Happy SIXTH Birthday, Sammy!

Happy HAPPY 6th birthday to our sweet, sensitive, kind, thoughtful, organized, creative, deep-voiced, smart, FUNNY little Sammy. I cannot imagine our family without you. You are one LOVED little boy and it's hard to believe that six years have passed since that first time we heard you cry-growl. I love you so much, my Sammy Jammy!

I think it's safe to say that Sammy had a great birthday yesterday. We spoiled him rotten. He requested a strawberry cake with strawberry frosting and fresh strawberries on top. So guess what he got! The birthday boy gets what the birthday boy requests. :)

Almost every boy in Sammy's kindergarten class was able to attend the party. The gift opening was particularly interesting (MADNESS!). It made my mama heart happy to see him running around and happily playing with his classmates. They are such a close bunch. Their teacher loves Sammy so much that she even made an appearance!

Here's the kindergarten boy crew! Plus a few cousins and Elijah's bff. :) LOVE THIS PIC!

Sammy my Jammy. I ADORE you. I love when you request mama snuggles. I love that you intensely love your family and that you request "MMMMmmmm!!!!!! SNUGGLES!!!!!!!" often.

My four boys and I are in the midst of crazed packing, purging and planning. We will have some big news coming up in the next week or so.

Thank you so much for checking in! If it is on your heart, please pray for Elijah as he will be having surgery tomorrow morning. Pray for: no anxiety in the OR, a successful surgery (the first two have been Unsuccessful), minimal effects from anesthesia and a quick trip back home. Thank you!!!

A great loss.

I have been crying for most of the day because I cannot wrap my head around the fact that our sweet little heart friend Isaac has suddenly entered Heaven's gates. I met Isaac's mom Kathy way back when I first started this blog. We made an immediate connection and have even traveled across the country a handful of times to see each other. Isaac was born just a month after Elijah and had the same heart defect Elijah has. The last time we saw Isaac was in July 2013 when we went on our whirlwind road trip. We spent four cherished days with the Rollers in Dallas at another wonderful heart family's home. I will cherish those memories forever. None of us had any idea that it would be the last time we would see our snuggly, sweet little Isaac. He was such a lovable boy. I have been in disbelief all day. I can't believe he is gone.

He had a high fever over the weekend, so his parents brought him to the hospital. An infection had gone into his heart. :( They put him on a ventilator and told his family that he wouldn't make it through the night. He passed away a few hours later.

Isaac is the snuggly cutie on the right..

Please pray with us for peace and healing for Isaac's family. They are the absolute sweetest, kindest people on the planet and I want to completely cover them in prayer. I have also set up a campaign for them so they will not have to worry about money during this difficult time. If it is on your heart, please visit the following link and consider making a donation.

https://mymfunding.com/campaign/TheRollerFamily

Life is so fragile and precious. Make the most of every single day. You just never know..

The apple fortress and a prayer request

This weekend I am thankful for lousy weather. This has been our first FULL weekend all together as a family at home in months. It has been wonderful!

On Friday we went to a new apple orchard, or "apple fortress," as Sammy called it. :)

We had a great time picking apples and enjoying the gorgeous scenery and spilling our apple cider and having to purchase a new cup as it dripped down my back and all over the barn floor. 

On Saturday the boys earned a trip to the movie theater, so we watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, or "Channy and the Meatballs 2," as Sammy called it. Elijah was sure to correct him, so he has it right now. :)

And today brought another fun adventure, which I will save for later in the week. For now, a prayer request..

Elijah will be having surgery on his left ear on Tuesday at noon. The surgeon will go in through the skull bone behind his ear. He will look for regrowth of the mass that was removed in April. If there is regrowth, he'll remove it and we'll come back in 6ish months. If there is no evidence of regrowth, he will place a prosthetic device that will hopefully restore hearing in that ear. If he is able to place a prosthesis, life will be very gentle for a few weeks. The surgeon explained that even a big sneeze could dislodge the device and require additional surgery.

Please pray for our oldest boy on Tuesday! Pray for a successful surgery and for great news and as uneventful of a day as possible. Also pray for peace for all of us! Sammy included, as he will spend the day away from his family.

