Our Family Blog – Mike, Louanne, Nadia, Amelie, & Dani
Here are some photos from the month that didn’t fit with any other blog posts. Click on the first photo to see the whole album.
Nadia and Reagan – BFF!
Easter basket goodies from Papa and Grandma Brooke.
Eileen and Clay came over to meet the girls.
Meeting new friends.
Look at my belly! (Amelie does this a lot and it’s hilarious)
The AWESOME clippie tree from Kim and her girls. We LOVE THIS!!!
When Nadia was about 2 1/2 she developed a fascination with the Michelin Man. For her 3rd birthday Mike was able to find a stuffed Michelin Man and Michelin Dog that we gave her at her birthday party. A few weeks ago I went out to run a few errands and I saw the Grand Opening of a motorcycle shop by our house and told Mike he should take Nadia for a surprise.
“The Matrix Michelin Man”
Happy Girl!
Then Nadia wanted to take a photo of Daddy. Good job, huh?
I have been seeing mention of this book and challenge for the month of May on many blogs I read/people I follow on Twitter. I read some reviews and finally decided I would buy the ebook. From what I can tell it’s a cross between a devotional for moms and cleaning challenge. I have only read through the first few days since it’s late, but I will be a part of the link up each Friday. Then I will have a better review to give on the book. Her little cleaning things at the end of each page seem like something any mom could squeeze into the day. They also appear to be things that I don’t usually do – like clean the inside of your kitchen windows.
So I am interested to see how it goes and it’s fun to see hundreds of women across the web doing this together. I will report back Friday to let you know how the week went.
Grammie came over to watch Nadia (which she LOVED) and we headed over to Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children to have the cast removed and see Amelie’s hand. I didn’t sleep well at all the night before. At one point I was up for 45 minutes wondering how it was going to look and if it was going to hurt and so on. I wasn’t worried, it was really more like how excited I get before we go somewhere on vacation.
Once again we were impressed by the staff and volunteers of Scottish Rite and their love for the kiddos. They are also very efficient!
Amelie in the waiting area.
I think this is so cute.
Waiting for the nurse to come take the cast off.
Here is the video. It’s just under 6 minutes and I really made this for Amelie when she grows up. I want her to be able to see the reaction she had when it was being removed and when she first saw her hand. I hope no one gets jeebed out.
Here I am being jeebed out at her picking the scabs off. Amelie DOES NOT like her hands to be dirty.
Sweet girl!
We couldn’t be happier or more impressed with what they accomplished at Texas Scottish Rite. They do have the best hand surgeons in the world! I was overwhelmed by emotion and gratefulness to God seeing those little fingers flex and move independently.
She has been in quite a bit of pain whenever she accidentally bangs it or puts pressure on it. The first night she would pick something up or climb on the couch then whimper, show me her hand and want a kiss. It was clearly catching her off guard that the stuff she wanted to do was causing her pain. She got used to the cast banging around and she has been carrying her arm a bit like it still has the cast, but that will fade more and more. She has no official occupational or physical therapy – she only needs to play.
We will take her in for a check up in about six weeks. Here is what we understand might happen in the future (but we don’t know any of this for sure, or when it would happen): another surgery on her left pinky finger to free it up from the base. A bone graft on the left middle finger. A touch up to the left hand fingers when she is older – plastic surgery type to make them look smoother. Also surgery on her right hand to separate the three partial fingers.
Thanks for all the many prayers and encouragement we received through all of this.