Birthday/Baptism weekend!

I promised an update on the first weekend of April, so here it is. My Grandma Shirley turned 85, my sister had another 29th birthday and Jackson was baptized.


Charlotte, Dean, Ian and Jeanette arrived on Thursday (also Charlotte's birthday) and we had dinner at our place with a lovely birthday cake. Apparently, Jeanette was very concerned about her mom having a cake since they were traveling, so we went all out. A beautiful Disney Princesses cake was set alight for Charlotte's birthday with a few candles for her to blow out.


We had pictures taken of the kids on Friday for everyone and they turned out so cute!! Ian was extremely helpful and fed Jackson his bottle in the car so he wouldn't get fussy and ruin the pictures. Here are our cuties!


Shirley's younger brother Jon came to visit Friday and we went to Islands Fish Grill for lunch with him and had a great time. She was incredibly surprised to see him and it was so sweet of him to visit. He flew in from California for just a few days and then flew back for his wife's birthday celebration. I just returned from California a week ago and can tell you that it is a grueling trip, so hats off to Great Uncle Jon.



We had a really nice dinner for Grandma's birthday at the Yellow Dog Cafe on Saturday evening. We lucked out and the kids managed to keep from melting down while we were eating at the restaurant. We had yummy Ben and Jerry's ice cream cake for dessert...soooo good! Ian decided that he wanted to spend the night at our house, so we put him up on the blow up mattress and he slept like a rock. He was such a great helper with Jackson and was so very sweet to him. He's a terrific kid...we wish we lived closer so we could see them more often.



Sunday morning was Jack's baptism...we packed it in so everyone could attend, since they were already there for Grandma's birthday. The baptism followed the longest Mass we have ever attended at our church...we were there forever! Jackson didn't make a peep when the priest poured the water on his head and was good the entire time. The lunch afterward went on into the evening hours and we had a very good time. May we state for the record that this is the only time that we will put Jackson in a dress, opting for the very traditional Christening gown that my mother made for him with her own two incredibly talented hands. It was beautiful and we had more pictures taken of Jack in the gown.


Jack will be eight months old on Monday. We have been giving him cereal puffs and just today I noticed him finally starting to chew them rather than trying to suck on them and swallow them whole. Woo hoo! Solid food, here we come!! He is sitting up by himself, turning around onto his belly and is so close to crawing that we are overdue for babyproofing the house. He LOVES to drink water out of a sippy cup and finds both our dogs and my parents' dogs just hilarious. He laughs at them quite a lot.


I am running a 5K for the Melbourne Art Festival on Saturday with some coworkers...should be fun. I haven't run a race in about a year and a half, so I'm looking forward to it.

Too long!

It has been way too long since my last post...a little catch-up.

Jackson's first Easter was great. Randy had just returned from a week in California and a totally botched (not-so-Good) Friday morning flight from San Jose...he missed his Friday morning plane and rather than being home Friday night for dinner, he was home for a late lunch on Saturday instead. And then we had the family over for Easter dinner on Sunday. Yes, I know we're crazy. But we already had all the food. Here's some pictures: coloring eggs with me, Jack's basket from the Easter Bunny and hanging out with Nana on Easter Sunday. Notice the super-cute sweater vest...my mom knitted it for him before he was born and it fit like a glove!!

We took Jackson to the pediatric neurosurgeon a couple of weeks ago and discovered that he has moderate to severe plagiocephaly (i.e. a VERY flat back of the head). Dr. Olivarria did indeed recommend helmet therapy to correct the problem. Thankfully, my friend Anna's husband Ben (also a doctor) is a great counsel in this area, as this is his specialty AND he just finished a two month rotation at Children's Hospital there in Houston dealing with issues such as this. Basically, it is no big deal, it will take 6-12 weeks depending on how fast his head grows and weather or not he has a growth spurt while wearing the helmet. The downside is that most insurance companies have determined that this is a cosmetic problem, not a developmental issue and will not cover the (in Jackson's case) $2000 cost for helmet and treatment. According to Ben, this is an awesome deal and is cheap compared to other places he has heard of. The neurosurgeon's office made our case to Health First anyway. I finally got so exhausted and insane from praying that insurance would cover it that I asked God to just give me peace and let me be happy with whatever the decision was...lo and behold, Health First approved the helmet therapy. We are so thankful!! Here are a couple pictures of our boy's very flat head. You can see that the one side is indented more than the other and that the back of his head isn't rounded out like it should be. His reflux and the throwing up he did every time we put him on his belly didn't help when he was a younger-he spent a lot of time on his back. Apparently, we are lucky that his forehead isn't bulging due to this. He has to go hopefully this week for the mold, then back two weeks after that for the fitting. Once we have the helmet, it's back once a week for the first three weeks to Orlando to have them check it and then it's up to the docs there how often they will see him after they have seen his progress. Very crazy and a huge pain, but I guess there's a possibility of brain damage if they don't fix it?

This weekend was another whirlwind that I will save for next time...Grandma Shirley's 85th birthday and Jackson's baptism were the highlights of the weekend.