Ode to Prince George and the royal family

Prince George turned one yesterday and this post will be dedicated to my favorite royals!!! Oooh, how I love my royals! I would go so far as to say that I am slightly obsessed with them. I'm a royal stalker. I love them so much that I try my best to compare my family to theirs. There are quite a few similarities between us. We're pretty much one in the same. So I've determined that we are (basically) royals, too. 

 Here are a few examples!

NUMBER ONE:
My little (prince) William looks a lot like Prince George! I think it has to do with the chubby cheeks.

Do you see the resemblance?

NUMBER TWO:
My beautiful cousin Meg looks very similar to the Duchess of Cambridge, aka Princess Kate, aka (formerly) Kate Middleton. How lucky am I to have such a gorgeous cousin?!?! She lives in New York City, which is glamorous on its own. ;)

NUMBER THREE:
Kate's name is Catherine Elizabeth. My name is Katharine Elizabeth. See? We're pretty much the same person.

NUMBER FOUR:
Prince William was born 3 days after Thomas. And Kate was born almost a month before me. Our birthdays are very close. They met in school and we met in school. They had a beautiful wedding and we had a beautiful wedding. They went on a tropical honeymoon (Seychelles), and we went on a tropical honeymoon (Jamaica). Do you see where I'm going with this post? The similarities just keep adding up. Clearly.

NUMBER FIVE:
I love Lorde's song, Royals. I just don't get tired of it. Ever.

NUMBER SIX:
All the babies are about the same age. Prince George was born one month and 3 days before my little guys.

I very clearly remember Prince George's birthday. On July 22, 2013 I went to my OB's office. While I was waiting in the lobby, I was watching TV coverage of the official birth announcement, which was going to be placed outside of Buckingham Palace. I remember wishing and hoping that Prince George would be a girl so that one of my boys could marry her and we could all be part of the royal family. Alas, he was/is a boy, but that's OK because my boys can end up being Prince George's best friend.

This sticks out in my mind so vividly because it was a significant day and time for me. I was feeling like something wasn't quite right with my pregnancy, so I called and went in on that day to get checked...just to make sure! It turns out I was already starting to dialate at 22 weeks. Today marks the one year date of when I went to the MFM doctor, realized I was contracting, and was admitted to the hospital to try to stop labor. The hospital became my home for the next 5 weeks until my babies were born on August 25.

Back to the topic of my babies being best friends with Prince George, I need to give a shout out to my fellow royals-loving best friend, Heather. She keeps me up to date if any royals news comes out and she passes along all the magazines she has that feature George, William and/or Kate. We share our love of the royal family and have so much fun pretending like Kate is our other BFF. I do really think that if she met us, she would totally want to be our BFF. I just know it! By the way, Heather and I were very disappointed that Will and Kate's US visit back in 2011 did not include a stop in Greenville, SC or even a visit to the East Coast at all. We were unable to meet and become instant friends with Kate. This time. Maybe we will meet our long lost best friend from across the pond on her next trip to the States. Side note: I can't believe it's been 3 years since they were here. It seems like that just happened. Where does the time go?

Don't we look like we would be the perfect friends for Princess Kate?

This is a rambling, scatter-brained post, but I want to say how much I love William, Kate and little Prince George. I think George is such an adorable little boy and wish him a very, very happy birthday. I look forward to watching him grow up and I admire their classy, beautiful family. xoxo
 

See, even our christening pictures look pretty much the exact same. Can't you see it?!?!?

 

Thankful for Suzy

It was an interesting weekend at the Peery house! Here's what went down.

William had hand, foot and mouth disease last weekend and early this week. Then we started seeing a few red dots on Stokes. I'm pretty sure he had it, too. Stokes, however, didn't really get a fever and didn't act like he felt all that bad. He was just a little fussier than usual. Ryan is still in the clear. ;)

