Beginning of Summer

A lot of catching up to do...

The week before Annalee went to the hospital we celebrated our 3rd Anniversary!

Back in May the weekend after Annalee was in the hospital we celebrated my first Mother's day.  After that crazy week Annalee, with a little help from her Daddy, knew exactly what I needed...chocolate covered strawberries & a massage.  It was the perfect Mother's day present and was followed by flowers sent to my office on Monday morning with a sweet note.  I must say I have an amazing husband.

Dallas had sports banquet the next week for BDJH.  And since their school colors are green and orange...what better to wear than his grandpa's green suit with an orange tie.  He said he got a lot of compliments! Only Dallas.

That Wednesday Annalee got the drain taken out.  It was a 5 minute appointment and they just cut the drain and pulled it right out.  For driving downtown & my copay...I could've done that! She is just fine now and will just have 2 tiny little scars from it all.

Big Girl waiting for her appointment

The following weekend Lacey came in from Chicago to hang out with everyone while she was on her break from PA school. Also, most of my family came in town for Memorial Day and Crystal & Tim came over from his parents house in Spring to see us for a day too.  It was a very relaxing & fun weekend!

Nap time with Pa

Pulling hair is her new favorite thing & Aunt Crystal long hair was perfect for it!

Most of the weekend was spent in the pool

Sugarland Skeeters baseball game

Annalee has been growing so fast and seems to be doing new things everyday.  She eats all kinds of foods now, army crawls everywhere and is pretty quck at it too, would rather use her feet to hold things, can almost sit up on her own, would rather watch HGTV than the baby channels, will chew on anything she can find, and loves playing with your face or pulling your hair.  She is also quite vocal now and will tell you all about it.  Here's the past 3 months..

4 months

5 months

6 months

She loves mac & cheese!

Last weekend was Abe & Courtney's wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony & reception.  We decorated the Ball Ranch for rehearsal dinner and also Courtney's lingerie shower that night (I didn't get any pics from the shower but it turned out so cute!).  Here are a few pics from the weekend:

Rehearsal Dinner

Mema T.

Mema Green & most of her grandkids



Aunt Amy curling Jency's hair for the wedding

The Newlyweds

Sisters

+ sis-in-laws

Mom & Dad

Broadstreets - Thank you Kerr for all the pictures! :)

On Sunday we celebrated Mema Green's 80th birthday by having a brunch in the barn.  It's always a blast when the whole family gets together!

4 Generations

And our biggest news for the summer.....

My packing helper



We are moving to Abilene! Dallas will be teaching math and coaching football, basketball, and track at Wylie JH next year.  We are very excited and everything is happening very fast since we found out.  We will definitely miss our family and friends here in Houston though! 

Another Annalee First

Yes, this is another "first" but not one to celebrate.  One we were definitely not expecting.

Here is the whole story...
Monday afternoon Annalee started running a very high fever and was very fussy.  She would not let me put her down and slept most of the afternoon...which is not like her.  When I changed her diaper I noticed a small spot (looked like an infected ant bite) on her left butt cheek that had redness around it about the size of a quarter.  I called Misty and she told me to trace the redness with sharpie so we could tell how fast it was growing.  Dallas had district tennis for his kids this night and did not get home until around 8:00.  By that time the redness had already doubled in size and underneath it was hard as a rock.  I called my pediatrician's on call nurse and after asking many questions she sent us to the ER. We went to an ER here in Katy around 9 that night and they did a fever work up (x-ray, took blood, urine test, etc.) and the doctor there determined the spot was a skin infection.  He hooked her up to an IV to give her a dose of antibiotics and sent us home with more antibiotics to give her for a few days and told us to go see our pediatrician in the morning.  We got home around midnight and Annalee was exhausted.  If we did not keep Tylenol in her the fever would spike and it took an hour to get it down again.  Lets just say I only slept 2 hours this night...she was miserable.
The next morning I immediately called our pediatrician and got the earliest appointment.  At this time the redness had spread quite a bit and if you touched anywhere near it she would scream.  Riding in her car seat to the pediatrician was torture for her.  After the pediatrician took one look at the infection he said it was a very significant abscess and left the room to go get us a card for a pediatric surgeon downtown in the med center.  He explained hopefully the infection could be killed with antibiotics but they might have to insert a drain in the abscess.  He told us to go straight to the surgeon because he would be waiting for us.  I think we realized how serious it was when he said just show up without an appointment to a doctor's office.  Once at the surgeon's office we waited about 15 minutes and the surgeon walked in the front door looked right at us and said come with me.  We took her back and he took one look and said she will probably need surgery to drain it and told us to go to Memorial Hermann ER.  It was the shortest appointment ever and then he was off back to the hospital.

We arrived at MH ER around 11 Tuesday morning.  She was taken back to a room and then the parade of doctors/hospital staff began.  Literally around 6 or 7 people walked in asking the EXACT same questions about 30 mins apart.  They gave her Tylenol for the pain because it had been 4 hours since her last dose but other than that we were just waiting.  Side note: the pediatrician and surgeon from earlier that morning told us not to feed her in case she had to have surgery that afternoon so now she was a very hungry and miserable little girl.  That afternoon they decided to start her on antibiotics and needed to put an IV in.  Well after the nurses tried and stuck her 3 times and were unsuccessful each time they called for the specialist to come in and try.  This process was horrible for me and Dallas...she was so miserable and now they were poking her and there was nothing we could do to help our sweet girl.  Amy was here by this point and it was a blessing to have someone else to try to console and love on her.  After a while and many more doctors/nurses coming in the "specialist" (transport team) arrived around 3:00 p.m..  They tried in her hand, arm, and her HEAD (that was terrible to watch...I walked out) and were also unsuccessful.  They told us it was because she was dehydrated so her veins were collapsing.  Hello!....y'all told us not to feed her (the last time she ate was 8:30 a.m.)...of course she's dehydrated!!! At this point they admitted us to the hospital and we moved up to the 8th floor.
After getting moved to the room it was more waiting and finally feeding the starving baby to get her hydrated.  Misty just arrived at this time and she made sure we tried to get some sleep and snuggled the sweet girl!  I was running on 2 hours from the previous night and was physically/emotionally drained at this point.  I'm honestly not sure if I got any sleep at this point...I was very worried about Annalee.  Our sweet friend Anne Marie was working on the 5th floor during this time and came and checked on us a few times.  It was comforting having family and friends there with us during this whole experience. My parents arrived about 10:30 that night from Abilene.  Around midnight the nurses came in and tried to put the IV in again.  At this point the swelling and redness was very bad and she would not even move her left leg.  We left the room this time before they began because it was breaking our hearts hearing her scream each time.  Misty stayed in there with her and thank goodness they got it in the first time in her hand!  Mom stayed with her until 4 so we could try to sleep.  It was a small amount of relief knowing she was getting antibiotics and fluids through the IV.  The next morning the surgical team came in around 7 to check her abscess...it was still spreading.  They then told us that she would be having surgery later that morning.  Basically it came down to she had a staph infection and needed to have a drain put in to release the pressure and drain the puss.  After this everything seemed to move relatively quickly.  They took us down to the surgical floor around 8:30 and the anesthesiologist and head nurse came to ask questions.

Smallest hospital gown ever

They took her in for surgery around 9:15.  One of the hardest things we have experienced as parents...saying bye to your child as they wheel them away for surgery.  The surgery only took about 45 minutes.  They had to put her under and made two small incisions and put the drain in.  The drain looks like a bread tie looped through both incisions.  It was a great relief to see the surgeon come out and say everything is great you can go see her now.  They gave her some good baby drugs after the surgery so she slept pretty hard that afternoon.  And when she woke up she was back to her smiley joyful little self rolling over and moving her leg like nothing ever happened!

The first time I had to change her diaper and saw the drain it was definitely not what I was expecting.  The swelling and redness had gone down tremendously and it was definitely not as tender for her to sit on it. She really didn't even wince when you had to clean around the drain.  At this point she was just on oral antibiotics and we were giving them to her not the nurses...so we were wondering why we even had to stay at the hospital?  After asking for the nurses to get the pediatric surgeon to come by 3 times he finally arrived around 5:30 and discharged us.  We were so excited to be going home! When we got home my sisters had cleaned the house spotless and done our laundry that morning...what amazing sisters they are!! Thankfully my mom stayed with us Wednesday night and kept the monitor in her room.  Dallas and I both slept for over 10 hours! (Dad & Mom - thank you so much for letting us get some sleep during and after the hospital and loving on us and the sweet girl throughout all this! We love you!)

Annalee is back to her sweet happy self and you would not even know she had surgery a few days ago.  She is on antibiotics for 10 days and gets the drain removed next Wednesday.  We want to thank our family and friends for all of the prayers and support during this time! It was always encouraging reading texts letting us know she was being prayed for and thought of!



After Dallas' parents saw the picture of the drain....Kerr needed a smiling pic ASAP.  Annalee was asleep so this is what he got. :)

Thanks for reading my insanely long blog post....everyone has been asking for the WHOLE story so here it is! :)

April is already gone?

April flew by so quick and it seems like Annalee is changing just as quick! Since my last post she is now rolling over, sleeping on her tummy, getting a hang of eating food (I already see her being a picky eater like her Dad), I believe she is teething, got her first cold, getting really good using her hands and today found her feet! Her joyful personality is coming out more and more each day. 

Here recently she has been showing off her chubby little self in cute bathing suits at Aunt Amy's pool.  We are taking advantage of the nice weather because before long it will be way to hot to even sit outside and the pool will feel like a hot bath.

A few weekends ago Dallas & Addison put in a sprinkler system at our house.  They worked from Friday night until Sunday afternoon and I don't think Dallas has been more excited about a home improvement project.  It has been so nice having it and our flowers are doing a lot better too! :)

Annalee Supervising

Admiring their work

Dallas' school recently had a fundraiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  Dallas told his kids if they brought over $1200 then he would shave his head.  He almost put if they brought over $2500 he would wear a dress to school....thank goodness he didn't because they raised $2600!  The whole school raised over $20,000, which is amazing.  I went up to the school to watch Dallas shave his head in front of all his kids.  The clippers would not cooperate at the beginning but a few kids stuck around and he let them shave some of it.  I love watching him interact with his kids.  You can definitely tell he has a passion for his job and the kids truly love him as their teacher.

4 months

My sweet 4 month old

On the way to College Station we stopped to take pictures in the bluebonnets.  It was a little hard getting good pictures of just her this year but we decided next year she will be the perfect age to run through them!

 

Easter was at Misty's house this year and it was full of yummy food and desserts, an easter egg hunt, Jency's birthday, the boys blowing stuff up in the tank and sweet family time.  Annalee slept through most of the festivities.  In just a few years though she will be out there running around with them.

The Templeton Crew

My bubbas

GayGay and her little girls

Egg Hunt

Jency girl would rather just eat the candy!

 Annalee update: we have started the mess of introducing rice cereal & some fruits.  So far she still doesn't quite know if she likes it or not. And she has started giggling...it is the cutest little giggle ever! I love it!