The travelin' babes!

This has turned out to be quite a busy fall...as most fall seasons are for us!  Usually we are just heading to Alabama for football games, but we recently took our 2nd trip to Cincinnati since Davis was born.  A good friend from my high school days got married, so I figured, what better reason to head up to Cincy for a week!  Thankfully, both of my boys are turning out to be excellent travelers.  I had to make the trip up to Cincinnati by myself again and, all went smoothly.  I am still amazed at the fact that I have been able to make the 8 hr car trip with just one stop each way.  I'm sure once we get serious with potty training that will be a thing of the past, but it is nice for now!
We had such a great trip getting to spend more time with my parents and Harrison is loving his time with his grandmommy & granddaddy.  I tried to be good about taking pictures, so here are just a few highlights from the trip...
We tried to think of a few new things to do this trip, so we decided to take Harrison and Davis on the ferry boat across the river to one of my parent's favorite restaurants.  Harrison is still talking about how we drove our car onto the boat but we didn't fall into the water.  He had fun on the boat but was pretty nervous and didn't want to let go of me.

You can see he was not thrilled that I wasn't holding him here...

Harrison and Davis at Cabana Grill w/ grandmommy.  Harrison loved watching all of the barges & boats cruising down the river.

Here is Davis meeting our neighbor, Laura Cary...he is getting so big, so fast and still looks SO much like Harrison!

We met up with my friend, Marci, and her two kids one afternoon at Beach Acres park.  Harrison and Blake had fun going down the slides and running around...

The park also had a sprinkler area which Harrison was a little hesitant about at first.  Once it warmed up though, he lost all fear and let loose!  Blake had more fun pushing the button for Harrison to keep the sprinklers going.

You can see the excitement without even looking at his face!

The best part was that since I didn't realize there was a sprinkler park, I just let Harrison run through the water in his diaper and shorts.  After about an hour of playing in the water, Harrison's diaper was so full of water that it hung down to his knees.  I was trying to get him to run to the car so we could hurry up and change him but he couldn't run because his diaper was so heavy.  Poor guy, but it was pretty funny to watch!
Okay, the highlight of the trip, that I just HAVE to post.  We were playing with spiderman stickers one morning and at one point I left the room to grab something.  I came back and noticed that Harrison had moved on to playing with some of his other toys, so I asked him, "Harrison, what did you do with your stickers??".  He turned around and before he could answer me, I was on the floor laughing!  This picture says it all...

Another fun thing we did this trip, was go to a place called Entertrainment Junction.  They have the largest indoor train track in the USA w/ over 2 miles of track.  Harrison, of course, LOVED it!  They also had a Halloween exhibit, which made it even better...trains and candy, what more can a 2 yr old ask for!?!

Harrison, Davis and myself in the Halloween exhibit...

That evening we had our family over to visit and see the boys.  At one point, Harrison was walking around and my uncle picked him up and had him "walk" on the ceiling.  This started a new game and Harrison was cracking up...and so were we!  Here are Ben (my sister's fiancee), my dad & Harrison

Liz & Davis, soaking in the fun...

That night Harrison stayed up past his bedtime and you could tell he was getting tired b/c he got so wired.  If you watch the following video, this is what he did for at least 30 minutes straight!  Needless to say, he slept like a rock that night!

Lance flew in after working for the week so Harrison, Davis and I went to pick him up at the airport.  We told him we would be circling outside, but we surprised him by waiting at the greeting area.  Harrison was so excited to see him, and also the airplanes!
I thought this video was too cute...

Yeah Daddddyyy!!!

Can you tell they're related?!?!

After picking up Lance we met the rest of the gang at Zips...the best cheese burgers...period.

One happy family...

One last picture.  It was gorgeous weather on the day that we left, so Harrison played outside while we were getting packed up (this is quite a process with two kids!!).  I thought this was cute...very focused on his airplane!

We had a great trip, and as always, it went too fast!  We can't wait for grandmommy and granddaddy to move down south!  We love you, thank you for hosting us for the week!

my bestie!

My bff, Teresa, and I have been friends since we were 4 years old and our families moved onto the same street in Cincinnati, OH.  So far, we have had quite a journey through life together.  We both, unbeknown-st to each other, decided to go to the University of Alabama, we both married Lances within a month of each other and now we both have 2 kids, with our youngest being only 1 month apart.  I'm not going to get sappy, so I'm going to leave it there...all I'm going to say is that you don't meet friends like that every day and I feel so blessed to have her in my life!  We stopped by Teresa's house on the way to Tuscaloosa 2 weeks ago so that we could meet her new baby, Paxton and so we could introduce them to Davis.  I'm not sure how this happened, but we somehow managed to get all the kids to behave long enough to take some cute pictures.  She just sent them to me so I HAD to post them!
P.S.  - the lei's were Harrison & Madelines' idea!

