Amazing Progress At Dance!

Jen and I were pleasantly SHOCKED to see Juliana actually participating in dance class yesterday! She followed the teacher's instructions almost the entire time, it was amazing! I couldn't have been more proud of her, and my oh my was it cute!

As for Jacob, he had his follow-up eye appointment yesterday. The eye doctor was very happy with the progress he'd made over the past two days since he saw him last. We don't have to take him to next week's appointment, instead we'll wait a month, YAY! He doesn't think Jacob needs his glasses so we're to not put them on him unless we see his eye starting to turn in again. We are to continue all prescriptions until all are gone.

While waiting for the bus this morning, there was a girl who is always very outgoing and talkative. She said "His eyes are red, where are his glasses???" I told her that he had eye surgery last week and hopefully he won't need to wear his glasses anymore. "So he doesn't have lazy eye anymore?" It's looking that way, but it takes a while to know for sure. "I have lazy eye, but it's not too bad, I lost my glasses." How do you lose your glasses??? "My mom won't buy me anymore, I've lost three now." (That poor mom! Glasses aren't cheap, Missy!) "His eyes look really good, he's handsome!" Well thank you! (Jacob walks up...) "You look very handsome!" "Yeah..." (says Jacob). "HE SAID SOMETHING!!!" (she was shocked!) Tee Hee! Yes, she has tried to talk to him MANY times and he always hides his head in my coat. Another girl walked up and asked why his eyes are red too. I hope his day goes well... The bummer is that mornings are the worst, so they'll probably be a bit better by the time he's heading HOME, but has to have them at their reddest while he's encountering all his classmates. I'm sure the teacher will have the perfect explanation for his classmates, I just don't want him to feel bad (which he's already shown, so I'm a bit protective of his feelings right now). Anywho, I'm antsy for him to come home so I can see how his day went...although I'm sure all I'll hear is "Good...I don't know...can I have chocolate milk?" :-) Maybe I'll have to email his teacher ;-D

So yesterday had two great parts to it, all the parts in between where pretty hell-ish :-) I had to pray and pray for God to buck-up my attitude. Was gone a majority of the day, dealt with two very frustrating poo-poo accidents on Juliana's part and a VERY fussy Jenna (who is getting Juliana's cold...who got it from Jacob), and just various little things here and there, it all just kept compounding... But Matt sent me out of the house to visit Melissa and her new baby at the hospital, so for that I was VERY thankful! (her baby is SO cute!)

Below are three links to videos from Juliana's dance class yesterday. I wish YouTube didn't knock down the clarity so much! (understandable, but still!) :-) Just so darn cute! Poor Emma, she got paired up with Juliana, who is SO far behind where Emma's at! Juliana's holding her back from being the Broadway star that she is!!! We're very grateful for her though, she is a HUGE help to Juliana, she's her "stronghold" :-) If you watch the videos, Juliana and Emma are the only two that wear all-pink ballerina clothes, Juliana's hair is in a bun, Emma's are in pony tails. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsB1eU5CQbs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMBOKq5O7JI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTPr30YdwVg&feature=related

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I NEED TO CALM DOWN!!!

That about sums it up, Jacob shouting "I NEED TO CALM DOWN!!!" at Grandma & Grandpa's house tonight :-) We were trying to get him to eat his pizza but he was just FAR too excited to do so! Jacob & Juliana have been asking...no...PLEADING!...to go to Grandma & Grandpa's house for I don't know how long! So once we finally got there, they were ecstatic!

Yet another update on Jacob: HUGE PROGRESS!!! He had a rough night last night, and this morning he wasn't looking any better, we were discouraged for him. But throughout the latter half of today he has made HUGE headway on his recovery! What a tremendous answer to prayer! All of a sudden his eye is more open, it's much less orange, and I even see a small patch of white on his left eye! (a ton on his right eye, but that one hasn't been the problem) My goodness, we are SO happy for him! We may keep him from school on Monday, but at this rate I'd imagine he'll be going on Tuesday, YAY!

