Preparing for Ironman

We have made it safely to Panama City. The boys did very well on the car trip and both took naps not too long after we arrived. Jason is all registered and will do a swim, bike and run down here over the next couple of days. There are a ton of folks already here and training. Lots of folks in skin tight wear, riding bikes and pounding the pavement. This is going to be a wonderful experience for the whole family. We are all in that really excited place. Now, off to take Eli to the beach for the first time. :)

The Cousins Meet

Saturday, for the Auburn vs. Ole Miss game and a delayed birthday celebration for Matt, Hannah and Leah got to come over. It was great. They were all decked out in their best Auburn attire and as precious as tiny little girls are. They made it through two feedings here and enjoyed the many choices of family arms to be held in.

Walker has been saying Hannah and Leah since before they were born and we have been practicing this week, but of course he wouldn't say a word when they were here. However, when he woke up this morning he was saying, "Ally (aunt allyson), two babies." He did give me a sideways look when I was holding Hannah like, "you're not going to keep that are you?" Eli was only slightly more interested. He grabbed for Leah like she was a new toy put on the floor for him. She didn't seem to mind.









We loved having them here and we look forward to having all four of them running around in the not to distant future. I got my tiny baby fix in and Jason breaths a sigh of relief for a little while longer.

Ironman Is Coming

Jason's big race is coming. He is getting excited and nervous at the same time. I am getting nervous and excited, notice the order. He will swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and run 26.2 miles. It is a big stinking deal and if you want to get more hyped up about it check out this link. This husband and wife did it last year (this isn't anyone we actually know, just a YouTube video). No, I will not be doing it with Jason next year, or any other time for that matter. Here is Jason's video for when our friends did it last year. Ben will be doing it again this year with Jason. They have been training partners through the whole season. I really don't know how someone would do it without a training buddy.

Jason's bib number will be 365. Start praying for his safety, his health, is perseverance, good weather, and that after all this training he will enjoy every minute. You can follow him on race day on the ironman website. He expects to finish some time after 9pm.

A New Family Member!!!

No, I'm not pregnant! My brother is engaged. My dad had mentioned that Matthew had bought a ring, and that he would not be able to hold onto it, and he was right (must be a family trait). He asked Friday night, and they are both over the moon (or as over the moon as my brother gets). They came over on Saturday to share the news. My dad was out of town, so that is right ladies and gentlemen, I found out first.

They are thinking next October. Elaine, the fiance, is a fashion design major at that lesser school in our state. She will be designing her own wedding dress, and I'm sure it will be fantastic. Matthew will head to California after the first of the year for more training. This will make their engagement a challenge, but then the fun marriage stuff will start! Congratulations Matthew and Elaine!

Quesadilla!!!

I have been trying to get video of this for about a week now. Walker's vocabulary has always been impressive and now he has hit that language explosion where he repeats and understands 90% of what we say. He also responds to questions well. In the video I ask him what is on a quesadilla, expecting him to say cheese. He tells me what the quesadilla is on -"a plate". I totally missed this until I watched the video. He is always thinking and trying to understand what is going on around him. I am so blessed to get to be here for these moments.

He loves to eat quesadillas and I have found some whole wheat tortillas with added omega 3's so I pretend it is a healthy lunch. :) Although, I would like for someone to explain to me why it takes me 20 minutes to cook one on medium heat, but if I put the heat on medium-high heat it burns in 2 minutes.

Eli on the move

Eli has been working on moving for a while. He mastered the art of rolling and he would get up on all fours and rock. Now, he can army crawl and get wherever his heart desires. This a good thing...he is much happier now that can follow his brother; and a bad thing, now I have two to chase. He has also fallen in love with his pacifier. It is a recent development, so it may be teeth, but for right now he always has it in his mouth.

Baby Dedication

With our family and church, Jason and I dedicated our boys to the Lord on Sunday. We had already made this commitment in our hearts, but it was nice to have a ceremony with our church and family committing to join with us on this mission. Jason's parents, my dad and Jayne, and three sets of great-grandparents were able to attend. Both of our brothers were sick, so they were unable to attend. I hate that we didn't get a picture of everyone after the service, but it just didn't work out.Our pastor, Chris, and his wife, Cathy, did a great job and really made our family feel special.

