Future Cheerleader

As you can see...she is very taken by all these beautiful & talented girls! Go Eagles! And go Auntie Rach!

Final Health Update...for now

Well, the specialist in Little Rock has assured us that we have no reason to worry or to spring into action. These birthmarks are harmless and will go away on their own. So, the main growth periods of these things are usually 2-4 months and 7-9 months. Hence our freak out session...she turned 9 months on June 15th. So it grew pretty rapidly from 7-9 months. But the doc has assured us that the one in her nose will leave no mark, scar, or evidence that it was ever there when it starts shrinking and going away. We will go back to visit her again in 9-12 months as a follow-up...but for us this was a HUGE answer to prayer. We really didn't want her to have to go through any more medical "stuff", but we didn't want to not do anything about it if it was going to cause problems later. It kind of stinks that she has to live with these things for potentially years, but it could be oh so much worse and we are thankful that it's not.

MRI Update

I know I told you I was going to let you know when we found out what the report said. Well, so far, the MRI confirmed that it is in fact consistent with a hemangioma. That's good news...so it's not anything funky or malignant. The other news not really good or bad but she has another one in her right cheek. It's below the skin and from what I understand it's in the muscle tissue. You can't see anything externally so that's good. We have an appointment with the specialist in Little Rock on Monday afternoon. She will be able to tell us then what we should/could do about these things if anything. I'll let you know after Monday what this means for Kate. Please continue to pray that they will heal themselves and no further treatment will be necessary.

Kate's MRI

Some of you have been around Kate and know about her birthmarks...some of you live far away and the only thing you see are the pics I put on here. Kate has a total of six birthmarks. Three of them are the kind called hemangiomas (strawberries). These are usually no big deal and will go away in time. She has a pretty good sized one on her chest and a small one on the left side of her forehead almost in the hairline. After speaking with our pediatrician, Jared and I decided not to worry about it, to hope they go away, and then if for some reason they didn't go away and she became self-conscious about them then we would do something about it at that point.

Well, it was a good plan and still is as far as those two marks are concerned. However, she now has one in her nasal passage. Looking back, I believe it's been there for several months now, but I chalked it up to being swollen. She has had colds off and on...I use the suction bulb on her and I thought maybe it was my fault she had a swollen nostril. But we were Fort Smith and my dad took notice and was concerned. So we took her to the pediatrician who seemed very sure it was another hemangioma. The only problem was that it hinders her breathing (especially when she is congested) and it's distorting her nose a little bit. It's not very noticeable and we are definitely not freaking out but if we can prevent her from distortion and any problems later then we need to.

So we were referred to Arkansas Childrens Hospital in Little Rock. She had to have an MRI last Friday and we see the Pediatric ENT (ear, nose, throat) doctor on the 18th. The MRI isn't that big of a deal,but in order to keep a nine month old still, she had to go under general anesthesia. It was very hard for us to surrender and entrust our baby girl to doctors, nurses, and medical personnel that we had never seen nor met. I cried. But she did GREAT! The hardest part was her not being able eat for 9 hours prior to the procedure. We got up at 5:30am, checked in at 8:30am, did a medical work-up with the nurses, and they took her back at 10:30am. They came and got us at noon to come back to recovery. She was still asleep, so the beautiful part was she went to sleep with us there and woke up with us there. She coughed and cried but within about twenty minutes she was pretty much back to normal.

My dad is getting the report today...nice to have a doc in the family. We'll keep you posted. Please pray for her when you think of it.

Random Cute Pics

She claps, waves, is starting to blow kisses, and is just such a bundle of indescribable joy!!!

Jill Marleys

For those of you out there who don't know, there are actually two Jill Marleys (and I wasn't the first). Jared's sister Jill is going into her Senior year at Southside in Fort Smith. She and Kate have spent countless hours together, and all I know is Kate is always happy when she's around Jill. I mean with a great name like that how could she not?

Keke & Kate--Peas in a Pod

How about these two! Kate and her Aunt Keke can never get enough of each other...they have so much fun and no one can get her to smile/laugh/squeal the way Kelsey can.

Summer Fun

My sis Rachel came up for a couple days last week. She will be a senior next year which is sooo hard for me to believe, but she, Kate, and I really enjoyed ourselves while she was here. We are all sporting new sunglasses and had to try them out at our neighborhood pool. It's so nice to have one of these right down the road for these roasty toasty summer days!

Baby Weight Watcher

I thought this was so funny...she found the scale at my parent's house...what a nut!

Hot Air Balloon!

Believe it or not this was actually in my sister's neighborhood!!! Kate was thoroughly impressed, as were the rest of us. The whole neighborhood had come out to watch. There was another one down the street a little ways that we didn't get a pic of. This is now on my list of things to do someday!

Crawling...

