Ethan's First Halloween

Halloween is a big deal in our neighborhood, so Ethan got all decked out in his costume and helped pass out candy. I made a deal with Terre that she could pick the costume this year, but after this year I get to make sure he has a manly costume. Here's some pics of the little sweet pea!

In other Halloween news, I was honored by having someone dress up as me. Brandon, we loved the sideburns!!

Update on Ethan's Tests - Please Keep Praying

Please continue to pray for Ethan. After getting some good news from the opthamologist on Monday (the MRI was normal and his vision issues should be correctable through therapy and possibly an eye surgery in the future), we received some unsettling news yesterday resulting from a portion of the blood work that was done. Ethan’s lactic acid levels were elevated which can be an indication of a mitochondrial disorder. At this point, they are going to continue with additional tests to confirm those results and then, if it is consistent, they will conduct more thorough testing to determine the exact nature of the disorder. These types of disorders run the spectrum from life threatening to more of a minor nature (ie. low muscle tone/physical & vision delays), so at the moment we’re feeling a lot of uncertainty. It may be another couple of months until we are able to gain any more clarity, so in the meantime please pray for strength, endurance, faith and joy in midst of heartache for us and also please pray for the wholeness and complete health/healing of our little boy.

Pray for Ethan

This Friday at 8:00am Ethan will have an MRI of his brain as well a panel of blood tests. Please pray that his little body will be able to handle the sedation well and, most of all, that the results of all the tests will come back normal. We should know the results of the MRI by Monday or Tuesday. Thanks for your prayers!

Ethan's First Word

Ethan has been dazzling us for some time now with his immense vocabulary. OK, so maybe it's not immense, but there is one word he says fairly consistently when eating his rice cereal. His enthusiasm for eating ushered the word from his lips and since we first heard it about a month ago, we've been trying to capture it on video. So here you go, Ethan's first word...YUM!!!

That's a Lot of Dough!!!

A couple of days ago, we visited a local bakery called Rainbow Sweets in Marshfield, VT. Bill -- the proprietor -- was hilarious and an amazing cook. To top off our experience, Bill offered to weigh Ethan on the pastry scale. Apparently, this is a little tradition of his with every baby that comes into the shop. It was quite fun! Check out the video below to find out how much Ethan weighs.

Notes from the Road

A week ago, the three of us headed out of Louisville for our vacation to Vermont. We were happy to get out of town because Hurricane Ike unloaded on Louisville causing 250,000 people to be out of power. Our power was out from Sunday afternoon to Friday morning, so rather than continue camping in our own house we decided to hit the road Thursday morning. On our way to Vermont we made a few stops. Here's some pictures to help tell the story:


Huntington, WV -- If you're into fun, local places to eat this would be a great place to stop if you're driving through. The Frostop Drive-In brews their own root beer which is like liquid candy. The food is pretty good roadside fare as well.

Columbia, MD -- Thanks Hobsons for hosting us Friday night!! It was great to see you again. Thanks as well for your encouragement and advice on being new parents.

Bellport, NY -- The New York Veecks...we love you all!!! What a fine family we make. Uncle Robby and Aunt Cathy thanks so much for your hospitality. We enjoyed our time with you so much and look forward to seeing you again soon...April right!

Port Jefferson, NY to Bridgeport, CT -- Uncle Robby and Aunt Cathy, thanks so much for the recommendation to take the Ferry. We loved the ride and as you can tell Ethan enjoyed feeling the wind on his face!

Ethan's First Major Road Trip

As you can see, Ethan is enjoying his first major road trip...

Most of the time...

Our House Has A New Look

As promised, but a little later than I had originally planned, here's a picture of our house now that all of the work has been completed. After 5 years of siding with peeling paint and occasional offers from folks passing by to paint our house for us, we're pretty happy with the results. What do you think?

We Have Returned

Just thought we'd let you know that we have returned to our house and all the work finally got finished up this past Monday. We'll post a picture of our home with its new look in a few days, but in the meantime we thought we'd let you know our life is slowly returning back to normal now that we're back at home.

