Keep your fingers crossed...

...but I think we are getting over this wonderful RSV and ear infection.


Here is my proof:


As you remember, Logan started his first steps on Christmas day but really hasn't done a whole lot of walking since then. I believe part of that is because he has had two ear infections which totally throw off his balance along with a stomach bug and RSV. I don't think the poor little guy had enough energy.

However, the last few days Logan is now walking everywhere. He is doing so well with it. With this nice weather we have been having he loves to go outside and walk around. We are both getting a little bit of spring fever I do believe.

Perhaps something else that contributed to all of this sickness: FOUR new teeth! That is right, Logan's top two teeth along with two molars have broke through his gums. I guess he just wants to get them all in as quickly as possible.

With the appearance of new teeth Logan has also decided that he now likes to eat bananas and string cheese. I can't tell you how many times I have tried to get him to eat real bananas only to get the yucky face from him. The other morning though Ben was eating a banana before he went to his internship (yes he did find one...YEAH!) and Logan wanted a bite. So Ben let him try it and Voila he was hooked. I guess he thinks now that he has more teeth he can do ore chewing.


He also has transitioned to a sippy cup wonderfully from a bottle. This won't be his final sippy but it is nice to not have him off of his leaky bottles. If anyone is in need of an idea for a good transition sippy I recommend the Think Baby Transition cup as pictured below. They are wonderful and are about 99% leakproof.

ASCA Agility Trial

Over Valentine's weekend Cayman and I competed in our second agility trial. This time we only entered one day. We ran three runs and qualified in two of them. Qualified means that we ran the course in the proper order and didn't knock down any jump bars.

We took a 2nd place in Jumpers and a 1st place in Standard Agility! Overall I would say we have improved a lot since our last trial. We still made a few mistakes but nothing that disqualified us. Here is a picture of all of the ribbons we got. This trial was much smaller and a bit less competitive which was nice for someone so new like me. Here is the video of our best run--the jumpers.



Cayman competed against 7 other dogs and came out second. We finished in 19 seconds. I wasn't quite fast enough to get ahead of him at the tunnel, hence the little stumble, but we figured it out. and took 2nd place!

We also ran a Gamblers course, which was a challenge for us. You have 30 seconds to complete whatever obstacles you want that give you points. Then a whistle blows and you have to do a set closing sequence without crossing over a line. So you basically have to do things with your dog at a distance. This is not Cayman and I's current strength. We know what we need to work on but he did do his weave poles which I was happy about.

The last run was a standard agility course. I ran it at the pre-novice level which meant we didn't have to do the weave poles or the teeter totter. We were the only one who ran this course but nevertheless we finished it and therefore took first place! Wahoo!


Thanks again to all my family who came out the whole day and helped watch Logan. Everyone at the trials teases me that I have a fan club cause my whole family comes out to watch me. I love it and appreciate their support. I wish I would have taken a picture of them in the audience but we have been having some camera difficulties. Cayman came home and just crashed so I think he also had a lot of fun. We can't wait for the weather to get better so we can start to practice outside again.

RSV

Last Thursday Logan was sent home from daycare because he had a fever of 102. I had been noticing that since Sunday he wasn't himself but couldn't put my finger on what was wrong. Kept thinking it was just a tooth or earache. I had an appointment scheduled for Friday to get his ears checked out, but when he got sent home I decided to take him in that day to get him checked out.

The doctor found that Logan had a slight ear infection along with what he thought was RSV/Bronchilitis. He put him on some antibiotics to see if that would help clear up the ear infection. I was a little confused and frustrated with how this doctor explained the diagnosis to me so I took Logan back in today to see his doctor and was glad I did. He helped me explain what was going on and how to react to it. They make such a big deal out of RSV these days you can't just tell someone you think their child has that and then send them on their way. Or at least you can't to me! So frustrating!

So Logan's doctor checked him out and said his heavy breathing has cleared up remarkably which is good but he still shows other signs of the RSV--cough, runny nose, black eyes. Without doing a test they cannot guarantee that this is what Logan has but it is very prevalent right now and he seems to have several of the same symptoms. His doctor said it was good that he seems to be getting over it and fighting it off without having to be hospitalized which is always the worst case scenario. He said we should continue to keep him on the antibiotics and watch for any new signs or complications.

So until then we get to hibernate in our home and hope that Logan gets better quickly. We have been doing a lot of this....

