Say, "JingleBells!"

This year like usual we tried to take a cute Christmas photo in front of the tree to send out with our Christmas cards. The kids had other ideas though, and I had to laugh at some of the ones we ended up with... Above is the best one of the kids and below are the others... ha

The whole family has been passing around a cold and cough the last few weeks and Teagan finally caught it. We're constantly washing, purelling, not touching, etc... but I guess it was bound to happen! I took her in to the dr. yesterday to make sure it wasn't anything that needed medicine and it turns out she has an ear infection. So the dr. put her on amoxicillan sp? twice a day for 10 days. This should also resolve any other sort of respiratory infection she might have or develop from her cold too. Luckily she got her first rsv dose over a week ago, so hopefully we dodged that bullet!

My family is driving out here to Washington for the holidays all the way from St. Louis tommorrow! (They're crazy, I know!) We usually don't get to spend christmas with them because of the distance so its pretty exciting! We're praying they have a safe drive, and that Teag is feeling much better by monday when they arrive!

Snow Crazy....

We had our first snow of the season last night and today. There's only a few inches on the ground, but it counts right? Today was definitely a snow-crazy day! Teagan had an appointment with the dietician at 8am this morning which was way too early... We would have been on time but as I was backing out of the garage, I couldn't get the door to shut! After messing with it for 10 minutes in the freezing cold it finally closed and we were on our way. It was around 10 degrees when we left so I had the kids bundled up pretty good. So good in fact that Gav had a hard time sitting in his carseat, or putting his arms down! (think Christmas Story)

Later in the day we ran to the pharmacy and then to the grocery store before heading home for the day. As I pulled up to the house the school bus that drops the highschool kids off was parked directly in front of the driveway with the hazard lights flashing. Turns out that the bus had broken down and was unable to move! Parking on the street normally wouldn't be a big deal but our front yard is surrounded by a retaining wall and today had huge snow drifts blocking the whole thing. I had a car full of groceries and sleeping kids, but luckily we have a very nice neighbor who carried Gav while I had Teag and we climbed through the snow and up over the retaining wall to get in the house. This nice neighbor also carried all of the groceries and prescriptions to the front door for me! After getting the kids settled I started working on the biggest issue of the day- the dryer. Somehow a whole pack of blue mint gum ended up in the dryer last night and its not pretty. I spent the afternoon google-ing for ideas on how to get it out and then got to work!

Trent came home tonight and fixed the garage door, I got most of the gum out of the dryer and we ended the day with the kids playing in the tub together! After a crazy snow day, I'm ready for bed!

Elf yourself!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Thanksgiving and Santa!

We headed up north to Trent's parents house for Thanksgiving last weekend and had a great time. Trent had to work on turkey day so we got together with family and celebrated on Friday. Saturday we took the kids to the 'Christmas at the end of the road' festival in Winthrop and saw Santa! They usually close the pass over Hwy 20 by Thanksgiving, so Winthrop is literally 'the end of the road' until spring! It was fun watching the kids with Santa and listening to Gav talk to him. He wasn't scared at all, and hopped right into his lap. Teag was a little skeptical and kept looking up to see who was holding her...

We have so much to be thankful for this year that its hard to put into words. I'm feeling so blessed to be able to celebrate the holidays at home with two happy, and healthy kids. Thankful for our wonderful families and friends who have helped us in so many ways- we wouldn't have survived these last 8 1/2 months without you! Thankful for thousands of answered prayers, for wonderful husbands, and for laughs/giggles/screams from our two crazy little babes.

My lack of posting lately is due to our crazy schedule lately! Teag has weekly dr. appts. plus 2 days of physical therapy, 1 session of occupational therapy (eating) and a visit from home health. She also has various appts. for shots, dietician checkups, and trips to the pharmacy! This on top of all the regular things that go along with having a 3 yr. old and a baby make for some busy days! She's doing well though and continues to improve with her physical therapy and eating. Washington state is now officially in 'RSV' season so we got the call for Teag's first shot next week. I'll feel a little better once she's started those and built up some immunity.

Thank you all for checking in on us and for your continued prayers, we're looking forward to a fun Christmas at home!

Here's Teag sitting at Nana's counter like a big girl!

Gav and cousin Garrett out for a ride...

Teag can finally put weight on her legs and stand for a few seconds!

8 Months Old!

Teag turned 8 months old on friday and has been so happy these last few days. Our nights have been a little rough but hopefully once those bottom two teeth pop through things will get back to normal! Here are a few pics from this weekend. Happy 8 months teagee girl!

Big brother, little sister....

I caught Gav & Teag in one of those cute brother/sister moments tonight and had to share. Teag is finally getting big enough (and loud enough) that Gav has started to notice her more and 'play' with her. He talks to her about his toys, lets her hold his favorite trucks, and wants her to come in his room. I laid Teag on his bed for a minute while putting away the laundry and found them in the bed laughing tucked in together. So cute!

Tonight we went out for dinner with Uncle Cayle and Aunt Loren for Cayle's birthday. Gav loves them both so much and we all had a good time eating way too much bbq! Happy Birthday Uncle Cayle! Here they are 'striking a pose' only Gav forgot to look at the camera!

