A letter

Dear Friends,

Three and a half years ago we had a beautiful daughter who entered our world earlier than she was supposed to and with a few issues but has been a firecracker ever since.  On Tuesday our last child will be born via C-section (as long as she follows the plan).  Yesterday we found out that she may also have a heart issue that needs to be dealt with immediately.  She possibly has a narrowing of the aortic arch called coarctation.  If it is too narrow they will do surgery sooner rather than later.  However because I am having a C-section I will not be allowed to leave the hospital to go to Children’s Hospital for 3 to 4 days.  Hopefully the hospital I am in will be able to keep her in the NICU put her on prostaglandins and have the specialist check her in the NICU.  Hopefully she will not need surgery and they will be able to take her off the prostaglandins and she will be able to come home when I do.  None of this can be determined until she is born and they can get an accurate sonogram of her heart.  She likes to throw shadows on the sonograms the specialists have done while she is baking.  And believe me there have been a LOT of sonograms.

At this point best case scenario is that she is immediately put on meds and then it is determined she is ok and we will be home in a week all while staying in the NICU at the delivery hospital.  Worst case scenario is that she will have surgery to correct this problem when I am able to get to Children’s Hospital where she will be and I will not be able to see her, hold her, and feed her for 3-4 days.

Of course Lily and Grace know none of this.  Grace is filled with anxiety as it is and has already asked me this week if what happened to Brendan could happen to this baby.  The girls may not get to meet their sister until after surgery, or through a window at the NICU.  Right now there are a lot of ifs…

The baby and Lily will most likely be tested for something called the elastin gene.  The geneticist believes that this might connect the two girls and their possible similar heart defects.  If they are positive; Grace, Tom and I will have heart echocardiograms and cheek swabs to see if we are affected or carriers. 

So I am telling you all of this to ask a favor.  First and foremost pray for us as we face this challenge, that we have the strength to possibly separated at different hospitals at such a critical time and not be overcome with stress and anxiety.  That you pray for our baby’s health so that she can come home soon.  And finally that you not talk to Grace about it.  We have had a very rough year with her emotionally, physically and we do NOT want to add stress and anxiety back into her life now that she seems to be calming down.

Thanks,

Tom and Sarah

Five

Brendan Daniel Campbell

March 1, 2007

On Angel wings to heaven you fly

We remember you everyday but most especially on this day

We love you always.

Where I have been and have a lot of catching up to do....

We are adding another little girl to our family.  She is growing nicely and we are all very excited.  I hope to catch this blog up and add more details soon.

Pumpkins, Popcorn and fried Pies!

Before Halloween, yes I know it is almost Thanksgiving, we made our way to the local pumpkin farm.  The girls were very excited to get their pumpkins.  We got to the farm about 20 minutes after the farm opened for the day and were shocked at the number of people already there.  We headed straight for the Hay ride that takes you to the pumpkin fields.  Once there the girls immediately picked up a mini pumpkin each and tried to run to the big pumpkins.  Grace and Lily were more interested in grabbing the closest pumpkin and getting back on the Hay ride.  I was able to convince them to let me take a few pictures of which no one was really acting their best before the second tractor came into view.  So then the girls pointed to a pumpkin and Daddy grabbed it and back on the hay ride we went.  We then paid for our pumpkins, got some yummy hot fried pies and went to check out the animals.  Lily's favorite was the pink pig, mostly because he was little and of course PINK!  We saw the animals, waited in line for our traditional picture with the biggest pumpkin and then got some popcorn and headed home.  We were in, out and ready for fall in under an hour.   I was amazed that the girls didn't want to spend more time looking around. But we can say we went to the pumpkin patch this year and got to spend some time outside in the beautiful fall air.

3!

