Heart Walk 2013

We had a long and super fun day. The boys and I got up early and headed to Minneapolis so we could participate in some fun activities before the Heart Walk started. Elijah remembered the bouncy houses from last year (and what colors they were, etc, ha!), so he was VERY excited to spend some time in them. But first, I wanted a photo with my boys! The fact that Sammy is in the below photo is a minor miracle. As always, he did not like being told what to do and ran away. So E and I ran to him!

Here's Elijah, peering over his old man spectacles. :) He is always willing to pose for pictures!

Another miracle was that I got this shirt and number onto Sammy. I actually let it become his idea, but once it was on he started screaming, "GET THIS OFF OF ME!" Goodness, Sammy.

I was super proud of my oldest boy as he scaled a bouncy house wall all by himself! This is a huge deal for him, and he knew it. He was proud, too. What mother CRIES as her son makes his way through a bouncy house?! Yes, that was me today. It was comforting being in Understanding Zone, as I call it. Instead of getting why-are-you-crying looks, I got I-understand-why-you-are-crying looks. Spending time around other heart families is....awesome. 

Elijah and Sammy talked so much today about all of the "funny guys" they were able to see at the walk. They saw a walking star, a walking bottle of medicine, the Twins mascot and the Vikings mascot. We are not huge sports people, so the last two guys were referred to as the walking bear and the viking guy. Elijah was beyond excited to get his photo taken with the walking bear. 

The walk was really fun. It was amazing, actually. Not only did we walk to raise money for Children's incredible cardiovascular unit, we also walked to honor Elijah and so many other kids like him who have endured more than their share of heart-related surgeries and issues and hospitalizations. It feels sooo good walking for a cause that is very close to our hearts. 

We do not have a jog-friendly stroller, so jogging wasn't an option minus the few hills we ran down. I did walk my butt off, though, pushing 80 pounds of boy through the streets of Minneapolis. Elijah loved looking around and taking everything in. He asked a million questions about buildings and people and a hundred other things. I couldn't believe the things he remembered from a year ago. Sammy didn't seem to enjoy much of the day, unfortunately. He cried/screamed periodically throughout the walk, saying that he was cold (um, it was definitely not cold) or that he wanted out of the stroller. He refused to participate in any of the fun parts of the morning, and that made me sad. His fierce independence definitely gets in the way of opportunities that I know he would enjoy.

We finished the walk in 50 minutes! Not bad! We heard our names announced as we crossed the finish line, so Elijah thought that we had won. "MOM! We won the race! We WON! Did you hear that?!" :)

Elijah jumped in the bouncy house for a bit more and then Sammy had a meltdown, so we headed home for a quick nap. After nap-time we headed to my nephew's high school graduation party, where there was another bouncy house! CLOUD NINE for my oldest boy. Here are the boys, posing in front of it with their fruit punch slushies. So cute.

I was able to trick Sammy into getting in, can you believe it? So many people had asked him if he wanted to get in, and he would say, "NOOOO! I want MOMMMMY!" So I took off my shoes and got in with E and we were bouncing around having a great ol' time. I peeked out and saw Sammy taking his shoes off. Success! He crawled in, but would only stand by the door and suck his thumb. That's ok! I was proud he made it that far!

We had a great, tiring, awesome day. Good night, friends! We hope you are all having a wonderful weekend. Thanks for checking in on our crazy family!

A Heart Walk THANK YOU!

The Heart Walk 2012 numbers are in! This year $360,000 was raised to support pediatric cardiac care at Children's in Minneapolis-Saint Paul. That is AWESOME! Awesome awesome awesome.

We had a number of generous family members and friends donate money in Elijah's honor and we want to thank you all from the bottoms of our hearts! This cause is so near and dear to us. Thank you for supporting our boy and our family. And an extra thank you to those of you who walked with us last weekend. We love you all so much and appreciate your generosity and kindness more than you will ever know!

And in honor of our special-hearted boy, here is a series of bare-chested dance moves that I captured with my camera the other day..

