We are in Memphis Parent magazine!

We got published! One of my best friends Melissa's sister Jenny is a writer for Memphis Parent magazine and she was doing an article about how couple's shared the good news of their pregnancy with their famalies and I guess Melissa had told her about how we told mom and dad and the Lunsfords and she contacted me about being in the magazine. So I told her how it happened and then how we had the Coach and catcher hats in the delivery room and she loved it. The article had two pics, one of us after the delivery with Dr. Moise and one of the cake we served at the "big announcement" cookout we had. It was pretty cool to be featured in there! You can pick up at copy at local grocery stores and I found mine at the movie theatre in Southaven.

Also we have really been enjoying this nice warmer spring weather. I sometimes take Cam out and let him play in the yard on a blanket (otherwise he eats handfuls of grass!) and he loves it!
Trey took him to the park Sunday and he played on the swings and slide then they went and watched the DeSoto Central Jags baseball team play (it is right beside our house and we are friends with the head coach Shane Wright and his wife). We had a good St. Patty's day, I worked but before I went in I had a little green photoshoot :) We took every green toy he owns and took a pic with all of them!
His new favorite past time is pulling up on all the windowseals in my kitchen and looking at Wrigs through the backdoor. He also is really into socks. We usually have a laundry basket in the den and he always pulls out a pair of clean socks and crawls around with them sometimes using them as a teething ring! It's pretty cute. I'll upload a picture of that soon.

9 months old

Getting ready for bed. Love these pj's! They have motorcycles all over them and they say "Rad like Dad!" So cute! Doesn't he have the cutest little legs?

eating peas and loving it!

Wrigley helping to get what doesn't make it in his mouth!!

So this last month went by fast! But Cam is now 9 months old. Although he is wearing 12 month clothes for the most part and in some things 18 months! I feel like I need to go ahead and start planning his birthday party it will be here before I know it! We went to the Dr. today and here are his stats:
weight: 20 lbs 12 0z (52% percentile)
Height: 28 3/4 inches (65%)
Head Circumference: 18 3/4" (95%)

So, he is medium build with a giant head. Trey said he just has alot of brains. I said well we will just have to buy big hats! So far camden LOVES to eat. Pretty much anything we put in front of him. He ate a ton of english peas by himself the other night (well what made it to his mouth) and mandarin oranges. He loves potatoes, bananas, baby cereal and taking sips out of our drinks (he can even use a straw). CC taught him "patty cake" last week and today when the Dr. was asking about all of his developments I said, "He's crawling, pulling up, babbling, and he can play patty cake" and he started clapping his hands! It was so funny :) I moved out all the "pull up" furniture out of the den b/c after the second spill (which resulted in a couple of bruises on his sweet face) they were out and had to put outlet covers in every plug b/c he goes straight for them (although sometimes I think childproofing also is like adultproofing! I can hardly get those things out of the plug!!) Here are a few developments so far:
- two teeth
-crawling
-pulling up, can stand alone with one hand on an object for support
- says "uh oh" when he drops something and seems to enjoy the pick up game so we pick the object up and put it on the table and then -"uh Oh" it's on the floor again!!
- starts to wiggle when he hears music on TV like he is dancing!
- is very ticklish and giggles so hard when you get his belly
- is becoming increasingly harder to change a diaper on, he is so busy and wants to flip over and get going!
- sleeping from about 9:00pm until as late as 8:30 some days and takes a couple little naps (anywhere from 45 until 2hours) during the day
- recognizes people he knows and is beginning to mimic their actions
- waves bye bye
- will sometimes lay his head on my shoulder when I ask him for a hug!
- wearing a size 5 shoe!

I attempted his 9 month old pictures today and it has become very difficult! He does not want to sit still that long. Alot of the shots I got were of his profile!

Again with the pictures?
Getting ready to bolt
Alright Mom I'm going to blow this popsicle stand! Photoshoot over.

Getting ready for bathtime just walking along the couch
Sweet baby boy.

He is a love and we fall more and more in love with him everyday it is too fun being parents. On another note I just found out that I got into the masters program at Memphis my concentration will be Family Nurse Practitioner. It is a huge step and I am nervous but excited. I plan to do it part time online and hopefully will be finished inthe fall of '10. Please pray for me to find the time, resources (trying to avoid more student loans!), and knowledge I need to make a skilled practitioner who is safe and sound. It has been something I have wanted since I started in nursing and I am blessed to have the opportunity. I will keep you updated on that part of my life in the coming months. My school starts in the fall, don't know many more details other than that right now! Sorry for the novel hope everyone is healthy and happy.

Camden Crawling!!

