Vacation Overload

It has been forever since I posted, but I knew I could not get back to blogging without documenting the memories of our 1st vacation as the Frazier Four.

The Great Wolf Lodge was wonderful and I recommend this to anyone with children. It was a blast and there is something for everyone.

Emma's favorite part was Story time that took place every morning and every evening. The children would gather around the big tree, often in their pajamas and watch the animated show. It was the same show every time, but Emma insisted that we watch it every time it came on. I could have recited it by the time we left and sang all the songs that went along with it.

Daddy and Emma playing a little ski ball. Emma got up on the alley at one point to try and stick her balls in the holes. I remember doing the same thing when I was little.

This bear was outside the Sweet Shop in the resort and they had some YUMMY stuff.

Daddy and Emma playing in the log cabin that Little Tike's specifically designed for the Great Wolf Lodge. She loved it.

They had a spa called Scoops for the little girls to get pedicures and manicures. We wanted to have Emma's toenails painted, but they would not just do that. It had to be the whole works or nothing. I refused to let them file down on my 2 year old. Needless to say, we went to Target and bought our own nail polish and Mommy did it instead. This was the first time Emma got to have her toenails painted. Fun, Fun, Fun. Oh, she also begged her Daddy to let her paint his (ha ha).

Our little man was such a trooper the entire trip ~ he just enjoyed the ride, never once complaining.

Okay, I am not one for posting pictures of myself and especially not in a swimsuit, but this is one of the ONLY pictures of all 4 of us. The water park was all indoors, so it was perfect for us since Gavin was only 4 months old.

Aunt Debbie, Uncle Wayne and Kaiden came and joined us one day while we were there. Kaiden loved the water slides and we had so much FUN playing with him.

Emma and Cousin Kaiden playing with one of the water toys. I am certain they were probably trying to get Aunt Debbie wet.

Kaiden loved trying to get me wet too. We played so hard in the water that I think I just passed out from exhaustion at the end of the day. Boys go non stop, I am going to have to get in shape before Gavin gets this age.

Daddy and Emma playing Whack a Shark. Emma thought it was so funny to see her Daddy doing this and Mommy did too.

Emma loved spending time with Kaiden and could not keep her hands off of him. She talked about him for days after we returned home.

This double stroller is the BEST investment we have made since having Gavin. I can not tell you how many people asked us if they were twins. Uh, I know he is big...but come on.

The resort had a place called Cub Club where the little ones could do all kinds of arts and crafts. Emma chose to paint a turtle bank and it turned out so cute. We really enjoyed watching her paint the little turtle.

This was Emma's 2nd favorite thing at the GWL. She would beg and beg to go back to the Ice Cream Truck. Funny thing was, she did not want it to move. We put tokens in it at one point and she did not like it at all.

Gavin just enjoyed being pushed in the stroller and watching his sister have a good time.

After 4 days we packed up and went to the Westin Galleria, so we could go to the American Doll Store and the Dallas World Aquarium. I had to get this shot. Notice all the luggage on the cart? That is all ours. Oh my, I was so thankful we did not travel anywhere by plane after seeing everything we had to bring along.

Enjoying breakfast at the American Girl Bistro. I bet my child is the first one who has ever brought her dog-dog and her American Girl Baby to the store. Sometimes as a Mommy, I have to pick my battles and leaving dog-dog behind is not a battle I ever choose to fight.

Yes, she is still obsessed with dogs and made sure that he got his own strawberry muffin.

This store was unbelievable. Curtis just kept saying, "I don't know who likes it more, you or Emma" and he was so right. It was the best place ever and this Mommy and Baby Girl were so in love with everything in this place.

Emma in front of all the yearly dolls. They are all so cute and sweet. I can not wait till Emma is big enough to get one of the big girl dolls. Right now she just has one of the Itty Bitty Babies.

Yes, they even have a hair salon where you can bring your dolls to get their hair redone or have their ears pierced. This little lady was working styling hair both days that we went into the store.

Mommy and Emma on one of the little sofas at the store. We could buy the whole place if Daddy would let us.

Is this little doll bed not the cutest thing? So cute that Emma wanted to get in it.

We did not get many pictures of ourselves at the Dallas World Aquarium, only of the animals and I did not figure I would include those. However, we did get some awesome picture of the penguins that we plan to frame and put in the kids bathroom that we are in the process of redecorating.

All in all, it was a great little getaway for us and I am so glad that we chose to stay in Texas. Emma really enjoyed herself and Gavin was such a trooper. We have a journal that we keep after vacations where we each record our 3 favorite things from the trip, so I will share Emma's & Gavin's with you.