Later in the week I will share photos from today's fun adventure! Thank you so much for checking in and for PRAYING!

Letters and cards and prayers, OH MY.

I wrote this on Facebook earlier, but thought I would share it on our beloved blog, as well!

I was thinking today, after Elijah received two very thoughtful cards in the mail, how excited he would be to receive even MORE mail as encouragement for his upcoming surgery (April 23rd). He LOVES receiving mail. He plays "mailman" in our house every single day. Dan and I write him back and forth constantly and he carefully reads through each sentence about 20 times. 

Would you consider sending a letter in the mail for him? Maybe tell him that the "scary mask" isn't so scary or give him encouragement about this surgery? Or maybe suggest that he be kind to his brother? :) Anything would be so cherished. Send me an email if interested (mmporta@gmail.com) and I will give you our mailing address.

Also, so that Sammy feels just as loved (because he IS!), perhaps consider sending him a letter, too? THANK YOU! Thank you from the bottom of this mama's heart!

Praying for LUCY

As I sit here this afternoon feeling sorry for myself because I am sick and unproductive, I realize that I don't have so much to complain about. I have been following the blog of this sweet sweet little girl, Lucy, who has been battling cancer for a year and a half now. Her cancer was in remission for a few months, but now it is back, along with an infection that has affected her body in scary ways.

Please pray for a miracle for this sweet girl and her family!

Easter

Today has an overall feeling of sadness. A new friend of ours (who I have asked for prayers for before) had a baby who went to Heaven on Friday. My heart aches..

----

On a different note, we had a nice weekend. My contractions have been staying in a comfortable zone (usually no more than 1-2/hour still) and that makes me very happy. I was able to tag along with Dan and Elijah to Dan's parents' house for a bit yesterday for Easter dinner. I snapped a bunch of photos of Elijah from the deck (you will be seeing lots of these this week) but otherwise didn't move around a whole lot and when we got home I felt like I had just finished running a marathon. My body definitely is not used to anything but being glued to the couch!

Elijah had a fun time playing in the dog kennel (that no dog lives in). He opened and shut the door to the kennel about 4,367 times. Opening and closing doors is a favorite activity.



Of course I had to get a few pics of my gorgeous hubby, too.



This is his fake mad face:



Elijah is still really hesitant about walking on bumpy surfaces. He will walk on grass if the surface is fairly smooth, but he will not walk on grass if the surface is uneven. This is what happens when we encourage him to try it:





I have spent two of the past three Easters at home, so I was worried that I would be spending this Easter at home, as well. I am extremely thankful that I have a little bit of freedom these days so I don't have to be cooped up 100% of the time.



I loved being able to spend a little bit of time with Dan's family yesterday. As always, Elijah got a ton of love from Grandma and Grandpa and his cousins. And his new word of the day was "resurrection," which sounded more like "wezzuweshin." :)



Many more Easter pics to come this week! Have a good week, everyone.

Prayer request!

PLEASE go give this new heart mama some love! Ashley found out that her unborn baby will be born with multiple heart defects. She is currently 27 weeks along in her pregnancy and is on bedrest in the hospital because she is having pre-term contractions. I know this all too well!! I was terrified when I was at that point in my pregnancy with Elijah and loved and appreciated all of the love and support that was sent our way.

Prayer request!

Hey everyone! Could you do me a couple favors?

1. Pray for this little girl? She is in surgery today and has possibly a few more surgeries in the coming months to make repairs on her heart.

2. Shower this mama with love? It is so scary to go through something like this, especially when you don't have people who have been through it before standing by you. So, let's stand by her!

Thank you!

I like low-key

We have had a pretty low-key week. Elijah's cough gets a little bit better every day. He still coughs in the night here and there, but it's just something we've gotten used to (sadly). One of the things E's pediatrician said last week was that he is probably just going to be one of these kids who gets croup and the coughies constantly until he's five years old. Wonderful! It could be worse.. so, we'll take it without too much complaining..

