Good-bye, Texas Stadium

Jordan made his first — and only — trip to Texas Stadium Saturday night to watch the Euless Trinity Trojans beat the living tar out of Dad’s alma mater, the Arlington High Colts. Oh well, at least it was cold, we had to pay to park on a crumbling lot and the nachos were $8 a pop. (Ordered after the $7 pizza turned out to be inedible).

Texas Stadium will be gone sometime in the next couple of years, replaced by the Boss Hogg Bowl in Arlington, whose taxpayers don’t understand why anyone would pass up the opportunity to build a multi-million dollar stadium for a billionaire sports team owner.

But Jordan got to see for himself the stadium where Tom Landry once coached and where a great football team once played.

Here he is with Papa.

Matthew's first Thanksgiving

Matthew's first Thanksgiving is under our belts. We started the day with a late lunch at D&M's house. Turkey from Colter's, ham from Costco, and more fixins than you could shake a stick at. Oh yeah, and our nearest and dearest 25 relatives.

Debbie, Michelle and I took Conner, Jordan and Aidan across the street to Duncan Robinson Park to kick around the soccer ball, swing and slide. A.J. came over for a couple of minutes to snap some pictures for his photography class at SFA. They all had a lot of fun.

Here are some of my pictures (it's been a while since I took photography at UTA). :)



After we finished up at D&M's, we left and went home to catch the first quarter of the Cowboys game, let Jordan and Matthew rest, and get ready for dinner with Emo, Papa and Aunt Cris.

We arrived for dinner there and ate turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, broccoli, carrots and rolls. It was great. Matthew really liked the sweet potatoes.




Oh yes, we did have Matthew's DOC band painted just in time for the Texas-Texas A&M "game" Thursday night. Seriously, 49-9? Does A&M even belong in the Big 12 any more? I think 5A high school football might prove to be a challenge for the Aggies this season. I mean, after all, they lost to Baylor...

We watched the first half of the Longhorn rout of the Aggies, but Jordan was getting sleepy, so we watched a few minutes of his current favorite movie (The Incredibles) on NBC (seriously, he watches it at least once a day right now - sometimes twice) and then headed home.

Matthew's DOC Band

Matthew, Mom, Aunt Wendy and I all visited the specialists at Cranial Tech to have Matthew fitted for his new DOC Band.

We've been going through this process for about three months now: At Matthew's 2-month check-up, our doctor noted that he seemed to have a flat spot on the back of his head. It's usually caused from sleeping on their backs, and a baby favoring turning his head to one side or the other. So, we spent the next two months repositioning him, all to no avail. So, the pediatrician at his 4-month appointment referred us to the specialists at Cranial Tech. Unfortunately, their offices are an 80-mile roundtrip from the house. And no, there isn't another provider closer (we met a family that drives from Marshall in far East Texas, and know of someone who had to fly from St. Louis for the weekly appointments at Cranial Tech's far North Dallas location).

Anyhow, here's a picture of Matthew's head so you can see we're not making this up (his face is facing the top right-corner of the picture, you'll see the flat spot on the bottom-center of the picture). To the right is Matthew wearing his DOC Band (and trying to get his toes). (I'll try to post a better picture soon; this was taken with my camera phone, which may have the slowest shutter speed of any camera on earth).













The therapist seems to think Matthew will wear this somewhere between 6 and 9 weeks. He has to wear it 23 hours a day, except for bathing and cleaning of the DOC Band. (And our clinician told us we could take it off when we do Christmas pictures later this month or early next).

Basically, the band works like a dam. When water is flowing, if it meets resistance, it finds a more forgiving path to pursue. A baby's developing and growing brain is the same way, it'll expand toward the path of least resistance. So, the band blocks the head from expanding on the fuller side, allowing it to grow to its fullest on the less full side.

