Evan's first CHILI FESTIVAL

This is a trip we took from before the baby got sick but when all of that happened I got behind on posting the latest goings on, so here is a little of what we like to do for fun in Southern Colorado.

Pueblo Colorado is famous for its chili's. Every year near the harvest the town throws a huge chili festival and people come from all around to buy there green chili's and stock up on other produce as well as checking out all the local rides and vendors.
Beautiful chili's hanging in the sun. Ummm! I love this time of year.

This is one of hundreds of chili roasters that line the roads filling the air with the aroma of roasted chili's. The smell is wonderful.

Kendall and Evan boy enjoying the wonderful weather and exciting sights and sounds of the festival.

How cute is he!!!!!

Say hi to the camera baby Evan.

The rides at the festival are a big hit with the kids.

Look at God's beautiful rainbow. Fall is such a magical time of year.

Local canned goods are always fun to buy. Suppot local farms..

My mom Sylvia enjoying the Chili Festival too.

The GREEN chili's is what everyone comes for. Southern Colorado is famous for a chili made with these delicious Pueblo Hot Chili's, pork, garlic and other seasonings. It's to die for and everyone claims that they make or know the person who makes the best Green Chili in town. Truth be told, I actually know the person who makes the best Green Chili and that is my dear old Dad. I can't wait until he makes up another batch.

This is Kendall going into the Irish Pub as we wind down the day with some delicious Irish Nachos. They are made with thick slices of potato cheese and other toppings and they are oh-so-good. Yes, Yes, I know, we are those people who take their baby to a bar, but actually, it's a very nice place.

October 25, 2009- Evan at 2 months

This will be the last day he will wear these overalls. I can't believe how big he is getting!
This isn't my mom's favorite picture because the camera is looking right up his nose; but look at those beautiful blue eyes, who couldn't love this little boy??

This is his doe eyed look. He's gonna' get all the girls with this one.

This is Evan at two months already playing the air guitar. We think he's going to have a musical gene. We have high hopes for starting a family band. Kendall and I should start today learning our instruments. Kendall on the ukulele, me on the microphone and Evan on the air guitar We'll rock the show!

My Sick Little Baby Boy!

H1N1 has been ravaging the community lately and we have been very careful to wash hands and take every precaution. I work at the school so I have been especially careful to take a shower after work, use hand sanitizer and the like.

Despite all of our best efforts, Kendall woke up Monday morning with that little tickle in his throat. It soon progressed to the full blown flu and he spent 3 days in complete isolation from the baby. No holding, hugging, nothing.

Three days passed without anyone else in the house feeling sick, then Thursday morning, the worst happened. Little Evan felt HOT! I had been taking his temp ever since daddy got sick and nothing, but this morning I took it and it was 101.6. This picture was taken between tears. I kept thinking, "How could I have let this happen."

We called the doc and they wanted to get him in that day to be seen. We went in to our 2:30 appointment. The doctor recommended that we take Evan to the hospital for a full work up. He got chest x-rays, urine analysis, blood tests and antibiotics.

We had to take him through the E.R. which was particularly frightening. One can't help but feel that if he wasn't already really sick then he could be after this. When they got the results back from the x-ray it showed a possible infiltrate in his left lung (pneumonia.) That is the reason for the antibiotics. Finally after many terrible things had happened to our precious little boy, they diagnosed him with bacterial pneumonia and possible flu and finally let us go home around 7:30 pm.

I couldn't sleep all night. I kept getting up to make sure that Evan was still breathing. He had a restless nights sleep as well and got up many times in the night to eat and then go back to bed. By the morning I was exhausted and they had us coming back in for a 9:30 appointment for another antibiotic shot. We went in, got the shot and talked to the doctor again about how things were going. We were watching Evan for elevated temperature and giving him baby Tylenol just in case. His temp had been down since midnight and I was just praying that it would stay that way.

We live far from town and on that particular day they were having a flu shot clinic at our doctors office so Kendall and I decided to go get our flu shots so we wouldn't risk exposing him to another possible flu strain. There were probably 200 plus people waiting to be seen for the shot, it was insane. After over an hour of waiting it was now past 2:00 in the afternoon and we finally got our shot.

