Playdate with cousin Addison

We benefited from my brother having orthopedic surgery yesterday--we got to hang out with his little girl Addison most the afternoon.  She is such a sweetie, and it was fun seeing how good Dave was with her.  Feel betta soon, John!

Sometimes....

Mommy bloggers who think they have exceptionally cute children (all of us, right?) have to post pictures of their children in their Sunday church clothes, and say LOOK AT MY BAYYYBEEEE.  He is squeezie.

The Trick-or-Treat Marathon

We had a very eventful Halloween. Bart and I had to have our annual pumpkin carving last week.  I got a little lazy and went with a simple spider:

And Bart picked the creepy zombie crawler.

Halloween morning started out by going to Bentonville square where they were having a final farmer's market for the year.  The vendors all handed out candy, as well as local shops and restaurants on the square.  Dave got to practice his treatin' skills for the first time.  He was determined to carry his little orange pumpkin no matter how heavy it got. (The kid doesn't even like candy...at all)

Dave was happy to see lots of cousins.  He spent most of the morning yelling for his assault partner Bryce to COME HERE. (Bryce, I think Dave is maybe sorry about the body slam a couple weeks ago.  It was sheer adrenaline due to the dozens of hotwheels discovered.)


We came home for some lunch and rested up for the ward trunk'r'treat.  I quickly decorated the back of the van for the event.

Dave stopped by Grandma and Grandpa's van to score some more candy...and some water.

Then we went over to enjoy some dinner and time with Sarah, Tom, & co.  Dave was a very serious ninja.

We went around the 'hood to treat some more but most of the lights were off...so we all piled into cars and headed back downtown to trick or treat down historic Bentonville square.

The ambiance was perfect for the night.  Very spooky indeed.

The houses were all so cool--a few went all out and one had a 12 foot tall grim reaper, characters, fog, and all manner of scariness...complete with children running from the house screaming.

Can't wait for next year!

Moving is hard work

...for a 2 year old.


But miraculously we have almost every one of these boxes unpacked a week and a half after moving in. We love it!


Along the way we found some interesting things after our belongings had sat in storage for 6 months. Did I ever mention how hot it gets in Fresno? At least these boxes smelled "blue mountain" and "vanilla bean" fresh.



And check out the sunrise view from my window!




And now that we're settling in? Dave doesn't think it's so bad either.

For a little boy who LOVES trucks...

When dad came back home to Arkansas from California with his grandma and grandpa in a 26 foot Penske?

He was in heaven.

Backwards

Don't children usually take off their socks and leave on their clothes?

*sigh*

Phrases

Stemming from his family constantly asking him "what did you say?" as we try to understand his evergrowing vocabulary, paired with constantly asking him "What do you say?" when trying to teach him the courtesy of saying "please" and "thank you," Dave's new favorite phrase is....

"What'd'ya say?"



Well, what do you say.

Gratuitous Gratitude

Went to get Dave out of bed this morning.

He was standing absolutely naked, smiling. He carefully handed me his used diaper and pajamas and politely said "thank you".

The sun shines a little brighter today

In June of 2007, I was 28 weeks pregnant with a little boy. I went in to my OB for a follow-up routine ultra-sound. When I had gone at 20 weeks, baby boy was stubborn and they were unable to get a good look at his heart. They had no cause for concern but she said that she wanted to be extra sure and had us come back 8 weeks later.

I was excited to get a glimpse of my little boy again. The ultrasound tech started making lots of measurements and became quiet. She stood up and said "Ok I want you to know I'm seeing lots of things that aren't good. I'm going to go get the doctor right now and we'll be back as soon as possible."

I burst into tears. So glad that Bart was able to make it with me that day. We sat in silence waiting for them to come back in and say it was a mistake.

The doctor spoke with us frankly. Our baby had multiple masses in his heart. He had hydrops fetalis...I had polyhydraminos and the little baby's abdomen was filling with lots of fluid indicating that he may have heart failure. He explained "Is this always fatal? No. Is this very serious? Yes."

He set us up an appointment with an excellent perinatologist for an emergency appointment the next morning so our questions could be answered. We went home with the prognosis that our child had a 5-10% chance of surviving birth.

We panicked knowing we were packing up our apartment to move from Utah to California in one week. What about doctors? Are we doing the right thing? All so surreal that the little baby we were excited to hold would likely not have a beating heart when we held him.

When I got home, I immediately googled images for hydrops fetalis. As the images appeared on the screen I wasn't prepared for what I was to see. I clicked out of my browser and broke down in tears, searching for peace.

When we went to the perinatologist, he measured 4 cardiac rhabdomyoma tumors in his heart. The fluid in his abdomen was substantial. We were told that in the small 5-10% chance our child would live to birth, he likely wouldn't live long. And in the event that he lived for a while, he had a 75% chance or greater to have a disease called tuberous sclerosis.

500 miracles and doctors later, our son is 25 months old. He is seen by a few clinics for follow-ups but the organs in his body have been functioning well on their own since he was a few months old. He has had no seizures and shows no indication otherwise of tuberous sclerosis.

On Wednesday we drove down to Little Rock to be seen by the cardiology department in the Arkansas Children's Hospital.

The tumors are gone.

The doctors indicated they would never know that he had history of cardiac rhabdomyomas if they didn't have his old images and doctors reports from California.

This week we celebrate with so much gratitude the tender mercies of God. This little guy is my sunshine.

Benton County Preparedness Fair

Last Saturday we went to the annual Emergency Preparedness Fair that the county puts on. It was hosted in our church's stake center and we had heard good things about it.

We showed up a half hour early since we heard thousands of people show up for this thing. The first 1500 went home with a free 72-hour emergency starter kit. When we arrived there were about 50 people in line ahead of us. By the time they opened the doors there were probably a couple hundred in line behind us.

When we got inside they had dozens of booths set up on a variety of emergency topics. Fire prevention, food storage, weather preparedness, gun safety, child ID kits. All at no cost. We were sent home with lots of goodies. Not to mention all the fun that was set up for kids. They had jump houses, Lowe's furnished a craft for children to do, an educational "smoke house" for fire preparedness, etc.


Dave enjoyed seeing a firetruck and got to see a helicopter land in the field behind the church. After we were done with the fair we walked out to the helicopter for an up-close view.


It was a fun and educational family activity. If we're in the area we'll definitely be going back next year!