Landon in 3D

On September 3, we had the opportunity to see our baby boy in 3D.  It was so awesome!  The first thing Blake noticed was his chubby cheeks, which he gets from his dad.  I know that's hard to believe, but Blake had the cutest chubby cheeks as a baby.

We can't wait to meet this little guy!!

Take-Home Chef

Since our actual 5 year anniversary was sort of bummed with Blake's knee, Blake got creative.  I should mention that Blake did send flowers to my office on our actual anniversary.  They definitely brightened my day!

Back to Blake's creativity.  We always go out for a nice dinner on our anniversary: Northwood Inn, Green Room Grille, Diamondback's...you get the idea.

Since we couldn't go out (Blake was quite fearful of eating out since he had to elevate his leg and it was pretty uncomfortable to do in a restaurant), Blake had a chef come to our house!  WOW!  I was impressed!

Chef Jacob Butler

The Menu

Cream Of Brie And Tart Apple Soup 

garnished with julienne of tart apple and toasted almonds

Wilted Mesclun Greens 

with pancetta-cherry vinaigrette & pine nut crusted chevre. warm salad of spring mix garnished with crispy pancetta, dried cherries, and goat cheese

Wild Mushroom Stuffed Angus Tenderloin 

with cabernet demi. served with yukon gold potato puree and sauteed asparagus

Key Lime Parfait 

layered key lime mousse with caramelized graham cracker sprinkles

And, at the end of the night, my kitchen looked like this...incredible!

It was SO delicious, and I felt SO special having our very own chef!  We're thinking this might be a fun tradition to start!

Knee Surgery

Blake tore his ACL about 6 years ago playing basketball at church.  At that time, he chose not to have reconstructive surgery.  He didn't want to take the time off work to have the surgery, and he certainly didn't want to take the time to appropriately rehab it.  He's tweaked it several times since then, put some ice on it, limped on it for a few days, and been back to normal, so we've continued to ignore it.  Then, a couple of months ago, we were at a Sunday School cookout and all the late 20/early 30's guys decided they would play a game of football.  The instant Blake got up from the table to go play, I had a bad feeling about it.  Sure enough, the football game ended when Blake twisted his knee.  I originally thought nothing of it and offered very little sympathy.  The knee swelled as it always does, we put ice on it, and when Blake would complain about the pain, I'd tell him to take some Advil (in a very unsympathetic tone -- I was never meant to be a nurse).  But, the swelling wouldn't go down, lots of bruising started appearing, and Blake kept complaining that this felt different than all of the other times.  So, he scheduled an appointment with his Dr. and we had another MRI.  Good news: nothing else was torn.  Bad news: everything else was either strained or bruised.  Solution: ACL reconstructive surgery.

Ok, so we opt for the "bone-patella-bone" reconstruction, which is supposed to be the "gold standard" but makes for harder, longer recovery.  I don't think we fully comprehended how hard or how long!

Blake had his surgery on August 11, and the Dr. said everything went very well.  When I got to go back and see Blake in recovery, I couldn't stop laughing.  He was just so out of it!  He kept saying that his knee felt like a ton of bricks and he asked me 6 times in a matter of about 10 minutes if I had talked to the Dr. and what he said.  When he was "ready" to go home (which, by the way, he really wasn't ready to go home) my dad and Blake's dad helped get him loaded in the car and into our house.  Looking back, that was the easiest part of the day because his leg was still numb.  When we got him home, of course all he wanted was his Blackberry so he could catch up on his emails.  I told him that I didn't think it was a good idea for him to be sending emails since he couldn't even remember anything I said to him, but he insisted!  So, the rest of the day was fairly uneventful.  THEN THE ANESTHESIA STARTED WEARING OFF AND IT WAS A WHOLE NEW BALL GAME!  A whole new ball game that started about 10:00 PM (that's my bedtime, by the way).  Blake was suddenly in an incredible amount of pain.  He thought his kneecap was going to explode and if I came within 3 feet of even breathing on his leg, he cried out in pain.  One of the most stupid things we did was try to move from our living room to the bedroom at midnight.  Blake wanted to try to move to the bed, because he thought he would sleep better there -- seemed logical enough.  But, that move was physically and emotionally painful for both of us.  I just cried.  We finally made it to the bed, but it didn't matter.  We didn't sleep that night.  The next morning I kept thinking that this must be the closest thing to bringing home a newborn, except that I had no help, because my helper was the one who was down.  Really, the only way to describe the first couple of nights was BRUTAL!!!!!  Once that anesthesia wore off, there was nothing I could do.  He was taking the maximum amount of pain medicine and was getting no relief.   The pain meds weren't even knocking him out to give him a little sleep.  Since he couldn't sleep regardless of where he was, he sat in a chair in our living room for the rest of the week.  We didn't dare attempt to move back to our bedroom.  We just slept in the living room.

