Elyse's 3rd Christmas!

We can't believe it was Elyse's 3rd Christmas this year. Time has flown by and it just gets more fun each year! We began a new tradition this year in an effort to really teach Elyse about the true meaning of Christmas. We began the morning with a birthday party for Jesus! It was complete with plates, balloons, candles, singing Happy Birthday, etc. She was so interested in the nativity set up in our living room this season and I think that really helped in her understanding of Jesus' birth. I am excited to continue this tradition for years to come!

And of course, there were the presents! She loved her 4-in-1 nursery for her babies, her McDonalds drive-thru, disney play figures, ...! And the new Disney monorail at Pops and Nana's house was a big hit with she and Blake. What she didn't like were clothes! She would throw them behind her, digging deeper into the box to find something more, then move on quickly when she realized it was only clothes. This attitude drove me crazy but my family kept reassuring me this was natural for a 2 year old. I can only pray that we will raise her to be grateful for everything she receives. She may get spoiled but I refuse to let her get rotten! :-)

Christmas cookie making!!

First things first, Elyse checked out perfectly at the surgeon on Monday. They did an EKG, x-rays, checked her incision, and all was great! The pacemaker technician came and checked hers and it's working great too. Our surgeon Dr. Kozick (who we think is fabulous) said they won't see her again until it is time for battery replacement surgery. She said, "She'll almost be a teenager by then!" These words brought tears to my eyes. I can't believe this is all over and behind us and that everything went so beautifully. We feel so incredibly blessed and thankful for all of the prayer for Elyse during this time. Elyse is recovering so nicely. She really does seem back to her normal self, besides the occasional "I'm hurting Mommy. I need tylenol." :-) She was telling her cousin Blake about the surgery a few nights ago and said, "They put a pacemaker in my tummy and it makes me feel better and tylenol." :-)
Blake, who cried for Lysee when Amanda told him she had surgery just kept reassuring himself, "Lysee's ok now. Her tummy doesn't hurt anymore." Oh.... the words of two year olds are SO cute!

We did our annual cookie decorating at nana and pops' house on Tuesday. Elyse and Blake were much more into it this year and Alex even got to sit on his bumbo and watch all the action. It was a lot of fun!

To God be the Glory, great things He has done!

I can't believe I am just now posting about surgery. :( I didn't take a computer to the hospital so all I had was Ryan's iphone and it drives me crazy to type a lot on there. But I'm HOME now so I can type. :-)

Elyse's surgery went beautifully on Tuesday morning. The plan was to cut her breastbone in half and put the pacemaker in the upper abdomen and put the leads (wires) up to the heart. When they got in there, they saw that the heart was in a "perfect place" and they didn't even have to cut the breastbone. They simply had to separate the bottom part to put the leads on the heart. This was wonderful news to us because this cut her recovery time from 6-8 weeks to 2-3 weeks. After surgery, Elyse went to ICU and we got to go be with her. She was in a lot of pain for the first 24 hours after surgery. She had a tube draining excess blood out of her abdomen, had oxygen hooked up to her and IV's for her meds. She was a pitiful sight BUT... after 24 hours, she had all of that taken out and she was a brand new person... kinda literally! Her heart rate went from 50 (before surgery) to around 110, now. An average heart rate for a normal 2 year old is 90-130 so you can imagine how amazed we are to see this heart rate for our girl. Her pacemaker was checked by technicians and it is working perfectly. (That is one amazing piece of technology!)
We moved out of ICU to the floor Wednesday afternoon and at that time, she was wanting Daddy to "go for a little walk" with her around the hospital and she was eating food eating normal food! And Wednesday night, she was sitting up in bed for two hours in the middle of the night wanting to play with mommy. Fun! ;)
To say the least, her recovery has been just miraculous. We were discharged this morning and can't believe that we are home two days after the surgery. If all of this isn't an answer to prayer, I'm not sure what is. :-) God is so amazing and the strength He gives our little girl is absolutely amazing too!

Check out the changes in these pictures below...

Quick Disney Trip

We took a weekend trip to Disney World and had a ball! Mom and dad had this trip planned and Amanda and I decided to take Elyse and Blake down to join them for a few days. We had so much fun. I grew up thinking Disney was a magical place and now, after seeing my two year old experience it, I know I still believe that! Elyse loved Dumbo, The country bear jamboree, It's a small world,... but not Peter Pan. She said "Peter Pan is too scary." They also enjoyed a day at Animal Kingdom, where we had breakfast with the characters!

It was a perfect way to spend time before surgery, ... which is the day after tomorrow! I will post updates on here in the days after surgery. Please keep praying for our sweet girl and her doctors!

Decorating for Christmas

We have had SO much fun decorating for Christmas. Elyse turns on the Christmas tree every morning when she gets up and loves to walk around it and look at all of the ornaments. She started out calling them "instruments" but finally caught on when she heard us call them ornaments. Her favorite thing though about decorating for Christmas is the nativity, or as she calls it, her "new dollhouse." She loves playing with the people and talking about baby Jesus. It is the most precious thing ever! These Christmas decorations may have to stay up for a while. :-)

As for surgery, the day is quickly approaching! We feel so peaceful and "ready" to do this so we are really praying that Elyse stays well so she can have this. She is on an antibiotic for strep right now so as awful as that is, we are hoping it will protect her from catching anything else in the next couple of weeks. Please keep praying for our girl.

December 15...