Yesterday's crazy snow storm kept us from going to PT/speech. He did get his home PT visit on Wednesday, and that went well. They are always so amazed at how much information is in his little head that he just isn't able to express yet. They had some really good ideas for us to get him to communicate better that I'm excited to try.

We have a super fun weekend ahead of us. Tonight Dan and I have a babysitter coming over to sit with Elijah while he sleeps so we can go meet some skydiving friends for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. It's been quite a while since we've seen some of them, so it will be fun to catch up. Tomorrow we are bringing the little man down to my sister's in the afternoon so we can go skiing for a couple hours. Back before I was a mama I used to ski all the time, so this is really exciting for me. It has been THREE YEARS since I've been on the slopes. That is way too long! I'm going to be all wobbly-legged and sloppy. Sunday will be a day of rest (since my old, weak legs will surely be sore), spent with my wonderful little family.. I hope you all have a great weekend!

p.s. My friend Cara's niece, Ellie, passed away this week after battling brain cancer for ten months. Please send up a little prayer for her family.. :(

Prayer please

I started today off feeling frustrated. I wondered WHY Elijah couldn't clap his hands yet and WHY he couldn't really say any words. I focused on the fact that he really acts more like a baby who is 12 months old and that there are many things that he SHOULD be doing that he's not. Then I checked Johnny's blog. And I cried. And I reprimanded myself for being upset about my son's lack of progress. Elijah is alive and well and doing his best. Johnny passed away. He is gone.

My heart is breaking right now. I cannot fathom having my child die in my arms. It is inconceivable. My heart goes out to Johnny's parents and his big sister. I wish there was something we could do to relieve their pain. I cannot fathom the pain they are feeling.

Please, say some prayers for these very sweet and special people. Dave and Lea are amazing and they have just endured the most difficult thing any person can endure. They lost their child. Pray for them.

Up down up down

Phone's for you, Mama!

Today was a bit of a trying day. I came home for lunch and Elijah seemed miserable. He was burning up and he was as tired and crabby as ever and he was still refusing to drink liquids. He was just a mess, and I was pretty upset about seeing him like that. I decided that I needed to stay with my baby for the rest of the afternoon. That was the very best thing for both of us, so I didn't go back into work. I got him to take a nap and he slept well. After his nap we had a few hours of happiness before he started to get hot again. Finally the thermometer was reading a temperature. He was 99.5 degrees when I put him to bed. Not bad, but still elevated a bit. We're not supposed to call the surgeon unless it gets over 100 degrees, so we will PRAY hard that we won't need to do that.


This furrowed brow face is new this week.




C is for Cookie....

Even though it was a tough day for me emotionally and we experienced some icky lows, I was also able to see some goodness for the first time since surgery so that was reassuring. We will keep a close eye on his temp throughout the night and we will pray and pray that nothing bad comes of this.

I was just telling Dan that if Elijah were a "normal," healthy child, this would be tough. But it wouldn't be THIS tough. I just can't stop thinking about his heart and how much harder his body works to accomplish things, and his solitary kidney and how much harder it has to work to process fluids....it just goes on and on. If only he were just a typical, healthy child healing from a typical surgery. If only!


Kissy face


Wanna play with my toy, Mama?


Feeling my big belly! Lately he has been touching his belly and belly button a lot. He will even touch his scars and look down at them like, What are these things??


He loves to share. If he has a cracker in his hand, he'll offer it to whoever is near. Now he will pretend share with me. He'll put his fingers together like there's a cracker there and he'll pretend to feed it to me.


Ronda and Andrew, look at his legs! Crossed again. :) He loves to be comfy. He crosses his legs all the time, whether he is sitting, lying down, on his tummy, on his back.. He is definitely my child!




Another new, cute face.

Dan came back home from the dropzone today because I was a wreck, but he'll be heading back in the morning hopefully to work for the rest of the weekend. I'm hoping and praying and praying and praying that Elijah doesn't give me any more scares so we can have a calm, relaxing, healing, healthy weekend.

All of your prayers for Baby Johnny have been paying off! He is doing much better now. Please continue to PRAY hard for him and his sweet parents. Stop by and leave them an encouraging comment on their blog if you get a chance.

