What a cutie patootie!!

This little boy always has his eyes wide open!!

 

 

I'm totally in love with his little smiles!!

A brain brain brain

We went in to get my MRI today.  The surgeon was awfully glad to see what improvements there are.  We'll go in again in December to see how it's doing. 

Apparently he says that he removed it all, but there is still a little left.  But it looks as though what's left is getting smaller and smaller.  Maybe that will mean it will be gone in December!

(Oh and they appreciated the boxes of donuts that we left with them.)

Yo ho ho!

Ahoy ye maties!  We've come to this place to get us some booty!

 

(And we left with 3 boxes of Krispy Kremes!!)

 

How awesome it is to dress me little ones up!

(That's right this is the 2nd time since he was a newbie and we haven't even hit Halloween!)

 

And hows me folks from far off?

That's right! There's me dad.

 

And there's me mom.

 

Living in far off places but feeling the luv! 

Pics

I'm home, I'm home

I came home yesterday. 

It seems like the tumor is out!! 

I have a hard time speaking - so this will be short.

Thank you thank you thank you for your prayers. 

Amazing!

Susan is amazing. You'd barely know she had surgery.  She's recovering now after the 6 hour operation.

Susans All Finished

Just spoke with Dr Micnkey and he said she is doing well.  I'm going up to her room to see my sweet wife.  Thanks for everyone's support.

Susan's in Surgery

I would have posted sooner,but i had computer problems.  We got here at 5:30 nd she went into the operating room at a little after 7.  She is supposed to be out at 1.  I haven't heard anything else yet.

Brain stuff

My brain surgery is scheduled for July 23rd.  Just one week away. 

Man, I'm really looking forward to getting rid of these headaches!!

Who LOVES Cow Appreciation Day?!

And who LOVES Cow Appreciation Day costume contests?!  And who is the mom of North Richland Hills Cow Appreciation Day's Cutest Calf?! 

How could my life get any better than having my 1 month old be a part of this fantastic part of my life? 

The category was Best Calf - anyone 5 and under.  The prize was a year's worth of Chick-fil-a meals (which translates into 52 free chicken sandwich meals).  Man, this gets me excited about Halloween!!

What an udderly adorable little boy!

Can you believe I do this?!

With the Mayor of NRH.

Loving his prize

Eating his prize

Our happy cow group

About time

Should have been posting these all along.  But I guess better late then never...

This my favorite one. 

He totally does the wide eyes thing in most of the pictures.

These are older ones.

Little Zacky

The cutest little baby that I have ever seen!

I've been so tired and so "new mom" and so brain suregery patienty that I haven't been able to do much blogging.  I'm still not sure about the brain surgery.  We talked about doing a shunt this week but I'm thinking (due to my own decision) that may not happen.  I think I may try to wait again. 

Sigh.

Being Zack's mom really is the coolest thing ever.  I could never have expected it to be so awesome!  I'm so grateful for the opportunity!

Zack Attack!

We welcomed Zack into the world at 10:14 this morning at Baylor Grapevine.  Susan is doing well and the operation went great.  Zack is 7lbs 1 oz and they haven't measure him yet.  We'd like only family to come on Sunday and friends can come on Monday and Tuesday.  There are no visitors from 2-4 because this is designated mom/baby/dad time.  He is a handsome little man.  I'm a very excited father and Susan is a very excited mother.

Last day of pregnancy

Today is my last day of being pregnant with Zack.  How dang cool is that?  We'll have him here before lunch is served tomorrow.  I'm more excited than I can express in words.

Hooray for Zack!

How to even title this

I'm feeling a little bit sad today.  (I know that as a pregnant woman strong emotions come with the territory, but this is different.)

I went and got an mri yesterday.  The cyst has regained some of it growth.  It's about 30 mm by 30 mm.  The neurosurgeron reccomends a c section at least a week ahead of ahead of schedule.  And I can't drive anymore.  (The right hand side of my body is shutting down.  My reflexes aren't working to where they should be.  It's actually pretty weird to know what your body is supposed to be doing and not getting your body to react the way it's supposed to.  And that side of my body is numb and has a burning sensation - annoying!)

