Final 4!

Vote for Lincoln again today to help him get to the finals tomorrow!!

http://www.kiimfm.com/Article.asp?id=1256128&spid=32191

Thanks so much!

Vote, Vote, Vote!!

Lincoln is in the "Elite Eight" in the Tucson baby brackets. Vote for Lincoln today to help him get to the final four!

http://www.kiimfm.com/Article.asp?id=1248708&spid=32191

It only takes a second! Thanks so much for the help!!

Baby Brackets: Elite Eight

Well, we made it to round 2! Linc is in the elite 8 of Tucson's cute babies! Go Linc!!

Thanks for the help voting yesterday! The next voting round for Linc is this Friday. I will make a reminder post then.

Vote for Lincoln today!!

Vote for Lincoln! It only takes a moment!

http://www.kiimfm.com/Article.asp?id=1233110&spid=32191

Thanks!!

Tucson Baby Brackets!

Check this out! Linc made the top 16 finalists for the cutest baby in Tucson! Vote for him on March 30th!! Go to http://www.kiimfm.com/sectional.asp?id=32191 to vote on the 30th.

In other news. Linc had his MRI on the 18th. The results show 2-3 fairly good sized tumors in the back of the left frontal lobe which may be responsible for his focal seizures. These are not the best location, but also probably not the worst location when considering surgery. Right now we are on week #2 of Topamax, and things actually seem to have improved. I am cautious, but still hopeful that this new med will work. We have a 4 day video EEG coming up April 20th-24th. This will be absolutely miserable for all of us...but well worth it if it helps determine our course of action in helping Lincoln control these seizures. Continue to wish us luck. And don't forget to vote! I will post on the day of the voting here on the blog again as a reminder.

Early Spring in the Desert

Spring has officially arrived in Arizona. This is a post all about the blooming plants in our yard. There are many other plants in bloom around the desert of course, but this is our little piece of the Arizonian beauty. I am gonna tell you a little bit about what I know about each plant.

Here is a Coral Aloe. A plant on no irrigation. It is sensitive to frost, so because it is an early spring bloomer, it is important to protect it from hard freezes late in the season. It almost died the first year it was planted. All of its main leaves split when the water inside froze. Luckily it recovered and has had a couple of pretty blooms since then.

My mom bought me 4 of these (1 has since died) different colored blooming Gazanias. This is the first one to bloom this spring. This plant will have big showy flowers all year long.

Here is an Ice Plant. It is on no irrigation, but seems to do pretty well in our yard.

This is one of the many Salvia Gregii (Autumn Sage), that we have in our yard. They do very well, and bloom almost year around, despite their common name. We have Lipstick Red, Coral, Purple, and Salmon colored ones on the north side of our yard. The purple has never thrived very well for some reason, but the other three do very well. I also have a white one that was transplanted last August to the middle of our yard. It is still alive, but has yet to bloom.

This is called a Bird of Paradise. Although I like to think of it as a Desert Bird of Paradise, not to be confused with the Hawaiian tropical Bird of Paradise that is really quite a different plant. This is the yellow version, we also have 2 Red Bird of Paradise, but they froze back to their roots this year, so they of course have not bloomed yet. Hopefully we will see some blooms on those during the monsoon season.

Our deciduous trees are leafing out again. We have 3 Chinese Elms (one of which is pictured below), and an Arizona Ash. I purchased 2 of the Chinese Elms for $150ea, with my 30% Civano discount way back in May of 2006. I was given the third as a "discard" because it had been underwatered and had lost most of its leaves during the summer. It couldn't be sold in that condition, so instead of letting it get thrown into the dumpster I took it home. It is always the first of the three Chinese Elms to leaf in the Spring. The Arizona Ash was a small shoot that was pulled from the Civano Rose garden. It was probably about 3-4 feet tall at the time. I took it home and planted it, not sur eif it was going to survive because it only had the main tap root left after being pulled. It has grown to be about 10 feet tall in just a couple of years.

For some reason the buds on the trees are the most exciting sign to me of the changing seasons.

This is a Globe Mallow. There are 2 of them, and they are relatively new to my garden collection. I used to have 2 blue Autumn Sages in their place, but after a couple years of them dying during the summer months, and being replaced the following spring, I gave up on that plant, and thought to put in something slightly more drought/heat resistant (although typically the sages are excellent). The Globe Mallows survived and seem to be thriving, after being treated for a bit of black spot mildew they developed last spring right after they were planted.

This is another new plant as of last November. I used to have a Variegated Century Plant in its place (actually had 3 of them in the yard), but it died from Grub infestation. Every year I lose a number of agave and yucca to those little buggers. I try to replace them with plants that are grub resistant, and I try to treat those agave and yucca remaining with a systemic pesticide. I was suprised to see this cactus bloom its first spring planted in the ground, and that it seems to be happy in our yard. All of the cacti, aloe, agave, and yucca in our yard are on no irrigation.

This plant is very special to me. I don't even know what it is called, but I have 2 of them right next to our front door. One of them is yellow, and isn't blooming yet, and then there is this pink one. Both of these plants are special because they were given to me in flower arrangements from my office. The yellow one was given to me in September of 2007 for my miscarriage. The pink one was given to me in July of 2008 fo the birth of Lincoln. They got a bit frost bitten, despite being protected, but they have both seemed to survive their first winter planted outdoors.

