The Lows: February 2009

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Playground!

It was relatively warm here today (58-59 degrees). Not bad for February! After getting all of my errands done, I decided to take Brendan to the park to play on the playground for a little bit. Chris quit working a little bit early to join us. Brendan really seemed to enjoy himself and it was nice to get out in the fresh air.

Brendan wasn't real thrilled about the swing until Daddy started pushing him pretty fast (too fast for Mommy's liking anyway!)

Monkey on the Monkey-Bars

Sliding! Too bad that his shoes kept slowing him down.

Dinners

Another goal that I have on my 101 things to do list is to try some new recipes. We were definitely getting into a rut with dinners a few weeks ago and I tried some new ones. They turned out pretty good...forgot to take pictures, but we're having them again this week, so I'll try to remember to take some pictures.

My favorite website to find simple, easy recipes is www.kraftfoods.com
They also have a section where you can get four dinner recipes (well, they advertise 5, but one is a frozen pizza) from one bag of groceries, complete with a shopping list. 1 bag, 5 dinners

Here are two other recipes we've had recently that were very easy and turned out pretty good!

Ham and Swiss Casserole

Ingredients:
1 8 oz pkg wide egg noodles, cooked and drained
2 cups ham, cubed
2 cups Swiss cheese, shredded
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream

In a 9X13 pan, layer noodles, ham, and cheese; mix lightly. In a separate bowl, mix the soup and sour cream together. Pour soup mixture over the other ingredients in the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Cover during the first half of baking.

ETA: Not the best picture, but gives you an idea...I always like to "see" things before I make them.

Swiss Crockpot Meatballs

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 7 hours,

Ingredients:

1 cup brown rice
2-1/2 cups water
10 oz. can cream of mushroom soup with roasted garlic
40 frozen cooked meatballs
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup frozen spinach, thawed and well drained
2 cups shredded Swiss cheese

Preparation:

Combine rice, water and soup in 3-4 quart crockpot and stir to blend. Cover and cook on HIGH for 1 hour. Add onion, frozen meatballs, and thawed spinach. Do not stir. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours. Stir. Add cheese, stir gently to combine. Cover and cook 30 minutes on low until rice is tender, liquid is absorbed, and cheese is melted. Serves 4-6

Brendan's Baby Book

For those following our other blog...101 things in 1001 days...

I have spent many evenings the last month or so trying to finish Brendan's first year scrapbook. I finally got it done on the morning of his birthday party. Well...done is a relative term I guess. :) All the pictures are in it...ended up having to use two scrapbooks to fit them all in.

I do need to go back and "journal" on all the pages, but all of the pictures are there and in order. So it was a major accomplishment in my opinion!

The Platelet Saga Continues...

We've been back to the vet multiple times now for repeat blood draws and had another scare about a week ago. Abby's platelet count dropped to 12,000, so we had to increase her steroid dose (instead of hopefully decreasing it based on a good result from that day). She's back on the rebound now it seems.
Here are here "numbers" from Feb. 2/4: 245,000
2/12: 189,000
2/18: 12,000
2/21: 102,000

She goes back in on Friday (Chris is being very kind and taking her in for me) and hopefully she'll be above 200,000.

Dr. Havens did some talking with his fellow vets about Abby and it seems that this is not all that uncommon even though it is frustrating. Dogs can have relapses for 6-12 months following their first "episode" of IMTP. Dr. Havens seemed to have had good luck with his previous patients, in that he really hasn't seen any dog have this much trouble with mutliple low platelet counts after starting treatments. So, the hope is that there is nothing else going on that we don't know about, but based on a normal abdominal ultrasound and lymph node biopsy, we're feeling pretty comfortable. He talked about doing a bone marrow biopsy or CT scan, but we're not interested in going that far...like he said if you start doing those things, you're only looking for bad stuff. So we're just plugging along for now.

I got Abby her own pill box a few weeks ago...my dog takes more pills than I do! And the other good thing is that I've scrounged up some coupons for free gift cards with a new prescription, so when I have to go pick up more meds for Abby it really won't cost us anything!

Saturday, February 21, 2009

The First Birthday Party

We celebrated Brendan's first birthday with a family party at Mamaw & GrandBob's. It was a lot of fun.

Here's Brendan opening some of his presents:

Having some dinner...Uncle Rob fed him some macaroni & cheese, but he's still loving his ba-ba's.

More playing...

What a handsome birthday boy...

The Cake...yes, I made another monkey birthday cake...less than 4 hours this time!
To complete the monkey theme, I found some Jungle 1st Birthday stuff.

Cake! (Well...a cupcake...no one wants to eat birthday cake mauled by a one year old...plus I spent way too much time on that cake for him to dive into it!)