(Teresa, Paxton, Me, & Davis)

(Madeline, Teresa, Paxton, Me, Davis & Harrison)

rollin with the Tide...

As summer comes to a close and fall begins, for the Randolph household, that means a lot of traveling to Tuscaloosa for some tailgating fun.  Its a little different having to pack for 2 kids, but we have had so much fun getting to hang out with my family over the past few weekends.  Of course, I had to take a few pictures to commemorate Davis' first tailgate! 
Since I noticed recently that we don't have a lot of family pictures, I had to make sure we got at least one with the four of us!  say cheeeeeese!

Davis already loves spending time with his grandmommy...

...and so do all the other grandsons!!!

Here is granddaddy "cheersing" Davis to the 1st game of the season!  Roll Tide!

Davis also got to meet my sister's in-laws.  Here is Davis hanging out with Vicke, aka "mimi", Trey & Jacks' other grandmommy.

I'm still trying to decide what Davis is thinking in this picture..."hmmmm....I'm not so sure about this tailgating business"

Harrison has been having fun playing with his cousins over the past few weekends.  Jack & Trey are so sweet to my boys and they love to help hold baby Davis, especially Jack!  Jack noticed that Davis was staring at the tv while the guys were watching football highlights, so he asked my sister, "Mommy, why do babies like to watch football so much??"  ha ha, its just so funny what goes through the mind of a 3 yr old!

My mom's sister Mary also came down and had fun with the gang.  She is so sweet and had fun collecting some new Alabama gear!

A few of my college girlfriends came down for the Alabama vs. Penn State game this last weekend.  I had so much fun getting to catch up and introducing them to Davis.

You just can't beat a fall evening in Bryant Denny with 101,000 of your closest friends!!  Roll tide!

Funny/Random pictures

Since I can't do much beside laze around with this sinus infection, I figure I might as well keep myself busy by updating my blog!  Here are just a few pictures that I've taken lately that I thought were cute.
Harrison loves trying to find ways to interact with Davis.  There isn't much that they can do together yet, so he is always trying to get on Davis' level to play.  Here are the boys playing on the floor...I think Harrison liked this more than Davis:

Harrison & Davis just love spending time with their grandma & granddaddy.  Here is grandma reading a bedtime story to Harrison (Curious George Christmas book - one of his favs).  The book has its own version of "Deck the Halls" and Harrison loves to sing...fa la la la la, la la la la...

Aunt Amanda came up to meet Davis and I got a cute picture of Davis with his thumb in his mouth.  This is only the 2nd time that he has done that...Amanda, you're a natural!
Harrison was so funny, because since his new teacher is "Miss Amanda", he couldn't understand that there were two Amanda's.  He was just looking at her like, "you're not Miss Amanda".  Too funny!

For my 30th birthday, my parents brought down some Graeters ice cream for the party.  Thankfully there were a few pints left, so we are still enjoying it.  Graeters is a signature Cincinnati food and is delish!  Unfortunately, I think Harrison got his love of ice cream from me!! I put the ice cream on the table so that I could make ice cream cones for Harrison and myself and when I turned around, this is what I found....

When we were in high school, my "best friend Teresa" and I used to each buy a pint of black rasberry chip and eat them while we watched movies.  At 21 grams of fat per serving (unfortunately Graeters has the most fat content of any icecream :( ), its amazing that we didn't weigh 500 lbs!!  ha ha!

Davis and his cute hat from Cousin Lin...

Just before illness struck the Randolph household, we took a trip down to the zoo with some friends.  This was my first trip there with both boys and thankfully, it went well!  Here are a few cute pictures from the day...
Harrison, didn't want to pose, but I had to take a picture of him in his choice of shoes for the day. 

Here are Harrison, Mary, & Maddy checking out the flamingos...it is impossible to get all 3 looking at the same time!

Here are some cute pics of the new baby giraffe at the zoo.  Here is mom & baby...

This is the baby with his aunt...

Here are Harrison & Mary holding hands...

There is always a silver lining...

