5 years

yesterday was emma's 5th birthday. i can't believe that she is five years old already. i still remember the day she arrived - after 11 weeks of bed rest (8 in the hospital) waking up at 5 am not feeling right. After a few hours when the dr was able to come back to my room, she examined me and i was 5 cm dliated!! She said, "You're having a baby today." i started crying knowing i was only 33 weeks, and tom had left the hospital, and just plain being scared. all turned out fine. emma was born at 3 am, 7 weeks early. she had to stay in nicu for a day and in the special care nursery for 2 weeks. you would never know that she was a preemie when you see her today!

anyways, back to today . . . we had a great celebration for her 5th birthday. emma and mommy went to starbucks for a juice and then headed to sweet & sassy where emma got a mini-makeover. he was made over into a snow princess. later we met pappa and isabella for lunch at red robin. sthey sang "happy birthday" to her and brought her a fruit cup and fruit smoothie (to accommodate our food allergies.) :)after lunch, emma went with pappa to build-a-bear where she made a hello kitty stuffed doll and rode on the carousel. they also visited the disney store, and then they went to the park to "hunt for bears." they headed home for dinner, cake, and presents. emma kept asking, "are there more presents?" hmmm, i think i used to ask the same question at that age!!


we are so thankful to having emma in our lives. she is a light in our lives, and such a joy. she is so sweet, independent, creative, funny, and so loving. yes, i have to admit, the 11 weeks of bed rest were totally worth it!

wired up - day #3 - cps

cps . . .complex partial seizures. we came home this afternoon after two long days at the hospital. when the dr first came to see us this morning, isabella still had not shown any activity. but during lunch, she ended up having one. i almost missed it, but caught her near the end and pressed the buzzer several times to let them know she was having an episode. the dr came in and reviewed the tape and the eeg printout . . . it was a seizure. they are coming from her right temporal lobe, and are complex partial seizures (epilepsy). isabella will stay on her meds for now, and we will go back to the dr in about a month to talk more. we will also continue to pursue some of the holistic/naturopathic options we have also been pursuing. the dr said that about 60% of kids with these types of seizures outgrow them. we are praying she is in the 60%. thank you to everyone for your prayers, support, and encouragement.

here are some pictures of isabella's last day . . . including her rocker look she had after the took off the wires.

wired up - day #2

we made it through another day at the hospital. isabella is such a trooper. she does not seem to be bothered one bit by all the wires and stuff attached to her. she spent the day running around the room just as if she wasn't hooked up to anything. she has not slowed down one bit! last night was pretty rough . . . she barely slept and was crying a lot last night. but she did take a great nap today. we also had several visitors, which was fun for all of us. isabella has been full of smiles and winning the hearts of all the nurses and doctors here.


the neurologists talked with us and said that no abnormal brain activity has shown up on the eeg yet, and we have not seen isabella have any episode either. of course, we don't want her to be having seizures, but it would be helpful if she would have one of these episodes that she;s been having so that they could track that time and definitively tell us what is happening when these episodes occur.


the current plan is that we are to be released tomorrow, but if she still shows no activity by the end of the 48 hours, we aren't sure if they would keep us longer. we certainly don't want to be here any longer than necessary, but we do hope to leave with more information at the end of this.

it took a long time again for isabella to fall asleep, but we're hopeful that she'll have a better night of rest tonight. hope you enjoy more pictures of our stay at the hospital!

wired up

isabella was admitted to the hospital today for her 48-hour video eeg. for those who don't know . . . back in sept, she started having these strange episodes where she looked almost like she was going to faint. the pediatrician could not find anything wrong with her. she started having some other symptoms and more episodes, so we found ourselves at the neurologist's office. he said that it was seizures. we were rushed in the next day for an mri and a one-hour eeg. both showed up clear. so, we are now doing this extended eeg in the hopes that we'll learn more about what is going on with our little peanut.
isabella did great getting hooked up with all these wires. they had to use some very sticky glue, which smelled awful. she was a real trooper for the whole thing. she is able to move around the room, as long as someone is running right alongside her, as the wires are hooked up to this box in a bag (looks like a camera bag). her head is bandaged up so that she won't start pulling at the wires. she looks adorable!


she had some visitors today, which helped to pass the rest of the afternoon and evening quickly. she was so tired tonight since we didn't get a nap today, but she was also very wired once bed time rolled around from all the activity and the new surroundings. it took a little longer to get her to sleep. but, she is now peacefully sleeping, and hopefully will rest soundly all night.

will try to post more with an update from what the doctor and video techs saw on the eeg since she's been hooked up. thanks for all the support!

