Easter 2011

We love to celebrate Easter in Corpus Christi with my parents.  It is a wonderful time with family and a great way to usher in Spring with the warm temps and all the water.  This year the big kids were little fish at my parent's swim club and we also enjoyed a couple parks.  Resurrection day was a great day of celebration that consisted of Resurrection rolls, Church, Easter egg hunts and playing at the park.  We had a Wonderful time away from East texas with MeMe and PawPaw. 

Trey's 35 birthday

My Love turned 35 on April 9th and we threw him a little bash :) Thanks for all who came to celebrate it was a GREAT evening

On his actual birthday night with the homemade strawberry cake that i made him. 

Hanging out at Trey's birthday party

Cherry pies for the party, Trey's favorite

Happy Birthday to you!

Congenital heart defect

At our sweet Rebekah's routine 9 month check up, our doctor heard a heart murmur.  We have been waiting to have our first appointment with a pediatric cardiologist at Texas Children's Hospital.  She will be 11 months old next week, yes we had to wait a LONG time to get in.  I was waiting to post because it could have been nothing. 

We had our appointment last Thursday and it turns out it may be the first of many appointment. 

We had been told the murmur was loud but oh, how we wish it was NOTHING.  That is not the case.  Rebekah was diagnosed with Pulmonary Stenosis (PS).

From the American Heart Association:
The pulmonary valve opens to let blood flow from the right ventricle to the lungs.  Narrowing of the pulmonary valve ( valvar pulmonary stenosis) causes the right ventricle to pump harder to get blood past the blockage.  Moderate to severe PS will require treatment with heart catherterization or surgery. 

Rebekah's pressure level is high, at a little over 4. Which puts her in the upper moderate to severe level.  Her valve only opens about 20-30%. 

She will require a procedure called a Balloon Valvuloplasty.  This is a procedure done in the cath lab at the downtown TCH. 

We do not know the date or much about the procedure yet.  We will have a consultation down at the Med Center, hopefully within the next week and then the procedure will follow. 

We would definitely appreciate your prayers and I will keep you update the best I can. 

I am truly thankful for God holding her little heart  in His hands.  I am also amazed and SO thankful that she is not exhibiting symptoms.  From what I understand, once symptoms start to show it can be a sign that the defect has progressed to the point that permanent damage may have been done to the heart. 

Here are some pictures from our visit:

Beautiful girl as we were heading out the door to the appointment

oh, that face :)

Wonderful Daddy praying for his little girl

Daddy holding his baby girl, trying to get her to sleep for the echocardiogram

And she's out safe and sound in her Daddy's arms

Getting hooked up for the EKG

"Mama?!"

"What is all this?"

Precious girl sitting still for the test

Garden addition

We have some new additions to the garden. Trey planted some hops for his beer making process. He is very excited! Here are some pics

Learning through life

One of my favorite aspects of homeschooling is that we can learn all the time.  Even without lesson plans and books.

Did I just hear you gasp?!

We can learn in all we do throughout our day.  Not that we always do and not that we always have fun. BUT we CAN.

It is those moments, when I realize that the kiddos are learning in an unplanned way, and I take advantage of it, that make me fall more in love with homeschooling.

The other day on our walk we had one of those special moments. 
The girls remembered seeing butterflies over by the azalea bushes near Trey's office, they wanted to check it out again.  So, we took a little detour over to the bushes to take a look. 

To our delight the bushed were covered with both butterflies and bees. 

Here is a conversation Abigail and I had.
I asked Abigail what the butterflies were doing and she said, "drinking nectar from the flowers." I also asked her what the bees were doing and she said, "drinking from the flowers." when I asked here what else they were doing she said, "helping the flowers grow." I then asked her what the bees were gonna do with the nectar and she said MAKE honey :) Yeah Abigail!!!

My little Pumpkin Pie, aka Hannah,  also knew that the butterflies and bees were drinking and that the bees were helping the flowers grow.  Way to go Punkin!

Here are some beautiful pictures of the azaleas.

Physical activity

We have not lack of physical activity around here, which I love.  Between playing outside, riding bikes, going on walks, and our newest activity playing on the sports field up at Daddy's work, I don't feel a need for a formal physical education time. 

However we do play outside and get our bodies moving everyday.  Well, unless we are under the weather. 

Here are some pics from some our latest activities.

in front of one of the trails

Yes, I made them stop to pose for a picture :) But the smiles are real!

Rebekah goes for our walks in style

wearing them out on the sports field

soccer time

Library visit

We took a trip to the Library Tuesday morning.  Abigail's sound for the week was the short /oo/ sound like in "book".  It seemed fitting that this be the week that we get back into the routine of going.  The girls were very excited about, Samuel had no idea what was going on.  We have not been since he started walking :) So, first things first we had a talk, before entering, about being on our best behavior and how we have to whisper in the library. 

We actually happened upon pre-school "story hour".  We were a little late but the kids got to make a Mardi Gra mask and had a snack.  From what I could tell it is put on by 2 local moms.  The group meets the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month.  So we may give it a whirl and see what kind of stuff they do.

After "story hour" was over we headed to look for books.  Before the kiddos starting grabbing books I handed them a place marker, our library uses the wooden paint stir sticks, and showed them how to place the stick on the shelf before they removed the book that they wanted to look at.  I let them know that we were supposed to do this so that when we were done looking at the book we could remember where it belonged on the shelf.

The big girls had a good time looking through book, completely based on the covers :) Which meant that they were only choosing the ones on the end b/c they were the only ones that had their covers exposed.  They each chose 3 to bring home.

I chose some books about tools for Samuel.  He pretty much just walked around the whole time taking in the new sights.

Rebekah crawled the isle for a while until she found the child magazine section.  I then realized I would need to put an end to that activity.  I figured they would probably like to keep the pages inside of their magazine covers. 

Best find of the day by far was, Baby on theWay, William Sears, M.D., Martha Sears, R.N., and Christie Watts Kelly.

The book explains how Mommy may be feeling, what is happening with her body, how they can help Mommy and Daddy, and what to expected once the baby arrives. This book seems to address some of the more curious questions that the big girls have been asking lately and it answers them in a way that they can really relate to and understand. 

I am so glad that I found this book.  We have already read it several times.  I will probably recheck it so that I can have it on hand as Shepherd's birth day gets closer.