Emma's top 3 were:

• Story time at the animated clock
• Playing in the Ice Cream Truck
• American Girl Doll Store

Gavin's top 3 were:

• Sleeping in the bed with his Mommy
• Heated pool at the water park
• Watching Emma

My favorite part of vacation was spending uninterrupted time with my sweet little family. It was so nice to get away without the hustle and bustle of our daily routine.

Hard Work Pays Off

Our Little Man is working so hard in physical therapy and we are so PROUD of him. We have seen so much improvement in 2 weeks with Gavin and we are confident that it is only a matter of time before he is 100%. The tilt of his head has improved from 20 degrees to 12 degrees to 10 degrees as of today's therapy session. His joints in his neck on the side that has the issue were not movable at all 2 weeks ago and I am proud to tell you that they are now able to be moved a notch. Thank you Jesus.

Our therapist, Trish has been such an Angel to us. She is so good with Gavin and has such a big heart for children and helping others. She actually has a little boy that is only a few weeks younger than him, so she relates to us really well. She goes above and beyond to try and make us feel good each session about the progress that our angel baby is making.

Look at this sweet boy...he is working so hard. His therapy is alot of work and he often gets frustrated, but NEVER gives up and we are so proud him. I can not tell you how thankful we are to have discovered this problem early on before things got any worse.

This week we have gotten a second opinion on Gavin's diagnosis and have also been referred to a specialist that deals specifically with these issues. He will be seeing the specialist on August 4th and from my understanding we will know the severity of his condition and have an exact treatment plan. As you can imagine, we are very anxious to get this taken care of immediately.

My heart just breaks for parents of sick children. As I aforementioned, this is a minor setback for us that we will get through and be just fine. However, I can not help but ask myself daily...what about the parents that don't have an end in sight? What about those with no hope? What about those that are watching their children suffer? What about those that lack a relationship with God? What about those that have lost their children? What about those that can not seek proper medical attention? What about & the list goes on and on!

The truth is, I have so much to be thankful for and I am so incredibly blessed in more ways than I could ever even begin to list.

Thank you so much for your continued thoughts and prayers on our behalf. I challenge you today to find a child, any child and lift them up in prayer. Afterall, you might be the only person praying for that child today!

Back & Busy

We have made it home from our little getaway and we are still a family of 4. Just kidding of course, but I am here to tell you it is alot of work traveling with a 2 year old and a 4 month old. We had a great time, the kids were wonderful, got to visit with family and enjoyed just being away.

We started our vacation off at the Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, Texas. I am here to tell you that this is a kids resort. If you have little ones, they will love it and so will you. Everything from an indoor water park, story time, kids spa, game room, craft center, bear stuffing and much more. We really enjoyed our stay here and will return again someday. I will post some of our pictures later this week. We were also blessed to have Aunt Debbie, Uncle Wayne & Cousin Kaiden drive in from Dallas to spend the day with us at the water park.

After checking out of the GWL, we then drove about 30 minutes to the Westin at the Dallas Galleria. Oh, this place was comfy womfy... I loved it. We really enjoyed our stay here and did some more fun stuff. We were able to have dinner with with Aunt Debbie, Uncle Wayne and Cousins Wyman, Kendra, Jared and Kaiden at Mi Cocina....yummy Mexican food.

The best part about the Westin was what was located about 200 feet away. We made reservations to have breakfast at the Bistro in the American Girl Doll Boutique. Thank you Jesus for giving me a baby girl to share this with, this store was every little girl's dream.

Oh, it was so girly and so much FUN. All you GIRLY Mom's out there, this is something you MUST do once with your daughter. We took tons of pictures and I will be posting some soon.

Of course our sweet Emma had to bring a dog-dog with her and not just her American Girl Baby to have breakfast. They attached high chairs to the tables for the girls to have breakfast with their babies. How cute is that? Just wait till you see all the other stuff they had, I could have spent tons of money in this store. I came to my senses before I got to the register...thank goodness!

We also made a visit to the Dallas World Aquarium for the day. I am not a big fan of Aquariums, but this place was AWESOME...if you are ever in the Dallas area you must go see this place. We really enjoyed seeing all the animals and the layout of the aquarium. They had everything from sea otters, penguins, turtles, leopards, flamingos, monkeys, owls and so much more.

A trip in Texas would not be complete without a stop coming and going to Buc-ee's. This place in itself was a vacation and will allow you to drop some cash in no time at all. You name it, they have it and it all looks so GOOD.

