Wordless Wednesday

23 Pounds!

We just weighed Gavin...on our home scale so it measures to .20 of every pound...and our little big boy weighs in at just under 23 pounds! That is 5 pounds in about a month!

His weight is on the front of our minds each and every day. At every meal we pack in as many calories as he'll let us. We do not make it a big deal when he won't eat...but praise him profusely when he does and it seems to be working! We are truly lucky that he LOVES to eat and so far hasn't been overly picky...but we are aware that the toddler years are ahead and that could easily change.

We are extremely adamant that he gets lots of protein everyday. When we started with baby food, we started with meats instead of fruits/veggies, and instead added those in later. We pack in the chicken, hot dogs or beef, make sure he gets cheese/yogurt, and finish off with fruits/veggies for dessert. When he does just have a bottle, I add an extra scoop or two of formula to pack in those calories. He eats (whether its just a bottle or actual food) about every 3 hours.

We rarely feed him babyfood anymore, he is apparently too cool for it most of the time, but I like it since I know exactly how much food is going in him...it's hard to keep track with table foods since so much of it ends up on his lap :) But, finger foods are the way to go for our cool 10 1/2 month old!

Disinfectants Cause Some Bacteria to Adapt, Thrive

While opening up the internet tonight, an article caught my eye. It discusses a bacteria that can thrive in disinfectant...and is showing to resist antibiotics without ever being exposed to them.

Click HERE to see the article

Pretty scary stuff for anyone, especially for those with CF. The pseudomonas aeruginosa that was mentioned in the article, is a bacteria that those with CF commonly struggle to fight against.

Ronnie just told me that he is featuring this article on his blog tomorrow, I'll connect you with a link as soon as he posts it.

Click HERE to see Ronnie's post on the article. Just another reminder as to why I enjoy his blog so much :)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Hope you all have a safe & magical Christmas Day!

Love,

Casey, Jen, Gavin & Louie

Blizzards/Storms Round Two

We've been hit with another winter storm here in the frozen tundra...and it's not supposed to stop until the day after Christmas. Luckily, we don't have far to drive this year, we are just a few minutes down the road from Grandpa and Grandma's house.

We've been busy playing inside...as usual...enjoying Gavin's new Christmas toys

Gavin's new house

The world almost ended when he fell
into his toy bin...

Until he realized that it gave him a step up
to the window sill...

We apparently need to do some work on Gavin's sharing skills. As his Great-Aunt Julie said last Sunday, we need to teach him the word, "psyche!"

Here Mommy...
want to share some food?!?

Psyche!
Just kidding, it's ALL mine!

Gavin has been having a blast playing with his big cousins while they are in town, and it's funny to watch him interact with them. If Grant has a ball (all three received their own) Gavin thinks he needs it, even if he already has one in hand. If the two kids are running circles around the living room, Gavin stares at them in amazement. If Grandpa tickles Grant's belly, Gavin watches very closely...wondering why his Grandpa is playing with that kid!

We hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas Eve! And for those of you having to travel in this bad weather, drive safely!

Christmas Magic

A quote from a five-year-old CFer whose mom I have gotten to know via facebook...

"Christmas time is just so magical, mom. Wouldn't it be great if the magic took my CF away?"

Just a reminder, this year's annual CF walk will be held May 1st. In the near future, I will be letting you know multiple ways you can help donate to our team, and help to make this magical wish come true for all our CFers.

Cousins!

Gav is absolutely LOVING having his cousins in town for the holidays. Tonight, I thought we would leave Gma and Gpa's early because he isn't feeling the best and is exhausted...but we ended up staying until 8 because he was so busy having fun that he nearly forgot to be crabby :)

Tonight, all three of them played the "drums" on Grandma's bowls, looked through the Christmas toy ads (pretty sure Morgan has "always wanted" about 1/2 of the toys in each catalog), played with trucks and giggled with each other.

Gav has definitely been watching Grant's walking skills closely. He's done his best to keep up, but it's hard to do on all fours! Several times tonight he stood for 10-15 seconds all alone...until he realized he was standing on his own and promptly sat down!

I'm sure that time will fly by much too quickly, and soon the Davis clan will have to head back home to Indiana...but we will enjoy the fun times while they are here!

Xmas at Grandma Oma's

This past weekend we celebrated Christmas with my mom, brother and grandma. Gavin got spoiled rotten...and he's not even close to being done with celebrations. I am debating on putting some away for a bit, so he gets a new toy every week, but his birthday isn't far away and it will happen all over again...so we'll see. What a lucky little guy :)

He got the Fischer-Price Laugh & Learn Learning Home Playset...I will have to post pictures of him playing with that later. It took awhile to put the darn thing together, by the time it was done it was past Gav's bedtime, but he loves it and has been crawling through it quite a bit at home.

As you can see...he got quite a few more presents...

Look how big his eyes are,

he was SO excited to get this jumbo stuffed puppy!

