Big Boy Adventure!

Yesterday we were all going to go to Port Charlotte to the Rays new Spring Training facility because they were having the grand opening and all the players were going to be there signing autographs and stuff. Since I felt horrible still I told Michael to take Gabe and go on without Gavin and I, Michael's friend Chad joined them as well. They got to watch the players work-out, take batting practice and got lots of autographs!!

They were getting ready to leave and they heard the crack of a bat and knew someone was taking batting practice so they went to find out who it was. It turned out to be Navi, the starting catcher. Michael asked if he would sign an autograph and he said he would when he was done. So they watched him and Gabe was getting crabby because he was ready for a nap. Michael put Gabe back in the stroller to give Navi the balls and picture to sign, so Gabe started whining.

Navi asked what was wrong and Michael said Gabe wanted to be out there taking batting practice with him, he thought that was funny. He asked Gabe if he wanted his bat and told Michael to take him out and Navi gave Gabe his bat, then signed it as well.

This isn't just any bat it is specifically made for Navi, it is awesome!!

Michael forgot to take the camera so thank goodness Chad had his camera and took this picture for me. They had a great guys days!!

Gavin 6 weeks

Yesterday Gavin turned 6 weeks old, that's crazy huh??!!?? It is crazy how big he is getting when we took him to the doctor Saturday morning he weighed 11 lbs. 11 ozs.!!! Gabe wasn't even that big yet at his 2 month visit, Gavin is trying to catch up with his brother super fast.

He is holding his head up for long periods of time and at night is now going 4 1/2 -5 hours between eating and still 3-3 1/2 during the day. His favorite thing to do is lay down and just look at you, he wants to be in the middle of everything and be talked to. He will put himself to sleep in his crib sometimes even without crying. He has adorable fat rolls on his leg I will get a picture of soon.

It seems he is starting to get to feeling better. His cough at least is nearly gone but he does still have a very snotty, congested nose. Dr. Enlow said I can bring him in anytime in the next couple weeks if he sounds worse and she will check him out. Hopefully he will just get past it on his own pretty soon.

Gabe's Health Issues

I have been posting everything on Facebook and just realized today that I had done nothing on the blog yet. So I have wrote 4 notes about the health issues we have been having with Gabe and I will just copy and paste them all on here because I don't feel like typing it all out again.

1. So Gabe has had a little cold but yesterday it got worse. Michael and I went to Carrabba's last night while Gigi and Pop Pop watched the boys. Gigi gave him a bath and noticed that one of his testicles was really swollen. So when we got home from dinner we decided that we would go ahead and take him to the Nite Owl Pediatrics and go get everything checked. Turns out he had an ear infection, really bad chest cold and then this morning the his pediatrician also said strep throat. The doctor looked at Gabe's testicle and said that we would need to get him to his pediatrician today and have that checked out and get refereed to a urologist. We got him in this morning and it turns out he will have to have surgery to repair the hole that is allowing the fluid into his testicle. It can become very dangerous because his intestines can also start to drop into the testicle as well. At this point we are just waiting for them to get the referral done so we can get this all taken care of. Please keep our little man in your prayers.Pray for Gavin and I as well we have both gotten the same chest cold from Gabe and are not feeling well.

2.So I called his pediatrician this morning to see if they had gotten the referral yet. They said that the Clark and Daughtry urologist wouldn't see him so they would have to send him to All Children's, but they hadn't called them yet. Within about 45 minutes they called me back and said the appointment was for March 24th at the Tampa offices, I was not happy. While I know he is not in pain right now they say at any time if the intestines start to go into the testicle that he will be and that it will be very serious. For me to have to check him constantly for over a month wondering if it looks different I will lose it. So I called All Children's this afternoon and apparently my pediatrician had asked for the Tampa office because it was the closest office. I said I didn't care I would travel to any office I just wanted the earliest appointment I could get. Needless to say the next available appointment is March 3rd at the St. Pete office at 9:55. The said to just keep a close eye on it and let them know if there are any changes or if he seems to be in pain. This will be our appointment with the surgeon for him to examine Gabe and let us know what has to be done exactly. Please continue to Gabe and our family.

