Our Newest Adventure

 Back in September we took Preston to his pediatrician and she was examining him and started to check his hips by bending his knees and pushing down on them to see if his hip joints were okay. Well, when she did this his hip joints were "clicking". She told us this and I didn't know what it meant, so she explained that something could be wrong with his hip joints. The pediatrician asked us to take him to get an ultrasound of his hips and then also to see an orthopedist. October came and we went to the orthopedist and she did another ultrasound on his hips and found out that he had minor hip dysplasia. 

She explained to us that with the hip joint we had a ball and a cup. The ball is suppose to be at least 50% sitting in the cup of the joint. His left hip joint was 56%, which was good, but his right hip joint was 39 or 43%, not good enough. We had some options, because it was so minor we could just not do anything and hope that it would grow into the joint more, because as a baby his bones are still a bit soft. So we could 1- do nothing, and hope it grows back into the joint, if that didn't work then he could have arthritis in his hip by the age of 30, or if it got worse he would have to have surgery at the age of two and break bones to fix it. or 2- we could put him in a Pavlik harness, and it should be taken care of within 6 weeks. 

We decided to go with the harness. As soon as the pediatrician told us what this "clicking" could mean I started researching and saw the Pavlik harness in my research. I understood what it would mean and we decided that we really didn't want to gamble that it would get better on it's own nor did we want him to have surgery in a few years. So we got the harness!! Which was interesting.

Here is Preston at home after getting the harness on. Made the clothes on him look weird.  

This is what the harness looks like. We had to keep it on for 23.5 hours a day, so only enough time to take it off to give him a bath. Which he looked forward to everyday. 

The best thing is that the harness did not bother him too much, and since he is so young he won't remember it. 

It was a little weird to hold him, because he always had his legs spread. 

 He was only 2 months old when he got the harness on, and we had been swaddling him to sleep at night. Well....we couldn't do that anymore, because we had to keep his knees apart. But it seems that it didn't disrupt sleep too much either.

Clothing on the other hand was not easy. Finally I just decided to put his sleepers on half-way. I didn't want to stretch the clothing and also didn't want to constrict his legs or have them come together. 

 The harness did make him quite flexible though. He learned how to kick with the harness on, even though it was out to the side and looked really awkward. 

 Soon he just got used to it and not much changed. Preston even kept trying to turn over with it on!

 We went back three weeks after getting the harness to check how things were, and he was back to normal!!! YAY!! But the minimum amount of time to have the harness on is six weeks. So we had to keep it on for three more weeks. Finally at the beginning of December he was able to get it off!!!! He smiled the entire day, it was so cute!

 He also FINALLY was able to get back into his swing and sleep all snugly with his bear. 

A little photo shoot

I love this hat that Preston has, so we did a cute little photo shoot with him wearing it. He was being really happy and cute too, so how could I resist taking pictures?! 

Vermont Trip- Part 2

The one whole day that we were in Stowe, Vermont we spent driving around and looking at the changing leaves. We really loved just driving around and doing this, plus it was a lot easier to take Preston around while sleeping in his car seat. Enjoy the pictures!

 This is what most of the roads we travelled on in Stowe looked like, so gorgeous!

 These pictures also do not do the colors justice, they were so much more rich and bright than this. 

 Spencer loved this trip. When we got home he even made a list of all the things he loved and then another list of all the things he did not like about Vermont. Well, there were at least 8 things on the things he loved about Vermont and NOTHING on the side where he didn't like anything. So he really loved this trip, and hopes to go back to Vermont again. 

 Our family having fun!

Those are mountains. Covered in trees. Trees that are in beautiful different colors. One of my favorite pictures from the trip. 

 This is a faraway view of the Lodge we were staying at. 

 Preston also had a fun time on the trip. I love this look he is giving me. 

 Such a cute cute boy. 

 On the day we were leaving this is what we saw up on the mountain that we were driving on the day before!!! SNOW!!!! It was their first snowfall of the season. So glad we got that driving in the day before. 

 While on our way home we thought we would stop at a Target to do some school clothes shopping for Spencer, especially since we had a car and wouldn't have to drive around a city or bring the bags of loot home on the subway. Well, we got off the highway and saw a Red Robin. Yum! Sadly, NYC does not have a Red Robin, so we HAD to stop. Well, we didn't really want to hold Preston, and so we brought him in in the car seat, and this is how he fit into our booth. We thought he looked so funny sitting there, but he did really well while we ate. 

We also did not make it to Target. We realized that if we shopped (which for me, it would be at least an hour in there....I love me some Target) then we would be getting back into the city right at rush hour....didn't really want to do that. So we headed back home and I ordered clothes online. 

Overall, our trip was fabulous. I would encourage anyone to go to Stowe, Vermont for a great little retreat away, it was so relaxing and one of our favorite places now. 

Vermont Trip- part 1

We decided our family needed a little vacation for ourselves. Since we live in the New England area, we thought, what better time than now to go see the beautiful foliage we have up here. It was a wonderful trip, and now you get to experience it through pictures, our pictures.

We rented a car here in the city so we could pack everything up in it from the apartment, instead of hauling a car seat through the train station and renting outside of the city. It was to be a good 6 hour drive, but it took us a bit longer. O-well, it still was fun, and the boys did great!

Here is Spencer, happy to start our trip and watching out for Preston.

 Preston fell asleep as soon as we started driving, here he is waking part way through and stretching.

 Can you tell Spencer and I were having fun?

 Cute little boy....with his hand stuck. I don't think I knew that was happening when I took the picture.

 First sights of the fall colors!!!

 The place we stayed was Stowe Mountain Lodge, and it was beautiful!! It was a ski resort type of place, and we paid a little more than what we wanted because when we went to look for hotels they were all booked!!!! So we quickly grabbed this one and it was perfect!

This was the room, and we had a little balcony looking up to the mountains. 

 Tyler holding Preston while we were relaxing.

 The HUGE bathroom! The tub was so deep, I loved it! And the shower was huge too. 

 The other side of the bathroom. For reals, you could have fit 20 people in there comfortably. 

 This is the view from the front door. Spencer is standing there in the little kitchen we had, which was good because we had lots of bottles to wash. 

The next post will show our drives out to see the beautiful changing leaves. We loved it so much, even if it was a little chilly. 

Birthday and Visitors- 8

Tyler's birthday happened and he was excited to be celebrating with not just us, his family, but his sister and her husband and kids came into town also! We had such fun with them, and loved having them and their two kids with us. 

Here's Tyler reading Spencer's birthday card to him, it was really cute.

The sweater I got him...looks happy about that sweater, doesn't he? 

He was happy to get this present. It's a date night at home or out, one every month, and each one being a different country! We just had our date this past weekend for October, we celebrated Germany! We had yummy German pancakes with bratwurst, then watched The Avengers....because part of it is in Germany! I got the idea from my sister-in-law, but the site is HERE.

Blowing out the candles on his cake. Preston is not quite sure what is going on. 

 Here is Spencer with his cousin. I think they spent most of their time playing their DS's, or video games. It was great that even though there was an age difference they played REALLY well together.