Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Meet Sienna


Our newest addition to the family....


Sienna

This is one of Kate's babydolls that she has playing mommy to.  First she fed her a bottle.  She used Kylee's after she was through with it.  Then she put her in the high chair so she could feed her oatmeal.





                                                        Kate telling Sienna to smile


            Kate said "here comes the airplane coming in for a landing."  And yes it's real baby oatmeal.



She's too funny!  I asked her if Sienna ate all her oatmeal.  She said, "aww, it's just pretend."  She also has another doll named Jenna.  Poor Jenna has to get her heart fixed just like Kylee, but lucky Jenna only has to be in the hospital 2 days!  I couldn't get her pic because she was asleep in the swing and we didn't want to wake her.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Christmas And 6 Months Old

Hope everyone had a good Christmas!

Despite being sick, Kate had a great Christmas and when she woke up Christmas morning, she said "what happened?"  She was also very excited to get to spend some time with Uncle Mike and even went to see the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie with him.  As I mentioned, Kate has been sick with what is probably a lingering sinus infection.  Poor thing, she had a fever for a couple days, and has tons of congestion which makes her cough almost to the point of gagging.  I took her to the Dr. on Saturday and he gave her another allergy med and some nose spray which has helped.  Even though she is sick this doesn't stop her from being wild and crazy like normal.

Kylee has been doing well.  She turned 6 months on the 18th.  She did have another checkup with the cardiologist a couple of weeks ago and surprisingly her o2 sats were in the low 90s.  For a baby with her heart defects that is really good.  She had her 6 month checkup with the pediatrician and let's just say she was not happy.  They had to test her thyroid levels(which came back normal).  They tried to get blood out of her heel twice with no luck, then twice in her finger which finally worked.  Then after all that she had to get both flu shots and another shot.  She ended up crying and screaming for about 15 minutes.  She will have to go back one more time before surgery for more shots. 

I can't tell you how much she can brighten your mood.  She almost never cries.  She loves to smile(except when trying to take her pic), talk, and loves to be tickled.  She will laugh in anticipation of being tickled, which is really cute!  She is such a sweet sweet baby! 

It's hard to grasp that in 2 weeks she will have to have open heart surgery.  Although we are excited for her to have her heart repaired, we are both scared and nervous.  I tend to go through a mixture of emotions daily, but it is hard to stay upset when she just looks at you and smiles.  As far as her surgery goes, she will go in on Tuesday, Jan. 12th for all her preworkup stuff and then we will talk with the surgeon and go over everything.  I will be bringing the laptop with me, so I will try and update as much as possible on here as this will be the easiest way.

Here are some pics of the girls, mostly Kate.  Even when she is sick, she still likes to be silly and pose for the camera.















Kate said this is the face that the bird made on her tinkerbell movie!


Oh, I'm working on changing the background on here so it's easier to read, but am having a hard time doing it myself, so i'll have to enlist the help of my husband.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Our Busy Week

We have had a busy few days full of appointments.  Last friday, Kylee had her last cardiology appointment before her surgery.  Since she is doing good, the dr. didn't feel the need to have her come back.  Her o2 sats were at 87% and she weighed 13lb 10oz.  We had the surgery rescheduled and it will now be the 13th instead of the 11th.  The surgeon does not want her to have tubes put in her ears until after her heart surgery.   She had an appointment yesterday to receive her shot to protect against Respiratory Syncytial Virus, which she hated.  She passed the 14lb mark at 14lb 2oz.  The pediatrician mentioned that at her 6month appt next week she will have her thyroid tested, which is standard procedure for kids with down syndrome, but she also has a low body temperature which can be a sign of thyroid problems.  Her temp. yesterday was 95.9.  She also had her 3 therapy appts, which are nothing different.

Kate had her speech therapy appt and is doing so well that she will probably only have 2 more sessions.  She flipped out at the dentist, which they only were cleaning her teeth, but they first tried the electric toothbrush which was quiet, but for some reason she was scared of it.  Lastly, she went to see the ear, nose, and throat specialist because she is always sick with cold like symptoms.  For the next 6 weeks she will take an antibiotic and then they switched her allergy meds, but more than likely after Kylee's surgery, she will have her tonsils and adenoids removed.

Yesterday, we took Kate to Chuckee Cheese to go play with her friend from school, Joseph.  Those 2 together are soo cute!  They are always hugging each other at school and get so excited to see each other.  When we were there another little girl and asked Joseph if he wanted to play.  They went up in the tubes and Kate loudly said, "she stole my boyfriend!  I'm coming Joseph!"  For 5 hours they ran around and played games, ate pizza and ice cream, held hands.  We also had fun getting to know Joseph's mom, Mandi.  They actually live less than a minute down the road from us. 

Kate's reading skills have really taken off.  She can recognize a ton of words, but she also can sound out alot of words as well.  Somehow she was able to sound out down syndrome today.  She amazes me!  She is really looking forward to christmas as well as Phil & I.  Next week is our last week of all appointments until Kylee's surgery.  We don't to take any chances with her getting sick especially right before surgery for 2 reasons.  First, if she gets sick before her surgery, they may have to postpone it and their schedule is pretty busy and we wouldn't be able to get her in until Feb, unless of course she started having problems.  Second, if she gets sick, it can really pose risks for complications with and after surgery.  Being in the hospital for 2-3 weeks is long enough, I don't know how others manage with longer hospital stays.  One mom, Joye, her little boy Ethan was in the hospital for 9 weeks.  Kate is also looking forward to Uncle Mike coming. The other day when we asked her about going to see the person who brings presents at christmas, she said, "Uncle Mike!"




Friday, December 4, 2009

Pics, Pics, And More Pics

Kylee puts just about everything in her mouth, including her stuffed bear.



I got all my pics that I ordered from Anna today. If anyone wants any, let me know so I can order them from her. Keep in mind that I scanned these pics, so they don't look as good as the original photos which are great!







































*Check out a video with Kylee in it that I posted at the bottom of the blog.