As I was in the exam room I heard some of the nurses talking about me in the hallway saying that my baby's doctor wanted to talk to me. A few minutes later the doctor came in and gave me the bad news that Evan's blood culture draw came back positive for a Staph Infection! He let me know that we would need to go right over to the hospital as soon as he could get it worked out and admit Evan to the Pediatric ward for IV meds and monitoring. I was so upset. How could this happen?

I won't go into details but over two hours later we finally got to go to the hospital. At the hospital things just got worse. They stuck him a total of 5 times trying to get an IV going. The whole time he was bright eyed and appeared fine. He wasn't eating as well and had lost some weight but for the most part he did not look like a little baby that needed to be in the hospital. We saw three different nurses and 5 different doctors, all with a different plan. In the end he got more x-rays, more blood draws and they never were able to start that IV. About midnight the doctors decided to forget about the IV and continue to monitor him. Because he was showing none of the signs of Staph and had no likely way of getting such a thing they ruled it as a contamination in the lab and continued on course to treat the flu and pneumonia. Finally in the afternoon on Saturday we were allowed to take Evan home.

We have him on an antibiotic and a medication for the flu. We are still watching him closely and hoping that anyone reading this will send up a little prayer for our little man. He is a trooper. It hurts my heart to see all the things that he has had to go through in the last couple of days and I hope nothing like this happens for some time to come.

We didn't have our camera at the hospital because we didn't know when we left the house on Friday morning that we wouldn't be coming home until Saturday night. This is Evan's little foot with his hospital tag just after we got home from the hospital.

This is Evan on his blanket from the hospital. There is a project called the "Linus Project" and it's a group of women who make blankets and give toys to little boys and girls that end up in the hospital. The generosity and thoughtfulness of this brought tears to our eyes and we will cherish these mementos for some time to come.

Some good came during our time of trial. Evan smiled at me for the first time. He's given small smiles before but this was an all out full hearted "I love you mama" smile. It filled my heart and I will never forget it.

Chicken Butchering Day

Here are two unlucky birds awaiting their fate at the door of the chicken coup.

We decided that along with 25 layers we would get 25 roasters as well when we ordered our chickens for the year from McMurry's Hatchery. All 50 of them came in this tiny little box in the mail and have now grown to be full sized birds ready for the ax in just under 12 weeks.

By the end of the 12 weeks our count of 25 roasters was down to 19 due to mysterious disappearance. We think either a neighborhood dog was coming over and picking them off or a very brave fox was venturing out in the daytime and snatching himself a fine meal.

This is the first unlucky soul to lose his head. Kendall thought it was funny to pretend he was talking with the chickens beak that was still moving just after being butchered.

Poor guy, he got too crazy and lost his head.

This is Evan's first exposure to the brutalities of farm life. Like many of his first experiences, he slept right through it.Draining the blood. Aren't they big??? We decided to skin all the chickens rather than boiling and plucking them. Wow, is that the way to go!! It is so easy. You can do a whole bird from butcher to pan in probably less than 10 minutes when you get really good. Plus with these Organic beauties, the taste is so good that you don't really need the skin and you save on fat which is the best of both worlds.

This is Evan enjoying the shade offered by his little tent. It was such a beautiful day that it was great to get him outside. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Elkins.

We couldn't have picked a nicer spot to do the job. The mountain was beautiful and the air was crisp. Mom, Dad and Kendall are busy working while I get the easy job of caring for the baby and taking pics. How sweet is life!

September 25th, Evan at one month old. Such a cutie pie.

Evan and Daddy in matching camo. Where did they go??
Evan is a water boy just like daddy. He loves his bath time!!

One month old and already looking like a big boy.

Evan weighed 11 lbs at one month. He's a growing boy.

Kendall and I are loving being parents to our little man. He is growing and changing every day. He's starting to smile and make adorable little noises. He's looking around and learning new things all the time. Things were kind of difficult for a while with breast feeding. He was having a hard time latching on, then I got mastitis, ouch!!!! But now things are much better and we are both enjoying the experience. I'm so glad that I stuck it out. It seems like life with a new born is all about sleeping, eating, changing diapers and changing clothes. I think that between Evan and I, we make about one and a half to two loads of laundry every day with the spit ups, accidents and the like. It's strange, I feel like a big milk machine. I think if I could I would take about 5 showers a day. Being a mom is the most challenging thing that I have ever done, but also the most rewarding. I love my little boy so much it's amazing!!!