I feel a little sad because I lose some of my freedom.  I hate having to rely on someone else to get places.  And I can't drive again until I get the okay AFTER my brain surgery.

I feel a little sad because I thought maybe we could hold off a while on the surgery and I could just be Zack's mom for a while.

I feel a little sad because I have to have brain surgery again.  :P  (Even though I already knew it, it still stinks!)

I feel a little sad because I will most likely be healing from being pregnant while I have to have brain surgery.  I really thought that I'd have time to heal from one before I had to do the other.  And I can just imagine having nurses have to pump evey 3 hours during the surgery.  Oh that sounds like fun.

BUT on the other side of things...  I get to work full-time from home - that's kinda cool.  I do know that Heavenly Father is watching out for me.  He's let me make it through an entire pregnancy without having a surgery.  He's letting me be a mom. 

Maybe I'm supposed have them close to the same time for some reason.  I guess that's one of those times that I have to let the faith take over, huh?

I have to remember what my very own grandma has posted at her house - I can do hard things.  Just writing that makes me cry because I don't want to do hard things right now.  (Wah wah wah - get over yourself Susan!  Hard things are how we get anywhere in this life.)  :)

The most amazing weekend ever!

I only have a couple minutes to write but I just have to say that this weekend has been awesome! 

Saturday I had the coolest baby shower (54 people came!) where I felt SOOOOOOO loved.  (I will write more when Melanie sends me the pics she took.  I could write for like 3 weeks about the amazing people who came.)

Sunday was Mother's Day.  The 2nd Mother's Day I haven't hated in a lot of years.  Something about my brain surgery changed things for me.  And this year I AM a mother.  Freakin cool!

Today is my birthday - the super nice things that people write on Facebook or send me in emails at work or send in texts just astound me.  And it's just awesome how many phone calls I've received from my family singing today!

And I get ANOTHER baby shower from my work family on Wednesday. 

I'm overwhelmed with how many people love me.  Just overwhelmed.  I feel like Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life who gets to realize how many people love him without going through the changes!

Ah, It IS a Wonderful Life!

Getting a little baby crazy

25 weeks pregnant - I look pretty tired but it must have just been the night.  :) 

It's been a very exciting week.  Zacky measures a little big - he's measuring 26 weeks.  I love that he can be cute before he's even here.  It's so neat looking at the sonogram.  I got to watch him suck on his hand and yawn and just look cute.

I also made my first baby purchase this week - a changing table!  I found it on Craigslist.  I'm pretty dang excited about it!  It fits right up to a corner.  I think it will be pretty neat.

And I've made a decision on how to decorate our nursery - no more monkeys jumping on the bed!!  And Ace Hardware has this deal this month where you can get free quarts of paint.  When you have siblings and friends who are willing to help a sista out, you can get over $200 of paint for the price of gas to get you there!  (And we are not even done yet -- I've got 6 more quarts coming tomorrow!)

Yes, I am definitely a little excited about baby right now.  Hooray for baby Zack.



Innovation Unleashed

At work we had this event called Innovation Unleashed.  We took pictures symbolizing what it means to bring your whole self to work.  These are my photos.

Halloween 2011

I was just looking through my blog and realized that I never posted pictures of Halloween last year.  So here ya go!

My favorite was when one of my co-workers said, "Oh, Fiddler on the Roof!  I just watched that the other day!"  She felt kinda silly when I said, "We're supposed to be Mary Poppins and Burt."  I really wish I had gotten a picture of the umbrella head that I sculpted out of clay and painted green.  I would go take a pic now but it broke!  :(  I posted these on facebook and it asked if I wanted to label Jesus' picture.  I was tempted but it seemed a little irreverant to me.  Some folks in my ward took another really cool picture and gave it to me but I can't get it to scan.  I'll have to email her and ask for it electronically.

Not bad if I do say so myself.

Bring you up to date

I haven't posted in a little over a month.  Not that there hasn't been reason to post but really more because there's been too much to post.   (Does that even make sense?!  No, not really.)