Logan got a new Baby Einstein video for Valentine's day and just loves it. He got the Baby Noah one and is learning his animals around the world. I think he loves this one even more than the other ones he has had. We are keeping Logan home from daycare this whole week so as to not spread this lovely virus to any other young children.

So I know that it is common for kids to get this virus at least once but I guess I never really thought about our kid getting it. Call me naive. However, since he does go to daycare he is at an increased risk of exposure. The important part though is that he is fighting it off well and we hope he can continue to do so. I am glad that this wasn't more serious and that we were able to take him back in to make sure we understood what was going on. We can tell that he is feeling lots better than last week so keeping him home has been fun. We hope once we get Logan over this we will be able to figure out his milk issues and get him off the bottle.

Milk troubles and other updates

So ever since Logan got the stomach bug at the beginning of the year we have been suspecting if he is allergic/intolerant to milk. We switched him over to whole milk right before Christmas. However, when he was sick the instant we gave him milk he would throw up. The doctor recommended we switch him over to some soy milk until he got better and then experiment from there.

So we have been trying him on soy milk and whole milk for the last month. We have put him back on whole milk for a week twice and both times, within two days his nose gets stuffy and runny and his checks get more red. Then if we put him back on the soy it seems to clear up. I was thinking perhaps he was just getting a cold but apparently not.

So I think for the time being we are going to keep him on soy milk until we have any further discoveries. Has anyone ever had anything like this happen to their kids? Obviously it isn't a huge deal but his body definitely doesn't seem to react well to it.

Other than that he couldn't be happier. Logan is starting to talk more and more. He now says up, book, and uh oh. He loves to get up on our couch and just crawl from side to side. Not sure why this is so much fun but he just loves it. He also will just sit there and say "uh oh" over and over again. Something about how perfectly he forms his mouth just makes me laugh.

Logan is also starting to eat more and more table foods. Is it bad that he still eats some baby food? He definitely has his favorite foods including chicken nuggest and bluberry muffins. We are trying to get him off the bottle as well and any advice on that would be much appreciated. He seems to have no interest in a sippy cup even if we put yummy things in there like apple juice.

Cayman is registered to compete in his second official agility trial on Valentine's Day. We are entered to do three runs that day including a pre-novice standard run. Anyone interested is welcome to come and watch him. The event is at the Davis County Fair Grounds.

Ben is back in school and holding on for dear life. This is his last semester and all of us are counting down the days till he is done. He is currently looking for an internship in web and graphic design to finish out the semester. We are excited for the new road that this will take him and our family on. Until then I am busy trying to work and take care of the family while Ben is studiously working on project after project.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

This year we headed up to my parents house on Christmas Eve to start our Christmas festivities. We started by going to our friends house and having a Christmas Eve dinner. We only see them about once a year but it is always wonderful to catch up. Logan had a wonderful time playing with their little kids. He unfortuntely chocked on a cracker and spit up all over his cute Christmas Eve outfit. However, our friends quickly jumped and put Logan's outfit it in the wash so that it would be done by the time we left. In the meantime, Logan wore some of their little girls pants. Sparkly with hearts on the bum to keep his legs warm. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of this. It just made me laugh mostly because of how different boys and girls pants are cut. The girls jeans do the whole flare at the knee thing and it just looked so funny. Nevertheless, they kept him warm till his outfit was clean.

After dinner we headed to my parent's church Christmas Eve service. We have been going to this ever since I can remember and always brings in the Christmas spirit. I was worried that Logan might be restless but he ended up falling asleep in Ben's arms. I think all the singing put him to sleep.

We then came home and opened up two presents. One of them is from Ben and is an ornament--one for me and one for Logan to remember the year by. This year Logan got a stuffed dog since his first word was dog and I got an agility ornament to remind me of competing in my first agility competition this year. I love that Ben does this and it is so fun to decorate the tree each year and remember all these memories.

Then we also get a gift from the Christmas elves with our Christmas pjs. Here is Logan sporting his and some slippers on Christmas morning. We then spent the night at my parents and did Christmas morning at their house. It was so fun to watch Logan's reaction to things and how excited we got to give him things. My family definitely spoiled him. He got a music table and a Little People Noah's Ark from Santa.

He was so in love with his music table on Christmas morning. He would lay his whole body across it as if he were saying this is all mine. As you can see, we were all entertained by it as well.

