HAPPY NEW YEAR

Snow Day

We were blessed last night with a huge amount of snow and have really been enjoying it!
Here is James shoveling the lane!! I thought it was so funny that he had the worlds' smallest snow shovel and a huge lane (this is only 1/4 of it) and the guy across the street had a snow blower on his drive way! Don't worry after a couple hours of hard work, a friend from the Church came and plowed it all. Here is Caidy enjoying the beautiful weather, it was only about -2 out and gorgeous!
Another of Caidy, she was only wearing her Robbies because I couldn't find her boots!!
Leah was so excited to make a snow angel, she fell back into the snow and almost was lost in it!! She had so much fun running around and tried so hard to make a snow man, until she figured it was more fun to jump on it!
And of course our Elijah, who has never experienced a cold Saskatchewan winter, who prefers to be warm, and who would rather ride his bike than venture into the cold unknown snow! What a goofy kid!!

Clapping and Cheerios

My Christmas present this year was Caidy learning to clap, it was as if it just clicked and she started clapping away! Also we decided to try cheerios today, seeing as we can't get her too eat too much and she only wants foods with some texture to them. She loved them instantly and in no time was popping them in her mouth with ease! Here is a video to prove it :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Trip to the ER

Poor Caidy woke up tonight with green goo coming out of her right ear :( The little monkey has been so grumpy the past 2 days and I knew something was wrong but wasn't sure what to do about it. I am kicking myself for not taking her in sooner, but hopefully now that we know the problem it won't be long for her to start feeling better. I find it slightly ironic that she has never had an ear infection until the tubes were put in, goes to show you. . . don't fix it unless its broken!! OK well maybe not in this circumstance, but it sure is a little annoying!

Also the Dr checked her palate and said it was looking perfect, which is great news.
Thanks for all your Prayers

Another Caidy Update

It has now been 2 weeks today since Caidys' surgery and she is not quite back to normal, but definitely doing better.

We met with a public health nurse yesterday who weighed Caidy and she is down to 15lbs 12 oz, almost a whole pound since her surgery. I knew she hasn't been eating well, but that really put things into perspective. We are going to meet with Linda once a week until Caidy gets gaining again, which once she figures out a bottle and eating more shouldn't take any time at all.

I talked to Linda about Caidy not wanting anything to do with liquids at all. She won't even take them from a syringe anymore, I think it has to be that there were a couple times we fed her without enough Tylenol in her system! I can't think of another reason she is so completely against them, but we did get a new bottle yesterday, it is called a haberman feeder, this is the only way we can get liquids into her. It allows us to squeeze the tit into her mouth without her having to do too much work, used a lot for preemie babies or those having trouble sucking. The health nurse is allowing us to borrow it for a couple weeks and then if this is how she chooses to eat we will have to get ourselves one. I am not sure but it seems our daughter has very high standards for her bottles, never the cheapest one!

I think all in all she is doing ok. She still wants what she likes and refuses to try anything new at this point, but I will stick with it and hopefully not produce too spoiled of a baby once she is all healed! :)

Thanks again for all your prayers and great advice!

The End??

The past couple days with Caidy have proved to be more of a challenge than I have expected. She hasn't been eating very well which has been so frustrating, you can see she is hungry but I can't seem to find what it is she wants to eat. She has eaten so much milupa, that I am sure she is sick of it, she won't eat my breast milk which is obvious that she needs. There is no consistancy and I am getting worried that she may get dehydrated. Right now she is with James at the table and he is trying the old cleft bottles that you squeeze with a Nuck nipple, which seemed to work for about 1/2 an oz, but now she is crying again. It is as if she gets frustrated along side us because she knows she is hungry but hasn't figured out how to do it yet without her plate in, and we get frustrated, so the whole scene is one of chaos!!

I know there is an end near, I know her mouth will heal and this is just one more thing we have to go through, but man when you are in the middle of it, it sure is hard to put things into perspective.

She is now laughing hysterically at James as he plays 'hide and seek' with her. It amazes me how she can smile while I am in tears! How she can only take a couple tsps of food and be satisfied, how she can care more about playing with a piece of paper than filling her body with the nurishment it needs?

I know God is here, I know he is taking care of her, I know He is taking care of me, I know He can see the end and His timing is perfect. God show me that the end is near, show me that we, as parents, can do all for her that she needs, show me how to feed her all that her little body needs, I pray Father be here.

