identity crisis

Last night our good friends and neighbors, David and Sara, kept Campbell while David and I went out to eat with some people from his work. They have a little girl about a month younger than Campbell named Taylor. We like to say that they are boyfriend-girlfriend. Apparently being surrounded with all the pink over there caused a little confusion in my son who is only accustomed to seeing the color blue. This compounded with the fact that my son is a pathological pacifier thief and created his identity crisis shown in these pictures. I love the one of both of them because Taylor seems to be looking at Campbell like, "What in the world are you doing?" I fear he will see that look a lot as he gets older. Anyway, big thank you to David and Sara and Taylor for watching Campbell last night--the bill for therapy is in the mail!

By the way, for those of you wondering about David's grandmother--yesterday she made some progress, but she is still in the ICU. Please continue to keep her in your prayers.

prayers, please

David's grandmother from Kentucky, Mrs. Campbell, had to have surgery on Saturday, and she is still in intensive care. Today has not been a good day, so if you can remember, please lift her up in prayer. She is a great lady, full of life and everyone's best friend. And also remember Gerry and her brothers and sister as they camp out at the hospital waiting for word and visiting during the specified times. Thanks for the prayers. Here's a picture of her with Campbell from Easter.

good friends, good times

Last week David had a work thing in Atlanta, so since Campbell was feeling much better, we decided to go with him and visit Andy and Bethany. Campbell was a champ on the way there even though we pushed him to go 3 and a half hours without stopping--not something I'd recommend by the way. Anyway, David stayed in Atlanta so he could study and Campbell and I took over the Nix household. They didn't say anything, but I feel sure they were both surprised when we practically moved into their house. We totally took over the place, but they were extremely understanding.
Campbell loved playing with their dog, Callie, a golden doodle (golden retriever/poodle), an excellent dog for children by the way. She was so good with Campbell--just wanted to lick his face off, which he loved by the way. But I think Callie was glad when we finally left. One night when Campbell and I were there by ourselves I was unloading the dishwasher. Callie, like any dog, was licking the dishes, then all of the sudden she got her collar caught on the bottom drawer. It scared her to death and she lept backwards, carrying the bottom drawer full of dishes with her. When I finally caught her and unhooked her, she ran onto their bed and wouldn't let me touch her. She just sat there shacking. I felt so bad for her. Then I remembered that my son was asleep in the other room. Let me just say that he's a champ and never even stirred!
So, all in all, we had a wonderful time in the thriving metropolis that is Gainesville, Georgia. Big thanks to the Nix family for letting us invade them. Here are a few pictures of all of us. One of them is Campbell playing with Callie through the deck door, and the other is us showing off our timer-photography skills before church Sunday morning.

Finally Finished!!!!!

After 12, yes that's 12, straight hours of carpet laying, the Sciortino house has officially gotten a face lift. I could not believe those workers. I asked them mid-afternoon how long they planned to stay, and the lead guy said, "How long can we stay?" So we decided to let Campbell spend the night with David's parents and get the carpet done in one day. They worked and worked and worked, but it is finally finished!! Here are some pictures of how the furniture was stacked because I know there are some of y'all out there who didn't believe me when I explained how it was all stacked. I can't imagine why you'd think I would exagerate, but whatever.


So when the workers left at 10:30 Tuesday night, David and I went to work getting our disaster area cleaned up. And now we have beautiful new floors and Campbell loves being able to crawl around and play everywhere. But I think he might miss the stains he used to try to pick up, oh well, now he can pick up all those little carpet pieces. Haven't gotten a chance to take any after pictures yet, but I'll share them soon. We also have some great pictures from our trip to see Andy and Bethany to share later on.

oh my goodness

OK, so the tile is finally finished and now the carpet people are here. As I speak, the entire contents of my bedroom, including our king-sized bed, are stacked in my bathroom. the entire contents of my den are stacked in my kitchen. This is crazy. I never thought they'd be done this quickly. Anyway, just had to share, this is wild. I better go before they stack me in the kitchen!!!

home improvement?

