Belly bump...

... is definitely getting bigger! Here's a self-portrait pic.

The weekend was also nice with a wonderful visit with my friend Tara who lives in Pa. She must really like me to drive 7.5 hrs to visit! :) Thanks for coming Tara! And one night we also met up with our friend Sharon who came down from Roanoke for an evening. Here's the group shot:

Other news in the Craft house is that Leo is still doing well and had his stitches out last week. I had a doc visit on Friday and everything is still looking good at 28 wks. We're continuing work on the den with some more painting getting accomplished last week during the beautiful warm weather we had. Michael's also been working a bunch on the land cruiser. Here are a couple "shop" pics:

Attempting to get to the differential:

Success! The differential:

That's all for now! Hope everyone had a great weekend and are enjoying the basketball tourneys.

chao!
-k

Leo Pictures

Just thought that I'd take a minute and post some pictures of Leo before and after his recent surgery...


Before...pool little guy...

From Leo

After...enjoying the snow...

From Leo

And a video:

From Leo

And more pictures are here:

Leo

Updates

Well, we've had a great last couple of days here at the Craft household. After a morning of volunteering at the Kids Tech University at VT on Saturday, Michael and I brought Leo home from the vet. FINALLY. :) We've been missing him. He's doing super well and immediately we could tell he was feeling better. He's been eating like crazy and constantly wants us to play ball with him. Completely opposite behavior to what he was like Sunday night - Tuesday last week. It's GREAT!

AND WE GOT WONDERFUL NEWS TODAY!!! Leo's lab results came back and the doc says they're 99% sure the tumor was benign! So it isn't cancer! YEAH! Looks like Leo will be around for awhile yet. And that makes us very happy. :)

And Blacksburg FINALLY got a real snowfall yesterday and today! It's beautiful and we all had a great walk around the park near our place yesterday. I'll post some fun snow pics and other pictures from the weekend soon.

Baby Craft has been nicknamed Pelé now. He/she has been kicking up a storm and so seems appropriate to call him/her by a soccer player's name. ;) Pelé is doing well and I will post another baby belly pic soon.

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend! Much love to all!
-k&m

Good News!

Yay! So Leo made it through surgery well! Whew, that's a huge relief. The doc says that she's hopeful the tumor was benign since all his other organs look really healthy, but we won't know for sure until the bloodwork comes back in a couple days.

Thanks to everyone for your support these last couple days. Now we'll just nurse Leo through his soreness from the surgery and hope the lab results come back benign. We'll keep you updated.

In the meantime, thanks again and hope you have a great rest of your week!

much love,
k, m, & l

Leo update

Hi everyone,
Leo is scheduled to have surgery tomorrow. Please keep him in your thoughts to go through the surgery safely. And also that they find no cancer.

He hasn't eaten much the past two days. About a handful of wet/dry mix but that's about it. I'm boiling some chicken now (yes I'm still vegetarian, but I'm desperate to get him to eat). If anyone has any suggestions on foods to entice dogs to eat, please let me know.

Thanks to all for your support.
-Kate & Michael

Leo

Update: 9pm Monday
So it's serious. Leo has an enlarged spleen. They don't know if it is cancerous or not, but if it ruptures it could be bad. Right now it's just causing him pain, making him lethargic and not much interested in food. Luckily he can live without a spleen, but the surgery is a little risky and there's the chance its cancerous so we're pretty worried. We'll likely have him go into surgery either tomorrow or Wed. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you.

-k


Hi everyone,
Leo had started acting sick yesterday so we took him to the vet this morning. Turns out he has something on his spleen that could possibly mean cancer. They are doing more tests now and as long as it is localized they can remove it.

I just wanted to ask you all to keep him in your thoughts. Thanks.

luv,
k&m

House work and belly "pop"

Well, I know I'm overdue for another belly picture so here ya go! :) Yes, as Heather said, I'm really starting to "pop" now. Some days I definitely feel like I could and I still have ~ 3 1/2 months to go! Sheesh! Don't really want to imagine how big I'll be getting... :)

Otherwise, things are good and we've started another project on the house (not really surprised are you? ;) ). We've torn into the upstairs bathroom. Michael's parents came up to help out and Michael and his dad ripped the walls around the bathtub out to determine where our little leak was coming from. Here's a couple pictures:

Before:

During:

Turns out the tiles on the walls had just been glued straight to the drywall. That's right, no thinset or anything and so the water had just been leaking through the wall and then dripping down to the ceiling of the den below. NICE. So that's good though that it isn't the plumbing. Not that it would have been a big deal if it was since we're thinking of totally rearranging the bathroom to make room for a small 1/2 bath to go off our master b-room. No, we never do anything simply! :) It'll be prety nice though if this all works out. Michael's going to hire a local handy-man guy to help with the work and hopefully can get it done in a few weeks... here's hoping.

While Michael's parents were here they also helped us plant our Christmas tree. So far it seems to be surviving well! Here's keeping our fingers crossed.

Um, Liz, shouldn't the guys be doing that? ;)

But prior to all the bathroom hoopla we installed an awesome little woodstove. I'll definitely get a picture of that soon. Oh man and has it been awesome! In this single digit weather it's come in quite handy and kept the den so nice and toasty! The den is definitely my favorite room in the house now! :) It'll be really nice once we finish up the painting (decided to wait for warmer weather before painting more) and put in new carpet. Can't wait!

Well, that's really all for now. Hope everyone has survived the cold weather ok thus far and enjoyed the warm temps this weekend! Though I'm still hoping for some real snow this winter!

luv,
k&m