A Day with Jada

The girls had their first slumber party! Debbie's grandaughter, Jada, came over and spent the night. We were so excited for her to come!

Today we went to the Discovery Museum. I had heard there was an Alice's Wonderland exhibit and knew the girls would like that. They had lots of neat things set up in honor of Alice.

You could see the Cheshire Cat's face glowing in the mirror.

We also got to make Mad Hatter Tea Party Hats!
(Out of newspaper, pipe cleaner, and colored paper)

The Mad Hatter also spoke while we were there.

It was a good day. The girls have had fun.

Our First Turns Five

Ok, so she's not technically just ours, but she was our first experience with having a little one around. We pretty much kept her every other weekend. We had joint custody with her mom and aunt. :)

Leslie is 5!! Where has the time gone? I remember first meeting the little runt at Cracker Barell when she was a year old. Khennedy is big and gorgeous too.

It rained and poured during Les's party but we were okay with that. We stayed dry inside and ate some pizza! She had a Princesss and the Frog party. It was adorable.

We love you Les and we miss all the time we used to get to spend with you and Khennedy.

Happy Happy Birthday!

Christmas in July....and other things that I forgot to post

I ran across a TON of pictures on the girls computer today that never made it to the blog! Big surprise.

So, here goes.

Flasback to Christmas 2009 at the Hill House:

The girls had another great Christmas. Santa was good to them.

Alex is holding a pink ink pen. The story goes like this: Abi went to Santa Shop at school. When she got home, she secretly asked me to come to her room. She pulled out a flaming hot pink ink pen that said "MOM" on it from her bag and said "This is for daddy". I looked puzzled and asked, "Abi, why did you get daddy a pink ink pen?" She looked at me like I was the crazy one and said, "Because he loves you."

Priceless

.

These photos were from my Memaw and Aunt Susan's birthday party.

My Uncle Tim called Aunt Susan "Sister Sue" So it made the cake. :)

This is us at the Mt. Joy decoration. It represents us pretty well. Alex is aggravating Abi, KayKay is joyous, Abi is a priss pot, and Olivia looks like she is up to no good. And me, I'm in the middle of it all.

A rainbow over the bay in Mobile.

The girls playing with window crayons in the hotel. This was after I had scorched myself and we were hotel bound.

I took the girls to see Shrek in 3D. I turned to Olivia to ask her if she liked it as the movie was going off. And I found her folded up in her movie theater chair. She doesn't even weigh enough to hold it down. Poor baby.

The girls went to the Explorium one day too in Mobile and played. They had a good time.

And after we made it back to Arkansas we had to take a trip to Cupcakes at Kavanaugh. Delicious!

Baby Chunky and Macaroni

I forgot to post these pictures on my previous entry of Olivia's baby Chunky eating her macaroni at the hospital.

Olivia kept saying that the baby was hot and she took her shirt off. It looks like Chunky is giving a thumbs up on the macaroni.

Olivia was restless and I took her to play for a little while but it sure was hard to keep her from getting tangled up in or yanking out her IV.

Olivia is doing well and has already begun to take less and less of her pain medication.

We are very proud of her.

TNA at ACH

Olivia was scheduled to have her tonsils and adenoids removed at Children's Hospital on Monday, July 19th. We left Abi and KayKay with Nanna and Poppa on Sunday night because we had to be at the hospital by 5:30 Monday morning. We got up and arrived in Little Rock. We signed in and the employee at the desk came over to us after a few minutes to say that he didn't have a record of Olivia coming in for surgery on this day. Our first thought: Great! We were so looking forward to getting the surgery over with and Olivia recovered in order to not go through strep (hopefully) again. So, we waited and watched families come and go as the ACH employee tried to figure out what was going on.

He was eventually able to get in touch with Olivia's ENT, Dr. McGhee, who confirmed that Olivia was scheduled for surgery on this day. ACH had to "scramble" to get a room ready but we were preping for surgery by around 7:45. We had numerous doctors and nurses filing in and out of the room gathering information and checking on us. The anesthesiologist gave Olivia and updraft prior to the surgery in order to make sure her lungs were open due to her asthma-like issues. She did really well and watched cartoons.

A nurse then came in and gave her "goofy juice" to relax her before they took her back. After a few minutes, her tongue became thick and she was quiet funny. She had her stuffed puppy dog and quilt and they wheeled her back for the surgery. She didn't cry or question what was going on. The surgery took about 20 minutes.

Dr. McGhee then came out and told us the surgery went well and Olivia did great. We were so thankful.
We were then called back to the recovery room to see her. She was crying and trying to get out of her bed. I was not prepared to see her like that.  I guess Alex and I both had it in our heads that since "everything went great", she would be her normal little self. She was very disoriented and upset. It broke my heart but I told myself that I wasn't going to lose it and upset her more. The nurse got Olivia out and handed her to me. I sat in a rocking chair and held her. I tried to console her and she sounded awful! Her throat was thick and she snored and drooled.

We were able to get a bed in the hospital after about an hour in recovery. She then became restless. I could NOT get her to quit wiggling in the bed. Eventually she slept. She was hooked up to an IV to keep her from dehydrating. She ate a popsicle and drank fluids immediatley following surgery. She did really well compared to what I have heard about most recoveries from TNA.

She even at some macaroni and mashed potatoes by that evening. We are so proud of what a trooper she is. We only had a curtain seperating us from all of the other patients in the ECU. We heard several other children crying and screaming all through out the day and night. Hospitals are a tough place to be. Mike and Marsha came by to see us as well. We were so glad to see them and to hear that Jed had improved. I have to take a moment to say that Mike and Marsha are two of the most genuine, giving, and precious people I have ever known.

Olivia made some nurse friends while she was in the hospital. She didn't talk much due to her throat but still managed to make an impression on those helping her recover. Everyone in the unit knew that she had a thing for stickers and that her new baby's name was Chunky before she left.

We got to see a good friend, Robyn Abernathy. She brought Livi a ACH t-shirt and visited. It was great to see her. Everyone that we came into contact with at ACH was wonderful. Lots of upbeat and caring personalities work there.

Olivia got to go for a wagon ride through the hospital. We took her down to the gift shop and look around.

We got very little sleep through out the night with nurses coming in every two hours, confined sleeping arrangements, and lots of noises going on in the unit. But, thankfully, we were discharged around 8:00 this morning and came home. Dr. McGhee made his rounds and said he was very impressed with Miss O and that she had reached all of the goals he had for her. I love Dr. McGhee! He is wonderful with Liv.

We have slept quiet a bit today. Olivia is eating soft foods really well. She is drinking and eating popsicles. I am so very proud of how good she is when she feels bad. She is up trying to run through the house now and playing with her new baby Chunky the Second. She is on antibiotics and tylenol with codeine for the pain. She is also supposed to be kept quiet and calm for about 2 weeks. Ha! We haven't made it to day 2 with that one, but we will do our best. Alex has gone to pick up Abi and KayKay and to spend the night with his parents. I have missed those two big girls and so has Livi! She talks about them a lot.

This ordeal has been quiet an experience. I never knew how much it can hurt to see your children go through tough times, but so far, it seems that our girls have taught us so much resilience and how to bounce back from pretty much anything.

Gotcha Day Deux

We celebrated the second anniversary of when our family became official in the law's eyes. We met our family in Hot Springs to ride go karts and eat at the Purple Cow.

Abi and KayKay rode bumper cars and loved it! Olivia wasn't big enough to reach the pedals and this is what she did while they rode....

She was not happy about it at all.

Abi and KayKay were so funny driving the little go karts. They laughed so hard when they ran into eachother. Makayla was a wild woman on those things!

We had a really great day with our family and are so thankful for the blessings in our life.