Christmas Festivities

By Christmas we were settled and anxious to celebrate, and oh did we celebrate!! We kicked off the season with the annual family Christmas party at my parents house, complete with cookie decorating, moon bouncing, and christmas caroling. Highlights included my dad standing on the coffee table to direct 100+ people in singing the 12 days of Christmas, and a very competitive ping pong match between the Flemings and the Mitts.
The next day was my Dad's birthday, so we followed our tradition of going to confession and mass at St. Joseph's downtown, which was so beautifully decorated. That night Will and Jacquie threw a party for Nona (whose birthday was a few days before) and Dad in their beautiful newly remodeled historical house.
Christmas Eve came next as we celebrated mass at Blessed Sacrament with the Pattersons. Our whole family was complete--Paul came in from New York, Lauren and Mary from Dallas. We ate our traditional buffet meal accompanied with games and our annual viewing of the Muppet Christmas Carol. Readings from the Bible and The Night Before Christmas followed by singing under the tree ended the night for a long winter's sleep.
Christmas morning was so fun!! Emily (after having a hard week trying to adjust to her new world) was happy practically the whole day and was thrilled about her new pooh bear bike. Later on in the afternoon my mom's side of the family came over to visit. At the end of the night we had a Wii Fit Tournament going with about 15 people. We were all exhausted by that point and I can remember my mom saying "let's have a wii clean up tournament".
Early the next morning we drove to Austin to be with the Danzes and McConnells and had a really great day with a beautiful brunch. The weather was perfect so the kids could play outside while we sat on the porch to chat. In lieu of a present exchange, we read scripture and exchanged keys with personal reflections of how to maintain Christ's presence in our daily lives. Later on we played a traditional boys vs. girls Taboo game and watched football. The following day Eli and I met his parents out at the Rock (family ranch). Emily really enjoys feeding the donkeys and cows and Eli loves to beat Fred at darts. In the morning we went to mass in Fredricksburg after a mini fiasco with the carseat. We couldn't get the straps assembled correctly since we washed the cover because Emily and I got sick in the car. After we took the family out to breakfast, we headed back to San Antonio.

Our Christmas outing with Nona to the musical The Christmas Carol was that afternoon. The performance was at San Pedro Playhouse, and it was really well done. The costumes and set were fabulous! (as well as the actors!) We went over to Nona's for ice cream with the Brian-Fagans so Emily could play with Caroline and Natalie.
Over New Years I took a trip alone--first time in nearly 2 years not to sleep right next to Emily--to go visit my friend Karen in Chicago. We had such a great time together. On New Year's Eve we went to a really cool jazz bar in the Lincoln Park Zoo area with some friends of hers. The next day we went downtown to the Water Tower for lunch and shopping and John Hancock and saw where she works, which is next door to the Sears Tower. We of course had some Chicago-style deep dish pizza...delicious!! Wicker Park is the area where she lives--the up and coming, trendy and young part of the city with lots of cool shops, restaurants and bars. The weather was pretty chilly with snow on the ground, but no new snow while I was there. I had a short trip and came back to Eli and Emily with a bad case of the flu and just felt horrible about leaving them! (although they were just fine without me! :)

For Epiphany we started a new tradition (in case you haven't noticed, my family loves traditions!). There is an old Irish tradition which honors the women of the family on Epiphany--a mother's day of sorts. So all the females of the family (about 16 in town) were invited to Tia's house for a special dinner and blessing of her house.
Soon afterwards we said good bye to my siblings from out of town and were sad to take down the Christmas tree and decorations. Before it was all over, Eli and I had a nice date on the riverwalk to see the lights downtown.

Our Move to San Antonio

Well it's about time I posted something about the past two months! I've had some technological and camera issues, but so much has happened lately that I have to write now and attach photos later.
The move to San Antonio went great, especially since we had movers to carry out everything downstairs and pack it into the truck. We started at 8am with high energy and a little girl on a sugar high from a poorly made decision by mom to give her donut holes. I think I was pretty overwhelmed at the last moment since we changed the move date a full month ahead of schedule. Plus morning sickness and fatigue took over my ability to think straight and plan ahead to have healthy food ready for Emily! We couldn't have gotten everything packed without the help of our dear friends who we miss so much--Anne, Melanie, Brooke, David and Nichole. Thank goodness Lauren came by the morning of the move to distract Emily, who was confined to the kitchen with me as I deep cleaned the white cabinets and appliances. (I will never ever ever want a white kitchen after cleaning that one!) By 4pm our home filled with 2 years of great memories was empty and sad looking, so we turned in our keys and hit the road. As we drove away Dallas' skyline filled our rear view mirror, and for once it felt just perfect. We had a golden moment that night: the peace of mind that we made a great choice. We have a lot to look forward to in San Antonio, including living close to family, a new career for Eli, a new baby to bring joy to our lives, and a new home in which we will make new memories with our children.

