Ready for the Rain

I think we've got what we need....

to stay semi-dry at least!

Note Katelyn's expression as she's telling me she doesn't want to give Lindsey a hug for the picture.

Now, if I could just get them to wear their rain gear every time it's raining!

Side Bar

If you want to quickly see if there are any updates on our little guy's situation, please check the side bar. We will keep it updated with any new posts as we learn more about our baby. Thanks!

All's well that ends well

Brandon had his last soccer game on Halloween day. We have had a good season and he has just loved it. I think he has really gained a lot of skill and coordination with kicking that ball. It's been great for him and we are all glad it is over now! :) We only had to spend two games this season in the rain, so that isn't too bad. It's been so fun to see him get so excited about it. Every Saturday he has "the BIG game!"

This is a quick video of Brandon scoring a goal, and Justin's "encouragement" in the background. :)

This last video is just hilarious. Brandon can't just sit on the sidelines and hold still. I'm so glad I caught this little gem on camera!

Halloween

Our Halloween festivities began with carving pumpkins. This year we had enough for everyone to do have their own. Our friend Scott joined us this year and he brought some of his paints over for the kids to use on their pumpkins. It was a fun family home evening!

Brandon and his spiderman pumpkin

Lindsey's lovely lady

The ward trunk-or-treat

Enjoying the spoils

The kids loved trick or treating on Halloween this year. And we got way to much candy!

Thank you to a good friend in our ward who let us raid her dress-up trunk for the girls' costumes. I really wasn't feeling up to making what I was planning to after last Wed.

A fun weekend for the kids!

Baby Update #1

Thank you so much for all of the comments and support both posted here and sent directly to us. We feel so grateful to have so many friends and family in our lives.

As long as this month continues to be uneventful, we will not be going in again until right before Thanksgiving. They will do another ultrasound to compare with the previous one to look at the trends. Until then, we wait. The kids are handling things well. They pray for their little brother and it reminds us to remain positive and have faith in the Lord.

We will continue to post updates as we receive them. Thank you again for your love and concern!

Baby Maner

Meet Baby Maner

He looks like a perfect, active little guy. We love him already. He has a cute little nose, perfect little hands and feet, and is properly sized. He likes to kick and do somersaults.

However, there are some problems.

Our lives have become more complicated this week with the bad news of an ultrasound with a specialist. Originally the problems added up to 4. They switched our care to Swedish Medical Center in Seattle because of the complexity of the issues. Justin and I headed up for the day today (thank you to our ward family here who took care of the kids and dinner for us) to get an ECHO (for baby's heart) and then another ultrasound and consultation with our new perinatal doctor. Things have definitely moved toward the high-risk end of the spectrum. The day on the whole was more positive than we expected it to be, but we have a long road ahead of us.

Now the list of serious problems are down to 2.

Our little guy has Tetralogy of Fallot, TOF, or Tet. For more info on what this means, click here. The short answer is that there is a hole in his heart, along with 3 other problems inside his heart. This will require open heart surgery at probably 3-6 months of age, unless the problems get worse and they have to do it sooner. The success rate of the surgery is pretty high, which gives us quite a bit of hope.

The second issue is Hydrocephalus, or too much fluid in the baby's brain. This is more of an unknown at this point. It could decrease, or it could increase. The damage from it could range from little to none up to pretty severe brain damage. They will be monitoring both of these conditions very closely between now and February.

The biggest unknown at this point is if these are isolated defects or if the root cause is from a chromosome abnormality, in which case he may face many more issues that they can't see from the ultrasound.

At this point, we have to wait and see how our little guy handles these things. We feel more optimistic today than we did two days ago however, despite all of the unknowns. But one thing is certain. We know that God is real and that He has a plan for us and for this special boy. We pray for strength to endure what is to come and for the Spirit to guide our decision making on behalf of our baby.

This little baby has so many people that love him already. We are hoping for the best!

OoooooK-LAHOMA!

Back during my sophomore year in high school I got very brave and tried out for the school musical, "Oklahoma." To everyones' great surprise (especially to mine), I got casted as the lead part of Laurie. It was such a fun experience and gave me a lot of confidence in performing back then.