Speaking of being back in our home, we had our first guest since we returned home. Our friend Rico dropped by on Monday night on his way to Florida where he'll be attending college. It was great catching up and having him in our home. Here's a picture of Rico with Ethan:

Update on Ethan

Thanks so much for praying for Ethan the past couple of weeks! We have received the results from the EEG and the CAT scan -- both came back normal!! God has been good, faithful and gracious to us and we have been humbled by the support, encouragement and love we've received from so many people over the last few weeks. With the results of these tests we can rest a little easier now.

The doctor will check Ethan again at his 4 month exam on August 18, so please continue to pray for him that he will focus on our faces, make good eye contact and mimic our smiles. Though he isn't yet doing these things as consistently as the doctor would like, we have seen him improve some in each of these areas over the past 2 weeks -- so we're praying these improvements will remain consistent. Additionally, the doctor said that in other areas Ethan may be a little ahead in his development. Ethan has become quite verbal and coos in response to our talking to him. Also, he rolls over occasionally. In both of these areas, the doctor said he is a little ahead at this time so that's encouraging news for us.

As I already mentioned, we greatly appreciated your thoughts, prayers and encouragement over the past couple of weeks. It's comforting to know that Ethan has so many people who love him. We love you and will keep you updated on his progress!

...........................................................................................................

In other news

In addition to the uncertainty we had over the past couple of weeks, we also have not been living in our home. We are participating in a city/federal program that is called Lead Safe Louisville. The purpose is to make our home lead safe. Our home has a significant amount of lead mainly on and around the exterior of our house. As you know, lead is very bad for young children and our neighborhood just happens to have the highest lead levels in the entire city, so given Ethan's age and our income we were able to qualify for this program. (Ethan's lead levels are safe as far as we know so this is unrelated.)

Basically, we've been shacked up at the Residence Inn downtown while our house is being worked on. When it's done, we will have new siding, gutters, landscaping, a painted shed and a few new windows. Pretty sweet deal since it doesn't cost us anything except temporary relocation and a commitment to live in our home for 3 years from the date of completion. Anyway, I did happen to snap some pictures last week of our house. Check them out...they are pretty humorous and a little scary:

Good News So Far...Please Keep Praying

Thank you so much for all of your prayers!! Terre and I have felt so much support and encouragement over the past week from so many people. We have a new appreciation for friends, family and the body of Christ. We have felt all of you carrying Ethan, us and our concerns through your thoughts and prayers this week. Thank you so much!!

The quick update we have at this time is that the CAT Scan results came back totally normal!! The doctor said it revealed no brain abnormalities and as it relates to the CAT scan there are no additional reasons for concern. Praise GOD for answered prayer!!!

In addition, to this good news our prayers for the day were answered in a number of ways. Because of Ethan having to be sedated, he was not allowed to eat for 5 hours before his CAT Scan. Terre fed him at 4:45 am and he was amazingly content without eating the whole morning -- which given his appetite is an exceptional feat. Also, as you all know, we were pretty apprehensive about Ethan being put to sleep. When we went back for the CAT scan they were preparing to put him under when he fell asleep in Terre's arms. We asked if they could try the scan without putting him to sleep, so they quickly ushered us back to do the scan. When we put him on the table he woke up. He remained awake, but after a couple of minutes of wiggling he became calm. Even though he was awake, they went ahead and performed the scan since he was so still. He remained calm and still the entire time which amazed all of us! Thanks so much for your prayers specifically for that -- it was a huge relief to have that done without sedation!!

The doctor said that we probably won't know the final results of the EEG until Monday, so please continue to pray that this report comes back normal as well. As soon as we find out the results, we'll be sure to post them and send an e-mail to everyone.

Thanks again for your prayers and support -- we love you all!!!