Sorry for the delay in posting. I'll keep it short--I'm an idiot and got a virus on our computer. Anyway, Kate is CRAWLING!!! This started about a month an a half ago! She just got up on all fours and went one day. We bribed her with some of the "forbiddens" (as you can see in the pic) just so we could watch her go. Jared took a video of it on his phone that first day and has been a very proud daddy. We are so excited for her as she discovers her world...pray for me as the chase begins!:)

Gone Fishin'

So, my brilliant sister (well they are all brilliant but I'm talking about Kelsey) won a contest at work which allowed her a free weekend at The Cabins. Plus, a gift certificate to eat at The Supper Club on Spavinaw Creek. It happened to be a 4 Bedroom cabin--so guess who they let tag along!!! We had a blast--played cards, grilled, fished, hiked (poor Kate was so tired she fell asleep in her carrier as I hiked), watched an "amazing" movie (yea Jess we really like it we promise), watched dozens of deer, and just relaxed! It was perfect. Jared and I love hanging with Jess and Kels because it's always low key and fun.

Fishing
Loving the Outdoors--thanks for my hat Aunt Rach
Wow! A fish! Let me pet it daddy!

Yeehaw! Giddy up!

Great pic of the reflection (taken by Kelsey)

Family Times

We are enjoying the warmer weather these days...and it's been fun watching Kate discover creation.

A sorry attempt at a self-family-portrait:)

Mama and Me


Daddy kisses in the morning...

Bed-head

Daddy and Kate playing in the yard at G& G Marley's

Kate's first "flowers"

Pure sweetness

Cappie

It was October after my 10th birthday...we had just moved to Idaho, my parents were buying their first house, my dad was a real doctor with a real paycheck, and for my birthday they said we could get a dog when we moved into the new house.

We pulled into the gravel drive, my sisters and I were giddy with excitement. I think at that point the excitement was even rubbing off on my dad. As soon as he put the car in park we were out the door of that old minivan as fast as our little legs could carry us. I was 10, Kelsey was 7, Steph was 4, and Rachel was 1. So I guess mom had to get Rachel out of the carseat and she might not have been as excited as the other three of us, but if she knew what was happening, she would have been too.

The sign read Atherton Kennel. The town we had just moved to was a whopping 6,000 people and had a whole one stoplight to the entire town. We didn't even have a McDonalds until I was almost out of high school. So you can imagine what the dog pound looked like, but I didn't realize it at the time. It was a man and his wife who ran it. When we went in, we were greeted I'm sure, but we sure didn't stop to be polite. We were on a mission for puppies.

There were two to choose from. Not because they only had two puppies, but because in a house with all females, my dad said absolutely not another girl, we needed a male.

There they were, a black and white one, and a red one with black and white markings and floppy ears. The black and white one was reallllly scruffy, skinny, and looked like he had been through a lot in his few short weeks of life. The red one was round and chubby, soft as he could be, and completely cuddly.

You can probably imagine which one I choose. I distinctly remember my mother telling me that the black and white one might need our love and care, and that we could nurse it back to health and that it was probably going to be a great dog.

I love my mom, and in the last 16 years she has been my worst enemy but for the most part my best friend. She is a servant as I have never seen in another person n this earth. She loves, cares, and serves our family and others without tiring. I pray that I can be the kind of mother to Kate that she is to me.

In this case, I was definitely not like my mother. She would have probably picked the black and white one simply because it needed us. I chose the red, chubby, soft, cuddly one. Feeling a little guilty...but not for long!

Dad said to put him on the ground and make sure he could walk ok, and that he didn't seem like he had any major issues.

Put him down?! That was a hard feat.

We had a new puppy! My dad paid the man $35 for our sweet little guy and we ran to the car. I think it was a good thing we had seatbelts on because I swear we would have floated to the sky.

The first discussion was what we were going to call him. I thought he should be called Tippy because he had black tips on his ears, and white tips on his paws. Kelsey liked Millie, and Steph said we should name him Cappie after Cappie in the movie. It was a Charlie Sheen (old school) movie about high school kids. Cappie was short for Captain because he was Captain of the football team, and all the girls loved him. The same was true for our dog--all the girls loved him. So Cappie it was. Plus, mom pointed out that he had "caps" of black on his ears and white on his paws. It was perfect.

He turned out to be a wonderful dog. Smart, trainable, not too big not too small, well-behaved, loving, and very much a shepherd for our family.

We took him backpacking in the mountains, fed him probably hundreds of pounds of table scraps, he's been lost two times, he was run over once, and lived in two states on opposite ends of the US. He never bit anyone, his fur soaked up a lot of tears when teenage girls had rough days. There was even talk of him being the ring bearer in my wedding! He befriended several cats, and made enemies of a lot of squirrels, moles, and oppossums. In his later days, he followed my mom literally everywhere even when his hips weren't very obliging. He was a great dog.

He died last Friday. It hurts to even type those words. I'm not, nor is anyone in my family, the type that considers animals to be on the same level as people, but he sure was close.

Happy Easter

Yummy fingers!!! They beat Easter ham any day!

Just me and my Daddy!

Our first Easter as a family...

Look at me standing up! Yea!