First Christmas

I'm so behind!! I WILL get caught up this week! Christmas tonight, hospital stay tomorrow, and 9 month post Tuesday. There. I said it. Now I have to do it. :)

Davis had a wonderful first Christmas. I couldn't narrow the pictures down very well, so not many words. Mostly pictures tonight. LOTS of pictures. Narrations below the pictures.

Christmas Eve. He wanted the little people down.

Got 'em. FYI...the computer no longer lives there. :)

Sweet victory. Look at the sense of accomplishment on his face.

We made cookies for Santa. Thanks to the neighbors for bringing over the dough. Santa was going to have to eat store bought cookies! :) We rolled out the dough, cut, baked, and iced.

I found these plates after Christmas last year for $1.

Santa came! He brought Davis a tricycle, "radio," ball spin-thing, new sippy cup, some balls, beginner markers, a movie, and a few other things, but I forget. Ooops!

He tried his best to get something to come out of that cup!

He seriously LOVES this thing! He "drives" whether someone is pushing him or not.

Eating the paper. He actually swallowed some, but don't worry. We found it a day or so later. :)

Loving it.

My favorite!

Yes, he will kill us someday. Oh well.

Singing Happy Birthday to Jesus and blowing out the candle. We had cake for breakfast. Yum. Davis just had a little bit.

It takes 2 great-grandparents to feed him.

Not sure about the face, but he ate this paper too.

Sorry buddy. Mommy had nothing to do with this one. I just took the picture.

Big cousin Logan. Logan was on a Christmas high. Davis was in serious need of a nap (which he never took!).

Getting used to Gammi and Papa's house. Still needing that nap.

One grandparent tried to feed him. No luck.

He discovered Uncle Zach's hat tastes a lot like Daddy's.

He also discovered that he likes celery...until he gets a "string" in his throat.

Trying to steal Logan's gun.

Gammi and Papa were happy to see him. Remember...he never did get a nap. He was not thrilled to be having his picture taken.

Daddy and Uncle Zach got the same sweaters and golf slippers from Gammi and Papa. :)

Nana and Grandpa found him a "cousin eddie" hat. I love it. He looks so cute! And, note the half-smile. He caught a second wind on the exhaustion high. It was brief.

Gifts from Nana, Grandpa, Uncle Matt, and Aunt Vasha before bed.

Aunt Sha made him a turtle. He's so cute! Davis thinks he's for chewing on.

Remember the bear from the Thanksgiving post? The one we put toys on and he stood and played? Grandpa decided Davis needed one of his very own. Daddy named him Ben. Davis loves Ben.

Finally, bedtime!

Night, night sweet boy!

An after breakfast candy cane while watching the train go around. As always, it had no nutritional value, so he loved it.

Sweet Cannon was SO EXCITED about his Tickle Monster book from Aunt Val. Davis got one too. He likes it, but wasn't nearly as excited as Cannon. :)

Now he's got the hang of it! Not to worry...he ate this paper too.

Playing with Memaw and Papaw. You know...pat something over his mouth, he "sings" and it makes "Indian sounds."

Riding Cannon's horse. It didn't last long. He just wanted to eat the hair. Nasty.

Watching Grandpa feed the longhorns while standing safely behind the fence. One of their names is Raider. I don't know which one, and I don't remember the other names.

He was NOT a fan of this baby goat. It was SCREAMING the whole time. Davis didn't cry, but didn't like it one bit either.

Petting his first baby puppy.

About lunch-time the day after Christmas, he started feeling bad. It was a rapid downward spiral. And a very long story. A post of it's own. My poor sweet, sick baby had a wonderful Christmas. He was spoiled. He is blessed.

Come back tomorrow night for the "hospital" post. It was bad, but he's tube free now! :)

Merry Christmas

We just wanted to say Merry Christmas!! I wish I could send all of you a Christmas card. I've been fighting with the scanner for almost an hour, but I WON! From us, to you...

And, because it is just way too cute not to share with everyone...

LOVE IT!

And now, I'm off to bake cupcakes! Tomorrow is Jesus' birthday and we're having cupcakes for breakfast! We wish you all an incredibly blessed Christmas! Check back soon for all the "first Christmas" fun!

Thanksgiving & 8 Months!

My new years resolution (which we never actually "make") is going to be "to be a better blogger." :) In the meantime, here's yet another "catch-all" post.

For Thanksgiving, the 3 of us, and my parents DROVE to Denver to stay with Matt and Vasha for a few days. We drove through the night both ways. Davis slept the whole way both times. Perfect. We were exhausted, but recovered quickly. He had his first experience with snow, snow sledding, Christmas card pictures, and pumpkin cheesecake (which he LOVED!).

