new shoe on!...

Hi friends!

Evie survived her re-casting today! Not only did she survive, she was a champ (: This morning was actually the first time Evie has looked at an exam table and grabbed onto my neck for dear life. With all the exam tables she has seen in 2 years I thought she was possibly a little numb when it came to fearing doctors, but today proved otherwise. Regardless, when it was time to get out the cast saw I held her from behind and there was much less screaming and crying than last time. Possibly because I was less tense and shielded her view... I was so nervous and she was so upset the first time I think we both stared at every cut of the saw in horror. Poor kid (: She did great today and was in very little pain when they fit her for her new braces, which is a good sign that the surgery was a success. She has a pink cast this go-round, after much discussion Lyla had the final say (:

Evies next skull surgery is scheduled! Not that I am especially excited to do this again, but I am relieved to have it on the calendar and to know that by Christmas it will be over and done with. Basically the surgeons are going to fix the large bump on the top of her head left behind by her previous surgery. I will be working out the insurance details the next few weeks, prayers for that would be greatly appreciated. Insurance approval has really been gut wrenchingly difficult for me as a parent. I understand that there need to be guidelines, I just wish someone who was less emotionally invested could handle this for us.

Thanks for all of your comments and emails after my last post. The first year of Eves life was so scary that i feel like I handled things so much more gracefully, but I seem to be clinging very tightly lately. The older and more absolutely darling this little girl gets the harder it is for me to even imagine about a day without her. Blessedly those thoughts are very few and very far between now but memories of the past hit very fresh sometimes.

I have a lot of new pictures to post! Sorry I an a little behind on pictures... posts... and life in general right now (: I will get caught up one of these days.

Love you guys, thanks so much for your prayers, love and support (: be back soon.

schedule and scare...

Hi Friends!

Well by looking at my previous post I'm feeling a little convicted about not technically "slowing down" our schedule... but I do feel as if our daily lives have slowed down a notch which is good. We have had several house showings lately which keeps my vacuum in good working condition and gives us hope that we will sell soon (:

We are working hard on scheduling Evie's appointments through the end of the year as there are some things we need to get done before January 1st for multiple reasons. 1. she needs a sleep study done to see if she continues to have sleep apnea or if we can get rid of the oxygen completely, 2. she is going to have reconstructive surgery on the bump left behind by her first skull surgery, and 3. get rid of this cast and get new braces for her feet!

I am most concerned about getting her skull surgery scheduled as it will be the most invasive and least fun. We are working on getting this done the beginning of December. Prayers for scheduling and this mamas nerves would be appreciated (:

Lastly we had another scare on Monday... when I looked back in the car to see if Evie had fallen asleep in her carseat I noticed her color was a little off... seconds later her pupils raced back and forth and she was completely blue. I got her out, called 911 and they watched her in the ambulance for a while but by then she had started breathing again. Most likely she either had a seizure and stopped breathing... or stopped breathing then had a seizure. We took her home and let her rest on home oxygen. We have taken her to the Emergency Room for breathing spells and seizures like this before but besides taking blood theres not much they can do. We spoke to her neurologists office when we got home and they agreed that we should watch her and see how she did. She has been fine ever since so hopefully it was just a fluke.

Love you guys, thanks for praying for us as we schedule and have surgeries and scares! We are truly blessed to have people that care so much about Eve and our family.

slow it down...

Hey friends (:

We have has a whirlwind of appointments since I last posted, I'll try to give you a good synopsis without being too boring!!

ENT checked out Evies ear CT last Tuesday and everything checked out normal which is great. That officially rules out any hearing problems and we can deal with her speech accordingly.

Next was our pediatrician appointment on Wednesday for her yearly checkup. Unfortunately she is back in the 0% of weight and height, but since she has become so active lately its not entirely surprising. She is doing great developmentally as far as most cognitive areas are concerned with the exception of speech (we'll get to that soon) and her gross motor skills are still the farthest behind but we already knew that.

Can't leave out Friday music class as it is the highlight of Evies week (: she's ready to start an band, I'm thinking a drum set for her third birthday would only be appropriate (:

Plastic surgery... Yes, by the time I need to make my first plastic surgery appointment I will already be well acquainted with the staff at Dreams Med Spa and Aesthetic surgery as Evie has her appointments there (: this was a followup appointment for her head surgery, and I'm thinking we are going to schedule another surgery in the next few months. Evie has a pretty pronounced bump on the top of her head left over from where her skull grew together after her first surgery and there is a minor operation that can be done to fix it. It is easier to do when the bone is thinner, so we figured we would schedule it soon while she's still young and hopefully won't remember, isn't in school and won't notice if her hair gets as little messed up. Luckily both the neurosurgeon and plastic surgeon didn't think we would need to shave her head again. Big sigh of relief coming from mom (:

Lastly, Evie also had her official speech eval on Tuesday. She scored between 20-24 months for receptive language (what she hears and understands) and between 10-20 months for expressive language (talking and communicating). The speech therapist gave us some things to work on and encouraged me to narrate as we do things together. Her speech is most likely behind because of all of the physical growth she has done in the past year, can't complain about that!

