out of surgery

Kelly was out of surgery and to her room shortly after noon. Bill and I were finally able to see her about one this afternoon. We talked with her surgeon and he said everything went well. We had to laugh a little bit because he commented 3 times about how large her VSD was. That was the hole between the bottom chambers of her heart. They also closed an ASD, which was small and closed her PDA value. Kelly is doing well right now. The goal is to have her off the vent by the end of the day. She was a little bit uncomfortable a while ago so they gave her some more medicine to make her sleepy again. So we are waiting for what the doctor says next. Hopefully by the end of the day we are able to hold our sweet girl!

She looks so sweet. It is so hard to not just pick her up and snuggle her but we can't, at least while she is on the vent. It was kind of hard to watch her wiggle around and cry with no sound. But soon we will be snuggling with our sweet, sweet girl. Hopefully the next pictures I post of Kelly will be without the vent coming out of her mouth.

off to surgery

We were up bright and early again this morning. Kelly girl has really been amazing! She had nothing to eat since mid-night and I woke her up at 5:45 and girlfriend was full of smiles. She was a happy girl in the pre-op room and eventually snuggled up on Bill and went to sleep. They came and got her about 7:30 and surgery officially started at 9:08. Surgery will be about 3 hours so it will be about 12 before she is done. I will try to post later today about how everything went and how Kelly girl is doing. Thanks again to everyone for praying for our sweet girl. I opened my Bible a few minutes to the Psalm's and started flipping through pages. This was what my eyes landed on first: Psalm 28:7- The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song. And then I flipped a pages and read this: Psalm 62:5 Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. v. 8 Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. I love how God put those words in front of me this morning! In days like this we expect and hope for everything to go well it is far more important for me to remember that God is my refuge and strength and my heat trusts in the One who formed and created sweet Kelly.

Sweet girl sleeping this morning. I had to take a picture of her sleeping so soundly, no idea of what the day is about to bring her way.

We had to take one last picture of her pre-heart surgery.

Last night Kelly was so smiling so much. So of course I was trying to capture some of her big, sweet smiles. However every time I got the camera ready she would look at me as if to say, "Seriously mom that thing again, I will not smile for you now!" So here was as close as I got, plus the picture on top, which I love- you just have to ignore the black corner, which probably my finger I won't lie.

preparing for surgery

For the past few months we have been anticipating Kelly's heart surgery. We have been waiting and knowing it was coming. And now that day is upon us. Today we were up bright and early ready to head off to all of Kelly's appointments. I usually dread this day, almost more than surgery. It is a long day with lots going on. Today, however, could not have gone better! Kelly was amazing, seriously she did great! And our doctor moved all of our appointments to pretty much the same time, so we were done with everything much earlier than we would have been, which was so nice for us.
The only hard part was the first thing of the day. Kelly had to have her blood drawn and it was hard and oh how she cried. Girlfriend does not have good veins, they had a hard time finding one that was going to work. When they finally tried Kelly wiggled and moved the needle just enough that they lost it. So we had to switch arms, she was not happy again. This mom felt horrible for her baby girl. She quickly recovered and was then a champ the rest of the day! It is hard to see in this picture but she looked pretty tough with both her arms wrapped up. Those white things on her arms are not sleeves to her shirt!

 After a blood draw and a chest x-ray it was time for an echo. The plan was to sedate Kelly for the echo so that she would sleep. Because she was going to be sedated she had not eaten since 5:30 this morning. It was about 10:00 by the time we were getting for the echo. We had to wait a while, we were waiting for a doctor to come before the nurse could give her the sedation meds. While we waited Kelly girl fell asleep. So the nurse quickly grabbed the tech doing the echo and I just held Kelly while the lady did her thing. It worked out so well! I hate having my kids sedated, it makes them funky the rest of the day. Kelly slept the whole time the lady worked, she did amazing! After she woke up we gave her a bottle and she was so happy! And we were happy we never had to give her the icky medicine to sedate her. She had to have an ECG after her echo and does she not look so cute- she was smiling at the nurse the whole time. Look at this cute baby being such a good girl!

All is set for surgery tomorrow morning. We check in at 6 in the morning, it will take about two hours to prep Kelly for surgery and then surgery will take about three hours. We will try to update throughout the day tomorrow. Thanks to everyone for praying for our sweet girl. As I was holding Kelly today during her echo I just kept thanking God for the people who were praying for her, I know that today Kelly did so great because her Heavenly Father was holding her!

growing baby

So once again I find myself not keeping up here in blog land. To be honest I have no real good excuse. I guess just laziness. We were so busy for the first part of summer that once things slowed down I think I slowed down in every part of life. And now sadly summer is winding down. Kelly has surgery next week and that marks the unofficial end to our summer. And speaking of Kelly girl, I though I would show off some pictures of the baby girl.

We got Kelly a bumbo seat a few weeks ago. Here she is trying it out for the first time. At first she was not a big fan of her new seat but she is doing much better. I think she is realizing she can see the world when she is sitting here.

 Usually when Kelly is on her tummy she just puts her head down and takes a little snooze. In the past few weeks however, her head has started coming up more and more. It is kind of funny watching her. She gets her little feet up in the air and she kind of gets her little body moving!

