Happy Birthday Brie!

A priceless moment...Nate saw Brie's picture, grabbed for it, kissed her lips while saying "buh, buh, buh" with a smile plastered across his face. I think he knows his sister...

It was so wonderful to celebrate Brie's birthday with Nate in our arms. We had to pass him around to keep us smiling. We were watching Brie's movie (the amazing movie from Kristi and Sean) that we absolutely LOVE. Ashlyn was a bit sad but Nate couldn't get a smile off his face during the whole movie. He must know that there is so much to be happy about when we think about Brie. Thanks for the good reminder, Nate.
The girls made cards and presents for Brie. Ashlyn went out in the yard and picked some flowers, and gave her a special crystal. Ashlyn made her a puzzle, too.

To make the day special, we spent time looking through our many pictures of Brie, and looking through her special box of things we saved...one of my favorites being the lock of hair we kept. We noticed Ashlyn holding Brie's lock of hair up to Ashlyn's...to see if the color matched. We made a special dinner...ANGEL hair pasta with chevre, grilled chicken, sun-dried tomato and asparagas...bruschetta with BRIE cheese, and ANGEL cake with berries and a lemon sauce.

We miss our sweet baby Brie and can hardly imagine the joy it will be to see her again! We love you Brie, and think about you every day!

Anne Frank, one of our heroes

Tonight the girls and I finished reading Anne Frank's diary. I was in tears at the end as I thought about this girl who suffered so much while hiding for over 2 years, and then died just 2 months before the war ended.

Sadie's favorite part of the book: Anne and Peter's romance. You should have seen the girls' faces when Anne told that Peter kissed her on the LIPS! They just about died. Sadie's eyes widened and a playful grin came up every time Anne talked about holding hands with Peter or their talks sitting by each other with their shoulders touching.

Ashlyn's favorite part of the book: Hearing the daily life of a 13 year-old girl. Even though Anne was a few years older than Ash, she loved hearing Anne's opinions about life, what she liked and didn't like, and she also enjoyed hearing about Anne's first real boyfriend.

My favorite part of the book: The reminder I had to be grateful that I can walk outside and enjoy nature, that I don't have to eat rotten potatoes for dinner every day, and that I can live my life without fear of being "taken" at any moment . Most of all, this book helped me put my own trials in perspective...life really isn't so bad.

The girls often talked about how happy they are that Anne is happy in heaven and isn't hiding any more. A moving book, indeed!

Emma for a day

Sadie got to be Emma during sharing time today. Her class did the sharing time, and she got to dress up as Emma and teach the kids about her husband, Joseph. Sadie brought lots of pictures and props to tell about Joseph's life. They split the primary into 4 little groups, and then Sadie got to take turns going around to each group to teach about her "favorite prophet" that she picked. She took the assignment so seriously and couldn't wait all week for sharing time. It was so cute to watch her tell about Joseph. Good thing we practiced ahead of time, because during our practice session, she was holding up the picture of Carthage Jail and said "Here, Joseph's daughter fell out of the window and died. Then Joseph fell out and died." I think she was confusing Eric Clapton's story with Joseph's.

Nate had a blast playing in the sink. He's doing alright these days...he puts up with the irrigations but doesn't always like being pinned down for so long. I don't think it hurts him, he just doesn't like the activity (don't blame him). He is MUCH clingier since all of this business has gone on. It's cute much of the time, but if I walk by Nate while he is being held by someone else, he will burst into tears if I keep walking (instead of stopping to hold him).

We got the fun idea from my friend, Jen. We made cells out of playdough . I didn't have any flour left to make playdough, so I scrounged up some rye flour that a friend gave me when she moved. You can see it is grainy playdough, but it still worked. The girls loved calling Daddy at work and asking him how many cells are in the human body?Ha! Daddy guessed wrong and they thought that was SO cool that they knew something he didn't!

The girls put on an outdoor play for me of Belle with fun dresses from Karla - thank you!