I have started reading a book about hearing God's whispers and learning how to listen better with the ladies who lead Bible study groups. So I'm driving to see my darling new nephew yesterday when I approach a tractor.... driving..... down...... the....... road..... you get the point, he was not going fast. So I found a safe place to pass him to get to the hospital. Today on my way to preschool I turned right behind an older person driving..... down..... the..... road..... Luckily it didn't take long for him to turn into a nearby neighborhood. Then, less than a few hours later i approached another seemingly comatose person driving incredibly slowly and I heard it... "SLOW DOWN." I thought, maybe I'm making this up... but I realized if i didn't slow down He was obviously going to slow me down anyway (: so thanks for the whisper today God. Honestly I'm not a real big fan of hurrying so I'm looking forward to putting on the brakes for a while. You can stop dispatching slow drivers in front of me now (:

Love you friends! thanks for all of the emails these past few weeks, if I haven't responded yet, I am getting there! (:

as Eve would say...

all done!! (:

Surgery went well yesterday, thanks for praying. After a long wait they wheeled Evie down the hall she waved goodbye to us with a smile on her face. She is so darn cute (:

Surgery was good and we follow up in 3-4 weeks to get fit for new braces and then she will wear her casts for another 2-3 weeks. She was very upset and uncomfortable when she woke up from surgery and gets upset when her pain meds start to wear off. It just plain hurts ):

We tried to catch up on sleep today... hopefully we can catch up on laundry and housework tomorrow...

When Eves doc saw her in preop he said "i don't think we're going to keep her down for long, i think she'll be walking soon." Pretty exciting for us (:

Surgery for...

Hi friends (:

this is why Evie is having surgery tomorrow... hopefully when
the cast comes off in 6 weeks she can stand on her right foot the way she stands on her left!

Say a special prayer in the morning as Eve can't eat after midnight... no juice after 9am... its going to be a long morning ):

I will try to post at the end of the day, love you guys!

Thank you!! and prayer requests...

Thank you all for the wonderful comments on Evie's birthday photos, we had such a fun few days celebrating her!

Also a big thanks to Blogger... we were the "blog of note" on Eves bday! It was a super fun present for us on her special day that we got to share her with so many people (:

I'm pretty sure that I posted earlier that Evie is having surgery on her right foot this Monday. They are going to lengthen her achilles again to straighten her foot out and allow her to flex it for walking. This is the same surgery she had in February on both feet, her right foot just needs to be done again. She will be casted up to her thigh for 6 weeks.

She woke up pretty congested this morning so we need some mega prayers that it clears up before Monday. I'm hoping its just from the change in weather and isn't croup. With her history they will cancel surgery if she's not all clear.

I'm pretty nervous about sending Evie into surgery again. I guess we just haven't done it in a while. There's nothing natural about people you don't know wheeling your child down the hallway away from you in a hospital bed. After surgery she is having a CT scan of her ear bones and a CT of her head. The ear CT will determine if her ear bones are put together right, and her head CT we will take to her plastic surgery appt the following Monday to see if we should fix the bump on top of her head. We ran into Evies neurosurgeon on her bday at the childrens museum and he said we should fix it sooner than later while the bone is still thin so we will see what the CT looks like.

Thanks for your prayers and for loving us (:
Lindsey

Evie's 2nd Birthday in Photos (:

Sunday birthday lunch after church at Valentinos buffet - Brownie cake! just starting to get the hang of the birthday thing...

musical cards are the best!

To our house to open gifts - Evie step stepping to Mr. Brian (yes, the one who takes the amazing photos)

group shot!

and off to the Children's museum! just looking beautiful (:

coloring... after the girls painted their own faces (:

who's more excited about the fun car!?

we could have sat on the floor in the ball room for hours

And today, the 19th - at the zoo. All of the birthday pancake photos ended up on my phone :(

the highlight of the zoo this time was the giraffes!

Eve and mom tied together, the usual (:

rarrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!

Evie loves cake... and her dad!

I'm 2! (thats one on each hand) (:

sharing!

sisters....what? we're not supposed to rub our hands together with our cake!?

but it's hilarious!!!!

Happy 2nd Birthday Evie Jayne! (: