Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

We hope that everyone had a great Holiday with their families, we were blessed to be able to be home this year. The weekend before Christmas Abby had her first out of town trip to Abilene, the drive was rough, but after 81/2 hours, 4 stops, and 1 ticket we finally made. Abby had a great time with all of her cousins, one of which she had never met. We got some great pictures, Nana even had someone come and take professional pictures at the house. Abby was the only one who smiled the entire time. Abby also got to make Christms cookies, and play with tupperware. I had no idea how long a cabinet full of tupperware could keep kids entertained. The drive home was much quicker, we stopped twice, and had no tickets thankfully. I had the week before Christmas off and spent some great quality time wiith Abby. I finally got to meet her physical therapist and thank her for all the progress Abby has made so far. I am almost positive we are on the verge of something big, whether its crawling, or walking I am not sure. She changes daily on whether she is wanting to stand and move or get on all fours and scoot. We spent the rest of the week getting things ready for Christmas, we even had some outings to Target and the mall. Grandma and I made a couple of batches of cookies which we delivered to our friends at the TCH CVICU, which is where we spent the last holiday season. We were so lucky to spend Christmas Eve at Hosanna with our church family, last year was a much Christmas different experience. We got some great pics of us at church, Abbys dress was sooooo cute. It was the only time I plan to spend that amount on a dress but we had to do it up big. She had the dress, the sweater, the tights, shoes, and a matching bow. When we got home daddy got to help the neighbor play Santa and then he read The Night Before Christmas. Once Abby was all snuggled in bed, we got her gifts arranged around the tree. She has become quite the gift opening pro(when she wants to). Christmas morning was great, we enjoyed Cinnabon cinnamon rolls and enjoyed the time together. That night we went to grandmas for dinner and Abby got to play with her cousins James, Michelle, and DJ. All kids had a great time opening all the goodies from grandma, Abby got the coolest zebra striped Tee Pee with a big pink heart. VERY FANCY!! We spent the next couple days keeping Abby indoors because Monday we have to be at TCH at 6:30am so that Abby can get tubes in her ears. Not a moment to soon either, she started pulling on her ear and getting very fussy this evening. I promise to update to let everyone know how it goes. I am told by everyone that it is an in and out 10-15 minute procedure. I am keeping my fingers crossed! I hope you guys enjoy the homework, Love to all~Mindy

Just a few pics<3

Just another Week

This week was another week of Doctor appointments, we met with the highly reccomended Dr. Duncan (ENT) on Tuesday, he told us like we had expected that she needs tubes. We will be going Dec. 28th to TCH for what should be a 20 minute in and out procedure, they told us that even cardio kids are home an hour later eating regularly and playing like normal. They did another hearing test and said that the fluid in her ear is slightly affecting her hearing, but she did have good responses so they don't feel there is any permanent hearing loss. She did not like them playing with her ears but she did a great job. Thursday we met with Neurology and Pulmonology. Neurology went so much better than I was anticipating, I was afraid he would be critical or not acknowledge the progress that she had made. However he went on and on about how amazing he thought she was doing. He said she has shown some very measurable progress and he was so proud of her. Unfortunatly he was double booked and he had to bounce back and fourth between us and a much more critical patient so we did a ton of waiting. He did bring in somethings that he wanted to watch her play with. She did everything he wanted her to do, rang a bell, pulled pegs out of a peg board, put blocks in a cup and took them out, found blocks that he hid under the cup, followed his puppet with her eyes, grabbed a ring and pulled it out of his hands, then grabbed the string that was attached to the ring, picked up a crayon, held a phone to her ear, and the list goes on. She was having so much fun! Next we rushed over to Pulmonology, who was a new doctor for Abby. She was great, she had even read over Abbys past health info to have a better idea of Abby. She changed Abbys inhaled steroid and also prescribed Singulair which seems to be upsetting her stomach. We have decided to hold off on the singulair until we get her off her current antibiotic and afrin. I just think we were adding and changing to much at one time. We are very happy to have also met with Ms. Rosemary, she is a private occupational therapist who is going to be working with Abby 2 to 3 times a week. She was excited to see the skills that Abby has, and help set some goals. We were also very excited to see a special treat this week, Houston got snow. I didn't get a chance to play in the snow with Abby, but our neighborhood did do a breakfast with Santa where they brought in snow and let the kiddos get pics in the snow. Abby didn't seem to mind the cold, wet snow, she even smiled a little. Her cheeks were so red and her nose looked like Rudolph. I finally got all the pictures that I needed for her Christmas cards, hopefully those will go out soon. I find myself always thinking back to where we were at this time last year and being thankful for the friends we made while at TCH. Love to all~Mindy