Proud Dad Diaries

2008-12-28T19:40:00.000-08:00

2008-04-29T13:54:00.001-07:00

Greetings everyone, we've just returned from our first family trip to Europe. The last 11 days we had the opportunity to travel to Belgium, Paris and London with Katie's parents, brother and grandfather and had a wonderful trip.

Before the trip we were a little concerned about Lacy and how show would do on such a long trip overseas on the airplane. This was here third airplane ride though and she was wonderful. We were lucky in that we flew on an Airbus 330 which has tv's for every passenger. The TV's included several children's movies which Lacy loved. One the 9 hour trip over she probably slept for about 4 hours and watched movies for about 4 hours. During that time I don't think she cried once. And on the return trip it there were only a few tears, mainly because of being tired.

The trip was a blast and we got to see many places. Some of the highlights were climbing up towers of Notre Dame (466 steps) with Lacy, a boatride through the canals of Brugge, Belgium, Tours of the Ardenne Forest where Grandad Savage was captured on the Belgium/Germany border, a visit to the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, and St. Pauls Cathedral in London.

One of the the highlights for Lacy were the train rides and metro and tube rides. She loved these and was telling Baxter all about our adventure when we got home. The first thing she did when she woke up Monday morning in her own bed and saw Baxter for the first time was tell him, "Baxie, I rode on a airplane in the sky, in the clouds, and a train and a boat." So we know what she remembers the most.

This post is a little short and scrambled but I'll post some photos and some more descriptions later.

2008-01-31T12:52:00.000-08:00

About 2 months ago I still had a little toddler. She was a little quiet and curious, and a joy to be around, but she was still a toddler. Things changed the week of Christmas 2007. Starting on that Monday, Christmas Eve, it was like a flip switched somewhere and gone was my little toddler and she was replaced with a little girl. And boy is this little girl fun!

Starting on Christmas Eve she stayed up until 1:45 a.m. She loved dinner that night and was even eating with her special tied chopsticks, then she was really excited later that night when we opened presents. (She had already found this to be a ball when we opened presents the weekend before in Belzoni with my parents.) In fact she was so excited that she outlasted every one of her uncles that night. Quite an impressive feat, since I'm not sure I've outlasted any of them in the last 5-6 years.

Since then she has gotten bigger and bigger. Her best friend is still Baxter, she chases him around telling him she loves him and kissing him. And at times she even has to put him in the naughty corner if he misbehaves, or if he just thinks about misbehaving. She will come up to Katie and I and just throw her arms around us and kiss us as well.

It's also funny how she notices everything now. Just yesterday I got a new laptop and had it out doing some work. She just looked at me and said "Daddy is that your new puter?", and she never even new I was getting one. I didn't even know that she really knew what new meant. But that's the way it goes. She probably adds at least fifty new words a week to her vocabulary. She can tell you the capital of Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas, and sometimes Alabama and Florida. She's good at counting, puzzles, shapes and knows everything there is to know about animals I think. She also loves to drink from cups then request napkins, tell me when Baxter needs help, and at this very moment is wanting to play "baby games" on the computer with me.

I feel very lucky to have this little beautiful love around me all the time. It just feels perfect when her and Katie and I are together.

2007-12-02T18:35:00.000-08:00

Lacy's 2nd Birthday Party!

2007-12-02T18:31:00.000-08:00

Summe '07

2007-12-02T18:29:00.000-08:00

This picture is from around the end of September

2007-10-11T19:49:00.001-07:00

Today was an outstanding day!

Lacy has been out of school this week for fall break. And since Katie took the day off work on Tuesday to keep her it was my turn today to keep her. I'm so glad that I did. We had a great time together today. We went to a couple of parks today and walked Baxter and played on the playground and really had a good time. I don't think there was a tear the whole day, nothing but huge laughs and at one point Lacy actually looked up at missed and said "daddy kiss me", which was just adorable and melted my heart.

We also sang a lot today. Katie's parents have taught her a new song about a bumblebee which she loves, and she has a long list of other ones that she likes and sings all of the time. Some of which are the following:

ABC Song
Old MacDonald
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Peanut Sat on the Railroad Track
The Itsy Bitsy Spider
And several other songs from her Kindermusik class that I've forgotten right now.

These days Lacy isn't a baby really anymore. She talks to us and understands pretty much everything. She's super observant and wants to know what everything is. She'll grab our hands and take off telling us to follow her or to come on. I know it's so cliche to say this, but it really is true, you just can't imagine life without her and don't know how you made it before she came along.

This day began with me getting her out of bed and her being in a great mood this morning and ended with her falling asleep in my arms on the couch right after she was giving me kisses and holding my hands smiling and laughing. In between we hugged each other, went on walks, played and told each other how much we loved the other one "I love you much daddy", and got to hang out with Katie in the afternoon and play after she got off work and before she went to a wedding shower. It was a perfect day!

2007-09-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Lacy!

I love you.

2007-08-27T16:52:00.001-07:00

Holy moly is Lacy getting big. I think the four of us (including Bax) crack each other up all the time.

Here are some things that make me smile:

Watching Lacy trying to jump. - She can't quite do it yet and she wants to badly. But she tries valiantly over and over again and loves for Katie and I to help her try.
Dancing. - The three of us still get together at night and dance together. It's a ball and Lacy loves it.
Curls - Lacy has tons of them and they are just too cute. (It's also funny when you have little old ladies telling you how much she is going to hate it when she gets older. Well, it really only happened once and the lady kind of followed us around the frozen section of the grocery store.)
Singing - We all love to do it. Some of Lacy's are the ABC song and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
Doing Flips - The other night when MaeMae and Daddo where over Lacy made Katie, Daddo and I do a flip after her in the middle of our living room floor and MaeMae had to do a log roll.
Pretty much anything she does.

Lacy continues to be an unbelievable child. She's really sweet and gentle and loves doing anything with us. She's always up for a ride or a trip or doing something outside, it's really great.

She also talks a lot to us now. I mean a lot, right now she's watching me type and laughing at me while I type. I'm surprised she isn't asking me "what's that?" That's her big phrase now. She wants to know what everything is.

She can count to fourteen now without much of a problem. She loves all of the characters on Sesame Street, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Handy Manny and Winnie the Pooh.

