Grant's surgery

When Grant was born, we were informed immediately of a birth defect he had. It wasn't one that was life threatening, but it was one that would need correct via surgery. While I am typically very open on my blog, I don't feel comfortable sharing what the defect was for the sake of Grant's privacy.

When he was three weeks old, we saw a specialist at Arkansas Children's Hospital to let him examine Grant and determine a course of action. We had to be there for an 8:45 appointment, 2.5 hours away, WITH A THREE WEEK OLD!

The doctor examined him and we made plans to have surgery the Thursday before Thanksgiving. Somewhere along the way, they called to reschedule twice and we decided to do it on Dec. 22. The main reason we wanted to do it around then was because he needed time at home to recover as he was going to be going home with something that daycare wasn't going to need to mess with, so we thought it was best to do the surgery while we had a school and work break anyway.

We left our big kids with their grandparents for a few days so that we didn't have to worry about them and could focus on Grant and poor Ava was SO sad and distraught when we left. She was acting funny and I couldn't figure out was wrong. She finally admitted she was upset about Gran't surgery and was worried about something happening to him.

We headed down to Little Rock Monday afternoon and stayed with our dear and generous friends Chuck and Chenin. Chenin and I went to college together and has remained one of my very best friends even though we don't see each other nearly enough (and usually when one of my kids is having surgery in little rock!;) ) We enjoyed the chance to catch up and it's so much more comfortable staying with them than in a hotel! Grant enjoyed it, too!

I woke him up at 2:45 so he could nurse one last time and then was able to give him pedialyte at 5:30. We had to be at the hospital at 6:30 and surgery was scheduled for 8:30.

He was in such a bubbly mood beforehand! We got admitted and set up in our pre-op room. There were people in and out and every time someone came in, he would pop his head up and smile at them.

We had to wait in there for a little over an hour and talked to all the people who needed to go over things with us. He got a little sleepy while we waited.

When the doctor came in, he said the nurse wanted him to ask if she could take Grant home? haha! When he left the room, he walked out and said "the answer is no." When it was time for Grant to be wheeled to the operating room, he rode down the halls like this:

His little head was perked up the entire ride and grinned at every single person we passed. Everyone oohed and ahhed over him like he was a little celebrity and he clearly enjoyed it!

We said goodbye to him and headed out to the waiting room. His surgery was scheduled for 3-4 hours and we got word about 8:50 that it had started. When it was over we had a consult with the doctor and then finally got back to him. He woke up pretty quickly from the anesthesia. He wouldn't latch on to nurse so we offered him a bottle and he started gobbling it down.

We got moved back to a post-op room fairly quickly where he proceeded to down almost 11 ounces! Thankfully he never had any issues with nausea. During his surgery, he had something called a caudle - they equated it to an epidural during birth and helped with pain and we were thankful he had that for the ride home. We got discharged around 1:00 and started home. He slept all the way home and did really good until the caudle started wearing off. Thankfully we had some pain meds for him.

He slept surprisingly well that night.

He actually woke up happy the next day and we managed the pain with alternating tylenol and motrin. 

He was happy to have his brother and sister come home, too!

The next night (and those thereafter) didn't go so well. He was in a lot of pain and we spent several nights holding him in the recliner. We have been able to cut way down on the tylenol and motrin. He has to go to his pediatrician on Tuesday to get something removed. We're grateful our ped was willing to do it so we don't have to make another trip to Little Rock. We'll have a follow up in 4-6 months with his surgeon to make sure everything has healed and held the way it needs to.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers for our boy! We hope we are just about over this hump! We realized on the way home from Little Rock that this was the 3rd year out of 4 years that someone has had surgery over our Christmas break - me in 2012, Reed in 2013 and Grant in 2015. There was no surgery in 2014 but three of us were incredibly sick instead. Let's hope 2016 Christmas break is surgery and sickness free!!!! :)

Seven months!

Grant, you are seven months old! Time with you is FLYING by and I can't believe we are now closer to your one year birthday than to the day you were born. You have had a busy month and so many changes have come this month!

Let's see what you're up to!

