Fools in April

April is here.  April is here!  April is here?

As promised (and under multiple threats) I am here with an update!  Hayes had his first appointment today with his endocrinologist and every thing went well.  I say every thing went well - this seemed mostly like a 'meet and greet', but it definitely felt positive.  Since Hayes is already five months old (tomorrow!), it seems that if there were serious problems with hormone deficiencies, they would have manifested themselves by now (i.e. seizures from low blood sugar, underdeveloped parts and poor growth).  The doctor ordered a gamut of hormone blood tests, answered questions I had, and arranged for a follow-up in four weeks, at which point we'll review both the blood work and the MRI results and come up with a game plan based on what we find.  Our 'game plan' means basically, how often we'll need to assess his hormone levels and whether or not we'll need to begin hormone therapy after we know more about Hayes' condition.

Hayes was super brave and strong during the lab work while the tech took 10 ml of blood (2 tsp).  He hardly cried and I am so proud of him!  He is doing much better with his head control and making progress at his own pace.  My parents were here this weekend (Mom was able to come with me to the endo. appt., thanks God for good timing) and kept remarking in amazement what an AWESOME baby he is.  Seriously, the best.

For inquisitive minds, here are some important upcoming dates for Baby Hayes:

April 9 - MRI
April 29 - Endocrinology Appointment to review hormone/MRI results
June 18 - Vision Check-up

Before I go on, Koby and I want to thank every one for their comments, texts, messages, calls, letters (yes!  people still send mail!), and thoughts over the past few weeks.  We are overwhelmed by your support and in addition to being grateful for our two astounding, amazing, spectacular children, we have been blessed with wonderful family and friends.  I have been encouraged and made wiser by the compassion and advice received from so many who read the blog and it is good for my soul.  Thank you.

-Commercial Break-

So, you may be wondering just why it is that I keep this blog.  Obviously, it's a great (and maybe slightly narcissistic?) way to keep in touch with family and friends for those of us who are more verbose than a Tweet will allow.  (And I can't convince my parents that Twitter is cool, so that's out for them anyways.)  It's a therapeutic outlet for me, a place to gather thoughts and organize them.  A lot of people relayed to me that they appreciate my transparency and I HOPE that one day someone who is struggling with the same things as I am will find these posts encouraging.  That's my prayer, anyway, and it's the boost I need when I feel like I just can't bring myself to be honest about my feelings on something that's challenging or difficult or controversial.

But one foundational purpose of this blog is much more selfish and sad than all of that.  Quite simply, I'd probably forget most of what's happening in our lives at this moment if it weren't for this blog.  (Almost) strangers who read this blog have actually reminded me of things I'd forgotten about that happened in my own life, to me because they read this blog.  It's scary, people.  (Not the strangers, how much I forget and how quickly I do so.)  I blame some of it on the immediacy of our culture - we take in so much information during 24 hours it's wondrous to me that we don't all need 12 hours of sleep to compensate each night.

For instance, right now, Knox is playing with his toys behind me and talking to himself about chickens, and cats, and trains, and unless I take a picture of it and post it on this blog I probably won't remember what this is like.  This blog is like my digital baby book for Knox and Hayes.  (I do keep real ones too.)  But it's also a  marriage book.  And a life book.

Here's what I'll forget about from the Blog Famine of 2012-13 if I don't post about it here:

DECEMBER

Melissa graduated from UT Tyler in mid-December with her Master's in Business Administration.  Knox was sick.



Christmas Eve morning in Graham.

About two months post-Christmas Judson proposed to Elizabeth... so Koby and I are getting a brother in law and Knox and Hayes are getting an UNCLE!

Christmas Eve in Throckmorton - Knox was not sick and we discovered just how much he will do for attention.

Hayes' first Christmas.

White Christmas Day in Bryson.

Day after Christmas in Austin.

JANUARY

Melissa and I on New Year's Eve day at her studio apartment in Deep Ellum.  She will kill me for putting this on the blog but isn't she pretty without makeup?

Married friends Clay and Belinda in this picture - Baby Maybelin is here too but not many people knew that yet!

Koby and I ate dinner with Clay and Belinda, then went back to Melissa's apartment and watched movies.  I fell asleep before 11:00 pm.  Happy New Year.

On New Year's Day we flew to Vegas.  I think this is the first night - I'm by the Fountains at the Bellagio.

Our hotel/casino in Vegas where we lost about $25 on the slot machines.  Apparently we know nothing about gambling.

Back in Bryson.  Knox has the flu in this picture, but we don't know it yet. 

Can't you tell?  Also, I don't know why I let him wear that shirt.

Playing hooky from school.  Not really.  Knox had both types of the flu (A and B) and I got it too, so we had to stay home for a few days.

FEBRUARY

I forced this mural activity upon my son to make self-proclaimed world's cutest Valentine cards.

