Meeting Giuliana

Hayden and I traveled to Atlanta this past week to visit my friend's Teresa and Matt and meet their new baby girl Giuliana Rose. Eric was out of town for work since last Wednesday so we needed to get out of town for a few days as well. We left early Monday morning and stayed until Wednesday morning as Hayden does best in the car after his breakfast. This was my longest drive alone with him and he did great. I just had the front seat stocked with toys, snacks, and paci's I could throw back to him. We had fun just hanging out with the kids. Hayden tore threw the house and made friends with their little dog Bella. Giuliana is a beautiful little baby girl and there is already talk of a future connection with Hayden. :) Here are a few pics from our visit...

I Can Walk!

Here is a video of Hayden taking some of his first steps all by himself. He's been gradually increasing the amount of steps he could do on his own for the last couple of weeks. He's still a little wobbly but I think he'll be a pro by his first birthday. We are so proud of the little man!

Birthdays and New Friends

The last two weekends we celebrated two birthdays. First was our niece Alyse's 3rd birthday. She had her birthday party in Columbus last Sunday. We were surprised when Eric's mom showed up to the party in town from Germany. She had surprised the rest of the family earlier in the week and it was so nice to see her. Eric's birthday was on the 4th. He took a half day so we could go and meet our friends, Elijah and Raina, for lunch that were in town from New York for the week. They have a 15 month old son so we were excited for the boys to meet for the first time. Our friend Mac also came to celebrate at the Cracker Barrel. :) On Sunday I organized a family lunch for Eric's birthday in Montgomery so it was nice to see all of the family again. His mom came up on Saturday and stayed the night so she could spend more time with us and Hayden. It was so nice to catch up and have her all to ourselves for a little while. Here are some pics from the week.



















Alyse in her cute birthday dress with matching baby doll.















Aaden and Hayden playing b-ball.















Hayden and Asher meeting for the first time















Asher and Hayden - new buds















Eric, Hayden, Mac, Asher, and Elijah















Aaden, Wayne, and Hayden out for Eric's b-day lunch.



















Hayden watching the Superbowl

Parachute Time!

Hayden's favorite part of Gymboree is Parachute Time. Here is my attempt to catch a video of him. Everyone is laughing because as soon as I started the camera one of the other little boys came over and started hugging me and climbing over my back. He then gave Hayden hugs and a tackle. Good times at Gymboree!

Residency Update

Last month Eric interviewed at two hospitals for his Orthopedic Residency . His first interview was at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond, VA. He found out they were doing their second large interview session only a few days before so he ended up having to make the drive up. He was able to stay with my sister in Fredericksburg on Friday night and then interview Saturday morning. He really liked everything about the program and felt really good about the interview as well. There were 60 candidates interviewing for 5 spots so it is very competitive. His second interview was two weeks later at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore, MD. He was able to fly up for this trip which was nice. He also really liked this program and felt confident with the interview. For this program there were 23 candidates for 2 spots. Their Ortho program is 6 years instead of 5 so it would have to be approved by the military if he is selected. This would also extend Eric's required time in the military by 2 years. We hope Eric's 3 years of experience post-med school will help him get selected to either of these programs. A lot of the other programs he had hoped to interview with had already held their interviews and selected their candidates and did not want to take on an additional resident. Eric says he would be very happy at either program but its looking like we may rank Richmond as our first choice and Union Memorial second. The official match is March 18th so now we just wait! We will let you know as soon as we find out!