1st Tooth!

Emerson's 1st tooth broke through her gums on Thursday, October 1st!! It went down again and re-appeared on Saturday. And now it is definitely through and popping up more and more each day. At first I thought 2 teeth had came through, but today she finally let me in her mouth and there's just 1!!

Things seem to be back to normal in our house (knock on wood ...)! Emerson had 5 "bad" nights. It was taking her around 2 hours to fall asleep, but once she fell asleep she was fine and slept for her usual 12-13 hours. It was just really hard for us, because we are used to putting her to bed and then not hearing from her again until morning! And it was also confusing, because we didn't know what was bothering her. We thought it was her #2 problems, but then thought maybe it was teething that was bothering her and then I started thinking perhaps she was just going through some separation anxiety!! She definitely wasn't hungry. Such a guessing game, but regardless it was rough and now it's better and we hope we have our amazing little sleeper back :) Our colds are all pretty much gone and Cal has not caught them!!! (once again, knock on wood!!)

I had a great time on Saturday at my sister's bridal shower and stagette! The stagette was tons of fun!! It was great to tear up the dance floor again!!! Lindsay had lots of fun, she was so funny!! She was the high five and hugging queen :0) It was great to see some family from Saskatchewan too!! So nice of them to drive all that way :) Sunday morning everyone came over for coffee before heading home. It's nice that Blake now remembers everyone, even though he only sees them a few times (if that) a year. When he saw my Uncle Ken he asked where his motor home was!! Ken had a motor home at the family reunion we were at in July! Now the countdown to Vegas is really on!! I can't wait!!! The wedding is going to be so beautiful! We're looking forward to seeing some sights as a family too. I've found quite a few websites that discuss family friendly activities in Las Vegas. And the shopping ... I can't WAIT for the outlet malls!!! Cal too ... he actually enjoys shopping in Vegas :)

Emerson had a follow-up appointment with her pediatrician today. He gave us another prescription for Lactulose, told us to continue trying new fruits and vegetables and to fill the prescription if we need to. If things don't improve in a month of so, he will have to do further testing (x-rays, contrast something or another, etc!). But he said he'd rather give it a few more weeks before having to do any kind of invasive tests. He said that there is a possibility that she has a narrowing of her bowels, which explains why when she was just nursing she was fine, but as soon as she started solids she got backed up! So we're praying that things will straighten out and we won't have to put her through any sort of invasive "testing!"

Tomorrow morning we are going to visit Lesley, Colby and Jenna! We haven't seen Jenna since she was less than 24 hours old, so I am very excited to see her again!!! Hopefully Colby and Blake will have fun playing together ;)

It's going to be a great weekend! Friday is our 5th wedding anniversary! Hard to believe it's been 5 years since our wedding day! One of the best days of my life!! We are going out for dinner Friday night, which I'm REALLY looking forward to! Cal and I do spend quite a bit of time together each evening, but it will be nice to be out of the house together, by ourselves :) Saturday Cal is going hunting with my Dad and Dion. I'm not sure what the kids and I are going to do? We'll see! Sunday we are going to Church and Monday we are having Thanksgiving dinner at our house. I LOVE Thanksgiving weekend!! Thanksgiving is such a great holiday! No stress of shopping (and spending too much!!) for gifts and you get to enjoy time with your family and a yummy meal :) I think I also love it because our anniversary usually falls on the long weekend :) Cal switched his Monday off from this Monday to Friday (our anniversary) and we hope to do something fun with the kids Friday morning!

Have a great weekend everyone. Hopefully our weather smartens up a bit! Fall is my favorite season, but I do prefer a bit warmer fall :)

xoxo Cal, Tracy, Blake and Emerson

Poor Girl :(

Last night I took Emerson into the E.R. at 1 am. She had not been a happy girl since approx. 8 pm. The night before (Wednesday) she woke up a few times after going to bed too. I thought it was probably due to teething and her cold, but found out last night it was more likely due to her bowel problems :( Her behaviour last 2 nights was totally out of the ordinary, so we knew something was up. She'd scream for about a 1/2 an hour and then be quiet for a little bit and then scream again, etc, etc. And whenever I touched her stomach she'd cringe and cry. So I called health link and they said to take her in right away. The Dr. in the E.R. said with her history, she was most likely in pain due to needing to have a bowel movement. I had given her a glycerin supp. at home, with no results. So they gave her an enema and it worked (unlike in Jasper!). Thank goodness! As soon as it worked she dozed off on my shoulder. Poor girl, we feel so bad for her. The Dr. last night said she just has "lazy bowels" and that she should grow out of it. Here's hoping ... So I've made her an appointment with her pediatrician to talk about it again and see what we should do next. Can't wait for this to be over ... Needless to say we are extremely tired in our house today (we got home from the hospital at 4:30 am).