The rest of the family is doing great, tired from the past week and our house is a wreck, BUT so relieved and are happy to be on the road to recovery! (in ALL aspects!) Thanks again for all your prayers. This morning our church had a great sermon about God being in control and not losing perspective...great timing of course :-)

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Look at that! So amazingly wonderful to see!

Juliana being a butterfly...silly girl!

A very happy Baby Jenna!

An even HAPPIER Baby Jenna! (and a crazy Daddy)

Never-Ending Updates

His eye looked slightly worse this morning so we were very thankful that the doctor was going to see him today. Poor guy, he constantly has water dripping down his face, his eyes are puffy, makes it hard to see, laying down makes it worse, it's just a real bummer of a situation (and is very hard for Mommy & Daddy to watch!).

The doctor used the "big machine" that Jacob was so in love with at his last appointment, so Jacob thought that was pretty cool. The doctor said that both his eyeballs are swollen, but obviously the left more than the right. He says it's not common but he's seen it before, thinks it's most likely due to the incisions in his eyes. There's chroma-someething in the sutures and his eyes are probably just having a reaction to them. He says it's nothing to worry about, his eyeballs themselves aren't being harmed, they're just very swollen (the eyes themselves are really puffy, especially where it's orange, it actually comes out and over his eyelid...yucky...). The constant dripping of tears: his eyes are so swollen that they're basically closing off access to the tear ducts, so there's nowhere else for the water to go but down his cheeks. We are to continue with the oral antibiotic, the new eye drops as well as the first prescribed eye drops. He'd like to see him on Monday or Tuesday so he can keep a close watch on him, but thinks that everything will be fine. WHEW! What a relief...

In the meantime, we are to continue with all the prescriptions, don't make him wear his glasses, keeping him upright is helpful, no need to prohibit him from TV or computer - let him do whatever he feels like he can. We'll be keeping him from church tomorrow, it's hard enough for US to look at, I'd imagine it would be all the harder for 5 & 6 year olds! So we need to find a nursery volunteer to fill in for one of us. And if it's not much better by Monday, we're just going to keep him home from school until it clears up a bit. It'd be too hard for him, and hard for his classmates.

So there ya have it, yet another update, more to come... Oh yeah, and the doctor let him help feed the fish! (it's this mega cool fishtank that has all the Nemo characters in it, so that was VERY fun for Jacob!)

A Rough Patch

Jacob's eyes took a turn for the worse today. His eyes were looking worse, watering a lot, the color on the outer part of his left eye was turning more pink, and his left eye was only open about half as much as his right eye. I made him take a nap to rest his eyes, and when he woke up they looked awful. He watched a little TV, water was just running down his face, the outer part that had been pink turned into a more yellow/orange/pink color. He began saying that he was seeing blurry, got frantic and started crying. :-( We had him lay down and put a cold washcloth on his eyes for about 20 minutes while I called his eye doctor again. He was unhappy that the technician I spoke with earlier today didn't have me take Jacob in, and asked for her name... He has prescribed him new eye drops in addition to oral antibiotics. We're thrilled to now be attacking it from the outside AND inside. He's also having us bring Jacob in tomorrow so he can check him out (which we're very thankful for, as they're closed on the weekends). The pharmacist said that the new eye drops are a "big bullet", they attack all kinds of bacteria (which we have to give him every 2 hours while he's awake). And that the oral medicine is very powerful too. Great to hear! So we've started the new medicine and are awaiting his eye appointment tomorrow. More to come...

Jacob's eyes the day after surgery,

which was supposed to be the worst day.

Jacob's eyes today as I called the doctor...poor guy :-(

It's supposed to be going uphill by now.