A brief appearance.....

The NG tube made a brief appearance over the weekend after 3 days of bad eating and throwing up. Teag just wasn't acting like herself and didn't want to eat very much at all. When I would try and get her to eat more, she would gag and throw up- sometimes just from looking at the bottle! I hadn't been feeling the greatest myself, so I assumed she was feeling like me and just didn't have much of an appetite. She just doesn't have the reserves to go for more than a day or two without eating alot so on Sunday night we put the tube back in. Thankfully, by Tues. evening she was able to eat enough on her own that we were able to take it out and get back to normal. I did enjoy the tube for giving meds though, thats the only part about the whole ng that is nice!
I took her in to the pediatrician on Monday just to rule out anything else that could be bothering her. Its always hard to know if its just a 'normal baby' thing or a heart issue when she seems a little off, and of course I always assume that its a heart issue.... Everything checked out ok though and the Dr. seemed to think that part of her not wanting to eat and crying at night is due to teething. Teething?! How nice if it really is something that simple!

Today we had our scheduled cardiology appointment which I was anxious about after everything thats been happening the last few days. Teag finally weighs 14lbs!!! Well, 14 lbs 1 oz to be exact! This was reassuring after our bad eating all weekend. Her sats were great also at 87 and her heart rate/bp were good too. After seeing all of her numbers looking so good, Dr. Toews decided not to do the echo which bummed me out a little. Its always nice to see whats happening on the inside, and know for sure how's she's doing. He didn't want to change any of her meds and we're not scheduled to go in again until January!

Teag's biggest issue of all lately is still her chest wound from her Sept. 9th surgery. It's still an open wound and not healed over yet. It has started to close some and scar but we still have a long way to go. I change her dressing and clean it daily which isn't fun for her, and lately has been causing her alot of pain. Its so frustrating to still be dealing with this almost 2 1/2 months after surgery. The pediatrician looked at it on Monday and said he wouldn't be surprised if it takes another 6-8 weeks to heal up. Everyone is in agreement that there will be a pretty significant scar left, but until its completely healed nothing can really be done to address that. The plastic surgery department at Children's told us to come back in a year and have her evaluated to see what needs to be done.

Here's miss 'itty bitty' sitting up like a big girl! Physical therapy is definitely making a difference and she can sit up for long periods of time by herself now!

Here's a picture of her chest wound today. Its still pretty bad, but actually much better than it was. The dr. said she was close to needing a skin graft in the beginning, so he's impressed with how its healing..... You can see where her skin has grown in filling the hole that used to be there. Now she just has those two open spots to work on before its healed over.

Itty Bitty

These were the words of the dietician on wed. when I asked how Teag looked for 8 months. "Itty Bitty" Not exactly what I was looking for considering that we spend most of the day figuring out new ways to get her to eat more! Most of the time Teag is able to weigh in right around the 5th percentile for age but now she's dropped to 0%! She is 8 months old in a week and weighed in at 13lbs 13oz gaining at a rate of about 1/4 oz per day. (They want her to gain 1 oz/day) The plan for now is to focus more on solids and try to give her 2-3 'meals' a day in addition to her formula. I know that putting the NG back in is always an option, but I don't even want to think about that yet...

The last few days Teag hasn't been feeling too well, extra fussy and throwing up 1,2 or even 3 times a day. I'm going to watch her over the weekend and see how she does, so far no fever and she's eating ok. She has a cardiologist appt. on wed. and I'm anxious to see how things look on the inside. Whenever she's acting a little off its hard not to think that its a heart issue.

Monday Teag has an evaluation for eating therapy. Then we'll start going once a week for that in addition to her twice a week physical therapy. She'll also get her first RSV shot of the season next week and see the cardiologist. Busy week!

Baby Mia!

I just wanted to post a quick note for all of you who follow our sweet heart friend baby Mia. Last night they got the call and right now she is in surgery receiving her new heart!!! Mia has been waiting 4 long months for her new heart and has been such a little fighter. Her mom Mimi is amazing and has been so strong and faithful as they've waited day after day for this day! Please keep Mia and her family in your prayers today that she will continue to be such a little trooper and that her body will accept her new heart! We're so excited for them and so grateful for the other family that made such a selfless decision in giving their baby's heart. Today IS the first day of Mia's new life!!! Yay for answered prayers!!! (you can follow her blog here)

Happy Sounds

Here's another recent video of Teagan. She's really been expressing herself lately and I finally caught a little bit of it on video! She makes us laugh with all of her new sounds. Teag screams and grunts alot but in a happy sort of way- here are a few of those 'happy sounds'! Sorry its a little blurry!

Santa for President

Gav has seen some of the campaign ads on tv and wanted to know who McCain and Obama are. So we had a '3 year old' discussion about how everyone is going to vote today for a new president. He thought about it for a moment and said,"I want Santa to be President! Then we can have presents today!" ha...

Here's a short video of T's new 'trick'! Now whenever you ask her a question she smiles and shakes her head no- to everything!

Halloween!

