Christmas Day Memories

We just had the best Christmas Day I can remember.  We got to be at home, and it was wonderful.  My mom and Jim spent the night so they were there for Santa in the morning, which was really fun.

Andrew had a blast opening his presents from Santa.  Except I think he was done in 10 minutes!  Ha!  This year he went from one to the next and ripped into all of them, then he spent the morning playing with everything.  Last year, he wanted to open one thing at a time and play with each thing before he opened another.  It is funny how they change so much in a year.

A little glimpse of what Andrew really wanted from Santa!

It was a Geotrax Christmas!  He got one from us, Santa and my mom.  They all hook together and he has had a blast with them.  He loves running the remote control!

Andrew opened more presents from Ga Ga and Papa after Santa's gifts.  This was another favorite gift from Papa.  A Toy Story race track!  He has had a blast playing with it.

I made a yummy brunch for us, egg casserole and monkey bread!  Mmmm, it was all so good!  I wish I could do this every morning and just relax and eat and not be in a rush to get off to work.  Ha!

Andrew was so excited to get Jessie to go with Bullseye and Woody!  He also scored new Woody pj's (now we just trade them with the Buzz ones.  When one is in the wash, he wears the others!)  He had to put on his hat and boots to complete the outfit!  We've been hanging out in our jammies so much this week, it has been so wonderful!

After our yummy brunch, playing with toys and a nice long morning nap (which I never get to do!) we decided to head out and play in the snow!

Andrew had the best time- he loved being in the snow!

Which led us to sledding!  There is a hill very close to our house so we went for a little while and it was so fun.

Even Ga Ga got in on the fun!

We decided to let Andrew go down by himself, and he loved it!

He liked pretending to tip the sled over!  Silly boy!

Heading back up for more fun!

We had to head home for some hot chocolate!  I love his face here.  He was grinning because he loved the hot chocolate mommy made!  I made it extra chocolatey!

He has just started realizing he likes marshmallows too.  At first he didn't want any in his hot chocolate, but then he realized they were pretty good!  He kept putting a ton of them in!

Chocolate moustache!

After that we made a birthday cake for Jesus.

Andrew is old enough to understand when it is someone's birthday, so I knew he would make the connection with this.  I want to make this a tradition to do every year, I think it is so important to recognize why we are celebrating and opening gifts on Christmas Day.  I want Andrew to remember the real reason why.

While the cake was in the oven, daddy and Andrew took a nap. When we woke up we had soup for dinner and went out to drive around and look at Christmas lights.  There are a couple of well known streets we wanted to check out, and it was so worth it!  While we were out we took Andrew to a movie! We went to Yogi Bear.  It was such a fun thing to do as a family.  And I had no idea how many people went to movies on Christmas Day!  There was a huge line!

After the movie we came home and celebrated Jesus' birthday.  Andrew helped put sprinkles on the cake.

Then we sang Happy Birthday and Andrew blew out 4 candles (for his 4th Christmas).

It was one of the most special days I can remember.  Just being home together as a family and making some special memories.  It was really a day that we slowed down and paid attention to the little things, which I wish I could do more often.  Life seems so rushed and busy all the time, with work and day care and I feel like my time is so limited.  This has been such a nice break, taking time to relax and spend time with one another.  It made me try to think of ways I can continue to do it once the craziness of life starts back up again next week.  

The day after Christmas we celebrated at my grandma's and Andrew got to open more presents!  He must think Christmas is every day!  Ha!  He was excited because he found his name on the tag!  See how he's pointing to it?  

With his 2nd cousins, Kelsie, Kolton and Kendra.

Yay!  A remote control train to add to his Geotrax!

Acting silly!

Looking at his name on the tag again!  It is so nice because he can read his name now and knows if it is the right present or not!  Ha!

Another favorite gift was a box full of dinosaurs!  He has become obsessed with dinosaurs lately too, including the movie Dinosaur, which was in his stocking and I think we have watched 100 times over break already!  It was so funny, when we left my grandmas I apparently forgot to pack up a couple of the dinosaurs (there are 18 in the box) and he knew they were missing when we got home.  He was very upset and knew which ones were gone!  How could he possibly figure that out with so many to keep track of??  I was amazed.

  Thank you again for all the prayers and support regarding Andrew's upcoming cath and surgery.  It's been tough news to swallow, but we know God will take care of our Andrew and he'll be healthier than ever once it's over!  (Scroll down if you missed the surgery update).

I hope you all had time to enjoy the little things this Christmas!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

'Twas the Night Before Christmas...(and surgery update!)

I'm not even going to say that I'm behind in updates again (oops!  Did I just type it??)  Thank you for the prayers for our Iowa City consultation and I'm sorry that I haven't posted sooner.  To be honest, we've been letting it settle in a little bit.  Not to mention, I want to update on our special Christmas and I've been thinking I was going to get that done earlier in the week.  So this will have to be a "double update!"

I'm going to start with our Christmas, because that is what I'd like to focus this update on.  We had one of the best Christmases I can remember.  On the 23rd, we went to my mom's as she hosted Christmas with my dad's side of the family.

My niece, Mary, is holding Andrew.  She is his Godmother.  Mary and I grew up together and were always like sisters, since neither of us ever had one!  Mary lives in New York and doesn't make it back to Iowa very often, so we were very excited to spend a little time with her over the holiday.  On the ends are my nephew, Lindy and his wife Jenny, who are expecting a baby girl in March.  We are all so excited for them and it was great to see them!

Can you tell Andrew is pretty happy getting to see Mary!?  Ha!

He is a very loved little boy!

He liked sitting up at the "bar" and sneaking treats!

Andrew got to open one present from Ga Ga and Papa before we went to bed.  He was so excited!  He wanted to open them all!

One of his favorite things...

Can you see a little preview in the box??

Bullseye!  Woody's horse!  And the funny part was, right away he said he wanted "Jessie" to go with it (he has Woody at home).  And little did he know Ga Ga already had the "Jessie" taken care of!  Ha!

And visions of sugar plums danced in their heads... (Ha!)

On Christmas Eve morning we woke up and Andrew dove into the presents from Ga Ga and Papa.  He got a Toy Story robe, which looked so cute on him but he wasn't too fond of it!

He got to open his new stocking from Ga Ga- he was so happy!

In his stocking he got another "Ralphie" ornament for his special Christmas tree!  He loved it!

But this one took the cake!  He had been asking and begging us for the "Woody and Buzz train" from the movie Toy Story 3.  He loves this part of the movie, and he is obsessed with trains right now.

Look at that excited face!  Daddy can't get it out of the box soon enough!  I think this year was daddy's busiest year for putting things together!

Classic look!  He was so excited when he saw what was inside!

He was in a "cheesy" mood and wanted to sit by his train and pose!  I remember back to a time when I was wishing he would do that!  Ha!

So after that he wanted to pose by this other favorite train!

But soon he was back to play with his new train.  He absolutely flipped out when the train fell off the bridge.  This entertained him for most of the morning.  He did it again and again!

It just doesn't get any better than this!

He would jump up and down and laugh and just go crazy every single time this happened!

After spending the day at Ga Ga's, we all drove to our house to spend Christmas Eve together and wake up to Santa!  It was so fun watching Andrew sprinkle his reindeer dust!

He was so fascinated by the fact that the reindeer were going to come.  He kept looking for them in the sky.

Every time he would take a handful and sprinkle some, he'd look up like this to see if it was working!  Ha!  The innocence of a child is just the best, isn't it?

Making sure to get every last bit out of the bag!

After all that fun, we came inside and opened presents from each other.  Andrew got Lotso, which he had been wanting forever.  Except he wanted the $50 one at Target!  I scored on this one for $7 bucks and he never knew the difference (or at least he didn't care!) Ha!

He had also been asking for the "Lotso" garbage truck (from Toy Story 3).  He was very excited, and he took it to bed with him!  Ha!

This was my special gift from my buddy.  He made it for me at school and I just could cry it was so sweet.  It is a flour sack towel with his little hand prints made into a tree.  Precious!  They do such creative things at his school.  He had it all wrapped up for me with a card.

He also got his first "action links" set from Toy Story 3.  He loved this!  It is a reenactment of the train part again- he keeps saying "just like in the movie!" every time he plays with it.

After presents we set out cookies and milk for Santa.

He really wanted to eat one, but I convinced him to leave them for Santa!

After Andrew went to bed, us adults opened gifts.  I got the best gift from my mom!

Um, yeah.  I was slightly excited about this one!  Now I just need about another week off school to sit at the computer and figure out all the awesome things I can now do with my photos!  I can't wait!  I'm going to blog about Christmas Day in my next update...

***

Now, onto the surgery consultation.  Here are the basics.  Andrew was born with extremely small pulmonary arteries (PA's).  After his full repair surgery at 7 months, they were "supposed" to grow due to the increased blood flow from improving his heart defect.  Two months later, we learned they had not grown, and the pressure in his right ventricle was dangerously high.  At 9 mos old, the doctors performed a cath to try to balloon his arteries and it failed, so they were forced to place stents in both PA's.  Later, a third stent was placed to help bring the pressure down more.  He has had countless caths since then (I seriously lost count!) to widen the stents.  The stents have brought the pressure down considerably, but it is still higher than it should be.  The surgery we are approaching is happening because the current stents are now as wide as they can get and doctors can't balloon them anymore.  They are hindering the growth of his PA's.  

So, the surgeon explained to us that he is going to cut through the stents and widen them with a patch.  The problem area is beyond the stents (closer to the lungs), where the PA's don't seem to want to grow.  Right now, he informed us that the PA's beyond the stents are the same size as the stents, and they are supposed to be wider.  He cannot perform surgery beyond the area closest to the heart, so we just have to  hope that by opening up that area, the PA's beyond it will grow.  His pattern has been that they don't grow, so I am very nervous about this part.

He informed us that this operation might not work.  (Gasp!)  He can do his part to widen the PA's at a particular point, but he can't go close to the lungs and he can't control if they will grow beyond that or not.  Somehow, this was news to me.  Where it makes sense now after his explanation, I was under the impression that he was a miracle worker and this was going to be the permanent "fix" that Andrew needed.

Not so much.

We were also told that he will more than likely need more stents in the future (what!?).  This was also news to me.  At this point I was trying to hold myself up from falling into a puddle on the floor at his feet.  He is going to try to patch the area open, but again, the pattern is that they will not stay open and will need stents to keep them widened.  The good news?  They can put stents in that can be widened over time into adulthood (so this could very likely be his last open heart surgery!).  The stents would be placed in the cath lab after the surgery if the patch doesn't stay open.

Confused yet?  Me too.

So basically I went into the appointment thinking this surgery was going to fix everything.  And it might.  But I also need to be prepared for the fact that it might not.  And that absolutely none of it is in my control.  We are doing what we can by turning our precious son over to the doctors and surgeons, and trusting God to guide their hands.  And after that, all we can do is pray.  Pray that God will perform yet another miracle again and that the surgery will be a success, lowering the pressure in his right ventricle.  

And what if it doesn't work?

Well, I'm not going to go there.  The bottom line is he needs this to work.  Over time, high pressure on his right ventricle will cause his heart to fail.  How much time?  We have no way of knowing.  He's lived his whole life with it thus far.  Now we are just giving him the opportunity for the growth he needs. 

Will you all join us in praying for a miracle?  Praying that the surgery will succeed in lowering the pressure in his little heart?  We have seen God perform miracles, and we have witnessed them right before our eyes.  Every day spent with Andrew is a gift, and we know that.  We just simply want our son to grow and thrive with a heart that is working well.  We want to think about his future, encourage him to reach for his dreams, and watch him grow into a young man.  Fall in love.  Get married.  Live a long, happy life.  Isn't that what we all want for our kids?  Andrew deserves the same chance.

So, we will do what we can.  Send him to surgery.  Pray.  Then pray some more.  But God is ultimately in control, and we will trust in His plan for Andrew.

The surgery date is February 22.  He will have a cath on Feb. 10th to measure everything and help give the surgeon a road map of what's inside his heart.  

Thank you for your support and prayers!  We need them now more than ever!  

Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.

--Psalm 31:24