3.So Pop Pop called today and got us squeezed in at the Clearwater office, so we jumped in the car and went. He saw Dr. Reisman whom I liked very much, he didn't mind my millions of questions.He said this is called hydrocele, which is a fluid buildup around his testicle. Sometimes they are caused by an infection but he does not believe that is what it is. He says he will wait a month then see Gabe again (at the Lakeland office) if it were from an infection then it will go away before the appointment. He believes it is a hernia and then at the appointment they will schedule surgery. He said that with him having an ear infection, cold and strep throat that they wouldn't do surgery anyways because it increases the risks of the anesthesia. He said that the only thing that makes it an emergency and has to be fixed immediately is if the intestines get stuck in the opening. He says that there will be no question if that does happen because it will be the worst pain Gabe has ever felt, he will freak out and be projectile vomiting everywhere! In that case we would rush him to the ER right away, he said that rarely happens. The appointment made me feel better just because now I am more informed and no what to look for. So we will just play the waiting game and hope things don't get worse. Please pray that it is only an infection and it goes away, even that is not what it is believed to be. Pray that the intestines stay away from the opening and Gabe stays out of pain.They are going to call me with the date of the next appointment in the morning they said and I will then let you all know.

4.The nurse called this morning and said Gabe's next appointment will be March 10th at 9:05 am. She said Dr. Reisman really doesn't feel that it is just an infection so he decided not to wait a whole month. Please continue praying.

It has all been very trying and through all this Gavin and myself (along with Gabe) have had a horrible chest cold and we all still do. Hopefully everyone will be feeling better soon and Gabe will be fine.

Rays Fan Fest

So this past Saturday, Valentine's Day was Rays Fan Fest!! We weren't sure if I was going to be up to going yet but I was, that made Michael really happy because he REALLY wanted to go. Once we got inside we realized it wasn't exactly what we were thinking it was going to be.

They opened the doors at 10 am, we had gotten there right before that. Once we got inside we had to get an armband to get autographs with. A lady saw us looking for the line and gave us 3 extra passes she had which saved us $20. So we went and got in line for autographs and where in that same line from about 10:15 till 4:30!!! I couldn't believe how amazing the boys were Gabe never pitched a fit, if he got whiny he would just lay down in the stroller and put his blanket over his face. He has teeth coming through so he did have diarrhea 4 times and we went through all the extra clothes we had taken for him.

It was cool to see the Rays players up close but by the time we got our autographs we were over it, even Michael!!! We got us an enormous Mt. Dew, changed the boys diapers and got the heck outta there!!!

My feet hurt so bad that I could hardly walk back out to the car.

The next morning my arms were killing me from holding Gavin so much, we are going to have to be investing in a double stroller very soon!!!

Gabe was happy to have his music to listen to on the way home he was acting so silly.

That is his Imagination Movers CD he was listening to, it is his new favorite show!!

Gavin was way to exhausted to be excited like his bubba!!

Next Monday we have another Rays baseball adventure to go on to there Spring Training facility in Port Charlotte. It has been completely remodeled and they are having it open for tours, to watch the team practice and get autographs. It is all free, which we like!!!

Gavin 1 month

I can not believe a month has gone by already but we have been very busy!! Giving birth and having surgery all within 2 weeks is not recommended. Even with all the craziness Gavin has continued to grow and change daily.

We went to the doctor on Friday and she said that he looked great. He weighed 10 lbs. 7 ozs. and was 21 1/2 ins. long, everything was in the 50%. She was very impressed with his head control as well and said he had really great skin.

Gavin is still eating every 3 hours day and night pretty much, every once in a while at night he goes 4 but hardly ever. Hopefully soon we will begin to stretch that out a little longer at night Mommy would enjoy some more sleep. He has started going right back to sleep though after he eats at night instead of staying up and crying. He is still sleeping in the bassinet in our room but I think he is out growing it and is getting less comfortable, he ends up plowed into the side. I think this week sometime we will be moving him to his room and his crib at night.

