Family, "fishes" and first haircuts

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving was over a week ago! What happened? Did the week just get shorter? This time of the year gets so busy I just can't believe how fast it flies by. I just realized I hadn't posted any pictures of our Thanksgiving so I figured I'd better get on top of it before Christmas gets here! Noah loves being outside so thank goodness that it was pretty nice weather while we were home. I think he wore Mimi and Pappy out wanting to run all around the yard, but he had a good time.

He especially loved riding on the mower with Pappy, so they had to do that numerous times. He was a pretty good driver, but he kept falling asleep. That boy loves to sleep while riding in/on a moving vehicle....good for car rides, not so good for mowing the yard. : )

Just being silly around the trees......

Daddy and Noah wrestling in the grass.....
And finally, he loved feeding the fish in the little pond too. One of Noah's first words was "fishes" (he calls them "fishes" whether there's one or twenty of them) taught to him by his daddy of course. There are lots of really big goldfish and as soon as someone walks up to the spot where they feed them, they all start coming up to the top opening their mouths. They're pretty well-trained! Noah kept wanting to feed them over and over. He would put the piece of food up to his mouth like he was going to eat it, then Mimi would tell him, "no, no" and he'd throw it in the water. I'd be surprised if at least one little piece of fish food didn't end up in his mouth. ; )

Also, while we were there my Aunt Bobbie came over to give Noah his first haircut. I didn't want to cut too much, but his hair had gotten really scraggly, especially in the back, and it really needed to be trimmed up. I'm glad we had her just come and do it at my parents' house because there's no way he would have sat still at a salon. I can't even get this child to sit still long enough to put his shoes on! My mom fed him yogurt while she cut his hair so he didn't know what was going on, but he never stopped moving his head. So it was a quick one, but it looks much better now.

We had a great Thanksgiving and enjoyed visiting with all our families....and it's so hard to believe in just a few short weeks we'll be back down there doing it all over again for Christmas!!! Oh, how I love this time of the year!

Surgery

I haven't blogged in a really long time...but I have a good excuse! We've been out of town for the last week and a half and were pretty busy while we were gone. To be honest, I'd kind of like to forget about last week. But I'm going to recap it while it's still fresh in my mind because this is my scrapbook and I don't want to leave out any of our big events.

Noah was born with hypospadias and last Monday we had an appointment with the Pediatric Urologist in Memphis who was going to perform his surgery to correct it. Poor little guy had no idea what was coming and probably just thought he was on a fun little vacation. He loved staying at the hotel and especially riding on the luggage cart.

Ahhh...just relaxing on the bed after a long day of driving.

So his surgery was scheduled for 7:30am the following morning at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital. Of course I was nervous about it because any time your baby has to be put to sleep and operated on, that makes a mama nervous! But we were told it was a fairly simple procedure that is normally done on an outpatient basis. However, his was more severe than the normal case and since we live so far away from Memphis the doctor said he'd feel more comfortable keeping us overnight in the hospital to make sure everything goes ok. So we got to the hospital at 6:00 that morning. These were the only pics we got of him in his hospital gown before his surgery.

He finally went back for surgery at 7:30 and it lasted for 3 hours. When we got the call that he was out and we could go see him in the recovery room, I was so nervous. I knew that the surgery had gone well, but I really didn't want to see him in pain. As soon as we got in there to see him, he was frantic waking up from the anesthesia and was hoarse from the breathing tube that had been down his throat but steadily crying and trying to get out of his bed. And as soon as Jeff picked him up, his IV managed to rip out of his hand and blood went everywhere. I almost passed out! I really don't deal well with that kind of thing. So then they told us they were going to have to put another IV in him while he's awake which I was really hoping wouldn't have to happen. I told the nurse I didn't think I could stay in the room to watch so I sent Jeff's dad in with Jeff to be with him for this. Thank goodness for Jeff. He was my rock and never left Noah's side the entire time even when I was panicking about the whole IV thing. Anyways, the anesthesiologist had to come back to put his IV in because the nurse couldn't get it and he ended up making Jeff and his dad leave because he said they didn't want to be there for that. I think they had to restrain him so he couldn't move and put the IV in his foot, then they taped it to this board and wrapped it with this cast-looking thing so he couldn't pull it out. Poor guy...just woke up from surgery and you know he's hurting and then everybody starts poking him with needles. We finally got to bring him out of the recovery room into our regular room so everyone could see him and he was so pitiful. I just hate seeing my baby so drugged up and unhappy. He was pretty much upset and hurting and crying the rest of the day and night and Jeff and I had to take turns sleeping while holding him in the hospital all night because he wouldn't let us put him down. I think he was traumatized! This is how he slept half the night...and the other half with me.