What a week it has been! Honestly, I am glad it is done. I had a crazy deadline that I managed to meet (yay!) and we got some other annoying stuff out of the way, too.

Elijah had a BIG potty success today, and then an accident at the very end of the day. Baaaay-beeeee-steppppps.

I hope you are all doing well this week. Thank you for checking in on us!

Heart Walk 2012!

The Heart Walk today went great! Elijah and Sammy sat nicely in the stroller while I pushed their 70 pounds for 3 miles. :) It was honestly such an awesome event to be a part of. There were literally thousands and thousands of people there, walking and running and raising money in honor of loved-ones, just like we were. We had a few friends walk along with us, and it felt incredible to have their support! I can't help but get teary thinking about the fact that my friends Kendis and Chris drove 4+ hours from Bemidji to be a part of our day. And then they prepared the most delicious picnic lunch for us, complete with chicken-avocado wraps, PBandJ roll-ups for the boys, juice boxes, cheese sticks (E's fave), berries (S's fave), chips, water and brownies. Holy cow! We felt so special and blessed! We have the world's best family and friends, and I will always stand by that statement. (I don't have photos of the picnic because my phone died!)

I talked with Elijah a few times today about the meaning of the Walk. I think he somewhat understood, but not fully. It will be another year or two before he comprehends the true meaning of having a "special heart."

When we were just getting ready to start the Walk, we were approached by none other than our very own Dr. G (and his three beautiful children...holy cow)! As always, it is always nice to see him. That man has taken such good care of our little boy's heart. He will always have a very special place in all of our hearts. He pointed to E and he told his children, "Hey, see that little boy?! On his 18th birthday, the two of us are going to make our first skydives together!" Dan and I have bugged him for years to go skydiving, so it was fun to hear him say that. I told him I would draw up a contract and have him sign it at our next visit. :)

And here are my silly boys this evening, wearing a colander and pan on their heads. Of course! By the way, the pan you see on Sammy's head is the same pan I wore on my head as a child. :) (I apologize for the underwear-clad boy. It was too cute of a photo not to post.)

I won't get much into potty woes tonight, but I will say that it was another disappointing day. Two accidents (thankfully post-Walk), loss of dropzone-visiting privileges and a few tears. Hopefully some lessons were learned. We did a lot of positive talking about it all. Consistency WILL pay off, dangit! I am determined.

And that is all I have for tonight. Thank you for checking in and for being a part of our lives!

Moooooore potty woes, yes indeed!

With any great success comes great setbacks, right?! This is what I have been telling myself for the past two days. Elijah has basically reverted right back to where we were at two weeks ago with his potty business. It is sad. When this ordeal is all said and done, I will be writing a book that will be titled, How to Potty Train Your Strong-Willed Child. I'm already taking mental notes for it. I'm not joking.

(Quick intermission...look at this beautiful boy!)

Whatever his reason for regression is, we are holding strong with our rules and rewards. Eventually (we hope) he will learn that we will not back down. Pooping in pants? Loss of privileges. Pooping in toilet? Fun things! Wooo! He obviously knows this, as he lived "the dream" for eight consecutive, glorious days.

(Could our boys be any more handsome??)

Today we had really fun plans to visit a nature center north of the cities (thanks for the recommendation, Lacey!), and Elijah was really excited about it. Thirty minutes before we were going to leave, Elijah pooped on the chair he was sitting on! Ugh! It is so so so so so very hard to keep my emotions in check when things like this happen (after sooo much time and work). This will be one of the chapters in my book. KEEP YOUR EMOTIONS IN CHECK (and yes, it will be in caps). I immediately directed him to the chart and showed him that because of his decision not to go in the toilet, we now couldn't go on our fun trip. I was just as bummed as he was, but I tried not to let that show (another chapter).

That was at 8:30 this morning, so all day he had basically no privileges aside from playing here at home. He had two more accidents today, one of which was a big ordeal.

Painting on the driveway with sidewalk paint was permitted. This was our fun activity for the day!