5 Days Post Op

Caidy has been doing well since we have gotten home from the hospital, she was released 2 days after the surgery and was happy to be home. We were really blessed while we were there as well, the ward that we were supposed to stay on was full, so we were placed on the Oncology ward, which was so nice and quiet. We have our own room, our own washroom, as well as free cable tv!! It was wonderful being on our own schedule and the nurses were so much more laid back, a huge huge blessing!!

Since we have been home she has done fairly well, we had a little trouble with feeding. She really did not want to eat, but has done really well on Malupa (wheat cereal with apples) and breast milk, as well as fruit. We are still working on getting her back on bottles, she wants nothing to do with them at all, we have had to use syringes to at least get milk into her, but now that she is really wanting cereal I am less worried about how much she is getting milk wise.

Also Caidys follow up appts have been going well, the plastic surgeon, who did the palate repair, said unless we were concerned he didn't need to see us until Caidy is 18 months old. That was a blessing because we were concerned about timing and how it would fit in with all the other appts. The other appts went well and actually scheduled earlier than we thought, so on Thursday we are headed back to Grand Forks which will be earlier than expected.

It has been a great last couple days also, we have been running into a couple other cleft affected families and just looking at their wide smiles was great, but it is soooo nice to be on the other side and be finished with all the surgeries and such for a while. Our next appts will be at the end of January and then from there we will meet with the cleft team again when Caidy is 18 months old. So all is well and moving forward!!

Surgery Update

Today was Caidy's surgery. We arrived at the hospital at 11am and her surgery was at 12:30. Caidy was in surgery for 3.5 hours. I (James) was the first to see her, she looked very tired but well. The doctor said that the surgery went really well and she should be feeling better in a couple of days. Jaime and I are thankful for all the people who have been praying for Caidy and us! They are truely felt! Jaime and Caidy will be at the hospital for the next two days! I'll try to post some more updates with pictures later.

The changing smile of Caidy

I really wanted to post pictures showing how much Caidy has changed over the last 9 months. Her surgery is coming up this week and although it won't change her smile, it will once again change her, expecially the sound of her voice!

Caidy on her birth day, March 2nd, weighing 7 lbs 2 oz

Caidy's first Bath, 3 days old.

Caidy sitting with daddy, her cleft was quite large, 13 mm but the next day we learnt how to tape her lip which started shrinking her cleft right away.

This is Caidy when we first got home after learning how to tape her lip. It was so hard for me to do this to her, I knew the results would be great and it was necessary, but at the same time it was really hard to see her little chubby cheeks all squished.

 

The changing smile of Caidy

This is Caidy a week after we initially started taping, the orthodontist attatched a nose stint which would stretch Caidys nostril and help with the closing of her cleft. Once she had the tape and nose stint in for a while she really didn't mind it at all, she actually got to where she preferred to have it all on, almost like she felt more secure with it.
This is Caidy right before her surgery in July. With only 3 months of wearing the tape and plate you can see a HUGE difference in the size of her cleft. Right after Caidy was out of surgery they let me come in and see her. I couldn't believe how beautiful she looked and how she had changed.

The changing smile of Caidy

This is Caidy on July 18th, only a couple weeks after her surgery. It is amazing how quickly she healed and how amazing she looks! Caidy just being her happy silly self!!
The scab that is right under her nose took quite a but longer to heal, James and I were told to massage her lip to prevent it from pulling up and shrinking as it healed. I didn't like the idea of doing it while there was still a scab, so I have to admit I haven't been very disciplined in this. Caidy will now allow us to rub her lip, but after talking to our plastic surgeon he put our minds at ease, telling us that over time the lip will come down. We are still massaging, but I know I need to do it way more often in order to really see results.
This is Caidy the other day playing outside. You can see that her lip has shrunk quite a bit from the scar shrinking, but there is still time to massage and it will also loosen over time. You can also see her 2 teeth on the bottom! This big girl also has 2 teeth on the top, the one close to the cleft has come in quite crooked, but that is something they will fix once her adult teeth start coming in, the bone graph surgery.
Thank you for reminiscing with me over how much Caidy has changed over the past 9 months. We are not looking forward to the surgery this week, but we also know it is mandatory for Caidy and so important for talking and eating. I will try to update when I can after her surgery. Thank you for continuing to pray!