We attempted to get him to look at his cards
but he didn't care too much about them :)

Kisses from Grandma Oma

Casey and my brother in their matching
MN Gopher coats

Testing out his new car from Grandma

Even Louie loved Gavin's new stuffed animal

Hanging out with Great-Gramma Heise

Gavin and Grandma Oma

We were very thankful to have our "new to us" mini van to take everything home...we literally had a car full.

Today, we spent some time over at Casey's grandma's home celebrating Christmas with the Brown Family...pics of that to come!

New CF family blog

A new CF family has joined the blog world. Please head over to Kristine's blog and show her some love!

Her son Tyler James was born in August, and like my family...his diagnosis came as a huge shock.

One more beautiful face to remind you....

WE NEED A CURE!

Santa and Presents...

...all before 8 am! Yikes!

While we're always up for the day long before then, we are rarely out of our pjs...I think Casey had to tell me to get out of bed about 5 times :)

Casey's dad is involved in Sertoma in Rochester and each year they invite the member's children/grandchildren for a Christmas breakfast. (His dad had shoulder surgery, hence the sling)

Three generations of Groettum's

Santa came to visit!

Gav looks unsure here, but he wasn't worried about Santa,

he was wondering why everyone was looking at him :)

Trying to pull of Santa's beard...

He got his first ever Christmas present!

He had never unwrapped a present before...

But obviously caught on quickly!

What could it be?!?

Ohhh! A new Vtech toy!

Funniest part is that Casey and Gav play with this
toy everytime we're in a toy aisle but
we never actually bought one

He loves it!

Little does he know that he has a lot more presents to open over the next week or so. This weekend we are heading to my mom's to celebrate, and then next weekend we celebrate with Casey's side of the family. Cousin's Morgan and Grant will be in town...Gav can't wait to see them!

Last Week's Storm

With my lack of a computer last week, I wasn't able to post the pics of our snowstorm. We went from having absolutely no snow to drifts 3-4 feet high....overnight. Welcome to Southern Minnesota :)

These drifts in the front ended up covering
half of the windows that look out over the front yard

Four foot drifts in the backyard

Living in the townhome has its pluses and minuses...but a huge plus for us was not having to shovel any of the snow! Wooohoo! Next winter when we're in a home of our own again I am sure we'll miss this aspect of it!

Here, the weather on the news is always interesting...people aren't joking when they say the weather here can change in five minutes. For those of you in California, you would probably freak out seeing more than one temperature/climate change in the five day forecast :)

So, when the weatherman said that winter storms were coming, many of us thought...we'll believe it when we see it! Quite often they'll warn of a storm and we'll end up with just an inch or two of snow...but obviously, this time they were right on.

This morning the windchill was -11...overnight it went down to nearly 30 below. I don't mind the cold, but a break every now and then would be nice! Casey and I would like to get out skiing and we'd love to be able to pull Gav around on the sled!

At least with the cold weather happening we got the tree completed last week. Notice the lack of ornaments on the bottom tier?!? Hmm..wonder why that is...


There is also a lack of presents under the tree...not because we haven't bought any, but because a certain little stinker already tried to open his! I also noticed this year, that the ornaments we have that aren't red/gold are all snowmen, funny thing is I didn't plan this and didn't notice it the last couple of years. Well, I guess I'll just have to start a collection :)

Back in Business!

After spending the last four days without my computer...I am back! For the second time, the powercord decided to die (thank goodness it's still under warranty) and I don't have a back up. We also didn't set up our desktop computer here, so my only connection to the internet was Casey's iPhone...yikes! :)

We have spent the last few days hanging out inside...playing tug-o-war with Louie...

Building and playing in forts...

...finishing up Christmas cards, wrapping & buying presents, walking around the mall, visiting Santa...notice how everything is indoor related? Well, the last few days we have woken up to windchills well below zero with highs being in the very low teens...a tadbit too cold for our 10 month old! We just bought him a new sled so we can't wait for it to warm up a bit (come on upper 20s!) so we can take him outside to enjoy the snow from last weeks storm!

What I Know For Sure: CF Mom Edition

A few weeks back, I wrote a "What I Know For Sure" on life after baby, after following my friend Rebecca's example.

This week, it's from the perspective of being a CF mom...for those of you who don't deal with this disease each and everyday, it will give you an inside view of our "normal."

For those of you who do deal with this disease everyday...enjoy the list, and feel free to make your own!