All in all, this was the perfect little trip for the Frazier Four. The HOTY did a great job planning this little getaway, getting us there safely and making sure we had a great time. Thank you Curtis, you are the best Daddy and Husband ever!

I am so thankful we did not try to get on a plane with our 2 little ones or head to Destin like we originally wanted. I am thinking that we will wait until they are 2 and 3 to take a big vacation. It was so much work, but so worth it. Thanks again Curtis for convincing me to take a vacation closer to home.

This makes my heart smile every time I look at it. This is how my sweet babies rode in the car and their double stroller our entire vacation. Siblings are the best gift of all, aren't they?

Things have been busy since we have returned. Gavin has been going to therapy and is doing great. We have a session tomorrow night, so I plan on blogging about that and the progress he has already made. We are so proud of him and are still praying daily that we can avoid the helmet. We have obtained a second opinion and are consulting with a specialist on August 14th. Please continue to keep our Little Man in your prayers.

PT & Safe Arrival

Our Little Man had his first visit with his physical therapist today and he was such a cooperative little patient. We learned so much today about Gavin's little condition. It is believed that the torticollus is a result of him being so smashed in the womb from being a large baby at birth.

We are confident that with the help of PT and us working with him at home that this is 100% correctable, However, we were informed today that this could be muscular or skeletal. Skeletal is much worse and not correctable, so we are prayerful that ours is muscular and can be corrected over time. The skeletal version is only diagnosable through Xray and we are going to try and avoid that for a while due to his age.

As his parents we refuse to accept that it could be skeletal and we stand strong in our belief that we serve an awesome God that is already at work on our sweet boys behalf.

The PT was very confident that she could correct this through several sessions a week and with us stretching him at home 5 times a day. I am sure we don't need to tell you that we are committed to do whatever we have to do in order to correct this immediately. The PT was not real optimistic that we would be able to avoid the helmet. Once again, we will continue to pray and believe that the ultimate healer will be in control of that too.

Part of the process of PT was determining the degree of the head tilt which was only 20 degrees. From our understanding Gavin has a very mild case. Our PT currently is working with a 6 month old that had a 40 degree tilt and it has been reduced to 17 degrees with only 16 therapy sessions ~ Praise God for that sweet baby.

We are believing that Gavin's condition is muscular and is going to show great improvements in the weeks ahead. We will also continue to pray that at his 6 month check up he will get a "that a boy" and avoid the helmet.

Thank you for your prayers and your kind words on behalf of our little man. I appreciate all the emails and I will continue to share with you how successful Gavin is going to be with his PT.

We arrived at our vacation destination and quickly got settled in for a few days of fun. I had to share with you that we pushed the 2 queen size beds together so the Frazier Four could snuggle up.

4 Month Check Up

Our BIG BOY went for his 4 month old check up today and he was a trooper.

How much longer is he going to be able to fit on the little infant scale? Just look at him...he is hanging off everywhere. Don't squint, I took an up close picture of the scale for his Daddy to see how BIG this boy has gotten.

You saw it right....20lb 12oz....26 inches long and his head measured 17 3/8 inches. The boy is HUGE! Yes, that is all from being nursed too...nothing else. I have had people doubt me on this one, but I promise I do not give my babies food till they are 6 months old.

Poor little thing...honestly, he barely cried. I think he has enough protection on those chubby little legs that he did not feel it until the 2nd one and that is because it burned.

Look at the brave Big Sister...she did not want any part of watching her "little buddy" get shots. Oh no, she told the Dr. we were leaving on "cation tomorrow to the ocean to see the sharks and the dolphins"...she really believes it. We have told her over and over again that we are not going and we would go next year.

So, we found out today that Gavin has Torticollis and Plagiocephaly which is a tightening of the neck muscle which is causing some flattening of the head on one side. We were told if it does not correct by the time he is 6 months old, he would have to be fitted for a helmet that must be worn 23 hours a day.

We were referred to physical therapy. I wasted no time and drove there immediately to see what we needed to do and sign him up to begin. Needless to say, my 4 month old will be beginning physical therapy in the morning at 9:30. We are scheduled to leave for vacation in the morning, so we will just leave as soon as we learn a little more about what we can do to help correct the torticollis.

Please say a little prayer for Gavin if you get a chance. It is not a big deal and it is totally correctable, so I feel a little selfish asking you to pray (but who couldn't use a few prayers on their behalf, right?). As for me and his Daddy, we will be praying daily for this problem to be corrected before he is 6 months old.