This was Blake's setup.  Doesn't he look like a pleasant patient?

By Thursday night the pain seemed to be under control.  That allowed the real Blake to finally come shining through.  His sarcasm and sense of humor finally returned.  Friday morning he had his first rehab session and the therapists were very positive.  Friday was also our 5 year anniversary.  It was celebrated with a therapy session from 7 to 9 AM where we also finally got to see the battle wound when the therapists undressed his knee, Blake's first attempt at a shower, me finally getting to work about 1:00, picking up Carino's take-out for dinner & a brave outing to Katie's Custard for a special 5 year anniversary treat.  Pretty much how I had always imagined we would spend our 5 year anniversary!

Now for some of the not-so-funny-at-the-time moments that are now pretty funny -- at least to me!

• The night that Blake woke me up at like 3:00 AM to ask me if I'd been to the restroom yet.  Seriously?  When I have to use the restroom, I wake up.  It's not necessary for you to wake me up and remind me to go.  So, now that I was awake, of course I had to go!  Then, just as I get back comfortable on the couch, he says "I want to try to move to the bedroom."  You stinker!  Are you kidding me?  You woke me up because you want to move to the bed?  Do you realize what time it is?  Do you remember the ordeal we went through the last time we moved you to the bed?  So, we move.  Of course, he wasn't comfortable there either.
• Friday morning after rehab I got Blake & myself a bowl of cereal.  Of course, I didn't put enough milk in his cereal.  So, I took the milk into the living room and proceeded to pour some more milk into his bowl.  But, the spoon was sitting on top of the cereal and when I poured the milk, it hit the spoon and splashed up all over Blake.  I was so drained and exhausted that I had no reaction time and didn't realize that I was pouring milk all over him.  He thought I was mad at him for asking for more milk and that I was intentionally splashing him with the milk.
• Saturday night I dozed off on the couch and Blake kept trying to get my attention to go fill his ice chest thingy with ice and water.  The next thing I know, Blake is trying to get up off of his chair and walk with his crutches while carrying his ice chest to the kitchen to fill it up himself.  By the time I realize what's going on, he's in the kitchen rinsing the dishes in the sink and filling his ice chest.  I lost it.  I started going on and on about how I was a horrible wife and nurse and how I wouldn't hear Landon crying and how I wouldn't be a good mom because "I just can't do it all".  Oh, it was a pathetic moment.

I am happy to report that Blake is now well on his way to recovery...FINALLY!  He's been going to rehab 3 days a week since his surgery, and he was unable to drive for the first 4 weeks since it was his right knee that was injured.  Thank goodness for awesome in-laws who helped shuttle him around to therapy, his class at Baylor (yes, he's teaching this semester on top of everything else), and work.  I couldn't have done it without them.  Thanks, Steve & Betsy!!  He's only driving now because he released himself to drive.  One night when we were driving through Rosa's to pick up dinner, he said he was ready to drive and asked me to let him.  So, there in the drive through we switched places and he drove home.  Then he drove to work the next morning and came home at lunch to tell me that he'd scheduled two meetings in Dallas for the next day.  I wasn't crazy about that because I didn't feel that driving from Rosa's to our house or from our house down Austin Ave. justified his ability to drive to Dallas.  Oh well.  Of course, he still won't fess up to his therapist that he's driving!

Choosing His Name

Landon Lloyd Willis

Landon - We just liked it!  It was the front runner on our boy names list from the beginning & it stuck.

Lloyd - My maiden name.  Blake has always been an advocate for using my maiden name as a middle name for a boy, so that was easy.

Willis - I don't think I really have to explain that one.

Choosing a name was a bit stressful.  It's just so darn permanent!  So, even though we had the middle name established and we both really liked Landon, we still felt the need to spend some time looking through those silly 100,001 names books and confusing ourselves.  Ya know, just to make us feel like we'd done our due diligence.

It's a BOY

June 30 was our 20-week appointment...yea!  Blake and I are ultra-anal-planning-CPA's.  We HAD to know what this baby was.  We were the first appointment of the day, so after getting up early and drinking my 32 oz. of water and 8 oz. of Dr. Pepper (the best Dr. Pepper I've ever had, by the way), we made our final guesses (we were both wrong!) and we were off.  Of course, the one real storm we had in Waco all summer was that morning, and all of the traffic lights on the way to the Dr.'s office were blinking, so we were afraid that we would get there and there would be no electricity.  But, there was!

We both knew it was a boy before the technician told us.  You couldn't miss it!  When the technician was taking pictures for the Dr., I saw it.  Apparently, Blake did too.  He said he looked at me and saw that I was smiling and knew that I already knew.

