The Chauvette Family Spot

Kamryn's Birthday and Appt Updates

2009-05-05T21:51:00.002-05:00

I'm working on pictures, but until I get them up. Here's the scoop:

Kamryn's 1st birthday was lots of fun. As distorted as my girls' Christmas perceptions will be, Kamryn is starting out the same way with her birthday. She had three celebrations for b-day #1. The first was the day after Audra's wedding, while all of April's side of the family was in town. We had it at Brushy Creek Lake Park in Cedar Park and the weather was fabulous! Lots of friends and family came out to celebrate with us. Unfortunately, Kamryn was not in the mood to party. She cried for a large portion of the party (I can only guess it was because she was overtired from the big weekend up to that point) but she perked up very quickly when great-grandmama gave her a bite of cake. She enjoyed diving in!

Round 2 was at our house on her actual birthday. Nothing big, but she did get to have a cupcake and Kenedy singing to her. That's about it, but fun none the less.

Round 3 was in San Marcos last weekend with Scott's family. It was a big hoopla, as is anything with his family. She was in a much better mood for this party, though. Lots of fun!

Kamryn also had her 1-year pediatrician appt and neurology appointment recently. Her pedi appt went well. He said that she looked great. Her weight has started to slow down a little bit. At 24 lb 11 oz she's only in the 94th percentile now... ; ) She is about 31 inches and in 95th for height and 75th percentile for head circumference. He says that peanut looks great.

As far as neurology, she is officially off of the phenobarbital, after a very slow weaning process. She will stay on the trileptol for 6 more months before we take her off of those, just to be safe. Things are going well there! They did next to nothing at the appointment except get her height, weight and set her next appointment. They think she's looking good as well.

Kenedy is doing well. Still loving school and being the crazy 3-year old that she is. She is a laugh a minute.

Princess Tea Party

2009-03-01T21:00:00.014-06:00

Kenedy and I spent Saturday at Belle's Bridal Shower, a princess tea party, written and put on by members of the CPHS Choir. Ten princess were embedded into this dinner-and-a-show type event. There were 10 princesses in attendance of the bridal shower, each played by a different member of the choir. Kenedy had fun and I took one for the team. Here are some pictures and video from the event...

All of the princesses

Belle

Kenedy with her tea party snacks

waiting for Belle's Bridal Shower to begin

Cinderella

Princess Aurora

Belle

Meg

Sleeping Beauty singing her signature song.

Under the Sea...

Kamryn's Neurology Appointment

2009-02-10T21:22:00.013-06:00

So, we went to see the neurologist Tuesday morning. They performed an EEG and then we had an appointment with our doctor. In the EEG, the technician takes 20+ wires/electrodes and hand places them all over the head with some kind of goopy adhesive-type material, like a super thick hair gel. It takes forever to get them all on, especially with a squirmy 9 month old. We finally got them all attached after dealing with various rogue wires that came off and Kamryn grabbed, taped them all together and onto her back (to get them away from her hands). That in and of itself was an act of congress. Once hooked up, you have to get 25 minutes of data from the electrodes, a long time, but it almost takes the same amount of time just to get hooked up. Kamyrn, bless her heart, was 6 minutes into the session, when she stepped on the wires bounced up and down and pulled about half of them off of her sweet head! So we had to reattach and restart the whole process. Grrr... An hour and a half later, we finally finished our 25 minute EEG, strobe lights and all, and got to progress to the actual doctor to get the results and develop a plan of action.

However, we didn't meet with the doctor, we met with his nurse practitioner (which is kind of better than the neurologist...) She said the EEG looked good...there were high activity spots but the technician said that was when she was being squirmy. So all was good there, no signs of seizure activity in the brain during that 25 minutes. Yea!

Since we're a long way from our last seizure, the doctors are ready to get her off of the phenobarbital. She takes 4 pills a day right now. Each month we'll give her one less pill a day. So, essentially, it will take 4 months to get her off of all of the phenobarb. She is also taking the Trileptol with her phenobarb and will continue to take that medicine. Should she have any breakthrough seizures, we would just increase the amount of Trileptol and continue to back off of the phenobarb. It is going to be a very slow process, but the neurologists want to be careful, because it is such a powerful drug and she's been on it for so long (since birth) that if we were to come off to quickly she would experience a withdrawl.

If all goes well with the phenobarb weaning, a few months later we'll look at weaning off of the Trileptol, but that would be a ways off...

Summary... Things look good and we're backing off the meds. Hopefully with the decrease in drugs and the additional developmental support from ECI, Kamryn will be back on track in no time.

Here are a couple pics of our morning...

Combing the EEG gel-goop out of her hair.

Hooked up to the wires of the EEG. Every white spot on her head is a different electrode. You can't see the wires because they're all running behind her head and being held together there.

ECI Evaluation

2009-02-10T21:22:00.010-06:00

Thanks to some friends and family who have share information about the program, our family has joined the ECI program. ECI stands for Early Childhood Intervention. It is a state program for children 0-3 years with, or at-risk of, developmental delays. Basically, the program exists to help evaluate developmental progress and provide services, such as speech, occupational, and physical therapy, nutrition, medical, vision, hearing services, etc. There is little to no cost involved if your child qualifies. To qualify, a child has to be at least 2 months delayed or have a diagnosed medical condition that has or could lead to delays. Kamyrn's "seizure disorder," as they call it, automatically qualifies her for services.

Monday afternoon, our service coordinator Judy came out to the house with a nurse to do an assessment on Kamryn to see what services she might need. (If no services are needed at the time, they have a follow along, monitoring program). They asked Scott and I questions about what she does and doesn't do, routines, nutrition, health, etc. and watched her play and interacted with her. The assessment has five components: motor skills, communication, social interaction, self-help, and cognitive development. The results of the assessment will classify Kamryn at a certain age developmentally. All of this is done by comparing what she is and isn't doing to common developmental milestones. All babies vary in these, so being 1 month ahead or behind isn't a big deal; that's why they need to show at least a 2 month delay to qualify for services.

Kamryn scored at 9 months (her true age) on the self-help and cognitive areas. Nothing in those really seem to be a problem. In motor skills and communication she was at 7 months and in social interaction, she was at 6 months. The main motor issues were that she doesn't crawl, pull-up, get herself into and out of sitting position on her own. A occupational therapist's consultation was ordered. Communication was because she doesn't mimick sounds and babble with clear sylables/consonents. The social one was what I didn't think about her being low in...she is the smiling-est, happiest baby on the block and doesn't care who is holding her. However, the fact that she doesn't laugh, doesn't imitate sound or movement, and doesn't drop things intentionally, put her behind here. Sounds like a lot, but every time you turn around she is doing something new. She's about to have the waving thing down, as I type...

So...to continue the process... because of her delays, a plan/goals were developed for her progress. Judy will come to the house once a week to work with Kamryn and teach us ways to work with Kamryn to help overcome some of our slow spots and depending on what the occupational therapist says when they come do an eval, we may be getting some of their time too.
It seems like a lot, but the nurse and the service coordinator were extremely optimistic and don't seem overly concerned. Normally, goals are reassessed every 6 months or so. They expect to need to write new ones for Kamryn in 3 months.

Our first non-evaluation visit is next Thursday. I'll try to remember to post how it goes...

Nacogdoches Trip

2009-02-10T21:20:00.003-06:00

Spent the weekend in Nacagdoches with my brother and the family for Nathan's belated birthday party and Ryan's baptism. Everyone had fun. Kenedy loved hanging out with Nathan, and Kamryn and Ryan pretty much did their own thing... : )
Here are some pictures:

Kenedy and Nathan taking turns playing a game on Scott's phone.

One of many lackluster pictures of the four of them together. When you are trying to get 4 kids under the age of 5 in the same picture, you just have to take what you can get. This was the best of about 15 pictures attempted...

Ryan's baptism.

Kenedy loved the party at the gymnastics place...

Nathan and his birthday gang

Having fun under parachute the adults were shaking.

Kamryn liked the ribbon batons

Nathan was Limbo lineleader.

Curent Events

2009-01-26T21:46:00.005-06:00

Sorry it's been so long since I updated...life just somehow seems to get in the way (as does facebook!) Here's a status check on our girls:
Kamryn:
We went to the cardiologist a couple of weeks ago to check on Kamryn's aortic arch and the ductis that had not closed yet. The EKG showed no narrowing of the arch. In fact, he said that if you hadn't have seen it earlier then you wouldn't have even known that there was an issue. The ductis had not closed however. It appears to be very tiny however, and does not appear to be causing much of a disturbance, as he could not hear a murmur. At this point, we're just going to be monitoring annually. All's good on that front.
Last week we met with a representative from ECI (Early Childhood Intervention). ECI is a governmental program that monitors and services to children who have conditions that could put them at risk for developmental delays. We had an initial screening and will have a full evaluation in early February. To be eligible for services from a physical, occupational, or speech therapist, the child must be at least 2 months behind in milestones. Even if she does not qualify for services, they will put her in the follow along system, where we fill out questionnaires every couple of months and the track her progress in a database. Should any red flags arise from the questionnaire, she would be re-evaluated for services.
Kamryn's 9 month check-up is this week and her neurologist appointment is in a couple of weeks. We are looking forward to developing a plan to ween her off of the phenobarbital at that appointment.
She is doing well. She gets up on her knees and forearms, rocks back and forth, and then goes splat...no crawling for us yet. She has started to be a little more vocal in the last few days, babbling up a storm. She sits up and can stay there unassisted, but can't get herself into that position herself, although she is pretty good at getting herself down. She is still quite the smiler and make for a great photo!

Kenedy:
This girl is a laugh a minute... she has gone to spelling her name K-E-N-E-D-Y-dot-com. I think we're in for some interesting times. She still absolutely loves school and holds class with her pretend friends in the living room. We frequently hear things like, "This is how you play Memory, you...." "No, McKenna, not like that. You do it like this..." "Is that a good choice, Sage?"
While she is quite a riot to have around, she can definitely be a pill. The girl has a bit of a stubborn streak, and has a memory like an elephant, so if you contradict yourself at anytime, she's going to point it out!

We have much to be grateful for and are trying to enjoy every minute. I will hopefully have new pictures up soon!

Holiday Hubbub

2009-01-04T16:49:00.004-06:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season!

We're home and recooperating from all of our excursions. Can't wait for school to start tomorrow!

Here the low down on the last few weeks...

First of all, Kamryn is still seizure-free. (Note the counter I've added to the blog.) It's been so long that when someone asked me how long, I really didn't know anymore. Now we can all know (if you want to...)

As for our holidays, we spent Dec. 19 - 28 in Lubbock and the surrounding area, doing the family holiday bit. We have six different Christmas's to celebrate up there, so we always stay plenty busy. Pictures are in the slide show...

The girls had a big time with all of the grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and whatnots. There wasn't any snow this year, but there definitely was plenty of stuff blowing in the wind...and that stuff was dirt. The whole time we were there it was either in the 20's with sunshine or in the 60's with dirt and wind... Oh to be back home again...

I'm not feeling a very detailed account of our time coming out today, but suffice it to say that there was cookie baking, Santa hunting, chicken collecting, dirt blowing, present opening, scooter riding, pickle finding, girly karaoking, multiple feasting, baby playing, friends gabbing, paint fume breathing, jalapeno eating, and germ avoiding. All in all, a heck of a time!

New Year's Eve was nice as well. We got to catch up with our friends, the Kirks. Kenedy and Sarah played like they had never played before, Kamryn swapped a little spit with Jake, Sally and I caught up, Jody and Scott got back to their boyish ways. A fun time was had by all. (Just wish it could happen more often.)

A Star Is Not Born

2008-12-15T00:14:00.006-06:00

Here are some videos of the children's Christmas musical at church last weekend, Dec. 6.

Okay, so she hasn't got much stage presence, but come on...she's 3! You'll see her waving at me (I'm sitting in front of the kids), running off of the stage to sit with me, turning random circles, falling off of her step, halfway doing the hand motions for the song muchless the singing the actual song, staring off into space, as well as showing off some butt crack. I laugh every time I watch these (and see something different every time).

She shouldn't be hard to find. Unfortunately for the production, she's on the front row...

Enjoy!

This Little Light of Mine

Having trouble uploading the other videos... hopefully this will do for now...

A new baby...

2008-12-07T23:16:00.003-06:00

In case you are interested, Scott's cousin Kyla had her baby last Wednesday. I think she's got us all beat on the whole birth announcement bit...

http://www.keyetv.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoid=21502@keye.dayport.com&navCatId=5

There will be a short commercial intro, but then you can see their announcement via the news story!

Top that!

Welcome to the crazy family Addison Stevenson!

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'

2008-11-24T21:03:00.003-06:00

Kamryn is rolling from back to front now. Here is the video, as requested...

PS - we're at 11 1/2 weeks....

Updates, We Have Updates...

2008-11-14T22:05:00.004-06:00

So much for doing better about posting regularly...
Oops!

Well, here you go. Updates...
Kamryn is doing very well. This week marked her 10th week without a seizure!
She went to the neurologist on Monday. We didn't see our regular neuro., we saw his PA, which was a little wierd. She was great though. We didn't do an EEG, just a chat with the PA (Tasha), and some blood work. They like to get babies off of phenobarb starting around 9 months. The plan is to go back in 3 months, have an EEG to check for evidence of any remaining seizure activity, and come up with a plan for pulling back the phenobarb. If she doesn't have seizures when pulling back, WOOHOO, and if she does, we'll up the other medication she is on, Trileptal. Obviously, we are rooting for the 1st of the two options. We are on a great track to get there. They measured height, weight, head, etc. She is 22 lbs and 28 1/2 inches. Still off the charts for her age.

General info on Kamryn. She is 6 months old and eating solid foods like cereal and vegetables. She is a great baby...very laid back and happy. She grins all of the time. She is finally starting to roll over. She did her first roll on Tuesday night, and another couple tonight. (back to front)

Kenedy is going well. She is still loving school and never wants to leave at the end of the day. She is going to be a part of our church's children's Christmas musical in a couple of weeks. Her first official showbiz debut. : ) Ought to be interesting.

Trying a new way of posting pictures. There should be slideshows of our pre-Halloween pumpkin patch pictures, as well as actual Halloween pics.

Enjoy!

I'm back already... Back off...

2008-10-09T22:06:00.008-05:00

Readers forgive me, for I have sinned. It's been 3 weeks since my last blog.

Alright, alright! Quit harassing me already. I'm blogging, I'm blogging... Here are some updates and pictures since last I posted...

Kamryn...
As of today, she has not had a seizure in 5 weeks. WooHoo! Growing like a weed, but hasn't outgrown this dose. : ) Some of the 6 - 9 month pajamas we just got her are getting too small. We're about to have to break out Kenedy's 12 month clothes box---for the 5 month old! She's having a big old time. She just smiles all of the time. Sleeps beautifully. Is trying to roll over. Started cereal. Tried out carrots and loved them. Got dedicated at church. Drooling like she's trying to get a tooth in, looks like an eye-tooth! Everyday is an adventure. Pics below, videos at the bottom...

Hangin' with Hunter

First try with cereal...

Not a huge fan... Lovin' the carrots though!

Kenedy...
She still loves school. Thank goodness, I suppose. I just hate to be the parent that can't get their kid to leave at the end of the day. : ) Speaking of her school, they've got a fundraiser going on and have even got the 3 year olds hocking the wares! So if you feel the need to support the Giddens Elementary PTA and buy some stuff from Kenedy you can go to the online site (http://www.danielsfundraising.com/store/brochures.php?sID=1507380) and type in her Seller ID, 1507380, and she'll get credit for the sales. She can earn prizes for the number of items she sells. She has her eyes on a set of walkie-talkies...Kenedy is still quite enthralled with her baby sister and wants to help with her often. (a lot of times it is to try to get out of something else). She is also very excited to be a flower girl in Audra's wedding, though she likes to call it a flower princess. She also has decided to be Princess Aurora for Halloween. (Sleeping Beauty for all of you who are out of the know as far as princesses go).
Below are some more recent pictures of her...

Trying on her Halloween costume (just to make sure it fit...)

Notice the cute little bob haircut compared to the raggedy-looking flower girl pics.

Practicing to be a "Flower Princess"

Wylee...

After the round of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories, Wylee's "mass" was no longer red and inflamed. We were waiting for the vet to call us back about the surgery to remove it, and while they were busy not getting back to us, the mass just disappeared. It's like it was never even there. CRAZY! But I'll take it.

Trying to get over, but mostly hanging out on the side and pushing around...

First attempt at cereal. She's wasn't a real big fan. She'd rather had her bottle.

First vegetable...Carrots...Doing a lot better with those. If only Kenedy wasn't such a goober! : )

A very busy weekend & Wylee Update

2008-09-15T22:23:00.003-05:00

When last we talked, Wylee had been to the vet on Tuesday with a follow up appt scheduled for Thursday. I never got back on the blog after that with all of the hubbub this weekend. Sorry!

So, Wylee's appointment on Thursday went as well as could be expected. The "mass" looked a lot less inflamed, but was still a little swollen. He saw a different vet than on Tuesday, but apparently the notes she left were very detailed and the nurse guy was the same, which helped. She tried to draw some liquid out of the mass, but didn't get much different than before. When she pulled the needle out of the area though, Wylee's swollen mass area began leaking. They thought it would just stop, but it didn't, so the vet tried to squish all of the liquid out. Wylee wasn't a big fan of that! When it just kept coming out, she asked for a bigger needle and poked him a few more times to help get more out. He really didn't like that. They didn't get it all out, but it slowed enough that they decided to stop.
The slide didn't show any cancerous cells, but there was no indication of what the "mass" actually was either. It think that God is trying to tell me something.
This vet thought that surgery was definitely in order to find out what was causing the issue. She wasn't able to do the surgery, the vet who would do it was not in town that week. They were going to consult with her, make sure she was comfortable doing the surgery, and then they would call us back. That was supposed to be today, but we didn't hear from them. We'll be calling tomorrow.

This weekend's hubbub...
The girls got lots of grandparent time this weekend. Dinner with Pepere and Memere on Friday, Grandma and Grandpa came in on Saturday, with visits from Memaw and Papa, Memere and Pepere, Tiffany, Kevin, Hunter, Mary Alice, Laurie, and Aubrey.
Dedication on Sunday went well. We were worried about Kenedy being nervous about being on stage in front of everyone in that great big church, so we had talked it up all weekend. Who knew it would backfire on us? She did a really good job on stage, but when the dedication was over and it was time to leave the stage, she whined very loudly, "but I want to stay on the stage!" for all to hear. The children's ministry coordinator, went ahead and mentioned the children's Christmas musical was coming up and that we may want to keep that in mind for Kenedy... : ) She is definitely all drama, besides the fact that she sings her way through most of the day, with big showtunes-style endings. I think she'll have quite the time in the musical!
We visited with Janma, Chad and Jamie, went to eat with the family and continued the busy-ness throughout the day.

I'll post pics from the weekend when someone sends them to me, as it is hard to be the one taking pictures when you are on stage.

Kamryn's Stats and The Other Problem Child

2008-09-09T22:51:00.005-05:00

Today was Kamryn's 4 month pediatrician appointment. We, and everyone else around us, have been waiting for this one to see how she is measuring up these days. (because it affects the meds and she's just ginormous!)
She weighed 18 lb. 10 oz. and was 27 inches long, which literally put her "off the charts" in both categories. She is above the 100th percentile mark. The doctor remarked that he had a some 1 year olds that were her size. Yikes! He looked at his chart a little more and said that this height and weight was average (50th percentile) for 9 month olds. We knew she'd been growing the last two months, but geez!!! At her two month visit, she was just around the 50th percentile for her age.
He thinks that is a good time to go ahead and introduce solids. So we'll have our first round of cereal this week. Look for pictures soon.
She also got the second round of a set of four vaccines today, one orally and three shots. She didn't care for that much, but settled down fairly quickly. She went to work with me for an hour, since I was running late to a meeting from her appointment. The folks at the campus I was at appreciated her attending the meeting. Of course, we may not have been as productive as normal...
Other Kamryn related stuff:
She hasn't had a seizure since Thursday.
Her dedication at church is this weekend.

