The Cathcarts

We spent the beautiful day with the Cathcart family at a park in Boone.  We had a picnic and grilled burgers, threw the frisbee and FB around, and just relaxed in the shade.  This was Jaxson’s first ever picnic and of course he loved it because we were outside.

"Grandma, whatcha got on that spoon?"

Brad and Mindy playing frisbee with Steve and Andy

playtime with Daddy

This is actually Jaxson’s excited face

Jaxson loves playing with his Aunt Mindy

That’s right, just for a couple seconds I thought about getting Jaxson a pet rabbit.  Yesterday, we went and saw my friend, Sharon, and her new baby, Lillian, and they had a pet rabbit.  Jaxson absolutly loved it!  It was so cute to watch him sit on the floor and pet her and then he would follow her wherever she went.  I would probably get him one if they didn’t chew on everything and if I knew that it would go potty where it’s supposed to.  Enough about the rabbit; Jaxson and I went and visited Sharon and Lillian (who was born on Brad’s birthday-April 5th).  Sharon is a nurse that I work with and has been a good friend for several years.  She is still on maternity leave and since I remember what maternity leave was like, I knew that she was probably craving some adult conversation.  Lillian has also been a very colicky baby so far but seems to be doing better after being started on Prevacid.  Having a newborn is hard enough, but having one that is colicky seems to be a nightmare for most people.  It scares me to have another one because I know that they don’t get any easier than Jaxson and it would be a miracle to have 2 great babies.  I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Lillian Marie and Jaxson

"OK Mom, you throw it and I’ll go fetch it again"

Jaxson loves his very own keyboard

"Mom, I promise not to push anymore buttons"

Who knew a bulb syringe could be so fun?

Since it was my weekend off, we headed out of town on Saturday to see G & G Cathcart.  We had a wonderful time and enjoyed the beautiful weather.  Kris, Jaxson, Chester (the dog), and I went on a walk to "downtown" Gowrie to the nursery so that Kris could help me figure out what flowers to plant in my yard.  She ended up digging up some of her own and sending them home with me, so now I need to hurry up and get them in the ground.  That evening we went to a family friend’s graduation party and got to catch up with some of the Gowrie folk. We headed back to WDM that evening and got up Sunday morning and went to church.  We were able to get some small projects done around the house (i.e. lowering Jaxson’s crib so that he can’t jump/fall out), but there’s never enough time to get everything done that we want to.  Sunday evening we hosted Soprano night.  We had 2 other couples over and enjoyed burgers on the deck.  I love spring and summer when the weather is nice and we can enjoy a cold glass of lemonade, grilling burgers, and eating outside. Jaxson is now 9 months old and amazing us with new things everyday.  I think we will be seeing more teeth coming thru in the next couple days because he spent the whole weekend drooling and gnawing on his toys.

Open Wide

Since it is such a gorgeous day, Jaxson and I walked up to the park and played.  He crawled around in the grass and it was funny because he wasn’t quite sure if he like that or not.  He gave me a look like "what is this stuff?" Then he swang for probably 45 minutes.  There was another mom up there with her 1 child and 4 daycare children and we talked for quite awhile.  It was nice to meet another mom that lives in the area.  This afternoon I would like to get outside and plant flowers; hopefully, Jaxson will be willing to sit in his stroller and watch.

Lastnight we went to Chuck E. Cheese for Gage’s 4th birthday. We all had a great time watching the kids play and have fun. I think the dads might have had more fun than the children. We had to tear them away from the games to have cake and watch Gage open his presents.  I think they even stole some of the kids’ tokens from them to play more games.  Jaxson enjoyed watching all of the different lights flashing and the kids run around. He even managed to get a little nap in at the party.  Sorry, I don’t have any pics of the party because we forgot the camera at home. 

A piano prodigy in the making

We started our sand volleyball league lastnight and it was COLD.  It felt like we were walking on snow.  At the beginning we were all complaining because our feet were freezing, then hurting, but then we all seemed to warm up by the time that they went numb.  It took a couple hours to feel normal again.  I’m sorry to say that we lost our first match; however, by the third game we played very well and I do see some hope for the season.  We had our neighbor, Chanda, and her daughter, Maddie, watch Jaxson for us.  They had a wonderful time and want to come back and do it again next week. 

Today, Heath and one of his co-workers stopped by since they were in our area.  I was still in my pajamas and cleaning our bathroom, so he got to see me at my absolute best.  He played with Jaxson for awhile and I got to have some adult conversation, so it was a win-win for both of us. 

Burn update on Jaxson:  The burns are coming along nicely.  He is being a very good little boy and letting us do the dressing changes on him twice a day.  I was able to change the dressing this afternoon very easily by myself because he just held his arm out for me and didn’t move.  I’m hoping that he will come out of this without any scars, but I’m not so sure that’s going to happen.

"Just workin’ on my tan"

"Yes, I got up here all by myself"

"Mommy, can we go outside?"

