The Cathcarts

It was a pretty uneventful weekend.  I worked and the boys stayed home and played.  Jaxson isn’t walking yet, but he still loves to stand on his own and walk with help.  He’s also climbing the whole flight of stairs on his own.  Watch out!  My mom came down lastnight because she had to pick up my Uncle Randy and Aunt Brenda from the airport at 11 pm.  They were getting back from their vacation in Atlanta. We took mom out to her favorite restaurant, Applebees, then went for a walk to the park to walk off our supper.  Jaxson had fun playing with Grandma and showing off all of his new talents. 

We had a very strong storm that moved in on Friday.  We haven’t seen it rain that hard in years, if forever.  The hard rain was a good test on our basement to see if it was still going to leak after we redid the landscaping. . . and it did; however, it wasn’t anything near as bad as it was before.  We still have hope that we will fix the leaking basement this summer so that we can get it finished soon.  The storm also knocked our power off for an hour or so and it also knocked our cable out.  Our cable is still out, but is supposed to be fixed today.  After not having cable or Tivo for a few days it made me realize that I could live without the cable but not without Tivo.  After the rain had moved through there was a beautiful rainbow that followed.

Our little 10 month old is showing off now with standing all the time.  He thinks it’s pretty funny. 

This is his pose when he’s tired

Jaxson went in for his 9 month check-up today, although he’ll be 10 months old tomorrow.  He weighed in at 21 lbs and 29.5 in. long, which keeps him in the 50th percentile.  Dr. Williams said that he’s doing great and is very pleased.  He now has 8 teeth, waving bye bye, and saying "dada" all day long.  He is also climbing the stairs and standing on his own, but not going anywhere.  Dr. Williams said that he will be walking anyday.  His only advice was baby proof, baby proof, and baby proof.   

We would like to wish all of the fathers a very Happy Father’s Day.  We were able to get out of town this weekend to see our dads.  We went up to Hubbard on Friday and spent some time with my mom and Mike.  On Saturday, we went to Eldora to see Grandma and Wendy and to help them with some landscaping.  We took some of our river rock and the rest of the hostas with us so Mom could make a new landscaped area in Grandma’s yard.  Saturday afternoon we headed back to Hubbard and went swimming at the pool with my dad and Brenda.  It was Jaxson’s first time at the pool.  He wasn’t too sure about it at the beginning, but once he warmed up he started to have fun.  Then we went to Dad and Brenda’s house and had a wonderful supper and just enjoyed sitting outside and messing around.  Saturday evening we went to Gowrie to spend time with Brad’s family.  Sunday we went to church and came home and grilled kabobs.  Gma bought Jaxson a pool for their house so of course we had to test that out.  He loved it and we are looking foward to going back for the 4th of July to play in it again. Brad had already found his Father’s Day gift a couple weeks ago when I sent him to get some groceries with the van and forgot that I had his gift in the back.  Jaxson got him a bike trailor so that when he turns 1 he can go with Daddy on his bike rides. Brad is looking forward to it; I have to keep reminding him that he has to wait a couple more months.  It will give them something fun to do outside on the weekends when I’m gone.

Kade helping with Grandma’s yardwork

The Supervisors - Wendy, Grandma, and Brad

"I just don’t know about this big bathtub"

Jaxson got to eat supper in his Great Great Grandmother’s highchair

Outside at Dad and Brenda’s

Dad’s mad because his bubble toy doesn’t work very well

Cousin Laura

Jaxson loves Gma & Gpa Cathcart’s dog, Chester

We have worked for 4 days straight landscaping the North and East sides of our house and we finished today.  Luckily we had good weather all week; it was a little hot but we had a nice breeze and no rain.  Jaxson was so well behaved the whole time.  He went from his playpen to the wagon and was self-entertained most of the time.  He did get a little antsy today (who could blame him), so we took a little break and actually took a ride in the wagon up to the park to swing.  Brad and I are very happy with the outcome and look forward to no landscaping tomorrow.  A big thanks to our moms who helped us out a lot!

Before

During

During

After

After

After

The new front of our house

Jaxson’s tired of doing landscaping

That explains the past few days around our house.  Let’s see, I’m going to start with what’s been going on since last Friday.  Last Friday night we went over to our friends’ Jason, Brandy, & Anya McArtor’s in Pleasant Hill.  Jason grilled up pork loin for about 30 people and we had a great time sitting around and talking with friends and watching all of the kids play.  We couldn’t stay as long as I would have liked since I had to work in the morning. 

Work this weekend was very different.  For you nurses that read this you will understand what I mean when I say that we have some very heavy patients right now.  I have worked on North 6 for 7 1/2 years and this is the highest acquity of patients that I have seen on our floor. Of our 24 patients that we had when I left Sunday, 11 of them were on TPN and 17 of them had central lines (that is a lot).  That means that they are S-I-C-K.  One cool thing that happened at work was that I got to take care of this man that used to be a bodyguard for Elvis. . . yes Elvis! He had pictures to prove it.  One picture had my patient, Elvis, and Muhammad Ali in it.  Elvis gave him some pretty neat things like an engraved gold-plated pistol, which he got for protecting him from some maniac that tried to test Elvis’ karate at a concert in Vegas.  Did you know that Elvis had his ninth-degree black belt in karate, which made him a Master?  Elvis also gave him a gold ring and necklace.  At Elvis’ funeral, my patient just had to show the necklace at the door and he was let right in.  My patient also did bodyguard work for Wayne Newton, Liza Minelli, and Barbara Striesand (which he did not like at all; I guess she was not a very nice person). 

On Sunday, Gpa and Gma Cathcart came down to see the boys.  They played with Jaxson so Brad could get the house ready for the Soprano series finale.  We had everyone over to our house for pizza.  I have to say that I was quite disappointed with the way that the show ended.  It really didn’t end; they kept us hanging.  With the way that it ended they better do a movie to tie up all of the loose ends or I am going to feel like I wasted my Sunday nights for the past several years. 

Brad took this whole week off of work so we are staying busy by working on our landscaping outside.  Kris came down today and really helped us out.  I have to admit that I am not a Mrs. Greenthumb, but luckily my mom and mother-in-law both are.  Today we worked on the front yard and got it all done.  It looks so much nicer than what we had before.  My mom is coming down tomorrow to help us do more.  If anyone wants any FREE river rock or hostas for their landscaping just let me know.  We have more than what we need.

Just loungin’ at the BBQ

Chad & Jodi Airhart and Ben Warrick

"Mom, HELP!  Jodi’s gonna get me!"

Tired Baby

"I’ll read my book to you, Grandpa"

Jaxson watching us do landscaping

Before

After

As you will see in the pictures, I start training early for the 18 years in my house to come.  I bought a swivel sweeper to clean up all of the many little messes that Jaxson makes throughout the day.  I figured that he would enjoy it because he loves playing with the vacuum and this is more his size.  Little did I know that he would take over cleaning up the dining room for me.  It was so funny!  He pushed that thing all over the dining room for at least 30 minutes until the battery went dead.  Next up. . . teaching him how to clean the toilets.

This morning we had a new furnace and water heater put in.  That’s one of those fun advantages of owning your own home.  We still had the originals that came with the house 18 years ago, so it was time for them to go.  I feel better knowing that this winter our furnace won’t poop out on us.

Grandma Pam came down today and spent the afternoon with us.  We went to the mall to see if we could find a brown suit or tux for Jaxson for Aunt Tanya’s wedding.  We did find one place that carries brown suits, so I’m going to check back with them when the big day gets a little closer.  Then we visited some other stores looking for all the other wedding essentials like ribbon, candles, candle holders, etc.  We didn’t have much luck, but we still have plenty of time to find what we need.

Jaxson conquered a HUGE milestone lastnight. . . he ate a cracker!!!  Now I know to most of you that doesn’t sound very exciting and you’re probably thinking "big deal, the kid ate a cracker."  However, this is the kid that vomits if he gets a teenie tiny little bite of anything that isn’t pureed.  And I don’t mean that he just spits up; I’m talking full-fledge stomach emptying vomiting.  Anything that he’s eaten prior to that is now gone.  He even got a tiny piece of paper in his mouth the other night and then seconds later he lost his whole supper and had to be thrown in the tub. So of course we’ve been hesitant to try too many new things. But for some reason last night he took a cracker and bit into it and kept his supper down.  Yep, it’s the little things in life that kids do that make their parents happy.

"Get out of my way, I’m cleaning!"

"Daddy, you’re supposed to tickle Elmo, not me"

Working on the cracker

"Look at me!"

"I’m not so sure about this Grandma"