I have the CD of the soundtrack and this past week the kids found it and have been playing it almost every day. It has been very entertaining to watch. They figured out that in the Overture there are fast parts and slower parts. Brandon said that the fast parts were for the cowboys and the slower parts were the "girl parts." So if he wanted to dance during those parts he had to dance with one of the girls.

Can I just say how cute I think that is? And I am so thankful that Brandon, who is almost 7, still likes to play and dance with his sisters. Love it! (Oh, and yes, we still have lots of cardboard in the empty living room. The kids find so many creative ways to play with it!)

Oh and guess what Brandon wants to be for Halloween? Yep, a cowboy!

Potty Training

A couple of weeks ago we decided that Katelyn was ready to be potty trained. It has taken some time to get her through the moving transition and then the moving to a big bed transition. But we made it through both and found a week that was relatively calm. She has done great. A week later she was accident free and doing it herself. Way to go Katelyn!

During our first couple of days of training, we stayed home a lot. Katelyn spent a lot of her time on the toilet singing. Some songs we recognized, but most of them are the spontaneous kind. Below is a video of one of them.

Such a big girl!

Little Things

Does anyone out there get excited about little things? Things like, a bathroom coming together a little bit more....well I do.

It makes me happy! :)

Who wouldn't get excited about a little bit of decorative stuff at Ross that makes the bathroom smell lovely?

Sometimes it is the little things.

Busy week

It seems that we are always having a busy week, but this last one really was.

We've been looking at furniture for a while and finally decided to bite the bullet and buy some. I sent Justin to the Old Cannery Warehouse to pick up the bookshelves we decided on right before it closed. Thankfully they fit in the van (barely) and we got them in the house by about 10:30 pm. They are solid wood, which is just what we have been waiting to get, and they are super heavy. We just love them though! No more put-it-together yourself shelves from Wal-Mart!

Here are the huge boxes they came in. Thank goodness we had a dolly to roll them into the house (thanks Dad!). The kids are currently using them for a club house in our empty living/dining room.

Here they are, fresh out of the boxes. We had a mountain of boxes to unpack/organize and our desk is piled high with things to go through. Isn't black beautiful?

Here is what remains of our pile of boxes. The kids took them all and piled them inside each other and inside their club house. Apparently they need them because they are going to be moving somewhere soon....

And here is our finished product, well, finished until we buy a couple more pieces for our office. Much better, don't you think?

The cabinet part has my music and our photo albums. It's nice to be able to protect them a little better now.

Friday night we saw some of our friends from the Kansas days. We had dinner and enjoyed catching up. The kids just loved the "snuggles" and spending some time with Ralph and Linnea.

Then Saturday after a very productive morning working in the yard, we left the kids with a babysitter and joined 2 other couples from our ward and met up with Ralph and Linnea in Seattle to watch the first showing of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" in the 5th Ave. Theater. What a treat! We just loved it!

After saying goodbye to Ralph and Linnea, we went with our friends from the ward out to dinner and then went back to the church since 3 out of the 6 of us were performing in the stake cultural night. It was a great day with friends doing very fun things!

So all in all, we've kept very busy and are getting lots of things done. The office feels like a place we want to spend time, now that the boxes are gone and we have beautiful bookshelves to look at. Now all we need is the lateral file, the fish aquarium, the 2 sitting chairs with a small table, black framed pictures, a nice lamp or two, and the beautiful matching desk! I definitely have it all planned out in my head! All in good time......

It's a......

Hope you can read either one of these! The kids are so excited - well, we all are!! 20 more weeks to go.....

Conference Weekend

We thoroughly enjoyed General Conference this past weekend. It was very inspiring and as always gives me many things to work on. The weather was beautiful as well, so that was a bonus. During the priesthood session on Saturday night we had some friends over. The men went to their meeting, and the ladies and kids stayed home to play and make cinnamon/orange rolls. It was great fun! And the results were so yummy!

Sunday was neat because we had a newly baptized member of our ward over for conference to watch it with us. It was so fun to watch him listen to the prophet and apostles for the first time at a conference. It was a great experience for all of us.

After conference we took a beautiful drive up to Snoqualmie falls because the weather was perfect and the changing colors were amazing. It was a fun little outing with the kids.

They were happy to get out of the house a little bit after sitting through so much conference.

Brandon even picked up a new skill. Certain members of the family would be very proud!

A nice end to a wonderful weekend!