THIS is going to be interesting....

So today I took Will to our Pediatric Otolaryngologist, Dr. Belmont. He has been Helen's "ear doctor" for the last two years and put in her tubes a while back. We really like him and it was fun talking adoption with him today, as he and his wife adopted a little girl from China about a year ago! Anyway...Will has had a "rattle" as he breathes since the day we picked him up at Hannah's Hope 8 weeks ago! He has been treated with breathing treatments, anti-biotics and reflux meds, but none of these treatments have helped "the rattle" go away. Our pediatrician finally decided that we should take Will to see Dr. Belmont and let him try to figure out what causes the constant rattle when he breathes! The first thing that Dr. B discovered was a very bad ear infection! I had no idea! This is the most laid back, happy baby...you would never know that he was experiencing any dis-comfort from an ear infection. So, Will has started another round of anti-biotics. Then, Dr. Belmont asked lots of questions and watched my little "Flip" camera videos that I took to let him see how Will breathes while he is playing and while sleeping. He said those were helpful and then he decided to have Will come back in two weeks for a Flexible Fiberoptic Laryngoscopy. What is that you ask? Yeah, me too! So, I've done a little research and here is what I've found.......He is going to stick this flexible camera thingy up Will's nose and thread it down his throat to see what is going on with the different parts of his larynx! Check out this diagram....

Makes you want to gag, right? Me too! I just can't imagine! However, I mentioned it on my Facebook page and it turns out that a friend of ours has a daughter who had to have this procedure done periodically for the first 2 years of life and she said that it is done very quickly (like in 30 seconds) and with little dis-comfort. It will require that I help hold Will very still and I'm sure it will be hard to watch, but I am anxious to find out what is causing the rattling sound! His appointment is on August 27th. I'll let you all know what we find out!

Saturday Morning and Catch-up from the Week!

I don't get to post as often as I would like to, so I end up doing week-long catch-up posts! This picture is very recent! Sean and Helen had a "date" to Dunkin' Donuts this morning. She was so excited and they had a great time!

The boys and I stayed at home. Here are Beckett and Will watching Saturday morning cartoons!
On Thursday, the kids and I went to visit this young lady. She is a former student of mine....(yes, I taught her when she was in first grade!) Feeling old now! She had this precious baby girl on Wednesday! Please pray for these two girls..........

Last Saturday, we had Will and Megan come spend the night one last time before they moved to Florida on Sunday. This is a pic of all the kids before we headed out to church on Sunday morning! We are already missing the Pridmores!

Last Saturday, we went to visit Lillie, Connor, Jill and Darrin. Helen and Will also went swimming with them! Here are Lillie and Helen wearing their matching tennis shoes! Nana and Papa took them shopping on separate days.....Lillie went first and picked out these Nike tennis shoes. Helen went a few days later and made a bee-line for the same tennis shoes...not knowing that Lillie had picked the very same ones! Birds of a feather......

Lillie holding Will!

Connor and Will in the pool!

Just a fun one of our happy boy!

And in case you didn't know it........

Life is VERY good!

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17

FUN Week!

We have had a great week! We had something going on every night....but it was fun. Monday and Tuesday nights we had cook-outs with friends. Wednesday night we had a pool party with lots of friends as we said good-bye to the Pridmores. They will be moving to south Florida to plant Two Rivers Church South Florida. We are going to miss their family, but we are so excited that they are taking the message of God's Spirit and Truth to the people of south FLA! We had a great time visiting, eating pizza and swimming! On Thursday night, Beckett had a great time having his last sleep-over for a while with his buddy Will at his friend Matt's house. And finally today, Meesha, Emma and Olivia came by for a visit! They are friends that we met at Two Rivers about 3 years ago, and they moved away about a year and a half ago. We had not seen them in a little over a year and it was fun catching up with them!

Here is a pic of all of the kids at the pool party Wednesday night!

This one hurts me a little......this is Helen's first good friend Emma. This picture was taken over 2 years ago when they got together for a play date. Look how little! So sweet!

And here they are today! They have grown up SO fast! They had fun playing together again today! Thanks, Meesha, for calling and coming by to visit!

Have a great weekend!

If you are a fan of "The Slam", you might like to know that his blog has been updated! We took some time this morning to give a quick review of Beckett's summer, so check it out if you would like to! Remember, beware of the music on his playlist. It is highly annoying, but it is his blog, so I let him choose the music! :)

Shower/Celebration For Will

Last Tuesday, these two sweet friends, Amy and Sarah, hosted a welcome home shower for Will! Our referal and court date happened so quickly, that we did not have time to schedule a shower before we traveled to get him. So last week a bunch of moms and kids gathered at Amy's neighborhood clubhouse and pool for lunch and some swimming fun! It was such a nice day and I really appreciate all of the work that Amy and Sarah put into making such special memory for us!

