there's two of them!

Poor guy...getting teeth is rough. 

2 more days

I only have 2 more days with a mustache on my face.  So far I have raised $66 for prostate cancer awareness and research ($25 of that was my own).  Any one else out there want to toss in 5 or 10 bucks? Our goals as a group (20+ guys at GSIS) was to raise $2000 and we are close.  Your donation could get us there!  Here is one more picture for motivation!


To donate visit http://us.movember.com/mospace/1618874/ and click donate!

Everett is healthy again

I took Everett to the doctor again today to get his lungs checked again.  The doctor gave us the great news  that his lungs were clear of any wheezing.  This was awesome news!  We were pretty worried that the doctor would hear wheezing again and Everett would get tagged with an asthma diagnosis.  If he has another episode like this that may still happen but for now he is in the clear.

On a similar note they weighed and measured him again.  20.2 pounds and 27 inches.  We were worried that this was abnormally large (which is kind of is) but we heard from my sister-in-law that while looking through my brother's baby book they discovered that at just under 4 months Jimbo weighed in at 19.5 punds and measured 27 inches.  So it seems like Everett is on pace for a Meyer boy.

Happy Birthday Papa!

Happy 80th Birthday Papa!  You're the best Great-Grandpa!

Love you and miss you.

Everett, Bonnie, and Tom

Happy Thanksgiving!

Even though we're a few days late, we ended up celebrating Thanksgiving today (Saturday).  We had to work on actual Thanksgiving day and Everett has been sick, so today was the first day we could have a proper celebration.  We started out the day by making pumpkin pancakes for breakfast and then I made a pumpkin pie while the boys and I hung out together.  Next Tom made his ever famous, green bean casserole, and we headed over to our friend's apartment to share in a Thanksgiving meal with our American friends here in Korea.  We really missed being with our family but we are so thankful for the community we do have here.   We have much to be thankful for. 

The last pic is E with the other kids at the Thanksgiving celebration.  So fun! 

We ended our evening with watching Home Alone and putting up our Christmas tree. 

Hope you had a good Thanksgiving!  Christmas here we come!

Happy 4 Months Little Man!

Happy four months little Everett!  I am sorry that you are still sick with bronchiolitis. I love that even when you are sick you are such a happy baby boy.

Here are some of your accomplishments at 4 months:

• You are becoming more active! Watch that video we took last night and see how you wail on your rattle.  The poor high chair....
• Your hand/eye coordination gets better every day.  You love being on your playmat and grabbing at your toys.
• You've found your toes. So cute. 
• You have a tooth!
• You are quite the talker.  You babble to yourself all the time.
• You still don't really cry.  But man do you groan!
• You smile the most for your daddy (maybe because he has a funny mustache right now?).  Your daddy will walk in the room and you will light up. It's awesome.  
• You are so loved. 

Here are some recent pics:
Not really sure what happened with your other sock?  Check out that drool too!!! 

 "Coloring" with his friends at daycare.  His friend, Jamie, is in the table across from him.  She always calls him "Eber." So cute.

Bronchiolitis update: Saw the doctor yesterday.  He's still wheezing but we can continue to monitor him from home.  He'll be home from school until at least next Monday.  We haven't seen too much change with the wheezing but he rarely coughs now, so I think there's some improvement there.   

Jesus, please heal our little man quickly! Thanks for such a great baby boy. 

"sick day"

Well I had to take a sick day today because Everett has a doctor's appointment at 12:20 and that just happens to be right in the middle of all of my classes.  There was no point in trying to head into school so E and I have just been hanging out a home all day.  This is primarily what we have been up to:

Monday mornings = NFL football here in Korea.  I also wanted to see if I could snap a picture of his upcoming tooth.  Here were my best efforts.

It's officially teething season!

new couch!

Friday was a tough day.  We took Everett to the hospital and found out about his bronchiolitis, so we felt pretty bummed.  Then when we walked through the door our apartment we were greeted with this:

  

A brand new leather couch!  

The school furnishes our apartment, so while our previous couch was a tad on the ugly/uncomfortable side we tried not to complain (it was free after all).  Over the past couple of years the school has been trying to update the furniture in the apartments and on Thursday we received this message from our school: "Tomorrow afternoon, new couch set will be delivered into your APT!!!!! No more fabric, no more green & yellowish, no more HARD sponge!!!!!"