This is a cactus that is planted in a hanging pot. It is tiny, but seems to be happy since it is in bloom. I am not sure of its exact name, but it is of the mammilarian variety I believe.

Here is another mammilarian cactus. It could even be the exact same species as the one pictured above.

Here is a Rosemary plant. It has the most beautiful tiny blue flowers, and seems to bloom on and off throughout the cooler months. I have had this plant since the beginning, May of 2006. It has been transplanted 2 times however, but it is doing just fine regardless.

This is another variety of Ice Plant. It has pretty pink flowers, and blooms almost year around. It can spread like mad if it is happy (which it is), so I have to do extensive pruning a couple of times a year just to keep it somewhat in check. I have a bunch of these on a little hill in our yard. I put them their for ground stabilization...but they too have gone a little hog wild.

This cactus is called Silver Sword. I have a couple of these in our backyard. This one has a bunch of stalks, and the stalk pictured here is the tallest of the bunch at about upper-thigh height. This is one of the first plants in our yard to bloom. I actually had to take the frost covers (styrofoam cups) off of the stalks a little early because these blooms were trying to come out.
It has the strangest blooms. Quite phallic in nature actually. Andy and I thought that it was hilarious the first time we saw these blooms last year.

This is a Carolina Jessamine. It is a pretty little vine that I spent about 6 hours untangling and tying to the trellis that I designed and built for it last year. I was about 24 weeks pregnant when I was doing this. I remember that my back was killing me when I finally finished. But it looks great and seems to be thriving.

This is a Gopher plant. I think it is one of the coolest low water desert succulents that I have ever seen. Because of that there are 4 of them in our backyard. Andy doesn't really care for them though. Oh well. I love the form and structure and of course the crazy blooms that it has.

This is a Texas Mountain Laurel. This plant is pretty cool, although it is probably one of the very slowest growing plants that I have in our yard. It is only about 2 feet tall. It also is one of the first plants in our yard to bloom, it was already past its prime by the time I even noticed it (as you can tell by the tired blooms pictured here). The blooms seem to be very short lived, or at least that is what I tell myself since I have missed the prime time for these blooms 2 year in a row. Maybe it just suprises me that it would be blooming so soon. It must have been late January or early February when it started.

Some unknown intruders; wildflowers/weeds. Pesky, but pretty in bloom!

I will be writing another post early next week regarding Linc. We are waiting on a EEG tomorrow and a follow-up visit with the neurologist next Monday. We also have an MRI on Wednesday, and Grandma Hughes (my mom) is coming into town on Wednesday evening. Andy will be out-of-town for work on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday as well. So a busy week to be sure! :)

Home again, home again, jiggity-jig

The weather here has gotten beautiful this past week or two. We were expecting to be incarcerated to our hospital room, and Linc to his hospital bed hooked up to monitors like the last time we were there, so the few days before our hospital stay Linc and I spent quite a bit of time outdoors. Here is a pic and a video.






Also, I know Linc shouldn't be getting ice cream until he is 1...but I figured with all of the hell he has been going through...I would let him have a little treat. Here is the result...



He loved it, of course!

We made it home from the hospital Saturday evening. Things went as well as can be expected with a 3 day hospital stay. Andy took the first night shift, and I took the second. The nights were awful. Our room was a double room, and the baby on the other side of the curtain had had G-tube surgery the day before we arrived. Poor little thing was pretty miserable and her alarms were going off all of the time. Needless to say, we did not get much sleep. The days however were a lot lot better than the last time we were admitted to the hospital. Linc did not need to stay attached to any monitors during the day so we took off to the play room, the outdoor play courtyard, and the cafeteria whenever we got the chance. That was pretty fun.

Linc was a little trooper with the injections and all the poking and proding at his hospital visit. We were admitted to the hospital on Thursday morning around 9am. He had all sorts of tests done during the day, chest x-ray, EEG, bloodwork, urine dip, TB screen, to make sure that he was free from infection. The ACTH is an immunosuppressant, so they had to make sure he was healthy. He had the first injection on Thursday evening. The ACTH injections are a gel, so they take awhile to go in. Andy gave the one the next morning, and I gave the shot the next evening. I hated doing it, but Andy doesn't mind, so from then on, Andy gave the shot and I hold Linc down and comfort him during and after. It kinda sucks because we have to continue to do it 2 times a day for the first week, then 1 time a day for the second week, then if all is going well, we scale back to every-other day for the third week...and so on...

As for how the treatment is affecting him...well he seems to be improving seizure-wise. He is having some side effects from the drugs. His appetite is increased, he is MUCH crankier than usual, and he has elevated BP, which we have to get checked 2 times a week at the pediatrician's office. So on we go...

Here is the hospital bed/room & our little cutie. That chair in the background was where Andy or I spent the nights.







The video shows the new skill that Linc picked up just this week. Hitting and banging toys together!! Go baby go!

Here is our chunkster earlier today. Look at that cute little backside!

I will write another update when we know more. Continue to send us positive vibes! They are much appreciated!! :)