We're still working on colors. It seems that almost everything in the world is pink. She finds it very funny that everything is pink.

Also, she has a fantastic imagination. We wen't for a long walk on Sunday and Katie and I were playing with her and the whole time we were looking at Pooh in the trees, handy manny fixing houses, Big Bird hiding and tons of other characters. And occasionally she tell us to run to catch Elmo or someone else. So we'd have to take off running while pushing her and holding Baxter and the whole time she's be pumping her arms and kicking her feet to help us run while she was in her stroller.

She also sees all her grandparents whenever she and I are driving anywhere and points them out in other cars, the trees, the side of the road and etc and says "There's insert grandparent name". And she laughs like crazy when I tell her "no it isn't"

I love this little girl.

2007-06-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

2007-06-20T11:58:00.001-07:00

Long Time - No Blog?

It looks as if I have again dove into the abyss when it comes to my blogging. Things have been exciting and busy around my office lately and the three of us have also been on the road a lot. That combination has kept me from getting a chance to do any blogging. But I'll try to tell a little of what has been going on.

One of Lacy's newest developments has been her pointing and asking "what dat?" at everything. She has gotten very inquisitive and wants to know what everything is. Another thing that she is doing is almost dressing herself. She can't quite get it yet, but she is pulling her shirt over her head and putting her pants on 2/3 of the way. She also has started calling Kate's dad daddo, but that's subject to change at any time.

The biggest news is that she has now learned how to climb out of her baby bed. We found that out two nights ago on the 18th. That night she was a little wired and was uncharacteristically hard to get down to bed. Well, Katie and I put her in bed. She usually cries for a little while then eventually falls to sleep when she acts like this. But this night was different. This time after a while katie was walking by her room and heard a noise. The next thing we know Lacy is hitting on the door and screaming. Katie was scared so she screamed to me and we ran in and got her. Everything was okay and she wasn't hurt at all, but she was pretty freaked out I think. We'll we held her and calmed her down and made sure everything was okay then we eventually put her back down. After putting her down I made it outside her room and shut the door and stood there with Katie. Then she started crying again and before we knew it we heard a "thump". That thump was Lacy hitting the ground again. We were all three scared now and picked her up and held her for a long time. Thank goodness she wasn't hurt at all. The rest of the night she spent in her mom's arms in their chair together until she was deeply asleep. I'm not sure what we're going to do now about her bed. She went down easily last night. But when I heard her wake up this morning I was extremely quick to get her out of bed before another "escape" occured.

Where have you guys been, you might ask? Well since the last blog entry we've been to Orlando to visit Karen and Eric for a long weekend, we've been to Belzoni, we've been to Chattanooga and we've been to Starkville. Next weekend we'll be here in Memphis visiting with our friends Brian and Kelly (which we're really looking forward to). Then who knows where the traveling Ferrell's will be.

ORLANDO

We stayed at the Beach Club Resort in Orlando and we really enjoyed it. The hotel was great. It had a pool that was really nice and we hung out there a lot. Lacy and I spent the night together on Friday night and had a blast. Katie had spent that night with Karen and it rained that entire evening because a tropical storm was coming through. so we spent a lot of time that evening on our balcony looking for ducks. Lacy had seen some earlier was hunting them down the rest of the weekend. It was a lot of fun. She looked great in her little Minnie Mouse outfit and got tons of compliments from everyoone as we walked around the hotel.
The next day Karen and Eric came to our resort and we all ate at the Swan and then hung by the pool and had a lot of fun. Sunday was our one day in the park and we hit them hard. In the morning we did Animal Kingdom (big hit with Lacy, especially the playgrounds and safari ride), followed by Disney-MGM studios (another hit at the playgrounds and muppetvision 3d), then we had dinner that night at Chefs de France in Epcot (Lacy was out by that time, but she did wake up the last few minutes of the fireworks as we were walking out).
Our flight down there and back went great. We were on the very last seat and Lacy sat in Katie's lap while I held her portable dvd player and watched movies. She hardly made a sound the whole trip. I do have to confess that I actually left the dvd player on the plane on our first leg. Luckily for us the attendants turned it into lost and found and I called them and they had it ready for me to pick up when we went back to the airport. I think portable dvd players may be one of the greatest inventions ever for long trips!

CHATTANOOGA

We drove down to Chattanooga in order to drop off supplies for the title company on Friday. While there though we were able to visit their riverwalk area and go to the aquarium and imax. The aquarium was a huge hit! Lacy loved the entire thing. She really liked the penquins, tropical fish and butterflies. It took us over three hours to go through the aquarium and that was blowing by a lot of the exhibits. Earlier that morning we had gone to see some imax deep sea 3d movie. For the first part Lacy actually kept her glasses on and she was adorable because she kept reaching out to touch the 3d objects like the jellyfish. But after a while she grew bored of it. The movie was probably a little too educational and slow so we walked out after about 45 minutes.
I'd also like to ask what is up with people who enter a huge movie theater and decide that they need to sit immediatly next to and beside us? There was a whole family of about ten people who came in and sat next to us (yeah the only ones with a toddler). Eight of them sat immediately behind us and then two others climbed over us and sat right next to us. All the while about 200 empty seats were open. I'm I that attractive? Does my personality have that much magnetism?
Overall that trip went great as well. We also took a little visit up to the Ocoee river to look around and enjoyed that as well as having a great pizza at the Mellow Mushroom (chicken cordon bleu, minus the ham and substituting mushrooms).

Oh well, I think I'm about blogged out. It really takes a while to write a decent post. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time.

I'll update pictures when we get them downloaded.

2007-05-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

Lacy loved riding the bully statue.

2007-05-23T16:38:00.000-07:00

Lacy & Katie on the steps of Lee Hall at MSU

2007-05-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

Lacy & Amber on campus for Amber's Graduation day

2007-05-23T15:33:00.000-07:00

I figured that it has been a little while since my last post so I needed to give some updates. Things are going well here, but very busy. (As Katie likes to say "isn't everybody busy").

My little girl is really growing up in front of me every single day. And she is sucking me in with each and every hug of my leg when I'm standing by the kitchen sink, and every time she calls out from another room "daddy, where are you?", or when she comes up and says "Pop, I love you". It is so cute and lovable.