Matthew is his usual happy self, and doesn't hardly seem to notice the band; in fact, the technicians tell us that his brain currently sets a little forward of where it should, so it should make it easier for him to pull up, and begin crawling. Hmmm. Maybe this band wasn't such a good idea. :)

We'll keep you posted, and show pictures of how his head shape changes over the next 2-3 months. For us, that'll be "Change We Can Believe In." :)

Election day

Well, there went the country... I think we'll move to Australia.

Fall pictures

Here's some of the latest pictures this month of Jordan and Matthew.

Some fun stuff, some sad stuff

This has been a hectic few weeks...

• I've finished my accounting class from you-know-where at Texas A&M University-Commerce. Don't know the grade. Don't know whether I'll tell you what the grade is when I get it, either. :)
  
• We unexpectedly lost Dondi's godfather, "Pop" (Manley "Monk" Baird) on Thursday, Oct. 16. (You may recall Dondi's godmother passed away in June). Pop was visiting his siblings in northeastern Alabama when he passed away. Dondi and I went to the memorial service in Texarkana, Texas, on Oct. 23. Pa-pa and Emo (themselves back from a whirlwind trip to Ohio) graciously watched Jordan and Matthew all day so we could go to the funeral.
• Jordan went to his first birthday party. Aunt Cristina's friend Shasta's four-year-old boy had a birthday party at a bounce house facility south of Dallas. He seemed to have a blast.
• All four of us were sick over the weekend with a 24-hour stomach bug. Matthew got it first, Dondi got it second. I got it third and found myself dehydrated during the middle of it, so had to go to the emergency room to get rehydrated and a bunch of shots to quell the nausea and all. Jordan picked it up last, though seemed to get over it the quickest of all of us.
  

Otherwise, just normal fun. Dondi takes the Regulation section of the CPA exam on Nov. 14 in Bedford. I'm sure she appreciates your prayers for this process to be over with (for good!).

Matthew's 4-month appointment

Matthew had his four-month appointment today. Vital stats:

Length: 26 1/2 inches.
Weight: 17.7 pounds.

Matthew had gained 3.25 inches and 4 pounds from his two-month appointment.

This weekend

Just a quick update: Jordan had a busy weekend. Matthew's was a little more laid back, but Monday should be a different story.

• Friday night Jordan and Dad joined Papa and Emo at the Arlington High-Martin High game at Cravens Field. Jordan had a lot of until ha;f time, when he was ready to go.
• Saturday, Jordan, Mom and Dad went to the State Fair of Texas. Matthew spent the day with Papa and Emo (we thought it'd be too hot for him -- we were right). Jordan had a blast: "driving" all the cars and trucks at the auto show, eating ice cream, watching the trains by Big Tex, riding the carousel and a toddler-friendly roller coaster. He was asleep before we were out of the parking lot at Fair Park.
• Sunday we celebrated Papa's birthday with brunch at Blue Mesa in Addison. It was outstanding! Aunt Cris, Emo, Mom, Dad, Matthew, Jordan, and of course, Papa were there for great omelets, faijtas, peach cobbler, eggs, potatoes, pastas and salads. All excellent.

Monday is Matthew's four-month doctor's check-up and next round of shots. He shouldn't be too thrilled with that. I'll post his stats tomorrow evening.

Here's Jordan checking out the driver's seat of an Arlington-built Chevy Tahoe.

Happy Birthday Jordan

Jordan’s three today. We have a true little boy running around the house. And we do mean running around the house!

We had Jordan’s birthday party at our house Saturday afternoon. This one was just a family party, which meant just 18 people at the house: Emo and Papa; Aunt Cristina; Gee and Jojo; Jordan’s cousin Everett, Aunt Deona and Monica; Uncle Jim and Aunt Diann; Mimi; Uncle Jay, Aunt Kelly, AJ and Brittany; plus Matthew, Mom and Dad.

The party was at lunchtime with hot dogs, pigs in a blanket, fresh fruit, trail mix, cream cheese and salsa and queso. It was all delicious, and Jordan loved it all.