Sunday Service

We have really been enjoying our new Church family, it didn't take the kids long at all to make it their new home. Elijah spent the morning service sitting with our senior Pastors wife, as soon as we walk in the door he is asking for 'Mrs. Judy'. And Leah has already made some great little friends that will be in the same kindergarden class with her in the fall, which she talks about all the time as well.

Here are a couple pictures of the kids posing. I am not sure if you can see, but I gave Elijah a little haircut like daddy and I am very pleased with the results. James likes it but is a little iffy every time Elijah asks me to do his hair!! I told him that is what happens when he has an older sister and a mom, he starts to care about his hair like the rest of us!! Plus you all know James is the worst one of us all with having to have his hair perfect!! Ha ha ha
We also were able to take some family pictures, so if they turn out I really want to get some Christmas cards made up. I am not on the ball this year as last year, having my cards out before December, but hopefully I can pull it off before Caidys' surgery! If not I am sure you understand!!! ;)

Please add your self! EDITED

At the bottom of this blog is a Map. It would be great to see where everyone lives that views our Blog! Thanks

I wanted to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who has added themselves to the map and also to those who have left a picture. Too much fun!!

Playing together

Lately Caidy can't get enough of Elijah. She wants to be around him all the time.
 

More Pictures From Today!

I couldn't resist posting some more of Caidy. . .


 

Caidys' Photo Shoot in the Yard

Since Caidy was asleep when we were outside this morning we had to bring her out for a photoshoot of her own!

Here she is sitting enjoying the beautiful fall day. . .

Uh Oh starting to fall. . .

Yum a nice mouthful of leaves as I fall into the pile. . .

Hey thats not too bad, lets try some more. . .

Ha ha, she actually liked laying in the leaves tasting them!! Kind of gross to let her, I know, but the pictures did prove to be cute!! 

Beautiful November Day

This morning we spent quite a bit of time out in the yard. It was great to explore a little bit and it was so beautiful outside the kids didn't want to come in!

This is a picture Leah took of Elijah and I playing with the tree rope, the kids thought it was great and I am sure it will be no time at all before Elijah can hold himself up!
More pictures of Leah playing photographer!! She didn't do too terribly bad!
And finally the kids climbing a big tree! This is definatley my favorite picture of the day. . .

Surgery Date is set!

We do know the surgery date now! That didn't take long ;) December 7th is the big day, which works out perfectly with an appt with the orthodontist scheduled for the 5th. We will most likey feel a little run around after only being in Grand Forks for a couple weeks prior, but it is so nice to have a date and know what to expect!

Thanks again for the prayers!

Moving Day

Moving day has arrived, the truck will be here Friday morning and we will arrive in Grand Forks Sunday afternoon, ready to meet the truck that is supposed to arrive with all our things Monday.

How did we get to this point so quickly when the last thing many of you heard James was going up by himself to work while I stayed here with the kids? Here is the story. . .

Both of us have been super excited to buy a house for a long time. Although we new it was a long shot we thought moving to a smaller community would be a great way to make that dream a reality. James and I went a couple times to look at houses and the 2nd time found a house that looked to be a perfect match. With the help of James' parents we put an offer down and low and behold it was accepted. You'd think at this point I would continue on by saying this is the house we are moving into. . . nope!! After finding out all was going to fall into place, no one had peace over the decision. James and I thought it would work and were willing to 'make' it work the way we wanted, but the Church didn't think it was wise, us getting into that much financial commitment with the start of a new job and a big move, James' parents weren't thrilled about certain areas of the house and so James and I knew we couldn't fake it anymore and surrendered to the fact that the house wouldn't be ours.

Feeling very defeated we figured the more we thought we had things planned out the more God was trying to tell us it wasn't for us to plan out it was for Him to do it for us. A couple nights later we received a phone call about a potential house we could rent for a while, to get us settled, while we looked for something else. So that is the plan for right now, we are not sure where things are leading, all we know is God wants us out there and He has a plan that is slowly unraveling.

We are still unsure about Caidy's surgery date, we called the Plastic Surgeon and he is on holidays until the 20th of November, which leaves us in the dark as to when and how soon we will be coming back here for that, but God is in control!

