Please Pray for Tyson...

so here's the back ground to everything....two weeks ago when tyson was playing basketball, he fell and got a floor burn on his knee. it hadn't really healed all the way - and it was really itchy a little over a week ago, we now think there may have been some bacteria in his nails (maybe) that got into the wound when he itched it...and we believe now, this is what is causing the effects of what's taking place....

so on sunday evening tyson said his knee was hurting, and he was racking his brain to try and remember if he hit his knee on something earlier that day. he was rubbing it and trying to stretch his knee out, hoping it would feel better, but it started to swell and was red and really hot.

monday morning it was still really red, hot and hurt bad. he was able to go into the student health center and have it looked at. two different doctors came in and looked at it and they diagnosed him as having gout which is also known as "old drunk man" disease. the doctors asked him if he drank a lot of beer during the super bowl. Nope. seeing to the fact tyson has never had an taste of alcohol in his life it was kinda odd that, that's what they thought he had. so they gave him medicine and crutches and said to come back tomorrow so more doctors could check him out.

so he did just that...tuesday morning he went in and had it looked at again. it was still swollen, red and painful. they decided it was not "gout" and decided it was MRSA. that's not good at all. so the doctors took x-rays, blood test and drained tyson's knee. which he said hurt so bad and never wants to experience that ever again. poor guy. Luckily the fluid in his knee was clear, so no infection, his blood cells were fine. so they gave him some strong medicine and said take the meds and then they had an appointment set up for wednesday where he was going to see a sports specialist to check out his knee.

SO... on wednesday his knee was looking and feeling a little better, he went in and saw two sports specialist who decided it was not MRSA either. Thank heavens! now they were thinking it was just some sort of bacteria infection in his knee. they looked at his x-rays and it has nothing to do with his joints. he's all good there. so the doctors told him it was looking good, and to keep taking his medicine and he should be fine.

WELL...last night 'thursday' he was looking at his shin and he was like my shin is really hot and red, and i looked and yup it was...the red was spreading down into his shin.

So, this morning he called his sports specialist but he was booked and could not see him. so during a break between classes he stopped by the student health center again and got looked at by another doctor and she agreed that it's some sort of bacteria infection but didn't know what. so she recommended that it would better to be safe than sorry and go to the ER and get looked at and have more blood test ran. So the doctor has nurses call the ER to inform them tyson would be coming in. So after class, the b bear and i went and got tyson, we stopped and got some food and dropped him off at the ER. We didnt think it was a good idea to sit in the ER Waiting room with a bunch of other sick people and have the b bear get sick again, so brody and i went to the mall and shopped. after a few hours of waiting with a bazillion other people tyson got in to see a doctor. he was looked at by two doctors and hooked tyson up on an IV to treat him with MRSA, just in case, that's what it might be. they really aren't sure what is wrong with his leg, but the bacteria is definitely spreading down into his leg and now you can see that it's going back into his calf as well. he is in the hospital over night being monitored, and in the morning the doctors are coming back and they are going to check him for blood clots and do some sort of doppler x-ray on him. So that's all we know. Tyson feels great. It's just his knee that's bugging him. he can walk and put pressure on it - it's just very tender and red. It's all pretty weird. But he is doing ok. It's kinda rough after a week of seeing doctors and no one knows what's wrong with him. So hopefully in the morning and after tests are run we will know more and keep everyone updated. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep him in your thoughts and prayers!!!

here's what his knee looked like on tuesday night. the red circle is to show where the red "is", that way if it were to spread they would be able to see how far it would have moved. little did we know...it would spread!

his legs together. you can see the yellow on his leg, where he had his knee drained.