Getting better from here, we hope

Our little man just didn't feel well today. Understandably so. If you could see his incisions and stitches and swollen, bruised skin, you would understand. He was exhausted all day, he was a pretty crabby guy, and he didn't act like himself at all. I came home for lunch to spend some time with him and noticed that he felt a little bit warm and had flushed cheeks. I took his temp and surprisingly, he had a normal temp. I was shocked! Dan said he took his temp again after his nap this afternoon and it was still normal. When I got home from work he felt even warmer than he did over lunch so I took his temp again and...nothing! I don't get it! I even used two different thermometers. I'm a mommy. I know when my baby is warm. Elijah was WARM. But the thermometers weren't reading anything above normal. Weird??? I put him to bed early because he was totally exhausted, and he has been sleeping peacefully since. I keep praying that today was the worst of it. That after today, things will start to get better. That there will be no fevers or scares. That this surgery was the right thing to do and the right time to do it.


It might look like he is in pain, but this is actually his flirty face. So cute.


The deeply flirting face

We didn't NEED to do this surgery right now. It was different from his heart surgeries because those were absolutely necessary in order for him to survive. This wasn't. I keep wondering, if something were to go wrong, if he were to get an infection, how guilty would I feel about that? But I really shouldn't go there. We are just looking out for him. We don't want him to remember these surgeries, so it is best to get them done now, while he is very young. All we can do now is pray that everything turns out ok and that he starts to bounce back.


Mmmmmm, cookie


Preoccupied with Veggie Tales

Dan is planning to be at the dropzone all weekend, and Elijah and I are going to play things by ear. We'll see how tomorrow plays out and go from there. If he is feeling better, we might spend Saturday night at the dropzone as well. If he isn't feeling better, we'll hang out at home. Please continue to pray for our sweet boy. We want no complications and for him to start feeling better soon. Thanks! And thanks for the prayers for Baby Johnny, too. Have a good weekend! Thanks for checking in on us.

Tired and sore

We had a much better night than I anticipated. Elijah woke up at 1:30 in pain, so Dan gave him tome pain meds and they seemed to work well. He was awake yelping in pain a little bit here and there throughout the early morning hours, but for the most part he seemed to get a decent night of sleep. When I got him out of his crib this morning, he wrapped his arms around my neck really tight and would not let go. He looked around the room, probably to make sure we were not in the hospital, but still wouldn't let go of me. I sat down with him and talked to him and held him close for a while and that calmed him down a little bit. He's not himself at all, but I don't think I would be either if I had just had such an icky surgery. He's super tired, grumpy, sore and clingy. When I left for work he looked at me like, MAMA! How could you leave me right now?! and started to cry. It broke my heart. Dan is home with him today, so he will get plenty of Daddy loves.

Please keep baby Johnny in your prayers. He had a very rough day yesterday and a scary night. I was able to quickly stop by the ICU and see him yesterday while we were at Childrens. His mama is just so sweet. My heart aches for the roller coaster ride his parents are on right now.

Here we go again

I never thought I'd be so happy to announce such a thing, but SURGERY IS ON! We took Elijah to the doctor for a quick check since it wouldn't be very fun to be sent home from the hospital in the morning for being too sick. The doctor said his lungs sound great and that it's just his nose and throat that are gunky.

We will get to the hospital at 7:00 in the morning, and surgery is scheduled to start at 8:30. We haven't talked to his surgeon in months, so I can't remember how long the surgery will take. I think I remember hearing somewhere around 2-3 hours. We are planning on spending the night tomorrow night since that is what we were told to expect. Hopefully Elijah will show everyone that he doesn't need to stay overnight, but I don't want to get my hopes up too much.

Elijah has about a billion trucks, but I just couldn't resist getting him another one to give him after his surgery for being such a brave, big boy. He's going to love it. Now, no more trucks till at least Christmas!

I know this surgery is much less risky than some he has been through, but I still don't like it. It's still not easy. I still have a tummy full of knots and a desire to flee to Nassau. But it will be good to put behind us. One more thing to check off the list. We know God has this under control, so we will put our focus on that.

