Monday, April 29, 2013

What Did You Just Say?

I find myself saying that a lot after hearing something Hannah said. The things that come out of an almost four year old are very entertaining to me.  She makes me laugh so much and I always wonder where she gets all of this from.  I still only speak German to her, so I know she is not getting it from me.  Hannah still understands everything in both German and English.  She speaks a lot more English now and it is usually her first choice, but she knows a lot of German words. She also mixes the languages a lot, which is very cute to me.

Here are some of my favorite things she has recently said.

I was working on putting Evan to sleep yesterday (which can be very challenging) and Hannah was playing on her own, but she kept coming into the room every few minutes to check on us.  Finally I asked if she wanted to watch the ipad while I put brother to sleep.  Her response "Thank you Mama.  I though you'd never ask".

We wanted to walk to the Farmers Market on Saturday and Hannah didn't want to go, so Scott tried to convince her by saying that there is going to be a band playing music and she just said "Oh like Usher or Cee Lo?".  Well, maybe not at the Bentonville Farmers Market.

We watched a friends kids the other day for a few hours.  They were both taking a nap and when the little girl woke up Hannah went right in there and asked "You want to come out of your cage?  Come on, we are both nice".  Apparently to her a crib is a cage.......

I took both kids to Sam's Club the other day and they have the big shopping carts, so I was able to put Hannah next to Evan in the cart.  He had just gone to sleep, so I asked her not to mess with him and she said "Mom, that is not going to be so easy".  She just can't help it and has to mess with him when he is sleeping.

I am pretty sure she says "Yes surf" instead of "Yes sir".   She also says "meed" instead of "need" a lot.
Some of her favorite sayings are "Oh dear", "That is serious", "Long time ago when I was a kid....".  She also likes to say "I am just cheating" and she means "I am just kidding".

We have been talking to her about potentially taking her training wheels off her bike this summer.  She was excited about it and said "Yes, let's see if Dave can do it".  I think it is hilarious that our daughter has no confidence in Scott's handyman abilities.

Life with a toddler never gets boring!




Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Heart Update

We went to see the cardiologist today for another follow up appointment.  I was so surprised to see one of our favorite doctors from the CVICU walk in (the doctors rotate and come up to Northwest Arkansas once a week and we didn't know who was going to be here this week).  He helped to save Evan's life.  It was great to see him and he was genuinely happy to see Evan.  It felt good.  I think Evan was happy to see him too, because he put on a show and smiled, laughed and talked the entire time we were there.  One of my favorite things about this doctor is that he takes his time to talk to us.  He walked in, gave me a hug and sat down to talk to me.  He spent a long time with us asking questions and answering questions (I had a huge list).  The best news is that Evan's heart is looking good!  His blood pressure is a little on the high side, but not of huge concern right now.  We cut one of his blood pressure medications in half last week and his blood pressure remained the same.  That was great news and a big relief to me.  We will slowly start to cut back more medication and the goal is to have him weaned off all medications by the time he is 6 months old.  That is music to my ears.  The doctor was really happy with the way Evan looked (weight and skin color) and the way he was acting (happy and content) and developing (he was very engaged).  I have been so happy all day and feel a huge sense of relief.  We will have to go back for another renal ultrasound with the Nephrologist next month and then we will have his next follow up appointment with the cardiologist in 3 months.  We need to continue to go to the pediatrician once a week for a blood pressure check.    I am so thankful for such a great doctors visit and I am so proud of our little man and the fight he has put up.

I am going to celebrate our good news with a big bowl of ice cream now!

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Easter Pictures

I just realized that I never posted Hannah's Easter pictures.  I am always paranoid about losing my pictures in this digital age, so the more places I have them such as the blog, shutterfly and CD's the better my chances are of not losing them, right?

These are always some of my favorite pictures of the year.  Hannah loves to take pictures with the bunnies.  These were taken by Myra Wike.  She looks so grown up already and has the attitude to go along with that.   She was telling Myra how she thinks she should take the pictures.  "How about I sit like this", "How about we use only one bunny", "How about I lay down", "How about we use both bunnies".......Oh my!

Hannah did not have much interest in taking pictures with her brother, because we had to put the bunnies away.  I don't know how many times she heard "just one more"
 
And the bunnies are back.....
I love to compare pictures from the prior years.....
2012
2011

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Smiley Face

This handsome little man has been really smiley lately.  There is nothing better than being greeted by a baby smile first thing in the morning.  It makes up for all of the time you have to get up at night:).

