Home again, Home again

Well we are home! YEAH!!! We got back on Thursday, mid morning. Everything went really well on the trip home, no problems. Kaedra was THRILLED to be home. She immediately wanted to get on the floor and play! We let her down and she played and played and played, basically until she fell over exhausted.

It was wonderful to be home with the girls again. I don't know how many times Brittany has told me that she is glad we are home....at least 10 times a day! Emmy and Britt were so excited to see their sister, too, and have been lavishing her with attention. We have been swimming everyday since being home. AAAAAHHHHH a pool....I love it!

Britty and I went to work day at our church this Saturday. I helped wash the windows (I am the tallest woman, so I did all the really tall windows from the top of a ladder) and swept floors. Brittany scraped stucco and paint off the floors in preparation for the carpet and she helped wash windows as well. It was a lot of fun to help out and I loved seeing the church again! It has BEAUTIFUL chandeliers!!! They are wrought iron, a copperish color, and they are beautiful. The children's rooms are painted so neat, with great blues in different shades. I love the whole place. I can't wait for it to open!! We will be taking Kaedra there regularly as soon as it opens!! WOOHOO!! That will be SOOO exciting!! And it is only a little more than a mile down the street!

Church yesterday was awesome, both times! I know part of it was how hungry I was for The Word, being away from it for two weeks. I went to prayer time on Saturday night, too, and it was just such a blessing to be able to pray for everyone's needs! I can't find my church notebook, which is a little disturbing. It has my really cool highlighter with 9 colors in it and all my notes from church this year. It also has other stuff like stamps and envelopes from the trips, but I really just miss the notes and the highlighter. I am hoping I didn't leave it in San Antonio or on the plane. The great thing is that the Holy Spirit knows where it is and He will bring it to my remembrance!

Coming Home

We are coming home tomorrow!!! WOOHOO!!! The ambulance is picking Kaedy up at 8am and we should be back in Tulsa by 1030am, if we get the lear jet again!! YEAH!!! We get to take her straight home, no more hospital visits for right now!! I am soooo ready!! After nearly a week in hospital beds and hospital showers, I can't wait for home!!!! :-)

She is doing marvelously!! She stayed up last night a few hours and I got to see lots of late night television like Judge Joe Brown (who really should quit pretending to judge and just become a comedian because that is what he thinks he is!!!) and infomercials. I also didn't know that you could see Jay and Conan again in the middle of the night! Oh what you learn on late night/early morning TV. HAHA.

We don't have ANY nursing scheduled until Sunday morning. Not even nights. I am excited about going home, but not excited about getting up all night to feed her and give her treatments. AAAGH. I might actually have to act like a "real" mommy and take care of my baby full time!! HAHA

Thank you to everyone for your prayers. See you soon!!!

After Surgery Update

Okay, Kaedy is out of surgery! The surgery went very well and was really really quick. They came out to tell us that she was in surgery and about 10 minutes later the doctor came out and told us she did great!

The expansion was about 3cm for one of the devices and 1cm for the other device. It increased her lung volume by 15%!! It also straightened her spine which had curved some with only one side being allowed to grow.

They want to see her back in 6 months.

So now she is recovering and we will go home as soon as she is ready! WOOHOO!!

Thanks for everyone's prayers!!!

Update from San Antonio

Well we are here in San Antonio. Let me catch everyone up to date...

We went into St. John's hospital in Tulsa Friday evening. They had a bed set up for me in Kaedy's room so I was able to room in with her. I went home for awhile on Saturday to pack (since I hadn't known I could spend the night) and I also went and got all my hair chopped off. I really didn't like my "mullet" and I was unable to make it look otherwise, even though my hairdresser could make it look beautiful. Also, I HAD to do it everyday or else it looked really awful. Now I don't have to do it at all and it looks fine. It was a big shock for the girls and Michael but both girls said it looked better than before. I don't really know what Michael thinks, he is being very polite though. LOL! It is much easier for hospital upkeep.

Kaedra did not like being in the hospital at all. She wanted her nurses whom she was signing for by name and she did not like all the procedures being done on her. She ended up crying everytime anyone walked in the room for any reason. She also did not like not being able to get down on the ground and play. We did take her to the playroom for about 1 1/2 hours on Saturday and she LOVED that. She was just mad at not being allowed on the dirty hospital floor in her room! Just when she started to get used to everything, it was time to take her to San Antonio. She slept in the ambulance (and yes, Alison, I WAS following the right ambulance!!!! ROFL) and about half of the trip. She woke up probably somewhere over Dallas and commenced flirting with our EMT, Seth. She REALLY liked him. We got her onto the ambulance here in San Antonio and followed them to the hospital here and got her in her room with no problems. Unfortunately, Seth will not be on our plane ride home. :-( We had a great nurse named Wende, who Kaedy warmed up to as well and she WILL be with us on the way home, so that is good.