I've been to see Dr. Mickey (my amazing neurosurgeon) and whilst the radiation seems to have worked on the tumor.  (It may have even shrunk it a little.)  Radiation works very differently on cysts.  (Like not really at all.)  I have a cyst that keeps on growing.  So. Dang. Annoying!  Now I've known since the last surgery that I would have to have another surgery.  No, the doctors didn't tell me this.  I just knew.  You know, like the Lord prepares you for these things.  In fact, before we went in for the MRI Richard and I talked about it and how I might have to be operated on whilst pregnant.  And for the record, just because the Lord "prepares" you for these things, doesn't mean you have to be excited about these things - cuz I wasn't.  In fact, I shed some tears and it may or may not have been related to the pregnancy...  (as a side note, it's kinda fun deciding what I'm going to blame the next thing on.  Is it because I'm pregnant or because I have a brain tumor...?  Hmmmm....  Maybe both?) 

Super long story short - we are now waiting for Zack to get here and for the cyst to get as big as I possibly can stand.  Dr. Mickey is thinking 3 months after Zack gets here.  I had a really hard time with this at first.  I really wanted it to happen before Zack gets here.  Cuz how lame is it to be a new mom AND a brain surgery patient.  I've been waiting to be a mom for a very long time, dang it!  But I have since found some inner peace and I'm willing to do what Dr. Mickey thinks is best.  Cuz he's amazing.  The one thing that really helped me is that I know without any doubt that I will be alright after the surgery, but I didn't so much know how Zack would get through.  So now I don't have to worry about that.  Zack won't have to go through it.  I'm just going to have to figure out how to be a new mom and a brain surgery patient at the same time.  (Actually, that will be something crazy to tell him about later in life.)

Now on to being pregnant...  I'm 21 weeks along and I look pregnant to me.  Not really to anybody else except Richard.  I totally hate that you can't tell yet.  I think I might possibly be feeling little Zacky moving around.  I started feeling movement Wednesday night after I told the OB that I really wasn't feeling anything.  I know I've said it before but if you've been through childbirth and don't believe in miracles there is something wrong with you.  To have someone growing inside you for 9 months and the changes your body goes through to facilitate it -- wow, definitely miraculous. 

Oh!  Super cool news in our lives - Richard got a promotion!  He's now the Commercial manager of store 1547.  He has a set schedule and doesn't have to work Sundays!  He also got a raise and the opportunity to get overtime every week.  What a blessing!  Only week 2 and he's already doing a great job despite all the challenges of a new location and new clients and everything!!

Okay, my lunch hour is over so that does it for today.  I'll try to be better about posting more frequently in the future.  Maybe next time it'll be a picture of me not-looking-so-pregnant.

Yay!

We are having a boy!!!

Soooooooo dang excited!  The specialist said he looks healthy and everything.  I just can't stop smiling. 

Hormonal much?

Brad just moved out.  And I'm really really sad about it.  I think it's the right thing, but I'm really really gonna miss him.  I'm gonna miss talking to him and teasing with him and listening to new music with him and listening to him playing his guitar and having him and Richard be dumb together and hearing about his girl troubles and having him give me hugs when I'm down and just having him be here.

I'm so grateful that I got to actually be friends with him (not just siblings). 

I love you Brad. 

And now I'm gonna go try to make dinner and hopefully the tears will quit streaming down my face long enough to do it. 

Christmas and other sundry items

I had a very nice Christmas.  Lots of family time.  And I got the neatest gift from my honey.

I collect nativities.  He made this one for me.  They are spark plugs.  In fact, baby Jesus was made out of a Champion spark plug.  Richard had to learn how to weld and everything.  The gift was perfect. 

This week we might get to find out the gender of our baby.  How stinking cool is that?! 

I really wish I didn't hate eating so much.  Especially whilst I am preggers.  I don't eat enough and I get soooo dang nauesated.  Nothing sounds good to eat.  Seriously hate it.

I feel inundated (is that the right word?) with dr appts.  This week the perinatalogist, next week the OB, and the week after that the brain doctor.  Really?!  Good grief.  Oh well, it could be so much worse. 

I can't think of anything else to post.  I thought I had a bunch more but I guess not.  Better luck next time.