Evan's First Trip to Ellijay

On Saturday, we traveled to Ellijay, GA to hang out in the mountains at Barbara & Jerry's house.  It rained the entire time there.  However, it was nice to get away and see all the things turning green.  The drive was very pretty despite the rain. Evan had fun playing in the house.

 Evan liked playing with both dog toys at the same time.

 Evan really likes watches, just like his daddy.

 Evan got lots of reading time in.

Marie & Bobby came up on Saturday to visit with us during the day. 

On Sunday, we enjoyed lunch at the local R & A Orchard house.  I had some yummy chicken & dumplings.  And we enjoyed a fried pie!  We saw the local wild life going up the mountain.

Evan is such a good car rider.  He was great coming & going.

He fell asleep playing with Scout.

He decided Sophie the giraffe should ride on his head for a while.

And he finally cut teeth 4 and 5 in the top middle.

It will be nice to get back to the mountains in the warmer weather.

Evan's Sleep Study Results

We met with Dr. Shippey last week to discuss Evan's results from his sleep study.  The findings were very specific.  Evan has "moderate sleep apnea."  This means that he does stop breathing more often than most babies, but he's not in the danger zone of critical babies.  He's just in the middle.  Since he was developing allergies to all the pollen at the same time as the sleep study, we think that may have affected the numbers some.  He is not as congested as he was at that time.  We have decided to treat him with Zyrtec to help him breathe a little easier during this pollen season.  He will go back to the doctor for a follow up in 6 months. 

Overall, his numbers looked pretty good.  His longest time without taking a breath was 12 seconds.  His average number of times he paused in breathing was 9 times per hour.  Most babies average about once per hour. So we will just monitor his progress with over-the-counter remedies and see how he does.  Luckily, he still sleeps from about 9pm to 7am with no problem!

Vince's Birthday

For Vince's birthday this year, we spent a lot of family time together.  On Friday night, Evan spent the night with Barbara & Jerry so I could get some cakes done (I had 6 that weekend!)  Vince wanted to do a brunch for his birthday this year, so on Saturday morning, Jerry, Barbara, Vince, Evan & I went to the Lazy Goat in Greenville.  It was interesting food.  I didn't know what half the items on the menu were, but what I ordered was really good.  We then decided to go to the zoo since the sun was out and it was a pretty day.  We took Evan to his first official zoo in Greenville.  He was asleep the first 15 minutes, but woke up and enjoyed looking at all sorts of people and animals.  For dinner, we ate Italian at a place in Simpsonville. 

We had a nice birthday weekend!

Walnut Grove and Horses

Elise was visiting Grandmama this week here in Spartanburg during her spring break.  Elise had a horse riding lesson planned for every day (with one rain day exception).  Evan and I got to go see her practice on Saturday, but first we took her to see Walnut Grove Plantation.  Walnut Grove was hosting a Colonial Grossology day. 
Evan hanging out with lady cooking pig's ear.  Elise tried a sip but said it was too vinegar-spiced for her taste.

 We watched the guy defrost an animal by the fire so he could skin it later.

 Elise watched the blacksmith work on a fork.

 After the house tour, we walked around the other buildings.

We all got an interesting medical lesson about medicine practiced in the 1700s.  He taught us about enemas, blood letting, and more.

 

Elise then went to her final horse lesson of the week.  Grandmama, Evan & I waited in the car for her. Evan kept Grandmama very entertained in the car.

 

 Elise trained on a horse named Savannah.  She had a great time learning about horses.


Evan even got to ride on Flash, the fake horse.

 

Evan's Sleep Study

I had heard of sleep studies, but did not realize all the wires and monitoring (and waking up) that goes into a sleep study.  Evan snores in his sleep sometimes, usually when in his car seat.  So his pediatrician had referred him to the pediatric sleep study doctor about 6 months ago.  It takes a while to get seen because he was the only one in the state and there is a long waiting list.  Luckily, a new doctor just joined his practice so hopefully things will speed up for us from here on out.  We went two weeks ago to see the doctor at the Greenville Children's Hospital. He told us what to expect and told us there was a 3 month wait to get into one of the sleep study beds.  They also did some measurements on Evan:
16.3 pounds
28 inches long
123 heart rate
71/47 blood pressure
98 - 100% oxygen level

We were put on the emergency call list in case anyone canceled.  And lucky for us, within a week, we were in! 

Evan and I arrived at the hospital by 8pm.  I had no time to unpack and hardly any time to give Evan a bottle before they wanted him wired up and sleeping.  I wish I had gotten there at 7pm if they were going to rush us so much to get in bed.  Evan got his p.j.s on and I fed him his last bottle.  (I had no time to get me ready for bed or anything else.)  I did get a couple shots of him checking out his temporary crib.

We sat Evan on the crib and I tried to entertain him while she spent 45 minutes connecting loads of wires to his body.  He was most entertained by her measuring tape and name badge.  He never tried to pull any of the wires off, which completely floored me. He constantly tries to take off hats, clothes, or more.  He usually pulls any little string or thread he sees.  So it really surprised me that he just let her attach all these wires without trying to get them off. 

I held him hovering over the crib to put him to sleep.  It was not a comfortable position for me.  After getting him settled and asleep, I was able to go unpack my things and get ready for bed. I did not get a good picture of the wires as he went to sleep because it was too dark in the room. The nurse came in every so often to check his wires and reattach any that were removed when he rolled over. 

I kept hearing the 3 year old next door yelling and the code blue announcements in the hall.  The room was insulated well from noise, but I could still hear the louder noises.  Since I was attuned to each time Evan moved or breathed funny, I did not sleep well at all.  I think the only time I slept was from around 2am to 4am. 

At 5:15am, I was wide awake so I got up and got ready.  At 5:50am, the nurse came in and woke up Evan. He did NOT want to get up that early.  It took about 15 minutes to get all the wires off of him. 

I put him into his car seat and he fell asleep in the car on the way to Granny & Papa Jerry's house.  They fed him his first bottle when he woke up later.

We find out the results next week.  We're hoping he just has a slight snore, but will not need tonsils or adenoids removed.

Easter 2013

Evan celebrated his second Easter this year.  He participated in his first ever Easter Egg hunt at the church on Saturday.  Elise helped him find some eggs.

 He used the Easter basket that Aunt DeLeigh got him last year.

 Grayson had a good time hunting eggs with his age group. They were finished in no time and both boys had some great loot!

 We decided to let the kids dye eggs at my house...with glitter.

 The eggs and my carpet turned out really glittery.

 The kids had fun doing the eggs.

 Evan woke up to his first Easter basket at our house.

 Of course his eyes found the Mickey Mouse cup first and kept going back to it.

 We went to church for the 9:30 service and ordered Wade's to fix really good food at mom & dad's home in Spartanburg.

 Look what he found hidden his his play crib!

 His second Easter basket was at Grandmama & Papa's house.

 And Granny & Papa Jerry brought him his third Easter treat.

It was great spending Easter with family.