Thursday, January 29, 2009

Sancticty of Life

Friends of ours (actually one of our dear nurses who cared for Kathryn in the Brookwood NICU) emailed me a few weeks back asking permission to use some pictures of Kathryn for something at her church. It's called Sanctity of Life Sunday and it was this past January 20,2009. This is a day to celebrate the life that each one of us is given by our Creator. Our friends made a beautiful slide to share with their church family on this important day and I wanted to share this slide with you.

For this child I have prayed! I Samuel 1:27

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Great accomplishments

Again, getting terrible with regular updates!

Kathryn is now walking without holding on. About two weeks ago, she completely let go and is walking full force. She actually sometimes appears to run! She does say mama now and we are fairly certain that her first "official" word that she is calling out correctly is when she calls our dog, Bailey. She runs to the back door and says "Bay Bay". Funny that this would be her first word since Bailey is primarily an outside dog.

She is doing very well without the oxygen and has even had two days of 8 hours or more off of it. She had a cardiology appointment on Tuesday the 20th and they told us that her heart looks just fine and we can start to ween the viagra! This past Monday, we went for our BPD checkup and they officially told us that Kathryn could go to nights only on oxygen as long as she was doing ok throughout the day. That is a huge step!! They also told us that we could start to ween the viagra, so for the next two weeks she is on only three doses a day and if she has no adverse complications (don't worry, they told us what to look for), then after two weeks she will go to just two doses a day until we go back in March. If all looks good in March, we will go to one dose a day for two weeks and then discontinue the viagra!!!! So by mid April, she could be viagra free!!!! Please pray for that! Also, in March if she has been doing well with the nights only oxygen, then we can start to talk about weening her off of nights for her oxygen and she may be oxygen free by May!! We are obviously excited about these possibilities and are prayerful that she stays extremely healthy right now. As we saw this past Thanksgiving, one little cold can send her back on oxygen, so we will be praying for great health for Kathryn right now!!

Maddie is head first into school. They are learning their phone numbers and their addresses. She has grown up to be such an impressive five year old. We have real conversations and she is such a help with her sister. And my how the two of them adore each other. I actually think that Kathryn probably loves Maddie the most of any of us. Sister bonding is pretty neat to watch.

Greg is staying busy at work and is travelling a little bit. Mostly in state, but yesterday he took a trip to Texas. The weather was icy, so his trip ended up being a 6:00 am flight to Dallas airport, waiting all day in the airport since his second flight was cancelled, and turning around to fly home at 3:00pm. We are just thankful that he is staying very busy right now because in this economy construction can very easily be placed on the backburner. My job is actually pretty hectic right now. I am on a big project so I am working extra hours and am very ready to get back to my normal hours.

We are taking the girls to the circus this coming Saturday night and Maddie can't wait. I can't wait to see how Kathryn responds to everything. Maddie was about her age when we took her the first time, so hopefully she will enjoy it!

Take care! Faithfully,
Kelly

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Christmas Pictures - Finally!


Playing at McWane.


Christmas morning and toys with Santa.



Maddie's Barbie house from Santa.




Maddie and her Christmas jammies!



Maddie and her Pawpaw!

Monday, January 12, 2009

Our new year so far. . .

So you can tell that the blog is taking a backseat lately. We have been so busy or so busy resting from being busy. Here's our world in a nutshell lately.

Kathryn:
Now walking. She still cruises mostly along furniture, but she has taken as many as 20 steps in a row unassisted. She seems VERY proud of herself with this new accomplishment. The teeth are still busting through and the bottom two are much more visible now. No new ones though. Food is becoming more interesting - yea!! Her favorite foods are meats (even steak), cheese, squash, crackers, and last night we finally had success with our first fruit - banana. Not really a vegetable or fruit eater yet though. Her OT to improve her eating is going well and is now once a week since her eating is such an important issue to gaining weight, dropping the oxygen, and becoming healthier. Oxygen is still with us, but we are trying to start weening again. She did an hour off of it two days last week. I am pretty sure that she finally said mama last night too! Of course, she wasn't calling me that yet, but it was nice to hear her finally say the "ma" sound so that I know that she can say mama.

Madelyn:
She started back to school on Jan 5 and is now 9-2 instead of 9-1. I guess it is getting her ready for big girl school in the fall. She really likes it and they are learning sooo much. She is becoming one smart cookie and is spelling, reading a few words, and writing like crazy (many times the same words over and over because that's what she knows). She still supposedly has the same "boyfriend" and just adores Alex Redmond, although some days he seems a little in competition with Jackson and Josh that are in her class.

Greg and I:
Back to work. Trying to be more healthy and shed the extra pounds we put on through the crazy past year and half living in and out of hospitals. We had the opportunity this past weekend to have a "date" and attend a baby shower and then go to a movie while the girls spent the night with Nini and Pawpaw. We saw Seven Pounds - very good but a little depressing. It was very nice to sleep restfully, but getting them both out for the night took a small army for all the equipment!

I promise to get new pictures posted soon!

Kelly

Friday, January 2, 2009

So I was tagged

Here is the 4th picture in the 4th folder from my computer. Wow! What a difference from fall 2007 to January 2009! I have humbly decided to not pass the tag along because so many of us have already been tagged!! Enjoy.
By the way, the cannula in this picture is the same size as the one Kathryn wears today. Kinda puts things in perspective, huh? I'll put her current picture just below this one so you can compare!
Kelly