Our day did not start off very good today.  I was in the bathrom doing my hair this morning while Jaxson was crawling around on the floor and playing with his toys. I set my hot flat iron down for a second on the counter and he saw the dangling cord and gave it a good yank and it went falling down on his left hand and arm.  I immediately grabbed him and held his arm under cold water for a couple minutes.  He cried just a little bit then started to splash around in the water.  He has 4 burns on his hand and arm.  I’m not too concerned about 2 of the burns, but one of them is on the top of his hand and has already blistered and popped.  The other one is on his wrist and has lost the top layer of his skin, so that one is open too.  I’m worried about an infection with him crawling around on the floors and constantly putting his hands in his mouth.  He isn’t acting any different and hasn’t favored that arm at all, so that I’m thankful for. So when it happened of course the first person I call is my mom.  She got some burn cream and supplies for dressing changes until Daddy was able to come home with some.  I know this won’t be the last of Jaxson’s ouchies, but it sure wasn’t a good way to start. We still stuck to our original plan today, which was to go up to Eldora to spend the day with my grandma and Aunt Wendy.  Our day did get better with seeing them.  I was able to get Grandma’s computer working so that she can get back to checking the blogs.  We then stopped at Grandma Pam’s for supper and to apply a dressing to Jaxson’s arm.   Here’s some pics from today and some that I wanted to post yesterday but couldn’t.

"Thanks for fixing me Grandma"

"Look Mom, I pinned Daddy"

"Mommy, you forgot to put soap in here"

Just helpin’ with the laundry

"Grandpa Steve, you’re silly"

"Leave me alone Dad, I’m trying to read my bedtime story"

I wish all of the mother’s a very Happy Belated Mother’s Day.  I had a great 1st Mother’s Day.  It would have been better if I didn’t have to work, but Brad did bring Jaxson to see me at work, so that brightened my day up.  I took Jaxson around to my patients’ rooms to show him off of course.  The old ladies just loved him.  It was great seeing them smile and forget about being in the hospital just for a few minutes. After work I went up to Andy and Mindy’s house for Soprano night.  I am looking forward to having my 2 weeks off and spending it with my boys. 

Follow-up to us being on the news:  If you weren’t able to see our few seconds of fame on the Channel 8 News, you can go to their website and view it there.  Go to kcci.com, then enter "stop our speeders" for a general search, then click on the story "Drivers Clocked Speeding in Metro Neighborhoods," then click on the video link on that page "Speeding Trouble Spots Part 1." 

Sorry there’s no pictures with this post, something isn’t working right with downloading them.  I hope to get them up tomorrow

I have to give a shout-out to all of the nurses that read the blog.  HAPPY NURSE’S WEEK!!  For all of our hard work, I think we deserve a whole month!  Our hospital does a pretty good job at celebrating the nurses this week.  We get showered with food everyday.  On Tuesday they had a very nice luncheon for the nurses who are certified in their area of expertise.  My friend and co-worker, Carrie, watched Jaxson for me so that I could go to the luncheon.  The food was wonderful, but I think the best part about it was that the head honchos of Iowa Health were the ones serving us and picking up our plates.  Now you don’t see that everyday. 

Other events this week. . .

If you watched the Channel 8 News at 10 on Wednesday, you would have seen all 3 of us.  Brad even got in the footage, which we didn’t know until we saw it on TV, so that was a nice surprise.  I told Brad that I was just glad that I didn’t sound dumb and my hair wasn’t blowing all over the place.

Yesterday, Jaxson, Tanya, Mom, and I went up to Radcliffe to our friend, Eugene’s, flower shop to pick out flowers for the wedding and to decide on cake.  I forgot how much fun that is to make all of those decisions.  I’m glad I don’t have to go through that again. 

And today, Jaxson and I made our weekly trip to Target and he is now napping.  Tonight, Brad’s family and Tanya and Heath are coming down and we’re going out to eat at Granite City to celebrate my birthday.  And it’s off to work tomorrow.  Here’s some pics from this week. . .

Lastnight I got to get out of the house with the girls for another JUGs (Just Us Girls) night.  We went to Glazed Expressions in Clive to paint some pottery.  We had a wonderful time painting our pottery, eating, talking, and we managed to linger until our time was up at 9:00 so that when we all went home we figured our kids would be in bed.  Just kidding guys, we actually didn’t get done until 9:00.  We don’t get our masterpieces back until Saturday because they had to "fire" them.  Everyone painted some pretty neat pieces.  I painted a star-shaped plate that I am going to put in our Americana spare bedroom.  I’m anxious to see how it turns out.  I’ll let you know.

That’s right!! Jaxson and I are going to be on the Channel 8 News on Wed. or Thurs. night at 10.  Todd Magel came over today and we went up to the park to use the radar gun on the speeders.  It was very successful.  We only caught a few people actually going the speed limit and those were mostly the school buses.  We used the radar gun on Brad, who was caught red-handed going 31 in a 25. That’s pretty bad considering he knew that we were going to be there watching for speeders. I even reminded him not to speed before he left for work.  It was a good time and not bad for Jaxson to make his TV debut at only 8 months old.