Thanksgiving 2009

We had a great Thanksgiving Holiday this year. Blaine's sister Dawn moved back to Kentucky from China. So she was here for the holiday which was really fun. Caylor hasn't seen her since he was about 6 months old. Caylor was able to really enjoy the holiday this year. Last year he could'nt eat solids yet, so this was his first real Thanksgiving. The Hicks family sure does know how to do Thanksgiving. It is always so good.








Caylor loved Thanksgiving dinner. He had his own seat at the table and felt like such a big boy. He loved Turkey. Later we found out he is allergic to turkey which was not so fun. But he did enjoy it while he was eating it. The whole meal he had a big grin on his face and kept saying "MMMM...."





After Thanksgiving dinner and a big Thanksgiving nap, we did our traditional hunt for the good Black Friday deals. We sure did find some deals too!


So the next morning Blaine and I woke up at 2am and headed to the mall. We waited in line outside for an hour and it was really cold!

But it was so worth it! We went to lots of stores and were done shopping by 6am. So then we grabbed some breakfast at Burger King and headed back to the Hick's to get some sleep.

We were so happy with the deals we got Friday that we decided to go again Saturday and let Caylor tag along. We had a lot of fun and finished our Christmas shopping! Then Caylor's reward was that he got to go to the mall play place.





Caylor had so much fun this weekend with his Aunt Dawn and Uncle Adam. He loves them so much now.

I wear my sunglasses at night

The above is a picture of my son on a Friday night almost two weeks ago. Technically it was Saturday morning, about 4am.

It all started the day before, Thursday. Caylor woke up and was running a low grade fever. It wasn't even 100 degrees yet, and he is teething, so we weren't too concerned and Blaine and I took him with us that morning to run some errands.

After errand running, Blaine went off to work and Caylor went down for a nap. Well he took a 3 and a half hour nap which is extremely unusual for him. When he woke up, he had a fever of 103 and would not eat or drink anything which is also quite strange. Any of you who know Caylor at all knows he will NEVER turn down food. He had also not eaten very much that morning either so I was getting concerned. So I called the doctor and they wanted to see him immediatley. So off we went to the doctor's office.

We get to the doctor and Caylor is just going downhill fast. He is so sick and his face is so hot and red. They take his temperature and it is almost to 104 at this point. They then give him a flu test and sure enough, it is the flu. Strain A - Swine flu! So they give us a perscription for the insanely expensive Tammiflu (which I found out later Swine Flu is resistant to), and sent us on our way.

That night, Caylor hardly slept at all and his fever got to 104. Luckily, I knew what to do with a high fever so I gave him a bath and it brought it down to 101. After the bath, Caylor slept a lot better and we didn't have any major problems.

Friday, Caylor was so terribly sick. I had never seen him so sick with anything before. He just wanted to be held and sleep all day. I had to force water down him with a medicine dropper and I think it hurt him to swallow because he would scream every time I did it. Friday night for our date night, I ran out and got some rental movies and take out Mexican and we just stayed home. We did not want to leave Caylor and we were supposed to stay away from people anyway. So we watched one of the movies I got and were about to go to bed at 10pm. Before going to bed, I had even laid down in bed, I got a very strong impression that I needed to go immediatley to Caylor's room and check on him and take his temperature. So I ran to his room and I found him asleep, but he was bright red and breathing very hard and ragged. I was so scared but calmly picked him up and he was shaking. And it wasn't shivvering, it was shaking. It wasn't a seizure or anything like that, but I still don't think I have ever been that scared in my life! So I took his temperature and it was 104.8. My doctor told me that if it ever got to 105, I was to take him to the ER immediatley. So Blaine and I were both very worried. I gave Caylor a bath and some Tylenol and his fever was still at 104.3 an hour later. Blaine called his brother Trent over and they gave him a blessing. After the blessing, Caylor fell asleep but the nurse on call at Caylor's doctor told us we could not go to sleep and that we had to watch Caylor constantly to make sure he was okay.

So luckily, I had rented like 5 movies so we watched them back to back as a family on the couch. Even in the horribleness of the situation, we did have a good time. Caylor felt so terrible and we could not do anything to make him feel better, until in desperate measures, Blaine found Caylor's sunglasses and put themn on him. He stopped crying immediatley and just sat there all night with the sunglasses on. They didn't want us to hold Caylor too much because they needed his body temp. to go down. So he sat on the couch and watched movies with us with his sunglasses on.

His fever stayed at 104 or above until 6am. Finally, it went down to 102 and we celebrated. The nurse said he could go to bed and so could we. So we put him down and got about 2 hours of sleep that night.

