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.