Long week, and weekend!

So, it's been a long 7 days for the Cork family.  We're just now starting to feel better.  Leann is getting back into health, as am I, and the munchkin too! Ethan has been a bit feverish and drooly the last couple of nights so we think he is teething and getting in his top chompers.  He finally stopped having his super runny nose today and he and I made a trip to CostCo together and gave mom a chance to get some much needed rest.  All in all we had a good weekend that was rooted in rest and getting healthy.  Many a naps were taken and Ethan got to sleep in our bed because he wasn't feeling well. Not a lot of pictures lately because we haven't been feeling well.  We are excited to get into this next week and away from being so sick!  Leann and I both signed up for our new Stickk.com challenge... mine is around exercise and eating right and Leann's is around losing weight.  We actually started last week... thank goodness for that "if we are sick" clause or else we'd be out some money :) 

I also resigned from my position on the Laveen Association of HOAs this week... after talking to family and friends and my doctor I decided I needed to drop some stuff from my plate and started with those duties as they made the most sense.  I also got some encouragement from my boss at work that I was doing well there which helps to alleviate the stress.   I'm going to try to start making more time for Exercise and a healthy lifestyle that we started ~15 weeks ago with our last Stickk.com challenge.  Last time Leann and I both lost about 20 pounds each and we are hoping to do that again over the next 8 - 12 weeks!  My plan right now is to add swimming to my weekly routine and to really focus on not cheating on the diet.  I've also decided to try to regulate my schedule a bit more with a daily wake up time regardless of if I'm doing weight lifting or cardio (in the past I've woke up later on cardio days because it takes less time).  I'm also hoping to start a big new project... I've purchased a domain name that I'd like to start a health and fitness community under.  The domain is www.iUpgrade.me but there really isn't anything there right now but I'm hoping to build a community website around health and fitness and allow people to focus on the social aspects of getting health and fit as well.  We'll see how that goes... just one more project in the cooker! :)  Anywho, this is turning into a long post so I'll leave it at that.  Catch up with you next time!

Testing out some new gadgets...

So I'm using "Windows Live Writer" to write this blog post.  It's a desktop app that I got from Microsoft when I downloaded and installed Windows Live Gallery so I could upload a lot of my photos to Flickr.  This seems pretty cool as it is spellchecking on the fly.  I also have buttons to the right for inserting pictures, tables, maps, tags, videos, and hyperlinks.  It also looks like it supports other Plug-ins as well.  Pretty interesting.

Here's a picture that I've posted:

I now see that I have lots of options for this picture... in an advanced tab where I can set certain effects on the picture like black and white etc...  Pretty cool stuff!

Speaking of Flickr (okay, I mentioned it only briefly above), I've spent a bunch of time with my pictures today because of that darn website!  I like it a lot... but I'm now forced to rething my photos.  I've been spending the last hour or so tagging all my photos.  I successfully have tagged all my dog photos and stored them into individual shots (tagged with their name) as well as a generic category titled "dogs".  Hopefully I keep this up.  .... although, now thinking about it.  I'll have to tag them in Flickr from now on as most of them will be uploaded automatically because I'm using EyeFi.. hmmm interesting... my Flickr images will be tagged but the local copies will not if I do decide to do that.... hmm.  I guess that's something to noodle on while I sleep tonight.  Anywho, it just occured to me that I've not posted before using this tool and if I don't stop typing soon I could have a whole lot of content that I can't post on my hands ;)

So until next time!

Laters Gators

A trying week….