He never got quite that sick again thankfully, but he was pretty sick for about a week straight. Last Tuesday I thought he was finally getting better, but then he didn't use the bathroom for 5 hours so I almost had to take him to the ER for fluids. It was a nightmarish experience but at least it is over. I know the Lord was watching over our little boy and protected him through all of this. I don't think it was a coincidence that his fever got so close to 105 but never got quite there.

Now looking back, I appreciate health more and I appreciate the experience that I gained from this. I learned quite a few things about how to deal with high fevers and make sick little boys feel better.

Now a word of advice to all of you that actually got through this entire post, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE... Get your kids the H1N1 Vaccine!!! I didn't and I regret it. This could have been life threatening and it sure did scare me to death. At least he is immune now, but he had to do it the hard way.

Caylor's 15 Month Checkup

Yesterday Caylor had his 15 Month Checkup. He really is growing up so fast. Here are some of his stats:

Weight: 21 lb 8 0z - 11th percentile
Height: 32 Inches - 77th percentile

He is my little tall skinny boy apparantley! He really has grown fast recently. He has grown 3 inches in just 3 months! He is taller than most of the kids we know his age now. But skinny as a rail and his pants fall off of him all the time. He is constantly running around with a sweater, shoes, and no pants.

He can do and understand so much now too. At the doctor he really was showing off and the doctor was really impressed. We had a book of animals and I would turn the pages and Caylor would point and the animal, say the animal's name, and make the animal sound that correlates. The doctor told me he is doing well verbally and that he is right on track. Then, when the doctor started to tell me about the shots he was going to get, he talked about his 18 month shots. I corrected him and told him that Caylor was 15 months and he was amazed. He said that Caylor is very advanced for a 15 month old. That made me feel really good because I don't really know what to expect since he is my firstborn and I have never done this before. I was a little worried he might be behind on speech since he has had so many ear/hearing issues. But I am glad that he is doing above and beyond. It is definatley an answer to my prayers.

Here are some things Caylor can do now:
-Says: Mama, Dada, Bye bye, Duck, Cat, Dog, Thank you (sometimes not clearly), I Love you (only said this twice), Book, and I'm sure there are more that I am not thinking of.
-Makes lots of animal sounds: Moo, Quack, Meow, Cheep, and I can't think of anymore.
-Can do hand motions to songs like the Itsy Bitsy Spider, Point your Finger, etc.
-Understands lots of things: Will dance on command, sing, kiss, hug, come when called, brush teeth, nap or bed, etc.
-He is actually a dang good dancer. I don't know where on Earth he got that gift from. I have rhythm, but I certainly am no dancer, although I love to dance, I am awful at it. Ask anyone who was unfortunate to go to high school/church dances with me. Anyway, he has a ballet type dance to slow music, a carseat dance, a fast dance, and any time a song has a waltz (3/4) tempo, he will come to me and want me to dance with him. He always does it to that tempo which amazes me that he can tell the difference.

I do love my boy so much. We are having so much fun together. I can't wait until he can talk a little more and I can hear whats on his mind more. I know I will probably regret saying that laater....

Happy (Very Belated) Halloween!

Well I am finally getting around to posting Halloween pictures. It has been so busy lately so I haven't been very good about blogging. This year has just flown by and Christmas has crept up on me and to be honest I am not quite ready for it! There are a lot of other things going on in our lives that are keeping us pretty busy as well.

Halloween was so much fun this year. Probably the best Halloween I have ever had just because I got to enjoy watching Caylor explore and have so much fun! I also loved being able to spoil him just a little with the Halloween candy. He did not know what to think of it, but then he looked at me with a big grin and said "MMMMMM...". I think that means he liked it.

The day before Halloween our ward had a "Trunk or Treat" That is where everyone decorates their trunks and fills them with candy and the kids go from car to car getting treats. We had a really nice dinner beforehand and then there were lots of games that the kids could play. What were we for Halloween?

Caylor was a Monkey. I absolutley love his costume! The picture below is Caylor with Hailey Bowman. She was a cow.


Blaine was Proffessor Severus Snape from Harry Potter. He did it as an inside joke we have together. I was so proud of him because he made his own costume. (I don't know if he wanted people to know that...)



I went as Miss America. It was really windy that night so here is a Marilyn Monroe style picture of me.


We had such a great night that night.








We worked so hard on our trunk for the event. I think it turned out pretty well.


