David & Amy

Just about a year ago, Kylie went into the the cardiologist for her routine follow-up. David took her, I was pregnant and didn't feel like dealing with the screaming, on her part. Well, as you all know she ended up needing open heart surgery and life got pretty darn crazy. Well, today I took her back to the cardiologist for her third follow-up, post surgery. She's doing well! What a relief. The mass that was growing does have a fairly small percent chance of coming back, but the risk is there and as today's appointment approached, I worried more and more.

The site of surgery looks great (via echo cardiogram) and the EKG looks great too. She does have some leaking in the heart, but it's a small amount and not cause for tons of concern at this point. So, we are focusing on the fact that she doesn't need a follow up for a year! Yay!

Hopefully 2011 will be much less eventful!!--oh and she weighed in at 31lbs 8oz, she was fully clothed, but that is amazing too!! She was about 23lbs this time last year.

So, this afternoon, after therapy, I took Kylie upstairs and tucked her in bed and got her milk started and everything. Then just as I turned to leave the room I almost tripped over something small and cute and smiley. Devin. He has climbed the first two stairs and then back down over and over and over, but he's never attempted to go beyond that. Today, I left the kitchen to head upstairs where he was happily banging the front of the refrigerator. The whole process of putting Kylie to bed can't be more than about 5 or 6 minutes and up he came. When I swooped him up he was ecstatic! I love that little boy!! Today at therapy I got some more not so fun news about Kylie and I wasn't all that happy--he always somehow knows when to hold on and do something fun to make me smile at the perfect moment. I am so grateful.


And his 9 months stats...
Height 28in (35%)
Weight 20lb 6.5 oz (45%)
Head 19 in (97%)

We had a great Christmas vacation. We celebrated Christmas with my family and had a great time. The kids were spoiled by grandparents and Santa Claus and yes in that order. We have tons of new toys filling our home and I need to clean out a lot of the old. I have a long to do list...

Anyway, during the break we also did some fun things with David's side of the family. We went to the Christmas train in Alvin which was fun. The wait was long but the lights were beautiful. We went with David's parents, his sister Jennifer, and his sister Michelle and their family of 6. We finally got on the train and when the ride was over we slowly headed over to get the stroller for our two little ones. About half of our group went inside the building and we were talking as we buckled the kiddos in and headed inside. As soon as we got there I started counting heads and no Dallin. What?!! We checked the other group with grandpa and some of the other cousins. They said he was with us. Uh?, No. David and I ran back outside, there were hundreds of people. I searched. I panicked. I got the guy in charge and started describing. I am grateful that I could remember what he was wearing. Just as the guy had put the microphone up to his mouth to send out an alert, David and Dallin walked up. Dallin didn't know he was missing. He was just watching the train.

Lessons learned...
1. I have full sympathy to anyone who has lost a child for a few minutes--that was the LONGEST and most terrifying five minutes of my life.
2. David and I had a conversation about if you find the missing kid--you RUN back to the other parent, so she doesn't have a heart attack...
3. You can make even a rough and tough 5 year old sob, when his mother clutches him that hard and starts bawling on his shoulder.
4. Don't get relaxed in those kinds of crowds...


Ok on to Morgan's Wonderland...
So the week after Christmas we went to San Antonio for a couple of days. We met David's brother and his family and David's parent's and sister there. All the kids loved staying in the same hotel as their cousins. The kids got to see the Alamo and some of the pretty lights. However, the main purpose of our trip was heading to Morgan's Wonderland. It is special needs park in San Antonio. It's the only one like it in the country and it happens to be just 3 hours from us. We are so blessed. I was concerned that Kylie wouldn't enjoy it or the other kids would be bored, but I was so wrong. It is so so so great. The security is phenomenal. We just let the kids go. Everyone wears a bracelet that is constantly tracked. They have these "location stations" where you scan your wristband and then it shows you by name where every member of your party is and how long they have been there. They can not leave the park without you! Loved that!
So they have a carousel that has 5 point harnesses and is wheelchair accessible. They have tons of rocking toys that any one who knows Kylie knows she was in heaven. They have huge playgrounds that the older kids loved. They have a train ride, giant race cars, remote control boats, fishing, this amazingly cool sensory station where these graphics interact with you and your movements and a water play area and tons more. I know I sound like a billboard, but they all loved it. We were there from open to close.

When we were on the carousel, I turned around and saw Kylie feeling secure and smiling and laughing and I started to cry. She has screamed on every one she has ever been on before. She loved all the variety of swings and the train and the balls in the gym and the water station. We couldn't get her to leave the water. It was so wonderful to be in a place where I could have her walk holding my hands in her awkward slow way and people cheered instead of stared. I am so so grateful for that day and to see all of her smiles. Now it was a little crazy at one point, this kid came out of nowhere and grabbed my water bottle off of the stroller and threw it in the lake before I could even say anything, but that's ok! So, here are some pictures. Enjoy.

Yesterday (New Year's) David was busy building a swing set onto our newly acquired fort. It took the majority of the day, gathering tools and moving the fort etc. I'll have to post pictures later. Also, we went to San Antonio for a couple of days last week too--which I will detail later. Ok on to the purpose of this. Last night we finally got around to cleaning out the car from the trip and sweet David was outside vacuuming the van out around 8:30 at night. You need the lights on to do this. He forgot to turn them off. We now have 9am church. The car was dead. We were late for church. We jumped the car drove to church all was well.

Well, the drive to church is under 5 minutes and that isn't enough time, apparently, to full charge the battery. When left church to drive home we had to jump the van again. During this time Dallin started complaining he was hungry. We pretty much ignored his complaints. After we got the van going again David and I decided we should drive around for a few minutes to make sure the battery was good to go. While we are driving Dallin kept complaining. We told him to hold on it wouldn't be that long and explained why we were driving around. He kept complaining. We started ignoring him again. When we were about 7 minutes from home Dallin bursts out almost in tears, "WHY DO YOU CARE MORE ABOUT THE CAR THAN ME?????"
Wow, it is really hard to console your hungry child when you can't contain your laughter...