Hot Pink Cast

well, we headed back to the dr today because emma was still unable to walk as of this morning. we were sent to an orthopaedic doctor who felt that she needed a cast. so, here she is with the hot pink cast that she chose and the funny shorts they had to give her since the pants she had were too tight to come off with a cast on! she was not too happy when he first put the cast on,but after getting home, she seemed okay with it.

i also had to add this other Halloween picture from the other day with the matching halloween pajamas.

Happy Halloween!

we had quite a halloween this year. in the morning, emma requested a halloween breakfast so i made witches' brew (oatmeal), ghost juice (orange juice), spider bites (flax seed), and pumpkin bread. then, emma "did a feeder" (translation: did a theater . . . aka: acted our her version of "the little mermaid") for us. that was followed by lots of halloween crafts and carving pumpkins.

just before lunch, we were playing outside. emma likes to race us from the porch to the fence at the back of our yard. she was running next to me and pretending to hold me back. she tripped and fell right in front of me . . . and I ended up stepping on her ankle. i heard a pop sound and she started screaming! i fell to the ground and started checking her ankle, foot, and lower leg right away. she had good range of motion, but she was still screaming in pain. i asked her to try and walk on it, but she couldn't. so we headed to the urgent care. they took x-rays of her and examined her foot and ankle. thankfully, nothing was broken and we were able to head home before the traffic got too bad and get ready for trick-or-treating. i took the girls out in the wagon and they both seemed to have fun, even with emma not being able to walk. i almost didn't post this as i'm feeling so bad about what happened, especially on halloween!

here are some pictures of the girls in their costumes and of emma at the urgent care center in the wheelchair the nurse put her in (she asked if we could take the wheelchair home when we were leaving!!).

18 months!

isabella turned 18 months on sunday. i just can't believe she's already a year and a half. we had her 18-month checkup the other day and she is now 33 inches (80th %ile) and 23 lbs 7 oz (25th %ile).

she loves point at all the parts of her face and body and saying the names of some of those like "no" for nose and "do" for toes. then she points at our faces and all the parts on us so we can tell her what they are. she also loves balls and trucks/cars. and she loves to push the buttons on all of her toys that play music and then she dances and tells you to dance with her. we started a music class with her over the past few weeks and she seems to be warming up to the other kids and the teacher in the class.

here are a few recent pics of her, including some from one of our pumpkin farm visits.

A few more princess pictures

emma was amazed that she got to meet all the princesses. she had to ask all of them if she could see their glass slippers . . . yes, she knows about cinderella's slippers, but she seems to think that glass slippers are just something that all princesses have! it was so sweet to see her with the princesses.

Breakfast with the Princesses

one of the days we were at disney, we went to epcot (emma kept saying "ep-acot" . . . too cute). we went to the princess breakfast in norway at epcot that morning. the girls both wore princess dresses . . . emma was cinderella and isabella was a little snow white. it was so fun, and the food was incredible. the chef came to our table and talked to us about our food allergies.
he made delicious food for mommy and the girls, and then made something different for tom. on top of that, there was a buffet that had fresh fruit, pastries, and smoked salmon. we were stuffed. and, we got to meet belle, snow white, sleeping beauty, jasmine
. . . and, mary poppins! (i guess that was just a bonus!!) emma thought it was so fun that so many princesses were there while we ate breakfast.

a disney surprise

me and my sister got the coolest surprise from mommy and pappa . . . we went to disney for the first time!!!! they woke isabella and i up early and put us in the car. i thought we were just going for a drive, but it seemed like a really long time to be in the car. after a long, long time, we pulled up to some building that i noticed had the disney logo on it. i asked mommy and pappa if we were at disney. i figured they would say no, but they didn't. my mouth opened, but nothing came out for at least 5 minutes and my eyes got so big. i was so excited. we had so much fun. here are just a few pictures . . . and more to come

cousin sophie

our cousin sophie was born on sunday, september 21 at 2:51 a.m. she weighed 7 lbs, 6 ounces and was 18.5 inches long. we are looking forward to meeting her the next time we head north to ohio!

More beach photos

More Beach Fun

here are more pictures from our family beach trip with nana over labor day. we had so much fun even with a few days of Gustav around. wish the beach trips didn't go so fast!

Gustav

An uninvited guest has joined us here at the beach . . . Gustav has taken away our beach and the no swimming flags are posted. So, we're playing at the pool and resting today. Here are some pictures of the effects of the hurricane here . . .