On to the other problem child...
No, not the crazy 3-year old, it's the 7 year old, Wylee. Last night, he was his normal busy active self. This morning he woke up and wouldn't eat and was very lethargic and just laid around all morning. Obviously, not his normal self. He also has a booboo on his leg, which we thought could be getting infected making him feel bad. So we scheduled an appt this afternoon at the vet.
At the vet, he was running a fever (whatever that is for a dog) and was walking gingerly. We thought it was due to his leg booboo at first, but it wasn't it. (This will eventually get into "Too Much Information" land, so feel free to skip to the end, if you don't want to hear about doggy insides.)
For a year now, we've been operating under the assumption that he had a small hernia, which appeared to be a bulge on his belly by his rear leg. Today, though I hadn't noticed it when I put him in the car, the "bulge" had substantially increased in size and was red and inflamed looking. The doctor decided that was what was making him feel bad, as it was red and angry looking and much bigger than it has been for the last year. They tapped the bulge to see what kind of liquid was in it, and got nothing but some bloody liquid. She prepared a slide of it to study and then also talked other options with me. We could do a rectal to see if everything was where it was suppose to be, an x-ray to see if they could determine if any organs were in what appeared to be the hernia, or a sonogram, which they were not equipped for at 5 pm. So we did two of the three...
The rectal turned out to be inconclusive, she had small hands and he was too large a dog to really get a good feel for the matter... We went ahead and did the x-ray, hoping to get a good shot of the abdomen to see if we could determine if there was indeed a perforation of the abdominal wall and if there were organs that were trapped in the hernia that could be having blood circulation cut off to them, which could end up being a fatal issue if not dealt with in a timely enough manner.
After the x-ray was developed, she showed it to me and explained it enough for me to understand. There was a very clear abdominal wall, and appeared to be in tact with no perforations. All of the organs (liver, intestines, bladder, etc) were in place and accounted for above the abdominal wall. All of this means that it is almost certainly not a hernia.
The problem is... what is it? (Not that we haven't played that game before!) Right now she is calling it a "mass." It could be a tumor of some sort or possibly be cancerous, but we don't know right now. Most likely he will need surgery, but that can't happen until the swelling and inflammation goes down. So, she prescribed an antibiotic and anti-inflammatory and wants to see him on Thursday to decide how to proceed, but if he isn't back to himself tomorrow afternoon, she thinks we should bring him in.

Hopefully the mediation will do it's job and Wylee will start feeling better. He looks pretty pathetic right now. We'll keep you updated on this saga as it unfolds.

Update and Pics - Sept. 5

2008-09-05T21:52:00.008-05:00

We're still continuing to have our ups and downs with Kamryn's seizures.

A. My district's insurance company switched Sept. 1, and I completely forgot, so when we finally talked to the neurologist and he prescribed a new medication, Trileptal, we tried to pick it up to the tune of $177.99, because it showed that my insurance had expired. Yikes! Then I had to go home and find the new cards which took a while since they were in a stack of unopened mail in a secretively marked envelope with a company name that I didn't recognize. By the time I found them, the pharmacy was closed and I had to wait until after work the next day to pick it up.

B. So, then she had another last night around 9 pm, which was about two hours before we were due to start her new medicine. Grrr.... We went ahead and gave her an extra pill of phenobarb and started the rest of the medicine as the doc had prescribed. We're taking her off of Keppra and starting the Trileptal slowly. For 1 week, we'll decrease her from 2 to 1 ml of Keppra and introduce 1/2 ml of the Trileptal. Then next week, no Keppra and 1 ml of Trileptal. I don't know a lot the new medicine or why he chose to switch her. I'm guessing that it is a little stronger than Keppra and used with older kids. Keppra was probably best for newborns and was hopefully going to be enough until she grew out of the seizures. But that doesn't appear to be the case just yet.

She did not have another seizure that night or at all today. She's acted like she felt fine and nothing is bothering her, except of course when she thinks we don't feed her enough! The girl would take down a Big Gulp if we'd let her!

We called and texted the neurologist today, but did not get a response. It's annoying, but I'm sure he feels the same about us. We're going to let it go for now, but if she has another, we'll be hounding him for some contact. I don't like us being the ones to just make up what to do with the medicines when she has a seizure, though we are getting pretty good at predicting what he would say...

Hopefully, the new medicines will prove effective for her. I'll keep y'all posted if anything changes significantly. Though we are having them from time to time, at least they are only singular occurances that we can get back under control fairly easily, not several day stints like before.

On a brighter note, here are some pictures that I took today of the girls. I was trying to get a good one of the two of them for them to put up during her dedication at church. There are also pictures of Kenedy at a birthday party. It was for her new friend from school, Evie. She had a blast running around the bouncy place with all of her little girl friends from school.

Didn't pick this one, it looks like Kamryn is getting the Heimlich.

Kenedy took this one... Another no...

Here's the winner!

This one was cute of just Kamryn...

Evie's Birthday... It took forever for her to move out of the toddler bouncyhouse!

With Evie in the little bouncy...
but when the others are this tall, who can blame her... She eventuall did it though.
Running around with the other little girls in the dino bouncyhouse.
Giving Evie her Princess stuff.

Update - Sunday August 31, 2008

2008-08-31T22:42:00.002-05:00

As most of you know Kamryn had a seizure on Thursday night. The doctor called Friday and was a little perplexed. Kamryn is taking 25% more medicine than a baby that is 18lbs. And since she is not 18lbs he is not sure why she is talking so much. She is not showing any side effects so he is not concerned about that. It is more about the battle to keep her levels up. He ultimately decided that we would mover her off the liquid medicine and put her on a pill. So now she take 4 pills a day that we dilute in her bottles.

I would say that is all but no, Kamryn had a seizure this afternoon. She had one about 2pm, but we gave her the medication and she has not had one since. It seems that she is not feeling real good. She has had a cough for the last day or so and she has been extremely sleepy today. So we are hoping that is just a combination of medicine and not felling well.

As always we thank everyone for their support and love. Please keep us in your prayers

Kenedy's New Bike

2008-08-28T21:22:00.008-05:00

Since Kenedy recently got a belated gift card from Uncle & fam, we took it to Wal-Mart to pick a new toy. Here are some pics of Kenedy on her new big girl bike. She likes it but is not as good at keeping the pedals going as she was with the tricycle. She's an even bigger fan of the horn and basket that we put on it!

Kenedy is doing well at school. She really enjoys it, which I imagined she would. She's finally starting to be a little more forthcoming with details of her day, but ocassionaly we still get the "nothing" and "nobody" answers. Grrr! Her only issue with school is the automatic flushing toilets. She is definitely not a fan of those, prior bad experiences I guess. The aid in her class is going with the her and covering up the sensor with her had everytime Kenedy needs to go potty. Bless her heart! They've got some kind of velcro contraption planned so that Kenedy can start going in on her own. : )

On a less happy note, Kamryn had a seizure this evening, around 6:30 pm. We gave her a loading dose and are right now waiting on the doc to decide if we want to keep the meds the same otherwise. He also mentioned that it may be time to consider a different type of medication too. We'll see, as this was all via text message... She's doing better so far, so assume all is well, unless I post otherwise later on.

Kenedy's First Day of School and Kamryn Info

2008-08-18T21:30:00.013-05:00

Today was Kenedy's first day of "school." We've been talking it up for the last week, hoping that it would de-emphasize the not going to Leslie's part. She did really well. Hardly took the time to kiss Kamryn and I good bye! When I went to pick her back up, her teacher said that she had a really good day. She did have a potty accident though. Apparently, she went to tell the teacher she needed to go to the bathroom, but when she finally got through explaining, it was too late. And that is why they ask to us to send a change of clothes... Hopefully this was just a first day thing, now that she has her bearings and knows where the bathrooms are, we won't see anymore accidents. We'll continue to send a change of clothes, just in case... She said she had fun and liked her teachers and new friends. So far so good. Here are some pictures of this morning.

Eating breakfast after her bath.

She is excited about school!

Toting her lunch box.

In the school parking lot, backpack and all.

Tromping down the hall.

In front of her locker!

Stacking blocks in the classroom. But oops!, this is the wrong classroom!

Bonked her head on her new locker, in the right classroom.

All better now...

FYI- Kamryn had a seizure last night (Sunday, 7:30pm, right before we gave her the nightly dose of phenobarb), and of course we couldn't get ahold of the neurologist. We gave her an extra dose of phenobarb, guessing that that would be what the neurologist would do. It held her all night and she was a happy girl this morning before we took her to Leslie's. We told Leslie about what was going on and she did well all day. Scott finally got ahold of the neurologist (actually his nurse) late in the morning and her medicine has now been shifted to 5 ml of phenobarb 3x/day, instead of 6ml 2x/day. She'll basically get an extra 3ml a day and will not be spread out so far apart. It will now be on the same schedule as her Keppra, which is nice for us. Also, when talking to the nurse, we found out that her phenobarb level that was taken Friday morning was a 20.5, low for her. Knowing that she is now in the 90's percentile-wise, it's all coming together. She hasn't had another seizure since the one last night. Hopefully this shift in medicine will help for a while. Our next pediatrician appointment is in a few weeks. It will be interesting to see what she weighs by then.
Here are some pictures of Kamryn just being cute in her red and white gingham lady bug outfit. Sorry about the turned pictures, they were all right when I put them on my computer.

telling us all about it...

Updates...

2008-08-16T09:14:00.007-05:00

Kamryn News:

We're at 2 weeks since Kamryn's last seizure. Hooray! Yesterday, she had blood drawn at the neurologists office to check her phenobarb levels after getting her back stable. This will give us a good idea of what level is good for her now. We don't have the number yet, but we'll let you know when we get it back. After her trip to get her blood drawn, she went to cardiologist. The did an EKG checked the blood pressure of all extremities. She still has a slight murmmer, but it much less pronounced than last time we were there. He did not do an echocardiogram to check on the narrowing aortic arch and valve that we were watching to see if it closed. Since her blood pressure was good at her feet still, the valve and narrowing did not seem to be causing a problem. She has a follow up in 6 months, where they will probably do both the echo and EKG. All looked well though... The doc seemed rather surprised with her size and when Scott told him that she was only in the 50th percentile about a month ago at the pediatrician's office, he looked very skeptical. He took her measurments (16 lb, 6 oz and 25 1/2 inches) and said that she is in the 90s as far as percentiles. Quite a change from a month and a half ago. Definitely could explain outgrowing the dose! All is good with that little one, she took the appointments well, didn't hardly cry at either. I guess when you get poked and prodded as much as she has, you tend to get used to it. PS- Her hair is continuing to come out and will likely be near bald by the time her dedication comes around on September 14.

Kenedy Update:

Yesterday was Kenedy's last day at Leslie's house. Leslie is the lady who has kept her during the day since she was 6 weeks old. She'll start "school" on Monday. We've bought her a big girl backpack, lunch box, napmat, the whole nine yards... She seems pretty excited about it. I hope she continues to be once she realizes that Kamryn is still going to Leslie's and she is not. We've been talking it up with her (and so has Leslie) and she is pretty excited. I'll let you know how she actually does next week.

Kenedy and Leslie

Update - Thursday, August7

2008-08-07T22:44:00.002-05:00

Still no seizures since Saturday. : )

We had a neurology appointment today. Not much new, especially since we were just there last Friday with the recent wave of seizures. We didn't run any tests, didn't change medicines, just sat and chatted with the doc.

