Our sweet Leroy

Our wonderful 10 year old black lab, Leroy has been diagnosed with Valley Fever. It's quite serious and probably fatal. There is also a strong possibility that he has liver cancer. I guess he finally had one too many beers! Seriously though, he is had a rough couple of weeks and we are praying for him every day. A few weeks ago, he stopped wanting to eat his food and would only pick at it after a lot of coaxing from John or me. We didn't think it was anything too serious because he would still eat anything else that we gave him: doggy treats, peanut butter, chicken, etc. Over this last weekend, he quit even picking at his food and would only eat some other stuff that we would give him. On Tuesday, John took him to the vet where they drew blood and sent it out to test for Valley Fever and also Tick disease. On Wednesday, the tick test came back negative, but the vet said that Leroy's white blood cell count was out of whack and his liver enzymes were elevated which could be a symptom of the Valley Fever or possibly liver cancer. We didn't hear anything on Thursday and poor Leroy just kept getting worse. He was refusing pretty much all food and mostly just laid around. I was worried that when I got home from work that he wouldn't still be alive and prayed that he would make it until John got home. When John got home, we told him that we loved him very much, but that we didn't want him to suffer and that if he wanted to go, it was ok. It has just been heartbreaking to watch him deteriorate in front of our eyes. We came to the difficult decision that if the vet called and said that it wasn't Valley Fever and that he most likely had cancer, we were going to put him to sleep. There is little that you can do for cancer in a dog and we didn't want our buddy to suffer through chemo and/or surgeries. When I left for work this morning, I was sobbing because I was afraid that he would be gone by the time that I got home. While at work, John talked to the vet and he said that it was in fact Valley Fever, but because of the liver enzymes it could still be cancer. However, Valley Fever can be treatable. I rushed home and prayed that he would still be living, so that I could get him to the vet. They gave him two injections and will be giving him a prescription. I'm not really sure how I am going to get him to take a pill, when he is refusing all food, but we have to at least try. If he doesn't make any progress by Monday, we are probably going to to have to put him down. Leroy has always been our billy goat and has eaten everything he has ever wanted and to let him just starve to death would be cruel. He has had a great life with us and brought us a lot of joy (and some heartache with his antics over the years) and we will miss him terribily if this becomes his time to go. However, I am praying that we are able to get him through this. It's hard to remain optimistic without getting my hopes up to high. Please keep our Leroy in your thoughts.

Happy (Belated) Birthday!

John turned 32 on Saturday. I don't know where the years go. It seems like only yesterday that he was having a fit about turning 30! He got his very first "Happy birthday Daddy" card from Cole, which was fun to pick out. He went golfing with Steven during the day, which I think has been established as a new birthday ritual for the two of them, as Steven's birthday is the day after John's, so they usually celebrate together. We of course went to Benihana's for dinner as we have for the past 4 or 5 years. John believes that all birthdays should be celebrated at Benihana's and has already tried to convince me that Cole should spend his 1st birthday there as well. Somehow, I just don't see that happening. However, Cole was fascinated by our chef and all his wonderful Benihana's tricks.

About a month ago, John had asked Cole if he could learn to crawl for his birthday. And did Cole deliver! Almost two weeks ago, he started moving just a foot or two and now he is crawling all over the place! I swear that he is moving faster every day. It's amazing! Just when I was getting used to this milestone, I walked into his room this morning to see him standing up in his crib! When the heck did he learn to do that? It's just crazy how fast he is growing up.

Rock On Gold Dust Woman

John and I went to see Fleetwood Mac in concert last night, which was my Mother's day gift from him. Even though I appeared to be the youngest one at the show, it was amazing! I had no idea it was going to be as great as it was and I was totally blown away. It was crazy to see how a band that has been together since 1965 can still totally rock out. Mick Fleetwood certainly looked his age and all during the show, I kept thinking, "this guy is too old to rock like this" but he totally did. Stevie Nicks has such an unusual and amazing voice, so it was awesome to hear her in person. She rocked out her flowy dresses and the tamborine as only Stevie can do. Very few people can pull off a tamborine, but she manages to do it. They played for almost 2 1/2 hours and sang pretty much everyone of my favorite songs, including "Go Your Own Way" "Gold Dust Woman" "Second Hand News" "Rhiannon" and of course "Landslide".

An interesting bonus to the concert was the very nice, but super weird lesbian couple next to us. The older lady was super chatty and kept me entertained before the concert started. John was actually the one to open the floodgates of conversation with her by commenting on her Cubs shirt, which is also the same one that his Grandma has. Believe it or not, this woman was actually from Naperville. The two of them are super Fleetwood Mac fans and had collectively seen them around 75 times in concert! And to show their hardcore dedication to the band, they even named their daughter Stevie. They kept screaming "We love you, Stevie!" throughout the show. John and I were definitely amused by these superfans. However, it was helpful to sit next to such dedicated fans because we would have missed the last song "Silver Spring" because it was done like a second encore, but our friendly neighbor made sure that we knew to stick around.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and I would definitely go see them again. If you ever get the chance to see them, I highly recommend it.

Seriously, could he be any cuter?

I am sure that I am biased, but I think that John and I have the most handsome baby ever. I always think that he couldn't get any cuter and then he does! Our friend Lindsey took some beautiful pictures of him a few weeks ago and I can't believe how adorable he looks.

In the past week, he has learned to get himself into a sitting up position, so he thinks it is lots of fun to practice that in his crib during nap and night time. We can hear him squealing in there and then when we go in there, he is just sitting up, waving around his blankie and looking pleased as punch with himself. He is also SO close to really crawling. He has been scooting around on his tummy quite a bit and makes some admirable progress that way and in the past two days, he has also started crawling on his own, but only gets about a foot before he stops. John asked him if he could learn to crawl by his birthday, so we will see if that wish comes true...

Is he a celebrity?

Apparently Cole thinks that he is a rock star. We went to visit a friend of John's from work last weekend to meet his new son. His five year old daughter thought he would be funny to put her sunglasses on Cole and she was right, he looked hilarious!

Like mother, like son?

We took Cole swimming in our pool on Sunday. He seemed a little unsure of what was going on, but overall seemed to like it. We even bought him a little floatie to hang out in. In two weeks, Cole and I will be taking parent/tot swimming lessons through the town of Gilbert. I figure that no son of mine is going to be afraid of the water! Plus, doesn't he look adorable in his little swim trunks?

He's almost on the move!

Cole has been getting ready to start movin'! He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth. He also does what I call baby pushups. He loves "practicing his moves" even in the middle of the night, which is fun for everyone!