One of the neat things Cathy asked us to do was to pick a life verse for each of the boys. This is something we probably wouldn't have thought to do, but now I realize it is a great way for parents to offer another blessing on their child straight from God's word.

We chose Colossians 3:17 for Walker. It is all about doing everything for Christ and offering thanks in the doing. I believe Walker will be a doer, and he is a very grateful child. Our pastor has been doing a message series in Colossians and I have found several wonderful verses on guiding our lives in it, and this one seemed particularly powerful.

For Eli, we chose Philippians 2:13-15. Those verses are all about shining like a star for God on this earth. We both believe that Eli will be a more passionate person who has the opportunity to be a shining example for Christ (Jason said the one with anger should be for Eli; he has his extremes:)). I have always loved the book of Philippians and have always felt that my mom like that book, which may or may not be true. I carried around a paper where she had written some verses out of Philippians for many years (I have no idea what happened to it).

The Pumpkin Patch

Saturday we headed out with the boys, Jason's parents and my grandparents to the pumpkin patch. Walker loves trains and his Gran is more than happy to indulge this preference. So, we rode a train out of Calera to a pumpkin patch. The rail car was older than Grandpa Hermie and provided a smooth ride. Walker loved the train ride (in fact he almost had a complete meltdown when I had to return to the car for Eli's hat before the train departed). Eli had a wonderful day and caught a nap on the ride back on the open train car. Walker enjoyed walking around all the pumpkins and putting all the little ones together, but didn't quite get that he was able to bring one home. Who can blame him, with the excitement of a real tractor being only a few yards away.

Walker Update

Walker is doing much better today. He is keeping down all the bland doctor approved foods and drinking lots. He is acting totally normal and seems to have beaten this bug. I think he will be able to eat and drink normally tomorrow and enjoy our busy weekend. Eli is still doing well, with no signs of illness.

Thank you for all your well wishes and prayers!

Sick Again

Walker has a stomach bug. Yesterday morning it started at breakfast and continued until he was in bed for the night. It is so pitiful. An adult in his situation would have gone to the doctor, gotten some medicine and slept until the illness had moved on. No such luck for kids, withhold food and small sips of beverages is the only treatment this toddler gets.

I had really hoped that the boys would be able to avoid many illnesses with me staying at home, but the opposite seems to be true. Walker has never had a stomach bug and we are doing everything we can to keep Eli from catching it. My two best friends right now are bleach and Lysol.

Walker is doing much better today. He is keeping some Pedialyte down and a piece of toast. He has also taken two naps, which he was unable to do yesterday. We have watched Cars several times and Daddy took him out to swing this morning, which keeps his mood pretty good, considering.

I also think I am being taught something about specific prayers. It is easy to pray, "make him better," and be disappointed with out instant results because of my impatience. Praying, "let him keep down this 2 ounces of fluid," and seeing it happen is a huge reminder that God cares about my little boy's empty and upset stomach. Thank you, Jesus, for letting my little boy eat a piece of toast and begin to get hydrated.

Heading Home

Matt, Allyson, Hannah and Leah McCay are all headed home. Matt and Allyson are so happy and Hannah and Leah are completely oblivious and snoozing on the way home. This is that amazing moment when you can't beleive that they really gave you the children. We pray they have a smooth evening and enjoy the comforts of home.

Hannah and Leah Update

The girls are doing well. Leah has her cast on and she will have it for the next three weeks. The doctors believe it will heal just fine. Leah is still under the care of the NICU doctors, but was able to spend the evening in the room with everyone else. I am insanely jealous that Jason got to hold her and I have not...I will have to resolve that at my earliest opportunity. The talk is that everyone will come home tomorrow, but we will have to wait and see what decision is made tomorrow. Matt and Allyson are hitting that stage where the exhaustion has set in and the adrenaline has worn off. Pray for their strength as they bring home these two little wonders. We are so blessed.

Matching PJs

Okay, so I cannot resist buying the boys pajamas. There is just something particularly precious about baby pajamas and it is even better went they are matching. The other night Jason put Walker in some new PJs that I had bought for the boys, so I put Eli's on him. Walker was so excited about his fire truck pajamas and was genuinely offended when he saw that Eli had some too. Once he got over that, the were just as precious as you would guess they would be in matching PJs, but do you thnk they would pose for a picture? No way, momma.

