INK, and Zoo visits

For Alex's friend Ava's birthday party, we went to a place called INK in Gainsville, GA. This is a really great place, it has an airplane and police car and fire truck that the kids can climb on and in & then it has all these rooms, each one is set up on kids scale and has a grocery store, doctor office, dentist office, restaurant, bank, hair salon, etc. Alex spent most of the time in the grocery store. Below are photos of Alex and Sander in the Airplane, Alex and I on the fire truck, and Alex shopping.

With our membership to the zoo, we have gone quite a few times recently. Alex loves the zoo. Unfortunatly, we forgot the camera when we went last week with our neighbors, but here are some of our Zoo visits with Thomas and with Marta & Carmen.

Big Boy Bed!

OK, so based on the fact that the first 4 months of this year have been taken up by doctor appointments and biopsies and surgery, I am behind.

In March, we moved Alex to his big boy bed and new room. He LOVES it! This was the first night and morning in his new bed.

Recovery

I am doing much better. Surgery was completed late on Monday, I went home around lunch time on Tuesday.
1 week follow-up was very good. All testing was cancer free. As of this week I am off the calcium pills and down to just my synthroid. Now on to endocrinologist to continue to work on my levels.

Surgery

For those who do not already know, I will be having surgery at noon on May 3, 2010 to remove my Thyroid. I have a nodule in the right side of the thyroid and a few very tiny cysts on the left side. Biopsy came back indeterminate [not sure if there is cancer or not], so after discussions with my doctor, my endocrinologist, and my surgeon/ENT, and a few neighbors/friends who have had this done, I have decided to remove the entire thing [right side was not an option, it had to come out, just whether I left the left side was an option, decided I could not live with the uncertainty]. So please keep me and my family in your thoughts and prayers as we embark on this journey. We are hopeful that the surgery will go off with no complications and that any resulting pathology will be clean and I will be able to get my medication easily leveled out. I will be at Northside Hospital in Atlanta and should be released the next day.

Job Update

Hello all, for those of you who do not yet know, I have left my position at The Simpson Organization and have moved back to Cox. I am not back with AutoTrader, but with Cox Enterprises, they own ATC, but I am working for the Cox Media Group within Cox Enterprises, just a few blocks up from where I used to work. I am still part time, working Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The commute is much better and it is easier on Carl and my parents as I now get Alex to and from them each day. I am also only a few blocks from his school which he attends on Tues and Thurs mornings. The job is much more in line with my work experience and I am working with a few people who I used to work with/for at ATC.

He loves school now, has wonderful teachers and a great group of classmates. I am excited that I will now be more available to attend his class parties with my new location.

Hope everyone is doing well and having a great beginning to the new year.

Train Museam and Snow

My twin cousins turned 40 and so we had a party here in town for them and while they were here, we took all the kids to a train museam. If you are on facebook, you can see most of the pictures there, but here is one of Alex with his cousin Katy Lyn working in the kitchen and one of Billy taking him to see the big train.

We had our annual dusting of snow here in Atlanta, so when Alex woke up, he immediatly began begging to go outside to play. Once we got all bundled up, we headed out get some play time in.

Alex is all about helping right now, so he insisted on putting the logs in to the fireplace all by himself, oh and yes he did get ashes all over himself!

Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. Santa and his helpers were quite good to all of us. Alex really got into it this year which made it so much fun.
On Christmas Eve we went to the Childrens Service at Grandma and Grandpa's church, then went to dinner and came home and got ready for Santa to come. Santa did come and left a train table and all sorts of other various fun items. We then went to Uncle Billy's house for Christmas lunch with all the cousins, then came back home and had Christmas Dinner at home.
Alex is quite into his train table and his Home Depot workbench with all his drills and tools as well as his medical set, Lincoln Logs and playdough and painting sets.
Here is a family photo as well as a few photos of Alex and his various items.

Random

Here are a few random photos from our various activities throughout December.

As we were putting up our outside decorations, Alex enjoyed playing in the leaves.

He also was able to get more involved with decorating the tree this year.

His class at school had a little christmas party that we were able to attend, he was very happy to see us there and show off all his artwork and his room.

Thanksgiving

We had all of Carl's family in town for thanksgiving this year. It was a wonderful time to spend with everyone. Here are a couple of photos of our time. Alex with Nanna and Uncle Gabe throwing Alex "up high"!

Forts and Pigs

One of my favorite memories as a child was building forts with the couch cushions, Alex has also found this equally as fun.

My friend Angela and I took Alex and Thomas to their first ride on the Pink Pig. This is a train that is set up at christmas time at a local mall. We went the first week it was set up and had the train to ourselves and got to ride 4x for the price of 2. They boys enjoyed their ride and then we hit the mall for some shopping and lunch.

