took her shots like a champ. Didn't cry at all with the first one, but the second one burned and she let loose!
The pediatrician said that since everything with her development looked great we may want to go ahead and start her on "solid foods". After she mastered the spoon with rice cereal, I broke out my blender and got to puree-ing. I made peas, green beans, avocado, broccoli, carrots (Anything I had laying around that I thought could be baby food). Of course I had to freeze them all because you can only introduce one food at a time...i guess I got a little excited:) Anyway...we picked peas to be the magical first food and grabbed the video and regular camera.
So excited to try something new!
Not so sure about this...
What in the world????
This may take some time:)
Everything I read told you to feed them their milk first, so they don't fill up on the solid foods at first. So after feeding her, her whole night time bottle we decided to try the peas...rookie mistake. The peas triggered her gag reflex which then invited her entire bottle to come up with what little peas she got down... I will spare you those pictures, but lets just say her bumbo seat ended up in the shower:) Guess this will take a little time.
Every day she seems to get more and more active! I am already dreading chasing her around, but it is still so fun to see:) Here she is in her sassy seat...she LOVES it! Especially to watch Abby and Jovi run around her.
This morning we were out on the porch and it was cool so I put her hat on (she looked so cute)! Of course then she soiled her outfit, so soon she is wearing nothing BUT her hat (which is her favorite way to be:) We are now all watching the Ole Miss game (GO REBELS!!!!). Hope everyone enjoys their weekend! Thanks for checking on us, we love you! Click here for more pictures on picasa!
Hello friends! I'm not even going to address the fact that I have not blogged in so long, y'all have seen over the last year how bad I am at this. I am, however, going to try to be better about just doing short posts to let you know what we are up to and what milestones Harper is hitting:)
I will start with the easiest thing to talk about...Harper! We now lovingly refer to her as "little toot". This is because she has started showing us her little personality, the fact that she IS boss, and can have quite the attitude! It is so much fun to watch her become more and more of a person everyday...such a blessing:) She is now 3 1/2 months old and about 14 pounds (not sure on length, but we go to the doctor in 2 weeks and I will be excited to find out). She has been rolling from her back to her tummy, and started rolling from her tummy to her back last week! She is definitely a mover and a shaker! This week we had a scare as we left her in the center of our king-sized bed and turned our back for literally 2 seconds and she army crawled off! After checking every inch of her body and getting a BIG smile, I knew she was ok. I cried more than she did over it:) So with that trick, she lost her privelege for unsupervised play on ANY raised surface! She has also lost the privileges of being in her swing or baby seat without the seatbelt on (she turned over in it and was swinging face down last week). Needless to say, we are learning as we go:) She is mostly all smiles during the day, which makes it hard to do anything BUT play with her!
That leads great into my next update...
Me. No, I have not gotten a job. No, I have not taken my licensure exam. No, I have really not studied much. Yes, Nick is going to kill me soon:) I have, however, signed up to take the test....so I will take it sometime in the next 60 days! Prayers are appreciated! I have, however, been spending my time running (I am doing the St. Jude Half Marathon again in December), sewing a little, and playing with Harper:) It's amazing how this can FILL UP all my study time!
Nick will also be taking his Professional Engineering exam in October, so our date nights will soon have to be study date nights...YUCK:( He has also been spending time doing some woodworking. He made this beautiful table from reclaimed lumber (pictured above). It's beautiful, but of course, he is going to sell it! He has also bought some old doors and other wood to build some more pieces...he is quite talented. I will show you pictures of more items later!
Well thanks for checking in!
Love you!
Nick, Rachel, and Harper
P.S. Sorry all the photos are at the top, and not within post...my computer was acting funny and I was impatient:)
So sorry that it has been almost 8 weeks since my last post announcing the arrival of Harper. Between settling into life as parents and not having internet at our house for a while, blogging has just not fit in!
Nick and I are adjusting to parental life fairly well! Harper has been an overall pretty good baby (of course she has her ups and downs), but a JOY all the time. Even when we resort to driving her around at 3:00 am, I still feel so blessed to have had this opportunity! The first 2 weeks were a breeze! All she did was sleep and we had food galore brought by sweet friends and neighbors and Nick had the first week off. Real life set in at week 3 which included not wanting to ever be put down, napping no more than 10 minutes at a time during the day, and general fussiness. She hated her swing, she hated her play mat, she hated her crib, she hated to be held while sitting down. The only thing that was always a winner was bouncing on my exercise ball with her! I couldn't help but laugh when I walk in the living room at 1:00am to see Nick in the living room in his boxers, watching ESPN and bouncing on my exercise ball! Even to this day, though we seem to "be out of the weeds", the ball is still our go to:)
She also LOVES bathtime!
...and going on the boat:)
Now I have to brag a little. Starting at 6 weeks Harper started sleeping 8 hours fairly consistently at night!!! It was the best thing ever! At four weeks she did her first 8 hour stretch. Of course, I got NO sleep watching the monitor and going to her room several times to see if she was breathing! After a few a few nights like that, we have become spoiled into our new sleep routine. When we occasionally have a not so restful night, I have to remind myself of the many friends with one year olds who get less sleep than we do:)
The past 2 weeks have been a lot of fun! She has started recognizing people and noticing her surroundings. She will now tolerate her swing and playmat, and will even bat at some of the toys. She will reach and grab for things within reach, her favorite of which is MY HAIR!!! The most fun thing so far though, has been the beginnings of purposeful smiles! It melts our hearts when she looks straight at you and lights up with a big smile full of gums:) They are still rare, but she is starting to figure her body out and how it interacts with her environment! It is such an amazing thing to watch:)
The dogs have adjusted well with the new addition, and we try to still give them some attention (or at least remember to feed them:). They were fairly disinterested at first, but are slowly acknowledging Harper with occasional sniffs and licks. I think they are saving most of their attention for when she walks around covered in food and can clean up her high chair:)
Here is Harper with Abby before bed.
Playing on her playmat.
I can hardly believe that Harper will be 8 weeks old tomorrow! It has flown by and I am already getting sad with every ounce she grows feeling like the next time I blink she will be heading off to college...ok, so that is a little dramatic but It does seem to fly by already! She goes to the doctor next week for a check up so I can't wait to see how much she has grown. At her two week appointment she had already grown an inch and put on a pound and a half!! (20.5 inches and 8lbs 12oz) She had her first out of town trip last weekend to Memphis to see Nick's family and some of our Memphis friends. She did great, so we are venturing on a slightly longer trip to Arkansas the weekend after next! Jenn and Kyle, my sister and brother in law, are coming in town from Annapolis, Maryland on Thursday and we get to meet our neice, Reagan Faith, for the first time. She was born two and a half weeks after Harper. It will be so much fun to have them here and spend time with another sweet baby!
This is Harper with her Big cousin Kate from trip to Memphis.
Here are a few fun "photo shoot" pictures:)
Sorry this post is so long! I will try to post more often so I don't write a novel each time! Thanks for checking in! Click here for a link to our picasa site for more pictures! We love you! Nick, Rachel, and Harper
We hope you enjoyed this weekend as much as us:)