... is surgery day! Elyse will have her pacemaker put in that morning at UK Children's Hospital. We chose this date because we will only have to take a week off of school and then be off for two weeks for Christmas break. The plan is to cut her breastbone and bury the pacemaker in her upper abdomen. The surgery will take about an hour and then she will be in ICU for 24 hours, then admitted to a room where she will stay for 3-5 days. The first couple of weeks after surgery, we are asked to keep her away from kids as much as we can because her breastbone will be so tender. We don't want to risk kids running into her. The breastbone will take about 6-8 weeks to heal completely. During this time, we will just have to be extra careful with her.

While the thought of the surgery is very scary, we feel peaceful, knowing that she will be taken care of and wonderful results will come from this surgery. We can definitely feel the prayers because of this peace among us. Thank you for prayers and we ask that you keep them coming as this day approaches! We would like to ask for specific prayer that Elyse will stay well during the time before and after her surgery. They said even if she has a cold, they will have to cancel the surgery. It will be hard for all of us to stay well during December and we need prayer for that. Infection before or after surgery is not good at all! Thank you!

Our trip to Boyd's

We had a blast at Boyd's Orchard today! Elyse had heard me talk about taking my students to the pumpkin patch last Wednesday and since then, she has been asking me when she could go. So, thankfully it was beautiful weather and everyone was "well" today and it made for a great day!

Is it time...?

Dr. Cottrill called me on Tuesday afternoon and said she had reviewed Elyse's echo pictures. She is concerned about the leak in her valve. She is not sure why this has happened with Elyse's heart. She is taking her pictures from the echo to her weekly meeting with other cardiologists on Monday, to present Elyse's case. She said she suspects that it may be time for the pacemaker. Her hope is that the pacemaker would speed up the heart rate and possibly "reverse the leak." So... we will know something on Monday. Please pray for our sweet girl's heart, guidance in our doctor's decisions, and strength for all of us. We knew the time would come for a pacemaker, we just didn't know when. Now that it could be near, it is scary, but we are reassured that God's hand is in all of this.

Fall break fun

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We totally enjoyed a week of being lazy! I love fall break but it always leaves me wanting more time with my girl. We had a trip to the cardiologist on Wednesday, which went well. She had an EKG and an echocardiogram done. This was her first echo she had in two years. We didn't actually get to see Dr. Cottrill because she was out of town but the PA said the echo looked good. It looked like it did almost two years ago, which is great. She noticed a few things she wanted Dr. Cottrill to look at and said they would get in touch with me if they wanted to do anything about them. I didn't hear from her so I guess that is good news. :-) Those things were that it appeared that the left side of her heart is slightly bigger than the right and that there may be a small amount of leakage from one of her valves, but not enough to impact anything. So, we are praising God for a good appointment! Elyse was SO good during the entire visit. She is so amazing!

Here are some pictures of her enjoying making cookies and playing with friends, Ella and Kylie, over the break!a

Elyse's first UK football game!

We took Elyse to her first UK football game last weekend! Well, she actually just came for the tailgating, but that's ok. Her pop pop came and got her before the game started and took her to one of her favorite places, the mall. She enjoyed the tailgating and I'm sure enjoyed the mall even more. Her new thing to say when we are shopping is "that's cute!" You can easily tell her mommy and daddy are shoppers!
Ryan had fall break this week and got to spend every day with his little Lysee. I get to spend every day next week with her... yay! We have an appointment with Dr. Cottrill on Wednesday, whom we haven't seen in 6 months! I can't believe that. Other than that, we plan to play with friends and family all week! Bring on fall break!... BUT this little girl will probably be rotten by the time Mommy goes back to school. :-/

A night with friends

We recently enjoyed a night with friends, the Browns and the Marcums. It is so fun to get together with these families! Ella spent the evening dancing, Elyse spent the evening playing with ALL of Ella's toys, and little Kylie spent the evening "wowing" all of us with her walking. Oh, and the grown up boys, spent their time having a hot pepper eating contest. :-) Great times with friends!

Our little model :-)

Ryan just happened to capture this snapshot and we love it!

Happy 2nd Birthday Elysia Hope!

Our little angel turned two on Thursday. What a wonderful two years it has been! I couldn't begin to express how much this little girl means to us and how blessed we are by having her in our lives. All I can say is "Praise God" for this precious gift of Elyse! I watched her run laps and laps around the couch tonight with cousin Blake and found myself absolutely amazed and thankful that she was so healthy and energetic, given that her heart rate stays in the 50's. God is so good... and she IS amazing!! Happy birthday to our little miracle!

Happy Birthday Blake

I'm a little late on posting this but we had such a nice time celebrating Blake's birthday. He actually turned two on July 13 but due to Alex's early arrival, we had to do a late celebration. His big gifts were a table and chairs, a new tricycle and a train table. He was so nice and shared his new toys with Elyse as he opened them. (That is usually a problem for both of them :-))
I can't believe he is 2 and that our little girl will be in just two weeks. Happy Birthday to my sweet nephew, Blake! And look for a precious picture of my other sweet nephew Alex in the slideshow! I just love these boys!!!!

Elyse's first trip to the zoo!

We took Elyse on her first visit to the zoo on Monday. Our friends, Jeff and Emmi are members of the Cincinnati Zoo so we got to go with people who knew the place. It was a wonderful day! Elyse and Kylie both slept on the way there, which put them in good moods. They loved seeing all the animals! We saw the elephant first and Elyse's first comment was "It not fit in Lysee's stroller, it too big!" She especially loved looking at the monkeys too. Kylie loved seeing the animals too and could've watched each one for hours, I believe. They lasted about 3-4 hours there and were very ready to go when the time came. The weather was perfect and it made a perfect day for the zoo. Thank you to Emmi, Jeff, and Kylie for the fun trip!