Always and Forever a Family: July 2014

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Watching Her Grow....

When I got back from the hospital last night, Chad had this waiting for me...

Look at our girl!

The chubby cheeks, the ever-present pout, and that adorable "outie" belly button...

So. So. In love.

I know its a long shot, but I would LOVE to meet her someday.

World Vision does offer trips where you can go and meet your child.

Going to see her would be such a joy.

To hug her, to meet her family, to see the little part of the world we've been praying over...Wow.

Maybe someday.

Here's the update:

She is in satisfactory health (the top rank) and received some vaccines

She is too young to go to school, but helps around the house by hauling water and sweeping.

She likes to jump rope with her two friends Sehembizo and Motsoanyane.

Malehloa is also quite the artist:

Emmett's Adventure

Holy cow.

Emmett has been put through the wringer the past few days, and he has taken us with him!

Rather than explain it, I'm just going to copy in Lindsay's FB updates:

"Sorry for the late update- it's been a crazy 24 hours! The doctor at Urgent Care just did a strep test and when it came back positive she assumed the strep was causing all of the problems and sent us home. We took Emmett back to ER last night because his pain increased and he started vomiting and couldn't keep down his antibiotics. We were there from about 12:30am until 7:30am. Poor baby has barely slept at all in the last 24 hours because he's in a lot of pain. After a lot of waiting and tests he received a diagnosis of abdominal colic (a chronic thing we didn't know he had) that was greatly aggravated by the strep. It caused his intestines to go spastic, which then caused an intestinal blockage. They were able to flush the blockage and his pain seemed to get better. They sent us home around 7:30, we got back around 8am. At 11am we got a phone call from a pediatric doctor at the Mercy ER. Emmett's x-ray showed a spot in his intestines where the intestine kind of collapsed/folded in on itself. The doctor said we needed to bring him back in ASAP to re-evaluate him and see if it would require surgery or additional treatment. This was a bit of a shock since he had been asleep and seemingly without pain since we left the hospital. We brought him back in and they did an x-ray. The x-ray showed that the intestine had fixed itself (Thank you, Jesus!) so they thought we could go home. He hadn't had a severe pain episode in a few hours. He also hadn't been allowed to eat or drink anything so when we found out that we could go home we gave Emmett the drink of Gatorade that he had been begging for all day. We were walking out of the hospital and he started having some pains again. They told us to stay again while his doctor consulted with another doctor. They decided we were still probably safe to go home so we left again. It was almost 4:00 and we hadn't eaten all day so we stopped by Bread Co on the way home where Emmett ate a little bread. At Bread Co he started having the pain episode again and they have continued every 5-15 minutes since then. He can't sleep and isn't interested in eating or drinking. His pain comes back and is much worse after he takes a drink or a bite of food. We are debating bringing him back to ER or heading to Children's Hospital or Cardinal Glennon. We are dreading the though of going back to ER for the 3rd time (Not counting the trip to Urgent Care) but poor Emmett is miserable. He has also started vomiting again, which means none of his meds are staying in his system. Prayers for guidance and healing are GREATLY appreciated!" 7pm Saturday night

and:

"Emmett is out of surgery and finally sleeping. Everything went smoothly. They did find a hernia on his left side that will need to be surgically repaired at a later date. (With the strep and stress his body has been under it wasn't worth the risk to fix today) If he shows remarkable improvement tomorrow he may get to go home tomorrow night, or it could be a day or two before he is released. It all depends on pain control and his ability to tolerate food. His fever also needs to go away before we can go home. He has been very scared and agitated the last few hours but is FINALLY sleeping. We've only had about 3 hours of sleep in the last day and a half so we are praying he sleeps well tonight. We are in room 3218 of the pediatric floor. Thank you SO much for all of your prayers. They are working!" 1 am Monday morning

Finally:

"We are home and absolutely thrilled to be here! Within 10 minutes of getting home Emmett grabbed a couple of swords and told us he was a ninja power ranger and had to go "get the bad guys" so I'd say he's feeling pretty good! I just want to take a moment to thank you all SO SO much for all of your words of encouragement, offers to help and, most of all, prayers. It was very obvious to us that God's hand was in every minute of this past weekend and we could feel your prayers on our behalf. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Emmett went from emergency middle of the night surgery to being discharged from the hospital to being a "ninja power ranger" in less than 24 hours so I think it's safe to say your prayers worked!" 10pm Monday night

The picture below was from his second trip to the ER (Saturday night/Sunday morning)

On the plus side, I got to hang out with this cool guy after church on Sunday and again on Monday night!

This was Emmett about 12 hours post-op.

He was on some pain meds, and hitting himself in the head with this toy gun and laughing.

But finally it wore him out and he got to catch up on sleep!

Monday afternoon, he got moved from the PICU to Peds and we played in the play room and FINALLY got him to eat, which is one of the criteria for going home.

We were all pleasantly surprised when he was discharged around 7:30 last night!

Little guy had been begging to go home since before surgery.

...and since we haven't heard from them yet this morning, I hope they are all still sleeping!

Saturday, July 5, 2014

Sprinklers and Sprinkles!

We got the chance to have the nephews over today so that their parents could go to the ball game.

The goal was to fill them with sugary treats and then have them play so hard that they would be exhausted and fall asleep when they get home!

We had macaroni and cheese for lunch.

Then it was time to play in the sprinkler.

Emmett wasn't as thrilled by the sprinkler as his brother!

Landon LOVED the sprinkler!

Favorite photo.

Emmett warmed up to it a little if someone would go with him!

And he felt the need to show us his muscles!

Playing is hard work!

Operation: Wear out the nephews... 50% complete!

And then he got up so that he could have a popsicle!

They LOVED when "Unca Swad" came out to play with them!

Next it was time to load up on sugar!

Don't worry Lindsay, we limited them to just a few!

Never enough sprinkles

Landon was fine with Dolly as long as she was in the crate!

They loved to pet her!

"Do you wuv me, Puppy Dowwy? Do you wuv me? I wuv you!"

He kept saying this ALL day.

Emmett is in LOVE with Dolly. He wanted to play and snuggle and get kisses from her all day!

He even kissed her goodbye!

Sweet, sweet memories!

Friday, July 4, 2014

Churchill Downs!

We got to go to the historical Churchill Downs!

They move the gates for certain races, and these ended up right in front of us!

At horse races, the better seats are those higher up!

(I guess it makes sense, although it seems the opposite)

We went into the gift shop and I looked into buying a hat however, I am not about to pay $90 for a hat!

Seriously, this place was MASSIVE!

We left when it started to rain!

Looavul, Luhvul, Loueville...Whatever you call it!

One week ago today, (except for a few hours), we were officially on "vacation".

I use quotes because:

1. Is it a vacation if your husband has required meetings at 8am every morning?

2. My list of prime vacation spots doesn't really include Louisville; or Kentucky at all, for that matter.
(for the record, Louisville is awesome and totally changed my mind about there being "nothing" there!)

Anyways, last Wednesday night we started our "vacation" off by going to see Tarzan at the Muny.

Any time we go we sit in the free seats with our snacks and drinks from home, so the only true expense is gas. We call this Five-Dollar Date Night.

The best part was since we left early due to the heat and an early start the next morning, we didn't feel guilty about wasting money on tickets. (Seriously, free Muny seats are probably one of my favorite things about an STL summer!)

Bright and early Thursday morning, we took Dolly to my parents' and we headed to Louisville.