P-L-A-Y-T-I-M-E

We spent the day yesterday playing with the little ones and they seemed to have a good time.

Emma got this little water table from her Nana for her birthday and she loves it. Afterall, what kid does not enjoy playing in the water? We had company last week and I looked out the window and she had climbed up in it and sat down. Silly kid!

I have a feeling the days of this little guy laying around are over. He enjoyed some exersaucer time yesterday for the first time and really enjoyed it.

Emma has been wanting to play with this sprinkler ball for a while, so we finally set it up yesterday. Daddy enjoyed playing in it too, but told me I could not post any pictures of him. Oh, they are funny.

Look at this sweet boy... don't you just want to squeeze him?

This kid would stay outside from sun up to sun down if we would let her. This picture just makes me smile.

Just think, next summer both of them will be running around and playing...I can't wait!

From the cradle...

to the crib. Oh my heart is aching, my baby boy is in his crib for the first time tonight. I am sure I will not sleep as I adjust to listening for 2 monitors opposed to 1. Yes, Emma still sleeps with an Angel Care Monitor and now Gavin is using his too. Well, he has been using the sensor part, but not the handset since he has been sleeping in a cradle only an arm reach away from his Daddy.

We knew it was time to make the move when we woke up the last 2 mornings and he had flipped over on his belly and had his little neck stuck out like a giraffe staring at us. It was really cute, but probably not a good idea to leave this big ole boy in a cradle.

No doubt in my mind he will sleep so much better, but the selfish part of me wanted to keep him in here forever. There is something about knowing it is your last baby and you have to move him to his bed...hard to explain, but I am sure someone out there understands.

Sweet dreams baby boy, sweet dreams!

Hot Summer Days

We have spent our days in the neighborhood pool this summer and it has been lots of fun. Emma is getting braver everyday, but is still a little nervous at times.

She normally wears either the floaties or the ring, but yesterday decided to wear both of them and it worked out better for all of us ~ seems to keep her a little higher up out of the water.

Gavin loves the water too and is so good when we go to the pool. He just hangs out, kicks his little feet, babbles and watches the big kids.

Next week we will be going on a little mini vacation (Emma calls it a cation) with the kiddos. Emma is so excited and keeps walking around here saying, "get on an airplane, go to the ocean on cation to see the dolphins and the sharks". Hmm...she might be a little disappointed when she discovers we are traveling by car and there is no ocean, sharks or dolphins. I don't even know where she came up with this, she just started saying it.

If you're happy and you know it...

say Amen, Amen...if you're happy and you know it say Amen, Amen...if you're happy and you know it then your face will surely show it, if you're happy and you know it say Amen, Amen!

This is one happy little fella right here... day or night, dark or light, what you see is what you get...he is a LOVER of life.

Drooling up a storm, might be a tooth making its appearance soon. We go to the Dr. on Monday to find out what "our little man" weighs? I am thinking those cheeks alone are about a pound each. Oh, and check out those cute little feet and toes...they are so darn cute. We finally got some shoes and wore them for the first time last week. However, I must admit...my favorite baby feet are shoeless.

Just dawned on me that I completely forgot to post on July 3rd...that was the day 1 year ago that we found out that the 4th Frazier would be joining our family and I am so glad HE did. This is the picture we shared with our family to announce that we were pregnant...took them about a second to catch on.

Look how much the "Itty Bitty" has changed in 1 year. If I could only slow down the hands of time, I would do it in a second and I am sure many of you would join me.

Emma vs.the Dentist

This Mommy should have known that it was not going to go over well, when her little feet hit the floor this morning and she started saying, "no, I am not going to the dentist". Well, needless to say we made our way to the dentist and as soon as we hit the reception area she started crying and saying, "I want to go home" over and over and over!. At that point I should have just left, but decided that we would stay and just try it. The picture belows says it all...it was NOT a good experience.


She was much happier when we got in the car and she knew we had left there for good. She then started saying, "I like the dentist, I got a pink toothbrush Mommy".

She got over it pretty quickly and they are expecting us back in 6 months for her 1st cleaning...uh, I am not sure we will make it back.

Tonight as we were getting her ready for bed I asked her to show her Daddy what the dentist told her today. She had me open my mouth and she began counting my teeth all the way up to 12 and then in a very high pitched voice as she got super close to my mouth she said, "your teeth look good, your teeth look pretty". This kid is so FUNNY and does not miss a beat, remembers everything she hears and can hardly wait to repeat it.

I was so proud of you today Emma, you were certainly the loudest patient in the office and also the CUTEST!