Trip to Dallas

When the Kaase family was in town last month, we made plans to head out to Dallas for Ryan's birthday and spend time there while Jenn was still on maternity leave with Olivia. We left bright and early on Wednesday morning, and don't regret it for a second. We left the house around 3:00am. We preloaded the car and showered the night before, all we had to do was make coffee, brush our teeth, pack Em's milk, load her up and hit the road. She was awake for about 15 mins chatting away in the back seat and then was out for a few hours till we hit the Texas state line. I climbed in back, gave her a bottle, played with her a bit and we stopped in Amarillo for a break. We had some breakfast, changed Em and let her jump around for a bit before getting back on the road. The drive out went very smoothly. We even took a wrong turn that delayed us almost and hour, but Em did great. We played with her toys, violet was God sent, we snacked, she had her bottles and she napped. She did AWESOME. I say it again, we are so so blessed to have such a good baby. She is so even tempered and always smiling.

We got into Dallas around 2:30 and go unpacked. We really had an uneventful week, but that is exactly what we wanted. We just wanted to spend time with our family and relax. We played with Ryan, I held Olivia, we helped Jenn around the house and to prepare for Ryan's 3rd birthday. It was just a perfect week. Emily adjusted pretty well for the most part to a new schedule and slept good the first night. She was in great spirits, but then got REALLY fussy on Thursday. She was drooling like crazy and her nose was running. I am pretty sure it was because her tooth keeps popping in and out, but she was a crazy baby all night that night, but was back to normal again the next day. She had a runny nose pretty much the whole trip.

We found out on Saturday that she is allergic to cats. We were sleeping in the room where Jenn's cat usually spends most of her time. Zig went upstairs to change his shoes and found the cat in the pack and play with Emily while she was napping. When Emily got up her eye was really puffy and it just went down hill from there. Her hands and feet puffed up, then her lips, eyes and cheeks. I am not going to lie, I was totally freaked out at first. I thought maybe something had bit her, but we checked her whole body and found nothing. We figured it must be the cat. Their neighbor is a general practioner and a life safer. She came over, took a look at Em and told us to give her benadryl every 6 hours for the rest of the trip, so we did. We washed all the sheets and we kept her upstairs with us that night, but she was still puffy the next day. We finally decided it was best to wash EVERYTHING and we moved her downstairs to Olivia's rooms to nap and sleep. She did much better and all the puffiness was gone.

Ryan's birthday was on Sunday. If you know my sister in law, you know that she is the most creative person on earth. She is seriously amazing and has the best ideas. He had a Buzz Light Year themed party, complete with adorable Buzz Light Year cupcakes and a amazing cake with a spaceship on it that she made all by herself. Keep in mind, this was all done while her 3 year old was running around and inbetween feeding and holding her 2 month old baby. She is seriously awesome and such a great mom. The day of the part Emily flat out REFUSED to nap. Now my kid is as scheduled as they come. She drinks 4 six ounce bottles a day at 7, 10, 3, and 7:30 and she takes 2-3 naps a day at 8:30, 12ish and sometimes around 3after her bottle. She took her morning nap and her first two bottles great, but then she didn't nap at all for the rest of the day. We tried for 2 hours! Then around 2 we decided to give her a bottle and she sucked down 8 oz! and then still had her other 2 bottles that day. I was sure she was going to be a MESS at the party, but she just sat there and took it all in. She was a gem. She went to bed around 7 and slept without any problems for the whole night.

We left Sunday morning around 10 after Em's first nap of the day. She did really good. She took 2 1 hour naps and was up the rest of the time. She started to get a little crazy around Tucumcarri and I was worried we were in for a long 3 hour trip from there, but she settled down and played and finally fell asleep about a half hour from town. Overall it went really smooth!

I will post some pictures later this week!