AHHHHH so hectic!!! Thank the Lord we will be on vacation this week…

Andy has been at the church almost every night this week doing the worship for the prayer week- healing services. Then his own band had a show. He had to teach his guitar lesson and whatnot too. Plus work.

ME graduated from the little gym class this week, I enjoyed attending that. She has grown in her skills, tumbling all over the place, crawling and swinging on the bar plus lifting her feet up on it. She likes to use her gymnist type skills at home though….

Drew has been very active. He’s crawling around but in his own way. It’s obvious he’d rather stand so he gets on his hands and feet instead of his knees and pulls himself along that way. He also pulls himself up on his knees and even pulling himself up to stand.

So everyone is busy and active, meanwhile I was busy trying to work, trying to keep things in order around the house while running errands with the kids (since Andy was out a bit) to prepare for our vacation… and I also attended a couple of the church services.

*YAWN*

And here I am at 1am in the morning posting to say BYE, see ya later!!! We’re going to the beach for about 4 days with the "Ray" family and then going to do something with the "Raia" family for 4 days as well – staying over at Aunt Michelle’s house. We are taking the kids to Six Flags New England, see fireworks and do the 4th of July bbq type thing, possibly hit the outlets or do some other things while up there as well- there’s always plenty to do out her way within a decent radius.
So our combined 2 mini vacations equals one nice one. And the kids will have a nice time and so will we…. we need this time more than ever.

Anyway I tried my best to get the pictures for the website up for the month of June. I think they are all in the snapfish album. But we didn’t have time to upload it to the site.

Nonetheless – I wanted to share them, they eventually will be on the site properly, but for now… you can click the link- there are some very very cute ones in there! So make sure you look: JUNE 2008
**NOTE: Snapfish changed their slideshow and haven’t updated it yet to show the captions I put in. So if you want to view the photos with the captions (since they are funnier that way)… click on the first picture (as smaller thumbnail) and then when that opens up larger – click "next" at the top right…. I always do this- then I can look at the photos as fast or slow as I want to. So you might want to try that if you haven’t already.

 

Time is flying. Drew is 7 months old now. 17lbs 10.5 oz, and 25.5 inches short (hehe)…

His new tricks in his 6th month were standing by couches and holding on to toys while standing. He even pulled himself up to a stand a few times, had fun doing that on ME’s bed and jumping up and down on it. We’re trying to get rid of the "on tippy toe" thing he’s been doing. He’s not full blown crawling yet, but he’s doing an inch worm type of crawl instead. He can get on all fours but ends up goin down and pushing off of his feet. He’s not on the floor a whole lot- he wants to sit or stand… ME was just like that.

He has become quite the piglet – eating everything like you were starving him for days on end. And so far there’s nothing he won’t eat- even the green veggies! Drew is playing more with toys, very interactive, and yet pulling and grabbing everything in sight. Then of course chewing on everything… and drooling too… STILL NO TEETH though- just a bit of swollen gums.

He has been babbling a lot and saying "dadada" yea… I think dada will be his first word. Who cares- it’s cute! Along with the babbling is screaming. He loves to scream- like not just when he’s upset- but when he’s excited or happy too. Screaming so loud!!! It’s funny… but NOT at 7am!

He’s adorable, cuddly and loveable though. Really a good baby and sleeps very well. Pretty much from 7:30pm to 5:00am then nurses in his sleep and stays asleep til 6:30-7:30 depending on the day. He’s in his own routine and does well with it.

Drew has a little bit more hair… it’s growing ever so slowly. I didn’t have much hair as a baby either. Unlike ME and her daddy who had so much dark thick hair!! His hair is also getting blonder… hard to tell in pictures, but you can really see how light it is getting in person.

He still adores his sister even though she sits on him, takes all of his toys and hugs him just a bit too tight – hahaha. It’s OK – he gets her back when he pulls her hair!!! He loves everyone- and so far does really well with other people… but our house is like a train station- so my kids get used to many different faces a lot.

IN OTHER NEWS- we got a new family vehicle… definitely a FAMILY vehicle. Yep a mommy van… argh- I was fighting getting it… but with gas prices a big SUV was out of the question. Oh well… it’s very nice… Town & Country Mini Van- nearly new at 1 yrs old with 12,000+ miles.

We are soon going to work out the details of ME’s next procedure, will keep everyone posted…
 

Yesterday was quite the day… it started out with waking up very early because Mary Elizabeth had her MRI, then Andy had a rough day at the job and was tired from helping me out in the morning, due to getting up early and being in the city all morning-I was tired myself… then things were hectic when I got home and I wanted to get some work done I missed from earlier in the day… but then… at 6pm the power went out and it stayed out til 6:15am this morning. NO FUN. Andy and I were not pleased as this was the 3rd time in a week this happened and it hasn’t happened that many times in the 4 years we lived at the house… *sigh*

And of course yesterday was Andy’s birthday, and we didn’t do much celebrating of course. But HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDY!!! A wonderful man at 29 yrs old deserves the best so we’ll be taking him out later in the week

OK here’s the update from MARY ELIZABETH’S MRI YESTERDAY:

all went well- she was good and it went pretty smoothly. As soon as we neared the city (after the GW Bridge) was saying “NO DOCTOR, NO HOSPITAL” so it’s pretty much apparent she’s very aware of what is going on that she knows well before we even get there. I hate to have her associate NYC with the whole dr/hospital thing. We’ll eventually have to take her down for a play or something instead. She did fine with the anesthesia and all that though.

Anyway, instead of going back down to the city for a consultation, they had a phone conference with Andy this morning……

They said they saw a great deal of improvement with the spots they injected. So she’ll have some more injections/sclerotherapy to the bigger cyst pockets “macro-cystic”. Remember she does have a lot of smaller cysts which appear big because they are clumped together so to speak. They are “micro-cystic” Those cysts will have to be surgically removed when she’s done with sclerotherapy. They will also do some injections to the floor of the mouth” which is pushing her tongue up to help the size of that and give her room. As for her airway and the most commonly asked question “when will her trach come out”… they are looking to do a little more lasering in her airway and remove her tonsils to free up her airway and that will get her ready for trach removal (decannulation). Once all that is taken care of she will have to have the jaw surgery. All this will take time, but once it’s done she’ll be more settled and the LM will be controlled enough where she won’t be getting repetitive surgeries like this. Perhaps it may take another year, two or three. Not too sure and with this condition it is hard to say because there can be flare ups, or bumps in the road so to speak where complications arise to delay the next steps.
We are of course praying against that and asking God to work in her life for the best possible scenario. So please continue to pray for her and we’ll keep you posted.

I know my two little darlings have one of the best daddy’s ever and I am thankful for that. He loves them so much, and is good to them. He helps them have a happy home to grow up in – for a great future.

And Andy is blessed- he’s got two beautiful children who are smart and loveable- how can he not enjoy them??? Right!

IN OTHER NEWS- Here are some updates….

We are going for ME’s MRI in the city tomorrow, so an early morning. She’ll go under anesthesia for it- so still keep her in your thoughts & prayers as being under anesthesia should never be taken lightly no matter how simple the test or procedure.
We’ll be discussing it with the drs later in the week though. So more to come.