She obviously isn't outgrowing them just yet, so we'll continue on the medicine and doses that we've most recently updated. We didn't have her blood drawn for a phenobarb level today because the it would probably be artificially high, due to the recent loading doses. Next week we'll take her back and get a level done on her to see what number she is at and know what is works for her.

Ideally, this appointment would have been to talk about weaning her off of medicine, had she not had any seizures since our last appointment, obviously that was a no go. We set another appointment 3 months out under the same hope.

Update - Sunday, August 3

2008-08-03T23:20:00.003-05:00

Today was a much better day for Kamryn. No seizures since yesterday's episode at 6:15pm. She has been plenty awake and alert today. She smiling, laughing, and cooing at me all the way home from San Marcos. (I was sitting in the back seat with the girls. It is just easier to put Wylee in the front to avoid any possible drama between the excited dog and two little girls!)

Otherwise, the trip to San Marcos went well. Jody had fun for his birthday. Most of the group floated the extremely low and slow Guadalupe on Saturday, but had fun nonetheless. Kenedy got to spend the weekend with her best friend Sarah, while Sally and I got to catch up since their move to San Antonio.

Sorry no pics from this trip. Way to much hustle and bustle this weekend with the million and a half people in and out of Jan's house at any given moment. Not to mention all of Kamryn's drama and Kenedy and Sarah running wild. : )
Maybe next time...

Not Done Yet

2008-08-02T23:31:00.002-05:00

Well, we're still not quite through with this round...

After a long fussy and restless day, Kamryn had a seizure at about 6:15 pm. I called the Dr. Kane's cell phone. Since we knew from yesterday's bloodwork that it is likely just that her phenobarb count is not quite up where we need it, he didn't feel like we needed to go to the hospital. He thinks we just haven't found the right maintenance dose yet, so he suggested increasing her phenobarb from 5 ml to 6ml and giving her one extra dose today as a booster. She got that at about 6:30, and has been sleeping most of the rest of the evening.

Hopefully this will be the amount that will work for her. We have the appointment next week and we'll likely draw blood again to check her phenobarb levels and see how these loading doses and increased maintenance doses are working for her.

Another Tough Day

2008-08-01T23:51:00.002-05:00

Kamryn slept well last night and woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning. I was thinking that the loading dose yesterday had done the trick. But alas, I was wrong.

At 11:30 am Kamryn had a seizure and when I contacted the neurologist (I actually talked to him, not just his nurse!) he suggested coming to have her phenobarb levels taken. So I got us all dressed, headed out, and dropped Kenedy off at Scott's office on the way.

At the neurologist's office/lab, the pulled blood, which Kamryn didn't much care for. However, they got it on the first stick, on the inside of her elbow. Woohoo! No more head shaving!

I figured I'd have her weight checked while I was there to get an idea of how much she's grown since our last bout of seizures. The lab didn't have a scale, so the directed me back to the pediatric practice, who directed me to the actual neurologists office, who made me wait for a nurse, just to get her weighed. All I needed was a scale, I know how to use it; no help required.

While we were in the waiting room at the neurologist waiting for the nurse to come out and help me get her weighed, she had a seizure (around 2 pm). I told the receptionist, who said she'd go get the nurse. It was the nurse and the neurologist that came out to the waiting room for the last third of her seizure. He said I could just go a head and come back so we could talk after he finished with this last patient. (We weren't scheduled to have an appt with him until next week.)

We talked and decided to go ahead and give her another loading dose of phenobarb today, and keep her regular dose at the 5 ml we had changed to to yesterday. He suspected that we had likely just outgrown her dosage. Of course, we didn't have the labs back to confirm that, but it has been the case historically. If for some reason she doesn't respond to this dose, we may have to visit the hospital this weekend.

She got the loading dose at around 3 pm at home, and we packed up and headed out to San Marcos for Jody's birthday. I called the doc around 5pm on the way to check on the bloodwork and he said that her phenobarb level was at a 24, (her happy number is in the mid 30s) and that was after the loading dose we gave her yesterday. So that likely supports our theory that she is just outgrowing the dose and metabolizing it faster. We'll talk in more detail at her appt next Thursday. She hasn't had a seizure since.

Hopefully this is the last you'll hear from me for a while...

Update - Thursday night, July 31

2008-07-31T19:58:00.002-05:00

So, the neurologist's nurse finally calls back around 2:30. The dr's orders were for a loading dose of phenobarb (10 ml) and increasing her normal dose from 4 ml to 5 ml. While Scott was getting the medicine ready, she had another seizure. It really wiped her out and made it difficult to get the loading dose in her, but she took it slowly.
Since the loading dose at 3 pm, she hasn't had another seizure. She's slept a whole lot today, but when she's been awake, she's been pretty alert. Hopefully, this will be the end of it...
I'll let you know...

Update - Thursday, July 31

2008-07-31T13:25:00.002-05:00

We heard from the neurologist (actually his nurse) yesterday and all he had to say was that the increased medicine can take a little while to take effect, so let's wait and see how she does. She didn't have another throughout the day and slept well throught the night. We thought that we'd gotten her meds back up to speed.
On the way to daycare today, she had a seizure in the back seat of my car. I had a morning meeting, so she stayed with Leslie until Scott could pick her up. He took her home called the neurologist and then up to work for a meeting he had at 11, where she had another seizure. He then brought her home and will work from there. We still haven't heard back from him or his nurse, but are continuing to leave messages. I imagine he'll have us adjust her phenobarb this time and see how that does. We'll see. That would require us hearing from him first...
I'll update when there's more news...

The Six-Week Itch

2008-07-30T12:35:00.003-05:00

Apparently Kamyrn's sweet little brain just couldn't take it anymore. A seizure finally broke through yesterday around 5:30 pm. It had been just over six weeks since her last one. We called the neurologist and he made a slight tweak in her Keppra dose (not phenobarb this time), as well as a small loading dose of Keppra. She held steady until 4am this morning, when she had another. It seemed a little longer than normal, but it has been a little while and I may have just lost a sense of how long they are in that time. It didn't seem as severe though, she didn't go completely red/purple, and took a couple of little breaths during her seizure, that she didn't use to do. She pretty much fell straight to sleep after that, as they really drain her. She woke up with another seizure at 5:45am. Luckily, after that one it was in a reasonable time frame to get her morning medicine doses in her. We haven't seen one since then.
We've called the neurologist and haven't heard back.
I'll let you know when we have more news.

New pictures and all are doing well.

2008-07-26T21:00:00.007-05:00

Kenedy and Kamryn had their pictures taken today. It went as well as one would think being it was a 3 year old and a 3 month old. They had their aunt Audra, Grandma, and Grampa in town this weekend so they are having a ball.

Kamryn is still doing well and growing like a weed.

We hope all is well with everyone else.

The Girls' First Round Rock Express Game

2008-07-12T10:17:00.003-05:00

Here are a couple of pics from the Round Rock Express game. It was an employee appreciation event for Scott's new company Advanced Rehabilitation. Daddy and the girls had fun. There was even a fireworks show after the game.
There are also a couple of pics of Kenedy using her new watering can on our flowers.

Kenedy's 3rd Birthday

2008-07-09T13:48:00.008-05:00

Here are some pictures from Kenedy's birthday party on Saturday. I didn't get everyone in the pictures, sorry. Some were inside, some were outside, and I was never in one place for very long. : )

Come on Sarah, get your swimsuit on...

Ready to swim
Playing in the pool
more pool time before everyone gets there
Time for cupcakes!
Sarah liked them!
Kenedy too, especially the chocolate ones.
and the vanilla.
Scott and Jody
Sally and Richard

Marty

Laurie
Jill and Jason
Opening gifts. This one is from the Smiths. Tinkerbell dress up clothes...
Candyland from Jill

Bevo shirt from Daddy (of course!)

a new sticker book
and puzzles
Reading the card from Chad and Jamie
enthralled with the computer from Chad and Jamie

a jumprope from Tiffany and Kevin...now she can stop using our computer cords!

and pajamas
and a little mermaid watering can!
A Horton the Elephant book from Aunt Linda and Uncle Dan

My Little Pony and a swimming doll from Sally, Jody, and Sarah

a doll bath tub from mommy and daddy
a gaudy purse with a princess bracelet in it from Janma
baby doll bunkbeds from mommy and daddy too
trying on her dress up clothes

Thank you for the presents everybody!

4th of July

2008-07-09T13:26:00.004-05:00

Here are a couple of pictures from the 4th of July. Yes, it was Kenedy's birthday, but we didn't party down until Saturday. Memere and Pepere couldn't wait until then, of course, and had to give her birthday presents on Friday. : )
We headed to the Cedar Park fireworks show at Milburn Park that night. Every open area for a mile down this street had either a car or a lawn chair on it, including the parking lots of CPMS, CPHS, and ACC, and every strip center on the street. Craziness!

Helping Mommy make the birthday cupcakes.

The puppy dog sprinkler thingy that Memere and Pepere gave her.

More polka dotted clothes. : )

And a singing card!

I'm watching firecrackers!Don't looks so excited...
My camera has a fireworks setting, but I think it does timelapse pictures.
Here's another.
Kamryn had fun watching them too!

Update - Tuesday, July 1

2008-07-01T15:36:00.003-05:00

We've hit a couple of new milestones with Kamryn. First of all, we are at 2 weeks seizure free. Woohoo! Don't know how long it will last, but I know realistically, that it's not likely to be the end. I'll enjoy it while I can though. Also, yesterday was Kamryn's 2 month birthday! We didn't party up too big, with Kenedy's actual 3 year birthday being on Friday and all, but it was worth noting, just the same.

Both girls had check ups to day with Dr. Bocchicchio. Kenedy is starting to remember things (like getting shots in the past at the doctor's office) and was a bit reluctant to go. She happily volunteered her sister to go first with the doctor. Kamryn weighed in at 12 pounds and 12 ounces, which is in 55th percentile. She measured 23 1/2 inches, which was in the 50th percentile. Her head circumference was in the 75th percentile. She seemed so big a birth, but she's leveled out and is pretty much just an average sized baby. Dr. B said that Kamryn looked great. She seemed to like him as she talked to him and wiggled around a lot. She got her first big round of immunizations today too. 3 shots in the leg and one orally. She wasn't too keen on that experience though. Good thing the doctor passes that duty off to the nurses to let them be the bad guys!