Life As Usual

Well it's been a fun week having Jacob home, Juliana has thoroughly enjoyed having her playmate back in the mornings! On Wednesday we made windsocks, Jacob made a beach scene and Juliana drew circles and put a plethora of stickers on hers (Mommy also made a beach scene, however no pictures will be posted as I don't want to BOAST about how marvelous mine is!). And today we took a trip to Goodwill to parooze the Halloween costume selection. We purchased a few dresses to add to Juliana's dress-up bin, great finds at great prices! She LOVES the feathery sequin hat, as you'll soon see...
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As for an update on our patient, Jacob is doing well. The night of his surgery he had a bit of a rough time for a bit. He went the bathroom and was in there a long time. We checked on him and he had been standing there just staring at his eyes :-( We got him out of there, he sat on Matt's lap and cried. We explained to him that it's like the bruises on his legs and it will go away. His eyes have been super watery yesterday and today, I think he has a bit of a cold which is adding to that problem. His left eye is swollen and even the white is quite pink in that eye. I called the eye doctor to make sure I shouldn't be doing anything, they said the prescription eye drops should take care of it, to keep watching it, etc. His post-op appointment will be on Tuesday, October 7th. More to come...in the meantime, pictures from this week!
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Mom, Can We Take This Off?

"Mom, can we take this off?" Those were Jacob's first words when he woke up from surgery, referring to one of the wires attached to him. For the next hour he woke up off and on and talked our ear off. Let's journey back...

This morning our little angel, MY MOM, came to our house at around 6:20am to start watching our girls so Matt and I could take Jacob to the hospital for his bilatteral strabismus surgery. We woke Jacob up, quickly dressed him and brought him downstairs. He was pleasantly surprised to see Grandma in our living room! We headed off to the hospital, "Where are we going?" "We're going to go get your eyes fixed!" Mom explained excitedly. "Oh, OK!" We hadn't told him a thing prior to this and weren't planning on saying anything more, and that was enough for him :-)

He was excited as we got to Children's Hospital in Tacoma to see the bushes cut skillfully into animal shapes. He enjoyed playing with all the hospital's toys along the way to the second floor where we checked in. Once we were up there...the first waiting room: toys to play with, the second waiting room: toys to play with, the holding room: toys to play with...what a great hospital :-) He was never bored! (oh yeah, and all TV's were set to Playhouse Disney!) He got all his vitals taken, drank the yucky drink (which he didn't want to finish after his first swallow, but we forced him to...), got more vitals taken, met with some nurses, the anesthesiologist, his eye doctor, and off he walked with the nurse into OR. That was the weirdest feeling for us this morning, watching him walk away into OR without even looking back, completely trusting us and the nurses to "fix his eyes"...he's really growing up... About a half hour later, his eye doctor came back to the waiting room to inform us that the surgery went well, a little more bleeding in the left eye than he'd like, but all is well. About 40 minutes later they wheeled Jacob up to us to bring us all into his room. He had woken up in recovery for them, but went right back out as they were wheeling him to us. They had to wake him up again to transfer him into his room's bed, but he went right back out again. It took a good hour or so for him to start waking up. From 12:30-1:30 he woke up off and on and had all kinds of things to talk about!

"Mommy, we need to ride the cars and trucks up and down...when we gotta get home."
"We go to Grandma's house?"
"Dad...for Christmas I want a Christmas tree...in the snow."
"Got to slide on the hill on sleds with Gabe."
"I'm talking silly right now."
"I wanna go at Chuck E Cheese's."
"Doctor! I need to ask the doctor something. Uh...just kidding."
"My eyes are feeling a little better...still a little sleepy though."
"Maybe next week we can play the LIFE game...or maybe we can play right now..."
"Mom, maybe we go to play room and play, with the balls, jump in."
"Hey! Maybe we go to the Supermall!"
"OR maybe we go to the pool at Grandma's house."
"Hey! I didn't throw up! A long time ago I thought I was gonna throw up, but I didn't! I just needed water."
(all said with his eyes closed with a few minutes of sleep inbetween) :-)

He finally stayed awake and watched Wow Wow Wubzy while we were waiting for them to pull out his IV and discharge us. I had a hard time looking at his eyes when he was awake off and on, they were extremely dilated and bloodshot, and in general he was very pale and not quite "there" so it was a very blank look. ...made Mommy feel a wee bit nauseous...but it got better as he woke up more.

We were all very happy when the nurse had me sign the paperwork to get him out of there. We got home around 3:00, and were VERY thankful for my mom to have watched the girls for so long! We joked about how we tried to make it a full 12 hours, but didn't quite make it :-) THANK YOU, MOM!!!

Thank you all for your prayers and kind words. His eyes are looking so much better, I can't wait for a few weeks down the road when they're not bloodshot anymore and we can see a more final outcome. One nice thing was that one of our nurses had a daughter who had the surgery a year ago (who was also five at the time) and her eyes are perfectly straight now and she even got to discontinue wearing her glasses! She said her daughter had double vision for about three weeks, but then all was well. The doctor is still thinking Jacob will have to continue wearing his glasses, but we won't know for a while for sure. I'm to make his post-op appointment for next week sometime, hopefully we'll know more then. In the meantime, no food today, only limited liquids (eye and ear surgery patients are most often very nauseous after surgeries, and for at least the first six hours anything you put in them will come right back up) Below are some pictures from the day. We are so thankful that things went well and are antsy to see the finished (non-bloody) outcome a month from now!

Jacob on his way into the hospital to get his eyes fixed!


Jacob at Children's Hospital at Tacoma Marybridge


Jacob in his "happy place" :-) LETTERS!


Jacob sleeping soundly while Mommy & Daddy anxiously await seeing his eyes


Jacob finally all the way awake! Straight eyes, we haven't seen that in about 1 1/2 years!


Jacob and Daddy on our way out of the hospital


Jacob opening his "Great job being brave!" gifts from Mommy & Daddy, and Aunt Karen.

Twas The Night Before Surgery...

Twas the night before surgery
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Cuz we were all at the Family Fun Center!

OK, so that doesn't rhyme, but what a fun night! We wanted to do something fun on the night before Jacob's long-awaited eye surgery, so we met up with Daddy at the Family Fun Center in Tukwila. The kids played in the Kidopolis area for quite some time, then played some games. I think the funniest was watching them do the bowling ones, MANY times did the balls end up in completely different lanes! (even jumping MULTIPLE lanes!) They had fun deciding what to use their tokens on, their favorite was the simulated roller coaster ride. They exchanged their tickets for some candy, and off we went to have pizza for dinner, Jacob's choice!

Jacob's surgery has been bumped out an hour, so we don't have to be at the hospital until 8:00 now. We're a bit relieved, we didn't want to get us up and out the door by 5:30, 6:30 is much more doable! (especially since Grandma is being nice enough to come here and watch the girls while Matt & I take Jacob to the hospital)

We appreciate all the prayers you are offering up and will be sure to keep you updated after his surgery and as he's healing. To be continued...
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Progress!!!

Juliana actually joined in on occasion at dance class today! Whenever they were all lined up facing the teacher, she wouldn't hardly budge, she was a statue with slight toe tapping going on. But when they followed the teacher around like ducklings following her lead, Juliana was actually participating a bit! I am choosing to have a positive attitude and see the great progress she made this week! YAY, JULIANA!!!

The only bummer was when we got home I didn't have a chance to change her out of her clothes, and on the way out to get Jacob off the bus, Juliana tripped and ripped holes in both knees of her ballet tights :-( Bummer... They made it through two dance classes, that's something :-)

Juliana doin' some heel-tappin'!

Happy Jenna

Happy Kadin

Scarf dancing to the Little Mermaid

Click here for a video of her participating :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWNBDcpMUjY

Following in Finney's Footsteps

So it was only a matter of time, right? As Matt and I have been spending so much time fixing our bathroom, the kids haven't been as closely watched as normal... This gave Juliana an opportune chance to follow in her cousin's footsteps:

Juliana "prettied up"...

Her cousin, Josiah, "prettied up" early last year...

