Evan's First Thanksgiving

 The Park Vista in Gatlinburg has hosted our Thanksgiving lunch for the past 4 years. Once again, the food was great.  I had turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, ham, and three desserts: pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and strawberry cheesecake.  It was all very good!

 Evan slept through lunch, but we woke him up for some pictures.  They have great photo ops in and around the hotel.

 This one was a little crooked because I used the self timer on the camera and perched it on the stroller on a hill.  I think it turned out really good, though! The weather was just perfect. 

Helmet 1 Week Results

 Evan has done great with the helmet all week. His head no longer has the bumps on the sides that make his head look wide. The back is still flat. It's amazing how different it looks just after one week. We also had to decorate it to make it look more fun.  We went with GA Bulldogs theme.

This is Evan during his hour break of not wearing the helmet.  He wears it 23 hours a day.

 Here's the back of his head after one week.

 And here is the front of his head after one week. 

He goes back to the doctor today to get it adjusted, then will go back every two weeks.

Helmet

When Evan was born, I thought he had the most perfectly shaped head.  He came out so fast that he didn't have the cone head that many babies get after a long birth. Isn't he precious in this picture?  This was taken by Vince during one of Evan's first days at home from the hospital.

This past August, we took Evan to the Biltmore.  He still has a nicely shaped head in this picture.  And his hair grows half an inch every day.

Evan is such a great sleeper, that he sleeps soundly on his back without moving much for about 10 straight hours.  This is great for mom & dad, but hasn't been so great on Evan's head.  Just in the last few months, he has really started getting a flat head in the back (called "brachycephaly").  He doesn't like to stay on his tummy so repositioning hasn't helped much either.  We have tried the Bumbo, Jump-a-roo, Tumzee, and more. Here are the different angles of Evan's head so you can see how the sides are growing out, but the back of his skull is not. 

And just so you know, it was very difficult getting pictures of Evan when he isn't trying to look directly at me or the camera. Evan's physical therapist measured Evan's head a few weeks ago and recommended we go for a consultation at the Orthopedic Services office. After looking at the scans and seeing how his head was shaping up, we decided to go ahead and get Evan a helmet. It's technically called a StarBand orthopedic medical device. This will help Evan's head grow more rounded. Currently, when Evan's brain grows, it is growing out to the sides making his head appear wide. The helmet will allow the space on the back of his head some room so when his brain grows, it allows the head to have a better shape.  

This is Evan in the scaner machine.  He had to wear a scarf type thing on his head since he has a lot of hair.

I'm amazed at the technology they have these days to help children. Evan will wear the helmet 23 hours a day for 12 to 14 weeks. This is Evan getting fitted for his helmet for the first time yesterday.

 He kept poking it with his thumb, but it didn't bother him at all. 

Yesterday he wore it for one hour on, then one hour off, then one hour on, etc.  Today he will wear it for two hours on, then one hour off, repeating.  Tomorrow he will wear it for four hours on, one hour off, repeating.  Then the fourth day he will wear it eight hours on, then one hour off, repeating.  On the fifth day, he will be at 23 hours on, one hour off, including nights & naps.

And yes, he gets sweaty in it!  They say he will adjust and not sweat as much after a few days. We also have some decorating to do in order for the helmet to look super cool. 

Evan 8 Months Old

My little baby is growing up too fast.  He is up to 14 pounds now and wears size 2 diapers, and 6 - 9 month clothing. I made some turkey cake pops to honor his 8 month old birthday. His Uncle Billy & Uncle Eddie got him a Ralph Lauren outfit that he sported for part of the day.

 To celebrate, my parents were in for the weekend so we took Evan to Waffle House. He enjoyed his first visit there.

That afternoon, Vince & I took Evan to the Biltmore House.  He enjoyed the tour of the house and talked to the people & Christmas decorations.

• 
  At 8 months old, Evan can sit up for a couple of minutes before he hurls himself backwards.  He still needs support so he doesn't hurt himself.  He is also working on rolling over from his back.  He can twist his whole body around but is too stubborn to flip all the way over.
• He eats oatmeal and stage 1 fruit mid-morning.  He eats rice and stage 1 veggie for dinner.  He drinks about 5 bottles a day.  He likes all food and is a really good eater.
• He makes lots of different sounds now like da da, ba ba, la la, ma ma. He can also make little noises with his mouth like he's doing a kiss and he sounds like the mandrake plant from the Harry Potter movie. 
• He likes to pat everything now in tempo. I think he learned that from me burping him to the ABCs. He will pat his toys, your hand, your back, etc. 
• He has been pulling string toys for a couple of months now. 
• He grabs his bottle to pull it towards him, but he doesn't like to hold it himself. We also tried drinking out of a sippy cup this weekend & he did okay.  He wanted to chew it more than suck on it.
• He can play peek-a-boo and take a lovee off of his own face to play the game.
• He loves to stand, but likes to buckle his knees quickly, and then wants to stand immediately again.
• He can pull his socks off and put them in his mouth in record time.

He is really getting a great personality and smiles at everyone.  He's a happy, fun baby.We are so thankful for him!

Evan's First Halloween

Evan started Halloween early today by dressing up in his costume before I left for work.  He has P.T. once a week so his therapist came dressed up as well.  She was a cave woman & Evan wore his itsy bitsy spider costume. He also posed with his favorite day care workers (Vince's parents).

 After Vince got home, we dressed Evan back up in his costume, grabbed his pumpkin, and went to the neighbors right around our house that had their light on.  Evan rode in his stroller.

 After about 6 houses, Evan was asleep.  It was cold outside, but his costume kept him warm enough to not care about sleeping in cold weather.

 Here's the loot he got from our neighbors.  Vince had most of it eaten by 9pm.

 All tuckered out.

Happy Halloween!

Cabinets

This past weekend I decided to try and refinish the bathroom cabinets in the guest bathroom. I saw a kit at Lowe's that looked very promising.  It had 4 steps to it and although there was a lot of waiting time in between, the steps themselves were fairly simple.  My house had the builder's grade natural oak cabinets installed with gold accents knobs. I forgot to snap a before picture of them, but here's one of my master bathroom cabinets that look just the same.

The first step was to clean the surface, then the second step was to apply a base coat.  This is where the color doesn't exactly match with what's on the box. Next time I will go much darker.  I wanted closer to a dark cherry color, but this is kind of a medium brown color.

 The third step was applying the glaze to give it the grainy wood look and to darken it up some.  It looked good, but not as dark as I was hoping.

And the result is not too bad.  I added new hardware to give them an updated look. 

I'm not sure I would do this to all my kitchen cabinets, but I may get the base color tinted darker and try it out on my master bathroom cabinets.