ohhhh, where to begin.....

let's just start at christmas, which is where our first double ear infection occurred...after 5 rounds of antibiotics and several doctor's visits later, we ended up at the ear, nose and throat clinic...now, mccoy officially has tubes! our sweet little boy has never been a sick child...we've hardly ever seen any of the doctor's at the clinic, so we thought we were doing great...once he got that first infection, he could never get rid of it...so he's had a constant infection for the past three months...no fun! supposedly, to him, it sounds like his head is under water or his ears never popped after a plane trip...as well as the ear infections, we also had the eczema and allergies on top of it all...needless to say, the last three months have been a little up and down!

BUT now, all of that is over (hopefully)!!! we went in on tuesday for tubes around 6 that morning...we got checked in, and they had him put on a little hospital gown...we hung around the room and then ventured out in the hallways where we found a wagon to ride in, so up and down and round and round we rode! a little before 8, they took him back for surgery...since we couldn't go with him, they let him take his lala (sleeping buddy) and blanket...i think i blinked and the doctor was back telling us how well mccoy did...i looked at my watch and it was 8:07 am! that was so fast! a few minutes later, we had our little guy back...he was somewhat off from the anesthesia, but we sat there for about thirty minutes for him to feel better...then we went home!

that day, i thought we would snuggle and watch movies and just lay low...but no no no was i wrong! that boy was off and running...he finally felt great for the first time in months, and there was no stopping him! it is the absolute best feeling to have as a parent to see your child well! here's to many, many, many more run around days!

before surgery

cute yellow socks they let him have! hope everyone has a very blessed day!!!

the painted room

our front room is finally painted, thanks to the swift company of bridget and barry! as i was finishing taping off the room, this is how i found bridget watching mccoy, and we hadn't even started yet...hehehe! this is the only picture you will catch me painting in since this is pretty much the only area that i tackled...the rest of the project was totally done by bridget and barry...burt and i spent our time running after mccoy trying to keep him out of this room! the girls!

of course, i didn't just wanted it painted...i wanted stripes too! i think it took about 6 hours to get the stripes perfectly straight, and they are sooo fabulous!

the finished product!

bridget's on the phone with barry discussing how much we owe them!

i LOVE our front room so much...thanks ladies!!!

the wild safari...

hello emu!

last thursday, we headed out with mccoy's preschool for his first field trip...gentry's very own drive through safari wilderness! it was surprising awesome...i had always heard about people in college going and joking about it, but in recent years, they have upgraded alot of the park, especially the drive through part. mccoy crawled and stood on over my lap as we went past camels, buffalo, tons of wild beasts, tigers and lions, rhinos and hippos...mccoy was definitely not fond of the emu though! after driving, we met up with the rest of the school for the petting zoo part...mccoy really liked these bunnies especially when they licked his finger!

next, he got to pet a little monkey...

such a cute little baby!

off and running

mccoy's friend liam really wanted to ride the ponies, so we took a chance at it too...usually, mccoy wants nothing to do with riding anything alive, but he surprised us this day!

giddy up horsey!

checking out his buddy

little help from his daddy

unfortunately, liam wasn't up for the ride after all...chris walked him beside the pony just in case he changed his mind

the boys and their boys

go green!

happy st. patrick's day!

these were taken after school, so we are alittle rumpled up looking!

walking up the slide... mccoy likes to pretend he is falling backwards so that i will catch him
so silly!!!
his little shirt says mom's lucky charm...so true!

dada tickle time

a quick photo of just the two of us...unusual now!

bedtime...mccoy loves sitting in the rocking chair all by himself and look at books before bed

hope everyone had a great green day! night night

poor sweet mccoy...

last week, we encountered our first medical situation...while we are truly thankful that mccoy hasn't been sick at all since he was born, it's still hard on a mom and dad to see your sweet little one suffering no matter how large or small the problem...at mccoy's 18 month check up, he was good to go except for a small patch of eczema on the back of his knees...no big deal, the doc said, just use some eucerin cream on it, all children go through this...we were doing good then all of a sudden last week during the snow/sleet storm, his back and chest exploded with red blotchy patches...then it just started turning into one large red mass on the front and back...we couldn't make it in to the doctor due to weather, and i also assumed it was just severe eczema...so i read up on it and decided to just keep him extremely lubricated and when the weather was better, we would check it out...this past week, we finally made it in to the doctor's office...it is never a good thing when you take off your child's clothes and the nurse says, "ohhhh my!" i knew it was bad but now i thought it must really be bad...even the doctor had the same reaction...it turns out that it was eczema, but it was due to an allergic reaction...now the fun stuff, "to what?" we have switched his milk from whole milk to soy...stopped eating strawberries (which he would scratch his chest after eating them)...changed laundry detergent and rewashed all of his clothes and anything that would touch his skin...and in the process of getting our carpets cleaned.

mccoy is also taking a strong 3 day antibiotic, a steroid cream for any red spots and Zyrtec every day indefinitely...he has been such a trooper...within one day, the redness cleared up by about 50%...these pictures were taken the day after we started treatment, so they are not nearly as red as they had been! we are still not sure what he is allergic to, but in a month or so, hopefully, we can figure it out...but for now, it is amazing how much better he feels...he has been running around again and laughing and playing all of the time...

so thankful to have our little guy back!

record snow...

mccoy watching burt shovel our walkway...

titus decided to watch too!

last week's lazy snow days!

last week, we had a bad round of snow and ice, which kept us homebound for several days...we didn't really want to get mccoy out in it because he was battling a severe case of eczema (more on that later) and we just thought the cold and dry air would make it worse...so we spent alot of time in our pjs watching several episodes of yo gabba gabba...he never gets to watch much tv, and after that week, we definitely were on overload!
more lounging...

finally, he was starting to go alittle stir crazy...we can only take so much gabba and friends! i love his little pj pants here:)

"i want out!!!"

"ok...i'll take alittle daddy time!"

this is random and i apologize about the poor picture quality (i had to take a picture of another picture)...but this is when i was 18 weeks pregnant with mccoy...

and 18 weeks pregnant with this little one...also known as banshee or the kicker!

as of now, i am almost 24 weeks along and everything is going great...i have some minor aches and pains, but i know that is from running after sweet mccoy so much! at least, he keeps me active! june 4th is quickly approaching!!!

spirit week

at mccoy's preschool, they had spirit week this week...so i didn't get many pictures but i managed to snap hippie day! he's more bohemian hippie than tie dye hippie...the night before i spent about three hours bleaching and rebleaching his jeans and then decided he needed bell bottoms...so i had some scrap material and added a little flare!

not sure how hippieish he turned out but we had fun with it...when he ran down the hallway, it looked like he had wings on his feet!