Philly

Back in October, Grandma, Alex and I headed up to Philly for Aunt Deb's baby shower.

Alex was super excited about his plane trip and had a great time playing with Aunt Deb, Uncle Rick and all the other friends and family in town for the shower. It is a great thing that there is a park in back of their house, Alex took them all outside to try it out before Mark's arrival to make sure that everything was going to be fun for him to play with when he gets bigger.

We are very excited that Mark has now arrived and can't wait to get back to Philly to meet him.

Alive

Yes, yes we are alive.
I have not been that great at updating recently, so I will try to sum up in 1 post and catch back up. Pictures to come later.
Alex had an amazing 2nd birthday party. Uncle Michael and Aunt Christal came in town along with Nono. Alex and all his friends had a blast on the bounce house and slide. We were lucky and had a great weather day for it, not too unbearably hot for the middle of June. Alex received tons of wonderful presents that he still enjoys today, including a front end loader, bucket wheel, a dump truck he can ride in, tonka garage, t-ball, soccer, and a sand and water box with a very large green excavator attachment!
He is completely obsessed with any kind of loud vehicle, excavator is his most favorite, followed closely by garbage man. I am sure our garbage men love the weekly audience he gives them every Friday morning, screaming HI BIG GARBAGE MAN at the top of his lungs! and yes, he did so loudly the other day from his room, the men looked up and waved, oh and yes the windows were closed!
Aunt Katie came in for a visit and we were able to go to the aquarium again to see the BIG fishes.
I had the realization the other day that I did not have a cell phone until I graduated from college, yet my 2 year old knows how to video conference his Nono and will request to "call Nono on puter" quite often.
It has been very busy with various birthday parties, wedding showers and weddings. Congrats to Johanna and Kacey and Melissa and William.
On my front, I left AutoTrader.com in June and took about a month off before starting my part time job with The Simpson Organization in July. I am working 3 days a week now and really enjoying getting to spend the extra time with Alex.
We have found many new parks and enjoyed numerous play dates with friends.
We took Alex to the Zoo for the first time last weekend. He yelled at the Rhino for sleeping, enjoyed the very tall Giraffes, loved petting the sheep, goats and pigs, was overjoyed with riding the choo choo... but I think his most favorite part was HAIRY DOG! Yes, out of sheer coincidence we happened to go on UGA Alumni day. We were walking along and Alex screamed Mommy Daddy HAIRY DOG, we did not even see him, but Alex has a very keen eye. He gave him a big hug and high 5!
Alex vocabulary is taking off and along with that comes some very funny things, like last week when he attempted to send Daddy to time out during dinner for not giving him mustard in a timely enough manner!
He is a very good eater, not too many things that he does not like.
This is a big few weeks for Alex, he will go meet his preschool teacher tomorrow and then start school next Tuesday. We hope it goes better this year. We have been putting him in the nursery at church and so far so good, many tears but he has not gotten sick on them. In addition, Nono is coming back for 2 weeks to hang out with Alex and give grandma a break.
More to come now that I am getting caught back up.

PDK Good Neighbor Day

A few weekends ago, Carl and I took Alex to the PDK Good Neighbor Day.

PDK is a small airport near where Hilary and I used to live. They do a full air show and have jumpys and the DeKalb Fire and Police and Military all come and let the kids climb in and on the equipment. Alex was in heaven!

He got to climb all over fire trucks, police motorcycles, military helicopters and watch the bomb robots... a little boy's heaven.

He even enjoyed the airshow, we watched from inside a hanger to keep cool and every time the airplanes would go in and out of view, he would shout "There they go!"

Here is a shot that shows how close we were to the planes as they taxied down the runway

Alex driving and climbing the fire trucks

Watching the robots

On the motorcycle

In the helicopter

Update

Well a lot has been going on with us recently... though based on my lack of updates you may not have thought so...
Carl has a new job with The Erosion Company. He is doing well and liking it very much.
I resigned my position at AutoTrader.com and this is my last week.
I am going to take some time to be home with Alex for now and see what develops from there. I am very excited about having more time with him as he is really at a great age and learning so much each day. So for my SAHM friends, please remember to include me and Alex in play groups now :)
I have also agreed to be the co-coordinator for my MOPS group for next year, which I am sure will keep me very busy.

Easter Weekend

We had a great Easter weekend.

On Saturday we went to Turner's 2nd birthday party and egg hunt.

Afterwards, we met up with Aunt Hilary for a late lunch and then saw Uncle Glenn a little later on. Sunday the Easter Bunny came to visit and left crayons, bubbles and eggs. We went to church and then had family lunch at my parents house.

The kids had a great afternoon of hunting eggs and playing catch and hide and seek in the backyard.

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After all the fun, we were all exhausted and relaxed the remainder of the day and watched the Masters on TV.