This was the cupcake table! So CUTE!
And if you look closely, the white cupcakes had little brown babies on them! Loved it!
This is a picture of all of our yummy lunch items!

We have been blessed with so many hand-me-downs and wonderful baby items that friends have let us borrow, that we really didn't need anything else for Will. Instead of gifts, our friends wrote notes to our family with their special thoughts and blessings for Will. They used little clothes pins to pin them to the branches in this vase. They also pinned on donations for Hannah's Hope! We received $100 to send to Hannah's Hope in Ethiopia and we are so grateful for that wonderful gift!

Will got a lot of attention! Here he is with Holly, Natalie and Abbey! They started out in the kiddie pool, but quickly headed over to the big pool!

A few of the boys kickin' it up on the side of the pool!

Helen getting some love from the big girls....Natalie and Lydia.

Beckett and Matt were a great team when the boys were "chicken fighting" in the pool!

Finally, our Will with our friend Will!

Thanks again to everyone who came and celebrated with us last week. It was such a fun day!

Just for Giggles!

Will is 9 months old today! I tried to get some pictures of him this evening, but I had waited too late and he was not feeling very smiley! Today also marks 5 weeks home with Will, so just to give you an idea of why we love having this 9 month old in our family, here is one minute of fun for you to enjoy! We think that Will is absolutely precious and he is the fifth piece of our family puzzle that was missing! We are so glad that he is home with us forever! I hope you will enjoy this little video of Will as much as we do! He got so tickled when Sean would make funny noises and Beckett would make funny faces! I got a little bit of it on video. This went on for several minutes one night after dinner! Too cute!

Beware of Round Band-Aids!

For those of you who read this blog and have babies.....this post is for you. Today I experienced one of the most scary events in my 7 years of being a mom and it was all because of a band-aid!

I took Will to the pediatrician today for his 9 month check-up. He had to have one vaccination to catch up with where he needs to be! He cried for one moment and then he was OK. The nurse had a hard time finding the injection spot to place the band aid and I even told her not to worry about it since it wasn't bleeding. She went ahead and stuck one of those small round band aids on his thigh.

Fast forward to lunch time. We stopped at Burger King for lunch. We were sitting at the table eating lunch and Will was sitting in the high chair eating his Gerber puffs. Everything was rocking along just fine until Will got choked. A baby CAN'T choke on these puffs since they disolve as soon as they get the first bit of slobber on them, but I assumed that he had just put too many in his mouth. I stuck my finger in his mouth to get them out, but he continued to choke. I patted his back and he continued to choke. I un-strapped him and removed him from the high-chair and began to lightly pat his back. He continued choking. I swept my finger in his mouth again. Nothing. Still choking. I knew he was in trouble. He wasn't breathing very well and he was crying and would gasp for air in between his cries. It was AWFUL! I turned his head toward the floor and began hitting his back a little harder and nothing was coming out. I was SO scared. The whole time NO ONE in Burger King was coming to help. That is a whole other blog entry in itself!! My mind was racing and I'm thinking, "How will I get help? Do I start screaming? Do I need to tell someone to call 911?" I kept lifting him up to look at his face and see what was happening. His eyes were closing and he was not breathing well at all. I again stuck my finger in his mouth and this time I caused him to gag. He spit up and that seemed to help. I lifted him up again to look at his face and he was lethargic and his eyes were droopy, but I noticed something in his mouth. Nothing had been there before, but when he had gagged and spit up, IT appeared. IT was the round band that the nurse had placed on his thigh! Evidently, Will had taken the band aid off his leg (or it fell off; those round ones aren't that sticky) and he had put it in his mouth. It was probably while he was riding in his car seat. His hand usually rests right there on his thigh when he is in his seat. I guess that the band aid had just floated around in his mouth, un-detected by me, and then when he began to swallow the puffs, the band aid tried to go down too, and it restricted his air-way! Oh. My. Goodness. This probably all took place in about one minute of time, but it felt like ten minutes! He was absolutely worn out and he just fell asleep in my arms. Of course, I kept checking him to make sure that he was breathing and that he appeared OK. He is doing just fine now and we have ALL recovered. It was so scary!

I just wanted to warn all parents of babies to NOT use the round band-aids under any circumstances! I'll have to ponder a little longer on the fact that no one at Burger King, staff or patrons, offered any help. I wasn't looking around for help, but Beckett even commented (when I was sitting back in my seat and everything had calmed down) that no one had come to offer us help. Just someone moving toward us as if they recognized that we were dealing with a scary situation would have been a little comforting. I was standing in the middle of the restaurant, beating my infant on the back, and it was as if all was fine with the world. I'm just not sure what this says about our society, but I know that there is a lesson there for me....just need to think on that for a bit!

Beckett and Helen said it best when we were on our way home! They said that Will was OK because God was protecting him! So true! Thank you God for your protection over our family today!