Keirah's Caring Heart

This is one of the funniest things that has happened in a long time!! Keirah historically has had a very sensitive heart for people or pets that are injured or hurting. She is a nurturer and we are thankful for the heart she has for others. On that note... here starts the story of the day :))

Aubryn, Keirah and I went for a morning walk this morning to check out the neighborhood garage sale. One house down from us in the middle of the street was a small cottontail rabbit that had obviously been hit in the middle of the night and was lying in the street. Keirah was fascinated by it but didn't seem to take too much notice of it. When we got back home, she was excited to go show Leif that there was a rabbit in the street. She proceeded to lead Leif outside to show him while I set the mail down. I never thought to warn her about not touching it (she's 6! she knows this right?) but a minute later she is walking in the house carrying the stiff dead rabbit!! I started screaming, telling her to put it down!!!! She did... right here on the front porch!

Later she told me that the rabbit must have been in the middle of the street and a car stepped on it and she didn't want it to be stepped on again. She said that she wanted to hold a rabbit that wasn't dead! I'm not sure if she thought she could nurse it back to life or if she wanted to give it a proper burial :)) Anyway, we did get to say farewell, took a picture, bathed Keirah down, changed her clothes and Daddy disposed of him.

I know this is kind of gross but for some reason, this story has made me laugh all day long! Why did I not think to tell Keirah not to touch the rabbit?? It makes perfect sense now that Keirah WOULD touch the rabbit! And come carrying it home. That's the way she is. She cares.

Speech Therapy in the Car

We've been around speech therapy long enough to spot a habit when I hear one :) Lately, I've been increasingly noticing Keirah and Emry's mispronunciation of the letter "R"... so we decided to do a funny drill in the car. It was too cute! Thought I'd share :))

Conference in Florida

We are so blessed to have had many opportunities throughout our married life to attend conferences! These present themselves as great opportunities for spiritual renewal, inspiration and time away for the two of us! We went to Florida (my first time :) for the Exponential conference and attended with our friends, and resident planter for our church, Marcus and Sarah. We enjoyed getting to know them better!

One of the coolest things we did was attend a hip hop church in Tampa! So neat to see how many different people attended there. We got to hear "Play" from Kid and Play tell his story of coming to know Christ. It is so encouraging to hear how God has strategically put people in every walk of life to tell of his greatness. The entire experience was diverse and beautiful! I love how creative God is and how he gives us all different expressions of himself. We ended up leaving with a sampler of Florida and wanting to go back some day :) The conference took most of our time, but here are a few of the things we did there as well.

Possibly Nick's fav... ESPN!

Marcus and Sarah... so sweet together!

Sarah and I couldn't help ourselves :) We were in

Downtown Disney and had to have a picture with Cinderella!

At Universal City Walk, Nick attempted to surf...

the kids still can't figure out if he was really surfing or not!

All you can eat lobster... awesome!

At Clearwater Beach, we stayed until sunset!

On the way back from the airport, Daddy rode in the

back with the kids. Always good to be home!

Easter Pics

Better late than never... right :)

All looking at the camera? Wow!

Sweet joy!

Love having Aimee with us! The kids absolutely adore her :)

Don't Get Too Excited!

I'm not even sure what to say. It's been so long since I've blogged and some of you have not been very patient with me :) I know, the patience ran out over a year ago! I can't believe that it's been over a year since I've updated and I figured that I could at least report that since surgery... Emry has not stopped talking :) It's a good problem but the whole speech concern for cleft palate kids does not apply to her! She is such a joy and we are thankful for how wonderfully God provided for us in that season.

So for now, I'll update a new pic for each of the kids and tell you that we've enjoying a sweet season of homeschooling the girls! We were feeling stretched by too many demands on our family and needing to find relief somewhere and am so thankful for the Lord leading Nick to bring the girls home! Aubryn is enjoying the extra work she gets here with the ability to customize her pace to fit her highly active brain and Keirah is getting more one on one especially in the area of writing. She is doing amazing and is really loving the structure and sameness of our home. We have a street full of little girls so our social life is not suffering either! God has given us so much joy in having more time to pour into the kids and celebrating their achievements together. Leif is joinging Keirah for some schooling and then entertaining Emry as they play together. This mama is truly blessed!

Emry's Surgery

After the last 15 months of praying and expecting, surgery day came... yesterday! We have been a little crazy trying to prepare for Christmas and then found out surgery (which was originally planned for the 29th) had been moved to the 22nd. Everything went as planned, according to the doctors, with ear tubes put in at 7 am and then the craniofacial team started at about 7:30. Surgery was done in about 3 hours and we met with the doctor to discuss her recovery. He was taking her Pierre Robin (respiratory syndrome) very seriously with the swelling in her mouth restricting her airway. She is on a ventilator, and feeding tube. She also has a "trumpet" in her nose and a stitch in her tongue as a precautionary/emergency method to relieve her airway. We are thankful for the doctor's extreme caution with her and she is the only patient on the PICU floor that has a nurse stationed outside of our glass doorway at all times!! Here are some pictures of her. Please don't be sad... we know that this is all for good and we trust the Lord with her :) We are so thankful to live in a country where this is possible and close to one of the best children's hospital in the state.

Please pray for swelling to continue to go down, for her to be comfortable and still while the ventilator is in. She is not happy with being on her back right now. She's trying out her acrobatics in the hospital bed... which is not good for the ventilator.

Aubryn, Keirah and Leif were at home with Nick's parent's, Hunny and Biggie while we were in surgery. They came up around 4:30 pm to see us and little sis. At this hospital, they have an amazing program where a specialist helps siblings understand what is happening and prepare for what they will see. We felt that it was important for the older kids to be apart of this experience too. I want them to remember what Emry looked like and know that a week from now, when Emry's fussy, that she has a reason to be :)) They did GREAT and all seemed to be very interested but not upset. There is also a playroom down the hall for us just for siblings!! They loved it!! We are thankful for all of this, and thankful that the kids had a good experience yesterday.

I will update more soon on the timeframe for taking the ventilator out. There was discussion about doing it this morning, but Dr. Kelley (surgeon) just ruled that out. They will be trying to flush her body and get some of the swelling down and maybe take it out this afternoon. If not today, it will be tomorrow. When they do take it out... it might be pretty hard on her. She can not be sedated or on any pain meds until she proves she is breathing well on her own. Please pray for this to go as well as possible.

Thank you for praying!! We know that God is taking care of her better than anyone on earth could ever care for her.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits... who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good .... As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows are frame; he remembers that we are dust." excepts from Psalm 103

Check This Out...

I know, I know... I'm terrible at this!!  I get motivated a lot to write on our blog, but it's the pictures that overwhelm me.  So here I am writing and going to post NO PICTURES!!!!  

BUT... We just got new pictures taken by Rachel Parkhurst and I'm so excited to get them out there!!  I can't post any yet, but they are on her website.  Here is the link so you can check it out for yourself.  I promise to update the blog soon to at least get a new pic for our family picture.  

www.parkhurststudios.com

click on Clients

password: shock

While I'm posting though, I'd really like you to be praying for us about Emry.  She has a sleep study next week on November 5th.  She will be at Dell Children's hospital for the night so that her respiratory system can be evaluated to make sure she's ready for surgery.  Her surgery date is tentatively set for December 29th, but will be solidified based on the sleep study results.  We are praying for good results next week, to stay healthy during this flu season, and for her ear tubes to not need replaced before her palate repair surgery (so that they can do those at the same time).  Please pray for a peaceful holiday season amidst lots of doctor appointments this year!!  Thanks for lifting her up for us!!  She's adorable... so go check out the pics :)