Sunday, June 23, 2013

Summer is here!

After a very strange up & down spring it seems as though summer has finally found us!  The past few days have been beautiful and we have taken advantage of them.

This morning we headed out on the boat and enjoyed a couple hours of sun on the water.  When we got back to the marina Annabelle decided to climb up on the seat!  This was the first time she's climbed on anything and I was lucky enough to catch it with my camera (and for Brian to get to see it).  We are so proud of her and hope this is just one more step toward her walking soon.  She has also been pulling up on everything and cruising all around the house so she's definitely keeping us on our toes.

Brian's dad came up and replaced the front window of our house along with adding some trim to the garage and tile on the side of the house for our trash cans.  Brian enjoyed having his dad here and getting to do a project with him once again this year.  It really looks great and I'm sure it will save some heat & A/C because our old window was original and really lost a lot of inside air.

We are heading to Jacksonville, FL this week for a PMG conference.  It's a conference for families with kids that have PMG (Annabelle primary diagnosis).  Last we checked there was 26 families going so we are really looking forward to meeting everyone and attending some seminars and on Saturday Annabelle will be doing some horse therapy and we are going to the zoo.  I'm sure I'll have a post after our trip.  Hope everyone is well and enjoying some nice weather!


Father's Day pic this year

Going for a bike ride

Playing dress up


Standing over Clyde

So sweet, Father's Day fun!


Brian & his dad in front of the new window


Superstar

Popping bubbles, concentrating hard


Loved the boat!

Annabelle helping daddy drive




Fun morning in the sun


She brought me a diaper, laid down & danced.  Sure enough, she needed a diaper change!

Crawling up on the boat seat, so proud of herself & we were over the moon excited!

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Long Update - surgery, cast, etc


Things have been so busy that I kept getting further and further away from updating the blog.  Which in turn makes it seem like such a huge job rather than quick updates.  Now I'm faced with an update from March to June.

March 19th Annabelle had her hip surgery and was put into a spica cast.  The doctor said the surgery was a textbook one.  Everything went perfect and nothing extra had to be done.  After the surgery we were admitted into the hospital for 4 days.  We could have gone home earlier but Annabelle wasn't eating or going to the bathroom so we had to stay until she was.  It was a very long four days with very little sleep for either of us.

Once we got home she slept a lot for the first few days then things got a bit more difficult.  I had to carry her everywhere, couldn't sit her down except in her special chair or bean bag, and because she couldn't eat enough & couldn't move she would be up 1-3 times a night.  It was a long 4 weeks but we were expecting 6 weeks so we were very thankful when the doctor said she was healing so well it would come off at 4 weeks.

After the cast came off it didn't take very long before Annabelle was getting around again.  She's back to pulling up on everything to stand up and recently started cruising along furniture!  We were very excited she's hit this new milestone, hopefully walking isn't too far off.

I know that we have done a ton of other things since March but nothing really stands out.  We started Drum class at Luvaboos with some friends, a new OT music class, and lots of doctors appointments.  We also did our annual March of Dimes and Stroll for Strong walks to raise money for babies and our local children's hospital.  We are now looking forward to lots of fun cookouts and outdoor play dates for the summer!

Now to totally overload you with pics from the past 3 months :-)  I will try to keep the updates more frequent from now on.










 At Sesame Street Live 

 Right after surgery in recovery.






 We didn't let the cast keep us down!  On the move in the jogging stroller.

 Our eating solution since she didn't fit in her high chair




 taking the cast off!
 After the cast was removed she was still in some pain, Clyde kept a close eye on her.

 Playing dress up at school






 Glow stick bath
 fun in the tulips





 Lilly pad / pond bath


 we had lots of fun finger painting
 showing her muscles
 EEG - refused to sleep so we ended up having a 24 hour one (below)






 Went to see Gary the Happy Pirate at the Lilac Festival






 March of Dimes

 More 24 hour EEG pics