He woke up the next morning with 103 degree fever so I was really nervous that he might have gotten an infection from the surgery. But after a big dose of Tylenol and several hours, his temp came back down. He was still pretty miserable though. We were finally able to get the bladder spasms that had kept us up half the night under control with some new medicine from our nurse. He spent most of the day in my mom's arms. He was very unhappy with pretty much everyone else including Jeff and I. Thank goodness we got the chance to let him ride in the little wagon.

Needless to say we were so happy when we finally got to go home (to my parent's house) and Noah was glad to get out of there for sure! He wasn't able to walk until about Friday or Saturday, so we were very excited when he finally started moving around again. And even happier when we went to Memphis again the next Monday to get his stent that he had to keep in after surgery taken out. We were so thankful for all the prayers and thoughtful presents and phone calls and messages from everyone and are so thankful that the surgery was a success and it is hopefully all behind us now! And most of all, we're thankful that our little guy is back to his old self and feeling much, much better now! I pray every day for all the children and their families who aren't so lucky and who have much more serious surgeries or illnesses and have to stay in the hospital for weeks or months at a time and endure so much more than anyone ever should have to. It's heartbreaking to think about and I count my blessings every day that we have a healthy little boy at home with us.

The Piano Man

Sing us a song

You're the piano man

Sing us a song tonight

Well we're all in the mood for a melody

And you've got us feeling alright

A Fall Weekend

Thank goodness for beautiful weather on a Saturday in the fall! We had such a good time enjoying some outdoor activities this weekend with Mimi and Pappy in town. We started out with an indoor activity on Friday night, a costume birthday party for our neighbor, Miss Kenzie. At first, Noah was just a little annoyed by his costume, but he got used to it as the night went on...he was Scooby Doo and we were, of course, his trusty sidekicks...Velma and Shaggy.

On Saturday, we started out by watching the Hogs play Ole Miss....I'm still pretty upset about that defeat so I won't even mention any more about it. Then we took a trip to the pumpkin patch since we have been so busy this year we haven't had a chance to go yet.

Can you guess which ones are the scarecrows and which one is Noah???

Whoa...these pumpkins are really heavy.

A picture with Mimi and Pappy

Noah and daddy playing in the pretty leaves...

He LOVED throwing the leaves up in the air!

Then it was off to the University of Arkansas to find my name on the Senior Walk. Can you believe I've never done that before? 7 years since I graduated and I figured it was about time. Noah was excited to go find it with us too.



After just a little bit of searching, we found it. It's really a neat thing for all of the alumni to have their name in the sidewalk somewhere on campus. I think they're the only college in the nation to have anything like this.


After taking several pictures of me with my name, Noah decided he was bored and he was off to run up and down the hills. I tried to get a picture of him by my name, but getting a 15-month-old to cooperate with your picture-taking is nearly impossible, so we just let that pass.


Noah must have had fun and worn himself out because he slept in on both Saturday and Sunday morning. It's been cloudy and rainy pretty much all day here so thank goodness we got in our outdoor fun yesterday. Thanks again Mimi and Pappy for the fun weekend...we enjoyed it!

Monkey see, Monkey do

Don't you just love how at this age, kids will mock almost everything you do? It's amazing how observant they are and how quickly they pick up on things and remember how to do them. It seems like every day, Noah does or says something new and I am always so impressed at how fast they learn. Below are some pictures of just a few moments that I caught our little "copycat".

Brushing his hair...

Swiffering the kitchen....

Laying just like daddy to read a book....



Taking a big drink.... (ok we don't really drink out of big pitchers, but you get the point. Actually, every single time after he takes a drink of anything, he opens his mouth and says, "Ahhhh" like it was such a refreshing drink. And he definitely learned that from us...silly little guy)

A day at the park

Even though it was pretty chilly, today was such a nice day and the sun was shining which is such a nice change from the dreary, cloudy, rainy days we’ve been having. So we decided to take advantage of it and go to the park. Noah loves to go and slide over and over. He usually ends up going down backwards on his stomach, so we’ve got some work to do getting him to slide the “proper” way each time. But there was no one else there today so I just let him do his own thing.

Wheeeeeeee!!!!!

Ok, mom. I think it's time to go...I'll drive.