Once we were in the room, a nurse came in and took her vitals and then we were immediately whisked off for xrays and a ct scan. She wasn't too happy about being made to sit and lay still for so long, but she was a trooper. We came back up to our room just as she was needing to be suctioned. When we got to the room, we didn't have any suction catheters or saline and the suction machine was not hooked up properly. I grabbed a suction catheter from her "to go" bag and started to glove up while Michael went in search of saline. He also asked if our ambu-bag was hooked up and they said it was. When he got in the room, he found that the ambu-bag was not hooked up and it also ended up being adult sized, rather than baby sized. (Our ambu-bag which we brought with us would not fit onto their equipment) We could not find a nurse button to call a nurse and Kaedra was desatting fast. Michael went back to the nurses station to get someone and they ended up coming in and bagging her awhile with the wrong size bag and arguing with us over how she was doing. (Kaedy was satting in the low 60s and was turning blue) She had a MASSIVE plug blocking her airway. I couldn't even get the saline down her trach, it just sat in her trach, not going anywhere. We FINALLY got RT up there and they helped us and Kaedra ended up fine. After this all happened, I broke down and cried and cried and cried (and cried) which I haven't done since Kaedra got Trach'd 1 1/2 years ago! Michael ended up yelling at everyone and anyone who would listen about how the room was not set up for a trach'd baby and they had not been ready for her. Our nurse had never introduced herself, never shown us where the nurse call button was, never gone over anything with us. We were both really really upset. (We also learned our lesson about trusting hospital staff to know what they are doing and having everything we need.)

Needless to say, after all of that, we have been treated like royalty. They have bent over backwards to make sure that everything is okay now. We were apologized to by many many people and told that they would do anything to make our rough start better. The initial problem was that the nurse should have called RT as soon as we got there so they could get us set up. RT did not have us on their list, for some reason, of babies coming in. Anyway, things are going better now. They had a couch brought in for me to sleep on in Kaedra's room and it has a bathroom and a closet in it. It is a large room. The child life specialist is looking into finding us some mats to put on the floor so Kaedra can play there. I can't wait to get her surgery over and get back home.

Kaedy's surgery is scheduled for about 9am. The actual surgery will take approx 15 min, but she will be back with them for about an hour. Then she will come back up to her room and she will recover for a day or two and then we will come home. We are REALLY hoping we may be able to come home Wednesday, but they say that is unlikely since she is on a vent.

She isn't smiling much, isn't talking at all and will only sign a little bit (usually when no one is around). I miss my happy-go-lucky little one!! I also miss my other two precious girls.

Okay, that is it. I will update again after the surgery. I don't have all of my email addresses here so if you read this, please let other people who would want to know about it know it is up so they can have updates too! Thanks!

On our way!

Just a really quick note to let everyone know that we are almost on our way to San Antonio. Kaedra went into the hospital last night, here in Tulsa, for some pre-op testing. She also got switched to c-pap again on her vent (no breaths per minute). She is doing great on that! She HATES being in the hospital and is not enjoying a bit of it. Please pray for us all in the next few days - I just can't wait to get this over with! I don't know how much I will be online or able to check my mail while we are gone, but I will send out an updat if I can. If I can't, I will have a friend do it! Soooo we jetting off tomorrow morning in a lear jet to get Kaedra some longer titanium ribs! We will be back on Thursday!

Ciao for now!

I started Saxon K Phonics with Emily and she loves it. I can't ever give her enough worksheets to work on!! I wish Saxon came out with a supplementary huge workbook to give the kids for "busy" work. I am getting tired of printing things out! And my printer is pretty mad at me, it is very overworked right now!! Here is a page with a lot of good printables for the alphabet: The about.com family craft page.

Brittany is over at my mil's house doing a "good deed" today. She has been rather selfish lately so each day this week she is doing something for someone else. She is helping Grandma today, washing Ria's car tomorrow, doing something for Daddy on Friday, helping out at church on Saturday. We are also doing a bible study on Brotherly Kindness. I have already noticed a difference in her, just in 1 1/2 days!

We leave in just a few days for San Antonio. Kaedra goes in the hospital here in Tulsa on Friday night. If there is a bed available, I would like to stay with her. She definitely isn't going to like being in a room all by herself during the day, so I will be staying with her for that!






Shooky and Tempe are getting along great!

