Retraction and update

Well, I have a retraction in that Ruger did not lose his eye. He went in for the surgery and after running the blood tests, decided not to put him through it. Scott got a call this morning from the vet and Ruger has a growth on his spleen and internal bleeding in his lungs. So...we have to put Ruger down. Ruger is home with us now so that we can spend some quality time with him through the weekend and will be put down next week. It's so hard to say and weird at the same time as Ruger is laying on the floor next to the bed as I type this...Riley is very upset because he senses something is wrong with Ruger and did not eat for the two days that Ruger was not here...

Caden is still screaming from his ear infections, but as he had been on antibiotics for 2 days, we took him back to daycare today. The doctor finally called in numbing ear drops for him and that seems to help a little...I'm hoping we will have a better night tonight and day tomorrow.

While all of this is going on, Scott and I are still trying to keep up with our work...Please keep us in your prayers...Love, Allison

Good things and bad things

I know, I know, it has been two weeks since my last post. Well, since then, Caden got baptized (good thing), Caden got a double ear infection (bad thing), we went to watch Extreme Home Makeover Tallahassee (just a cool thing), Ruger lost an eye (another bad thing), and Caden has learned how to do the army crawl (another good thing). And for those of you who have gotten on me for not posting updates lately (you know who you are...), all of this is going on while I'm trying to manage tax season at work!!!! If I survive until the end of April, then it will be a miracle...I just keep praying for God to give me the strength and patience...now if only he could give me the ability to function off of less sleep...

Caden was baptized this past Sunday at our church, Trinity United Methodist (the same place that Scott and I were married). Scott's brother, Todd, is Caden's godfather, and my sister, Jennifer, is Caden's godmother. Some people think that only Catholics do godparents, but I grew up Methodist and had godparents and so did Scott. I discussed with our minister and he said that almost every Methodist he knows has godparents even though the church doesn't formally recognize them. This was our minister's second baptism (he's very new) and his first was a six week old, so I warned him about Caden's size...but I think he was a little surprised. He told the congregation that Caden was not even 10 months even though he looks like he is about to enter Kindergarten...haha...Caden was sooo good during the service, but then we realized that he was just sick...(refer to ear infections paragraph).

Grammy, Pops, Uncle Todd, Aunt Carly, Aunt Jen, Nana, and cousins Kaley, Brody, and Wade all came over for the event. See pictures below...

The godparents...

Cousin Kaley LOVES babies and was so excited about seeing three babies this past weekend that she told her mom that she couldn't even sleep the night before she got here! Here she is with Brody...

She is also so skinny that she fit into the bumbos and Caden's walker...

Caden made it through our busy weekend of visitors and his baptism and then decided he was really sick. He was running a low grade fever Saturday and Sunday and still had his cough and runny nose that he has had for 4 weeks now, but then Sunday night woke up in the middle of the night with almost 103 degree temperature. We went to the Dr. yesterday and he has ear infections in both ears. This is his first ear infection, which the dr. was impressed with since he is almost 10 months old...He's on amoxycillin (sp?), so we will hopefully nip this in the bud soon!

On Sunday after Caden's baptism, Carly, Jennifer, our friend, Elizabeth, Kaley, and all of the babies went to go see the Extreme Home Makeover Tallahassee build. I think we were all in hopes of seeing Ty, but no...we saw his bus and Paige the designer, but it was still a cool thing to observe. They had torn down the house the night before and were already about the pour the foundation!

Ruger has been having some health problems. He had eye issues and the vet told us that he had high blood pressure that was causing blood to build up in his eye. He took high blood pressure medication and lots of eye drops, but then he seemed to go downhill again last week. Scott took him to the veterinarian ophthalmologist (who knew there was such a thing). He said the Ruger had glaucoma and basically had a permanent migraine and that the best solution was to remove his eye to hopefully take Ruger out of pain. Ruger had his eye removed this morning and they figured out that he had some more health problems. They are running some more tests and should be able to tell us everything else that is wrong with him tomorrow...Poor Ruger...

Caden has also, as I observed tonight, learned how to the army crawl - I don't consider that "real" crawling, but I think we might be closer!

Now just some funny pictures...