It seems like in the last two weeks (it's now May 23) she has truly grown from an infant to a little kid. She talks so much better now, she understands pretty much everything and she can even sing if we ask her to (if she isn't already doing it on her own). She loves to open and shut the doors in our house and knock on them while saying "knock - knock", she loves to push her baby stroller around the house (and often she likes to sit in it herself and lock the lap straps). She has been able to climb down from the bed by herself for probably almost two months now. And we have a very tall bed. She loves baths and will run to the bathroom if we tell her it's bath time. She still loves Baxter. She still loves to get into the pots and pans and wear the oven mits that make her look like a little lobster. She likes to put both mine and her socks on her hands and make sock puppets. She absolutely loves to laugh and will crack up if I even mention the tickle monster or the kiss monster is coming. She pulls up her shoulders, shrugs and runs away laughing with anticipation. She is absolutely amazing!

I have to put down some of these things sometimes. This blog is really just a place for me to jot down my memories. Kind of a piggy bank for my thoughts. If sometimes my thoughts seem a little incoherent please understand that the blog is really a place where I can go back one day and relieve my memories of having an unbeliabley great time raising my daughter with Katie. It try to make it readable to those of you out there who are actually still reading, but that's not my number one reason for posting.

....................

Just a quick recap of what's been going on lately. We were down in Starkville a couple of weekends ago to do some work on the condo. We also got to go around town and through campus with my sister Amber on her graduation day. We had a lot of fun with her and took quite a few pictures. Unfortunately none were of her in her cap and gown as she didn't sign up to walk ( I can't believe you didn't walk that was so weak).

We then went the next week to Belzoni for Amber's graduation party. And this weekend we will be going to Starkville to help Amber move and to drop off Lacy to stay with my parents.

more later...

2007-05-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

Katie and Lacy had just shared some lip gloss while we were waiting for our pizza at Giordano's (the best pizza ever) in Chicago.

2007-05-03T20:27:00.000-07:00

The first day we were in Chicago it was pretty chilly with temps in the mid 40's most of the day. But on Saturday it was pushing 80. Here we are in the Chicago Loop (we call it a downtown here in Memphis).

2007-05-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

2007-05-03T20:23:00.000-07:00

2007-05-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

2007-05-03T20:11:00.000-07:00

These two pictures are of the Chicago "Bean". That's not its official name but everyone calls it that. It's located in the new Millenium Park (the aptly named Millenium Park was actually runnig four years behind on construction and didn't open until 2004). Lacy loved this thing and kept running around it over and over again. You can't tell from this pick, but there were tons of people around it and taking pictures.

2007-05-03T20:08:00.000-07:00

The huge building you see in this picture is the Aon Building in Chicago, it's the third tallest building in the U.S.. Our hotel room was right next door to this building (I think I put something about it in one of my posts below).

2007-05-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

2007-05-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

2007-05-03T20:02:00.001-07:00

This picture and the one above it were taken a few weeks ago when my parents came to town.

2007-05-03T19:59:00.000-07:00

Here are Lacy and Katie in Chicago on Navy Pier.

2007-05-03T19:55:00.000-07:00

This was taken in our hotel room in Chicago last weekend. Katie and I had been trying to see how big we could get her hair.

2007-05-03T19:52:00.000-07:00

My two loves sharing a kiss.

2007-04-30T19:03:00.000-07:00

We're back from Rochester. We had a pretty good trip and and a pretty good report on Katie. The good news is that she doesn't have to go through surgery right now, which is a huge relief. Here erosion of the esophogaus has gone from a grade C to a grade A which is good news. The bad news is that her previous surgery (called a belsey procedure) where they took out the tumor and wrapped something around her esophogaus didn't take very well and acid is still coming up even with a double dose of nexium. This means that unless this corrects itself or the new medicine really helps sometime in the future she quite possibly will have to go through the surgery again. But the good news is that we don't have to do it this summer. Hooray!

On the Lacy front, she is as cute as ever. Last week she began saying a new phrase out of the blue. I was holding her and she lunged to Katie and said "I aunt choo mommy" or I want you mommy. Since then she's been saying it like crazy. She also has learned how to climb into and out of her stroller by herself. This is quite an event because to do this she has to climb over the little food and drink bar on the front. The first time she did this last week in Rochester I told her "you did it". She looked at me with a huge grin and shouted "I did it!". It was adorable and since this she climbed in and out of it all week shouting "I did it!". Today she started something else, I was singing and she looked at me and told me "daddy sing". She also started putting socks on her hands last week and playing with the little sock puppets. Today she put my socks on her hand and chased me around with them while laughing hysterically.

Oh yeah, we ended up driving back through Chicago from our trip to Mayo. We were lucky enough to have no tests or appointments on Friday so on Thursday night we drove the 5-6 hours from Rochester to Chicago and stayed their until Saturday night. I'm glad we did. It was a lot of fun. I've never been to Chicago and really enjoyed it. All we really did was walk around all of the downtown and near downtown neighborhoods and just soak everything in. We calculated that we walked about 12-15 miles both Friday and Saturday. The one thing I can say about Chicago is that they have an amazing number of high end shopping places. I was also impressed by the number of skyscrapers. They were everywhere, in fact right outside the hotel that we stayed in (the Hyatt Regency Chicago) was the third largest skyscraper in the U.S. (the Aon Building). To give you an idea of how tall it was, we were on the 31st floor of the hotel and had a floor to ceiling window. I could stand at the window and look up and from our room I could not see the top of the building. (Did you know that Chicago has more of the 50 tallest skyscrapers than any other city in the world?)

As big as the city was, it still seemed small in the downtown area at the same time. What I mean by this is that you could walk all over the downtown and near downtown areas fairly easily. We walked all over the place, from the Sears Tower to Navy Pier, to the Magnificent Mile to Old Towne Chicago. All in all we had a great time.

2007-04-25T13:10:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Lacy and I are sitting here in the waiting room at the Mayo Clinic for Katie to come out from her endoscopic ultrasound. Which should be any second now. Lacy is playing with everything she can get her hands on which right now is the id labels for a printer that is next to me..... A nice little lady from Mayo just came by and handed lacy a little handmade kitten doll and now she is playing away with it.... After the ultrasound we're scheduled to go downstairs and get a CT. Tomorrow has us starting at 8:00 a.m. and going through most of the day with follow up appointments after todays rounds of tests. Then if all goes well we will be heading home on Friday, but there is still a lot of things we need to figure out before then.

