Weekend in "the 'Ham"

This Saturday we packed up and headed down to Birmingham to help celebrate Miss Abbie D's 3rd birthday. Since Abbie absolutely loves the Disney princesses Jamie threw her a princess party and invited everyone to wear their "royal attire". Even though Ian is still pretty little we thought it would be fun if he could participate in the party's theme so after doing a quick Internet search Kirk found the cutest "heir to the throne" costume on amazon. Since it was both cheap and adorable we decided to go ahead and get it. It was supposedly a size 12-18 months so I figured it would be big on him and maybe he could wear it for Halloween. Turns out the costume fits pretty much just right so I'm thinking by Halloween it will probably be too small. Oh well, at least we did manage to get one good wear out of it. Kirk, being the crafty one that he is, also made a little fake sword to go with the costume which Ian thought was the best thing EVER for him to chew on. He also managed to break it within 2 minutes tops of playing with it, go figure!!

Prince CaspIAN


Yummy sword


The party was really cute with all of the little girls running around in their finest dress up gowns, jewelry, slippers, (the works). Little girls this age are the CUTEST and so much fun!!

Pretty birthday princess


After the party Abbie was able to practice her big sister skills with Ian. I can tell already that she is going to love being a big sister and is going to be doing all she can to help with baby Carson when he arrives. Luckily for her baby Carson will be a bit smaller and easier to handle when he arrives and will hopefully not take up her whole lap and then some!!

Cinderella Abbie holding Ian
Notice this is Miss Abbie's second outfit of the afternoon, such a girl!!


The rest of the weekend we got to spend lots of QT with Kirk's family. Suellen, Marlee Sue, and Garrett were all in town and luckily since no one managed to get sick this time, at least not ahead of time, we were finally able to get all of the cousins together. For having all of these babies and kiddos in one place I'd say things were remarkably calm. Somehow I doubt it will be the same when all of these babies become mobile. Something tells me we have some wild and crazy get togethers in store for us!!

Marlee Sue and Ian checking each other out


Cousins: Marlee Sue, Garrett, and Ian
We gave the babies the corn to play with and they were absolutely fascinated. Ian, of course never one time put it in his mouth either. Swords are much better I guess.


Cousins: Garrett, Ian, Marlee Sue, and Miss Daisy

Half a year

Ian celebrated his "half birthday" this month. Unfortunately the celebration was short lived as he came down with something this past week and we had to turn his six month checkup into a sick visit. Tuesday when I showed up to pick him up from daycare the teacher notified me that she had contemplated calling me since he felt warm to her and upon inspection she noted that he had a slight fever, not quite high enough, though, to warrant a phone call. When I got him home I took his temp and it was around 100. He seemed fine at that time, in good spirits and playful. At this point I wondered if the low grade temp might be a result of teething, we keep looking for teeth but so far nothing. It was a gorgeous day here so I decided to break out the fancy jogging stroller and head out for a walk. All seemed well until that night around midnight when he woke up burning up hot with a 103 temp. I knew the poor kid didn't feel good at all when I just could not get him to go back to sleep and had to actually bring him to bed with us to get him to settle back down. The high fever continued on until the checkup appointment where the poor kid had to have blood drawn, get catheterized for a urine sample, get an antibiotic shot in the leg, and a chest x-ray. Needless to say after all of this activity he was DONE with the doctors office. We then had to spend the next couple of days making repeat trips to the pediatricians office since the fevers continued to rage on until thankfully a blood draw yesterday revealed that he finally seems to be back on the mend. The culprit of all of this activity has been ruled a virus since all the tests that were run came back normal. I have been so worried about my sweet boy this week and am so glad he finally seems to be getting better. Don't think I could stand one more minute of seeing him feel so awful. Having a sick baby has got to be one of the worst most helpless feelings there is.

On a happier note other than this sick spell Ian is doing well and continues to grow like a weed. He is now up to 19 lbs 7ounces and is 28 inches and some change long. He is now proficient at rolling both front to back and back to front.
We are now working on sitting up which he is doing great with. He can sit up by himself unsupported for a pretty good while and is getting better at correcting himself at times when he starts to lose balance.

Sitting up like a big boy



He is also now enjoying sampling different foods. So far we've tried carrots, peas, squash, bananas, and of course rice cereal(which he does not seem to be a fan of). Seems the carrots have earned their spot on the top of his favorites list so far. Every night now he sits at the table in his highchair and has dinner with us. I'm also working on having him join me for breakfast in the mornings now on the weekends. Kirk really seems to be enjoying his new role in helping out with mealtime now that it's no longer only up to mom to provide all the food. Ian seems to be enjoying trying all of these new and exciting flavors as well as making a huge mess of course.

Enjoying peas and carrots

Mr Independent helping