Keyan's coming home day!!!

We have finally arrived at Keyan's special day. Three years ago on the 13th of May she came home from the hospital. She had a few failed attempts at coming home in March and April but would end up back in the hospital within 24 hours so we don't celebrate until the day she STAYED home! I am always amazed when I look back three years ago but Keyan amazes me the most. It is absolutly incredible to see how far she has come.

She started her day licking powdered doughnuts. She has acquired quite a taste for the white doughnuts since Poppy has been home for the last month and a half! She has such a love for life and even though she may not actually eat the doughnut, it is as good to her as if she were.

We met a freind for lunch at Logans where Keyan promtly ordered ice cream for her meal. Of course, her sisters were a little put out by her getting her dessert first but as Grammie said, "It is her special day!" We are very excited about the progress she is making when it comes to putting things in her mouth. It is stil not large amounts but we celebrate every little step along the way.

Keyan knows that she is the queen for the day and is enjoying being spoinled even more than normal. Isn't her smile contagious? Keyan, you are such an inspiration to all of us. Your determination far exceeds that of most people. Despite your challenges, you meet life head on and love everything about it. Your forehead kisses and unending hugs are always a pick-me-up. Your memory is amazing and hearing you sing every word on the Disney sing-a-long CD brings me to tears every time. You have given us a lot of scares, but even more joy. I know that you are going to do spectacular things in your life and I can't wait to celebrate all of those milestones with you. Daddy and I have learned so much from your personality and spirit. Thanks for keeping us on our toes. We love you!

All the girls stopped to pose for a group shot outside of the restaurant. We have not had nice weather for about a week so they were soaking up the sun. The other girls love Keyan and were excited to be celebrating her day. It always ends up being one big party! What a great coming home day.

Home Again!

For those of you who did not know, McKenzy spent the the beginning of the week, Sunday -Wednesday, in the hospital with pneumonia. Yes, you read that right, McKenzy, NOT Keyan! She woke up Sunday from a nap having a hard time breathing. Luckily, Paul and I went with our guts and I took off to Zeeland's ER. By the time I entered the building, the nurse grabbed her from me because she was blue. Talk about scaring a Mom! They admitted her to Zeeland hospital that evening. Thru the night, she continued to need more and more oxygen so the doctors transfereed her to Spectum by ambulance Monday morning. By Tuesday she had begun to stabalize and was able to come home on lots of medication Wednesday evening. She was so happy to be home. After the doctors told her she could go home, she told everyone that came into her room,"I going home today!" I called home to let them know that we were being discharged and my Mom put the other girls on speaker phone to say hello to McKenzy. As soon as she heard their voices, she started sobbing. When the girls at home heard her crying, they followed suit. It never ceases to amaze me how close they really are. After being initally elated to have McKenzy home, it did not take everyone long to realize that McKenzy after 4 days of IV steroids was not all that fun. Steroids make the best of us crabby, and since Kenzy tends to be quite emotional anyways, it has been very hard on her as well as the rest of us. This picture sort of represents how her sisters felt after a short time. Keyan went right back to her usual routine, Sidney was quite annoyed by McKenzy's screaming, and Abbagayle could not believe she ever missed McKenzy being gone! All kidding aside, it was a very frightening four days and we are glad she is feeling better and home to make our house full.

Our Spiderman!!!

We have a new Spiderman fan in our house!!! Sidney Ann is a huge fan of her brother Jamahl and thus has suddenly taken an extreme liking to Spiderman. It is the craziest thing ever. Jamahl actually doesn't care a whole lot about Spiderman but Sidney thinks that he does and that is all that matters. She has been asking for a Spiderman shirt for awhile now and we finally found her one. She also wants a Spiderman bathing suit buy Mommy is drawing the line with that one! Here she is modeling her new t-shirt. If you get to come over any time soon to our house, you can see Sidney fly from the climbing structure to the couch. She really thinks she is Spiderman.

While shopping for her shirt we found pajamas on clearance with a matching pair for Jamahl! She was so excited. Please notice the Spiderman sweatband on her head. She discovered this right upon entering Target today and proceeded to wear it thru the store with her pretty pink shirt! She has not taken the thing off since we got it. She is currently in bed with the wonderful sweat band on!!! You have to give me credit for allowing her to be her own little self!!!! We love your super-hero spirit!

Easter-with our crazy family

So, it took me a few days to post but things have been crazy around here. If you don't know, Keyan was in the hospital due to surgery from the 12th-21st. So, by the time she and I got home it was a mad rush to get the Easter preperations underway. Mom and I quickly found some outfits that would accomodate Keyan's new issues and because we were both exhausted, we made reservations for lunch. The day started out with a wonderful hunt for eggs that the bunny had hid. All the kids got very excited to discover the eggs. The Easter Bunny hid 48 eggs and the kids found them in about 10 minutes! They all had different reactions to discovering that the eggs were filled with candy.... Sidney immediatly sat at the end of the table with her eggs and proceeded to eat every peice of chocolate mixing in a few jelly beans along the way. We would normally intercept the candy but it was too cute watching her intently eating the chocolate. Little did we know that Abby and Keyan were passing theirs down to her as well.....

Abagayle liked the M&Ms but decided that the other chocolate made way to big of a mess and just started yelling for a wipey! She quickly moveed onto the new sticker book and crayons...

Keyan was enthralled with opening her eggs, emptying them, refilling them, and then putting them back together. She did it over and over again, much to our dog Molly's delight because she was constantly spilling candy onto the floor. She was surprised to find stuff in the eggs every time that she opened them. We were so happy to have her home to celebrate with us and she actually had a really great day....

McKenzy quickly ate her M&Ms and than was off to find Gammie and her coffee. She needed her coffee fix before she was going to tolerate any more early morning celebrating. She never went back to eggs but instead spent her time wondering around the kitchen exploring all the things that she could get into....