• You have mastered your sitting up - you are a pro now!
• You got your first and second tooth between six and seven months! 
• You are babbling and making noises that sound like words.
• You had your first ear infection and we had no clue you were even feeling badly.
• You probably weigh around 18 lbs. You are in 6-9 month clothes and wear size 2 diapers. 
• You started playing so much more this past month. You play hard at school and are exhausted when you get home. Some nights you have to take a nap before bedtime.
• You typically sleep 11-12 hours each night. 
• You are pushing up on all fours and can scoot backwards. 
  
• You love playing in your jumper.
• You are eating 3 meals of solid foods and have 5 servings of milk each day. We nurse in the morning and at night and you have bottles while at school. You typically eat 6oz every 3 hours.
• You love to grab at people's face.
• You smile at almost everyone that talks to you and are still such a pleasant, easy-going baby! 
  
• You love your siblings and enjoy watching them as the play around you. 
  
• You LOVE bath time. You love splashing and enjoying the warm water. If you are upset or fussy, you calm down immediately when we put you in the bath.
• You still suck your fingers, but maybe not quite as much. You do like to stick them in your mouth while you are eating and it makes a huge mess!

You have grown leaps and bounds this month and I know you will from each month here on out. We are so grateful for you and love watching you grow! Can't wait to see what the next month holds for you, baby boy!

2015 Christmas Card

It’s time again for me to link up with Faith who hosts the Christmas Card carousel every year!


I am excited to share my card with you this year! We had family photos taken at the end of October and my incredible talented friend Niki designed our card for us.

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I feel so incredibly blessed to have these three precious children on my card. I’m also so incredibly thankful for my very best friend, the man who walks with me through every step of this life. Our life of course has its ups and downs, but I wouldn’t trade this life for anything.

I wish each of you the happiest and sweetest Christmas season. May your hearts be filled with love and joy, and may you spend your days with those you love the most!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Busy Christmas season

Well. This is such a fun time of year, but it is SO busy. The last week was just crazy full of things and the upcoming week is as well. We have school this week and then Zach and the kids get a break for a couple weeks. I'm hoping things will be a little quieter then!

Last Monday, Ava's class sang at the morning Advent ceremony. We went to watch and they put on a good show! 

Grant has just gone with the flow during this crazy time. I went to get him out of his carseat one night and he was so tired. He was asleep with his fingers in his mouth. He is so precious.

He also loves hanging out with his sister when we get a slow down. 

On Wednesday evening, we went to the park to have our annual ride on the Holiday Express. The weather was perfect and Grant was happy to experience his first ride!

Grant has been coming home and taking some evening cat naps the last few weeks. One night I had to wake him up to feed him so he could go back to sleep! ha!

One morning, Reed came into my room and told me had fixed his hair himself. He looked pretty snazzy!

I'm a sucker for a sleeping kiddo. I love my sleeping boys.

Saturday we headed up to NWA to celebrate Ainsley's first birthday!! She was a happy girl and enjoyed getting some new presents!!! 

She was eating her cake while we all sang happy birthday to her, but at the end, she didn't like that everyone clapped and she started crying and that was that. She was done.

When Caroline got her cake she said "I want sing Happy Birthday to Caroline", so we all proceeded to sing to her :) She loves a good happy birthday!

This precious boy had a monumental weekend. Saturday morning we noticed his first tooth had popped through!!! I'm going to miss this precious gummy smile!!!!!!

He's getting so big. He's pushing up and I noticed when taking this pictures that he's actually getting up on all fours. He's scooting backwards and is turning himself around. I have a feeling it won't be very long before this baby is mobile!

 

Sunday afternoon, Ava's cheer squad performed at the library's annual Christmas open house. They did a cute dance to Jingle Bell Rock! Ava takes her performing very seriously!

My mom brought Ainsley and Caroline down to watch Ava perform and go to another birthday party later. I started out holding Caroline, but she told us that she wanted "Ainsey sit with Sarah", meaning SHE wanted to sit with my mom. :) So Ainsley baby sat with me. She loved watching the performances and clapped after each one! 

We have another busy week ahead of us and the countdown is on for Grant's surgery. I'm so ready to put that behind us. I'm ready to have a couple weeks off from school and just slow down and enjoy the holidays with my people!

Happy birthday to Ainsley!

Ainsley Catherine, you are one year old!

Baby girl, this is a hard day. While we are excited to celebrate you, it’s painful and just downright not fair that your momma isn’t here for this day. For the past couple of weeks, every time I’ve thought about your birthday, it’s made me cry. You truly are a MIRACLE, Ainsley, and we are so glad you are here.