So, when we decided to get new flooring for our house, it seemed like a wonderful idea. Campbell could finally crawl around and not try to pick up the stains off the carpet. And so we went to Lowes, picked out some tile for the bathroom, new hardwood floor, and new carpet. I can't tell you how excited I was that my house was getting a much needed makeover. So on the Tuesday after Labor Day, the men came to begin work. Right away they spotted a problem, no subflooring for the tile. Oh well, they would just get started on the hardwood. Well, after pulling up the old hardwood, they realized they were going to need subflooring for this too. I'm thinking, great, but still no big deal. Then, as most of you know, Campbell got sick. The installers were so nice and concerned about Campbell, and we considered ourselves lucky to have such great people working on our house. Campbell continued to improve, and we decided to go ahead and visit Andy and Bethany in Gainesville. We left last Tuesday afternoon thinking that they only had one more day of work on the tile and the carpet could go in as soon as we returned.

You can see where this is going, I'm sure. I got a call from David's dad on Saturday morning. I knew it was trouble when he said, "everything's OK now, but..." Those are never the words you want to hear. Apparently Lowes had screwed up again. The installers were almost finished laying the tile in the upstairs bathroom when they discovered that the last box of tile was different from all the rest. Long story short, they had to rip up everything they'd done upstairs and start over. And so, two solid weeks later, they are coming to my house once more to finish up and then, cross your fingers, maybe we can get our carpet and I can finally reclaim my house.

Speaking of the house, it is a total disaster area. You can't even imagine what it is like to have a 9 month old who can only get down and play in two rooms in the entire house. And our poor dog, he's been staying with David's parents, well, actually I should say poor David's parents. He gets treated like a king over there. Anyway, I guess we shouldn't be surprised by any of this, our life has always resembled a National Lampoon's movie. This is just one more adventure in a long line!

oh the joys...

...of the video monitor. The video monitor is a wonderful invention. It makes it possible for an over-protective-first-time mom to check that her newborn is breathing every ten minutes in the night. But your feelings toward it change as your son gets older. Now I can put Campbell in his bed for a nap and then glance into the video monitor 20 minutes later thinking I will see him sleeping soundly and have one of those touching mom moments where you think to yourself, "What a little angel! I am such a good mom." Well, not today. Today I walk into our bedroom to glance at him, and instead of a sleeping angel, I find a little boy sitting up playing in his bed with no intention of going to sleep. He doesn't understand that we have a doctor's appointment in an hour and if he doesn't sleep he's going to be...well...a lot of fun. anyway, it's now been 30 mintues, dare I glance into the dreaded video monitor again?


This picture is just an idea of how much energy my son has. Your pity is appreciated. I'm just kidding, we have lots of fun.

First Timer

OK, here goes--my first try at blogging. The Sciortino family is sometimes known to have lots of "adventures," so now I guess people can read about them and laugh with us, or at us, whichever! To introduce ourselves, I am Chris Anne, the stay-at-home mother of the sweetest little guy I know, Campbell who just turned 9 months yesterday. Campbell's daddy is David who is an insurance salesman here in Franklin. Oh, and I can't forget about our little Bogie--a three year old Maltese who thinks he is a German Shepherd. Anyway, that's us in a nutshell. We hope you will enjoy reading about what is going on in our lives--we sure enjoy keeping up with everyone else through their blogs.
Well, I guess the big news right now is Campbell. He has had a rough time over the last week or so, but I am so happy to announce that he is officially on the mend. He's still pretty weak from not eating solid food for over a week, but the sound of his laughter today and the faces he made at his Granddaddy Russell tonight prove that he is getting back to himself. Thank you to all of you who prayed for us--we truly felt them and I believe they kept us from going back into the hospital on Thursday. And a special thank you to all the doctors and nurses we saw at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, especially Rebecca!! That's all for now, thanks for reading and happy blogging to you all.