Winter, Spring, Summer and The Three Bandits

It's been a while since we have updated the blog. Mainly because it's low on the totem pole since Lila came along. The adults being outnumbered in the house puts life into a different dimension.
We have had quite a few people run into us or contact us to ask why we haven't kept up with the updates and we just figured nobody was even visiting the blog anymore. Now that we know differently we won't be so slack to get back here.
Lets see, since January..................
We were not planning on quarantining everyone again, but than H1N1 came along and even then we didn't take it seriously until healthy strong hearted children without oxygen issues started dying and we thought maybe we should take this a little more serious and pull Cole out of school, church, etc. So everyone was home again from October to March. The season officially ends around May but we felt comfortable enough and the hospitals started letting children back into the hospitals in March. Not that they weren't taking children the whole time. The healthy ones are like petri dishes and they didn't need any extra carrier monkeys bringing anything with them into the hospitals.
So, Spring, I ventured outside trying to get the hang of three and how to walk with three (which was Cole and Lila in the double stroller and after a block or two Ava not wanting to walk anymore and finding a spot she could squish into, half covering Cole and half covering Lila)and me trying to push them all like that, or grocery shop( which left little space for groceries, so I piled them on top of Ava and Cole and below the cart), or learning to do pretty much anything with three.



Summer I think came in the Spring for us. It seems like it's been hot since March. The heat has kept us in most of the summer and made a very non-creative mom try being creative which usually started and ended very quickly because Cole would eat anything in front of him and whatever he didn't eat he dropped and Lila would come along and take care of it for him. So summer has been a blur of heart racing until I thought I'd pass out from the items that have made it into the mouths of babes that they gagged and tried to choke on.

Toy Story 2 with Zurg, and Tom and Jerry have become favorites this summer and Cole calls them Thomas and G. When summer has not been a blur of small children finding things to choke on the other blur is Cole everywhere he goes or whatever he does.

This picture sums up Cole being two........

His form of communication is screaming like a chimp, hitting, or kicking. He is classic terrible twos. We hear a lot of "No sir" from Ava and a lot of crying from Lila The Tank Griffin. Cole doesn't even have to be told anymore to go in timeout. He goes in right after he does something even if we weren't going to send him. He spends his two minutes telling me he's sorry to Lila or Ava. He thinks time out will end early if he starts in on apologies immediately.
We won't go into details but we have had a busy summer when I look back at pictures. Fort Mill Strawberry Festival, the annual family beach trip in May, baby pools in the yard, rainbow sprinkler in the yare, and big swimming pools with me and three who don't know how to swim(Jesus, Mary and Joseph!)





popsicles, ice cream cones, Spraygrounds, Spraygrounds and more Spraygrounds (which you will not see Cole in because he was not a fan of the sprayground, driving to New York City for 4th of July (yes, with all three gremlins)and the mother of all Spraygrounds in Central Park, and Lila's one year birthday!









We visited Cole's cardiologist in July and they told us we had to wait to get in with the new dr. who starts Sept. 1st, who preforms the heart catheterizations. We have an appt. just to meet him Sept. 7th. The heart cath. will be scheduled some time after that and then Cole's third heart surgery will be scheduled some time after that.

Two Years Now!

On January 7th, 2010 Cole turned two years old. We can't believe we have had him for two amazing years now! He makes us thankful every day we wake up that we get another day with each other and with him! Such a gift! We had a very happy Mickey Birthday! Lots of pizza and cake and love!

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.