Camden "walking"

First Snow & Crawling

We were so busy with everything with Pa this week that I didn't get to mention the snow! We got like 4-6 inches! Camden was sick so we didn't get him out in it, but Wrigley had fun playing in it and I took a couple of pictures in front of the house and down our street. Also I spoke too soon on my last post about Camden's crawling because as soon as I finish that post the next thing I know he is crawling all over the place! I had to break out all the baby proofing supplies. He seems to go straight for the stuff he doesn't need to. He is pulling up on everything, coffee table, end tables, chairs etc. I told Trey it is a different world. I have to make sure the carpet is super clean b/c he finds things I didn't even know were there! He got a cool new walker a few weeks ago from G'ma Jojo and Grandad and he loves walking around in it. I just wish we had a bigger kitchen and hardwood floor in our den so he could take off. I think we will have to make a trip up to my sister's work at the sports and recreation bldg so he can roam around inthe big open spaces! Thanks again to everyone for your thoughts and prayers last week we are going to my grandad's old house tomorrow to take some things of his and we are going to see my granny Cresswell at the hospice care center in Tupelo. She is my last grandparent left and not doing great, so we may not have her much longer. But she is still sharp and looking forward to seeing Camden and Walker. Oh, and I don't think I posted this or not but Mom is a Registered Nurse now!! She passed her test monday before last, a miracle with all that was on her mind,the stress and lack of sleep she had! We are so proud of you CC!! And Happy one year anniversary to Misty and Jimmy! We love ya'll:)

Funeral Arrangements

The visitation will be at
Memorial Park Funeral Home
5668 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38119
Phone: (901) 767-8930
from 6:00pm - 8:00 pm and the funeral will be at the same place at 2:30pm on Thursday. Please say a prayer for our whole family especially my mom, aunt and uncle as they are taking it the hardest and please pray for me because I have volunteered to pray at the funeral (and am very nervous). I am going to prepare something tonight, so hopefully it will go smooth. Thank you all for your concern, emails calls and text messages it means so much.

Losing Pa

So strange, but I feel like I was just writing this same post last week about Ma, but it was almost a year ago that we lost her and now we are going through the loss of another loved grandparent. So since the last time I wrote Pa was at Tupelo and not doing well and things just went downhill from there. At Tupelo hospital Pa tried to get up to a chair and his blood pressure dropped significantly and completely fainted and became confused and wasn't the same after. He was diagnosed with having another stroke on the left where all of his previous ones were on the right. Wednesday night when my aunt jill went to stay with him in the new room in the "intensive" care stroke unit she reported that he slept through the night with absolutely no movement. While they had his INR back under control, they failed to even check his other lab values which come to find out later was detremental. The Dr.s and RN's there refused to basically treat him in anyway. Because it was determined that he was "terminal" and unable to be alert enough to swallow they stopped giving him his meds and all he had was IV fluids. The doctors were so cold and callous and noone wanted to put any sort of tubes in him for the bleeding risk (no feeding tube, no catheter, no respiratory suctioning) So mom and Jill got his Dr. in Southaven at Baptist to agree to accept him and we had him transferred to the step down unit at DeSoto on Friday. Upon admission it was found that his hematocrit was 16, and hemoglobin was 6. A normal Hct is in the 40's for men and Hbg is in the teens. Both of these numbers indicated bleeding and massive blood loss. Tupelo had failed to even draw these labs after admission on Sunday! He was bleeding for four days and no one even checked on it! I went to the hospital all day on Saturday where mom, Jill and two of Pa's sisters Reba and Marie stayed vigilantly at his bedside cleaning him and talking to him, holding his hand. We were not sure what all he could hear or even comprehend and didn't move much on his own at all that day. He received a total of 4 units of blood and 3 units of plasma as well as some tube feedings and that gave him enough energy to open his eyes slightly and squeeze our hands really hard and followed some simple commands on Sunday. I went to visit him on my way to work Sun night and he squeezed my hand when I asked him to and then took his fingers and interlaced them across his stomach as if to say, "I'm at peace, let me go" (at least that is the way that I interpreted it). So everyone went home and Uncle Danny stayed and in the middle of the night around 2:30 the Respiratory therapist came to try and suction him out b/c he wasn't coughing on his own to clear his secretions and was unable to pass the catheter. She tried 7-8 times and then before Danny knew what was going on everyone had rushed in and they began to code him because he had lost his pulse. The entire family had agreed and it was Pa's wishes not to be resucitated in such an event so after discussions with Mom and Jill they asked the Dr's to stop and let Pa go. It was the worst phone call I've ever gotten this morning when Mom called and I knew what she was going to say. I had actually left work early Sunday night because I had a stomach virus and had gotten sick at work so I was actually leaving around the time all of this happened. Somehow I think my subconcious knew that we had lost Pa. We are going to have a visitation Wednesday night at Memphis Funeral Home on Poplar at 6pm-8pm and then the service on Thursday at 11am (I think don't know 100% yet). Pa was a Korean War veteran, a private jet pilot, air traffic controller and supervisor, a 32nd degree Mason, a trainer for bird dogs and a judge for the national field dog trials, and a beloved husband, brother, father, grandfather, and most recently great grandfather to Walker and Camden and will be sorely missed. Check back as I will be posting some more pictures that we are going to display at the funeral after I scan them tomorrow. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers as we weather this storm of loss we know that God is near and will comfort us in our time of sorrow. He is so good and just. I ran across this verse while reading the Bible tonight while praying that this will teach me or someone else involved something and also remember that we should celebrate death if we are believers in Christ knowing that Pa is in heaven with his Heavenly Father and is healed of all his earthly ailments and now reunited with those who went before him : "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." Romans 8:18