Kenedy did well with her check up once she got up the gumption to do it. We kept reminder her that all of the instruments were just like in her doctor kit that she has for her babies. She wanted to know why there wasn't a turtle on his blood pressure cuff though. Kenedy weighed in at 36 lbs (75th percentile) and 36 inches (50th percentile). Kenedy has never been below the 75th percentile in anything. I was a little taken aback. She's slowed down a little bit in her growth, but it still right on track and doing well. We're going to try a different medicine for her allergies, as the Zyrtec doesn't seem to be doing the trick anymore. Maybe the nasal spray will. Kenedy didn't have to get any shots today, thank goodness! We even took her out of the room when Kamryn got hers, just to be on the safe side. She will have to get 4 of them on her 4 yr check up though. But we have a year to work ourselves up to that one!

Here are a couple of pictures of Kamryn in the pretty purple dress Jill picked out for her. Sorry there aren't more pictures of Kenedy. She doesn't sit still long enough to get many...

Quiet House...

2008-06-24T21:27:00.002-05:00

With the seizure-free status count restarted, we are now at a week and half. Kamryn is doing well and growing like a weed. (good and bad...) She's spent sometime at daycare and hasn't given them any trouble.

Kenedy is spending sometime at her Janma's house in San Marcos this week and we are keeping Kamryn home with us. It's been pretty quiet around here, which is kind of relaxing, but sad too. No big "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" and hug as I walk in the door after work or school. That's okay though, she is having a lot of fun with Janma. Probably so much fun that I will end up spending several weeks deprogramming her when she gets back!

Here are a couple of pics of Kamryn this week.

1st Day at Daycare

2008-06-19T21:16:00.004-05:00

Today was my first, full, "official" day back to work. This was Kamryn's first time to go to daycare with Kenedy. I had to be at my training early, so Scott dropped them off. All went well, no calls to or from the sitter. Kenedy said that she showed Kamryn to all of her friends and helped Leslie with her. Hopefully the novelty doesn't wear off too soon! She won't be going everyday, just kind of sporadically throughout the summer as I handle trainings, curriculum, and other work. In August, she'll start going everyday and Kenedy will start going to "school."

I took a couple of pictures tonight because I didn't have any good ones of them together. Here's a look!

Update - Wednesday, June 18

2008-06-18T08:42:00.004-05:00

Well, I think we are back on track...

Kamryn hasn't had a seizure since Sunday morning. She's been sleeping a little more than she did a week ago, but that is to be expected with increased meds. I'm sure she'll adjust to them soon and will back to herself in no time. Hopefully, we'll get a good month or so out of this level of medicines before we have to go through this whole bit again.

Its been scorching hot her for the last few weeks, so we finally got Kenedy's water toys out. Here are some pics and videos of her and daddy playing with them on Sunday.

Enjoy!

Playing with the sprinkler ball that she got last year for her birthday.

Dad trying to coax her onto the Slip N Slide.

Swimming the pool. These 100+ days are brutal!

Scott demos the SlipNSlide for Kenedy.

(Watch at your own risk!)

Kenedy tries to SlipNSlide

A Day at Dell...

2008-06-14T21:25:00.003-05:00

Early this morning, Kamryn started with the seizure bit again. She had one at 3:30 am, and another at 7:30 am. At this point, the neurologist didn't feel comfortable continuing to up her meds without knowing what her phenobarb levels were. (Me neither!) So, we called Scott's cousin Kyla and asked her to come watch Kenedy while we took Kamryn to Dell Children's Hospital. (The 3rd stop on her tour of Austin hospitals.) We were admitted into the ER around 9:30 am.

After having her weighed and giving her seizure history to no less that 4 different people, she had another seizure. Of course, no doctor or nurse was in the room at the time. But one did come in toward the end of it. The drew her blood to check her phenobarb levels (it only took two stabs this time!) and we found that her level was at a 24, which is low for her. Our neurologist wants it to be in the mid-30s. After phone consultation with the neurologist, they gave her a loading dose of phenobarb through her IV and have us increasing her daily dose to 4 mL as well.

We finally got home around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. She's been sleeping it off most of the day, but when she is awake, she is alert and is gobbling down her bottles. (She didn't get to each at the ER.)

We're hoping this loading dose will be enough to get us back on track. Mostly likely this is just due to her going through a growth spurt and metabolizing her medicine more quickly than she was before. She weighs 11 lb 8 oz now. She's gained over a 1 1/2 pounds in the last two weeks.
We're looking forward to a quiet night, morning, and hopefully several weeks before we have to start this business again.

Another Rough Day...

2008-06-13T21:26:00.002-05:00

I thought we had things back in check today, after all of yesterday's mess. That was until we had a seizure at 3 this afternoon. We upped her Keppra dose from 1 to 1.5 mL after that, but it didn't appear to have the effect that the dr wanted. She had another at 7pm, followed by yet another call to the dr and a loading dose of phenobarb.
Hopefully this will get things back in line. I'll keep you updated...

Update - Thursday afternoon, June 12

2008-06-12T16:12:00.003-05:00

After what appeared to be a normal morning and start to the afternoon (after the 4am seizure), Kamryn and I went out to get some Father's Day cards. While we were in the car, in the Walgreen's parking lot, she had another seizure. It was pretty much her standard MO, as far as the seizures go: cry, arch, stiffen, jerk, beet red, blue/ashy, gasps...

Called the neurologist and gave her a loading dose of her other medicine (keppra). We'll see how that holds her. Waiting to get more info from him. Hopefully we won't see another, but who knows anymore.

Update - Thursday, June 12 : (

2008-06-12T08:07:00.003-05:00

The three week mark came and went fairly unremarkably, until 4am this morning when Kamryn had a seizure. It was like most of them, though we didn't see the entire thing. We woke to a cry and some noises that sounded like those during her previous seizures. By the time Scott got into the room, she was stiffened up, head turned and arm outstretched. She wasn't blue or beet red like we've seen in the past, but she was gasping for air like she had stopped breathing for a few moments.

We gave her a loading dose of pheonobarb, as we'd discussed with the neurologist at our appointment a few weeks ago, but are waiting to hear back from him as far as new amounts for the maintanence doses.

No one knows for sure, of course, but we are assuming that she is just outgrowing her medication. The dose we had her on is just not adequate anymore for her weight.

We were hoping to be done with these, but if we're not, hopefully you won't hear about another for at least another three weeks or more. It is definitely better than the weekly Tuesdays ones.

Here are some new pictures...

June 8 - Kamryn's Progress and Another Birth

2008-06-08T09:53:00.011-05:00

We're going on 2 1/2 weeks since Kamryn's last seizure. Hooray!
She's taking 4-5 ounces every 3-4 hours and let's you know if you are a minute late in getting it to her. We're taking her to church with us for the first time today. Hopefully we won't have any outbursts. Better have the bottle ready and on stand-by ... I'll post some pictures later of her in the pretty dress Anna got her.
Yesterday, Kenedy's BFF Sarah came over while her mommy (Sally) went to go have her baby. Jacob David Kirk was born at 12:25 pm, weighing in at 9 lb 5 oz and measuring 21 inches.

Here are some pics of the girls and baby Jake.

2 Weeks and Counting

2008-06-03T22:02:00.005-05:00

Today had 3 points of significance. The first was that it was Scott's 36th birthday. The second was that today was Kamryn's 2 week mark without a seizure. Woohoo! The third was that it was Scott's first full day of work at his new job. Double WooHoo!
Other than that, nothing else is really going on here.
I'm finally posting some photos of Memorial Day weekend, since I forgot to do that earlier.
Enjoy!

Update - Wednesday night, May 28

2008-05-29T01:17:00.002-05:00

Our visit to the neurologist today went well. Kamryn's EEG looked good, no signs of seizure activity (or even proclivity for seizures) during the 20 minutes she was hooked up to her plethora of wires. It also showed a lot of good brain activity. It doesn't mean that everything if perfect now, but it was in that snapshot during the EEG. Apparentlym she is still a bit of a mystery in that neurology office and there are no more tests left to run. We are pretty much in a holding pattern, waiting for the next development (or hopefully the lack thereof!)
Still no seizures since last Tuesday. Woohoo! The Tuesday chain is broken.
If she continues to have no seizures, we'll keep her medication levels the same and won't be going back for another 2 months. At that point, we may begin talking about weaning her off of the medication. Hopefully the seizures will disappear in the coming months. Until then, things are looking pretty good.

Update - Wednesday, May 28

2008-05-28T07:01:00.004-05:00

The pattern is broken! We made it through a Tuesday without a seizure. Woohoo!

We went back to the pediatrician yesterday for a weight check. Last time we were there, he was concerned that she had lost an ounce since being discharged from the hospital. Well, that is not a concern anymore! In the 13 days since we had last visited him, she has gained 12 ounces. Almost an ounce a day! Kamryn now weighs 9 lb. 14 oz. I'd say we are definitely fine in the weight department. Her next pediatrician appointment will be in 4 weeks for her 2-month well-check. Kenedy will be having her 3-year well-check at the same time.

This afternoon we head to the neurologist. Hopefully he will have some new insights after the EEG and blood work.

I'll try to get some pictures up of our memorial weekend trip to San Marcos for Scott's family reunion and the visit from my family later today.

Update - Saturday, May 24

2008-05-24T07:32:00.002-05:00

Just thought I'd leave a quick note for those of you still checking the blog frequently...
Kamryn is doing well, no seizures since Tuesday. Went to the cardiologist on Wednesday, everything looks pretty good on that front. The narrowing they found on her aorta is still there, but doesn't seem to be causing any problems. He is still waiting on a valve to completely finish closing before he make any decisions about the future. It hadn't completely closed by the appointment on Wednesday, so we have a follow up in 3 months. If it closes up nicely, he doesn't anticipate any problems or future work necessary. He seems pretty confident that the narrowing is going to end up being absolutely nothing. It's just something we happened to see with all of the tests that were run on her. We'll go back to the pediatrician on Tuesday and see the neurologist on Wednesday. I'll let you know how those go later.
We're in San Marcos for Memorial Day weekend. Everyone is loving on Kamryn during the day, so I pretty much only get her in the middle of the night. Kenedy is having fun, but there is a lot to get into around here. She's having fun playing with Hadyn, David, and Braxton, and is taking full advantage of having her Janma to run to when she doesn't get an answer she likes from mommy or daddy. Gotta just love those threes...
Hope everyone has a great holiday weekend!

Update - Tuesday, May 20

2008-05-20T11:35:00.002-05:00

For most people, it's Mondays, but for Kamryn it seems to be Tuesdays that don't agree with her.