Halloween was so fun this year! Gav dressed up as a 'Lightening McQueen' race car driver and Teagan was a sweet pea! She actually loved her costume and was all smiles the whole night. Gav was really into trick-or-treating this year and we were out there for almost 2 hours! He had to have a whole conversation with every neighbor that opened the door! He'd say,"Hey guys! Trick or treat-ing!" "I'm a raaaace car driver!"
Teagan had her swallow study on friday and thankfully it went really well! I had to bring a few empty bottles for the barium and they strapped her into a foamy booster seat in the x-ray machine. I fed her barium in different thicknesses to see how she swallowed and then we mixed some barium into a jar of baby food pears and fed her that. She hated the taste of all of it but swallowed enough down for the tech to get the pictures needed. It was determined that she isn't aspirating at all (yay!) and that she has a little reflux. We knew about the reflux and she is already taking Zantac for it so the tech didn't think we needed to make any changes. We will be seeing a speech therapist/feeding specialist starting next week though to see if we can get Teag to eat more. Right now there is no talk of needing the NG tube back in (yay again!) but she's not gaining much weight at all. So hopefully the therapist will have a few new tricks to help us pack on the pounds!

Halloween here we come!

I was looking back at the last few years of Halloween pics tonight and thought I'd share. This year will be Gav's 4th Halloween! (and Teagan's first of course!) I'll be sure and take lots of pictures tommorrow night, but for now here's a look back at our last 3....

Here's Gav at 1 1/2 months old, 'scared pumpkin' --2005

Dinosaur/Dragon? 1yr. 1 month old--2006

Happy Horse! 2yrs. 1 month old--2007

Teagan has her swallow study tommorrow at 1pm. I'm a little nervous even though she's now eating by mouth without the tube. I'm just praying that everything goes well and that there will be NO talk of going back to the NG tube!

Enjoying Fall, Gearing up for Winter!

Last week the whole family went in for flu shots. Trent had gotten one at work earlier in the week so he thought he was just going for support. Little did he know that the Dr. wanted him and I both to get a TDAP booster (Tetanus, Diptheria & Pertussis) sp? To protect Teag from Whooping Cough since we hadn't had that shot in quite awhile. Gav was a little trooper and so was Teag- the whole family combined got 6 shots! (Teag and I both got 2, and the guys one each) Now we're all geared up for the winter flu season.... Next month Teag will get her final 4 month shot and her first RSV vac. of the season.

We spent a beautiful day at the park with the Allred's on Friday. The boys loved playing together at the Playground of Dreams and Katie and I had a good chat. We even put the girls in the swings together for the first time! They loved swinging back and forth and watching the crazy boys run around!

This week we've also carved pumpkins, made Halloween cookies, made too many messes to count, and played in the leaves! Tommorrow Teag has a physical therapy evaluation at 8 am. I'm interested to see what ideas they have for me to help with her strength. She has no interest in putting any weight on her legs at all. She loves to kick them all over but won't even try to stand up on my lap or jump in her Johnny Jumper. She's also not rolling over on her own yet- I actually think she might sit up on her own first!

Teag is 7 months old!

Teagan is 7 months old today! This last month seems like it flew by! Here are a few pics from this week and some new milestones for Teag:

-She's getting much better at taking some solids. She hates rice cereal but LOVES bananas and arrowroot cookies! We've also tried sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, peas (not a fan), apples and pears.

-She's had her NG tube out now for almost a week and we're all loving it! The bottle feeding isn't amazing, but she seems to be eating enough for now. Along with that, she no longer sleeps on a wedge because we're not tube feeding her at night. Now that she gets to lay flat with no tube in, she sleeps like a rock! -Speaking of sleeping.... I give her the last feed of the day around 12 midnight and then let her go as long as she wants until her next feeding. Some nights she'll actually sleep until 7:30am!!

-She is sitting really well in her bumbo seat, and also propped up on the floor with pillows. She can roll from tummy to back and almost back to tummy.

-Her favorite word to babble is 'Dadda'! All day off and on you hear dadda dadda daaaaada!

This week we're supposed to all go in for a flu shot and Teagan is due for her 4 months vaccines. (yes 4 month, we're really behind!) Her RSV shots begin next month and she'll get one per month for the whole cold and flu season until April. The kids and I have passed around a pretty nasty cold since we got back from the wedding. Teag seems to be handling it ok, she's just a little stuffy in the morning and at night. I've been running a humidifier in her room at night and its beginning to feel like the rain forest in there!

Next week I'm supposed to take Teag in for an evaluation to see if she's behind enough with her physical development to need therapy. Also, on the 31st she's scheduled to have her first swallow study. I take her to the hospital imaging department and they have her swallow barium and watch it on the x-ray to see how she swallows. I'm not sure why they're wanting to do it now after 7 months and I'm hoping no new issues come up. I feel like we've finally conquered the NG tube AGAIN and I don't want to ever go back!

Today is also my brother Brian's birthday- the big 21! He gave up 4 weeks of his summer this year to come here to Washington and help me with the kids and house while Trent was working. He's an awesome uncle and we all love him! Happy Birthday Uncle Brian!