November News

Well I'm back after temporarily falling off the face of the planet. Since Emily's surgery, Eli and I have barely had a chance to stop and catch our breath! There are so many updates in our family...so here we go!

The most exciting news is that we're expecting another baby! After a scary 3 month preterm labor and a difficult 6 month recovery, Eli and I were told that we probably wouldn't be having kids for awhile, which is always disheartening. So by the grace of God I'm carrying a kidney bean sized baby due on July 18th. I have a feeling it's a boy because I am just sick as a dog everyday. We had our first ultrasound and everything looks good...and we're hoping to go past 6 months this time around!

Emily is doing very well as always. The scar on her arm is healing nicely, but her hand is pretty infected. We've been keeping it wrapped and it looks like it's starting to heal. We also had the formal physical therapy assessment to figure out if Emily still needs services each week. A team came out to our house for a few hours and ran a battery of tests to assess her skill levels, and socially, cognitively, and emotionally she's caught up to a 15 month level. Language and motor skills are still delayed, but the possibility of cerebral palsy has been dismissed...yay! She can almost walk and I predict that she may be saving it for a christmas present:) She weighs 17lbs and measures 28" (which puts her on the chart at 5% for height for the first time!!)

Eli graduated with his MBA this past weekend. We are so proud of him! We've spent a lot of time with his family lately--a few days after visiting the Harkins for Thanksgiving, Philip's 50th, and the Lemieux's Christmas Party.

And lastly, we're moving to San Antonio on Saturday. Eli's job is set up, we've got a place to stay, and now we're just trying to get there. As you can imagine, packing has been a lot more difficult with our little helper and her obsession with unpacking. She'll definitely come in handy later on! Also this darn morning--more like evening--sickness has left me pretty much unable to help after 7pm (which is really when it all gets started!), so Eli can take credit for most of the work! We are just about drowning here trying to get everything done in the next 3 days...but it will get done and soon we'll be enjoying the Christmas season without a care in the world!!

Getting Back to Normal

After a bit of chaos, routines are beginning to fall back into place. Tons of progress has been made and today you'd really never know that Emily had surgery just days ago. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday she just really wanted to be held and loved, and she wasn't her usual cheerful self. On Sunday she started eating like a horse, was sleeping more through the night, and was wrecking havoc on the apartment...the calmness was nice while it lasted! Here are some pictures from the hospital and what her arm looks like today.

Showing off her ankle bracelet

Getting woozy

Being rolled away

In a lot of pain

The wound with dissolvable stitches. It should lay flat in a month.

Saturday was wonderful. This is the first Saturday in what feels like a million years that Eli has been in his pjs at the breakfast table. Let me tell you...this was so weird!! He turned in his final capstone project this week, which made him FINISHED WITH HIS MBA. I admire all those wives out there with children whose husbands are in school full time and work full time. Eli and I have learned to make the most of the 15 minutes a day we spend together. Now we'll have to readjust to being together more often--although Eli's anxious to start a new project now. (we'll see how long that lasts! heehee)

Our friends Katy and Justin had a fall party during the day, which was perfect for Emily (although she was still a little cranky). We were able to see a lot of good friends and their babies, and maybe even for the last time. Our little nephew Aidan was the star of the show with his sitting up and crawling abilities...I love him!

That night we went downtown to a great tapas restaurant for the Capstone Party. I was finally able to meet Eli's client--and new employer in San Antonio!!--and the rest of his class. We had a blast and were exhausted at the end of the night...thanks to Elizabeth for babysitting!

Sunday we met Eli's parents and sister's family for mass and pancakes. Sheri stayed with us until yesterday helping to get things back in order. I have been beyond exhausted lately with Emily waking up 10 times every night and got really behind on laundry, cooking and cleaning. We have 3 weeks left until we move to San Antonio, so Sheri watched Emily while I was on the phone finding new doctors, transferring medical files, interviewing moving companies, etc. etc....Moving is such a pain.

