it caught up with me...

Hi Friends (:

I miss you! Thanks for checking in although I have been so absent lately. I am finally down with a sore throat, dry cough, plugged ears and sinus congestion. I don't know why I thought I could go 100 miles an hour, 24 hours a day 7 days a week and maintain my health. So it caught up with me and is forcing me to sit down a little more, which actually feels really good (:

More importantly, Evie's health. She is doing great! Being off of oxygen has been such a major blessings for all of us. The most important aspect of that being that Evie can sustain her O2 saturation while not having to be hooked up to her cannula 24/7. The second most important aspect is that we are LOVING her sweet little tube-free face! I feel like we have been waiting for so long. I spent a lot of tears missing her little face, and wondering when we would get to look at her without her tube. And the less important, yet really awesome thing is that people don't ask us what's going on with her all the time. She has some space to just be Evie, instead of looking "sick" or getting questions. It's a nice break for everyone.

I mentioned Evie's hearing test a while ago, and we saw the ENT last week. Evie can hear conversational sounds, but possibly not much else. The ENT couldn't really make any other educated guesses at what is going on, so we are having an ABR on Tuesday. An Auditory Brainstem Response test will be done under anesthesia (so she doesn't move) and is supposed to be the most accurate way to find out what someone can hear when they are too little to tell you what they can or cannot hear. You may be wondering why it's important to know what she can hear since she can hear us talking.... the most important reason is that her speech is developing very slowly and she is getting behind target language markers. This means that her hearing is affecting her communication. If we know what she can hear, we can provide her with any aides needed to help her hear and communicate better. So that is what we will find out next week.

Last week I had root canal surgery and Harry got neutered so we were a busy, recovering bunch over here. Lyla also started swimming lessons at a local gym where we are spending a lot of time playing with her and my friends.

If you could pray for us that the girls don't get sick, that would be huge for me. If Evie gets even a smidge of whatever nasty bug I have, there is a good chance they won't do her ABR on Tuesday. It is already approved by insurance (which is a miracle in and of itself) so we would like to get it done.

We thought we sold our house last week and the offer fell through, and we ended up trading John's car in for a minivan! I feel like we have been making some major financial decisions all at one time, and it would be nice to take a break from that. My good friend is going to list our house on the MLS and hopefully we will get some more action using that. I am thinking we haven't figured out where God wants us to land yet... since I don't really feel super excited about any of the houses we have looked at. Some would be a good fit, I feel like I need to invest a lot more time and prayer into the decision. So maybe it's good we haven't sold yet, we could be living in my parents basement trying to find a house, yikes!

Thanks for loving us and praying for us. I am constantly in awe of the number of people who pray for Evie, and the very obvious impact it has on her health. I don't think we would be even close to where we are today without you all lifting her up to our Almighty God who hears, and heals. There is a new song called "manifesto" on the radio, and whenever we hear it Lyla and I sing "AMENNNN!!" at the top of our lungs. I'm so glad God enabled some people to sing and write music so we can worship together.

Love you guys (: