Let it Snow

Yesterday it snowed for the better half of the day. It did stop for a bout 45mins before the sleet started. I was thinking that the girls were not going to want to go out in the snow so after lunch I gave the kids a bath. Welp I was wrong because as soon as we got done bathing and getting dressed Emma and Tatum noticed the snow and our neighbor outside shoveling. Since Emma wants to be on top of everything that is going on she decided that it was time to go outside. We got dressed and headed out, Emma had a blast playing with Roxie, the neighbors dog. Emma thinks that Roxie is one of her best friends, she even asks if she can go play at Roxie's house sometimes.

It started to sleet so Tatum and I came in while Chris and Emma shoveled the back. By the time they came in they were soaked but all smiles. I think they had some quality much needed Daddy/Daughter time.

Once everyone was back inside we settled down for the evening to watch the MD/ UNC College basketball game....Chris is a HUGE Terps fan. I was catching bits and pieces of the game because I had to do some other things in the house. I came downstairs close to the end and Chris was no longer rocking Tatum to sleep watching the game. Oh he wasstill watching but he had laid Tatum in the middle of a Terp rug, he said as soon as he put her there the Terps took the lead. He informed us that she could lay there and play until the end of the game. Thank god they won, and take a look where Tatum passed out. I tell ya never a dull moment in our house.

As the week pushes on it brings us to Emma's last day with Miss D. Oh how we are going to miss all of them. That place was the best Daycare ever :)

Today's Norm???

While sitting at dinner the other night we were talking about Grandparents...Emma is forever telling us whose Mom is whose, "Ma" is Chris' Mom and "Grammy" is my Mom. After talking about Grandma's she moved on to her Grandpa's. She told us she has a Grandpa with no hair, a Grandpa with white hair and one with brown hair. It was pretty funny listening to her describe everyone in her own words. Next she asked Chris who his Dad is.

We explained how Grandad is in heaven with Jesus and we have lots of pictures to remember him by. Her response was..."like Jesus loves me Jesus", that's the one we told her. Then she got even funnier, her final question was..."Who is my other Daddy?"


I guess because Chris and I both have parents that are remarried she feels your supposed to have 2 Dads. She seemed rather disappointed when I told her there was no a chance for her to have another Daddy ( to much work)...her friend Alex's Daddy Steve is going to have to do the trick...I guess having two Moms or Dads is just the norm these days.

Just thought I would share my funny Emma story...Happy Friday!!!

No no no.....

Ice, Ice and More Ice...

Like I promised her are a few pictures...As you can see the car was really stuck, that ice was solid as a rock!!!!

Like always nothing is better then Disney, the kids had such a good time! The suites is really the best way to go...we are so spoiled, Thanks Yvonne hats off to you and your ticket connection :)

Little Chunk

Well I defiantly have to post more later…This is just a quick update...we had some funny stuff go on from my last post till now…For starters it took Chris and I 4 hours to dig my car out of the ice. Chris actually drove home from work to help me, what a sweetie…the snowplow snowed me in over night on Wed… I have pictures too funny, at least we both could laugh about it.

Anyway Tatum also at her 1yr check up on Friday…the Doctor was very please Tatum weighs a whopping 19.2lb. placing her at the 30% for a normal child. I was super excited that was a 3lb gain in one month. When it came to head cir. and height she is a shrimp, especially compared to her cousin Molly… she is 26.5in and the head was 44.5 both 25% for regular kids…all in all a good visit, she was even good with the shots. Our next visit is a pre-op for her upcoming eye surgery…the surgery is two weeks from tomorrow…I am not thinking about it yet…

We ended our weekend with Disney on Ice yesterday afternoon. The show was great and the kids loved it. Due to the Chinese new yr it was a bit sticky getting there because roads

Oh Sleet...

This was a pretty yucky morning...We feel asleep to freezing rain snow mix of stuff and woke up to it as well...Finally around 11am the sleet stopped. Before then all you could see out the front door was a ice slide to the street, scary. This type of weather always leaves you making the work call, to go or not to go. I was totally planning on going,honestly I wanted to go, Pim showed up around 10:30. Poor girl she got stuck in our neighborhood and had to get dug out by one of the builders. I guess that is one of the benefits of new construction, everywhere.
Pim and I were now outside my house trying to figure out where to put her car...we could not just leave it in the street with the hazards on, well we could of but Pim would not let me...being it was her car and all...lol.
I looked up and saw a big old truck coming down the street, driving it was my old neighbor Gary. He was picking up people for work in the company truck, saw us in the street so he had to stop, we were blocking the road... haha. He said hi and then drove his truck through the snow so we could park Pim's car. It was turning out to be a lucky day, for us anyway. You can see in the pic where we put her car. I tried to move it in closer but it was stuck, again...oops, lol.

Chris left for work and ended up coming home because his car got stuck in the alley behind our house...I guess they did not see a need to plow the alley since that is where all the garages are...I mean really who parks in the garage or driveway.

Anyway my car was frozen shut it had about 2 inches of ice covering the entire thing and it was sitting in frozen snow, you know the kind you can walk on without sinking in, since it was parked out front so it also had plow snow on one side... What a mess. Finally I gave up shoveled the walk and started doing laundry... good thing I had Emma and Pim to help.

Hopefully tomorrow the drive in won't be so bad.
Happy Valentine's Day...:)

A Year Ago Today...

This time last year Chris and I were sitting in a waiting room at Fairfax INOVA for Tatum to come out of surgery...Talk about one of the worst days of my life!!! I remember it seemed like forever that she was in there and that darn pager they give you seems to never work right. After a long 5 hours or so the surgeon came out to speak with us. He said in his 25 years of surgery he had never seen anything like Tatum before, neither had his PA. He informed us for the first time that instead of a co-arch ( what they originally thought she had) her entire descending aorta was small. While she was open he only tied off her over sized ductess (PDA), there was no correction to the aorta that could be made at that time. I never in a million years thought anymore would come of it and certainly not all this.

I was thinking, ok we are through this maybe a surgery when she is 5 and we'll monitor her untill then...LOL what a joke, that is what I get for thinking.

As the year has pressed on I feel almost as if i have been to medical school. I know realize that there is so much more to the heart problems and all else we have found out along the way is just trivial at this point.

Kind of ironic that our little heart baby is also a valentine girl. She was the only little girl in the PICU at the time so she received tons of attention and gifts. We knew then she was our special little girl already just melting every one's heart. Maybe St Valentine is Tatum's little angel that keeps her moving forward and doing so well...Well that and her very special Grand Dad Angel always looking after her. How lucky we are to have so much love around.

This is a picture of our little chunk the day she was born. I finally got to hold her for about 5 mins the 2 day and then not again until the day after Valentines...What a great belated gift...
We sure have come a long way, doesn't even seem like the same baby anymore :)

Party party party...

The party went really great, thanks to everyone that helped me out with it. I was a bit stressed out on Sat. morning because I still had a lot to do. I was planning to get everything or a lot of it done while Emma was in ballet class but that three year old attitude reared it’s ugly head and dance class was the first thing to get taken away. I so love it when the kids learn a t lessons at the Mommy’s expense. I came home mid errands to drop stuff off and got mad at Chris because I though the was doing nothing but to my surprise when I got home he had hung some pictures and done the other things that I had asked...sorry Chris...:)

We really did have a good time once it all came together. Tatum was in a pretty good mood considering she has a cold kicking her butt. When people come over for parties I do not think I see Tatum or Emma for most of the day. My friend Carrie told me at one point she counted 19 kids in the toy room…WOW… and my Mom says she lost count at 47 people…I do not know how to have small parties. It is pretty funny because there are kids and adults everywhere. I wish that I had more time to visit with everyone but from the pictures I have seen it looks like Tatum made her rounds...

One thing we have to figure out is how to lock the Master Bedroom. I just gave Emma and Alex a lecture about staying out of my room (only room in the house with no lock???). I seem to find random stuff in our refrigerator or in other places when we have people over so I know the girls think they have free rein. Anyway later in the evening I ran into Emma and to my surprise she was wearing my makeup…She had gone to my room, alone she assured me, flipped over a laundry basket by the sink and did her make up…That girl is crazy!!! You would have thought that she was the one drinking Mojito's...LOL

The day was a success Pim came and everyone LOVED her, that made me feel good and the house was not so bad on Sunday morning…I think the last people left around 11-11:15…got to admit I am a bit tired today so I could really use the snow days that they are predicting…. They say that this is the big one coming, I guess well see.

Thanks everyone for making Tatum’s b-day so special and all her gifts are terrific. Opening presents became a bit of a show so I do not really know where they all came from because there were cards everywhere, I promise I’ll get thank you notes out at some point. Can you all believe are little angle is finally 1??? Mommy, Daddy and Emma love you so much little “Taterbug”…..

TATUM'S 1st BIRTHDAY

SHE CRAWLS!!!

Last night I was over Yvonne's house, all the kids were playing and we were watching Survivor. Tatum was just rolling around playing on the floor like normal on the other side of the room. Before I knew it Tatum was on the side of the room with the other kids sitting up smiling!!! As you can imagine I was very excited, What a great Birthday gift :) She is goingto be all over teh place now...

Alright I think it is time for some teeth...I am begining to wonder if they are even there!!!

Just like Mom

I uploaded pictures from last week this today and got quite a kick out of them. Emma is just so funny and so much like me sometimes it is scary. Look Emma likes Uggs too, I bet Chris is going to be so psyched. I guess it is true the apple really does not fall far from the tree.

I left my camera with the daycare ladies for Tatum's last day, they all looked to be enjoying themselves. I brought in cupcakes for Tate's birthday a bit early and gave the ladies some money for pizza, I guess I wanted everyone to have a special last day. They made a beautiful card, that I am going to have framed,with all Tatum's teachers and friends hand prints. From the pictures you can see that Tatum shares my love for sweets. I can not wait to see what she does with her cake on Saturday. I bet she is just going to be to cute!!

Pim's First Day

Well I do believe yesterday was a success. My biggest indication of this came this morning when Emma told me she wanted to stay home with Miss Pim instead of going to see her friends and Miss Dee. Since it is only like 10 degrees outside I did not push the issue, I just left the girls all making breakfast. Emma wanted pancakes and Tatum was eating her apple cinnamon oatmeal.

Yesterday Emma and Pim rearranged Emma's room and learned how to make the bed, the house did not even look like people were home all day. I got home and Emma told me that Miss Pim is beautiful and was so excited about the braid that Pim gave her.

When we were getting Emma ready for bed last night ( Tatum crashed pretty early) Chris made the comment that he thinks it was the most time he had spent with his girls on a work night ever. Already a happier house, WOW.

My Big Girl

I can’t believe in just 5 short days my little baby is going to be one. Over the last few months the we have noticed that she is certainly becoming a funny little person, she laughs out loud more then anyone I know. Maybe I am a bit prejudice but I just think she is the cutest thing ever and quite the roller. I am sure Emma would agree since she now calls her “Little Cutie”, she certainly does love that baby.

I was able to dig up some pictures of Tatum the day we brought her home from the hospital, I wish I had some from the hospital to share but she is all tubed up and on life support so they are not real fun to look at, actually they make you want to cry.

Over the past year Tatum has touched my life in a way that I was not expecting, I do not know if I am a better person for it but I do have a lot more patients, so that is a good thing. Nichole said it best on her blog this has been the fastest longest year of my life. I do not think that I have ever been so happy, sad or cried this much in my whole life but the good thing is I am getting used to it. Nothing like a good emotional roller coaster to keep you on your toes, right?

I just want to thank everyone that has helped out with the girls this past year and dealt with me, I am sure I have not been the easiest person all the time. Well I guess I am as ready as I will ever be for year two, lets hit all those milestones together.

Good morning....

I feel so much better about Monday. Pim come over on Sat. and spent most of the day with us. I do not want to jinx anything but she may be to good to be true. I am not worried about Emma anymore she is going ot be fine. When Pim was leaving Emma asked why she was going because I did not go to work yet, clearly she and Emma are going to get along great.

Pim also told me how she went on line and read alot of information about teaching children with WS, impressive eh. She also loves to cook so I guess the girls are going to get a wide variety of food, at least during the week.

On a separate note I have enough formula left for today. Yesterday Morning I had to take Emma to the Dr. she is fine ...She has these coughing/asthma attack things and I end up having to Nebulize her. It is weird it only happens in the middle of the night and not very often...anyway... I asked the doctor while we were there if I could start Tatum on milk. Her respopnse was sure she is not "failure to thrive" finish up what formula you have and switch.

We regularly check her calcium levels among other things so we would notice if there was something wrong but I guess I am wondering if anyone knows a reason why I should not change over to milk. Currently Tatum eats three meals a day combo of number three baby food or soft people food, lack of teeth is killing me....anyway I am rambling Milk is it a go or what???


GO BEARS.....This is who we are cheering for today because Emma wants Uncle Geoff's team to win. LOL