Wow, this has been one of those weeks! Ethan had been fussy all weekend but mom took care of things because Dad was down and out with the flu. Then on Monday when Dad started feeling better Ethan's teething kicked into high gear. He really started fussing a lot and Leann called the doctor's office. They told him that if he doesn't respond well to baby Tylenol on the gums and/or we see him rubbing an ear a lot to bring him in as it may be an ear infection. By the time Wednesday rolled around the Tylenol on the gums thing was pretty ineffective and he started to get a persistent fever. Off to the doctor's office we went! After some serous crying as the doctor was getting mass amounts of wax out of his ears she deemed the issue an ear ache indeed. On Thursday night we began giving him his prescribed dosage of Amoxicillin… which is bright pink and seems to be an exceedingly large amount for his tiny mouth. Needless to say Ethan is not a fan of Amoxicillin… and now I understand why my mom use to always claim I was allergic to it when the doctors suggested it :). Anywho, the crazytrain at work wasn't stopping for either of us as we both had tons of stuff to do at work as well as a little emergency / crisis on Pop's website for his business that I was helping to resolve Monday through Wednesday. Thankfully for me Leann volunteered to stay at home with Ethan for two days and work from home while he pushed through his fever. I was very thankful because it seemed like I had a barrage of non stop face to face meetings that I was required to be in. By the time Friday rolled around we were both exhausted… I was working late at night on block watch and HOA stuff as well as work stuff for my face to face meetings. Ethan was only sleeping 2 or maybe 3 hours at a time and Leann was taking on the brunt of it (meaning sleep deprivation).

To top things off the pink die from Ethan's Amoxicillin (remember I mentioned that it was bright pink above) seemed to move through his body and directly to his hiney and turned it bright red! That's right… by Friday Ethan had a raging diaper rash and now wanted to cry in both a sitting and standing position! Changing time is no longer fun for him… he's in a ton of pain when we wipe his bottom and he lets us know it! Luckily Leann is a superhero in the field of dealing with unhappy baby's and their sleepy fathers. She has been doing so awesome taking care of him as well as me without getting sick (thank goodness). I don't know how she does it… but I'm so thankful for her strength and ability in this area!

We are looking forward to a visit from Granny Sweetpea in a little over a week. Ethan has been talking to us a lot lately and I image that he's telling us how excited he is as asking us how much longer till we granny gets here. To which we reply "4 more miles" :)

Anywho, that's the skinny for now.
Until next time, take care!

Sick Josh...

So, Thursday morning I woke up at 3am with a headache! Yuck.... I took some Advil and headed back to bed. I got up at 5:30am and I could tell that I was coming down with something but I had a face to face with my management team at work and I needed to be there. So I took my Claratin D and I headed off to our plant in Ocotillo (about a 45 minute drive) for the face to face meeting. I got to the plant and bout a rockstar energy drink and some hot food for breakfast hoping that it would help me feel better. I held out until about 1pm when things started to get worse as the Advil and Claratin started wearing off. By 4pm I could feel a fever coming on and I had to leave so I tried to bow out gracefully. I jumped into the Murano and headed home... the Murano was probably 100 degrees inside but it felt great because by this time I was having bad cold chills! That lasted through the night and into the next day (Friday) with alternating hot and cold feverish yuckyness! I slept from 5pm Thursday night till 7:30 and then took some NyQuil and slept from 9pm till about 1pm on Friday. I was then up for a few hours and then back to sleep again until 5 or 6pm! I couldn't believe how tired and sore I was! I passed out again on Friday night about midnight with the aid of some more NyQuil and woke up this morning around 11am. A few naps here and there today and I'm finally feeling a bit better. We made the Trek to Costco and got some dinner out tonight so I'm feeling a bit better. Tomorrow is Easter and we have big plans all day apparently so hopefully I'm feeling better.

Luckily Leann and Ethan have not fallen victim to this flu that I've had (Although, if you were looking for a poop status update.... Ethan had tonight what I can only describe as bright green cottage cheese poop.... so he may actually be sick as well :)). Leann has been taking great care of me and Ethan by herself for the last two days and I don't know what I would do with out her! Little Ethan has been doing great these last few weeks... He's been sleeping a bit less because he's really started to Teethe (if that's how you spell it)... and that's been taking its toll on mom. He's sitting up pretty well on his own now as you can see from these photos. He's also gotten pretty good at grabbing things with his hands. He's all smiles lately as well. The Ladies at day care as well as a few family members and friends have been encouraging us to take him to a talent agency and get him in some commercials or print work because of his smiley attitude and cute face! We'll see how that pans out.

