Happy Father's Day!!

Happy Father's Day to me!  I guess that is a little selfish, but it is my day after all so I should be entitled to be at least a little selfish.  Happy Father's Day to Abby's two Grandfathers as well, Pap-Pap (we decided we can't go with Geezer) and Howard (who hasn't decided on what he will be called).  There, that should at least partially save me for wishing myself a Happy Father's Day first.

Abby has had a great week, getting to spend a lot of time with Peggy's mom, or as Abby knows her, Nana.  Peggy went to a week long seminar for school this past week, so Nana flew down to be a babysitter for the week week.  Everything went well for all parties involved.  Nana seemed to really enjoy having the one-on-one time with Abby everyday.  Peggy left around 7:30 and was back home by 4:00 most days, and she survived being away from her baby girl for that long each day for five days in a row!  Now things have returned to normal, Nana flew back home yesterday, and we are gearing up for the week ahead.  

Next week will end with Abby's first plane ride, as we are all flying from Tulsa to Salt Lake City so that I can go to my 10 year class reunion.  I was on the fence on whether I was going to go or not, but it will give Peggy and I a good chance to test our nerves and quite possibly have an entire plane full of people hate us because of our crying baby.  In the end, who could pass up an opportunity like that!

On to the pics!

Here is Abby giving me my first Father's Day card!  We're both pretty excited about it!

Here is Abby looking pretty cute. (Which is a pretty normal thing for her to do!)
Here's a nice, happy, smiling baby!

In this video, she is talking to her zebra, until she realizes she's on camera, then she gets a little shy.

I think she is trying to do some crunches here, but she doesn't quite have the concept down.

Catching Up

Much has been happening in the past several weeks.  First off Howard will be done with his radiation treatments tomorrow. He and Sue have been down in Salt Lake the past six weeks. So I know they are looking forward to getting back home.  Grant and I will be flying back west later this month for his high school reunion.  We look forward to seeing them soon!

After our friends left my dad was in town for a few days as he ventured to North Carolina to ride the Dragons Tail.  He also stopped by on the way back through.  It was good to have him visit. 

The day after my dad left my mom flew into town to watch Abby while I attended a math workshop this week. That's right, this was my first time to be away from Abby for more than a day. It has been very hard to be apart from her.  I am very glad that I still have about 2 more months before school starts back up. 

And now news on the Abby front....

She is still a wonderful little fuzzball.  Her hair continues to grow (still showing no signs of falling out) and she is getting to the point where she needs a hair cut.  She can hold her head up for the most point but it's still a little unsteady, this makes me nervous with scissors.  I believe we will be doing the hair cut while she is asleep. Stay tuned to see what happens.

On a very exciting note we have a great sleeper on our hands.  For about the past two weeks Abby has been sleeping through the night.  She will usually be out around 11 and has been sleeping till 7:00.  That is 8 blissful hours of sleep.  Grant and I are loving it. 

And to celebrate sleeping through the night here is a small collection of sleeping Abby pictures...

Passed out after receiving her two month shots. Poor thing was not feeling too good and just wanted to be held.

Sleeping in style with her pig tails.

We know she's in a deep sleep with her arms are up by her head. They usually start by her side and slowly make their way up.

Watering plants is hard work!

Peaceful bundle of cuteness.

Cheers to Good Friends

This past week Alyson, Jim, and their daughter Lily came to visit us.  Alyson and I have been friends since 5th grade. She went to college in Oklahoma City so we got to see each other every so often during our college years. About 3 years ago she and Jim moved out to Idaho so sadly we don't get to see each other very often now.  The last time we saw each other was up in Seattle just before Lily was born, so we were very much looking forward to their visit.

During their visit we had constant entertainment from Lily who is 14 months old.  She is a girl on the move.  We quickly learned we have a lot of child proofing to do with our house. We would move one thing out of Lily's reach just as she would discover something new that we had missed.  Its amazing how much a baby will grow in a year, I find it very hard to believe Abby will just as mobile and interactive in a year from now.

Our happy girl showing off her favorite thing to do lately, watch Mom and Dad make goofy faces which she can smile at.

Abby and I checking out the wild animals at Wild Wildness drive-thru Safari.  We saw all kinds of exciting animals from monkeys to lion, tigers, and bears (oh my).

What were we thinking... I'm not sure but we thought it would be a funny picture.  

Abby's new friend Lily, who is just a bit bigger than her.

Abby just plain tuckered out after having a good 'ol time with the Kleins.

And now a couple of short clips:

This first one captures Abby showing off her smile.

I think we enjoyed the slide a little more than the girls.

Life's Ups and Downs

Sometimes life has a way to keep you in check.  One minute I was busy being the proud new father of Abby, the world's cutest and most perfect baby girl.  The next minute I was answering the phone to hear the news that my father was being taken by ambulance from his home in Wyoming to the hospital in Salt Lake City, UT.

Dad had recently undergone a fairly routine prostrate surgery, and following the surgery my Mom had noticed a few moments of forgetfulness and confusion.  They told his surgeon this, and he decided that they better get a CT scan to try to figure out what might be causing this.  When they did this scan, they found several "spots" on his brain, and they eventually decided that those spots may have been signs of a serious but treatable infection from the surgery.  