Anyway, we were dealing with hand, foot and mouth disease last week. I'd asked Thomas's Aunt Suzy to come visit us and keep the boys on Monday so I could take Ryan to the Neurologist for his weekly appointment. The plan was that she was going to come on Sunday afternoon. I found out later that she was in Charleston with my sister-in-law and family all last week. On Friday evening I got a call from Suzy saying that she was on her way back to Knoxville from Charleston and the traffic was horrible. I immediately told her to change course and come to Greenville. I didn't realize that she was going from Charleston to Knoxville and then coming right back to Greenville or I would have told her from the start to come to Greenville!!! Anyway, she came Friday instead of Sunday and it was a spontaneous blessing. As it turns out, Thomas started feeling bad on Friday night and put himself to bed early. Then on Saturday he had a 100.9 fever and didn't get out of bed all day. Poor thing must have gotten hand, foot and mouth disease from the babies. We didn't initially realize that adults could get it, but they can. And they did. I had 4 babies to take care of over the weekend! I felt horrible for Thomas because I could tell how awful he felt but was so incredibly glad that Suzy was there to help me with the boys. I look forward to each weekend to get extra help from Thomas so it was nice that while he was out of commission she was there to help out. By the way, in case you're worried, Thomas is feeling better now and his fever is gone but he's dealing with some pain in his hands and feet from his rash. Bless him. :(

Suzy is helpful and so funny and entertaining. We had such a great time with her! I was so grateful that she was here and that she randomly ended up coming early!

Suzy with Ryanb

Suzy with Stokes

During Ryan's Neurology appointment today, he had an EEG. We got the good news that the EEG looked improved as compared to his last one and we are able to decrease the dose on his ACTH injections. We still have to do them twice a day but we can stick him with less medicine. While on ACTH, his cheeks get very puffy, he is hungry a lot, he's more irritable and the worst part is that he's less focused. He just seems very zoned out and I can't get him to smile and laugh anymore. I know his sweet smile will come back once we get him off his medicine, but I sure do miss it!

Getting his EEG cap on

Time for the EEG to start

Family ties

We've had some great visits with family recently and I haven't been up to speed with blogging about it. Here's a summary for family time over the last few weeks!

We weren't able to spend Father's Day with my Dad (aka Granddad Stokes) so we had a make-up dinner a few weeks later. He came over with Shanghai, his youngest daughter, and we got to spend time together and have a good meal.

Granddad Stokes introducing the boys to a delicious appetizer (don't worry, they didn't try it!)

The app he brought -  grilled teriyaki bacon wrapped shrimp on skewers. YUMMMMM

The aftermath of our dinner - rice, corn on the cob and grilled kabobs (chicken, tomatoes, onion, green pepper)

Edamame salad side dish

Stokes, Ryan and Shanghai

Shanghai, William and Thomas

Namesake! Granddad Stokes and Little Stokes

Granddad and William



Shanghai playing with General

William and me

Our next visit was with MaSha over the 4th of July weekend. I did blog about it (here), but here's a picture of the boys with their MaSha. They sure do love their sweet grandmother!

After MaSha left that Sunday, we had a quick overnight visit with 2 of Thomas's aunts, Mag and Fifi. I unfortunately did not take any pictures with these 2 ladies! Sorry, Fifi and Mag!!!! Next time! We had a fun visit with them and they got some baby snuggles (and diaper changes hahaha) in with the triplets.

Last week, 2 of my aunts, Mary Nell and Wanda, came to stay and help out. If you read this blog a lot, you may remember them as the Nanas. They also brought my beautiful, 6 year old niece, Kaitlyn with them. I loved having them here! They do a wonderful job taking care of the boys and me. Kaitlyn is such a cutie pie and a sweet, sweet little girl. She wanted to help out as much as possible with the babies. She especially loved feeding them their solid foods and brushing their hair. Two of the days while my aunts were here, Lisa came over to visit. Lisa is one of my mom's friends and we've stayed in touch. Over the years, she and my aunts have really bonded and become friends and now they stay at her house when they come to Greenville if our house is full. She is a dear friend and has come over several times to help me with the babies and bring dinner for Thomas and me.

I strategically had the Nanas come on this week instead of another one because Thomas was out of town on business Wed. - Fri. It's so helpful and appreciated when I have other people here while he's gone. It's just so hard to do it all by myself 24 hours a day for more than 1 day! Kudos to the moms that do!