Everyone take care.

P.S. Lacy sat in the booster seat at a restaurant for the first time (for me at least, but not Katie) and was a big girl. She's sat in just the normal chairs before, but I've never seen here in a booster seat before.

2007-04-22T20:05:00.000-07:00

Lacy loves playing the piano. Here she is with her MaeMae playing with her at their house.

2007-04-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

The picture with just Lacy is from Super Bulldog Weekend 2007. She loves climbing into the cabinets in the kitchen of our condo and shutting the door. The other picture is of the two of us on Easter.

2007-04-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

Katie, Lacy, Baxter and I will all be leaving tomorrow night (monday) to go back to Rochester, MN for Katie's one year post surgery check up. We'll be staying in Hannibal, MO (home of Sameual Langhorn Clemens, aka Mark Twain for all of you Huckelberry Finn fans) on Monday and then will arrive in Rochester on Tuesday. She has several rounds of tests scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, and if all goes well we should be leaving on Friday.

The worst case scenario (we think) is that Katie would need another surgery to fix the valve that connects her esoph0gaus to her stomach. Unfortunately to do that she would have to have the same surgery that she had last year. Which means that they would have to go in again and cut out her rib, pretty much crush the lower six and crack some of the upper ones, cut an 14-15 inch gash from her back to her chest, deflate her lungs, insert two chest tubes, all which we are told is worse the second time around. So we are really, really hoping that she won't need this. All prayers and thoughts are greatly appreciated.

On the plus side is the fact that we get to eat at a little sandwhich shop in downtown Rochester named City Market which is the best little sandwich shop that I've ever eaten in.

2007-04-17T14:51:00.000-07:00

Things are going great around the Ferrell household these days. My parents visited this past weekend and we all had a great time. We even all went down to Olive Branch Friday night and had dinner with Great Grandad Savage. We ate at some little chain steak house and I had the absolute worst "baked potato soup" ever. I mean ever. I was kind of sick so I thought it might have just been me and I kept eating it. But when other people tried it they almost spit it out immediately, it was bad. So I guess it wasn't just me. Let me describe the taste to you. Imagine pureed celery with garlic and and a touch of vinegar. That's pretty much it. Oh yeah it also had carrots in it. The last time I checked baked potatoes didn't have carrots or celery. Oh well.

Lacy is growing as usual. She is just amazing. She speaks in little sentences and is just as cute as ever. It's also really nice that she still sleeps great at night and just awesome. The only problem is that since it's light out a lot later now it kind of stinks to be "in" for the night at 6:30.

2007-04-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

We had a great time for Easter. On Sunday we went to Katie's parents' house and Lacy had a great time trying to find the easter eggs that we hid in the house. She kept running around saying eggs, eggs. We only had six eggs so we had to keep hiding them over and over again for her but she thought it was a lot of fun.

This past week she said "I love you" for the first time. We've been working on this for a little while but this was the first time we've heard it say it. She doesn't say it very much but when she does it's very cute. More notes on her development; she is really getting to the point where she is stringing together short sentences more and more. She has been saying things like "here you go" for a long time but now she says a lot more, I just can't think of them right now:)

Oh well, I guess I better get back to work. I just wanted to jot a few things down on the blog real quick.

2007-03-29T20:18:00.000-07:00

One of Lacy's big things these days is to ask to "sit". She likes to sit in the big chairs these days. She's really good too, just this past weekend we went to Celtic Crossing in Midtown and the three of us enjoyed a nice afternoon on their outdoor patio all sitting in our very own grownup seats for over an hour together. I know what you're thinking, Jami how did you do it? Well, I practice daily while at work and am thinking about taking it up professionally. I hear there is a league over Northern Korea.

2007-03-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

When Lacy get's hungry now she likes to make her little sign for eat and keeps saying "eat, eat". She will go to her high chair and try to climb up it.

She also likes to put her baby, which she calls "babies" into the chair, and also "ernie" and her bear (she just makes a growling sound for him) into the chair and try to feed them.

Katie and I've been trying to let her feed herself some with utensils. And today I was letting/helping her feed herself some cheese grits. She really did a good job and didn't make a mess at all.

The only problem these days is that I'm still number three on the totem pole in the Ferrell household. When she's upset, or happy for that matter, the usual first two people she yells for are "moma" followed by "baxie" I'm usually a distant third. But when she runs toward me yelling "dada" and throws her arms around me or gives me a big kiss all memories of being number three are washed away:)

2007-03-29T20:09:00.000-07:00

It's always good to get a little Baxter love!

2007-03-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

This was taken on March 13th I think. Lacy and I had been playing hard that afternoon while Katie was out and I walked into the kitchen to get something. I looked back into the den about 20 seconds later because I didn't hear her and I didn't see her anywhere. So I walked in and she was on the other side of our coffee table sound asleep. She had just passed out from exhaustion. This was the first time that this had ever happened, and the first time she had ever fell asleep on the floor. In the picture you can see the hair detangler that she and I had been playing with. (She likes us to spray it into her hair.) Katie got home a few minutes later and saw her. We actually ended up just leaving her in the floor because it was so cute and I think she slept there for about 30 or 45 minutes while we stepped over her.

2007-03-29T19:56:00.000-07:00

Lacy loves wearing hats. Here she is in her winter hat back in February. Today is March 29 and she still likes to put that hat on and walk around the house. It doesn't matter where we are though, if she sees a hat she wants to put it on. It doesn't matter if it's her cowgirl hat, this hat, or any other hat she sees. She just loves to put them on and wear them around. She'll beg you to help her get it on if she can't do it herself by saying "pease, pease pease" and making her little sign language signs.

2007-03-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

2007-03-29T19:47:00.000-07:00

Lacy and Katie were dressed like each other every day we were in Orlando. Very cute!

2007-03-29T19:29:00.000-07:00

2007-03-29T19:04:00.000-07:00

This was taken on Katie's 30th birthday back on February 8. Lacy and I surprised Katie by taking her down to Orlando for her Birthday. We had a really good time. Lacy loved everything and rode a lot of rides, including peter pan, snow white, dumbo, and pirates of the caribbean. Lacy couldn't quite make it to the end of pirates, she was sitting between katie and I and just dozed off, the combo of cool air and darkness did her in.