It has been so long since our last good post because we've been pretty busy! I've been super involved with the block watch, the HOA, and now I'm a core member of the village association of HOA's as well! On top of all that we've been trying to get in some quality time with Ethan, also Leann's brother Zach has been living with us for the last month trying to get grounded and transition from being a highschool student into the work force and getting into a community college. Leann and her sister Cori have been working with him to help get him his drivers license, and his GED. We've also been trying to spend some quality time hanging out with him as well! Additionally this month was, apparently, our annual spend money on the dogs month. Last weekend saw us spend about $500 bucks on Rajah because of a limp, and some prework to make sure she is okay to have a gum and teeth cleaning under anestheia. Not only that but it was time for Zeus's annual heart monitor session and that cost big bucks... much more than we normally pay because it's a new docotor and new technology... that cost about $800 bucks! Pretty crazy! They are totally worth it.... but it takes the wind out of you a bit. We will be keeping busy moving forward as well... I've got trips to Chicago, Portland, and San Diego planned. Additionally we are headed off to Michigan for Marcy's wedding in July! That will be are big vacation and we are pretty excited because it's been a long time since we've taken a nice long vacation to relax and visit with family. Additionally it will be the first time that lots of our family gets to see Ethan!

Anywho, that's the skinny for now.

Good Times...

So, we've been having lots of fun with Ethan as of late (actually... he's always been fun). He's starting to roll over now. He had is first official roll over a few weeks back and though Momma has been trying she's not been able to catch another on camera. Ethan loves to grab at things now. He is much more articulate with his left hand than his right. He has a lot of dexterity with his left hand but his right hand he just kind of swings around (he got me right in the eye this morning!). He really likes to stand up... if you are playing with him he wants to be stood up and push his feet down. He can't by any means stand on his own but he likes practicing. He started playing with his feet a couple weeks ago and now he will grab his feet and roll to his side in his bed. He likes to grab his feet any chance he gets. He as started drooling everywhere. It is time to get out the bibs to catch the drool. We also finally put together his rain forest jumperoo.... which is a toy that he sits in and it swivels around and he can bounce up and down and play with a bunch of toys that are attached to it. He loves it! He spent almost 2 hours in it this morning. We will put some pictures out here of him in it when we get a chance to snap a few.
Other than that not a ton to report... Ethan is all smiles for now... even though he is getting over numerous colds and what not. Last week he visited with lots of family and friends at Uncle John's house for the superbowl and Ethan got passed from woman to woman... he was all smiles and grins... he was a big het! Anywho, that's all for today. Until next time.
Laters Gators
Josh and Leann

It's been a while....

Since we've blogged anything that wasn't a picture with a quick note...

A lot has been going on lately! Tiffany, Robert and their 4 month old daughter are in town staying with us for a few more days. Tiffany and MaKenna have been here for the last 3 weeks or so. Since we last blogged Cori and Danon have had a healthy little baby boy born into the world. His name is Keegan Jackson and weighed in at 7pounds, 4ounces at birth. About that time the germs in the house started to have a party and they've been jumping from person to person every day! I've been sick for almost 2 weeks now and it seems like everyone in the house has a little something going on. Leann and Ethan have been staying strong the whole time with out getting sick thank goodness. Hopefully that continues! Other than that we've beens spending our time working on block watch stuff, working with Little Ethan on rolling over, and just trying to stay healthy. We've got lots of good pictures from the last few weeks that I've posted below.
Enjoy!
Josh

What's making baby Ethan Cry??

He's making himself cry!

Rocking Momma!

So Leann received a copy of Guitar Hero 3 for Christmas and has since spent at least 6 hours rocking out on the guitar playing that game. I think she likes it... and I can safely say that Ethan did a fantastic job of picking out a Christmas present for his mommy!

A new post!!!