And tonight. He he was very happy to see us!

the brody bear was THRILLED to see his papa!!

sharing drinks and watching the Olympics Opening Ceremonies.

playing together. awe good times at the hospital.

and of course a family shot.

has anyone ever heard of this happening to someone you know or know of someone who knows someone??? if you do, please share!

we are keeping our thoughts positive and of course we are hoping for the best! we hope that the medicine they have given tyson will do the trick and help kill off whatever bacteria is in his knee and shin. When we know more, i will definitely update! But again... PLEASE Keep him in your prayers! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! WE LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU!

weekend.

this is the view from one our bedroom windows friday afternoon. it snowed and snowed and snowed. and we stayed bundled up inside. the brody bear was sick all weekend. and we slept the weekend away. it was kinda too bad that brody was sick, the snow was without a doubt the best snow to make a snowman. but alas we opted for the warm indoors, we caught up on season 5 of LOST, drank a lot of liquids and cuddled in bed. but there is a light at the end of the tunnel and brody is so much better. and of course we watched the super bowl, well let me re-phrase that, i saw the last minute of the game, tyson watched most of it and brody slept. not gonna lie, i am kinda happy the saints won. and at least now we hopefully wont have to hear all about peyton manning and how amazing he is blah blah blah. just had to put that one out there.

anywho's that was our weekend. i sure hope that everyone had a more exciting weekend than we did.

a beautiful blur...

i seriously can't believe that it's February 1st! where did January go?

if i had of been blogging the past few weeks i probably would have told you about...

staying snuggled up inside while it's snowed off and on the entire month and that it's been way to cold to even go play in the snow.

and that tyson started his winter quarter and it's midterms already, and he loves his classes and he's doing amazing and loves what he does.

or that we had to lower brody's crib down to the lowest setting because he stands up and that one morning i went in to get him and he was grinning ear to ear with lovely white paint chips all over his face and inside his mouth. he sure loved nibbling on his bars, but we got bar covers so he can no longer enjoy the tasty white paint.

or that tyson started playing intramural basketball on a graduate league with his fellow statistics classmates and so far they won all there games!

or that i've crafted every saturday for the past three weeks and it's been so fun.

or that i finally started training for my half marathon that i signed up for way back in October and now it's only 3 months away.

or that my goal was to start calling friends ONCE...yes just ONCE a month and i failed in the month of january, so now i will do it TWICE in february.

or that brody and i take turns chasing each other around the house and he totally gets the concept. he's so funny.

or that brody and i have gone at least twice a week, every week, to go see tyson in his office and we walk over to the RPAC (one of the gyms on campus) to go get a fruit smoothie and we share with brody and he loves it. it's most adorable when he sucks the smoothie from the straw. (so we think.)

or that we went to dinner with friends and then bowling and it was a blast.

or that brody made the less than 3 hour drive to Kentucky to see our friends and he slept more than half the way there and back. and he only had one tiny melt down there and one on the way back and both times was when we were almost to our destination. he did awesome. triumph i tell you! (he's not a fan of his car seat).

or that brody hates his johnny jumper and jumper-roo ever since we've been back from christmas. (i would like someone to tell me why?)

or that i have bruises on my knee caps from crawling around with brody so much. they are "love" battle wounds and i wouldn't have it any other way.

or that my friend kally came down to visit me last week with her little guy brody and they stayed the night and our boys played and we got to hangout. it was so much fun.

or that brody and i went for a walk last week in 25 degree weather and went and shared pear sherbet at jeni's ice cream and then came home and snuggled up and took a nap.

or that tyson and i have been staying up way too late watching LOST season 5 together.

OR OR OR... that tyson already got our taxes done and that is AWESOME.

and i could go on and on....but for now january is now a beautiful blur of all these wonderful things. i can't believe how fast the month flew by. but for now my foucs is enjoying every little chubby cheek cuteness of brody, enjoying every laugh, cuddle, treats, little whines, story time, play dates, baby giggles, teaching moments, watching tyson succeed in classes and hello basketball ;), spending time together as a family, running, and activities and everything in between.

ta-dah...

on thursday night, tyson and i were watching brody in the video baby monitor and brody was just laying on his back clapping his hands and well since then, yes all 3 days, he's been clapping all about and he's so proud of himself. we are pretty proud too. but more importantly we think it's stink'in cute. here's a little video showing off his new skills.

