Happy 2011

I guess I'm not that big of a blogger. A lot of stuff has happened in 2011. Her is a pic from Avery's Birthday. We had a wonderful party here at the house.

Garrett's PT is coming along well. He can even pull up and stand for a short while on his own.

Garrett loves bath time. Sometimes he takes baths with Avery. When that happens, the floor gets pretty wet!

These two love each other so much they are always laughing. Avery is the best big sister ever. Garrett completly adores her.

This is a great pic of G. For 3 reasons. 1. We have one of Avery doing this, but I can't find it. 2. The Hangover is a Top 10 all time movie. 3. And every pic of G is great!

December Updates

Merry Christmas. This was on Christmas morning. Both of our kids were sick during the Christmas break, and to make matters worse, Lori Got sick too. Despite all the sickness in our home, it was the best Christmas ever! Avery is so appreciative of every single gift, and she loves watching others open gifts. Garrett and Avery love each other so much. It is so amazing to watch them. Avery is so concerned about her little brother. She always wants to help in any way possible, and Garrett's joy when he sees his sister is priceless.

Kids at Papi and Nana's house.

Avery and Garrett with their Great Grandmother.

On a side note, Thank you so much for all the prayers that you have said for our family this last year. We found out a year ago about Garrett's Spina Bifida on December 22nd. We decided that we would make December 22nd a positive day for us, and call it family day. Unfortunately this year on family day both kids were sick, so we all hung out at the house together. The important thing was that we were together. Lori and I are so grateful of all the thoughts and prayers that were said for us and more specifically Garrett.

Garrett is such an amazing boy! He is right on track developmentally. We think that he will start crawling soon. He gets up on all fours and rocks. His PT believes he is doing well too. Garrett can also lock his legs and stand too!

As always thanks for all you thoughts and prayers for Garrett.

November Happenings

November was a great month. Who doesn't love Thanksgiving? Aunt Heather and Uncle Will came over to visit from Wales. Aunt Heather brought over Dr. Pepper Zero. For some reason we don't have that here. She also came with us to Avery's Thanksgiving Feast at her school. Thanksgiving was great we had Thanksgiving at Uncle Keith and Aunt Meghan's new house, and then we went over to my Dad's house for Thanksgiving.

October Updates

Thank you so much to Aaron and Kathryn for running in The Washington D.C. Marine Corp Marathon (Aaron) and the Portland Marathon (Kathryn). Kathryn and Aaron raised over $2500 for the national Spina Bifida Association.

Thank you Lori for taking me to Austin for my birthday. Lori surprised me with Longhorn tickets to see Iowa State play Texas. I guess the real surprise was how crappy Texas played this year. Anyway it was a great weekend in Austin we stayed with Kathryn and Chance. They were excellant hosts. We went to an excellant Italian restarunt Friday night, and we had a room all to ourselves in the restuarant. There were also chicken bones on the ground.

For Halloween, Avery was Minney Mouse and Garrett was a Cheeky Monkey.

Garrett and his Papa. G-Man didn't actually get to go Trick or Treating he hung out at the house and passed out candy with Mama, Nana, Papa, Uncle Kee Kee, and Aunt Meghan.

Avery helping me carve the Jack O Lantern. Didn't realize how cute this pic was until now.

Avery right before her Trick or Treating started.

Spina Bifida Awareness Month

October is Spina Bifida Awareness month, and in honor of my son, Garrett two people very dear to our family are running marathons in honor of Garrett.

Kathryn, one of our best friends, is running the Portland Marathon on Sunday, October 10th. If you would like to make a contribution in honor of Garrett please follow this link:

https://www.kintera.org/site/c.liKWL7PLLrF/b.3876151/k.68FB/Tribute__In_Honor_Of/apps/ka/mt/createCard.asp?c=liKWL7PLLrF&b=3876151&en=6oJFLLNkHaJLKNMkG9KEJHOjGaIPI2OwEbKLJVMALmJUL3OIGOn

October 10th I will be running the Portland Marathon. I decided to raise awareness and money for the Spina Bifida Association (SBA) in honor of a very special family. My dear friends Lori and Adam had a son born May 2010 with Spina Bifida.

Because of Garrett, I’m inspired to support the vital work of the SBA. If you don’t know what Spina Bifida is, it is the most frequently occurring permanently disabling birth defect. Every day about eight babies born in the United States have Spina Bifida or a similar birth defect of the brain and spine. To learn more visit http://www.spinabifidaassociation.org/

Now I would like you to join the cause. Would you please consider making a flat donation or sponsoring me $1 per mile ($26), $2 per mile ($52), etc. Please complete the attached reply form and send back to me (email or mail) with cash, check or credit card.