At this point we are just going to stick to our plan because I believe it is a good one. Elijah LOVES his "prizes," and he hates not having privileges. Consistency will show him that life is better when we poop in toilets. Maybe that should be the title of my book. Life is Better When We Poop in Toilets!

Tomorrow is the heart walk, which we are all excited about! I'm praying that E does not poop in his pants in the morning. Another book chapter will be, How To Make It Seem Like a Fun Trip Is Not a Fun Trip (when canceling a fun trip is not possible). We have a few friends and family members joining us for the walk and we are so thrilled about that! What a great opportunity to raise money and awareness for congenital heart disease while honoring our brave monkey and seeing friends all at the same time.

With the days being so long, Dan is away from home a lot, and working hard. We miss him. We are hoping to get out to the dropzone to see him this weekend at some point.

By the way, the "recipe" for fun sidewalk paint = 1 cup water + 1 cup corn starch (keeps the final product visible) + food coloring, as desired. Hours of endless fun!

Sammy loved the experience way more than Elijah, who was more concerned about the driveway being "tooooo hottttt!" Hence, the towel you see under his bum in the photos. :)

Thank you for checking in!

If you have an open spot on your prayer list, would you mind adding a prayer for this potty thing to fall into place for good? Thank you!

Potty news and a fun new dz trip!

E had a super teeny tiny poopy accident in his pants today. It was little, but enough that we considered it an "accident" for the first time in nine days. We were bummed! He felt terrible about it. He lost the privileges listed on his potty chart for the day, and he was very upset about that. We are hoping this shapes his day positively tomorrow, and for the (20 million) days that follow.

We visited some good friends of ours yesterday at their new dropzone. We are so happy for them and their new venture! The boys had a great time playing with the two sweetest little twins ever! We have such amazing friends.

Is this love?? You decide.

Look at this cute little boy, Bodi! He is just the sweetest thing.

Sammy was drawn to his friend Sofi's pink chair. When he got off, he would carry it around with him wherever he went. :)

Our friends Tammy and Doug have such an amazing story. We love them and their beauties!

"Look! Daddy is skydiving!"

And here is the beautiful Sofi!

What do you want, Mama?!

Chillin'. Waiting for skydivers to fall from the sky.

We are hoping for good weather tomorrow so Dan can work! I am hoping to get a productive day in, too, while the boys play with their friends at daycare for a few hours.

I have to end with a conversation I overheard Elijah having with himself tonight:

"Hi! Do you want to have a pic-mick?"
"Yeah! Sounds great!"
"What do you want to put in the pic-mick back-set?"
"Uhhmmm, let's put in some sandwiches and apple slices and cheese and Red Bull (um, my weakness lately) and water and milk and beard (I think he meant "beer") and buffalo chicken pants!"
"Great! Let's go have our pic-mick!"

:)

Thanks for checking in! If you live in the area and would like to join us on our Heart Walk on Saturday, please let me know!

Heartbeat 5000

Last summer I got connected with a fellow heart mom who also lives here in the Cities whose name is also Megan and whose heart baby is also Eli! Megan and Eli were kind enough to visit us after Elijah's third open heart surgery last summer, and she has been a huge source of comfort for me. We have shared with each other that it is strongly on our hearts to help other heart children and their families to get the best, most comfortable care possible. I would like to ask for your help with an upcoming 5k called the HeartBeat 5000 that is taking place on June 23rd. Megan and I have created a team for our Elis called Double E. We would love support in any way you are willing to give! Whether it's a donation or whether you join us for the walk/run or if it's just an encouraging email or a prayer. We appreciate anything!

Sunny skies and warm weather, COME BACK!

As always, the weekend went way too fast. We ended up not participating in the Heart Walk (again) this year because of the weather (again). Elijah still has this lingering sickness, so we didn't want him to be out in the cold for too long. I was bummed. Maybe one of these years it will actually work out.

Instead, we went to the MOA and walked around a bit just to get out of the house. Elijah rode on a tiny little ride that went around in circles and he liked it. Yesterday morning we went to Ikea and bought a book shelf/tv stand and a desk for our bedroom. We haven't had a chance to put them together yet, but this will be the first step toward a clutter-free house. Our bedroom is a gigantic mess right now, so I'm really excited to get things organized.

