A visit from the Sandman

We awoke to a nice surprise this morning...a sleeping baby!
And it wasn't at 3am, either. Megan managed to sleep a good 10 hours straight last night from about 9:30pm to 7:30am! What a good baby. Just in time for us to go on our trip to Utah and get all messed up again. Oh well. Now if mom & dad can just get to bed at a decent hour we might actually all be rested in the morning. We sure hope this continues and wasn't just a fluke!

Megan Update: 6 week visit

We know many of you are interested in keeping up with Megan's progress so we will try to update as much as we can in that aspect. We took our second trip down to Indianapolis to visit the doctors at Riley last weekend. Megan is doing well and has grown so much! She weighed in at 10 lb 10 oz on Monday, which is a great improvement from six weeks before at under 7 lbs. We visited with Dr. Wooden, the plastic surgeon (on the right) first and he seemed pleased with her progress. He said we could go ahead and schedule surgery for her at 3-4 months of age, so we are currently set for October 2nd. The first surgery is a lip repair where they connect her lip and reconstruct her nose. There may be a series of operations to follow in her life to make adjustments as necessary. Palate surgery does not happen until closer to one year of age.

Next we saw the dentist, Dr. Kugar (on the left), and she just wanted to make sure the obturator was still fitting properly and that we were doing ok with it. When Megan goes in for her lip repair they will take another mold of her mouth to make a new obturator since she will have grown bigger since her first one done at 5 days old.

If you are curious about the surgery, there is a video you can watch about it. It's about 15 minutes long and is geared toward parents who are preparing to take their baby in to surgery. As for how they make everything work, we have no idea! But we are just grateful for the amazing things they can do these days. At the end of the video it has a few before and after pictures of patients. To watch the video, click HERE and then on the "Snapshot in Time" link.

AND just for fun, here is a picture of Megan doing some "tummy time" :)

Smiles

Well, I finally captured some pictures of Megan smiling. I've been trying but it's been hard to catch them at just the right moment. Personally, I don't think the photos do her justice. I think she is so cute when she cracks a smile--even if you sometimes have to really work to get one. So here they are. I am sure there are plenty more to come in the future.

July 4th weekend

What a great weekend it was! Last weekend was extra special--not only was it the 4th of July, but Grandma and Grandpa came to visit, as well as family from Cleveland. G&G Bertasso just made it home from their mission in Brazil and we were so excited to see them again after 3 years of being away. And it was great to have Dave and Sharyn and family with us too.

What better way to celebrate America than going to a baseball game?? On the 4th we headed up to South Bend for a Silverhawks game. It was great. Allison and Lauren worked hard to learn "Take me out to the ballgame" in preparation for the big game, so Allison was a bit disappointed when they sang "God Bless America" instead, in honor of the 4th. Oh well. She was still able to get her peanuts and cracker jacks so that kept her happy. The night was concluded with a fireworks show and I think all the kids liked it (and the adults too!).



Saturday was Katelyns birthday and she chose mini-golf as the activity for the day. It was fun, but a bit warm and I think the kids tired out pretty quick. At least I know Allison and Lauren did. I think Allison was done after about the 3rd hole. She seemed more interested in the rocks and the magical blue water than golfing. Oh well. It was a nice family activity anyway.



We enjoyed a nice dinner together at Ponderosa (Steak and buffet) where the kids got to pick and choose whatever they felt like eating. Then we had Katelyns birthday at home afterwards wtih presents and cake.



Grandma got some neat bubbles to play with after the party and we had a nice evening together.



Sunday was also a special day. We blessed Megan at church. It was great to be able to do that with everyone there. We had quite a few visitors at church--our primary had 10 kids in it (about double our average Sunday). We wish all of you could have been there! (Could you imagine how big our primary would have been if all the cousins were present!)





So all in all it was a really great weekend! We hope everyone had a great 4th! Check out the rest of our pictures here.

Kind of

One of the most important parts of the girls' bedtime routine is singing songs--and usually "I am a Child of God" is one of them. Both Allison and Lauren are pretty good at singing the first verse (you can hear Lauren sing some of it in the video a couple posts ago). Well, the last couple nights Lauren's version has gone like this...

"I am a child of God, and He has sent me here.

Has given me an earthly home

with parents kind of dear..."

Hmm I wonder if we should take this personally? Ok, so it's probably just a mixup of words as any two-year-old might do, but lately with the amout quarrelling she and Allison have done, they have received a good share of disciplining from mom and dad. Anyhow, whether we are kind AND dear or just kind OF dear, I thought it was kind of funny and wanted to share. :)