Evan's First Stitches

Evan got his first stitches this week. While at Aunt Heather's house, he climbed up on the mantle to get a toy. While getting the toy, the mantle came off the fireplace and Evan went crashing down. As he fell, he hit his chin on the fireplace. Carl picked him up and took him the the new Kosair Children's Hospital. Evan did VERY well while getting his stitches. He cooperated with the doctors and nurses and was very brave. (Carl said he only cried when his balloon popped, which was after getting the stitches!)

Evan has been a great patient at home and lets us change his bandage and put medicine on his cut several times a day. He is such a sweet boy!

Evan happily showed off his stitches.

Evan took a look to see what his stitches looked like once he was all bandaged again.

Evan is still a very happy boy, stitches and all!

Happy 4th Birthday Evan

Evan turned 4 years old last week. On his birthday, Evan woke up in a really great mood and opened a couple of presents. He really liked his Rex blaster and helmet. After a fun day celebrating his birthday with his friends at preschool, he came home and opened the rest of his presents. (Almost everything was a Star Wars toy!) He chose to eat his birthday dinner at Taco Bell and then we went to Incredible Dave's to play.

Evan was very happy to turn 4 years old!

Evan had fun celebrating his birthday with his friends at preschool.

Evan had fun having lunch with Grammy and his Granddaddy on his birthday. (He was VERY happy to get his balloon!)

Evan enjoyed opening his birthday presents. His favorite present was his Imperial Walker.

A VERY silly boy eating his special birthday dinner at Taco bell.

Evan had fun at Incredible Dave's. (He REALLY liked the bungee trampoline, even though he fell out of the harness once. Thankfully he was only a couple of feet from the trampoline.)

Evan's Star Wars birthday party was lots of fun. Grammy, Granddaddy, Aunt Rachel, Uncle Teddy, Grandpa, The Nickels and The Congletons were able to join us for the celebration. Everyone had a lot of fun, especially Levi and Evan.

Evan and Levi enjoyed eating pizza together.

Evan liked playing with his new Star Wars toys.

Aunt Heather made Evan an awesome Star Wars cake.

The boys were so excited about eating cake!

Charlie

We recently adopted a dog! I saw Charlie at Pet Smart a couple of weeks ago and just couldn't stop thinking about him. After lots of discussions with Carl and several calls to Charlie's foster family, we decided that we would take Charlie for a trial period. (We wanted to be sure that he got along well with small children and that he got along with Parker and Kaiya.) We had to wait almost two weeks to get Charlie because he had just had two surgeries on his hip. Once he was off his pain medications and walking a bit, we were told we could come and get him.

We picked Charlie up from Pet Smart on a Saturday morning. He seemed a bit scared at first, but by the afternoon, he seemed to be pretty happy and was cuddling with us and trying to play with Parker. He was REALLY good with Evan and let Evan play with him and pet him A LOT! (By that night I was ready to say we were going to keep him!)He has continued to adjust well to our family and is a REALLY good dog. He is super sweet and cuddly and he is VERY friendly. He is calm and rarely barks. He has made Parker very happy and playful again, which is wonderful. We called his foster family on Wednesday night and were officially cleared to adopt Charlie. We are SO glad we did! He is a great addition to our family!

Parker and Charlie bonded pretty fast. This is the two of them on Charlie's first day home. (We bought a bigger bed!)

Charlie is a sweet boy. Here are several pictures of him during his first week at home.

No Naps?

Evan has been having trouble falling asleep at night, so we decided to try letting him not take a nap in the afternoon. As you can tell from the pictures below, he still needs a nap! He falls asleep on his own almost every day! (On a good note, we are using melatonin at night, which helps Evan to fall asleep in a reasonable amount of time and sleep longer each night.)

Evan's New Room

I realized that I never got to write about Evan's new room, so even though he got a new room last fall, I am FINALLY going to write about it!

In October Evan got a new big boy room. All of the baby furniture and decorations came out and he got new furniture and decorations. Evan now has a full size bed, a new dresser, a new toy box, and a new book shelf that will be able to hold LOTS of books. He chose a cool space ship bed spread and pillows, along with space decorations for his wall. He has a special bulletin board to hold lots of his school work and other fun papers. His hermit crab, Justa, lives on his dresser and Justa's warming light makes a great night light for Evan. The coolest part of Evan's room is probably the cool Star Wars painting that Daddy made for him.

Evan loves his new "Star Wars" room. We are happy he likes it and we are excited for him to be a big boy. (Evan happily donated his old furniture to Preston. It was really sweet!)

Evan's Name Plaque

Evan's New Big Boy Room

Evan's Dresser and Justa Crab

Evan's Star Wars Painting (Thanks Daddy!)

Preston Matthew Koontz

We have decided to name our son Preston Matthew Koontz. We chose the name Preston because we like it a lot and it is not very common. Matthew was chosen because many names on the Swann side of the family start with M and so does Matthew. Also, my mom particularly liked the name Matthew, so that helped us make the decision.

So far I am feeling really good. I have had some pretty bad heart burn and indigestion, but nothing that is unusual with pregnancy. I was VERY tired in the first trimester, but now that I am in the second trimester, I have much more energy. I have already gained quite a bit of weight compared to when I was pregnant with Evan, but Dr. Evans says it is the right amount to be gaining. (I didn't gain very much weight with Evan due to breast cancer.)

I had an ultrasound last week at 23 weeks gestation. Preston looks great! I am so happy that he is healthy! Right now his size is average, but somewhat small. I am interested to see how big he will be when he is born! (Evan always measured as larger than average, so it seems sort of strange to me that Preston is not large too!)

Here is a 3D picture of Preston. I think he looks quite a bit like Evan, but we will have to wait and see what he looks like when he is born in a few more months.

Here is a picture of me that was taken at 20 weeks gestation. (I look a bit bigger now, but not too much.)

New Year's Eve 2011

This year we decided to celebrate the new year at home. We started the day by watching the U of L vs. UK basketball game with the Congletons. Although U of L lost, we had a great time hanging out with our friends. In the evening, we made cookies, played with trains, watched Star Wars, made a cave, played with dinosaurs, had a silly string battle, played Star Wars, and bounced in the bounce house. It was a really fun evening!

Evan LOVED the silly string battle! It was lots of fun!

We played LOTS of Star Wars! Here is Evan dressed a "good storm trooper."