{ p.s. don't mind my creepy laugh in the back ground. }

brody.

he turend 8 months old yesterday!

we love this little guy oh so much!

he's a speedy little crawler.

he's standing himself up against everything.

he has 8 little teethies....yes 8.

he's persistant!

he flaps his arms in excitement.

he loves going outside, even if it's freezing.

he loves ice cream.

he loves doing tricks with his papa bear.

he's a little jibber jabber talker and it's so cute.

he loves picking up cherrios and eating them (thanks to aunt kally).

he loves cuddling while reading books.

he loves it when i crawl around with him and chase him all around.

he loves it when we hold his little paws and walk around with him.

we finally found a spot on him that's ticklish, it's right on his knee cap. ha. he gives some awesome giggles.

he's in love with Talyor Swift - anytime he gets a little cranky in the car, i just turn her on and bam he's totally content. it's hilarious. (thank you talyor swift). ha.

he's got one spunky, fun loving personality and we can't get enough of him.

he claps his hands. it's darling!

brody, you make me soooo happy.

i love u.

Happiness...

OREGON...

On december 11th we took off from Columbus to head home to Portland for Christmas break. Brody was a little gem and a little charmer with everyone on the plane. he got lots of kuddos from people saying he was the best little travler. indeed he is!

my brother and his wifey own timeshares and we were able to go out to the coast to spend a weekend for my mom's birthday. we had so much fun and brody loved going out onto the beach.

for my mommer's birthday - we went out to dinner then went back to the resort for cake and presents.

for my mom's birthday dinner we bundled up and walked over to our favorite resurant "Doogers" and hello! this is definitely note worthy that the brody bear sat in a high chair for the very first time at my mom's birthday dinner. and he loved it!

we baked some seriously yummy christmas goodies while at home. and the b bear was our master taste tester. he thought everything tasted mighty good!

other events to mention... first off...we went on a couple of walks and you so know that brody fell asleep everytime. second...we got to hangout with our friends the Curtis's and had a fun filled night of treats, games and lots of talking, well the talking was done by erin and i and the boys played video games. it was a blast! thrid...we had a "date night" planned with tyson's sister amy and her hubby eric, well lo' and behold we got slammed with snow the evening of our outting, we were planning on meeting down town and tyson and i thought we could make it to the max station to ride max into to the city, but we got stuck and tyson had to get out and push us and i had to keep driving so tyson ended up having to meet me about a mile away at Thriftway. it was fun it was snowing, and we were able to help other cars that were sliding all about, but it was super sad that we never made it down town to have our date with amy and eric. next time for sure!! and fourth...my shot of tyson standing in line getting us "chicken and rice". yes that's right, the best chicken and rice ever! there is a vendor on NW 23rd and we went there a ton while we were home and ate up lots of chicken and rice. so good, i just had to document it!

we were lucky one night and my brother ran out and went and got us VOO DOO DOUGHNUTS! Yum! of course i had my lovely voo doo doll filled with rasberry goodness and tyson had his maple bacon bar. yummm!

it is true that my kid is ADORABLE! brody had such a great time staying at grandma and grandpa nicholes house. and he crawled every where which was so fun to everyone to see!

while in oregon we celebrated brody's 7 month birthday! and random but had to add this in, that brody had some love obession with my mom's laundry room, he loved crawling around in there and loved the dryer and he loved the vaccum. actually i think he just really loves vaccum's because he loves it when i use it here at home too. but yes, those two things together he was in heaven. he cracks me up!

we were lucky to be able to see some of my really great friends (jocelyn, erin and tiffany) while at home and brody got some love from all these beautiful ladies!

i also got to get together with my friends erin and jenn for lunch. it was so fun to catch up and just have a girl luncheon.

