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.

Family Vacation

We just got back from our family Vacation yesterday. We had a great time. We went to Acapulco in Galveston. We rented a beach house and stayed for 4 days. It was great.

Avery and I went down every morning and made a sandcastle and played in the water. Garrett and m0mmy came down one day to join us for about 30 minutes. It was just too hot for Garrett. This was the only thing he wanted to do on the beach.

Avery's Castle.

Avery picking up shells at night with her mommy.

Garrett started to notice the TV.

Avery's Uncle Mark took her fishing for the first time. She absolutely loved it. Every time I'd cast her rod for her she would slowly start reeling it in yelling, "I think I got something!!!". It was so funny. Actually she was right, once. She then freaked out once the fish got in the boat.



We also went into town and got a great picture of Avery on the Strand and a great picture of Garrett in his stroller.

We had such a great trip, but now back to work for me on Monday and Lori goes back in two weeks. It was a great summer, and I wish we had another month together. Oh well, I can't wait for Christmas. That will be awesome too!

4th of July

Garrett has been full of facial expressions lately. I thought this one was funny because we started bathing him in the kitchen sink. We were using the bath tub, but this works much better. He actually loved this compared to the bath tub. I guess this is the deer in head lights look.

We had a great 4th of July. Lori's brother Keith and his Fiance' Meghan invited us over for some sweet BBQ, then we came home and took Avery outside to enjoy some Friendswood fireworks.

Okay... Seriously! She is just too cute. Avery is all about our new camera she's always posing. This was her watching Garrett's bath.

Garrett is so active now. He will stop in his tracks and find his mommy when he hears her voice. He is very active on the ground. He rolls on to his side, and he hits the rings and rattles on his tummy time mat. He is gaining more head control by the day. He holds his head up very well.

Garrett's bladder has been a little inconsistent lately, but he is only 6 weeks old. Mine is inconsistent and I'm 33. So with the recent inconsistency, we have moved from the once a day cathing to morning and evenings. Hopefully this will make it a little more consistent. ECI comes to work with Garrett on Monday. We will let you know how that goes. Last time she was pretty impressed with him. As always thanks for keeping Garrett in your thoughts and prayers.

Every Girl is crazy about a sharp dressed man!

This was such a good find by Lori. I know she couldn't wait to take a picture of him wearing his shirt and tie. I'll have to say, I'm a little jealous of the tie. Okay we have gotten some good pics of the kiddos, but first a quick update on Garrett.

We went to the urologist today and he was very impressed with how well Garrett has been doing on his cathing. He actually said we could probably quit doing it all together. We talked about it with him, since we were a little apprehensive with quitting all together, so we are just doing it once a day! We are so excited about this! Garrett doesn't really enjoy the cathing, but really who would.

Avery has been doing great in Pre School. She's talking in Spanish now. My dad is very fired up about that. Avery and I watered the yard the other day, and Avery had a blast! She loved it we sat in the hammock and got sprayed by the water. It was awesome. My mom came over the other day to see Garrett and Avery. Here is a good pic of Garrett and his Grandma.

Pic of Mommy, Garrett and Avery. Garrett is letting us know he's #1! I'm sure Avery would debate this...
That's about it for now. We will update again soon. As always thanks for keeping Garrett in your thoughts and prayers!

One Month Old!

Today is such a great day! I can't believe Garrett is one month old. Of coarse we have no pictures to post at this time, because we are in the process of getting a new camera. So we will take 1 month pics on the iphone. I know what you're thinking... Awesome!

Garrett is doing great! His caths have gone from 4 a day to 3, and we still are getting low levels of urine. We meet with ECI tomorrow to see if they will need to work with Garrett or just monitor him. Next week we meet with the urologist. Hopefully we can stop cathing or at least move to morning and evenings only.

Avery is doing great! They moved her to preschool 2 months early, and today was her first day. We have gymnastics on Wednesday and I think I'm gonna bring the video camera.

Lori and I are doing well. We cooked dinner for ourselves tonight for the first time in like 2 months. It was the Adam special: Grilled chicken, mashed potatoes and steamed veggies, and don't worry Lori made dessert.

Thanks again for all the support. As always thanks for praying for Garrett!

First Week Home

What a great first week we have had at home as a family. Avery has been such an amazing big sister. She constantly helps and makes sure that her brother is okay. Garrett is doing great! He is such a big eater. He probably eats as much now as a 3 week old as Avery ate as a 3 month old.

As you know we had 2 Doctor appointments this week. The first one was with our Pediatrician, Dr. Q. He was very impressed with Garrett and it was great to see him treating Garrett like a normal child. Everyone else has been so careful with him, but Dr. Q was moving his legs all around and measuring him. We also went to see Dr. W, the neurosurgeon. He also was amazed with Garrett's leg strength. He said his back looks great and we can take off all bandages, and that his shunt looks good too. Garrett has a renal ultrasound on Monday to check his kidneys and bladder. His cathing is going great. They wanted his residual to be under 30 ml, and he is averaging 11! Here is a precious picture of how much Avery loves her brother.


We are so proud of Garrett. He is even rolling from his back to his side. This isn't a great picture, but as Shrek would say, "It'll do Donkey".


And a picture of me with the kiddos. I went from beard, to goatee, to clean shaved.
Another pic of Garrett.
Garrett and his Papi.

And our Princess. She's eating one of her main food groups.


As always thank you so much for keeping Garrett in your thoughts and prayers.

We're Home!!!

Finally after one full month in the hospital, Lori 17 days, Garrett 15. 3 of the days overlapping. We are home! It is such an amazing feeling to be home. We are so blessed to be so fortunate to have two wonderful children. Avery is such an amazing helper with her brother. She gets us burp clothes, blankets, bottles, diapers, basically whatever we need. She has even helped with the laundry and giving the cats water.

Garrett is such a good baby. He hardly ever cries. He loves his papasan chair. He got a great nap in it today. We have some really good pictures on the camera that I need to load on the computer. As soon as I do that, I'll get them on here. It has just been great being home.

Thank you Cindy for the chicken spaghetti and the baked ziti. Thanks Patrica and Larry for coming over to help us get resettled, and thanks for the steaks. Also thanks Dad and Carolyn for the BBQ and beer.

I also thank you so much to Dad and Carolyn for basically reworking their May calendar. They pretty much had Avery for the whole month that Lori and Garrett were in the hospital.

Garrett has a couple Doctor appointments this week. Tomorrow he meets Dr. Q. He is our regular pediatrician. Then on Friday we go see Dr. W. so he can check out his back and shunt. I'll give updates about those appointments. Our Strong Boy is doing very well. As always thank you so much for praying for our little boy.