But we are looking forward to Saturday's events!! I hope Emerson is back to her normal, happy self tomorrow. It is my sister Lindsay's bridal shower tomorrow afternoon and stagette tomorrow night!! Emerson and I will be attending the shower, while Cal and Blake attend a hockey draft at the Gable's house!! Cal is staying home with the kids Saturday night, while I party it up with Linds and friends!!! LOL! I pray Emerson is a good little girl :) Sunday, we have family visiting from Saskatchewan and they are all coming over for coffee before heading home. It will be great to see everyone, and I'm sure my Grandma Marg is looking forward to seeing 2 of her great grandchildren! Have a great weekend everyone :)

Tracy

Fall is upon us ...

Brrr!!! It is chilly outside! We finally broke down and turned the furnace on :( The wind has been brutal the last few days. We have one of those really tall, skinny trees (not sure what it's called!) in our backyard, right outside our bedroom window and I keep thinking it's going to snap in half!

Blake, Emerson and I all have colds :( Hopefully Cal won't catch it, but the odds aren't in his favor! Blake and I are doing pretty good, I noticed that it is a lot easier to deal with Blake and his cold now that he is older! He can actually blow his nose and understands what is going on!! Emerson on the other hand, isn't so easy to help! She hates us wiping her nose and of course can't blow it, so she's stuffed right up. Poor girl :( It's been about 3 days, so hopefully it will clear up asap!! Thankfully they're both sleeping really good at night still. Emerson had one rough day with naps, but other than that she's napped good, which I think will help fight it off faster?!

Other than the cold, Emerson is also teething. One corner of a tooth on the bottom is just through! It seems to come up and go down daily, which I'm sure is causing some discomfort!! I remember with Blake, once the first tooth came through the rest were quick to follow and I can feel 4 more in Emerson's mouth that are right there, so maybe they'll all pop out together! She is definitely not quite as eager of an eater as Blake was. He would vibrate with excitement when we first started feeding him!! She's a bit slower and doesn't eat as much. So far her favorites are the cereals, squash, prunes and applesauce! She doesn't mind peas, but isn't crazy for carrots or sweet potato! She loves drinking water from her sippy cup, but hasn't quite mastered using it herself yet!! She's still taking Lactulose, but her prescription will be running out soon. Not sure what we're going to do if she's not regular yet at the end of the prescription! I guess visit the Dr. again. We pulled out some more toys for Emerson. She enjoys standing up at the couch, so we brought up a few more standing toys!

Blake is also enjoying the toys we brought up from the basement!! It's pretty funny to see him hunched over pushing the walker around!!! He's had a few hard days with this cold. Just overtired and a bit cranky :( He didn't have much fun at preschool yesterday. We were debating taking him, but he already missed one when we were on vacation, so we took him. Hopefully next week he'll be feeling better and back to having fun!! He's cracking us up lately with his use of the word something. For example, he says, "What's this Mom? A tractor or something?" So if he doesn't know exactly what an object is he'll say, "or something?" LOL!! Or if someone is upset he might say, "Emerson not happy or something?" But something sounds like sometin!! This morning he put a toy in the trunk of his ride on car so the seat was tipped up, climbed on and said, "I riding my motorbike Mom!" And then he said, "I need a helmet" and went and put on his hockey helmet!!! I laughed SO hard, it was so funny!!! The only way I could get a picture was to tell him that Dad and Grandpa would want to see!! He's just too cute :)

I had an ultrasound appointment yesterday. My Dr. thinks I might have gull stones (or is it gallstones?!), so hopefully the ultrasound will confirm/deny that. I should hear in a few days. Cal worked from home yesterday so I didn't have to take the kids with me to the appointment. It's nice to have him home! But when he goes back to work Blake's not too happy!! This morning he wanted Dad to get him up and changed and dressed and then he said he wanted Dad to read the Daddy book!! He always wants Cal to read the Mercer Mayer, Just Me and My Dad book to him! Followed by the New Baby book and Grandma and Grandpa Love Their RV! Such a man of routine, Blake is!!!