Lets just say he danced the morning away. He also received this big bag of blocks from my sister's dogs (yes our pets give us gifts) and loves them. He plays with them daily at our house. He will go and hit the bag and scream which means open it up so I can play with them.

As a short summary for us, Ben got a wide format printer this year to assit him in his graphic design classes. I received some wonderful clothes, a new petunia pickle bottom diaper bag, and the beginning of the willow tree nativity sceen. We love them all and are so grateful for our generous family. We then went down to Ben's brothers house to celebrate with their family. This year, we did Christmas via web cam for much of Ben's family. Two of the families were out of state and Ben's mom was home since she had just had a chemo treatement. It was fun to get to see everyone and I think they enjoyed being able to be part of the Christmas. Ben's sister and her husband and little boy were able to come out this year for Christmas and it was fun to get to hang out with them. Our biggest news is that Logan took his first steps on Christmas day!

We were at the Ellis's and I was upstairs with my sister-in-law. Logan was standing by me and I let go of his hands and he stood by himself for a few minutes. Then my sister-in-law said, "wouldn't it be fun if he took his first steps on Christmas?" Not a minute after she said that Logan took about seven steps across the floor. I couldn't believe it. We then had to try to video tape him. This doesn't do the first one justice but neverthless shows his new skill. Since then he still isn't choosing to walk around the house but will do occassional walking here and there.

Then due to the snow on Christmas, we decided last minute to cancel the Cassler Family Christmas get together and move it to the day after Christmas. So after a long Christmas day we came back to our house, put Logan to bed at a decent hour, and put away our Christmas presents. It was weird to be home so early on Christmas but also nice as Ben and I were both exhausted.

The day after Christmas we ventured down to my Uncle's to have another dinner and party. It was wonderful to be with all of my mom's family and nice to feel like we had a little bit more time at this party since it wasn't on Christmas. Here is Logan sporting his cute outfit from Grandma and Grandpa Ellis.

On Saturday we then had an Ellis Family Party. We started by having a tubing party. I must admit I was nervous that Logan wouldn't hold up very long. However, I was very wrong. Logan loved it. He would get so excited at the top of the hill and when you were done he would say "Woah!" Here is some of the footage of his first tubing experience.

After tubing, we hung out, ate lots of food (which I didn't take pictures of, sorry bloggers) and played lots of games. It was such a nice and relaxing afternoon.

Lastly, here are some pictures on New Year's Eve. Logan was having fun riding around on his car before we went up to my parents house.

We went to go see Marley and Me (highly recommended for animal lovers) with my family. It is also my mom's birthday so after the movie we went and cooked her a dinner and opened her presents. We then brought in the New Year by playing with my brother-in-laws new Wii. We had so much fun playing Tennis and Guitar Hero. I think my sister was hooked. Ben also did suprisingly well at this game. He creamed all of us.

I don't know if Ben and I have really made any big resolutions this year. We just hope that we will be able to be better people in general. We are looking forward to Ben graduating this year and being done with school.

Logan has brought in the New Year by being sick. He has been throwing up since Friday. Poor guy. We have now gone almost 48 hours without throwing up but he has been on a strict pedialtye diet in hopes of giving his tummy a break. Here he is sipping it out of his straw cup this morning. We sure hope that we will get this sickness out of the way and be able to enjoy the rest of the year illness free!

The big ONE

Logan turned one last weekend and we celebrated with a joint Cairns and Ellis Family. Due to the smaller size of our home we decided to hold it up at my parents house. First off here is the invite Ben made for the event. I thought this turned out so cute. We decided to have a dog theme since Logan loves dogs and his parents do too. And it also was one of his first words. We started off the party with a dinner. Logan served everyone his favorite food....spaghetti. Then we opened his presents and I must say I was quite surprised at how many presents this kid got. He was a sport about opening them all. We had many other kids there that enjoyed helping Logan open his presents. But we would open one and show it to him and he would come crawling back. Thanks so much to all of you who gave him a present, he loves them all and it glad our house is getting more toys.

Then after the presents we went to do his cake. It was getting to be about 7:30 by this time and I could tell Logan was getting tired. To go along with the dog theme we made the following cakes:

I made a large one for everyone and then a smaller one for him to dive in to. Ben helped to construct the big cake and we frosted it to look like Cayman. I must say I was quite impressed with the results. We had some small mishaps in the process of baking so I was glad in the end it looked so cute.