So, here he is!  Pretty darn adorable, don't you think?

It has become a Willis family tradition that on the day of the sonogram, the parents host a little dinner party to announce the gender of the baby to the rest of the family.  So, that's what we did.  But, since my sister's in Cali, I decided that I would go ahead and tell her early since she couldn't be at the party.  So, we came home and called her up on iChat.  Both Dylan & Jaydon (our nephews) said that they wanted it to be a boy.  "No Grils (Girls)!"  So, they were pretty excited.  When we held the picture up for them to see it, Jaydon said "Mommy, he lives in a cave?"  And then they wanted to know if he would be here when we went to Colorado in August.  I think they were pretty excited about their new baby cousin!

So, time to get ready for dinner.  The menu was fajitas & taco salad with a German chocolate cake for dessert...yummy!  And, I didn't even have to cook any of it -- even better!

I think all of the family was excited by the BOY news.  For the Willis family, it's the first boy.  For the Lloyd family, it's the third with no girls.  But, Grammy and Granddad love their boys!

Someone asked me who was the most excited about us having a boy.  Naturally, Blake and I are thrilled.  I had always wanted a boy first, but totally didn't care once I found out I was pregnant.  Blake's never really indicated a preference either way.  I think he'd be an incredible dad to a boy or a girl!  But, besides Blake and I, I think the grandfathers are the most excited.  Except maybe Lynita.

Here are some pics from dinner:

The Big News!

It's old news, but it's still BIG news -- Blake and I are having a baby!  Due date is November 17, and we are super excited!

Allow me to catch you up on the last six and half months...

St. Patrick's Day 2009 was the day we found out that we were pregnant.  I was eating lunch at Jason's Deli with a great friend of mine who asked the big question..."SO, are you pregnant yet?"  I laughed it off - yeah, right.  I went back to work and couldn't stop thinking about the possibility, so I decided I'd run home (it's only like 5 minutes from my office) and take a little test.  As I was walking to my car, I was trying not to get my hopes up.  I mean, it would be perfect timing since Blake and I were going with my parents to see my sister's family in California soon, and it was SUPER important to me to be able to tell my sister the exciting news in person.  So, I go home and take a test, and there it is: "Pregnant". Yep, the digital one that actually says it.  I think I experienced every possible emotion in those 5 seconds before I heard the front door unlocking.

Yep, Blake was walking in the front door.  Now, I had talked to him an hour earlier at which point he told me he was leaving his office to come home and let Champ out.  Oh, but he didn't.  So, I didn't get to tell him in any fun and creative way.  I just walked out of our bedroom and said "I'm pregnant!"  As I recall, his face turned red, he kinda smiled, and then he didn't say anything.  So, I responded with "You're excited, right?"  Then, he gave me a hug and immediately started praying.  Let me tell you, at that point, I fell in love with my husband all over again.  I knew I had a good man, but that just meant the world to me that his first reaction was to pray over our new little family.  Then, he said "I was just coming home to let Champ out."  It was pretty funny.  So, after reapplying the makeup and trying to get my nerves in check, back to work we went.  I'm pretty sure we both smiled constantly for the rest of the day.

Shea (my Jason's Deli friend) was the first to find out.  I called her immediately after getting in my car to head back to work.  I had to tell someone!

Now, Blake and I had to figure out how to tell the family.  We wanted to do something special, so Blake came up with the idea of making a countdown book to the baby's arrival.  On the front of the book was a poem that we put together that revealed the big secret.  Then on the inside, there was a page for each week that told how the baby was growing.  Blake actually did almost all of the work on it, and it turned out so cute!

My parents and my sister's family found out on March 26 - the evening that we flew into California.  We flew in early that day, but I couldn't tell them until that evening when my brother-in-law got home from work and we were all together.  I was dying!  So, finally when we were all sitting down to eat dinner at my sister's house, Blake and I gave them their "Easter gifts".  My mom and sister were opening them at the same time and I thought they were never going to get to the end of the poem and figure it out!  Then came the reaction...PRICELESS!  It was perfect!  My sister exclaimed in tears "She's having a baby!"  FINALLY!  I could breathe.

We told the Willis family on April 2 after eating pizza and watching (on TV, not in NY) the Baylor men's basketball team play in the NIT final.  Of course, the announcement to the Willis family would have to involve some Baylor athletics.

And then we finally got to go to the Dr. at 8 weeks and see this:

What a relief to see that little heartbeat!

Even more incredible was getting to hear the heartbeat at 12 weeks!

So awesome.

Let's Try This Again...

Ok, I got so darn frustrated with this whole blogging thing after my first post that I gave up on it.  But, then I decided I better give it another try - and it seems to be working for me now!  I have lots of catching up to do, so I better get started!