hi.

oh man am i behind. this past month has been packed full of things to share with you, but i suppose that's why i haven't done it. it's been packed full and i haven't had oodles of time to write bloggy letters. but the main stuff is that we:

a) went to the lake for the fourth of july. josh came. and brought you a flipping bike, for crying out loud. that boy goes big or goes home.

b) bought a house! we closed last friday and the movers come to south carolina to move our world to smyrna, georgia this monday. we are incredibly excited to start this next little chapter=)

c) happily hosted sara and daryl and dakota coming to visit us. i have no pictures from the weekend and i have no good excuse for that.

d) i don't really think there's a d. which makes me feel like the rant about how full our month has been was a load of malarkey. but part b includes faxing approximately 8 billion pages back and forth at least 14 times to the loan company, so that gives me a little something.

oh wait!

e) went to charleston for your follow up from surgery and everything looked great!!! the x-ray looked good and you're healing up nicely and the nurse practitioner said you were the "perfect patient" and i about threw a party right there because that has not always been the case, sweet one. but i'm immensely thankful that your body is back in order and appears to be behaving. here's to praying that it stays that way forever and ever.

remember how i said you said hospital like "ho-pi-si-tal"...??? here's a video of me shamelessly (and obnoxiously) trying to get you to say it clearly into the camera...the patience you have with your mother is endless.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

and have i told you about patty shukla i think her name is on daddy's ipad??? it's a lady who sings kid songs and you love her. and we have made some sweet and embarassing family memories dancing and singing to her. here's a video of you and daddy dancing to "jumpy jump jump" as you call it. you better believe our downstairs neighbors were loving us after this night...

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

fun, huh??? i guess that depends who you're talking to. but you light up our world with your excitement so we like patty shukla in our house=)

ok that's all. happy moving to us next week=)

i love you sweet angel.

mommy

cupcakes

aunt nikki is super crafty. lucky for us, one of the ways this comes out is when she bakes yummy treats and we get to eat them=) here is a tiny peek into one of the delicious reasons we're thankful aunt nikki came to live with us this summer:

catherine and her pink piggy cupcake=)

you're welcome for the mouth full of green broccoli=)


you got two cupcakes dedicated to you because you are the cutest member of our family.

she didn't actually say this out loud, but i think this is supposed to be daddy...

i know. she's SO talented. and we are so lucky.

and this is you with your doctor gloves on making sure aunt nikki's ears are ok. you are my favorite doctor by far.

the girl likes her pool

you had surgery june 10th. i had taken that thursday and friday, and then the next 2 weeks, off from work because we didn't know how long you would take to recover. turns out, you took about 4 days and then you were good as new. so after i checked with my office manager and made sure they were, in fact, surviving without me, i had two weeks at home with my girl who was running around and doing flips and acting like surgery had never happened. dr hebra recommended we wait about a week for you to go swimming so i figured maybe sometime mid-week we'd try the pool again. but monday we headed that way to "stick out feet in" because for some reason i thought that could be good enough for a sweet little almost-3-year-old who loves the water. next thing i know you're laying down on the first step of the pool, with your chest tube site and surgery incision fully submerged underwater. which is when i officially decided it was ok for you to swim again.

and we haven't looked back since. we've been swimming every day, i tell you. every day. your yellow swimmies from last year bit the dust so once we got some new ones for you, you were off in that pool swimming all by yourself. and then telling us all about how you can go swimming by yourself, but you want us to be there too. my brave little cautious girl. i love it=)

here you are enjoying some pool time. i LOVE that you love water, by the way. there are a very select few things that make mommy happier than feeling the sun on my skin while i sit beside or maybe even in some body of water. and you seem to have gotten the little water/sun bug from me=)

you're also not afraid of frogs, apparently.

i love you sweet babe. you fill me with such joy.

mommy

see the frog???

there you are pointing to it, just in case. i think it was in shock and it just sat there for a long time. then it hopped off and at first you thought that was so funny. then when you realized he was gone you were most upset. you could only be consoled by an otter pop. (you know otter pops? flavored ice pops? they are perfection at the pool.)

you and max. running the pool.

our new house=)

we're moving to atlanta in a month. a month and two days, actually. and it's really smyrna, not atlanta. and we can't wait!!! well, that's mostly true. we have some sweet sweet friends in clemson that we will miss so much. we've loved living the last year with them. and i have this huge blessing of a job that i can't believe i'm leaving. but then i have another incredible job waiting for me in atlanta and every day i can't believe my lucky stars that something so perfectly matched for me has fallen into my lap, again.

and we're under contract for this little house that we love so much. we had our inspection last week and it went so well and we're just waiting on some things here and there and we close july 15th=) then we move on the 25th and do you know what i'm most excited about? putting my kitchen things away. is that weird? just a little tidbit about your mama. every move, i'm most excited about choosing where to put my kitchen things=)

and here is the best part. this week i actually (with the help of eve my new office manager and long-time family friend...) found and enrolled you in a little childcare place that i love!!!! i can't even begin to describe how relieved i am about this. probably more than the house or the job, i'm so thankful that we found a place we trust to take care of you every day=) i don't know how to go into it more than that, so i'll just leave it there.

