We are a snow and snowboarding family, however, since moving to Texas, we have had to find some new hobbies, ones without mountains. Since June of this year, Christopher has aggresively taken up running as a new hobby. He is training for the
The Texas Half Marathon in February 2007. So, as practice, he is running races to work up to the rigors of a half marathon.
The Trinity Trot in Fort Worth was his first race and boy was he excited! Just a 4 mile run, but a start. Tyler, his brother, runs Triathlons and Marathons and agreed to be a running buddy for Christopher. Here they are just before the race this past Saturday morning.
Here's Gavin a little disappointed he wasn't included in the race.
Gavin quote "Mom, I've never tried racing before, I should give it a try." Me, "that sounds like a great idea, we will look for an upcoming race that includes your age group." Gavin, "I have my new tennis shoes on right now and they make me run super fabulous, fanasticly fast. So I will just run with daddy and hold his hand if he needs help."
Poor kid, just after the race started, Gavin cried he wasn't allowed to just start racing today. So we are planning on a race this next month with him.
Reese enjoyed her own little race back and forth between the bushes and our camp out! Just keeping herself entertained. She's a little cutie!
Here's Christopher crossing the finish line. His personal best mile is 6 minutes flat. For this race, he ran a 7:12 minute mile for 4 miles. He finished second for his age group and 48th overall out of 319. Pretty good for his first race. He will only get better from here.
We are so proud of him and finding something that he really enjoys. Now that I'm not pregnant anymore, I'm jumping on the band wagon and will start training for the Tyler Azalea 10K in March 2007. With Gavin so interested, we just might make this a family affair!
This is Gavin and Reese this past weekend in the same biker carrier. My how they have grown. It's fun to look at "then and now" pictures of the kids when they are still this small. This Christmas Gavin will graduate to having to ride his own big boy bike, so Caden can take his place in our biker "chariot".
Christopher has decided that he would like to train for an actual Triatholon, so, he's gonna have a fun time training while pulling our children along!
This last picture is just a fun one of Reese. She was just so cute b.c she wanted to wear her scarf,...b.c she really doesn't get much of a chance to wear it here in Texas. She will when we take our vacation to the "greatest snow on earth" this January.
While Gavin was collecting shells, Resse our little messy terror was collecting wet sand!!
This was a view from our balcony at our Hotel! It had absolutely fabulous sunrises and sunsets! And right across the street from the beach!! 
But of course, Reese, our little "pretty" princess, loved her sparkely play shoes the best (she got an 8 pack!)! She is a sucker for jewelry ("pretties"), shoes, hello kitty, and Spongebob Halloween DVD from Netflix!
Here is Caden chillin with his daddy at home. In all, Caden spent 9 days in the NICU and 2 days in the Special Care Nursery. Now he is well and all ours! Bring on the all nighters! A special thanks to all those who have sent well wishes and prayers our way! We are forever grateful!
Right now we are in the "no news is good news" stage. Not much to report other than he is continuing to get better. He takes a bottle of my breast milk at every feeding, every 3 hours. He gives a good holler at the nurses too when he's hungry! He drinks 30 ml a feeding, which is GREAT for him! Here he is at his 1:30 pm feeding, with his eyes open!! He's opening his eyes more and more and I just can't get enough of him! He is such a babe! He has such a little old man look to him that I just want to kiss him bunches!
We also noticed that his I.V. had moved from his hand to his head during the night.
The hour finally came and we were able to hold little Caden. He still wouldn't wake up for us enough to feed him. It's important that he be awake because he needs to be aware of the suck-swallow-breath rhythm of feeding. Otherwise he could complicate his condition. So Sariah got to feed him some breast milk through his feeding tube, and was very happy to finally hold her little baby boy.
Daddy was very proud too, but ended up bumping the I.V. in Caden's head which sent off a flurry of alarms and lights. Doh!
Later we met with the doctor and he said they wanted to keep Caden in the NICU for at least 10 days from the time he was admitted to keep the antibiotics in his system and keep monitoring him. 
Later that afternoon, we discovered through blood test that his white blood cells we elevated and that meant infection. The fluid in his lung had become infectious, so they started antibiotics right away. That's when he had to go into an oxygen tent (shown below). The tent is a more effective way to get oxygen to a newborn. An adult would use an oxygen mask, but an infant is annoyed by a mask and constantly fights to get it off its face.
We can't hold him nor feed him. He is only receiving nutrients through IV. He needs to be off the ventilator in order to be feed through a tube in his stomach. We need that to happen before he gets jaundice. So we pray for his infection to start clearing up and his hole in his lung to repair itself quickly. We are SO fortunate that his condition is NOT life threatening. He just needs to get well, so we can feed him and raise his blood sugar and take him home. We are not sure what long term effects might arise from this experience, however, we pray for his long term health as well. Especially going into the cold and flu season now.