This possible infection is what led to the ambulance ride to the hospital, the doctors wanted to get Dad to the hospital quickly so that they could get the infection under control.  Once he got to the hospital and the doctors in Salt Lake City ran some more tests, it started to become clear that the spots on his brain weren't caused by an infection.  Instead of an infection, the doctors were starting to bring up the dreaded "C" word, cancer.  The only way to confirm exactly what was going on was to take a sample of one of the "spots".  There was one "spot" that was close to the surface, so he went in for a brain biopsy to remove some of the tissue in question to test it.  The results that came back were exactly what we didn't want to hear.  My Dad was diagnosed with a very aggressive brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme.

A lot has happened in the past four weeks since his diagnosis.  Peggy, Abby and I all piled in the car an made the road trip from Arkansas to Wyoming to be with my family, and to introduce Abby to her other set of grandparents, and also to her two uncles, Peggy's brothers Paul and Rick.  Abby did a wonderful job of bringing smiles to everyone's face, even though we had just been hit with some bad news.  We spent nearly two weeks back home, and now Abby can claim to have been in six states, which isn't bad for a nine week old!  

After meeting with doctors, my Dad decided to proceed with some treatment that should help to keep the cancer from growing too fast.  He is almost finished with his second week of a six week course of radiation therapy, during which he is also taking an oral chemotherapy pill.  So far things are going well with his treatment, and he seems to be feeling pretty good.  We know there is no cure for this cancer, and the prognosis is not good, but we are focused on making the most out of each day.  It is sad that sometimes it takes things like cancer to remind you that our time together is rather short, so you need to make the most out of whatever time you have left.

Life is returning to normal for us.  I have been back at work, and Peggy and Abby have been enjoying some nice springtime weather together during the past few days.  Abby goes to the doctor tomorrow for her first major round of immunizations, so we are all keeping our fingers crossed that that experience goes well.

I need to wrap this post up.  When I started writing this I was really at a loss for words, and I think I have more than made up for those initial few moments of not knowing what to say.  Before I go, here are a few pics of Abby in the wild West!

Here is Abby getting cozy with a very proud grandfather!

Abby and her grandmother hitting it off together...

Here is Abby saying hello to her Uncle Paul!

And here is Uncle Rick showing off his baby holding skills with Abby!

You remind me of the babe!

Can anyone guess what movie this quote is from? This movie was one of my favorites growing up. Anyways I was at Gap in the fall and saw this outfit which is very similar to the outfit the baby wore in this show, so I had to purchase it of course.  Jill, a good friend, suggested that we could use this as a halloween outfit for a family theme of this movie.  The problem would be deciding who would dress the David Bowie part, the spandex are quite a scary thought.  I don't think this idea will make it, thank goodness. :-)  Know what movie I'm talking about?

In the clips below Abby is sporting the cute outfit.  Bright colors really seem to shine on her with all that dark hair.

Little sneezes:

Sleep, How I Miss You!

Abby is four weeks old, as of yesterday.  We continue to work on the sleep issue. This week has been a little rough on Sunday and Monday nights I only got around 2 1/2 hours of sleep. I'm learning the hard way that you truly do need to sleep when the baby sleeps instead of trying to get other things done, otherwise you don't get sleep.  

Last night though was a much needed break!  We had a fantastic dinner at some friends house and Abby was fascinated by the new surroundings. She was up for about 2 1/2 hours (probably one of her longest awake stretches so far!!!).  It paid off, I got a 4 1/2 hour stretch of wonderful sleep .  I remain hopeful that we will have an awake day so tonight may repeat last night.

When Abby is awake she is so much more alert.  She looks as though she focusing on things, where early on her eye would be open but there wasn't purpose behind them.  She is especially fascinated by fans and windows.  

Here are some new pictures of little Abby.

 Allie decided she needed to be in this picture as well.

Abby is ready for summer.

Abby throughly enjoying Easter.

I love the silly faces that she makes.

This one somewhat looks like a smile, although truthfully I think she was just about to cry here. She was done with pictures.

Also here is a short clip of Abby looking around. Notice at one point she follows the camera as I move it.

Home Alone

Tuesday was my first day to be home alone with Abby.  Things went really well.  It is funny, I felt like I was busy all day, but when I looked back on what I had done I don't think I accomplished a whole lot.  Taking a shower and getting laundry done takes a lot more effort now with worrying about Abby and soothing her if she starts to cry.  

On the sleeping front, she loves to sleep...during the day.  On Tuesday she slept for 5 1/2 hours in the middle of the day and of course since she had gotten all of that sleeping out of her system she was up about every hour and a half, this made for a long night. Hopefully we can work on turning this around. 

Abby had her two week doctors appointment yesterday and she a healthy little girl.  The doctor said they like to see babies back to their original birth weight and she surpassed that and is now 9 lbs 8 oz and 21 in. long! 

And now a few photos...

My mom got this dress for Abby, we put it on Abby before she had to fly back home.  It's still a little big for her, but it's still cute.

Abby is so tiny! 

Sleeping like the best of them!