new snow pictures!!

I can't believe how much sleet/ice/snow we got thursday and Friday. We had fun being snowed in and Saturday we finally got out and played in it a little. I think we got about half inch of ice and sleet mix with about 6 inches of snow on top of that!! most we've gotten in a while, and a lot of fun.

Max's fake cough

Max has a fake cough. He thinks it is so funny. Anytime someone coughs he thinks he needs to do his little fake cough. We thought we'd show you a little what we mean.

Max goes sledding

Max pushes this toy basket across the room, over and over again!

Max is turning 1!!!

So we decided to be a little productive on our weekend snowed in and get started on Max's invitations. We thought we'd try to personalize them a little and take a cute picture to put inside the invitation. Haven't decided which one to use yet, but we thought these were a couple cute ones.

First pics of snow

This is our house around noon on Friday. The begining of the winter storm. This is the sleet and the ice. Next comes the snow - pictures to come. Hoping for a lot!!! Max wants to go sledding!!

Auntie Bre

Thanks Bre for the visit! Bre came over the other night since she came to visit me in the hospital and the entire time I was getting all sorts of tests run, that was a long night. Thanks for the home visit Bre - sorry I missed you in the hospital! Good times with Mike though! Max enjoyed the visit as well as you can see.

Max carries his balloons

Sabrina and the Coberly's both gave me balloons while I was in the hospital (Thank you!). Not only did I enjoy them in the hospital but Max absolutely loved them. He felt the need to carry them all around the house. Here is a video as an example. so cute

Super Max

Funny glasses

So I bought these glasses, I think about 10 years ago, if not longer. I've been saving them, not sure why, but they are jsut so unique and funny. They always make people laugh. I think I wore them for halloween once when I didn't want to wear a costume somewhere. I finally found a good reason why I have kept them all these years. Max thinks they are halarious. We had him laughing so hard the other night with these. We took some pictures, if you can't tell he was just smiling so big and having fun watching mommy and daddy put on the glasses too.

playtime with Daddy

counting my blessings

I decided to write a blog about my last week of events to catch everyone up to speed. It all started a week ago Monday. I came home from work with chest pains. The pains weren't constant, only when I took a deep breath, but they were happening every time I took a deep breath. I went to bed early Monday night hoping a good night sleep was all I needed. I thought maybe I was coming down with a bad chest cold? Tuesday morning I woke up and the first breath I took hurt, I knew this wasn't a good sign. I also had pain along my right side. I told Mike something wasn't right. I went to work and brainstormed all day at what it might be. Sunday afternoon we cleaned out the attic, did I pull something? Monday afternoon I came home during lunch and vaccuumed the entire house - did I strain a muscle? I couldn't figure it out. Tuesday night it did not get better, only worse, and we decided I would go see the doctor in the morning. Wednesday morning, no improvement, I asked my boss to work through lunch and go to the doctor at 1:30. My doctor was not in but a nurse practioner could see me, I went because I knew what was happening was not right, becuase it is not easy for me to go to the doctor, but I had not had a breath that didn't hurt since Monday afternoon, it just wasn't getting better. the nurse checked me out, and we didn't really come to a conclusion, but she finally said she thought it was pluracy - an inflamation around my lungs which was why I was having a hard time breathing. Than she said that I couldn't really take the medicines I needed to take to get rid of it because I was nursing, so to just try tylonal and ibprofen. I left a littel confused and stupid for going all the way to the doctor for them to tell me to take over teh counter medicines, mike was with me. I went back to work and took 4 ibprofen and 2 tylonal. That night the pain got even worse, and I was frustrated becuase I just didn't think that ibprofen was the answer. It definatley was not helping. I went to bed early, again, and called my parents and my inlaws who were nurses to get their opinions, and turned to the internet. Everyone was worried about blod clots becuase of my history, but I had already went to the doctor and they told me what to do. Thursday morning came, and I am thankful that my mom finally ended up calling the nurse at my doctor's office and asked her to have Dr. Schemel look over my paperwork from my appointment. He thought I might need to have a blood test done. Thursday afternoon I went to the hospital to have some labs, and again went back to work. Thursday night the pain was so bad, I couldn't not even pick up Max, it honestly felt like I got hit by a bus. MIke was worried, we almost went to the emergency room, but I ended up taking some pain pills I found from my c-section in february, and finally got to sleep, somehow. Friday morning was tough, I wasn't sure if I could make it to work, but somehow did. Finally, after I returned from lunch, my doctor called me and told me my blood work came back abnormal and he would prefer me to have a ct scan. I went around 3:30 to have the test ran, and mike came down from Bentonville. AFter we got done, it was around 5. I go the ok not to head back to work, so MIke and I headed out to Sonora to pick up Max. We didn't even make it 10 minutes down the road and I got the phone call from my doctor. He said, "Ashley, it's not good news". He told me to turn the car around and head to the emergency room. He said the test showed blood clots in both of my lungs, that I needed to be admitted to the hospital as soon as possible, and that we were lucky we found the clots in time. Me and Mike couldn't believe it, and honestly the news never really sunk in. We called everyone we could on the way to the hospital, and got checked in. They started me on an IV Heprin Drip, Saline/Potassium Drip, a heart monitor, and oxygen. I also took some additional tests a doplar on both of my legs and pelvic area, and chest x-rays. The Doctor than delivered more bad news, I needed to stop nursing because of all of the medicine I was going to be on, etc. I said, what?. we hadn't prepared, I was not ready, I didn't know that last time I nursed max was my last time, and max wasn't even going to be with me, but we knew what we had to do, and began the process than and there. Between just being completely worn out from not being able to breath all week, all of the stress, being emotionally drained, not to mention the blood clots in the lungs, for me to get to sleep that night it took 2 hydrocodone pills, than an extremely high dose of morphine ( the nurse said they never give that much of a dose at that hospital) and than 2 more hydocodone pills. It was a difficult night, but Mike stayed right by me the whole night, and thankfully my parents took care of Max for us. I stayed in the hospital through today, tuesday to give the heperin enough time to disolve my clots and thin out my blood. Thank you to everyone for the phone calls, emails, facebook posts, cards, flowers, candy, and visits to the hospital. It did really help cheer me up and keep me in a surprisingly good mood given the situation. I have to stay at home this week and rest and have Mike continue to give me 2 shots a day to continue to thin out my blood. thursday I will go back for a check up, and every week after that. On FEburary 26th I go back for a complete exam to make sure everything is ok.

