I've fallen behind on my blogging because my third laptop for the year (yes, that was right, 3 laptops) crashed and when I say crashed, I mean crashed and burned, including losing ALL my pictures and documents and anything I had saved over the years! Thankfully I do blog and I have uploaded most of the last 2 years worth of pictures to Flickr, and have other random pictures saved on CD's, but had I not, because of my laziness and not storing my pics on an external hard drive, I would have NOTHING in the way of pictures, and for me, that would be devastating! I'll digress and get on with it...
Just a few days after we left the hospital she turned 3 months old.
Since I left off with Ava Jane's 1 week post op appointment, I'll start there. She's since had her first Cardiology appointment at Children's and that went well. Here, she is getting an Echo and an EKG.
Both of these looked good, her bp was good and they didn't really discuss anything new, pretty much just talked more in-depth about what is going on and where we'll go from here. She has Mitral Stenosis (a problem with her mitral valve). There's a scale (1-10, 10 being severe) and she was at a 10, now, according to Dr. Collins she is at a 6, which is improvement, but still needs to be watched closely. (Dr. Bornameire is her cardiologist, but due to the Snow-pocalypse of 2012 we had to reschedule with the first available appointment). Anyway, he was super nice and re-explained what all she had dealt with, and explained also that the Mitral Valve will need to be watched closely. From what Adam and I understand, it too, has some narrowing and honestly, I don't understand what all that means, but suffice it to say that its got some improving to do, so we are praying that God will continue to heal it completely! There are some other things that we will have to watch and have some testing for but we aren't going to worry about any of that until we have an actual diagnosis. We will have genetic testing done in 6 months to verify or rule out some other issues, we have to wait that long because she had a blood transfusion and we have to wait for all that blood to be out of her little body so that the testing is accurate.
Now on to catching up on December events:
Peyton had a fun Christmas party at school...
We had a great reunion with my Mom's side of the family up in NWA. Thanks Aunt Jane and Uncle Jerry for hosting! The boys had a BLAST on the farm! Seeing the John Deere tractors, getting to fish in the pond, seeing all the horses and animals was such fun for them! What a great Christmas gathering, we had tasty food, good fellowship and fun memories that were made! Can't wait for the next gathering!
Most of the cousins...
There are a lot of memories here...
Cheese...
Lawson and his "grabber"
Brett and Ava Jane
Jennifer and Brett, thanks for the Marshmellow Guns, they are quite the hit!
Pascha and Emerson riding the 4 wheeler
Jan and Ava Jane
The beautiful pond out front and fishing!
Me, Jan, Whitney and Katie Jo
Christmas morning was a lot of fun this year too...Here's some of what the boys got! The kitchen for Emerson was a hit, the V-tech camera and blue bike were quite the score for Lawson and the red 4 wheeler, was Peyton's dream come true, and since underwear seems to be the uniform around our house (even with my attempt at cute Christmas pjs) here's Peyton in all his glory!!
He was beyond thrilled with his gift!
We all had a great Christmas and certainly have much to be grateful for! We had a "Happy Birthday Jesus" party for breakfast which was so fun, Emerson loved singing Happy Birthday to Jesus and continued to sing it throughout the day. Adam read the Christmas story before we chowed down on our tasty breakfast!
Christmas at Grammy and Poppy's...
Christmas at Gigi and GDad's...Pascha, Psalm, Lawson and Peyton (couldn't get Emerson to cooperate!)
Lawson and his angry face...(insert his growl)
Whitney, the Bride to Be...got some cooking essentials...
Adam getting attacked by the "dinosaurus-rex"
Whitney and Pascha
Then there was the Snow-Pocalypse that hit Arkansas hard! We got to enjoy 4 days without power. The first night was not bad, the power went out at 9:30 so the kids were already down so Adam and I sat and enjoyed the beauty and warmth of the fire then headed off to bed. The next morning, it was pretty cold in the house, but since we have a gas stove we could cook breakfast, after that we decided to pack up and head to my parents house who live in Pleasant Valley, and because their home is on the same grid as the Water Treatment Plant, they NEVER loose power, lucky them (and us!) We had a blast playing in the snow...Dad loved pulling the boys on the sled behind his 4 wheeler, we built an "igloo" and the boys had snow ball fights, it was really nice. Adam's parents power was out too so we were all together and made fun memories, we enjoyed sitting around the kitchen table one night just talking for what was about 3 hours straight, I loved sharing the laughs and stories with our parents, we are truly blessed!
In 2012 we went from Birmingham to Little Rock; from a house full of boys to a house of boys with one sweet little princess; from a family of five to a family of six; from the doctors office to the CVICU; from scared to relieved. 2012 has held ups and downs, fears and MANY answered prayers that culminated in a job for Adam (in Little Rock no less), a home (that was empty and we could take early possession so that we could do a door to door move), a terrific school and teacher for Peyton's Kindergarten year, great friends to live life with, family to help us in our moments of crisis, and of course, our little miracle herself, Ava Jane! 2012 held many difficult yet great things; as Adam and I think back on the past year and look forward to the future, we will continue to "polish" the memorial stones God has given us in 2012 and look forward with eager anticipation to what 2013 will hold for us! Happy New Year, nine days late!
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