Crazy Ladies (And Connor) Trip Continued

We arrived in Harrisonburg in the afternoon on Friday.  Lillian was over at Myers' and Laura's friend's house and we were really happy to see her!  We were happy to see Myers the next morning too.  We arranged for Sarah to take Lillian to a birthday party while Connor napped and then we all got to go to the hospital!  We were worried about putting Connor in the car yet again, but he's always happy to watch his favorite movie, My Neighbor Totoro!  Lillian tried really hard to watch it too, but since her car seat is forward facing and Connor's is rear-facing, she had to crane her neck to see it!  It is about an hour and 15 minutes to the hospital, but unfortunately took us a bit longer since we got lost thanks to game day redirection of traffic.  We were glad when we finally got there to see our new nephew!

Arthur's hospital bed, exactly like Gwen's.

Aunt Sassy and her new nephew.

We were all tired, but so happy to be all together!  Sarah and I took turns holding Arthur and we all spent a lot of time trying to keep Connor from getting into everything.  He was a little wired.

While trying to look at a book on the computer, I was force fed a carrot.

Myers and 2 of his sweet children.

Best picture of Lillian.

Best picture without Lillian.

Sweet fairy.

Connor was not doing the best almost the whole time we were there.  It was really sad to me.  He was just tired and had been too many different places and seen too many different people.

You wouldn't be able to tell by this picture though.

Connor wasn't Myers' biggest fan.  I wasn't sure if it was that Myers was a tad too aggressive in the beginning, that he was a new person, or that he has a beard. He was warming up to him the last day we were there, which made me sad.  But Myers got to see Connor dance like a little maniac.

Connor trying to save Lillian from Myers.

We got to Skype with Patrick a couple times, and talked to him on the phone a couple times a day.

Skyping with Daddy, eating applesauce.

Connor ate a lot on this trip (comparatively) and he discovered something at Myers's and Laura's that he LOVED: fruit strips!  Next time I got to Target, I'm going to get him a lot of these.  He gobbled them up!

I have no idea how he balances.

After the first day of going to the hospital, I decided it probably wouldn't be a good idea for Connor to go back.  It was stressful for him to be in the car and to get to a place where he was constantly being corralled and called down.  So, after breakfast with Myers on Sunday, (see picture above) he, Sarah, and Lillian went to the hospital and Connor and I stayed at the house.

On Monday, we decided Lillian should go back to school and keep as much of a normal life as possible.  Myers dropped her off and headed to the hospital, and Sarah picked her up.  We all hung out until Connor's nap was over and then they played outside, despite the rain.

Making spice soup.

Some very nice people brought us dinners while we were there, which helped a lot in the stress and planning departments.  Connor got to try a lot of fun foods.

Connor eating dinner after a cousin bath.

It took Lillian a couple days to get used to Connor being there and playing with her toys, but onces she figured out how to play with him (mostly giving him something to distract him from the toys she didn't want him to play with) they were pretty happy.

Lillian building Connor towers to knock down.

Tuesday was really similar to Monday, except that one of my room mates from college, who lives a half hour from Myers and Laura, came over with her 4 year old daughter and hung out with me for a couple hours.  I'm sad I didn't take any pictures with you Jenny!

Wednesday morning we had to leave because Sarah had to work on Thursday.  We were both really sad and relieved to leave.  I was ready to get Connor to a place he would feel more comfortable, but I wish we could have spent a lot more time with both Parks and Myers.

Crazy Ladies (and Connor) Trip

When we found out when our nephew's due date was, Sarah and I started planning a crazy road trip to go visit both our brothers.  We knew it would be a ton of driving, but neither of us had to been to Parks' house for almost 3 years and I hadn't been to Myers' house for almost 4 years.  It's hard to live so far away from your family!

Because we weren't completely sure when Arthur was going to come, we planned to visit Myers and Laura second.  We started our trip on Tuesday night and drove about 6.5 hours until Sarah couldn't drive anymore.  We spent the night in a nice Best Western, and Connor actually made the transition from his restless sleep in the car to the sleep tent in the hotel room pretty well.  It was a shock for Sarah though, since she hadn't shared a room with a baby in a long time!

The next morning we had a nice breakfast at Cracker Barrel and drove the rest of the over 2 hours to Parks's and Liz's house in Wilmington, NC.  We got home while they were out and put Connor down for his nap right away.  He slept really well, and when he woke up, there were cousins!

Connor found a toy he was really into.

If only Connor's face was halfway decent.  Hey, I'll take what I can get.

Lily Kate loves Connor.

Wednesday night we decided to have a picnic dinner at the beach!  How great is that, to go to the beach at the end of September?  We all made sandwich and packed snacks.  The kids all had a blast with Aunt Sarah and she let Parks, Liz and I sit.  I didn't even have to go into the water!

Hadley, midstride.

Connor's ridiculous and cute get up.  He loved the shells.