 This picture is an action photo of Kelly rolling over! She has only done it a few times but we cheer for her every time she does it. I was pretty excited to capture the moment on camera.

 "I did it! Wow, that was a lot of work."

 And here is big sister, no doubt she is Kelly's biggest cheerleader. Jennifer is usually close by to Kelly and of course she thought Kelly needed a hug for rolling over! Kelly got a fist full of Jennifer's hair, which right now Jennifer thinks is funny.

As summer winds down everyone in our house is looking forward to one last adventure, to the state fair of course! Hope you all are enjoying some last lazy days of summer.

Colorful Day!

Months ago we signed up to do the Color Run with Bill's family, not knowing that the week leading up to the run would be a crazy, exhausting week for us. Even though we were exhausted there was no stopping us from enjoying a fun filled day! So we were up early Saturday morning to get colorful!

It was really amazing to see all the people, there was lots of white shirts everywhere!

 Getting ready to go! Kelly got to come with us because we stayed with Papa Jim and Mama Sue in their camper Friday night. After an incident with her g-tube about a month ago this mom is not quite ready to leave Kelly overnight yet. Jennifer and Mikayla were having way too much fun with mama and papa to know they were missing out on anything!

 Everyone looking all clean before it all begins.

 Bill looking a little "blue" shortly after we began. The poor stroller got very colorful!

 Kelly was pretty much covered up the entire time and she could have cared less about what was happening around her but this was too cute to not get a picture!

 Love this picture of papa Jim, Cole and Logan! This was after we had reached the finish line.

 Here we all are after we had finished. Not so white and clean anymore!

 Snuggling with Kelly after we were done. She was pretty clean when I got her out of the stroller but she kind of got in on the color after we held her!

We all had a great time and of course there was already talk of next year. And next year we are going to let all the girls get in on the fun. Jennifer and Mikayla will love it! Thanks to our family for a fun, color-filled morning!

After we got cleaned up we were off to celebrate two sweet boys who were turning 6! 

Happy Birthday Ben & Conner!

sleeping sisters

Every night when I get ready for bed part of my routine is checking on the big girls. I just like to make sure they are snug in their beds and lets face it there is just something sweet about sleeping kids. So Sunday night Bill and I had gotten Kelly all hooked up to her feeding tube and tucked into bed and then I went in to check on Jennifer and Mikayla. I walked in and looked in Jennifer's bed first. This is what I found...

An empty bed! I must admit, as silly as it sounds, I panicked for brief moment. She wasn't in her bed or on the floor. Where could she be? Well I knew she couldn't have gone far because we hadn't seen or heard her leave her room.

 In my brief moment of panic I looked over at Mikayla's bed to see this...

Jennifer had been out of her bed several times after bed time and the last time she came out and I had put her back in her bed Mikayla was fast asleep. So I'm not sure why or when Jennifer decided to climb into bed with her sister but she did. I'm sure Jennifer had to shove Mikayla over to get into with her! (You may be wondering why Mikayla is in the bigger of the two beds. Jennifer decided a few weeks ago that the girls should switch beds, Mikayla was game for it so they have swapped, silly yes, but it is what they wanted so we went with it.)

 I must admit it kind of melted my heart. Bill was going to move Jennifer back to her bed but decided against at the last minute. They both seemed comfortable so there was no need to disrupt their sleep.

I'm sure someday this sweet face will be right there with them...

Good night and sweet dreams to all my girls...

4th Fun

Can I just say wow, it is July already! The past few weeks since we got home from vacation have been a little crazy I must say. I am kind of thinking we are going to need another vacation soon!
We had a busy 4th of July, it was fun but exhausting. Kelly's birth family came for a visit, so we had lots of people at our house for a little bbq and water fun.

Our morning started off at the parade. Some friends helped us out by saving some spots for us, it was right at the beginning of the parade, a perfect spot I must say! There was of course lots of candy. And Mikayla was just content to sit in the back with dad, there was a lot of noise and people, a little too much for her liking.

 Then there was Jennifer. She was front and center, loving the whole thing. As people walked by with candy she was telling them she needed more! This girl does love a good parade.

 Having fun with friends, what a great way to spend time at a parade!

 After the parade was over it was back home to get ready for lots of people at our house. The afternoon was perfect for playing outside! The big kids played on a water slide, a special thanks to our friends for bringing it over.

 There was also the water table and pool to play in. This was more Mikayla's style. She had fun dumping water and everyone's toes.

 Bill, Kelly & I with Kelly's family that came to visit.

It really was a fun afternoon spent with so many people. Some of our family was able to come for the day and lots of our friends came over to meet Kelly's family as well. As I sat down at the end of day I really was humbled. Because of this sweet family we have Kelly. We find ourselves in a unique situation but it is a good one. This family not only loves Kelly dearly but they treat our family like family. I am thankful they have entrusted their sweet baby girl to us. And we are blessed beyond words with an amazing family and amazing friends who came and supported us and loved on Kelly's family well. I must admit I was pretty exhausted at the end of the day but it was such a good day!