We did a lot of walking while we were there and walked to a lot of the resorts. We went to Saratoga Springs, Wilderness Lodge, Contempory, Polynesian, and Grand Floridian. We also went to Downtown Disney.

Although we went on a lot of rides Lacy's favorite time was playing on the playground in the Magic Kingdom. She had a great time there. That day she started sliding down slides by herself for the first time. The next day she was going down a tall twisting slide at Saratoga Springs all by herself. I'll try to post a picture of that above this post.

All in all we had a great trip. We drove down and made the trip from Memphis to our hotel in about 12.5 hours. We really only made one big stop and that was in Montgomery at the Fresh Market grocery store when we stopped for about an hour there just to let Lacy walk around and have some fun without being in the care. She was amazing. She didn't cry the entire drive! We had bought her a little portable dvd player at Christmas and she watched a lot of her disney movies and her sesame street dvd and she was captivated. On the way home she only cried once and it was for a total of probably 30 seconds. I couldn't have asked for a better little girl to travel with. I guess we go so many places with her all the time that she really doesn't mind. Half the time I think she can't wait to get in the car and go somewhere.

The night of Katie's birthday we actually were able to meet Karen and Eric and go eat at Downtown Disney at the Portabello Yacht Club for dinner, followed by an evening of fun at Ragland Road, an irish pub. Meanwhile Lacy was with a baby sitter at our condo/timeshare at the Fairfield Bonnet Creek. Lacy never actually got to see the baby sitter though because she was asleep when she got there and still asleep when she left. The baby sitter we used was through a company called Kid's Night Out. She was very nice and was actually disappointed that Lacy was asleep when she got there. If any of you go down to Orlando I'd suggest you contact these guys. I thought the were really good and seemed very caring while still being affordable.

Overall this was a great trip for a long weekend. I just wish we would have had about 3 or 4 more days.

2007-03-29T18:58:00.000-07:00

This pic is a little old. It's from about a month ago, back around March 1 or so. Katie was having fun with her hair that night. When this photo was taken Lacy really didn't like for me to wash her hair at all. It kind of freaked her out when I would pour the water over her head, even when I tried to keep it out of her face. But these days she's a lot better and me and her have a lot of fun with all the fun stuff in her tub; the rubber ducks that we pull off the wall, her blue star, the lady bug glove, her old shampoo bottle and her tooth brush (she likes to brush her teeth when she bathes now). I try to make the hair washing time fun now by letting her pour water on my head too. She thinks that's pretty fun and we have a good time. I just have to make sure that my head is over the tub or else we've got a lot of water in the bathroom all over the place.

2007-02-19T18:37:00.000-08:00

Last night was interesting. Lacy wasn't sleeping very well and I heard her crying and and awake around 11:30 last night. I wasn't very sleepy so I decided to get up and check on her since this isn't really normal for her. The two of us went to the den and I got her some milk and we watched tv for a little while together. After a short time she was getting sleepy and layed down in my arms. But for some reason last night she just wasn't right and couldn't get comfortable and I could tell that she must not feel that well...... Later we're still in the den at about 2:00 a.m. she still isn't comfortable and can't relax, then all of the sudden comes more vomit than I've ever seen in my entire life. (Well, maybe minus a few late nights.) I mean she vomitted probably a gallon of curdled milk. It was insane, and quite scary! For about 15 seconds straight she was vomitting. It started with her laying in my arms while I was sitting in the chair and it finished with me and her in the kitchen with me trying to catch it all in shirt. At this point the scene is probably quite funny but at the time I didn't know when Lacy was going to be able to breathe and was really getting worried for a minute.

Luckily we both came through this unscathed, but minus one throw pillow that caught the brunt of the first action. Afterwards Lacy was pretty stunned and was just standing in the kitchen motionless watching me try to clean up and look at all the damage. It really was like some little alien had taken over her body and was even worse than the time she was projectile vomitting all over herself in the car. (Note, I slammed on the brakes on Poplar in Germantown and was sliding on the grass when the car stopped and Katie and I jumped out to get her out before she started choking.) I feel that Katie and I are both caring and loving yet are still pretty laid back with Lacy in regards to not being too uptight over everything, but when you see some of this you can get pretty nervous. But on the good side, I'm sure it will be a great story to tell her about for years to come and hopefully I'll be able to milk it for all it's worth when I need her to take care of me!

Okay, enough with all of that. In other news my parents and Amber came up Friday night and stayed the night. We all had a good time and it was nice to see them. With my businesses going full steam now it seems that we're always gone and haven't been down to see them since Christmas so it was nice of them to come and visit and give us a break from having to travel somewhere on the weekend. And Lacy enjoyed seeing her Baa and Mamu and was saying there names all weekend. Now we just need to actually get a second to try and fix up things around the house one weekend when we are in town, there are still soooo many things that we want to do, yet so few funds and time to do them:)

Oh, one thing I want to mention on the cute things that Lacy is doing. She now tries to make elephant sounds like her mom if you ask her. It's funny to watch and very cute.

2007-02-13T12:29:00.000-08:00

Well, Last Thursday Katie celebrated her 30th birthday! We actually celebrated it in Walt Disney World with Lacy. I had arranged for us to take a surprise visit to Orlando for her birthday and we all had a lot of fun!

Lacy was adorable. I know I say this all the time, but she is getting sooo big. Her eyes were huge in the Magic Kingdom and she was just enthralled with everything. We visited Mickey's Toontown where Lacy got to see several characters. We also rode the snow white ride, dumbo, Mickey's Philharmagic and Pirates of the Caribbean. Overall all we had a great time. But Lacy's favorite was probably playing in the playground in toontown. We just let her go at it and she was climbing through tunnels, up ladders and sliding down the slide by her self for the first time. Every time she would squeal with delight and call out mama and dada.

We actually drove to Orlando and Lacy was great for the entire 13 hour drive down and back. She didn't even cry once on the way down and only for about 1 minute on the way back. We are extremely lucky to have such a good girl.