Davis is doing GREAT! He's 8 months old (today!), and such a happy baby. He still doesn't "crawl," but gets around by rolling, "scooting," and "creeping." Oddly enough, his legs know exactly what to do, it's his arms that won't cooperate. He has said "dada" on purpose, 3 times, in reference to Brandon. :) He only says "mama" when he's crying because he's sick, hungry, or tired. If you say "mama," he smiles and says "da." He has started shaking his head "no" appropriately, and has waved "bye-bye" a couple of times.

We now attend physical therapy every week because we missed a milestone. Before anyone starts...yes. There is a "range" of normal. We are now outside of it. For the record, the people who say "he's fine...he'll catch up" when referencing their children, have children who are behind. That sounds tacky, but I hear it all the time at work, and we hear it all the time from others when talking about physical development and Davis' eating. So...we are on it. He IS behind, and we're doing the therapy now so he doesn't get further behind. The milestone he missed? Sitting himself up. If you sit him up, he's fine. Can sit all day, but cannot get himself from laying down to sitting, or from crawling position to sitting. He's only about a month behind, but behind is behind. He's doing REALLY good in physical therapy. Now if we could just get used to the 7:45 AM appointment time, we'd be good.

His feeding still stinks, but...WE HAVN'T USED THE FEEDING TUBE AT ALL IN 6 WEEKS!! Yay! He does great with the food, but still only taking in about half of the milk/liquid he needs for a day. He's doing better though. In fact, today he took in 18 ounces. He needs 30-32. They have us doing certain things with the milk that bulks up the fat/calories so we don't have to use the tube because he IS taking in enough liquid (barely) to stay hydrated. He is having a swallow study done this friday afternoon. It's going to be strange going as a parent. I always enjoy doing the swallow studies at work (though it's not something I do since starting at KidsCare two years ago). I miss it. Anyways...they are just checking to make absolutely certain there isn't something going on that might make drinking liquids hurt. I'll keep you posted.

We had another routine MRI and appointment with the neurosurgeon last week. Overall, it went really well. Dr. Roberts is still amazed at how well Davis is doing and he still says his development is still our best "test." The MRI showed that the ventricles in his brain are still perfect, still no extra fluid that would warrant a shunt (THANK YOU GOD!!), but it DID show "a little bit of increased pressure." That could mean several things, but Dr. Roberts said that he would only be concerned if there were physical or cognitive problems (beyond not being able to get himself into a sitting position). He said just keep an eye on him, and call if we notice any changes, but that he wasn't concerned at all. Yay! We go back in 3 months for another MRI and appointment. This time, they're going to do a full MRI, not the 5 minute kind he's always had. Dr. Roberts didn't realize he'd never had the full one before. They'll put him to sleep and look closely at everything in his head and neck. Please keep praying for our boy and his brain!!

I'm sure there are more updates, but all most of you really care about are the pictures, so here goes...everything from the last month.

Finally pulling up to Uncle Matt and Aunt Vasha's after 14ish hours in the car!

Thanksgiving! This bear was part of the "decor" at the place we were staying. He was perfect for D to play with (though he probably shouldn't have!).

Hangin' out with Uncle Matt

Looking out at the snow.

Thanksgiving dinner. He had (and liked) sweet potatoes, marshmallows, green beans, bread, apples, and pumpkin cheesecake. He did NOT like...dressing or broccoli/rice casserole. (Pardon the food in his mouth...we're still working on keeping our mouth closed when there's food inside!)

Standing and playing!

His first Thanksgiving wore him out. Really. It wasn't even bedtime yet, but he was GONE.

My little "toy hoarder." If he can reach it, it MUST be in his lap, whether he wants to play with it or not. He just likes to have options.

His first time sledding.

And first time in the snow.

Nana stayed at the house with D and we went sledding.

See us at the top of the picture? My dad took this as we were comming down.

Always on Auntie's nice list indeed.

Christmas card out-take. There were HUNDREDS of these! But you'll all soon see there were a few winners!

Haha.

Putting his first Christmas ornament on the tree. Don't be fooled. He just wanted to chew on it.

My boy was SOOOO excited! :)

Look at his face. He was equally excited to be putting the star on top.

He had much more fun dancing with santa and the banjo dog. Seriously loves those things.

Waffles, he likes. Go figure.

Sweet Cannon. He was patting and rubbing D's back. So cute! I hope someone got a good picture of them from the front. (If you did, email it to me!)

He supervised while grandpa set up the train.

He was in Heaven! Grandson in one arm, dog in the other. Now, if only we weren't making him watch White Christmas! Ha!

I hope he always looks at us that way!

Thank you all for your love, support, and prayers!!
Specific Prayer Requests:
- his head! That the ventricles stay "clear," and the pressure decreases
- his feeding. That tube has got to come out!!
- his physical development
- his eye