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