Evan is more than a month now!!! Where does the time go? Here are all the newest pics of our little man

This is a typical face for Evan. When he's mad...HE'S MAD!!!!

Sweet baby boy on his tummy time mat

Sleeping like an angel. A
favorite past-time

This is Evan in his "I love Nana" shirt that I made for him.

He is Nana's favorite little boy. She helps out a lot by watching him while I'm at work.

More tummy time in his favorite P.J.'s

This is Evan and his friend Emma. They were due on the same day but Emma came two weeks before Evan.

Evan Ray Elkins- Born August 25, 2009

Evan Ray Elkins was born at 3:51 pm on August 25, 2009. He weighed 9lbs 2 oz and was 20 inches long. Big Boy!!!!

We are so pleased to announce the birth of our son. He is already 12 days old. I can't believe how the time goes by. Sorry to all of you who have been checking the blog anxiously awaiting his arrival. It has been a crazy couple of weeks. Evan decided to make his entrance into the world on Tuesday, just three days past his due date, what seemed like an eternity to his parents who were nervously waiting for any sign that the moment had arrived.

I woke up at about 2am and noticed some pains through my back that I had not had before. As time went on I became more and more convinced that these were the contractions that I had been waiting for. Around 3am I finally got out of bed, snuck downstairs and began to time the contractions. They were coming 3-5 minutes apart already but were not terribly uncomfortable. I decided around 4 in the morning to wake Kendall. He began to rush around the house doing what amounted to a lot of nothing. I calmly took a shower, dried my hair and sat down for what I knew would likely be my last meal for some time. We called the hospital around 5:30 and they decided that at my leisure we could go ahead and come in due to the fact that we live 45 minutes from the hospital. Better safe than sorry. We loaded up the car with everything but the kitchen sink (glad we did, you'll find out why in a bit) and we headed out, me, Kendall and my mom.

When we arrived at the hospital they saw that I was already 5cm dilated so they decided to admit me and move me to one of the labor and delivery rooms. As time passed the contractions became more and more intense. I was determined to avoid any type of pain medication and relied on my loving husband who on this day proved himself to be the loving, comforting, protective partner that I could only pray for.

Hoping for very little intervention, I was disappointed by how much monitoring the nurses wanted to do. The IV was painful and my wishes to walk, move around and relax in the tub were overlooked for the "safety of my son" who always seemed to be fine when the monitors were on. As things became more uncomfortable I began to have a harder time keeping still during the contraction. Shocker!!! Because the monitor would slip off the nurse finally decided to put an internal monitor on the baby's scalp. After this uncomfortable procedure that did not work and left me mad and them with no clearer picture of how he was doing it was time to push.

After 14 hours of labor and only 18 minutes of pushing Evan Ray was born. He came out like superman with his hand above his head and he was beautiful.

I was able to breastfeed in the first hour and everything seemed fine. As time passed Evan began to sleep longer and eat less. My colostrum was not coming in quickly and the baby had a harder and harder time getting satisfied. After the first night and day it became obvious that he was not getting enough. He had dropped from 9 lbs 2 oz to 8 lbs 4 oz in a day and a half. When they tested him for jaundice on the day we were to go home they found that his numbers were very elevated. We would not be going home for what would turn out to be three more days.

Evan had to be placed under lights and his blood had to be taken every 8 hours, something he found particularly painful. He was such a champ under the lights. He would lay on his back in his little diaper kicking and flailing his arms and legs with his little blinders on to protect his eyes. Not being able to hold him for nearly 3 days except to feed him was very difficult and I have to admit that it drove me to tears on several occasions. To make matters worse he decided that the ease and speed of the bottle was far superior to the method mommy was trying to force on him.

On day 12 I am pleased to announce that my milk finally came in, we kept at it and Evan now weighs more than he did when he was born and is strictly breastfeeding. He sleeps good, eats good and he loves his mommy and daddy. He is everything we could have ever asked for. A blessing from above. A hungry blessing, so I must go. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers and I am so happy that I got to share this news with you.