Elijah is still coughing, but it continues to get a tiny bit better every day. He was such a super Mama-clingy boy all weekend (which is just fine with me). He wants me to be close to him or holding him at all times. He loves it when I dance around the room with him in my arms as we listen to his Bullfrogs & Butterflies CD. Every time I sit down to rest, he ferociously signs MORE MORE MORE until I continue with the dancing. He is not a light child, so it's a bit tough for me to go for very long, but WOW, does he love it.

Yesterday evening Dan and I brought Elijah to Grandma's while the two of us went out for dinner. It has been a while since we've been out alone, so it was really nice. We stuffed ourselves with Mexican food and yummy margaritas and then we warred in Pac-man. I got beat! I can't believe how good he is getting. I used to beat him all the time!

Here's hoping for a nicer week so we can get out of our house again. Thanks for checking in..

Friday yay

Wow, what happened to the week? No complaints here. I welcome the weekend with very open arms! Some fun things happened this week. First of all, look at the cute monkeys my sister sent to Elijah. I love them!


A monkey man bag.


Jasper, Pogo and Gabby.

The nice weather coupled with the realization that Elijah is completely and utterly IN LOVE with the outdoors AND with speed (the act of moving quickly, not the drug) compelled us to buy a jogger/bike trailer this week. We found a good deal at a garage sale, so we jumped on it. Elijah loved being pushed in it last night, and he appeared to love the quick bike ride tonight.


This is what Elijah does when we open the front door. He sits at the edge, gazing longingly out into the wide open outdoors.

Elijah got his AFOs this week! They are much much smaller than I imagined them to be. You can just barely see them sticking up out of his shoes. So far he is tolerating them well. I'm so happy that his little ankles have a little more support now.

We decided at the very last minute to participate in this year's Heart Walk, which is tomorrow morning. Last year we got snowed out (yes, at the end of April), and this year isn't looking much better. I guess if it is raining too hard we may not be able to make it, so we're praying for the rain to hold off. I really want to walk in honor of our little boy!

The Cough denied our letter, that jerk. We still have him as a house guest. At least I wasn't forced to sleep in the closet this morning. Progress!

Dan is out celebrating a friend's birthday with a lot of the people he went to college with. Elijah is asleep and I am headed into the living room to read Harry Potter Book 5 and then watch a girly movie. :) Have a great weekend, everyone! Thanks for checking in.

Spunk

Since Grant spent so much time and effort helping us out with the Heart Walk t-shirts, I wanted to show you all pictures of his design! The images are a bit fuzzy because I couldn't get my zoom to work in this lighting (I don't like our camera AT ALL).


Front design (small in upper right)


Back design (big)

Aren't they awesome? Now PLEASE, we don't want Grant's hard work to go to waste, so tell me if you want one. I don't have any smalls, but have mediums, larges, a couple extra larges and one size 4T. I am just going to start randomly sending them to everyone I know soon.

The other thing I wanted to write about is Elijah's newfound spunk! It is so wonderful to see him already blossoming and doing things that he couldn't or didn't want to do before surgery. He has never been able to hold his own bottle but suddenly now he can. He never used to say "Mama" discriminately but he is finally starting to. I love it! Tonight when we were done reading books before bed, I said the same thing I say every night: "All done with story time. Time to go to sleep." He did the sign for "all done" and then let out a big whiny, "Mama!" So cute! He is overall much happier and his personality is so spunky and cute. He just seems to understand more and express himself better. It is an amazing change and I'm sure it will just continue to get even better. He hasn't shown much of a desire to move around yet, but we'll give him some time for that. The one thing he has regressed on is his napping. He will not nap! He's reverting back to a year ago when he would nap for 20 minutes and then be wide awake. That was one of the longest, most stressful 3-month periods I've ever been through. Let's hope he re-learns how to nap very soon. At least he is sleeping well through the night. Thank God for that.

