Family Pictures

Hopefully in the next month my family will get around to family pictures. My problem is I have no idea what we should wear. I bought some clothes for the kids earlier this year thinking I was going to have it done then but the shirts are long sleeve. That obviously does not work in the summer time unless we do it indoors and I have no idea where we could go indoors for a cute family picture. So does anyone have any cute ideas. We are going to have a friend do the pictures and so we can go pretty much go any where we want to .

Thoughts

Truck battery died Saturday (no big deal, just hot outside) While working on the truck the car started having problems (bigger deal). Fixed the truck and looking for new vehicle to replace the car. Stressful because we have no clue what we want. Hoping the car would last another year (big dream). Went out to eat over the weekend, not a good idea. Mattie screamed at the table next to use entire time pointing and yelling "that" as they ate pizza. Thank goodness our food came. Tried cleaning house but hard with 3 kids. Took Michael to swim lessons this morning, went to Michael's for some ribbon with the idea that I'm going to make hair bows. Why? Mattie won't keep her hair done and I still have not finished the baby blanket and the baby towels for my friend who had a baby 4 months ago. Also need to fix Michael's spiderman costume. Need to leave for doctors appt for Mattie and David. I have not showered, Mattie threw her entire lunch on the floor, David is trying to eat it and I have not had anything to eat today. I still need to pack the bag. I spilled ketchup on my shirt (white and new). Bummed that everyone goes somewhere for the 4th of July and once again stuck at home. Michael keeps throwing this dumb stuffed animal around and I want to nicely de-stuff it. I have a headache and I wonder if anyone else has days like mine. Michael and Mattie are crying know and I can't think. At least I got dinner in the crock pot. Yea me!

Mattie's Homecoming

this is the Phoenix Children's Hospital mascot and I forgot his name. Mattie was in the play room when he came by to visit the children. Last nap before going home

This is the room that we had. The blue couch in the corner is where we would sleep. It pulls out from the side so it is about 6 feet long.

The smile says it all-"I'm finally going home"! You can barely see Mattie with all of the stuff that is in the wagon.

I still getting around to blogging from the past month. Mattie came home from the hospital on June 10th after a 3 week stay. I'm glad that phase of her journey is over. Sleeping in the hospital was really hard and you find yourself not getting a lot of rest. It is so nice to be home and to have her home. It is great to be in a routine and do things at your schedule. Mattie has her angiogram in a couple of weeks and that will give her a diagnosis and will tell us if she need a revascularization surgery to help the blood flow in her brain. Scary! Needless to say the next phase of this journey is even scarier and there are still so many unanswered questions and a lot to learn.

Quiet Time

I want a quiet night. No kids to put to bed, no messes to clean up, no crying, no dishes to be done, no laundry to be folded. I wish I could sit down with a bowl of popcorn, a coke and watch a movie without any interruptions. That is if I can stay awake through a movie.

Baby Feet

I love baby feet. All of the portraits of the kids they are always barefooted. Michael has always had big feet. Mattie has tiny feet and David has big feet. When I was pregnant with David I did not know what I was having. At my last ultra-sound appointment the tech showed the feet and I knew it was a boy because of the size of the feet. I was a little disappointed because I made it through my entire pregnancy and the day before he was born I figured it out. I kept telling myself it could still be a girl but deep down I knew it was a boy. Anyways the point of this post is to say that Mattie and David have the same size feet. Regardless of the size I still love those baby feet and toes.


In both of the pictures David is on the left and Mattie is on the right

A Cow, A Freezer, and A Food Saver

A Freezer Full of Meat (only about 1/2) is shown




A Food Saver



= 380 of beef and 2 busy days of preserving the meat with the food saver.

Through a co-worker of Dans we were able to have a angus cow raised and butchered. The cow was only suppose to be around 250-300 pounds so imagine are suprise when it was 380 pounds. We were scared that it would not fit in the freezer but luckily it did and we have extra room to store stuff extra things.

Mattie

Many people have been asking so here is a little update on Mattie. We hope that she will be able to come home sometime next week, as long as something does not happen in the meantime. She has been doing really good and is using her left arm and leg. She won't use her arm as much as she should but her body is figuring out that it is there. She started crawling yesterday and that was really exciting. Every once in a while she will have a difficult time with the left leg but as time goes on it should get better. When she gets released she will do outpatient Physical and Occupational Therapy twice a week in addition to her therapy that she receives at home. Mattie is very happy and waves at everyone. All of the nurses, doctors and even the cleaning ladies love her. I'm glad that people react to her so well. She has such a beautiful smile and laugh that lights up a room. Her hands are little with little pudgy fingers and that gives her the cutest wave. The stroke did not affect her speech but it did affect her swallowing a little bit. We have to put a thickening solution in her drinks. The next step in the journey is the angiogram and this hopefully will diagnosis why she had the stroke. There are couple of different ideas but nothing is confirmed at this time. We know that people are praying for us and we continue to ask that. Right know we just want Mattie healthy and home............................



For the anyone who does not know what happened is the story. Keep in mind this is a shortened version of it and I left some details out. A few weeks ago Mattie had croup. There was one day she was having a hard time and ran a low grade fever. She was doing good the rest of the week and on Thursday Dan and I took the kids to his parents house and we went out for a little bit. When we went to pick the kids up his parents made a comment about Mattie not using her left arm. We noticed it and decided to take her to the Phx Children's Hospital Urgent Care in Mesa to have it checked out. The doctor thought the same thing we did that she probably injured her shoulder and it could have happened many ways. While waiting for the x-ray results we were playing with her and when I would tickle her left foot she would not even move it or laugh. When we got her to laugh the left side of her face was droopy. We asked the doctor about it and he thought it could be something along the lines of bell palsy because of the croup virus and with her having Down Syndrome anything is possible. He called the neurologist at Phx Children's Hospital and she thought the same thing but asked us to come in for a CT Scan. The Dr at the Urgent Care did not feel comfortable with us driving because of the unknown problem and he had her transported by ambulance. On a side note Mattie was asleep at this point and she slept through the entire ride. At the hospital the CT Scan showed that she had abnormalities on the right side of her brain that was consistent with a stroke. She was admitted and a MRI was performed early Friday morning (actually it was more like 4 hours later at 8 am). The MRI confirmed that she did have 2 strokes. We know that a artery in her brain had thinned out. She had the fever on Wednesday and when your body gets a fever your brain kicks into high gear and wants more oxygen, blood and nutrients. Due to this and the thinned out artery platelets where not able to pass thorough the thin part of the artery and they built up until nothing could pass through and it burst and this is what caused the stroke. When you have a stroke you have bleeding on the brain and swelling. We were in ICU for 4 days and there she received 2 blood transfusions in order to get her blood levels built back up. She was also there to be monitored since she was at risk for other strokes and seizures because of the swelling in her brain. While in ICU she started showing progress and her blood levels stabilized and she showed no signs of increased swelling. So know it is a waiting game and letting her body heal so additional test can be done to determine why she had the stroke. There are a couple of different reasons but nothing can be confirmed.