You haven't heard from me since last week because Kamryn has been doing so well and we've been busy enjoying our time with her. Unfortunately, early this morning (2:30 am) Kamryn started having seizures again. We've talked to the neurologist and he's upped her dosage of phenobarbital again. It looks like her body is just metabolizing things more quickly than before and the medication wasn't being as effective, at least that is the current thought... I imagine that this something we will continue to see, as she has nothing to do but grow. The medication seems already to have taken effect. We haven't seen a seizure since 7 am, though she now very sleepy and groggy from the increased dose.

I'm sorry that the first post I've put up in a while has to be a bit of a downer, but such is the rollercoaster of my life these days. I'm sure we'll get back to a higher point soon. Hope all is well in your respective worlds.

Friday May 16, 2008

2008-05-16T23:34:00.003-05:00

Kamryn had another good day today. She has been seizure free since Tuesday afternoon. April is feeling much better as well. Kamryn has been sleeping and eating great over the last few days. She is on a good routine with her feeding and medication. She even got a bath today and went for a stroller ride to check the mail.

Again we want to thank everyone for their support and prayers.

Update - Wednesday Night, May 14

2008-05-14T22:40:00.002-05:00

It's been a pretty good day for Kamryn. Still no seizures since yesterday, 5 pm. All went well at the pediatrician's office. He said that she looks great and appears to be a very healthy baby (minus the whole seizure bit). She's lost an ounce since discharge from the hospital. We think it is probably due to the booster of phenobarbital yesterday which makes her super-sleepy and virtually impossible to wake up for a feeding. We'll go back to the pediatrician in two weeks for a weight check to make sure she starts picking it up.

I went to the doctor today as well. After feeling like crud for the last two days, it turns out that I have mastitis. She gave me antibiotics and told me that if my symptoms don't go away in the next 48 hours, to come back so that we can do an ultrasound to look for an abscess.

On the way home from class tonight, as I was watching the lightning show before me, the weather man came on the radio talking about a storm with tornadic activity coming right down the line into Cedar Park. (When it rains, it pours!) We only ended up getting a little hail out of the first wave of the storm. There are a couple more waves to come through, but they don't look as bad as the first.

Update - Wednesday Morning May 14, 2008

2008-05-14T10:04:00.002-05:00

Kamryn has been seizure free since about 5pm last night. That is great news!! We are on our way to the Pediatrician now. April is at her doctor as well so we will update everyone later this afternoon.

Thanks for the prayers and thoughts

Update - Tuesday Night May 14, 2008

2008-05-13T21:48:00.002-05:00

This afternoon was tough again. Kamryn had numerous seizures this afternoon. Her neurologist increased her Keppra in the morning then in the afternoon we gave her a triple dose of the Phenobarbital. This has seemed to stop the seizures this evening. Her seizures were getting closer together though the morning and afternoon but once we uped the medicine she has been seizure free.

The doctor seems to think that her liver is processing the medicine faster now that she is getting older. This maybe causing the levels to drop and breakthrough seizures to happen. He is trying to keep her at home so he is upping the medicine via the phone. It is nice that we are at least able to have her home with us now.

Again we want to thank everyone for the support, prayers and well wishes. All of you have been so kind to our family in this trying time. We know that it will all work out with so many people on Kamryn's side.

Update - Tuesday May 13, 2008

2008-05-13T09:14:00.002-05:00

Well we had a minor set back this morning. Kamryn had a seizure this morning at about 7:45. We called her neurologist and he did not seemed to concerned. He raised her dosage of Keppra and said to call him if anything changed. So we will not have to go back to the hospital or anything. Yesterday was a big day getting to come home and all, so maybe she was just a little stressed. We are hoping that the new dosage of the medicine will straighten her out. Again keep her in your prayers and thoughts. Thanks for all the love and support we will keep you updated on her progress.

Homecoming Day - Monday, May 12

2008-05-12T22:04:00.005-05:00

First of all, I apologize for not having an update posted yesterday. There seems to have been a miscommunication between Scott and I. He didn't seem to hear me when I said, post an update.

As you would expect, today was a great day! We got Kamryn home today about 1pm. Everything has gone well. Kenedy is very excited to have her little sister home with her. I can tell the two of them will be keeping us very busy.

Kamryn is going to continue on her phenobarbital and keppra until the doctors feel like she is ready to come off of one or the other, or both. That could be a month from now or several years from now. There is just no way of knowing. We have appointments to meet with our pediatrician and neurologist toward the end of the week and the cardiologist next week.

While we'll post what we learn from those appointments as they come up, I'm sure you will understand if you don't see updates everyday. We'll post pics and info as much as we can though. Hopefully, we will have nothing particularly eventful to share for a while.

Scott and I just wanted again to say thank you to everyone for the thoughts, prayers, help, and support that you've offered to us through this trying time for our family. We are truly blessed to have all of you in our lives.

Enjoy the homecoming pictures!

Update - Saturday, May 10

2008-05-10T22:39:00.002-05:00

I'm happy to report that there is nothing to report today. All is well, minus the fact that she is not actually home yet. Kamryn had no seizures today and is continuing to become more awake, alert, and active everyday. Still on track to come home on Monday. Oh yeah, they took her IV out today too.
Keep those prayers coming. We're almost there!

Update - Friday May 9, 2008

2008-05-09T23:04:00.003-05:00

We had another good day today. Kamryn was able to spend time again with her Grandma and Aunt Audra. The doctors said that all the test have come back and there is no sign of any problems. This is slightly frustrating, but still a relief that the doctors think that she will grow out of these seizures. Her feeding tube was taken out today, but we still have the IV in. If she can go a couple more days without having any problems then we should be able to go home on Monday. Here are a couple of pictures from today. Thanks for all of the thoughts and prayers.

update - Thursday May 8, 2008

2008-05-08T23:21:00.002-05:00

Kamryn had a good day today. She was seizure free again today. That means we need to go four more days and we can bring her home.

She still has the IV in, but that is only due to the fact that it is very hard to get an IV in Kamryn. They do not want to take out a good IV. They will most likely remove her feeding tube tomorrow since she is eating so well.

They did another echo cardiogram yesterday and the results came back. There is still the narrowing of the aorta, but the cardiologist is not too concerned about it. He seems to think that will correct itself. He will request we come and see him in a couple weeks for another test.

Her Grandma Felicia and Aunt Audra came to the hospital tonight to see her, but see was too tired to wake up. They will try again in the morning to see if they can catch her awake.

Let's all hope that the new drug keeps the seizures at bay and see can come home in a few days. Thanks for all the prayers and support.

Update - Wednesday Night, May 7

2008-05-07T23:27:00.003-05:00

The neurologist finally called tonight at about 8:00 pm. He talked to Scott while I was at class. He said that Kamryn's recent seizures were due to fact that the phenobarbital was not fully controlling all of the seizures, allowing for breakthrough seizures. They are switching to a different second medication, Keppra, to top off the phenobarbital. They don't want to increase the phenobarbital, due to it's potency, and the Keppra should take care of the excessive breakthrough seizures without the strong side effects from the phenobarbital. (She hasn't had any since about noon today.)
After examining her and reviewing all of the test results, he thinks that she has nothing neurological wrong with her, but for whatever unknown reason is having these neonatal seizures. He is optimistic that she will respond to the new combination of medicine and will grow out of the seizures. We are still looking at the 5 day seizure-free time frame before she gets to go home. So that will put us into early next week, provided that she stabilizes and continues to respond well to the medication. Hopefully, we'll be removing the IV and feeding tube tomorrow and will just be looking at observing and maintaining for the next few days.
Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers. We know we are truly blessed to have all of you in our lives.

Update - Wednesday Afternoon May 7, 2008

2008-05-07T14:24:00.005-05:00

Today we have had a few setbacks.

Kamryn has had a couple more "breakthrough" seizures this morning. The doctors had to restart the IV, which she was not happy about. The new IV was used to get a new drug, that was added to phenobarbital, to hopefully stop these seizures.

The doctors explained it very well today. They are trying to build a dam, with the medication, that will stop the flow of seizures. They do not know how high it will take until they stop so they just have to give her medicine and wait and see. Once the dam is built and holds they will observe for a few days and then release her. Over time the seizures should go away and we will be able to wean her off the medicines.

They also put the feeding tube in to make sure we can feed her. This is because the medication makes her pretty sleepy and she will not eat.

They ordered a new EEG and the neurologist will come by later today to talk to us. We will update the blog later tonight with any new information. Thank for keeping us in your prayers.

Update - Tuesday Night, May 6

2008-05-06T22:43:00.002-05:00

We're having a rough night.
Everything was going so well tonight. Kamryn was awake and alert, showing hunger cues when we arrived, took a full 2 ounces, and stayed awake for a while after that. (She usually crashes after a feeding.)
While she was sleeping she woke with a cry and had a seizure. It was similar to those she was having in the hospital the first day she was born. I spare you any more details, but suffice it to say that it looks like the Thursday or Friday homecoming we were looking forward to is not going to happen. As you can imagine, Scott and I are pretty upset. I had gotten my hopes up and heart set on bring her home this week.
We won't know much until we get to talk to a doctor tomorrow morning, but it looks like we are going to be starting over on the "5 days seizure-free" count before coming home.
I'll update when I know more tomorrow.

Update - Tuesday, May 6

2008-05-06T18:44:00.002-05:00

Another good day!
Still no sign of seizures since Saturday morning. She is eating well and it doesn't look like we'll be needing the IV or feeding tube anymore. Hooray!
The neonatologist said that the phenobarbital levels in her right now are a little high, so they are going to skip her dose tonight to try to bring it down. She'll continue on her maintenance doses tomorrow. They may even consider lowering those.
He consulted with the neurologist today over the phone and got the blessing from him to discharge her on Thursday or Friday provided that she doesn't have any breakthrough seizures and keeps all of her other levels steady. That has been the best news of all!
She has an echo cardiogram scheduled for tomorrow and then they'll run a newborn screening on Thursday, other than that she's pretty much done with all of the testing.
We have to set an appointment with the neurologist for early next week and will continue to consult with him after that, but we don't know for how long.
I don't really care how long, at this point. All I know is that she is coming home! : )

Update - Monday Night, May 5

2008-05-05T22:31:00.003-05:00

Our good day continued into the night...

Still no seizures since the one Saturday morning. While we were gone during her 5 o'clock feeding, she took down 2 ounces. She took another 2 pretty easily when we were there at 8. The night shift nurse tonight was the one that was actually there the first night Kamryn was admitted. She commented on how well Kamryn had progressed. Otherwise, there was no real news to speak of...