Before surgery, he never would have had the energy to do this (It's kind of long because I couldn't decide what to cut out....it was all too cute! The last part of the video is the cutest, so watch it all.):

Only in MINNESOTA!

I cannot believe this. It's is SNOWING and it's freezing cold out today. The status of the walk is "tentative" and I don't think it's a great idea to drive to St. Paul only to be told to drive back home. So Dan and I are thinking that instead of doing the walk, maybe we'll just have everyone over to our house at noon for pizza? We have people in from out of town for this event, so this completely stinks. I feel so bad.

For those of you who were planning on attending, let me know your thoughts. If you all think it would be worth it to meet at Harriet Island still, then we'd be willing to do that. I just don't know what to do! ARG!

The wind chill right now is 21 degrees. Yuck. 28 mph winds with snow.

Heart Walk!

I want to write out some information about the Heart Walk tomorrow. For more detailed info, you can follow this link. The walk begins at 10:00 am, but try to be there a little bit early. A survivor photo is being taken at 9:30, so Dan, Elijah and I will be there by then. It looks the weather is going to be crappy, so I'm not sure if we'll keep Elijah there for the whole thing, so if you want to see him and give him a smooch, come early! Wear a red shirt because I'm not sure we're going to have enough Elijah t-shirts for everyone (sorry! that's my fault for waiting so long.). THANK YOU Pam and Grant for taking care of the t-shirts for us. This means SO MUCH, you have no idea!

So far, Team Elijah has raised over $1,600!!!!! That is awesome! I'm going to ask that ALL of that goes toward CHD research. All of our team captains, you did a wonderful job! Our team captain who raised the most money was Debbie Schnieder, our cute British skydiver friend who we love dearly and who is the cutest, sweetest girl I know. :)

I haven't had my heart in this walk for the past few weeks because of worry/stress/hospital time, so I feel like I have dropped the ball and not kept everyone as informed as I should have and not thanked everyone enough for all of their help and effort. I'm sorry for that, and THANK YOU! We are so excited to celebrate our baby's life in this way and all of the support is overwhelming and so much appreciated. Elijah is a loved little miracle man. If you have any questions about the walk, please feel free to call me: 952-484-4921. We hope to see lots of people there!

In other news, I ended up not going into work today (arg, another vacation day lost!) because it just feels too soon. Elijah is afraid of everything and is still pretty emotionally beat up from his hospital stay. We cannot walk a foot away from him without screams. Every time I put him into bed, he screams horribly and that tells me he's very afraid. It is really tough caring for a LARGE baby who isn't mobile and who we have to "scoop" like a tiny infant and who won't let us leave for a second because he's scared. It's a lot of work! It's worth it, though. I really can't complain. We have our baby and he is doing so well!

I made Dan leave the house tonight and go hang out with a friend. I'm going to sit my butt in the LoveSac and veg out. We are looking forward to seeing a lot of you tomorrow!

And one last thing. PLEASE check out this post and consider contributing books to Kate's Kart. This is such a wonderful organization that my heart mama friend has started. I'm so proud of her! Let's send her LOTS and lots of books!

Videos

If you haven't already, please see the previous post about Kate's Kart!


That's our boy! He is sooo content. He could lounge all day like this and be totally happy. Even with a fixed heart! Ug, I think we have a lot of work in store.

I've been meaning to write and say that we are ALL going to try to make it to the Heart Walk on Saturday. All three of us! That is, if the weather is cooperative. Our awesome friends Pam and Grant volunteered their talents and time to make some t-shirts for us. I don't think we'll have enough for everyone, so plan on wearing a red shirt just in case. I'll post further details about the walk tomorrow sometime.

I called Dr. G today because Elijah's eyes were looking a bit puffy again before bed. He said to increase the Lasix to 3X/day for a couple days and that should take care of things. He hasn't slept very well today (he's soooo scared when we leave him in his bedroom by himself) so hopefully he will get a good night of sleep tonight.

And here are a few videos from recovery. The first one is a bit hard to watch (emotions came flooding back as I watched it).