11 Years In The Making

Matt and I have been married for 11 years today! I was telling him that it's kind of a big one. It's not a 5-year, 10-year type of thing, it's more that we are officially done having children and are moving forward! A lot has happened over the last 11 years...in a nutshell: we bought our first house in Kent, got two cats, Matt started gardening, we helped start up the Newlyweds class at church, ventured on to the Young Families class, moved to Maple Valley, got more cats ;-), more elaborate gardening, we had our first child, I joined the worship team, Matt started a lifelong career at McKinstry, we had our second child, lost some cats :-( and got one more, I resigned from McKinstry, we've both taken various schooling and Matt has since finished both GRCC and the UW program (YAY!), Matt began ushering, we had our third and final child, and here we are!

We feel like we're at a more (dare I say) "settled" stage of life now, we're moving forward and are excited to see what God has in store for us next. I thank God for our marriage and all that's happened because of it. We are such a great match for each other, we balance each other out in some areas, we are replicas of each other in other areas. We're growing in our relationship, our spiritual lives, our parenting, and are so thankful to God for what's He's done in our lives.

So now I head back upstairs to continue celebrating our 11th anniversary by fixing our bathroom... :-)

Jenna Turns 5 Months!

Today's the 17th, and that means Jenna is another month older! Today she reached the 5-month milestone!!! So as always, a picture of her next to her monkey to mark her growth over the last month. She sure has come a long ways over the last 5 months; she's sleeping through the night (7:00-7:00 to be exact!), eating Gerber 1st Foods with rice cereal, plays in her exersaucer, is screaming much less, and boy does she adore her brother and sister! It's been so fun watching Jacob and Juliana with her, they do so great, even when she's shrill screaming in the midst of their precious Phineas & Ferb TV time! :o) I'm excited to see what the next 5 months will hold!

P.S. One more week until Jacob's eye surgery (next Tuesday). Filled out his absence form at the elementary school, got him a super cool Transformer as a "way to go, you did it" gift, and he's still doing great wearing his eye patch. We're getting there!

Jenna's 5 month picture next to her monkey

What a happy girl!

Sisters: Jenna & Juliana

Siblings: Jacob, Juliana and Jenna

Our Three Musketeers

A very "typical" moment :o)

Dance Class A Success!

OK, I'm sure that Jen is laughing by the title of my blog, BUT stay with me here... Juliana had her first dance class today, and I am choosing to think of it as a success! She didn't run off and cry, she didn't go potty in her underwear, Jenna didn't scream, I made it home in time to get Jacob off the bus...all in all - A SUCCESS!!!

Juliana was so excited to put on her ballerina clothes this morning, and for Mommy to do her hair up in a bun, she was ALL SMILES! We got in the car, I could tell she was already losing steam, we got to the dance class, and she stuck by my side but was VERY happy to see Emma (who was VERY happy to see Jenna!). The dance class was beginning and all the girls were sitting in a circle, Juliana started to walk in with me until she realized that I was staying back, then STONE - she wouldn't budge. The instructor was very nice and came over, grabbed her hand, and nicely led her to the group. "Stone" would be a good name for this blog actually, because that's what she was, during the entire class, still as stone! She would move any time the instructor would grab her hand and lead her somewhere, she would walk with her head down and get from Point A to Point B, but that's all she was givin' up! There were a few times that Jen and I would notice her foot tapping, but that's the most she would do ;-) (Juliana's parents see that as progress, baby steps) Emma was SO sweet with her! From time to time she'd look over, give Juliana a little stroke on her arm, seeming to say "It's OK Juliana, you can do it, you're doing great." Thank you, Emma! What a great friend you are! (And a great dancer! She did great, but I'll let Jen tell you all about that in her blog) :-)

Juliana is very shy around people she doesn't know, as many of you know! But once she's been around them on a more consistent basis and sees that it's the same thing week after week she'll start to loosen up and go with the flow. Also, she is a brand spankin' new three-year-old, the youngest age you can be to be in the class, barely makes the cut, so it's to be expected :-) I am shocked that she didn't cry and run to me, that in itself is progress! I'm very thankful that she has a teacher that is willing to work with her and take her by the hand. Hopefully she won't have to do that for long, I want all the kids to get good attention from the teacher. Anywho, there you have it, our "success" story of Juliana's first dance class!