Ear infections, fever virus, thrush, and daddy's wreck

What a way to start the new year eh? Sounds more like an entry you might see on web md. But nope, that would be the way Elem has started this year! Only one month into 2008 and we have already gone through an ear infection, which sucks, because the poor little dude is just in pain and cant get any sleep. Then once we got rid of that, I woke up at about 12:30am one night and Elem was burning up, he had a fever of like 102 degrees. I staid up with him for the rest of the night, until it peaked out at 104.4 degrees. At that point I took all of his clothes off and covered him with cold wet rags, got ice and stroked his hair with it, and just nursed him until it finally broke! He had the fever virus for about 4 days. It just continued to spike and then fall randomly, and just made him feel awful. I was seriously scared when it got so high, but his cousin Cecilia had the virus a few days before so I thought he might get it, even though he hadnt been around her at all for that very reason! Then Friday night, I was looking at Elem like, why oh why are you sooo fussy?? I know something is wrong, but you have no fever, no ear infection, you are not hungry, wet, or tired, what is it? And it just hit me, oh my gosh, that white stuff in his mouth is so not going away. It is permanent. He has thrush! Although I have seen it several times in my line of work, Seth and I immediatley got online to do some research to see if there was anything we could do. 

So for those of you who do not know what that is, it basically looks like cottage cheese on your babies' tongue and mouth. His is all over the tongue and on the roof of his mouth and tonsils and back of his throat. I am not sure how he got it, but he did! So I took him to the doctor on Saturday morning bright and early and got it confirmed. Poor dude just cant catch a break these days. He is now on some meds 4 times a day and hopefully it will begin to go away by tomorrow or so. I just hate that I have been breast feeding for all this time, with high hopes that he would be a healthier baby and get all the good stuff that he needed to start out on the right track. At this rate he will be quite a sickly child! Hopefully this is the end for a while. 

The only side effects of the thrush are just a really sore mouth, cranky baby, and no desire to eat. Or rather cant eat. The only thing I have found that he will eat at all is this stuff called Yo Baby yogurt, which I dont even like him eating yet cause it is made with whole milk.  Even though its organic its just too early for him to be eating whole milk. But its cold and he likes it, so for now I will continue to feed it to him.  

Besides kickin off 2008 with some major sicknesses, daddy was also in a huge wreck about 2 weeks ago! He was driving home from work when some guy driving a truck hit a white van, then the white van ran into Seth!  The car in front of Seth had come to a quick stop so it was slightly pulled off to where part of the car was on the shoulder, so when the van hit Seth, he hit the left side of the car in front of him, and caused his car to flip on the interstate. Amazingly enough Seth had his seat belt on and when the car landed on the hood, he took off his seat belt, dropped to the ground and climbed out the broken driver side window. Then of course he started throwing up cause he was so scared! But some how he made it out okay with just a few scratches and bruises, some bruised up ribs and chest muscles, and some major whip lash! 

We are just so thankful that he made it out okay and was not more seriously injured! I actually called him right when it happened and he had just crawled out of the car. We spent the night at the ER and he was okay by the end of the weekend! It was a super bad wreck and he totaled his car! So one our next big step is getting him a new car! Not sure what he will be getting since that one was totally paid off and all, but we will get him something here in the next month or so!

What a month huh? Crazy all the things that can happened to ya, guess we just need to be thankful for each and every day we have with each other! 

Introducing Video time with Elem

Thats right, and yes it is about time! My mom got Seth and I a video camera when Elem was born!! And I mean like when we were in the hospital she gave it to us!! We have had the worst trouble for some reason getting the thing to upload to the computer! I have no idea why, because it is just a sony handy cam. Seriously for 8 months we have been trying to upload our video to this mac to where we could at least watch it and put it on dvd or something. With Seth being in video production as a career he has been busting his butt to try and get it to work. After much much trial and error, he finally brought home this thing from his work which is like some video converter that they use hardly ever at his work. I think the thing costs like $1500 bucks! And all of the sudden it worked!! We have our videos and they are all loaded to the computer! Wahoo. This is one of the big things that I wanted to share with you all. I cant believe that it is actually working.

