Announcing...

We recently welcomed a new member to our family.

Rhys Riley Williams was born on Wednesday (10-20-2010).

Chris sent out an email announcement to our families and I thought I would share it with you too. I will make my own post later...now I think I will sleep.

-Mal

Rhys is a Welsh name. It means "enthusiastic". It also sounds similar to the Latin word for laugh (risi or risum) which we thought especially fitting as Malinda literally laughed him out. Honest to goodness, no pushing, she simply couldn't stop laughing because the epidural made her legs feel all tingly and weird (everyone who knows Mal is nodding their heads right now). The OB actually told her to stop laughing because he wasn't quite ready yet. Three seconds later a baby boy popped out.

It just seemed that given the happy, rapid nature of this child's entry into this world he required a suitable name.

Malinda performed wonderfully and so far everyone is very happy and healthy and resting.

Our love to y'all,

Chris

Here are some videos:

Laughing Mal

Baby Rhys

Surgery

My son was born with a mark on his forehead. His pediatrician told us it was a Nevus Sebaceous. Then, another pediatrician called it something else. Then a dermatologist said it was a juvenile xanthogranuloma and that it would go away by the time he turned three.

Eli is 2 1/2 now and the mark was growing skin tags rather than going away so we decided to get a fourth opinion. The new dermatologist diagnosed him with a Nevus Sebaceous. Since this was the same as the first diagnosis given, we decided that it was the correct one.

A Nevus Sebaceous has a risk of becoming cancerous later in life. With this in mind we decided that the sooner we have it removed from Eli's forehead the better.

Yesterday was the surgery. Eli and I left the house at 545am and drove to the surgical center. Sweet Eli was so well behaved wile we waited. He knew we were having his mark removed and he was very brave. We sang lots of songs to fill our wait time and he made all the nurses fall in love with him.

Here are some pictures of my brave and happy son:

Giving mommy a cheesy grin while the nurse checks his pulse.

In his hospital gown.

On his way to the operating room.

Seconds after waking up post-op.

The circle on his forehead, that most people never noticed is now a line on his forehead that most people will never notice. And now I have the piece of mind that I did all I could to prevent health problems for him later in life.

And I must add that this was way more traumatic for me than for Eli. I was so worried that something would go wrong. I was particularly anxious about his sedation. Thank goodness I have a wonderful husband who was able to give Eli a father's blessing the night before the surgery. It was really more for me than Eli, and it worked...my anxiety went away and I did not go into a stress induced labor while waiting for Eli to wake up after the surgery.

Welcoming Fall

We recently spent a fun evening at the local elementary school's Fall carnival. We walked halfway there then boarded a school bus that shuttled us the rest of the way. I had no idea how excited my kids would be about riding on a school bus. We could have gone home happy after just that one ride.

At the carnival there were booths for games the children could play to win treats. Ella and Eli played a digging for treasure game, a fishing game, a put your hand in a bowl of spaghetti and search for body parts game, and many more.

The first thing to do at a carnival is get your face painted.
Here is Ella showing the flower on her cheek:

Eli chose to get a tattoo rather than have his face painted.
Here he is making a pirate face while showing off his pirate tattoo:

A train ride was high on the agenda since that is the motivation we used to get Eli to eat his dinner. He even got to ride on the blue train!

My daughter rode the mechanical bull!

I tried to get a picture of them coming down this slide,
but my phone doesn't take good motion photos.

They loved this obstacle course. Ella raced against her friend and Eli raced against his. They went on it over and over.

One of the booths that we had fun doing was pin the pumpkin on the patch:

Here we are with our friends lining up for the potato sack race:

Go Eli, go!

By the time we left Eli was beyond exhausted and Ella was asking when she gets to go to another carnival.

What a fun way to welcome Fall!