Kenedy came up to the hospital with us tonight and was very excited to see baby sister. Of course, she didn't have a very good nap today and is coming off of a 5-day stint at Janma's, so she wasn't easy to corral in the NICU, but happy to be there all the same. She wanted to hold, feed, and burp the baby. She got to do a little (I am little less anxious about it now that her IV is out), but not much, as you'll be able to tell from the last picture, she still isn't the most gentle little girl in the world. When it was time to leave Kenedy said, "I want baby sister to come home with us!" It broke our hearts a little, but was very sweet all the same.

Again, thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers. You can see how well Kamryn is doing. Keep the good mojo coming!

Update - Monday, May 5

2008-05-05T16:03:00.003-05:00

Woohoo! Another good day!

We got a visit from yet a different neonatologist today. He said that she looked like a perfectly normal baby. He saw no issues with the responsiveness or alertness that the neurologist had previously suggested. He also decided that we could take the IV and feeding tube out. As long as she continues to eat well and gets up to about 2 oz a feeding, we won't have to put either one back in. Yeah!!!

Here are some pictures from today. One is of the most recent bald patch minus the IV : ), and the other of her wearing a hat. Looks like we'll be needing a lot of those till her hair grows back in!

Update - Sunday Night, May 4

2008-05-04T23:19:00.003-05:00

Our good day continued into the evening. Though she had slept most of the day away, Kamryn spent a lot of the time we were with her this evening awake and alert. She took another bottle and gulped it down rather quickly. I imagine the doctor will be uping her quantity tomorrow. If not, she may start to let him hear about it. : )
Otherwise, no real news to update you on. Hopefully, with it being back to the workweek we'll be visited by the specialists and get some new information tomorrow.
Here are a couple of pictures from this evening...

Update - May 4, 2008

2008-05-04T18:51:00.003-05:00

Today has been a better day. It started off with the neonatologist saying that she had not had any seizures last night. He also said that she looked like a totally different baby than in previous days, as she was more active and restless, which is a good thing in our case. She has lost some of her puffiness. Her milk intake orders were almost doubled, which she took in happily. One of the best surprises today has been that she took that milk from a bottle, which we weren't sure was going to be an easy task for her at this point. The doctors usually will let them work with a bottle for about 30 minutes, and Kamryn sucked hers down about 10! This is a good step in the direction of getting her feeding well on her own and off of the IV. The pediatric cardiologist came by and told us that the echo cardiogram looked like it may show a narrowing of the aorta, but he couldn't tell for sure, maybe just a shadow, so he ordered a follow up echo for this week. He was really laid back about it all and did not seem to think it was a problem. Still no news about a cause or exit date, but we'll take the little victories as they come.
If we get new info tonight we will post again. Hopefully we'll also have pictures of her eating from a bottle. : )

Update - Saturday, May 3

2008-05-03T23:36:00.005-05:00

Today has been a day of ups and downs.

Early this morning, while the nurses were trying to move Kamryn's IV she had the first seizure since being on the phenobarbital. They think it might have been somewhat stress induced, being as she is starting to get rather upset with people poking and prodding at her. She doesn't like sharing her blood much with people. It was a disappointing event, but the neonatalogist and neurologist weren't too concerned about it. They decided to give her a "booster" of the medicine to get her levels up a little, but will continue with the same "maintainance" doses after that.

The neonatalogist spent some time with us this morning. He said that they want to try to get her off of the IV in the next few days, which means that she will have to start getting her nutrients some other way. They began feeding her breastmilk from a tube running from her nose to her stomach today. She's going to tube feeding right now as a transition between the IV and the mouth. Her stomach needs to get used to digesting the milk, but her mouth has to be retrained in how to suck, since she's been working off of an IV for the last few days. The doctor said that it can vary anywhere from a couple of days to a couple weeks to retrain and get the mouth's coordination back into "sucking" mode. One of the only things the various sundry of doctors do agree on is that she will not be able to come home until feeding is well established. That means off the tube, in the mouth and up from 1/2 oz to 2 oz.

Later today, the neurologist came by to check in on Kamryn. He told us that the results from MRI that they ran yesterday came back and looked good. Of course that doesn't get us a cause, but that isn't necessarily bad, he reminded us. He did mention that the EEG was not normal, but I guess it wouldn't be if you are having seizures... He was also concerned about her lack of alertness. She has spent most of the last few days asleep; what little time she has been awake, she's been groggy and in a sort of stupor. He didn't give any sort of indication as to what any of that means, just that it concerned him. Of course, the other doctors and nurses have been telling us that the phenobarbital and other medicines would play into that quite a bit. Still, the neurologists words got us a little shaken.

Before we left tonight, Kamryn spent a good 45 minutes awake, eyes open, and pretty alert. Of course, this was all in the 45 minutes before they kicked us out for the night. She was about to have a feeding and diaper change, so maybe that helped her continue to stay awake and alert a while longer.

Hopefully tomorrow morning we'll get a good report and have some more positive news to share.

Here are a couple of pictures of Kenedy and Kamryn. This was Kenedy's first visit to Kamryn since she's been in the NICU. She came up with Janma, Memere, and Pepere. JJ, Kevin, and Tiffany also came by to visit tonight.

Kamryn Update-May 2nd

2008-05-02T23:44:00.004-05:00

Kamryn had a good day today. Still no seizures outwardly apparent while on the phenobarbital. That is a day and half seizure-free. : )

She had more labs done to look for metabolic causes, another EEG, a MRI, and an echo cardiogram. We got the results from some of the lab work that looked positive and ruled out some potential causes, but are waiting on results from the other tests. Still no cause to be found, but we continue to rule out plenty of potential conditions. Sometimes they never find a cause for neonatal seizures, so it isn't terrible that we haven't found one yet. But that doesn't mean that we'll quit looking.

Kamryn woke up a little today and fussed for a little while, making the nurses hold her. (She didn't much care for the pacifier.) All she wanted was to be held, which we were happy to oblige.

We have met more different types of health professionals than one would ever care to, in the last couple of days. Scott and I spent a lot of time talking to the metabolic geneticist today and he had a lot of positive things to say. Every time a lab comes back, it seems to rule out a few more of the litany of potential causes he has on his radar.

Tomorrow we hope to get the results of the other tests with more good/no news. Kenedy and some of her grandparents will try to visit if she continues to improve.

Thank you for all of the prayers and support. Everyone has been wonderful in trying to care for us from their various positions around the state. We'll be updating this website daily (as best we can) so feel free to use this as your source of information, if you can't call us or a grandparent.

Below are some pictures from today. The ones where she is completely wired up is from her EEG. The third is from tonight where we got to spend sometime holding her. She is still hooked up to a bunch of contraptions, you just can't see them from the angle of the picture.

Looking forward to bringing you more good news tomorrow.

Scott and April

Giving us a little scare...

2008-05-01T22:48:00.005-05:00

Today, Kamryn was taken to the NICU at a different hospital due to the fact that she was experiencing neonatal seizures. The seizures were becoming more pronounced and frequent as the day went on, so the doctors ran some tests and are continuing to monitor her. The CT scan showed no brain injury, no infection was found with the spinal tap, and they used an EEG the monitor the electrical impulses in her brain before and during seizures, with and without medicine. They started her on phenobarbital, an anti-seizure medicine, at 5:30 and it has seemed to control them since then. As of 9:30, she had not had another seizure. Hopefully, we'll get similar news when we get back to the hospital tomorrow morning. Tomorrow she will have an MRI and some other tests run to continue the search for a cause, while remaining on the phenobarbital to control the seizures.
She has to be seizure-free for a certain number of days before she will be able to come home from NICU, depending on the severity of the next couple of days. We plan on being able to take her home next week with any luck.
Thank for keeping us in your prayers. We'll do our best to update the site with any new information.

Kamryn Jae Chauvette is here!

2008-04-30T23:50:00.004-05:00

Kamryn Jae joined our family at 4:22 pm, weighing in at a hefty 9 pounds 5 ounces and 21 and 1/2 inches long.
We are both doing great.
Here are some pictures from her first day.

We have a D-day!

2008-04-27T08:55:00.004-05:00

Oh yeah, I guess I forgot to mention the latest news... Sorry for the delay.
Had my latest appt on Thursday. Everything looked good. I was 2 cm dilated and 75% effaced. She asked what I wanted to do. I didn't know that I had options! She said we could wait and measure again at the next appt, go ahead and schedule an induction, or wait it out until the end. I asked her about pros/cons and her thoughts. She suggested an induction to avoid some of the drama we had getting Kenedy into the world. So, she offered Monday or Wednesday as days she would be at the hospital all day. (She only works half time these days, as she just had a baby in January.) She checked the hospital's schedule and said see you Wednesday.

So, if baby girl doesn't decide to make an appearance on her own schedule before then, she will definitely be joining us on Wednesday, April 30. We head into the hospital Wednesday at 7am, go into the ER and register, go up to the 2nd floor and then they'll hook me up to an IV, give me Pitocin, break my water, and go from there. It will be interesting to see how long this whole process lasts.

Look for another update next week... from baby girl Chauvette!

38 Weeks and Counting

2008-04-17T22:22:00.002-05:00

Just an update for those of you who are waiting this out with us....
My doctor asked us to schedule a sonogram for 38 weeks because baby has been measuring big for a while now. She was thinking that we may need to induce given our experience with Kenedy. We had the appt today and the sono tech said that baby is measuring about 7 lbs, 6oz, which is just right. Not too big, not too small. So, basically we are just going to be waiting this one out. No induction scheduled. Official due date is May 4, though no one seems to think I'll make it that long. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

We Have A Winner!

2008-04-15T21:56:00.002-05:00

Alright, looks like a pretty decisive victory in the finals of the baby name tournament. Camryn/Kamryn has pretty soundly defeated Kaelyn by a 25 to 9 margin.
Many are wondering if I am pleased with result... Well, yes and no. Yes, I like the name Kamryn, though I still am equally partial to a couple of others. However, I don't like the finality of it all. Even if we do decide to use the name, I probably won't make that decision until the last minute. I don't like to have everything decided up front. I like to have some uncertainty and options available. (Hence the fine print in the initial start up of the tournament.)
Thanks to everyone for playing along. It's been fun! If nothing else, it will make for a fun story to tell this baby girl.

Bluebonnet Pictures

2008-04-06T23:15:00.003-05:00

On the way home from Corpus this weekend, we stopped to take pictures in the bluebonnets. Here are some of the better shots. My favorites are towards the bottom.
Enjoy!