Seth has been working on editing all of the video that I have shot, of course I have shot tons of video because like I always say, Elem is so dang cute and I feel like everything is a milestone, so for starters, I just want to show this one. It is the very first time Elem pulled up. I totally caught him trying and pulled out the video camera. Seth was at the store so I was very lucky to catch this and be able to show him when he got home! Once we get all the others edited, Ill show you like the first time I saw Elem and all that. But for now! Enjoy! I am so excited!

Oh and the reason he is naked, is because he was having trouble pulling up cause of the nightgown he had on, he couldnt grasp with his feet very well, so I stripped him down in hopes he would pull up!

I think I can I think I can

Uhmm cant you just pick me up or at least hand me that toy like you always do?


Okay I rolled over, thats a start...


Pleeeease...its HARD to learn to crawl-and I am the only baby, gimme mommy


and pull the feet, bend the knees, lift the booty


i did it I did it! yeah I did it!


ahhh daddy's here, he will pick me up, mean ole mommy making me have tummy time!

8 months old already!

I can not believe how fast Elem is growing up and how fast every single day seems to fly by. It feels like Christmas came and went in a blink of an eye and now Elem is only a few months away from being a year old!

soo many things have happened this month and I just havent had the time I would like to blog about our life, but I am going to try way harder because before you know it another month will be here and I wont know where to begin! So for starters I wanted to share Elem's 8 month milestones!

First and foremost, he no longer has 2 bottom teeth, but 5 teeth total. The week after christmas he cut the upper left one, and then not a few days later he cut the upper one right next to it. So for about 2 weeks he has had 2 top teeth and 2 bottom teeth. But before we got used to looking at those, yesterday he cut another one! the upper one to the right of his front teeth. His right that is! So he is cuttin teeth like crazy round here!

Other than cuttin teeth, these days Elem is:

-still running like crazy in the walker-anywhere and everywhere he can get to

-feeding himself small finger foods like green beans and corn etc.

-rolling over front to back and back to front with ease! finally! lazy boy!

-standing up fabulously and walking from stools to couches to toys-as far as he can get! I think he might be skipping the crawling and moving straight to walking

-his first attempt at crawling pretty much occurred this week, he can scoot when he wants-but it is a little difficult getting his 22 lbs 10 oz around.

-weighed in at 22lbs and 10 oz at last doc checkup. :)

-will hold all toys out for sage to come and grab from him and loves it when she does! He likey sage.

-wants to be with mommy at all times, its some stage he is going through I guess, but if I am anywhere in sight he NEEDS me

-loves taking baths, especially a big boy bath with mommy in the jacuzzi-he lays on my chest and just lets the jets hit him, so so sweet-one of my favorite times

-likes to play role the ball-big balls like basketballs are his favorite-he pats it when you role it to him and then he pushes it away! he is so smart

-babbles all day long-sticking too mumumumum, dadadada, do do do do, hhmmm, yeah yeah yeah, hi hi hi, heeeee, he also shreaks and screams at random times a lot-aparently I was a loud child so I guess it runs in the family

-sleeps with mommy and is still breast fed-go me go me! wahoo

-plays well alone with his toys

-likes to roll things with his hands, like spinning-he will spin something forever if you will let him

-can go from sitting to laying down with ease

-can pull up from laying down if he has something to pull up on, and can pull up from sitting

-loves loves loves peek a boo

-likes to peer around and over to try and see something he is looking at

-is obsessed and amazed with the mirror and looking at you in the mirror

-likes to bang toys to hear the noise he is making

okay now I know that might sound like a lot of random things but they are all so special! Each and every one of those makes up little Elem's personality. Now if you throw in, an insanely happy baby that smiles all the time, and loves to cuddle, you pretty much have Elem! He is uch a blessing and we are so thankful to have such a sweet and great mannered little dude. I dont know how we got so lucky!

