Pray for Sydney

I thought I had finished using this blog, but it seemed to be the best way to let everyone know how you can stand in faith with us and pray for Sydney and how to update you on her journey.

To get you up to speed, Sydney was born Nov. 6th at 41 weeks. She seemed completely normal for the first 12 or so hours but then started spitting up blood. The doctors sent her down to the NICU and x-rays showed that Sydney had air in her abdomen. She had emergency intestinal surgery and they discovered her sigmoid colon had ruptured because her meconium was very thick and backed up. The surgeons had to give her a colostomy bag and we were unsure of what caused all this to happen. 

However, this week tests came back and Sydney has been diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis. It is a very serious condition and to find out more about it you can go to cff.org.  When we imagined adding a third to our family we hoped for a healthy full-term newborn with no complications. To have this diagnosis has been difficult for us but we know that there is a purpose in this situation. We have hope in our God who has been so good to us and who performed miracle after miracle in the lives of our twins. We are blessed by an incredible team of doctors and nurses, and are very encouraged by the medical advancements we are learning about for treatment of CF. Ultimately we know that the doctors do not have the last word, and trust that Sydney's future is in the hands of Jesus. So we are going to believe for another miracle, and would ask that you all join us in prayer. Here are the things we are specifically praying for:

• There are mild and severe cases of CF and it is impossible to tell now what hers looks like. We are praying that she will have a very mild case with no symptoms and that she will have a very long life. Specifically pray that her lungs would be strong and healthy and that her pancreas would function normally.

• Pray for her to stay healthy and free from sickness. This first year is extremely important for her long term health.

• Pray that God will get much glory through her story and her  life.

• Sydney has been in the hospital now for over 2 weeks so we are ready for her to be home. Pray that she can make progress with her bottle feedings so we can leave the hospital.

• She will have her intestine reattachment surgery sometime in early 2013, so pray that it goes smoothly.

• We still have weekly therapies for Liana and Adleigh had a heart procedure scheduled for 2013, so pray that God will continue to heal them and help us manage all of the different treatments.

We have been extremely encouraged by our Elevation Church family and feel so supported during this time. The scripture we have been praying over Sydney everyday has been Psalm 103:1-5.

Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
² Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits—
³ who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
⁴ who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
⁵ who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Thank you for believing with us!

Oh wow, an elephant

Liana does this thing where she will make an elephant sound whenever we see or talk about an elephant. So of course I tried to get in on video forever and like all tricks you say your kids can do they end up never doing it on demand. So I finally got one video where we ask her about a thousand times what sound the elephant makes and she does it! But to make it even more awesome, in the video you hear Adleigh say, "oh wow" super clear. She is becoming quite the little talker.

Christmas Photo Shoot

This is the last set of pictures that I have been meaning to post. But hopefully I can keep thinking of some stuff to post after this so that I don't have a blog drought for 3 months :)

Pastor Steven Furtick gave our family the gift of a photo shoot for Christmas with the amazing Sean Lyon. We got all decked out in our Christmas clothes and we loved the pictures! The girls look so beautiful in their red dresses. Thank you so much Pastor for the amazing gift! I love the picture of Adleigh pulling off her shoe...definitely a great picture of her crazy personality! And you will see in a lot of these Liana is clapping, that is because the best way to get their attention and to make them smile was to sing "If your happy and you know it, clap your hands." She would always participate!

Liana Walks!!!

Liana has been taking a few steps for about a month now, but Thursday during her physical therapy she decided to really go for it. She walked back and forth across the room almost the entire therapy time. Her highest number of consecutive steps (with no help) was 18! Obviously I ended up getting the camera after she was getting tired so her best ones were at the beginning of therapy, but this video will show you just how amazing she is!

God has been so good to us and He has used our girls countless times to show us how mighty He is and that He answers our prayers, even the audacious ones! Liana has come a long way from the preemie they wanted to take off life support and it is all because of our might God! Enjoy the video.

Family Pictures with The Schultz's

I am back for day 2. What up?!??!

I have two sessions of really amazing pictures that our friends did for us and I knew that some people would really want to see. Today I am going to post some pictures done by Cheyenne Shultz. Here is her website. She and her husband Geoff are absolutely amazing and we loved taking our pictures with her. You should definitely check out her site if you are getting married because you would have the most amazing pictures!

Anyway...here are some of the awesome family pics.

Christmas 09

(Awkward moment for how long it has been since I have blogged)

Glad we are done with that now :)

I just starting getting sad the other day that I had all these thoughts captured from the first year the girls were born and lately it has been so long since I have done anything. I am letting too many memories escape without being captured on my blog!