 

Knox ate an Oreo.

MARCH

A week before Spring Break, Knox came down with strep throat and an ear infection.  The Friday before Spring Break we found out Hayes had RSV at his four months checkup (a few hours after this photo was taken). Koby and I both got a 12 hour stomach flu on the Monday of Spring Break.  It was a weird few weeks.

A few weeks after this Knox got sick again. No idea what it was that time.

Over Spring Break (once every one was well) we took the boys to the Abilene Zoo.  First zoo trip!

 

And now we're caught up!

Are your eyes bleeding?  I will try and never let this happen again, for all our sakes. 

Keep praying for Hayes! :-)

Dough a Deer

I can explain.

I just want to make memories.  Is that so wrong?  This month, in keeping with a pattern, I decided that it would be cute to make some salt dough ornaments as presents for Knox and Hayes' grandparents and aunts.  I promise that I don't come up with designs of torture for blogging benefit. If you could see me in these pre-disaster moments, you'd see the idealistic gleam in my eye.  The recipe seemed oh-so-easy, and so, courtesy of Pinterest, I was going to start a brand new Christmastime tradition.  As I gathered my ingredients, I became excited for the years to come -  the cute ornaments the boys would make; the way, as adults, they'd fondly talk about the special craft time they shared with their mom during the holidays... Yes, my imagination was in overdrive.  Children's crafts and mother-son bonding, these are the things I fantasize about. 

I didn't even let the suspiciously sticky mixture bother me. 

Then I brought Knox over to press his hand into the dough.

The first print wasn't a disaster.  Unfortunately, he has more than one family member.  The second print wasn't a bonding moment.  By the third attempt, you'd think I was forcibly pressing his hand into burning lava and then killing a puppy.  His defense mechanism?  Curl his fingers into a fist, grab the dough, and dump the dough and flour on the floor.  Oh, and cry and scream. 

In retrospective, maybe I was already a little emotional because his handprint was bigger than I expected - I couldn't find any cans or jars big enough to make a 'cookie' around his ginormous print.  When did he stop being a baby?  Maybe Knox was already a little emotional because he watched me prepare what misleadingly promised to be some sort of baked good, only to find that he had to touch some a weird substance that he was definitely not allowed to eat. 

Well, you see how it all ended up.  I'd show you the salt dough crime scene, but it's pretty graphic.  Suffice to say, there are three very sad ornaments that are now half-baked sitting in my kitchen.  I don't understand where I went wrong.  I used to be an art teacher. 

 

 

I redeemed myself only very slightly with an Oreo offering.

 

Speaking of butchering memories... how have I not shared this?

 

I shot a deer over Thanksgiving.  Koby's family has a tradition that began with his grandmother, Caryl.  His grandfather, Ed, has a 30-30 shotgun that every family member (including the ones that have married in) has shot a buck with, once they are 'of age'.  (Not sure what the official 'you can kill a deer now' age is...)

 

This was supposed to happen two years ago, the first hunting season after Koby and I were married.  Conveniently for me, I was pregnant then and my morning sickness prohibited me from being in any location where I couldn't easily get sick for more than an hour or so.  Oh, did I say convenient?  I mean awful.  Though I narrowly escaped taking a life that year, Koby assured me that next year, it would happen.

 

And so we went out last year on the last day of hunting season... and got skunked.  Not a single deer.  Not even a doe.  And so Koby, with a little desperation in his voice, assured me that next year, it would definitely happen.

 

Before I tell the thrilling tale, let me tell you a little bit about my emotions leading up to the thing.  I'm not against hunting, as that would be very hypocritical as I have been known to eat burgers for every meal of the day.  Hunting purely for sport does rub me the wrong way... I mean, who needs to kill an elephant?  Or a tiger?  Right?  The thing I appreciate about Koby is that he loves hunting, but he also loves to experiment in the kitchen and he genuinely loves cooking wild game.  And so I knew whatever poor beast I met that day would be thoroughly enjoyed by our family.  I was a little nervous for a few reasons...  firstly, guns make me nervous.  Can't help it.  I was nervous about killing something on purpose, never having killed anything bigger than a cat with my car (accidentally).  I was nervous about missing and disappointing Koby.

 

And so the moment came.  I am neither a huntress nor a storyteller, so I'll just say that my hands were shaking as I took the shot.  Koby was probably more anxious than I was.  No, he was for sure. 

 

Confession: I may have cried a little bit afterwards.  I'm still the girl who can't watch movies if the animal dies.  Surprising myself, I was much more excited to get down from the blind and see the deer than I ever thought I'd be.  I was excited, not so much for what I'd done, but seeing how excited Koby was.  It felt good to aim and hit my mark, make a clean shot.  Probably the best part is that the blind we were sitting in is the one Koby built with his grandfather, the same one from which he shot his first buck when he was just a kid.  It means a lot to Koby, and I'm glad that I could give that to him. 