So it's been a while since I've made a post in earnest... instead of just pictures sent from my phone. Since my last real post we've been pretty busy getting ready for Christmas. We've done a ton of shopping, taken Ethan for his first pictures, organized lots of block watch stuff, started our yearly planning sessions, organized our finances for next year, took pictures for our Christmas cards, and spent time oohing and ahhing over little Ethan. Speaking of that last one, we took him in for his two month checkup on the 20th and everything was fine. The doctor said that he looked fantastic! He took 4 shots in the thighs (two in each) as he got some of his vaccines. They weighed him and measured his height and he is in the 80th percentile for weight and 90th percentile for height! After lots of bleeding from one of the pokes and a fair amount of red faced crying he finally passed out and we spent the rest of the day shopping and delivering gifts to friends in Gilbert. Little Ethan was all dressed up in his Santa outfit that Bryan and Judy got us and he got lots of comments from the people at Kohls and from all our friends about how cute he looked!

Leann got a new camera for Christmas (opened early so we could use it to take our Christmas photos) so expect to see lots more photos and videos of little Ethan. This camera takes optimized video for YouTube and Leann can use it to snap off rapid fire shots of Little Ethan smiling up a storm... which he is now doing with great frequency! He woke us up a couple of times this week talking like a madman to himself in his crib for 30 minutes straight! He will gladly hold cooing conversations with you and will just melt your heart with his little smile if you are willing to listen to him and take the time to play with him... he is soooo much fun right now! He also almost rolled over on his own this last week.... he was on his belly for his tummy time when he decided to lift his head up and turn it and put it back over his right arm... since his head makes up probably 35% of his weight mos of the rest of his body followed and he was just about on his side. If he would only have kicked up his one leg I think he would have found himself staring up at the ceiling from his back!

Anywho, that's the skinny for now... we are late already for heading over to Kim and Paul's house (Jake is in town since yesterday and is staying with us for a week)... and we are picking up dinner. I'll post a few pictures with this real quick before I leave you.

Until next time.... Laters Gators!

Josh

The last few days...

First things first... this is josh posting for Leann... trying to get her to author her own posts. I invited her a long time about but she never posts!

Anywho, we've got a sick baby! It's been a really bad last couple of days (or good I suppose, depending on how you look at it). Ethan is in the middle of his first cold... and it's been tough! He had a fever last night of 101.4 and we gave him some baby Tylenol... and it worked well. It certainly brought down his fever. Leann had to run him over to the pediatricians office this morning and headed off to meet with some estate planning folks. Anywho, the Dr. said we were doing everything right... but that it could take 7 - 10 days for it to clear up! Luckily for me i'm married to SuperWoman! Leann has been nothing short of amazing these last few days. I don't know how she does it but she takes such great care of Ethan and it seems like she knows just what to do to calm him down when he is super fussy. A couple of times in the last few days Ethan has either woke up screaming or started screaming out of the blue... it's pretty tough for me to get him to calm down but Leann always seems to know what to do.

Anyways, i started this post by saying that it was a bad couple of days but if I step back and think about it... it's been a great learning experience and we still have a great little boy that isn't in big trouble with his health. Like my mom said... he's building immunities! I know it's making him stronger.

Thats the skinny for now. Hope you enjoy this image... it's a sample from iStockPhoto.com

My account is working again!

Whew!
I was having some serious problems with my account. I pay for extra storage with Google and my posts with pictures were not going up on the page because my storage account got locked when my credit card passed the renew date. I finally got it figured out and I'm not able to post again!

Anywho, here are a few of the pictures that I was planning on uploading:

Super Baby Time!

So back in September I gave Leann a gift card to Build-a-Bear for her birthday in anticipation of her wanted to build a bear for Ethan once he got here. This last week we took Ethan on his first outing to the mall and we made him his very first little Teddy Bear... the Bear's name is Max (or SuperMax).

For those of you whom haven't been the Build-a-Bear store is way cool! Although being two adults purchasing a bear for ourselves in the store was a little awkward... but for kids it's awesome! They have you pick out the bear (or other animal... Dog, Leopard, Turtle, etc...) and then you get to put a sound in the bear that they will hear when they squeeze it's foot or hand. After that you get to put a little heart in the bear and they make you kiss it and make a wish. After they they fill him with stuffing to the desired fluffiness level (we choose super squishy for SuperMax). Once you've filled him up with stuffing they sew him up and you head over to give him a "bath" (air shoots out of shower head looking thing taking off all the extra fluff that got out or any bear lint)... they also have you brush him (I"m sure there is no purpose behind this... but it's fun for the kids) which is really awkward when you are just two adults with a one month old in your hands and you are brushing a stuffed bear. Anywho, finally you pick out clothing, dress the bear and name him on a computer where you get a printed up birth certificate!