Here's the best pic I could find of the old couch. I think the model is pretty cute....

 In the midst of all the sickness, etc. we forgot the new couch was coming, so it was a nice surprise on a down day.  The new couch is great! We have already learned that it is so much easier to clean spit up off the leather than the fabric.   :-)

Quick Everett update: This weekend has gone pretty well. We are not doctors, so we can't be sure, but Tom and I do not think Everett has gotten any worse.  For the most part he seems to have stabilized, and his mood has been more pleasant today.   We have also discovered that we can see/feel his bottom teeth.  They are so so so close to breaking through the surface.  Bronchiolitis and teething at the same time...poor little guy.

We also learned at E's doctor appointment that he now weighs 19.5 lbs and is 26.5 inches long.  Based on our calculations that makes Everett in the 99% for weight and 92% in height.  The outfit he is wearing above is a 9 month old outfit!  And he'll be four months old in two days...! 

Thanks for your kind words and prayers about E's health. Please keep them coming.  

round #2

We just got back from the doctor and Everett was diagnosed with his second episode of Bronchiolitis. He seemed to be doing better today, so we were taken aback by the news.  Right now his case is not serious enough to warrant staying at the hospital, so we can just care for him at home.  However, if his condition worsens we have to take him into the ER (please Lord, not again).  We have a follow up appointment on Monday, so our prayer is that he'll start bouncing back over the weekend.

Please send up some prayers for our little man.  This is how the last round of sickness started, so we're concerned.

Thanks and Love.

sick day

Look at that sweet face.   I love that our little man always smiles, even when he's feeling sick.  Everett has been coughing quite a bit and had diarrhea, so I decided to keep him home from school today.  Aside from the fact that I HATE seeing Everett sick and I feel like I'm letting my students down while I'm out, I loved getting to stay home and care for big E.  We made an appointment with the doctor for tomorrow afternoon to check his lungs.  Since our last sickness battle was with bronchiolitis only a month ago we want to make sure we get him checked out.

While taking pictures on my computer today I realized that on my laptop's "photo booth" I had some pictures I had forgotten about.  This little photo series was from the hospital.  While Tom was at work and it was just E and me, the cleaning ladies came in and declared that it was time to change out the curtains.  They made us wear these masks to protect against the dust. (Great idea...change the dusty curtains around the baby with a respiratory infection.) You can see that it was not an easy task to keep a mask on a baby.  

I don't think the mask look is flattering on me.

big kid monitor

Tom and I were eating dinner at a nice restaurant with a friend and I noticed that there was a TV above our table.  I didn't really pay too much attention to it because, us, North Americans are use to having TVs in restaurants blaring sports.  Then when I looked closer I realized what was on the screen.... 

It was a surveillance camera for the kids playroom in the front of the restaurant!  On one hand it's nice because you could enjoy your meal while spying keeping an eye on your kids.  But on the other hand, whatever happened to good ole' fashioned spending time with your child?  What do you all think about this?

somebody is teething....

It's official....

Everett is teething. 

We've been suspecting this for a while because he's become a drool factory and constantly puts everything in his mouth (or is trying to at least).  Then today we saw it...

We saw a little tooth starting to form.  It hasn't broken through the gums yet, but you can see it's getting pretty close! (Since I'm nursing him I'm not sure how excited I am about this new milestone.) 

(sorry in advance...this is one of those videos you may have to be a grandparent to enjoy)

The current status of my face (2 weeks in)

I'm still not used to this thing on my face.  It drives me crazy.  Bonnie said to me over the weekend, "if mustaches were cool you would be the coolest.  The problem is that they are not cool."  Thanks Bonnie.  To donate to postate cancer awareness and research look below the pic. 

To Donate:

Visit http://us.movember.com/mospace/1618874/ 

click on "Donate to me"

Thanks!

noreabang

I finally submitted to peer pressure and after 3.5 years of living in Korea I went to the noreabang. Noreabang is Korean karaoke.  How it works is that you rent a room with a group of friends and sing your little heart out.  As your song lyrics show up on the TV screen, random scenes from Korean dramas (that have no relevancy to your song) appear on the screen.  The room also comes with microphones that have a wicked echo, song books, and tamborines. Despite the fact that I'm against the noreabang in theory, I had a great time.