These two spent a long time hanging out, getting fed snacks.
Connor dipped one chip, and his hand, into the salsa repeatedly.

On Thursday Parks took the day off and we went to the children's museum.  Since I have a membership to my local one, Sarah and I got in free.  Connor and Hadley spent a long time playing with cups while Charlotte when to cooking class.

Hey, try this!

Sweet daddy moment.

We hung out in the toddler room for a little while, which Connor and Hadley really liked.  Charlotte was very silly, as she always is.

Char-bear! 

Chill-axing.

After going the children's museum, we decided to try a restaurant that is owned by Keith Rhodes, who was a chef on one of Parks, Liz, and my favorite shows, Top Chef.  It was really good, but not very child friendly.  We got there before they opened, so we went to a cupcake place a block down and had dessert appetizers.  Those cupcakes were great!

Connor ate so much on this trip!  I knew it would happen because he gets too distracted to nurse and when we're out with other people, he get exposed to a lot of new foods, but he FINALLY started eating bananas!  I have to keep the peel on, but he likes them and that makes me happy.

He loves lounging.

It was nice to spend time with all our nieces, but we really spent the longest with Charlotte since Hadley naps and Lily Kate was in school.  She is so pretty and smart and wonderful.  All of my nieces are!

When Sarah, Connor, and I were in the middle of our trip, which was to be 3 days in Wilmington with Parks' family, and then up to Harrisonburg to spend 3 days with Myers' family, Myers called us to tell us the news about Arthur being in the hospital.  Because Myers needed us to help with Lillian, we drove to Harrisonburg on Friday instead of Saturday.  Let's just say that after 6 hours in the car on Tuesday, 2.5 on Wednesday, and almost 7 more on Friday, we were all heartily sick of the car!  We were so happy that we were in the position to help Myers and Laura when they needed some one there.  I'll post about the rest of our trip soon!

Arthur Kirkland Winship Carpenter

On September 24, Connor's first Carpenter boy cousin was born!  Sweet baby Arthur was born at 12:10.  He was 7 lbs, 9 oz, and a little bit more than 20 inches long.

Because of his family history of heart defects, and his older sister dying right before she turned 2 months old, Arthur's parents, Myers and Laura, had the nurses and doctors do a complete blood work up on him.  Unfortunately, it did not come out as we all would have liked.  His blood showed that he has almost no neutrophils, a white blood cell responsible for attacking bacteria.  This condition is called alloimmune neutropina.  The reason he doesn't have any white blood cells is that antibodies from Laura's body crossed the placenta and they are attacking the neutrophils.  Basically, he has no defense against any sort of bacterial infection.  They thought, okay fine, we'll just keep him at home and limit visitors for the first two months, at which point the antibodies should die off and his immune system would become normal.  Unfortunately, a couple days after being home, Arthur developed a bellybutton infection, which landed Laura and him in the hospital.

I'll write about our trip up there later, for for now, know that Arthur's infection is clearing up well, but his neutrophils are still horribly low, and treatment is getting complicated, mostly because of the lack of knowledge about this disorder.  It is very rare, and treatment of it is even more rare.

You can keep up with what's going on with Arthur on his blog, at arthurcarpenter.com.

Please pray for this family and all of us.  We all pray that this will be over in just a few weeks.

Please God, help Arthur's body to work correctly.  Help him fight off this infection, help his neutrophils to overcome the attack of the antibodies, and help the antibodies to die quickly and not reproduce.  Help Laura to take care of herself and both Laura and Myers to be strong, but also to grieve the loss of these first precious days of being a family under one roof, and all the knowledge this discovery of Arthur's condition is giving them into the death of our sweet Gwen.

After a long wait... some videos!

So it's been a long time since I have had a chance to get some videos up here.  I will try to add some more next week while Becca and Connor are out of town to go visit our new nephew, Secret Carpenter AKA Skipbo Carpenter (long story).

First up, a couple of videos from the Greenway:

Connor still calls swings, "Wee!"  Also, try to ignore my teleportation powers.

Connor loves the creek.  He'd spend hours there every single day if it was up to him!

Last time we (as in all three of us) were in Chattanooga, we bought Connor an Adirondack chair.  When I started putting it together, he came to help.  His methods involved attacking every hole with the screwdriver. It was pretty amazing!

I hope to work with you again soon, Connor!

BONUS VIDEO: This one is a bonus because I almost forgot to add it.

Backstory: Several months ago, Connor started pooping in the bath (which he never did when he was little for some reason).  So whenever I think I see him trying to poop in the bath, I'll wave my finger at him and say, "Don't poop!"  Almost always works.

Anyway, recently he started saying it back, complete with the finger shake!

Today I watched this video with Connor, and he made me replay it ten times for him.  He was laughing really hard at himself the whole time.

