Emily is home!

Em got to go home today. She is doing great. Still tired and a little weak, but overall feeling good and in no pain! This was the easiest hospital visit and recovery for her so far. Thank you so much for thinking of her!

The latest on Emily

Emily is doing well. This surgery seems to be the easiest to recover from, but she was in the best shape going into it this time. She had an NG tube and until that was taken out yesterday (along with her epidural and catheter) she was very "blah", just wanting to lay around and not really talking. But once they took out the NG tube, she immediately perked up and started feeling much better. Today she was on clear liquids and tomorrow she may start on food. It looks like she may go home on Monday. She's doing great! I'll update again soon.

Update on Em

The surgery went well. It took 5 hours. Emily is doing pretty well, she has an NG tube draining her stomach gases and will have that a few days before she is allowed to eat or drink anything. She has an epidural in continuously pumping in pain meds. I think she'll get that out tomorrow or the next day. She had to have a bikini line incision. She is calm though and not acting upset or in terrible pain. She's i pretty groggy and sleepy now but they'll have her up moving around some more tomorrow. Mark is staying with her at night. Anyway, thank you for thinking of Emily!

Emily's next surgery is on Monday

I know I've been bad at blogging this summer. We've been really busy doing family activities. Hopefully I can catch up soon. But I wanted to let you know that Em's having the second part (out of three parts) of her surgeries to recreate a new colon on Monday. They will go in and create a "J-pouch" using her small intestine. She will still have her ileostomy until after her 3rd surgery (probably next year). But this surgery is the most critical in that if something goes wrong or they find things are worse than they expect inside, the surgery could fail and she could have an ostomy her whole life. She'll be in the hospital about 2 weeks. Please keep her in your thoughts! I'll keep you all updated. Thanks!

Please excuse....

I'm not posting much because we have been so busy. My Grandma passed away on Monday. I'm taking Jake and flying to SC tomorrow for the funeral and returning Sunday. All of our company is gone and school is out so hopefully I can get into a routine and start posting again. I'll write again soon!

Patrick's birthday party pics

We have been so so busy lately. I have to catch up on posting. My parents were here this week but, unfortunately, had to fly back early before Patrick's birthday because my Grandma went back into the hospital. Mark's mom has been here visiting. We've been doing lots of fun activities, so I have lots of pictures to post.

We had a small family party for Patrick yesterday. It was really fun and he got some nice gifts. We went with a sports/ball theme. Here are a few pics of the party...

Happy Birthday, Patrick!

My sweet boy turned 2 yesterday! It in some ways seems hard to believe he's just two. He's very smart and seems older in a lot of ways. But in some ways it's hard to believe he's two already. He is such a sweet, affectionate, energetic boy. I think back to this time last year when he just turned one and we didn't even know about Jake's conception yet. So much has happened. Here is how far Patrick has come in the past 2 years... I'll post his birthday pics next.

Is this heaven?

The slide show below is our new water slide. The kids are in heaven! We've been so busy lately with the end of school rush and beginning of summer. I have a bunch more pics to post soon!