Lily is officially 3!  She is a spunky, independent little girl.  She LOVEs princesses especially Baby Aurora.  I am still not sure why sleeping beauty is now always referred to as Baby Aurora, but apparently it is very important not to leave the baby part of her name off.  We spent the week of her Birthday in Disney, meeting all the princesses we could find and occasionally riding some rides.  Lily's favorite rides were It's a Small World, Dumbo, The Magic Carpets, and Toy Story Mania.  She also loved the stroller ride it went wherever she was......  She got her hair did at the Bibbidi Boppity Boutique, making me wish I had done it sooner for Grace.  Lily got to eat Lunch at Cinderella's castle and dinner with Mickey.  She got to celebrate Halloween with Mickey and company and had a generally great time.
As for being three....
Ahem, well the potty training thing, is not working so well.  She seems to be a camel and able to hold her water until she stands up off the potty.  We had been doing really well with #2, but our long trip seemed to throw that off too.  I have bought the potty watch and we will be having boot camp probably over Thanksgiving.
Lily loves to do art.  She LOVES markers, crayons, PAINTING, she always want scissors but mommy is very nervous about that.  She loves playdough and using tools.  School has been a great avenue for her to showcase her love and talents and comes home daily with her "work".
Speaking of school, Lily goes to Ms. Jan and Ms. Jackie 3 days a week while mommy is working down the hall.  She has learned about God making the world, what is big and little, colors and numbers.  She has one little girl that she constantly talks about in the class and they take ballet together too.
Lily loves playing with dolls, the dollhouse, running around outside and playing Elmo on the computer.  She also loves reading books.  We usually read 2 books before bed and then she goes to bed with about 30 more.
Lily loves her ballet, but I think she is a tapper at heart.  She loves the fast paced music and the noise her shoes make on the floor.  Mostly she likes to dress up and dance around to the princess stories.
Next on her agenda will be swimming lessons.  She would love to be a cheerleader like her sister but I hope that is at least 3 years away, for now we have a friends old uniform to play in.

Well I think that is all I will add pictures soon.....

Ray Rah Sis Boom BAH!

OK, more catching up to do.

So after our week in Myrtle Beach, we came home to a week of Dance Camp in the morning(work for mommy, fun for girls)  and cheer camp at night for Miss Grace.  Can you say hotter than H-E-double hockey sticks?!?!?  The temps were in the nineties with heat indexes reaching 112.  Cheer camp was in the middle of a field, with no shade except for the tents brought by some of the parents.  The first night was the worst.  After each jump, chant or cheer learned Grace would plop on the ground to try to rest and drink as much water as she could.  After dance camp the next morning she pleaded to see if Grandma could come so she wouldn't have to go back to dance class. 
As the week progressed, we spent several afternoons at Walmart buying the appropriate colored shorts or shirt for pictures, first it was pink to match the camp shirt, which then changed to blue or black to go with the high school colors and totally not match the shirt; then we had to purchase black shorts and a blue shirt for the performance Friday night.  Each day Grace got a little more tired, the heat did get better and Lily was able to stay home with Daddy.  Each day Grace also started coughing a little more.  Not a huge whooping cough or deep guttural cough, it seemed to be just a tickle.  By Friday night she was barely eating, only drinking and ran a fever on Saturday. 
Grace continued to be grumpy the next week, not wanting to do anything until we went to the bookstore on Tuesday afternoon to get her free book from the summer reading program.  We then went to see Winnie the Pooh in the Theater.  We came home around 6:30 to eat dinner, daddy was teaching class.  As I was asking the girls what they wanted, Grace kept telling me she had bumps on her bottom that were really itching.  Upon inspection I realized they were hives and she was running a fever of 102.  We called Grandma and Papa and drove to the Children's urgent care facility closest to our house.  After watching the hives travel around her body, giving her Tylenol, a dinner of snack machine items and finally seeing a doctor, he did the routine strep test and a chest xray.  She had full blown Pneumonia!
I was in shock, I have no idea if it was the condo we stayed in that had evidence of mold or whatever chemical they used to spray the fields she cheered on or if she inhaled salt water that caused her lungs to become infected.  She had to take a STRONG antihistamine and zithromax to get better.  It changed our plans for our trip to Florida, we were supposed to leave on Thursday for Grandma and Poppops and she was supposed to get to spend the night with her cousin.  Instead we did not leave until later on Friday and no sleepovers occurred.  More on that later.

Lazy days of summer?

Wow, where did July go?  We spent a week in Myrtle Beach, a week sitting in the heat at Cheer camp and working at dance camp, a few days preparing for a trip to Florida and battling Pneumonia, a 6 day trip to Florida and then it was meet and greet, back to school shopping, birthday presents than bam it is August first and School is here.  It seems that gone are the lazy days of summer, no more days at the pool, or laying in our pajamas until noon.  School is in session, work is starting and life marches on....

But here is to the memories.  These are some of the photos from our trip with the Edwards to Myrtle Beach.  We had a great time and enjoyed seeing some of our Musser relatives.

I am hoping to get some of the other photos on here soon, but for now this will have to do.

Lily's doughnut

chocolate iced face after licking the doughnut clean

Grace's Brownie Dessert that she ended up sharing with Lily and Taylor and still had some left over.

Look down here Papa

Just playing in the sand.

She would lay in the sand and roll and play and build sandcastles all day.  Then we would have to give her like 3 showers to get all the sand out of her hair, bathing suit, diaper etc.

Loving on Cousin Taylor.