 It just makes me so happy to see him smile.  I don't take anything for granted anymore.  It is the little things in life that count the most and I am trying to just enjoy every day we have. There are just so many bad things happening in this world that make it hard to live at ease, but we can't live in fear or "they" win.
These pictures are from a different day.  This shirt must make him happy!

I have a couple of HOPE bracelets left.  If you would like to make any kind of donation to Arkansas Childrens Hospital you can go HERE, donate online and I will mail you one of the bracelets.  Thank you very much to everybody that has donated.  It means a lot to me.  This has been a fun way for me to "give back" to the hospital that cared for Evan.  I have sent bracelets to London, Germany, Florida, Kansas and Arkansas.  So exciting!

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Three Months Update

It is hard to believe that sweet Evan is three months old.  We have all finally adjusted to being home.  He is a pretty happy baby.  He likes to be held (I have yet to meet a baby that doesn't) and likes to sleep in my arms for naps.  He sleeps pretty well in his bassinet at night, but during the day he wants to be held.  Every time I put him down he is up within a few min.  I do not mind holding him!  The Ergo carrier is still his favorite spot for naps.  He just can't help it and falls asleep every time.  He also really likes to be bounced, which has become quite a workout for me (I have actually started doing squats with him in my arms.....it helps him to go to sleep).  
Mornings are his best time and he is very smiley.  It just melts my heart when he smiles at me.  His sister is very good at making him smile too.  Every time he does something new Hannah gets very excited and claps for him and says "Good job cutie buddy".  He is very aware of his surroundings, responds to our voices and is starting to grab objects.  Hannah shows him all of her favorite toys from  "long time ago when she was a kid".  
I have really been able to relax a lot more, but I still worry so much.  I stare at him all the time and just thank God that he is here with us today.  I still picture him with all of the lines, drips and monitors in my head and that just hurts.  His blood pressure was high this week, which has me worried.  We were going to try and start weaning his medications next week, but if it stays this high we will not be able to do that and we don't know what is causing his blood pressure to be high.  I constantly check his profusion and I worry about his hands and feet always being cold and sometimes they look white.  I still get very anxious when he cries really hard, because I worry about his heart and blood pressure.  We go to see the cardiologist again on the 24th and I am ready for that.  I need reassurance from the doctor.  I need him to tell me that Evan is a normal baby now!  Another thing that is constantly on my mind is long term effects.  We don't know if anything he went through or any of the medications could have caused some long term damage.  He is acting like a normal baby, so for right now I just have to trust in that.  

He is such little chunk now and I love it!


Thursday, April 11, 2013

All About Hannah

Hannah is full of life and never runs out of things to say.  She has an answer for everything.  I hear this a lot: "I have a great idea...." or "How about we do this.....".  She is quite the entertainer and loves to be the center of attention (I am not sure where she gets that from).  She is also really good at bossing people around.  She loves to tell everybody what to do and loves to play "mommy and me" and she always ends up being the mom. 
She has a few words that she mispronounces, but I don't always correct her, because I think it is so cute:).  She says "Froutons" instead of croutons and "Smoovies" instead of smoothies.  She has been throwing in some attitude too and some days she sounds like she is three going on sixteen. We will be in trouble.  She is quite the negotiator.  Scott and I joke that we should be sending Hannah to any business meetings. 



Remember how this girl never sleeps?  She gave up naps when she turned two and still tries to tell us every night that she is not tired and wants to stay up.  She has napped only once at school in almost 3 years.  That's why the below pictures are so funny to me.  I think Allison's wedding really wore her out.  This was her on Monday when she went grocery shopping with Scott.  I laughed out loud when Scott sent me these pictures. 

Here is our entertainer.  She cracks me up.




We went to First Friday last week and Hannah had her face painted.  We are ready for the nice Spring weather to come back and for it to stay!
Hannah and I had a date on Saturday morning and we went to see the Popovich Pet Theater while Evan and daddy stayed at home.  It was so nice to have some one on one time with Hannah.  I miss that, but she has been so great about understanding that Evan needs a lot of my time right now.  We had a wonderful morning and Hannah really enjoyed the show.

This was us on our date morning