Happy Birthday to Carlin!

So we are celebrating Carlin's birthday today (it was Friday, officially).  We thought we'd do an online birthday card with a picture of how each of us looks on the day of her birthday.   A little scary perhaps, but blame that on the photographer not the subjects.

Love you hon.  3_ looks a lot better on you than it did on me.

As much as I love my iTouch I love you more (almost).

Mom, I am happy to be your daughter.  

Thanks for school.  I have a good teacher and class.

Mother dear

My dreams are clear

With you inside 

I have pride.

Thanks for all the tomatoes and bananas.  I had some for breakfast today.

I wish you a happy birthday, mom.

Can I have some cake too?

Back to School

So the elementary kids went back to school on Wednesday. Ana had her Dr. appointment, that went really well. So her first day was Thursday. So these are the 2nd day of school photos! The Jr. High kids start this coming Wednesday, so more pictures to come (if we can get up early enough to get ready and get pictures taken).

Odds and Ends

Morgan and Ana love to dress up and dance and sing to all kinds of music. Cousin Whitney was over and joined in the fun and Tanya even joined in for a couple minutes. Progress.



Girls just want to have fun.

Also this summer a lot of hornets have been captured along with numerous dragonflies.


Wednesday Ana had her two week check up and is doing AMAZING. She kept asking the Doctors if she could ride her bike and scooter. No was the answer, but they did say yes to swimming and ballet! Yippee! Things are healing well and her heart is already half the size it was before the surgery. AMAZING. She actually has a pulse in her feet now and her blood pressure is what it should be for an eight year old (in both arms and legs!!).

School note. Even with classes this summer the kids are so far behind in Math and English that we did decide to hold them back a year (two in Tanya and Ana's case). The charter school has been great and has extra reading and math classes set up for the girls. We'll see how things go this year. Things get better every week, but Tanya still just doesn't get things so we have decided to go ahead and find a therapist for her to start working with even though her English is still pretty basic.

Ana was also diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (a mild case, so we will be going to a clinic for that). Actually we are going to take Tanya and Victor in also and see if they have any of the symptoms/features. We're still working with the insurance trying to do a different test for the TB... it's more accurate and maybe they won't have to do 9 months of meds. That would be nice. Next month we can start capping all of Ana's teeth!! Cold things won't hurt anymore. And we'll finish up the fillings on Tanya and Victor. I would like to email the orphanage to tell them not to give them tea full of sugar 7 times a day. Ana's teeth are just rotting out of her head, but they couldn't do anything till after the surgery.

Bear Lake

We had friends up at Bear Lake last week, so I took Grant, Tanya, Victor and Ethan up to hang out and play with them. It was a bit windy and cool with rain on Saturday, but it was fun to play and swim with friends.

Sea Shell collection.

We took a little hike up to a like in Bonneville, Idaho. Super easy and very beautiful.

Airplane Museum

Mom was gone to bear lake with Grant, Victor, Tanya and Ethan, so I stayed at grandmas with Ana. We had a yummy treat, then went with my cousins to the Airplane Museum. I was looking at the pictures I took when I came across this one. This wedding dress is made out of a parachute!!! Back then, they used their good materiel on parachutes, so this wedding dress was made of parachutes.

After we went back to grandmas for ice cream.




Here I was playing a flying fighter game.

Friday and Saturday

I got to the hospital Friday a couple hours after Troy had left (he had to leave at 6 am). Ana was a little upset with me. I finally got it out of her that they pulled out her chest tube and Dad and I were not there and it hurt really bad! But she was happy I was there after about 15 minutes of not talking or looking at me. They also hadn't given her any Lortab since the middle of the night and she hadn't been complaining of pain so were just giving her Motrin. Amazingly she went the entire day just on Motrin! We went on walks and colored and played clay and dolls. She was feeling so much better once that chest tube came out. We walked to the toy room and played. It was great. They did another echo Friday and it looked great, so we had one more chest xray on Saturday and if it looked good she could go home.
They had her blow bubbles and on this horn to help her take deep breaths. She didn't like to breath deep with the chest tube in because it would hurt.
Uncle Brady stopped for a visit and brought some chips... since mom never gets her any.

Troy came over after work Friday for the overnight shift. She was so excited to walk to him and show him that they took her tube out. As I was leaving they were heading back down to the toy room for craft time when they passed a big wheel. The nurses told her she could ride it and they rode all around the hospital. Needless to say her chest xray looked great on Saturday and she and dad came home Saturday afternoon. We thought she might want a little rest, but no, she wanted to take the dog on a walk. We limited her to three houses. Then she watched the kids play basket ball and jump on the neighbors trampoline. After dinner we had a little bath and put her to bed. I went back not even 5 minutes later and she was out cold. I don't know how we'll keep her from doing things for 4-6 weeks! She just wants to be doing what the kids are doing.

More about Ana

We had a visit from a dog named Bob and she just loved that. Had to show his picture to anyone that stopped by to visit.

I wrote up yesterdays post and just saw that it didn't post for some reason, so double the news today.

Today was a good day. She was still draining from her chest tube and so they didn't remove it today, but said for sure tomorrow. So the earliest we'll be home as of right now is Saturday. But that would be great! She is moving around a lot more and we went on two short walks today into the hall and back. She is just amazing -- one tough cookie -- really applies here. Even when the pain gets bad she grits her teeth until the meds kick in. In fact, today I noticed the different changes in her body as the pain starts to build and I found she doesn't tell me "ouch" until it's pretty painful. So we were able to predict a little better this afternoon and keep the pain under better control. She went off the morphine this morning and so the nurse was adjusting the meds during the day. This evening they took her off her oxygen and took out the tube that delivered pain meds right inside the incision. She's been handling it so well! She is her funny, giggly self when she is pain free and that was fun to see today.

Troy was able to skip out of tomorrows meetings and flew home tonight, yeah. So he swung by the house and picked up Tanya, Victor and Grant so they could visit her. It was a good visit for Victor. He was shocked to see all the tubes and stuff and to watch Ana try and walk. It was really sweet to see it all click for him. He even hugged her when we left. They all brought her little gifts and she was excited to open them and then show them her toys she has gotten while being at the hospital. She loved seeing everyone, but was definitely tired by the time we left.

Out of ICU

Grandma K sent her this little puppy and that was our second smile of the day, but she had just had a dose of pain meds and by the time I got my phone out and back on she was out.

This was our first smile of the day. The hospital brought her this cute doll. She and Morgan like to play with Morgan's American girl dolls and have tea parties, so she was excited to get this doll. Even said thanks without me having to tell her : )

Ana Update

I took these pictures of Ana before her surgery. She was playing and coloring, didn't seem nervous or scared at all. Although she had a moose stuffed animal that the hospital gave her yesterday and she practiced cutting off its legs on the drive to the hospital this morning. So I think she did know what was going on. (We did have two translators talk to her about it also).


I tried to blog from my phone, but it wouldn't work. So no play by play updates on the blog...

Anyway Ana's heart surgery went very smooth. They removed the piece of aorta that was too narrow and stitched her up. I got to see it and the good end was about as big around as a McDonalds straw and the narrow end had a whole in it the size of a pin. I can't imagine how any blood was getting through that at all.

She now has a pulse in her feet and Troy just texted me to let me know that they finally got her blood pressure under 100, which they have been working on since she got out of surgery. So it's looking good. If her blood pressure can stay down and she slows down on draining then she can leave the ICU tomorrow, if not she'll be in there one more day.

We are just so happy that that the surgery went well and are hoping the same for her recovery. I'll try to update again tomorrow.