My boy is back

That's my Nate...smiling through the 15 minute irrigation process - first one we did on our own tonight!
The biopsy results showed that Nate does have Hirschsprung's disease. We hardly flinched, because his doctor had already pretty much planned on that news. The plan: irrigate him 2x per day ourselves, and if all goes well, Dr. Howell will do the surgery April 28 or 29. The "yikes" part of the day was when the P.A. told us that Nate will need to be in the hospital 2 days before the surgery (to get all cleaned out) and then stay 5-7 days after the surgery. That sounds so long to us! After the surgery we will spend the next month or so dilating Nate so the surgery site won't close up. Hopefully he will be good to go (literally GO, as in fly away to CA) at the end of May. He will need follow up care in St. Louis. The radiologist saw that Nate's hips looked a bit underdeveloped for his age, so next week he needs to see an orthopedic surgeon to get that checked out. If you ask me, he looks like a perfectly healthy baby...not sure what the problem is with these doctors who think he has things to be fixed. :)
At the doctor's office, Dave learned how to irrigate. (Note: the doctor asked which of us wanted to learn...I pointed right to Dave who has the hand skills. I would be way too nervous with the doctor watching my every move. It was not easy stuff.) Nate didn't like it at the doctor's office. I felt terrible thinking about Nate having to have this done two times every day. It looks SO uncomfortable. I spared you the pictures (mostly for you, Dad) but in a nutshell, we have an 18 inch catheter that goes about 12 inches into Nate's colon. We have a monster-size surringe that injects truck-loads of saline solution and then pulls out everything in his colon...EVERYTHING. We repeat this process about 25 times before he is totally cleaned out. The set-up and clean up for this is quite a process as well.

We braced ourselves after dinner for our first try at the at-home-irrigating. We heard one little squawk out of Nate and that was it. It was great having the girls around to distract him. The pictures aren't the greatest - we had some huge smiles, but they showed too much anatomy so I opted for the more modest pix. He was squealing and as happy as could be. I think he loved having Ash, Sade, Mom and Dad all around him cheering him on. I was on cloud 9 seeing how "ok" Nate was with the process. It's amazing what can make a mom happy after a week like we've had. I'm proud of you Nate! This is a 2-man job, so we'll be doing it around 5 a.m. every morning before Dave leaves for school - should be fun! If you're up and in the area, feel free to stop in for some fun.

I had to throw this picture in. Doesn't he look happy and healthy to you?

P.S. We have been told that the 3 pediatric surgeons (who always work as a team in the OR) are the best in the business and have been doing this for 30 years. That was great to hear! We were told by the P.A. who has worked with them for the past 18 years that we couldn't be in better hands.

One of those weeks...

Before I get to our long week, I loved this picture of Sadie and the turtle Dave and Sadie rescued that was about to cross the street. Ash and I were driving off to go to her music festival, and Dave, Sadie and Nate were getting ready to go on a date to the pet store. Who needs to go the pet store? We seem to attract pets! They brought the turtle in the yard but when they got back it had escaped back into the wild. Definitely Daddy's girl...not sure I would hold or look at a turtle like that. On to my poor Nate-baby. I know this isn't a flattering picture of me, but it says a lot of a sad and worried mama. Can you tell that Nate is in pain? He still looks so sweet to me even when he doesn't feel well. The last few days, this is his favorite position...and while he is in this position, he has a sigh/coo sound that melts your heart. He makes the sound over and over, the whole time he is on your shoulder. Many of you have already heard the story...so I'll keep it brief for those of you who haven't. Nate has always had trouble emptying his system...but so did our girls, so we didn't think much of it. One day, (after 12 days of not going and Nate stopped eating) we called the doctor. Within a couple of hours we were at the pediatric surgeon's office doing all sorts of tests. One x-ray showed high suspician of Hirschsprung's disease (no nerves in the rectum area). If this is the case (we should find out tomorrow) he will need a pull-through surgery to correct it. The five of us spent 7 hours in the hospital going from test to test and doctor to doctor. No fun for anyone. The next day Dave and I spent the day with Nate at the hospital while he was in the OR for 2 hours getting cleaned out and a biopsy taken. This picture above is in the morning before we headed out for the OR adventure...not my favorite day AT ALL! Nate was a trooper, but has had a hard time recovering from everything from the biopsy, a recovering colon (I've heard that can be quite painful as a colon shrinks back down to size), disgusting antibiotics 4x a day, etc. On top of it all, he came down with a cold the next day...no fun!!!
Baths are one thing that Nate loves - even when he is hurting. The night before the OR Nate was up much of the night in pain. At 6 a.m. I was taking the Nate-shift and decided to give him his favorite thing...a bath. This picture is of the poor kid who was just feeling so crummy!