Saturday Sixteen #2

My Sixteen Favorite Books

1. The Bible, obviously

2. When the Day of Evil Comes by Melanie Wells (the sequel is coming out this month!!!! WOOHOO) (Christian Fiction suspense)

3. Though the Darkness Hide Thee by Susan Wise Bauer (who also happened to write my next favorite) (Christian Fiction Suspense)

4. The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and her mom Jesse Wise (homeschool, non fiction, classical education book)

5. Prayers that Avail Much 3 volume set by Germaine Copeland (Christian, non fiction, prayers)

6. Left Behind (the first one) by Jerry Jenkins (Christian fiction apocalyptic)

7. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (Romance time travel - not my usual fare)

8. HTML 4.0 For Dummies - taught me how to do a web page! (non fiction, how-to)

9. Babyface : A Story of Heart and Bones by Jeanne McDermott (non fiction story of baby born with facial deformities, great book, esp for mother's who have had any kind of medical challenges with their children. However, not from a Christian perspective...I will have to write that one!!!)

10. Ancient History: From Adam to Messiah by Robin Sampson (non fiction, homeschool curriculum, but one of the best books about bible history, geography and traditions that I have ever read)

11. Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp (non fiction, child raising)

12. The Heart of Anger by Lou Priolo, John Mac Arthur, and Jay E. Adams (non fiction, child raising)

13. This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti (Christian Fiction, suspense)

14. Piercing the Darkness by Frank Peretti (Christian Fiction, suspense)

15. King Bidgood's in the Bathtub (and he won't get out) by Audrey and Don Wood (Children's fiction) Also love the Napping House by them.

16. We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Helen Oxenbury and Michael Rosen (Children's fiction)

Saturday Sixteen

Since Brandi did the Friday Fifteen (which I also had planned on doing!! GMTA)I decided to do the Saturday Sixteen! :-)

Sixteen of my favorite homeschool memories so far

1. Making a crime scene for Britty to figure out

2. Going to the zoo just for a nature walk

3. Doing the nature walk behind my mil's house

4. The day Timmy and Brittany pretended they were Da Vinci and laid under a table to paint paper on the bottom of it.

5. Farm day at the Neals when Britty was little.

6. When we made a living Nile River in a kitty litter box.

7. Miquon Math

8. Our whole Da Vinci unit study which was supposed to be 2 weeks, but ended up 8.

9. Our new curriculum, Ancient History: From Adam to the Messiah.

10. Saying the pledge of allegiance every day!

11. When we got our cheap microscope to work and we looked at everything we could find under it.

12. The different plays Britty has been in.

13. When Emily finally got the name of the "L"

14. The homeschool Aquarium day where we got the private class

15. Making the Kaleidescopes at the glass store!!!

16. Ancient Egypt night at the Neals (even though we had to leave VERY early and got there late!!!)

Wonderfully Made

My friend Melanie made me this very special video. It is such a testament of what God has done in Kaedy's life. Thank you sooooo much, Mel!!!






(she can do one with your pics, too!!! email me and I will get you her details)

Happy Birthday Emily!!!

Today is Emily's Birthday - 5 years old!!! WOW!!! She is at that REALLY fun age...Okay, I admit it, I think every age is really fun. But I really love 5 year olds because they are so eager to learn and they try to be so grown-up but they are still little kids!

Five years ago today, I was induced at Southcrest Hospital. I had a very easy and quick labor. I did have an epidural about 2 hours after being induced and then had Emily an hour later. During my labor I played gin with Michael and he beat me. (He can only beat me at gin when I am in labor!!!) When she was born, they pretty much let me have her right away. She was not a beautiful baby. She looked exactly like her Daddy. We called her mini-Michael for awhile. Around 2 years old she started losing the Daddy look and gaining more of my looks. She is very very pretty now and it is hard to see any resemblance to the mini-Michael in the early pictures.

She was colicky in the beginning and I used to dance with her to calm her down. Almost every evening during dinner time, we would dance around and sing and she would get quiet. I remember in the summer, when I was dancing outside, the neighbors would look over the wall and watch us. Soon they got used to the sight and began looking forward to seeing her out there in the evenings.

She was the apple of her Paw-Paw's eye and he lived to see her first birthday. He was having a rough year, that first year of her life, but he loved to see her and love on her.

At this point in time, she says she wants to live with Mommy and Daddy forever. (isn't she sweet????) She wants to grow up and be a princess weather girl. She does seem to have the princess part down and she HAS to check the weather every day at least two times. She is planning on marrying Jacob Zirkle (the pastor's grandson) but they are going to live with us and they are going to have lots of kids that they will homeschool. Of course, this isn't going to be at this house, but at our next house: The Farm. There she and Jacob will ride horses all the time, in between her princess and weather girl duties. (I guess she expects me to school the kids??)

Anyway, she is so much fun and such a sweetie, too. She loves to take care of people and surprise people with doing something for them. She has such a servant's heart. She loves church, loves our pastor and grasps the concepts of church better than a lot of adults I know. In fact, she is the first to pray for anyone who is sick or hurting and when she hears someone died she immediately says "Yah! Now they are in heaven!!"

Happy Birthday Peanut!!! We love you!!!