Updates - Part 2

As promised, here is part 2 of the pictures updates!
The Saturday after Austin's birthday was the day of his birthday party. We managed to keep things in control and not go overboard. We had a few close friends and their kiddos (born and a couple not yet born!) over. The day started with a boo boo. Austin tipped over while sitting in his car and hit his head. He had a nice goose egg on his forehead but was okay. Here is Austin and Daddy drinking some juice and calming down after the accident. (and Doug and Janan, we promise that we do NOT hold you guys responsible in any way!!)


Austin playing with new presents with his two favorite girls in the whole world (besides Mommy!) - Tessa and Kyleigh Tenorio. Tessa is the love of Austin's life. :-)


The parade of the smash cake.

I had a super cute cake for the other party goers, but in all of the excitement, we forgot to take a picture of it. :-(
Before things get messy....
Now for the fun part!

After this picture, we promptly went in for a bath!

Here is one of the party guests, one of the Ninja Twins (either Aidan or Adelle, but I have no idea which one!). She was enjoying the party in her own way-fast asleep.


Opening presents with Daddy

All in all the day was really fun. Austin seemed to have alot of fun and enjoyed everyone singing Happy Birthday to him. It was a great way to celebrate our first year with our little boy!

Moving Better & Feeling Hopeful

Wednesday was a tough day for us. Nathan took Daja to the doggie neurologist and at first they thought she'd had a stroke or some other high blood pressure issue. She wanted to do labwork and an MRI to see what was going on in Daja's brain. Depending on what she found there, she felt they might need to do a spinal tap as well. She did end up doing all of the tests, including the spinal tap. We waited on pins and needles for the results.
I don't really understand it all, but it boils down to Daja didn't have a stroke (yay!). In discussing things with the doctor, it turns out that one of the medicines Daja takes for her stomach issues can cause every symptom she is having and that Daja was actually taking twice the dosage for a dog her size. Lovely. Our regular vet (who is new to us) told us two weeks ago that we needed to get Daja off the medicine for her stomach and we had already started a strict food trial with her as part of beginning the process of getting off the medicine. This latest development sped things up a little since we are now not giving her that particular medicine.

We still don't have the official diagnosis for what is actually wrong yet. We have to wait on the results of the lab work, which we should get tomorrow. After those come back, we will be able to discuss treatment options.
Today Daja has been moving alot better. She has even been running around a little though she still has moments when she gets pretty weak on her legs. She isn't eating much though, so I hope that picks back up soon.
Overall, we are beginning to feel more hopeful about the situation and the possible outcome of all of this. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. They are greatly appreciated.

Our other child....

Updates part 2 will be coming shortly....

In the mean time, I figured I would update you on the latest goings on in the Carr house. This weekend while we were in Jacksonville, Daja somehow hurt herself. She started limping on Saturday and by Saturday night was really really limping. We don't know what happened. The only thing we know of that happened is that Daja was out by the pool and accidentally got one foot in the pool. To clarify, Daja is rather terrified of the pool (which is ironic since weims are water dogs. They even have webbed feet for swimming) and so getting one foot in the pool is a traumatic event which requires yanking said foot out of the pool as quickly as possible and then not going near the pool for the rest of the weekend. I didn't even see it happen, so I didn't really think anything of it.

By Sunday night, however, Daja could barely walk. So yesterday morning I took her to the vet. They took xrays and determined that she had no bone damage in her back. They think she has some disc damage and so we got an anti-inflammatory and a muscle relaxer to give her. The muscle relaxer did quite a number on her. When I got home from work last night, she had absolutely no control over her legs. It was horrible.
This morning she was able to hobble around again, but could not walk in a straight line. Nathan took her out to potty and had to walk with her to keep her from running into the house. She veers left almost constantly. We thought at first that it was just lingering effects of the muscle relaxer, but supposedly no.

After another call to the vet, they decided she should see the doggie neurologist. Who knew such a thing even existed?? At any rate, we are nervously awaiting our appointment tomorrow morning and hope to get some good news. I think having dogs and cats causes as much emotional stress as kiddos do. This whole ordeal is so emotionally exhausting. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers!!

Updates - Part 1

I have been terrible at posting. I've just been having too much fun not working like crazy. In the evenings at home, I've been too tempted to just sit and enjoy a good book instead of posting. But I've finally procrastinated too long, so here's part one of the update.

The coloring on this one isn't great, but I love this picture of Daja and Austin.

What a smile!!

This is also a very common smile - the fingers automatically fly up to his mouth!


Since the last post, we've done some fun things. We took Austin to his first Easter egg hunt at church. He didn't really grasp the idea, but we all had fun with it. For the little ones, the eggs were just laid out in the grass and you were supposed to get the eggs shown on your piece of paper. We ignored the rules and just got a few eggs. Here is Austin and Daddy getting eggs.

"What else is in this basket??" Note the grass from the basket is all on the ground.

The bulk of our pictures from this event look something like this. Evidently plastic eggs are quite tasty!


We took Austin to the pool for the first time. I think he is going to be a water baby. He seems to love it.

The first time we just went in the kiddie pool. We got Austin a little ring float and put him in the float. He was able to touch the bottom and walk/float around in the pool, which he really seemed to enjoy. His favorite game is to take Daddy's hat off and throw it in the water. Luckily Daddy is a good sport about wearing a soaking wet hat!!



That's all for now. More pictures will be posted soon!