Look at that skinny little arm!

Here are some pictures from earlier last week with Sophia. We went to a great play area with a bunch of foam climbing things...the girls had so much fun!

They loved crawling through the "tree trunk"

And got stuck too. :)

Successful Surgery

I'm happy to report that Emily's surgery went well and she is already recovering quickly. We left the house by 8 and started pre-op by 9. This was a pretty intensive interview of her past heath history, including her 3 month NICU stay and heart surgery information. All of yesterday was spent scrambling to get faxes from her cardiologist and pediatrician to get clearance for surgery (including Eli at Kinkos at 10pm). I was a little nervous because in the past few weeks she has had an ear infection, strep throat, a sinus infection, and an awful stomach bug, thus meaning clearance for surgery was in jeopardy.

We proceeded to pre-surgery to talk to all the doctors, nurses, and anesthesiologists, and sign all the wavers. This was at about 10am and the melt down began (starvation plus missed nap = unhappy baby). Luckily she was given the first round of anesthesia, meaning that within 20 minutes she was groggy and literally falling out of my arms. Eli and I got a kick out of her hospital pjs, because one pant leg alone was about the size of her whole body (see picture above). I really enjoyed spending this time with her because she was calm and let me hold her. Then when she was almost asleep, the nurses wheeled her into surgery, leaving Eli and I behind. (yes, I was an emotional wreck...her eyes just looked so sad and she was trying reach for us and climb out of the rolling crib)

Surgery began around 10:45, and we went out to the waiting room to find Eli's Aunt Joan waiting for us. It was SO sweet of her to come and help us get our mind off of things. We oftentimes feel very alone in Dallas without much family here, and I can't tell you how much it meant to us to know that we had support. Our dear friends Anne and Rebecca, who work at Childrens, came to be with us too. The doctor came out around at 11:45 and told us that things went very well. The large hemangioma on the left arm was fully removed and was stitched up like a drawstring purse. In other words, the skin wont actually lay flat for a month or so, and the middle section of the scar will be red. This is mainly because there wasn't enough skin to cover the lesion without doing a skin graft. The small hemangioma on her right hand was lasered and will eventually loose color and lay flat in about 5 years.

From there I went to Post-Anesthesia Recovery and Eli had to wait outside. As soon as they opened the door I could hear Emily screaming. I was so frantic that I was practically sprinting through the eternally long room, passing at least 15 patients, hoping each one was her. When I finally saw her, she was sitting in a nurse's lap trying to claw her to death. That poor woman!!! She calmed down when we got her some apple juice and took off some of the monitors. Still really groggy and confused, she was lashing and screaming at anyone who tried to touch her. Before we could proceed, we had to call the doctor to re-bandage her arm because she lost circulation in her tiny purple hand.

After about 4 bottles, Emily was moved to Recovery. This was kind of hard for me because Emily was visibly in so much pain, but at least Eli was there with me. We opted out of the intense pain killers because studies have shown that Tylenol creates less side effects and she wouldn't be able to sleep if she took the narcotics. After an hour or so, we realized that she hadn't been given any Tylenol, and soon thereafter she began to feel better. At around 2:00 Emily was discharged and had the biggest smile on her face when we walked out the doors to the main hospital.

At home we spent the rest of the day with more apple juice and changing diapers. The swelling went down in a few hours, and she got her energy back for a little while in order to rip off the bandaids from the IVs and unravel the ace bandage. What did they expect? Toddlers are curious! After a long and stressful day, Emily went to bed early and we haven't heard a peep from her since.

Eli and I would like to send out a warm thank you to everyone who called, texted, emailed, or facebooked us to tell us they were praying for Emily. This surgery was especially taxing on our emotions because it reopened the wounds from her heart surgery a year ago. Back then we were numb to say the least. We were nothing but robots, going in the motions of being new parents in pain and confusion. It is now that we recognize and process the risks and worries of surgery on a small child. We literally could not do it without the constant love, support and prayers of those who truly care about Emily. I have said this many times before, and I will say it many times more: Emily is the best example I know of the virtues fortitude and perseverance, and we all could learn so much from following her lead. She is the most beautiful child of God!!