What I Know For Sure: CF Mom Edition

1. You will talk about poop more than you had ever imagined. Wayyyyy more than the typical parent. "Is it solid? Oily? How many today? Think it's because we gave him too few enzymes with that meal? Oh no, major explosion!" become common conversation topics.
2. You thank God everyday for insurance. We get at least 2 bills (or breakdowns of the bills) a week...on a good week...and so far have had to pay very little out of pocket. CF is ridiculously expensive and we're not even a year in yet.
3. You find enzyme capsules everywhere. In the nook on your kitchen floor, in coat pockets, the cup holders of your car...I'm sure I'll just find just the capsules themselves once Gav gets big enough to swallow pills...but for now, empty capsules. everywhere.
4. You and your child see your CF team way more often than you see most of your family. Like, way more often. Just 10 months in, I can't even remember how many times we've been in and out of doctor offices...thank goodness that staff loves our child to pieces!
5. You struggle to find the rare foods that still contain lots of calories and salt. I hadn't realized that nearly everything is now low sodium...until I had a child that craved/needed that extra salt. Even baby food is labeled "healthy" these days...what's a mom got to do to get a food packed full of fat, protein & sodium?
6. When you see other parents feeding their kids, you get very nervous that they aren't preparing their enzymes with their food...how is their kid going to digest that food?!? Major stomachaches and explosions ahead!! Oh yea...never mind...
7. You already know when next year's Great Strides Walk is...ours is May 1st for those who want to walk alongside us!
8. A lazy morning will still always include breathing treatments and CPT's...same goes for the lazy evenings. But at this point, they are so routine...it's very weird to think that other families don't do the same two...three...four...times a day.
9. You know where your child is on the growth chart (height, weight and height:weight) by heart. You know what percentile your child falls in for each. These numbers will always be in the back of your mind at every single meal, on the drives to each clinic visit, and on the drives home.
10. With every advancement he makes we are keenly aware of how lucky we are to live in this day and age. No matter if the accomplishment is big or small we try not to take any of them for granted...just a couple of generations back, our son would probably not be alive today. Thank goodness for medical advancements, a loving CF team, and hope for a long future!

There are so many, many more things I could list...so CF moms, continue the list! What do you "know for sure," by being a CF mama? Of course I wouldn't know where I would be (mentally, emotionally, spiritually...) without all of your support!

Wordless Wednesday

Grown up fun

Last Saturday night we went out for appetizers and drinks with friends to celebrate Casey's 30th birthday (the actual day was the 28th), and then wandered over to a couple bars to finish off the night.

This was the first time Gavin had ever spent a night away from me (he was at Casey's parents). I thought I would have a hard time with it, but I think I was so ready for the break that it didn't phase me like I thought it would. And he came back in the morning with a new skill...he now can figure out what "down" means...he can't say it yet, but if he is in his high chair he points down and looks over the edge of his chair toward the ground.

It was nice to get a group of Casey's friends together, with everyone busy getting married and having babies, it's often difficult to get people together in a large group anymore.

We were so busy having fun that I forgot to get a picture of the entire group together, there were thirteen of us in all, but Casey's good friend Emily got a couple shots of a few of us.

Btw, Emily is on the far left and she had just cut off 15 inches of her hair earlier that afternoon! Still lovin' the hair lady!

Just Breathe

Just a quick note today.




I do not consider myself to be a Miley Cyrus fan...but today she scored quite a few points! I learned that her new tattoo (which I'm also not much of a fan of...) that says 'Just Breathe' is in honor of a nine year old girl named Vanessa that passed away from cystic fibrosis in 2007.

The more awareness on this horrible disease...the better! We NEED a cure!

Uh Ohs and Bathtime!

Our little man LOVES bathtime. Love, love, LOVES it. The second he sees someone in the bathroom he crawls as quickly as possible towards you in hopes that you'll fill up the tub. After covering himself from head to toe after every meal these days, night time baths are becoming quite the ritual (and necessity).

Getting the bath water ready

This is what happens when your head size
is in the 95th percentile :)

All ready to play in that water!

(he was so excited he was dancing)

Just enough hair for one of these classic pics

Ok, I'm done!
Get me out of here please!

It's amazing how much he changes each and every day. On Thanksgiving he didn't really say any words except for the occassional Momma or Dada. Now just a few days later he loves to say up! (as you saw in the previous post) and whenever he drops (aka throws) something he says uh oh! He started doing this on his own out of the blue when we were wandering through the Apache Mall the other day and he dropped something.

Ok, so that "something" was an individually wrapped Wet One because I had forgotten to pack any toys in the baby bag :)

Plop on the floor it went, and before Casey and I even realized something had been dropped we heard a tiny little..."uh oh!" So cute! But he has refused to say it once the camera is rolling...we finally caught it on tape after bribing him with a Fruit Chillers (yummy!)

Up!

It's been so much fun listening to Gavin learn new words and their meanings. One of his latest words is up! Its the only one I've been able to catch on tape, usually once he sees the camera he's more interested in getting a hold of it than showing off his new tricks. This time a toy on the floor was way more important than talking with me, but oh well...at least he showed off a little!

iPoop

It snowed for the first time in a couple months here in the Frozen Tundra today...it's not too often that we make it until December 3rd without any snow on the ground. We tried round two with Gavin and the snow today to see if we got a different result than last time....

Grabbing some from Daddy's hand...

Testing it out to see if it's any fun...

Well....same reaction as last time...


Not at all happy that Mom and Dad made him play
with that cold stuff...

But it wasn't anything that a good round
of "So Big" and...

playing "Patty Cake" couldn't cure!