Eli's Six Month Check

Eli had his six month check up yesterday (a little late). He is growing so fast. He is 28 inches long (90%), 18lbs and 3ozs (50%), and his head is 18 1/4 inches (90%). Dr. Andy said he was very strong and will probably start pulling up and trying to walk soon. I expressed concern about Eli not sitting up. Of course, he sat up for the doctor and the doctor figures that he just doesn't want to sit up. He agrees that he may have seasonal allergies (I had them really bad as a child) and could be asthma prone (whatever that means). He is going to keep him on breathing treatments for the fall season and he put him on Singular once a day. I will let him know in a week if I think it is helping. He recovered quickly from the shots and is just running a low grade temperature today, but it isn't not interrupting his sleep.

Planes, Trains, and Trucks

Walker loves all things associated with transportation. He rolls trucks around this house all day, every day. A few days ago he played with his 'big truck', airplane and train all that the same time. He very methodically made sure no one was left behind. He would carry two of them to a destination and then go and retrieve the third. He would then roll them back and forth in that location, before moving on. He made sure to rotate who was first and who got picked up on the second trip. This went on for almost and hour. It was so cute how orderly and planned out he was. I guess he is his daddy's boy. :)

They Are Here!

Our nieces, Hannah and Leah, are here. They were born this evening at 5:13 and 5:18, and we couldn't be more excited. Hannah weighs 5lbs 7ozs and is 19 1/2 inches long. Leah is 5lbs 5ozs and 20 inches long. I guess that explains why Allyson has been so uncomfortable for so long! Allyson did great and the girls are doing well. Hannah is with her mommy and daddy and Leah is in the NICU. Her arm broke during delivery and her sugar levels were dropping so she will be there for this evening. We are praying this will resolve quickly and the four will be together soon. They are beautiful girls and I look forward to buying many pink and purple items in the future.

Ride Bus!

On Saturday Walker, Eli, Grammie, Gran and myself all went to Alabama Power's Family Counts Day (Jason is knee deep in his training for Ironman and was off doing a 78 mile ride. Although he really hated to miss Saturday, it will all be worth it when he carries the boys across the finish line). Family Counts Day is a fair that is free to Alabama Power employees and their family members. Jason and I went with his mom to one in Tallassee when we were in Auburn and it was a lot of fun. We were all looking forward to the fun we were going to have with the boys. Now we all know that with kids, things do not always go as planned. :)

That morning Eli had struggled to take his early nap. He went down late, so of course his nap ran later than usual. I ended up having to wake him, and we left later than we had hoped. When we arrived we realized that they were making you park away from the site and then be bussed to the event. We drove over to see if we could unload the kids and all their equipment with the grandparents, but that was a no go (if Jason had been there, he would have ignored the pseudo-authority and solved many of our problems).

So we go and park to wait on the bus. After 45 minutes of waiting, my father-in-law (the hero of everyone standing in line) stood in the road to make a bus stop for us. He explained our situation and we were loaded up and taken over to the fun. By this time it is noon and rapidly approaching Walker's nap time. I thought we should eat first, since Walker had not had anything since breakfast. That was the wrong choice. He pretty much chanted "go play" the whole time we ate and only allowed a few bites to pass his lips.

We head out to play. We try one of the smaller inflatable kids' jump around things, but Walker did not think that was any fun. Grammie wants to take Walker down the big slide so we head to that line, and we all know Walker loves slides. At this point Eli decides he is done with the stroller and needs to be held. There is no shade in sight. Eli and I head to the tent while Walker, Grammie and Gran spend 30 minutes trying to do everything that seems age appropriate. By one o'clock I make the mommy call that it is time for everyone to head home. We ride the bus back and load up the van. Eli is asleep before we are out of the parking lot, and Walker makes it home but crashes as soon as he hits the bed.

The most ironic part of the whole day is that Walker's favorite part was riding the bus. He beamed the whole time. That was the part that frustrated the adults, but he would have been happy riding the bus there and back and then going home. Eli had a good time too, he loves being outside. It was just more of an abbreviated trip than we had planned, but that is what we get for planning with two small children. :) Next year it will be more fun, and I will better know how to plan to adventure.

I do think anyone who raises more than one child should be given a honorary logistics degree by the time the youngest makes it to kindergarten. Keeping children fed, rested, dry and happy is a bigger challenge than coordinating anything in the business world.