Weekend in Corpus

2008-04-06T22:56:00.006-05:00

Here are some pictures from our trip to Corpus Christi this weekend to visit Memere and Pepere. We went to the beach and played in the sand and the water. At the park, we looked at the ocean off of the pier. A coast guard helicopter showed up and landed in the park. Daddy, Pepere, and Kenedy went and checked it out...

The Finals of the Baby Name Tournament

2008-03-30T22:06:00.003-05:00

We're down to the final two! Looks like y'all are looking to keep the C/K sound for baby #2. The winner from the Cameron/Payton game was Cameron (likely to spelled Kamryn or Camryn). The Davidson of our tournament, 10-seed Kaelyn, advances from its game against Ainsley.

Let the final round begin! Polls close Sunday, April 13th @ 6pm.

Happy Voting!

Easter Pictures

2008-03-26T23:09:00.005-05:00

Here are some pictures of Easter. We took some pics outside the church since the scenery is so nice out there. When we got home, we found that the Easter bunny had visited while we were gone. Egg hunting was fun, though parts of the backyard we approaching jungle stages. Spent the evening with the Kirks and let the girls play. They always have so much fun together.

Misc. March Pictures

2008-03-25T22:44:00.006-05:00

Here are some misc. pics from March. They include spending time at the park with Kenedy's cousins the Luces, going to the Austin Zoo over spring break, washing the car with Janma, a visit from Memere and Pepere, and Kenedy and Sarah showing up in the same outfit in different colors (which they do surprisingly often)!
Enjoy!

Round 3: The Final Four!

2008-03-16T21:59:00.005-05:00

Here we are, down to the final four names in our baby name tourney!
In the previous round, the results were:
Cameron soundly winning over Dylan,
Payton easily securing its spot in the final four against Blakely,
Kaelyn narrowly defeating Skylar by one vote, and
Ainsley edging Tyler in another tight race.

The final four matchups are: Cameron squaring off against Payton and Kaelyn meeting up with Ainsley.

The polls will be open until March 30. Keep on voting!

Don't you just love March Madness!

Round 2 of Baby Name Tourney

2008-03-02T21:51:00.003-06:00

Alright, the polls closed this evening with Dylan, Kaelyn, and Tyler winning their respective games. Payton and Grace ended up tied w/ 15 votes each. Scott and I decided to make the call on this one and advanced Payton to the next round. The new games feature these winners against 4 names that got a bye in the first round. Here's the line up...
Dylan vs. Cameron
Payton vs. Blakely
Kaelyn vs. Skylar
Tyler vs. Ainsley

The polls are will be open in this round until March 16.

Thanks for playing!

Baby Name Tournament

2008-02-17T22:32:00.006-06:00

Alright, so I'm not in a big hurry to name this baby girl, but it seems others are. Scott and I have finally narrowed the field down to 12. Believe it or not, that has taken quite a bit of time. So I've devised a way to expedite the process. You guys know me. I'm a bit of a basketball nut. And being as it is February, tournament season is upon us. This is what got me thinking.

Here's what we are going to do. We are having a baby naming tournament and you guys are going to help play. I've created a bracket and seeded each of our top twelve baby names. (See your notification email for the actual bracket. I can't seem to figure out how to post the document here.) On the blog page, we are going to post surveys over to the left for each "game" that is being played. So each name is going head to head tournament style. I'll update the bracket and resend it if you are interested, or just keep checking back for a different survey/game between names. Each round of the tournament will last two weeks. By due date, we should have a name.

Now, obviously Scott and I will have the ultimate power over any game decisions, just like any set of game referees. Just know that upfront. Also, keep in mind that baby girl's middle name is likely to be Jae (don't ask why, this was a Scott thing). That may influence your decisions one way or another.

Hope you join in the fun!
Let the games begin!

Kenedy's Big Girl Room

2008-01-13T21:16:00.000-06:00

In preparation for the baby, we moved Kenedy into the office/guest room, so that she can have her own big girl room and bed. She is using the furniture from when I was little and we didn't paint the room or put anything on the walls yet. Janma has been wanting to buy her bedding since her birthday in July. Since we finally decided to move her into the room and bring in the twin bed, Janma finally got to get her the bedding. Kenedy thinks it is "beautiful," which is her favorite word these days. Thank you Janma!

Enjoy the pictures!

Kenedy's First Basketball Goal

2008-01-06T22:34:00.000-06:00

You had to know my girl would get one soon enough! Here she is the day after she got it. We'll have to work on the form some...

You'll have to turn your head to the side for the video. Ooops!

Reeves Christmas

2008-01-06T22:12:00.000-06:00

Here are pictures from Christmas Day at the Reeves Casa in Lubbock. Nathan got a pirate ship, but most of the day was spent playing with the Wii. Everyone got into it.

Christmas Breakfast

2008-01-03T21:45:00.000-06:00

Alright, so after opening Santa gifts, we get dressed and head to New Home, TX for Christmas breakfast with the Fillingim crew.

Christmas Morning - Santa Came!

2008-01-03T21:24:00.000-06:00

Okay, so we are Santa rookies... Scott and I did all of our gifts for Kenedy before we left for Lubbock, without thinking about Christmas morning. We figured she wouldn't really know one way or the other just yet. But we didn't think about Nathan! So, Scott had to go out and get an extra gift for Kenedy on Christmas Eve because Jason and Christi brought Santa gifts for Nathan and we didn't. The four-year-old would definitely get suspicious if Kenedy's gifts didn't show up and his did.

Audra helping open her Santa gift. (Can she recognize handwriting this early?)

Dad crawling out after putting together her Princess Tent.

Kenedy using her new tea set in her tent.

Nathan got Transformers.

And a Wii!

Christmas Eve Night

2008-01-03T21:01:00.000-06:00

After Plainview Christmas Eve, we headed back to Mom's house for that Christmas. Here are a few pictures.

Admiring their pile o' loot!

Opening a book from Audra.

Nathan's new Red Raider hat.

Lovely Aunt Audra.

An "ooohh" from Grandma.

Opening her Princess dress up clothes from Aunt Christie and Uncle Jason.

Trying on her Snow White outfit over the pajamas.

She got a new high chair for her baby dolls from Grandma and Grandpa.

Plainview Christmas

2008-01-02T23:38:00.001-06:00

Here are pictures of Christmas Eve in Plainview...

Holiday Birthdays

2008-01-02T23:26:00.000-06:00

Time to celebrate birthdays in the holiday season.... (after Amarillo Christmas)

Amarillo Christmas

2008-01-02T23:06:00.000-06:00

Sunday, Dec. 23 at the church rec hall.

Santa Pictures

2008-01-02T22:54:00.000-06:00

Dec. 21... Santa pictures at South Plains Mall.

Kenedy was all gung ho about seeing Santa that morning, so we went 15 minutes early to avoid the rush. Evidently Santa had a rough night and came in 30 minutes late. Patience was lost, quickly. When he finally showed up, she freaked out. But through her tears she sobbed, "Thank you for my presents," while I held her on his lap. Hope I haven't traumatized her!

Trail of Lights

2008-01-02T22:38:00.000-06:00

Pictures from the Trail of Lights in Austin on Dec. 16.

Christmas with Mommy and Daddy

2008-01-02T22:26:00.000-06:00

We did our family Christmas on Dec. 19. Here are a few pics...

What's in here?

Daddy got a new Cowboy's shirt.

Passing out presents. (No, I don't know where her pants were!)

Opening the present she's been loving on for so long.

Helping Daddy open Wylee's stocking.

Even Wylee got some Christmas treats!

Chauvette Christmas

2008-01-02T21:59:00.000-06:00

Here are some pics from Christmas with the Chauvette side of the family on Dec. 15...

She loves her play kitchen!

Pepere helping her with a new puzzle.

Feeding her horsey the pancakes she whipped up in her play kitchen!

Memere saying "Oooohhh!"

Pepere looking too cute!

Jamie opening a gift card...

Chad's piggy bank...

Daddy's new golf club...

Uncle Chad helping Kenedy get saddled up!

Playing piano with Pepere!

Chad wanted a ride, too!

Kenedy says, "Yeehaw!"

Santa's little helper!

20-Week Appointment and Sonogram

2007-12-14T14:24:00.000-06:00

We had our 20-week doctor's appointment and sonogram on Wednesday. It was d-day for deciding if we wanted to know the sex. In my indecisive mind, I had decided that I wanted to just have her write it down on a sheet of paper and then I could make the decision later.

This, however, was not to be. She told me that she couldn't do that for us. If we are going find out, she has to show us the proof of why they say it is a boy or a girl. If we leave with a piece of paper, we wouldn't have that proof shown to us.

She pretty much forced my hand. So, continuing to be indecisive, I told Scott that he had to make the decision. I figured it was fair, since I decided that we wouldn't find out with Kenedy.

He decided that we need to know, though his justification was pretty weak. He supposedly decided that we need to find out so that he could know whether he could get rid of all of Kenedy's old clothes. (Like those 3 or 4 boxes are taking up sooooo much room in the attic!)

Anyway, so now we know. Baby #2 is a girl. Man, you guys were off in your predictions!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2007-11-24T23:19:00.000-06:00

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We all have so much to be grateful for...

We spent ours in San Marcos with Scott's family. A large and loud affair, as usual.

Here are a couple of pictures of Kenedy. She had a blast spending time with her cousin Savannah.

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T22:45:00.001-05:00

Here are some pics of our first actual Halloween of "trick-or-treating." Kenedy was a fairy. If you know me at all, you'll know that this was NOT my idea. She would have nothing to do with any kind of animal or furry character costume this year. It was pretty much a fairy or a princess. I figured the fairy was the lesser of the two evils. : )

Enjoy the pictures and Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Patch

2007-10-30T22:16:00.001-05:00

So we finally made it to the pumpkin patch for pictures on Oct. 30. Nothing like waiting to the last minute. I suppose better late than never. : )
Kenedy was all over the place, as you would expect. She found a white pumpkin she loved, so Aunt Audra bought it for her. She was very excited!

Kenedy's New Shirt

2007-10-17T21:08:00.000-05:00

A week or so after our first appointment, I saw this shirt at Toys R Us while we were looking for a Halloween costume. I couldn't pass it up. Apparently, Kenedy likes bling...

8 Week Sono

2007-09-28T22:10:00.000-05:00

For those of you who didn't know, on Friday, Sept. 21, I had my 8 week sonogram. Everything looked good. Nice strong heartbeat. Due date: May 4

Giving it a whirl...

2007-09-28T22:07:00.000-05:00

Alright, Stephanie is apparently the blogging queen. Wendy is on board, and Angela was even posting photos on the 1st week the baby was born. Surely I can do this. Here are my first attempts.