We hope everyone is having a good week and keeping warm! Take care :)

Luv Cal, Tracy, Blake and Emerson

Bye, bye summer! Time to slow down ...

And what a great summer it was!! Today Cal headed back to work :( He was off for 18 days!!! And with his return to work, also comes the end of our summer! Officially, fall begins at 3:18 pm. All of our camping trips are over for the '09 season and our calendar is looking a bit clearer. Which is a good thing ... I guess!! We still have lots of exciting events coming up, we just won't be quite as busy as the past few months!

We would like to send a great big congratulations out to Cal's brother Gerry and his wife Lesley and son Colby!!! They welcomed a baby girl, Jenna Ann, to their family on September 21 at 9:39 am. Jenna was 6 lbs 11 oz and 19 3/4 " long! We were lucky enough to meet her yesterday afternoon! She is adorable and looks quite a bit like her big brother!! We could not believe that Blake and Emerson were once that small :( Crazy how fast you forget. We can't wait to visit again and cuddle Jenna :0) We wish Lesley a speedy recovery from her c-section and I am personally sending all my patience vibes her way!!!! I don't have much to share, but know how many you need with a newborn and 22 month old at home!

So as I mentioned earlier, we are slowing down quite a bit from previous months! Blake is still attending My First Preschool at the YMCA on Monday mornings and other than that we have no scheduled programs. Blake starts swimming lessons again at the end of October and we are going to start swimming with Emerson soon too! I still might register for Sing, Sign, Laugh and Learn at the library, but I'm not so sure the time will work for us. It starts at 10:15 and Em is usually getting up from her morning nap around that time. It will be nice when she's down to one nap a day - that way we'll have the morning free at least!!

Today is the first day in many weeks that we've been home without something going on and I think Blake is enjoying it!! He's having fun playing with his trucks and trains and having a "lazy" day! He plays so great by himself and with Emerson. I love watching them "play" together! He's so great with her and really tries to include her! I sit her in the toy area and he gets the nursing pillow and puts it behind her and piles up her toys in front of her!! After awhile, he usually gives her one of his trucks as well - but not at first!!! Emerson is getting more and more fun as the days pass. She's enjoying playing with toys more now and loves jumping in her Jumperoo! She can stand at the couch for a few seconds by herself and enjoys it quite a bit! She still doesn't like being on her tummy. I wonder if maybe she won't crawl? We'll see!! She's eating more and more each day, but is still having #2 issues! Hoping that clears up really soon. I don't want her to be on Lactulose forever. No teeth yet, but there is one very, very near the surface.

Cal had a golf tournament Thursday afternoon/evening, so my Dad babysat the kids for a few hours while my Mom, Lindsay, Kelly and I were at the Tim McGraw concert and he was golfing. Blake thought it was pretty funny that Grandpa had to change his poopy diaper!!! Poor Grandpa doesn't care too much for diaper changes! But he's a great Grandpa and he toughed it out - Thanks Dad :) (and not just for changing the poopy diaper! lol!) The concert was SO GOOD!! Much better than the last time we saw him at Commonwealth. And Cal won an IPOD Touch at the golf tourney!! Tonight I'm going to Keith Urban with my friend Renee ... CAN'T WAIT!!!

I hope everyone had a fabulous summer and here's to an even better fall!

xoxo Tracy

Emerson's Baptism

Today (September 20th) Emerson was baptised at Pilgrim United Church in Edmonton. It was a very nice service and a wonderful day. Church began at 11 am and the Baptism was at the end of the service. We got a little bit nervous towards the end of the service because Emerson was starting to get tired, but thankfully it was time to go up for the Baptism and she was a little angel! We were given the Baptismal Candle and everyone who attended church today signed an "I witnessed your Baptism" sheet for us to have as a keepsake. After church everyone came back to our house for lunch. Em did pretty good all day, although the effects of missing an afternoon nap began to show for Emerson and Blake! We had a great day with friends and family!

