Halloween 2009

Well we are still trying to figure out how to man three children with only two adults. Everytime we become confident to step outside our front door we are reminded of why we stick to the confines of our four walls.
Mommy Griffstein bought costumes, for Ava and Cole, that were "pre-owned" off of Ebay for very reasonable prices. Lila's hooded Marie onsie came from Walmart. After about two mintues, after getting everyone into their costumes and outside into one of the hottest Halloweens I can remember, we were all sweating and everyone wanted to take their costume off, and so they did. Ava had the hood of her costume off and unzipped. Cole was down to just his dragon vest costume and a diaper and very shortly after that down to just a diaper. He was already starting to break out in eczema on his belly from that short stint of sweating. Lila was like Ava and had the hood off and unzipped. Lila pretty much felt like the whole costume thing was extremely overrated and seemed bewildered by the tradition of dressing up. Maybe she'll be a better team player once she learns there is candy involved for her one day.

Then it began to monsoon and candy collecting was put on hold. The good thing is it was getting later and it sort of cooled the night off. So enough about our soggy Halloween. Here are some pictures and what you really wanted to find on the blog:)

My First Haircut!

My sister Lila is here and mommy is getting stronger every day, which means she is getting closer to being able to tanning my hide again. Really she has become soft as she ages. She does a lot of nose and toes in the corner with the timer on. I don't get that much right now because of my age, but Ava does and I have to console her by patting her shoulder when she goes in there for being a hoodlum.


Ava thinks Lila hung the moon, she sure didn't act like that over me when I came home. I know she loves me and all but, I'm just sayin.

Daddy has been amazing. He has transformed himself to being Daddy and Mommy for the past month while Mommy got back on her feet. I have loved every minute of having so much of Daddy! We got to have just Cole and Daddy time and he took me to the Disney Store, but I only wanted the same things I had at home. He took me to toys r us and we took a stuffed cow home that I fell in love with.

One of our other just Cole and Daddy days was to get my first hair cut! Daddy took both cameras so Mommy could see my first hair cut like she got to be there. Daddy and Mommy were so proud of how I behaved! I didn't even cry! Of course they did have something interesting on the tv to watch so I wouldn't have noticed anything, anyways.

The ladies at the hair cutting place thought I was Mommy and Daddy's first child because of all the fuss about the first haircut. That was a nice compliment that they think I'm just as special and try hard to make my world just as if I were their first and only. I know you all won't fall all over yourselves like Mommy did when she saw the pictures, but check them out below.

Hope everyone keeping up with me on this is doing well!

Love,
Cole

Summer Fun

It's been a while, but we are here to catch you up. We have been having a fun summer with a very busy Ava and Cole, while preparing for our new little girl in August. There has been boat rides on Lake Wylie with PawPaw, keeping cool in the neighborhood pool, probably way too much watermelon eating for one family, Fourth of July cookout with the Hardman Family, playing at the sprayground at Birkdale, and just trying to keep cool.

We have been taking baby steps in experimenting with exposing Cole the eczema guinea pig to water and seeing how his skin handles water exposure for longer than 5 minutes of bath water.
We were hopeful after a visit to the neighborhood pool. We were in for about an hour and nothing was showing up and even that night. We spoke too soon. The next morning it was head to toe eczema, but the good news it wasn't near as bad as we thought it would be. To give you an idea how mild it was even though it was from head to toe, we took him back again, but then we gave him a break to get his skin cleared up completely.


July 16th we headed to see Dr. Bensky, Cole's cardiologist. Everyone was so impressed with Cole's growth since he was last there. They checked the usual, O2 level, weight, height, and how his heart sounded. While we were there they wanted to do an echo to make sure everything was flowing good and looked like it was suppose to at this stage. Everything checked out really well. Dr. Bensky was really happy with the way Cole's heart looked and sounded! He did say because Cole is such a big boy and continues to grow so well that we are looking at his 3rd surgery in 6-9 months. This was similar to how it lead up to having the second surgery done earlier than planned because of Cole's size. Cole being bigger than expected at this stage is a good thing. At no time do we want Cole to go back through everything for a 3rd time, but in some ways it is better so that we can have it behind us. At first it looked like the next surgery would be closer to 3 years old, but since this is not an optional choice for Cole we are glad it will be sooner than later!





Sometimes we look at this big blue eyed, bigger than life personality, little package that is a big miracle and we get possessive and can't imagine our lives without him and don't want our lives without him, but then God reminds us that none of these precious babies are ours, they are only on loan as gifts for whatever time God decides. When we realize they were never ours to begin with, we just get to enjoy that God thought enough of us to give us these amazing little people to fill our lives with a love and joy that is unbelievable and unmatched in any way! Cole has made us appreciate friends, family and life even more through this journey of having a heart baby and in all of it we can actually thank God for exactly how he made Cole.