He is staying awake a lot more during the day and loves for you to talk to him. He also enjoys laying in his crib and watching his mobile and looking at his friends he has in his crib. He also likes to takes naps in his swing some days, the higher the better!! He does still take his pacey but it isn't a constant thing, just mostly when he gets upset he wants it.

When I was taking his pictures Gabe decided he wanted to be a part of it.

He still loves holding him and kissing him. If he hears him crying he will run around till he finds him and just stand there watching him till we get him calmed down. He is such a sweet big brother, Gavin is a very lucky boy!!

These are just some other adorable pictures I took on Thursday and Friday of him. He is just such a precious boy, I feel so blessed to have him in my life!!

Gabey!!

Gabe is really into taking pictures and he is constantly looking for my camera so I can take pictures of him. He doesn't call it a camera though, he calls it "cheese". So here are just some of the funny pictures I have taken of him.

My favorite is the top middle, he looks kind of evil!!

These were taken by Pop Pop on Friday when he was babysitting. He was watching Cars for about the 12th time that week, it is his new favorite thing!! Pop Pop said he left the room for just a few minutes and when he came back Gabe was passed out. Too cute!!

Picture Perfect!

The Tuesday before I went into the hospital Gigi and I took the boys to have there pictures taken. I am glad I went ahead and did it or who knows when they would have gotten done!

They did really well, I was so happy!! Gabe isn't so great at holding Gavin, he just lets his head fall. He wanted to be silly though and I thought it worked out well. The picture of Gabe kissing Gavin's head and Gavin on Gabe's back are my favorites!!

We couldn't get Gabe to hold still long enough to get any good pictures of him by his self. He doesn't understand that he has to hold still for longer then a second for us to get the picture.

Gavin did great!! I couldn't believe we got the picture of him with his eyes open either, it was awesome.

How handsome are my boys!!!

3 weeks

Not really much to post about Gavin's 3rd week of life, he spent most of it at the hospital with his Mommy. We did get the nurse to weigh him before we left on Sunday and he was 8 lbs. 13 ozs.

He did have to learn about taking a bottle and he did fine with that, the formula is where we ran into a problem. He did not do good with the regular kind, he has to have soy.

He will be going to the doctor this week for his 1 month check-up and we will have more to report.

Sick Mommy!

I haven't posted in a while because I have been in the hospital and recovering from surgery. I had a couple of these episodes while I was pregnant (Christmas night hospital visit) but thought that they were just bad heartburn, turns out we were wrong. It happened last Mon. (Jan. 26th) afternoon but once I threw up the pain went away. Then it happened again Wed. night, midnight to be exact. I woke up with the horrible stomach pain and was in and out of the bathroom all night, this went on till the next morning. Mom called and made an appointment for me with Priority Care for 10:50, by then the pain had began to subside finally. They weren't sure so they ran a bunch of blood work I went home and fell asleep, they called back to tell me I had Pancreatitis. He said that he had called the hospital to tell them I was coming, I needed to check-in immediately. The hospital was full so I could either be in the hall on an adult floor or in pediatrics, we chose pediatrics. I had to stop nursing Gavin but I continued to pump so I could start up again later. I was put on an ice chip diet for a day then was finally aloud clear liquids the next day. They ran TONS of tests, blood work, x-rays, ultrasounds and EKG to find out the cause of the Pancreatitis, turns out it was my gallbladder. I had to wait for the Pancreatitis to go away though before they could do the surgery to remove it. Dr. Thigpen did my surgery finally Sunday morning first thing, I have never been so nervous and scared in my life!

Here I am immediately after returning to my room after surgery. (I am being very brave posting these awful pictures of me!) I had a couple things I had to do before we could go home and I was on top of it, I wanted out!

There is are room, we had the best nurses the whole time. They were very accommodating with Gavin bringing him tons of different formulas till we found one that would work for him. They brought him a crib and diapers even, they were just very helpful. Sunday night I had done what I had to do and we headed home finally!!