Halloween happenings

Halloween is always a busy time of year for our family, and this year was no exception! We had a week full of halloween activities--from preschool parties to trunk-or-treat, pumpkin patching and traditional trick-or-treating. But the biggest event we have around here is Matt's Halloween concert. He does a great job preparing the band with limited time and resources creating an entertaining evening for all. This year's theme was "Magic" and included the following music (for those of you who are interested):

In The Hall of the Mountain King

March to the Scaffold

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

The Wizard of Oz

Highlights from Wicked

Thriller

Not only does he lead the band in preparing music, but pulls all the little details together as well, including stage lighting, script writing, shopping for props, etc. We are proud of all the hard work he puts out to make it a success (even if Lauren is truly scared of "the Count").

After the concert: Lauren did not want to stand next to scary dad for this picture, if you couldn't tell by the look on her face.

Here are a bunch of pictures of our Halloween festivities:

Carving Allison's pumpkin from the patch

Our little pumpkins

What Halloween is complete without spooky pizzas?

A witch and a pirate

Our little bug

Trying to pose for a picture

...Acting silly...

A few firsts

1-Lauren sits down in the tub! Ok, so it's not the first time she has EVER done this, but it has been a long time. About the time she turned 1, she decided sitting was not for her and stood for baths ever since (no matter how much we encouraged it). However, when grandma B. stayed with us during Megan's surgery, she somehow convinced Lauren that sitting wasn't so bad. Way to go, grandma! Now, not only does she sit in the tub, but she BEGS to take baths. When she hears the water start running she comes running. She tries to get undressed as fast as she can and get right in there.

Lauren on her first birthday (just before she stopped sitting in the tub)

Lauren standing for her bath

Here she is sitting again

2-Megan is eating solid food! Well, it's not really solid if you ask me, but that's what we'll call it anyway. We started feeding her rice cereal once her lip healed up. I wasn't sure how it would go, especially with the open palate, but so far that has not been an issue at all. However, Megan doesn't seem too thrilled about eating from a spoon. She tolerates a few bites but past that she starts pushing it out and getting fussy.

3-Teething! Megan appears to be getting her first tooth. So far she doesn't seem to mind too much and the only noticable "symptom" is lots of drool, but that is pretty normal for her anyway! I think maybe this is why she keeps sticking her tongue out all the time--which makes it nearly impossible to take a peek in her mouth, but I can definitely feel something popping out.

New favorite pose

Seen Megan lately? If so, she probably looked something like this...

Fish tales

In Loving Memory...

Our beloved pet has passed on from being Rainbow Redfish to Rainbow Deadfish. Rainbow Redfish is survived by caretakers Lauren and Allison and adopted brother Tuesday. He was preceded in death by adopted brother Monday. He was a good fish, and lived a full fish life. Lauren and Allison remember the happy memories they had with Rainbow: "He knew how to swim" Lauren reminisced. Allison recalls, "I liked his sparkles....that's all I liked about him." It was a sad day, but we know that Rainbow Redfish resides in a better place now. Funeral services were held yesterday morning with a traditional burial at sea.

on a happier note...

Meet Tuesday

This summer, we adopted two new fish. This occured after Allison and Lauren both succesfully tossed (dropped) ping-pong balls into small goldfish bowls at the 2nd annual branch carnival and won them as prizes. A friend of ours kindly named the two goldfish "Monday" and "Tuesday," in anticipation of how long they would survive. I belive the carnival was held on a Friday. Surprisingly enough, both fish lasted much longer than anticipated, and far longer than any Walmart goldfish has ever lived. As noted above, Monday died a while ago. But Tuesday is still kicking. The secret to his longevity? A pinch of beta food a day keeps the grim reaper away.

I'm Freeeeeeee!!

We took Megan back to Riley Hospital on Monday for a check-up. Everyone seemed to be pleased with her progress. She got her new obturator (retainer) and, most importantly, got to say "good bye" to her arm restraints! She was quite happy about this and immediately put her hands back where they belong.

We will return in about 3 months to assess the next step of the process. If the gap in her hard palate (gum line) closes up enough over the next few months (her closed lip and obturator are supposed to aid in this), the next surgery she has will be a bone graft from her rib to her hard palate. If not, we will do it "like the rest of the world" when she is 8 years old and take the graft from her hip. When she is about 1 year old they will do the soft palate surgery (to close up the roof of her mouth). So that is what we get to look forward to in the next little while.

Meanwhile... Megan is doing great and healing nicely. Her scabs have all fallen off now and her new look has been revealed! We can still see changes every day as her scars are continuing to heal but we think she looks super. Here are some pictures for you...enjoy!

Megan's portraits

Here are the pictures we had taken of Megan a week before surgery

All is well

Just a quick update to let you all know that Megan is home and doing well. She has been sleeping well and is actually pretty happy when she wakes up from her naps. Her appetite is still small but I think getting better. She is not real excited about her arms being restrained but deals with it. She likes to have her arms out and played with. Sometimes she tries to be sneaky and inch her toy up to her mouth or she tries to rub her face on the side of her car seat. All in all she seems to be healing nicely and fairly happy overall. We are so glad that she is doing well!