Video of Cole's First Year

Hi everyone,

Cole is now 16 months old and I am finally getting his First Year summed up into a video montage. If you would like to watch it, the below link can be put in online to view it. Hope everyone is well! This link should be in one line but I couldn't get it to fit on the entry page that way, but if you put this in, it should take you straight to the video to click on and watch.

http://www.onetruemedia.com
/my_shared?z=438cc2959b9bb7aced759&utm_source=otm&utm_
medium=text_url

Sometimes the link changes the word "shared" into "sahred" once you click on it. If you change it to "shared," it works fine. Not sure how to fix this.

LCK Picnic

Before we got to Saturday, we had a doctor appt. this past Thursday with Dr. Bensky, Cole's cardiologist, but this time not for Cole. It was actually a precautionary echo for the new baby. Cole did go with us because he is buddies with Dr. Bensky and we thought it would be good for Cole to go in and see that every doctor appt. he was at wasn't always for him and him having to be checked out. The same woman did this echo that did all of Cole's before and after he was born and she was so happy to see Cole again.
Yen (sp?) kept saying how this baby couldn't be giving her better views of her heart. She said it was like the baby knew what she needed next. Very different than Cole. Cole didn't cooperate one time when he was in the womb for one Echo or ultrasound.
Dr. Besnky came in after the echo was done and looked over all the images. His words were "that is a beautiful heart and that is what we like to see." It was such a relief! Anyone who has been through any experience doesn't go in just assuming the next time everything will be ok, so it was nice to be able to finally stop holding our breath. Now we will just try to figure out where we are going to put our new little one in the house.!

Now back to the Levine's Cardiac Kids annual picnic on Saturday. It was a good time and we stayed for half of the picnic because Ava's friend Olivia was having her 3rd birthday party at the same time as the picnic and we didn't want to miss that either. We had beautiful weather and a hay ride and some free food. They were hoping the strawberries would be ready for picking when we were there, but it was a weekend too soon. The picnic took place on Hunter Farm in Weddington, NC. It was a little bit of a drive for us, but not too bad. They had horses, cows, baby cows, miniature ponies, and some ponds where we got to see a turtle as we drove by on the hay ride.
They had a group there doing a piece on each heart baby of before and after, so we each told who we were, how old our child was in the picture we brought and what surgery they had had, and how old they are now. While I helped Ava with her lunch Matt took Cole over to see Dr. Watts. He is the man who has been blessed with an amazing mind and hands to work miracles to give so many families like us the days we have had with our babies! We are so fortunate to have a pediatric heart surgeon like him! We thank God every night for him while we are rocking Cole to sleep and taking in his big blue eyes that are so wide and innocent and trusting of us, dimpled hands, his tubby blond head, his long eyelashes resting on his big chubby cheeks as he falls asleep, and the list goes on of all we get to be thankful for and how many days we have already been given with Cole........................and not just Cole. Because of Cole and what he brought with him, it has made us thankful for every day with every person we love!

Here is Cole and his surgeon. Dr. Bensky couldn't make it to the picnic...........there was a dance recital to attend to. We will know all too soon what that is like with Ava.

Happy Easter!

Easter was a lot of fun this year! Ava and I got up and attempted to decorate hard boiled eggs. There is a reason these projects are done at school and not at home with mommy. I am not that mommy. I know my limitations as a mom. Cole and Ava opened Easter baskets and Easter gifts and at this point we are debating to just let them eat every piece of chocolate and candy until they pass out or spread it out over the next 5 years. I don't know if I have ever seen so many chocolate eggs. We were able to go to the big Easter Egg Hunt this year in Baxter whereas last year we were still in the very tail end of quarantine.

First, Ava and Cole met the Easter Bunny and took pictures with him. That was a miracle in itself! Ava won't think of even having Santa in her sights! I will say that the Easter bunny is not as bizarre looking to a 1 and 3 year old. We thanked the Easter Bunny for the Easter baskets he brought that morning, took pictures with him, and then headed over to the age appropriate area to hunt for eggs. Our ages to hunt ranged from 0 to 3 years old, which makes up most of the population in Baxter, so you can imagine the area we were in to get eggs. CHAOS! Nah, actually it wasn't as crazy as we thought it would be. We had a big green grass square to line up around and all the hundreds of plastic eggs were right out in sight. This was torture to make the little ones wait and look, but don't touch. So you can imagine what that was like for all of us parents while they made them all wait another 15 minutes after gathering around. None of them could understand why they couldn't just bend down and put the eggs in the basket because they were right there. It was pretty comical herding this age around each other and parents and everyone trying to be polite but not miss catching their little one on video or still shots. As all of us parents know, it is tough trying to capture those priceless moments. It usually doesn't happen and we throw in the towel after almost being in tears.....sweating, gritting your teeth and trying every stupid dancing on your head trick you know that at one time made your children fall over with laughter. However, now it only gets you a stone face stare or being ignored all together. As you will see in our pictures, it was still a lot of fun. They were moments to laugh about because real life is not picture perfect...especially in pictures.