Jamahl moved right past the candy to start working on the new lego set the Easter Bunny left him. I thought Grammie was going to kill the Easter Bunny for leaving yet more legos, but Grammie joined right in on the building like the good sport she always is. Jamahl had been sick the entire week prior to Easter so we were also glad to have him feeling better. I have to admit that I got a little teary when he came out all dressed up. He is growing up way to quick!

So, for the rest of the story....Sidney continued to eat everyone's chocolate until she started to look at little green. After trying her Cadbury Egg, she decided that she better go lay on the couch. We went about getting everyone ready and she never said another word. We got to the restaurant, she ate her lunch, and everything was going smoothly, until she looked at me, put her bib over her mouth, and threw up all over our Easter table! As if we aren't a spectical enough!!!! She actully managed not to get it all over her dressy clothes, but her sisters and Jamahl had quite a time talking about what Sidney had done! We got her home and she layed on the couch until it was time to color eggs.

I have never colored eggs on Easter but with a family like ours you ahve to go with the flow so that is waht we did and it actually worked out really well. Everyone was relaxed and had fun. Uncle Jeremy and Auntie Roo got to our house just in time to help with that project!! I am sure they were excited about that.

We ended the day with cake and ice cream to celebrate Uncle Jeremy's birthday and haircuts for all the girls. It was a great day that was made better by all being together and having fun. I am sure that we will never forget Sidney eating all that chocolate, but I hope we also never forget about the special memories we made as a family! Happy Spring!

Abagayle's special day

We celebrated Abagayle's coming home day Friday. I have had some technical difficulties which prevented me from posting about the day until now. You may remeber from last years post that it took Abby awhile to come home because of feeding issues. I am sure now that that was her way of preparing us for "Abby's World". She does everything in her own time and in the way that she sees best, not usually agreeing with her parents!

Abby started her day off with chocolate ding dongs that Poppie had bought. I had asked him to stop the night before and get doughnuts but he thought she would like these better! They all loved the chocolate frosting, coating the chocolate cake, filled with vanilla cream! Thanks Poppie for the very energetic group of three year olds! Mommy went out at lunch to run errends and brought back McDonalds for the whole gang. Abby LOVES french fries. That evening we all went to the carnival at Jamahl's school. It is a lot of noise to tolerate for the parents but the kids had a blast playing games, eating pizza, jumping in the bouncer, and tumbling on the gym mats. Overall, I know that Abby enjoyed being the special girl of the day.
Abagayle is extremly smart and outgoing. She is the boss of the group and keeps everyone in check. She loves to look at you with her big eyes and smile while she is doing something she isn't suppossed to be doing! Abby loves to read, do puzzles, sing, snuggle with Mommy, wrestle with Daddy,suck her thumb, and especially loves anything "Cinderella". We are so proud of the little girl she is becoming. Abagayle, keep your determined nature, it will get you far. If you keep standing up for the injustices in the world like you do now, the world better watch out. We love you so much!

Another important date

February 19th is a big day for 2 reasons in our house. Three years ago today Keyan had her trach put in. We were scared, in disbelief, sad, and yet happy to be getting rid of the tube in her nose. After so many attempts to get her off the ventilator, while we certainly did not like the idea of a trach, we did want to be able to hold her easier, let her move around, and experience life a little more normally. I know that the picture looks bad but she actually looked a lot worse before the trach. It was amazing how much more peaceful she was after the surgery. When this trach journey started, we were told she would have the trach for about a year. Here we are three years later and living life to the fullest with her trach. Every Spring we hope to get rid of the thing, but we know that in God's perfect time it will happen and boy will we have a huge party. The trach has given her a great quality of life and no matter if we have it for three more months or three more years we will take it one day at a time and be thankful she is with us. It is amazing how three years can pass so quickly.

Today also happens to be the girls original due date. Had they gone full term, they would have been born today. So...they are officially three years old today! Maybe that means that they will start listening, become potty trained, and stop fighting!!! Oh I can dream can't I?

It is Sidney's Day!

Sidney came home from the NICU 4 days after McKenzy. She had survived quite a time in the NICU having had numerous infections that made her neck swell up like a football player. She had two terrible IV burns that she will always have to scars to show for, blood transfusions, and so much more. We were so happy to take her home. Three years ago we were surving bottles every three hours, crying for what seemed like 20 hours of the day, dressing two teeny tiny babies, keeping medicines straight, and changing diapers constantly. Of couse that was with only two babies home!!! Now we are surving totally differnt dilemas but there are certainly plenty of them.
We started the day with chocolate doughnuts yet again and than we were of to Kindermusic where everyone made a big deal over it being her special day. After Kindermusic, Sidney got to spend the afternoon with Auntie Roo going shopping and eating out for lunch. She got to choose a sister to go with her and she chose Abby. Abby was thrilled with this because she is getting very tired of waiting for her special day. We rounded out the day with rootbeer floats for everyone. It took the girls a little while to figure out why there was pop in the ice cream but before long they were eating them up.
Sidney has a very sweet disposition 90% of the time but when she wakes up in a bad mood it is a bad day for all who are in her way. She LOVES doggies and is thrilled when Jamahl lets her "borrow" one of his. She still has the least amount of hair but when she lets mommy put a piggy tail in it she looks absolutly adorable. She is finally getting her tooth in that the Dentist thought was not there and that seems to be causing her a great deal of trouble but she just perserves thru it all. She is strong minded but always willing to share her hugs and kisses with anyone. She is our serious girl who doesn't always have a lot to say because she is taking it all in. Sidney, we love you and know that your strong streak will serve you well in life. Keep your happy spirit and easy going outlook on life, you add so much to our special family!