Logan was quite shocked when all his guests started singing Happy Birthday to him. The look on his face was truly priceless. At first he wasn't quite sure what to do with the cake and I could tell he was just getting tired. However, I helped him get started and then he had at it for a bit. This is the damage he did before he was ready to be done.

We still can't believe our little boy is one. Some of Logan's favorite thing as a one year old include:

-climbing the stairs

-dancing to music

-eating saltines and animal crackers

-playing keep away from mom and dad

-eating pickles with his dad (yes he does like them)

-sleep at least 11-12 hours every night (ok so maybe that is his mom's favorite thing)

-giving you high fives

-singing and clapping to "If your happy and you know it"

-getting tickled on his tummy and chin

-crawling as fast as he can

-playing with his mom's purse

I then took Logan to the doctor a few days later and here are his stats:

21 lbs 14 oz (35th percentile)

30.5 inches long (75th percentile)

So his weight has slowed down a little bit but his height has continued nicely. Overall he looked very healthy and happy which is always good to hear! Logan isn't walking quite yet but it getting close. He is starting to take a few steps between objects without holding on and will use less and less of our support when walking. I know the walking stage will enter a whole new layer of mischief but we look forward to that as well.

Logan had a wonderful first party and we thank all of his wonderful family and friends that made his party and the first year of his life such a success!

Our First Trial

This weekend I entered Cayman in our first ever official agility trial. This was a USDAA (Utah States Dog Agility Assocation) trial held at the Davis County Fairgrounds conveniently located right behind our house. We have been taken lessons from a lady who recommended the courses we should run. We entered four runs--two Gamblers courses, a Snookers and Jumpers course.

Our first run was Saturday morning and it was a Gamblers course. This was the course I was most nervous about. We had practiced some at my agility lessons and didn't so well. The point of a Gamblers is you can select any obstacles you want for the first 30 seconds of your run. Then when a whistle sounds you have to go a do a marked closing or set of obstacles. If you do that set of obstacles then you qualify if not you don't. All of the obstacles are worth points that they assign to them and then you are awarded places based on if you qualified and how many points you got. My whole family came to watch Cayman and I and I was so nervous that Cayman would run off to socialize with the other dogs, I would fall flat on my face or do something else embarassing. However, this is what happened.

So we didn't do the closing perfect meaning he didn't take that final jup till I took him back over it, but you are allowed to do that and we qualified. And not only did we qualify but we got SECOND PLACE. I was so amazed that on our very first agility run we not only did well but got second place. I couldn't have asked for more. I went in with no expectations of running a qualified run. We maily just wanted to get our feet wet and had some fun.

Cayman did so well. He listened to me extremely well. In practices he often has a hard time watching the other dogs run. He gets very excited and out of control. However at this trial he listened so well to me and was able to be so calm. He couldn't have been a better dog. And most importantly he had so much fun. We was just prancing after he finished this run. He was so proud of himself.

Later on that day we ran a Snookers course which is a course where you have to take a red jump before you can do any other obstacle. Once you have completed all three red jumps then you have to do a marked course of obstacles called your closing. Cayman and I did so well hitting all the red jumps and then finding another obstacle to take. However, he knocked down the last red jump and apparently that means you can't take another obstacle you just have to go straight to your close. Since I am so new at this I didn't know that so we got whisteled off the course. Not Cayman's fault at all but his inexperienced mom. I am proud that we got so far though. Then we ran another Gamblers course on Sunday morning and again it was my fault he didn't do the closing properly. The whistle blew and I panicked and Cayman got on the wrong side and took a different obstacle. Then the last run we did was a Jumpers course. This is a numbered course with just jumps and tunnels. I thought Cayman and I could do fairly well at this course. Take a look and see for yourself.

So my lines were off a few times and I had to take him back to go over the jumps but that is allowed. The only reason he didn't qualify on this run is because he knocked down the second to last bar. Bummer!

Nevertheless we were still more than pleased with our weekend. It was long and tiring but so much fun. I have always enjoyed animals and I love being able to do something with them. I appreciated all of my family who came to cheer me on and help watch Logan so that I could focus on my runs. You can see how much fun Logan had.

I feel much more confident now about being able to do runs in the future as well. The next trial is in February. We are going to keep practicing our weave poles so that we can perhaps enter a standard run at that trial. Note: A standard run is a numbered course with all your obstacles (A-frame, teater, weaver poles, table, jumps, tunnels, etc.). Until then, however, we will keep practicing and having fun with our hobby.