You are one year old and you are full of spunk!!!!! Here’s what we know about you at one:

• You are jabbering away and can say many words, including momma and dada, no, sorry, bye, uhoh
• You are walking with assistance and will be off and running any day.
• You are a speed demon with crawling.
• You can find anything on the floor and put it in your mouth in a nanosecond. Aunt Sarah forgot what it’s like with a little crawler around but you reminded me VERY fast when you visited my house.
• You are very adventurous and are a bit daring.
• You adore your daddy and big sister.
• You will NOT hold your bottle and it drives your daddy absolutely crazy.
• You love to climb.
• When your daddy tells you no, you look at him and smile.

We are looking forward to celebrating you this weekend, sweet girl! You are SO loved!

 

Hello, December

I am in some serious disbelief that we are in the last month of 2015. Where has this year gone? And how has my baby gotten so big????? He LOVES his jumper.

Tuesday night we had to go to a Christmas party for Zach’s work so my mom came over to stay with the kids. We got home a little past Ava’s bedtime, and I found her still awake cuddling with my mom. Look at that smile she has. :) 

Grant has just grown leaps and bounds lately, and is exploring his surroundings and new toys with more intensity. He’s been playing HARD at school the last week or so, and he comes home EXHAUSTED. He went to sleep by 7:00 almost every night last week, and if he didn’t go to bed that early, he took a nap before bedtime. I don’t hate the extra cuddles.

On Thursday, I had to pick up some groceries at Sam’s (we somehow ran out of almost everything last week), and I took this boy with me. He was happy to sample some chocolate cake as he rode along.  

After we left there, we got Grant and I took the boys home. Zach had to go to the Christmas concert at his school and he took Ava with him. Before they went there, they had a little dinner date together. I’m glad we make the effort to spend one-on-one time with the kids. I think it’s important that they have time with each of us on their own occasionally. 

Seriously – how big and how adorable is this baby????

On the weekends Grant typically takes long naps. I think he is trying to catch up from the week. He enjoyed a long snooze on his daddy Saturday. He was cozy cuddled up there. :)

Saturday night we had to go to a function at Zach’s school. It was an event with food and Reed pretty much started the food lines. haha! He was ready to eat and he ate like one piece of chicken and the rest he ate was rice. At least he enjoyed it, I guess.  

Sunday after church we had breakfast with Santa at school. The kids got to do all kinds of fun things and Grant was fascinated with Santa! He liked his fur on his coat and his beard!!!! :) He’s my first baby to NOT cry with Santa, even on their first year.

We have another busy week ahead of us, but plan to fit in more Christmas season fun!!!!

Catcing up

Well. Time is just disappearing at warp speed and we are BUSY BUSY so I haven’t had much time to write up. I have a few things I want to share, so I’ll attempt to catch up fairly quickly. The rest of December looks as though it will be just as busy as the first week has been so I’ll probably be posting somewhat infrequently.

So, last time I wrote, I left off at our anniversary. Ava was intent on making us breakfast in bed, which she did all on her own. It was incredibly sweet. She also wrote us a card and put 22 cents in it and told us we had to share it. ha! She also recorded us opening the card! :)

That night, we got a sitter that night and went out to dinner. We had a good time taking some time to stop and celebrate us.

I totally flaked and took ONE picture on Thanksgiving. One. And it was this:

On Thanksgiving night, I went Black Friday shopping for the first time ever. I met up with my friend Brockette and we hit a few stores. I had so much fun with her and we managed to snag some amazing deals!

On Friday, Stephen and the girls stopped by to watch the Razorbacks. They may not have looked it, but the girls had fun playing with our toys. Caroline asked to come back the next day! :)  

It rained from Thanksgiving night until the next Monday so we had lots of inside time and had to get creative with ways to pass the time.

We played lots of games.

We watched movies. 

I made up a silly game that made them take steps forward and back to see who could reach me first. Like, if you have blue on your underwear, take a step forward. They thought it was HILARIOUS.

While the rain went on for days, it came at the perfect time. We were able to stay home, stay cozy, and be lazy. It was a great holiday break!

Now, we’ve moved on to Christmas. How cute are these three?

I can’t believe I have three kids sitting in front of the tree this year!!!!!