On Katie's birthday we actually went to the magic kingdom that morning and day then later we met up with Karen and Eric for dinner at downtown disney (Portobella Yacht Club) followed by drinks at Raglan Road pub. While we were out I had arranged for a sitter to come to our timeshare and stay with Lacy. She was very nice and just sat and watched tv since Lacy was already asleep when she got there. If anyone is in Orlando I would recommend the company we used, it was called Kid's Night Out, and they were really good and affordable.

The other days we did a lot of walking and enjoying the nice weather, went through the hotels and ate at Wilderness Lodge one day and in the Town of Celebration the other. Lacy was a doll and stayed up with us way too late (10:30) and just laughed and played in our bed with us.

She is really getting attached to her baby, which she calls "babies", and to her plastic dog "doggie", she is also always calling out for "Baxie" and when we got home she was calling his name out and searching everywhere for him. Unfortunately he wasn't there, as we had boarded him and couldn't get him until the next day.

Overall we had a great time. It was way too short, but fun nonetheless. Next we're looking forward to our weekend in Hot Springs. I need to get a new vest though so I can match Brian and Phil.

2007-01-16T11:33:00.000-08:00

Me chasing Lacy on Christmas Eve

The condo looks better since we landscaped a little.

2007-01-16T11:31:00.000-08:00

Christmas at my parents house - Lacy is sitting in her new chair.
Christmas Eve -after church
Christmas morning at our house
Lacy in her new chair at our house

2006-12-13T07:27:00.000-08:00

Lacy is adorable. It's hard for me to believe right now that Lacy is over 14 months old. Last night Katie and I were talking about this, and it just seems that time is flying by. Back before she was born I was excited about her arrival, but I never imagined the deepness of how important she is. Every day I look forward to getting her out of bed and playing with her and every evening I look forward to seeing her after work. I know that raising a baby can be a little difficult at times, but it really isn't that bad at all. The few tough nights or days are so easily outweighed by the times when she lays her head against your chest and falls asleep, or when she comes and attacks you with kisses. Katie and I just sit with her and watch how hard she plays with Baxter, her toys and us and we love it. I can't imagine not having her around now, she is such an important part of who I am now.

When I first started this blog I stated that I planned to keep doing the things that we had always done, just bring her with us. So far, I'm happy to say that is how we have pretty much been. Lacy goes everywhere with us and does everything. Yes, we are lucky. She is a good girl and doesn't cause huge nuisances when we take her places, but she does still act her age. But the thing is that I believe she wants to do things things with us and wants to take part in all our activities too. I won't say that we do everything that we used to, because of course with an infant there are some things that you simply can't do. But there aren't many things that can't be done. So I guess what I'm saying is that for those of you who are thinking of having kids but worried about the hardship don't worry. Just be relaxed, don't stress and have fun with your little ones. Take them places with you, have fun together. Having a child has been the best thing to ever happen to us. (I'll keep you updated over the next few years however, I do reserve the right to change my mind:) )

2006-12-07T12:39:00.000-08:00

Katie & Lacy enjoying Thanksgiving

Lacy has found that if you press your face against windows people laugh at you!

2006-12-05T09:16:00.000-08:00

2006-12-05T09:15:00.000-08:00

Baxter and Lacy spend a lot of time at the kitchen gate kissing each other.

2006-12-05T09:14:00.000-08:00

This was taken back in mid november and I think it is hilarious.

2006-12-05T09:10:00.000-08:00

More halloween pics here. Later that evening I dressed up with Lacy and her and I gave out treats to all the neighborhood kids.

2006-12-05T09:04:00.000-08:00

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything, so I'm going to try to catch up a little here. The pics below are all of lacy around late october. The first are in her little pumpkin dress and hat. Believe it or not she wore that hat for hours. She actually likes wearing hats and will put them on her head and walk across the house a lot with them on.
In the bottom photos you see Lacy in her cowgirl outfit for halloween, complete with boots and chaps. We pulled her around the neighborhood in her wagon and let her sit on her pokneee somtimes - (pokneee is a contraction that looks like a horse but you can strap onto your knee and give her rides. She likes to just sit on it in her room sometimes.) Later that evening grandad and grandma Savage came over and brought Lacy a cowboy hat to wear. As of this posting, 12/5/06, Lacy still goes around the house wearing that hat sometimes.

2006-10-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

Lacy at the beach back during Labor Day weekend.

Lacy making a test run in her birthday hat. I also believe that she was sampling a little ice cream in this photo.

2006-10-16T12:48:00.000-07:00

Lacy is getting bigger and smarter every day! She is so much fun to be around and play with. She is now feeding herself cheerios and other small pieces of food, and she had a great time trying to eat pieces of a banana this weekend in Starkville.

Katie and I can really tell that she is growing both physically and mentally. It's almost like you can see her thinking through things such as how to turn something over to climb on it or put something in the right place. And she seems to get frustrated at times in trying to tell us things. It's almost like she knows what she is trying to tell us but we just can't get it. And I thoroughly believe that she thinks she knows what she is telling us, unfortunately it comes out as this cute baby talk. She is still doing well with her sign language and can tell us things like when she is hungry, wants milk or more food. Katie is working on introducing new sign language to her everyday to help her be able to let us know what she needs or wants. I never would have believed that it works, but it really does.

Lacy turned one a few weeks ago and I could not be happier having her with us. She is just pure joy to be with and have around. I really do love that little girl. I just can't believe how quickly she is growing up. But right now I enjoy every day. One of the greatest things in the world is to have her throw her arms around my neck and just hug me and give me a kiss. It's so sweet.

As far as news goes there's no big changes around the Ferrell household these days. Everything is going well. My practice is growing and Katie is busy with a new condo project in Starkville. And Lacy and Baxter chase each other around the house seeing who can give more kisses. We're all looking forward to halloween and the fall season.

2006-10-12T07:07:00.000-07:00

2006-09-18T20:16:00.000-07:00

Katie and I are here at the Staybridge Suites in beautiful and oh so lively Rochester, MN for our visit to the Mayo Clinic. Today was a pretty easy day as Katie had a barium x-ray this morning followed by some bloodwork. Lucky for us this only took up the morning so we had the rest of the day to explore Rochester! Unfortunately the only thing to do in Rochester is visit the Mayo Clinic.