Please Pray for Ethan

Terre and I took Ethan for his 2 month checkup yesterday and left with some unexpected news. The doctor has some concerns that Ethan is not focusing and making eye contact as he should at this age. Along with this, Ethan's eyes sometimes roll upwards which the doctor said can be a sign of seizures. The doctor ordered a CAT scan of Ethan's head and an EEG to measure his brain activity.

Ethan will have to be put to sleep for this procedure and we are concerned about this as well as the outcome of the tests. Please pray that all will be well with our little boy -- that the tests will be normal. His tests are this Thursday morning, July 3 at 8 am.

Please also pray for us as this will be a long week waiting and wondering about the outcome.

........................................................................................................

Here's a picture of Ethan during his first camping trip and a video of him "talking" to us:

Snapshots of Ethan

Hangin' with the Fellaz

Last night a bunch of the guys from the Center came over for the weekly Youth Community gathering we have at our home during the summer. A few of them met Ethan for the first time so we thought we'd get a picture with all of us together. He's already one of the guys!!!

Time for an Update...

It's been awhile since I've posted anything new so I figured it's time to catch you up on some things. First, Ethan loves to eat -- so much so that he has doubled his weight in the first 6 weeks. He holds his weight well and is still incredibly cute.

Turns out that with that big appetite comes a great deal of gas as well, so we've been having to help him work it out. That's been fun! He can belch with the best of them, of course, it's usually accompanied by some form of milky spit up in varying quantities from a little dribble to a spewing fountain...though the fountain has been very rare, thankfully.

In other news, we took a fun road trip up to Madison, Indiana over Memorial Day weekend. Madison is one of our favorite nearby spots to visit so we headed up for a craft fair on the square and while we were there indulged in a number of yummy culinary delights from greasy hamburgers to chocolate treats to heaping scoops of ice cream. It was a great day!

We also spent some time on Madison's river walk along the Ohio River. Here's some pictures from our stroll...

Bluegrass, Ice Cream, BBQ...and a little sunburn

This weekend we decided to celebrate Ethan's 1 month birthday by taking in a little bluegrass music at the Forest Fest in Jefferson Memorial Forest here in Louisville. For those of you who are bluegrass fans the headliner was Ralph Stanley & His Clinch Mountain Boys. By the time they were on stage we were pretty wiped out so we headed out before they were done, but we did manage to hear Ralph Stanley sing "O' Death" before we left, which was quite a treat. While we were there we also enjoyed some heaping scoops of Ehrler's Ice Cream -- a local favorite -- and then stopped by the Pitt Academy BBQ Festival to pick up some chopped pork for dinner. The bbq was amazing and made for a nice treat to end the day.







In the midst of all of this there was 1 important lesson we learned...be sure to keep Ethan well shaded from the sun. We did our best to stay in the shade, but he still managed to get a little sunburn as you can see in the picture below. Thankfully, it wasn't too bad and he continues to be incredibly patient with us as we settle into parenthood.

Clean Baby

Ethan had his first bath a couple of days ago. We recorded it for posterity sake and we got some great footage. The funniest clip was of the stream of pee he let loose shortly after entering the water. He seemed pretty satisfied and content in the water after that, but we made a mental note to cover "that thing" up next time. It was fun and we found him to be -- yet again -- continually patient with us as we learn our role as new parents.

Here are some pictures of him just after his bath and a short video clip of him getting lathered up with lotion. He takes after his dad and shares his displeasure with the whole lotion experience. No matter what though, he's still so cute!

Loved by Lots of Folks

Ethan has had a number of people come to visit him over the past couple of weeks. Here he is with his grandparents, aunts and great grandma.

Aunt Allie & Grandma Nahm

Grandpa Nahm

Great Grandma McCracken

Aunt Jenny & Grandma Sink

Grandpa Veeck

In addition to family there's been a number of friends stopping by as well. Here's Ethan with his new friends...

Wanda

Woo

Ray

Cory

Troya

Meme

Big Mama

There have been several others who have come by to meet Ethan whom we forgot to take pictures of. To all of you, thanks for expressing your love and care for us.