Here are a few pics of the last month!

Feeding himself on the way back from my parents


Playing with mommy in the car-well at least playing with my face!


Soaking up all the attention at my parents and playing with daddy


Dressed up with daddy for the razorback cotton bowl game-not a great day for the hogs, but he sure looked cute in his outfit


"did I get all dressed up for nothing?"


sweet hugs from daddy


watching those hogs....hedoes enjoy looking at the tv when sports are on....I can already see my nights of greys anatomy and real housewives of o.c. going out the door in only a few short years! ha!


so that at least gets me up to speed on the milestones with Elem. Now a ton more has happened so Ill post that in a minute. But I need to feed him and get him in the bath

Merry Merry Christmas Part II

Needless to say Elem ended up getting wayyyyyyyy more presents from Santa than I ever had anticipated for his very first Christmas! I swore up and down that we would not get him very much because he would never know the difference. But as Christmas approached, he had presents under the tree like crazy! Let me give you the run down of what all he opened up here .....so of course he got the singing stage which he loved, and a couple of telephones, a rocking horse-which we have since name Lawyer Ron-after a horse from Oaklawn!! Uhm, lots and lots and lots of clothes, a little basketball goal that he sits at and plays and then a big basketball goal he can play on when he starts walking, a caterpillar that says sounds, several keys, some shoes-you will see the pics later, and just tons more, oh and a little tonka truck ride and sit toy. I dont even want to list any more because it is somewhat ridiculous! After opening up a few gifts my parents finally got here nice and early and we opened up their gifts and then headed over to Seths parents for Christmas with them. Tons of pics below.

Elem meeting Lawyer Ron for the first time.


Opening up the tonka truck from memaw and grandaddy


Enjoying the wrapping paper with memaw more than the presents that we wrapped with it.



Good morning Cecilia! Time to open more presents!


Play time with Poppa and Cecilia on Christmas morn-


It is all just too much, I must prepare for a nap


And this is how I spent the rest of Christmas morning-sleeping-Elem didnt last too long throughout all the excitement!


After opening way too many presents over there, we headed back home to get Elem down to finish his nap, tidy up just a little bit and head out to NLR to visit with some of Poppa's side of the family! My parents headed back to Memphis but we had just enough time to snap a family pic. Please note ow aweful my hair looks. Man whatever, it is soo freaking hard for me to get a haircut these days!!! I am going to HAVE to squeeze one in before the next big picture taking event. It is a must. Please forgive the nastyness of my bangs here. haha


Everyone on Seth's dad's side of the family had not met Elem yet, so it was a treat for them to see him for the gfirst time. We chilled there for a few, ate some more food and then headed home to enjoy the rest of our first christmas as a family!

I love mommy. This is Elem's current favorite and permanent pose these days. He just likes me to hold him like this all the time every day all day long.


I love daddy. They look nothing alike do they? I didnt think so.


Grammy and Poppa and the grandkids


The whole fam-actually first pic we have all taken together!


Are you seriously still taking pictures mommy??


This pretty much sums up the entire feeling of Christmas day!



Wow enough pics for ya? Well I have good news...my mom hooked Seth and I up with a super sweet new Nikon camera for Christmas, which means-----I will most likely be taking more pictures than ever!!! haha! I cant help myself. I just love taking pictures and I feel like every occasion is a good occasion for pics!

So to end our Christmas day, it was great to spend time with both sides of the family on the actual day, that doesnt happen very often, and Christmas is sooo much more fun with kids! It totally brings the true meaning of Christmas out!Makes you think not about yourself and what all you can give to your friends, but more so how thankful you are for your family and how Jesus made it all possible for us to be here enjoying this thing we call life, each and every day. I love my family, friends, and cant imagine a better christmas.