We created SuperMax as an object to take pictures against Ethan's growth... an idea that the awesome nurses at Scottsdale health care shared with us! As you can see from the attached photo... we choose to purchase not one, but two of the same outfits for SuperMax.... what was the second one for you ask.... humiliation I think (based on how that shirt fits little Ethan) :). Actually, Leann came up with the great idea to put him in the same outfit as SuperMax for the pictures so he could see later in life just how small he was! As it turns out he has done quite a bit of growing in his first month! Per our one month checkup last Thursday Ethan is in the 75th percentile for height (at 22 inches) and in the 50th percentile for weight (at 10 pounds). So he's grown an inch since birth and put on 3 pounds!

Anywho, I love this picture because he's got this look on his face like "Who's this guy... and why did you put me in a belly shirt?". Lots more pictures to be seen in our Picasa Web Album!

Enjoy!

JLC

Holy Crap, I'm a father….

So I just woke up from the scariest most weirdest nightmare I've ever had… and it jolted me into the realization that I'm now a daddy! I had this dream that I was back in high school. It was the first day and the school was totally different and new. I lost my class schedule only 5 minutes before I was supposed to be at a very important class. On my way out the door, to go to my car find my schedule, I passed one of my good friends from high school (Jeff Sank). When I walked by him he asked me if I wanted him to watch the baby for me. In my haste to get out to my car and get my schedule I didn't think about what he said… until I was half way out to the car. It was then that it hit me… where is my baby, where is Ethan at? Good lord I thought… I'm so confused why am I in high school and where is my child! I turned back around and ran inside to re-trace my steps and find my son but I didn't know where to start. I was also very concerned about finding where I was supposed to be for class. I ran into one of the ladies that prints the schedules but she told me she couldn't print it with out an ID… but I couldn't find my ID either. I decided I needed to run back to my car as perhaps I left both the baby and my schedule back at my car. On my way I ran into a couple of the guys from the football team and told them that I would see them in practice that night. I also ran past a class and saw Jeff again. He was waiting in line to get into class (apparently it was very full :) ). He told me that I was in this class with him and I asked him to save me a spot while I ran out to my car to "grab something". On my way out to the car I really started breaking down… dear god I was a terrible father, I lost my child and didn't even realize it! Then it hit me that I had to call Leann and tell her what I had done, and the dread really hit me. I started to cry as I desperately tried to find my car. I was so confused though…. I didn't know where I parked and I didn't even really know what kind of car I drove!

Then, as dreams do, there was some sort of weird transition and I was back in the building and Leann was there. We retraced my steps (with her help of course) and as it turns out they were filming Bob Barker on the price is right at my school (what are the chances!). Now in actuality I have never watched this show in earnest. I know what the show is about, and I've seen bits and pieces of it… but I've never sat down to watch a whole show… so I'm not sure if this next part is accurate. Apparently in this version of the price is right you play as partners. The partners can be of any age as long as the average age between them is greater than 15. Realizing this, I apparently put him on the show (one can only assume as a baby sitter) and partnered him up with an elderly lady (so as not to break the rules I'm sure) and she was to act as his baby sitter. What a great plan I had come up with! Except I forgot where I put little Ethan, and after the show they put him in a box like a little doll and put him in a drawer for whenever I showed up to pick him up… and I was deemed a failure as a parent! Luckily, my gum-shoe wife was able to help me figure all this out and we got little Ethan back safe and sound.

I woke up from this dream completely disoriented. I had laid down with Leann for a nap at around 3pm… but when I woke up it was just starting to get dark… Neither Ethan nor Leann were in the room and I was having trouble remembering what day it was and whether it was morning or night. Wow… this little boy really wares me out!
Anywho, until next time!
JLC