awe the family love! brody loves grandma and grandpa nicholes and he though uncle jeremy was hilarious! aunt naomi loved playing with brody and i know he loved all the attention. but what he LOVED more than ANYTHING was his cousin HAYDEN! He was fasinated by Hayden, he loves him so much and sadly Hayden wanted nothing to do with Brody. haha. but that didn't stop brody from following him around and trying to play with him. it was so cute! the last night we were there we were able to get the two of them to hug and Hayden was able to say "hi brody". so cute!!


for new years eve we kicked it at home and celebrated it on our "east coast time" which was lovely. we are lots of yummy treats and watched the count down on t.v. and packed. our trip to OREGON was amazing and we were so gald we got to go. we had so much fun being able to be with family and also see friends, and we are sorry for those we didn't get to see and hopefully we can see you next time. our travels back home to columbus went great, but we were very happy to be off the plane and be home. we were sad to have traveled during the Rose Bowl game while our Buckeyes BEAT the Oregon Ducks. HA! Sorry you DUCK fans! SUCKAS we beat you! haha! So all you trash talking Buckeye haters, bow down because we beat you! And that's all I have to say about that! :) anywho's christmas is over....yes way over...the new year has begun and i can finally get caught up on all my blogging. so 2009 was AMAZING loved everyminute of it - but I am sooooo excited for 2010 and everything it has to offer us....so until next time...this is....

the end of this post!

look back on 2009...

so i wanted to look back at what an AMAZING 2009 we had, so I put together some fun pictures that captured some of our highlights of our year starting from January all the way up to New Years!

we have been so blessed and we are so lucky to of had such a great year! it's been unforgettable and I am sure 2010 is going to be even better!

a christmas to remember...

holidays are just so much fun with a baby! brody looked so cute in his christmas pjs and was more excited about the wrapping paper than anything else. we spent a wonderful christmas with my side of the family this year and we had so much fun. on christmas eve we had our traditional christmas eve dinner at the Olive Garden then we came home and hungout and contiuned with a few more family traditions, by opening up 'one' christmas present and followed by eating yummy treats and watching a 'christmas carol'. i love being with my family. i am so grateful for my knowledge of what christmas is all about.

christmas morning we had our tradional family breakfast and then opened presents. we spent the day hanging out, playing and watching movies and enjoying our family christmas dinner. we had such a great christmas. is it really over? when we got back to columbus we were a little sad to take down our christmas decorations, but no worries, we will still enjoy snuggling up, drinking hot cocoa and watching the snow fall for the next few months. :D

7 Months...

7 months. I am still looking for that pause button! we are soaking up every lovely moment with our AMAZING little guy. My heart is so full of love for him it's exponential.

Brody,

i love your zest and spunky personality. you are adventerous and i love your curiousity for the world around you. you are fearless and i admire that! your laugh is priceless, i wish we could bottle it up and ship it off to all our friends and family who don't get to hear it - it brings joy to our hearts and smiles to our faces. you are crawling all about and you are fast. you almost have 5 teeth and you are a champ about it. thank you for not being drooly thus far. i am sure the drool phase is just upon us. you still sleep 11-12 hours every night. you love it when we share a 'dum-dum' with you. you love peek-ah-boo, your toys, books and PAPER and Anything you can put in your mouth. i love how you love to play with your papa bear, you are all boy and you are one HAPPY boy at that. And on top of everything else you are adorable. i am so happy you are mine!

i love u.

tis the season...

Do you need your own Christmas Card?

So I've been asked by quite a few friends to make them a Christmas Card this year and I figure while I am at it I will do the same thing for YOU.

So if you would like a Christmas Card done...

Here's the deal: I'm only going to do it THIS WEEK.

You can choose from the 4 Templates I have posted here.

card #1:

card #2

card #3

card #4

*So...Pick a card.

