Scoliosis

Parenting is not easy.  When Mia was born with all of her complications, Brad and I were naive to hospitals and doctors.  We just assumed that everything would always work out and trusted the opinion of the doctor we saw.  We never thought to question much of anything because they were the expert in the field.  Now we are a bit older and hopefully a bit wiser, which makes everything more difficult.  Now when we go about making decisions for Mia or the boys, or even us, we tend to get multiple opinions before making a decision.  Mia has had scoliosis for awhile now and we've attempted a few different non surgical interventions with not much success.  Now that she has had some growth spurts, her scoliosis has worsened and we are coming upon a point where we need to decide if surgical intervention is what she needs and when it should happen.  It makes my mama heart heavy to think about another surgery for our daughter.  She's older now and much more aware of things that happen and even though she is an extremely tough cookie, she does not like hospitals.  I don't blame her either.  So, we've gotten two opinions from doctors in California that both agree, her scoliosis needs a surgical intervention...the one thinks sooner rather than later.  As I'm writing this, I just emailed her x-rays away to another set of doctors on the east coast for a third opinion.  We will wait to hear from them and then move forward in figuring out what is best for Mia.  Part of me wants to run away and hide under a blanket and just hope it figures itself out, but as parent, I can't do that.  So, will you pray with us as we look to God for answers on timing and what our daughter needs.  The thought of surgery seems so final and she is so young, so I need peace in waiting on God and trusting in Him for this. 

Lost Teeth, Dinosaurs and More

Calvin has had a wiggly tooth for awhile now and finally pulled it out a few days ago.  Now he is ready for to be a Jack-O-Lantern for Halloween. 

And of course Halloween is one of his favorite holidays, so he had to spend some of his birthday money on a T-Rex dinosaur that roars and has glowing eyes.  It's almost 3 ft tall and has now become his buddy at home.  We will see how long that lasts. 

School officially started for all of the kids Tuesday/Thursday programs.  This the first time Asher is away at school for an extended period of time.  He told me it was 1000 thumbs up on Tuesday when I picked him up.  :)

And Mia started swim lessons.  She is over the moon happy with that.  She might be part fish with how much she loves being in the water.  The boys have been going since the start of summer, but we wanted to do private lessons for Mia with her seizures and since we had so much going on this summer, we waited until things settled down now.  She's having a blast. 

First Day of School!

Actually, the boys started last week at home with me, but today was Mia's first day at Legacy.  She had a great first day and I got a picture with 3 kids smiling at me!  Let's call that a #parentingwin!!!

Reptiles!

We celebrated Calvin’s birthday with friends and family yesterday.  He wanted a reptile themed party so we hired the reptile guy to come and share with the kids.  It was a hit by everyone!  Here are some pics from the day.

Calvin and Asher helping me decorate the Rainbow Snake Cake...they are putting me out of a job!  Calvin blew up all the balloons for his party also, I just had to tie them off!

 And it's done!

 Snakes!

 Turtles!

And hissing cockroaches?!?!  Why me?!?!

Facing my fears!

There's a spider on your head!

And a scorpion in your hand!

 Everyone's favorite!  The Tegu!

Look at its tongue!

Happy Birthday Calvin!!!

It was a blast!

A Healthy Heart

Yesterday we were off to LA again for another doctor appointment.  This was a routine check up for Mia's heart.  She was born with a heart defect that require surgery the first year of her life for repair, so having a heart check up will always be a part of her life.  The fantastic news is that her heart is doing great.  In fact, her cardiologist said that if he didn't know she had had surgery years ago, he's not sure he would be able to tell just by her echo that her heart had had a surgery...her heart looks that great and for that we are so pleased and happy.

After having multiple doctor appointments with news we weren't ready to here because you don't want your kid to have to go through all of this stuff, it was nice to have an appointment with good news.

Please continue to pray for Mia as she adjusts to a new seizure medicine.  At this point, God continues to allow her seizures, even though we would rather have none, but we can always pray for Him to take away her seizures.

She has a minor tooth problem that we are hoping will resolve without difficult treatment...one of her adult teeth is not coming in the correct path and after a year of braces and expander treatment, it still doesn't want to drastically head the correct way, so prayers that the tooth would change direction would be appreciated!

And of course the other major issue we are dealing with is her scoliosis.  We are getting another opinion soon, and would love for her not to have surgery, but prayers that her back would straighten and that we would have wisdom are also something we would be so grateful for.  We serve a God of miracles and I am continually reminded of how far he has taken our sweet girl and healed her already, it's not beyond him to heal her now.  We continue to lean in on Him and trust Him in his sovereignty.