Look closely to see the barrette that I put his hair...needless to say, Daddy was not happy!

He got all dressed in his racecar pajamas on Daytona 500 Sunday...

All bundled up and ready to go for a walk with mommy in our new umbrella stroller...by the way, we highly recommend the Maclaren Volo - it's awesome and only weighs about 8 pounds!

Here he is doing a breathing treatment with daddy...amazingly enough he had the right end in his mouth...he usually makes us just wave the tube in front of his face and won't put it in his mouth at all...We don't regularly do these, but we thought it might help his cough.

Grammy gave mommy this thing to keep her hair out of her face while washing her face for Christmas...we decided it would look funny on Caden...

And we saved the funniest for last...here is a puff that appears to be stuck to Caden's snotty nose...he is oblivious that it is there...

Tearjerker...

Okay, no Caden updates...well, almost...forgot to mention in my last post that Caden is still not crawling, but we're not sure if he will. He has, however, learned how to pivot himself on his stomach kind of like a breakdancer to get to the toys he wants. "Why should I crawl when everyone moves me to the toys that I want"...Ugh.

Well a few days ago, I stumbled across this article online which led me to this blog on this adorable little girl that is almost 1 month older than Caden...Madelyn. So, I had to share. Madelyn's mom died 27 hours after she was born from an undetected blood clot, so this man, Matt, is raising his 10 month old daughter alone and is around my age. AMAZING! It made me tear up, so I'm just warning you guys... www.mattlogelin.com . Their story just moved me to tears and laughter at some of his posts talking about how he had no idea of how to dress a little girl, but he's learning. He will also be on the Rachael Ray show tomorrow sharing his story. They have also started a foundation in his wife's name to help out young widows and widowers trying to raise young children.

Definitely made me realize how fortunate Scott and I have been to have both seen Caden grow into this cute little boy over the past 9 months. I am still getting teared up as I type this thinking of this poor woman, Liz Logelin, who didn't get the chance to see her little girl grow up and reach all of these developmental milestones that I continue to get amazed over each day. However, as I know now, she loved that little girl more than anything and would have wanted her husband to move on and raise Madelyn in a happy, loving environment, which he is doing an awesome job at! He goes on plane rides all of the time with this 10 month old, which I am still not brave enough to do with Caden!

Busy, Busy, Busy (which translates to lots of pictures)

Well, we've had such a busy weekend...well for us, anyways...Caden had a babysitter on Friday night while mommy and daddy had a night on the town...Then, we went out to lunch on Saturday and Sunday as a family...Saw our cousins and Aunt Carly...went shopping on Saturday...and then to the park for the first time and rode in the big boy swing and loved it! Here are some pics from the weekend...

Sitting in the big boy high chair at the restaurant eating with mommy and daddy...daddy let Caden wear his hat...it was a tad too big :)

Here's Daddy and Caden getting ready to go to the park with their hats backwards...

Caden in the big boy swing for the first time...he was leaning back just watching the surroundings...

He decided it was waaayyy more fun to lean forward...

Daddy giving Caden a push...

Some things that Caden is doing now are sitting in the big boy high chairs at restaurants, he loves to hold on to the coffee table standing up and then starts to bang on it, loves to shake things that make noise, sticks out his tongue, and his hand-eye coordination is great now and he places the balls in his toy with a spiral ball shoot (hard to explain, so here's a picture below)...he puts the ball in the right place almost every time!

He is still really into his "car" and loves to chase the dogs around in it...here he has Ruger cornered...

Gotta love those big blue eyes...

And then the other day, he was hamming it up for the camera and kept crying when I took the camera away...so we ended up taking about 50 pictures of him...thank goodness for digital photography! Here's some pictures from his "photo shoot"

And then it dawned on me the other day that everyone had not seen two very important ladies in Caden's life - his daycare providers, Stacey and Methel. Here is a picture of Caden and Stacey...I haven't managed to get one of Methel yet, but I'll try to before the next post. Stacey is Methel's daughter and they are wonderful!

Caden's 9 month pictures sneak peek...

http://longsphotographyblog.com/

Click on the link to see Caden's 9 month pictures with his CRAZY hair! I love it....