Originally, we planned the party — at Jordan’s request — as a Clifford the Big Red Dog themed-event. After we printed the invitations, though, Jordan announced that he was having a Go Diego Go party. So, it was (in the words of our friend Wendy) a Clifford the Big Red Dog Party, featuring Go Diego Go. :)

















Jordan got a lot of great gifts: Clifford and Thomas the Tank Engine books, pieces to his train set, a plastic slinky, magnadoodle, a Veggie Tales castle, a Lincoln Logs set, a Diego field journal, a baseball set, a University of Texas Longhorns T-shirt, cash and more.

Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun, especially Jordan. Here are some pictures from the day:

We're back

Where have we been? Well, around town. Busy as a mosquito on Galveston Island. More on that in a second...

Matthew is doing just awesome. He had his two-month check-up Aug. 4. He had his first round of immunizations (which he didn't care for one bit). Matthew had grown quite a bit: 13 pounds, 7 ounces and 23 1/4 inches long, officially at the appointment. (We've weighed him on our scale at home since then, and he's almost 18 pounds -- he's even wearing clothing for nine month olds).

Matthew made his first two trips to church (two different churches, including our home one) and did great in both nurseries. He slept through both. :)

Jordan, Pa-pa, Mom and Dad went to the Texas Rangers/Cleveland Indians game Saturday evening, Aug. 23. The Rangers blew a 7-1 lead at the end of four, allowing Cleveland to score six runs in the top of the fifth. Oh well, there's always next year. Or the year after, or oh well, it'll never happen (at least until Nolan Ryan fires a certain GM; or better yet, if a certain team owner would cash out and move on).

But I digress...

We also headed down to Galveston for a somewhat impromptu family getaway (this was before Hurricane Ike washed Galveston out to sea). Jo-jo, Mom, Jordan and Matthew drove down on Wednesday morning, Aug. 27. Dad drove down after work on the 27th, and Gee flew down on the morning of the 28th. We spent some quality time at the beach, by the pool and eating shrimp. Jordan and Dad made it to the beach each and every day, and loved every second of it: jumping in the waves, building a sand castle and digging in the sand looking for seashells. (OK, Jo-jo did more of the digging stuff -- I was too busy trying not to burn).

Gee flew home on Saturday morning to make sure he was home before Hurricane Gustav made landfall in Louisiana (and impacted East Texas weather). We left Sunday around lunch time by car. Traffic was much heavier than normal as evacuees from Louisiana and the Beaumont area made their way into North Texas. We stopped for shopping at the outlet mall in Conroe, north of Houston, then made dinner at Sam's in Fairfield. We were home by about 8 p.m.

Matthew didn't care for the ride one bit. About Corsicana, Matthew lost it and screamed for about 20 minutes, until we stopped at a really nice Whataburger in Midlothian. He still wasn't thrilled getting back in the car, but made it home without too many problems.

Today is full of rain as what is left of Hurricane Ike drops buckets of rain on Texas. It's not too bad here in North Texas, though the occasional wind gust kicks up to Tropical Storm strength. At least, that's why I assume we were under an Inland Tropical Storm Wind Warning this morning. Never recall seeing that one in the forecast before...

Not much else is going on. Dondi took two sections of the CPA exam at the end of August. (We have test results back on one of them: She passed). Roy started the MBA program at Texas A&M - Commerce this semester and is taking Accounting and Statistics. We're not sure why.

Pictures, you ask? See below.





















A shrimping boat comes very close to shore. Behind it was at least three or four dolphins.















Jordan and Dondi watch the Volcano dessert inside the Rainforest Cafe in Galveston.















The four of us aboard a ferry sailing between Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston Island.
















Dad and Matthew kicking it on the beach after Casey's shrimp one evening.
















Mom, Dad, Jordan and Matthew enjoying the beach.



















Matthew's first outting to the beach was very short. He didn't care for the wind, the sun, the birds, anything.
















Mom and Matthew hang out while waiting for a table at Sam's in Fairfield.

Matthew's first 4th of July

We had a very busy weekend. No pictures (forgot the camera), but it was a good time had around town.