We had Easter dinner at The Fillmore's house and this is Nate at the Easter egg hunt after dinner. It's nice to see Nate smile again. He is still having a hard time, but we are seeing a few more smiles come out.

So much for kids having cute, matching Easter outfits. Not this year. Sadie is wearing Ashlyn's spring dress from last year which is WAY too big but when she asked this morning, I didn't have any energy to care (was up most of the night with Nate last night). I whipped their hair together 5 minutes before church and then in the 2 minutes left got myself ready. At church I noticed Sadie wearing Ash's white tights...again, way too big! I looked a little bit recently for a cute Easter outfit for Nate, but never found anything I really liked. Oh well - he sure didn't care what he looked like today. Nate has taken center stage for a few days...and I figure that any baby that has to go to the OR and is having lots of owies gets to be held and snuggled lots more than usual.

Spoiled

Today I had a small mole removed at the dr's. office. I asked Dave if he might be able to watch the kids for me during the appointment a while back- he came back and told me that Col. Bisch gave him the whole day off to help me! Wow! What a fun surprise! Dave was thrilled to get the day off. The procedure took all of 1 minute and I realized that Ashlyn could have easily held Nate in the office - really it was no big deal. But it was such a fun day for us to have Dave home. I called home to let them know I was on my way and this is what I hear...Well, we just finished science and now we are on to physiology. Dave was doing school with the kids and they were all having a blast. They were doing science experiments while learning about acids and bases. They were learning about how ears work, the heart works, why our blood is red, the difference between veins and arteries, etc etc! Can I come to your school Dave? I know I would learn a ton.
I came home to find diagrams Dave drew of hydrogen ions and formulas, and then flashcards of the body (from dental school) out in the family room.

After I got home, Dave took the kids out so I could take a nap. I can't remember the last time I took an afternoon nap. Then later I was out on the couch. Sadie hopped up on the couch with me and asked if it would feel good to have a "backscratch on my bum". Yes, the bum is where my mole was removed. Then the girls wanted to bring me a snack on the couch. I wasn't hungry at all, but couldn't say no. They brought me a tray of cranberries, pretzels and marshmallows. I ate everything because they were being so sweet about it. Sadie asked if I wanted more...I tried to tell her I was full, but she was hoping so badly to serve me more, so I agreed to more. Now it's about dinner time and I'm not hungry at all!

Dave is getting dinner ready while I relax! It is a tiny bit sore, but definitely worth all of the good treatment I got today!

Too busy to blog...

What, you might ask, have we been too busy doing?
Making tissue paper flowers...
Curling hair to look like princesses... (minus Nate)
Making Jamie's veggie soup, making Nate's baby food, marinara sauce, hmmm...what else can I see there on my counter. I had to take this picture so Dave would believe me when I tell him what I did that day. No, I don't eat chocolate all day.
I have wanted to capture this face for a while. Whenever I go in to get Nate after his nap, his little head peeks up over the edge of the crib and he beams the biggest smile at me. He is so happy to see me and I am so happy to see him! I got another shot of just his eyes peeking over the crib...so cute!

Nate's been busy practicing sitting...his favorite position
"Grandpa John told us that if we are thirsty when it's raining, to just open our mouths and get a drink."
Having fun with Daddy...
Kissing Nate...that's my favorite hobby these days (Dave said if I put a picture of him on, I had to put one of me...so here it is.)
Doing school outside because the weather has been in the 70s all week and just perfect to be outside!