It was over in a matter of about 3 minutes or less, but we cherish the good, bad, and ugly because they are only this age once and too soon there won't be any more decorating eggs, or finding items to make Easter baskets special, or egg hunts or trying to get pictures that will capture the sweet moments that never quite get caught on camera.

Here is Ava trying to help keep Cole in the picture but more or less managing to choke him while he screamed.

Here is Cole trying to keep Ava with him so she can't go run to get on the moon bounce and she's prying his sweet chubby dimpled hands off her dress.

Cole screaming because he didn't want help while Ava tries not to pee herself waiting for me to get the perfect picture.

LCK Meeting

This month we were able to make it to our first LCK Meeting, which is Levine Cardiac Kids Meetings. It's once a month for the meetings and they usually have doctors come speak. Sometimes it can be your own doctor depending on the topic.
Next month is the 2nd annual LCK Picnic for all the families. We are extremely impressed with this volunteer organization. They are incredibly organized, informative and helpful.
They have childcare for children 3 and older that get to go do projects in the hospital while the parents attend the meeting. The babies are in with us and Cole was quite the ruckus in the room. Matt and I took turns standing at the back of the room and entertaining Cole by throwing him in the air, rocking him and swinging him until our arms had turned into arms like Gumby.
These meetings are not for parents only. A lot of families had grandparents and other family members there so they could better understand or learn more.
The meeting we went to was a doctor going over the different heart defects so we could understand what other families have and deal with.
I think with Cole's we knew, but sometimes have chosen to turn our head as a way to deal with some of the more difficult information spoken. It made us step back again and thank God for getting to wake up another morning with Cole and go in to see his round tubby head standing in his crib, smiling and waiting patiently to drag ourselves into his room. Cole is doing great though and we'll take what we have for this moment we have.

For those of you who haven't heard through the grapevine. Cole is not going to be the baby anymore. We will be making room in our hearts and house for one more in August!!!

I took these this morning for those of you still checking in here. This is Cole's "I'm serious about this" faces. He tries so hard to communicate and we try so hard to understand.

What The?????

We were trying to keep our close relationship with the Pitt family under wraps, but it is finally out there for all to see just how close we are. Here is a picture of Cole and Brad.


Just kidding, it's their son Knox who could be Cole.

I'm 1 Year Old!!!

We just had a small family birthday for Cole for his 1st birthday. When it came time to have his cupcake, he was more interested in snuffing out the candle with his chubby little hand and that is exactly what he did. Before any of us knew his plans he reached out like lightning and snuffed it out! He was curious about the frosting and wasn't hesitant to stick his mits it. He wasn't too interested in the eating it part. Daddy thought he should definitely partake in the cupcake eating and gave him a piece the size of Cole's head. I watched from the other side with the video camera as it all unfolded in slow motion. I saw the gag reflex take action and Cole throw up his dinner. It wouldn't have been right without Cole gagging and losing his dinner. A little puking doesn't slow this family down, we picked right up and kept moving on with the birthday.




On a serious not though, we stand in awe that we were blessed to celebrate Cole's 1 Year Birthday. 2008 was a long emotional year and we couldn't have done it without all your prayers and support and love. We love all of you and thank you from our hearts for everything!

Love,
Laura and Matt

Cardiologist Appt. January 7th

We had made an appt. a month before we left for Cole's next visit with Dr. Bensky. We didn't realize until we were going that it was Cole's 1 Year Birthday that day. It was odd to think back that, that same day a year before Dr.'s, family, and friends didn't know how Cole's story would begin.
A year later Cole is still amazing all of us with his reports and progress!
After Dr. Bensky checked him and looked him over his words were "Cole couldn't be doing any better at this stage." and " I wish we could say the same for all our cardiac babies." We won't see Dr. Bensky for 6 months and at that time he will do an echo to see how everything is functioning. He said Cole will probably end up having his 3rd surgery before most, just like his 2nd surgery in July, because of his size and growth for his age. It will still be in the range of 2-3 years old.

Christmas In Boise

We were invited to come for Christmas to see John and Sharon Gilbert. We accepted and knew the only way we could do it was using all of our frequent flyer points and then some help. So we used them up and to use them there were rules about dates and if tickets were more than a certain amount than we couldn't fly into or out of certain cities.
A long story short, because our flight left Charlotte an hour and a half late we spent 12 horrible hours in the Pheonix, AZ airport with Ava and Cole. When we finally left we flew 2 more hours to Boise. Once we settled in and got over our nightmare experience with the airport we were able to start getting some time in with family.
This won't be super long because Cole is on the move crawling and pulling himself up and finding items in our house that are invisible to the adult eye, but harmful to babies that cause choking and putting them in his mouth. So we'll share some pictures.



Again I won't go into the story about having to come back from Boise by myself with Ava and Cole. It was as bad as you can imagine, but home was that much sweeter.