Mary Nell, aka Nana #1, with William

Wanda, aka Nana #2, aka Nana Wanda, with Stokes and Ryan

Lisa, William and Kaitlyn

Kaitlyn feeding William

Mary Nell, William and Kaitlyn

Ryan and Wanda

Stokes and Lisa

Mary Nell, William, Kaitlyn and me

Wanda, Ryan, Mary Nell, William, Kaitlyn, Lisa and Stokes

Wanda, Ryan, Mary Nell, William, Kaitlyn, me and Stokes

Kaitlyn giving William a bottle

We'll have some more family visits in the near future and I'll try to do a better job with taking pictures of everyone and posting about it when it actually happens, vs. lumping them all together a few weeks later. :)

Propped sitting

I just published the hand, foot and mouth blog post last night and I usually like to space out my posts a bit, but something big happened this morning.

I'm not sure if you guessed what this post would be about after seeing the post title, "Propped sitting", but I GOT RYAN TO PROPPED SIT ON HIS OWN!!!!!!!!!! I mean, for more than a second or two before falling over. He sat there for a long time. Sitting. On. His. Own. Y'all, this is BIG!!!! I am so excited. I burst into tears when it happened and keep getting a little misty each time I think about it. Their birthday is right around the corner and I've been worried and thinking about what Ryan could or couldn't do for their 1 year birthday. Sitting up is a huge milestone, at least in my book! I am so happy and proud of my little man.

You can probably tell by his face in these pictures that he wasn't quite as excited about the sitting as I was. This is a big workout for him...and he doesn't love it....YET! I hope you can also tell how long he was sitting like this for me to walk around with my camera and get pictures at all these different angles. The pictures don't tell the story about how I left him SITTING UP to run downstairs to get said camera and came back in the nursery to him STILL SITTING. My heart almost exploded. Well, maybe it did explode a little bit! Go, Ryan, Go!!!!!

HFMD

Hmmm...a new acronym. What does HFMD mean?

Well...unfortunately, in this case, it stands for Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. Yep, we got a confirmed case.

Poor, poor William! Late last week, he started with a low grade fever. On Friday night his temperature was around 99.3 and I gave him a dose of Motrin just to help him feel a little better. Then on Saturday I noticed a few small red dots on William's face.  I was worried that it could potentially be an allergic reaction to the Motrin. He acted pretty normal though and his temperature was just a little higher than normal. On Sunday, his rash had spread and he wasn't acting like himself. I was starting to get a little worried. After his first bottle of the morning, he threw up...and sorry, this might be too much detail...but it didn't smell like normal baby spit up. It had the real (grown-up) vomit aroma mixed with spit up smell. Let me just say, I really like the spit up smell much better!

Through the day he was acting just pitiful. No smiles, no laughing, no talking (or some people might describe it as hollering without using his "inside voice" - it's funny)...Thomas and I could both tell that something just wasn't right. He cried a lot and it broke my heart to see his eyes all red and these big tears just rolling down his cheeks. He wanted to be held and I was glad to oblige. I did not, however, get much done during the day - imagine that. Although he was acting pitiful, he didn't have much of a fever. He threw up a little again in the afternoon and after I fed him a few bites of green beans at dinner, he threw those up as well. I called in and talked to the nurse at my pediatrician's office a few times throughout the day. The nurses couldn't diagnose it over the phone but gave me some advice not to let him get dehydrated, what to do if he continued to throw up (he didn't), how to help his rash (lukewarm bath with 2 tablespoons of baking soda) and to monitor him and call back if it got worse.

On Sunday evening, he took his last bottle and kept it down and slept well throughout the night. Monday morning he drank his bottle and kept it down as well, but the rash was even worse! I called and got one of the first appointments. It didn't take long for the doctor to diagnose my sweet William with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. Side note: he currently weighs 21 lb and 7.5 oz. :) Luckily, hand, foot and mouth disease is a harmless virus. I got a handout to read and learn more about it.  It is very contagious and I'm actually surprised that Stokes and Ryan don't seem to have it yet. I have my fingers crossed that we can somehow avoid passing it around! Would that be too good to be true?!?!?!

Anyway, William is feeling much better and acting more like himself. I've seen some smiles and got him to laugh some but his rash is still in full effect. We will just have to wait it out. I think the worst is over and it's downhill from here. My William has been a little trooper!

 

Close-up of rash on face

 

Rash on left foot

Rash on right foot

Rash on legs - but look how squeezable those chunky legs are!