Happy Halloween!

Argh, say the pirates on Halloween.  Mia really wanted to be a pirate this year and Calvin followed in suit.  They sure are cute pirates though.  This past weekend we carved our pumpkin, Mia and Calvin had a blast.  I love fall, I love pumpkins, I love Halloween...I hate carving pumpkins, they are messy and yicky.  So I was happy that the kids and Daddy took over and I could just sit back and watch the process.  Best Halloween ever.  The kids told Daddy what to carve their pumpkin like, so that's why we got triangle eyes, a square nose and a circle mouth...and you can't see them, but moon ears.  Calvin thought that we should sing Happy Birthday to the pumpkin because I put a candle in it...too cute. 

The Pumpkin Patch

We finally made it to the pumpkin patch this year and as always, the kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  Mia liked looking at all the different types of pumpkins and settled on a bumpy one for herself.  Calvin just wanted to pick up every single pumpkin he saw, even if the pumpkin was twice his size.  He ultimately settled on a little one that he could carry himself.  We got a big one to carve here one of these days, this will be a first for the kids because we haven't actually carved one with them yet.  I think they will both really enjoy it.

Mia continues to recover really well.  She was back to her regular therapy routine this week, which has been nice for us.  Thank you for all the prayers, we won't be able to evaluate her bladder for awhile, so we will continue to pray and trust God for his will regarding this. 

Here are some pictures from the pumpkin patch.

Happy Birthday to Moo...

We finally were well enough to celebrate Mia's birthday!  So I baked Mia the cake she'd been asking for...a cow cake.  I think Calvin was more excited than Mia for the cake, he kept running around so excited proclaiming "a cow cake".  Nana and Papa came over and we had a small party and opened a few more gifts that she had received.  The big hit...a dollhouse the size of a little girl...although I was kind of eyeing it for myself...hmm...thank goodness she's great at sharing and will let me play too!

A Whole Hand!

Happy Birthday SweatPea!

It's your whole hand birthday!  5 years have flown by and we are so blessed to have you in our family. 

It's been quite a year for you.  You are so close to being 30 pounds, we will just round up and say you made it!  That's a 2 pound gain from last year, it's a slow gain, but we'll take it...slow and steady.  You are now 40 1/2 inches, which is 3 more than last year, good job growing! 

This year your creative and imaginative side have overflowed.  Each day you tell me who you are and who everyone else is also.  You prefer to be called by your imaginative name rather than your real name and often times you respond better to it, so Mama obliges.  Some of your favorite characters are Professor Quigley, Ming-Ming and a Kangaroo. 

Your speech has continued to make great gains and it's getting easier and easier to understand you!  Praise God for this! 

One of our prayers last year was for you to learn to control your bowels.  We are learning patience in this area, but we've made great progress and you now sit on the potty once a day and are clean from bowel movements for 24 hours.  That's been a huge step forward.  We are realizing that it might take you more time to get to where you can do it on your own, we continue to trust God and His plan for your life regarding this. 

This year you had one major surgery to fix your tethered spinal cord, by the grace of God you are healing well.  We pray that it will help improve your bladder function. 

This year we are taking a break from school and your are home with Mama and Calvin.  That has been fun and challenging all at the same time.  Sometimes you and Calvin get along really well, it is so nice, but quite often there are tears and sadness.  We hope that you both can learn to play together and get along, but recognize that this is normal sibling behavior.  Let's just pray for Mama and Daddy about this one.

We love you SweatPea!  We are so thankful for another year with you!

Love,
Mama, Daddy, Calvin & Brother #2 on the way...

Recovery

Mia is doing really well.  She is definitely stiff and sore, but I see visible progress each day with her recovery.  Today we took of the bandage (not a happy moment) and her incision looks good, hopefully being exposed to air it will heal quicker.  We will just keep watching it for any signs of infection. 

I decided to hold off on therapy this week, specifically vision and speech (she wasn't approved for any of the others), just because I didn't want her riding in the car as I imagine that would be rather uncomfortable.  So, we are housebound for the week, but that's ok...it's been giving me some fall cleaning/organizing time. 

For the most part Mia doesn't need any pain medicine, which is great.  So thankful that everything is going so well.  Thank you Lord!

On Our Way Home

Mia got discharged about an hour ago and we are going home.  They had her sitting up around noon and then she tried walking around 3 and has been doing great, so they said we could go home.  Praise God.

She will have to take it easy for a few weeks, but her recovery is going really well.  Thanks for praying!  In a few months we will consult with Urology to see if this has improved her bladder function at all.  And then we will go from there.  Now it's just giving her body time to heal.

We said, say goodbye to your room, of which she then replied, "goodbye scary room".  :(. She's glad we are going home too!

Again we have seen God carry our daughter through another surgery, we are grateful that everything went so well.  Thank you Lord!

Recovery

So last night was hard for Mia because she kept getting woken up by doctors and nurses who wanted to look at her and assess her. I had forgotten how hospitals are not conducive to sleep. It was a multitude of different things and hopefully tonight will be much better because we've adjusted beeping alarm sounds and figured out medicine at this point. I ended up sleeping in bed with her because she just wanted her mama...thankfully she is tiny because there was barely enough room for this pregnant mama. Tylenol seems to be managing her pain at the moment. They don't want to give her anything stronger because it was a neurological surgery and they keep asking her to move her legs and feet. They want to make sure everything is still working properly. Which is so far, we were happy to see the leg movements also. She started eating this morning and has a great appetite, she is still on IV fluids until they are happy with how much she is drinking. As for lying flat, she is doing a great job, as long as there is someone to entertain her. Along with Curious George DVD's we brought and our iPhone kid apps, the hospital has an interactive tv/movie/Internet screen that is touch friendly and can get maneuvered right up to her face, we've found some kid things to keep her occupied on there. The plan is to try getting her up at some point tomorrow, so hopefully that goes well. Thank you for continuing to pray!

Surgery Finished...Onto Recovery

Today was a long day, but Praise God that everything went really well.  We were scheduled to start surgery at noon, but the case before us took quite a few more hours, so Mia didn't get to the OR until 2:30.  We found out she was finished at 5 and got to see her by 6.

The surgeon said that everything went really well, no surprises.  We like that.  He said she will need to lie flat for a couple of days to give her spine time to heal so she doesn't lose fluid when up and about.  That will be our next big challenge, please pray for recovery to go well.

I will try to update more later, thank you for praying!!!!

Surgery

So we are getting ready to go down to LA tomorrow. Mia has a doctor appointment and then her surgery is scheduled for Friday. We'll just spend the night there so we don't have to drive back and forth. We know that her surgery will start around 11am and should last several hours. Please be praying for everyone involved. We know how far God has taken her already and we continue to trust that He will take her through this surgery also. Pray that there are no complications and that her bladder/bowel function improves because of this. My biggest fear is that something will go wrong and she will be worse off then when she started, I know that comes from Satan and I continue to push those thoughts away and trust in what we've seen God already do in her life. We commit this surgery to Him and trust in His outcome. We've done surgeries so many times and it still doesn't get any easier. No matter how big or how small it is really hard to entrust someone else with your child. So, please be praying for us that we would turn to God and trust Him completely for this. As always, we are so grateful for those of you who continue to pray for our little girl.