We started to go to a movie in the late afternoon, even went in and we were about to purchase tickets. However, after a discussion there at the ticket booth we decided that we really didn't want to watch a movie so we spent the rest of the day riding around town (that takes about 10-12 minutes to do) the rest of the afternoon and hitting the local Toys-R-Us to think of gift ideas for Lacy's 1st birthday on Saturday. Right now we're thinking we might get her a bike seat to ride behind us or a wagon. We might even go crazy and get both (note: we've already gotten her a Baby Tad singing/talking frog.)

Note to those who are thinking of visiting Rochester, It's cold. Today September 18, 2006 it was in the low 40's with a steady 25 mph wind. Wednesday the forecast is for a low of 33. If this keeps up I think I'm going to have to get Katie hooked up to an I.V. because her nose runs constantly.

Hopefully we'll be home soon though and back to wear the wind is warm and noses dry.

2006-09-14T18:56:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted much lately, but things are going great around the Ferrell household. Katie and I have been really busy as of late. This week alone Katie has been to Starkvill three times working on a project down there.

Since my last post Lacy has cut another tooth and is now getting to the point where she can run/walk really fast. She has been a load of fun to be around. She plays and plays all the time, and we have now gotten to the point where we can just put her down when we are out around town and she will follow us around. For example today at Costco she was walking in front and behind us checking out all of the toys and fun colored objects.

We have also gotten to the point over the last few months where Lacy sleeps really well at night. We usually put her down between 6:30 to 7:30 and she sleeps all night until around 6:00 a.m. usually. We really can't complain about that. And when she wakes up she likes to play with her animals that are in her bed. She usually will do this for 20 to 30 minutes each morning before we have to get her out of bed. We just sit in our room and listen to her on the monitor playing. Also, at night she usually is clutching one of her animals around the neck when she goes to bed, it's really cute.

In other news Katie, Baxter and I are going back to the Mayo Clinic for a few days to run a few tests. Katie still isn't feeling that well and we just want to see what's going on. Lacy is going to be splitting her time between both sets of grandparents. Hopefully we'll be back in about 3-4 days though.

And a quick fact for you guys. Although it is in the mid to high 80's here in Memphis this weekend the forecast for Rochester, MN is for a high of 48. And I thought we were having a mild September.

2006-08-26T21:53:00.000-07:00

I don't think I've posted a link to my business website yet and I thought that I would post it. The website is still a work in progress so please don't expect much. All of the important stuff for real estate closings is password protected, but here it is anyway. www.theferrellfirm.com

2006-08-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

The top photo is Lacy and Katie in the new MSU bookstore. The bottom two are on her first day of preschool, taken in front of our house and in her room on Tuesday.

2006-08-22T07:18:00.000-07:00

These were all taken in Isola about a week ago. Lacy is now a walking machine. She started walking about 15-17 steps at a time right around August 1. And as of today, August 22, she can go pretty much anywhere. We were at the bookstore yesterday and she even climbed up in a little chair and sat down. She just sat there in the chair facing an escalator and waived at everyone as they came down. Also, She now has three teeth with more on the way. Here top right tooth came in about a week ago. And she is saying mama now on a more regular basis. This just started this week. She had said it some randomly before, but now she is saying it on a much more regular basis. Other words she know include, uh-oh, thank you, dada, and baxter. (Note that all these are in Lacy language however)

2006-08-22T07:05:00.000-07:00

Mom, I think my head is cut off in every single picture :)

2006-08-22T07:04:00.000-07:00

Katie and Lacy before going to church in Belzoni.

2006-08-22T07:03:00.000-07:00

Lacy and Papaw

2006-08-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

Lacy and some of her playmates.

2006-08-22T06:59:00.000-07:00

2006-08-07T13:06:00.000-07:00

A few photos of my office.

2006-08-07T13:03:00.001-07:00

Hello Everyone!

Everyone is doing well in the Ferrell household these days. We're still recovering but things are getting better slowly. Lacy is now walking more and more, although she's not quite trotting around the house just yet. She is now walking up to 5-6 steps before she decides it's time to sit down.

If anyone knows how I can put video clips online let me know. I've got a good bit of video footage that I need to convert to digital format. If I do that I think I might try to post some clips. But don't hold your breath on that loyal blog viewers.

Things are going well here at my office. I picked up a few new clients last week and I'm looking forward to even more this week!

2006-08-01T07:52:00.000-07:00

2006-08-01T07:36:00.000-07:00

Katie and Lacy at the St. Louis Zoo. Note the elephant in the background, Lacy really liked them.

2006-08-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

2006-08-01T07:19:00.000-07:00

Big news this weekend! On Saturday Lacy decided to stand up by herself for the first time, and soon thereafter she decided that she was pretty good at. Since Saturday she has been up and down constantly and seems quite pleased with herself. She goes back and forth grabbing different items and playing with them while standing. On Sunday Katie even timed her standing up for over a minute and a half! Then later on Sunday she decided it would be fun to try to put a little mobility into the standing act. She took three little baby steps and before deciding that sitting sounded good.

She seems really confident in herself right now and I think she's ready to take off at any time. I only hope that she doesn't take off too soon, because I still love the site of her funny little one-legged crawl.

What else is up you might ask? It's hot, hot and dry. I haven't mowed the lawn in a month because I don't want to kill the grass (at least that's what I tell Katie). At some point I know it has to rain but I'm not sure when. My theory is that former Vice President Al Gore is responsible for this. His book and movie "An Inconvenient Truth" are out now and he was in Memphis yesterday signing it. I believe that he has been in touch with Louis Farrakhan, who has in turn been in touch with the "mother ship" (you know the same one Farrakhan claims he beems up to some time, and the one he was in over New Orleans after Katrina) to change the weather patterns. This is all part of a grand scheme to let Gore gain momentum before the next election. This momentum, coupled with Gore's outstanding charisma and electric personality will definitely push Gore into the White House! But that's just my opinion.

2006-07-24T19:04:00.000-07:00

2006-07-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

You can tell this photo is a little old because she has two little bottom teeth now.

2006-07-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

2006-07-24T18:59:00.000-07:00

2006-07-24T18:58:00.000-07:00

This one is a little blurry but still cute.