The next night was Halloween night. We couldn't wait until it was time to Trick or Treat. The time finally came and we got dressed up and headed to a neighborhood near our home. At first Caylor had no idea what was going on. As the night progressed, he learned how to take the candy, say "Thank you" and put it in his bag. I was so proud of him. We had such a great night as a family walking around in the beautiful fall evening. And not to mention all the great candy we, I mean Caylor got. :)

After Trick or Treating, my mom came over to watch Caylor so Blaine and I could go to a party at my friend Rachel's house. It was an interesting party to say the least. Blaine bobbed for apples (I passed on this game).



Then we went on to a donut eating contest. You play as a team with your spouse. One person holds the donut on a string while the other person eats it. The first person's team to eat the entire donut wins. I could have won, but I could not swallow for the life of me! And it didn't help that I couldn't stop laughing too. I had some pretty incriminating pictures of people from this game, but I promised them I would not put them on here. So here is a cute picture of Shannon playing.


Even though I didn't win any of the games, the night still was fun.


So after the party we headed back home. After my mom left, Blaine and I curled up on the couch, ate Caylor's Halloween candy and watched a scary movie. It was a great day.

How I Lost my Mind....

Caylor has turned into such a little monkey! He climbs on everything. There is practically nothing he can't get to. He has been found in the window, on the bookshelf, piano, stair banister, and lots of other places I can't think of right now. I think it is clever and cute, but it does make me go a little crazy. He is such a good boy though.

Company Trip to Gatlinburg

This past weekend Blaine and I went with his company to Gatlinburg, TN. We have been so many times and love Gatlinburg. We had to leave Caylor with Blaine's parents for 3 WHOLE DAYS! I was so depressed Thursday and had to have a friend come over Thursday night and make me pack. I just didn't want to leave him behind.

But we did and headed on the company bus to Tennessee. When we got there Friday night we checked into our hotel and headed to Dixie Stampede. It is a dinner show that is really popular there. The horse in the picture by the way is Fred. I thought it was quite a unique name for a horse...




Then Saturday was a free day. We could do whatever we wanted! So we did a little Christmas shopping along the strip. We got some cool stuff that I can't talk about for obvious reasons. We also found some very stylish accessories.






We also made our traditional Gatlinburg trip to Blaine's Restaurant. I first found this restaurant when I was dating Blaine during a UK Chorale trip. I was so excited that there was a place named after him. So every time we go to Gatlinburg we eat there. And it is a fantastic restaurant too!


Blaine and I really had a great time on this trip. It was nice to spend time just the two of us, sleep in as late as we want, etc. We really enjoyed each other's company.

Sunday we headed back home. It was a long bus ride home. I was sad to leave Gatlinburg, but couldn't wait to see Caylor again. When we got back to the Hick's house, he was so excited to see us. I have never seen him get that excited before. He was laughing and kicking his legs and kept going back and forth between me and Blaine. Then he sat on my lap for about an hour while I talked with the family. I had to go to the bathroom so bad but didn't want to push him off my lap, so I waited until he got off and ran to the bathroom. He was downstairs and within seconds I hear banging on the door and crying. He had ran up the stairs and didn't want to be away from me! It made me feel so good that I make such an impact in his life. I hope it will be a while before I have to leave him again.

This is It!!

I have a confession to make...I am a HUGE Michael Jackson fan! Make fun of me all you want, I don't care. That was one talented, albeit crazy man. I grew up on his music and I still love to listen to it. That is my cleaning music. I listen to it every day when I am cleaning the house and Caylor loves it! He loves to dance to his music and we dance together (not in front of anyone of course).



So when I found out MJ had a concert/movie that was out in theatres for two weeks I decided I had to go. I asked Blaine if he would go with me and he laughed and told me that I couldn't pay him to go see that movie. So I thought about who would go with me and got kind of discouraged that no one would want to see it. Then last week I went to my friend Maggie's house and watched our kids as she was getting some stuff done around the house. She turned on some music and what did she play? Michael Jackson! So I asked her if she was a MJ fan and she flipped out and told me all about how much she loves him. So I asked her to be my "date" to the movie.






So last night we went to the 10pm showing of "This Is It". We were the only people in the theatre which was kind of cool. The movie was so good! It showed his rehearsals for the concert he was going to put on in London. He was so talented! He was obviously singing live, but it sounded amazing. And on top of that he was dancing like a mad man at the same time. He did his hits from over the years. It was cool that he wrote most of the songs himself, he choreographed his own dances and the dances of the background dancers. He also came up with most of the ideas himself of what would happen in the concert. It would have been a cool concert to go to.