* Friday we skipped our annual trek to the Arlington Independence Day Parade. We really enjoy it, but were afraid it'd be too hot for Matthew to tolerate. Emo and Papa went, and they said it was great fun, as always. Friday morning, Jordan decided we needed to have a "Happy Birthday America" party. So, Jo-jo and he went to the party store, loaded up on red, white and blue decorations and we had ourselves a party. Hot dogs, watermelon, birthday cake, and that very American side dish: queso. Friday night, we went down to Mansfield for their 4th of July fireworks.

* Saturday morning, Matthew and Jordan went to Emo and Papa's while Dondi and I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. If you haven't seen it, it's worth seeing in the movie theaters, but it's really not all that great of a movie. Saturday night, Jordan wanted to see more fireworks, so we went to the display at the Arlington Highlands. We found a secret spot to watch from (perfect access, could see everything and no traffic, unlike in Mansfield). Unfortunately, the wind picked up and they had to cancel the show midway through. It was a lot of fun, though.

* Sunday was pretty uneventful as we attempted to get laundry done and ready to go back to work.

This upcoming weekend, Kim and Dusty come up from San Antonio and we're going to hang out with some of our old Fielder friends. Should be a lot of fun.

Texarkana

It's been a long time in between posts. Sadly, we've been busy.

Dondi's godmother has been fighting cancer since last November, and ultimately went home to be with her Savior on Sunday morning. Dondi, Matthew, Jo-jo and I drove to see her Friday in the ICU at Christus St. Michael hospital in Texarkana, Texas.

Dondi had her four-week checkup on Friday morning (it went well and she's healthy). Pa-pa and Emo came and took Jordan to their house for the day and night, so then Dondi, Matthew, Debbie and I headed northeast on I-30.

Including a stop for lunch at the Chick-fil-A in Greenville, it took us about four and a half hours to get to the hospital. Due to some cell phone issues, it took us about half an hour to find "Pop" and Dondi's Aunt Jackie. We had a good visit with them in the waiting area while waiting for visitation. (Visitation is four one hour time slots throughout the day). Joy was on a ventilator and was in a drug-induced coma. After visitation was over, we headed over to Pop's house for Jackie and Pop to eat dinner and to visit for a while.

During the drive home Friday night into Saturday morning, Joy's heart gave out and she was removed from life support. She died around 5:45 a.m. Sunday.

The funeral was Tuesday afternoon, back in Texarkana. Tuesday also happened to be Jordan's first day of summer Mother's Day Out. So, we dropped him off at "church school" and then Debbie, Dondi, Matthew and I made our way to the memorial service. (Don went in a separate car with D and M and Pa-pa picked Jordan up from MDO). We had a good visit with some of the Jordans' close friends after the service, and then packed up and headed back to Dallas. Since Debbie and I both had to get to work, we booked it back home (thankfully, DPS had no patrols along I-30 westbound between Texarkana and Rockwall).

We got to see Joy one last time while she was still healthy back in November. The picture above is a shot from my camera phone of Jordan, Dondi and Joy. (This is on the swing in Joy and Pop's backyard in Texarkana, Ark.)

There has been some fun stuff, too this last week. Jordan spent Sunday night and all day Monday with Aunt Cristina. They took the Trinity Railway Express from Centreport to downtown Fort Worth and had lunch with Emo. Jordan enjoyed that immensely. He also wasn't ready to leave Aunt Cris' house.

Matthew is still growing. All that stuff about him being easy-going; yeah, forget that. He's not so easy-going anymore. :)

And yes, some pictures:

Dad and the boys

2-week doctor's appointment

Matthew had his two-week doctor's appointment this afternoon, and all went well. He has grown an inch - now 21 1/2 inches long - and is now 9 pounds 2 ounces. That's up a pound from his first doctor's appointment at 4 days old, and is up a bit from his birth weight of 8 pounds 12 ounces (it's normal for baby's to lose weight right after birth).

Matthew also had his PKU test on Monday at the hospital's lab. The doctor said today the test results have to go to Austin for review, but our doctor explained that if all is normal, we won't hear anything.