2006-07-24T18:56:00.000-07:00

These photos are about a month old. I need to get some new ones up here because Lacy has really just exploded in growing lately.

2006-07-09T19:39:00.000-07:00

Well, if anyone actually reads this blog anymore, which I'd be very surprised considering the entire lack of content over the last three months, you should be ecstatic today when you click on this little blog - There is new content. While there are no pics right now at least I'm doing a little typing.

I'm going to try and give a little update with what is going on with the Ferrell's these days, first is an update on Lacy:

This little girl is getting to be so big. She really isn't a little infant anymore. Sometimes Katie and I just look at each other and wonder what happened to our little baby girl. Not long ago I could cradle her in my hand like a football. Now when she falls asleep on me her feet are touching my upper thighs and her head is resting on my neck practically (And I absolutely love it when she is asleep on me and I'm not really looking forward to when she won't be able to do this anymore).

She isn't walking yet, although for the last month she has seemed to be on the cusp. But she does crawl all over the place and at an unbelievable fast pace. But she doesn't crawl in a normal fashion. Instead she uses her right leg and pulls it up under her body so that her foot is flat against the ground, she then pushes off with that leg and pulls her other leg to catch up. It's really cute and she's perfected that style. She does walk all around while holding tables, chairs, hands and etc., but she really seems content to just crawl for a little while longer, which is fine with Katie and I.

Her smile! I can't imagine a happier baby. Every day she squeals with delight about everything. If she sees Baxter she cracks up, if she sees Katie she starts squealing and laughing. And her laugh is not a little laugh it's a huge cackle that turns into a belly laugh half the time. Half the time she wants to cry but can't because she is caught up with laughing at us! It's great. Overall Katie and I are very lucky. Honestly, she is probably happy 95% of the time. If she isn't happy it's usually because she is hungry or has a diaper issue.

Teeth: She has one as of today. Her first tooth came in about 2 weeks ago. And it looks like she could possibly get her second tooth tomorrow, you can see it just below her gums. I never knew baby teeth were so sharp, I mean really sharp. You don't realize how much you wear down your teeth in your lifetime until you see someone with a brand new one.

Talking: She's been saying dada for about the last month. But I don't really have a big head about that being her first word. The reason? The original dada was Baxter! And he still probably gets the most dadas. But dada is probably the sound she makes the most now. She has also started trying to say mommy. It's kind of a mix of m and n with some vowels behind it, really cute.

Travels: Last weekend we went to St. Louis for a short getaway. It ended up being a little shorter than anticipated. Katie didn't bring her pain patch and when we tried to fill the prescription for more pain patches that she did have we found out that the doc had inadvertantly put down July of '09 as the prescripton date, not '06. Unfortunately because of federal laws opiates are very regulated, as are there prescription (go figure) and we were unable to get any pain drugs for her. The result of this was a wicked case of withdrawals mixed in with intense pain in the area of her surgery. Not a good combo. So we cut our trip a day short (B&K you guys would love the St. Louis Zoo btw). The good news is that because Katie had to go through the 3-4 days of withdrawals because of lack of meds she decided to just get off of the patch. The bad news is that her pain level is still very high and without the patch it's pretty tough. Hopefully she'll be better in the coming months, but it has been an extremely hard time since for us since her thoracotomy. But she is amazing, you would never know that she is in constant pain or that she has gone through what our doctor called the most painful and hard to recover from planned surgery that you can have. Instead she just keeps going everyday, working hard in our home, my office, and at her work. She hasn't missed a beat and to me that is incredible. I'm guessing that not many of you that see her on a daily basis would know that she still sleeps in a chair at night because of the pain that comes if she lies prone.

I mentioned my office in the above paragraph. I think that most of you know that I've opened a law office in Olive Branch, MS. If any of you are ever in the neighborhood please drop by. The office is in a historic builiding in Old Towne Olive Branch and is looking great thanks to the help from Katie and Lacy, My Parents and Amber and Chase. Thank you guys.

Oh yeah, if any of you are wanting to book my services as a party entertainer, linguist or any of my other many talents for the summer/fall/spring of 2010 get on the list early. It looks like we're going to be in South Africa for World Cup 2010. Brian I'm looking for a ride on the FedEx Kinko's corporate jet for that trip.

Oh well guys I've got lots more to say eventually, but It's late and I'm getting tired. More info and pics soon to follow hopefully.

2006-06-22T21:35:00.000-07:00

Here we all are in May at my swearing in ceremony. Katie had just been released from the hospital a few days earlier.

2006-06-22T21:34:00.000-07:00

Five nights in this lovely room was plenty enough for Katie and I.

2006-06-22T21:33:00.001-07:00

2006-06-22T21:33:00.000-07:00

2006-06-22T21:32:00.000-07:00

Lacy had fun at the Holiday Inn Express Rochester!

2006-06-22T21:04:00.000-07:00

The four of us right before we headed up to Mayo

2006-03-23T09:25:00.000-08:00

The good news the kitchen has double ovens. That bad news is they were born the same year as me. (They're actually not as bad in person, I kind of like them except for the fact that I don't like the other yellow appliances. I've got a feeling these would stick out next to a stainless steel fridge.)

2006-03-23T09:24:00.000-08:00

This is the wall that is coming down between the Kitchen and Dining Room

2006-03-23T09:23:00.000-08:00

Our "Chocolate" Bathroom in the Master BR.

2006-03-23T09:22:00.001-08:00

Lacy's room

2006-03-23T09:22:00.000-08:00

Any volunteers to help me strip this wallpaper from the stairway well?

2006-03-23T09:20:00.001-08:00

Here is the other upstairs bedroom. You can also see a little 8x9 room with shelves if you look through the open door.

2006-03-23T09:20:00.000-08:00

Upstairs bathroom

2006-03-23T09:19:00.000-08:00

Lacy and I in the upstairs bedroom/playroom/whatever room

2006-03-23T09:18:00.000-08:00

Stairwell entrance to go upstairs from the den.

2006-03-23T09:17:00.000-08:00

Our side yard goes up to that fence.

2006-03-23T09:16:00.000-08:00

This is the den, you can see the door going to the backyard and behind that wall where the lamp is is the kitchen.

2006-03-23T09:15:00.000-08:00

Looking from the formal dining room into the formal living room and the front entrance.