XOXOX
Tracy

7 Months Old!

Just a quick update on Emerson's 7 month pediatrician check-up. She weighs 16 lbs and is 24.8" long. She is in the 25th percentile for weight, 10th percentile for height and her head circumference is in the 5th percentile! Quite a little girl :) I'm hoping she might gain a bit of height in the years to come!! I'm sure she won't be tall by any means, but I hope she's at least as tall as her Mommy!!! The appointment went really well. I had a whole two page document written out about her #2 problems!, as well as some other concerns we had. Dr. Radisic was so great, took a lot of time to answer all my questions and then some! He wrote us a prescription for more lactulose and increased her dose. That combined with some prune juice will hopefully get things moving again and her body will adjust to the solid foods and all will be well! I had heard that the baby cereals have a lot of iron in them and can sometimes cause constipation, but Dr. Radisic said they don't have enough iron in them to cause constipation, so don't cut back on the cereal! Which I had done - I started giving her cereal once a day instead of twice a day. So I was happy with what we were told and hopefully everything will straighten out within the next few months. We will wean her off of the lactulose slowly, if everything goes well. I also talked to the Dr. about her lack of rolling and not enjoying her stomach, so he did a few different strength tests and muscle tests and said everything is fine, she's actually very strong! Get this ... she's just stubborn!! Surprise, surprise ... wonder where she gets that from?! She's been stubborn since before she was even born! Dr. Radisic is happy with how she's sitting up and reaching for things and transferring objects from hand to hand, so hopefully when she decides she wants to move she'll figure out she has to be on her stomach to crawl!!! Happy hump day :) Enjoy this above average September weather!!

Tracy

Home Sweet Home

We arrived home this afternoon :) It is nice to be home and we're all glad to be sleeping in our "house beds" tonight! Overall we had a fabulous vacation!

From Salmon Arm, we drove to Banff for a one night stay at the Tunnel Mountain campground just outside town. We arrived pretty early in the day on Saturday. Emerson, my Mom and I headed into town to do some shopping, while the boys stayed back at the campsite. The shopping in Banff is fantastic! There are a lot of very nice stores. It was a very, very hot day in Banff and we were thankful it wasn't that hot the entire vacation!

Sunday morning we packed up bright and early and left the campsite for the Calgary zoo. At this point in time we also said good bye to my Mom and Dad. It was a bit sad to part ways!! We had so much fun with them and look forward to vacationing together again! As we were driving into Calgary my friend Candace called to say they were home from their camping trip, so we detoured to their house in Okotoks. We were going to be heading to their place after the zoo, but instead got there around 10 am and had a full day visiting with Candace, Brandon, Nicholas, Lindsey and Parker! I was very excited to see everyone and meet baby Parker :) We parked our trailer behind Candace's house and stayed for 2 nights. It was so, so, SO nice to spend some time with Candace and Lindsey and their families!! We rarely get to see each other and often when we do it's only for a couple of hours. Nicholas and Blake were best of buds in no time and had lots of fun playing and goofing around!! They were so cute together! I wish we lived closer to each other :( One day hopefully!!

On Monday we went to the Calgary zoo with the Hrdlicka's. The weather was great and the zoo wasn't too crowded. Blake took a few minutes to warm up to the animals, but when he did he had a great time! He seemed at bit worried at first that they were going to get him!! Such a cautious little guy! We almost covered the whole zoo - we were there for 5 hours!! It was lots of fun watching the boys run around and have a great time. I was hoping Candace would go into labour with all that walking, but no such luck! LOL!

We left Okotoks early this morning and here we are home again! Cal is off for another week, so we're going to enjoy our time around home as well! And we're already planning our next camping vacation for the summer of '10! Can't wait! In the mean time, we are getting excited for our next vacation - Lindsay and Jeremy's wedding in Las Vegas! YAY!! Just over two months away!!!

Tomorrow Emerson has her 6 month pediatrician appointment, yes it's at 7 months! Hopefully Dr. Radisic will offer some help with her bowel issues. The Lactulose doesn't seem to be working very well anymore. Thursday Cal has a golf tournament and Lindsay is coming over. She is bringing Heidi home and we are going to the Tim McGraw concert with my Mom and a friend hers. I can not wait for Tim McGraw!! Then on Friday, Lindsay and I are going to pick up the bridesmaid dresses! I'm so excited to see them!! Sunday we have Emerson's baptism, so Saturday we'll likely be doing a lot of cleaning and preparing. Monday Blake has preschool in the morning and we will be anxiously awaiting the details of the arrival of our new niece!!! Gerry, Lesley and Colby will be welcoming a new addition to their family on Monday via planned c-section! We can't wait to hear all the details and meet the little princess :)

I hope everyone has a great week and enjoys this wonderful weather! Talk to you soon ;)

Love Tracy