Not much else is going on with us: this is my last day off before returning to work on Monday. It's been a fun two weeks off with Matthew, Jordan and Dondi, but it's time to face the e-mails and voice mails bright and early Monday.

Matthew's first doctor's appointment

We took Matthew to the doctor today for his first appointment: They wanted to check him out to see how he was faring at four days old. He was doing pretty well. Still a little jaundiced, but better than in the hospital. Overall, a clean bill of health.

We will take him this Friday or Monday back to the hospital for the second part of his PKU test, and then he has a two-week doctor's appointment a week from this Friday.

Matthew is home

What a whirlwind 72 hours. Matthew is home and we're beat!

Friday at the hospital was more or less uneventful: visiting with nurses, family and others. Pa-pa and I built a captain's bed that is currently mom's bed in Matthew's room, but will be Jordan's bed in a couple of months. (And by "Pa-pa and I built" the bed, I mean "Pa-pa did all the work, and I handed him the appropriate tool or piece of hardware as he requested it"). Jordan went to day care in the morning, but did get to go see Mom and Matthew in the hospital Friday evening. He loved that, discovering the foot pedals that operate the sink in the hospital room, and finding out that Mom's room had echoing ability.

This morning started off fairly uneventfully: we went to the discharge class with all the other new moms and dads (at 32 (me) and 30-something-or-another (Dondi), we were the oldest parents in there by 5 years; had we gone to yesterday's class, we would have been the oldest by at least a dozen years). Anyway, we learned such important things as to clean with soap AND water and that we did in fact, have to put Matthew in a car seat. So much for my idea of hanging him from the visor next to my garage door opener.

We did have one surprise: our "chosen hospital," Medical Center of Arlington (we're not planning on more kids, so I can say the name now) is the official hospital of both the Texas Rangers and the Dallas Stars. I'm not sure what that means exactly to be the official hospital of sports teams, but what it meant for us is Matthew got a Texas Rangers hat, a mini-Rangers baseball bat and four free tickets to a game during the 2008 season. So, that should be fun.

OK, "free" tickets. Yeah, that's funny to me, too. I'll let you know how much the "free" tickets cost when I receive the final bill.

Anyway, we're home now and I thought rather than a long, boring narrative (what precedes this doesn't count), we'll include pictures from the last three days. Enjoy. :)















Matthew's very first picture. He's slimy.















Mom and Matthew meet face-to-face for the first time.















Grandmas with new grandson. (Jo-jo, standing, Emo, sitting holding Matthew).
















Matthew, being burped. He is not happy.















Aunt Cristina corrals Jordan and holds Matthew on the first day the two boys meet. Jordan's T-shirt says, "I'm the big brother."















Dad, Mom and Matthew in the hospital.















The hospital's photographer posed this shot of Matthew. You can buy the professional picture, or, here's mine.















Here's the three of us as we get ready to leave the hospital.

Welcome to the world, Matthew!

Matthew Ryan made quite an entrance into the world today. Eight pounds and 12 ounces, 20 1/2 inches long, and like his brother, the most beautiful baby in the world.

Dondi went to the doctor yesterday for her blood work and final check before being induced this morning. She was dilated to somewhere between a 3 and a 4. When we arrived at the hospital at 5:30 a.m., she was already dilated to a 5. Two hours later she was at a 9 (that's when the nurses stopped giving her any more of the inducing medicine!)

She started pushing at 10 a.m., and Matthew was here at 10:15. Dondi did a great job and was amazing.

Matthew is absolutely perfect. We spent the afternoon getting to know him. About 5 p.m., Jordan met his little brother. Jordan was very impressed, letting us all know, "Baby Matthew isn't in momma's tummy!"

Lots to tell, lots of pictures to show. More to come tomorrow!

Ten days to go!

Dondi had a doctor's appointment this afternoon: sonogram, no-stress test and doctor's visit. The doctor said all told, she'll be inducing on Thursday, May 29.