So I have a whole bunch of pictures I want to upload in case any of my family or friends still read this blog. I'll start with our Christmas pictures since that is the most recent.

The girls loved Christmas! This year you could tell that they knew that they had new things and they seemed in awe as they walked/crawled into their decked out playroom and kept going back and forth to all the things "Santa" had brought them.

Here are just a few pics of opening presents and playing with the new toys in the playroom.

VISIT FROM MY PARENTS

My parents were able to come see us a couple of weeks ago. They live about 2.5 hours away so it isn't really far but it is enough so that it is a treat when they come! I got some great pictures of the girls with their Mimi and Papa (at least that is what my niece Pressley calls them).

BABY DEDICATION (babies in our case)

I know that Adleigh and Liana are gifts from God to us, but dedicating them last Saturday showed family, friends, and fellow parents that we want to honor God with how we raise our girls. I don't think I realize sometimes how serious our jobs are as parents. We need to be daily teach our children about their Savior. More than anyone on the planet our children will look to us for answers and maybe more importantly will always observe how we practice our faith.

Our Lord is to be lifted high and His glory to be told to all. Our children need to know of how marvelous our creator is and how he loves them in a personal way. Thank you to everyone who has prayed for our girls and can now see them so healthy and perfect. God has done so many miracles in their life!

Here are some pictures of that special day.

COMING THIS WEEK

I was fully prepared to write a blog tonight but my brain is frazzled. Instead I will let you know I have a few blogs that are coming your way.

1. Baby Dedication

2. A NICU friend run-in

3. Of course the playroom pics...I have to get it clean first!

Those are the blogs I know are coming. I'll be posting soon!

THE TOY ROOM

Even though I am a graphic designer I always have such a hard time trying to decorate my house. I know what I like when I look in a magazine. I know what styles my eye tends to gravitate to. But when it comes to implementing it in my home I just can't do it. I realized that I mostly fall short in the details. Our playroom is one of my favorite rooms in our house. But I feel like it is lacking some detail. So when I saw this Flickr pool of Toy Rooms, I have found some ideas that I might could put into our own playroom. Click here to take a look.

I think my favorite has to be this one. It is practical and full of color. I am loving the wall of shelves so the kids can see all their toys. And the two tables are great for trains, coloring, and all kinds of goodness! I am so sad I didn't paint our playroom before we secured everything to the wall!! I'll post pictures of our playroom soon.

Photo Link

OUR DAILY SCHEDULE

I love looking on websites to find out what schedules other moms have with little ones that are Adleigh and Liana's age. Here is our daily schedule.

7-7:15: Wake up

7:30: Eat breakfast (pancakes, waffles, cereal, have a cup of milk)

8-9:30: Play time w/ lots of reading, On Tues/Wed we have therapy for Liana

9:30-11: Nap time

11:30/12: Lunch

12:30-2:15: Play time, run errands, go outside

2:15-4:Nap

4-5: Snack and hang out

5-6: More play time, stroller walk, hang out with Daddy, on Thurs Liana has therapy

6-7: Dinner, usually baths (sometimes I do baths in the morning)

7: Bedtime

I would love to hear what your schedules are. Do you think I should add anything to our routine? By the way, if you noticed we went back to 2 naps. Liana just couldn't cut it with one nap. Once we went back, our naps went back to being easy again. I guess she was super glad to get the extra sleep that she decided to not fight to stay up!

Adleigh walks...for real

Adleigh is really walking now. She is so cute as she stumbles around. When Grandma Joye came to visit, Adleigh fell in love with her dog Candy. So here is a video of Adleigh making her way to Candy.

THE HAPPIEST BABIES I KNOW

My girls love to smile and laugh. Wade and I consistently prayed throughout the pregnancy for our girls to be filled with joy and laughter. I must say that I can see that our prayer was answered. We have so much fun together. I thought you might enjoy some pictures that show just how happy these little ladies are. (First 3 are Adleigh, last 3 Liana)

We also had a fun day today because we had a visit from Grammy, Grandaddy, Grandma Joye (the girls great-grandma), and Candy the dog. It is Grandma Joye's birthday tomorrow. So we want to wish her a very happy birthday. We had so much fun "chillin" with you and Candy today!!! Love you.

HOME A YEAR

September 23rd and 24th marked the days Adleigh and Liana were able to come home from the hospital last year. It was amazing to have them all to ourselves, all the time. No more trips to the hospital. No more dividing my time between two different nurseries. No more missing important moments. No more separation between the girls. For three months, I knew I was their mom but having them with me all the time finally made me realize it was true! I am so thankful for my girls and remembering their homecoming makes me praise God for bringing two healthy babies home to us.

The first three are of Adleigh and the last three are Liana.