This morning her steri-strips came off. Here are a few pictures of her new look:

Megan's surgery

Megan had her first surgery yesterday (Thursday) and is doing great. Some of the things we were worried about ended up not being so bad after all--like not eating before surgery. She was allowed to eat until 3am and slept from then on until it was time to leave. So she was still pretty happy up to the point that she was taken back to the operating room. All the nurses were very nice and helpful. After she went back, we sat in the waiting room and a nurse came around every hour to give updates as to what was going on in the operating room. They first took a new impression of Megan's mouth to make a bigger obturator for her. After that, they did the lip/nose repair. When the surgeon came out he told us he was pleased with how everything went and that things came together nicely, which of course was nice to hear. He said that there will be many steps to this process but that this first step went very well. 

Once she was in recovery and she was "awake" and stable, we were taken back to see her. I think we were a little surprised at how different she looked. We knew she would look different, but I guess just didn't know what to expect. I held her for a few minutes and then we were off to her room for the night. On the way, the recovery nurse told us that she wanted to hold Megan but a volunteer came and offered to "help." She ungratefully said "thank you" and let the volunteer hold her but apparently was not very happy that she didn't get to hold her. 

Megan was attached to monitors and IV through the night which was a bit cumbersome but overall she did very well. We thought she would have to use special nipples and squeeze bottle or syringe but actually got to use her normal bottles and nipples, which is great. She ate pretty well through the night and was released this morning. She seems to be doing very well and is generally pretty happy (as much as you can expect considering the circumstances). She is NOT very excited about the arm restraints (as predicted) but dealing with it. Several times in the night I caught her with her arm straight up, staring at her hand very intently. She will have to wear the restraints for at least 2 weeks to keep her hands out of her mouth. We can take them off whenever we want to, to exercise her arms, as long as we have hold of her hands and keep them away from her mouth. We will be staying the night at the hotel here in Indianapolis and driving home tomorrow.

A big thanks to all of you for your thoughts and prayers!

Here are some pictures (beware that there is some blood)...

Ready to go to the hospital (getting in some final finger munching)

In her hospital gown (still pretty happy)

Waiting for the nurse to take her back 

First moments with Megan in the recovery room

Close-up

Sitting with mom

Hanging with dad

Having a snack

Trickery

Last week on garbage day I headed out through the garage to grab our trash can and roll it down the driveway to be picked up. On my way back in I grabbed the doorknob and found that it was locked. "Hmmm....that's weird," I thought, "it must have locked when I shut the door on the way out." At that point I remembered that the front door was unlocked because we had recently received a package delivered earlier that morning. I went around to the front door and to my surprise, it was locked as well. I was starting to get worried since I knew there were 3 little girls still in the house while I was evidently locked out. Just then, I noticed shadows inside the front entryway. I knocked on the door and heard the lock turn. When I opened the door I saw two mischievous faces staring up at me.

"Did you lock the door?" I asked.

"We were trying to trick you!!....did we trick you?? Did you try the back door too?" Allison was quite proud of her little trick. Apparently they had locked the back door as well, to make sure all their bases were covered.

Who would have thought a 2 year old and a 4 year old would be so cunning as to lock mommy out of the house! Who knows what other "tricks" they will come up--looks like we have some exciting times to look forward to...

Giggles

Autumn crafts

We found this idea in the Family Fun magazine and thought it would be easy enough...especially since our yard is full of trees (and everything that falls off of them). Kept the kids busy and they had fun.

First we collected

Then we crafted

And here's the final product!

Dead zone

If you're planning a trip past our house, one piece of advice: watch out! Over the past 2+ years that we have lived in our home, we have had an uncanny amount of breakdowns along the edge of our front yard.

We live along a pretty busy road that connects to a major N-S highway in Indiana. So we do get a lot of traffic past our house. Even so, I have to imagine we get a more-than-average amount of cars stopping in front of our house. I haven't counted the actual number of incidents, but do recall a few:

• Ran out of gas (used our phone to call a friend)
• Ran out of gas (borrowed a can of gas and "repaid" us with a hand full of change)
• Flat tire --in blizzard conditions (Matt geared up in his winter garb and carried out pitchers of hot water, among other things, to help thaw the frozen tire parts)
• Break-down (borrowed a phone book to find a repair shop--this car actually spent the day in front of our place waiting to get towed)
• A motorized bicycle broke down (luckily he got it started again and didn't have to walk it to town!)
• One car pulled into our driveway and just parked. Matt went to check on them but apparently their car was fine, they just stopped to talk or something (not sure about that one)

Is this normal?? I am sure there are more. Today an older gentleman was parked in front with his hood up. Normally when Matt is home I will send him out to help but since he wasn't, I just watched from inside. I figure I can't be of much help with 3 kids hanging on me, and if they really need something, they will come to the door. Instead, I took a picture :) Ok, maybe that's kind of weird, but blog posts are always more exciting with pictures, right?? Besides, how else will you know that I don't just make this stuff up?

One week away

We are officially getting close! One week from today Megan is scheduled to have her lip repair surgery. It is exciting and scary at the same time. We have full confidence in her doctor and the hospital but I don't think it is ever easy to have your baby taken back to the operating room, regardless. I'm sure there will be challenges in the weeks ahead, like depriving the poor girl of food before she goes under, keeping her hands away from her mouth (her favorite thing!), not to mention the discomfort associated with the surgery and healing. That being said, we know this is the best thing for her and that everything will work out. Our #1 goal right now is for us to all stay healthy. Any illness, even a cold, can postpone surgery. We want our little girl to be as healthy as possible when she goes in. We are grateful that Matt's mom is able to come help us out next week, as we will need all the help we can get!

And one more important bit of news: Megan rolled over today (belly to back)!! Way to go Megan!

*By the way, I am still planning on doing updates for myself and Matt, just have been a bit busy. Hopefully I will get around to it sometime soon.*