The appointment went well: her blood pressure was a tad high, but dropped during the appointment. The sonogram showed that Matthew is about 7 pounds, 6 ounces and is healthy. Dondi is also already dilated to a three. She'll do another no-stress test on Thursday at the doctor's office, a no-stress test at the hospital Memorial Day, and then check into the hospital for delivery on Thursday.

We took the countdown ticker off the Web site since it's no longer accurate, but we'll keep you posted around here, including pictures of the nursery later.

The countdown to Matthew continues

Matthew's room is ready for the Great Move-In of 2008. We removed everything from the room (it's no longer an office, or a kitty cat retreat) and the carpets were shampooed today (thanks, Gee and Jo-jo).

Since the room is empty, Jordan decided to use it as a place to run laps. As soon as I showed up with a camera, he stopped running laps and decided it was time to be silly. Here's the clip.





The week has just been crazy around here. Monday night, we went to the hospital because Dondi was complaining about a headache and nausea. Those can be serious concerns, so the kind nurses in Triage got her checked out. Fortunately, it was *just* a migraine. We visited the doctor both Monday during the day (before the trip to the hospital) and again on Tuesday, and everything seems to be checking out just fine. We've had the house cleaned and have been trying to get everything ready. It's been interesting, but we're making good progress.

We see the doctor again on Monday at 2 p.m., where we'll do a sonogram and another no-stress test. Matthew will be considered "full term" sometime around Wednesday, so we suspect we'll be discussing inducing delivery.

We haven't done a good job of posting every picture of Dondi throughout the pregnancy, but here she is at 36 weeks this evening, looking beautiful as always.















We'll post pictures of Matthew's room some time this weekend, and of course, we'll let you know the details of Monday's doctor visit.

For now, here is a random picture of Jordan as he tries on Daddy's shoes.















To update my post from Saturday about my asthma and allergies: I visited an allergist today to see if we can determine why I've been having so many sinus/ear/upper respiratory infections recently. I was very impressed with his thoroughness. He spent about 30 minutes interviewing me and learning about my medical history. We ran a couple of tests that determined (a) my lung capacity is somewhat compromised right now but (b) it's very much in a range that many others would be thrilled to have. He prescribed a plan to deal with the current allergy and sinus problems I'm having, plus get my asthma under control. We'll do an allergy skin test two weeks from today. He seemed very confident my problems were preventable, and maybe we can get the 4-6 (and sometimes 8) annual ear/sinus/upper respiratory infections down to one or two without putting me on a million different medicines. I'm all for that!

Bed rest, renovations and asthma

Not much has changed since our last update:

• Dondi went to the doctor on Tuesday. Her blood pressure was excellent and she took another no-stress test. Basically in the no-stress test, they hook her up to a monitor and she has to press a button every time she feels Matthew move. Results were normal, or good, or whatever they're looking for. She goes back to the doctor on Monday morning, but for now, continues on bed rest at home.
• I've been sick for about six weeks. Allergy-induced asthma has been the main culprit, followed by being sick to my stomach for over a week thanks to the medicine to deal with the allergy-induced asthma. I've been to the doctor now three times in two weeks, trying to get over this gunk. I see an allergist on Friday, May 16.
• Jordan has also been sick -- also allergies. He refuses to do the breathing treatments that help keep his lungs clear, so there's quite the battle of wills at our house right now.
• Don and Debbie have been over on Thursday and Friday this week to help get the office cleared out for Matthew's nursery. We're way behind schedule on that, mostly because we have no place to move stuff (and because one or both of us has been sick the better part of the last nine months). It'll be ready in plenty of time for Matthew, but we all would have rather had this done by now. My parents are coming over today to pick up a desk and hutch that we have no room for and I'll be moving our computer and computer desk to the dining room today. Once we move the cat's stuff out of the office, we can get the floor clean and move in the changing table, a dresser and the pack-and-play bassinet.

So that's what we're doing when not coughing, fighting a 2 1/2 year old or any of that stuff. :-)