1306 W. St. Johns Ave

Austin, TX 78757

Thank you so very much.

Best,

Kathryn

Aaron, my brother, is running the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. please see his write up. If you would like to make a contribution in honor of Garrett please follow these directions too.

26.2 Miles through
2 Non-States for
1 Very Special Kid

On October 31, I will embark on a 26.2 mile marathon to honor my nephew, Garrett, born with Spina Bifida and to benefit the Spina Bifida Association of America (SBA).

The goals of this event are to:
Honor Garrett

Raise awareness for Spina Bifida

Fund the important work of the Spina Bifida Association (SBA)

I will be running the Marine Corps Marathon (winding through the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Virginia).

Please help make this a memorable run and support an organization that will be supporting my family for many years.

Goal: to raise $5,000
Yes Aaron! I want to support the SBA.


Please follow the steps below:

Go to http://www.sbaa.org/
Click on – Contribute to SBA
Next click on – Send a Tribute Gift
The contribution process involves two steps.
In Honor of
First Name: Garrett
Last Name: Douglas
Note: you can send a personalized card with your name and a message if you would like

Underneath, please populate the First Name Field (Aaron), Last Name Field (Douglas) and Email (aaroncdouglas@yahoo.com)
On the next page – please enter information about yourself (name / address/ credit card info)
Click Submit!

Spina Bifida Association4950 MacArthur Boulevard, NW, Suite 250, Washington, DC 20007 (800) 621-3141

As always, thanks for your thoughts and prayers for our son. God is great and has blessed Garrett. He is truly amazing!

September Updates

I'm Getting really big!!!

Okay, so the Weekly Douglas Digest should really be renamed to the monthly Douglas digest.

Garrett is now 4 months old! He is doing really well. Eating and sleeping like a champ. He is up to 15lbs and he is in the 67th percentile for height and 30th percentile for weight. In comparison to Avery at about this time she was maybe 5th for height and 3rd for weight. Garrett had a check up this week for his kidneys and bladder, and everything looks good. Thank God.

Garrett is getting very vocal. He makes all kinds of sounds now. My favorite is his laugh, but he also makes this funny Tarzan yell.

Avery is learning so much in school. She is starting to trace letters now. I can't believe my little girl is getting so big! She is doing great in Gymnastics right now. I let Lori know that club Volley ball starts at age 5, and she laughed and said we should probably stick to Gymnastics, since Avery's maximum possible height will probably be 5'4" tops.

Garrett started sitting in a high chair this week. He is trying the rice cereal. His PT is very happy with his development. He seems to be still falling in the average range for development.

Garrett is such a hard worker. His PT wants him to get at least 3 hours of tummy time a day.

3 hours is pretty tough to get especially when Lori and I are both at work on the same day. Fortunately Garrett has a great babysitter on days that Lori works. She helps us out with his tummy time.

Well gotta run, but before I go gotta post a cute pic of Avery.

I'll try to be better about updates, but before I go thanks again for keeping our little boy in your thoughts and prayers. He is definitely a real life miracle. God listens.

August 2010 Updates

It has been a while since I've updated the blog. We've been pretty busy. Lori and I are both back at work full time. This is a pic of Garrett with his uncle Zach. Garrett is now 3 months old. I can't believe it. Like I said, we've been pretty busy. We had a good/bad surprise this week, Garrett had to go in for a shunt revision. The bad is surgery, the good is he is back to playing around and sleeping through the night (knock on wood).

As far as I'm concerned, he's beyond hero status for me. He had a little pain after the surgery, but he was eating about an hour after the operation. He had the surgery Monday night and we came home Tuesday night. Normally they like to keep kids a couple of days after a shunt surgery, but I guess Garrett was ready to come home. He is such a trooper. I'll have to say my daughter is amazing she stayed with him all day Tuesday from 8:30-7:00 in the hospital room.

This is a pic of Avery watching her first ever VHS tape. I had to explain to her that there was a movie on here. She keep crying and telling me that it wasn't a DVD so it wouldn't work.

Avery is showing off her medal to me and Garrett. Garrett is so proud of his sister!

Avery's favorite thing to do at the gym is the rings. Sometimes she thinks it's optional to let go.

Well I'm sure I've missed something, but these are the highlights. Really all this happened this week, except for the pic of Garrett and Zach. Things are going well. We have two amazing kids. Thanks again for keeping Garrett in your thoughts and prayers.