good things happening, sweet love.

thank you Jesus for making all of our moving to georgia things fall into place. i can't pretend even for a second that this all isn't Your hand at work...You never cease to amaze=)

ok love. here are some pictures of you hanging out with daddy at our new house and trying to unlock the door. you're very excited about it and you keep telling me that your new room has 2 windows=)

love you babe.

mommy

you and daddy at your new house on father's day=)

you love your front yard. your favorite thing to do there right now is to run around in circles in the grass. (aren't the trees so awesome??? i think that's mine and daddy's favorite part. in virginia i loved how i could look up in our backyard and just see tree branches going everywhere. you can do that here too and it makes me VERY happy=))

ps. more pictures to come. my computer is acting wonky and they're not uploading right...

picture catch-up

all of these things happened before surgery, but i didn't get a chance to show them to you before our latest hospital adventure. so here are some pictures=)

you and nik nik during some morning snuggle time

my little beauty=)

watching sid the science kid with baby donna in her high chair and your elmo finger puppet

going home=)

we're going home today!

this morning we got scared for a minute because one of the doctors came in and said there was a place on the x-ray that they were concerned about and wanted to make sure it wasn't more bowel that had already re-herniated back into your chest. so we went downstairs to radiology where they could take a better x-ray and all is well!!! it's a collection of fluid, maybe a hematoma (collection of blood) but it should reabsorb on its own and it's no problem. so off to home we go with no planned surgeries in sight=)

you're SO much better. almost completely back to normal. you guard your left side a little where your incision is, but you're playing and wanting to run around and you insisted on going back to the playroom to paint some more and you're even smiling at your nurses again=)

here are some pictures of our last day here in the hospital (have i ever told you how you say "ho-pi-si-tal?? it's the cutest)

an afternoon full of awful means catherine's getting better!

this afternoon you got your chest tube out, your epidural out, and your iv out by accident but then they decided not to replace it. so you're almost tube-free! and you were miserable during all of that, but you're so much better now. you got a boat load of morphine for all of those festivities, and you're still sleepy sleepy because of that, but we managed to go play in the playroom and take you to the cafeteria (you get to eat regular food since you're not getting iv narcotics anymore since the last double dose this afternoon) and you're already looking so much better. when we came back from your outings your sweet nurses had given you a pretty pink karate monkey pillow case that made the room feel a little happier, and we fed you some green beans, chicken, broccoli and apple juice, and you fell asleep almost immediately. so now you have lortab and that's what you'll go home with. dr hebra came by and said he was very encouraged by how you were doing and how your chest x-ray looked from this afternoon...he showed me some pictures from during your surgery (gruesome, and i don't know how i feel about the fact that i've now seen your insides) and we talked about how he isn't concerned about re-herniation with you but obviously it's a possibility, and he also mentioned that your pectus (where your chest dents in a little in the middle) will probably get worse as you get older and if it ever compresses your heart or lungs it would need to be fixed. but hopefully not. but overall, he was very positive about how things looked with you and he said we will probably go home tomorrow!!! i couldn't believe that. you still haven't pooped, but he's confident that since we've stopped the iv narcotics that will come along soon enough. hopefully before we go home, because i am quite sure i'll be a little basketcase until you do. it was sad sad this afternoon when you would tell me you were hungry but you had to poo poo first. the first couple of times you said this it was just a stating a fact kind of thing, but then i think you were super tired and probably so hungry and the third time you told me this you started crying and it broke mama's little heart. but then you got to eat and all is well in that department!!!


you've had lots of visitors. mama and daddy and aunt nikki and gigi and grandaddy and grandypa have been in and out. and arnold, hayley and max came by one afternoon. i had a video of nikki and daddy and grandypa dancing like loons on the couches and all around the room and singing to you, but then i deleted it by accident. it was funny and i think you would've liked to watch it one day and i'm so sorry i deleted it. but you are loved for sure. and you've had lots of people cheering you on and the doctor and nurse had quite an audience when they took your chest tube out. luckily they didn't seem to mind.


thank you Lord for taking care of our sweet girl. we are so thankful. it would be awesome if we could now have a bowel movement please=)




love you baby girl.


mommy

i can't wait till this grumpy look is not constantly on your face. we've gotten a few more smiles today and it makes me start crying every time.

you and grandypa with his flowing locks having an important conversation. i love your eyebrows.

your first official meal after surgery=)

i ordered green beans and broccoli and chicken fingers because they are usually your faves.

the green beans on this plate, however, were not your friend. i think your face is so funny. "what did you just feed me? you expect me to eat this?"

p.s. today is the 6th anniversary of when grandma donna went to live with Jesus. it was a sweet day of remembering her while you had a day of (painful) progress. i know she would be so proud of you sweet baby. or i know that she is proud of you. i don't know that works when you get to heaven, whether or not you know what's going on down here on earth, but i believe that the two of you are intimately bonded in deep ways we don't know about or can explain, and i will be forever thankful. we miss her so much and we're so thankful she is deep in the roots of our family.