I still can't believe everything that has happened. I am so thankful Mike and my family were so persistant on getting answers and getting me help. I guess sometimes it's just hard to admit when you really think something is wrong and after the first doctor's appointment it was even harder to go back a 2nd time. I am very thankful for Dr. Schemel following his gut instinct and ordering me the ct scan on Friday. I am just so thankful for that. I consider myself very lucky that I went an entire week with blood clots in both of my lungs with nothing even more serious happening.

Thank you to everyone for everything. We are so incredibly thankful to be at home again as a family. Please continue to pray for me a healthy recovery, and for Mike as he does extra around the house and takes on the extra stress of helping and encouraging me, and Max as he gets used to a new routine.

Max's new pedipeds!!!

Thank you Mimi, we love them!!!



-- Post From Ashley

Max's first birthday party planned

Well it took us a little while to come up with a theme but we decided on a Finding Nemo theme! We thought that would be cute and fun for a first birthday party. I can't believe he is 11 months today!!! His part is set for The Saturday after his birthday on February 20th... Looking forward to it!!! These are pictures of Max opening up his party supplies when it came in the mail the other day.











-- Post From Ashley

Max has a visitor

Brecken came and visited us last night. Brian and Lindsey Davis' daughter... We babysat her for little while. So we had a 8 month old and an 11 month old at the same time...like twins!!! They both had a blast though and went down very easy....Had a lot of fun, she sure is a cutie!

Bath time at 11 months

We hadn't posted any bathtime pictures in a while, so I thought I'd do that. This is Max playing in the bath...11 months old now! He loves bathtime. It is definately a treat for him. He has so much fun splashing around. He'd stay in there all night if we let him. He has even started playing with his basketball net. I love seeing him in the bath, his little rolls are so cute!

oh the things that change

Oh the things that change when you have a baby....for example...how you read your Sunday morning paper.

Super hula hoop

So if you ever hear me and mike talk about our super hula hoop...we are refering to the wi fit! Since we have an 11 month old, we can't exactly join a gym or take a run outside during winter...so we have started back up on the wi fit. It's fun, Max loves to watch, and we never have to leave our home...and hey we can even do it in our pj's...haha...we love it...and hey...me and mike both still have some baby weight to lose. Here's to a healthy 2010!!!

Max goes sledding

Max goes sledding

Well we thought with all of the snow - we might as well take advantage of it so we took Max sledding! He had so much fun. We even bought him a new sledding tube.

Snow, Snow, and more Snow

I couldn't believe the snow and cold weather Northwest Arkansas got last week. Schools were out the entire week! Too bad that doesn't effect me...Me and Max had the icy commute out to Sonora in the mornings. One morning we never went over 20mph, slid everywhere, and the whole commute took me an hour and a half! Since I had to be at work by 7:30 everyday - or work through lunch and work late - I chose to be at work by 7:30 every morning. This meant me and Max got up 30 mintues early for the snowy commutes...So even though it was a very long week....we loved all of the snowy scenery. I took some pictures of all of the snow - this is last Saturday when we NEVER left the house all weekend except for church because of the weather. One thing you can't see in the pictures? The -2 temperatures it got down too. We ran our water and kept our house hot, so luckily our pipes never froze...unfortunately I can't say the same thing for my parents house - even though the took the same precautions we did (probably even better) they were not as lucky as us and did have their pipes freeze. Luckily everything is back to normal now and once the rain goes away today...we have sunny skies and 50 degree weather!!

Max gets stuck

We made Max's wagon into a little steelers mobile....he loved it...although right when I went to take a video of him he decides to get stuck, it was cute. I thought I'd post it for a laugh

Cheering the Steelers to Victory

So we cheered the Steelers onto victory...but unfortunately they did not make the playoffs, so we will not be having a Steelers Superbowl party this year...but hopefully Grandpa's Colts will make it and we can cheer on them. Luckily some thoughtful Grandpa out there gave Max some Colts apparel for Christmas, just in case. We won't show his Daddy. We did have a lot of fun watching the game. We all three had matching shirts all from Old Navy, we made a steelers mobile, and Max and Daddy played with their matching Steelers Terrible towels I got them for Christmas.