Parker and Porter (and Britni)

For a couple months now I've been having a group of ladies over to my house to hang out on Tuesday afternoons.  It's some stay-at-home wives and moms, chatting and entertaining our children together.  Because of me getting this group together, I've been able to spend a lot more time and organize more play dates with Britni and her two boys Parker and Porter.

Parker taught Connor how to climb on the water table.

Britni and I were room mates before we were married and Patrick was room mates with her husband Jerod.  They got married the weekend after us and we went on our honeymoons together.  Needless to say, we like them a lot!  It's awesome to have such a good friend with little boys close to his age.

My friend Holly and her daughter Jewel hanging out.

Three little blonde boys

We've done several things together recently, and one day we ended up spending almost the whole day together.  In the morning we went to the creek and then after Connor's nap we went to our local children's museum, Early Works.

Parker was inexplicably not into the water.

Our local cow celebrity (seriously), Lily Flagg.

Parker and Porter snuggling with me while we watched Totoro.

Porter just turned one!  His birthday is September 4th, exactly 4 months after Connor.  It's always amazing to realize what 4 months can mean developmentally at this age.  Britni throws amazing children's birthday parties; she really loves it!  Porter's party was circus themed!

In the baby's fenced in area.

Connor backing up his "clown car."

"How do I eat this cake Connor?"
"I have no idea, I've never had any before!"

Baby race!

With Dada on the bouncy house.
Britni's brother-in-law owns a rental company so they got it for free!
Connor had a blast on it.

Riding the unicycle with Jerod.

Last week, Patrick and Jerod both went on business trips at the same time to places it wasn't easy for we families to go along with them, so I planned a crazy one night trip to Chattanooga with Britni to stay with my mom and go to the aquarium and children's museum.  It was a lot of fun and only a little bit crazy.

Taking a bath at my mom's.

Thursday morning we got up and went to the best store ever, Southeastern Salvage, to get Parker and Porter adirondack chairs, just like Connor's.  Theirs are orange, for the TN Vols!  We even got to meet Sarah there and hang out with her for a little while.  After that, we went to the aquarium!  I love it there.  Parker had a lot of fun, and he especially liked the penguins.  Connor was kind of frustrated the whole time.  I'm not totally sure why, I think he just wasn't feeling it.

Porter loving the jellyfish.

The Wootens

After the aquarium we went back to my mom's for Connor's nap.  We had some delicious barbecue for lunch and I got us some fresh apple cider.  Yum!  After Connor got up, we went to Coolidge Park to meet my mom, Will, Henry, and Sarah.  Britni and I totally forgot about the fountain!  We thought the boys would immediately drench themselves, but they really didn't.  Connor actually just used his little finger to touch the water almost the whole time.

Happy Birthday Uncle Will!

Sweet hugging brothers.

Mr. Independent.

Future buddies.

Today I met Britni and the boys at a park near their house.  It was really pleasant weather and the boys had a lot of fun.

Connor and Parker both stuck their heads through the net.
Shortly after this picture, Porter also stuck his head in the net
while he was trapped, got bitten a ton of times by some ants!
We were freaked out, but the bites faded in a half hour.

Cute smiles.

In Which I Actually Update

You may wonder, as I do, why I haven't updated the blog in such a long time.  It's just one of those things that you don't want to do until you're doing it and you realize you can share all those awesome things going on in your life, even if they will probably sound tedious to someone else.  Ahem.

So of course since I'm updating for almost a month, it would be silly to do everything in one post.  For now I'll just cover what Connor has been up to around the house.

He's a great little boy.  He loves to go outside and just walk around, talking about things, picking up acorns, sticks, and rocks.  He loves the water and will play with it any chance he gets, including dumping out my whole water bottle onto the carpet.  We need to work on that.

He really enjoys watching TV.  Since I've been sick two times in the past month, I've been letting him watch a lot more than I like to.  It's really easy to just put on Totoro, lay on the couch, and let him watch it while I cat-nap.  We've just been listening to music the past couple days and he seems to like that just as well, and will actually play with his toys, which is great!

How I found him one day.  Sigh.  He's become a climber.

Someone loves his Daddy's clothes.

Connor helping Dada assemble his new chair.
He put the screwdriver in all the holes.

I love my chair!  Thanks Dada!

One night while Connor was taking a bath, Patrick decided he needed a hair cut.  We hadn't cut Connor's hair at all since he was born and some parts that hadn't fallen out were really long.  The sides of his head definitely needed to be cut, so Patrick cut them.  The next day, Connor asked for a bath at 9 in the morning, which is really rare.  While he was in there, I decided the back and the bangs were really too long, especially with the sides as short as they were.  I managed to trim them up, and Connor got his first haircut!  It looks really good!  I miss his curls, but we'll let is grow out and then they will all be even.

My new favorite food is applesauce!

Watching TV on a lazy and tired day.

We have been hanging out with Parker and Porter a lot and Parker taught Connor how to climb onto his water table.  It is his favorite way to play now.