Please pray for our munchkin. Pray that his lingering cold doesn't interfere with his intubation/surgery, that the surgery goes as planned, that he doesn't get too emotionally traumatized by any of this and that we won't need to spend a night in the hospital. Thank you!

Also, please say a prayer for Johnathan and his sweet family. Baby Johnny is having open heart surgery right now, as I type, at Children's-Minneapolis. He is four months old and his heart was in serious need of correction leading up to today. Our very own wonderful surgeons are working on him, so we know he is in good hands. Please keep him and his family in your thoughts.

Lots of random things as I take a quick lunch break

Answering a few of your questions and offering some additional tidbits..

Dan and I did meet skydiving. We had known each other from the dropzone for a while, but because of timing and other people, we didn't start dating for a year or two after meeting.

Dan has been to about four different doctors for his rash, he has taken steroids, antibiotics, and he has applied many creams. Every doctor seems to tell him something different. One thought it was contact dermatitis and another thought it was a reaction to detergent or shampoo. Who knows?!? At one point earlier in the week it was all over his arm, neck, face and ears. The rash isn't welcome in our house anymore!

We are going on a babyless vacation in July! We have to get our yearly Vegas fix. And we have to meet the Roller family! We will be there July 10-13, so please join us as we unleash some pent-up stress on poor Las Vegas. We already have a few friends who are coming along. Plane tickets are getting more and more expensive, so book quickly! Good thing we've been saving up for this.

I think we've come to an agreement about Elijah's hair. I told Dan we could get it SLIGHTLY TRIMMED if he was willing to find a nice place that would make Elijah feel comfortable. It does get in his eyes a lot, so I feel bad about that. We're not totally getting rid of the curls, though! Who cares if people think he looks like a girl. That just means he has a pretty face.

I was able to find a picture of a very young Dr. Moga on the internet and LOOK! He has long hair! (Does it make me kind of stalker-ish that I googled our surgeon?)



We had the pleasure of meeting this beautiful baby boy and his mama, Lea. He is such a precious little guy. And so strong! They are hoping to get Johnathan home from the hospital within the next week or so. Please keep them in your prayers. They are dealing with a few little setbacks after he had open heart surgery a few weeks ago. While we were there visiting, we saw our beloved DR. G roaming the 3rd floor halls! He did a double take and said, "Just visiting I hope?" We chatted for a bit and he asked how Elijah was doing and said he looked great.

Some of us are tired..

..and some are not. Elijah is usually exhausted by 5:30 every night and asleep by 6:00. Not tonight! I just had the most surreal, unusual evening with him. He was smiley and giggly and not showing a single sign of tiredness so I kept him up till 7:15. Even though he still wasn't acting tired, I decided to try to put him to bed anyway. I rocked him for a bit in his room and he kept grabbing my nose and laughing. I finally put him into his crib, expecting tears like usual, but he just rolled onto his side and went to sleep. Unbelievable! I stood outside his door scratching my head like, What just happened? It was wonderful!

Dan and I switched off taking naps today and even after a large 3-hour nap, I still feel exhausted. What is the deal? I almost feel like I've had too much to drink I'm so tired. The hospital really kicked our butts. It is taking forever to get caught up.

I did get a few things on my List crossed off today like getting my hair cut FINALLY (thanks to the wonderful Jai who came all the way to our house for it!) and sorting through the Heart Walk t-shirts. I should be able to get a shirt to everyone who showed interest in them, so hopefully I can get those mailed out very soon. If you asked for a t-shirt, would you mind emailing me your mailing address to mmporta@gmail.com? Thanks!


Look at my new big boy car seat! Thanks Grandma!








I have such big, pretty eyes and curly hair! My mommy always tells me I'm pretty.


Brushing my teeth before bed. Look at my belly!




One last thing. Please keep this little girl in your prayers. My good friend Cara has a niece, Ellie, who just got diagnosed with a brain tumor that carries a 10% survival rate. She will be starting radiation soon so please pray that she will be healed and fall in that 10%. Here is a picture of Ellie.