Two of my good buddies here Kim (left) and Leslie (right).  We went to noreabang to celebrate Leslie's birthday and all of these great pictures are from her.

Me getting started...

Me in full on noreabang mode!

 The noreabang crew:

So would I go back to the noreabang?

...Maybe.

high chair time

Everett has not started eating solid food but he gets lonely hanging out in his swing while we eat so we decided to try putting him in his high chair.  This way we can "eat" as a family.

 And here's a pic I'm throwing in just because it's cute: 

Movember week 1

It has been 1 week since I started to grow my mustache.  I have actually had some students ask me why I am growing it so it has raised some awareness for prostate cancer.  I also received my first donation courtesy of Jerre Robertson.  Thanks!  Here is my progress:

I'll be honest.  It feels pretty weird and I have trouble taking myself seriously.

To Donate:

Visit http://us.movember.com/mospace/1618874/ 

click on "Donate to me"

Thanks!

blast from the past

My mom just sent me this picture of when I was little.  I've never seen it before! Isn't it crazy to think how many pictures and videos Everett will have compared to our generation? The digital age has really changed things. 

From this picture it's apparent where Everett got his thunder thighs from....

Our Stay at the Hospital, Part 3

We just visited the doctor on Thursday to follow up with Everett's doctor from the hospital.  The chest x-ray came out clear and the doctor said he sounded great!  He also gained about another two pounds....!!!! So he's weighing in at 18.5 lbs and 26 inches.  Dang.

In light of our recent doctor's appointment we wanted to write our final post in the mini-series about our stay at the hospital with Everett.  This post will be dedicated to awkward cultural moments.

1.  Our first night in the hospital the doctor comes to check E out.  They do a full physical and we notice the doctor pressing quite a bit on his stomach.  Finally she asks us, "Does his stomach always look this full?" We reply with a yes.  The doctor nods her head and then moves on.  I think she thought something was wrong with him until she realized that he is just a big baby and he always looks that way! ha!

2. Everytime a nurse came to us she would be panting a bit and very hurried.  We would chat with her and then she'd literally run out of the room.  At first this really startled me...is there something wrong with Everett so the nurses are running for help? Is he in such bad shape that the nurse needs to sprint and immediately meet his needs???  Then I noticed something...The nurses just run from point A to point B ALL THE TIME.  This is probably because there are so many people that need care at the hospital so they're just trying to work quickly, but it was a mental adjustment to realize that the running nurses are normal.  They aren't running because it is an emergency.

3. When working with numerous people at the hospital we would get kind of freaked out because sometimes the person helping us (generally the nurses) voice would get really shakey.  It seemed like they were unsettled in talking to us and it made us feel like something was going terribly wrong.  At one point, a nurse literally runs into our room (see point two) and while she is out of breath her voice gets really shakey as she starts to ask us about how Everett got his blood taken.  She kept asking us all these questions in reference to his blood test, so finally I asked, "Did everything come out okay on the test?" Her response, "Potassium is high..." Then she ran out of the room.  Turns out his potassium levels were fine, but we didn't know that until a couple hours later when the doctor came in!  Over time we realized that the shakiness didn't come from them having bad news for us; we're pretty sure it was because they were nervous to speak to us in English!!!

4. When you live in another culture there can be a serious lack of bedside manner.  I don't fault Koreans for this.  When you're learning another language you don't always know the fluffy way to say things to make someone feel better.  You just speak to them using the words you know.  So on the first night with the doctor we were told, "He has bronchiolitis and he is so young. This could be very bad."  Talk about making me FREAK OUT!

This picture is our first night in the hospital while giving E a breathing treatment: 

 Before we headed home:

Let me reiterate, I loved the care Everett got at Samsung Medical Center and I don't fault any of the people we worked with for some of these awkward moments because we're the ones visiting their culture.  I am so appreciative of the effort they took to provide us with English speaking doctors and nurses.  That being said, when you're in another culture it can make for an interesting experience!

Check out this funny picture attached to E's bed: 

Praise the Lord for a healthy baby boy!

Halloween!

I know this is way late, but better late than never! Here are some pictures of our halloween weekend.

Is it really November now??? Where is the time going?