AHA

I've gotten a few emails from people about something that I'd like to bring up here. This year we are walking in, and raising money for, the American Heart Association Heart Walk that is taking place here in Mpls. Some people have expressed that we should NOT be supporting the AHA because they don't put all of their money toward children's research.

Yes, a small percentage does go toward children, but a "small percentage" for the AHA isn't peanuts. Yes, I realize that there are other organizations who put ALL of their money towards children's research (I love Children's Heart Foundation and we do donate $$ to them!) and yes, I realize that the AHA has a lot more ground to cover when spreading out their resources.

Not only are we doing this walk in honor of Elijah, but also in honor of Dan's dad, who also has heart disease and who has dealt with a lot in his life because of it (and he's not overweight and he's not a smoker). Dan's grandpa died at 42 from a heart attack (not overweight and not a smoker) and no one ever knew he had heart disease! Sooo.....I'm sorry if our involvement in the Heart Walk has offended those of you who "hate" the AHA, but unfortunately, as Portas, this organization is and will be an important part of our lives forever.

Besides, it's fun to gather friends and family and walk in honor of the people who are beating the disease!

I apologize for the hostile post, but really?! I was a little shocked to get ripped apart for trying to do a good thing and support a good cause. It's amazing that people would try to make me feel bad about that.

With that all said, please help us out, if you feel so inclined! We're excited to see all of you who can make it on April 26th. We're trying to come up with fun t-shirt ideas. If you have a good idea, please share!

Healthy, wealthy and wise

If the saying has any truth to it, Elijah is pretty much guaranteed health, wealth and wisdom. He has always gone to bed early and gotten up early, but lately he's going to bed even earlier and waking up earlier. Now, one would think that if we put him to bed later, he would wake up later, right? It seems intuitive, but that's not how it works with him. We have tried that and all it does is make him totally sleep deprived because he gets up at the same time every morning no matter what time he goes down. We have been putting him down for the night around 6:15 pm because he is so completely exhausted by then. He sleeps solid until about 4:30 am and then he's up and talking and playing in his crib until 6:00 am, when we finally get him out. We have a rule in our house that we have stood by since Day 1. We do not get Elijah out of his crib until 6:00 am, unless he's sick or hurt, of course. He knows that 6:00 means freedom, so that is usually when he starts to cry. The kid has an amazing internal clock. So we are wondering what we should be doing differently, or if this is just another sleep adjustment period, which is entirely possible. Tim and Katie, we love the book that your pediatrician, "The Bluth," wrote and we have followed a lot of his principles. According to what he has told you about your boys, would you say we should be putting Elijah down even earlier? What times and for how long do your boys nap?

So with all that said, we have been a bit sleep deprived lately. It's hard not to hear the constant stream of baby talk, grunts and giggles coming from the next room, starting between 4:30 and 5:00 every morning. Last weekend we went to Bemidji to visit some friends so we were able to hear all the baby noises in full stereo sound both mornings since his pack 'n play was a few feet from our bed. However, the lack of sleep didn't matter to us then because we got to spend some quality time with our friends Kendis and Chris. Oh, and Summit the puppy! They live out in the woods on a few acres of land, so it is a very peaceful place. Because we're trying to get Elijah as much sleep as possible these days, we hung around their house most of the time, which was just fine with us. We did get out to see Paul and Babe, though! Saturday night after Elijah went to bed, Chris and Kendis grilled us yummy steaks and then the four of us played Deal or No Deal and we had a blast with that. Thanks, guys, for the fun little getaway. We love your cozy home in the northern woods. Tell Summy that Elijah wishes he could have gotten more puppy kisses.

I had a message on my phone from the hospital this morning, wanting to pre-register Elijah for his surgery. My first thought was, why are they calling so far in advance? His surgery isn't for another couple of weeks! Then I looked at the calendar and realized that his surgery is one week from today! AGGHGhghghhh! We're probably only going to be in the hospital for one night and it should be a fairly standard procedure, but still, the thought of hospital time gives me the willies. I know, I know, I need to stop being a cry baby and suck it up. It will be one more hurdle to put behind us. It will feel really good to get this done.