*Then email me your picture (as a jpeg) that you want on the card along with Your LAST Name and the other NAMES you want to be included on your card.

*I will make your card. You will get it within 24 hrs. of You emailing me.

*I will send you TWO jpeg files. One card will have your picture in Color and the other card will have your picture in Black and White and then it's up to you to pick which one you want.

*And it's up to you to PRINT them yourself.

*The jpeg size I will send you will be 4x6.

*I will ONLY make your card 5x7 if you Request 5x7.

*Email me @ ... jenniferknicholes@yahoo.com

and that's it! cool, huh?

*You can print Your Card at Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, Target, Sams Club, Costco...you get the point.

*Thanks to my amazing friend Kally for letting me use her pictures!

!!HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

6 Month Check Up

Brody's Stats at 6 months

weight: 20 lbs. 7 ounces 97%

height: 28.5 inches 97%

Brody was a champ once again! He did great going to the doctors for his check up and getting his shots. He's seriously such a brave little guy. He loved the paper on the table and he was IN LOVE with checking himself out in the mirror. can you blame him? We love him so much. We are so grateful that he is so healthy and happy.

Mmmmm Carrots...

A Very Merry HALF Unbirthday...

Like you didn't think we'd party?? So as you know (or now know), Brody's 6 month Birthday was on Monday and most of you also know we like to Party! If you didn't know that....well you just learned something new about us! So you know that we totally had to celebrate 6 months and had to have a Party! Not just any party - but an... Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter HALF UnBirthday party for the Brody Bear. We stuck true to the date and celebrated on the 30th. So most likely to everyone else it was a random Monday night to have a party - but that didn't stop us or some of our friends from celebrating!

Not gonna lie...I debated back and forth a million times on whether we would have a "party-party" or just a "family of 3 party". So less than a week before the "Big Day"...I asked Tyson..."To party" or "not to party"? His response... "TO PARTY". And Party we did! So knowing that it was less than a week away, I hurried and came up with an idea for invites and made them super fast - got them printed so Tyson could take them to school to give to his classmates. Oh my gosh we sound like we are 10. hi, here ya go...go take your invitations to your friends. Tell them to come to our party. haha. And yes we stuck to "school friends". Next time we will invite everyone...the more the merrier, right?

Alright moving along...so a little party was to be planned...I whooped together some decorations (lots of fun pom-poms and I place playing cards all around)and also made some yummy treats. we enjoyed our friends company and we loved celebrating Brody! Can't get any better than that!

the invite

the birthday boy himself. so cute.

some sweet treats.

boston cream pie cupcakes. mini cheesecakes. chocolate covered brownie pops.

the cheshire cat

the white rabbit

the queen of hearts

Alice

and of course...

the Mad Hatter

And some of our wonderful friends!

{Thanks everyone for celebrating with us!}

It was A Very Merry HALF UnBirthday...indeed!

Let's eat cake...lots of cake...

So a little over a month ago - one of Tyson's classmates also known as my friend Alissa asked me if I wanted to take a cake decorating class with her and some other girls from the statistics department. I of course said Yes, but the girls had to promise that they wouldn't talk about Statistics. They were more than thrilled to not have to talk about school. So we were good to go and super excited! We all got signed up and started our 4 week class at the beginning of November. We learned all sorts of fun techniques from baking a cake from scratch, frosting the cake so it's nice and smooth, piping techniques and decorating ideas.

So without further a'do (this is for you mommers)...here are pictures from all of our classes...

we learned how to pipe with different frosting tips and we had to follow a 'rainbow' pattern on our cakes.

Danielle, Me, Alice and Alissa with our very first and probably last decorated Rainbow cakes

cake cake cake...yummy!

the best part of the class was learning how to make 'roses'. So fun!

And...Ta'da! Cakes with roses!

Honestly... I would have never taken this class alone. So I was so happy these girls ask me to join them. It was really only fun because of them! Love you girls!

Thanks Alissa, Danielle and Alice!