After all of the health struggles that our family has been through over the past few weeks, I thought we were in the clear for a while...until yesterday when Harrison came down with croup cough. He really scared me last night because his breathing was so heavy, but the steroids that his dr gave him this morning already seem to be helping. I now seem to be coming down with something and have been feeling worse by the hour. Hopefully a trip to the dr in the morning will help me as well. After all of this that we have been through, God always manages to provide a silver lining to any cloud. Davis has been a fairly fussy baby so far, and he has been nothing but happy all day long. I even managed to capture this video, that through the pounding headache, put a very big smile on my face...

Here is also a picture that we took last night...a little fuzzy, but too cute not to post!

Answered prayers

What a difference a day makes!  This has been a stressful week of just waiting for answers from doctors and tests and I am happy to report that todays post contains nothing but good news!!  Here it goes:

Aunt Mary - They had her test today and found that she does NOT have cancer!!  The doctors put a stint in her bile duct to open it up and they found an enormous gall stone that will be removed with surgery sometime in the next week or so.  The doctors were all pretty certain going into this that there would most likely not be a happy ending to the story, so we are very thankful for the good news!  My favorite part is that after they put the stint in, she immediately began to feel better.  They only had her under light sedation, so when she woke up, my mom was able to get her back to school so she could participate in her beauty pagent.  They dedicated the pagent to her and since she missed her dance, they let her redo it once she got there!  Go Mary-berry!

Little Jack - After 2 days in the hospital, they never gave my sister a clear answer as to what happened, but they are thinking that it was most likely a bad virus or related to his kidney issue.  All of his tests were clear, but he is going back to his urologist next week.   He is feeling much better than he was 2 days ago so they are all back home sleeping in their own beds tonight.  Granddaddy Koeppe drove down to help cheer him up too.

Mr. Randolph - we visited with him tonight at their house and he is feeling much better.  Doctors orders are to take it easy and stay close to home in case another episode occurs, but we are happy to see him feeling back to normal.  He now just has to schedule his upcoming surgery to fix his heart.

This has been a scary week and has been a big reminder for me to be thankful for all of the blessings in my life...my amazing family, friends, and most importantly, our health!  A lot of miracles working out and we are very thankful for everyones prayers!

What a month!

I have some good news, some bad news, and also still waiting on some news. 

This has been quite a month.  It started out with a trip to Cincinnati for the funeral of a dear family friend.  It was aweful having to say goodbye, but also nice to get to see some family and friends that I don't get to see very often.  While in Cincinnati, I received the news that a co-worker of mine passed away from a sudden heart attack and that my Aunt was having to have some tests done due to turning "yellow" within a matter of hours.  Less than a week after I got back from my trip, my father in law was rushed to the hospital due to a stroke and then my sister called today to say that she was having to take her 3 yr old son, Jack, to the Childrens hospital in Birmingham.

The good news:  My father in law is on his way home right now from the hospital.  It turns out that he had a small hole in his heart where the blood was able to get out and went to his brain.  He was watching Harrison when the episode happened, and I feel very thankful that he was able to think clearly enough to make sure that both he and Harrison were able to get help and stay safe.  He will be having surgery sometime in the next few weeks to "clamp" his heart closed.

The other good news that I need to remember and be thankful for, are for the births of Davis, Paxton and Kate.  All healthy babies that put a smile on your face when you look at their sweet little faces!  A few more are on their way, hopefully in the next week!

The Still-Waiting News:
My Aunt Mary is having a test done tomorrow to figure out what is going on with her.  She has down syndrome and so my mom is going down to Louisville to be with her for the test.  Please pray for some good news!!
Jack is having to stay overnight at the hospital now so they can keep an eye on him.  He woke up this morning and wouldn't get out of bed.  He kept saying that his tummy hurt and he wouldn't walk, eat or move.  Julie took him to the dr and they told her it may be appendicitis.  It sounds like that is pretty much ruled out now and they think it may be a bladder infection.  He has been dealing with kidney reflux since he was born, so hopefully that won't flare up with this new issue.  Please keep this sweet little boy in your prayers!!

I'm not sure what is going on right now with everyone, and while it is difficult for me to understand why so many bad things can happen so quickly to so many of my loved ones, I feel safe and secure in knowing that our God is watching over us and listening to our prayers.  Please keep our family and friends in your thoughts and prayers right now and I will be sure to keep you updated on what happens.
"But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD whose confidence is in him",  Jeremiah 17:7 NIV
In times like these, I am reminded of how blessed I am to have my health and to have such an amazing group of family and friends in which I can rely on!