had me a blast...Summer lovin'... went by too fast!
Can't believe it's almost October, can you?
So before I re-cap our family fun summer, I'd like to share a little bit about one of my nephews.
The little boy you see below is my nephew, Owen. He will turn six in March. He is a handful to say the least and has a mind of his own as you can tell my his fashion choices below :) We love him and cannot imagine life without him, but we almost had to.
This is a picture of Owen a few hours after he was born. He was beautiful, perfect, but his heart was tiring already.
As we were getting ready to take him home, a nurse decided to look him over one more time and discovered a heart murmur. This can be benign and common, especially in boys, but by chance the Pediatric Cardiologist happened to be doing some rounds on another patient and could look at everything just to be sure. Well in doing so they discovered that Owen had something called a Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD) and a Coarctation of the Aorta (narrowing of the main branch that supplies blood to the heart). So instead of going home, he went to Egleston to have open heart surgery.
This is Carrie with Owen after surgery. He had plenty of tubes and accessories to scare even the seasoned parent. Mark and Carrie definitely went through hearing unimaginable news, but now have a spunky, crazy, almost 6 year old who shows no signs of tiring any time soon :)
He's come a long way... here's another picture of him today.
After the wedding, I was told why Owen wasn't around. He and his brother were ring bearers, but only Griffin walked down the aisle. Unfortunately, Owen was feeling sick before the wedding and ended up sitting with our cousin Julie instead. I was told that as I walked down the aisle, he threw up in his tuxedo jacket and then fell asleep for the rest of the ceremony. Poor guy was not having a good day. Then, after I got home from the honeymoon I got the real update on his condition. They didn't want to worry me while I was hours away, but Owen had to go to Egleston to be evaluated. After the wedding, he continued to throw up and ended up losing seven pounds in about three days. The chest x-ray they did showed some shadowing around his heart and so they did an Echo to evaluate further. After several more tests, the cardiologist said that everything looked OK with his heart, but that some of the internal hardware had broken apart from his heart and could possibly require surgery later. Thankfully, everything ended up just fine. He stopped throwing up and started to recover so the next week the family went on a vacation to Daytona Beach they had previously planned.
You would never know Owen was recently sick by this picture.
One happy family here :)
Sarah, 8years old, the oldest and smartest she would say :)
Griffin, 7 years old, crazy, silly and my G-man
And then Owen, 6 years of smiles and even more crazy :)
Everyone enjoyed the sun and re-visiting a family favorite from the good ole days, Daytona, USA
Owen got thrown a few times by his Daddy and Bee Bop
Then, summer in Alabama brought Hill's un-birthday!
And with that came her very first bicycle with training wheels. I had a similar bike when I was little that had streamers from the handle bars; that made it super cool.
After all that exercise, it's time to cool down outside. Baylor is the best helper and knows how to fix the pool for everyone to enjoy.
Summer makes such a happy boy :)
Hill enjoyed the sprinkler while Baylor went down the slide.
She also loves to swing.
She is not bashful at all. Here's a wardrobe change-ta da!
Playing in pink sand from Nonna.
Filling up the pool again...
Laps around the backyard with Baylor. Always a good time, but the Alabama heat was brutal!
Later in the summer, we went to the World of Coca-Cola with the MacAllasters.
Let's just say that after about 45 minutes in the tasting room, everyone was a little hyper and so we had to make a pit stop on the way home to none other than...
The Varsity...mmm
Near the end of the summer, the Hudlows traveled the long road from Alabama to Georgia...
Hill decided that she wanted to be Nonna. Baylor just wanted to play with trucks.
She wore Nonna's vest and red hat so well and though it may look like it, my Mom is not a member of the Red Hat Society :)
This one is blurry, but still cute. Baylor loves Hill and wants to be just like her, so that means just like Nonna in this situation.
Later in the afternoon, we mowed the lawn thanks to Bay Bay.
Hill did some laps with her scooter.
And then before you know it, it's back to Am-abama.
I went over just a few weeks ago and got a few recent shots.
Hill's still practicing her bike and she's also tried take some swings in the backyard with her princess bat.
Baylor's happy just hanging around. I sure do love them all. More trips to come...