 

And really glad I didn't miss.

 

Still, if you would have shown this picture to me in high school and told me that this would be me in eight years... Ahhhh, the places love and life will take you, eh?

 

  

Yuletide Transparency

I've exposed my poor mother to the horror that is photographing the Andrews family.

I don't know why I keep trying, or why I think it will be any different each time we pull out the camera and attempt to make ourselves look agreeable.  And so, in the interest of full disclosure, I will let you know that this Christmas card photo session made Pumpkin Patch 2012 look like a stroll through the... well, pumpkin patch.

Here is what you can expect when taking pictures of my family (so please remind me when I try to take some pictures in February for home-made Valentines, or some other equally hare-brained idea):

• My children will not look at the camera, OR
• My children will fuss and cry and scream, OR
• My children will look like lifeless, creepy dolls, OR
• My children will smile and look at the camera, but the settings will be off OR
• My children will smile and look at the camera, but the memory card will be full AND
• I will always be captured trying to resolve the above problems AND
• Koby will be the most photogenic and cooperative model of the group.

My emotions will follow this cycle: optimism, determination, frustration, exasperation, defeat, depression, hilarity.  Rinse, lather, repeat.  (I am woman, hear me roar.)
 
Knox has no interest in being held while out-of-doors, but since even the litter-ridden lake in our town is still cleaner than my living room, out-of-doors remains the only place we can take good pictures.  Koby was literally physically restraining Knox in all of the pictures, and Knox was putting up a good fight.  (Those cute poses where Koby has Knox on his shoulder weren't so cute in real life as Knox was kicking the tar out of Koby in efforts to get down.)

The lake and its wonder is beckoning to Knox, who valiantly reaches in vain with a cry of "UURGGHHHAAHHHH".

In between bids for freedom, Knox would become distracted by leaves/sticks/litter. 

Oh, and don't be alarmed by Hayes pretending to be a terrifyingly limp blob.  I assure you, he's perfectly fine.  So just ignore the next picture.

Of course, every once in awhile the stars would align and we'd get a GREAT pose. 

Unfortunately, the part that looks really great is the background in perfect focus.

Wonderful shot of the November foliage of Bryson, Texas.

I may or may not have given up after about 15 minutes of trying to get "just one good shot" for our Christmas card.  I may or may not have declared that we will "never take any more pictures, ever" after my mom sweetly and quietly offered to take us to lunch and then try some more poses.  I think I said "I'm done" about 500 times.  (Dramatic, much?)  Koby and I laughed all the way home, and seriously threw around the option of choosing the very worst shot for our card this year.  Even though this IS the more accurate albeit less flattering Yuletide Greeting, enjoy it here because it won't be gracing your mailboxes this holiday season.

THANK YOU MOM for taking pictures under increasing pressure and for not pointing out that I was throwing a bigger fit than my toddler son.

Why do I keep subjecting my family to this torture?  Why do I want to get sickeningly sweet pictures that in no way reflect our day-to-day life, which actually involves a lot of hysterical laughter, poop, and laundry?  Why, fellow mommies, why???

If you'd like to see the shots that survived as Christmas card candidates it at the expense of my family's sanity, you can visit our Facebook album.

Flighty Fox

Koby has officially passed the 'Unwilling Model' torch on to his first-born son.

Behold, here is Knox the Fox Who Didn't Want To.  During our challenging photo shoot, while I was trying to move as little as possible (STAY, HAYES), Knox kept ripping off his fox hood and trying to put other things on his head.  Like the trick or treat bag I thought would be a cute prop.  (Prop?  Who am I and what expectations did I have for these pictures???)  Or the watering can on the porch.  Or the three baby pumpkins I thought would look cute in the shots, which I never quite managed to get in the frame.

Happy Halloween.  He also tried putting the fox hood back on, but refused help, and so we have this little gem.

Here he is last Halloween - it was a little easier to bend his will to that of the photographer's a year ago.

I've been debating all day whether or not to go to our church's Trunk or Treat this evening - I thought it would be fun for Knox and felt guilty that he was missing out on yet another Halloween (because he seems to enjoy it so...) but I don't think we'll go.  I don't think I should be walking around much, and let's be real - the best candy has peanuts in it and he can't have any.  I would be lying if I said a big part of me didn't want to go just for the candy haul I could make... but that doesn't seem quite like the Halloween spirit to me.  So Knox's impression of Halloween thus far in life will have to revolve around a fox hood and a camera.  Maybe he'll score some candy next year, and I fully intend on sharing the three bags of peanut-free tooth-rotting candy I bought to hand out with him.  And Koby.  But no one else.

If you want to see the rest of the pictures, visit my Facebook album here.