If you haven't already, please see our information about this year's Heart Walk. We decided to help raise money for this event obviously because of Elijah, but it's a nice way to celebrate Dan's dad's life, as well. He also has heart disease and has dealt with some pretty major stuff. We are definitely a heart family! Thanks for your support in this.

Ok, now for pictures...


Paul's giant legs (look at that sweet baby face)


Daddy and Elijah picking Babe's newly renovated nose


Sweet, spaghetti-stained face


The Portas and Paul


Mmmmmmm...horse with giant teeth tastes yummy

Surgery is set

Dr. Gremmels cleared Elijah for hypospadias surgery, so the date is set for February 12th. It should be a 2 to 2.5-hour surgery and he'll need to stay in the hospital for one night. It will be good to get this out of the way. One more hurdle behind us.

We are heading out of town for a few days. We're going to the Wisconsin Dells to let Elijah splash around in the indoor pools. I will likely take plenty of pictures and share them when we get back (sorry for the lack of pictures this week, I was focusing on the Heart Walk. Please help Team Elijah, if you haven't already!).

I can't possibly write without saying something about the chubby boy, right? He has been really fun to spend time with lately. I have spent every waking, non-working minute with him because I don't want to miss any of the cuteness! It's strange, though, because I'm starting to wonder why he will accomplish a developmental goal and then he will stop doing it. It's like he wants to show us he can do something and then he gets bored with it. He was trying to clap his hands when he was four months old. He did it for a few weeks, and I haven't seen him do it ONE TIME since then. I know he can do it! He claps his blocks together all the time. He just won't do it with his hands. He was saying Mamamamamamamama over and over two months ago. He did that for a few weeks, and now he won't do it anymore. He did the motions to the Itsy Bitsy Spider over a month ago ALL BY HIMSELF and I haven't seen him do it again since. The same thing goes for physical accomplishments. We have seen him bear weight on his legs. He knows how to do it, he just won't! We know he can use his arms much more than he does. What's up with this? Stubbornness? Laziness?

Heart Walk 2008

Please help TEAM ELIJAH! (Some of you may have received this same note in an email, sorry for the duplication but we want to spread the word!)

In honor of our precious baby boy, the three of us will be walking in this year’s Twin Cities Heart Walk as the captains of TEAM ELIJAH. The Heart Walk is a great event that helps raise money for the American Heart Association, for important heart disease research and awareness. We would like to ask you to join us on our walk or make a donation, or both. The walk will take place on Harriet Island in St. Paul at 10am on 4/26/08. For more information about it, click here or keep an eye on Eli's blog as the date gets closer.

We are looking for a handful of our family and friends to become team leaders along with us, to help us raise money for this organization. If you go to Elijah's Donation Page, you can click on My Team Page, then Join Our Team and then you can register online. Being a team leader just means that you will recruit walkers/donators from your own network of friends and family.

If you're not interested in being a team leader, but would like to contribute funds, you can easily do that as well. Go to Elijah's Donation Page and you can make a secure online credit card donation. The American Heart Association's online fundraising website has a minimum donation amount of $25. If you prefer to donate less, you can do so by sending a check directly to us, made out to the American Heart Association.

If you're not interested in being a team leader OR donating, you can just come walk with us! You can do all three things, just one or none at all (we promise we won't take it personally).

Your donation, participation and/or support is very valued. We sincerely appreciate ANY amount of support we can get, even if it's just an email saying, "GO TEAM ELIJAH!" Thank you, our dear friends and family, we hope to see you on April 26th.

Love,
Megan, Dan & Elijah

p.s. If you walk with us on the 26th, you'll get a TEAM ELIJAH t-shirt to keep!

p.p.s. Some of you recently and kindly donated to another organization, The Children's Heart Foundation, in honor of Elijah. We apologize for making donation requests so close together and will absolutely NOT be offended if you choose not to donate again. This event is just really important and we're very excited about it and want to do what we can to help out.