Also I want to tell a little about the cleft team appt we had a couple weeks ago at children's. It was pretty overwhelming, yet very insightful. There were a total of 5 different people/drs that Caidy had to see and each did their own little assessment of her.

~ First the speech pathologist, a great lady who was very encouraging and gave us a lot of info regarding Caidy and sounds she is making. She really likes to growl, which James and I thought was kind of cute, but it turns out this is a very bad sound to make due to where she is making the sound, from deep in her chest. We need to encourage her to be making 'm' and 'n' sounds as well as getting her to blow air out of her mouth, since the flap that separates the mouth from the nose isn't there for Caidy she hs to learn this. We have started tapping her mouth, similar to when you play cowboys and Indians the sound the Indians make!! (ha reading over this it sounds really unprofessional but I hope you understand what I am trying to say!!) Anyway it helps her to make sound out of her mouth instead of only nasal sounds.
~ Next was a ENT, ears throat and nose Dr. He was very nice but told us that Caidy has quite a bit of fluid in her ears, very common in cleft kids and he will check again on surgery day and if it is not self corrected she will need to get tubes put in.
~ We saw a different plastic surgeon who was very informative. He explained that Caidy's lip will go through stages as it heals where it looks 'bad'. We are in the stage now and it will only get better by healing and hopefully the scar will loosen and there won't be quite as noticeable of a lift in her lip. He also said that they may not fix where her lip came undone from her first surgery until a revision before kindergarten, which means another surgery, but also means it may take better if it is given lots of time to heal properly before messing with the scar tissue.
~ We saw the cleft nurse who was a little concerned about Caidy's weight, she is 15 lbs 8oz, which is in the 5th ish percentile. But I know my milk isn't as fatty as formula, both Leah and Elijah are small so we are not too worried. It was so encouraging as well how proud she was of me to be still pumping for her! :) That made me feel good and gave me a little boost to be able to make it past her next surgery.
~ Next was the hearing test, unfortunately since I suck at paying attention to details I can't remember what this dr is called, but oh well! This was I think the most discouraging part of our day, and unfortunately the last person we saw. James went with Caidy into a booth where they perform different tests to check her hearing and it turns out she has moderate hearing loss because of the fluid. This is something that will correct with tubes, but still may mean that she will always have some hearing loss. Please be praying with us for this as it is just one more thing for us to worry about and we don't need to.
~ We were supposed to see a different orthodontist as well, to get a different perspective but after all this we asked that we skip this because we had to go our regular that afternoon!! It was a long day but informative none the least.

Thanks for sticking with me this long!! We do have a new address and phone number already but obviously I don't feel comfortable posting any of that, so as soon as we get our new e-mail address (we can't get the same internet provider there) I will be sure to forward that on to everyone!! Thank you again for all your support and we trust you will be praying for us and the kids through this transition.

Peek~A~Boo

Halloween Pictures!

 

Congratulations Megan and Nick!

Megan and Nick, my sister, had a beautiful baby boy on November 3rd at 3:45 am. Kayden David Vanderwal is 8 lbs 14 oz and 21" long! Who would have thought that someone as small as Megan could have a baby that big!! Mom and baby are doing fabulous after a super long labour, but Megan did a great job and delivery went very smoothly! I am one very proud Auntie!

A Day at the Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday we went to the Laity Pumpkin Patch and the kids had a blast! Elijah loved the pumpkins and Leah was interested in everything wanting to run all over the place! Caidy wasn't too interested in anything, but we did have quite the scare with her. As you all know she has to wear her 'plate' in her mouth at all times and she has been quite the little stinker with spitting it out. At one point both James and I looked at her and knew instantly it wasn't in. I started pannicking, it is over $300 to replace, not covered by insurance, plus she can't eat or sleep without it in. Needless to say I instantly started retracing our steps, while James calmly looked around where she was and knew pannicking wasn't going to help any!! After looking for a couple minutes a couple nearby asked if we were looking for a pair of batteries on the ground, after I tried to explain we were looking for my daughters retainer, getting confused looks, one of the ladies looked down, pointed and asked if that was it! IT WAS and I let out a sigh of relief and was finally able to settle down, knowing now we wouldn't have to search the entire pumpkin patch and corn maze! James and I have had Caidy spit out her plate in public before but we had always either heard or saw it drop, so having absolutely no idea where it was had me freaking out!!

All in all it was a great day and here are a couple pictures to share our adventure!!