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My baby Andrew is now 6 months old. WOW a half of a year has gone by since I’ve had him? Why are my kids growing up so fast??? I just wrote Mary Elizabeth’s 3 year update and now his 6 month one. (Yep they are exactly 2 1/2 yrs apart + 2 days).

Drew is so cute lately, this truly is such a cute age. I remember it with ME and sometimes I’d like to freeze time for a bit. This picture of him is from 2 weeks ago but I loved it so I had to post it anyway 😉

And yes, that’s him sitting up. Right as he turned 5 months old he started sitting up a little bit and by the time he was 5 1/2 months old he didn’t have much trouble staying seated. Sometimes if he gets too excited he’s still bound to topple but sits rather well.
He didn’t grow too much this past month, only about 3 oz and they had a hard time measuring him but I think he’s about the same length or just a bit more. He needs his 6 month growth spurt so that I can make sure he fits into all those adorable outfits I got him for the summer in the next size!! (And if any of you know me – I sure did buy a lot- and very very cute ones!!).

He has started recently with cereal and fruit – won’t eat the cereal without the fruit though and he really likes the bananas. He loves loves loves his big sister, starts laughing just watching her. And he likes playing with his toys. He loves attention and being cuddled, held and sung to too. Still very inquisitve and will often focus on things and study them – do I sense a bit of nerdyness like his daddy??? LOL! Anyway he, like his sister is a true joy.

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They both had their check ups today at the dr and that went well. Dr told us it was OK for ME to stop taking naps if she didn’t need them, glad the Dr was ok with it, because she wasn’t taking them no matter what! She has too much energy and when she did nap (rarely) she would be up past 11 pm! So now she’s been sleeping basically 8pm til 8:30am. Give or take a 1/2 hr both ways. They were pleased with how she is doing and how smart she is.
They think her weight was "off" 2 weeks ago for pre-op because she was 27 lbs not 28 this time around and while it’s possible she lost weight – that much doesn’t sound right and she certainly doesn’t look like she lost it. They weighed her twice to make sure and she is 27 lbs so we’ll stick with that.
Also- I think we’ll be cutting back on her overnight feeds (via gtube) in hopes of her eating more during the day. Her weight is great, she’s still a shortie but doing well.
Drew is a shortie too (not as much as her but still) so I think it’s in the genes.
And Drew did well too – they were pleased with how he’s doing and all that he can do. He got his shots and cried so hard, the nurses made fun of him there because his big sister always was tough with that! haha. He got over it— eventually!!

🙂 stay tuned we have a busy weekend ahead- ME’s bday party, My cousin’s graduation party and Memorial day 🙂

We’re going to Florida tomorrow, Friday afternoon. 

Our church and other churches around here have let us in on the big thing going on in Florida- miracle healings taking place like wildfire. It’s called the Florida Outpouring.

Here are a few links:

Article on CBN

Florida Outpouring website

Ignited Church

God.tv – website in which we’ve been watching it from

Last week Andy felt warmth go through his hand after watching it and praying hard. He felt it go very warm and start to tingle. He went in and prayed for Mary Elizabeth and especially her nerve (as we found out that she had either nerve damage or a sleepy nerve from the injections- either way it would take some time to wake up – and we mean some TIME). She went from not being able to close her mouth (one side would stay open- best way to explain it is a popeye-look), to fully closing it after Andy prayed over her. Amazing!

So we continued praying hard for her and others have been joining us in this prayer and her face has gone down dramatically. And for skeptics- it has gone down in places that were untouched for a long time. I’ve never seen her cheek bones look so prominent before.

Our daughter is worth everything to us and we will do anything for her. ME seems excited to go on a plane. So off we go, we leave Friday and return Sunday after attending 3 services. Keep her in your prayers!

  Ready for Florida?

  Can you just pack me in here?

She’s just too precious!

So we had Mary Elizabeth’s follow up visit yesterday at the hospital. Sclerotherapy this time around did seem to work in some areas. It’s been 7 weeks and we found last time it took a few months to see the full result so we really aren’t sure how much it really worked until some time has passed. Also, to get a better picture- they will do an MRI and we are trying to schedule that as we speak. Probably will end up being a month from now.
    Not all of it may be seen with the naked eye. There are a lot of cysts in there we don’t really "see". So the MRI will really help get a good picture and tell the Dr’s what they need to recommend as a next step. Sclerotherapy is good only for the large cysts, and Mary Elizabeth does have a lot of areas that are very small cysts clumped up to appear as a large mass – so those will not be injected.

She is having some lazy-ness on the right side of her mouth resulting in her mouth not fully closing on that side. You will see her use her hands to close it more while eating and whatnot. This may be from swelling and nerves falling asleep from the work that has been done. We are praying that this is temporary. We have seen something similar in the past as her smile was crooked last time she had a procedure done but then healed and her smile was back to normal.              

Aside from the MRI, she is going for a procedure next week- Thursday, May 8th. She is going under anesthesia and Dr. Waner will do some tongue & gum lasering and her specialist/dentist will follow to check and do any work on her teeth that may be needed.

Lately Mary Elizabeth has been asking to go swimming and anything more than a shallow kiddie pool or sprinkler – she will not be in- so no real swimming will take place. The risks are far too great for a child with a tracheostomy. We tried to explain this to her in the best way possible and of course she asked for us to take her trach out. She wants to be free of it, as do we. Thankfully she’s so very loved and adored so she is a happy little girl and remains strong but still, please keep her in your prayers, she sure could use a miracle.

As for other news- she’s doing fabulous as she’s potty trained. She’s gotten better with her listening skills- though she still is at that age!! And she’s been enjoying all the events and visiting we’ve been doing. So lots of happy times!
-You’ll see what I mean as I will be putting up pictures very soon 🙂 … here’s one cute one for now…